BBC News
14 March 2010

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao takes a question at a news conference at the end of the NPC meeting – 14 March 2010
US arms sales to Taiwan violated China’s sovereignty, Mr Wen said

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has rejected criticism that China is keeping its currency undervalued in order to boost exports.

He said keeping the yuan stable was “an important contribution” to global recovery from the economic downturn.

He was speaking at the end of China’s annual parliamentary session.

Mr Wen also said that recent strains in ties with the US were Washington’s fault, citing arms sales to Taiwan and a White House visit by the Dalai Lama.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, Mr Wen denied China’s currency, the yuan, also known as the renminbi, was undervalued.

US legislators and trade groups say the yuan is kept up to 40% below what its value should be against the US dollar.

Sovereignty ‘violated’

“I don’t think the renminbi is undervalued,” Mr Wen said at Sunday’s news conference in the Great Hall of the People.

“We oppose all countries engaging in mutual finger-pointing or taking strong measures to force other nations to appreciate their currencies.”

The yuan was tied to the dollar until 2005 when it was allowed to rise in value by about 20%    more …

Reuters
Feb 4, 2010
Chris Buckley – Analysis
BEIJING

BEIJING (Reuters) – “Ride on a tiger and it’s hard to climb down,” goes a Chinese saying that is proving apt for Beijing’s quarrels with Washington this year, when swollen ambitions at home are driving China on a harder tack abroad.

Barack Obama  |  China  |  COP15

China’s outrage over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and President Barack Obama’s planned meeting with the Dalai Lama has shown that, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Beijing is growing pushier in public.

In past decades, a poorer, more cautious China greeted U.S. weapons sales to the disputed island with angry words and little else.

Not now, as China enters the Year of the Tiger in its traditional lunar calendar cycle of talismanic animals.

The Obama administration last week announced plans to ship $6.4 billion of missiles, helicopters and weapons control systems to the self-ruled island Beijing calls its own. China threatened to downgrade cooperation with Washington and for the first time sanction companies involved in such sales.

Beijing this week also condemned Obama’s plan to meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader reviled by China.

China’s loud ire adds to signs the country is becoming surer about throwing around its political weight, growing along with an economy soon likely to whir past Japan’s as the world’s second biggest, though it will still trail far behind the United States.

Behind this assertiveness are domestic pressures likely to make it harder work for China’s leaders to cool disputes with Washington and other Western capitals.

“There is this paradox of increasing confidence externally and lack of confidence domestically,” said Susan Shirk, a professor specializing in Chinese foreign policy at the University of California, San Diego.

“There’s also what I consider a serious misperception of the country’s economic strength and how that translates in power.”    more ….

BBC World Service
February 1, 2010
By Rob Young

China has threatened to sanction firms involved in a US-approved $6.4bn (£4bn) weapons deal with Taiwan.  That would include US aerospace giant Boeing, which dominates China’s airline market ahead of main rival Airbus.

Boeing subsidiary McDonnell Douglas is delivering missiles worth $37m to Taiwan, the US government has said.
By comparison, one Boeing commercial airliner costs $50m or more. Boeing said it has not had any notice of  sanctions and declined to comment.

If there is an embargo, it would hit Boeing very, very badly  Tom Ballantyne, chief correspondent for Orient Aviation Magazine.

“This is a government-to-government issue,” Boeing China said in a statement.  “We are not in the position to comment or speculate on this matter.”

Professor Wu Xinbo, at the Center for American Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University, said “this is the first time the government has issued such an announcement, and I think they are very serious”.

Tom Ballantyne, chief correspondent for Orient Aviation Magazine said “it could be horrifying news for Boeing”.   “If there is an embargo, it would hit Boeing very, very badly,” he said.

Monday’s edition of the state-run China Daily newspaper quoted Ye Hailin, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.  He said companies profiting from defence deals with Taiwan would need to pay a price.  “You cannot just make money from both Taiwan and the mainland,” said Mr Ye.

China claims sovereignty over Taiwan.     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 …

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 …

BBC News
30 December 2009

A US trade commission has agreed plans to impose tariffs on imports of Chinese-made steel pipes.

The US’s International Trade Commission voted unanimously in favour of the tariffs, designed to offset Chinese government subsidies.

Duties ranging between 10% and 15% are now set to be imposed.

The move is the latest in a string of recent trade disputes between China and the US, who accuse China of using unfair subsidies and price practices.     more …

Asia Times
By M K Bhadrakumar

Nursultan Nazarbayev has a way of drawing lines in the sand. The president of Kazakhstan recently told global oil and metal majors that new laws would allow only those foreign investors that cooperate with his industrialization program to tap his nation’s mineral resources.

“We will work only with those who propose projects helping diversification of the economy,” he said at a December 4 investment conference in Astana, the Kazakh capital, which was attended by ArcelorMittal, Chevron, Total, ENRC and other investors. To any unwilling to collaborate, he said: “We will look for new partners, offer them favorable conditions and resources to fulfill projects.”

For good measure, he added that Beijing has asked Kazakhstan – a country the size of Europe but with just 16 million people – to allow Chinese farmers to use one million hectares of Kazakh land to cultivate crops such as soya and rape seed.

Pro-Western elements in Kazakh politics have since taken to the streets. On December 17, addressing a rally in Almaty, Bolat Abilov, co-chairman of the opposition party Azat [United Social Democratic Party] drew an apocalyptic scenario: “If we tomorrow give, or distribute, one million hectares of land, it would mean 15 people working per hectare. That means 15 million people would be brought from China. If one of those 15 people were to give birth each year, that would be the end. In 50 years, there would be 50 million Chinese [in Kazakhstan].”

A rally was held outside the Chinese consulate in Almaty with placards reading, “Mr Hu Jintao, we will not give up Kazakh land!”

A pipeline to the heart of Asia …

Nazarbayev’s message was direct: Western investors could keep their money if interested only in exploiting Kazakhstan’s mineral wealth. The president was speaking as a momentous event in the history and politics of Central Asia was resetting the terms of engagement for foreigners in the region: the development of an ambitious 7,000 kilometer pipeline to link the region’s gas fields to cities on China’s eastern seaboard.

Ten days after Nazarbayev spoke, Hu arrived on a Central Asian tour for the formal commissioning of the 1,833-kilometer pipeline connecting gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (and possibly Russia) to China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

Turkmenistan says it alone can supply 40 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year through the pipeline for three decades once it reaches full capacity. That is about half China’s current annual consumption.

Uzbekistan signed an agreement with China in November last year to export up to 10 bcm gas a year. (A 2006 estimate put Uzbekistan’s gas reserves at 1.8 trillion cubic meters.) A branch line of the Turkmen-China trunk pipeline passes through the town of Gazli, in the Bukhara region, where the Uzbek gas can be fed into it. China has invested in the Uzbek gas fields in the region. The Uzbek reserves are primarily concentrated in the Qashqadaryo province and near Bukhara alongside which the Chinese pipeline passes.     more …

BBC News
December 7, 2009

Chinese car sales and production both exceeded 12 million between January and November, state media has said.  The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers expects car sales and output to top 13 million for the full year, the Xinhua News Agency reported.  China has never produced more than 10 million cars in one year before.  State incentives have boosted car sales, and the government has reiterated its plans to continue economic stimulus measures next year.

World leader

Despite the downturn and falling sales at most global carmakers, demand for cars in China is booming.
In November alone, sales reached 1.35 million units, according to the preliminary figures.    more …