Quote: Pariah said: I don't need to read about it. I've been there enough times to know how much it sucks.
On the off-chance that you're not making this up, I'm genuinely curious when and why you were in China, and where in China you went. I was there five years ago, and I made it to Shangha, Beijing, and Xian.
"Well when I talk to people I don't have to worry about spelling." - wannabuyamonkey
"If Schumacher’s last effort was the final nail in the coffin then Year One would’ve been the crazy guy who stormed the graveyard, dug up the coffin and put a bullet through the franchise’s corpse just to make sure." -- From a review of Darren Aronofsky & Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" script
Quote: Darknight613 said: On the off-chance that you're not making this up, I'm genuinely curious when and why you were in China, and where in China you went. I was there five years ago, and I made it to Shangha, Beijing, and Xian.
My uncle had a bunch of business in China, and I got to go with him most of the time. Four years ago, I went to Hangzhou. Three years ago, I went to Shenyang, Anshan, and another place that, I believe, was called Fushun. I wanted to go to Shanghai, but my uncle didn't trust taking me there.
If I was to add up all the time I stayed there, I'd estimate it at about a month and a half.
Like I said - curiosity. And I was wondering if you'd made it to any of the same places I'd been to.
"Well when I talk to people I don't have to worry about spelling." - wannabuyamonkey
"If Schumacher’s last effort was the final nail in the coffin then Year One would’ve been the crazy guy who stormed the graveyard, dug up the coffin and put a bullet through the franchise’s corpse just to make sure." -- From a review of Darren Aronofsky & Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" script
The number of Chinese billionaires has more than doubled in the past year, according to a survey. Forbes Asia magazine's annual Chinese rich list found that there are now 10 US dollar billionaires in China compared with three a year ago.
China's economy has been expanding rapidly, boosting the personal wealth of the country's leading entrepreneurs.
Businessman Larry Rong Zhijian remains China's richest man, with an estimated fortune of $1.64bn (£929m).
The son of former Chinese vice premier Rong Yiren is chairman of Hong Kong-based investment firm China International Trust and Investment Corporation.
Property boom
The combined wealth of China's 100 richest people now exceeds $41bn, the survey found, compared with $29bn a year ago.
The construction boom of recent years has enriched a host of property developers headed by Zhu Mengyi, China's second richest man with an estimated fortune of $1.4bn.
Other businessmen featuring in the list include William Ding Lei, founder of US-listed business Netease.com, and Wong Kwong Yu, founder of electronics retailer GoMe Appliances.
"Brisk economic growth and a huge appetite among foreigners for Chinese investments helped to propel the wealth of China's richest people in the past 12 months," Forbes Asia said.
China, and not India, will be a superpower in 10 years. That is the view of an overwhelming majority of American adults, according to a Harris Interactive poll released on Tuesday.
But then, more Americans feel it will be in the US's best interest to encourage India's growth and prosperity instead of China's. What they dread is China's military might, rather than its economic clout, once it is anointed as the superpower.
As many as 70 per cent of those surveyed felt China will emerge as a superpower by 2015. Only 20 per cent believe India will attain that status by then. In the survey, 41 per cent opted for Japan, 31 per cent for European Union, 25 per cent for UK and 15 per cent for Russia.
Quite a few (29 per cent) think that China is already an economic superpower. This compares with 67 per cent who say the US is the only one in the big league. Only 2 per cent regard India as a superpower.
The poll conducted across the US in mid-October covered 1,833 adults.
On the question of US encouraging other economies to grow, 39 per cent rooted for India as opposed to 24 per cent for China. But much higher numbers favoured the other four players (UK — 69 per cent, EU — 55, Japan — 47 and Russia — 45).
"Concerns about China gaining strength seem to be more focused on its potential military rather than economic gains, though concerns about China's economic growth are not insignificant," the authors said.
Minxin Pei is senior associate and director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He argues that:
It may appear the Chinese Communist Party has never had it so good. Inside China, the party faces no serious challenges to its authority. Internationally, talk of “China rising” is in. But inexorable forces are arrayed against the long-term survival of the Communist Party in China.
Ultimately, the party may fall victim to its own economic miracle. The party's unwillingness to establish the rule of law and refrain from economic meddling may yet slow the remarkable growth of the last decade. But if not, 35 more years of solid economic growth would mean professionals, private property owners and hard-working capitalists will number in the hundreds of millions. It will be next to impossible for an authoritarian regime to retain power in such a modern society, let alone one as large and diverse as China's.
If economic success does not end one-party rule in China, corruption probably will. Governments free from meaningful restraints on their power invariably grow corrupt and rapacious. That is true in China today. Autocracies that are expanding economically contain the seeds of their own destruction, mainly because they lack the institutional capacity and legitimacy to weather economic shocks. A ruling party without core values lacks mass appeal and the capacity to generate it.
A party capable of reinvention and regeneration might be able to skirt these looming dangers. But the Chinese Communist Party is growing arthritic. By 2040, it will have been in existence for 119 years and in power for 91. Today, the world has no septuagenarian one-party regimes — and for good reason.
Humiliated by their dependence on Washington for survival in the wake of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the Saudi royal family has long been seeking to forge closer ties with Beijing in the hope of reducing their dependence on the U.S.
China, for its part, is importing ever increasing amounts of oil from the Gulf to fuel its rapidly expanding economy. That has prompted a degree of paranoia over "energy insecurity." Beijing military strategists worry that, because they lack America's "blue water" navy, the country is potentially vulnerable to a U.S. blockade of oil shipments from the Gulf to China.
Hence the mutual interest in a closer relationship demonstrated during King Abdullah's three-day visit, which ended yesterday.
For all the headlines about the agreements he signed with President Hu Jintao on issues such as energy cooperation and double taxation, it's a safe assumption that strategic issues were also on the agenda away from the bright lights of the media. Saudi Arabia's CSS-2 missiles are now obsolescent and Riyadh would welcome modern Chinese models as replacements. For Beijing, that offers a useful tit-for-tat should Washington agree to further large arms sales to Taiwan. But it would come at the price of violating China's commitment to adhere to the Missile Technology Control Regime, which seeks to control international transfers of ballistic missile technology.
The danger is that these developments will pass largely unnoticed in Washington, as they fall between bureaucratic cracks in the national-security apparatus. In the National Security Council, as well as at the Departments of State and Defense, separate sections still focus on the Middle East and Asia (despite Condoleezza Rice's recent reforms). No one seems to be looking at the bigger picture in terms of the emerging strategic relationship between two regions so important to American national interests.
In the old days of the Cold War, the U.S. viewed the security relationships in the Middle East through the prism of its rivalry with the Soviet Union. Today, Russian power in the Middle East has withdrawn as Moscow grapples with getting its domestic house in order.
But China's power in the Middle East, especially in the Persian Gulf, is increasing, a dimension of world politics that American policy makers need to begin focusing attention on.
Quote: Pariah said: Wouldn't have been able to do it without Hong Kong.
What on earth makes you say that?
Guangzhou province in the south is the size of France with the same economic output. France, lest we forget, is the world's 4th or 5th most significant economy.
Shanghai is booming, too because of its location. Hong Kong has recovered from when I lived there, but its hardly the economic centre it was in the 1980s. Its lost out to Singapore for regional economic influence.
I live in Western Australia which is the main beneficiary of China's boom. All those Chinese made stainless steel pots are forged from Western Australian iron ore and nickel, heated with Western Australian gas. Its a boom time here at the moment.
Incidentally, I agree that a war over Taiwan is very likely while the Communist Party is in power, although it won't happen until after the Beijing Olympics. More likely though is that Taiwan will eventually capitulate to the one country two systems concept currently in place (and more or less working very well, despite some hiccups) in Hong Kong until 2049. I also think a war with Russia is also likely in the long term, over the Russian Maritimes and its oil reserve. Already Siberia is flooded with Chinese. China virtually runs the place.
A Chinese invasion of the United States is a ludicrous proposition. But do you guys remeber when that spy plane was shot down over Hainan Island (I've been there by the way - nice place with pearl farms, notorious for hookers)? That was because the US, with its long range fleets, constantly annoys the crap out of China by running observation missions on the edge of Chinese sovereign airspace, to test reaction times of scrambled fighter planes. China only has a littoral fleet and can't do the same. I'm hardly sympathetic to China, but no wonder they view the US as a threat.
China's economic boom has dazzled investors and captivated the world. But beyond the new high-rises and churning factories lie rampant corruption, vast waste and an elite with little interest in making things better. Forget political reform. China's future will be decay, not democracy.
Business people talk about China's being simultaneously the world's greatest manufacturer and its greatest market.
But before we all start learning Chinese and marvelling at the accomplishments of the Chinese Communist Party, we might pause a moment. Upon examination, China's record loses some of its lustre: While Western investors hail China's strong economic fundamentals -- a high savings rate, a huge labour pool and powerful work ethic -- they gloss over its imperfections.
China's economic performance since 1979, for example, is less impressive than those of its East Asian neighbours, such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, during comparable periods. Its banking system is saddled with non-performing loans and is probably the most fragile in Asia.
A comparison with India is especially striking. In six major industrial sectors (ranging from autos to telecom), from 1999 to 2003, Indian companies delivered rates of return on investment that were 80% to 200% higher than their Chinese counterparts.
Behind the glowing headlines are fundamental frailties rooted in the Chinese "neo-Leninist" state. The Maoist state preached egalitarianism, but the neo-Leninist state practises elitism, draws its support from technocrats, the military and the police, and co-opts new social elites (professionals and private entrepreneurs) and foreign capital -- all vilified under Maoism. Neo-Leninism has rendered the ruling party more resilient, but has generated self-destructive forces. In particular, it is spawning a dangerous mix of crony capitalism, corruption and widening inequality.
After a quarter-century of gradual reform, has China transformed its command economy into a genuine market economy? Not nearly as well as most people would guess. Though China was one of the earliest socialist economies to begin serious reform, recent data on the country's regulation, international trade, fiscal policy and legal structure place it in the bottom third of 127 countries surveyed for economic freedom -- below most Eastern European countries, India and Mexico, and all China's East Asian neighbours, save Burma and Vietnam.
An incestuous relationship between the state and major industries can doom developing countries, and China is more susceptible than most. The combination of authoritarian rule and the state's economic dominance has bred a virulent crony capitalism, as the ruling elites convert their political power into economic wealth and privilege at the expense of equity and efficiency. The World Bank estimates that, between 1991 and 2000, almost a third of investment decisions in China were misguided. The Chinese central bank's research shows that politically directed lending was responsible for 60% of bad bank loans in 2001-02.
China has already paid a heavy price for the flaws of its political system and the corruption it has spawned. Its new leaders, though aware of the depth of the decay, are taking only modest steps to correct it. For the moment, China's strong economic fundamentals and the boundless energy of its people have concealed and offset its poor governance, but they will carry China only so far. Someday soon, we will know whether this system can pass a stress test: a severe economic shock, political upheaval, a public health crisis or an ecological catastrophe.
China may be rising, but no one really knows whether it can fly.
New alarms are sounding over signs that China may be developing space weapons, reinforcing suspicions that the People's Liberation Army is increasingly interested in the final frontier as a theater of war.
The latest alert came Thursday from an independent panel - created by Congress to assess the economic and security situations in China - that questions Chinese intentions and urges lawmakers to lean on the Bush administration to talk with Beijing about curtailing space militarization.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: I miss the good old days, when terrorism was almost unheard of, and all we had to worry about was being nuked by the Russians!
Now, everyone's getting or already has the bomb, and they seem anxious to use 'em on the USA!
Sad but true, eh? The 'cold war' seems to have been almost more re-assuring or comfortable in a sense. Of course, we all came out of it more or less laughing at having been so worried, as perhaps we will in the not so distant future (after Superman hurls the stockpiles into the sun, of course).
Quote: Beardguy57 said: I miss the good old days, when terrorism was almost unheard of, and all we had to worry about was being nuked by the Russians!
Now, everyone's getting or already has the bomb, and they seem anxious to use 'em on the USA!
Sad but true, eh? The 'cold war' seems to have been almost more re-assuring or comfortable in a sense. Of course, we all came out of it more or less laughing at having been so worried, as perhaps we will in the not so distant future (after Superman hurls the stockpiles into the sun, of course).
The U.S. government has asked China to clarify its intentions following the successful test of an anti-satellite weapon last week, that was reported this week by the publication Aviation Week and Space Technology. The State Department has also expressed concern about the space debris that resulted from the missile hit on an old Chinese satellite, saying it could endanger people in space and on the ground. VOA's Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.
The U.S. government has asked China to clarify its intentions following the successful test of an anti-satellite weapon last week, that was reported this week by the publication Aviation Week and Space Technology. The State Department has also expressed concern about the space debris that resulted from the missile hit on an old Chinese satellite, saying it could endanger people in space and on the ground. VOA's Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.
Hahahhahaahhah....the fact that people don't realize that China "likes" us only as long as we are useful...useful as in buying billions in goods and still able to have our technology stolen.
You know, there sure are a lotta them in the cities now that they're experimenting with business. That's a lotta people in one place if they ever decide to get rowdy.
The U.S. government has asked China to clarify its intentions following the successful test of an anti-satellite weapon last week, that was reported this week by the publication Aviation Week and Space Technology. The State Department has also expressed concern about the space debris that resulted from the missile hit on an old Chinese satellite, saying it could endanger people in space and on the ground. VOA's Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.
During the 1996 presidential election campaign, the Democratic National Committee under then-General Chairman Christopher J. Dodd accepted large, laundered contributions from the Red Chinese and from U.S. industrialists eager to enrich themselves via technology transfers to China.
That same year, the Clinton administration helpfully shifted authority to approve such transfers from the State Department, which opposed them, to the Commerce Department, which thought they were just fine.
ANYONE who follows technology or military affairs has heard the predictions for more than a decade. Cyberwar is coming.
China, security experts believe, has long probed United States networks. According to a 2007 Defense Department annual report to Congress, China’s military has invested heavily in electronic countermeasures and defenses against attack, and concepts like “computer network attack, computer network defense and computer network exploitation.”
According to the report, the Chinese Army sees computer network operations “as critical to achieving ‘electromagnetic dominance’ ” — whatever that is — early in a conflict.
China has done its best to ruin the scenery on the Yangtze River. Smog blots out the sun. Factories dot the shores. And the construction of a giant dam has flooded the Three Gorges, the famed river passage through towering limestone and sandstone cliffs.
Since 2003, the massive Three Gorges Dam near Yichang has plugged China's largest river. That created a reservoir expected to gradually fill over six years, driving up water levels more than 350 feet. Many people fear the ruin of one of China's iconic landscapes.
By the time we arrived at the Yangtze, about three-quarters of the flooding had occurred. More than 1,000 towns and hamlets had been submerged.
China has done its best to ruin the scenery on the Yangtze River. Smog blots out the sun. Factories dot the shores. And the construction of a giant dam has flooded the Three Gorges, the famed river passage through towering limestone and sandstone cliffs.
Since 2003, the massive Three Gorges Dam near Yichang has plugged China's largest river. That created a reservoir expected to gradually fill over six years, driving up water levels more than 350 feet. Many people fear the ruin of one of China's iconic landscapes.
By the time we arrived at the Yangtze, about three-quarters of the flooding had occurred. More than 1,000 towns and hamlets had been submerged.
now you're against corporations destroying the environment? make up your mind, G-man!
U.S., China Spar Over Missiles: Defense secretary Gates and top Chinese official trade barbs over competing regional defense systems, arms race in Asia.
U.S., China Spar Over Missiles: Defense secretary Gates and top Chinese official trade barbs over competing regional defense systems, arms race in Asia.
This was the part of that article that concerned me most, G-man:
"In recent weeks China and Russia issued a joint statement condemning U.S. missile defense plans. Washington has struggle to convince both countries that the missile interceptors are not a threat to them."
Skilled diplomacy would have further driven a wedge beween Russia and China.
I think we've treated Russia badly since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in expanding NATO nations right up to their border, depolying troops right on their border in Georgia, Armenia, Uzberkistan, and Afghanistan. And telling them how to run their own business in Chechnya and Ukraine, as well as their own elections and internal security. I'm not saying we've been a threat to the Russians, but we have embarassed them politically, pissed them off, and made them suspicious of us.
China, on the other hand, we've had reason to distance ourselves from. While the U.S. has gone $9-plus trillion in debt, due largely to China's trade deficit with us, China has saved $2 trillion in assets, that they could use to make war with us. In addition to China's purchasing hundreds of billions in our treasury bills, that they could dump and badly hurt our economy with(although it would hurt theirs at least as much).
China is vastly expanding their military, particularly their navy, to expand their regional power in their local seas, and to have first claim in offshore oil drilling (they had a clash with the Phillipines a few years ago about offshore drilling, and if their navy were stronger then, they could have won that clash by force, or at least intimidation).
Another interesting thing I read recently is that for all the environmental whining that has prevented potential U.S. offshore drilling in the Caribbean and Atlantic, and could have given us greater oil independence. But when we don't dig offshore wells, the Cubans, Chinese and other nation do. And which (between the U.S. and these other nations) would build safer, more environmentally friendly offshore platforms in international waters off our coast?
Us or them, either way someone is going to dig in international waters. It might as well be us.
On the article you posted, G-man, I've never understood why the Russian (and now the Chinese) find a defensive missile shild to intercept incoming missiles to be threatening. And conversely, how they call ICBM's that can bomb any city in the U.S. into a nuclear crater in 30 minutes, to be "defensive weapons". (ICBM missile technology the Chinese stole from us, by the way, during the Clinton years.)
But if we didn't agitate Russia and China on smaller issues, some of which I think are not our business, then I think we could have gotten more cooperation and trust regarding our defense shield.
Here's a blog by Gertz, who wrote the first few opening articles, giving an overview of the various aspects where China threatens the U.S., and the tools at their disposal to use on us:
Topping the list is China's military buildup, in particualr what G-man cited above about anti-sattelite systems to wipe out the center of the U.S.'s military superiority.
Along with the threat to Taiwan (who the U.S. is obligated to defend), which China is burning to take back.
And China's foreign aid that's pouring into oil-rich third-world nations in Africa and the Americas, that is displacing U.S. oil interests.
