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China's economic rise hasn't brought moves toward democracy
By Tom Lasseter
McClatchy Newspapers
BEIJING — Lu Weixing decided this year to run as an independent candidate for a local council position in Beijing.
Lost for the right words to describe what came next, he stuck his hand into his pocket and fished out a white and orange Vitamin C tube. He tilted it forward until a single tooth rolled out.
"They beat me and then I lost a tooth," Lu said recently.
Voting for the largely powerless councils happened Tuesday. Lu's name was not on the ballot.
The next day, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde flew into Beijing, likely seeking financial help from China to prop up the European Union's flailing economy.
The juxtaposition of the two events — a stage-managed election marred by thuggish behavior and the West's lender of last resort looking for cash — was a reminder of a central question surrounding China's growing strength on the world stage:
What are the consequences of an opaque, authoritarian government hurtling toward such immense international power?
November 23th 2011
 Beijing police have ordered supermarkets and shopping malls to install high-definition security cameras, as China continues its huge expansion in monitoring technology.The country has added millions of surveillance cameras over the last five years, part of a broader increase in domestic security spending.
In May, Shanghai announced that a team of 4,000 monitor its surveillance feeds to ensure round-the-clock coverage. The south-western municipality of Chongqing has announced plans to add 200,000 cameras by 2014 because "310,000 digital eyes are not enough".
Urumqi, which saw vicious ethnic violence in 2009, installed 17,000 high-definition, riot-proof cameras last year to ensure "seamless" surveillance. Fast-developing Inner Mongolia plans to have 400,000 units by 2012. In the city of Changsha, the Furong district alone reportedly has 40,000 – one for every 10 inhabitants.
August 4th 2011
China To USA: 'If You Mess With Pakistan You Will Be Messing With China' - Webster Tarpley
May 10th 2011
China Steals Oil From Africa: Daylight Robbery of Libya With NATO Permission
 If some ordinary guy off the street knowingly buys something, like a watch or a television or a DVD player from a fence that sells stolen property cheap...he is liable to be prosecuted and go to jail. But if the buyer of stolen property is a huge, powerful country...are the world's policemen going to smile, pat him on the back and even facilitate the crime? This is exactly what they are in the process of doing.
Such is the case just reported that China has the tanker, Equator, registered to Greek operators, Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd, on its way, delivering 80,000 tonnes of Libyan crude oil.
So far they are being all slippery about it, saying the destination is China but "they don't know who the buyer is." Well fat chance it's anyone but China.
What's wrong, China? Don't want to be accused of the crime of aiding and abetting in the theft of oil belonging to the Libyan people? Grand larceny? An accessory after the fact to the felonious theft of Libyan oil? What sort of "Communist" country aids in the theft of the people's oil and makes it a highly profitable venture?
May 8th 2011
It’s Official: China Will Be Dumping US Dollars
 In case you missed it, earlier this week China announced that its foreign currency reserves are excessive and that they need to return to “reasonable” levels.
In politician speak, this is a clear, “we are sick of the US Dollar and will be taking steps to lower our holdings.” Remember, the US Dollar is China’s largest single holding. And China has already begun dumping Treasuries (US Debt).
What does this mean? We’re on out own in terms of preparing for what’s coming. The US Dollar has already taken out its 2009 low in the overnight futures session. We now have only one line of support before the US Dollar breaks into the abyss (all time lows).
April 22th 2011|
Peking University to screen students for 'radical thoughts'
 Students at the university –China's equivalent of Oxford or Cambridge – reacted furiously to the news, saying the policy evoked memories of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) when students and professors were persecuted for being politically unreliable.
University authorities said the screening for "radical thoughts", which will begin in May, was just one element in a ten-point checklist to help students suffering from a range of problems including "psychological fragility, poverty and internet addiction".
Cha Jing, deputy head of the university's student affairs office, told Beijing Evening News that the university was anxious to meet "radical" students who exaggerated minor flaws on campus.
"Some would even criticise the school after canteen food prices rose 20 cents," he explained.
March 31th 2011
How China and Others Are Altering Web Traffic
 Google leveled new charges against China this week, claiming that the country has interfered with some citizens' access to the Internet giant's Gmail service, disguising the interference as technical glitches.
Security experts say that China is most likely using invisible intermediary servers, or "transparent proxies," to intercept and relay network messages while rapidly modifying the contents of those communications. This makes it possible to block e-mail messages while making it appear as if Gmail is malfunctioning.
Companies regularly use transparent proxies to filter employees' Web access. Some ISPs have also used the technique to replace regular Web advertisements with those of their own. But it's becoming increasingly common for governments to use transparent proxies to censor and track dissidents and protestors. All traffic from a certain network is forced through the proxy, allowing communications to be monitored and modified on the fly. Intercepting and relaying traffic is known as a "man in the middle" attack.
March 25th 2011
Chinese mega-city building huge security system
 The Chinese mega-city of Chongqing plans to build a $2.6 billion (£1.6 billion) security system that will be one of the world's largest with 500,000 surveillance cameras, China's state media said on Tuesday.
Wang Zhijun, the city's police chief, said the system would be the world's largest new security network since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the Global Times reported.
The system would dwarf a network of 40,000 security cameras installed in the capital of China's far-western Xinjiang region last year, following deadly July 2009 clashes between Muslim Uighurs and members of the majority Han group.
Chongqing's more than 500,000 cameras, which are due to be installed by 2012, will mainly be used for crime prevention, emergency controls and rescue operations, a police spokesman told the Global Times.
The computerised cameras will be managed under one network, allowing authorities and emergency services in the province-sized area of more than 30 million people to share the video feeds, the paper said.
March 9th 2011
Ark Hotel Construction time lapse building 15 storeys in 2 days
February 4th 2011
China Expands Student Spying Network, Says CIA
 After Tiananmen, the Communist Party in China unveiled the Student Information System, whose nominal goals were to improve the quality of college and university teaching and increase student involvement in education. “In practice, however, the SIS's principal objective is to monitor and control teachers and students,” says a new CIA report highlighted by Steve Aftergood on his Secrecy blog at FAS.
Now SIS is expanding, says the report, which Aftergood obtained and which was drawn from open source materials and is unclassified. Initially the SIS was implemented only at universities that had played roles in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. In the last ten years it has expanded to provincial campuses, lower tier universities, technical schools and middle and high schools, the report claims.
January 27th 2011
Has U.S. become China's lap dog?
 When then-candidate for President Barack Obama sat down with Foster's Daily Democrat before the New Hampshire primary the conversation about America's China policy had little depth.
Reflecting on Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington this week one particular excerpt seems instructive.
During the editorial board meeting in the fall of 2008, candidate Obama was promoting his ideas concerning a green economy. To that end he noted the move mandated by Congress to CLFs (compact fluorescent lighting).
When asked about the wisdom of that legislation given that China was the only country manufacturing CLFs the conversation fell silent.
What about the mercury in these lights? What about the jobs headed overseas as the bulb Thomas Edison invented is phased out?
Fast forward to Wednesday as President Obama stood beside President Jintao to announced a $40-plus billion trade deal.
President Obama may be a fast learner. He may have filled his void of knowledge about China since his visit to Foster's Daily Democrat. If so, the United State's will come out on top of any deal cut with China.
January 24th 2011
Congress attacks China
January 22th 2011
China to create largest mega city in the world with 42 million people
 City planners in south China have laid out an ambitious plan to merge together the nine cities that lie around the Pearl River Delta.
The "Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One" scheme will create a 16,000 sq mile urban area that is 26 times larger geographically than Greater London, or twice the size of Wales.
The new mega-city will cover a large part of China's manufacturing heartland, stretching from Guangzhou to Shenzhen and including Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing. Together, they account for nearly a tenth of the Chinese economy.
Over the next six years, around 150 major infrastructure projects will mesh the transport, energy, water and telecommunications networks of the nine cities together, at a cost of some 2 trillion yuan (£190 billion). An express rail line will also connect the hub with nearby Hong Kong.
"The idea is that when the cities are integrated, the residents can travel around freely and use the health care and other facilities in the different areas," said Ma Xiangming, the chief planner at the Guangdong Rural and Urban Planning Institute and a senior consultant on the project.
January 26th 2011
Chinese 'hiding military build-up'
AUSTRALIA'S intelligence agencies believe China is hiding the extent of a massive military build-up that goes beyond national defence and threatens regional stability.
A strategic assessment by the agencies found that China's military spending for 2006 was $90 billion - double the $45 billion budget publicly announced by Beijing.
Australia's peak intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments; the Defence Intelligence Organisation; and the Defence and Foreign Affairs departments concluded that China was building a military capability well beyond its priorities of defence and the prevention of Taiwanese independence. ''China's longer-term agenda is to develop 'comprehensive national power', including a strong military, that is in keeping with its view of itself as a great power,'' according to a copy of the secret assessment provided by Foreign Affairs officials to the US embassy in Canberra.
January 7th 2011
The ghost towns of China: Amazing satellite images show cities meant to be home to millions lying deserted
 Elaborate public buildings and open spaces are completely unused, with the exception of a few government vehicles near communist authority offices.
Some estimates put the number of empty homes at as many as 64 million, with up to 20 new cities being built every year in the country's vast swathes of free land.
The photographs have emerged as a Chinese government think tank warns that the country's real estate bubble is getting worse, with property prices in major cities overvalued by as much as 70 per cent.
Of the 35 major cities surveyed, property prices in eleven including Beijing and Shanghai were between 30 and 50 per cent above their market value, the China Daily said, citing the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Prices in Fuzhou, capital of the southeastern province of Fujian, had the worst property bubble with average house prices more than 70 per cent higher than their market value, according to the survey conducted in September.
The average price in the 35 cities surveyed was nearly 30 per cent above the market value, the report said.
Property prices have remained stubbornly high despite the government adopting a slew of measures since April including hiking minimum downpayments to at least 30 per cent and ordering banks not to provide loans for third home purchases.
Prices in 70 major cities were up 0.2 per cent in October from the previous month and 8.6 percent higher than a year ago, official data showed.
The increase came after prices gained 0.5 per cent month on month in September, which was the first increase since May.
Chinese officials deliberately kill millions of unborn babies |
