Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[a_majoor]

An amazing picture essay on China's polution problems: http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

 

[CougarKing]

:rofl: Chris is gonna love this.

Yahoo News link

BEIJING – Chinese officials are being told to dump their mistresses, avoid hostess bars, and shun extravagances as part of the Communist party's efforts to clamp down on the corruption that is threatening its rule and sullying its reputation.
The language of the new morality push, one of countless such campaigns informally under way, is surprisingly bold, often cutting through the bureaucratese to make a clear link between moral lassitude and corruption. One statistic trotted out at a recent speech to bureaucrats: 95 percent of officials investigated for corruption were found to be keeping mistresses.

"It's just not possible to keep a mistress on your salary because maintaining this sort of extravagant lifestyle requires a large amount of cash money," Qi Peiwen, a party discipline enforcer, told officials in southern China.

"So what do you do if you don't have the money? Naturally, you'll use the power at your disposal to go find some," Qi said, according to a transcript carried by state media.

The message was reinforced in a series of speeches at party academies last month by Li Yuanchao. He runs the organization department that controls senior appointments.

Morality drives date back long before the Communist Party seized power in 1949, but the current one seems to stem more from a recognition that rampant corruption threatens to undermine the party's authority and permanently warp the value system of this rapidly developing nation of 1.3 billion people.Meanwhile, a campaign against pornography, lewd content and advertising for sexual services has bolstered efforts to control potentially subversive content on the Internet.

Authorities recently banned more than 1,400 erotic writings and 20 Web sites, including those that discussed one-night stands, wife-swapping, sexual abuse and violence that "disregarded common decency," according to the government's General Administration of Press and Publication.

Without fixed definitions of what constitutes indecent material, the drive allows censors virtually unfettered authority to block material, including scads of blogs and personal networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and tumblr.

Not everyone is so willing to comply, however. This year the government has had to drop a heavy-handed attempt to increase Internet censorship by ordering pornography filters to be installed on all computers. It provoked a litany of complaints including that it denied access to much material that could not reasonably be considered offensive.
That climbdown is part of a wider trend in Chinese society — the gradual decline in the party's ability to insert itself into citizens' personal affairs.

Although it retains absolute political control, the 73 million-member party no longer wields total authority over access to jobs, housing and travel, and no longer requires government employees to seek their bosses' permission to marry.

June Teufel Dreyer, a China expert at the University of Miami, thinks the morality drive might stem from "the idea that pleasure-loving people don't work as hard as they should."

Chinese have toiled for 30 years to build their country's economic might, and "Doubtless the leadership has noticed that in other societies, the prosperity-creating generation is likely to be succeeded by a frivolous generation," Dreyer said.

In one prominent example, Chen Liangyu, a Politburo member and former Shanghai party boss became the most powerful official to fall in recent years. He was accused of being a greedy lothario who indulged his sexual urges with multiple girlfriends. The focus on Chen's alleged indecency was seen as an attempt to weaken support for him among other officials whose careers he had nurtured.

During the morality campaign, party officials could receive demerits on their character assessments if found patronizing hostess bars, where young women accompany men in drinking, singing, and often much more, said Li, the organization department chief.

The campaign coincides with the sentencing of 16 high-ranking officials this year, four times more than last year.

In the end, however, the campaign's effectiveness may be fleeting, largely because it could expose much more corruption than the party had bargained for.

Dreyer said officials and others are likely to initially offer minimal compliance and that the campaign will then lose steam.

"Then, gradually, the old patterns will reassert themselves," she said.

 

 

[Kirkhill]

If your talking about this Chris, he is utterly bemused and doesn't even know where to start with that one.

Mistresses are fine as long as you can afford them?  H*ll that's the reason I'm still married.  I can't afford to contemplate an ex-wife much less two wives drawing on my one bank account.

 

[a_majoor]

Back to the train wreak. Check out the figurines Day by Day cartoonist Chris Muir ordered from China for his fans (see, this is about China!)

 

[a_majoor]

Prime Minister Harper epic win! Trumps Obama Game, Set and Match:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/16923

Look Who’s upstaging Obama in China!

by Judi McLeod  Monday, November 16, 2009

Laid back and unassuming—typically Canadian—Canada’s Prime Minister does not project rock star status. But quiet, likable, get-the-job done Stephen Harper is trumping Obamamania in China.

Modest in entourage, Harper unlike President Barack Obama, didn’t depart the Beijing airport in a 71-car motorcade (including Chinese greeting vehicles).  Ed Henry, CNN.

Harper proves that a business head and a business agenda trump charisma.

With the mainstream America media in fawn mode over Obama’s first trip to the Orient, the China Daily carried an above-the-fold, huge front page picture of Prime Minister Harper today,  relegating Obama’s pic miniature fashion well below the fold.

“Monday is Obama-Day in China.  Obamamania and all that is supposed to be taking hold in China since the U.S. president’s arrival in Shanghai Sunday night.” crowed Canwest News Service, citing the China Daily News photo lineup.

It’s been a win-win situation for Harper ever since he started talking business to the Pacific Rim nations who agreed yesterday on a “new growth paradigm” which included a rejection of “all forms of protectionism” and a commitment to slash the cost of doing business in the region by 25% by 2015. ( Canwest News Service, Nov. 16, 2009).

That’s what thousands of Canadian and American workers losing their jobs to U.S. protectionism would call taking care of business, quiet Stephen Harper style.

“While Canada’s economy was built through trans-Atlantic trade, our future prosperity will increasingly depend on our ties to the Pacific,” Harper said Sunday at the conclusion of the two-day summit.

Talks at the two-day summit were dominated by issues around trade.  Many APEC countries, including, Canada, Mexico and China had raised concerns about the rising tide of protectionism in the United States.

“Canada’s number one priority (is) responding to the global economic downturn,” said Harper.

Even though Harper had stood his ground on China’s record on human rights, he managed to find solid agreement for anti-protectionism from Chinese President Hu Jintao.

“There are obviously things with China on which we don’t agree, but when it comes to economics, China is a strong voice for opening up trade internationally,” Harper said Saturday.  “That’s a strong position of the government of Canada to promote free trade and oppose protectionism.”

“In speech after speech on the first day of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, one leader after another took to the podium to hammer the U.S. for its rising protectionist sentiment.”

“We must continue to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and oppose protectionism in all its manifestations, particularly the unreasonable trade and investment restrictions imposed on development countries,” Hu said.

Obama had promised during his first official visit to Canada last February that protectionism would not be a problem for Canada.

Harper has buttonholed Obama on his public promise at every opportunity ever since.

Kudos to Canada’s Prime Minister for putting the spotlight where it belongs: opposing U.S, protectionism.

And P.S. to the Chinese Daily: PM Harper is a great piano player too.

 

[CougarKing]

The headline of this TIMES article states: "Why China won't be tough on Iran and North Korea."

Debateable, considering the article I posted earlier which highlights one prominent China analyst's views of why Beijing can't afford to support North Korea anymore.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091118/wl_time/08599194022200

China's government, as President Barack Obama by now no doubt knows, loves to talk about climate change. But it's an issue that exists for Beijing at 30,000 ft., far from earthly, everyday concerns. So President Hu Jintao can play the responsible global citizen by making vague commitments, as he did at the U.N. this fall, to reduce his country's carbon gas emissions by a "notable amount" at some point in the future without actually doing anything that might disrupt China's economy. But he doesn't have the same luxury of deferring action on the increasingly urgent global concerns over nuclear developments in Iran and North Korea.


Obama's sense of urgency over Iran is pretty apparent. Before arriving in Beijing, he conferred on the issue with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at the APEC summit in Singapore and warned that "time is running out" for Iran to accept a deal to send its uranium to Russia for reprocessing into reactor fuel. The implicit message was clear: unless Iran accepts the plan, the U.S. will press for further sanctions against Tehran, this time possibly seeking restrictions on investment in Iran's vital energy sector. (See pictures of the world's worst nuclear disasters.)


A U.S. push for harsher sanctions against Iran won't be welcomed in Beijing, for two reasons. First, for all the talk of China as the other half of a G-2 that will - together with the U.S. - set the world's agenda, Beijing has not yet embraced the idea that it has the power and responsibility to shape events far beyond its borders. "Beijing is interested in domestic stability first, and stability on their frontier after that," says a senior East Asian diplomat based in Beijing. "The notion that they are ready and willing to stand up and run the world with the U.S. now is very premature." Adds Willem van Kemenade, an expert on the China-U.S. relationship at the Netherlands Institute for Security Studies, on the question of Iran sanctions: "[China's] first instinct will be to look to see what the Russians do."


That's odd on the face of it because China's interests in Iran are very different from Russia's. Moscow is a huge energy exporter whose responses to Iran's nuclear program are primarily based on geopolitical calculations. Under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - who tells Medvedev what to do - Moscow is in the process of deciding whether accepting a nuclear-armed Iran fits with its strategy of pushing back against U.S. global dominance.


Unlike Russia, China defines a harmonious relationship with the U.S. as being among its core interests. But China now imports a growing share of Iran's oil output - Tehran is China's third largest foreign supplier (behind Saudi Arabia and Angola), and Beijing has also significantly increased its investments in natural-gas projects in Iran. Being forced to choose between an expanding energy relationship with Iran and maintaining diplomatic accord with the U.S. is precisely the kind of dilemma that makes China's leadership assume the foreign policy equivalent of the fetal position. Thus, Hu's public remarks on Tuesday afternoon, after meeting with Obama: "We both stressed that to uphold the international nuclear nonproliferation regime and to appropriately resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations is very important to stability in the Middle East and in the Gulf region."


Got that? No talk about "time running out." It's all about "dialogue and negotiations" (even if Iran has been talking to the West for years about its nuclear programs and just rejected the best offer it had ever gotten). The template China would like the U.S. to follow in responding to Iran is the same one that is used in dealing with North Korea - the topic that will dominate the conversation in Seoul, Obama's next stop.


Unlike Iran, North Korea is already a nuclear-armed nation, and it says it continues to reprocess plutonium to build more bombs. (The U.S. estimates that Pyongyang has eight to 10 nukes so far.) China has used its leverage to get North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il to rejoin negotiations over its nuclear program after a lengthy hiatus, and Obama is eager to engage - to Beijing's enormous relief. "Kick the can down the road" is its guiding principle in nuclear diplomacy, whether in its backyard (North Korea) or farther afield (Iran). China, first and foremost, wants stability on its border, and not even North Korea going nuclear did much to change that equation. China also needs Iran's energy exports, and anything that mucks that up - like tougher sanctions - is unlikely to interest Hu.


For now, Hu has what he wants in respect to North Korea - both Pyongyang and Washington are willing to resume talks. Keeping the Iran nuclear stalemate off the boil won't be as easy. Obama said on Tuesday that if Iran failed to assure the outside world that its nuclear intentions were "peaceful," there would be "consequences." For the record, that's not a phrase the Chinese came anywhere close to using.


Three times in the last four years, Beijing has voted for limited sanctions against Iran at the U.N. And right now, insists senior Administration adviser David Axelrod, "there is more unity than there has ever been in dealing with Iran." But such unity is based on the U.S.'s emphasizing diplomacy rather than ratcheting up pressure on Tehran. How long it will last is one of the questions Obama will have to worry about on his long flight home.

 

[CougarKing]

The Chinese C919 was also mentioned earlier in this thread.

Chinese airplane firm takes step in becoming world aviation leader
11/19/2009 | 03:40 PM

SHANGHAI - Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China plans to build an assembly line for its homegrown C919 jetliners in Shanghai, the latest step in the country's ambitions to become a leader in world aviation.

The company announced the showcase project following a signing ceremony Wednesday with officials of Shanghai's Pudong district, where the plant will be located.

China is counting on the narrow-body, single-aisle C919, China's newest and biggest homegrown commercial jetliner, to compete against Western rivals in the high-stakes international aviation market.

Construction of the factory is to begin soon, with capacity to reach 20 C919s and 50 ARJ 21-series regional jets by 2016, the company, which is also known as COMAC, said in a statement.

Shanghai-based COMAC was set up in 2008 to develop and build passenger aircraft. The company also has research and development facilities in Pudong.

The C919 is due to make its maiden flight by 2014 and to begin deliveries to customers by 2016.

Earlier this week, General Electric's aviation unit teamed up with Aviation Industry Corp. of China, COMAC's state-run parent company, to develop and market electronic systems for commercial aircraft customers, including the C919 narrow-body aircraft.

GE is also supplying engines for the 70 to 110-seat ARJ-21 passenger jet, designed for the local market.

China's huge aviation market has continued to grow quickly, despite the world economic slump.

Air passenger traffic rose nearly 20 percent in the first 10 months of the year from the year before, to 191.9 million, according to the country's Civil Aviation Administration.

 

[Journeyman]

The Federation of American Scientists has posted a copy of the US Office of Naval Intelligence's current Chinese Navy survey. Available here (it's 21+ MB; lots of pretty pictures for various government officials  )

The bulk of the PLA efforts has centered around three areas:

Anti-Surface Warfare: The PLA(N) has more than quadrupled the number of submarines capable offiring anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), installed missiles with longer ranges and more sophisticated guidance packages on its surface combatants, built over 50 highspeed ASCM-carrying patrol craft, and developed the world's only anti-ship ballistic missile.

Naval Air Defense: Historically a weak area for the PLA(N), its newest combatants now
feature mid and long-range surface-to-air missiles, and the Luyang II DDG possesses a sophisticated phased-array radar system similar to the western AEGIS radar.

Force Projection: China has increased its underway replenishment capability by 67
percent, allowing greater sustainment of operations far from shore. China has also constructed a large amphibious ship (Yuzhao LPD) and a hospital ship (Anwei AH), which could be used either for humanitarian reliefmissions or support to amphibious combat. Finally, China is refurbishing an aircraft carrier bought from Ukraine and plans to build its own within the next five to ten years.

I suspect PRC's focus continues to remain focused on the East Asian region, with Taiwan being a constant thorn.

The summary states that China has developed the world's only anti-ship ballistic missile [possibly a DF21 MRBM variant], specifically designed to defeat U.S. carrier strike groups in the event of military conflict over Taiwan. Closer reading, however, indicates that it's still very much in the experimental stages.

 

[a_majoor]

more on China's demographic future. 2030 looks to be the critical date (don't forget we will be experiencing a demographic crash in the 2020's, and Russia will also be suffering a demographic crash as well)

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/economist-world-in-2010.html

Economist - The World in 2010

The Economist magazine has their annual projections for the coming year. This year it is the World in 2010

Projected statistics for 80 countries in 2010 (9 page pdf)

Statistics for 15 industries countries in 2010 (4 page pdf)

The Economist long term projection for China's economy is still a positive one.

Over the next decade, China’s annual growth will slow from the 10%-plus pace of the past few years to perhaps 7%—still one of the fastest rates in the world. But future growth will be less dependent on exports. As China’s share of world exports hits 10% in 2010, up from 4% in 2000, Japan’s experience will be instructive. It suggests that there are limits to a country’s global market share: after reaching 10%, its share of world markets fell as the yen strengthened. Likewise, China will be under foreign pressure to allow the yuan to resume its climb against the dollar in 2010.

China's aging population and population in general are discussed

China is running out of children to look after the elderly, a state of affairs often summed up by the formula “4-2-1”: four grandparents, two parents, one child. The country has about 20 years to get its act together. Although its workforce will start shrinking from 2010 relative to the population, in absolute terms both its number of workers and its population as a whole will grow until about 2030, when the population will peak at around 1.46 billion. After that it will begin to decline gently.

If the government really wants to rejuvenate the population, it will need to loosen its policy. More children would increase the dependency ratio until they were old enough to join the labour force. But if it were done soon, some of those children would reach working age just before the crunch time of 2030, easing the labour shortage from then on.

Most officials are adamant that the policy remains in place. But in Shanghai, where the birth rate is well below the national average, the city government is now encouraging couples entitled to more than one child to take full advantage. Where it leads, others may follow.

China's 2010 census could turn up an undercount. The 2010 census undercounted by 22 million. The current population estimate for China could be low by 20-30 million. Instead of 1.339 billion the population of China could be 1.36 or 1.37 billion.


Country        2010 GDP      2010 Growth  Percap GDP  PPP      Percap PPP
USA          14.84 trillion      2.4%                $47,920      14.84 t  $47,920
China          5.59 trillion      8.6%                $ 4,170      9.85 t    $ 7,350
Japan          5.13 trillion    1.3%                $40,440      4.23 t    $33,340
Germany        3.20 trillion  0.5%                $38,520      2.81 t    $33,840 
France        2.72 trillion      0.9%                $43,240      2.16 t    $34,310
UK            2.26 trillion        0.6%                $36,250      2.16 t  $34,730
Italy          2.14 trillion        0.4%                $36,820      1.72 t    $29,630
Brazil        1.67 trillion      3.8%                $ 8,480      2.11 t    $10,740
Canada        1.48 trillion  2.0%                $43,450      1.32 t    $38,850
India          1.47 trillion      6.3%                $ 1,240      3.88 t    $ 3,270
Spain          1.44 trillion    -0.8%                $31,250      1.39 t  $30,360
Russia        1.41 trillion      2.5%                $10,030      2.16 t  $15,330
Australia      1.13 trillion    1.7%                $52,290        .84 t  $39,020
Mexico          .89 trillion      3.0%                $ 7,890      1.67 t  $14,830
South Korea    .88 trillion  2.8%              $17,810      1.42 t  $28,700
Netherlands    .81 trillion  0.4%              $49,250        .66 t  $40,080
add to ChinaHong Kong      .22 trillion  2.8%        $30,720        .31 t  $43,180

 

[CougarKing]

Seems mainland Chinese companies have worn out their welcome in the 3rd world countries they are setting up shop in.

------------------------
Monday  Dec. 07, 2009

The World of China Inc.
By Hannah Beech / Ramu

TIME MAGAZINE


When China began its global investment push in the early part of this century, the flood of new money was welcomed, particularly in those parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America that felt abandoned by the West. China's promise not to politicize aid and investment by attaching pesky conditions like improved human rights pleased many governments.

Some countries, however, are no longer as willing to extend a red carpet toward the globetrotting Chinese. Although political strings might not come with Beijing's cash, there are economic catches. The roads, mines and other infrastructure on offer are most often built by armies of imported Chinese labor, cutting down on the net financial benefit to recipient nations. Chinese companies investing abroad also tend to ship in nearly everything used on building sites, from packs of dehydrated noodles to the telltale pink-hued Chinese toilet paper. It's not only the contracted Chinese workers who show up, either. Within a few years, their relatives invariably seem to materialize to set up shops selling cheap Chinese goods that threaten the livelihood of indigenous entrepreneurs. Locals who do get work on Chinese-funded projects complain that their bosses don't heed national labor laws ensuring minimum wage or trade-union protection. Over the past three years, anti-Chinese riots have erupted everywhere from the Solomon Islands and Zambia to Tonga and Lesotho. Tensions are also simmering in India, where the Chinese are involved in several major infrastructure projects. Even high-level officials are speaking up. In Vietnam, plans for a $140 million Chinese-operated open-pit bauxite mine were publicly excoriated by none other than revolutionary hero General Vo Nguyen Giap because, he said, of "the serious risk to the natural and social environment."


Full article here: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1943087,00.html

 

[a_majoor]

More on the changing perception of China in Asia:

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/12/11/chinas_soft_power_hits_an_economic_wall

China's soft power hits the brick wall of economics
Fri, 12/11/2009 - 12:08pm

Lost in the Nobel hoopla yesterday was this fascinating New York Times story by Michael Wines about the ways in which China's economy and foreign economic policy are vexing its neighbors. 

China has long claimed to be just another developing nation, even as its economic power far outstripped that of any other emerging country.

Now, it is finding it harder to cast itself as a friendly alternative to an imperious American superpower. For many in Asia, it is the new colossus.

“China 10 years ago is totally different with China now,” said Ansari Bukhari, who oversees metals, machinery and other crucial sectors for Indonesia’s Ministry of Industry. “They are stronger and bigger than other countries. Why do we have to give them preference?”

To varying degrees, others are voicing the same complaint. Take the 10 Southeast Asian nations in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as Asean, a regional economic bloc representing about 600 million people. After a decade of trade surpluses with Asean nations that ran as high as $20 billion, the surplus through October totaled a bare $535 million, according to Chinese customs figures, and appears headed toward a 10-year low. That is prompting some rethinking of the conventional wisdom that China’s rise is a windfall for the whole neighborhood.

Vietnam just devalued its currency by 5 percent, to keep it competitive with China. In Thailand, manufacturers are grousing openly about their inability to match Chinese prices. India has filed a sheaf of unfair-trade complaints against China this year covering everything from I-beams to coated paper.

Read the whole thing -- Wines does a nice job of contrasting China's policy responses in 2008 to what it did a decade earlier.  To sum up:  those dogs that were not barking previously are starting to growl. 

This problem is not going away anytime in the near future.  The problem for the rest of the Asia/Pacific is that their comparative advantages (labor costs, process innovations) are also China's comparative advantages.  Unless China starts acting as an important consumer market as well -- which admittedly might be happening as I type this -- then China's mantra of being a "responsible power" is going to meet a greater level of static very, very soon.   

UPDATE:  The Chicago Council on Global Affairs' Tom Wright has a report on how the financial crisis has affected China's soft power in the Asia/Pacific region that buttresses the Wines story.

 

[a_majoor]

The demographic bomb...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/11/AR2009121104378_pf.html

In aging China, a change of course
Looming population crisis forces officials to rethink one-child policy, but couples hesitate

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 12, 2009

SHANGHAI -- Wang Weijia and her husband grew up surrounded by propaganda posters lecturing them that "Mother Earth is too tired to sustain more children" and "One more baby means one more tomb."

They learned the lesson so well that when Shanghai government officials, alarmed by their city's low birthrate and aging population, abruptly changed course this summer and began encouraging young couples to have more than one child, their reaction was instant and firm: No way.

"We have already given all our time and energy for just one child. We have none left for a second," said Wang, 31, a human resources administrator with an 8-month-old son.

More than 30 years after China's one-child policy was introduced, creating two generations of notoriously chubby, spoiled only children affectionately nicknamed "little emperors," a population crisis is looming in the country.

The average birthrate has plummeted to 1.8 children per couple as compared with six when the policy went into effect, according to the U.N. Population Division, while the number of residents 60 and older is predicted to explode from 16.7 percent of the population in 2020 to 31.1 percent by 2050. That is far above the global average of about 20 percent.

The imbalance is worse in wealthy coastal cities with highly educated populations, such as Shanghai. Last year, people 60 and older accounted for almost 22 percent of Shanghai's registered residents, while the birthrate was less than one child per couple.

Xie Lingli, director of the Shanghai Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission, has said that fertile couples need to have babies to "help reduce the proportion of the aging population and alleviate a workforce shortage in the future." Shanghai is about to be "as old -- not as rich, though -- as developed countries such as Japan and Sweden," she said.

A gradual easing

Written into the country's constitution in 1978, China's one-child policy is arguably the most controversial mandate introduced by the ruling Communist Party to date. Couples who violate the policy face enormous fines -- up to three times their annual salary in some areas -- and discrimination at work.

Chinese officials have credited the policy with helping the country avoid critical strain on its natural resources, while human rights advocates have denounced abuses in the enforcement of the policy. In rural areas, some officials have forced women pregnant with a second child to undergo abortions. In addition, many couples have had sex-selective abortions, leading to an unnaturally high male-to-female ratio.

In recent years, population officials have gradually softened their stance on the one-child policy. In 2004, they allowed for more exceptions to the rule -- including urban residents, members of ethnic minorities and cases in which both husband and wife are only children -- and in 2007, they toned down many of their hard-line slogans.

Qiao Xiaochun, a professor at the Institute of Population Research at Peking University, said central government officials have recently been debating even more radical changes, such as allowing couples to have two children if one partner is an only child.

In July, Shanghai became the first Chinese city to launch an aggressive campaign to encourage more births.

Almost overnight, posters directing families to have only one child were replaced by copies of regulations detailing who would be eligible to have a second child and how to apply for a permit. The city government dispatched family planning officials and volunteers to meet with couples in their homes and slip leaflets under doors. It has also pledged to provide emotional and financial counseling to those electing to have more than one child.

The response has been underwhelming, family planning officials say.
Disappointing response

Although officials in one rural town on the outskirts of Shanghai say they saw an uptick in applications from couples wanting a second child after the campaign was launched, the more urban districts report no change. Huinan township, with a population of 115,000, for instance, is still receiving just four to five applications a month.

Disappointed Shanghai officials say that, despite the campaign, the number of births in the city in 2010 is still expected to be only about 165,000 -- slightly higher than in 2009 but lower than in 2008.

Feng Juying, head of the family planning committee in Shanghai's Caolu township, said financial considerations are probably the main reason many people don't want more children. "They want to give the best to their first," she said.

Yang Jiawei, 27, and his wife, Liu Juanjuan, 26, said they would love to have two children and are legally allowed to do so. But like many Chinese, they have only the scant medical and life insurance provided by the government. Without a social safety net, they say, the choice would be irresponsible.

"People in the West wrongly see the one-child policy as a rights issue," said Yang, a construction engineer whose wife is seven months pregnant with the couple's first child. "Yes, we are being robbed of the chance to have more than one child. But the problem is not just some policy. It is money."

Other couples cite psychological reasons for hesitating.

Wang, the human resources administrator, said she wants an only child because she was one herself: "We were at the center of our families and used to everyone taking care of us. We are not used to taking care of and don't really want to take care of others."

Chen Zijian, a 42-year-old who owns a translation company, put it more bluntly. For the dual-career, middle-class parents who are bringing the birthrate down, he said, it's about being successful enough to be selfish. Today's 20- and 30-somethings grew up seeing their parents struggle during the early days of China's experiment with capitalism and don't want that kind of life for themselves, he said.

Even one child makes huge demands on parents' time, he said. "A mother has to give up at least two years of her social life." Then there are the space issues -- "You have to remodel your apartment" -- and the strategizing -- "You have to have a résumé ready by the time the child is 9 months old for the best preschools."

Most of his friends are willing to deal with this once, Chen said, but not twice.

"Ours is the first generation with higher living standards," he said. "We do not want to make too many sacrifices."

Staff researcher Liu Liu contributed to this report.

 

[Rifleman62]

This could be posted elsewhere, but it follows the previous post. Ms Francis was interviewed on Fox News Friday. From The National Post;

The inconvenient truth? Overpopulation
Posted: December 07, 2009, 4:54 PM by Diane Francis
Filed under: Environment

The “inconvenient truth” overhanging the UN’s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.

A planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently of one million births every four days.

The world’s other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity’s soaring reproduction rate.

Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world’s leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.

The intelligence behind this is the following:

• If only one children per female was born as of now, the world’s population would drop from its current 6.5 billion to 5.5 billion by 2050, according to a study done for scientific academy Vienna Institute of Demography.

• By 2075, there would be 3.43 billion humans on the planet. This would have immediate positive effects on the world’s forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.

• Doing nothing, by contrast, will result in an unsustainable population of 9 billion by 2050.

The world is crazy

Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it. Medical and other scientific advances have benefited by delivering lower infant mortality rates as well as longevity. Both are welcome, but humankind has not yet recalibrated its behavior to account for the fact that the world can only accommodate so many human beings, especially if billions get indoor plumbing and cars.

The fix is simple. It’s dramatic. And yet the world’s leaders don’t even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms then cap and trade subsidies.

None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed. Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world’s big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control.

And most political leaders in emerging economies perpetuate a disastrous Catch-22: Many children [i.e. sons] stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development which, in turn, prevents protections or development.

Middle Kingdom knows the way

China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food and one out of five human beings that live there are not overpopulating the planet.

For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pasture land into desert as is now the case or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good and wars erupt over water, scarce resources and spatial needs.

The point is that Copenhagen’s talking points are beside the point.

The only fix is if all countries drastically reduce their populations, clean up their messes and impose mandatory conservation measures.

 

[a_majoor]

Chinese shipping giant Cosco is considering building a fleet of nuclear powered container cargo ships. These would be much bigger and somewhat faster than conventional container ships. Other possible benefits include the ability to convert them rapidly to auxilliary warships using containerized weapons and electronics, or escort carriers on the model of WWII escort carriers. In this case a lot af fast "honking big ships" would add some extra muscle to the PLAN. Long articles so follow the links:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/containter-ship-modules-for-nuclear.html

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/military-and-resilience-spinoff.html

 

[Edward Campbell]

Quote from: George Wallace on 2009-09-13, 13:34:55

This could also result in the Americans, Canadians and Europeans turning around and stopping the exporting of parts to China, preferring instead to assemble vehicles using those parts at home, reversing the trends and keeping auto workers at home happy.

That is, roughly, what Jeff Rubin predicts in his recent book, albeit for a different reason. But the problem for America, Canada and Europe is the demand curve. The demand curve for automobiles (and therefore for auto parts) is trending down in North America and Europe. The places where the demand curve for automobiles are still trending upwards are China and India. China wants to create a domestic parts industry and it can, probably will, use unfair trade practices to get one. Watch for India to follow suit.

Chinese shipping giant Cosco is considering building a fleet of nuclear powered container cargo ships. These would be much bigger and somewhat faster than conventional container ships. Other possible benefits include the ability to convert them rapidly to auxilliary warships using containerized weapons and electronics, or escort carriers on the model of WWII escort carriers. In this case a lot af fast "honking big ships" would add some extra muscle to the PLAN. Long articles so follow the links:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/containter-ship-modules-for-nuclear.html

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/military-and-resilience-spinoff.html

Which might solve the problem (for China) that Jeff Rubin foresees in his recent book. Essentially Rubin predicts that sky high transportation costs (fuel costs) will offset China's wage advantage and force some industrial production back to America and Europe - closer to the customer. Nuclear ships, built at (Chinese) taxpayers' expense, might offset higher fuel costs, retaining China's price advantage.

 

[CougarKing]

The PRC's fixation with large structures (e.g. the 3 Gorges Dam) continues to be evident:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/15/worlds-longest-sea-bridge

Much of the bridge will be fabricated offsite and will be designed to withstand wind speeds of up to 201kmph (125mph)

China today announced it had begun construction of the world's longest sea bridge – barely 18 months after opening the current record-holder.

The Y-shaped link between Hong Kong, Macau and China will be around 50km (31 miles) long in total, 35km of which will span the sea, said the state news agency Xinhua. Due to be completed by 2015, the 73bn yuan (£6.75bn) cost of the bridge will be shared by the authorities in the three territories.

The structure also includes a 5.5km underwater tunnel with artificial islands to join it to bridges on each side. According to the engineering group Arup – which has helped with the design – it is the first major marine bridge-and-tunnel project in China. But the engineering firm described the structure as 38km in length; the reason for the disparity was unclear.

Work is expected to begin with land reclamation to create an artificial island of around 216 hectares (540 acres) off Zhuhai. This will become the customs point for those making the crossing.

But much of the structure will be prefabricated offsite, so, for example, the concrete deck sections can be produced at the same time as the foundations are laid. The tunnel will be made of precast sections – each 100 metres long.

"It is designed with a service life of 120 years. It can withstand the impact of a strong wind with a speed of 51 meters a second, or equal to a maximum Beaufort scale 16 (184 to 201kmph)," said Zhu Yongling, an official in charge of the project construction. "It can also resist the impact of a magnitude-8 earthquake and a 300,000-tonne vessel."
Six lanes of traffic will pass across the bridge at a maximum speed of 100kmph, cutting driving time from Hong Kong to Zhuhai from four hours to one.

The bridge was first proposed in 1983 as a way of fostering economic ties between China, Hong Kong and Macau. But it will be particularly welcome as the Pearl River Delta – for many years the hub of China's manufacturing – is buffeted by economic problems. The area's attempt to move up the value chain, combined with the rise of the yuan and the global economic crisis, has seen exports plummeting.

The bridge is one component in a plan issued in January by China's top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, which aims to fuse the area and the two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau, into one of the world's most vibrant economic centres by 2020. In particular, the government hopes it will help to develop the western side of Guangdong province.

"It is a move for Hong Kong, Macau and the Pearl River Delta region to cope with global economic downturn, boost investment and inspire people," said the vice-premier, Li Keqiang, at the inauguration ceremony in Guangdong. "Meanwhile, it can also further increase [their] links and promote economic co-operation."

Hong Kong has said the bridge should generate $HK45bn (£3.6bn) of economic benefits within the first two decades of use, Reuters reported.

According to an article in New Civil Engineer magazine earlier this year, the bridges cross three navigation channels while the tunnel goes under a fourth.

"There is an airport nearby, so we could not build a bridge [in that area] which was the reason for the tunnel. The immersed tube is the longest in the world at 5.5km long," Naeem Hussain, global bridge leader at Arup, told the publication.

He said the bridge's piers would each be 170 metres high and that the design team had minimised the structures impact on estuary flows by limiting the size and number of columns in the water.

But the WWF and other environmental campaigners have warned that construction could devastate marine ecosystems and endanger the rare Chinese white dolphin, which is found in the estuarine waters of the Pearl river. Officials say they have already considered environmental issues in planning the project.

"We will control the construction noises and turbidity of seawater, and prevent oil pollution," Zhu told Xinhua.

It is only a year and a half since China opened a 36km span across Hangzhou Bay – in the eastern province of Zhejiang – which is currently the longest sea-bridge.

Wang Yong, the head of that project, said the design had led to more than 250 technological innovations and engineering breakthroughs, many of which will no doubt prove useful in building the new construction. He added that the Hangzhou bridge survived 19 severe challenges, including typhoons, tides, and geological problems during the three and a half years of construction.

The longest water-spanning bridge in the world is the Lake Pontchartrain causeway bridge in New Orleans, at 38.4km. But officials said that Hangzhou was a particularly difficult site to build because of its complex climate.

 

[CougarKing]

A key mainland Chinese envoy will be visiting Taiwan next week.

From the Associated Press via Yahoo News

By DEBBY WU, Associated Press Writer Debby Wu, Associated Press Writer – 32 mins ago
TAIPEI, Taiwan – President Ma Ying-jeou's signature effort to boost ties with Beijing faces a key test next week when Taiwan's pro-independence opposition plans to take to the streets to protest the visit of a senior Chinese envoy.

Buoyed by a strong showing in local elections earlier this month, the Democratic Progressive Party says it will muster 100,000 supporters Sunday in the central city of Taichung ahead of Monday's arrival of Chen Yunlin, China's top Taiwan negotiator.

Chen's visit to Taipei a year ago led to violent confrontations between police and anti-China demonstrators.

Chen will be in Taichung this time to sign four new economic accords between the once bitter rivals, which split amid civil war in 1949, and ever since have eyed each other warily across the 100-mile- (160-kilometer-) wide Taiwan Strait.

Since taking office in May 2008, Ma has eased cross-strait tensions to their lowest level in 60 years, turning his back on his DPP predecessor's pro-independence policies amid a welter of business-boosting initiatives.

These include launching regular air and sea links between the sides and ending across-the-board restrictions on Chinese investments in Taiwan — precursors, Ma says, to a partial Taiwan-China trade agreement meant to be signed next year.

Taiwan's powerful business community strongly favors Ma's approach, seeing it as necessary to prevent the island's economic marginalization amid growing trade ties between Beijing and neighboring Asian countries.
Washington also supports it enthusiastically. Despite shifting its China recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, it remains Taiwan's most important foreign partner and fears being drawn into the armed conflict that Beijing threatens would follow any opposition move to formalize Taiwan's de facto independence. It sees Ma's policies as strongly reducing that possibility.

The DPP, however, believes the president's China-friendly push sets the stage for an eventual Chinese takeover of the island — a charge Ma vehemently denies.

The DPP says Ma's trade deal — formally known as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement or ECFA — will flood the island with cheap Chinese products, prompting massive job losses.

"We are holding protests partly because studies have shown Taiwan's unemployment rate will shoot up after the signing of the ECFA," party spokesman Tsai Chi-chang said.

As recently as five months ago, most of the Taiwanese public accepted Ma's argument that closer economic ties with China would aid Taiwanese prosperity — even allowing for the global economic downturn.

But Ma's mishandling of the response to a devastating typhoon in August began to dent his popularity, as did a more recent miscue involving secret negotiations on the removal of a ban on some U.S. beef imports.

Earlier this month Ma's Nationalists bested the DPP by only two percentage points in local elections — a far cry from the 17 point margin that Ma enjoyed over his DPP rival in the March 2008 presidential poll.

Now, even some of Ma's Nationalist allies fear that if he does not respond effectively to DPP doubts about growing China economic ties, his political problems could multiply.

"If we sign the ECFA and it goes awry, the party's chances in future elections will face serious threats," lawmaker Lo Shu-lei said.

 

[Edward Campbell]

For those who wonder about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail web site, is a report on how China’s influence grows in Central Asia, at Russia’s expense:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/points-east/a-victory-for-beijing-in-the-new-great-game/article1399290/

Points East

Mark MacKinnon, The Globe and Mail's Beijing bureau chief, blogs on life and happenings in China and East Asia.

Monday, December 14, 2009 8:26 AM

A victory for Beijing in the New Great Game

Beijing – A few hours ago, in a place called Samadepe on the rarely visited border between the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the global balance of power tilted ever so slightly.

Flanked by the leaders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Chinese President Hu Jintao today turned a symbolic wheel as oil started flowing into a new 1,833-kilometre pipeline that snakes east from Turkmenistan and across Central Asia to Xinjiang in the far west of China, where it will connect with China’s own pipeline network.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has insisted that Russia is not bothered by the opening of the pipeline, but that’s difficult to believe. Mr. Putin’s nine years in power (the first eight as president) have been spent trying to reestablish Russia as a global force. Key to that effort has been its role as one of the world’s biggest producers of natural gas, a position that was strengthened by its effective monopoly over the pipelines coming out of the former Soviet states of Central Asia.

That monopoly has now been broken. The Turkmenistan-Xinjiang pipeline is the first that will transport gas from Turkmenistan, the world’s fourth-largest producer, to market without going through Russian territory. When it reaches full capacity in another three years, it will pump up to 40 billion cubic metres annually, feeding China’s rapidly-growing and energy-starved economy, meeting half of the country’s current demand.

In building the new pipeline, China can also claim victory in a race with both the United States and Europe. Both have sought for years to establish a route to bring Turkmen gas west without going through Russia, efforts that were repeatedly thwarted by interference from Moscow as well as Iran, which blocked efforts to build a pipeline underneath the Caspian Sea.

Though Mr. Hu was characteristically understated about the importance of the moment his new partners were effusive in welcoming Beijing to centre stage in Central Asia.

“This project not only has commercial or economic value. It is also political,” Turkmen Presidnet Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov told reporters. “China, through its wise and farsighted policy has become one of the key guarantors of global security.”

It’s a change that happened slowly. Russia has seen its already waning influence over its former backyard plummet since the onset of the global recession, which has hit the Kremlin’s coffers – and thus its ability to speak the language the Central Asia’s kleptocrats prefer – hard. The United States and Europe, meanwhile, have danced back and forth between courting the region’s leaders and condemning them, occasionally breaking ties completely, over human-rights abuses.

In the meantime, China, a late joiner to struggle for influence in Central Asia (dubbed “The Great Game” in the 19th Century as Russia and Britain jostled there), has quietly used its financial clout to make fast friends in the region, handing out massive loans and building the pipeline connecting Kazakhstan to Xinjiang. China’s Communist leaders, naturally, have no qualms about doing business with the unelected “presidents-for-life” who rule Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Last year, I was invited to the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan to address the Eurasian Media Forum on the theme of a “new Cold War” between Russia and the West, sitting on a panel alongside such combatants as former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Kremlin spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky.

When the Americans and the Russians took a break from verbally attacking each other, an audience member asked a Chinese panelist where Beijing stood in the escalating dispute. His response came back to me today as I watched the television footage from Turkmenistan.

“We leave matters of war and peace to the Americans and the Russians,” he said, adding that China preferred to focus on building up economic relations with its neighbours.

The audience, made up of Central Asia’s business and political elite, gratefully applauded.

China must have resources. They are best bought and paid for close to home but Canada remains an attractive source of supply.

China is not interested in war. The Chinese military leaders need not invent ‘enemies’ to justify their annual budgets.

China expects the sort of respect and deference accorded to a great power, and it expects it from Russia, too.

My impression of the Chinese leadership and top level management is: smart, focused, visionary (long term thinkers), disciplined and patient.

 

[CougarKing]

As expected, renewed protests- mostly by Taiwanese/benshengren who would most probably vote for the pro-independence DPP- erupt as the mainland's envoy arrives in Taiwan.

From the Associated Press via Yahoo News

TAICHUNG, Taiwan – Thousands of anti-government protesters gathered in the central Taiwanese city of Taichung for a massive rally Sunday to denounce the arrival of China's senior Taiwan negotiator.

Buoyed by a strong showing in local elections earlier this month, the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party is seeking to press home its message that President Ma Ying-jeou's tightening of commercial ties with China is undermining Taiwan's de facto independence and threatening the economic well being of its people.

Sunday's rally, a day ahead of the arrival of Chen Yunlin, is expected to attract some 100,000 demonstrators. DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen has promised it will be peaceful — unlike last year, when DPP supporters and police clashed repeatedly during an earlier Chen visit.

Police have sealed off roads surrounding Chen's hotel to ward off protesters, some of whom say they will follow him wherever he goes.

Chen is coming to Taichung to sign four new economic accords between the once bitter rivals, which split amid civil war in 1949, and ever since have eyed each other warily across the 100-mile- (160-kilometer-) wide Taiwan Strait.

He is set to return to China on Dec. 25.

Since taking office in May 2008, Ma has eased cross-strait tensions to their lowest level in 60 years, turning his back on his DPP predecessor's pro-independence policies amid a welter of business-boosting initiatives.

These include launching regular air and sea links between the sides and ending across-the-board restrictions on Chinese investment in Taiwan — precursors, Ma says, to a partial Taiwan-China trade agreement meant to be signed next year.

Taiwan's powerful business community strongly favors Ma's approach, seeing it as necessary to prevent the island's economic marginalization amid growing trade ties between Beijing and neighboring Asian countries.

Washington also supports it enthusiastically. Despite shifting its China recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, it remains Taiwan's most important foreign partner and fears being drawn into the armed conflict that Beijing threatens would follow any opposition move to formalize Taiwan's de facto independence. It sees Ma's policies as strongly reducing that possibility.

The DPP, however, believes the president's China-friendly push sets the stage for an eventual Chinese takeover of the island — a charge Ma vehemently denies.

The DPP says Ma's trade deal — formally known as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement or ECFA — will flood the island with cheap Chinese products, prompting massive job losses.
"We are holding protests partly because studies have shown Taiwan's unemployment rate will shoot up after the signing of the ECFA," party spokesman Tsai Chi-chang said.

As recently as five months ago, most of the Taiwanese public accepted Ma's argument that closer economic ties with China would aid Taiwanese prosperity — even allowing for the global economic downturn.

But Ma's mishandling of the response to a devastating typhoon in August began to dent his popularity, as did a more recent miscue involving secret negotiations on the removal of a ban on some U.S. beef imports.

Earlier this month Ma's Nationalists bested the DPP by only two percentage points in local elections — a far cry from the 17 point margin that Ma enjoyed over his DPP rival in the March 2008 presidential poll.

 

[CougarKing]

PRC "justice" at it again, but this time, dealing with a prominent Chinese political dissident.

From the Associated Press via Yahoo News

BEIJING – A high-profile Chinese dissident accused of subversion was tried at a two-hour hearing Wednesday that shut out foreign diplomats concerned over a case that reflects the communist government's deep suspicion of calls for political reform.

Liu Xiaobo was detained a year ago, just before the release of an unusually direct appeal for more civil rights in China he co-authored called Charter 08, signed by scores of China's top intellectuals. He faces up to 15 years in jail. The verdict is due Friday.

International human rights groups and Western nations have heavily criticized Liu's detention. A dozen diplomats, including from the United States, Britain, Germany, Australia and Canada, stood outside the Beijing courthouse in freezing weather, barred from entering, along with a handful of Liu's Chinese supporters. At least one diplomat said he would try to be present for the verdict.

(...)