Asia Times
Mar 13, 2010
By Brian McCartan

VIENTIANE – Low water levels on the upper Mekong River have renewed criticism over hydropower dams China has erected on the waterway’s upper reaches. Environmental groups and governments have pinned blame on China’s inward-looking water management policies, although some experts say the real culprit is unusually severe drought conditions in southwestern China, northern Thailand and Laos.

Chinese authorities have said water levels in the country are at their lowest in 50 years, and they reject as groundless reports blaming their dams for the parched state of the river. The Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental body that promotes and coordinates sustainable management and development of the Mekong River basin, said in a February 26 statement that levels in the upper Mekong are lower than in 1993, which came on the heels of the most serious regional drought on record in 1992.

Although Beijing says it takes into account the needs of downstream countries and has set up joint monitoring stations along the river, there is still considerable doubt about its sincerity in maintaining the river’s normal flow. The MRC, for its part, has little direct leverage over Beijing, leaving member countries to approach China either through the United Nations or their individual diplomatic missions.     more …

Reuters
Ben Blanchard – Analysis

BEIJING (Reuters) – Big on spit and polish and parades but short on experience, new technology and force coordination, China’s military has far to go before its bite begins to approach its increasingly loud, and for some fearsome, bark.

China has invested billions of dollars in its armed forces and is developing advanced fighters and missiles, considering building its first aircraft carrier and is trying to slim its bloated ranks down to a lean, high-tech military.

The 2010 Defense budget unveiled last week was 7.5 percent higher than last year, a modest rise by China’s recent standards, but impressive compared to other big powers.

Those rises have raised alarm in Taiwan, the self-ruled island China claims as its own, the rest of the region, and especially in the United States, the world’s only superpower with a military reach that far exceeds China’s.

In a report to Congress published last month, the Pentagon said it was concerned by China’s missile buildup and increasingly advanced capabilities in the Pacific region.

Yet while China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) looks increasingly fierce on paper, analysts — and even Chinese army officers — say it will be a long time before the country has the means to effectively challenge U.S. power, if ever.

“What is their readiness level? How effective are these things they’ve developed themselves?” said Drew Thompson, of the Nixon Center, a think tank in Washington.

“Is their indigenous technology really working, or does it simply exist like a lot of things in the Chinese system, on paper? I would posit it probably leans more toward the latter.”

After a spike in tension that has stoked nationalist Chinese calls for a hard shove back against U.S. influence, some PLA officers are also trying to discourage chest-thumping.

“There’s no way China can threaten the United States,” Lt. Gen. Li Dianren, a professor at the National Defense University, told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual session of parliament.

“Anyone with even a bit of common sense knows that our capabilities do not come even close to matching those of the U.S. In terms of economics, technology and the military, the gap is huge. How can we threaten them?” he added.    more …

The New York Times
February 25, 2010
By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — A top Chinese military official reaffirmed China’s resolve to punish the United States over its decision to sell weapons to Taiwan and suggested on Thursday that there would be even greater consequences should Washington fulfill a longstanding request by Taiwan for advanced fighter jets.

The official, Huang Xueping, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, warned the United States to “speak and act cautiously” if it wanted to avoid further damage to bilateral ties, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. Mr. Huang said that earlier threats to suspend military cooperation and exchanges between the countries “remain unchanged,” but he did not elaborate on what such sanctions would entail.

In previous statements, the Chinese government has said that it would cancel visits between top military leaders and retaliate against American companies engaged in weapon sales to Taiwan.

In recent weeks, Chinese officials and editorials in the state-controlled media have been fulminating over the Pentagon’s $6.4 billion arms package to Taiwan, which would include Black Hawk helicopters, communications equipment and 114 Patriot missiles. Earlier this month a group of high-ranking military officers urged China to dump some of its holdings in United States Treasuries.

The arms deal, announced last month but in the works since the George W. Bush administration, falls under a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1979 that requires the United States to make “arms of a defensive character” available to Taiwan.

China considers the island part of its sovereign territory and it warns that it would use force if necessary to prevent Taiwan from becoming an independent nation. The two have been rivals since 1949, when the Kuomintang forces of Chiang Kai-shek lost the Chinese civil war and fled across the Taiwan Strait.     more …

Tehran News
February 6, 2010
By Arab News

It is not easy to understand why China is apparently prepared to confront the United States at this time on the two issues — arms for Taiwan and Obama’s plans to meet with exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama. Washington has been selling armaments to Taiwan for 61 years since the communists drove the old Kuomintang government from the mainland onto the offshore island then known as Formosa. The Americans are also trying to find some sort of settlement between the Tibetan exiles and Beijing, which seized control of Tibet in 1950.

The $6.4 billion arms deal, involving defensive missiles and helicopters for Taiwan hardly alters the balance of power. Taiwanese investors have become increasingly involved in China’s economic boom, transferring technology as well as cash. The government in Taipei has no interest in threatening its mighty neighbor, with whom it now shares the goal of ever-greater prosperity. Moreover, on Tibet, the Dalai Lama has been consistent in his disapproval of violence and his insistence on a peaceful settlement for Tibet.

China’s political role on the world stage still needs to catch up with its burgeoning economic power. The vision until now has been overwhelmingly pragmatic — dominated by trade and the country’s voracious appetite for raw materials. Thus to the fury of the West, it has been prepared to deal with any state. It has also demonstrated a firm opposition to sanctions motivated by political considerations of Washington. By and large its international behavior has been consistent and predictable. But this needs to evolve. The big question is how Beijing chooses to engage more fully in international affairs.

Thus far its major problem is that it has been reactive rather than proactive. Outside criticism of its human rights — Google’s end to its search engine filters being only the latest manifestation, irks the Chinese government, as does the lofty Western presumption that every state should be driving toward full representative democracy.     more …

The Christian Science Monitor
Michaela Rehle/REUTERS
By Robert Marquand Staff writer / February 5, 2010
Munich, Germany

Today Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi, speaking with unusual bluntness in front of 300 leading diplomats – including senior US officials – here in Munich publicly stated that China is getting stronger on the international stage. He said the US was violating international law by a proposed arms sale to Taiwan, offered that China’s TV and radio news service contains “more solid” and reliable news than Western media, and that China is not ready to address sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, stating instead that the Islamic Republic “has not totally closed the door on the IAEA.”

Transatlantic – meet the Pacific.

Foreign Minister Yang is the first Chinese official to speak at the annual Munich Security Conference, the premier transatlantic security meeting, in its 46 year history. He turned heads in the group at a time when the People’s Republic and the US have come to loggerheads over Taiwan arms sales, Internet freedom, currency rates, and climate policy coming out of the Copenhagen meeting in December.

“I haven’t heard a high-ranking Chinese official say, ‘Yes, we are strong,’ in a public setting before,” said a senior German diplomat. “It was a very assertive message, different, and it means we will soon see a different Chinese policy.”

Mr. Yang, a former ambassador to the US and highly respected, gave a somewhat conventional speech – though in a strong voice. He affirmed that China is both a developed and a developing country, that it seeks “win-win solutions,” and that it is preparing for greater “shared responsibilities” on the world stage – and that it played a transformative role in helping avert a global financial crisis in the past year.

Yet during three probing follow-up questions, Yang mopped his brow repeatedly in answering on Taiwan, cyberspace, and China’s position on Iran’s nuclear program, which he earlier admitted was “at a crucial stage.”

“Does China feel stronger? Yes,” he said as questions opened.     more …

amtrak.com
Feb 3, 2010
By Chris Buckley and Doug Palmer

BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama still plans to meet the Dalai Lama, the White House said on Tuesday, despite China’s warning that such a meeting would hurt ties already strained by U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

Digging in on two points of discord, China vowed to impose unspecified sanctions against U.S. companies selling arms to Taiwan and said any meeting between Obama and the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader would hurt bilateral ties.

The White House shrugged off Beijing’s warning.

“The president told China’s leaders during his trip last year that he would meet with the Dalai Lama and he intends to do so,” White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters traveling with Obama to New Hampshire.

“We expect that our relationship with China is mature enough where we can work on areas of mutual concern such as climate, the global economy and non-proliferation and discuss frankly and candidly those areas where we disagree.”

China has become increasingly vocal in opposing meetings between foreign leaders and the Dalai Lama, who Beijing deems a dangerous separatist. A meeting between the Tibetan leader and Obama would raise tensions between the world’s biggest and third-biggest economies.    more …

BBC News
January 30, 2009

The US has defended a proposed weapons sale to Taiwan following a furious response from China.

The US State Department said on Saturday that the sale contributed to “security and stability” between Taiwan and China, Reuters reported.

Beijing announced a series of moves against the US in retaliation for the proposed $6.4bn (£4bn) sale.

Ties between the two countries are already strained by rows over trade and internet censorship.

ANALYSIS
Damian Grammaticas
Damian Grammaticas, BBC News, Beijing

You would expect China to react angrily to any proposed arms sale to Taiwan, but this time it seems to be going further than before.

Suspending military exchanges is a classic reply from Beijing and it may not even concern the US too much.

China’s threat to impose sanctions on US firms supplying arms to Taiwan is interesting if perplexing.

It’s unclear what “sanctions” would involve in practice, since US firms aren’t allowed to sell arms to China

China’s threat to withdraw co-operation on key international and regional issues is the most serious one. Here China can make life difficult for Washington.

It can complicate US attempts to deal with nuclear programmes in Iran and North Korea, it can refuse to help in currency and trade issues.

But what is China trying to achieve by sounding so furious? Maybe Beijing’s real aim is to try to deter America from future arms sales – for example the fighter jets and submarines which Taiwan really wants.

“Such sales contribute to maintaining security and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” said US State Department spokeswoman Laura Tischler, quoted by Reuters.

The US is the leading arms supplier to Taiwan and has a treaty obligation to provide it with defensive arms.     more …

The New York Times
January 30, 2010
By KEITH BRADSHER

HONG KONG — The Chinese government announced late Saturday an unusually broad series of retaliatory measures in response to the latest United States arms sales to Taiwan, including sanctions against American companies that supply the weapon systems for the arms sales.

The Foreign Ministry announced in a pair of statements from Beijing that some military exchange programs between the United States and China would be canceled in addition to the commercial sanctions. Furthermore, a vice foreign minister, He Yafei, has called in Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the United States ambassador to China, to protest the sales.

The American decision to sell more weapons to Taiwan “constitutes a gross intervention into China’s internal affairs, seriously endangers China’s national security and harms China’s peaceful reunification efforts,” Mr. He said in the ministry’s statement.

The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday of its plans to proceed with five arms sales transactions with Taiwan worth a total of $6.4 billion. The arms deals include 60 Black Hawk helicopters, Patriot interceptor missiles, advanced Harpoon missiles that can be used against land or ship targets and two refurbished minesweepers.

China has regarded Taiwan as a breakaway province ever since the Communists prevailed in 1949 in China’s civil war and the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan. The United States has been supplying Taiwan with arms under the Taiwan Relations Act, which Congress approved in 1979 and which mandates that the United States supply weapons that Taiwan could use to fend off an attack by mainland Chinese forces.    more …

Low turnout shows democracy is overshadowed by economic issue

Associated Press
2010-01-02

Thousands of Hong Kong residents marched to the Chinese government’s liaison office yesterday demanding that Beijing grant full democracy to the semiautonomous financial hub.

Chanting “One man, one vote to choose our leader” and clutching signs reading “Democracy now,” the demonstrators set off from a crowded street in the heart of the Central financial district.

However, the relatively low turnout for the New Year’s Day protest – police said some 4,600 people took part – showed that Hong Kong’s political opposition faces an uphill battle as it tries to re-ignite the local democracy movement, which has been overshadowed by economic issues. Five pro-democracy legislators plan to resign later this month, hoping to turn the special elections they will trigger into a referendum on democracy.    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 …