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[Sino-PakFriendship]

Stupid Chinese, believing that his arguments will be more convincing when written with bigger letters.

Stupid Swede,

please go back to your Scandinavia!  


  

[jhl]

China's top banking regulator rated the country's banking industry as healthy with total assets increasing rapidly, bad loan rates dropping and capital adequacy ratio (CAR) rising.

    "The performance of Chinese banks has reached a historic peak," said Jiang Dingzhi, vice chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), at a financial forum in Beijing on Saturday.

    Total banking assets amounted to 59.3 trillion yuan (8.68 trillion U.S. dollars) by September, said Jiang. The figure had increased more than fourfold from a decade ago during the southeast Asia financial crisis.

    Profits after tax of Chinese banks reached 446.7 billion yuan, a 12-fold increase from the 36.4 billion yuan reported in 2002.

    "Profits continue to rise rapidly this year," said Jiang without giving specific numbers.

    CBRC statistics showed the bad loan rate of major commercial banks had dropped for the sixth consecutive year to 5.5 percent from more than 20 percent in 2002.

    "The bad loan rate will go down further after the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) completes its join-stock transformation reform," said Jiang.

    As the last of the four major state-owned commercial banks to be transformed into a joint-stock company, ABC signed an agreement on Nov. 6 with Central Huijin Co., an investment arm of the government, for a 130-billion-yuan capital injection in preparation for an eventual listing.

    The bank's non-performing loan rate stood at 23.5 percent by 2007.

    At the same time, the CAR of 192 commercial banks nationwide had exceeded 8 percent by the third quarter, the capital accounting for 85 percent of the country's total. Only eight banks met the 8 percent criterion back in 2003.

    The CAR is used to track a lender's capacity to tackle financial risks. A bank's CAR should not fall below 8 percent, the minimum standard set by China's central bank.

    Jiang said China may have to face a more formidable economic environment with the global financial crisis.

    "However, we have strong confidence in our ability to carry out a good job in risk management and control for the banking industry."

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/...nt_10366256.htm

Scientists have developed a method of correcting errors and inconsistencies in commercial database information, a leading database expert from Britain's Edinburgh University said Wednesday.

    Professor Fan Wenfei, a Beijing-born database researcher at the university, made the remark while receiving the 2008 BCS Roger Needham Award, an accolade given annually to the best Britain-based researcher in computing within 10 years of completing their PhD.

    "Though the recent technology cannot guarantee 100 percent accuracy in blocking 'dirty' information, about 93 percent of errors are expected to be spotted and blocked, which could save the world billion of pounds on a yearly basis," he said.

    Recent statistics show that businesses typically expect between one and five percent of all data to be wrong, or "dirty."

    The researcher also recently won the Yangtze River Scholar award, the highest academic honor in China.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/...nt_10353164.htm

Scientific and technological awareness has been increasing among the Chinese people, according to a survey released on Sunday.

    The survey by the Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST) reveals that people with basic science and technology knowledge account for 2.25 percent of the total population of 1.3 billion, compared to 1.6 percent in 2005 when a similar survey was last conducted.

    The survey covers 10,080 people, aged between 18 and 69, from 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities on the Chinese mainland.

    Carried out from December 2007 to February 2008, the survey indicates 18.4 percent of the Chinese people understood scientific terms, 33.5 percent understood scientific methods and 59.4 percent understood the relation between science and society.

    The respondents held that teachers, scientists and doctors are the most respected professionals and 40.1 percent of the parents hoped their children would become scientists.

    As to the relation between scientific development and human resources, 82.8 percent of the respondents agree that "stimulating children's interest in science and technology will be conducive to the development of China's talents."

    The Chinese people also have high expectations on future development of science and technology. The survey says that 81.9 percent of the respondents believe modern science and technology will bring the offspings more opportunities for development.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/...nt_10370049.htm

The Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) on Thursday increased the mileage of passenger-dedicated lines planned to be in service by 2020 to 16,000 km in a revised Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan.

    According to the revised plan, announced officially on Thursday, China plans to have more than 120,000 km of rail lines by 2020, about 60 percent of which are to be electrified.

    This is an increase on a 2004 plan for about 100,000 km of railways and 12,000 km passenger-dedicated lines by 2020. The old plan had only 50 percent of the country's railways electrified.

    At a press conference held to announce the plan, MOR vice minister Lu Dongfu said the plan was approved by the State Council, or the Cabinet, on Oct. 31.

    "The 16,000-km express passenger rail network (capable of speeds of more than 200 km/hour) is designed to link provincial cities with a population of more than 500,000. The network will significantly cut journey times," Lu said.

    "Construction of all railway projects in the revised Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan will need a total investment of some 5 trillion yuan (732 billion U.S. dollars)," Lu said.

    This revised Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan covers the years 2004-2020, and so includes money already spent and lines already built.

    In addition some of the funding for the Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan money will come from the 4 trillion yuan economic stimulus package announced earlier this month (which covers the period 2009-2010), but the vice minister did not elaborate on which projects they were or how much money was involved.

    New lines revealed in the plan, and not part of the economic stimulus package, include a line in Liaoning Province linking Shenyang to Dandong, and a line in Henan Province linking Zhengzhou (the provincial capital) and Luoyang.

    "The revised plan is set to modernize the network and help the economy achieve sound and rapid development," said Lu.

    "Railway has been the weakest chain in the country's infrastructure with insufficient capacity. Railway transportation has long lagged behind the economic development," Lu said.

    China's laggard railway system has been having a hard time keeping up with the huge mobility needs and booming economy, Yang said. With many trains running near or above capacity, the country's rail network is strained, but the demands on it are increasing.

    By the end of this year, Lu said China would have over 79,000-km rail lines in operation, about 6,000 km more than that at the end of 2003.

    China currently only has one high-speed rail line in operation - the Beijing-Tianjin link, which is 120 km in length.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/...nt_10422612.htm

[jhl]

It is a great achievement for China to maintain overall stability in a vast country while booking a fast economic growth in the past three decades, a senior Dutch researcher on China told Xinhua in a recent interview.

With its growing economic strength, China is making considerable contributions to world prosperity and peace, said Willem van Kemenade, senior visiting fellow at the Netherlands Clingendael Institute for International Relations.

China, with its GDP ranking fourth now in the world, is destined to be a major player in the world. It has to adjust its policy of "lying low and biding its time" and assume bigger responsibility, said the Dutch consultant, who authored three books on China and published numerous articles about China's relations with the rest of the world.

TURNING POINT

Van Kemenade worked as a journalist between 1977 and 1997 based in Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing. When he first set foot on China in 1975, he was struck by the sight of millions of "blue ants" -- people dressed in dull, blue coats -- who were busy chanting hollow slogans, paying scant attention to the economy.

"I thought this cannot go on. So did many Western people like me, " he said.

When China set in motion the process of reform and opening-up in 1978, van Kemenade sensed this was going to be the start of a brand new chapter of China and the world's most populous country was on its way to becoming a major player in the world.

The process of economic reform was what the Chinese call "a tortuous path", punctuated by setbacks here and there, but China has managed to stay on the course and pulled off economic miracles, said van Kemenade.

Even an inland city like Chengdu, where you hardly spot any high- rise buildings 20 years ago, is now "a big, ultra-modern metropolis " with office towers everywhere, he said.

"If you see the pictures of Chongqing (a city not far from Chengdu), it looks like New York, but in a much more modern version," he added.

"Compared with other big developing countries, such as India, China has been doing extremely well," the Dutch expert concluded.

An important reason for that is that the Chinese government has succeeded in energizing the population, he said, noting that the majority of the Chinese people are convinced that economic advancement is key to realizing the national goal of becoming a great nation again.

An equally important factor is China's ability to keep the country stable. "It has been a big achievement for China to maintain national unity and keep the general situation stable nationwide," van Kemenade said.

"A Chinese slogan says: 'Wending yadao yiqie (Stability is of paramount importance).' I absolutely agree with that," he said.

GOING IT CHINESE WAY

The fact that China has achieved economic success without following the Western development models has earned China respect in many developing countries, van Kemenade said.

The so-called Washington Consensus, the policy programs prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank for developing countries, call for liberalization of trade and investment, privatization of state enterprises and deregulation. But China has rejected them and found its own way of developing economy, he said.

China took a cautious approach in economic reforms, opening its market step by step, using indigenous resources in the first place and sticking to government regulation. While the Washington Consensus proved to be no cure-all for developing countries' woes, the so-called Beijing Consensus has aroused great interest in the Third World, van Kemenade said.

"The Western model of development has failed in Africa, maybe the Chinese model will be more successful there," the Dutch analyst said.

China's prudence was partially vindicated when it suffered relatively less from the fallout of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and again in the current financial crisis, he said, noting that those countries which opened their capital markets completely suffered big blows.

However, the economic development is still falling short in some areas. China needs to reduce its dependence on exports as the driving force of its economy, van Kemenade said.

He said it was smart for China in the late 1980s and 1990s to follow the model of some East Asian economies and make it a priority to increase exports. But for a country so vast as China, export-led growth is only a temporary solution.

In the past decades, Western multinationals have used China as an industrial workshop and the explosive growth in exports to America and Europe resulted in huge trade surpluses for China.

"The money was then lent to the United States to encourage its high-risk, irresponsible fiscal and monetary policy, and to finance its wars," he said.

In his opinion, the living standards in China could have risen much more if China had used more of its foreign currency reserves for domestic development, particularly in the western inland areas.

China needs to shift its focus from exports to domestic consumption because the world economy can not continue to absorb Chinese exports in such a big way, the Dutch expert argued.

China and the United States started strategic economic dialogue in 2006, partly to address the massive trade imbalance, he said, adding that the same mechanism has been set up with the European Union this year.

CONTRIBUTION TO WORLD PEACE, PROSPERITY

The rise of China has generated talks of "China threat" in the West, but van Kemenade believes China has made considerable contributions to world prosperity and peace.

Van Kemenade said China through its economic development has benefited the world economy. "China is a big manufacturing center and it has contributed reasonably good quality products to many parts of the world," he said.

While there have been some problems with food products and toys in recent years, "China in general is contributing a lot to the economic well-being of the world as a whole," he said.

Cheap Chinese products also helped to keep the inflation down and improve the living standard in many parts of the world. "China is making a positive contribution to the maintenance of prosperity even in Western countries," he said.

Speaking of the rise of protectionism in Europe and America, van Kemenade said it is unfair to accuse China of stealing Western jobs. "It is the big corporations which have brought the jobs to China."

On the impact of China's rise on world peace, van Kemenade said he does not think China has real ambitions to become a global military superpower. On the contrary, China is playing a relatively "constructive role" in maintaining world peace.

China's hosting of the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsular nuclear issue, for instance, is a major contribution to Asian regional security as well as to world peace, van Kemenade said.

He commended China for actively participating in United Nations peacekeeping missions, sending troops to many crisis areas in the world.

In the Balkans, the Middle East and the recent Georgia crisis, China has been advocating finding solutions through peaceful means, he said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/30years/2008-...ent_7280468.htm

Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group (XCMG), China's biggest construction machinery maker, expects its overseas sales to grow 25 percent next year to 1 billion U.S. dollars despite the global financial crisis, its chairman said Wednesday.

The group is also considering establishing plants in Poland and Iran, company chairman Wang Min told China Daily at the Bauma China 2008 construction machinery fair.

    The group is on track to record 800 million dollars overseas sales this year, up over 40 percent from last year, said Wang, adding that the firm hopes to get 30-40 percent of its revenue from overseas over the next few years.

    The company wants to take advantage of the on-going financial turbulence to buy assets in Europe and United States. "We are interested in buying distribution companies but not manufacturing facilities," said Wang.

    XCMG is talking with foreign partners about an engine and component joint-venture business, he said, declining to identify the companies involved.

    XCMG's overseas revenues come mainly from the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, but South American markets such as Argentina and Brazil are emerging.

    The group's revenue will top 40 billion yuan this year, up from last year's 30.8 billion yuan, and will hit 50 billion next year thanks to a strong infrastructure market, Wang said.

    XCMG is one of a growing number of Chinese machinery makers increasingly competing with global heavyweights such as Caterpillar.

    However, it has not made any major overseas acquisition so far.

    Zoomlion, another leading Chinese heavy machinery maker, paid 163 million euros for a 60 percent stake in the Italian machinery company Compagnia Italiana Forme Acciaio SpA (Cifa) earlier this year.

    Sany Heavy Industry Co said it would build a 100- million-dolllar plant in US, the first Chinese machinery maker to do so in North America.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/...nt_10418898.htm

The Ministry of Railways (MOR) said here on Sunday that the world's longest high-speed rail line, connecting the capital and Shanghai, is nearing completion.

    MOR spokesman Wang Yongping said 91 percent of the track length, or 1,203 km, has been completed. Remaining major tasks include bridges over the Huaihe and Yangtze rivers and the main terminal in Shanghai, he said. More than 110,000 workers are busy with the remainder of the project.

    Trains will take less than five hours to make the run, which is now at least 11 hours.

    The MOR has said it plans to have 120,000 km of rail lines in service by 2020, of which 16,000 km would be dedicated to only passenger services.

    By the end of this year, China will have more than 79,000 km of rail lines. To meet the 2020 target will require about 5 trillion yuan (732 billion U.S. dollars), the MOR said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/...nt_10469025.htm

China's fiscal revenues fell by 3.1 percent in November year-on-year thanks to the slowing economy, the Ministry of Finance said today, a trend that has been apparent since September.

The total fiscal revenues in the January-November period amounted to 5.8 trillion yuan ($847 billion), up by 20.5 percent year-on-year.

The country's fiscal revenues reached 379.2 billion yuan in November, the ministry said in a statement. The tax cuts and domestic economic slow-down are the main factors behind the fall, it said.

The national economy registered a 9 percent annual growth in the third quarter against 11.9 percent for the whole of last year. The latest statistics show that exports and producer prices were all falling in November, pointing to worsening economic weakening.

The easing momentum in the country's fiscal revenues growth started in September, when the year-on-year growth rate fell to 3.1 percent from 16.5 percent in July. In October, it dropped by 0.3 percent, the first monthly fall in 12 years.

The country has raised the level of export tax rebates to bolster exports, cut interest on savings and stamp duty of stock trading as well as reducing taxes on house purchase to support the real estate market this year.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008...ent_7295394.htm

[jhl]

Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies said its contract sales increased 46 percent year-on-year in 2008.

Sun Yafang, chairwoman of Huawei Technologies, said in an email to employees dated Jan 2 that the company's contract sales amounted to $23.3 billion in 2008, with 75 percent coming from overseas markets.

"Last year, we maintained a solid and healthy growth," Sun said in the email. She said Huawei's contract sales are expected to increase 28.8 percent to $30 billion in 2009.

The worldwide economic slowdown has prompted many telecom operators to trim spending growth, resulting in a fall in demand of new equipment from suppliers, including Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks.

The more price competitive Chinese telecom equipment makers such as Huawei and ZTE Corp are in a better position than their foreign counterparts to compete in the international marketplace.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7373077.htm

The southern province of Guangdong, whose economic output exceeded 3.5 trillion yuan (512.1billion U.S. dollars) this year, remains China's economic powerhouse, a report said on Wednesday.

    The report, released by the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, said other provinces, regions and municipalities are unlikely to replace or overtake Guangdong in economic output in the near future.

    Guangdong's economic output this year is expected to be at least 500 billion yuan more than that of Shandong or Jiangsu provinces, which ranked second and third last year, according to the report.

    Guangdong was an agricultural province before China launched the reform and opening-up drive in 1978. At that time, its economic output was about 20 billion yuan, or 5 percent of the national economy.

    However, it grew at an average annual rate of 13.45 percent in the past three decades, 3,5 percentage points higher than the national level, and accounted for one-eighth of the national economy last year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/...nt_10587308.htm

China's first grid-connected solar power station built in a desert entered operation on Friday in Wuwei City, northwest China's Gansu Province.

    Built with a total installed capacity of 1 megawatt, the Datang Wuwei Solar Power Station in Tengger Desert was developed by the China Datang Corporation, China's second largest power producer.

    Only half of the planned installed capacity was in production on Friday, which will have an annual output of 870,000 kwh.

    The project is scheduled for full completion by the end of next year, said Jiang Pingsuo, chief engineer of Datang's subsidiary in Gansu Province.

    The desert enjoys 2,210 hours of sunshine a year usable for power generation, which mean a 1-megawatt solar panel can generate1.74 million kwh of electricity a year, said Jiang.

    He said that the operation of the solar station is a breakthrough in the country's exploitation of the solar energy in desert region.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/...nt_10529198.htm

Amid a surge in planned infrastructure projects next year aimed at boosting domestic demand, China plans to almost double its investment in railways to about 600 billion yuan (87.9 billion U.S. dollars).

    The money is part of the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package announced by the government earlier this year.

    In 2008, China spent 330 billion yuan on railways, according to a national conference on railway construction held here Wednesday.

    Part of next year's 600 billion yuan would be used to build a total of 5,148 km of new rails, said Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun at the meeting.

    The money will also help put five passenger-dedicated, high-speed lines into operation next year, according to Liu. These rails will link the central city of Wuhan to the southern city of Guangzhou; Zhengzhou in central Henan Province to Xi'an in northwest Shaanxi Province; Ningbo to Wenzhou, both in east China's Zhejiang Province; Wenzhou to Fuzhou in southern Fujian Province; and Fuzhou to Xiamen, also in Fujian.

    The ministry also planned to start 70 new projects next year with part of the money. Those projects will need a total investment of 1.5 trillion yuan to be completed, Liu said.

    RAIL TRANSPORT STRAIN TO BE EASED

    Liu also predicted railway travel would be much easier by 2012. Currently, there are not enough seats for all the people who want to travel, especially during the Spring Festival every year, when millions are on the move.

    "There could be a historical change in the country's railway transport by 2012. The bottle-neck restraints both in passenger and cargo transportation could be removed," he said.

    Railways inside the country would reach 110,000 km by 2012. About 13,000 km of passenger lines, which allow trains to travel between 200 to 350 km per hour, would be put into use.

    "Such coverage of passenger rails should be able to ensure that passenger needs are satisfied," he said

    Rail lines across the country added up to 78,000 km at the end of 2007.

    The ministry also plans to add more rails to busy routes and to provide separate rails for passenger and cargo transport. This should also help boost transport capacity and efficiency by 2012.

    Liu envisioned inter-city rail systems would be put into place by 2012 in populous regions, such as the Shanghai-led Yangtze River Delta, Guangzhou-centered Pearl River Delta and Beijing-led Bohai areas.

    Construction on railways began to boom in China after the country initiated a mid- and long-term plan in 2004. Liu said the country revised the plan this year so the distance of rail lines would increase to 120,000 km by 2020, from the original goal of 100,000 km.

    The country also raised rail speeds to help with passenger flow. The latest change came in April last year.

    About 1.46 billion people traveled by rail this year, up 10.9 percent from last year. Both transport capacity and efficiency had improved after train speeds increased, Liu said.

    In addition, 3.3 billion tonnes of cargo had been delivered by rail, up 4.9 percent year on year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/...nt_10587052.htm

[eachus]

Page #4,  Post #129

You think India is better than China? check this out:
The Economist: The World in 2004. Pg.42 by Simon Long

China: GDP: $1,463 bn
Population: 1.3bn

India: GDP: $639 bn
Population: 1.1bn

It is very interesting.  these data were posted in 2004,
It looked like 2003 GDP data.
Chinese GDP was 2.23 times of Indian GDP --- China had 123% more GDP.
from that time, Indians called "Chase China" and "Pass China".
only 5 years later In 2008, China became GDP 3.5 times of Indian ($4.2T vs $1.2T)
GDP --- China had 250% more.  That means China out grew India
127% more within 5 years.  If India grew 8%, China GDP grew
at average 26% annually in the last 5 years(exchange rate GDP)
relative to India.  the absolute GDP grew was $2.76T for China,
and $0.60T for India. China out grew India in $2.16 trillion.

In 2004, The entire western media said India had better political
system, better banking system. Indians said they have better
education system(colleges).  I tell you the true, they intend
to press down the value of Chinese banks, everyone was buying.
now they sell chinese bank stocks dirty cheap still make 200%
profit profit. And the top 5 worlds biggest bank in value
is mostly Chinese banks(3 of them).  The number 3 largest
Chinese bank is worth more than all Indian banks together in value.
top 5 Chinese banks have profit grow in 100+% per year.  
who is better?

The fact, China produces and consumes 10 times steel and cement
annually than India.  that spells India need to work hard
for 10 years to come up with 1 Chinese year in infrastructure build up.


Country 2008 GDP(billion USD)
1 United States 14,334.03
2 Japan 4,844.36
3 China 4,222.42
4 Germany 3,818.47
5 France 2,978.12
6 United Kingdom 2,787.37
7 Italy 2,399.29
8 Russia 1,778.69
9 Spain 1,683.23
10 Brazil 1,664.66
11 Canada 1,564.08
12 India 1,237.45   ==(not actual, 2007 GDP was Rupee 41T, 8% grows is 44T / 48 = $0.9 trillion, not $1.2T)
13 Mexico 1,142.63
14 Australia 1,069.34
15 Korea 953.489
16 Netherlands 909.465
17 Turkey 798.863
18 Poland 567.413
19 Belgium 530.613
20 Saudi Arabia 528.322
21 Sweden 512.889
22 Indonesia 496.826
23 Switzerland 492.553
24 Norway 481.148
25 Austria 432.404
26 Taiwan Province of China 424.061
27 Iran, Islamic Republic of 382.328
28 Greece 373.516
29 Denmark 369.583
30 Argentina 338.721

International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, October 2008
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/20...pr.y=8#download

[jhl]

China Mobile was named the most valuable telecom brand, worth $30.8 billion, in a recent report.

According to The World's Most Valuable Mobile Telecoms Brands 2008, released by UK brand consulting company Intangible Business, China Mobile is the world's biggest mobile telecoms operator with 400 million subscribers and 20 percent annual revenue growth. Its income was nearly $50 billion in 2007.

It is followed by Britain's Vodafone, which is worth $22.1 billion in brand value. Verizon Wireless, from the US, ranked third with $20.4 billion.

The China Mobile brand was also scored highest by the panel of industry experts and had the strongest overall brand score, the report said.

The report considered comprehensive aspects including turnover, subscriptions, market share, average revenue per user and level of relative profitability of each brand.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7402000.htm

Over 1,000 journalists and industry experts swarmed BYD Auto's news conference Monday, an almost unprecedented scene for Chinese car makers in the history of the renowned Detroit Auto Show.

    The Shenzhen-based Chinese carmaker launched the world's first commercialized plug-in electric vehicle at the Detroit show Monday, a move described by some as a silver lining amid the pall of gloom cast by the global financial slump.

Rawlinson noted that the fervent attention from Western customers would actually shore up the Chinese carmaker in its effort to enter the U.S. auto market and "Europe, too."

    In terms of marketing strategies, Rawlinson suggested BYD work with more independent business consultants as well as industry critics, who he said would "step back and point out areas that BYD can improve upon."

    Brian Henderson, an independent auto analyst, was very impressed by BYD's background as a renowned battery manufacturer.

    BYD produces 70 percent of its vehicle parts including all core parts including the battery, and exports to more than 20 countries, with Russia as its main customer.

    Eco-friendly products are the future of the auto industry and China leads the way in the practical use of electric power in autoproduction, Henderson said.

    The American analyst, who has worked with Japanese automakers, told Xinhua BYD has apparently learned from other successful automakers before going this far to present such a revolutionary product.

    However, it will take more effort and time for BYD to enter the United States, one of the world's most competitive markets, he said.

    Aside from advanced technologies, quality and proved reliability still hold the key to business success, he noted.

    Henderson highlighted the urgent need for Chinese car producers like BYD to get better connected with potential U.S. customers, through such means as opening an office in the United States.

    "You have to let your customers become familiar with your brand," he said.

    He expressed strong approval of Chinese automakers' plans to recruit auto engineers in the Motor City, as Detroit is called, to bring on board top-notch talents to help further improve their products.

    The potential profits Chinese automakers promise seem to have attracted some U.S. investors as the big three U.S. auto giants remain teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

    Max Holmes, president of China Car Distributors, showed intense interest in ushering BYD into the U.S. auto market.

    Praising F3DM for its "advanced and feasible" technology and "appealing" design, Holmes said BYD's chances of capturing a share of the U.S. market was very "promising" if it passed crash and other safety tests.

    BYD's plan to march into the United States is "ambitious but practical," he added.

    Nevertheless, skepticism remains on the prospects of Chinese cars in their foray into U.S. markets, at least for now.

    BYD might not be ready yet for the U.S. market, which always doubts the reliability and safety of a new car, said Todd Lassa, Detroit Editor of multimedia Motor Trend.

    But he admitted BYD, especially with its F3DM, had made an "impressive debut" in Detroit.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10651544.htm

Shenhua Group, the country's biggest coal producer, said on Jan 5 that its first direct coal-to-liquids (CTL) project, the first of its kind in China, had already started operation.

The project, launched on Dec 30, has started to produce fuels and chemical products, all up to standard, according to a statement posted on the company's website, adding the launch was right on schedule.

Ning Chenghao, a researcher with Shenhua CTL institute told China Daily in December that the launch of this project might be postponed to early 2009 "for several reasons", which he did not specify.

According to Ning, the cost for generating each barrel of oil was estimated at about $45 in 2007, but "the figure has changed as the prices of coal and oil have been fluctuating this year (2008)".

The cost of running a CTL project in winter is quite high because "it requires the use of more techniques to ensure the water, which is critical for CTL projects, will not be frozen in the pipes", said Jiao Hongqiao, a senior engineer with Shenhua Group.

Located in Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the 10-billion-yuan ($1.46 billion) CTL facility is reported to be capable of producing one million tons of fuels annually. The project is also the world's first major liquefaction plant that employs direct coal liquefaction technology.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7371483.htm

China's gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to drop to 8.4 percent this year from last year's 9.1 percent, but the country remains an engine for East Asia and even for global growth, according to a forecast report released by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Friday in Beijing.

    The report also made an optimistic forecast of 8.9 percent and a worst-case 7 percent. UN economists said China's economy might slow to 7 percent if the global credit crisis continued to linger, the recession in Europe and the United States deepened and fiscal responses delayed.

    The government set the goal of 8 percent growth this year at the Central Economic Work Conference held on Dec. 8.

    The report said China contributed to about 22 percent of the global growth in 2008, and would likely to contribute a higher proportion this year, as most developed economies had been draggedin to recession.

    East Asia would experience a continuing economic deceleration with the region's 2009 GDP growth expected to fall to 6 percent from 6.9 percent in 2008 due to weakening trade with Europe and the United States, according to report.

    Growth of the world economy was expected to fall to 1 percent from 2.5 percent in 2008.

    The report forecast the U.S. economy would decline 1 percent and Europe 0.7 percent this year, compared with 2008 growth of 1.2percent and 1.1 percent respectively.

    UN economists said the global decline would have been bigger without the continued strong growth in China's domestic final demand.

    However, China's slowing foreign trade curtailed its previously robust economic growth. The country's GDP growth rate for 2007 was revised to 13 percent from 11.9 percent on Wednesday.

    The General Administration of Customs reported Tuesday that China's exports and imports declined for a second consecutive month in December, reflecting weakening external and domestic demand.

    Exports fell 2.8 percent from a year earlier to 111.16 billion U.S. dollars, while imports fell 21.3 percent to 72.18 billion U.S. dollars.

    Zhu Baoliang, vice director of the State Information Center said, "The 9.1 percent in 2008 is still impressive growth, and China remains the powerhouse for the world economy."

    Wang Tongsan, director of the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was confident that the country would achieve the goal of 8 percent growth.

    He said China had rushed out a series of plans to sustain the economy and was considering more measures to take effect in the second half.

    China launched a fiscal stimulus package of 4 trillion yuan (586 billion U.S. dollars) to boost domestic demand in both infrastructure investment and consumption during 2009 and 2010.

    The central bank had cut interest rates five times and reduced the deposit reserve ratio four times since September 2008 to sustain economy.

    Plans to boost automobile and steel sectors, the "pillar industries", were rolled out on Wednesday, and more specific measures for manufacturing and the oil refining industry are expected.

    The report said with 1.9 trillion U.S. dollars in foreign exchange reserves and balanced books, China had enough policy space to adopt more expansionary fiscal policy necessary for stimulating domestic demand, to offset the severe drop in exports.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10671286.htm

[jhl]

China plans to complete its independent global satellite navigation system by launching about 30 more orbiters before 2015, a space technology official said Sunday.

    China plans to send 10 navigation satellites into the space in 2009 and 2010, said Zhang Xiaojin, director of astronautics department with China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) told China Central Television (CCTV).

    The plan is to establish a global navigation system consisting of more than 30 satellites by the year of 2015. The system will shake off the dependence on foreign systems, Zhang said.

    U.S.'s GPS has been widely used for commercial navigation in vehicles, cell phones and other civilian devices in China. Chinese civilian and military users could be guided by their own satellites worldwide after the Beidou becomes the world's fourth edition of global navigation systems.

    China launched the first satellite, Beidou Navigation System, into geostationary orbit in Oct. 2000, in an effort to build up its own positioning system independent from the U.S.'s Global Positioning System (GPS), E.U.'s Galileo Positioning System and Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS).

    China has sent five positioning orbiters into the space. The current Beidou system only provides regional navigation service within China's territory.

    Since Beidou's fifth orbiter launched in April 2007, China has started to upgrade the navigation system to the second generation, code named COMPASS.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10684404.htm

The State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC), the country's biggest power supplier, said Sunday that its 2008 net profit fell almost 80 percent year on year due to natural disasters and higher power prices.

    Net profit was 9.66 billion yuan (1.4 billion U.S. dollars), compared with 47.1 billion yuan in 2007.

    Revenue rose 13.8 percent to 1.156 trillion yuan from a year earlier, the state-owned company noted.

    The power distributor suffered more than 22 billion yuan (3.2 billion U.S. dollars) of direct economic loss in the worst winter weather in at least 50 years in southern China and the May 12 earthquake.

    China raised the on-grid power price by 0.017 yuan per kwh in June and 0.02 yuan kwh in August to around 0.3 yuan per kwh on average to offset rising costs in power plants. But retail household power prices were capped amid concerns of a higher inflation.

    The company said it planned to invest 83 billion yuan (12 billion U.S. dollars) in ultra-high voltage (UHV) power lines in 2009 and 2010 to make long-distance transmission more efficient.

    China's power demand and installed power generating capacity would likely double to 7.4 trillion kwh and 1.47 billion kw respectively in 2020, it forecasted.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10678968.htm

About 15,000 enterprises were punished for pollution last year and nearly 100 people deemed responsible were disciplined, China's environmental regulator told a national environmental protection meeting held here Tuesday.

    Environmental Protection Minister Zhou Shengxian told the meeting that "China made great progress last year in pollution abatement."

    According to Zhou, 156 projects totaling 473.7 billion yuan (about 69 billion U.S. dollars) were rejected last year because they were deemed to be energy-intensive or highly polluting.

    Approved projects, numbering 579, will prevent the emission of 468,600 tons of sulfur dioxide and 38,400 tons of chemical oxygen, he said.

    China increased urban sewage treatment capacity by 12.8 million tons daily and installed desulfurized coal-fired generating units with a combined capacity of 86 million kw.

    As of September, more than 51 billion yuan had been invested in 881 projects to control pollution on eight major rivers, including the Huaihe, Haihe and Songhua rivers.

    In rural areas, 500 million yuan was used for environmental protection programs covering more than 700 villages and up to 4 million people.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10657982.htm

Commercial banks in China reported a sharp decline in both non-performing loans (NPLs) and the NPL ratio last year, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said Sunday.

    The NPL ratio of lenders, including foreign banks, was 2.45 percent at the end of 2008, down by 3.71 percentage points from a year ago, the CBRC said.

    In addition, outstanding NPLs was reduced by 700.24 billion (102 billion U.S. dollars) to 568.18 billion yuan (83 billion U.S. dollars).

    The banks' total assets at home were 62.4 trillion yuan (9.1 trillion U.S. dollars) by the end of December, up 18.6 percent from a year earlier, the banking regulator stated.

    Liu Mingkang, CBRC chairman, Friday called on domestic banks to boost risk management and continue strict controls of NPLs and theNPL ratio.

    The government has urged lenders to extend more credit since late last year, amid other efforts to spur the economic growth. But this has aroused worries of rising bad loans in deteriorating economic conditions.

    China's economy slowed sharply last year, hit by weakening exports and property investment. The gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 9 percent annually in the third quarter, compared with 10.1 percent in the second quarter and 10.6 in the first quarter.

    The government is scheduled to release economic data for December next week.

    Leading economist Cheng Siwei said earlier this month that the economy would start to recover in the second half of the year, but will regain full steam in 2011.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10678253.htm

[jhl]

China's State Council, or Cabinet, passed a long awaited medical reform plan which promised to spend 850 billion yuan (123 billion U.S. dollars) by 2011 to provide universal medical service to the country's 1.3 billion population.

    The plan was studied and passed at Wednesday's executive meeting of the State Council chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao.

    Medical reform has been deliberated by authorities since 2006.

    Growing public criticism of soaring medical fees, a lack of access to affordable medical services, poor doctor-patient relationship and low medical insurance coverage compelled the government to launch the new round of reforms.

    According to the reform plan, authorities would take measures within three years to provide basic medical security to all Chinese in urban and rural areas, improve the quality of medical services, and make medical services more accessible and affordable for ordinary people.

    The meeting decided to take the following five measures by 2011:

    -- Increase the amount of rural and urban population covered by the basic medical insurance system or the new rural cooperative medical system to at least 90 percent by 2011. Each person covered by the systems would receive an annual subsidy of 120 yuan from 2010.

    -- Build a basic medicine system that includes a catalogue of necessary drugs produced and distributed under government control and supervision starting from this year. All medicine included would be covered by medical insurance, and a special administration for the system would be established.

    -- Improve services of grassroots medical institutions, especially hospitals at county levels, township clinics or those in remote villages, and community health centers in less developed cities.

    -- Gradually provide equal public health services in both rural and urban areas in the country.

    -- Launch a pilot program starting from this year to reform public hospitals in terms of their administration, operation and supervision, in order to improve the quality of their services.

    Government at all levels would invest 850 billion yuan by 2011 in order to carry out the five measures according to preliminary estimates.

    The meeting said the five measures aimed to provide universal basic medical service to all Chinese citizens, and pave the road for further medical reforms.

    The meeting also decided to publish a draft amendment to the country's regulation on the administration on travel agencies for public debate.

    It also ratified a list of experts and scholars who would receive special government allowances.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10698501.htm

Renminbi may possibly replace the U.S. dollar as the international reserve currency 15 years from now, prominent international investor Jim Rogers said Monday.

    Addressing the Asian Financial Forum, an event that brought together about a thousand participants from around the globe, Rogers said he found Asia to be the place where "the world is changing" as he toured world in 1990 through 1992.

    Rogers said his elder daughter, who was five years old, is in school in Asia and speaks fluent mandarin thanks to a governess who can speak fluent Chinese.

    The other daughter, younger, was also learning mandarin.

    The 68-year-old co-founder of the Quantum Fund said the only currency that could replace the U.S. dollar "this year" would be the euro, while the only conceivable currency that can replace the dollar as the reserve currency "15 years from now" is renminbi.

    "It's big enough. It's liquid enough," he said, adding that the question was only academic in the sense that the renminbi is still a blocked currency.

    Rogers said he believed China will rise in spite of possible setbacks.

    The United States also experienced setbacks and had various problems back in the 19th century, which, nevertheless, did not stop it from becoming the greatest success of the 20th century, he said.

    The U.S. dollar, on the other hand, is falling, he said, citing the fact that China is now the largest creditor nation while the United States is largest debtor nation.

    The pound sterling has also gone through a similar process when it was gradually replaced by the United States dollar as the reserve currency.

    "The single most important advice I can give you is teaching your child mandarin," he said, urging investors to sell U.S. dollars when it peaked in near term as there could possibly be an artificial rally followed by even bigger problems.

    The Asian Financial Forum was hosted by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and Hong Kong Trade Development Council. Prominent speakers discussed the challenges facing the Asian economies and the opportunities thereof.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10685200.htm

China busted about one thousand exam sitters, the highest in recent years, for trying to cut corners to be civil servants by cheating in the annual central government civil servant exam.

More than 300 exam sitters were caught cheating on site in the exam rooms on November 30, while another 700 were busted after their exam paper were found to have "shared much conformity", the State Administration of Civil Service said here on Sunday.

The cheaters were mainly found in the northeastern province of Liaoning and the capital city of Beijing.

They would be disqualified for the exam, and, in serious cases, be barred from the civil servant exams for both central and local governments for the next five years, it said.

In China's highly competitive national exams, where chances of success are very slim, many applicants, especially the less academically inclined, are lured to cheat.

A total of 775,000 people actually took the exam which qualifies them for 13,500 national civil servant jobs. That means 57 people were competing for one position.

In an extreme case, one position with the China Disabled Persons' Federation had more than 4,700 applicants.

Hi-tech items, such as neatly disguised wireless transmitters, are becoming new ways to cheat on the civil servant exam, the administration said, adding that some cheaters even plant micro earplug in their ears before the exam so that they can receive radio broadcasting from their accomplices during the exam.

The country has already set up a database which contains the information of people caught cheating on the civil servant exam.

Cheaters' names and identification card numbers will be put into a database to serve as a recruiting reference for central and local governments. Also on the list will be information from those caught violating recruitment rules.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-01...ent_7407973.htm

The Top 10 News Stories on Scientific Development in 2008 at home and abroad were announced on January 18. They were selected by 522 academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).

The Top 10 News Stories on Scientific Development in 2008 in China were:

--the successful launch of Shenzhou VII and China's first spacewalk

--a major breakthrough in research and industrialization of China's Next Generation Internet (CNGI)

--the opening of China's first world-class high speed railway between Beijing and Tianjin

--the publishing of research results for the first Chinese human genome sequence

--the successful completion of construction of the second phase of the Beijing Electron Positron Collider (BEPC II) project

--Dawn 5000A's ranking among the world's top 10 supercomputers

--the completion of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) with the highest spectrum acquiring rate in the world

--the successful first test flight of China's first independently-developed regional jet

--the successful test completion of the quantum repeater

--and the insect-resistant transgenic cotton which allows crops in northern China to be free from insect damage

The Top 10 News Stories on Scientific Development in 2008 in the world were:

--new developments in embryonic stem cell research

--the Phoenix Lander's successful landing on Mars and the discovery of water there

--the development of a supercomputer with the fastest operation speed in the world

--the formal launching of Europe's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project

--the development of a nanomachine that kills cancer cells

--the engineering of the first human nerve-cell tissue system

--a major breakthrough in iron-based superconducting material research

--the first complete mapping of the structural core of the human cerebral cortex

--the discovery that hydrocarbons found on Titan exceed oil and gas reserves on Earth

--and the completion of the largest-ever survey on human genetic diversity.

The selection is an annual event which has been held 15 times, co-sponsored by the General Office of the Academic Divisions of the CAS, the General Office of the Academic Divisions of the CAE and the Science Times

Throughout the years, the Top 10 played a positive role in helping the general public have a deeper understanding of new trends in scientific development at home and abroad while publicizing and popularizing science and technology.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90781/90879/6576901.html

[marchpole]

China Railway wins USD 805 million railway contract in Libya  
http://steelguru.com/news/index/2009/01/27...t_in_Libya.html

It is reported that China Railway Construction Corp is reported to have won a USD 805 million contract to build a new railway in Libya.

The 172km line will take around 54 months to complete. No further details have been provided.

The report said that the deal follows a USD 2.6 billion contract last year to build two other rail lines, a 352 kilometer railway along Libya's Mediterranean coast from Khums to Sirt and an 800 kilometer line in the south from Sebha to Misurata.

The coastal railroad is slated for completion in four years and the southern line should take three years.

[jhl]

Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest man-made cave houses and privately-owned pottery workshops in China which date back 5,500 years.

    After four years of excavation, a row of 17 cave houses were found on a cliff along the Jinghe River in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Wang Weilin, deputy director of the Shaanxi Archaeology Institute and chief archaeologist of the excavation, told Xinhua.

    They were built between 3,500 to 3,000 BC, near the Yangguanzai village of Gaoling county, 20 km away from the provincial capital Xi'an.

    Wang said the row of houses are within a 16,000-square-meter site which is being excavated.

    The cave houses belonged to a late Neolithic culture named Yangshao. It originated in the middle reach of the Yellow River and was considered a main origin of Chinese civilization. Yangshao is best known for red pottery ware with painted patterns and animals.

    Each cave house, with an area of about ten square meters, was divided into two rooms. One was dug into the cliff side, the other, possibly made of wood and mud, was built on the outside of the cave, Wang said.

    Archaeologists also found pottery kilns and caves to store pottery beside the houses as well as pottery wares, fragments and tools.

    "Most of the cave houses had a pottery kiln beside it. We believe these cave houses were homes to families of pottery makers," Wang said.

    In previous excavations of Neolithic settlements in China, one pottery kiln was usually used by all families, he said. "Here we found the earliest evidence that a certain group of people were specialized in making pottery, a sign of division of labor."

    Caves storing pottery also show private ownership of property had emerged, Wang added.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10717077.htm

China yesterday unveiled a package of policies including financial supports and government procurement to prop up the country's home-grown 3G standard.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released on its website 15 policies to support TD-SCDMA, which rivals more mature foreign peers WCDMA and CDMA2000 in the country's 3G arena launched earlier this month.

The supportive measures on TD-SCDMA include promoting network construction, bringing TD-SCDMA products into government procurement programs and providing financial support in the standard's research and development.

The policies came shortly after China handed out long-delayed 3G licenses on Jan 7, which had long been postponed but recently got approved as part of the country's effort to stimulate its slowing economic growth amid the financial crisis.

MIIT said yesterday that Chinese telecom operators are expected to spend 170 billion yuan in 3G this year, and about 400 billion yuan by 2011.

It said China Mobile, the country's largest cell phone carrier, will spend 58.8 billion yuan in 2009 to build its TD-SCDMA network, while smaller rivals China Unicom and China Telecom will invest 30 billion yuan each to develop their WCDMA and CDMA 2000 networks. These three carriers are aiming to attract about 50 million 3G users over the next three years, MIIT said.

According to earlier reports, China Mobile will build about 60,000 base stations by the end of 2009 when its coverage will serve more than 70 percent of all Chinese cities. China Unicom and China Telecom will also launch their 3G services in major Chinese cities before the first half of this year.

Experts predict that China Mobile's dominating position in the telecom market will be weakened as its competitors China Unicom and China Telecom are expected to get wide support from multinationals like Nokia and Samsung, which have released WCDMA and CDMA2000-based handsets in overseas markets.

China Mobile had 457 million users last year, an increase of 87.91 million over 2007. China Telecom's CDMA users fell to 27.91 million by the end of 2008, down from 42 million users when it acquired the business from China Unicom in June last year. China Unicom has 133 million mobile users.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7424041.htm

Haier, China's largest maker of home appliances, saw its net profit up 20.6 percent last year thanks to the central government's initiative to subsidize purchases by rural residents.

    The group's turnover increased 8 per cent to 122 billion yuan (17.8 billion U.S. dollars) last year.

    The achievement came from effective control of inventory levels as well as trade and bill receivables, said its CEO Zhang Ruimin.

    The Qingdao-based Haier has taken lessons from the 1997 Asian financial crisis and is preparing to respond to crisis every day, Zhang said.

    Sales in overseas markets rose 9.8 percent year on year.

    Zhang said the key to the growth in China was the fast-growing rural market.

    Haier is benefiting from the central government's subsidy scheme to spur domestic consumption that began its trial run in December 2007. The second round of the scheme began on Dec. 1 last year.

    The scheme entitles each of the 180 million rural households to a 13 percent government rebate on purchase of one home appliance item. These include televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, mobile telephones, air conditioners, water heaters, computers and motorcycles.

    Haier sold 1.2 million units of home appliances, generating revenue that made up 42 per cent of the country's whole sales through the first round of the scheme .

    It has 21,000 outlets in Chinese townships and 73,000 sales points in villages. Some 230,000 people have got jobs from Hai'er countryside strategy.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10727295.htm

SEVENTY-seven days after the country's pioneer Satellite, NigComSat-1 disappeared in orbit, Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NigComSat-1) and its Chinese technical partners, China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), have sealed a deal for the replacement of NigComSat-1 and staggered building of two other satellites - NigComSat-2 and NigComSat-3.

Government sources at the weekend said the deal was sealed last week between both companies and representatives of Nigeria and China.

NigComSat-1 disappeared on November 10, last year as a result of power failure, throwing many businesses and corporate organisations into a dilemma since there was no backup.

But officials of NigComSat said at the weekend that the reason for the building of two additional satellites was principally to serve as backup and forestall a situation where businesses crash along with a failed satellite.

For example, Astra 5A satellite which served many cable networks in Germany and Internet networks across Eastern Europe crashed last week but because it had a back-up all customers were smoothly migrated to another Astra satellite with minimal losses.

The replacement of NigCOmSat-1 will be concluded in the last quarter of next year (2010) while NigCOmSat-2 and NigCOmSat-3 will come on stream six months and 12 months respectively from the re-launch of NigCOmSat-1.

NigComSat-1, unlike ASTRA 5A, had no back-up satellite thus exposing the Nigeria satellite company to one of the industry's most dreaded challenges that is, inability to switch clients to other satellites when problems occur in orbit. To prevent a recurrence, China wants a staggered plan for the launch of NigComSat- 2 and NigComSat-3 built into the new deal as part of strategies to avoid the dilemma faced by customers when the solar panel of Africa's first communication satellite failed last year.

The Chinese are going ahead with the building of the replacement satellite for NigComSat-1 while under-writers work on insurance claims by China and Nigeria. NigcomSat-1 was built by the CGWIC at a cost of $256 million.

Operated by NigComSat Limited, it became the first African geosynchronous communications satellite when it was launched. NigComSat-1 was insured by a consortium of international insurance firms - including SpaceCo of France, Munich Cray of Germany and the People's Insurance Company of China. Local insurance companies, which banded together as co-insurers, retained about 10 per cent of the risks and shared an equivalent percentage of the premium.

China is also providing the lead fund for the replacement of the NigComSat-1 and the subsequent launch of the two back-up satellites, a senior ministry official said in Abuja.

His words: "The Chinese government is particularly worried by the misconception surrounding the satellite as expressed in the media here in the country. It is also concerned that its first efforts at exporting its satellite technology to a country like Nigeria is being mis-construed by the unfortunate loss. It has, therefore, given instructions that all efforts must be put together to straighten things out. But the Nigerian and Chinese governments are keen to address the challenge quickly."

The NigComSat- project inspired Nigeria's push to have its own satellite built by its own engineers by 2015. One of the cardinal aims of the initiative was to create a pool of Nigerian satellite engineers to sustain the country's entry into space technology.

"The cornerstone of Nigeria's Communications Satellite project is to develop indigenous capability in satellite building, hence the inclusion of training under a Know How Technology Transfer (KHTT) programme for the company's engineers. The training and learning under the programme can never be lost but rather developed further and applied as in the present case to address national technological challenges and requirement," said NigComSat Limited in an official statement by its Director of Strategy, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Abimbola Alale.

NigComSat-1 was recorded as an in-orbit loss 18 months after its successful launch to join the league of other satellites that have been parked in orbit.

The satellite industry remains a high-stake venture with a mix of great benefits and risks. According to Geng Kun, spokesman for CGWIC, "the solar wing malfunctioned, which led to exhaustion of electric power, then the satellite failed. Most satellites carry solar panels on an extendable wing to generate electricity, with backup batteries activated only when in the earth's shadow."

More than 60 satellites built in Europe, Asia and the Americas have in the last 18 months been lost in space with varying degrees of problems. But solar panel failure accounts for a greater percentage of the loss. They include the loss of Intelsat 802, Thaicom 3, built by Europe-based Alcatel Alenia Space, Hotbird 3 owned and operated by Eutelsat, PAS-6 communication satellite, RASCOM QAF-1 and Galaxy 26 among others between 2004 and 2008.

Alale added: "Nigeria's challenges with NigComSat-1 highlights some of the learning curves of India's entry into the satellite industry over a decade ago. India's first attempts in space with INSAT-1A built by Ford Aerospace of USA, now Loral Space System, and launched on April 10, 1982 failed barely four months later on September 6, 1982. One year later, a replacement satellite, INSAT-B, built by the same firm launched on August 30, 1983 also suffered until September 1983 when the controllers were able to deploy its solar array, thus enabling it to operate until 1990 when it was finally replaced by INSAT-ID.

"India's third satellite, INSAT-1C launched on 21 July, 1988 to provide back-up to INSAT-1B, also failed one year in-orbit in 1999 when a power system failure knocked out one of the two buses. Unrelenting, India forged ahead to the point where it developed its first indigenous satellite that was launched in 1992 barely 10 years after its first satellite purchase.

"Despite the NigComSat-1 failure, "a lot has been and is being achieved by this project. Nigeria today remains the first country in Africa to own a communications satellite and among the first 45 nations of the world to have a satellite in space. We are also among the first 17 to own two spacecraft in a period of three years.

"Today, Nigeria has over 100 spacecraft engineers that have the capacity to design a satellite, assembly, integrate and test with available facilities. Nigerians have developed competency in space craft station keeping and telemetry software engineering which spin off is being channeled in applied research to address national needs and challenges."

http://www.nigeriannewsservice.com/news/11...2009-01-27.html

[jhl]

China's tourism revenue totaled 1.16 trillion yuan (169.5 billion U.S. dollars) last year, up 5.8 percent year-on-year, according to the National Tourism Administration.

    The revenue includes 874.9 billion yuan earned from local travelers and 283.9 billion yuan from overseas tourists. The two figures for 2007 were 777.1 billion yuan and 312.9 billion yuan, respectively.

    The data showed that domestic tourism still held up while inbound tourism declined as the global economic slowdown cut travel demand.

    Last year China received 130 million inbound travelers, including those from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, down 1.4 percent from a year earlier.

    The number of foreign tourists was 24.3 million, down 6.8 percent from the previous year. The number of inbound travelers staying longer than one night dropped 3.1 percent to 53.1 million.

    The global financial crisis cut inbound travel, but China's outbound tourism bucked the trend.

    Chinese tourists made 45.8 million outbound tours in 2008, up 11.9 percent from 2007, as the appreciation of the yuan against most other currencies raises their purchasing power.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10733178.htm

China's spending enthusiasm over the Lunar New Year holiday seemed undimmed by the global financial crisis, figures from the Ministry of Commerce showed Saturday.

    Retail sales rose 13.8 percent to 290 billion yuan (42.4 billion U.S. dollars), from 255 billion yuan over last year's week-long Lunar New Year holiday, or Spring Festival.

    The robust spending was helped by sales promotions in major cities as well as government subsidies for farmers to purchase home appliances.

    Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, organized a shopping campaign with about 10,000 companies offering discounts that added up to 400 million yuan, the ministry said.

    Shopping malls in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Shandong had promotions, free gifts and lucky draws to lure customers, who were willing to spend for the China's major holiday despite the economic downturn.

    "There are more customers than usual. That's totally unexpected. I feel shorthanded on my own," said a salesgirl surnamed Yang, on duty Saturday at Sogo department story in Beijing.

    A sample survey by Beijing Commercial Information and Consultation Center of the Municipal Bureau of Commerce showed 100catering, supermarket and department store companies in the city reported total sales up by 150 million yuan, an average of 8 percent, over the past week.

    Sales of home appliances in rural areas surged as a result of government subsidies.

    The government began in 2007 to grant a 13-percent subsidy to farmers to buy color TVs, refrigerators, mobile phones, washing machines and freezers. The program is in effect in 12 provinces.

    The ministry said leading home appliance producers supporting the program saw sales rise 25.6 percent during the week-long holiday.

    Traditional purchases of food, cigarettes, liquor and wine, fireworks continued to grow, the ministry said.

    Food sales at major retailers rose 23 percent, while beverage sales increased 17.5 percent and combined sales of cigarettes, liquor and wine were up 14.7 percent.

    Meanwhile, China's three major telecom operators estimated that a record 18 billion text messages were sent from Jan. 25 to 31.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10741652.htm

China granted 412,000 patent rights in 2008, up 17.1 percent over the previous year, patent authorities reported on Friday.

These included more than 352,000 domestic applications and 60,000 from abroad, according to the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).

The office also revealed it received over 828,000 patent applications last year, an increase of 19.4 percent year-on-year.

A spokesman for the SIPO said the office did not compile statistics on the number of applications rejected.

Yin Xintian, another spokesman with SIPO, said, "Patent grants in high-tech fields, such as audio-visual, optical and semiconductor technologies, still far behind foreign countries".

Each application took one to three years to be processed, depending on their complexity.

China has granted 2.5 million patent rights since 1997.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7433029.htm

More Chinese firms are slashing executive pay and practicing tighter budgets to get through the economic crisis, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shanghai said Saturday.

    Nine state-owned enterprises in Shanghai, including Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), have pledged to cut the payrolls of top executives. Some enterprises plan to cut executive pay by 15 to 20 percent, or by 40 percent at most, according to the commission.

    Shanghai Electric planned to cut down administration expenditure by 10 percent this year. Shanghai Bailian Group said it would cancel more business trips abroad and ask employees to switch from air travel to trains on domestic travels whenever possible.

    Such announcements are frequent among big Chinese firms as a result of the economic downturn.

    Aluminum Corp. of China, the country's largest aluminum producer, said early last month it would slash payrolls of senior managers by up to 50 percent. To avoid cutting staff, it planned to scale workers' wages down by 15 percent.

    Lenovo Group, China's leading computer maker, said last month it would chop the payrolls of top executive by 30 to 50 percent. Wuhan Iron and Steel Group followed suit to cut salaries of senior managers by 50 percent.

    Top executives of China Eastern Airlines, one of three major carriers in the nation, will receive 10 to 30 percent less monthly income starting Sunday.

    These moves are welcomed by the public as they are considered better alternatives to layoffs and would narrow the income gap between top executives and the general staff.

    Yuan Gangming, a researcher with the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, said slashing executive pay is a common practice for Western firms in difficult times.

    "Such a practice can reduce costs, and is also important to keep valuable human resources for the future development of companies," he said.

    Yuan also urged Chinese enterprises to improve pay scales and employee motivation mechanisms.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/...nt_10744824.htm

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In 2008, national shipbuilding output reached 28.81 million deadweight tons, an increase of 52.2 percent year-on-year. China’s share of the world market had grown from 22.9 percent in 2007 to 29.5 percent, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the PRC on February 2. New shipbuilding orders and shipbuilding orders on hand accounted for 58.18 million deadweight tons and 204.6 million deadweight tons, respectively 37.7 percent and 35.5 percent of the world market.

From January to December 2008, large-scale shipbuilding enterprises nationwide contributed a total of 118.3 billion yuan to raise the value of the whole industry, up by 61.2 percent year-on-year. They also made a total profit of 28.34 billion yuan, up by 50.5 percent year-on-year.

To date, the State Council has already listed the shipbuilding industry as a key industry, as official said. It has also studied and worked out a plan for adjusting and promoting the shipbuilding industry, guiding shipbuilding firms to effectively protect against risks and helping them to maintain a stable and rapid development. These measures have laid a firm foundation for China to become a world shipbuilding power.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90884/6585520.html

China moved from the seventh largest in 2007 to sixth in 2008 in terms of the number of international patent applications, said an intellectual property official here Wednesday.

    The country overtook Britain in the rating, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) Director Tian Lipu, quoted the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as saying.

    The United States, Japan, Germany, Republic of Korea and France took the first five places in the rating.

    In 2008, China filed 6,089 patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), up 11.9 percent over the previous year, he told a meeting held at Zhuhai, a coastal city of southern Guangdong Province.

    The PCT is an international pact that enables patent protection of an invention in each of a large number of its contracting states. Applicants can file an "international" patent application to their own country's patent office or the WIPO international bureau.

    According to the WIPO, 139 states signed the treaty so far.

    "It is also very exciting that a Chinese company filed the most applications among companies from all PCT contracting states for the first time," Tian said.

    China's IT firm Huawei filed 1,737 PCT patent applications last year, eight applications more than Japan's Panasonic.

    "I think this showed that the innovation capability of the country and its enterprises improved," Tian said.

    Enterprises also played an active role in domestic patent applications. Half of the 194,000 patent applications for inventions were handed in by enterprises last year, he said.

    About 40,500 enterprises submitted patent applications last year, up 23.9 percent over 2007.

    However, Chinese enterprises have much more work to do, Tian said.

    Only two Chinese firms, Huawei and another IT firm ZTE Corporation, were in the top 100 PCT applicant companies.

    They contributed one third of the country's total international applications, he said. "Generally speaking, Chinese firms are not active enough in this field."

    The SIPO and Ministry of Finance are planning a policy to provide financial assistance to domestic companies who want to file PCT patent applications, Tian said.

    But he did not reveal the details of the policy as the two departments were still working on it.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/...nt_10764477.htm

China-born Xiang zhong "Jerry" Yang, one of the top cloning scientists in the world, died late Thursday in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, after a long battle with cancer, his secretary Phyllis Horvith confirmed to Xinhua on Friday.

    The 49-year old University of Connecticut scientist died before accomplishing one of his dreams -- the cloning of a human embryo for potentially-life saving stem cells. But his achievements were highly praised by his university.

    "Yang provided critical insights into the mysterious mechanisms of the technique that put University of Connecticut squarely on the frontier of science while laying the groundwork for cooperative research efforts between scientists in the United States and his native China," said a statement by the University of Connecticut.

    Horvith describes Dr. Yang as "wonderful, a good man, a good boss to work for."

    Born in a village called Dongcun, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) south of Beijing, China and educated at Cornell University in the United States, Yang is one of the foremost animal biotechnologists in the world. He joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut as an associate professor of animal science and head of the Biotechnology Center's Transgenic Animal Facility in 1996 and was promoted to full professor in 2000.

    In 2001, he was named founding director of University of Connecticut's new Center for Regenerative Biology, overseeing five new faculty lines investigating basic science in the field of regenerative biology and medicine.

    He built on his China Bridges program that promoted exchanges of professors and proposed the creation of international scientific collaboration to study cloning and other potential ways to create embryonic stem cells for use patients. Several of his students returned to China and became instrumental in jump-starting that country's nascent stem cell research efforts.

    Yang was an advocate for human embryonic stem cell research. His 1999 cloning of a Holstein cow brought the University of Connecticut to national prominence. Amy was the first cloned first animal in the United States.

    Embryonic stem cells are blank cells found in four- to five-day-old embryos, which have the ability to turn into any cell in the body. However, when stem cells are removed, the embryo is destroyed -- which has made this one of the most controversial medical research fields in the past decade.

    U.S. Federal research funds were prohibited for embryonic stem-cell research until August 2001, when former President George W. Bush approved spending for research using only already-existing cell lines. Scientists later discovered that fewer than two dozen of those lines were useful for research, but abortion opponents opposed any legislation that would lift Bush's restrictions, and Bush twice vetoed congressional efforts to roll back his rules.

    New President Barack Obama is expected to loosen the restrictions, which many researchers and advocates have complained severely set back work toward curing disease such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes.

    Dr. Yang's dramatic achievements include:

    First scientist in the world to produce male clones from a prize Japanese breeding bull in 1988.

    First to produce a cloned animal -- the famous calf, Amy -- from an adult farm animal, at University of Connecticut, in 1999.

    First to report that cloned animals have telomeres of normal length, an important observation, since telomeres function as disposable buffers at the ends of chromosomes, preventing loss of genetic information that is essential to cellular function.

    First to report abnormal expression of X-linked genes in cloned animals.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/...nt_10776865.htm

China overtook the United States in vehicle sales for the first time last month, putting it on track to become the world's largest auto market this year, according to a forecast by leading auto-maker General Motors.

    In a monthly conference on Tuesday, Mike DiGiovanni, General Motors executive director of global market and industry analysis, said China sold about 790,000 vehicles in January, meaning that China has overtaken the U.S. in monthly sales for the first time in history.

    The official data for China's auto sales in January will not be released until Feb. 6, but analysts expect that the figures will be pretty much in line with GM's forecast.

    "Chinese auto sales were 859,400 units in January last year. Even with some slippage, the numbers for this year will keep pace," said Zhong Shi, an auto analyst.

    However, it is too soon to conclude that China will be the largest auto market.

    "Despite China's better showing, the situation is still grim," commented Zhong Shi.

    In the U.S., meanwhile, auto sales in January contracted dramatically, down 37.1 percent to 656,881 vehicles in January, the lowest monthly level in 27 years, the U.S. Automotive News reported.

    Although China's car market has been cooling, with consumers wary of spending money since the second quarter of last year, it has seen signs of a recovery since the government announced measures last month to prop up their auto market, which overtook Japan in 2006 to become the world's second-largest.

    The measures seem to have had an impact, as a number of car makers are celebrating a lucrative start to the year.

    South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co. reported its China sales, at 42,790 vehicles, were 17 percent higher than a year earlier. China's domestic automaker Geely forecast that its sales in January will rise 25 percent from the previous year, buoyed by the measures taken to encourage buying small cars through tax breaks.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/...nt_10769550.htm

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Huawei, a major Chinese telecommunications company, for the first time ranks No. 1 in the world among all the company and individual applicants for the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), according to the latest statistics released from the World Intellectual Property Organization. Huawei had the highest number of patent filings, with a total of 1737 applications in 2008.

    Ranking second through fifth were Panasonic (Japan), Philips Electronics NV (Netherlands), Toyota (Japan) and Robert Bosch GMBH (Germany).

    Statistics show in 2008 international PCT filings totaled 164,000, an increase of 2.4 percent year-on-year. The U.S. ranked first in the world with over 53,000 fillings and Japan and Germany came in second and third with over 28,000 and over 18,000 filings respectively. The other countries in the top 10 were South Korea, France, China, the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland in sequence.

    The number of filings from South Korea, China and Sweden recorded the largest increases. Last year, South Korea filed 7,908 patents, China 6,089 patents and Sweden 4,114 patents, representing growth rates as high as 12 percent, 11.9 percent and 12.5 percent respectively.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/...nt_10757403.htm

Profits of China's shipbuilders rose 50 percent in 2008 from the same period a year ago, despite rising material costs and the appreciation of Renminbi, according to data released Monday by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

    Profits jumped 50.5 percent to 28.34 billion yuan (4.05 billion U.S. dollars). The industry value totaled 118.3 billion yuan, up 61.2 percent year on year.

    The nation's shipbuilders completed a production capacity of 28.81 million deadweight tons (DWT), or 29.5 percent of the world's total, up from 22.9 percent in 2007, according to MIIT figures.

    New orders comprised 37.7 percent of the world's total, with a production capacity of 58.18 DWT. Current orders accounted for 35.5 percent of the total, with a capacity of 204.6 million DWT.

    An official with the MIIT said China's shipbuilders had remarkably strengthened their capabilities in innovation and had improved their techniques notably in making bulk cargo ship, oil carrier and container ships.

    They also had the world's leading techniques in making ships that could meet the standards of the international classification society, according to the MIIT official.

    He warned, however, that as the global financial crisis begins to take a toll on the shipbuilding sector, the industry could face severe challenges in the coming two-to-three years.

    He said it has become more difficult for shipbuilders to raise fund as there has been a sharp decrease in new orders and defaults on new orders are on the rise.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/...nt_10752955.htm

Compensation caps for China's State-sector financial companies will be set at 2.8 million yuan (pre-tax revenue), the Economic Observer Online reported yesterday.

The Ministry of Finance has drafted a salary management circular for executives with State-sector enterprises. The annual salary of top executives would be limited within 2.8 million yuan, the online newspaper said, citing sources with an unnamed State-sector enterprise.

According to the draft, the caps of pay packages for executives are four times their annual salary, which ranges between 50,000 yuan and 700,000 yuan.

While the nation's stock investors incurred losses of around 200,000 yuan each on average in 2008, some executives in financial institutions enjoyed huge pay packages.

According to a survey by Shanghai Securities News, 44 brokerage and financial companies spent roughly 20.9 billion yuan in compensation last year, with some firms paying their staff 400,000 yuan each on average.

"The compensation caps in the US are set at $500,000, which is about five times that of a university professor's annual income. In China, the limit can be set at 500,000 yuan, since it's already five times higher than the income of a professor," said Yi Xianrong, a researcher with the financial research center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the government thinktank.

Meanwhile, the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) has conducted salary self-review activities among 230,000 executives with State-owned enterprises.

Those executives are required to review their shares on hand, investment and income last year and refund their illegal shares and income. About 56 top executives in 19 companies reported 13.49 million yuan in illegal shares, Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

Through this review, about 6,990 people with 96 companies have cleared their illegal shares, while 338 middle-level executives with 61 companies reported 13.02 million yuan in income from part-time jobs. Most executives have refunded the income, the report said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02...ent_7460583.htm

New orders of China's shipbuilding industry in 2009 are expected to fall nearly 50 percent from 2008 to as low as 20 million deadweight tons (DWT), according to the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI), an industry association whose members include all major Chinese shipbuilders.

The association also predicted that new shipbuilding worldwide will fall to around 40 million - 60 million DWT.

Because of dwindling demand, China's shipbuilding industry, which is lacking in innovation, is further hit by a rise in order cancellation by shipping companies, CANSI said.

The country's shipbuilders enjoyed a sound return last year, with aggregate profits soaring 50.5 percent from 2007 to 28.34 billion yuan ($4.05 billion). The impact of the global economic downturn wasn't felt until September 2008,

The Chinese shipbuilding industry has a combined production capacity of 28.81 million DWT, accounting for 29.5 percent of the world's total, according to figures from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China has overtaken Japan as the world's second largest shipbuilder after South Korea, according to Clarkson Research Studies, the British intelligence provider on the shipping and offshore industries.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7458145.htm

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China Minmetals Corporation reported Thursday its 2008 business revenue of 180.9 billion yuan (26.6 billion U.S. dollars), with a net profit of 7.1 billion yuan.

    It is the 9th consecutive year that the country's largest metals and minerals producer, processor and trader reported a growth in business and profits. In 2007, the corporation reported a profit of 6.8 billion yuan.

    China Minmetals president Zhou Zhongshu said at the corporation's annual work meeting that the record growth was difficult to achieve against a backdrop of severe natural disasters and the international financial crisis.

    He attributed the good performance to the timely adjustment of business strategies and adaptation to the changing international and domestic business environment.

    China Minmetals set a five-year plan in 2005 to double business revenue to 200 billion yuan and profits to 6 billion yuan, and these targets had been reached one year ahead of schedule, Zhou said.

    In 2008, ferrous and nonferrous metals, the corporation's core businesses, reported a business volume of 25.7 billion U.S. dollars which accounted for 79.5 percent of total profits.

    The corporation's new mineral resources included 30 million tonnes of iron ore, 100 million tonnes of chromium ore, 175 million tonnes of coking coal and 11,000 tonnes of tungsten ore.

    China Minmetals is a leading state-owned corporation mainly engaged in the mining, smelting, production and trade of basic metals and raw materials. In 2008, it ranked 412th in the list of global top 500 enterprises, edging up 23 places.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/...nt_10808294.htm

China's state-owned Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing said on Friday it signed contracts with four other factories, marking the start of mass production of the country's first domestically developed regional jet, the ARJ21-700.

The four companies are the Avici Commercial Aircraft Co Ltd (ACAC) and aircraft component factories in Chengdu, Xi'an and Shenyang. ACAC will produce the main bodies, while the other three will make wings and other parts.

According to Luo Ronghuai, deputy general manager of ACAC, there have been 208 orders for ARJ21 jets from foreign and domestic customers, including an order for 25 from US-based GE Commercial Aviation Services.

The first five planes will be delivered next year, with 10 to be delivered in 2011 and 15 in 2012.

Luo said this year would be "the year of trial flights" as four planes would make trial flights. The first ARJ21-700 made a trial flight in Shanghai on Nov 28.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7477055.htm

China Investment Corp (CIC), the nation's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, made a profit of $10 billion in 2008, Shanghai Securities News quoted an unnamed source as saying.

That would put the CIC's annual return at 5 percent, notwithstanding its controversial investments in US private equity firm Blackstone and investment bank Morgan Stanley. CIC has lost more than half of the $8 billion it invested in the two firms.

Officials from CIC declined to comment.

The source said CIC had $90 billion invested in highly liquid financial assets, including treasury bills and bank notes. These investments yielded a pretax income of $3 billion.

Meanwhile, CIC has also received considerable dividends from its stakes in domestic financial institutions such as China Construction Bank and Bank of China, the source said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7511533.htm

A Chinese space expert said here on Tuesday that China's Long March 5 large-thrust carrier rocket, currently under development and scheduled to be put into service in 2014, uses less fuel for the same load than any other rocket in the world except Boeing's Delta 4 Heavy.

    The jumbo rocket's "carrying capacity factor" -- a key parameter reflecting rocket's performance -- was "the world's second largest", said Liang Xiaohong, vice president of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.

    The Long March 5's "carrying capacity factor" is 0.0146 while Boeing's Delta 4 Heavy is 0.0175, the world's largest, he said.

    When carrying the same load, a rocket with a higher factor needs less fuel, said Liang, also a member of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body, which opened its annual session on Tuesday.

    With a maximum payload capacity of 25 tonnes, Long March 5 is expected to be able to send lunar rovers, large satellites and space stations into space after 2014.

    Liang said "the rocket is currently China's best with the largest payload among the nation's rocket lineup" and was expected to deliver astronauts onto moon.

    He said last year the first launch of the Long March 5 is most likely to happen in Wenchang of the southernmost island province of Hainan, where a new satellite launch center is under construction.

    The new launch center, scheduled to be put into operation in 2014, is close to the equator and hence save rocket fuel.

    Liang said the development of the carrier rocket would produce a "leap forward" in China's rocket technology, in terms of performance and payload.

    The Chinese government approved the development of the rocket in 2007 following two decades of feasibility study. It will be manufactured at a facility in Tianjin, a coastal city near Beijing.

    China currently employs its self-developed Long March 3 series rocket for most space missions, including delivering the country's first lunar probe Chang'e-1 in October 2007.

    The country's first spacewalk by Zhai Zhigang greatly inspired the nation in September. Earlier reports said the priority for this year is to assemble prototypes of Tiangong-1, an unmanned space module to be put into orbit "as early as the end of 2010," the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft and their carrier rockets.

    Chinese scientists also plan to build a new Long March 2F rocket, which carried the Shenzhou-7 manned spacecraft into space last year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/...nt_10937444.htm

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China plans to launch 15 to 16 satellites this year, Zhang Jianqi, deputy chief commander of the manned space project, said here Monday.

"Though the global financial crisis is taking toll on world economy, it has no impact on China's space programs," Zhang, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, told media.

China is at present "batch-producing" the three spacecraft, Shenzhou-8, Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10, according to Zhang.

"This is the first time for the country to conduct researches and production on three spacecraft at the same time," he said.

China plans to launch Tiangong-1, an unmanned space module, into orbit by the end of 2010, he said.

The country plans to launch the Shenzhou-8 and Shenzhou-9 spacecraft in 2011, a former chief designer of the manned-space project said earlier.

Zhang said the country is selecting a new batch of taikonauts, which may include the country's first female taikonaut.

China has sent an average of eight satellites into space annually during the first two years of its 11th five-year-plan (2006-2010), and the number was 1.5 before its ninth five-year-plan (1996-2000), figures from the China Academy of Space Technology showed.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009npc...ent_7555876.htm

Trade between China and Africa reached a record 106.84 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, up 45.1 percent from a year earlier, customs figures showed Wednesday.

    Exports to Africa reached 50.84 billion U.S. dollars, up 36.3 percent. Imports from Africa hit 56 billion U.S. dollars, up 54 percent.

    China had a trade deficit of 5.16 billion U.S. dollars with Africa in 2008, compared with a surplus of 940 million U.S. dollars in 2007.

    The number of African countries with which China had more than 1 billion U.S. dollars in trade increased to 20 in 2008 from 14 in2007.

    Angola remained China's largest trading partner in Africa and South Africa came the second.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/...nt_10803769.htm

China Mobile paid RMB 44.3 billion ($6.48 billion) in taxes in the first nine months of 2008, an increase of 1.6 percent on the same period of the previous year, according to the company's social responsibility report released on Feb. 11.

The year-on-year growth was lower than that for the same period of 2007.

According to Yu Zhoujun, an analyst from CCID Consulting, the main reason behind the slower growth in taxes was that ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) dropped in line with the fall in telecom fees. He said that this trend will force operators to release innovative applications to generate more revenues.

China Mobile also announced that for the whole year of 2007, it paid RMB 53.7 billion ($7.86 billion) in tax.

The report also said that in 2008, China Mobile invested RMB 19.5 billion ($2.85 billion) in providing telephone services to more than 60,000 remote villages. It also funded 3,603 orphans infected with AIDS. The operator built 2,135 energy-saving base stations, and recycled more than 3.95 million handsets and accessories.

In 2008, China Mobile responded to 8.43 million complaints regarding spam messages, according to the report.

http://www.cn-c114.net/576/a383777.html

China's seas contributed 2.97 trillion yuan ($434.53 billion), or 9.87 percent, of the country's GDP last year, according to a report issued by the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) on Friday.

The report on China's marine economy in 2008 said the value of marine industries, including fishing, transport, oil and gas, tourism and shipbuilding, grew 11 percent year-on-year, faster than the nation's economy as a whole.

The main pillars of the marine economy were the traditional industries of transport, tourism and fishing, which accounted for 77.69 percent of total output value, according to the report.

The SOA spokesman Li Haiqing said: "The industries including tourism, transport, and oil and gas saw slower growth in 2008 because of the winter storm at the beginning of last year and the financial crisis in the latter half year."

"Though receiving less orders amid the crisis, the shipbuilding sector managed to maintain fast growth," he said. The value of the shipbuilding industry hit 76.2 billion yuan last year, up 36.4 percent.

Emerging industries, such as the oceanic biological pharmaceutical industry, which generated more than 5.8 billion yuan last year, up more than 28.3 percent year-on-year, grew swiftly, according to the report.

The marine industry employed 32.18 million people last year, 670,000 more than in 2007, the report said.

The gross production value in the Bohai Bay Rim Area was 1.07 trillion yuan, accounting for 36.1 percent of total output of the marine sector. While the gross production of the Yangtze River Delta region amounted to about 958.4 billion yuan, or 32.3 percent of the total output.

"Opportunity outweighs challenges in 2009," Li said in prediction of next year's marine economy development.

Growth in the marine sectors including transport, shipbuilding, and tourism will be further slowed this year due to the international financial turmoil, he said. But the emerging industries will maintain a relative fast growth rate.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7475992.htm

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China yesterday agreed to launch a satellite for Nigeria in 2011 to replace the African country's defunct communications satellite.

China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) president Yin Liming said the new Nigerian Communication Satellite 1R (NIGCOMSAT-1R) will be launched from a Long March 3B vehicle at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province in the fourth quarter of 2011.

China will not charge Nigeria for the replacement satellite, which is designed to remain operational for 15 years, he said.

The defunct NIGCOMSAT-1 stopped operating because the solar array drive assembly failed, Yin said at the signing ceremony.

NIGCOMSAT-1 was launched in May 2007 and handed over to Nigeria that July. But it stopped working in orbit on Nov 11, 2008.

After the failure, the corporation undertook emergency measures and investigated the cause. The probe had remained entirely open to the Nigerian side, which was provided with results in a timely fashion, he said.

Nigerian Communications Satellite Ltd president Ahmed Rufai called the Chinese response to the satellite failure "commendable".

"In-orbit satellite failures happened in Europe and North American, too China won the bid for (its) superiority, both technically and commercially, and we are confident that NIGCOMSAT-1R will be successful," he said.

The agreement signed in Beijing yesterday is expected to strengthen the relationship between the two companies and between China and Nigeria, he said.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/6621412.html

Several archaeologists, once split over when human beings turned from nut collectors into rice farmers, seem to have solved their differences after collaborating on a project using methodologies agreed upon by both parties.

Dorian Fuller from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, joined by Zheng Yunfei from Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Antiquity and Archaeology and a few other Chinese archaeologists, investigated rice remains at the Neolithic excavation site of Tianluoshan, part of the local Hemudu Neolithic Culture that goes back 7,000 years in Zhejing province.

Their research reported in the most recent issue of Science magazine concludes that rice cultivation was slowly domesticated over the course of two or three millennia in the Lower Yangtze region of Zhejiang, China between 6,900 and 6,600 years ago.

"The Hemudu people may not have been the first to initiate rice cultivation, but they certainly did cultivate rice and eventually domesticate it," Zheng tells China Daily.

As one of the oldest rice cultivation bases in the world, Hemudu has attracted much research interest. But not everyone was convinced with the results.

Chinese archaeologists, believe that by the early Holocene (the period starting about 10,000 years ago), Neolithic people in both north and south China may have been harvesting wild rice and initiating rice cultivation that eventually led to domestication, according to Zheng.

Hence, when huge layers of rice remains were discovered in the Hemudu sites in the 1970s, Hemudu was immediately regarded as China's, and probably the world's, cradle of rice cultivation, says Zheng.

Fuller doubted the conclusion as it was based on "presumed domestication", with the long process of domestication "taken for granted, unproven and unquestioned".

Instead, Fuller argued in the study of agricultural origins, it is "prudent to presume plants are wild until evidence can be found to indicate domestication."

Zheng and many other Chinese archaeologists disagreed, saying their research had uncovered traces of the domestication process in many Hemudu sites. They said they had been able to tell the wild grains from domesticated ones, from their sizes.

But professor Qin Ling from Peking University, who is a member of the research team, says: "Grain size is a very indicator as different varieties might have varied sizes in different climate and environment even over the same period of time. But Fuller wanted hard evidence."

Hence, the team turned to another important trait for rice domestication — loss of seed shattering.

Wild rice shatters automatically, while domesticated rice will not, even when it reaches maturity. It needs to be threshed, explains Qin.

As they dug at the Hemudu site, Qin explains, they observed that the percentage of rice remains among all plant remains went up from eight to 24 percent.

This pointed to the increasing dietary importance of rice over time at the site.

The researchers also separated the rice remains into three categories (wild, domestic, and immature) based on their shattering signs, and determined that as time progressed, the domestic type of rice had increased in occurrence from about 27 to 39 percent over the course of 300 years.

"It is on the basis of this indicator that we have come to our conclusion, convincing not only us but also others," says Qin.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-03...ent_7623278.htm

China's BYD Auto said Wednesday that it had accepted Warren Buffet's invitation to display its electric cars in the United States in May.

    Buffet will hold a general meeting of shareholders in Omaha, Neb on May 2. The American billionaire investor recently invited BYD, China's leading company in electric car manufacturing, to show its products at the meeting, according to Xu An, BYD's public relations manager.

    BYD president Wang Chuanfu will attend the meeting, demonstrating F3DM or E6 model to the shareholders, and the company was working on the details of the tour, said Xu.

    The E6 can travel up to over 402 km purely on battery, more than double the range its Western rivals can on a single charge. BYD's innovative battery, used in its dual mode cars, can fully charge in nine hours from a regular electrical outlet, or much faster at charging stations.

    F3DM, China's first mass-produced plug-in hybrid, went on sale in China last December. It was at least a year ahead of General Motors' anticipated Volt. So far, only the U.S. auto giant and Toyota have announced plans to launch plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2010.

    Xu said at present, F3DM is sold to government agencies and corporations only, but the company will start countrywide sales promotions in June.

    Warren Buffet bought 10 percent of BYD stake with 1.8 billion Hong Kong dollars last September, which was his first investment in a Chinese company.

    BYD brought a range of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January.

    BYD's trip to the United States in May would pave way for the green cars into the North American market.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/...nt_11071887.htm

Chinese scientists announced on Monday that they have identified a gene that has played a key role in increasing the yield of China's high-yielding super rice.

    The gene is known as DEP1, but its mutant is called dep1, which can accelerate the division of rice cells and produce more grains per panicle. The mutant will become an important tool for rice breeding.

    Researcher Fu Xiangdong, from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said his team has found the gene dep1 in high-yielding rice varieties grown in vast quantities in the Yangtze Plains and northeastern China.

    Fu also said the gene can have a similar function in other crops such as wheat and barley, raising hopes of breeding high-yielding cereal varieties.

    A research paper has been accepted by the journal Nature Genetics and already appears in its Advance Online Publication.

    China's Ministry of Agriculture launched the project of super rice strains in 1996, which has brought about many high-yielding rice varieties since then. The yields of some varieties now could exceed 12,000 kilograms per hectare.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/...nt_11058680.htm

[jhl]

Many Italian scholars have voiced concerns about some Western media are running distorted or even fabricated reports on Tibet.

    At a joint seminar attended by Italian scholars and a group of Chinese Tibetologists who visited Italy from Friday to Monday, Professor Giorgio Mantici said some Italian media had carried many negative and untrue stories about China and its Tibetan region.

    "Sometimes, what we read about Tibet from media was fabricated by the Dalai Lama and his followers," Mantici said.

    "In the 1930's, a British reporter described China's Yunnan province as a haven of peace. Now some journalists also copy that version as if the Tibet under the former feudal serfdom ruled by the Dalai Lama was a heaven. Media repeated those stories and let them become the so-called facts," said the professor from Oriental University of Napoli.

    On some reports mentioning the "peaceful rebellion" in Tibet 50years ago, Mantici said a rebellion would never be a peaceful one. "What will be peaceful upheaval or peaceful rebellion?"

    Some media also argued the Dalai Lama did not demand independence but only autonomy, Mantici said.

    Autonomy is already a fact recognized by the Chinese constitution, he pointed out.

    "You can see some Dalai Lama's supporters on the streets calling for a 'free Tibet.' They just want independence instead of autonomy," he said.

    For Domenico Losurdo, a professor of Urbino University, an inconceivable bias is that some media portrayed the Dalai Lama-ruled Tibet as a heaven on earth. "But anybody who learned a bit from historical studies knows Tibet in those days had suffered from the brutal and inhuman rule with extremely tragic cases," Losurdo said.

    "However, it's unbelievable that an Italian magazine even endorses and praises that kind of society," he added.

    The professor of philosophy and history also pointed out there is no evidence about a "cultural genocide" in Tibet as alleged by the Dalai Lama.

    The Tibetan religion, culture and language have been kept very well, he said.

    Therefore, the so-called "cultural genocide" only exists in the minds of the Dalai Lama, he said.

    Talking about objective and impartial reporting, F. Helene Pairault, an ancient history researcher, believes those distorted reports cannot bear the test of time.

    "We all know the completion of the railroad from Qinghai to Tibet has promoted development in various aspects in Tibet. This is not simply technological progress but also social and cultural development," she said.

    Through such meetings, people can learn from Tibetan friends the first-hand information and the truths bout Tibet, Pairault said.

    The Chinese Tibetologists, including Zhang Yun, Zha Luo and De Ji Droma, briefed the Italian scholars about the achievements made in Tibet.

    The five-member Chinese delegation also met Italian politicians and journalists during their stay in Rome. Earlier, they had visited Britain.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/...nt_11102976.htm

The number of foreign students in China reached a record high of 223,499 in 2008, a 14.32 percent increase over 2007, an official with the Ministry of Education (MOE) said Wednesday.

    Foreign students were attending 592 higher educational institutions throughout the country, Zhang Xiuqin, head of the international cooperation and exchange department said at a press conference in Beijing.

    "China has become one of the most popular destinations for foreign students because of its history and culture as well as improving government services," Zhang said.

    The Chinese government increased scholarships for foreign students in recent years. In 2008, 13,516 foreign students received scholarship. That's 33.15 percent more than the previous year.

    Those scholarships included tuition, housing and medical insurance, Zhang said.

    According to the MOE, the Chinese government invested 500 million yuan (71.4 million U.S. dollars) in 2008 to finance foreign students. Recipients received a monthly stipend between 1,400 to 2,000 yuan (200 to 285 U.S. dollars).

    Since March of last year, China has been using a database to keep track of every foreign student in the country. It also established an emergency response system especially for the safety of foreign students.

    MOE statistics show that the Republic of Korea, the United States and Japan were the top three sources of foreign students in China.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/...nt_11072936.htm

Installed capacity in China's wind power sector will grow 64 percent this year to 20 million kilowatts, organizers of the 3rd China (Shanghai) International Wind Energy Exhibition and Symposium 2009 forecast Friday.

    Installed capacity grew 105 percent last year.

    Chinese industry experts believe that by about 2020, wind power will likely surpass nuclear power as China's third-largest source of electricity, after thermal and hydro power.

    Wind power comprised 1.5 percent of China's total installed capacity in 2008, when the country became the world's fourth-largest wind power market.

    The three-day event, which attracted 237 overseas companies, is due to conclude Friday in Shanghai.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/...nt_11162614.htm

China will "give a great lesson to the world" because its economic model is diversified and its financial system is linked to the real economy, an official with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLA) said Friday.

    "Many countries in the region more and more want to have ties with China," Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of the ECLA, told Xinhua in an interview.

    "China's model is interesting because it is diversified, because it includes many sectors and is interesting to explore," Barcena said, adding that China's financial system "is totally linked to the real economy," so it does not have the basis for systemic crisis.

    "China is seen as a country that knows how to manage its development with a long-term strategy that has satisfied everybody. It has a clear control of its financial resources and knows how to save," Barcena said.

    China is now the 48th partner of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and Latin America "expects much from China," she said.

    Barcena pointed out that Latin America "has a lot to learn from China, for example, how to keep territorial integrity, how to keep a development policy, and the transmission mechanisms between the central government and the provinces."

    Latin America also has to learn "how China controls the economic process ... and how it saves and creates reserves in periods of crisis," Barcena added.

    Barcena commended China's generosity to and respect for the region along with its participation in IDB.

    She said China's fiscal stimulus plan provided opportunities for Latin American products, mainly those from South America, and could boost the sectors related to copper, food, soya goods and services.

    About the Chinese central bank's proposal of creating a supranational reserve currency, Barcena said that "it is very positive" and must be analyzed.

    Barcena said China and Brazil's commercial exchange in local currencies is a good example.

    "I think it is a path we must walk and perhaps it will be the first step to reach agreement...and then to acquire the capacity to create a new international currency," Barcena said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/...nt_11130622.htm

[jhl]

With concern of a green future and in answer to the Chinese government's appeal for energy-efficiency, global and domestic automobile manufacturers are showcasing their electric car models at the ongoing Shanghai auto show.

Troubled carmaker General Motors is displaying the production version of its Chevrolet Volt - a vehicle that delivers up to 64 km of gasoline and emission-free electric driving.

The Volt, expected to be introduced in China by 2011, uses electricity stored in its 16-kWh, lithium-ion battery to move the wheels at all times and speeds.

"Bringing the Volt to China shortly after its debut in the United States in 2010 is part of GM's commitment to sharing our latest achievements in energy diversity with our second-largest market," said Kevin Wale, president and managing director of GM China. "It will take China one step closer to its goals of clean transportation and energy freedom."

Battery and car supplier BYD Auto, backed by US billionaire investor Warren Buffett, has three electric models - F3DM, F6DM and e6 on display at the show.

The company has sold more than 80 F3DM electric cars, the first mass-produced model in the world, priced at around $22,000 each, to the Shenzhen government for tests before public use.

"We have cooperated with local government to set up around twenty 220V-charger pillars in parking lots around offices and residential areas," said Yang.

"The next step is to establish a charging station with 380V input. This will provide quick charging in 10 minutes and make the battery 70 percent full, enabling driving the car up to 70 km."

Hebei-based Great Wall Motor unveiled its GWKulla all-electric car, with plans to enter the market next year, while Chery debuted its concept battery car - the Riichi M1.

China relies on imports for nearly half of its oil. "If China continues current growth rates it will almost double oil imports by 2030," said a McKinsey report released at the end of last year. "But greater use of electric cars would cut this growth by around a quarter."

Considering the huge green potential in China, German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz is showcasing its electric concept car BlueZERO, which can run on batteries or fuel cells.

"The flexible BlueZERO concept allows electro-mobility for every requirement, and highlights the fact that Mercedes-Benz is the world's only car manufacturer to already have in place all the key technologies for electric cars offering full everyday practicality," said Dieter Zetsche, chairman of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz.

Another German carmaker BMW is exhibiting its near-zero emission electric car Mini Cooper E at the show, slated for mass-production in 2010.

Japanese automaker Nissan and Toyota are also displaying their electric concept cars at the Shanghai auto show.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7706812.htm

China's Ministry of Finance has ordered state-owned financial institutions to cap the pay of top executives to avoid public discontent over high salaries.

    New rules stipulate that 2008 executive pay -- including salaries, bonuses and insurance -- should be limited to 90 percent of their 2007 packages.

    Long the backbone of China's economic development, state-owned enterprises are coming under increasing public scrutiny -- especially with regard to executive pay.

    The government has drafted a law that sets a limit of 2.8 million yuan on pre-tax salaries in a bid to standardize SOE executive pay.

    In response, some companies, including the Aluminum Corporation of China and Wuhan Steel and Iron Corporation, have announced plans to slash executive pay by 15 to 20 percent.

    Meanwhile, the government is investigating "invisible" executive benefits, in a bid to further limit SOE spending and prevent corruption.

    SOE officials have been known to take advantage of their positions to occupy public facilities and resources without paying.

    China's 141 centrally-administrative SOEs saw profits fall about 30 percent to 665 billion yuan last year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/...nt_11170428.htm

China's economy might achieve the 8 percent growth rate this year but it was challenging, said International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Monday.

"The growth in China is tremendous important for the world economy." Strauss-Kahn said. "We expect 6.7 percent growth this year (for China), 8 percent will be very challenging but is possible."

"China has showed in the past that it sometimes were able to do much more than expected," said the IMF chief, who will visit Asia late this week.

He also told reporters that China has more room for fiscal stimulus beyond the 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) fiscal package launched last year, adding China and some other Asian economies might "recover very fast."

"A rapid recovery is possible," Strauss-Kahn said. "Some Asian economies are very good candidates to be the leading economies when things get going."

[jhl]

Bits of pottery discovered in a cave in southern China may be evidence of the earliest development of ceramics by ancient people.

The find in Yuchanyan Cave dates to as much as 18,000 years ago, researchers report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The find "supports the proposal made in the past that pottery making by foragers began in south China," according to the researchers, led by Elisabetta Boaretto of Bar Ilan University in Israel.

The pottery found at Yuchanyan "is the earliest so far," Boaretto said.

Pottery was one of the first human-made materials and tracing its origins and development opens a window on the development of culture, said Tracey Lu, an anthropologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who was not part of Boaretto's team.

"Pottery initially serves as a cooking and storage facility. Later on, some pottery vessels become symbols of power and social status, as well as examples of art," Lu said. "Pottery is still an important part of human culture today."

Lu noted that the dates reported in this paper "are slightly older than the dates (of pottery found) in Japan. However, the accuracy of radiocarbon dates in the limestone area has been under debate for many years."

"I agree that pottery was made by foragers in South China, but I also think pottery was produced more or less contemporaneously in several places in East Asia ... from Russia, Japan to North and South China by foragers living in different environments," Lu added.

Boaretto, however, contends that "the importance of this study is the high precision dating, the systematic dating of the whole cave, to exclude mixing or intrusion of materials from above layers and the very detailed dating of the strata around the new pottery."

"This sets Yuchanyan as the earliest site where pottery has been made," she said. "We do not know if the technology moved from China to the other sites, but this hypothesis is stronger now than before."

Patrick E. McGovern, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, noted that figurines have been found in what is now the Czech Republic that go back as far as 35,000 years. But those were not actual pottery vessels, he said.

"I had long thought that Japan would be the earliest," McGovern said, but in researching his forthcoming book on the history of alcoholic drinks, "Uncorking the Past," he found evidence of development of ancient drinks in China. "China has a lot of very early remains," he said, "so why not pottery."

This report "firms up that evidence for China," as the home of the earliest pottery yet found, he said, though there does seem to be a long gap between the Czech figurines and the Chinese pottery.

"It makes you wonder what was going on." McGovern said.

Boaretto's research was funded by the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, Hunan Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-06...ent_7963286.htm

[jhl]

Look soviet union was also giving such figures , but we all saw what happened , india definitely is paying some price for being democratic , at least there primeminister changes every 5 years , thats more than enough.

LOL, good comparison. india is the next Soviet Union. A country slowly imploding from within.

India pats itself on the back with pride at the supposedly stellar performance of its economy. Nothing sounds better than the 6-9 percent GDP growth per annum for the last few years as touted by its central governments. Nevertheless, this information must be tempered with hard facts.

First, average annual inflation has not been less than 6.5 percent per year. Next, taking a large cross-section of a basket of goods and weighing them appropriately, it is not conceivable how inflation per annum could be less than an aggregate of 7.5 percent per year over the past 50 years. Moreover, governments are perennial liars in reporting the inflation accurately. In contrast, outlays in India's five-year plans have increased at roughly 9.25 percent compounded yearly since the first five-year plan to the current five-year plan. Though government outlays are not the only indicator of growth, the value added by the construction and industrial outlays is a good indicator. Bring a population growth of 2.5 percent per annum into the picture, and let's add the numbers up. We find that, empirically, 9.25-7.5-2.5 percent = -0.75 percent has been the real GDP added to the nation overall since 1951. Governments in India have probably lied to the nation and world. So, what is it India is proud of?

In real terms, India has been unable to compete with the rest of the world. Nations that were born alongside India in the 1940s and 50s are two to 28 times richer. In 2004, China's industrial growth rate was 30.4 percent while India's was 6.4 percent. More than 40 countries have reported growth rates of more than 6 percent per year in the last five years. Thus, India's growth rate of 6-8 percent per year is nothing extraordinary.

India has 700 million living below the World Bank poverty marker of US$2 per day. Another 150 million earning less than US$4 per day are marginalized. That leaves only 250 million really contributing to the economy and paying taxes, actually less. The propaganda that India pulled 300 million out of poverty in the last 15 years appears deceitful.

Indian literacy has risen, but ranks 146th in the world alongside Sudan, Rwanda, Malawi, and Burundi. The International Energy Annual of 2002 reported that the aggregated sum total of electricity consumed by Africa was 800 KWh per person per year, compared to India's 600 KWh per person per year. It is easy to see how India has become the Africa of yesterday. India's maternal and infant mortality are the worst of SAARC countries. The United Nations reported that air pollution of particulate matter is the worst in New Delhi out of the whole world. Forty years ago, we enjoyed seeing the stars at night; today, we can't see the sun in the day because of dust and smog.

While India may have more homes hooked to cable TV, more consumers using mobile phones, many millions communicating by e-mail, telephone connections easily available, and more cars than ever before, these things do not secure a country. In all respects, the factors that make India insecure are much more than those that make it secure: growth is haphazard, with new townships being added without comprehensive urban planning; traffic congestion has made commuting times four times what they used to be 30 years ago, especially in Delhi, not to mention that 125,000 deaths take place on Indian roads annually. In 1960, people could drink tap water in Delhi, but then they had to boil it by the mid-1970s, and now must filter it, as well; they still can't free themselves from the microscopic contaminants in water as a result of excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides. Groundwater tables are depleted to an extent that only in India do they talk about future wars over water. The River Yamuna is unfit for bathing, and unfit for drinking even by animals. Malaria is as rampant as ever before, typhoid is still endemic, and immunity-related diseases are increasing.

"Slumdog Millionaire" was right on the money as far as my perception goes. Waste landfills are far and few between, such that India needs 10-12 times as many landfills as it currently has, but 40 times as many if it were to become industrialized like the United States. None of this indicates an improvement in the quality of life that economic development is supposed to bring. This is not the India Indians had dreamt of.

Even India's security is at risk. Internal disturbances affect every state, while in 1947, when India became independent, there were none.

India's political parties are reported to have themselves fomented internal disturbances in multiple states. In a competitive world where big fish eats small fish, the Chinese dragon is breathing fire, while the Indian tiger is not only asleep, but faces extinction. India's defense preparedness has suffered tremendously, to say the least. It appears that India's leaders never understood technology nor how to use it beneficially.

I raise my voice in constructive criticism, since I fear for the future of India at the rate it is going. India could well have been a superpower from West Asia to the China Sea, but the set of items that affect life -- air, water, health, environment, and internal civil disturbance are at severe risk in India.

http://www.starbulletin.com/editorials/200..._struggles.html

India has failed to use a period of high economic growth to lift tens of millions of people out of poverty, falling far short of China's record in protecting its population from the ravages of chronic hunger, United Nations officials said on Tuesday.

Unicef, the UN's child development agency, said India, Asia's third largest economy, had not followed the example of other regional economies such as China, South Korea and Singapore in investing in its people during an economic boom. It said this failure spelled trouble as the global economy deteriorated, while volatile fuel and food prices had already deepened deprivation over the past two years.

The stinging criticism of India's performance comes only two weeks after the Congress party-led alliance was overwhelmingly voted back into office. Its leaders had campaigned strongly on their achievement of raising India's economic growth to 9 per cent and boosting rural welfare.

An unfavourable comparison with Beijing's development record will rile New Delhi. Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, has argued that the country's economic development is more durable than that of China because it is forged in a democracy rather than by a one-party state.

In a report on the impact of the global financial crisis on women and children in south Asia, Unicef said that food and fuel price shocks had increased the number of people suffering chronic hunger by 100m to more than 400m people. Of these, 230m are in India, where 76 per cent of the country's 1.2bn people live on less than $2 a day. Among many households, as much as 80 per cent of income is spent on food, making them highly sensitive to rice and wheat price fluctuations.

Aniruddha Bonnerjee, an economic and social policy consultant for Unicef, said there had been "stagnation" in the fight against malnutrition and that stubbornly high food prices posed a growing threat to poor families. He warned that with India's growth rates now almost half what they were two years ago, New Delhi would find it more difficult to boost spending on health, education and food to nurture its human capital.

"If there was no progress against malnutrition and hunger when growth was higher, how are you going to do it now?" he asked.

Mr Bonnerjee said some Asian countries had managed to halve poverty over five years during times of high economic growth; India was falling far short of that achievement. Mr Singh's championing of "inclusive growth" was electioneering and had left large swathes of the population untouched, he said.

Unicef was also critical of high military budgets in the region at the cost of social protection. India is modernising its armed forces and projecting its power more widely than in the past.

"A number of countries in south Asia decide to invest in the military and not to increase investment in their people." said Daniel Toole, Unicef's regional director "Budgetary allocations can be more than 10 per cent in the military, while education is only 2 per cent."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/48108cf4-4f8d-11...144feabdc0.html

[jhl]

In the last few days, India has dispatched roughly 60,000 troops to its border with China, the scene of enduring territorial disputes between the two countries.

J.J. Singh, the Indian governor of the controversial area, said the move was intended to "meet future security challenges" from China. Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh claimed, despite cooperative India-China relations, his government would make no concessions to China on territorial disputes.

The tough posture Singh's new government has taken may win some applause among India's domestic nationalists. But it is dangerous if it is based on a false anticipation that China will cave in.

India has long held contradictory views on China. Another big Asian country, India is frustrated that China's rise has captured much of the world's attention. Proud of its "advanced political system," India feels superior to China. However, it faces a disappointing domestic situation which is unstable compared with China's.

India likes to brag about its sustainable development, but worries that it is being left behind by China. China is seen in India as both a potential threat and a competitor to surpass.

But India can't actually compete with China in a number of areas, like international influence, overall national power and economic scale. India apparently has not yet realized this.

Indian politicians these days seem to think their country would be doing China a huge favor simply by not joining the "ring around China" established by the US and Japan.
India's growing power would have a significant impact on the balance of this quation, which has led India to think that fear and gratitude for its restraint will cause China to defer to it on territorial disputes.

But this is wishful thinking, as China won't make any compromises in its border disputes with India. And while China wishes to coexist peacefully with India, this desire isn't born out of fear.

India's current course can only lead to a rivalry between the two countries. India needs

to consider whether or not it can afford the consequences of a potential confrontation with China. It should also be asking itself why it hasn't forged the stable and friendly relationship with China that China enjoys with many of India's neighbors, like Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Any aggressive moves will certainly not aid the development of good relations with China. India should examine its attitude and preconceptions; it will need to adjust if it hopes to cooperate with China and achieve a mutually beneficial outcome.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90...51/6676088.html

Chinese scientists announced Wednesday they have succeeded in changing cells from ###### into embryonic-like stem cells, capable of developing into any type of cell in the body.

    The Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (SIBCB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences claimed a global breakthrough in forming pluripotent stem cells using somatic cells (cells that are not sperm or egg cells) from any animal with hooves (ungulates).

    Dr. Xiao Lei, heads of the SIBCB stem cell lab, said, "This is the first report in the world of the creation of domesticated ungulate pluripotent stem cells."

    It could open the way to creating models for human genetic diseases, genetically engineering animals for human organ transplants, and for developing ###### that were resistant to diseases such as swine flu, he said.

    The research team succeeded in generating induced pluripotent stem cells by reprogramming cells taken from a ######'s ear and bone marrow.

    After the reprogramming factors were introduced via a virus, the cells developed into colonies of embryonic-like stem cells.

    Tests confirmed the stem cells were capable of differentiating into the cell types that make up the three layers in an embryo -- endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm -- a quality of all embryonic stem cells.

    The information gained from inducing pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) would make it much easier for researchers to develop embryonic stem cells (ES cells) that originate from ###### or other ungulate embryos.

    "###### pluripotent stem cells would be useful in a number of ways, such as precisely engineering transgenic animals for organ transplantation therapies. The ###### species is significantly similar to humans in its form and function, and the organ dimensions are largely similar," said Xiao.

    "We could use embryonic stem cells or induced stem cells to modify the immune-related genes in the ###### to make the ###### organ compatible to the human immune system."

    The ###### could be bred as organ donors to provide organs that did not trigger adverse reactions from the patient's own immune system.

    ###### pluripotent stem cell lines could also be used to create models for human genetic diseases.

    "Many human diseases, such as diabetes, are caused by a disorder of gene expression. We could modify the ###### gene in the stem cells and generate ###### carrying the same gene disorder so that they would have a similar syndrome to that seen in human patients. Then it would be possible to use the ###### model to develop therapies to treat the disease.

    "To combat swine flu, for instance, we could make a precise, gene-modified ###### to improve the animal's resistance to the disease. We would do this by first finding a gene that has anti-swine flu activity or inhibits the proliferation of the swine flu virus.

    "We can introduce this gene to the ###### via pluripotent stem cells -- a process known as gene 'knock-in'. Alternatively, because the swine flu virus needs to bind with a receptor on the cell membrane of the ###### to enter the cells and proliferate, we could knock out this receptor in the ###### via gene targeting in the ###### induced pluripotent stem cell. If the receptor is missing, the virus will not infect the ######."

    Xiao said the discovery could also be used to improve animal farming, not only by making ###### healthier, but also by modifying the growth-related genes to change and improve the way they grow.

    However, he warned that it could take several years before some of the potential medical applications of the research were in clinical use.

    He said the next stage of the research was to use the ###### iPS cells to generate gene-modified ###### that could provide organs for people, improve the ###### species or be used for disease resistance.

    The modified animals would be either "knock in" ###### where the iPS or ES cells have been used to transfer an additional bit of genetic material (such as a piece of human DNA) into the ######'s genome, or "knock out" ###### where the technology is used to prevent a particular gene functioning.

    The work was published on-line Wednesday in the newly launched Journal of Molecular Cell Biology, an international journal publishing reviews and articles on molecular and cell biology.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/...nt_11478700.htm

Laboratory tests began on China's first developed A/H1N1 flu vaccine on Monday.

    The vaccines are expected to hit the market in September after 14 days of safety tests in labs and two-month clinical tests from July, said Fan Bei, deputy general manager of Hualan Biological Engineering Inc., based in Henan Province.

    The company had produced a first batch of 90,000 doses, but it would be able to make 600,000 doses a day once it was approved, Fan said.

    "As the vaccines still need to go through several tests, we did not produce at full capacity."

    A clinical test plan submitted by the firm was approved by the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), but she would not release the details of the plan.

    The company received the seed virus from a World Health Organization (WHO) lab on June 3.

    China has 11 drug firms that are qualified to produce flu vaccines. Another drug company, Sinovac Biotech Co. Ltd., announced that it had started development of A/H1N1 flu vaccines on June 15.

    China has reported 414 cases of A/H1N1 flu. Epidemiologists have warned of a "very high" risk of outbreak in densely populated communities.

    The Ministry of Health issued a document last Wednesday saying that, in case of a rampant spread of the virus in local communities, it would switch to monitor the "group activities" of each community instead of closely tracking and quarantining individual patients.

    It also suggested that group activities of communities could besuspended or canceled, which means schools could be closed.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/...nt_11581980.htm

[jhl]

Coal-dependent China plans to generate at least 15 percent of its energy capacity from wind, solar and other renewable energy sources by 2020.

Chief policy makers said they are revising earlier targets to create a "greener" environment, adding that new jobs to support the new energy sources also would spur economic growth.

Xie Zhenhua, vice-minister in charge of climate change policy for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said last week that renewable energy is expected to account for 10 percent of the country's energy resources by 2010 and 15 percent by 2020.

Zhang Xiaoqiang, the NDRC's vice-minister in charge of international cooperation, was more ambitious.

Zhang said recently that China could reach a renewable energy target of at least 18 percent by 2020.

"Personally, I think we could reach the target of having renewable sources make up 20 percent of total energy consumption," Zhang recently told the media in London.

Sun Qin, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, told China Business Weekly that China would soon announce the revised power supply capacity target for 2020 -- a target that might increase to 1,400 to 1,500 gigawatts, or gW, of energy.

The revised target, if approved by the central government, would represent nearly a 50 percent increase from the previous goal set by the government in 2007.

In 2007, the central government had approved plans to develop 1,000 gW in installed energy capacity by 2020.

This year, China's power capacity will surpass 900 gW and will soon be on par with the United States, which now has 1,000 gW in energy-generating capacity.

Zhang said China would restructure its electricity supply mix by supporting more investments in nuclear, solar, wind and biomass energy resources.

In line with the revised target, the ratio of nuclear power to the combined installed electricity capacity would increase to 5 percent in 2020 -- up from 2 percent in 2008.

Sun of the National Energy Administration said China's installed nuclear power capacity target would increase to 60 gW to 75 gW by 2020, up from the previous target of 40 gW approved two years ago.

Sun did not discuss the specific 2020 targets for wind, solar and biomass power.

On solar power, the NDRC's Energy Research Institute reported that China's 2020 target would be expanded from 1,800 megawatts (mW) of installed solar capacity established in 2007 to 10,000 mW or more.

At the end of 2008, solar power capacity attached to the grid was less than 100 mW, or 0.01 percent, of China's installed capacity.

Even with a tenfold increase in the 2020 target, solar energy would play a much smaller part in China's overall power mix than other energy sources.

Under the 2007 plan, biomass and wind were set to reach a generating capacity of 30,000 mW by 2020, with nuclear power expected to reach 40,000 mW.

Xiao Ziniu, director of the National Climate Center, said China's onshore wind power potential has been evaluated at 700 gW to 1,200 gW. China has another 250 gW of potential offshore wind power capacity, the center reported.

Some regions have been identified as rich in potential wind power resources.

For example, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region was estimated to have more than 100 gW of wind power generating potential.

Plans are being considered to develop mega wind power farms with the potential to each generate more than 10 gW.

"We have great renewable resources to explore," Xiao said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_8380826.htm

While China isn't widely known for its beautiful beaches, a growing number of travelers are making tracks in the sand for the shores of Hainan. The tropical island province has been dubbed "The Hawaii of China" and is today the No 1 domestic vacation destination among Chinese.

It hosted 18 million travelers in 2007, up 15 percent from the previous year, of which nearly 6 million were foreigners, a staggering 63 percent increase from 2006, according to the provincial tourism bureau.

Most holidaymakers arrive at the southern port city of Sanya. Waves of tourists wash over the city's 209 km of coast-line all year long, but the bays offer dramatically different takes on fun in the sun.

Sanya Bay is the least crowded seaside experience near downtown and has the most local feel. Here, tourists are outnumbered by fishermen hauling in the catch of the day, chuanr (kebob) vendors grilling every species of sea creature they can poke a stick through and motor drivers eager to take visitors for a spin along the strand.

Sanya Bay's beach is anything but manicured, and strands of palm trees push their way right up to the foreshore. Taking a sunset stroll here means navigating constellations of fallen coconuts and huddles of traditional wooden fishing boats - often occupied by snoozing trawlers.

The strand here is studded with a wider array of colorful seashells than anywhere else on the island.

Those looking for more of a party place should head for Dadonghai (Big East Bay), which teems with bikini-clad tourists. Strands of buoys separate the swimmers from the fleets of jet skis and speedboats towing parasailers and water-skiers that zip across the combers.

Onshore, rows of sunbathers are punctuated by games of football and volleyball and even the odd swimsuit photo shoot. Pearl vendors from ethnic minorities, freelance masseurs and travel agents also prowl these sands hunting for clients from out of town.

Dadonghai's shore is lined with a strip of bars-cum-restaurants offering local seafood and Russian dishes, as seaside tourists overwhelmingly hail from China's chilly northern neighbor. They also blat Russian techno toward the surf at ear-splitting decibel levels.

Beach bums with big bucks usually head for Yalong Bay, an 8 km crescent shoreline cordoned off by upscale resorts that use fencing to enforce exclusive-access policies. In the language of the local Li ethnic minority, the name means "as clean and white as jade" and its waters are said to maintain a year-round temperature of 26 C.

According to local folklore, the beach is the incarnation of seven Li girls who hurled themselves into the sea to demonstrate the power of their love.

Yalong played host to last year's Miss World and Mr World pageants. Contestants enjoyed the amenities of the luxurious Crowne Plaza Hotel, Yalong's largest internationally branded establishment and often acclaimed as the top hotel on the bay.

The sprawling complex, constructed in dynastic Shaanxi-styled architecture, has the only supermarket in the entire Yalong area - otherwise, it's about an hour's drive to the nearest convenience store. Crowne Plaza also has a shopping center with 18 shops, 20 restaurants, a beachside bar and a plaza hosting live musical performances nightly.

Visitors hoping to dip their toes in Chinese culture on the country's shoreline can visit the beaches of the Nanshan Culture Tourist Zone, about a half-hour drive from Sanya.

The best strand here is located in the shadow of the towering three-faced Guanyin Buddha statue, which stands several dozen meters offshore, seemingly keeping guard over the zone's Buddhism Culture Park. At 108 m tall, the bronze figure claims 15 m on the Statue of Liberty.

Tucked in the thicket near the statue, and just a stone's throw from the beach, is a cluster of tree houses that resembles an Ewok settlement. But rather than being home to the pint-sized, bear-like buddies of the Star Wars heroes, these rustic structures cater to tourists with a penchant for Robinson Crusoe-type holidays.

This beach features particularly young, coarse sands and rather steep sandbars. It is generally devoid of tourists and it's especially easy to spend several days here without encountering an obviously foreign face.

Those seeking the island's remotest beach should head to Shimei Bay, in the southeastern coastal city of Wanning, 160 km from Haikou, the provincial capital. The World Tourism Organization has called this spot "the most beautiful unexploited beach in Hainan".

A 4,000-year-old evergreen forest traces the foreshore of the two crescent bays. Li fishing hovels are scattered like throws of dice around the area, and the ungroomed foreshore is ideal for beachcombing.

Hainan's beachscapes certainly offer something for everyone; it's little wonder that a swelling tide of travelers is flocking to its shores.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2009-06/...ent_8318892.htm

As the world's largest solar-panel producer for the last two years, China already is a major solar player. But now, some industry experts say, it's expanding from being mainly a solar-panel supplier to also becoming a substantial customer.

"China, which already is important in production, is also going to be a large solar market," Gerhard Stryi-Hipp, head of energy policy for the Fraunhofer-Institute for Solar Energy Systems, said last week at a roundtable to discuss trends in advance of the Intersolar North America conference next month. That's an exciting prospect, as China -- with its population of 1.3 billion -- is soon expected to overtake the United States as the largest energy consumer in the world.

New Chinese policies are spurring the transition, Stryi-Hipp says. The country in March approved a subsidy for building-mounted photovoltaic systems which could pay up to 20 yuan per watt for systems larger than 50 kilowatts. For ground-mounted projects, the government is paying a feed-in tariff for the electricity generated, instead of a subsidy based on the projects' capacity. It has settled on a price of 1.09 yuan per kilowatt-hour for a 10-megawatt ground-mounted project in Dunhuang, the first in a series of ground-mounted projects, says Jenny Chase, manager for New Energy Finance's solar insight service. That's better than it could have been -- some companies actually bid at a loss for the project -- but still far lower than the European feed-in tariffs, she says.

While New Energy Finance forecasts that the rooftop subsidy is only likely to drive 50 to 100 mW of solar installations, Chase says the provinces could end up driving additional demand by offering their own installation incentives. Jiangsu province, for example, has announced plans to install 260 megawatts of solar through 2011.

On top of all this, the country has what Polly Shaw, director of external relations for Suntech Power, called the "most aggressive" renewable portfolio standard in the world. It aims to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, with some 100 gigawatts of wind capacity and 1.8 gW of solar. The country is already rethinking its solar target, and will "probably" revise it to 10 or even 20 gW this year, Shaw said. "Significant attention is being paid to solar in China," she said. "I think we're going to see a massive market starting up there, just like in the US."

Altogether, Chase expects to see 150 to 300 mW of new photovoltaic installation in China this year, up from 40 mW last year, and predicts the market could "easily" exceed 1 gW in 2010. "We do believe China is on the cusp of becoming a major solar market, though I suspect entirely for domestic producers," she said, adding that the market growth still won't be enough to counterbalance the current oversupply of solar panels and increase prices.

Of course, we've been hearing about China's enormous solar potential for years, and -- so far -- it's remained just that. Other analysts, including Paula Mints, a principal analyst at Navigant Consulting, says China will take more time to take off. After all, cheap coal plants are still fairly easy to start in the country, she says.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_8320520.htm

China plans to build seven wind power bases with a minimum capacity of 10 gigawatts (gW) each by 2020, in a move to dramatically increase the use of the clean energy.

The seven bases are: Jiuquan in Gansu province, Hami in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Hebei province, western Jilin province, eastern Inner Mongolia, western Inner Mongolia, and Jiangsu province, Shi Pengfei, vice-president of Chinese Wind Energy Association, told a conference yesterday.

Once completed in 2020, the seven bases will have combined capacity of around 120 gW, when the country's total power capacity is projected to be 1,500 gW, said Shi.

Construction of these bases would require an investment of around 1 trillion yuan ($146.38 billion), he said.

China's wind energy resources are mainly located in the northern regions and the coastal areas. Construction of large-scale wind power bases in these areas is in line with the healthy development of the industry, said Shi.

Besides onshore wind power, which has seen rapid growth in China, the country has also started to develop offshore wind power projects. China is now building its first offshore wind power project, the Shanghai Donghai Offshore Wind Farm, which is also the first offshore project outside Europe.

China's wind power sector has witnessed 100 percent annual growth in the past three years. The country's wind power installed capacity is expected to exceed 30 gW by the end of 2010, up from 12 gW last year, Shi Lishan, deputy director of the new energy department under the National Energy Administration told China Daily earlier.

In order to achieve this target, China needs to invest an additional 100 billion yuan at least in the sector, he said.

Many domestic companies are accelerating their development in wind power sector. China's five major power companies, together with other companies like China Shenhua Group and China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group have all started their wind power projects.

There are also an increasing number of foreign companies entering China's wind power market. Vestas from Denmark, which is the world's leading wind turbine manufacturer, earlier this year opened a plant in Inner Mongolia to increase its manufacturing capacity in China. The company is also in the process of opening a new office to cover offshore wind power business in the country.

As the most developed energy resources among all the new energies, wind power will account for an important part in the forthcoming new energy stimulus package, said Li Junfeng, deputy director of Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)

The NDRC and other ministries are drafting a stimulus program for China's new energy industry.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_8335789.htm

[jhl]

Workers would begin construction on China's first 10 million-kw-level wind power station in mid-July in the far northwestern city of Jiuquan, Gansu Province, a local official said Sunday.

    The would-be largest wind power station was designed to have an installed capacity of 5.16 million kw by the end of 2010, 12.71 million kw by the end of 2015 and 20 million kw by the end of 2020, said Wu Shengxue, deputy head of the Jiuquan Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

    "The installed capacity will eventually reach 40 million kw," he said. "Total costs on the project are predicted to exceed 120 billion yuan (17.6 billion U.S. dollars)."

    "It will become another landmark project in China's 'Western Development' strategy after the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and several West-to-East transmission projects of natural gas, petroleum and electricity," he said.

    As a support for the wind power station construction, local authorities would launch other projects to manufacture air blowers, turbine blades and other equipment, he said.

    The government of the remote Gansu Province aims to build "Three Gorges on the Land" with its abundant resources of wind power, Wu said. Under its blueprint, the 2020 installed capacity could surpass the current capacity of 18.2 million kw enjoyed by the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower station by total capacity.

    In Jiuquan, an area of about 10,000 square km could be developed for wind power generation with a capacity of at least 40million kw, Wu said.

    To date, six wind farms are in operation in the city with a total installed capacity of 660,000 kw, he said.

    "By the end of this year, the installed capacity in the city is expected to exceed 1 million kw," he added.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/...nt_11657423.htm

China is planning for an installed nuclear power capacity of 86 gigawatts (gW) by 2020, up nearly 10-fold from the 9 gW capacity it had by the end of last year, two people familiar with the matter said.

The revised target for nuclear power is part of the government's efforts to increase the share of alternative energy in the predominantly coal-based energy mix.

The goal, which is part of an alternative energy development roadmap covering 2009-20, seeks to have at least 12 gW of installed nuclear power capacity by 2011, the sources said.

The plan "will call for the government to accelerate nuclear power development in coastal provinces and autonomous regions, namely Liaoning, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangxi, Jiangsu, Shandong and Hainan," the sources said.

In order to achieve the goal, the government will also set up a "reasonable number of nuclear power plants in inland provinces in Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan and Hubei", they said.

The target, which the people said had still not been finalized, was substantially bigger than earlier goals.

China, the world's second-largest power market, now has 11 working nuclear reactors, producing 9.1 gW as of the end of last year.

The country, which had previously planned to have 60-70 gW of nuclear power capacity by 2020, or about 5 percent of the total anticipated capacity then, had 22.9 gW of nuclear power capacity under construction as of last year.

China is now adding more than 24 reactors, which includes five plants scheduled to start construction this year.

According to the draft alternative energy development stimulus plan, the government is also planning to have 150 gW of installed wind power capacity by 2020, of which 30 gW will come from offshore wind farms, the people said.

Installed wind power capacity should reach 35 gW by the end of 2011, of which 5 gW will come from offshore wind farms, according to the draft plan.

China, which is now the fourth largest wind power producer in the world, had 12.17 gW in installed capacity as of the end of last year.

It plans to build seven huge wind farms with a minimum capacity of 10 gW each by 2020, Shi Pengfei, vice-president of Chinese Wind Energy Association, said earlier this week.

The seven bases, once completed, will have a combined capacity of around 120 gW, according to Shi.

Construction of these bases, which is spread across six provinces, would require an investment of around 1 trillion yuan, the official said.

The industry would attract investment worth 2.97 trillion yuan by 2011, creating 5 million jobs, according to the draft.

And, total investment in the sector would touch 13.5 trillion yuan and create 20 million jobs by 2020, it outlined.

China National Nuclear Corp, the biggest nuclear power operator in the country, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co Ltd and China Power Investment Corp, the parent company of the Hong Kong-listed China Power International Development Ltd, are currently the only players in the nuclear power sector.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_8345808.htm

Rebiya Kadeer, leader of the separatist World Uyghur Congress, has attempted to gain public sympathy for the Uygur ethnic group in Xinjiang -- using wrong news photos.

Kadeer, whom police say is the mastermind of the deadliest riot to strike China in decades, displayed a news photo in an interview with the Al Jazeera news outlet Tuesday that she asserts was taken in Xinjiang.

In actuality, the photo depicted a protest in Shishou, Hubei province, on June 26. The photo was first published on Nanfang Weekly's website the day of the incident. The Xinjiang riot occurred on July 5.

Kadeer explained Tuesday that the World Uyghur Congress was not responsible for the recent violent clashes in the Uygur autonomous region, in which at least 156 people were killed and another more than 1,000 were injured.

In the photo, police officers are lined up in seven rows on the street to stop a group of people from moving forward.

"This is how the peaceful protesters in Urumqi were treated by the police," said an emotional Kadeer. "How could my people attack anyone under that circumstance?"

One of Kadeer's followers used a similar tactic Tuesday as he was demonstrating in front of the Chinese Embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

In a picture released by the Uyghur American Association, the demonstrator is seen holding a photo depicting the "victims of the violence of the riot in Urumqi".

The photo, however, shows the scene of a traffic accident in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on May 15.

"How stupid is Kadeer and her organization to make such mistakes?" said a netizen after news of the misleading photos spread over the Internet.

Riot not spreading

Officials refuted Kadeer's claims that riots have been spreading across the region.

"There were signs of unrests in Kashgar and Yarkand, northwest of the region, but we had the situation under control before they escalated," Chen Li, director of the information office of the Kashgar region, told China Daily Thursday.

Information officials in Aksu, Khotan and Karamay said there were no sign of unrests after security had been tightened following Sunday's riots in the region's capital of Urumqi.

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Kadeer in response to the Urumqi violence. In the article, she writes: "The unrest is spreading. The cities of Kashgar, Yarkand, Aksu, Khotan and Karamay may have also seen unrest, though it's hard to tell, given China's State-run propaganda".

Kadeer also alleges that police had killed more than 100 Uygurs while breaking up mass demonstrations in Kashgar. She said troops had entered Kashgar, with two Chinese soldiers posted to each Uygur house.

In a written statement to Xinhua, the public security bureau of Kashgar denied the allegations.

The bureau's statement said that more than 200 people gathered at the Id Kah Mosque, the largest mosque in China, and created a "disturbance" at approximately 5:15 pm on Monday.

Local security forces and armed police rushed to the scene, "using vehicles mounted with loudspeakers to disperse the masses", the statement said.

The authorities "reacted immediately to round up troublemakers and quell the incident", it said.

Police said they also dispersed the crowd at about 6 pm with no deaths or injuries.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07...ent_8404890.htm

The riot in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Sunday had been well planned and organized by foreign forces behind the scenes, a Pakistani newspaper chief said on Saturday.

    "We saw riots in Tibet last year. It was expected that the Tibet scene would be replayed in Xinjiang though it is late. According to my assessment it was going to happen before or around the Beijing Olympics," Baber Makhdoom, editor-in-chief of the English-language Daily Mail newspaper, told Xinhua.

    "While the Chinese government was already doing a lot for the natives of Uygur Autonomous Region, these clashes erupted, now one can easily understand who is behind it. It is not the people who are living there, it's someone from the outside, who is pursuing them, who is forcing them, or misguiding them," he said.

    Makhdoom said the hands behind the Xinjiang riot were the same as those behind the Tibet riot last year.

    He said anti-China forces have been creating troubles, including terrorism, for China.

    Some terrorist groups want to engage certain ethnic groups like the Uygur people in China and brainwash them, and use them to fulfill their political goals, he said.

    Makhdoom has kept visiting China for the past seven years, almost four or five times a year. "Every time I go to Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang, I see tremendous harmony among the Uygurs and non-Muslim Chinese," he said. "There have never been any hatred between them. They were enjoying a peaceful life."

    Makhdoom said he had met many Uygur people who are peace-loving citizens. "They were very happy, they were having complete religious independence and religious freedom," he added.

    Makhdoom said the Chinese government has always been smart in responding to such unrest.

    "The Chinese government has shown great governance and its love for its people, and for the unity of the nation, and they have taken the right steps at the right time and I think that every government should be doing the same thing," he said.

    He said the Chinese government has been paying special attention to improving the living standards of the Uygur people with a lot of development projects being initiated in areas of minority ethnic groups.

    Sunday's rioting in Urumqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang region, has killed at least 184 people and injured more than 1,000 others.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/...nt_11693792.htm

If Rebiya Kadeer, the leader of the World Uygur Congress, thought about her own past, she would count herself among the numerous Uyghurs who had benefited from China's policies to promote ethnic harmony.

    The tale of Kadeer, who spent 40 years in Xinjiang and was listed as the richest woman in Xinjiang and the eighth richest on the mainland by Forbes in 1995, is a rags-to-riches story.

    But AFP on Monday quoted Kadeer as saying the deeper cause of Sunday's riot in China's far northwest Xinjiang, which left at least 156 dead, was "six decades of Chinese rule, during which the Uyghurs have endured a litany of human rights abuses such as arbitrary detention, torture, discrimination, religious repression, forced abortion and removing Uighur language teaching from schools."

    "Abuse" is hardly an appropriate word to describe the lives of Uyghurs in Xinjiang -- least of all in her own life, which started off in poverty, but later flourished on Chinese soil.

    She built her business empire and became "The Millionairess" in Xinjiang within 10 years. But, if her allegations of "discrimination" against the Chinese government were true, only Han Chinese would have been allowed such opportunities.

    Her identity as a Uygur also allowed her to have six children while most of her Han counterparts were limited to one.

    Human rights abuse accusations by Kadeer, including religious repression and removing Uygur-language teaching from schools, fall flat as achievements made by both local people and the government are a matter of record.

    Kadeer's accusation of "discrimination" in her interview with AFP does not hold water as can be seen by the number of minorities holding sought-after government posts.

    In Xinjiang, minority people hold more than half of government posts, which are usually hotly contested in China's competitive job market. About 360,000 government employees in Xinjiang are ethnic minorities.

    Official statistics show the number of middle school bilingual classes (in both Mandarin and Uygur) was 4,500 in 2007, with total enrollment of 145,000 students, compared with only 27 in 1999, when the figures were first compiled. The bilingual classes were first introduced in the early 1990s.

    Jume Tahir, 69, imam at the Id Kah Mosque, the biggest in Kashgar with a history of almost 600 years, said the government had invested 1.5 million yuan (219,500 U.S. dollars) to renovate the mosque in 1999.

    Tahir says, "Our lawful religious beliefs are fully protected."

    China has respected and recognized its minorities' freedom to religious faith since it adopted its first Constitution in 1954. More importantly, enshrined in the Constitution is the aim to "promote common prosperity for all ethnic groups."

    That explains why the government cherishes a hard-won stable and peaceful environment and has called for restraint by both Han and Uyghurs.

    Kadeer denies government accusations that she and her followers instigated the protests that later started the riot and said Wednesday the death toll from the unrest was far higher than the figure of 156 given by Chinese authorities, according to an AFP report.

    Admittedly, the development of Xinjiang is far from perfect. Both Uygurs and Han face problems such as poverty and disease, and challenges brought about by globalization.

    These are the elements that stand in the way of Xinjiang's development and require ethnic unity to overcome.

    People in Xinjiang need to address those problems in peaceful ethnic co-existence.

    And yet, all this would be impossible without a stable Xinjiang from which Kadeer sprang and benefited.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/...nt_11681826.htm

[jhl]

Recently claims have again been made saying decline in energy consumption also implies a shrinking Chinese economy. This argument was repeated before in the late 1990s. Research has shown this to be false. An economy can still grow even if energy consumption goes down. This has been seen in China, US, Japan and so on.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has downplayed the charges of inaccurate economic data and said the published figures are consistent with economic trends.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) had questioned the reliability of China's economic data in its latest report on the global oil market released on May 14, saying the first quarter GDP growth, didn't tally with falling oil demand, Dow Jones reported.

"The viewpoint is groundless," the NBS said in an interview posted on its website yesterday. "It made a mistake to oversimplify the correlation between economic growth and energy use."

China's economy expanded 6.1 percent from a year earlier in the first quarter, according to the statistics bureau. That compared with a 4.02 percent decline in China's first quarter electricity consumption.

Some economists believe the figures are contradictory, as they believe shrinking electricity consumption indicates weakness of the secondary sector, which makes up about half of China GDP growth.

The IEA estimated China's oil demand also declined 3.5 percent during the period. It said "one would have expected stronger, positive oil demand growth commensurate with the reported economic resilience, unless income elasticities had drastically changed."

The NBS said faster growth of the service sector, which requires less energy, partly explains the lukewarm economic expansion and the declining electricity use.

The nation's service industry expanded 7.4 percent in the first quarter, compared with 5.3 percent for the industrial sector. Services now accounts for 44.3 percent of the overall economy, while the industrial sector is around 44.1 percent.

The NBS also said some energy-intensive industries suffered a more drastic slowdown in the first quarter.

For example, six energy-intensive industries saw their electricity use dropping 3.7 percent in the first quarter, compared with 2.6 percent for the sector's average.

"Some investors have suggested that using physical indicators such as electricity consumption may be a more reliable tool to gauge the real pace of economic recovery," said Wang Tao, head of China Economic Research, UBS Securities.

"Due to the large and uneven fluctuations of industrial activity across different sectors, power consumption is often not a good indicator of the overall picture."

Wang said the huge slowdown of the energy-intensive sector is one of the factors contributing to the decline in energy use.

Electricity production, ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, and the chemical sectors were among the hardest hit by the economic downturn. They accounted for 42 percent of the total electricity consumption, but account for only 11 percent of the GDP, said Wang.

"We see a weak electricity consumption coexisting with a stronger growth in industrial production and GDP in 2009," Wang said.

The NBS said other economies have also experienced periods when the economy expanded despite falling energy use.

It said the US economy grew 0.8 percent in 2008 while its electricity use dropped 3.6 percent. Japan's GDP growth reached 1.8 percent in 2003, while its electricity consumption shrunk 1.3 percent during the period.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_7941820.htm

Construction has begun on China's first hospital focusing on heavy ion therapy for cancer sufferers in Lanzhou, capital of the northwestern Gansu Province.

    The Lanzhou Heavy Ion Cancer Treatment Center would be able to treat 2,000 cancer patients each year, and would accept patients from around the world, said Yue Haikui, chief of office at Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institution of Modern Physics, Monday.

    Heavy ion was one of the most advanced and effective cancer treatments in the world, and was more accurate, caused less damage to healthy tissue and had a higher cure rate than conventional radiotherapies, said Zhan Wenlong, deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

    Clinical trials on 109 volunteer patients by the academy showed two to three months of heavy ion treatment could, in most cases, completely eliminate detectable tumors.

    More than 90 percent of the patients had no relapse in the following 18 months.

    Zhan said the trials proved the therapy to be highly effective.

    Construction of the hospital, covering 13 hectares, started Monday and is expected to be completed within three years. A research and development facility will take another 26 hectares.

    The hospital will be owned and managed as a joint venture by Sheng De Group, the city government and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

    Sheng De Group, a private firm that won the project in a tender, is contracted to build the hospital, including construction of the building and purchase of equipments.

    The total investment amounts to 1 billion yuan (146 million U.S. dollars), and the city government would provide favorable tax and land lease policies, said Lanzhou Mayor Zhang Jinliang Sunday.

    The cost of heavy ion treatment and the number of hospital staff were yet to be decided, said Sheng Shijia, spokesman for Sheng De Group.

    "Chinese and overseas experts and scholars in related fields are the key targets of our recruitment plan," Sheng added.

    Cancer is the leading cause of death in China, with 2 million new cases reported annually.

    According to the provincial health bureau, about 42,000 people die of cancer every year in Gansu, accounting for 25 percent of the province's overall deaths. More than 1 billion yuan (146 million U.S. dollars) is spent annually on treating cancer in the province.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/...nt_11739107.htm

Chinese researchers have managed to create powerful stem cells from mouse skin and used these to generate fertile live mouse pups.

They used induced pluripotent skin cells, or iPS cells -- cells that have been reprogrammed to look and act like embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, taken from days-old embryos, have the power to morph into any cell type and, in mice, can be implanted into a mother's womb to create living mouse pups.

Their experiment, published in Nature, means that it is theoretically possible to clone someone using ordinary connective tissue cells found on the person's skin, but the experts denied such a possibility.

"We are confident that tremendous good can come from demonstrating the versatility of reprogrammed cells in mice, and this research will be used to ... understand the root causes of disease and lead to viable treatments and cures of human afflictions," said Fanyi Zeng of the Shanghai Institute of Medical Genetics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

"It would not be ethical to attempt to use iPS cells in human reproduction. It is important for science to have ethical boundaries," she said, adding that their study was "in no way meant as a first step in that direction".

No one has ever cloned a human being and while many stem cell experiments in mice have been replicated in humans, not all have.

Led by Qi Zhou at the Chinese Academy of Sciences's State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Biology, the team created iPS cells, using mouse fibroblasts, which are cells found in connective tissue in the skin.

Stem cells are the body's master cells, giving rise to all the tissues, organs and blood. Embryonic stem cells are considered the most powerful kind of stem cells as they have the potential to give rise to any type of tissue.

But they are difficult to make and require the use of an embryo or cloning technology. Many people also object to using human embryonic stem cells and many countries limit funding for such experiments.

From the skin cells, the Chinese scientists created 37 stem cell lines, and of these, three generated live births.

"One line can generate such competent mice that the longest living one we have is nine months," Zeng told Reuters.

"It has generated now more than 100 of second-generation (mice) and more than 100 third-generation (mice). It really demonstrates how fertile and strong the system is."

"These investigators have, for the first time, unequivocally demonstrated that the iPS lines they have generated are truly pluripotent," wrote Andrew Laslett, group leader of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Technology at the Australian Stem Cell Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

Pluripotent is a term meaning the cells can give rise to all the tissues in the body.

"Moreover, the long-term stability of both the iPS cell lines and the long-term health of the mice generated using this procedure are yet to be reported. It will be interesting to see whether mice generated in this fashion have a higher propensity for tumour formation," Laslett wrote.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07...ent_8467205.htm

China's software industry continued to grow in the first half of this year, but at a slower pace because of the global economic downturn.

    The sector gained business earnings of 427 billion yuan in the first half of this year, up 22.7 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said Friday on its Web site.

    However, the growth rate was 0.6 percentage point lower than that in the first five months, and 7.7 percentage point lower than last year's same period.

    The June alone saw a 20.8-percent growth from a year ago to 97.88 billion yuan in income. It was down 13.4 percentage points from the same period of last year and 1.6 percentage points lower than May.

    Software exports rose 47.4 percent from a year earlier to 8.34 billion U.S. dollars in the first half. It was also four percentage points higher than the same period of last year. Software outsourcing jumped 64.5 percent from a year ago to 900 million yuan.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/...nt_11772000.htm

[jhl]

China's foreign exchange reserves hit a new high of 2.13 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of June, adding to the belief that the world's third largest economy is on track for recovery, but also raising concerns about the influx of speculative capital betting on fast-ballooning asset prices.

    China added new reserves of 185.6 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of the year, but that is about 95 billion U.S. dollars down on the same period a year ago, the People's Bank of China said on its website Wednesday.

    The reserves growth picked up speed in the second quarter, with 178 billion U.S. dollars added, ending the decline in the first two months when monthly exports tumbled to near a decade low.

    China's huge stockpiles, which expanded by 17.84 in the first half year on year, are more than double those of Japan, the second largest holding 1.02 trillion U.S. dollars.

　　SPECULATIVE CAPITAL

    "The rapid growth in the second quarter was not only led by the still rising trade surplus, but also the confidence of overseas investors as they cash-in to buy Chinese assets," Zhuang Jian, senior economist with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), told Xinhua Wednesday.

    Customs figures showed Chinese foreign trade shrank 23.5 percent to 946.12 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of the year, as the global financial crisis sapped demand for Chinese goods, and restricted China's imports after domestic industrial production shrank.

    However, China still retained a trade surplus of 96.94 billion U.S. dollars in the first half, as imports dipped less than exports.

    As the effects of the government's 4 trillion yuan stimulus package trickled down, China's economy showed signs of recovery, which is in part reflected in the bullish stock and property market.

    Chinese shares have rallied more than 70 percent from the beginning of the year, posting the best performance in the world.

    Property sales climbed 53 percent year on year to 1.58 trillion yuan as investors took advantage of low rates before inflationary trends started to gain ground.

    Zhu Baoliang, an economist with the State Information Center, a government think-tank, said the rocketing asset prices and the speculative money inflow are "relevant".

    "It is so dangerous that it will not only spur inflation, but also add pressure for the yuan's appreciation, which will exacerbate China's exports," he said.

    Luxury home sales in China's big cities saw robust growth in the second quarter. An analyst said it is mainly due to increased purchase by overseas buyers.

    Figures released by the Beijing Real Estate Transaction Website showed that among the capital's top 30 most expensive residential projects, 993 units were sold in the second quarter, doubling the transaction a year ago.

    "The loosening up of the policy canceling limitations on home purchases by foreigners and compatriots from Hong Kong and Macao in Beijing contributed largely to the high-end residential sector," Wednesday's China Daily quoted Will Chen, deputy-managing director of CBRE, the world's largest commercial property services firm, as saying.

    Zhuang Jian said China's property and equity markets have always been closely watched by international speculative fund holders. He believed that is the main reason behind the foreign reserve surge in the second quarter as he expected gross domestic product (GDP) will rebound to near eight percent in that period.

    U.S. DOLLAR DILEMMA

    "The mounting deposit added difficulties for the Chinese authorities to manage, since its value is always exposed to consistent changes no matter of what composition," Chen Bingcai, researcher with the China National School of Administration, said to Xinhua Wednesday.

    After the Federal Reserve adopted a quantitative easy monetary policy to spur U.S. economic revival, Chinese officials have expressed repeated concerns about the falling U.S. dollar rate which could hurt China's massive holding of U.S. dollar-denominated assets,

    China reduced the holding of the U.S. treasury bills by 4.4 billion U.S. dollars in April, the first cut in a year. China has managed a total of 763.5 billion U.S. dollars by the end of April, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury.

    Some experts suggested that China should buy commodities with the massive deposit to replenish China's oil and resources reserves. But others argued that China's cash-in will inevitably drive up the prices, which will in turn hurt the reserve value.

    Zhang Bin, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told Xinhua that encouraging Chinese enterprises to invest more overseas may help diversify the reserve structure and offset financial risks.

    China has signed loans-for-oil contracts worth 44 billion U.S. dollars with six countries including Russia, Brazil and Venezuela.

    However, these measures could not eradicate the risks, said Yu Yongding, a researcher with the CASS, also a former central bank adviser.

    "China should shift from the over-reliance on exports to domestic spending to achieve structural balance. In this way, the foreign reserve will not balloon," said Yu.

    AMPLE LIQUIDITY

    The central bank also said 7.37 trillion yuan of new bank loans were extended in the first half of the year, 4.92 trillion yuan more than in the same period a year ago, to echo the moderately eased monetary policy to support the economic revival.

    Credits to non-financial businesses were 6.31 trillion yuan in the first half, up 4.32 trillion yuan year on year. Of the total, 1.32 trillion yuan were short-term loans, and 3.18 trillion yuan were mid-and-long-term loans. Bill financing was 1.71 trillion yuan.

    In June, 1.53 trillion yuan of loans were issued, the second highest monthly figure this year.

    The broad measure of money supply (M2), which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 28.46 percent year on year to 56.89 trillion yuan by the end of June.

    The narrow measure of money supply, M1 (cash in circulation plus corporate current deposits), was up 24.79 percent to 19.32 trillion yuan.

    Zhuang Jian said he expected a monetary policy "fine tuning" in the second half of the year, to prevent excess liquidity flooding and pushing up inflation.

    "A transformation from deflation to inflation could happen overnight considering the complex economic climate. Therefore the policy should be set prior to the changes taking place," he said.

    Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on many occasions in the past two months that China will stick to the proactive fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policy to maintain growth.

    China will release the GDP for second quarter Thursday. Analysts expected that growth of nearly eight percent is possible.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/...nt_11710420.htm

China Life Insurance (Group) Company reported on Tuesday that its premium income totaled 186.51 billion yuan (27.3 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half year.

    The figure accounted for 30.7 percent of the total premium income of the industry in China in the first six months, said the company.

    In the first half of 2008, the company saw its premium income climb 46.81 percent to about 195.46 yuan.

    Total assets of the company hit 1.42 trillion yuan as the end of June, up 10.8 percent from a year ago. Net profits rose 43 percent from a year earlier to 8.734 billion yuan from January to June, the company said.

    China Life posted 316.4 billion yuan in premium revenue in 2008,an increase of 46 percent from a year ago.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/...nt_11746494.htm

A RECORD 43 Chinese companies, including four based in Shanghai, earned a spot on the latest Fortune 500 list, as the country moved up two places to rank behind only the United States and Japan as the homes of powerhouse firms.

Only 35 Chinese companies appeared on Fortune Magazine's previous annual ranking of the world's biggest companies by revenue. The sharp rise in the latest listing reflects the nation's rapid economic growth in the face of the global recession. It is also a result of a stronger yuan.

Beijing-based Sinopec, with 2008 revenue valued at US$207.8 billion, led the Chinese pack in ninth place overall, the first time a Chinese company entered the top 10, the magazine reported on Wednesday. The oil refiner and producer was No. 16 in the previous ranking.

Shanghai-headquartered Baosteel Group ranked 220th, up 39 spots, and Shanghai Automotive came in at No. 359. Baosteel said new projects, mergers and acquisitions helped it advance. Although the steel industry was hard hit by the global financial crisis starting in the second half of last year, China's mills have maintained output growth as a result of a massive government stimulus package.

There were nine new entries from China on the list, including two Shanghai-based companies - China United Telecommunications at No. 419 and the Bank of Communications at No. 494. That group also included two steel producers - Hebei Iron & Steel Group at No. 375 and private-sector Jiangsu Shagang Group at No. 444.

Personal-computer maker Lenovo Group, which was No. 499 in the previous ranking, fell off the list.

The 43 Chinese firms included three from Hong Kong and six based in Taiwan.

The number of US companies in the ranking fell from 153 to 140, the lowest since the magazine began the list in 1995.

Oil companies dominated, taking seven seats in the top 10 thanks to higher crude prices. Anglo-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell topped the list with US$458.4 billion in revenue, followed by US giant Exxon Mobile in second place. Wal-Mart Stores was third, losing the No. 1 spot it held in the previous ranking.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/20...icle_407013.htm

China's retail sales in the first half year rose 15 percent to 5.87 trillion yuan (859.60 billion U.S. dollars) from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Thursday.

    The growth rate was 3.7 percentage points higher than the same period last year.

Retail sales in June also rose 15 percent from May, said the NBS spokesman Li Xiaochao.

    Real (inflation-adjusted) retail sales growth was recorded at 16.6 percent in the first half year.

    Urban sales of consumer goods expanded 14.4 percent to 3.98 trillion yuan, while sales in rural areas increased 16.4 percent to 1.89 trillion yuan.

    "There were two highlights in promoting domestic demand: commercial apartments sales rose by 31.7 percent in the first half year from the same period last year; automobile sales expanded by 17.7 percent year on year," Li said.

    Consumption contributed 53.4 percent to economic growth and 3.8percentage points to GDP growth in the first half year, Li said.

    Per capita urban income rose 9.8 percent in the first half year to 8,856 yuan. The figure for rural residents was 8.1 percent up to 2,733 yuan. In real terms, the growth rate was 11.2 percent for urban residents and 8.1 percent for rural residents.

    "China has taken three kinds of policies to boost consumption, including improving residents' income, encouraging and empowering rural residents to spend, boosting large and popular items consumption such as automobiles and apartments," said Sun Xuegong, a researcher at the Academy of Macroeconomic Research under the National Development and Reform Commission.

    "The policies have worked well and played a key role in promoting China's consumption in the first half year," Sun said.

    China should work further to provide more jobs, expand middle class and complete social security system to boost consumption, Sun said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/...nt_11716560.htm

[jhl]

Recently india has stepped up its approach of "repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth". Those people in india should understand lying can only change (some but not all people) perception. But perception is not the same as reality. No amount of lying can change that.

Research from scholars outside india have already shown fighting in 1962 broke out north of the McMahon line over territory the British/McMahon themselves never claimed. This was india's socalled "forward policy" to expand the borders. This policy came after india's earlier efforts in fomenting unrest with others in Tibet during the fifties wasn't succesful. For reasons such as lack of support from most local people in Tibet. Just like the unrest in 2008 couldn't continue because it lacked support from most people in Tibet. After that failure indian troops would be used to do the job that the dalai lama and his supporters in india could not.

Bottomline: india should stop trying to deceive the world about its failed invasion into China and focus on trying to reduce the growing number of poor and hungry people in india.

Regarding Brahma Chellaney's July 15 article, "China's false monoculture": Chellaney is entitled to his dislikes and suspicions of China, but he should not distort facts. He says that post-1949 China gobbled up India's 38,000-square-km Aksai China, part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, to provide a route linking Tibet with Xinjiang. There are some problems with this statement:

• Most of Aksai China, the Tibet-Xinjiang route especially, lies north of the Himalayan watershed in this area.

• India did not discover the construction of this route until years after the event — proof positive that India was not in control of the area.

• The only pre-1949 border ever formally suggested for most of this area was the British proposal to China in 1899, to which China never responded. Imperialistic Britain at the time had a forward policy to forestall Russian ambitions in the area.

Even so, the 1899 proposal leaves most of the disputed territory under Chinese control. The Indian claim to this area relies on a highly distorted version of the 1899 proposal, as historian Alastair Lamb has pointed out.

• In exchange for its Aksai China claim, China has effectively conceded India's claim to the much more valuable NEFA (North East Frontier Area), grabbed by the British from a weak Tibet in 1914. The China India frontier war of 1962 occurred only after India pushed troops north even of the Indian-claimed NEFA frontier, as historian Neville Maxwell has pointed out.

Incidentally, Chellaney criticizes China's treatment of the Tibetan and Uighur peoples, but China's behavior pales in comparison with India's dismal record with the Muslim majority in Kashmir.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20090723a2.html

Earlier this week, India’s finance ministry announced an ambitious target to cut the percentage of people living in poverty. To that end he proposed spending billions of dollars on employment, health care, infrastructure and education programs.

Nobody can argue that India has hundreds of millions of poor people and that the government should help them. What remains a matter of significant dispute, however, is just how many poor people there are in India.

The government Planning Commission estimates that 27.5 percent of the country’s population lives below the poverty line, which is calculated based on how much it would cost to buy 2,400 calories a day in rural areas and 2,100 in urban areas. (City dwellers are thought to exert less energy, so they should need to consume less.)

Many have challenged the way India measures poverty. The latest complaint came last week when a commission appointed by the country’s Supreme Court said the number of people living in poverty is probably at least 50 percent, because it asserts that the Planning Commission poverty line has been wrong for years because it does not properly adjust for the rise in food prices.

The difference is not merely technical.

A high poverty line means that the federal government has to give state governments more money for various anti-poverty programs. Even the prime minister,  Manmohan Singh, acknowledged recently that higher measures of poverty could be tough on government finances, which are already severely strained.

Regardless of whether or not people can buy the requisite calories, data from a national survey taken every five years shows that most Indians are indeed not consuming 2,400 (or 2,100) calories each day, and many are now consuming less than they used to 10 years ago. The poorest 25 percent of Indians now consume 1,624 calories, from 1,683.

Moreover, most of the calories consumed by the poor come from cereals, whereas the diet of the rich includes more meat, vegetables, fruit and other foods with higher nutritional value.

Perhaps even more distressing is the finding by the Supreme Court panel that more than half of the country’s poorest 20 percent of people do not have the cards that identify them as poor and are necessary to access public welfare plans. At the same time, about 17 percent of the richest Indians have such cards.

Studies on poverty in India seem to raise more questions than answers. So, as India spends billions of dollars on new methods to fight poverty, perhaps it should also spend a few million more to gather better data more frequently on who is indigent, what they are eating and whether or not they are receiving state help.

That could help reduce the government’s total welfare bill and make public agencies much more effective in reducing malnutrition and lifting people out of poverty.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/...dians-are-poor/

Foreign aviation suppliers are competing for business opportunities arising from China's plans to build a jumbo jet.

The nation is set to unveil a model of the commercial jet in two weeks.

Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd (COMAC), which is in charge of the domestic jumbo jet project, will present a miniature of the homemade passenger jet C919 at the Asian Aerospace International Expo and Congress in Hong Kong between Sept 8 and 10, the expo organizer said.

It will be the debut appearance of C919, it said. For the first homemade jumbo jet, the letter C represents China as well as COMAC, the first 9 implies forever in Chinese culture, and 19 means the jet will have 190 seats.

As COMAC is pushing ahead with the homegrown passenger aircraft project, it has also accelerated talks to pick global partners for the program.

The company has been intending to invite global cooperative partners to participate in its development plan.

Wu Guanghui, chief designer of the program and deputy general manager of the Shanghai-based COMAC, said earlier that the aircraft will be designed and assembled in Shanghai, but will source parts and components globally, which is a model adopted by the two dominant aircraft groups, Boeing and Airbus.

He said his company will choose international suppliers through bidding, but priority will go to foreign suppliers that design and manufacture products with domestic companies in China.

The work of choosing suppliers is expected to be completed this year, Wu said in March.

During the past 40 days, executives from major global aviation suppliers have paid intensive visits to COMAC, after the latter issued the invitation for tender on July 10 for engines and airborne equipment to be used on C919.

Visitors included top managers of Honeywell, HP, Zodiac, Liebherr and Moog, according to the COMAC website reports.

Because foreign suppliers are encouraged to enter into partnerships with Chinese manufacturers, Goodrich Corp made an attempt on Aug 12 to sign contracts with Xi'an Aircraft International Corp (XAIC) to form its first two overseas joint ventures, to manufacture landing gear and engine compartment components.

"We believe they will give us an opportunity, as joint ventures, for both XAIC and Goodrich to participate in the C919," Goodrich President and CEO Marshall Larsen said.

Meanwhile, China is speeding up independent development of aero-engines, so that China-made engines can power C919 as soon as possible.

The first domestically developed engine for C919 is expected to be ready in 2016, and efforts will follow to develop a series of aero-engines, Wang Zhilin, deputy general manager of AVIC Commercial Aircraft Engine Co Ltd (ACAE), said yesterday.

ACAE General Manager Zhang Jian said the company has completed its engine development plan, which is being examined by experts and will soon be delivered to the State Council for approval.

The Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald reported yesterday that the C919 project could bring nearly $200 billion to suppliers by 2050.

Citing industry information, the report said China needs 1,600 new jumbo jets, worth $150 billion to $180 billion, by 2020.

By 2050, China will need more than 3,000 new planes, which, together with other smaller aircraft and freight planes, will be worth $350 billion to $400 billion.

Zhou Jisheng, deputy designer of the C919, was quoted as saying that the parts on bidding, such as engines and airborne equipment, could amount to 50 percent of the cost for manufacturing a jumbo plane in the case of the Boeing 787.

Therefore, suppliers could get nearly $200 billion from the C919 project, the newspaper said.

The homemade jet has been set to take its maiden flight in 2014, and acquire airworthiness approval and be delivered to customers in 2016. COMAC will develop cargo carriers and business jets in the future.

China has been the world's fastest-growing aircraft market. According to statistics released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, more than 193 million passengers traveled by air last year, compared to 186 million in 2007.

The combined fleet of the country's air companies has risen to 1,961 from 1,591 civil aircraft in 2007.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_8621974.htm

The National Bureau of Statistics released six indexes that show China' s economic changes in the past six decades.

First, the country' s comprehensive national strength transformed from weak to strong, and China' s international status and influence were significantly boosted by economic development, technological innovation, military might, culture and talent.

In terms of the economy, in 2008 the per capita GDP growth was 32.4 times of that in 1952 and the per capita gross national income was more than $3,000, allowing for price fluctuations. According to the World Bank standard, China was formerly a low-income country, and has how risen to the ranks of the world's middle-income countries.

Second, goods and services evolved from seriously deficient to tremendously adequate; and the supply capacity of main industrial and agricultural products ranks the highest in the world.

China's grain yield reached 52,871 tons in 1949. In 2008, it was 3.7 times of 1949' s output and the growth of per capita increased 91 percent.

Third, the country' s economic structure experienced a great adjustment from imbalanced to relatively balanced, while the economic compatibility increased significantly.

China was largely an agriculturally-based economy at the time of new China' s founding. In 2008 the primary industry of agriculture dropped from 51 percent in 1952 to 11.3 percent; the construction industry or secondary one rose from 20.8 percent to 48.6 percent and the rest of the industries increased from 28.2 percent to 40.1 percent.

Fourth, infrastructure and basic industry were enhanced significantly, with support for economic development greatly strengthened.

China has built highways totaling more than 60,000 kilometers; mobile phone users have reached more than 600 million. It is enough to indicate the dramatic change in six decades.

Fifth, foreign economic relations varied from closed and semi-closed in 1949 to opening up in all directions; foreign trade and the use of foreign capital tops the world.

Foreign trade continuously expanded and the trade volume jumped to third place in the world. From 1979 to 2008, China used $852.6 billion in direct foreign investment, ranking first in the use of foreign capital in developing countries.

Finally, people's living standards have increased from poverty to overall fairly prosperous and secure, striving for a well-off society in an all-round way.

Urban residents' per capita disposable income was less than 100 yuan in 1949 and in 2008 it was more than 15,000 yuan; rural residents per capita net income was 44 yuan in 1949 and 2,761 yuan last year. At the end of last year, urban and rural residents had 21.8 trillion yuan in savings deposits and when calculated per capita it is more than 16,000 yuan, compared with 1.6 yuan in 1952.

Sixty years of change in China's economic data are too numerous to count. But Premier Wen Jiabao said, "No matter how much the economic aggregate is, if it is divided by 1.3 billion, it will become very small."

China is far from being complacent and arrogant. In order to achieve harmony between man and nature and all-round well-off society, China still has a long way to go.

http://news.alibaba.com/article/detail/bus...ix-decades.html

[jhl]

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world's biggest lender by market value, posted a profit after tax of 66.7 billion yuan (9.77 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of this year, up 2.8 percent over the same period last year.

    The increase was mainly attributed to gains on incomes from the bank's intermediate business, including investment banking business and fund dealing commission, which grew 17 percent from ayear earlier to stand at 28.3 billion yuan, according to the bank's half-year report released Thursday.

    Outstanding loans amounted to 5.44 trillion yuan by the end of June, jumping 18.9 percent from the beginning of this year in response to the country's economic stimulus plan.

    The non-performing rate was 1.81 percent by June, 0.48 percentage points lower than at the beginning of 2009, as outstanding bad loans decreased 5.8 billion yuan after the bank intensified risks control.

    At the end of June 2009, the bank's deposits increased 1.69 trillion yuan from the beginning of the year, leaving its outstanding deposits exceeding 10 trillion yuan.

    The total assets of ICBC stood at 11.4 trillion yuan by the end of June, up 17.2 percent from the end of last year.

    Earnings per share for the bank amounted to 0.2 yuan and the bank's stock advanced 3.26 percent to end at 4.75 yuan in Shanghai Stock Exchange Thursday. ICBC was simultaneously listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong in October 2006.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/...nt_11919235.htm

China Life Insurance Company Limited, the country's largest life insurer, posted a first-half net profit of 13.92 billion yuan (2.04 billion U.S. dollars), up 29.22 percent year on year.

    The figures were compiled according to the Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises for domestic companies on the Chinese mainland.

    China Life said premium revenue was 172.82 billion yuan (25.30 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half, down 5.08 percent, according to a filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange posted on Tuesday.

    The rise of net profit could be attributed to a booming stock market that boosted China Life's returns on investments, according to the filing.

    China Life's investment returns topped 32.19 billion yuan and the investment returns rate was 3.27 percent, up 0.94 percentage points from the same period last year.

    China Life's total assets topped 1.10 trillion yuan, up 11.34 percent from the end of last year.

    Following Hong Kong Financial Reporting Standards, China Life reported 18.2 billion yuan of net profit in the first half, up 15.2 percent year on year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/...nt_11943397.htm

China Telecom Corp yesterday reported a 29 percent fall in net profit for the first half of the year after the country's biggest fixed-line phone carrier said it incurred more costs for marketing its mobile-phone services.

Revenue for the six months rose 14 percent to 103.15 billion yuan ($15.10 billion). The company's net profit for the period fell to 9 billion yuan from 12.63 billion yuan a year back.

Wang Xiaochu, chairman and chief executive of China Telecom, said he expects business to recover next year.

He said the company's mobile business, acquired from China Unicom as part of an industry restructuring last year, is expected to become profitable in the next three to four years.

According to the company, selling, general and administrative expenses rose 60 percent to 17.6 billion yuan in the first six months.

China Telecom said despite the short-term pressure on profitability, the increased spending on marketing initiatives would pay off in the long run.

According to the company, China Telecom gained 6.44 million mobile-phone users in the second quarter, compared with 4.93 million in the previous three months. That boosted its total mobile subscriber base to 39.28 million at the end of June, including 1.3 million third-generation mobile subscribers.

Since last year, China Telecom has been betting on its mobile business to challenge the market leader China Mobile.

The company has launched its third generation services based on CDMA2000 standard, which is believed to be more mature than the TD-SCDMA standard that China Mobile has deployed in its 3G network.

China Telecom said it has invested 4.84 billion yuan in the first half in handset subsidies to boost user base. On Monday, its announced that it would buy 4 million 3G handsets from dozens of domestic mobile phone makers.

Wang estimated that handset subsidies would account for about 37 percent of the full-year mobile revenue, higher than the 30 percent it estimated earlier.

Wang said China Telecom has completed expanding its 3G network coverage to 342 Chinese cities and more than 2,000 counties in the first half of this year.

He said the company is still in talks with Canadian phone maker Research In Motion (RIM) and Palm Inc to introduced their popular handsets in China.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_8626789.htm

Net profits of China's four state-owned listed banks amounted to 179.13 billion yuan ($26.22 billion) in the first half of this year, the China Securities Journal reported today.

In the first six months of 2009, Bank of China (BOC) saw net profits drop 2.51 percent year-on-year to 41.12 billion yuan and China Construction Bank (CCB) reported 55.84 billion yuan in net profits, a decline of 4.86 percent year-on-year.

During the same period, net profits of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) grew 2.7 percent year-on-year to 66.61 billion yuan; Bank of Communications (BoCom) profits rose 0.30 percent to 15.56 billion yuan.

Interest revenue of ICBC, CCB, BOC and BoCom dropped 11.9, 7.75, 8.34 and 9.86 percent year-on-year, respectively.

BOC’s commission and brokerage income fell 2.64 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2009, while that of ICBC, CCB and BoCom increased 13.3, 16.13 and 17.69 percent year-on-year respectively.

Lendings from BOC grew 38 percent from the end of last year while BoCom's lendings rose more than 30 percent. Lendings from ICBC and CCB increased about 20 percent from the end of 2008.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-08...ent_8629741.htm

[jhl]

China's installed capacity of hydropower is expected to hit 300 million kilowatts in 2020, said the country's water resources minister Chen Lei on Saturday.

    Chen made the remarks when attending a hydropower forum here in Beijing, saying hydropower will play a more important role in China's energy safety strategy in the future.

    He said China's water resources technology developed fast in recent years, with some of the technologies catching up with advanced levels in the world. The development potential was also very huge.

    According to Chen, China has more sufficient water resources reserves compared with other countries. By the end of 2008, the nation's installed capacity of hydropower was 172 million kw, the biggest in the world.

    Statistics shows hydropower accounts for 20 percent of the power supply worldwide, and in 24 countries it makes up more than 90 percent of the electric supply.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/...nt_12081458.htm

China is a long-standing and worthy partner in Angola's post-war economic reconstruction program, a senior Angolan official has said during his recent inspection visit to Benguela Stadium under construction in central Benguela province.

    Sun Yanhua, the general director of the Angolan Company of the Sinohydro Corporation Limited, told Xinhua on Thursday that Higino Carneiro, the minister of Public Works, spoke highly of the construction quality of the Benguela Stadium for holding the African Football Nations Cup from January 10 to 31, 2010 in Angola's four cities.

    "The quality (of the stadium) is good," Sun quoted Higino Carneiro as saying, adding that the minister also expressed his satisfaction with the pace of the construction of the stadium which is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

    Accompanying the Angolan minister to inspect the stadium in central Benguela province, Sun said Carneiro also told him that the Chinese engineers and workers work very hard and fast with high work efficiency that no other foreign construction companies can challenge.

    The Angolan minister said he believed the Chinese companies are an important and irreplaceable workforce in Angola's post-war economic reconstruction program.

    He also expressed his hope that the Chinese companies will make more contribution to Angola's economic reconstruction program in future.

    According to Sun, the Sinohydro Corporation Limited started to contract construction projects in Angola in 2004. Since then, he said, his company has contracted to build a total of 109 projects, big or small, involving a total contractual volume of about 3 billion U.S. dollars.

    He added that these projects covered in the sectors of hydropower and water conservancy, sports facilities, highways and bridges, airports, schools, hospitals, free markets and housing, among others.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/...nt_12072033.htm

China's rapid development was a great contribution to the whole world and all nations were benefiting from it, UNESCO's Vice Director General told Xinhua on Saturday.

    Marcio Barbosa said China's achievement in education was one of the most satisfying parts of the country's progress.

    "I think the progress China has obtained in education is fantastic and very important for UNESCO," he said.

    "We cannot forget the basis of development, which is education, the quality of people's lives and the determination of hard work, you have all of these," Barbosa said.

    Barbosa expressed his optimism about China's future, saying "the country, with a population of 1.3 billion, is full of hope."

    "I believe China will continue to make successes on the international stage," he said.

    When asked what in China had left the biggest impression on him, the Brazilian official said it was undoubtedly the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

    "For me, the Beijing Olympic Games was the most important moment, because it was the opportunity to show the world the real China, and I think it was a great success."

    "We have seen the change and all the infrastructure work China undertook for the Games. It was an extraordinary and incredible change," Barbosa said.

    Barbosa's links with China started when he was in charge of Brazil's Space Agency in the late 1980s, and, when he was appointed vice director general of UNESCO in 2001, his engagement with China in education, culture and science increased.

    Last year's Sichuan earthquake was another important memory for Barbosa.

    "During my last trip to China, three months after the earthquake, I visited two global heritage sites, which are on the protection list of UNESCO and had suffered damage. I was surprised to see the reparation works being undertaking even when conditions were still terrible, which demonstrated the responsibility of the Chinese people and the authorities," he said.

    Ten days before China's National Day on Oct. 1, Barbosa expressed his congratulations for the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. "Certainly, the Chinese people should be proud of and content with the progress achieved in their country. It is a country that has changed the people's lives through years of enthusiastic work. The progress we observed is remarkable."

    "China is going to celebrate its 60th birthday, and the 60 years is a phase of peace and stablization and full of industrious work. I wish this kind of development continues, all the world will benefit from it," he said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/...nt_12093031.htm

Major Japanese media on Thursday responded positively to the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China, lauding the great strides China has made in the past 60years and acknowledging the continuous improvement of its national strength and international status.

"China has developed into the world's third largest economy following the United States and Japan since it adopted the market economic system 30 years ago, and it is just a matter of time for China to overtake Japan." the Yomiuri Shimbun said in its editorial.

    And China is making its presence better felt by the international community by staging major events such as the Olympics and the upcoming 2010 Shanghai Expo, it said.

    In a 20-page special report entitled "Chinese economy: A herald to world multipolarization," the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei Shimbun) hailed China's economic development and its contributions to the world economy, saying the Chinese economy enjoys broader scope for future development.

    The Tokyo Shimbun said in an editorial that China's economy had expanded 77 folds over the last 60 years and was likely to outstrip Japan this year. And China's foreign exchange reserve ranks first in the world. The great achievements should be attributed to the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

    More and more developing countries attempt to follow China's mode of development, and the United States and Europe mired in the ongoing financial crisis are also looking to China's market, it said.

    The Sankei Shimbun also praised China's economic growth in its editorial.

    China's economic development demonstrates the advantage of the state-dominated economic system against the backdrop of the global recession, it said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/...nt_12159553.htm

[jhl]

Lots of progress for China's aerospace industry. Reports are coming in Laos, Bolivia Pakistan and maybe Sri Lanka will get a communications satellite build and launched like Nigeria and Venezuela before. The Sino-Pakistan K-8 trainer plane has also seen new sales recently.

CHINA will build and launch a communications satellite for Laos, Chinese media reported on Saturday, following similar ventures for Nigeria and Venezuela.

China would also build a satellite control centre for Laos, according to an agreement signed on Friday, reports said, citing an official at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT).

The Dongfang Hong (The East is Red) model satellite would be launched by a Long March rocket. No date was given for the launch.

In 2007, China for the first time launched a Chinese-made satellite for a foreign country, Nigeria.

However, the US$257 million (S$348 million) NigComSat-1 satellite - which was launched to provide phone, broadband Internet and broadcasting services to rural Africa - failed after a year due to technical problems.

In October 2008, Beijing launched Venezuela's first satellite, Venesat-1, which cost US$241 million.

Bolivian President Evo Morales indicated after a meeting on Thursday with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, that China had agreed to help Bolivia build and launch its first telecommunications satellite within three years.

China, which has developed its space programme considerably in recent years, is a growing presence in the market for building and launching satellites.

In March this year, the head of European aerospace giant Arianespace expressed 'shock' that China had been chosen by Eutelsat Communications to launch a satellite, and claimed it circumvented US rules to prevent the export of sensitive materials to certain countries, including China.

'We do not dispute the price factor, even if we think that to penetrate the market, China offers prices which do not reflect economic reality,' Arianespace chairman Jean-Yves Le Gall had said.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNew...ory_434688.html

Pakistan and China signed an agreement on Friday to develop a new satellite, PAKSAT-1R, in about three years period, Pakistan's Economic Affairs Division (EAD) said in a press release.

    According to the framework agreement signed by EAD Secretary Farrakh Qayyum and Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Luo Zhaohui, China will fund the satellite project with a soft loan of 1.35 billion RMB (about 200 million U.S. dollars) carrying maturity period of 20 years.

    The communication satellite will have 30 years transponders, 12in C-Band and 18 in Ku-Band, each of 36 MHz Bandwidth. The program is in line with Pakistan's Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF2005-10) objectives and may provide better satellite communications for Pakistan, said the press release.

    Pakistan Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Commission (SUPARCO) and China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) will jointly develop the new satellite to replace the Pakistan Space Craft, which is likely to expire in 2011.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/...nt_12076413.htm

Ethiopia said on Wednesday its national electricity company has signed contracts with three Chinese firms to develop hydro-electric projects and made preliminary accords for wind power projects.

The state Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) said at least six new dams would built as be part of a 12 billion-dollar plan over 25 years to improve the power network.

The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) signed one accord with China Gezhouba Group Company (CGGC) for the Genale Dawa 3 hydropower project in the south of the country.

EEPCo chief executive Mihret Debebe said this would cost 408 million dollars and would generate 254 megawatts of power, ENA reported.

A 110 metre (330 feet) high dam will be built on the Genale River, which will increase the current capacity of 860MW by 27 percent, Mihret said.

EEPCo also signed an accord with Sinohydro Corporation for the 555 million- dollar Chemoga Yeda hydropower project in Amhara state. Mihret said there would be five dams on five rivers, with the first phase to be ready in four years.

Preliminary accords were signed with the HydroChina Company to build wind power projects in the Adama and Mesobo Harena areas. The financing will come from the Chinese government.

Ethiopia suffers major power shortfalls as it cannot keep up with rising demand from homes and industry. Since the start of this year, Addis Ababa regularly has power cuts every two days.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/artic...FGZ8Y2JfWxF9bsw

Sinohydro Corporation has sealed a deal to build a $2-billion hydropower station in Ecuador, the latest overseas mega contract for the China's largest hydropower plant builder.

The contract is likely to be signed in Ecuador's capital city Quito on Sept 23, said an official with Sinohydro who declined to be named. He added that Ecuador's President Rafael Correa might attend the signing ceremony and hence the event could be changed in accordance with his agenda.

The signing of the deal had been postponed several times due to discussions on the contract price. The finalized contract price of the turnkey project is around $2 billion, including design, construction and equipment.

The Export-Import Bank of China, a major policy bank in China, has agreed to finance the project, according to Sinohydro.

A statement released earlier by Ecuador government said 85 percent of the $2-billion project will be financed through a Chinese bank and the remaining 15 percent will be funded by Ecuador and Argentina.

Sinohydro's subsidiary Sinohydro Bureau 14 Co Ltd, based in Yunnan province, will undertake the 1,500-megawatt plant.

Ecuador President Rafael Correa said recently that the planned Coca Codo Sinclair (CCS) project is expected to generate 8.8 billion kWh electricity a year after construction, covering 75 percent of the country's energy demand and largely relieving the country out of energy shortage.

Ecuador has been troubled by power shortages. The country spent roughly $26.9 million on importing electricity from Colombia in 2008, according to a report issued by the National Center for Energy Control in January.

The CCS project on the Amazon River is 75 km east of Quito. It will serve as the largest hydropower base and the biggest investment in the South American country.

Correa said China would also invest in other projects like railway and refinery construction.

China's ambassador to Ecuador Cai Runguo said Chinese companies and banks are interested in cooperation with Ecuador on other hydropower projects.

In August, Sinohydro signed a contract to build two hydropower stations and a power transmission line in Laos cumulatively worth around $559 million.

Since the 1980s, Sinohydro has carried out extensive engineering contracting constructions as well as economic and technological cooperation, undertaking more than 50 percent of the world's hydropower projects.

By the end of October 2008, the company had 171 projects realized or under construction in 42 countries with a contracted price of more than $11 billion.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_8701505.htm

[lijinjie]

as a Chinese   We have 2000 years of feudal system.from 1949 we have been in progress and in development ,we are not perfect ,but we have been working  hard.our  Philosophy is  differnt from other country ,especially  West world .all the world almost changed by western world. today we have the best humanrights than ever China Dynasty in the history .if your konwn to China history ,instead of konw a little from west Media!because india domination by England near 300 years ,so they have no their own Think。

[jhl]

Visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is more than delighted when he talks with African trainees face-to-face and via a video system at the Middle East and North Africa training center of Huawei, a leading Chinese company in communication technology,

    "My Chinese name is Hua Mulan," a woman at Huawei's Nigerian training center introduced herself to Premier Wen through the video system.

    "I have remembered your name, because it is the name of a famous ancient Chinese heroine," said Wen.

    "She is Mulan No. 1, and I'm Mulan No. 2," the woman said. Her witty words triggered fits of laughter.

    "Mulan No. 2" said more than 5,000 people have been trained in the center over the past several years. She has visited Huawei's headquarters in south China's booming Shenzhen city, and hopes shecan teach Africans the skills she has learned from China.

    Wen said "This reflects an important shift for China-Africa cooperation that we are giving priority to personnel training. The African people are brave and intelligent. I believe you can master the modern technologies, and push forward the development of Africa."

    On the whole African continent, Huawei, which set up branches in almost every African country, has six training centers, where more than 12,000 people from different African countries have received training on communication technology.

    Established in October in Smart village, Cairo, the new Huawei Middle East and North Africa training center has more capacity and more functional training facilities than the old one. The old center, which was established in 2005, has trained about 5,000 people in the past five years.

    Wen, who arrived here Friday afternoon for an official visit and the opening ceremony of the fourth ministerial meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, visited the training center upon his arrival.

    Hend Kiwan, a 33-year-old Egyptian woman, said she gained skills and technical know-how at the training center. She also went on a tour of Huawei's headquarters in Shenzhen before the training started. She is now a human resources manager.

    Wen told Kiwan he believes the quality of an enterprise depends on the quality of its employees, therefore an enterprise should attach great importance to training.

    Moussa Bousso, a trainee from Senegal told the premier that the teachers at the center are excellent, and the Chinese telecom products, with their low price and fine quality, are very popular among Africans and Chinese enterprises have gained wide acclaim in Africa.

    In reply, Wen said he hoped the Chinese enterprises will "teach the trainees the latest and most advanced technology."

    Bousso invited Wen to visit Senegal, and Wen thanked his warmhearted invitation.

    Ahmed, an Iraqi man who speaks fluent Chinese, expressed his hope that more Chinese enterprises will go to Iraq for businesses after his country restores peace and stability, and he would also have more chance to go to China for training.

    "Just like you, I cherish the same hope that Iraq will regain peace as soon as possible," Wen said, adding training has no borders and he believed Ahmed's wish will surely come true.

    Via the video system, head of the Huawei South Africa training center who introduced himself as Charles, greeted Wen in Chinese and briefed him on the center.

    Wen said he was satisfied that China-Africa ties have gone beyond personnel exchanges and expanded o substantial technological cooperation.

    While touring the training center's exhibition hall, Wen saw photos of African farmers making calls with new telephones and Huawei employees making donations for the local people, Wen praised them for doing such good deeds. "You and Africa are growing together," he said.

    He encouraged Huawei's managers to tackle training from the broader perspective of China-Africa cooperation, rather than merely the development of their enterprise, and help promote the friendship between Chinese and Africans.

    The premier said he expected the new technology, including communication technology, will develop rapidly in Africa and brings a new look to the natural resources-rich continent.

    "I will be more than happy that Chinese companies can do their share for the development of Africa," Wen said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/...nt_12403684.htm

According to Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's shipbuilding industry is suffering from insufficient orders due to the serious financial crisis, and China will replace South Korea as the world's largest shipbuilding country.

China's shipbuilding has overtaken South Korea's in terms of order volume already received and new orders. According to statistical results released by Clarkson, the research institute that analyze the global shipbuilding and maritime transport sector, as of early this month, China's shipbuilding orders reached 54.96 million Compensated Gross Ton (CGT), 34.7% of the world market share, while the South Korean shipbuilding industry holds orders of 53.63 million CGT and only 33.8% of the world's market share. China's market share is 0.9 percentage points higher than South Korea's.

From January to October, China's new orders amounted to 2.71 million CGT, and the market share reaches as high as 52.3%, while new orders in South Korea totals only 1.64 million CGT with 31.8% global market share. This means that China has exceeded South Korea in orders received and new orders and becomes the world's largest shipbuilding country. It is understood that South Korea's shipbuilding industry surpassed Japan in 2000. In the following 10 years, South Korea has been the world's largest ship builder.

Industry insiders in South Korea believe that while South Korean shipbuilding orders are shrinking, at the same time, China has won orders for low-cost shipbuilding. Main products of South Korea's shipbuilding are very large oil tankers, liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships and other high value-added ships. Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) has warned that localization rate of South Korea's core technology of high value-added ships is low. If South Korea does not improve this rapidly, it will be difficult to remain competitive.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/6809292.html

PetroChina Co., the listed subsidiary of China's biggest oil and gas producer, reported Wednesday a net profit of 30.8 billion yuan (4.51 billion U.S. dollars) in the third quarter, down 23.2 percent from a year earlier.

Earnings per share were 0.17 yuan, declining 23.2 percent year on year, said the Beijing-based oil producer and refiner Wednesday in a statement to the Shanghai stock exchange. But it did not give specific reasons to the loss.

The company produced 631 million barrels of crude oil in the first nine months, sliding 3.7 percent over the same time last year, while it raised 11.3 percent of its natural gas output to 1.5 trillion cubic meters in the January-September period as the domestic market for natural gas expanded at a quicker pace, according to the statement.

Net profit downward trend was attributed to lower oil prices and weaker energy demand, according to the report.

Shares of the company gained slightly to 13.39 yuan at the closure of Shanghai Composite Index Wednesday.

http://english.cri.cn/6826/2009/10/28/1901s525592.htm

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has recently received six candidate technology submissions, including China's domestically-developed TD-LTE-Advanced for the global 4G (IMT-Advanced) mobile wireless broadband technology.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on October 26 that it will fully support TD-LTE-Advanced in competing to be qualified as global 4G standard technology and promote development of related industries.

TD-LTE-Advanced, which is the intellectual property of China, inherits some of the major technical elements of TD-SCDMA, but will be able to offer an extended bandwidth and higher speed for Internet access.

Currently, 3GPP's LTE-advanced and IEEE's 802.16m are the two major 4G technologies. TD-LTE-Advanced was submitted at the ITU meeting as IMT-Advanced candidate technology, which is supported by major telecom operators and network device manufacturers including France Télécom, Deutsche Telekom, AT&T, NTT, KT, China Mobile, Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and ZTE.

The selected technologies are expected to be accorded the official designation of IMT-Advanced - to qualify as true 4G technologies - in October 2010.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/6795024.html

[jhl]

India may make use of the Dalai Lama to solve the decade-long territorial conflict by encouraging his visit to southern Tibet, a Chinese analyst said Sunday.

"The Dalai Lama went to southern Tibet at this critical moment probably because of pressure from India," Hu Shisheng, a researcher of Southern Asian studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times Sunday. "By doing so, he can please the country that has hosted him for years."

The appearance and activities of the Dalai Lama in southern Tibet may foment anti-China sentiment among people living in the region, Hu said.

"When the conflict gets sharper and sharper, the Chinese government will have to face it and solve it in a way India has designed," Hu added.

During his visit to a remote, high-altitude Tibetan monastery in the southern Tibet region Sunday, the Dalai Lama spoke out against China.

"It is quite usual for China to step up campaigning against me wherever I go," he told reporters after opening a museum at the monastery. "It is totally baseless on the part of the Chinese government to say that I am encouraging a separatist movement. … My visit is non-political and aimed at promoting universal brotherhood and nothing else."

Sandwiched between Myanmar, Bhutan and China, the lush, forested southern Tibet is claimed by both China and India, with the latter the de facto controller of the area.

The visit took place amid reports of major military build-ups on both sides of the border, while little progress is being made to solve the years-long territorial conflict.

To China, the presence of the separatist in the disputed region, which India calls Arunachal Pradesh, is seen as a double insult.

"India may have forgotten the lesson of 1962, when its repeated provocation resulted in military clashes," a scholar told the Global Times anonymously, warning, "India is on this wrong track again."

According to AFP, preparations for the week-long tour have been underway for two months, with the monastery receiving a face-lift and regular prayers being held across southern Tibet for "the Dalai Lama's safe journey."

CNN reported that the Indian government had only allowed Indian reporters to followed the exile's trip, as the entry applications by 19 foreign journalists were under endless review.

The India Daily even revealed Saturday that the Indian army had deployed BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, co-developed with Russia, near the region, which "the Chinese military fears as these missiles are targeted to take out the Chinese military targets before they can attack the Dalai Lama."

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6807180.html

Vice Premier M. Enkhbold met with Yu Hongyao, China's ambassador to Mongolia, on Thursday, after the country decided to import H1N1 virus vaccines from China instead of those offered by the World Health Organization.

    The decision to use the Chinese vaccines was made by Mongolia's Ministry of Health after consultations between the working group and experts.

    Enkhbold gave Yu a note from the Mongolia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs about buying 400,000 doses and an official document to be sent to the head of the Chinese side of the China-Mongolia intergovernmental commission.

    As of Nov. 5, 706 people have been infected with the swine flu virus in Ulaanbaatar and 178 in 17 provinces.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/...nt_12395684.htm

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world's largest bank by market value, said Thursday that it booked a 19.14 percent rise from a year earlier in its net profit in the third quarter.

    Net profit hit 33.595 billion yuan (4.9 billion U.S. dollars) in the third quarter, the bank said in its statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, adding earnings per share was 0.10 yuan, up from 0.09 yuan from the same period of last year.

    Net interests income dropped to 62.2 billion yuan in the third quarter from 65 billion yuan in the third quarter of last year. Net fee and commission climbed to 13.3 billion yuan from July to September from 10.1 billion yuan in the same period of last year.

    The lender extended 1.008 trillion yuan of new loans in the first nine months in line with the central government's policy to boost economic growth. Chinese banks lent a record 8.67 trillion yuan of new loans from January to September, which triggered concerns that fast growth of loans would increase risks of assets bubble and bad loans.

    As of the end of September, non-performing loans ratio of the bank was 1.68 percent, 0.61 percentage points lower than the end of last year. Provision coverage ratio was 148.37 percent, 18.22 percentage points higher than the end of last year.

    Total assets of the bank totaled 11.67 trillion yuan by the end of September, up 19.60 percent from the end of last year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/...nt_12356765.htm

China's retail sales in October rose 16.2 percent year on year to 1.17 trillion yuan (171 billion US dollars), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Wednesday.

The rise was 5.8 percentage points lower than that of a year earlier, but 0.7 percentage points higher than that in September, NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun said at a press conference.

The first 10 months saw a 15.3-percent growth in retail sales to 10.14 trillion yuan year on year. The rate was 6.7 percentage points down from the same period last year, and 0.2 percentage points up from the first nine months this year, Sheng said.

"The growth is really strong," said Hao Daming, analyst with China Galaxy Securities. "The rise is mainly backed by robust consumption in rural areas, and the property and auto sectors."

Hao expected retail sales would continue to pick up in the following months, and help accelerate economic growth.

The government put into place a series of stimulus measures to fuel consumption, including tax cuts for auto and property purchases and introduced subsidies for home appliances in rural areas, after a slump in exports dampened economic growth.

China's auto sales rose 72 percent year on year to 1.22 million units in October, bringing total sales to 10.89 million units from January to October, up 36.23 percent from a year ago, figures from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-11...ent_8952013.htm

[I love pakistan too]

  
I am chinese.   Pakistan is our brother ,forever.

[Martian]

Greater China outnumbers German patents

China continues to climb the ranks of countries that receive the most patents in the United States.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cst_all.htm

Patents granted by the United States for the year 2008.

1. U.S. 92,000 patents
2. Japan 36,679
3. Germany 10,086
4. South Korea 8,731
5. Taiwan 7,779
6. Canada 4,125
7. U.K. 3,843
8. France 3,813
9. Italy 1,916
10. China 1,874
...
Hong Kong 717 (Patent office counts Hong Kong as a separate entity)
India 672
Singapore 450
Russian Federation 181

There are 18,000 Taiwanese companies on the Chinese Mainland. It is my guess that many Chinese exports incorporate not only Chinese patents, but also Taiwanese patents. The Taiwanese were a perennial #4 in U.S. patents received until they were passed by South Korea in 2008.

While the current number of Chinese patents appears to be insufficient to support a large high-tech export base, the combination of Greater China (i.e. Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong) patents should suffice.

Greater China's 10,370 patents (i.e. China's 1,874 + Taiwan's 7,779 + Hong Kong's 717) are greater than the number of German patents at 10,086.

[jhl]

Found a good post clarifying the meaning of the word "india". Clears up the misconception some have about india. Briefly translated.

The word India (Indie/the Indies) has changed through history. It is important to differentiate between the historical and modern meaning of "india". Originally it meant a geographic region, similar to nowadays west asia, east asia and so on. That is the area of the Indus valley civilization (nowadays Pakistan) and the lands to the east. Comprising the region of nowadays south asia (Pakistan, bangladesh, india etc) and south east asia (Indonesia, burma etc.) and to some early europeans all of asia including east asia (China etc.).

The british grouped their conquered teritories under "British india", meaning the part of india (in south asia) under their control, to differentiate those parts of india not under their control. Such as those of spain and holland or the Dutch East indies/the Spice Islands (nowadays Indonesia).

Columbus was looking for a new trading route by going west instead of east because the old silk route to China had been shut off at that time. When he found land, he thought he reached the eastern part of india (the islands of south east asia). That's why he called the local inhabitants "indians" even though they look very different. Columbus thought if he continued going west he would reach Japan/China, which was correct. Had he though he had reached south asia, he would have to turn east or he would be sailing back to Europe instead of China. All of this can be seen in old maps of that time.

To this day, people in the Americas think of the indigineous people first when they hear the word "indians" (West Indians). While in asia, indians are though to be coming from india (East indians). When the british left in 1947, the territory of the British empire was divided into (East) Pakistan and West Pakistan (nowadays Bangladesh). This wasn't done right leading to problems to this day. The rest of British india dropped the british part with them gone and named itself "india" . Places such as Goa, Sikkim, Nefa etc would be annexed later into india. From then on india referred to a new nation and no longer to the historical region as before.

China revised its 2008 gross domestic product (GDP) to 4.52 trillion U.S. dollars at the average exchange rate of 2008, narrowing the gap with Japan, the world's second largest economy with a GDP of 4.9 trillion U.S. dollars for the same year.

    The revision resulted from China's second economic census which raised the country's 2008 economic growth rate to 9.6 percent from9 percent.

    Given an estimate of more than 8 percent growth rate for China in 2009, accompanied by Japan's shrinking economy amid the global economic downturn, the country, currently the world's third largest economy, was poised to overtake Japan as the second largest.

    "It is only a matter of time before China's total economic volume surpass that of Japan given China's robust growth," said Xu Lianzhong, a researcher with the National Development and Reform Commission.

    However, Xu said the new figures coupled with the prospect of catching up with Japan in terms of total economic volume next year should serve as no cause for self-complacency.

    "It is not so important to compare the total GDP with that of the Japan or other developed nations," said Zuo Xiaolei, chief economist with the Galaxy Securities.

    "What matters more is the per capita figure, and in the case of China, the total figure has to be divided by 1.3 billion," said Xu.

    In 2008, China's per capita GDP was 3,200 U.S. dollars, less than a third of the world's average or a tenth of Japan's 38,000 U.S. dollars, according to the World Bank's estimates.

    Eclipsing Japan in total economic volume wouldn't change the fact of China being a developing country, not least because China lagged far behind the developed nations in many areas, said Zuo

    "There are still wide gaps between China and the developed countries in per capita GDP, the quality of economic development, and science and technological levels," said Xu.

    Zuo said China should place more emphasis on lifting the quality of economic development and solving structural problems in the economy.

    These cool-headed interpretations were echoed by ordinary people in Beijing.

    Zhang Ning, a civil servant at the Beijing Municipal Government, said, "the total amount may be pleasing to the ear, and I feel proud of China becoming more economically advanced, but you had to divide that by a huge denominator."

    "We should not be misled by the absolute figures and the ranking. China still has a lot of work to do in improving the people's living standards and building a better social security system," said Gao Shan, a college student in China's Foreign Affairs University in Beijing.

    China currently has 150 million people living in poverty and is faced with daunting challenges in poverty alleviation, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

    A report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Thursday ranked China the 7th in the world in overall strength. The relatively low ranking came as no surprise to most Chinese people.

    "China has a long way to go before its education, science and technology could match with developed countries," said a netizen by the name Guxin at the online forum of www.sina.com.cn, a leading Chinese portal website.

    China was also burdened with the daunting task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 from the 2005 level, and the marginal cost was set to rise in the future, said Zou Ji, a professor with Renmin University of China.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/...nt_12706582.htm

China's electrified railway mileage has surpassed 30,000 kilometers, ranking the second in the world, said the China CREC Railway Electrification Bureau Group (CCREBG) on Saturday.

    It achieved the goal with the completion of a 1,422.2-kilometer electrified railway line which connects Beijing and Lehua in south China's Jiangxi Province on Saturday, according to the CCREBG.

    The project, involving an investment of more than 7.6 billion yuan (or1.112 billion U.S. dollars), will increase the trains' speed from 120 kilometers to 160 kilometers per hour and raise the transportation volume from 3,500 tonnes to 6,000 tonnes by each train.

    The operation of this railway links the electrified railways in the country's central and eastern regions, and it would help to ease transportation strains on the Beijing-Kowloon Railway, according to the CCREBG.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/...nt_12706873.htm

The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Inspur Group have started a joint project to develop the third-generation genome sequencing instrument, which might slash the cost of genome sequencing by 99 percent. The instrument is expected to sequence a person's genomes in an hour at a cost of about $1,000, compared with six weeks and $60,000-100,000 by the current second-generation instrument, said Yu Jun, deputy head of the Beijing Institute of Genomics with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The academy and the Inspur Group, a leading supplier of computing platforms and IT application solutions in China, announced the project in Beijing on Friday, according to a report by Beijing Daily newspaper on Saturday.

"The home-made third-generation genome sequencing instrument is not only conducive to life science research, but also concerns the genetic safety of China," Yu said.

The sequencing instrument is vital for gene science research and the made-in-China third-generation instrument will help the country get a leading edge in the field, he added.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_9124866.htm

Lu Chunming saw first-hand how the nation's efforts have helped Africa in the battle against malaria. The general manager for Holley Cotec, a Chinese pharmaceutical group said he saw countless women throughout the continent suffer miscarriages because of the disease. But one unnamed woman, about a decade ago, managed to give birth to a baby girl with the help of anti-malaria drugs from China.

As is the custom to name children based on major events at their birth, she named the baby "Cotecxin", after the Chinese drug.

As China announces its infusion of aid to Africa, Chinese pharmaceuticals as well as officials from both sides are singing praise for the country's longtime help in the continent's battle against malaria.

"When you look at the impact of our anti-malaria drug, it can be considered part of China's pride," said Lu, 41, who began work for the group in 1993.

Beijing recently announced that all eight promises it made at a summit with Africa in 2006 will be fully delivered by the year end. The three-year plan ranges from doubling aid to Africa to erasing debts owed by the poorest African countries.

Premier Wen Jiabao said during his visit to Egypt over the weekend that any contribution by Chinese groups or businesses toward improving lives on the African continent must go beyond mere aid.

"I hope all our enterprises in Africa can selflessly cultivate the local staff. That is what we have always advocated - teaching others to fish is better than giving them fish," Wen told Chinese employees at a major training center owned by Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

Lu said his company's drugs have been used in around 30 countries on the African continent for the past two decades.

He said about 30 million doses have since been supplied to the continent to help fight malaria, an affliction that can hit children five times a year or adults three times annually, possibly leaving victims dead in a few days if untreated.

From 1995 to 1996, Lu visited about 2,000 healthcare professionals in Kenya to tell them about Cotecxin and the help it could provide to expectant mothers.

"You could see the immediate rewards from saving lives by working on the ground and it was amazing what a simple treatment like that could do," Lu said.

Akwasi Agyeman Agyare, minister of the Ghanaian Embassy in Beijing, told China Daily earlier this month that he also saw the benefits of Chinese doctors on the ground in his country.

"At present there are many Chinese doctors in Accra, the capital of Ghana, helping citizens treat malaria. The Chinese government has put up hospitals that can provide aid to hundreds of patients," he said.

According to the minister, China has helped "a lot of others in Ghana, in the fields of education, infrastructure and agriculture".

"I've heard of Western reports that China is helping Africa for its own interests," he said. "This is unbelievable. We have seen it in Africa. What we have seen is that we have good support from China. Chinese companies in Africa have social responsibility, they treat the citizens very well."

Holley Cotec has trained more than 5,000 people, mainly from Africa and the Middle East, in the past five years. According to the group, some of the trainees even have been promoted to the ministerial level in their country.

"We'll be more than happy if Chinese companies can contribute their humble share to the well-being of the African people," Wen said.

Lu said his company - whose trade volume is now up to 300 million yuan ($44 million) a year in Africa - was working on building at least three pharmaceutical factories on the continent. The facilities would help locals with building capacity and would help at least 500 million people eventually, he said.

"We are striving for comprehensive aid and sustainable contributions. In the long run, this will also help Chinese enterprises involved in Africa to develop through greater cooperation," Lu said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-11...ent_8930430.htm

Beating Ericsson to a telecommunications bid in Sweden is like beating Toyota to an auto-making bid in Japan.

    Yet an up-and-coming Chinese firm did beat Ericsson on its home turf, for what is still the Swedish company's forte.

    And guess what, China's Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. landed with a 4G mobile phone infrastructure contract not because of its inexpensive "Made in China" products but thanks to its valued "Created in China" technologies.

    A 4G cellular system, successor to systems of 3G and 2G standards, must have target peak data rates of up to 100 megabytes per second and up to 1 gigabyte per second for low and high mobilities.

    It is therefore more technology than product that helps to materialize the ultra-broadband Internet access to mobile phone users.

    Telenor, offerer of the bid, chose Huawei for its unfailing technology and service rather than its competitive pricing.

    The Norwegian company's afterward comment on the bid winner is full proof that the shift China has made is a right one from mimicking foreign products and concocting low-end products to focusing on high-end technologies which in return help the country manufacture high-end and quality products with increasingly competitive edges.

    It is this shift from copy to creativity that has differentiated Chinese companies between boom and bust during the ongoing global financial and economic difficulties.

    Companies with strong research and development (R&D) capacities and independent intellectual property rights have succeeded in such sectors as information technology, new material and biochemical engineering, whereas companies sticking to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) productions have weathered unprecedented business hardships due to shrinking orders and falling benefits.

    The difference between success and failure lays bare between companies that sharpen their competitiveness through boosting R&D and companies that lag behind in R&D only to see their former ground encroached upon or, worse still, lost out.

    General Motors, for one, had to have 57.6 billion U.S. dollars out of the government Troubled Asset Relief Program to get it bailed out of bankruptcy and into a re-organization.

    After decades of quantitative expansion, China has become an economy that now needs qualitative adjustment and refinement for sustained and sustainable development in the coming decades.

    Many of China's companies, especially those in the auto and garment sectors, need creative thinking and action to hone their competitive edges in increasingly competitive markets both at home and abroad.

    As already demonstrated, "Created in China" technologies and products made with these technologies tend to be securer guarantees than the mere "Made in China" products for profitability and hence sustainability.

    Quite a few Chinese companies have joined the vogue, as China's high-tech industrial parks grew by 10 to 20 percent in the past year alone.

    The "Made in China" label has not only assisted China in developing itself but also contributed to the well-being of other countries in the world.

    In the years to come, the "Made in China" products manufactured through "Created in China" technologies will beef up China's manufacturing industry with added competitiveness and credibility.

    People from across the world, Chinese included, will not only enjoy the quality products labeled as "Made in China" but benefit from products and services provided with "Created in China" technologies.

    There should not be any doubt about China's creativity in that it has always been a nation full of fresh and creative minds, from ancient times up till right now.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/...nt_12701594.htm

[中巴万岁]

Mind you India was in Soviet camp for 40 years and look how much thet took from US.

http://www.usaid.gov/in/UsaidInIndia/history.htm
Five Decades of U.S.- India Cooperation

To date, India has received the equivalent of $13 billion in U.S. economic assistance ($52.7 billion in today's dollars). The nature of this economic assistance has been based on the Indian government's requests and its changing requirements as the economy developed.

[jhl]

Looks like the hindis are looking to acquire tanks with bunker busting abilities. This indicates they intend to attack since it is usually the defenders in the bunkers.

The India-based Hindustan Times newspaper reported Thursday that India is quietly enhancing its defenses along the Chinese border in southern Tibet, a disputed region India calls Arunachal Pradesh.

The Indian Army will deploy its new 15,000-strong 56 Division in the region within four weeks, the paper quoted a senior defense official as saying.

It has also put out a Request for Information (RFI) to acquire 300 lightweight tanks that can be deployed in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, according to the report.

A second division will be deployed in the area in the next 12- 18 months, the official added.

The army's RFI said the light tanks should be capable of destroying bunkers and soft-skin vehicles up to 3,000 meters away and should have armor-piercing anti-tank guided missiles and anti-aircraft machine guns.

The RFI also stipulates these tanks should "have protection against nuclear, chemical and biological warfare," the newspaper said.

Fu Xiaoqiang, an expert on South Asian studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Studies, told the Global Times, "As has been repeatedly discussed in the Indian media, the beefing-up of military power in southern Tibet is a strategy of India to fix its control, in addition to other motives, such as encouraging the visit of the Dalai Lama and armament adjustment."

"But I don't think the rivalry of two rising powers in Asia will do any good to either side," Fu added.

"It is a very ruthless move because it is against the trust treaty reached by the two countries," said Zhao Gancheng, director at the South Asia Research Division of the Shanghai International Affairs Research Institute.

"India officials have tried to convince us that the border is peaceful. But now the fact betrays the words," he added.

The escalating tension has drawn the attention of other countries, such as the UK.

An article in The Times Thursday went a step further, saying that a "cold war" is "brewing … between China and India," citing India's plan to reopen a Cold War outpost on the Maldives abandoned by the British Royal Air Force decades ago.

"It is natural that the UK is concerned about India, which is its former colony," Fu said. "It is like sitting on top of the mountain to watch the tigers fight."

Agencies contributed to this story

http://world.globaltimes.cn/asia-pacific/2009-11/484853.html

Meanwhile their number of poor and hungry keeps growing.

There is something terribly wrong with growth economics. After all, 18 years after India ushered in economic liberalisation, the promise of high growth to reduce poverty and hunger has not worked. In fact, it has gone the other way around: the more the economic growth, the higher is the resulting poverty.

A report by an expert group headed by Suresh Tendulkar, formerly chairman of prime minister’s economic advisory council, now estimates poverty at 37.2 per cent, an increase of roughly 10 per cent over the earlier estimates of 27.5 per cent in 2004-05. This means, an additional 110 million people have slipped below the poverty line in just four years.

Poor multiplying
The number of poor is multiplying at a time when the number of billionaires has also increased. Economic growth however does not reflect the widening economic disparities. For instance, the economic wealth of mere 30-odd rich families in India is equivalent to one third of the country’s growth. The more the wealth accumulating in the hands of these 30 families, the more will be country's economic growth. A handful of rich therefore hide the ugly face of growing poverty.

If these 30 families were to migrate to America and Europe, India’s GDP, which stands at 7.9 per cent at present, will slump to 6 per cent. And if you were to discount the economic growth resulting from the 6th pay commission, which is 1.9 per cent of the GDP, India’s actual economic growth will slump to 4 per cent.
Anyway, the complicated arithmetic hides more than what it reveals. Poverty estimates were earlier based on nutritional criteria, which means based on the monthly income required to purchase 2,100 calories in the urban areas and 2,400 calories in the rural areas. Over the years, this measure came in for sharp criticism, and finally the Planning Commission suggested a new estimation methodology based on a new basket of goods that is required to survive, which includes food, fuel, light, clothing and footwear.
Accordingly, the Tendulkar committee has worked out that 41.8 per cent of the population or approximately 450 million people survive on a monthly per capita consumption expenditure of Rs 447. In other words, if you break it down to a daily expenditure, it comes to bare Rs 14.50 paise. I wonder how can the rural population earning more than Rs 14 and less than say even Rs 25 a day be expected to be over the poverty line. It is quite obvious therefore that the entire effort is still to hide the poverty under a veil of complicating figures.

India’s poverty line is actually a euphemism for a starvation line. The poverty line that is laid out actually becomes the upper limit the government must pledge to feed. People living below this line constitute the Below the Poverty Line (BPL) category, for which the government has to provide a legal guarantee to provide food. It therefore spells out the government subsidy that is required to distribute food among the poor. More the poverty line more is the food subsidy.

If the government accepts Tendulkar committee report, the food subsidy bill will swell to Rs 47,917.62 crore -- a steep rise over the earlier subsidy of Rs 28,890.56-crore required to feed the BPL population with 25 kg of grains. This is primarily the reason why the government wants to keep the number of poor low. In other words, the poverty line reflects the number of people living in acute hunger. It should therefore be called as a starvation line.

I remember a few years back, a group of charitable organisations in England presented a list of demands to the government for helping the poor. Unlike India, where BPL category only receives food rations, and that too severely short the minimum nutritional requirement for a human body, the first demand of the UK charities was to provide the poor in England with washing machines.

Poverty estimates
India’s poverty estimates therefore are the most stringent in the world. I don’t know the economic justification of hiding the true figures, but politically it makes terrible sense. Each government therefore is happy to gloss over the starvation figures in the guise of poverty estimates. I wonder when India will include a basket of essential goods like footwear, cycles, sewing machines, solar lamps, water purifiers etc for the poor. This is simple economics, and not political compulsion as the media will like us to believe.
Going back to the poverty line arithmetic, the 2007 Arjun Sengupta committee report (officially the report of the National Commission on Enterprise in Unorganised Sector), which had estimated that 77 per cent of the population or 836 million people, were unable to spend more than Rs 20 a day, is probably a correct reflection of the extent of prevailing poverty.

In addition to monthly income, poverty estimates must incorporate the human development index as prepared by the United Nations Development Programme. India should therefore have two ways to classify the poor. The starvation line, needing direct cash transfers in addition to the basic requirement of food supplies. And a poverty line, needing not only food (but in lesser quantities) but also other economic necessities like sewing machines, water-purifiers, pressure cookers etc.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/42581/...ation-line.html

Seems hindoostan is trying to make believe it has reduced poverty by hiding and eliminating the poor.

The three women were at a bus stop when the police rolled up. "You are begging, get in the van," the officers told them. They protested their innocence, but to no avail.

After they were locked up in beggars' prison behind the high, barbed-wire-topped walls of the Nirmal Chhaya complex, next door to Delhi's Tihar jail, 50-year-old Ratnabai Kale twice tried to hang herself with her own sari.

As India's capital stumbles towards the starting line for next year's Commonwealth Games, draconian orders have gone out to clear the streets of beggars. Teams of police, backed by mobile courtrooms, are roaming the city, dispensing summary justice to those whose faces don't fit. There are an estimated 60,000 beggars on Delhi's streets – many estimates put the figure much higher – and tens of thousands more people who live rough on roadside scraps of land.

The rationale for the purge is simple: the image of an outstretched hand does not sit easily with that of the "Incredible India" that the authorities wish to project. "Before the 2010 Commonwealth Games, we want to finish the problem of beggary from Delhi," the city's social welfare minister, Mangat Ram Singhal, announced at the launch of the initiative. But quite what Delhi plans to do with them is not entirely clear.

The city has 12 beggar "homes" – prisons by any other name – that can contain about 2,000 inmates. There is talk of persuading other states to take back people who have migrated to the capital, but it is difficult to make the numbers add up. The city has been quietly buying up bamboo in large quantities, in the hope of screening areas it considers too embarrassing for international eyes.

The Bombay Prevention of Begging Act 1959, which came into law in Delhi in 1960, affords the police plenty of scope to pick people up. Begging, as defined by the act, can include "singing, dancing, fortune telling, performing or offering any article for sale", as well as "exposing or exhibiting, with the object of obtaining or extorting alms any sore, wound, injury, deformity or disease whether of a human being or animal".

Ratnabai Kale has no idea which category she fell into when the police picked her up two months ago, along with her daughter Aarti, 16, and her sister Shobha, 30. "They said, 'You're not going on that bus. Get on to this one.' I asked why; they said because we were beggars. I said, 'First of all, we're not beggars, we're honest labourers', and we were taking my daughter to hospital because her leg was injured. But the police didn't listen. They told us we'd be given a four-year sentence in jail if we didn't go along."

She is standing on a patch of land next to a traffic roundabout surrounded by new five-star hotels in the Rajinder Nagar area of central Delhi. Next October those hotels will be crammed with visitors to the games. A few yards away, an elderly women is asleep on the pavement. In the dirt on the other side of the fence, women cook on open fires; children scoop chicken feet in a thin gravy into their mouths. The family have been there for 40 years, since migrating from Karnataka, but their old shacks were torn down to make way for the new metro, which will whisk visitors to the stadiums. Now they sleep in the open.

But the jail was worse, Ratnabai said. "It was horrible, really frightening… I tried to commit suicide with my sari twice." It was only when Ratnabai's son, Bablu, got together the money to pay a bond that they were released.

Inside the Nirmal Chhaya complex, the woman in charge is unsympathetic to the inmates' plight. "Here they live in safety," she said. "What sort of life is it for them on the footpaths? Most of them don't have any shelter: that means they are beggars."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/0...-beggars-police

Child mortality rates have doubled in India's slums. In Rajasthan, Surma lost her son Parmesh to easily preventable diarrhoea at only four years old. Source: Save the Children Link to this video 's growing status as an economic superpower is masking a failure to stem a shocking rate of infant deaths among its poorest people. Nearly two million children under five die every year in India – one every 15 seconds – the highest number anywhere in the world. More than half die in the month after birth and 400,000 in their first 24 hours. A devastating report by Save the Children, due out on Monday

http://article.wn.com/view/2009/10/04/Two_..._India_booms_6/

UNICEF noted that progress has been seen in every part of the world, and even in some of the least-developed countries, such as Malawi, one of 10 high under-five mortality countries that is now on track to meet the related MDG.

    In addition, impressive gains have been made in countries that are not fully on track to meet that MDG, including in Niger, Mozambique and Ethiopia which have all reduced under-five mortality by more than 100 per 1,000 live births since 1990.

    At the same time, UNICEF stated that while progress has been made in many countries, the global rate of improvement is still insufficient to reach the MDG, and Africa and Asia combined still account for 93 percent of all under-five deaths that occur each year in the developing world.

    "A handful of countries with large populations bear a disproportionate burden of under-five deaths, with 40 percent of the world's under-five deaths occurring in just three countries: India, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo," said Veneman.

    "Unless mortality in these countries can be significantly reduced, the MDG targets will not be met," she cautioned, adding that this will require a strong sense of urgency with targeted resources for greater progress.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/...nt_12032613.htm

The opposite of what China is doing.

China has set an example for the global fight against hunger by successfully feeding its 1.3 billion people and offering to help poor countries, a senior UN official said on Tuesday.

"As the world's most populous country, China has successfully used nine percent of the world's total arable land and 6.5 percent of fresh water resources to feed 1.3 billion people, equivalent to 20 percent of the world's total population," He Changchui, Assistant Director-General of the the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said in an interview with Xinhua.

He, who is also FAO's regional representative for Asia and the Pacific, said that in comparison with the rest of the world, the Asia-Pacific region was facing a bigger challenge of food security due to a large population and limited resources.

"But China is an exception in the region. For years the country has maintained a favorable food security situation, mainly because the Chinese government has attached great importance to agricultural development and made large-scale investment in agriculture," He said on the sidelines of a world summit on food security, held from Nov. 16 to Nov. 18 at the FAO headquarters in Rome, which aimed to find a solution to the world hunger.

http://english.cri.cn/6909/2009/11/18/189s530194.htm

[jhl]

The first quad core Loongson 3 processors are out. A version with 8 core cpu is expected soon.

China saw a 32.9 percent growth year-on-year in fiscal revenue in the first two months of the year due to factors including rising tax revenue following continued economic recovery, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced Sunday.

Fiscal revenue for January and February combined reached more than 1.36 trillion yuan (about 200.05 billion U.S. dollars), the MOF said in a statement posted on its website.

Of the total, the central fiscal revenue topped 702.7 billion yuan, up 36 percent from the same period in 2009, while local governments raked in 657.61 billion yuan, up 29.7 percent.

Fiscal revenue in January was 865.9 billion yuan, up 41.2 year on year and exceeding February's 494.5 billion yuan.

The statement said the big difference in fiscal revenue between the past two months was resultant because a nationwide seven-day Spring Festival occurred in February, leading to fewer working days in the month.

The MOF attributed the fast fiscal revenue growth to the continuing economic recovery in China which boosted tax revenue, and a low comparison base in the first two months last year, when revenue was down 11.4 percent due to the financial crisis.

China's National Bureau of Statistics released figures last Thursday which showed in January and February, the country's industrial output grew 20.7 percent, and retail sales of consumer goods rose 17.9 percent, while the urban fixed assets investment leapt 26.6 percent, and import and export in general trade soared by 52.1 percent.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/chin.../c_13210674.htm

China's tourism industry reaped revenue of 1.26 trillion yuan ($185 billion) in 2009, up 9 percent year on year, on the back of booming domestic travel.

Domestic tourists made 1.9 billion trips last year, a rise of 11 percent, which generated 1 trillion yuan of revenue for the industry, up 15 percent from a year ago, the National Tourism Administration said on Wednesday.

The number of inbound trips shrank 3 percent to 126 million, as the global financial crisis and the widespread flu epidemic dampened consumer's passion to travel abroad.

As a result, foreign exchanges revenues fell 4.5 percent to $39 billion.

Outbound trips rose 3.6 percent to 47.5 million.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2010...ent_9278751.htm

China's fastest super computer "Tianhe-1," ("Tianhe" meaning Milky Way), is to be equipped this year with China-made central processing unit (CPU) chips, replacing the only part of the computer that is currently imported.

Zhang Yulin, president of the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) which developed the computer, told Xinhua Monday that the chips, also developed by the NUDT, are customized for this super computer.

"The new CPUs will greatly raise the peak speed and computing efficiency of 'Tianhe-1'," Zhang said on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, the country' s top legislature now meeting in Beijing.

"Tianhe-1," unveiled in October last year, could rival the world's most powerful computers. Theoretically, it is capable of more than one quadrillion calculations per second when operating at peak speed.

Experts note that one day's task for "Tianhe-1" might take 160 years for a mainstream dual-core personal computer to complete.

Equipped with 6,144 Intel CPUs and 5,120 AMD graphic processing units (GPU), "Tianhe-1" is able to store the contents of all 27 million books in the National Library of China four times over.

In January, "Tianhe-1" began partial trial operations in north China's Tianjin municipality. Currently, the first batch of the computer equipment has been successfully tested, and is at the stage of customer trials.

At present, according to officials, the operational power of the first batch of equipment is equal to one-tenth of "Tianhe-1." Installation of other components of "Tianhe-1" is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/.../c_13202327.htm

The Internet world is not in a peaceful mood, thanks to the drama that Google has started.

Since the beginning of the year, the Internet search company from the United States has made numerous statements that it will quit the Chinese market. On March 10, its executives again announced Google will stop censoring its search content as required by Chinese laws and regulations, even if the decision would shut down Google.cn, Google's Chinese site, and Google itself out of China. Western media also jumped in recently, as they always do, offering headlines such as "Google's negotiations with China broke down, leaving China is all but certain."

In just a matter of a few months, Google has staged a "schizophrenic" farce of "I want to leave China" - "No, I didn't mean it" - "Yes, I do" for web users all around the world. While the Western media focuses on China, why not step back and take a look at the corporate giant's "drama" on the world stage and its so-called corporate integrity?

Let's begin with Germany. First, Google lost the Gmail trademark case there. Then, Google's Street View was criticized and opposed by the German government, not to mention the anti-trust actions taken by German media against Google. Perhaps the meticulousness and practicality of the German people are inherently incongruous with Google's romantic nature. No wonder it often hits walls in this country.

The fact that the US has enjoyed a long special relationship with the United Kingdom doesn't mean that Google will enjoy trouble-free development there. On the contrary, the 450 million pound taxes Google evaded and the name "digital content stealer" it "earned" from the UK press indicated just the opposite.

What about France, the vanguard of liberal traditions? Google's professed "Do no evil" surely square with the French liberal spirit in every aspect? The answer, unfortunately, is no. Google was fined 300,000 euros for book copyrights infringement and lost a case against two companies for trademark violation before being sued by a film company as Google's video-sharing site was suspected of copyright infringement. At the temptations of business interests, "Do no evil" is just a slogan, no more than that.

If Google is realizing that the European market is hard to crack, it is also finding resistance in the Asian market, the latest from the world's most wired nation, South Korea. On March 11, South Korea warned Google it would be penalized if its mobile games content was not regulated. A letter sent to Google stated that "providing unrated games service as stipulated by laws and regulations is indisputably illegal, and we have demanded Google take corrective measures." Google, on the other hand, insists its games service "is open to all in the worll...South Korea is no exception." Will Google stick to its so-called global policy or obey South Korean laws and regulations? We'll see.

Finally, back to the US. Is Google's development in the US, Google's "own soil", a happy story? Not exactly.

After a clerk at a bank in California inadvertently sent an e-mail containing names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and loan information of more than 1,300 customers to a random Gmail address, the bank contacted Google and requested that Google delete the email in the recipient account. Google denied the request at first, citing privacy concerns, but complied after the bank took Google to court.

All these incidents and cases are proof that Google's penchant for instigating farces on the global stage has almost become instinctive in nature and it is no coincidence that Google performed one in China. It is the inevitable result of putting self-interests above the other countries and companies and being blind to business integrity and corporate social responsibility. If Google cannot turn around and correct its errors, it will land itself in serious trouble

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03...ent_9616278.htm

[Martian]

China Claims #9 Rank In United States Patents!

For 2009, China passed Italy to claim the ninth-highest rank for countries that receive the most patents in the United States.

Patents By Country, State, and Year - All Patent Types (December 2009)

Patents granted by the United States for the year 2009.

1. U.S. 95,037 patents
2. Japan 38,066
(Greater China 10,638)
3. Germany 10,353
4. South Korea 9,566
5. Taiwan 7,781
6. Canada 4,393
7. U.K. 4,011
8. France 3,805
9. China 2,270
10. Italy 1,837
...
India 720
Hong Kong 587 (Patent office counts Hong Kong as a separate entity)
Singapore 493
Russian Federation 204
Brazil 148

For 2009, Greater China's 10,638 combined total patents (i.e. China's 2,270 + Taiwan's 7,781 + Hong Kong's 587) are greater than Germany's 10,353 patents.  Greater China would rank third on the U.S. patent list.  The patent rankings are important because it helps to explain why China is the world's largest exporter and Germany is the world's second-largest exporter.  Patents play an important role.

----------
[Note: These are my comments from last year on "Greater China outnumbers German patents."

There are 70,000 Taiwanese companies on the Chinese Mainland. It is my guess that many Chinese exports incorporate not only Chinese patents, but also Taiwanese patents. The Taiwanese were a perennial #4 in U.S. patents received until they were passed by South Korea in 2008.

While the current number of Chinese patents appears to be insufficient to support a large high-tech export base, the combination of Greater China (i.e. Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong) patents should suffice.

Greater China's 10,370 patents (i.e. China's 1,874 + Taiwan's 7,779 + Hong Kong's 717) are greater than the number of German patents at 10,086.

Taiwan (10/09)
"Significant migration to Taiwan from the Chinese mainland began as early as A.D. 500. ..... There are a number of small political parties, including the Taiwan .... in China, and more than 70000 Taiwan companies have operations there. .... In keeping with our one China policy, the U.S. does not support Taiwan ..."

[Martian]

China's $576 Billion High-tech Exports

Greater China's patents play an important role in China's high-tech exports.

For 2009, due to the Great Recession worldwide, China's top two high-tech exports for "Electrical machinery & equipment" and "Power generation equipment" dipped to $537.1 billion US dollars.  However, if we add in the $38.9 billion from "Optics and medical equipment" then the overall high-tech exports for 2009 are $576.0 billion U.S. dollars.  See "Table 5: China's Top Exports 2009 ($ billion)."

US-China Trade Statistics and China's World Trade Statistics