By Ye Xie
China’s housing market is experiencing the “mother” of all bubbles, and a property slump will hurt everything from Australian mining firms to Europe’s luxury-goods makers, according to Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co.
“We are very concerned” about China’s economy, Peter Chiappinelli, a portfolio strategist for asset allocation at Boston-based GMO, said at the Bloomberg Link Portfolio Manager Mash-Up Conference in New York.
“All bubbles pop eventually.”
GMO, which oversees $97 billion in assets, is betting that shares of Chinese real-estate developers, construction companies and cement producers will decline, said Chiappinelli.
GMO is also betting against Australian mining companies, German carmaker Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) and British luxury handbag maker Burberry Group Plc.
The companies have been benefiting from China’s housing boom and expanding middle class over the past years and are “very exposed to” a China slowdown, he said.
An index tracking housing developers in the Shanghai stock exchange fell 18 percent last year as the government limited mortgages and restricted home purchases to rein in home prices that increased in the previous two years.
The cooling market helped slow gross domestic product growth in 2011 to 9.2 percent, matching the smallest expansion since 2002.
It is “very difficult” to have an optimistic view on China because the housing price drop will afflict banks and the European debt crisis undermines its exports, said Lisa Emsbo- Mattingly, the director of research in the global asset allocation division of Fidelity Asset Management.
‘Very Concerned’
“We are very concerned about China,” she said at the conference.
Europe is a “negative drag” on the country, she said.
China’s exports and imports fell for the first time in two years in January and lending grew less than estimated, a government report showed on Feb. 10.
The International Monetary Fund said in a Feb. 6 report that China’s economic expansion may be cut almost in half from its 8.2 percent estimate this year if Europe’s debt crisis worsens, a scenario that would warrant “significant” fiscal stimulus from the government.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
India strengthening its military against China: US officials
ndtv.com
Washington -- For the second time in less than a fortnight, top American intelligence officials have claimed that India is building up its armed forces focused at China's perceived aggressive posture in the Asia-Pacific region.
"The military situation along the contested border is quiet. However, India is concerned over Chinese logistical improvements and is taking steps to improve its own capabilities," Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency Ronald L Burgess said in his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "India is raising additional ground forces, is improving logistical capacity, and has based advanced fighter aircraft opposite China," Mr Burgess told lawmakers.
India, he said, conducts periodic tests of its nuclear-capable missiles to enhance and verify its ballistic missile reliability and capabilities.
"India's current delivery systems include nuclear-capable fighter aircraft and ballistic missiles, and India claims it is developing a nuclear-capable 6,000 kilometre-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that will carry multiple warheads. India intends to test this," he said.
China and India resumed military-to-military engagement in mid-2011, held their first strategic economic dialogue in September, and discussed their longstanding border dispute in November, he told lawmakers. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who for the first time made similar remarks less than a fortnight ago, reiterated it before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"Despite public statements intended to downplay tensions between India and China, we judge that India is increasingly concerned about China's posture along their disputed border and Beijing's perceived aggressive posture in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific region," he said in his prepared testimony.
"The Indian Army believes a major Sino-Indian conflict is not imminent, but the Indian military is strengthening its forces in preparation to fight a limited conflict along the disputed border, and is working to balance Chinese power projection in the Indian Ocean. India has expressed support for a strong US military posture in East Asia and US engagement in Asia," Mr Clapper said.
Mr Burgess said India considers regional stability a prerequisite for maintaining its continued economic growth.
New Delhi views economic growth coupled with a strong military as essential for gaining recognition as a global power, he said.
"Domestic political issues such as unemployment, inflation, and several high-level corruption scandals continue to dominate New Delhi's attention. Senior Indian leaders also remain concerned about the country's Maoist-inspired insurgency, terrorism, and the security situation in Kashmir, although the latter saw a marked decline in violence compared to 2010. While India continues to carefully monitor events in Pakistan, China is also viewed as a long-term challenge," the Pentagon official said.
"In 2011, India continued efforts to increase economic and military engagement with countries in East and Southeast Asia. India and Japan agreed to conduct a bilateral naval exercise, their first since 2008; India and Vietnam pledged to increase naval training; and the India-South. Korea relationship continues to progress following the Indian Defense Minister's late 2010 visit," he said.
The military situation along the contested border is quiet.
However, India is concerned over Chinese logistical improvements and is taking steps to improve its own capabilities.
India is raising additional ground forces, is improving logistical capacity, and has based advanced fighter aircraft opposite China, he added.
Washington -- For the second time in less than a fortnight, top American intelligence officials have claimed that India is building up its armed forces focused at China's perceived aggressive posture in the Asia-Pacific region.
"The military situation along the contested border is quiet. However, India is concerned over Chinese logistical improvements and is taking steps to improve its own capabilities," Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency Ronald L Burgess said in his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "India is raising additional ground forces, is improving logistical capacity, and has based advanced fighter aircraft opposite China," Mr Burgess told lawmakers.
India, he said, conducts periodic tests of its nuclear-capable missiles to enhance and verify its ballistic missile reliability and capabilities.
"India's current delivery systems include nuclear-capable fighter aircraft and ballistic missiles, and India claims it is developing a nuclear-capable 6,000 kilometre-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that will carry multiple warheads. India intends to test this," he said.
China and India resumed military-to-military engagement in mid-2011, held their first strategic economic dialogue in September, and discussed their longstanding border dispute in November, he told lawmakers. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who for the first time made similar remarks less than a fortnight ago, reiterated it before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"Despite public statements intended to downplay tensions between India and China, we judge that India is increasingly concerned about China's posture along their disputed border and Beijing's perceived aggressive posture in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific region," he said in his prepared testimony.
"The Indian Army believes a major Sino-Indian conflict is not imminent, but the Indian military is strengthening its forces in preparation to fight a limited conflict along the disputed border, and is working to balance Chinese power projection in the Indian Ocean. India has expressed support for a strong US military posture in East Asia and US engagement in Asia," Mr Clapper said.
Mr Burgess said India considers regional stability a prerequisite for maintaining its continued economic growth.
New Delhi views economic growth coupled with a strong military as essential for gaining recognition as a global power, he said.
"Domestic political issues such as unemployment, inflation, and several high-level corruption scandals continue to dominate New Delhi's attention. Senior Indian leaders also remain concerned about the country's Maoist-inspired insurgency, terrorism, and the security situation in Kashmir, although the latter saw a marked decline in violence compared to 2010. While India continues to carefully monitor events in Pakistan, China is also viewed as a long-term challenge," the Pentagon official said.
"In 2011, India continued efforts to increase economic and military engagement with countries in East and Southeast Asia. India and Japan agreed to conduct a bilateral naval exercise, their first since 2008; India and Vietnam pledged to increase naval training; and the India-South. Korea relationship continues to progress following the Indian Defense Minister's late 2010 visit," he said.
The military situation along the contested border is quiet.
However, India is concerned over Chinese logistical improvements and is taking steps to improve its own capabilities.
India is raising additional ground forces, is improving logistical capacity, and has based advanced fighter aircraft opposite China, he added.
China's (Probably Doomed) Plan to Partner With Hollywood
Beijing wants to team up with American filmmakers to produce more Chinese films, but politics can sometimes supersede art.
By Damien Ma
Chinese director Zhang Yimou poses with his cast members before a screening "The Flowers of War" at the 62nd Berlinale International Film Festival
Just as Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and his entourage descend on Hollywood, Zhang Yimou, China's celebrated film director, is enjoying a warm reception at the Berlinale with his latest historical opus The Flowers of War.
According to Der Spiegel: "The Flowers of War" is the most expensive Chinese film ever made, with production costs of $94 million (€72 million) and a Hollywood star in the leading role: British Oscar winner Christian Bale, famous for his portrayal of Batman.
Bale, too, is expected in Berlin this week.
In "The Flowers of War," Bale plays a fictional American who becomes entangled in a real life tragedy -- the 1937 "Rape of Nanking," one of the worst war incidents of the 20th century.
That period strains relations between China and Japan to this day.
"China's younger generation doesn't know much about the events in Nanjing," Zhang says, something he noticed while working on the film.
"But almost everyone here knows 'Schindler's List.' Hollywood movies have a big influence on us in China. What we need to do now is further develop our own film industry. We need to produce films that Chinese people want to see -- and, of course, foreign audiences as well."
Yes, Hollywood has an obvious and outsized influence in China, one reason why Beijing caps foreign movie imports to just 20 a year under the World Trade Organization. (This import substitution policy has also spawned a vast piracy market, as Chinese demand for western films and TV shows far outstrips supply through formal, legalized channels.)
Yet just as Zhang bemoans the Hollywoodification of the Chinese film industry, his vice president is poised to officially announce a major deal between DreamWorks Animation and Shanghai Media Group in, where else, Hollywood.
What's more, Zhang's own Flowers was the product of a "Chollywood" joint effort starring Christian Bale. Best known as Batman in Christopher Nolan's revived franchise, Bale made recent headlines when he attempted to visit blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng under house arrest, only to be shoved and punched by a rotund Chinese security guard.
That this encounter between Batman and China went poorly isn't meant to serve as an allegory of the sometimes uneasy relationship between Hollywood and Beijing (exhibit A: Richard Gere and Red Corner). In fact, despite the contention over piracy and constraints on free expression, the relationship seems to be on the mend.
Chollywood coproductions, for example, are on the rise, including the latest remake of the Karate Kid with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan.
And money talks.
In addition to the possible DreamWorks deal, Bruno Wu, a Chinese media mogul, has created an $800 million fund to invest in Hollywood-Chinese projects.
Some serious financing will be flowing toward these ventures.
Can money alone build a legitimate and appealing culture industry?
The Chinese are certainly going to try.
Indeed, Xi's Hollywood jaunt is directly linked to developments on the home front.
Since Hu Jintao's politically charged culture essay early this year that decried foreign influence, the government has released yet another five-year plan on the culture industry.
The dense plan proscribes a significant role for the state in directing the industry's development.
It also calls for creating a culture market and allocates special funds and other sorts of policy support to realize it.
And, of course, China would like to have films and culture products that contain domestic intellectual property.
In its most Orwellian moment, the plan's language calls for strengthening official broadcasting media (read: propaganda) to proactively shape public opinion.
In short, China's strategy here seems to suffer from a sort of ideological schizophrenia.
The only certainty is that its unveiling is an implicit recognition of China's enormous cultural deficit and an attempt to solve it.
Indeed, China cannot even match its smaller Asian neighbors, such as Japan and South Korea, in cultural output, let alone the United States.
Given its economic power, China punches far below its weight on generating creative output that also has mass appeal.
Such is the contradiction that Beijing is trying to untangle, hoping that a few deals with Hollywood can raise China's global profile as a center of the creative industry.
It's unclear whether it's likely to work.
Just ask Zhang, whose Flowers was largely panned by critics and mocked by Chinese themselves as playing to the Communist Party's sentiments.
Perhaps that's why Beijing is insistent on trumpeting him as director extraordinaire, a "safe" choice.
But playing it safe doesn't always make for good art, and can sometimes seem to lead audiences to seek other outlets that offer more emotional and psychological resonance.
The central government lacks the ability to live comfortably with the unpredictability of art, and that's exactly the problem.
The current political intrigue in Chongqing could be adapted into a gripping series on China's failing institutions like HBO series The Wire, for example; the betrayal between Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun is not unlike the famous unraveling of Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale.
Imagine a split-screen scene with Bo, sitting serenely and Godfather-like at the Chinese opera on the left, and Wang fleeing a trail of police and flooring his Jeep toward the U.S. embassy on the right.
The screenplay writes itself.
Or at least it would, if the central government were capable of allowing such a thing.
Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect a show as profound and gritty as The Wire to emerge from the Chinese market any time soon.
Even American TV has many more Bachelors than Wires.
But if China hopes to cultivate a culture industry that is globally renowned and respected, it is not a bad aspiration to accept that sometimes one of the favorite TV characters may just be a gay Robin Hood gangster terminating drug dealers on the broken streets of a decaying coastal city.
And if Chinese leaders are okay with that, then China has made it.
By Damien Ma
Chinese director Zhang Yimou poses with his cast members before a screening "The Flowers of War" at the 62nd Berlinale International Film Festival
Just as Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and his entourage descend on Hollywood, Zhang Yimou, China's celebrated film director, is enjoying a warm reception at the Berlinale with his latest historical opus The Flowers of War.
According to Der Spiegel: "The Flowers of War" is the most expensive Chinese film ever made, with production costs of $94 million (€72 million) and a Hollywood star in the leading role: British Oscar winner Christian Bale, famous for his portrayal of Batman.
Bale, too, is expected in Berlin this week.
In "The Flowers of War," Bale plays a fictional American who becomes entangled in a real life tragedy -- the 1937 "Rape of Nanking," one of the worst war incidents of the 20th century.
That period strains relations between China and Japan to this day.
"China's younger generation doesn't know much about the events in Nanjing," Zhang says, something he noticed while working on the film.
"But almost everyone here knows 'Schindler's List.' Hollywood movies have a big influence on us in China. What we need to do now is further develop our own film industry. We need to produce films that Chinese people want to see -- and, of course, foreign audiences as well."
Yes, Hollywood has an obvious and outsized influence in China, one reason why Beijing caps foreign movie imports to just 20 a year under the World Trade Organization. (This import substitution policy has also spawned a vast piracy market, as Chinese demand for western films and TV shows far outstrips supply through formal, legalized channels.)
Yet just as Zhang bemoans the Hollywoodification of the Chinese film industry, his vice president is poised to officially announce a major deal between DreamWorks Animation and Shanghai Media Group in, where else, Hollywood.
What's more, Zhang's own Flowers was the product of a "Chollywood" joint effort starring Christian Bale. Best known as Batman in Christopher Nolan's revived franchise, Bale made recent headlines when he attempted to visit blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng under house arrest, only to be shoved and punched by a rotund Chinese security guard.
That this encounter between Batman and China went poorly isn't meant to serve as an allegory of the sometimes uneasy relationship between Hollywood and Beijing (exhibit A: Richard Gere and Red Corner). In fact, despite the contention over piracy and constraints on free expression, the relationship seems to be on the mend.
Chollywood coproductions, for example, are on the rise, including the latest remake of the Karate Kid with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan.
And money talks.
In addition to the possible DreamWorks deal, Bruno Wu, a Chinese media mogul, has created an $800 million fund to invest in Hollywood-Chinese projects.
Some serious financing will be flowing toward these ventures.
Can money alone build a legitimate and appealing culture industry?
The Chinese are certainly going to try.
Indeed, Xi's Hollywood jaunt is directly linked to developments on the home front.
Since Hu Jintao's politically charged culture essay early this year that decried foreign influence, the government has released yet another five-year plan on the culture industry.
The dense plan proscribes a significant role for the state in directing the industry's development.
It also calls for creating a culture market and allocates special funds and other sorts of policy support to realize it.
And, of course, China would like to have films and culture products that contain domestic intellectual property.
In its most Orwellian moment, the plan's language calls for strengthening official broadcasting media (read: propaganda) to proactively shape public opinion.
In short, China's strategy here seems to suffer from a sort of ideological schizophrenia.
The only certainty is that its unveiling is an implicit recognition of China's enormous cultural deficit and an attempt to solve it.
Indeed, China cannot even match its smaller Asian neighbors, such as Japan and South Korea, in cultural output, let alone the United States.
Given its economic power, China punches far below its weight on generating creative output that also has mass appeal.
Such is the contradiction that Beijing is trying to untangle, hoping that a few deals with Hollywood can raise China's global profile as a center of the creative industry.
It's unclear whether it's likely to work.
Just ask Zhang, whose Flowers was largely panned by critics and mocked by Chinese themselves as playing to the Communist Party's sentiments.
Perhaps that's why Beijing is insistent on trumpeting him as director extraordinaire, a "safe" choice.
But playing it safe doesn't always make for good art, and can sometimes seem to lead audiences to seek other outlets that offer more emotional and psychological resonance.
The central government lacks the ability to live comfortably with the unpredictability of art, and that's exactly the problem.
The current political intrigue in Chongqing could be adapted into a gripping series on China's failing institutions like HBO series The Wire, for example; the betrayal between Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun is not unlike the famous unraveling of Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale.
Imagine a split-screen scene with Bo, sitting serenely and Godfather-like at the Chinese opera on the left, and Wang fleeing a trail of police and flooring his Jeep toward the U.S. embassy on the right.
The screenplay writes itself.
Or at least it would, if the central government were capable of allowing such a thing.
Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect a show as profound and gritty as The Wire to emerge from the Chinese market any time soon.
Even American TV has many more Bachelors than Wires.
But if China hopes to cultivate a culture industry that is globally renowned and respected, it is not a bad aspiration to accept that sometimes one of the favorite TV characters may just be a gay Robin Hood gangster terminating drug dealers on the broken streets of a decaying coastal city.
And if Chinese leaders are okay with that, then China has made it.
Your struggle is our struggle: Detained Vietnamese leader’s message to Tibetans
phayul.com
Venerable Thich Quang Do, Patriarch of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam
DHARAMSHALA -- In a powerful message of solidarity, Vietnam’s Supreme Buddhist Patriarch, currently held under house arrest, expressed his support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom.
The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, Patriarch of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, in a letter dated February 11 called the ongoing human rights violation in Tibet and the recent wave of self-immolations by Tibetans, a “challenge to all humanity”.
“I call upon world leaders to take urgent action, demand an end to the violence and press for an independent international investigation into these cases of self-immolation,” the activist monk who has received multiple international honours for championing democracy and human rights said.
The Buddhist Patriarch specifically quoted the last words of Sopa Tulku, a learned Buddhist Lama, who passed away after setting his body on fire on January 8.
In a tape recording made prior to his immolation, Sopa Tulku had explained the reasons for his immolation and said: “I am giving away my body as an offering to chase away the darkness, to free all beings from suffering”.
The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do noted the shared vision of Buddhists in Vietnam and in Tibet that self-immolation is “indeed a tragic and extreme act, one that should be avoided at all costs”.
“But there are moments when this ultimate gesture, that of offering one’s body as a torch of Compassion to dissipate darkness and ignorance is the only possible recourse.”
Invoking one of the best-known cases of self-immolation, the 1963 burning of Thich Quang Duc in Saigon, the Buddhist Patriarch said that it was therefore with a “deep sense of communion and understanding” and also with “infinite pain and grief,” he learnt of the self-immolations inside Tibet and the “escalation of violence by China’s communist regime”.
“I wholly support the Tibetan people’s courageous struggle for survival, and share your aspirations for the right to freedom and life. Your suffering is our suffering. Your struggle is our struggle,” Patriarch Do, who has been held under various forms of detentions and house arrests for the last three decades said.
“The Buddhists of Vietnam stand beside you in this non-violent movement for religious freedom and human rights,” the letter said.
“For without human rights, human beings can never fully and freely exist.”
DHARAMSHALA -- In a powerful message of solidarity, Vietnam’s Supreme Buddhist Patriarch, currently held under house arrest, expressed his support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom.
The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, Patriarch of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, in a letter dated February 11 called the ongoing human rights violation in Tibet and the recent wave of self-immolations by Tibetans, a “challenge to all humanity”.
“I call upon world leaders to take urgent action, demand an end to the violence and press for an independent international investigation into these cases of self-immolation,” the activist monk who has received multiple international honours for championing democracy and human rights said.
The Buddhist Patriarch specifically quoted the last words of Sopa Tulku, a learned Buddhist Lama, who passed away after setting his body on fire on January 8.
In a tape recording made prior to his immolation, Sopa Tulku had explained the reasons for his immolation and said: “I am giving away my body as an offering to chase away the darkness, to free all beings from suffering”.
The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do noted the shared vision of Buddhists in Vietnam and in Tibet that self-immolation is “indeed a tragic and extreme act, one that should be avoided at all costs”.
“But there are moments when this ultimate gesture, that of offering one’s body as a torch of Compassion to dissipate darkness and ignorance is the only possible recourse.”
Invoking one of the best-known cases of self-immolation, the 1963 burning of Thich Quang Duc in Saigon, the Buddhist Patriarch said that it was therefore with a “deep sense of communion and understanding” and also with “infinite pain and grief,” he learnt of the self-immolations inside Tibet and the “escalation of violence by China’s communist regime”.
“I wholly support the Tibetan people’s courageous struggle for survival, and share your aspirations for the right to freedom and life. Your suffering is our suffering. Your struggle is our struggle,” Patriarch Do, who has been held under various forms of detentions and house arrests for the last three decades said.
“The Buddhists of Vietnam stand beside you in this non-violent movement for religious freedom and human rights,” the letter said.
“For without human rights, human beings can never fully and freely exist.”
Tibetan monk sets himself on fire amid wave of protests in western China
By Associated Press
BEIJING — Another Tibetan Buddhist monk set himself on fire in western China amid a wave of such protests against China’s handling of the vast Tibetan areas it rules, overseas groups said Saturday.
Tamchoe Sangpo set himself alight Friday during a prayer ceremony at Bongtak monastery in a remote region of Qinghai province, the advocacy group Free Tibet said.
It gave no details about his current condition, although U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia said he had died.
The reports said Sangpo was around 40 years old and had been one of the monastery’s leaders after returning from three years of study during the 1990s in India, where the exiled Dalai Lama resides.
The reports said Sangpo had strongly objected to the presence of Chinese security agents who took up positions in the monastery last month, warning them of extreme acts if they did not leave.
A police officer in the county of Tianjun, where the monastery is located, and an official at the surrounding Haixi prefectural government said Saturday that they had no information about the case.
Calls to Tianjun county government offices rang unanswered.
The monastery’s phone number was unlisted.
As many as 21 monks, nuns and ordinary Tibetans have set themselves on fire over the past year, and Free Tibet says at least 13 died from their injuries.
Such acts show no signs of abating, even as China ratchets up security and seals off Tibetan areas to outsiders, making it impossible to know what is actually happening inside.
China blames supporters of the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama for encouraging the self-immolations and anti-government protests that have led to the deaths of an unknown number of Tibetans at the hands of police.
Authorities have reportedly detained and forced into re-education classes hundreds of Tibetans who went to India to receive religious instruction from the Dalai Lama, whom is accused by China of campaigning to split Tibet from the rest of China.
The Dalai Lama says he is seeking only increased autonomy for Tibet.
A statement from the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile in the Indian town of Dharmsala said it was “deeply concerned and shocked” over the latest self-immolation.
The government-in-exile “wishes to remind all the Tibetan communities across the world and friends of Tibet to carry out any solidarity activities peacefully, in accordance with the laws of your country, and with dignity,” said the statement, attributed to press officer Lobsang Choedak.
Tibetan activists say Tibetans are being pushed into ever-more radical acts because of intense pressure from China’s police and military, who maintain a highly visible presence in towns and occupy monasteries while forcing monks to endure hours of political indoctrination at the expense of their religious studies.
Many Tibetans are also resentful over the migration of ethnic Chinese to their areas and what they see as economic marginalization and the snuffing out of their traditions.
China says Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries, while Tibetans say they effectively independent for most of that time.
The latest self-immolation comes at an especially sensitive time, ahead of Wednesday’s traditional Tibetan new year celebrations and the anniversary of the March 14, 2008, riots in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, that left 22 people dead.
BEIJING — Another Tibetan Buddhist monk set himself on fire in western China amid a wave of such protests against China’s handling of the vast Tibetan areas it rules, overseas groups said Saturday.
Tamchoe Sangpo set himself alight Friday during a prayer ceremony at Bongtak monastery in a remote region of Qinghai province, the advocacy group Free Tibet said.
It gave no details about his current condition, although U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia said he had died.
The reports said Sangpo was around 40 years old and had been one of the monastery’s leaders after returning from three years of study during the 1990s in India, where the exiled Dalai Lama resides.
The reports said Sangpo had strongly objected to the presence of Chinese security agents who took up positions in the monastery last month, warning them of extreme acts if they did not leave.
A police officer in the county of Tianjun, where the monastery is located, and an official at the surrounding Haixi prefectural government said Saturday that they had no information about the case.
Calls to Tianjun county government offices rang unanswered.
The monastery’s phone number was unlisted.
As many as 21 monks, nuns and ordinary Tibetans have set themselves on fire over the past year, and Free Tibet says at least 13 died from their injuries.
Such acts show no signs of abating, even as China ratchets up security and seals off Tibetan areas to outsiders, making it impossible to know what is actually happening inside.
China blames supporters of the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama for encouraging the self-immolations and anti-government protests that have led to the deaths of an unknown number of Tibetans at the hands of police.
Authorities have reportedly detained and forced into re-education classes hundreds of Tibetans who went to India to receive religious instruction from the Dalai Lama, whom is accused by China of campaigning to split Tibet from the rest of China.
The Dalai Lama says he is seeking only increased autonomy for Tibet.
A statement from the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile in the Indian town of Dharmsala said it was “deeply concerned and shocked” over the latest self-immolation.
The government-in-exile “wishes to remind all the Tibetan communities across the world and friends of Tibet to carry out any solidarity activities peacefully, in accordance with the laws of your country, and with dignity,” said the statement, attributed to press officer Lobsang Choedak.
Tibetan activists say Tibetans are being pushed into ever-more radical acts because of intense pressure from China’s police and military, who maintain a highly visible presence in towns and occupy monasteries while forcing monks to endure hours of political indoctrination at the expense of their religious studies.
Many Tibetans are also resentful over the migration of ethnic Chinese to their areas and what they see as economic marginalization and the snuffing out of their traditions.
China says Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries, while Tibetans say they effectively independent for most of that time.
The latest self-immolation comes at an especially sensitive time, ahead of Wednesday’s traditional Tibetan new year celebrations and the anniversary of the March 14, 2008, riots in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, that left 22 people dead.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Obama attacks Chinese business practices
By Geoff Dyer in Washington
Barack Obama, the US president, took fresh aim at Chinese trade practices on Wednesday just as China’s leader-in-waiting used a visit to the US to try to mend fences with the American business community.
Both men travelled to the Midwest on Wednesday.
However, they brought very different messages.
Mr Obama used a campaign-style visit to a factory in Milwaukee to call for jobs to be “insourced” back from overseas.
“I am not going to stand by when our competitors don’t play by the rules,” he said.
The administration had set up a new trade enforcement unit and “it has only got one job: investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China”.
Mr Obama was speaking a day after meeting Xi Jinping, the Chinese vice-president in the White House, as part of a week-long visit that has been described as a “relationship-building” exercise with the man who could be in charge of China for the next decade.
Mr Xi is expected to take over as president next year.
Mr Xi travelled to Iowa for a visit designed to highlight the growing volumes of imports to China from the US and the potential for Chinese investment.
His first stop was the small town of Muscatine, which he briefly visited 27 years ago when he was a low-level regional official on a delegation investigating pig farming techniques.
Mr Xi then attended a large dinner at the state capitol in Des Moines.
Chinese officials pointed out that Iowa’s exports to China such as soyabeans have grown 1,200 per cent over the past decade.
He used a speech to a largely business audience earlier in the day to address some of the complaints about Chinese economic policies.
“China has become the United States’ fastest growing export market,” Mr Xi said.
China’s trade surplus as a proportion of gross domestic product had shrunk from 7 per cent to 2 per cent, he added.
The sparring underlined the complicated diplomatic tango that governs US-China relations, a mixture of heavy pageantry, meticulous protocol and formal exchanges laced with the occasional public barb.
On the eve of his trip, Mr Xi made some pointed criticisms about the US military build-up in the Asia-Pacific region.
Mr Xi’s visit to the US directly mirrors a trip 10 years ago by Hu Jintao, China’s current leader.
Yet while Mr Hu came to Washington at a time when the US business community was solidly in support of engagement with China, Mr Xi has faced a very different audience in the US.
Although many US multinationals have established large operations in China and see the country as a central part of their long-term plans, corporate America also has a growing list of complaints about doing business in the country, ranging from intellectual property violations to heavy subsidies for Chinese state-owned companies.
On Capitol Hill, on Wednesday, a congressional panel designed to examine the national security implications of trade with China held a hearing on the subsidies directed to Chinese state-owned enterprises.
“This is a relationship in transition,” said John Frisbie, president of the US-China Business Council, a lobby group for multinationals active in China, which hosted a lunch for Mr Xi.
“China has moved into a more prominent role globally, perhaps faster than expected, and is still adjusting to that role.”
Barack Obama, the US president, took fresh aim at Chinese trade practices on Wednesday just as China’s leader-in-waiting used a visit to the US to try to mend fences with the American business community.
Both men travelled to the Midwest on Wednesday.
However, they brought very different messages.
Mr Obama used a campaign-style visit to a factory in Milwaukee to call for jobs to be “insourced” back from overseas.
“I am not going to stand by when our competitors don’t play by the rules,” he said.
The administration had set up a new trade enforcement unit and “it has only got one job: investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China”.
Mr Obama was speaking a day after meeting Xi Jinping, the Chinese vice-president in the White House, as part of a week-long visit that has been described as a “relationship-building” exercise with the man who could be in charge of China for the next decade.
Mr Xi is expected to take over as president next year.
Mr Xi travelled to Iowa for a visit designed to highlight the growing volumes of imports to China from the US and the potential for Chinese investment.
His first stop was the small town of Muscatine, which he briefly visited 27 years ago when he was a low-level regional official on a delegation investigating pig farming techniques.
Mr Xi then attended a large dinner at the state capitol in Des Moines.
Chinese officials pointed out that Iowa’s exports to China such as soyabeans have grown 1,200 per cent over the past decade.
He used a speech to a largely business audience earlier in the day to address some of the complaints about Chinese economic policies.
“China has become the United States’ fastest growing export market,” Mr Xi said.
China’s trade surplus as a proportion of gross domestic product had shrunk from 7 per cent to 2 per cent, he added.
The sparring underlined the complicated diplomatic tango that governs US-China relations, a mixture of heavy pageantry, meticulous protocol and formal exchanges laced with the occasional public barb.
On the eve of his trip, Mr Xi made some pointed criticisms about the US military build-up in the Asia-Pacific region.
Mr Xi’s visit to the US directly mirrors a trip 10 years ago by Hu Jintao, China’s current leader.
Yet while Mr Hu came to Washington at a time when the US business community was solidly in support of engagement with China, Mr Xi has faced a very different audience in the US.
Although many US multinationals have established large operations in China and see the country as a central part of their long-term plans, corporate America also has a growing list of complaints about doing business in the country, ranging from intellectual property violations to heavy subsidies for Chinese state-owned companies.
On Capitol Hill, on Wednesday, a congressional panel designed to examine the national security implications of trade with China held a hearing on the subsidies directed to Chinese state-owned enterprises.
“This is a relationship in transition,” said John Frisbie, president of the US-China Business Council, a lobby group for multinationals active in China, which hosted a lunch for Mr Xi.
“China has moved into a more prominent role globally, perhaps faster than expected, and is still adjusting to that role.”
Hell Is Cheaper: China, Apple and the Economics of Horror
By RICHARD (RJ) ESKOW
I hate what I've learned about Apple's outsourcing to China.
I hate hearing Professor William Black explain why he believes that Steve Jobs, who I admired very much in some ways, must have ignored repeated reports that employees were being cheated and endangered.
I hate knowing that Apple's business practices are destroying the kind of good middle-class job his adoptive father had.
I hate knowing that many of this week's news stories about China ignore the fact that American companies who outsource to China have employee fraud and death built into their business plans.
In the words of the old Bob Seger song: Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.
But I do.
Where the Blame Belongs
China and trade are back in the news, thanks to the trade visit of Chinese Vice President (and future president, by most reports) Xi Jinping.
Last week on The Breakdown radio show I interviewed William K. Black, Jr., the former regulator who is now a Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
Prof. Black, who describes himself as a "white collar criminologist," makes a compelling argument that the cruelty and cynicism of both Chinese authorities and American companies like Apple are far worse than most people can imagine.
He identifies Apple's greatest misdeed -- one that may be shared by most of its competitors -- as "anti-employee control fraud," which it tolerated despite repeated reports.
Before the interview, Bill Black and I shared stories of the working conditions we'd both seen in other countries.
Sometimes it isn't pretty at all.
So let's not kid ourselves any longer: companies like Apple don't outsource to China because the workforce is better-educated or more highly motivated.
They don't even outsource just because the labor is cheaper there.
They outsource because employers who defraud their workers can make products more cheaply, and those who ignore their safety can produce them more quickly.
"I won't sell a product that gets scratched," Steve Jobs said in a famous anecdote.
"I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks."
As Prof. Black noted in our interview, "Imagine what would have happened if Steve Jobs cared as much about the health of his workers as he did about the quality of an iPhone screen."
As someone who has admired both Jobs and Apple -- and who just bought a new MacBook Pro -- the issue strikes close to home.
Because the worst moral depravity doesn't belong to the Chinese authorities, although they're shockingly heartless toward their own workers -- and, as Prof. Black notes in this audio clip, don't even hesitate to tolerate fraud that kills infants.
Even companies like Apple who, as Prof. Black says, knowingly create the environment that makes fraud and employee danger unavoidable, aren't the guiltiest among us.
The greatest moral failing isn't theirs: It's ours.
We buy products from manufacturers like Apple.
We ignore the reports that we hear.
We read newspapers and watch television without ever demanding that their reporters ask companies like Apple at every press conference: What are you doing to protect workers overseas?
Shame on them, all of them: the Chinese government, the reporters, executives at Apple.
But most of all, shame on us.
The Economics of Horror
The situation in China is Dickensian in the scope of its horror.
But the laws of economics makes that situation a predictable, even an inevitable horror.
Dave Johnson provides an excellent overview of the horror and its impact here at home, including living twelve to a room in dormitories and being roused at midnight to work unplanned shifts.
Dave does, however, omit this detail, from the New York Times: "Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk." (Update: Dave reminds me he did note it in an earlier post. I should've known; it's a hard image to forget.)
Here's how the economics of outsourcing -- the economics of horror -- works: companies like Apple that ignore reports of fraud and danger against employees make it impossible for honest, conscientious suppliers to survive.
Prof. Black offers a compelling argument that Apple -- and Steve Jobs -- had to know what their practices were doing to Chinese workers.
They received audits every year which told them that workers were being defrauded out of their pay.
Yet they did nothing.
As Prof. Black notes, it's easy to keep two sets of books to fool auditors.
Why didn't Apple's suppliers bother doing that?
Because they knew Apple didn't care.
As Prof. Black rightly says, corrupt suppliers inevitably drive good suppliers out.
Bad ethics drives out good ethics.
Companies that don't pay their workers can always underbid those that do.
Companies that maim and kill their workers can always deliver the goods more cheaply and quickly.
That's why we have worker protection laws -- and why some countries don't.
Apple knew that.
So do its competitors, who also rely on many of the same strategies.
Why would otherwise decent people behave like that?
To get faster turnaround on their orders.
And to save money -- even though Apple's profits rose from $26 billion in 2010 to $46.3 billion in 2011. Just one billion of that profit -- less than one-forty-sixth -- could raise the average salary of workers at its Foxconn supplier from $890 to $1,890 per year.
They could raise those yearly Foxconn salaries from $890 to $1,278 apiece using just one person's salary, that of CEO Tim Cook.
Cook, who earned $378 million in total compensation last year, said yesterday that "Apple takes working conditions very seriously" but that "the supply chain is complex."
If the journalists at the Times could figure it out, you'd think someone who's paid more than a third of a billion dollars per year could do it too.
Mr. Cook also said they were going to get new, better audits performed.
That would be more reassuring if they hadn't repeatedly ignored the ones they'd already received.
There's only one reason companies tolerate working conditions that amount to hell on earth: it's cheaper and easier.
Engineers Who Kill Have a Competitive Advantage
Steve Jobs complained about the availability of good engineers in the US, and said they were plentiful in China.
Guess that depends on what you mean by "good."
As Prof. Black notes in these comments, there aren't many US engineers who would order workers to use a nerve toxin to clean iPod screens just because it's quicker.
Chinese engineers did, and more than 100 employees were sickened.
International organizations reported that improper dust management in Apple suppliers' plants could lead to flash fires.
That was easy to discover, as Prof. Black notes in our interview.
In fact, Apple was warned about it several months before a fire killed several employees who were building iPads and disfigured others.
One of the dead was Lai Xiaodong, who lingered for two days before dying of his burns.
Maybe he was making my iPad when he died.
Maybe he was making yours.
His family might not be comforted to learn that Apple's profits "soared," exceeding all analysts' expectations in the year after his death.
Lai Xiaodong was twenty-two years old.
Chinese engineers aren't less moral or human by birth than those elsewhere in the world.
But Horror Economics applies among individuals as well as companies: If tolerating flash fires and nerve toxins is the only way to get ahead -- or to keep your job -- some people will be willing to do it.
Which puts the moral responsibility right back on us.
The Dirtiest Secret
There was a famous exchange in which President Obama asked Steve Jobs what it would take to bring Apple's manufacturing jobs back home and Jobs replied, "Those jobs aren't coming back."
The New York Times repeats Apple's often-repeated public justification for that position, describing the company as praising the "flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers."
It does take "flexibility" to assign workers to scrub Apple screens with a nerve toxin, or to ignore reports that they're in danger of death or mutilation.
American workers are skilled and diligent, and there's no reason for Apple's executives to believe otherwise. It's possible that Steve Jobs and other outsourcing executives really think that "those jobs aren't coming back" because they expect it will always be impossible to underbid the Chinese -- because they don't believe Chinese workers will ever be protected by law.
That's the inexorable logic of the unrestrained and unregulated market.
If things don't change, there will be no stopping the outflow of employment from the safe and the stable to the cheated, the endangered, and the abused.
Bad ethics drives out good ethics.
Perhaps that's what Jobs knew and Obama didn't: that there was nothing Obama could do to bring those jobs back -- not as long as danger and fraud can underbid safety and fairness.
Paul Jobs adopted Steve and raised him on the salary he earned as a machinist manufacturing lasers in the Silicon Valley.
You'd think this childhood experience would have created some sort of loyalty in Steve toward the middle class, some understanding of what a living wage and decent working conditions mean.
But that doesn't seem to have happened.
What a shame.
Immoral Trade
President Obama was characteristically understated when he said he this week wouldn't tolerate trading partners who don't "play by the rules."
Play by the rules?
They cheat.
But if we don't want to tolerate trading partners like that, then we can't be trading partners like that.
Apple wasn't "playing by the rules" when it ignored one audit after another that reported fraud against Chinese workers.
It wasn't "playing by the rules" when it ignored an aid organization's warning that workers in its Chinese plants were in danger of being killed or disfigured in flash fires -- and when, a few months later, some of them were.
Vice President Xi offered greater cooperation on trade.
But what kind of cooperation?
Will he enforce the law?
Will he make it illegal to cheat workers?
Will he imprison employers who cause their deaths?
Will he end these Dickensian conditions?
American lawmakers are outraged at Chinese currency manipulation, and they should be.
But death and cheating are even higher on the list of moral wrongs.
"Speaking frankly," said Xi, "an important aspect of addressing the imbalance in Chinese-U.S. trade is the United States' own economic policies and structural adjustment."
By "structural adjustment," he meant "allowing the last manufacturing jobs in your country to die."
China needs to make some adjustments instead.
Americans should reject "greater cooperation" with an immoral trading partner.
And we must learn to become moral trading partners ourselves.
Insanely Great
Steve Jobs could be famously nasty to people, but he also had a lot of terrific qualities.
And for someone who reportedly mistreated his employees, they sure seemed to stick around.
That says a lot about his management abilities.
In a world where mediocrity is tolerated in every walk of life, it's profoundly gratifying to come across someone who was so passionate about his work that he wanted to make sure every product was "insanely great."
I love that about Steve Jobs.
But it would really have been insanely great if Steve Jobs had shown the world that you can be an innovative corporate leader without losing your moral and social conscience.
Jobs knew how to charge more for a product and make people buy it anyway. (Trust me, I know.)
If these calculations are correct -- and they look sound -- he could have settled for a 39 percent profit margin on an iPad instead of the curent 54 percent, or split the difference with consumers, sold them for $784, and made a 46 percent margin.
Jobs probably could have sold more of them that way, too, and made just as much money.
Couldn't he have added twenty percent or so to the cost of an iPad so that the people making it didn't have to suffer nerve damage, be disfigured, or die in a flash fire?
Couldn't he have adjusted his already "insanely great" profit margins so that Chinese workers weren't forced to live in slaveship-like dormitories while being cheated out of their earnings?
Couldn't he have supported unionized workers?
Couldn't he have done those things so that maybe some kid who's being raised by a machinist could grow up to be the next Steve Jobs?
Steve Jobs changed the culture -- visually and digitally.
He could have changed corporate morality, too.
He could have demanded that his own company's ethics be "insanely great."
Instead he reinforced a horror-driven economy that's greatly insane.
Shared Responsibility
"China and the United States face shared challenges and shoulder shared responsibilities in international affairs," said Vice President Xi.
But for each of them, and for their people, the shared responsibility actually begins much closer to home -- not with international affairs but with matters domestic: The safety of the innocent.
An end to criminal mistreatment of employees.
A refusal to enrich ourselves -- or buy cool products -- with the blood of others.
An obligation to demand better from corporate citizens.
I hate knowing what I now know. But I do. You do too.
Now we have to act.
Our common human bond, the one we share with working people around the world, demands no less.
I hate what I've learned about Apple's outsourcing to China.
I hate hearing Professor William Black explain why he believes that Steve Jobs, who I admired very much in some ways, must have ignored repeated reports that employees were being cheated and endangered.
I hate knowing that Apple's business practices are destroying the kind of good middle-class job his adoptive father had.
I hate knowing that many of this week's news stories about China ignore the fact that American companies who outsource to China have employee fraud and death built into their business plans.
In the words of the old Bob Seger song: Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.
But I do.
Where the Blame Belongs
China and trade are back in the news, thanks to the trade visit of Chinese Vice President (and future president, by most reports) Xi Jinping.
Last week on The Breakdown radio show I interviewed William K. Black, Jr., the former regulator who is now a Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
Prof. Black, who describes himself as a "white collar criminologist," makes a compelling argument that the cruelty and cynicism of both Chinese authorities and American companies like Apple are far worse than most people can imagine.
He identifies Apple's greatest misdeed -- one that may be shared by most of its competitors -- as "anti-employee control fraud," which it tolerated despite repeated reports.
Before the interview, Bill Black and I shared stories of the working conditions we'd both seen in other countries.
Sometimes it isn't pretty at all.
So let's not kid ourselves any longer: companies like Apple don't outsource to China because the workforce is better-educated or more highly motivated.
They don't even outsource just because the labor is cheaper there.
They outsource because employers who defraud their workers can make products more cheaply, and those who ignore their safety can produce them more quickly.
"I won't sell a product that gets scratched," Steve Jobs said in a famous anecdote.
"I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks."
As Prof. Black noted in our interview, "Imagine what would have happened if Steve Jobs cared as much about the health of his workers as he did about the quality of an iPhone screen."
As someone who has admired both Jobs and Apple -- and who just bought a new MacBook Pro -- the issue strikes close to home.
Because the worst moral depravity doesn't belong to the Chinese authorities, although they're shockingly heartless toward their own workers -- and, as Prof. Black notes in this audio clip, don't even hesitate to tolerate fraud that kills infants.
Even companies like Apple who, as Prof. Black says, knowingly create the environment that makes fraud and employee danger unavoidable, aren't the guiltiest among us.
The greatest moral failing isn't theirs: It's ours.
We buy products from manufacturers like Apple.
We ignore the reports that we hear.
We read newspapers and watch television without ever demanding that their reporters ask companies like Apple at every press conference: What are you doing to protect workers overseas?
Shame on them, all of them: the Chinese government, the reporters, executives at Apple.
But most of all, shame on us.
The Economics of Horror
The situation in China is Dickensian in the scope of its horror.
But the laws of economics makes that situation a predictable, even an inevitable horror.
Dave Johnson provides an excellent overview of the horror and its impact here at home, including living twelve to a room in dormitories and being roused at midnight to work unplanned shifts.
Dave does, however, omit this detail, from the New York Times: "Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk." (Update: Dave reminds me he did note it in an earlier post. I should've known; it's a hard image to forget.)
Here's how the economics of outsourcing -- the economics of horror -- works: companies like Apple that ignore reports of fraud and danger against employees make it impossible for honest, conscientious suppliers to survive.
Prof. Black offers a compelling argument that Apple -- and Steve Jobs -- had to know what their practices were doing to Chinese workers.
They received audits every year which told them that workers were being defrauded out of their pay.
Yet they did nothing.
As Prof. Black notes, it's easy to keep two sets of books to fool auditors.
Why didn't Apple's suppliers bother doing that?
Because they knew Apple didn't care.
As Prof. Black rightly says, corrupt suppliers inevitably drive good suppliers out.
Bad ethics drives out good ethics.
Companies that don't pay their workers can always underbid those that do.
Companies that maim and kill their workers can always deliver the goods more cheaply and quickly.
That's why we have worker protection laws -- and why some countries don't.
Apple knew that.
So do its competitors, who also rely on many of the same strategies.
Why would otherwise decent people behave like that?
To get faster turnaround on their orders.
And to save money -- even though Apple's profits rose from $26 billion in 2010 to $46.3 billion in 2011. Just one billion of that profit -- less than one-forty-sixth -- could raise the average salary of workers at its Foxconn supplier from $890 to $1,890 per year.
They could raise those yearly Foxconn salaries from $890 to $1,278 apiece using just one person's salary, that of CEO Tim Cook.
Cook, who earned $378 million in total compensation last year, said yesterday that "Apple takes working conditions very seriously" but that "the supply chain is complex."
If the journalists at the Times could figure it out, you'd think someone who's paid more than a third of a billion dollars per year could do it too.
Mr. Cook also said they were going to get new, better audits performed.
That would be more reassuring if they hadn't repeatedly ignored the ones they'd already received.
There's only one reason companies tolerate working conditions that amount to hell on earth: it's cheaper and easier.
Engineers Who Kill Have a Competitive Advantage
Steve Jobs complained about the availability of good engineers in the US, and said they were plentiful in China.
Guess that depends on what you mean by "good."
As Prof. Black notes in these comments, there aren't many US engineers who would order workers to use a nerve toxin to clean iPod screens just because it's quicker.
Chinese engineers did, and more than 100 employees were sickened.
International organizations reported that improper dust management in Apple suppliers' plants could lead to flash fires.
That was easy to discover, as Prof. Black notes in our interview.
In fact, Apple was warned about it several months before a fire killed several employees who were building iPads and disfigured others.
One of the dead was Lai Xiaodong, who lingered for two days before dying of his burns.
Maybe he was making my iPad when he died.
Maybe he was making yours.
His family might not be comforted to learn that Apple's profits "soared," exceeding all analysts' expectations in the year after his death.
Lai Xiaodong was twenty-two years old.
Chinese engineers aren't less moral or human by birth than those elsewhere in the world.
But Horror Economics applies among individuals as well as companies: If tolerating flash fires and nerve toxins is the only way to get ahead -- or to keep your job -- some people will be willing to do it.
Which puts the moral responsibility right back on us.
The Dirtiest Secret
There was a famous exchange in which President Obama asked Steve Jobs what it would take to bring Apple's manufacturing jobs back home and Jobs replied, "Those jobs aren't coming back."
The New York Times repeats Apple's often-repeated public justification for that position, describing the company as praising the "flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers."
It does take "flexibility" to assign workers to scrub Apple screens with a nerve toxin, or to ignore reports that they're in danger of death or mutilation.
American workers are skilled and diligent, and there's no reason for Apple's executives to believe otherwise. It's possible that Steve Jobs and other outsourcing executives really think that "those jobs aren't coming back" because they expect it will always be impossible to underbid the Chinese -- because they don't believe Chinese workers will ever be protected by law.
That's the inexorable logic of the unrestrained and unregulated market.
If things don't change, there will be no stopping the outflow of employment from the safe and the stable to the cheated, the endangered, and the abused.
Bad ethics drives out good ethics.
Perhaps that's what Jobs knew and Obama didn't: that there was nothing Obama could do to bring those jobs back -- not as long as danger and fraud can underbid safety and fairness.
Paul Jobs adopted Steve and raised him on the salary he earned as a machinist manufacturing lasers in the Silicon Valley.
You'd think this childhood experience would have created some sort of loyalty in Steve toward the middle class, some understanding of what a living wage and decent working conditions mean.
But that doesn't seem to have happened.
What a shame.
Immoral Trade
President Obama was characteristically understated when he said he this week wouldn't tolerate trading partners who don't "play by the rules."
Play by the rules?
They cheat.
But if we don't want to tolerate trading partners like that, then we can't be trading partners like that.
Apple wasn't "playing by the rules" when it ignored one audit after another that reported fraud against Chinese workers.
It wasn't "playing by the rules" when it ignored an aid organization's warning that workers in its Chinese plants were in danger of being killed or disfigured in flash fires -- and when, a few months later, some of them were.
Vice President Xi offered greater cooperation on trade.
But what kind of cooperation?
Will he enforce the law?
Will he make it illegal to cheat workers?
Will he imprison employers who cause their deaths?
Will he end these Dickensian conditions?
American lawmakers are outraged at Chinese currency manipulation, and they should be.
But death and cheating are even higher on the list of moral wrongs.
"Speaking frankly," said Xi, "an important aspect of addressing the imbalance in Chinese-U.S. trade is the United States' own economic policies and structural adjustment."
By "structural adjustment," he meant "allowing the last manufacturing jobs in your country to die."
China needs to make some adjustments instead.
Americans should reject "greater cooperation" with an immoral trading partner.
And we must learn to become moral trading partners ourselves.
Insanely Great
Steve Jobs could be famously nasty to people, but he also had a lot of terrific qualities.
And for someone who reportedly mistreated his employees, they sure seemed to stick around.
That says a lot about his management abilities.
In a world where mediocrity is tolerated in every walk of life, it's profoundly gratifying to come across someone who was so passionate about his work that he wanted to make sure every product was "insanely great."
I love that about Steve Jobs.
But it would really have been insanely great if Steve Jobs had shown the world that you can be an innovative corporate leader without losing your moral and social conscience.
Jobs knew how to charge more for a product and make people buy it anyway. (Trust me, I know.)
If these calculations are correct -- and they look sound -- he could have settled for a 39 percent profit margin on an iPad instead of the curent 54 percent, or split the difference with consumers, sold them for $784, and made a 46 percent margin.
Jobs probably could have sold more of them that way, too, and made just as much money.
Couldn't he have added twenty percent or so to the cost of an iPad so that the people making it didn't have to suffer nerve damage, be disfigured, or die in a flash fire?
Couldn't he have adjusted his already "insanely great" profit margins so that Chinese workers weren't forced to live in slaveship-like dormitories while being cheated out of their earnings?
Couldn't he have supported unionized workers?
Couldn't he have done those things so that maybe some kid who's being raised by a machinist could grow up to be the next Steve Jobs?
Steve Jobs changed the culture -- visually and digitally.
He could have changed corporate morality, too.
He could have demanded that his own company's ethics be "insanely great."
Instead he reinforced a horror-driven economy that's greatly insane.
Shared Responsibility
"China and the United States face shared challenges and shoulder shared responsibilities in international affairs," said Vice President Xi.
But for each of them, and for their people, the shared responsibility actually begins much closer to home -- not with international affairs but with matters domestic: The safety of the innocent.
An end to criminal mistreatment of employees.
A refusal to enrich ourselves -- or buy cool products -- with the blood of others.
An obligation to demand better from corporate citizens.
I hate knowing what I now know. But I do. You do too.
Now we have to act.
Our common human bond, the one we share with working people around the world, demands no less.
Romney hits tyrannical China, 'supplicant' Obama
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romne is seen at a rally on February 13
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican White House contender Mitt Romney ridiculed President Barack Obama's weak policy toward China on Thursday, as he vowed to prevent a "Chinese century" that would bring widespread suppression of political and personal freedom.
Promising not to shy away from confrontation with Beijing if elected in November, Romney wrote in an opinion piece that China, a "prosperous tyranny," must be prevented from gaining regional hegemony.
Were China to succeed, he wrote, "the character of the Chinese government -- one that marries aspects of the free market with suppression of political and personal freedom -- would become a widespread and disquieting norm."
Romney said his response to China's rise would be a powerful US military -- with a strong presence in the Pacific -- as well as fiscal rectitude and renewing faith in US values.
"We must... make (China's) path to regional hegemony far more costly than the alternative path of becoming a responsible partner in the international system."
His comments come during the high-profile US visit of China's leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping, which could preview the next generation of US-China relations.
Xi is widely tipped to become China's president next year.
In the Wall Street Journal-published column, Romney described Xi's meetings with Obama this week as "empty pomp and ceremony."
He also accused Obama of entering office "as a near supplicant to Beijing, almost begging it to continue buying American debt."
Locked in a seesaw battle to win his party's presidential nomination, Romney's attack on the two whipping boys of the right wing -- Obama and China -- will do little to hurt his grassroots appeal.
Romney also repeated his promise to name China a currency manipulator on his first day in the White House.
Such a measure would pave the way for US sanctions on Chinese goods.
"A trade war with China is the last thing I want, but I can not tolerate our current trade surrender," he said. The US accuses China of keeping its currency weak to make Chinese exports cheaper.
China’s Troubling Syria Veto
By Joel Wuthnow
China's U.N. veto over Syria was striking because of how internationally isolated it is.
So why did it do it?
China’s veto of a draft U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria was important not only for the outcome it produced, which was a failure of the Council to address escalating violence in that country.
It also reflected a diminished willingness by Beijing to heed international opinion as it makes decisions in the world body.
This should be a focus of concern as China’s next president, Xi Jinping, is visiting the U.S., and in continued interactions between Washington and Beijing.
As Minxin Pei has pointed out, two factors led to China’s veto.
First is a growing strategic alignment between China and Russia, in which the two coordinate positions in the Council so that neither will be isolated, thus forming an “axis of obstruction” vis-à-vis the West.
Second is a wariness about fomenting democratic protests, which Beijing fears may embolden anti-government actors within its own borders.
The experience of the Arab Spring lies behind, and buttresses, both of these factors.
Yet the veto is striking because of how internationally isolated China was.
By aligning with Moscow, China not only blocked a goal of the U.S. and its European partners.
It also contradicted the will of others on the Council (including South Africa and India, members of the so-called BRICS group, which have often expressed views in favor of non-intervention; and China’s erstwhile ally, Pakistan), and with the Arab League as a whole.
It’s one thing to deny Washington an ideological objective; it is another to stand against world opinion writ large.
That China parted ways with the Arab League is especially interesting and, in some ways, troublesome. Historically, the opinion of regional organizations, and key regional powers, have informed Beijing’s decisions within the Council.
For instance, ASEAN’s reluctance to criticize the regime’s internal policies provided diplomatic cover for China’s 2007 veto on a resolution related to Burma.
South Africa’s strong opposition to U.N. involvement in the crisis following Zimbabwe’s elections in 2008 influenced China’s veto of sanctions on that government.
Similarly, the support by the Arab League and the African Union was a reason why China chose to take the unprecedented step of affirming (and not merely abstaining on) a referral of Muammar Gaddafi to the International Criminal Court in 2011, and a reason why Beijing didn’t block the imposition of a no-fly zone to protect civilians in that case, despite long-standing concerns about the negative side-effects of using force to solve domestic conflicts.
There are several possible explanations for China’s willingness to adopt such an unpopular position vis-à-vis the Arab world.
One is that Beijing discounted the importance of the Arab League relative to Russia.
As Chinese foreign affairs scholar Yan Xuetong writes, strengthening relations with Russia will “enhance China’s strategic position in Asia,” at a time of renewed U.S. interest in the region, whereas retaining goodwill in the Middle East is of secondary importance.
Another is that there is a perception among China’s Middle East watchers that Arab League decisions are driven by a handful of pro-Western states, such as Saudi Arabia, and don’t represent the will of the region at large.
A third is simply that China’s leaders felt that they had to draw a “red line” under U.N. involvement in internal conflict, no matter what the political repercussions.
Whatever the reason, a significant implication is that, if China remains comfortable maintaining opposition regardless of the political costs, coalition-building within the Council will be more difficult.
For instance, the fourth round of sanctions on Iran passed in June 2010 relied on intensive efforts by Israel, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Europe to influence Beijing.
This ultimately paid off with a “yes” vote.
If the latter is less susceptible to such remonstrations, then the ability of the Council to leverage pressure against “rogue” regimes is likely to be rendered all the more nettlesome.
The visit of China’s paramount leader-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, offers an opportunity for the U.S. to stress that it will, if necessary and with the support of the regional stakeholders, pursue avenues outside the Council to address the continuation of violence in Syria and elsewhere.
This message should be relayed to Xi now and over the next year, as he prepares to assume power within China.
The only thing that China likely prefers less to a U.N. resolution is an obsolescence of the Council itself, and along with it China’s cherished status as a veto-wielding member.
China’s Arctic Powerplay
China has been working to extend its influence in the Arctic. It's a move that could have global ramifications.
By Isabella Mroczkowski
The United States is shifting its focus from the Atlantic across to the Pacific.
However, if an Arctic century is on the horizon, then China is at the forefront of it.
While Washington enhances its relationships across the Asia-Pacific basin, Beijing is busy engaging Arctic Ocean coastal states en masse.
The Middle Kingdom is apparently interested in the commercial viability of new shipping lanes and developing the resources that lie underneath and along the Arctic seabed.
Ostensibly to achieve its objectives, China is engaging the region at an unprecedented pace.
Beijing’s comprehensive engagement of Arctic states demonstrates that China’s ambition isn't just to be a Pacific power, but a global one.
Questions that remain are: what is Beijing’s intention in the Arctic, and by extension what type of global power will China be?
China has been in the Arctic since the early 1990s, but only recently began seeking to enhance its engagement there as a permanent observer in the Arctic Council.
The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses issues such as the management of resources, climate change, and Arctic environment maintenance.
The Council has eight voting member states—Canada, United States, Russia, Denmark (Faroe Islands and Greenland), Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and Finland—all of which share a border with the Arctic Ocean. There are six permanent observer states—all of which are European—and multiple ad-hoc observer members, among them: Japan, South Korea, and China.
While permanent observer status would grant China unrestricted access to Arctic Council meetings (as an ad-hoc member it must apply for admission each time), under the current system, China’s accession would serve more as a symbolic gesture than one that grants China tangible authority.
One example that demonstrates a Chinese approach to the Arctic is Chinese tycoon Huang Nubo’s bid to purchase 300 square kilometers of land in northeast Iceland (roughly .3 percent of the country) for an eco-resort.
While his efforts are allegedly unaffiliated with the Chinese government, the deal would grant China a significant foothold in the Arctic.
The land in question is strategically located near one of Iceland’s largest glacial rivers and several potential deepwater ports.
As Arctic ice recedes, this area is destined to become an important port center on a new maritime transport route between East and West.
The government of Iceland ultimately rejected Nubo’s resort proposal, but not first without stirring a heated debate between Icelanders about China’s growing influence.
In contrast, Copenhagen and Beijing elevated their relationship to that of a “strategic partnership” in 2008 to include cooperation in technology, science, and trade.
Denmark made the tactical decision to prioritize its economic relationship with China while turning a blind eye to issues such as human rights.
To be sure, this burgeoning bilateral relationship holds enormous economic benefits, not only for Denmark, but also for Greenland, which remains under Denmark’s jurisdiction.
Greenland is endowed with substantial deposits of minerals including rare earths, uranium, iron ore, lead, zinc, petroleum, and gemstones.
Currently, 80 percent of Greenland is covered by an ice sheet.
However rising temperatures have exposed numerous mineral belts.
One such area, the Kvanefjeld deposit, is estimated to produce 20 percent of the global rare earth supply, making it the world's second-largest deposit of rare earths.
With limited fiscal resources, Greenland depends on outside investment to develop its mineral reserves. While the Australian-based Greenland Minerals and Energy Limited has been operating in Greenland since 2007, new entities seek to tap into Greenland’s emerging minerals industry.
China’s Sichuan Xinye Mining Investment Co. recently held preliminary discussions on investing in an iron ore deposit site and Jiangxi Union Mining has explored for copper in central Greenland.
While the two entities are in the first stages of negotiation, a cooperative agreement is on the horizon.
Unlike the transitory eco-resort proposal and emerging investments in Greenland’s mineral reserves, China’s Yellow River Research Center in Ny- Ålesund, Norway represents a different type of Chinese footprint in the Arctic.
For almost a decade, the station has been collecting environmental, oceanic, and scientific data for research primarily on climate change.
However, while Norway hosts China’s Yellow River research station, it has not bought into China’s Arctic courtship.
Ever since the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, diplomatic and trade ties have stagnated.
Today, Norway remains one of the most vocal Arctic Council members against Chinese membership on the Council.
Another important player in China’s future position in the Arctic is Canada.
In 2013, Canada will take over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council and thus set the Council’s agenda for the following two years—including which members to admit.
Thus far, China – Canada relations appear to be on an upswing.
In early February, PetroChina China’s largest oil and gas producer and distributor, purchased a 20 percent stake in Royal Dutch Shell’s Groundbirch shale-gas asset in Canada, granting it vast access to Arctic fossil fuels.
While Groundbirch will continue to supply customers in North America, in the future, (perhaps as Arctic ice recedes and sea lanes open up) PetroChina seeks to export the fuel to Asia in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
China’s value to Canada has increased, especially with the U.S.-Canada Keystone stall.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has reaffirmed his intentions to pursue potential energy partners in Asia and notably, energy has been the focal point in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s February visit to China.
China’s approach to the Arctic is comprehensive.
While Beijing continues to seek a role in the region’s governance with membership in the Arctic Council, it's also engaging with Arctic stakeholders bilaterally on a gamut of issues that includes: trade, culture, investment, tourism, and technology.
This begs the questions, what are Chinese intentions in the Arctic and what does Beijing’s approach suggest about the strategy toward the Arctic?
In the preliminary analysis, Chinese interests and strategy in the Arctic appear at odds.
Ruan Zongze, a research fellow with the China Institute for International Studies—a Ministry of Foreign Affairs think tank—asserts that as a country outside the Arctic, China has no “special interests” in the Arctic. On the other hand, retired Rear PLA Navy Adm. Yin Zhuo believes that the Arctic belongs to all people and that China must have a share in the region’s resources.
While China’s intentions remain at odds, this fact remains: Arctic ice cover is vanishing with astonishing speed; ice melt will open up valuable shipping lanes, possibilities for hydrocarbon extraction, and economic opportunities ranging from fishing to tourism.
Meanwhile, Beijing’s ambitious plans for three Arctic expeditions and a second polar ice-breaker ship by 2015, confirm that China is in the Arctic to stay.
The economic giant’s reach into the Arctic suggests that China is not just a Pacific Power but a global one.
By Isabella Mroczkowski
The United States is shifting its focus from the Atlantic across to the Pacific.
However, if an Arctic century is on the horizon, then China is at the forefront of it.
While Washington enhances its relationships across the Asia-Pacific basin, Beijing is busy engaging Arctic Ocean coastal states en masse.
The Middle Kingdom is apparently interested in the commercial viability of new shipping lanes and developing the resources that lie underneath and along the Arctic seabed.
Ostensibly to achieve its objectives, China is engaging the region at an unprecedented pace.
Beijing’s comprehensive engagement of Arctic states demonstrates that China’s ambition isn't just to be a Pacific power, but a global one.
Questions that remain are: what is Beijing’s intention in the Arctic, and by extension what type of global power will China be?
China has been in the Arctic since the early 1990s, but only recently began seeking to enhance its engagement there as a permanent observer in the Arctic Council.
The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses issues such as the management of resources, climate change, and Arctic environment maintenance.
The Council has eight voting member states—Canada, United States, Russia, Denmark (Faroe Islands and Greenland), Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and Finland—all of which share a border with the Arctic Ocean. There are six permanent observer states—all of which are European—and multiple ad-hoc observer members, among them: Japan, South Korea, and China.
While permanent observer status would grant China unrestricted access to Arctic Council meetings (as an ad-hoc member it must apply for admission each time), under the current system, China’s accession would serve more as a symbolic gesture than one that grants China tangible authority.
One example that demonstrates a Chinese approach to the Arctic is Chinese tycoon Huang Nubo’s bid to purchase 300 square kilometers of land in northeast Iceland (roughly .3 percent of the country) for an eco-resort.
While his efforts are allegedly unaffiliated with the Chinese government, the deal would grant China a significant foothold in the Arctic.
The land in question is strategically located near one of Iceland’s largest glacial rivers and several potential deepwater ports.
As Arctic ice recedes, this area is destined to become an important port center on a new maritime transport route between East and West.
The government of Iceland ultimately rejected Nubo’s resort proposal, but not first without stirring a heated debate between Icelanders about China’s growing influence.
In contrast, Copenhagen and Beijing elevated their relationship to that of a “strategic partnership” in 2008 to include cooperation in technology, science, and trade.
Denmark made the tactical decision to prioritize its economic relationship with China while turning a blind eye to issues such as human rights.
To be sure, this burgeoning bilateral relationship holds enormous economic benefits, not only for Denmark, but also for Greenland, which remains under Denmark’s jurisdiction.
Greenland is endowed with substantial deposits of minerals including rare earths, uranium, iron ore, lead, zinc, petroleum, and gemstones.
Currently, 80 percent of Greenland is covered by an ice sheet.
However rising temperatures have exposed numerous mineral belts.
One such area, the Kvanefjeld deposit, is estimated to produce 20 percent of the global rare earth supply, making it the world's second-largest deposit of rare earths.
With limited fiscal resources, Greenland depends on outside investment to develop its mineral reserves. While the Australian-based Greenland Minerals and Energy Limited has been operating in Greenland since 2007, new entities seek to tap into Greenland’s emerging minerals industry.
China’s Sichuan Xinye Mining Investment Co. recently held preliminary discussions on investing in an iron ore deposit site and Jiangxi Union Mining has explored for copper in central Greenland.
While the two entities are in the first stages of negotiation, a cooperative agreement is on the horizon.
Unlike the transitory eco-resort proposal and emerging investments in Greenland’s mineral reserves, China’s Yellow River Research Center in Ny- Ålesund, Norway represents a different type of Chinese footprint in the Arctic.
For almost a decade, the station has been collecting environmental, oceanic, and scientific data for research primarily on climate change.
However, while Norway hosts China’s Yellow River research station, it has not bought into China’s Arctic courtship.
Ever since the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, diplomatic and trade ties have stagnated.
Today, Norway remains one of the most vocal Arctic Council members against Chinese membership on the Council.
Another important player in China’s future position in the Arctic is Canada.
In 2013, Canada will take over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council and thus set the Council’s agenda for the following two years—including which members to admit.
Thus far, China – Canada relations appear to be on an upswing.
In early February, PetroChina China’s largest oil and gas producer and distributor, purchased a 20 percent stake in Royal Dutch Shell’s Groundbirch shale-gas asset in Canada, granting it vast access to Arctic fossil fuels.
While Groundbirch will continue to supply customers in North America, in the future, (perhaps as Arctic ice recedes and sea lanes open up) PetroChina seeks to export the fuel to Asia in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
China’s value to Canada has increased, especially with the U.S.-Canada Keystone stall.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has reaffirmed his intentions to pursue potential energy partners in Asia and notably, energy has been the focal point in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s February visit to China.
China’s approach to the Arctic is comprehensive.
While Beijing continues to seek a role in the region’s governance with membership in the Arctic Council, it's also engaging with Arctic stakeholders bilaterally on a gamut of issues that includes: trade, culture, investment, tourism, and technology.
This begs the questions, what are Chinese intentions in the Arctic and what does Beijing’s approach suggest about the strategy toward the Arctic?
In the preliminary analysis, Chinese interests and strategy in the Arctic appear at odds.
Ruan Zongze, a research fellow with the China Institute for International Studies—a Ministry of Foreign Affairs think tank—asserts that as a country outside the Arctic, China has no “special interests” in the Arctic. On the other hand, retired Rear PLA Navy Adm. Yin Zhuo believes that the Arctic belongs to all people and that China must have a share in the region’s resources.
While China’s intentions remain at odds, this fact remains: Arctic ice cover is vanishing with astonishing speed; ice melt will open up valuable shipping lanes, possibilities for hydrocarbon extraction, and economic opportunities ranging from fishing to tourism.
Meanwhile, Beijing’s ambitious plans for three Arctic expeditions and a second polar ice-breaker ship by 2015, confirm that China is in the Arctic to stay.
The economic giant’s reach into the Arctic suggests that China is not just a Pacific Power but a global one.
China Rejects U.S. Religious Freedom Ambassador, Suzan Johnson Cook
Huffington Post
China has snubbed the U.S. religious freedom envoy, refusing to meet with her and denying her a visa to travel to China.
Suzan Johnson Cook, the U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, was slated to fly to China on Feb. 8, according to various rights advocates who met with her ahead of the planned visit, the Washington Post reports.
From the Post: "But as the date drew near, Chinese leaders refused to grant her meetings with government officials.
"They then cited her lack of scheduled meetings as a reason for denying her visa application, according to the advocates and a congressional aide, who were briefed on the situation."
Writing on the Baptist Joint Committee blog, Don Byrd reacted with alarm to China's decision.
"Religious freedom is a universal human right that should be respected by all governments," Byrd wrote.
"So, what should be done when one of the world's largest and most powerful nations refuses that right, and refuses to let anyone in to talk about it?"
News of Cook's rejection came as China's Vice President Xi Jinping visited with President Obama in Washington on Tuesday.
The Atlantic Wire notes that it's unclear if U.S. officials have talked with Xi about Cook's snubbing, or whether she could travel to China in the future.
China has snubbed the U.S. religious freedom envoy, refusing to meet with her and denying her a visa to travel to China.
Suzan Johnson Cook, the U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, was slated to fly to China on Feb. 8, according to various rights advocates who met with her ahead of the planned visit, the Washington Post reports.
From the Post: "But as the date drew near, Chinese leaders refused to grant her meetings with government officials.
"They then cited her lack of scheduled meetings as a reason for denying her visa application, according to the advocates and a congressional aide, who were briefed on the situation."
Writing on the Baptist Joint Committee blog, Don Byrd reacted with alarm to China's decision.
"Religious freedom is a universal human right that should be respected by all governments," Byrd wrote.
"So, what should be done when one of the world's largest and most powerful nations refuses that right, and refuses to let anyone in to talk about it?"
News of Cook's rejection came as China's Vice President Xi Jinping visited with President Obama in Washington on Tuesday.
The Atlantic Wire notes that it's unclear if U.S. officials have talked with Xi about Cook's snubbing, or whether she could travel to China in the future.
China’s Military Spending to Double by 2015 – Report
That China is rapidly increasing its military spending without being transparent about its strategic intentions in the region
Associated Press
Chinese Air Force J-10 fighter jets take off during training in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
China’s defense budget will double by 2015, making it more than the rest of the Asia Pacific region’s combined, according to a report from IHS Jane’s, a global think tank specializing in security issues.
Beijing’s military spending will reach $238.2 billion in 2015, compared with $232.5 billion for rest of the region, according to the report.
That would also be almost four times the expected defense budget of Japan, the next biggest in the region, in 2015, the report said.
The new report was released as China’s Vice President, Xi Jinping, arrived in Washington at the start of a four-day visit to the U.S. that is seen as a prelude to his expected promotion to Communist Party chief in a once-a-decade leadership change in the fall.
Mr Xi, who is also Vice Chairman of the Party’s Central Military Commission, is due to visit the Pentagon on Tuesday after meeting his counterpart, Joe Biden, and Presdent Obama at the White House earlier in the day.
Ahead of the visit, he and other Chinese officials had expressed concern about the U.S. decision to refocus its military strategy on Asia last year, and complained of a “trust deficit” between Beijing and Washington. China says that its military spending does not pose a threat to any other country, and has repeatedly pointed out that it still represents a tiny fraction of U.S. defense spending.
But the new research highlights what U.S. officials are worried about: That China is rapidly increasing its military spending without being sufficiently transparent about its strategic intentions in the region.
Many of China’s neighbors have been alarmed in the last year or two by what they see as Beijing’s more assertive stance on territorial issues, especially over the South China Sea.
China says its defense budget for 2011 increased by 12.7 percent to about $91.5 billion, but many defense experts believe its real military spending is much higher.
IHS Jane’s put the figure for 2011 at $119.8 billion, and predicted it would increase by an average of 18.75 percent annually until 2015.
“China’s investment will race ahead at an eye watering 18.75 percent, leaving Japan and India far behind,” said Paul Burton, senior principal analyst of IHS Jane’s Defence Budgets.
He added that Taiwan’s defense spending was expected to have overtaken Singapore’s by 2015, while Vietnam and Indonesia were also forecast to increase military expenditure at a rate that exceeds GDP growth.
Rajiv Biswas, chief Asia Pacific economist for IHS Global Insight, was quoted saying: “Beijing has been able to devote an increasingly large portion of its overall budget towards defence and has been steadily building up its military capabilities for more than two decades.”
He continued: “This will continue unless there is an economic catastrophe. Conversely Japan and India may have to hold back due to significant economic challenges.”
Responding to the report, the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, did not dispute IHS Jane’s projections but warned against Western powers “with an axe to grind” using China’s military budget to promote the idea of a China threat.
Associated Press
Chinese Air Force J-10 fighter jets take off during training in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
China’s defense budget will double by 2015, making it more than the rest of the Asia Pacific region’s combined, according to a report from IHS Jane’s, a global think tank specializing in security issues.
Beijing’s military spending will reach $238.2 billion in 2015, compared with $232.5 billion for rest of the region, according to the report.
That would also be almost four times the expected defense budget of Japan, the next biggest in the region, in 2015, the report said.
The new report was released as China’s Vice President, Xi Jinping, arrived in Washington at the start of a four-day visit to the U.S. that is seen as a prelude to his expected promotion to Communist Party chief in a once-a-decade leadership change in the fall.
Mr Xi, who is also Vice Chairman of the Party’s Central Military Commission, is due to visit the Pentagon on Tuesday after meeting his counterpart, Joe Biden, and Presdent Obama at the White House earlier in the day.
Ahead of the visit, he and other Chinese officials had expressed concern about the U.S. decision to refocus its military strategy on Asia last year, and complained of a “trust deficit” between Beijing and Washington. China says that its military spending does not pose a threat to any other country, and has repeatedly pointed out that it still represents a tiny fraction of U.S. defense spending.
But the new research highlights what U.S. officials are worried about: That China is rapidly increasing its military spending without being sufficiently transparent about its strategic intentions in the region.
Many of China’s neighbors have been alarmed in the last year or two by what they see as Beijing’s more assertive stance on territorial issues, especially over the South China Sea.
China says its defense budget for 2011 increased by 12.7 percent to about $91.5 billion, but many defense experts believe its real military spending is much higher.
IHS Jane’s put the figure for 2011 at $119.8 billion, and predicted it would increase by an average of 18.75 percent annually until 2015.
“China’s investment will race ahead at an eye watering 18.75 percent, leaving Japan and India far behind,” said Paul Burton, senior principal analyst of IHS Jane’s Defence Budgets.
He added that Taiwan’s defense spending was expected to have overtaken Singapore’s by 2015, while Vietnam and Indonesia were also forecast to increase military expenditure at a rate that exceeds GDP growth.
Rajiv Biswas, chief Asia Pacific economist for IHS Global Insight, was quoted saying: “Beijing has been able to devote an increasingly large portion of its overall budget towards defence and has been steadily building up its military capabilities for more than two decades.”
He continued: “This will continue unless there is an economic catastrophe. Conversely Japan and India may have to hold back due to significant economic challenges.”
Responding to the report, the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, did not dispute IHS Jane’s projections but warned against Western powers “with an axe to grind” using China’s military budget to promote the idea of a China threat.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
New China landing vessels point to Pacific rivalry
By David Lague
.jpg)
HONG KONG -- As looming budget cuts force the Pentagon to plan for a smaller U.S. navy, China is accelerating the launch of new, increasingly capable warships as part of a sustained drive to become a major maritime power.
Shanghai's Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding Company late last month launched the fourth of China's new 071 amphibious landing ships according to reports carried by Chinese military web sites and the state-controlled media.
While most attention has been drawn to the ongoing sea trials of China's first aircraft carrier, military analysts say the expanding fleet of 20,000 tonne landing ships, the biggest domestically designed and built vessels in the Chinese navy, delivers a far more immediate boost to Beijing's global influence.
"Having a significant fleet of large amphibious assault vessels clearly suggests a desire for power projection," says Christian Le Miere, a maritime security researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
"If you want the surgical insertion of forces, for a range of reasons, then you need amphibious response ships."
MILITARY RIVALRY
China's naval buildup comes amid mounting maritime tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, which is likely to be one of the main geopolitical stress points in the coming decade.
Military planners previously had focused mainly on a potential conflict in the Taiwan strait.
More recently, however, Japan and China have locked horns over islands each claims in the East China Sea; Vietnam, the Philippines and other nations are disputing territorial claims with China over parts of the South China Sea thought to be rich in oil and gas.
The U.S. Navy has announced it will deploy its own new amphibious assault vessels, the Littoral Combat Ships, to the "maritime crossroads" of the Asia-Pacific theater, stationing them in Singapore and perhaps the Philippines.
Xi Jinping, the man destined to become China's new president later this year, called for enhanced military cooperation between the Pacific powers during a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday in Washington.
Xi, the son of a famous guerrilla commander from the 1930s, also met with President Barack Obama and was treated to a rare show of honors at the Pentagon, including on a 19-gun salute.
But Panetta, alluding to the strains in the relationship, called for more transparency from Beijing about its military build-up.
LARGEST SHIPBUILDER
The Chinese navy is expected to deploy up to eight of the type 071 ships that can carry up to 800 troops, hovercraft, armored vehicles and medium lift helicopters.
The first of the class launched in 2006, the Kunlunshan, has already deployed with Chinese naval forces to the Indian Ocean and the pace of construction appears to have quickened with the third and fourth vessels completed within the last five months.
And, military commentators and retired Chinese naval officers say, early design work has already started on a bigger, more capable landing ship.
For the Chinese navy, the country's thriving commercial shipbuilding industry is providing a springboard for further improvements in the size and sophistication of new classes of warships, military experts say.
China in 2010 overtook South Korea to become the world's biggest shipbuilder and industry experts say the leading state-owned shipyards are steadily improving skills and technology with the launch of bigger and more complex oil tankers, container ships and other, more specialized vessels.
Along with more than two decades of rapid growth in military spending, this shipbuilding expertise has transformed the Chinese navy from an obsolete, coastal defense force to a blue water fleet that is expanding its influence into the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
China's best warships and submarines are now armed with advanced air defense weapons and long range, anti-ship missiles.
In its annual report to Congress on the Chinese military, the Pentagon last year said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) navy now has about 75 major warships, more than 60 submarines, 55 medium and heavy amphibious ships and about 85 smaller, missile-armed fast attack craft.
As a major trading power with a growing dependence on imported energy and raw materials, this naval expansion is crucial for the country's security, according to Chinese military planners.
"The safety of China's personnel, assets and shipping lanes is very important for its economy," wrote Senior Captain Wang Xiaoxuan, the director of the PLA's Naval Research Institute, in the official China Daily newspaper last month.
"To guarantee this, it needs a strong navy."
SHRINKING US NAVY
Military strategists dismiss crude comparisons between navies based on the number of ships alone and most experts agree that the U.S. navy with its 285-strong fleet including 11 aircraft carriers, more than 70 nuclear powered submarines and 22 cruisers remains the world's overwhelmingly, dominant navy.
In size, firepower, integration with other important weapons systems and battle experience, the best U.S. warships enjoy a clear advantage over those of China and most combatants from other navies.
However, it is also clear that under the Obama administration's plan to shave almost $487 billion from the Pentagon budget over the coming decade, the U.S. navy will shrink as China's fleet continues to grow in size and quality.
To meet its budget target, the U.S. navy proposes to retire seven cruisers and two amphibious vessels, delay work on new ships and submarines and scrap some programs which could see the fleet shrink to less than 250 ships, according to senior Pentagon officials.
These cuts come as the Obama administration mounts a "pivot" to Asia following the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and anticipated exit from Afghanistan.
As part of this effort to boost defense cooperation in Asia, the U.S. military is now holding its annual Cobra Gold joint exercises which run until February 17 in Thailand with troops from the host country, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.
It will hold joint naval exercises next month with the Philippines near the disputed Spratly islands.
SECOND-RANKED SPENDER
This shift of military firepower to Asia and renewed emphasis on building closer ties with traditional, regional allies is partly aimed at countering the rapid growth of Chinese military muscle.
After more than two decades of double digit growth, the annual expansion of China's official military outlays dropped to 7.5 per cent in 2010 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis but spending bounced back last year with a 12.7 per cent increase to $91.5 billion.
Most foreign analysts believe China understates its defense budget.
The Pentagon estimates total Chinese military outlays in 2010 were more than $160 billion which would easily make it the second ranked defense spender behind the US.
The Obama administration is proposing to spend $525 billion on the military in 2013.
For the expanding Chinese navy, the widely publicized deployment of the refurbished, former Ukrainian aircraft carrier, the Varyag, on its sea trials last year was seen as an important milestone in China's bid to become a major sea power.
However, most Chinese and foreign experts believe it will be years before the carrier will be operationally ready with aircraft, weapons and supporting vessels.
PROTECTING OVERSEAS NATIONALS
In contrast, military analysts say the amphibious landing ships already provide Beijing the option of deploying troops and their equipment in wartime or in response to less serious peacetime contingencies, including operations to protect the more than 800,000 Chinese nationals working overseas.
"In non-combat roles, they are more meaningful than an aircraft carrier," says Gabe Collins, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based specialist on maritime affairs for the China SignPost research group.
"They are geared to using choppers, troops, hovercraft and even armored vehicles. Now they can say: 'We've just had three people kidnapped here, let's go and do something about it'."
More ominously for smaller regional powers, these ships could also be used to land Chinese troops on disputed territory in the South China Sea, analysts say.
However, it is in so-called "soft power" that the amphibious landing vessels could make their initial contribution as China attempts to reassure regional nations that its growing military might poses no threat. The Chinese military clearly recognized that the U.S. was able to gain substantial goodwill from its effective response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami with its aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships ferrying supplies, medical teams and rescue crews ashore, according to Chinese and Western commentators.
Some analysts believe this experience was a factor in Beijing's decision to launch its first, large, military hospital ship that could be deployed to assist other nations in times of crisis as well as support Chinese amphibious forces in combat.
The hospital ship, launched in 2007, was late last year deployed on a humanitarian medical mission to Latin America and the Caribbean.
HONG KONG -- As looming budget cuts force the Pentagon to plan for a smaller U.S. navy, China is accelerating the launch of new, increasingly capable warships as part of a sustained drive to become a major maritime power.
Shanghai's Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding Company late last month launched the fourth of China's new 071 amphibious landing ships according to reports carried by Chinese military web sites and the state-controlled media.
While most attention has been drawn to the ongoing sea trials of China's first aircraft carrier, military analysts say the expanding fleet of 20,000 tonne landing ships, the biggest domestically designed and built vessels in the Chinese navy, delivers a far more immediate boost to Beijing's global influence.
"Having a significant fleet of large amphibious assault vessels clearly suggests a desire for power projection," says Christian Le Miere, a maritime security researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
"If you want the surgical insertion of forces, for a range of reasons, then you need amphibious response ships."
MILITARY RIVALRY
China's naval buildup comes amid mounting maritime tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, which is likely to be one of the main geopolitical stress points in the coming decade.
Military planners previously had focused mainly on a potential conflict in the Taiwan strait.
More recently, however, Japan and China have locked horns over islands each claims in the East China Sea; Vietnam, the Philippines and other nations are disputing territorial claims with China over parts of the South China Sea thought to be rich in oil and gas.
The U.S. Navy has announced it will deploy its own new amphibious assault vessels, the Littoral Combat Ships, to the "maritime crossroads" of the Asia-Pacific theater, stationing them in Singapore and perhaps the Philippines.
Xi Jinping, the man destined to become China's new president later this year, called for enhanced military cooperation between the Pacific powers during a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday in Washington.
Xi, the son of a famous guerrilla commander from the 1930s, also met with President Barack Obama and was treated to a rare show of honors at the Pentagon, including on a 19-gun salute.
But Panetta, alluding to the strains in the relationship, called for more transparency from Beijing about its military build-up.
LARGEST SHIPBUILDER
The Chinese navy is expected to deploy up to eight of the type 071 ships that can carry up to 800 troops, hovercraft, armored vehicles and medium lift helicopters.
The first of the class launched in 2006, the Kunlunshan, has already deployed with Chinese naval forces to the Indian Ocean and the pace of construction appears to have quickened with the third and fourth vessels completed within the last five months.
And, military commentators and retired Chinese naval officers say, early design work has already started on a bigger, more capable landing ship.
For the Chinese navy, the country's thriving commercial shipbuilding industry is providing a springboard for further improvements in the size and sophistication of new classes of warships, military experts say.
China in 2010 overtook South Korea to become the world's biggest shipbuilder and industry experts say the leading state-owned shipyards are steadily improving skills and technology with the launch of bigger and more complex oil tankers, container ships and other, more specialized vessels.
Along with more than two decades of rapid growth in military spending, this shipbuilding expertise has transformed the Chinese navy from an obsolete, coastal defense force to a blue water fleet that is expanding its influence into the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
China's best warships and submarines are now armed with advanced air defense weapons and long range, anti-ship missiles.
In its annual report to Congress on the Chinese military, the Pentagon last year said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) navy now has about 75 major warships, more than 60 submarines, 55 medium and heavy amphibious ships and about 85 smaller, missile-armed fast attack craft.
As a major trading power with a growing dependence on imported energy and raw materials, this naval expansion is crucial for the country's security, according to Chinese military planners.
"The safety of China's personnel, assets and shipping lanes is very important for its economy," wrote Senior Captain Wang Xiaoxuan, the director of the PLA's Naval Research Institute, in the official China Daily newspaper last month.
"To guarantee this, it needs a strong navy."
SHRINKING US NAVY
Military strategists dismiss crude comparisons between navies based on the number of ships alone and most experts agree that the U.S. navy with its 285-strong fleet including 11 aircraft carriers, more than 70 nuclear powered submarines and 22 cruisers remains the world's overwhelmingly, dominant navy.
In size, firepower, integration with other important weapons systems and battle experience, the best U.S. warships enjoy a clear advantage over those of China and most combatants from other navies.
However, it is also clear that under the Obama administration's plan to shave almost $487 billion from the Pentagon budget over the coming decade, the U.S. navy will shrink as China's fleet continues to grow in size and quality.
To meet its budget target, the U.S. navy proposes to retire seven cruisers and two amphibious vessels, delay work on new ships and submarines and scrap some programs which could see the fleet shrink to less than 250 ships, according to senior Pentagon officials.
These cuts come as the Obama administration mounts a "pivot" to Asia following the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and anticipated exit from Afghanistan.
As part of this effort to boost defense cooperation in Asia, the U.S. military is now holding its annual Cobra Gold joint exercises which run until February 17 in Thailand with troops from the host country, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.
It will hold joint naval exercises next month with the Philippines near the disputed Spratly islands.
SECOND-RANKED SPENDER
This shift of military firepower to Asia and renewed emphasis on building closer ties with traditional, regional allies is partly aimed at countering the rapid growth of Chinese military muscle.
After more than two decades of double digit growth, the annual expansion of China's official military outlays dropped to 7.5 per cent in 2010 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis but spending bounced back last year with a 12.7 per cent increase to $91.5 billion.
Most foreign analysts believe China understates its defense budget.
The Pentagon estimates total Chinese military outlays in 2010 were more than $160 billion which would easily make it the second ranked defense spender behind the US.
The Obama administration is proposing to spend $525 billion on the military in 2013.
For the expanding Chinese navy, the widely publicized deployment of the refurbished, former Ukrainian aircraft carrier, the Varyag, on its sea trials last year was seen as an important milestone in China's bid to become a major sea power.
However, most Chinese and foreign experts believe it will be years before the carrier will be operationally ready with aircraft, weapons and supporting vessels.
PROTECTING OVERSEAS NATIONALS
In contrast, military analysts say the amphibious landing ships already provide Beijing the option of deploying troops and their equipment in wartime or in response to less serious peacetime contingencies, including operations to protect the more than 800,000 Chinese nationals working overseas.
"In non-combat roles, they are more meaningful than an aircraft carrier," says Gabe Collins, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based specialist on maritime affairs for the China SignPost research group.
"They are geared to using choppers, troops, hovercraft and even armored vehicles. Now they can say: 'We've just had three people kidnapped here, let's go and do something about it'."
More ominously for smaller regional powers, these ships could also be used to land Chinese troops on disputed territory in the South China Sea, analysts say.
However, it is in so-called "soft power" that the amphibious landing vessels could make their initial contribution as China attempts to reassure regional nations that its growing military might poses no threat. The Chinese military clearly recognized that the U.S. was able to gain substantial goodwill from its effective response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami with its aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships ferrying supplies, medical teams and rescue crews ashore, according to Chinese and Western commentators.
Some analysts believe this experience was a factor in Beijing's decision to launch its first, large, military hospital ship that could be deployed to assist other nations in times of crisis as well as support Chinese amphibious forces in combat.
The hospital ship, launched in 2007, was late last year deployed on a humanitarian medical mission to Latin America and the Caribbean.
American Recounts Beating by Chinese Agents Suspicious of Social Media
By ANDREW JACOBS
BEIJING — The Chinese Communist Party has long felt threatened by overseas Web sites and social media outlets, but the recent detention of a California physicist who says he was beaten by Chinese security agents seeking the password for his Twitter account suggests how far the government will go in its battle against a freewheeling Internet available only beyond its borders.
The man, Ge Xun, 53, a naturalized American citizen who moved to the United States from China in 1986, said he was abducted from a street in Beijing this month and was roughly questioned by public security officers at a secret location.
During 21 hours of interrogation, Mr. Ge said, the agents peppered him with questions about his blogging activity, his membership in an organization that promotes dialogue between Tibetans and Chinese and his role in maintaining a Web site that supports a blind lawyer living under house arrest in China’s rural northeast.
But Mr. Ge’s greatest sin, it appears, was his zealous embrace of Twitter, which has long been blocked in China along with Facebook, YouTube and tens of thousands of other Web sites that the government deems a threat to its hold on power.
In a phone interview on Monday from his home in Fremont, Calif., Mr. Ge described how the agents, infuriated by his assertion that bloggers in the United States were volunteers and not government-sponsored agitators, demanded that he turn over his Twitter password.
When he refused, two of them unleashed a torrent of kicks and punches that lasted 30 minutes, he said. “The more they beat me, the less I felt like cooperating,” he said.
In the end, Mr. Ge and his captors came up with a compromise: he did not reveal his password but logged on to Twitter and allowed them to peek inside his account.
“The truth is I have nothing to hide,” he said.
Although Mr. Ge was released and promptly deported on Feb. 2, the incident highlights the risks faced by foreign passport holders of Chinese origin when ensnared by China’s nebulous, omnipotent public security apparatus.
A number of American citizens remain in Chinese prisons on questionable charges, including Xue Feng, a geologist serving eight years for industrial espionage.
Another naturalized American, Hu Zhicheng, has been blocked from leaving the country while he battles accusations of commercial espionage lodged by a former business associate.
Mr. Hu spent a year and a half in jail but was released after Chinese prosecutors acknowledged that the case had no merit.
“Having an American or an Australian passport and having Chinese blood puts you at a disadvantage to those who are white,” said Wang Songlian, a researcher at Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
A State Department official declined to comment on Mr. Ge’s detention but said the plights of Mr. Xue and Mr. Hu would be raised during the visit to the United States by Vice President Xi Jinping, who arrived in Washington from Beijing on Monday afternoon.
The incident involving Mr. Ge was unusual because many native Chinese who hold foreign passports and publicly criticize the Communist Party are denied visas to return home.
Mr. Ge, who applied and received an emergency visa to attend the funeral of his mother, said he had returned to China numerous times over the years.
During a visit in 1997, he said, public security agents briefly and politely questioned him about his lapsed membership in an organization of Chinese students seeking leniency for those arrested during the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests.
“The thing I really care about is basic human rights,” said Mr. Ge, who studied experimental physics at Texas A&M University and works as a technician for Mercedes-Benz.
“I’ve never called for the overthrow of the government, and I don’t advocate violence.”
Mr. Ge was shocked, he said, when three plainclothes officers accosted him outside the home of Ding Zilin, a retired philosophy professor who has spent two decades seeking justice for those killed during the violent suppression of Tiananmen protesters.
Ms. Ding’s 17-year-old son was killed by a bullet to his heart that June.
The officers not only knew Mr. Ge’s name but also had a photograph of him that they had downloaded from the Internet.
After dragging him into a waiting Honda Accord, they refused to explain what they were after and then confiscated his cellphone, he said.
Once inside a guesthouse called “The Old Cadres Activity Center,” he said, they stripped him of his other possessions, including a camera, money and a hand-held recorder.
Then they began questioning him about his activities in the United States and suggested that he had come to China to make trouble on behalf of antigovernment forces abroad.
He said they simply could not believe that the Web site advocating freedom for the blind lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, was run by volunteers.
“That’s not possible,” Mr. Ge quoted one of the them as saying.
“How can a Web site not belong to an organization, have no leader and not spend any money?”
It was when Mr. Ge explained the role of Twitter in spreading word about the site that they demanded his password, he said.
Not long after his pummeling, Mr. Ge said, they gave him a sheet of paper and dictated demands that he wrote down with his bruised and wobbly hand.
They included a promise not to meet with “sensitive people,” not to speak to the news media and not to do anything to harm China’s image.
He stuck his finger into a jar of red ink and left an imprint signifying his assent.
A few hours later, en route to the airport, he said, he endured another brief beating after refusing to hand over his laptop for one final inspection.
Once at the terminal, they returned his camera and recording device, although the contents had been erased. They also handed back the bouquet of flowers he had planned to give to Ms. Ding.
As Mr. Ge limped away in pain, he said, the lead interrogator, Wang Jie, reminded him that the entire episode was a “national secret.”
The agent also scribbled down an e-mail address and told him to send a note the next time he came to town. (An e-mail sent to the address seeking comment was not answered on Monday.)
Mr. Ge laughed when asked if he might return to China in the near future.
“Sure, why not?” he said.
“My visa is good for a full year.”
BEIJING — The Chinese Communist Party has long felt threatened by overseas Web sites and social media outlets, but the recent detention of a California physicist who says he was beaten by Chinese security agents seeking the password for his Twitter account suggests how far the government will go in its battle against a freewheeling Internet available only beyond its borders.
The man, Ge Xun, 53, a naturalized American citizen who moved to the United States from China in 1986, said he was abducted from a street in Beijing this month and was roughly questioned by public security officers at a secret location.
During 21 hours of interrogation, Mr. Ge said, the agents peppered him with questions about his blogging activity, his membership in an organization that promotes dialogue between Tibetans and Chinese and his role in maintaining a Web site that supports a blind lawyer living under house arrest in China’s rural northeast.
But Mr. Ge’s greatest sin, it appears, was his zealous embrace of Twitter, which has long been blocked in China along with Facebook, YouTube and tens of thousands of other Web sites that the government deems a threat to its hold on power.
In a phone interview on Monday from his home in Fremont, Calif., Mr. Ge described how the agents, infuriated by his assertion that bloggers in the United States were volunteers and not government-sponsored agitators, demanded that he turn over his Twitter password.
When he refused, two of them unleashed a torrent of kicks and punches that lasted 30 minutes, he said. “The more they beat me, the less I felt like cooperating,” he said.
In the end, Mr. Ge and his captors came up with a compromise: he did not reveal his password but logged on to Twitter and allowed them to peek inside his account.
“The truth is I have nothing to hide,” he said.
Although Mr. Ge was released and promptly deported on Feb. 2, the incident highlights the risks faced by foreign passport holders of Chinese origin when ensnared by China’s nebulous, omnipotent public security apparatus.
A number of American citizens remain in Chinese prisons on questionable charges, including Xue Feng, a geologist serving eight years for industrial espionage.
Another naturalized American, Hu Zhicheng, has been blocked from leaving the country while he battles accusations of commercial espionage lodged by a former business associate.
Mr. Hu spent a year and a half in jail but was released after Chinese prosecutors acknowledged that the case had no merit.
“Having an American or an Australian passport and having Chinese blood puts you at a disadvantage to those who are white,” said Wang Songlian, a researcher at Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
A State Department official declined to comment on Mr. Ge’s detention but said the plights of Mr. Xue and Mr. Hu would be raised during the visit to the United States by Vice President Xi Jinping, who arrived in Washington from Beijing on Monday afternoon.
The incident involving Mr. Ge was unusual because many native Chinese who hold foreign passports and publicly criticize the Communist Party are denied visas to return home.
Mr. Ge, who applied and received an emergency visa to attend the funeral of his mother, said he had returned to China numerous times over the years.
During a visit in 1997, he said, public security agents briefly and politely questioned him about his lapsed membership in an organization of Chinese students seeking leniency for those arrested during the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests.
“The thing I really care about is basic human rights,” said Mr. Ge, who studied experimental physics at Texas A&M University and works as a technician for Mercedes-Benz.
“I’ve never called for the overthrow of the government, and I don’t advocate violence.”
Mr. Ge was shocked, he said, when three plainclothes officers accosted him outside the home of Ding Zilin, a retired philosophy professor who has spent two decades seeking justice for those killed during the violent suppression of Tiananmen protesters.
Ms. Ding’s 17-year-old son was killed by a bullet to his heart that June.
The officers not only knew Mr. Ge’s name but also had a photograph of him that they had downloaded from the Internet.
After dragging him into a waiting Honda Accord, they refused to explain what they were after and then confiscated his cellphone, he said.
Once inside a guesthouse called “The Old Cadres Activity Center,” he said, they stripped him of his other possessions, including a camera, money and a hand-held recorder.
Then they began questioning him about his activities in the United States and suggested that he had come to China to make trouble on behalf of antigovernment forces abroad.
He said they simply could not believe that the Web site advocating freedom for the blind lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, was run by volunteers.
“That’s not possible,” Mr. Ge quoted one of the them as saying.
“How can a Web site not belong to an organization, have no leader and not spend any money?”
It was when Mr. Ge explained the role of Twitter in spreading word about the site that they demanded his password, he said.
Not long after his pummeling, Mr. Ge said, they gave him a sheet of paper and dictated demands that he wrote down with his bruised and wobbly hand.
They included a promise not to meet with “sensitive people,” not to speak to the news media and not to do anything to harm China’s image.
He stuck his finger into a jar of red ink and left an imprint signifying his assent.
A few hours later, en route to the airport, he said, he endured another brief beating after refusing to hand over his laptop for one final inspection.
Once at the terminal, they returned his camera and recording device, although the contents had been erased. They also handed back the bouquet of flowers he had planned to give to Ms. Ding.
As Mr. Ge limped away in pain, he said, the lead interrogator, Wang Jie, reminded him that the entire episode was a “national secret.”
The agent also scribbled down an e-mail address and told him to send a note the next time he came to town. (An e-mail sent to the address seeking comment was not answered on Monday.)
Mr. Ge laughed when asked if he might return to China in the near future.
“Sure, why not?” he said.
“My visa is good for a full year.”
Chinese Hackers And The Nortel Breach
Chinese government-affiliated hackers are the world's most "active and persistent" perpetrators of industrial spying
By SIOBHAN GORMAN
Brian Shields, pictured, said Chinese hackers 'had access to everything.'
By SIOBHAN GORMAN
Brian Shields, pictured, said Chinese hackers 'had access to everything.'
Nortel's then-CEO, Mike Zafirovski, said people 'did not believe it was a real issue.'
For nearly a decade, hackers enjoyed widespread access to the corporate computer network of Nortel Networks Ltd., a once-giant telecommunications firm now fallen on hard times.
Using seven passwords stolen from top Nortel executives, including the chief executive, the hackers—who were working in China—penetrated Nortel's computers at least as far back as 2000 and over the years downloaded technical papers, research-and-development reports, business plans, employee emails and other documents, according to Brian Shields, a former 19-year Nortel veteran who led an internal investigation.
The hackers also hid spying software so deeply within some employees' computers that it took investigators years to realize the pervasiveness of the problem, according to Mr. Shields and Nortel documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
They "had access to everything," Mr. Shields said of the hackers.
"They had plenty of time. All they had to do was figure out what they wanted."
According to an internal report, Nortel "did nothing from a security standpoint" to keep out the hackers, other than resetting the seven passwords.
Nortel's breach offers a rare level of detail about a type of international corporate espionage that is of growing concern to U.S. officials.
A U.S. intelligence report released in November concluded that government-affiliated hackers operating from China are the world's most "active and persistent" perpetrators of industrial spying.
The report cited a number of Chinese attacks, including one targeting Google; the theft of data from global energy companies; and theft of proprietary data such as client lists and acquisition plans at other companies.
The Nortel revelations come as China's vice president, Xi Jinping, arrived in the U.S. for a visit in which China is seeking to promote greater trust between the two countries.
Mr. Xi, who arrived Monday afternoon, will press the U.S. to expand Chinese access to U.S. high-tech markets at a time when U.S. intelligence officials have expressed increasing alarm about what they say is government-sponsored cyberspying on U.S. and Western companies, particularly in China.
China's government has denied allegations of cyberspying.
When asked about Nortel specifically, the Chinese embassy in Washington issued a statement saying in part that "cyber attacks are transnational and anonymous" and shouldn't be assumed to originate in China.
Nortel didn't respond to requests for comment.
The Canadian company is in the final stages of selling itself off in pieces as part of a 2009 bankruptcy filing.
Nortel was a pioneering maker of the computerized switches and telecom gear that powers much of the world's phone and Internet networks.
Nortel equipment (now part of a business owned by Genband Corp.) makes up 45% to 50% of the U.S. telephone switch marketplace, according to Akshay Sharma of research firm Gartner Inc.
As part of its internal investigation, Nortel made no effort to determine if its products were also compromised by hackers, according to several former employees including Mr. Shields, who was a senior adviser for systems security at Nortel.
The investigation lasted about six months, and for some of that time involved three staffers, Mr. Shields said, before it fizzled out due to a lack of leads.
Mr. Shields and several former colleagues said the company didn't fix the hacking problem before starting to sell its assets, and didn't disclose the hacking to prospective buyers.
Nortel assets have been purchased by Avaya Inc., Ciena Corp., Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson and Genband.
It is possible for companies to inherit spyware or hacker infiltrations via acquisitions, said Sean McGurk, who until recently ran the U.S. government's cybersecurity intelligence center.
"When you're buying those files or that intellectual property, you're also buying that 'rootkit,'" he said, using a term that refers to embedded spy software.
Nortel's experience exposes the uncertainties in reporting requirements for company officials who discover that their networks are infiltrated.
Companies aren't obligated to disclose a breach to another company as part of an acquisition deal, said Jacob Olcott of Good Harbor Consulting, a firm that advises companies on national-security issues.
It is up to the acquiring company to ask, he said.
Since Nortel's stock traded publicly in the U.S., it was required by the Securities and Exchange Commission to disclose "material" risks and events to investors.
Many companies are just now becoming aware that cyber attacks must be reported if considered material, said Mr. Olcott, a former Capitol Hill aide who led a committee investigation into public disclosure of incidents like these.
As a result of that investigation, late last year the SEC issued a formal guidance memo saying cyber attacks can be "material."
It also said companies are expected to investigate a breach to determine whether it is material.
A Ciena spokesman said, "Ciena was not made aware, whether during diligence or any other part of the bankruptcy-sale process, of any possible prior infiltration of the Nortel network by third parties."
A spokesman for Avaya, which learned of the breach after its acquisition, said: "We are aware of this issue, reviewed it when brought to our attention and disposed of it to our satisfaction."
A Genband official declined to discuss security matters or to say whether Nortel disclosed the breach before the acquisition.
An Ericsson spokeswoman said Ericsson's own network "has a robust security protocol and is constantly monitored."
She said Nortel wasn't required to disclose the hacking because Ericsson purchased only selected Nortel assets, not the whole company or its internal network.
Two of Nortel's three former CEOs during the period of the hacking didn't respond to a request for comment.
The third, Mike Zafirovski, said, "People who looked at [the hacking] did not believe it was a real issue. This never came up like, 'We have a real issue and we need to disclose to potential buyers of businesses.'"
Mr. Zafirovski said he didn't believe the infiltrations could be passed on to acquiring companies.
"That's a real, real stretch," he said.
In interviews, three former Nortel information-technology employees disputed Mr. Zafirovski's position, pointing out that a significant number of people continued to use Nortel laptops and desktop computers after moving to Avaya and Genband and connected them to those companies' networks.
One of the three said he knew with certainty that his machine wasn't tested for possible infiltration before it was connected to Avaya's network; he estimated the total number of similar machines to be "in the high hundreds."
Both companies declined to comment on Nortel machines being connected to their networks.
Mr. Shields said he believes Nortel's silence put the acquiring companies at risk.
"It's despicable that Nortel didn't say anything," he said.
Nortel discovered the hacking in 2004, when an employee noticed that a senior executive appeared to be downloading an unusual set of documents, according to the internal report.
When asked about it, the executive said he hadn't downloaded the documents.
Mr. Shields and a handful of the firm's computer-security officers soon learned that hackers had apparently obtained the passwords of seven top officials, including a previous CEO.
The hackers had been infiltrating Nortel's network, from China-based Internet addresses, at least as early as 2000, Mr. Shields and his colleagues determined.
Hackers had almost complete access to the company's systems, Mr. Shields said, because the internal structure of Nortel's network posed few barriers.
"Once you were on the inside of the network, it was soft and gooey," he said.
About six months later, Mr. Shields said, he saw signs that hackers were still in the system.
Every month or so, a few computers on the network were sending small bursts of data to one of the same Internet addresses in Shanghai involved in the password-hacking episodes.
Unexpected transmissions like these—where one computer sends a quick "ping" to another—often suggests the presence of spyware, security experts say.
"That's the really deep covert presence," said one person familiar with Nortel's investigation.
"There is something on those computers that's doing that, and finding it is very difficult."
Mr. Shields said he suggested further steps to secure the network, but Nortel chose not to take the recommendations.
"Our own internal process choked us all the time," he said.
In 2008, Mr. Shields said, he learned of a new kind of test, called a memory dump, he could run on PCs suspected of being infected.
By this time, however, Nortel was in deep financial trouble.
Cost-cutting layoffs had begun, the stock was tanking and top executives were desperately trying to pilot the company through a rapidly changing telecom industry.
In January 2009, Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection.
In March of that year, Mr. Shields got approval to examine two of the 50 or so computers he had noticed occasionally communicating with the Shanghai Internet address.
But within a couple of weeks, Mr. Shields himself was laid off—caught in the latest round of cost-cutting convulsing Nortel at the time. (Former supervisors confirm his layoff wasn't related to job performance.)
The day after he left Nortel, Mr. Shields said, he received the test results for the two computers, which had previously gotten a clean bill of health from Nortel's antivirus experts.
Hackers had installed spyware on the computers and could control them remotely.
The hackers were also monitoring employee email, Mr. Shields said.
The spyware unearthed in 2009 was a sophisticated mix.
On both computers, researchers found a particularly malicious and hard-to-spot spying tool, namely "rootkit" software that can give a hacker full control over a computer and enables them to conceal their spying campaign, according to two people familiar with the investigation.
On one computer, hackers had set up an encrypted communications channel to an Internet address near Beijing.
On the other computer, the investigators found a program that hackers were likely using to sniff out other security weaknesses within Nortel's networks.
The hackers had created a "reliable back door," according to one person familiar with the investigation, allowing them to come and go as they pleased in Nortel's network.
Five former Nortel employees familiar with the investigation said the company did nothing with the new information Mr. Shields had collected.
"It was blown off," one said.
Soon after, Mr. Shields was hired back as a consultant to another part of the company.
In June 2009, he sent a 15-page report, detailing the infiltrations spanning nearly a decade, to Mr. Zafirovski, the then-CEO.
"The Chinese are still in your network, we never really rid them out," Mr. Shields wrote.
"I personally would not trust anything you do on your computer as it is extremely likely it is being monitored."
Mr. Zafirovski said he didn't recall the report.
He said some security managers have told him Mr. Shields had a reputation as someone who was smart, but would also "cry wolf."
At that point, Nortel's focus was on selling assets, not assessing possible hacker damage, former employees said.
In July 2009, Nortel began inking deals that ultimately totaled $1.4 billion in sales of a range of wireless businesses to Ericsson, the Swedish telecom company.
In December, in a $900 million deal with U.S.-based Avaya, Nortel sold off a business that included much of its work with the U.S. government.
In February 2010, Nortel sold its Internet-phone business and other assets to U.S.-based Genband.
The following month, it sold its high-end communications-networking business to U.S.-based Ciena for $769 million, according to Gartner data.
After Avaya's acquisition of Nortel businesses, Mr. Shields shared his report on the infiltrations with a security official at Avaya.
This was the first time the company learned of Nortel's intrusion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
A top U.S. intelligence official said Nortel's hacking experience is representative of the types of incidents he sees.
"That is consistent with what we've seen in long-term, multipronged attacks," he said.
"If I'm looking to get a jump on my R&D, that's a good way to do it."
As Myanmar opens, China alliance starts to fray
MANDALAY, Myanmar (Reuters) -- When officials first turned up demanding Chen Ching-feng remove the Chinese sign above her clothing shop in Myanmar's biggest northern city, she ignored them."When they came back a few days later and asked why the Chinese was still there, I said I had been busy," the ethnic Chinese resident of Mandalay said, speaking in Mandarin.
"They made me take them down immediately and sign an undertaking not to put them back."
Other ethnic Chinese shop-owners report similar requests, though enforcement is patchy.
Government officials in Myanmar's capital, Naypyitaw, say there is no official ban on Chinese advertisements, but demands to pull them down in Mandalay, a city dominated by Chinese merchants, illustrate mounting unease over Beijing's expanding influence.
As Myanmar pursues dramatic reforms, its relationship with China -- the Southeast Asian nation's biggest investor and second-biggest trade partner -- is changing.
In some cases, long-festering resentment is flaring into the open.
During decades of isolation, the former Burma relied on China as its closest diplomatic and military ally. Wide-reaching Western sanctions put in place after a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 forced Myanmar to deepen economic ties with China.
But as Myanmar embarks on the road back to democracy, a once-muffled debate about China's role is growing louder.
The reforms are also taking place as the geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China has sharpened since the Obama administration's "pivot" toward Asia after preoccupation with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the past decade.
HISTORICAL FRICTIONS
China's expanding economic influence was never that popular anyway in a country historically suspicious of foreign powers -- memories linger of Beijing's alleged support for the Communist Party of Burma in the 1960s and '70s.
China has its grievances, too.
Clashes between Myanmar soldiers and various insurgent groups dotting the border with China have killed some Chinese and sent refugees streaming across the frontier.
"The government has tried to ban foreign influences before. It seems to be happening again," said Hu Chieh-chi, a restaurateur in Mandalay, who is an ethnic Chinese and a Myanmar citizen, just like clothes store owner Chen.
A two-hour drive away, a grass-roots campaign is forming to halt China's most strategic investment in Myanmar: twin pipelines that will stretch from the Bay of Bengal to China's energy-hungry western provinces, bringing oil and natural gas to one of China's most undeveloped regions.
In interviews with Reuters, the activists say they were emboldened by Myanmar's surprise decision on September 30 to shelve the $3.6 billion Chinese-funded Myitsone dam under public pressure.
U.S. officials told Reuters that responsiveness to a public demand was a crucial factor in Washington's historic rapprochement with Myanmar late last year.
Much is at stake.
Myanmar provides populous and landlocked southwestern China a crucial outlet to the sea.
A friendly Myanmar helps reassure Beijing, which is increasingly worried about being "encircled" by the United States and its allies, from Japan to Australia and India.
TALE OF TWO PIPELINES
From his home overlooking a colonial-era golf course, Kyaw Thiha is clear about what he sees holding back reforms: China.
"This is a democracy. The Chinese ordering us around is not democratic," said the former political prisoner who will contest an April 1 parliamentary by-election as a candidate for the opposition National League for Democracy, the party of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi.
The soft-spoken university history tutor, jailed during the failed 1988 uprising, wants the government to stop the 790-km (490-mile) pipeline project that will cut across the country, including near his town in the old British hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin.
Human rights groups say the pipelines will displace thousands, damage livelihoods of farmers and fishermen, and benefit China more than Myanmar, where power outages are chronic.
To Beijing, the pipelines are a vital energy security asset that will reduce its reliance on shipping through the narrow choke-point of the Malacca Strait.
Thousands of Chinese workers have been enlisted to build them.
"We want parliament to stop the pipeline. It was not given permission by the people," Kyaw Thiha said in an interview.
A year ago, such talk was dangerous in a country whose critics were regularly locked up by generals who had ruled since a 1962 coup.
But reforms led by a year-old nominally civilian government have begun to unwind years of authoritarianism and self-imposed isolation.
The government has relaxed some media censorship, allowed trade unions, begun peace talks with ethnic rebels, freed hundreds of dissidents and showed signs of pulling back from the powerful economic and political orbit of China.
It was rewarded in December when Hillary Clinton made the first visit to the country by a U.S. secretary of state since 1955.
GRIEVANCES ON THE INTERNET
Myanmar Energy Minister Than Htay acknowledged public concerns over the pipelines but said they would be completed on schedule next year.
"We solved each and every problem along that pipeline route, and we give compensation for land use much more than previously," he said in a recent interview.
"I consider all the potential issues that will be raised by the anti-government groups. I see every day on the Internet many groups raise the problems and the issues to disturb our project."
For many in Myanmar, the pipelines embody all that is rotten about China's influence: environmental destruction, land grabs, cronyism and accusations of corruption.
Thant Lwin is one of many farmers who simmer with resentment when asked about them.
Chinese bulldozers have sliced his rice-paddy field in half to make way for the pipeline and service road in his small village.
"We are facing real hardship because of the Chinese," he said from his farm in the countryside near Pyin Oo Lwin, known in colonial times as Maymyo.
"I would be extremely happy if the pipeline gets canceled. But I don't think that will happen," he said.
"It is not a matter of hating China. I can only accept the situation. I have no power. Most people are scared to talk out against the project as it is a government project."
Venerable Candobhasa, a Buddhist monk whose land was bisected by one pipeline outside of Pyin Oo Lwin, scoffed at claims that the project, led by China National Petroleum Corp, parent of PetroChina Co Ltd, would bring much-needed money and development to affected villages.
"These are our natural resources. We should keep it for ourselves to help us develop, not sell it to China. We don't have enough power," he said, sitting cross-legged on a sparse floor in his monastery.
"The government does not share the money from the pipeline with us. We want to know where it has gone." Others appear to be almost chafing for a confrontation with China.
"China is going to be shocked as we alone among the Southeast Asia countries are going to stand up to them," said Khon Ja, a human rights campaigner from northern Myanmar who likes showing visitors a map on her computer outlining exactly why Myanmar is coveted by China, detailing potential road and rail links that could connect southwestern China to the world.
"We have lots of natural resources, are in a very strategic location, and have a long border with China, more than 2,000 km," she said in a Yangon café.
MYANMAR NEEDS CHINA, TOO
China's pervasive influence will not be easy to roll back.
Though rich in natural resources, Myanmar is one of Asia's poorest countries.
Its new entrepreneurs need the booming border trade and China's investment money.
And the army needs China's help in ending the unrest along their shared border.
China and its companies pledged more than $14 billion of investment in Myanmar's 2010/11 (April-March) fiscal year, taking total foreign direct investment pledges to $20 billion from $300 million a year before, according to official data.
"Myanmar really cannot afford to damage its good relations with China," said Lin Xixing, a Myanmar expert at Guangzhou's Jinan University.
Ethnic Chinese are not the only ones who have prospered from China's largesse.
In Lashio, a town four hours by car from the Chinese border, the matriarch of a large Indian family beamed with pride as she showed a reporter her large, well-appointed house, and then presented a faded picture of a thatched shack where they lived a decade ago.
She explains the change with a single word: "China."
"They give us very good business," she said of her auto repair shop.
"Lots of trucks go to trade with China. We repair them. Business is very good."
Lashio's markets heave with Chinese-made goods, and Chinese is the dominant language of commerce thanks to decades of Chinese immigration, mostly from neighbouring Yunnan province.
With almost no industry of its own, even the most basic goods are usually imported in Myanmar from China or Thailand -- from laundry powder to soy sauce.
Competing local products are often more expensive.
A large bottle of China's Dali brand beer costs 500-600 kyat in Lashio, for instance, more than half the price of a similar bottle of Myanmar brew.
China's massive economy of scale and well-oiled logistics mean its products can easily overwhelm their local rivals.
CHINA'S SUPPLY TRAINS
On Lashio's main road to China, trucks rumble by all day.
Those from China are packed with refrigerators, televisions, and other consumer goods.
Those leaving are clogged with timber, bags of cheap coal and other resources.
Smugglers run drugs, jade, and gems into China and beyond.
Many wonder whether this will change if Western sanctions are lifted.
Could trade with Europe and the United States elbow out China?
That's unlikely, said Aung Zaw Win, who builds machinery in Mandalay and who does most of his business with China and Chinese people.
"China will remain an important market for us. China has well-established supply chains and infrastructure. We cannot substitute for them within the space of only a few years," he said from his office in central Mandalay.
But he is making preparations just in case.
An American diplomat stopped by recently to ask Zaw Win about the impact of sanctions on his business.
A Japanese company inquired about doing business together.
"I am ready for the sanctions to go. I am building a new factory to export to the United States and Europe. I cannot buy directly some U.S.-made components. I have to go to China and get them from street vendors." His friend, Sein Win, believes the market will decide who is better for business in Myanmar: China, Europe or the United States.
"Everyone knows that U.S. and European products are expensive compared with those made in China. Market forces will talk and we will still trade with China as Chinese goods are cheap," he said in pitch-perfect Mandarin.
Manoj Vohra, an Asia analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in Singapore, agrees that easing sanctions won't make much of a difference initially.
"We're not going to see an huge flow of investments by American and European companies immediately, so Myanmar's dependence on China as a regional ally for economic development and investment will continue." However, shoddy treatment of local workers by Chinese companies has caused "huge resentment and discontent," said Vohra, who thought stiffer competition from Western countries would eventually encourage China to "make the deal sweeter" when doing business on Myanmar.
Post-Myitsone, he added, the message to Chinese investors had changed slightly: "Yes, we welcome you -- but you have to do more."
WAVES OF IMMIGRANTS
Chinese have been a formidable presence in Myanmar for centuries.
Immigration swelled during British colonial rule from 1842 to 1948.
The end of China's civil war in 1949 brought another wave of migrants.
When Chinese Communists expelled the Kuomintang, many fled to Myanmar and Thailand, and then fought with the Burmese government before settling in Taiwan.
Those who stayed behind faced brutal discrimination under the rule of General Ne Win who barred ethnic Chinese and other foreigners from owning land, banned Chinese-language education and stoked anti-Chinese violence.
In Myanmar's commercial capital Yangon, memories are still vivid of bloody anti-Chinese riots in 1967. Deadly flames engulfed a school.
Chinese shops were looted.
"It was a terrible time. Everything changed for us after then," said shop owner Wu Yan-shun, whose father arrived in Yangon in 1949.
Wu fears the recent political changes could weaken the government's ties with China, making him and other Chinese vulnerable.
"You can't rule out that some of the anger people feel against the Chinese will be turned on us again. Relations with China are not so bad now. That could change as Myanmar opens up and there is more debate about ties with China and its influence here."
Backlashes against Chinese have flared before in Southeast Asia, most notably in Malaysia in 1969 and in Indonesia in 1998 before the fall of former President Suharto.
Perhaps with this in mind, the Chinese community in Yangon seems strangely un-Chinese, especially when compared with other Southeast Asian cities.
Its "Chinatown" has almost no Chinese restaurants, no Chinese pop music blaring from shops, few Chinese bookstores and limited use of the Chinese script.
There are no government-approved Chinese schools, unlike in Malaysia or Thailand.
The city has a few privately run "bu xi ban," a Taiwanese expression meaning "cram" school, but are actually just language academies.
Teacher Lin Lee, 30, born in northern Myanmar to Chinese parents, said it was hard just to get text books. "The government is very strict about imports of Chinese text books," she said from her classroom above an old shop-house.
"We have to use photocopies. We ask people who are going to China to try and sneak back in a few copies of new books."
Many feel deeply attached to Myanmar.
"I have made great efforts to get on with my neighbours," said Tsai Tun-heng, the owner of a cluttered convenience store.
"If anyone comes to burn down my store I want them to know that they will also be destroying the Burmese-owned businesses all around me."
In Mandalay, the ban on Chinese advertising also revived memories of anti-Chinese violence during the Ne Win-era.
It also recalls a similar ban on Chinese signage and publications in Indonesia that remained in effect for years after an abortive 1965 coup blamed on the China-backed Indonesian Communist Party.
Myanmar's new government has sent officials to Indonesia to study its road to democracy.
"What can you do about it? It's their country," said café owner Liu Kui-you, a Myanmar citizen who can trace his ancestry to Yunnan province.
Bein Nei Tha, a Burmese motorbike dealership worker, laughed when asked why his company also comes under the ban, despite having no Chinese ownership and had previously used just a few small Chinese characters next to an otherwise English-only sign.
"It seems a little silly," he said.
"I suppose the government wants to limit foreign influence, but then why leave the English?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
