Chinese political discussions

[ashokkumar]

I don't feel China can really do something considering south china sea almost all lost control and taiwan people tending to independence.

 

[hit&run]

CHINA: Back to Containing India?

India has to respond with appropriate foreign policy and military diplomacy. The recent initiative to refurbish the Maldives’ air force is a good beginning. But apart from Pakistan, where some amount of hard line is necessary, diplomacy with most other SAARC countries calls for greater maturity. No country should be lectured publicly as to what is good for them. This is not a supercilious observation.

(The author is an analyst with many years of experience. He can be reached at [email protected])

Indian politicians have no time mate, They are busy inaugurating statutes in public gardens.

 

[I-G]

Indian politicians have no time mate, They are busy inaugurating statutes in public gardens.

this is really the saddest part

 

[venkat]

DD! excellent post! the article sums it up all! The well planned nexus between pak-china-srilanka-nepal-myanmar-Bangladesh is going to be tough for india! Fake indian currency,entry of terrorists,arms and ammunition for naxals, what not ..they will send everything to destabilize india!

 

[venom]

Indian might meet the Chinese threats

BANGALORE-A series of steps taken by India in recent months to build up its defenses along its disputed frontier with China has prompted an angry response from the latter.

In June, General J J Singh, governor of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and former chief of army staff, announced that India would be deploying two army divisions of around 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers each along its boundary with China in Arunachal. A few days later, four Sukhoi Su-30MIK combat aircraft landed at the Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Tezpur. The IAF announced plans to increase this to a squadron strength of 18 aircraft.

The recent moves along the Sino-Indian Line of Actual Control at Arunachal "have no aggressive intent" but are simply aimed at "putting in place credible active deterrence against a vastly better-armed giant neighbor", a Defense Ministry official told Asia Times



Online. It was intended to meet "future security challenges" posed by China, Singh said.

Although relations between India and China have improved in recent years - China is now India’s largest trading partner - the dispute over their 4,057-kilometer-long boundary remains unresolved. In 1962, the two countries fought a short border war, which India lost.

In that war, China occupied 38,000 square kilometers of territory in Aksai Chin in the northeastern corner of Jammu and Kashmir. This territory remains under its control. Besides, Beijing is also holding 5,180 square kilometers of land in Kashmir ceded to it by Pakistan in 1963.

In the 1962 war, Chinese troops also advanced into territory in India’s northeast but retreated subsequently. Beijing continues to lay claim to around 90,000 square kilometers of territory here, roughly approximating Arunachal Pradesh or what it refers to as "Southern Tibet".

China has repeatedly indicated that the boundary along Arunachal is not a closed chapter and that Arunachal is disputed territory. Any Indian move to assert control over Arunachal has raised hackles in China. When India conferred statehood on Arunachal in 1986, for instance, a serious skirmish broke out at Sumdurong Chu.

The response from China to the recent augmentation of forces at Arunachal was swift. An editorial in Global Times, a tabloid of the People’s Daily group, a mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, said that India seemed to believe that China would "defer to it on territorial disputes". Dismissing this as "wishful thinking", it stressed that “China won’t make any compromises in its border disputes with India”.

The editorial went on to warn that India’s "dispatch of 60,000 troops" to its border with China would lead to "a rivalry between the two countries" and asked the Indian government to consider "whether or not it can afford the consequences of a potential confrontation with China".

That threat was followed up with a reminder that India could not match China’s might. "China is seen in India as both a potential threat and a competitor to surpass. But India can’t actually compete with China in a number of areas, like international influence, overall national power and economic scale. India apparently has not yet realized this."

Indian military experts have argued that Arunachal’s importance to China lies in its geography. Control over Arunachal will enable the Chinese to militarily overrun the Brahmaputra Valley and the rest of northeastern India.

Others have claimed that China seeks control over Arunachal, and specifically Tawang, to consolidate its hold over Tibet. Tawang is the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama and the monastery there is Tibetan Buddhism’s second largest after the Potola Palace in Lhasa. The Tawang Monastery is "a virtual treasure trove of Tibetan Buddhist religion and culture" and is seen by Tibetans as the repository of perhaps the last remnants of a Tibet submerged by Han Chinese culture.

Chinese scholars have argued that control over Tawang is essential for China "to win the hearts of the Tibetans".

China’s assertion of its claims over Arunachal has grown in recent years. Indian diplomats say that the Chinese are intransigent on Tawang. In November 2006, Beijing’s ambassador to India, Sun Yuxi told an Indian television station "the whole of the state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory". A few months later, China refused to issue an Indian civil servant from Arunachal a visa on the grounds that he was from Chinese territory and hence didn't require a visa. Visits by Indian political leaders to Arunachal have ruffled feathers in Beijing.

Recently, China sought to block an Indian application for a US$2.9 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which included funding for a $60 million water management project in Arunachal. China’s objection to the loan was that it was for projects in "disputed territory". When the ADB subsequently approved the loan to India, the Chinese foreign office expressed its "strong dissatisfaction to the move".

Indian officials say that there has been a four-fold increase in Chinese intrusions into Indian territory over the past year, most of them along the border in Arunachal.

A year ago, India acted to improve its defenses in the western sector of the Sino-Indian border. It reopened airfields in Daulat Beg Oldi and Fukche in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, a stone's throw from Aksai Chin. Phunchok Stobdan, senior fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, had described the reopening of the airfields near Aksai Chin as a response to the "dozens of provocations from China". India "is preparing for contingency", he told Asia Times Online.

The enhanced military deployment in the eastern sector is part of that preparation.

Besides the deployment of more troops and combat aircraft near at the border in Arunachal, India is developing the IAF base at Tezpur, which is just 150 kilometers from the border, into a major hub for Sukhoi aircraft. The IAF also proposes to station more Sukhois in the nearby Chabua air force base. And plans are afoot to upgrade infrastructure at five air force bases in the eastern part of the country including Tezpur, Chabua and Jorhat in Assam, Panagarh in West Bengal and Purnea in Bihar.

China’s plans to extend the Golmud-Lhasa rail up to Yatung, a trading center near Nathu La, a mountain pass that connects Tibet with Sikkim, and to Nyingchi, a trading town north of Arunachal at the tri-junction with Myanmar. Indian analysts warn that in a few years China will be able to deploy troops by the trainload right up to the Indian border at Sikkim and Arunachal - two Indian states into which Chinese intrusions are frequent.

India’s road and rail building activity in these areas has been sluggish.

Consider this. Sikkim has only one road linking its capital Gangtok to Nathu La and one landslide-prone road, just five meters wide, joining the state with the rest of India. Sikkim's road density is 28.45 kilometers per 100 square kilometers against the national average of 84 kilometers. Arunachal Pradesh is even worse off, with a road density of just 18.65 kilometers per 100 square kilometers. No trains run to the border-states of Sikkim, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. While Chinese military personnel can drive down to the Sino-Indian border and will be able to take trains too in a few years, Indian soldiers often trek 10-15kms to get there.

This paucity of roads in border areas is being addressed now. In 2006, the government gave the green signal for a host of road and other infrastructure projects in border areas. It recently announced an investment of US$3 billion in road construction in border areas.
According to reports, upgrading advance landing grounds and airfields and construction of border roads, which was hitherto undertaken solely by engineers attached to the IAF or the Border Roads Organization, a unit of the armed forces, is now being opened up to the private sector as well. The aim is to speed up implementation of various infrastructure projects along a sensitive border.

For decades, India, badly bruised from its defeat at the hands of China, opted to back down in the face of Chinese intimidation. That is now changing. It is this newly assertive Indian posture that is bothering China.

Indian analysts believe that neither of the two countries wants to go to war. But they are not ruling out the possibility of China carrying out a limited military operation in the eastern sector of Arunachal, one that will deal a short and stunning blow, depriving Beijing of Tawang and leaving it with a bloody nose.

It is to be prepared now that India is building its military muscle in Arunachal.

Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan

 

[nitesh]

another terrorist act by China:

Fake drugs reach Kenya now- Foreign Trade-Economy-News-The Economic Times

 

[Avinash R]

Chinese athletes to boycott closing ceremony of World Games

Chinese athletes to boycott closing ceremony of World Games
2009-07-26

Chinese athletes were to boycott the closing ceremony Sunday of the 8th World Games in Kaohsiung, south Taiwan, the Liberty Times reported.

The Chinese delegation had also boycotted the opening ceremony of the Games. Most of the Chinese athletes had already left Taiwan.

China sent 59 athletes to participate in eight events at the World Games, which includes some 30 sports that are not included in the Olympics.

China sees Taiwan as its breakaway province and does not want Taiwan's leader, President Ma Ying-jeou to appear at international events.
----

China should respects the wishes of taiwanese people and that nation's territorial boundaries.

This will lead to peace in the region and will not affect chinese image which currently is seen as a bully which periodically threatens to forcible occupy taiwan and end democratic rule there with china's own one party communist rule.

 

[Ray]

Will China be missed?

Rather boorish of them!

 

[Koji]

Obama says US, China to shape 21st century

Obama says US, China to shape 21st century | Defense & Security News at DefenceTalk

Washington: US President Barack Obama on Monday called for broad cooperation with China to set the course of the 21st century, saying the relationship between the Pacific powers was "as important as any" in the world.
Kicking off two days of in-depth talks in Washington, Obama appealed for cooperation on a broad range of issues from reviving the global economy to fighting climate change, while also nudging Beijing on human rights.
"The relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21st century, which makes it as important as any bilateral relationship in the world," Obama said.
"That reality must underpin our partnership. That is the responsibility we bear," he said.
In what appeared to be a coordinated new slogan, both Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, who sent a message to the meeting, said they sought a "positive, constructive, and comprehensive relationship."
"Our two countries should endeavor to expand common ground, reduce differences, enhance mutual trust and strengthen cooperation," Hu said.
Obama, who is expected to travel to China later this year, has sought to broaden the relationship with Beijing which is now the largest creditor to the heavily indebted United States.
The dialogue revamps an earlier set of talks launched under former US president George W. Bush in 2006 that focused solely on economic issues.
But China, whose delegation is led by State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Vice Premier Wang Qishan, said it would press the United States on concerns including over the safety of its more than 750 billion dollars invested in US Treasury bonds.
A senior US official said the first day of talks, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was "very constructive, very candid," but mostly general.
"We're going to spend most of our time getting to know each other," David Sheer, director of China affairs at the State Department, told reporters on a conference call.
He said the two sides would identify "common interests" to pursue in future sessions.
US leaders have generally refrained from describing the China relationship as the "most important" in the world. Clinton used the language during her failed presidential bid, raising concerns among some US allies, particularly Japan.
Clinton on Monday rejected predictions of a "multi-polar world," often used as codeword by Chinese, Russian and other policymakers to signal the end of a US-dominated era.
"Although past relations between the United States and China have been influenced by the idea of a balance of power among great nations, the fresh thinking of the 21st century moves us from a multi-polar world to a multi-partner world," Clinton said.
Both Clinton and Obama, while pledging not to see China as a rival, also acknowledged differences with the rising Asian power -- particularly on human rights.
Obama said that the United States respected China's "ancient culture" but added: "We also strongly believe that the religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds.
"That includes ethnic and religious minorities in China, as surely as it includes minorities within the United States," said Obama, the first president from the historically oppressed African-American community.
The US-China dialogue comes shortly after the eruption of ethnic violence in China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang province, which left at least 192 people dead and raised calls by some US lawmakers to get tougher on Washington.
The US leader asked for China's cooperation on a "low-carbon" recovery to the world economy, saying that the two largest carbon-emitting nations had a responsibility to work for a new global climate treaty by December's deadline.
Obama sought China's assistance on ending North Korea and Iran's nuclear drives. He raised the specter of a nuclear arms race in East Asia.
Pyongyang, which counts Beijing as its main ally, has tested a nuclear bomb, test-fired missiles and stormed out of a six-nation disarmament deal in recent months.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

China is currently the only buyer of US debt, Obama doing his best to make sure they keep buying.


But China, whose delegation is led by State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Vice Premier Wang Qishan, said it would press the United States on concerns including over the safety of its more than 750 billion dollars invested in US Treasury bonds.
A senior US official said the first day of talks, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was "very constructive, very candid,"

 

[Koji]

Japan, SK, Taiwan are all countries that still buy US debt.

 

[shotgunner]

Japan, SK, Taiwan are all countries that still buy US debt.

Yes, these countries are doing that in big amounts, and that Hong Kong & Singapore (these 2 have highest per capita foreign reserve in the world) too.

Between China (actually whole of E Asia) & USA, it is now a MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) in a economic fashion.

US & CHina haping the 21st century? That's B S. USA alone is shaping the 21st century, China is far from being classified in the same league. Maybe Japan can, with its huge economic clout & advanced technology. Even after the "lost 10 years", Japan is still the ONLY country that leads the world in all aspects e.g. per capita GNP (not GDP), total GNP, technology, manufacturing, trade, social welfare net.

Wish Japan can continue to excel and help the rest of Asia in their campaign to prosperity!

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Shotgunner what is the Chinese govt doing to try to reduce their exposure to so much US debt? I know this is rightfully a major concern and USA seems to be doing very little to calm the fears.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Japan, SK, Taiwan are all countries that still buy US debt.

China buys almost 10 times the amount Korea and Japan buys
and has passed Japan to be #1 while Japan has been a buyer for 40+ years

China Tops Japan in U.S. Debt Holdings - washingtonpost.com

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Report: U.S. Running Out of Debt Buyers

Report: U.S. Running Out of Debt Buyers
Written by John F. McManus
Wednesday, 22 July 2009 12:43



Because Canadian-based Sprott Asset Management is not an American firm, its assessment of the U.S. government’s financial condition might well be considered more realistic than any home-grown perspectives. In any case, what the Toronto firm issued in its brief May/June 2009 report should not be overlooked.

Its bleak survey of U.S. indebtedness is certainly of interest to those Canadians who invest in U.S., but its no-holds-barred survey should also be carefully digested by all Americans. Only Americans have the capability of forcing the U.S. government to cease the reckless spending that weakens the dollar and threatens the very independence of the nation.

Sprott’s five-page report started off by noting that the U.S. government’s deficit last year was $705 billion (a budget shortfall of $455 billion and $250 billion for the two wars currently being waged). It then presented the Obama administration’s figures for the current year that total $2.041 trillion (a deficit of $1.845 trillion and a war expense of $196 billion). In fiscal 2009, therefore, the U.S. government must find buyers for approximately three times the amount it needed during 2008.

Where will those funds come from? The report lists 11 categories of traditional lenders, most of which are either no longer willing or are now incapable of helping the United States. The two largest sources of funds previously covering the accumulated shortfall were government agencies themselves (Social Security, Medicare, et al.) and foreign buyers of U.S. bonds. These two money suppliers already own 70 percent of the accumulated national debt: 42 percent the former and 28 percent the latter. But neither can be relied upon any longer.

Social Security is now paying out as much as it receives and Medicare is running in the red and getting in deeper every day. This means that funds previously supplied by these two government agencies are no longer available to cover federal indebtedness. Next, the foreign purchasers of U.S. bonds (China, Japan, et al.) are not only refusing to buy any more, they have begun selling what they already own. So the suppliers of 70 percent of funds previously covering U.S. shortfalls can’t be relied on to finance current and future indebtedness.

Of the nine remaining sources of debt funding, only a category Sprott labels as “Other Investors” continues to buy U.S. bonds. But these investors (individuals, brokers and dealers, trust and estates, etc.) have previously held only five percent of U.S. debt and their purchases in 2008 must triple to keep pace with the current skyrocketing federal indebtedness. This is very unlikely.

Of the eight other past debt purchasers pointed to by Sprott, several are now selling instead of buying. State and local governments, a previous source of funds, are themselves in deep financial trouble and cannot be counted on to help the federal government by purchasing its bonds. All the other once-sure debt buyers aren’t going to continue pouring money into the fiscally sick U.S. government – with one exception, the Federal Reserve.

“As the lender of last resort, the only purchaser left is the Federal Reserve,” says the Sprott report. It notes that the Fed has a new policy entitled “Quantitative Easing” that includes printing vast new quantities of currency used to purchase treasury bonds and other financial instruments. One result has seen “the Federal Reserve doubling the monetary base of the United States over the span of a mere nine months.” Non-confidence in the value of the U.S. dollar and its financial instruments is already high and there are good reasons to see it rising even higher.

The report ominously concludes that “the future solvency of the United States as a nation state is currently in jeopardy.” Holders of U.S. debt are looking to sell and potential buyers aren’t buying. The Canadian firm seems on sound footing with its claim that the U.S. “is in far deeper trouble than the mainstream press cares to admit.” The only source of funds for America, it notes “is continued money printing.”

Who can deny the following summation presented in this report? It states: “The U.S. budget is ludicrous, spending is out of control, spending promises are out of control, the world knows it – and we know it.”

Is it possible that the Obama administration is unaware of what a few Canadians have detected? Or is it reasonable to conclude that Mr. Obama and his economic team of Geithner, Summers and Volcker will, along with the compliance of Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, soon turn to world currency and world government as the unavoidable and necessary solution to the nation’s fiscal madness?

The Sprott report pointed out that Japan tried “Quantitative Easing” in the early 2000s. It didn’t pull Japan out of its economic doldrums then and it won’t work any magic here. The U.S. must cut spending drastically, abolish unconstitutional agencies, terminate costly military adventures, scrap plans for additional federal programs (health care, cap and trade, etc.), and start being honest with the American people.

There is no other way if our nation is to remain free and independent.

 

[shotgunner]

China buys almost 10 times the amount Korea and Japan buys
and has passed Japan to be #1 while Japan has been a buyer for 40+ years

China Tops Japan in U.S. Debt Holdings - washingtonpost.com

Yes, China surpass Japan. 10 times? Seems not, I guess Japan has $400B, China has $700B, a bit less than double. Anyway such data are publicly available on the net.

China government's answer? I guess they have some, but seems nothing close to perfect cure! One solution is to re-sell (the debts have good liquidity in dollar) to other countries in exchange for material assets like oil. US debts is not completely dangerous, if you believe US can survive. Guess who are the biggest buyers? They are pension funds, i.e. millions of Americans. The debts can't become junk or it is armageddon to USA.

 

[Jeypore]

Yes, China surpass Japan. 10 times? Seems not, I guess Japan has $400B, China has $700B, a bit less than double. Anyway such data are publicly available on the net.

China government's answer? I guess they have some, but seems nothing close to perfect cure! One solution is to re-sell (the debts have good liquidity in dollar) to other countries in exchange for material assets like oil. US debts is not completely dangerous, if you believe US can survive. Guess who are the biggest buyers? They are pension funds, i.e. millions of Americans. The debts can't become junk or it is armageddon to USA.

There is a big limitation to the pension funds also and a dangerouse propositions. If the US gov't starts to rely more on this pension funds it will gear itself for more socialist society, which 50% of US citizens do not want. The above article is correct, that US needs to stop the spending, and the Obama administrations has completly done the opposite.

Anyways there is another solution to the problem and that is tax reforms. There is an idea of imbedded taxes that is floating around that can solve numerous problems and bring the economy back, but it is going to be hard because of this stupid politicians are in for themselve, and also the 16th amendment has to killed.

 

[shotgunner]

There is a big limitation to the pension funds also and a dangerouse propositions. If the US gov't starts to rely more on this pension funds it will gear itself for more socialist society, which 50% of US citizens do not want. The above article is correct, that US needs to stop the spending, and the Obama administrations has completly done the opposite.

Anyways there is another solution to the problem and that is tax reforms. There is an idea of imbedded taxes that is floating around that can solve numerous problems and bring the economy back, but it is going to be hard because of this stupid politicians are in for themselve, and also the 16th amendment has to killed.

Yeah exactly, spendings should be controlled, reforms should start e.g. heath insurance, defence. I won't underestimate their wisdon and good will. However, Obama being an non-main-stream idealist, a loner, has to face the cold hard fact that the powerful status-quo-beneficiaries wouldn't let him destroy them easily.

Reform, rather than being an academic subject in business school, the challenge is whether it can survive in the jungle out there.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Yes, China surpass Japan. 10 times? Seems not, I guess Japan has $400B, China has $700B, a bit less than double. Anyway such data are publicly available on the net.

China government's answer? I guess they have some, but seems nothing close to perfect cure! One solution is to re-sell (the debts have good liquidity in dollar) to other countries in exchange for material assets like oil. US debts is not completely dangerous, if you believe US can survive. Guess who are the biggest buyers? They are pension funds, i.e. millions of Americans. The debts can't become junk or it is armageddon to USA.

many US institutions are strictly avoiding US debt, many funds advertise that have no toxic debt holdings to attract investors, and US government is buying some of their own debt but it reached a point where they cannot keep up what they are printing, historically US debt was 10-20% of GDP it is approaching 100% of GDP still less than nations like Japan but unhealthy especially with a depreacting currency. China has suffered a double blow in the sense they have a huge amount of a depreciating asset that has a few buyers and a decrease in value of their dollar reserves 45% from the decreasing currency, many other nations are in the same boat but USA seems to advertise that China will pull them out of this which becomes a burden on china to be possibly having to buy more depreciating assets. There would be no danger if things remained the same but the way US government is spending they are inviting trouble down the road.

 

[shotgunner]

many US institutions are strictly avoiding US debt, many funds advertise that have no toxic debt holdings to attract investors, and US government is buying some of their own debt but it reached a point where they cannot keep up what they are printing, historically US debt was 10-20% of GDP it is approaching 100% of GDP still less than nations like Japan but unhealthy especially with a depreacting currency. China has suffered a double blow in the sense they have a huge amount of a depreciating asset that has a few buyers and a decrease in value of their dollar reserves 45% from the decreasing currency, many other nations are in the same boat but USA seems to advertise that China will pull them out of this which becomes a burden on china to be possibly having to buy more depreciating assets. There would be no danger if things remained the same but the way US government is spending they are inviting trouble down the road.

Japan is a special case. The government has huge debt, but the nation as a whole has huge reserve and foreign assets (as reflected in their GNP). A typical case of rich citizens, poor state.

US government is different, it practically has no reserve.

Yes, huge spendings are either on useless stuff like defence or on ineffiencies like health. The economy is kidnapped by arsenal corps, insurane firms, energy brokers & bankers, and that's why US government alone is a lame duck in front of the beneficiaires-controlled Congress, not to mention within the government there are independent kingdoms like the Pentagon that are too intimate to the private powerhouses.

I can't see any sign that spendings will drop in the forseeable future. The only thing we can do is to pray and have faith in americans' determination & ability to survive through this harsh time. They had done that before, should happen again.