strategypage.com
January 24, 2010

The governments decades old diplomatic campaign against Taiwan, whose independence is protected by American armed forces, has escalated into dangerous territory. Diplomatic pressure, and economic threats, have forced every country on the planet, except the United States, to stop selling weapons to Taiwan. Now, the popular enthusiasm for this approach, cultivated by decades of nationalist propaganda inside China, is putting pressure on the government to make some real threats to the U.S., to halt American arms sales to Taiwan. If the U.S. continues refusing (usually) to be intimidated, this escalation of threats could lead to war.

The government believes that the best way to subdue Tibet, and defend it, is via economic growth. To that end, much money and effort is being put into building roads, railroads, and electrical power plants. More jobs, and prosperity, deprives Tibetan nationalists of much needed recruits. But that prosperity also attracts more Han Chinese immigrants, which dilutes the ethnic Tibetan majority, and angers ethnic Tibetans. The expanded road network also makes it easier for security, and military, forces to be moved around. China already has a better road network on their side of the border, than India does. This is a major military advantage, which the Indians only recently noted, and reacted to.

China’s economic invasion of Africa in the last decade has been running into more resistance. The Chinese custom of importing Chinese to do the work, including manual labor, for construction projects, has caused increasing anti-Chinese feelings in African countries. There, high unemployment, and cultural differences, are leading to more clashes between Chinese and the locals. Chinese firms are being forced to hire more locals. The Chinese don’t like this, because the Chinese work harder and more efficiently, and the locals don’t like being ordered to try and keep up. This Chinese invasion is spreading to the Middle East, South America and sensitive (to India) nations like Nepal.     more …

BBC News
20 January 2010

China has pulled the 2D version of Avatar from cinemas amid claims the plot mirrors forced land evictions in the country.   Authorities insist the decision was a commercial one, saying the 3D version made up two-thirds of ticket revenues.

Critics claim the film’s plot parallels the removal of millions of residents to make way for property developers.
The government has also denied reports that a decision was made to reduce competition for home-grown films.
They include a state-backed biopic of philosopher Confucius, starring Chow Yun-fat, which is due out next week.
But Zhang Hongsen, of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, told Chinese state media: “As the box office receipts for its 2D version are not very good, it’s normal for this version of the film to be taken off.”     more …

PC World
January 18, 2010
By Owen Fletcher, IDG News Service

The Gmail accounts of foreign reporters in at least two news bureaus in Beijing have been hijacked, a journalists’ group in China said Monday.

The news comes just one week after Google said it had been targeted by recent cyberattacks aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The U.S. search giant cited the attacks as one reason it has decided to stop censoring its Chinese search engine and may ultimately close its China offices, a threat China has dismissed.

The hijacked Gmail accounts used by the journalists in Beijing had been set to forward all e-mails to a stranger’s address, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said in an e-mail to members. The group did not name the news organizations hit by the attack or say when the hijacking occurred.

“We remind all members that journalists in China have been particular targets of hacker attacks in the last 2 years,” the group’s e-mail said.    more …

CNN
January 14, 2010
By Kathrin Hille in Beijing and Joseph Menn in San Francisco, FT.com

(FT) — Just hours before Google announced late on Tuesday that China-based hackers had attacked its systems last month, China’s cyber warriors were at work — this time defacing Iranian Web sites in retaliation for a hacker attack on the pages of a Chinese search engine.

If the idea of search engines as battlegrounds in a cyber-war is surprising, the motivations and prowess of Chinese hackers are well established. Unlike most of their counterparts in other countries known for malicious computer activity, especially Eastern Europe, Chinese hackers are known for patriotism.

They have often gone after targets in Taiwan and, during diplomatic flare-ups, Japan and other neighbors. Commercial concerns for rank-and-file criminals have tended to come later, and some hacking collectives have split up over the issue.

The more critical questions are how much of the patriotic activity is directed or encouraged by the government, and how much officials are behind what appear to be commercial intrusions and thefts.

Attributing cyber espionage or most garden-variety hacking is excruciatingly difficult, especially without the sustained assistance of local law enforcement. Like most who have been victimized by Chinese hacking, Google refused explicitly to blame the authorities. But since it escalated the issue to include discussion about censorship, which is purely government-driven, the point was made.

“They are big enough to have taken the first step, to encourage other organizations to do the same, to shine a spotlight on what people think is a small problem,” said Nart Villeneuve, a Canadian security expert who uncovered eavesdropping on a Chinese version of Skype.

A few other commercial targets have been more direct in their statements, and U.S. and industry security experts are unanimous in their private belief that the Google attacks and virtually all other politically motivated breaches — even a great percentage of economically motivated breaches — are at the behest of government powers.    more …

Reuters
Jan 13, 2010
Paul Eckert and Chris Buckley

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – Google’s threat to quit China over censorship and hacking intensified Sino-U.S. frictions on Wednesday as Washington said it had serious concerns and demanded an explanation from Beijing.

China has not made any significant comment since Google, the world’s top search engine, said it would not abide by censorship and may shut its Chinese-language google.cn website because of attacks from China on human rights activists using its Gmail service and on dozens of companies.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke urged China to work with Google and other firms to ensure cyber security, calling the intrusion “troubling to the U.S. government and American companies doing business in China.”

“The administration encourages the government of China to work with Google and other U.S. companies to ensure a climate for secure commercial operations in the Chinese market,” he said.

A senior U.S. official said, “What’s important for China is that virtually everybody who heard that announcement yesterday went ‘Wow!’

“It is a big deal … that one of the world’s most recognizable companies is sending a very clear message to China,” he said.

Media freedom groups that had severely criticized Google’s previous compliance with Chinese curbs praised the company’s decision and called for other firms to follow suit.

“A foreign IT company has finally accepted its responsibilities toward Chinese users and is standing up to the Chinese authorities, who keep clamping down more and more on the Internet,” said Reporters Without Borders.

But investors were spooked and U.S. and Chinese analysts warned of turbulent bilateral ties in 2010.

Technology business analysts noted in reports issued on Wednesday that Google draws $300 million to 600 million in revenue from China — less than 5 percent of its sales. But they voiced concerns about Google’s prospects in that huge market.

Friction over the Internet, part of a long-running dispute over human rights, appears likely to stoke U.S.-China tensions. Analysts predicted clashes on climate change, China’s crackdown on dissidents, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and other issues. more …

Reuters
Jan 12, 2010
Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc said it may pull out of China because it is no longer willing to accept censorship of search results and after hackers coordinated a sophisticated attack on email accounts of human rights activists using its Gmail service.

Google’s surprise announcement on Tuesday came shortly after an adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she will announce a technology policy next week to help citizens in other countries to gain access to an uncensored Internet.

More than 20 other companies were also attacked by the China-based hackers, Google said.

Google said the hackers had tried to access the Gmail email accounts of Chinese human rights activists but only managed to access two unidentified accounts, and then only headlines and other data such as when the account was created.

It did not say what information the hackers tried to access from the other corporations, nor which they were. Google said it was now notifying the other affected corporations, adding that it was working with the U.S. authorities.

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered — combined with attempts over the past year to limit free speech on the Web — have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,” Google said in a statement.    more …

AFP
January 10, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — Google threatened Tuesday to shut down its operations in China after uncovering what it said were “highly sophisticated” cyberattacks aimed at Chinese human rights activists.

Google said China-based cyber spies struck the Internet giant and at least 20 other firms to track activities of activists around the world.

Google said it will no longer filter Internet search engine results in China and the online espionage has it reconsidering its business operations there.

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered — combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web — have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,” Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a blog post.

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.”    more …

AFP
January 9, 2009

TAIPEI — A Taiwanese firm allegedly sold equipment that can be used to make nuclear weapons to Iran under a request from China, a Taipei-based magazine said.

The firm received an online order from China last year to buy pressure transducers on behalf of an Iranian oil company for pipeline construction, Next Magazine reported this week.

The firm later shipped 108 pressure transducers it had acquired from a Swiss firm to Iran as exporting the items was not illegal in Switzerland or Taiwan, the report said, citing a Taiwanese trade official.

China, despite claiming its unwillingness to provide Iran with sensitive technology, has “secretly shipped critical components” to the country through Taiwanese firms, the report quoted an unnamed source as saying.

The magazine did not identify any of the companies allegedly involved.

The deal raised concerns in the US, which urged the Taiwanese government to eradicate the “smuggling network” in order not to violate international sanctions against Iran, it said.

Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade has said the device is not restricted but has nevertheless placed the company on a watch list.

Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper said last month Iran’s defence officials met Taiwanese firms to buy hundreds of pressure transducers that can be used to make weapons-grade uranium.

The paper said Iran had tried unsuccessfully to buy the equipment for more than a year from European and American firms before turning to a Taiwanese company.    more …

The Epoch Times
New Tang Dynasty TV Created

When the U.S. announced it would set preliminary anti-dumping duties on imported steel grating from China, Beijing accused the U.S. of protectionism.

Some economists, however, believe it is Beijing that is practicing protectionism by adopting trade and tariff barriers, underrating the yuan, and dumping low-priced commodities.
Unfair Pricing

In 2008, the U.S. imported US$9.1 million worth of steel grating which is widely used in the industry.

U.S. companies charge that these products receive subsidies from the Chinese government or are sold in the U.S. at unfair prices. In 2009, U.S. companies filed a dozen trade litigations, including one about steel grating.

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on Dec. 29 that the tariff can go up to 145.18 percent to countervail unfairly low prices.

A Xinhua report (http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/bt.xinhuanet.com/2009-12/31/content_18649243.htm) quoted an unnamed official from China’s Ministry of Commerce saying that the tariff will severely impact the interests of downstream steel consumers in the U.S. and damage normal steel trade relations between the two countries.

The European Union (EU) on Dec. 22 also extended a 15-month anti-dumping measure on a Chinese export—this one on leather footwear. Beijing protested, calling it trade protectionism.    more …

The Epoch Times
New Tang Dynasty Television
By Shi Ping and & Qin Yue

Being crowned an ‘academician’ of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and/or Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) is perhaps one of the highest honors in Chinese academia.

But a long standing systemic flaw has begun to be increasingly exploited, as university administrators, who make the recommendations about who should be the next academicians of these institutions, have started recommending themselves.

As the heads of Chinese universities or research institutions recommend candidates for these academic titles, Xu Yin, associate professor of the Civil Engineering Department at Tsinghua University, says said that the recommendation process tends to create a phenomenon of self-aggrandizement. He added, ““As the final decision will be made by them [university heads], it would be natural for them to recommend themselves to be candidates for these prestigious and well-paid positions.””

The term ‘academician’ is used in communist and post-communist states as an honorary title for full members of a national academy.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) announced in early December 2009 that 35 and 48 new academicians respectively have been recruited. However, over 80 percent of CAS’ new academicians and 85 percent of CAE’s, hold administrative positions in Chinese universities or research institutions, meaning that they effectively nominated themselves into the jobs.    more …