News » Politics » Global Tibetan torch relay to seek UN intervention

---

• Global Tibetan torch relay to seek UN intervention
• China Mobile, Shanghai Pudong Bank team up on mobile payment services
• Zoomlion steps up exports and mergers to boost revenue
• BYD launches 2nd round of layoffs and pay cuts
• Diplomatic Crisis Provides Romney Policy Opportunity
• Heathrow security staff caught stealing from Hong Kong tourist
• Merger trend emerging in China's group-buying market
• Faced with Oppression, Is It Right to Break the Law?
• To diversify forex reserves, China looks to Japan
• Economist rebuts New York Times on China's 'fake' power data
• Hebei hospital slammed for brochures 'encouraging' abortion
• China's civil servants enjoy world's best pension protection
• Xiaomi sees rapid growth in market valuation
• Taiwan to replace 40% of streetlamps with LED lighting
• Windows 8 devices will not help notebook demand in Q3: UBS
• Best Buy returns to China via mobile subsidiary
• iPhone 5 to be released in August?
• Termites destroy Taiwanese woman's savings
• Top China Stories from WSJ: Forced-Abortion Firestorm, iTunes Launch
• Conduct Guidelines ‘Just for Show’

Global Tibetan torch relay to seek UN intervention Posted: 27 Jun 2012 08:58 PM PDT The Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile is all set to launch a worldwide torch relay next week calling for the United Nation's intervention in the deteriorating human rights situation inside Tibet.

China Mobile, Shanghai Pudong Bank team up on mobile payment services Posted: 28 Jun 2012 05:07 AM PDT China Mobile, the world's largest phone company by market value, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank recently announced that they will launch four types of products, including co-branded mobile cards...

Zoomlion steps up exports and mergers to boost revenue Posted: 28 Jun 2012 04:47 AM PDT Zoomlion, a Chinese maker of construction equipment, is stepping up its efforts to tap overseas markets through exports and mergers in light of declining domestic sales. The company estimates that ...

BYD launches 2nd round of layoffs and pay cuts Posted: 28 Jun 2012 04:39 AM PDT Chinese automaker BYD has started a second round of layoffs and bonus cuts after a similar move last September, reports financial news site Caijing. The company plans to lower staff bonuses from J...

Diplomatic Crisis Provides Romney Policy Opportunity Posted: 26 Jun 2012 10:00 PM PDT Sharp differences emerged among Mitt Romney's advisers as they weighed a response to the Obama administration's handling of the case of a Chinese dissident.

Heathrow security staff caught stealing from Hong Kong tourist Posted: 28 Jun 2012 03:51 AM PDT With Heathrow Airport in London preparing for even heavier traffic than usual as the Olympics approaches, reports have emerged that security staff at the airport have been stealing the property of pas...

Merger trend emerging in China's group-buying market Posted: 28 Jun 2012 03:31 AM PDT The merger of Chinese group-buying websites Ftuan and Gaopeng was finally completed June 27, ending rumors that the deal might not go through. A new holding company will be set up through the merg...

Faced with Oppression, Is It Right to Break the Law? Posted: 27 Jun 2012 02:49 PM PDT Why would someone risk their safety to tell the people of China what's happening inside their own country?

To diversify forex reserves, China looks to Japan Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT China may be planning to purchase significant amounts of Japanese bonds, seeking to diversify its massive holdings of foreign exchange reserves. Japanese media have reported that Omnibus, an invest...

Economist rebuts New York Times on China's 'fake' power data Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT A report by the New York Times on Friday last week said Beijing has falsified electricity statistics to disguise the slowdown of the Chinese economy, which has sparked a refutation from the chief econ...

Hebei hospital slammed for brochures 'encouraging' abortion Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT A hospital in northern China's Hebei province run by the Red Cross has been accused of producing brochures aimed at college students which encourage abortions and hymen reconstruction surgery while us...

China's civil servants enjoy world's best pension protection Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT The pensions of public sector workers in China are higher than for common citizens and employees in the private sector, but this is a common phenomenon in many countries, Guangzhou's 21st Century Busi...

Xiaomi sees rapid growth in market valuation Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT Chinese budget smartphone maker Xiaomi on June 26 announced it had raised funds of US$216 million, with chairman and CEO Lei Jun claiming that the company's market value is now estimated at US$4 billi...

Taiwan to replace 40% of streetlamps with LED lighting Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT Taiwan's government plans to replace 40% of the country's existing mercury vapor streetlamps with LEDs as part of efforts to save energy and reduce carbon emissions, the Ministry of Economic Affairs ...

Windows 8 devices will not help notebook demand in Q3: UBS Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT Global notebook shipments will post weaker-than-seasonal growth in the third quarter of 2012 despite the approaching launch of Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system, Swiss brokerage firm UBS Secu...

Best Buy returns to China via mobile subsidiary Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT Best Buy Mobile, a subsidiary of the US consumer electronics retail chain, will open stores inside shops belonging to Chinese appliance store Five Star, which Best Buy acquired in 2009. Best Buy withd...

iPhone 5 to be released in August? Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT Taiwanese component suppliers have hinted that the highly anticipated release of Apple's iPhone 5 could be moved up to late August to take advantage of back-to-school purchases in the US. As with p...

Termites destroy Taiwanese woman's savings Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:47 AM PDT An official from Taiwan's Investigation Bureau on Tuesday advised the public to keep their savings in financial institutions for safekeeping, citing a recent example in which a young college graduate ...

Top China Stories from WSJ: Forced-Abortion Firestorm, iTunes Launch Posted: 27 Jun 2012 06:00 PM PDT A woman at the center of a firestorm over China's one-child policy said she was being kept in a hospital against her will and that her husband has disappeared; Apple Inc. said it has launched its iTunes online media store in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and eight other Asian markets.

Conduct Guidelines ‘Just for Show’ Posted: 27 Jun 2012 04:53 PM PDT New guidelines governing maritime interactions in the South China Sea are expected to do little to resolve disputes between nations that lay claim to territory in the region, experts said Wednesday. A draft of the Code of Conduct (COC), which the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China agreed to pursue last year, is expected sometime next month. The rules are aimed at creating a framework for managing disputes in the South China Sea, and the new draft would replace in November an earlier set of guidelines aimed at promoting peaceful interaction in the region adopted a decade ago. Those earlier guidelines, known as the Declaration of Conduct (DOC), are widely seen as ineffective in light of recent dustups in the South China Sea that have led to standoffs between China and other claimants, which include Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan. The most recent dispute was sparked on April 8, when Chinese merchant ships prevented a Philippines naval vessel from arresting a group of Chinese fishing boats that said they were taking shelter from rough seas near the island. Both countries sent ships to the area, ratcheting up tensions on the water and leading to a diplomatic row that has stoked nationalism on both sides. Since the introduction of the DOC in 2002, there has been little visible progress on the guidelines, and China has preferred to negotiate with each country individually instead of dealing with a unified bloc. Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam scholar at the University of New South Wales, said that ASEAN should first determine a set of guidelines for conduct between its claimant members before negotiating with Beijing, which says China controls the entirety of the South China Sea. "ASEAN made a mistake. Once it signed the DOC it said that was the first step toward a COC and it's fixated on getting an agreement with China. And that's wrong," he said at a conference in Washington on Wednesday. "Maritime security is the same through all of Southeast Asia and all the maritime spaces," he said. "It should be Southeast Asia coming up with its own Code of Conduct in its own waters. Agreeing among themselves—because they do have disputes—and then opening up to the outside powers to sign on to it." He warned against creating a COC "just for show" by the 10-year anniversary of the DOC in an effort to legitimize ASEAN's clout in the region. "What's going to be more binding if it's another political declaration without teeth in it, with no dispute settlement mechanism, and no clear definitions?" he asked. "And if it's just being done for show—I'm worried that that's what ASEAN is about," he said, noting that the international body had determined "come hell or high water" that it would draft a COC by July. "And then in November, on the tenth anniversary of the DOC's signing in Phnom Penh, we're going to have cymbals and clashes and all sorts of wonderful dancing onstage celebrating a wonderful achievement of a new COC, and then it will be business as usual." He said that underlying issues remain between ASEAN and China that a COC simply would not do enough to defuse. "Sovereignty disputes remain. There is no prospect of their settlement," he said. "There is a prospect that they can be managed, but it does mean that both sides would continually protest and be wary and mistrust actions of the other side which seeks to up their sovereignty claims through administration and occupation." Falling short Ian Storey, senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, agreed that new guidelines for conduct would fall short of both resolving territorial disputes and preventing clashes between nations on the South China Sea. "These are conflict management mechanisms, they are not conflict resolution mechanisms. They do not provide for a mechanism to resolve the territorial claims or the maritime boundary claims," he said. "Secondly, even if properly implemented, I think it's very unlikely that the DOC/COC process will have a significant impact on the central drivers of the dispute." Storey said he was "not terribly optimistic" about the future of the process to determine conduct in the region. "I think what will happen … is that under the pressure of this deadline—this November deadline, which is the tenth anniversary of the DOC—ASEAN and China will produce a compromise agreement that will not go much beyond the existing 2002 declaration," he said. "In other words, I think it will just be another symbolic agreement that will not have a major impact on the dispute." Washington, which has sought to counter China's growing economic influence in Southeast Asia, acknowledged potential challenges to dispute resolution in the South China Sea, but expressed its continued support for the process of diplomacy. Kurt Campbell, the U.S. State Department assistant secretary for East Asia and the Pacific, said Washington would not choose sides amongst claimants and would continue to support dialogue aimed at putting aside differences in the region. "We recognize some of the looming challenges in the South China Sea and what we have seen of late has been an increase in diplomacy between ASEAN and China about aspects associated with a potential Code of Conduct," he said. "We support that process of diplomacy that is underway now." Campbell said that the U.S. has maintained its stance that the territorial disputes should be handled without "the use of force or coercion" in the interests of all nations, including those outside of the region. "We seek a larger piece of stability, which we believe is not only in the interest of the United States and other trading partners that rely on the sea lines of communication that run through the South China Sea, but to all the players involved." Campbell said that in the coming months Washington planned to make its presence known in Southeast Asia during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Cambodia for next month's ASEAN Regional Forum in Phnom Penh. "What we did not have throughout Southeast Asia and with other countries are these kinds of regular strategic engagements and we have sought to do that with ever country in Southeast Asia," Campbell said. "The question will be, frankly, can they be sustained—can you maintain this level of commitment?" he said. "But I will tell you from my experience it will be essential. And that will be one of the ways ASEAN and Asian friends make judgments about whether we are serious." Reported by Joshua Lipes.