China warns U.S. officials not to meet Dalai Lama

China's Foreign Ministry warned U.S. officials on Thursday not to meet with visiting exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, saying it hoped Washington "appropriately dealt" with Tibet-related issues.


China reviles the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama, saying he supports the use of violence to establish an independent Tibet. He strongly denies either accusation, insisting he seeks only true autonomy for the remote region.

The Dalai Lama is currently visiting the United States and is due to give a public talk in Washington Saturday.

The U.S. State Department said he met on Wednesday with Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero, but that it remained to be decided whether he would have any meetings at higher levels.

On Thursday, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and other senior U.S. lawmakers also met the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Beijing's position on the Dalai Lama's foreign visits was clear.

"We oppose the underhand visits of the Dalai Lama which he uses to engage in activities to split the motherland," Hong told a regular news briefing.

"At the same time, we also oppose any foreign government or politicians supporting or abetting in such activities by the Dalai Lama," he added.

"We hope that the United States strictly abide by its promises on the Tibet issue and ... cautiously and appropriately deal with relevant issues," Hong said.

The Dalai Lama met U.S. President Barack Obama last year, drawing strong denunciation from Beijing.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/08/us-china-usa-dalailama-idUSTRE7667OI20110708

China raises flood alert to top level, 555,000 evacuated

China has mobilized troops to help with flood relief and raised its disaster alert to the highest level after days of downpours forced the evacuation of more than half a million people in central and southern provinces.

The official China Daily said more than 555,000 people had been evacuated in seven provinces and a municipality after rains in recently drought-stricken areas caused floods and mudslides in the Yangtze River basin.

Central authorities have raised the disaster alert to the highest level 4, and the government is describing the floods in some areas, such as eastern Zhejiang province's Qianting River area, as the worst since 1955.

Local media said two dykes in the village areas of Zhuji in Zhejiang province were breached on Thursday, flooding two towns and 21 villages.

In the flood-hit Banshan and Moshan villages on the outskirts of Zhuji, hundreds of people had been evacuated, but many have since returned to guard their homes and belongings.

"For us now, we will be worried if we leave our homes. That's why we are still staying here. Yesterday, the water level was receding slowly so we came back to clean up our house," said 49-year-old Jie Jingping.

Jie is staying put in her flooded home with her daughter and elder sister. The first floor of her village home is completely inundated and she has moved all their belongings to the second and third floors.

She said the local government has been distributing a box of instant noodles and a carton of bottled water to every family as flood aid.

Other villagers said life was tough for some residents who were still trapped deep inside the village by the flood waters as aid distribution has been slow.

"Some did not even get any relief items. There is no electricity and you get bitten by mosquitoes all the time," said 25-year-old Shou Pengfei.

"To be frank, those rescue boats cannot go through those narrow lanes inside the village. A lot of them depend on their relatives rowing small wooden boats to get to them... It is hard to help these people inside there," he added.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/17/us-china-floods-idUSTRE75F5W220110617

China, Russia issue joint statement on major international issues

China and Russia on Thursday issued a joint statement on a broad range of key international issues.

The statement was signed by visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.

Countries of the world have become increasingly interdependent against the backdrop of profound changes and major adjustments in the international situation as well as the emergence of global challenges and regional threats such as the international financial crisis, regional conflicts, natural disasters, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,terrorism and climate change, said the statement.

The two sides recognize the need to make concerted efforts to effectively cope with such global challenges and threats, it said.

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-06/16/c_13934280.htm

Italy to China: four countries sidelining nuclear power

Italians voted in a referendum vote yesterday to put a lid on nuclear power indefinitely, derailing one of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s efforts to restart nuclear energy in Italy. Nuclear energy was first abandoned in a 1987 referendum vote after the Chernobyl nuclear accident and Italy shuttered its four nuclear power plants soon after. The recent referendum vote extends a moratorium on nuclear plans that was imposed after Japan’s nuclear crisis.

Berlusconi had hoped to relaunch the shelved nuclear program – one of the first in the world used for power supply only – by building several nuclear power plants. In 2009, he reached out to France for assistance with the construction of four new plants. The first one was slated for completion by 2020.

The country lacks many natural energy resources and imports 86 percent of its energy supply, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Berlusconi said Monday, as the results of the referendum became clear, that if Italy opted to abandon nuclear energy, it was going to need to make a stronger commitment to renewable energy.

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http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2011/0614/Italy-to-China-four-countries-sidelining-nuclear-power/Italy

China in no mood to listen in U.S. rights talks

China's increasingly tough line against dissent suggests it will be in no mood to bend to U.S. demands to soften its approach when the two begin talks on human rights on Wednesday.

Analysts said the gulf between the two sides looks especially deep ahead of this year's annual U.S.-China human rights dialogue, with Beijing nervous of social unrest and Washington sounding more vocal in its criticism.

"This is the first time that the human rights dialogue will be held in an environment this bad," said Sophie Richardson, China director for Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based advocacy group.

Washington came out jabbing before the two-day talks began, saying it would use them to press Beijing over a "recent negative trend of forced disappearances, extralegal detention, and arrests and convictions" of dissidents and rights advocates.


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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/27/us-china-usa-rights-idUSTRE73Q0UE20110427

Facebook Could Block Content To Enter China

If Facebook is to gain entry into China and other countries, a representative of the social networking site thinks his company could wind up blocking certain content because it allows "too much, maybe, free speech" for some governments to handle.

"Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others," Facebook lobbyist Adam Conner told The Wall Street Journal Wednesday. "We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we're allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven't experienced it before."

Facebook is currently banned in China. Earlier this month, a reported deal on a joint social-networking Web site between Facebook and Chinese search engine company Baidu apparently fell through when the site was taken down by Chinese authorities.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's eagerness to gain access to China's 420 million Internet users is such that he recently claimed he's learning the language.

"It's kind of a personal challenge this year, I'm taking about an hour a day and I'm learning Chinese," Zuckerberg told an audience during a recent appearance at Stanford University. "I'm trying to understand the language, the culture, the mind set—it's just such an important part of the world. How can you connect the whole world if you leave out a billion people?"

Zuckerberg visited China last year with his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan.

The Chinese government is increasingly concerned about Western social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter given their effectiveness as organizing tools used by protesters in the wave of popular uprisings that have swept across parts of the Middle East in recent months, according to the Journal.

Like Facebook, Twitter is also banned in China.

Conner's comments came ahead of President Barack Obama's town hall meeting on the economy at Facebook's Silicon headquarters scheduled for later on Wednesday.

Obama's former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had reportedly been in talks with Facebook to take over the company's communications strategy, but those "have fallen apart," the Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.

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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383878,00.asp

Chinese student's last moments witnessed on webcam

Toronto Police Det. Sgt. Frank Skubic presents a photo of a missing laptop computer wanted in the murder case of York University student Qian Liu during a news conference in Toronto, Tuesday, April 19, 2011. Canadian police said Tuesday they still don't know what caused the death of a student from Beijing who was last seen alive on a webcam by a friend who witnessed her struggling with a man before the camera was abruptly shut off. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darren Calabrese)

TORONTO -- Canadian police said they still don't know what caused the death of a student from Beijing who was last seen alive on a webcam by her boyfriend in China, who witnessed her struggling with a man before the camera was abruptly shut off.

Liu Jianhui, the father of 23-year-old York University student Liu Qian, said his daughter's boyfriend Meng Xianchao witnessed the attack on the webcam

Liu Jianhui said he was headed to Toronto on Wednesday.

"She was our only child," said Liu, the research director of Communist Party history at the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC, which trains party officials.

Police said the body of Liu was found Friday in her apartment in Toronto a few hours after he witnessed the attack. She was naked from the waist down and there were no obvious signs of sexual assault or trauma that would have led to her death, police said.

An autopsy failed to show the cause of death and it could be weeks before the results of toxicology tests are known, Police Sgt. Frank Skubic said. He said the death has yet to be classified officially as a homicide, though police were investigating it as such.

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http://www.katu.com/news/national/120259059.html

BRICS Urge More Commodity Market, Capital Flow Supervision

(L-R) India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev, China's President Hu Jintao, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and South African President Jacob Zuma attend a joint news conference at the BRICS Leaders Meeting in Sanya

SANYA, China (Dow Jones)--Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, collectively known as BRICS, Thursday called for greater supervision of commodity markets and international capital flows, as the countries look to boost their influence in debates about how the world's major economies should address such issues.

BRICS officials have warned that developing countries face risks from capital inflows caused by loose monetary policies in developed nations. BRICS trade officials on Wednesday said they still face economic overheating issues like inflationary pressures and asset bubbles, and agreed they need to boost coordination in the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations, and in areas like climate change negotiations, to ensure the interests of developing countries, according to Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming.

"We call for more attention to the risks of massive cross-border capital flows now faced by the emerging economies," the five countries said in a joint statement Thursday after their leaders met in China's southern island province of Hainan.

"Excessive volatility in commodity prices, particularly those for food and energy, poses new risks for the ongoing recovery of the world economy," the statement said. "The regulation of the derivatives market for commodities should be accordingly strengthened to prevent activities capable of destabilizing markets."

The five nations also said they support reform of the international monetary system leading to "a broad-based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty," an apparent reference to a diminished role for the U.S. dollar as the world's primary reserve currency.

The state development banks of the five countries Thursday agreed to open credit lines in their national currencies to each other, the latest concrete step by developing nations to reduce their reliance on the U.S. dollar. The framework credit-line agreement was signed by Russia's Vnesheconombank, Brazil's Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social, China Development Bank Corp., Eximbank of India, and the Development Bank of South Africa. However, details and regulations, as well as the projects eligible for such financing are yet to be defined in the framework deal.

China Development Bank plans to issue around CNY10 billion of yuan-denominated loans this year to other BRICS nations, CDB Chairman Chen Yuan said at a news briefing, adding most of these loans will fund oil and gas projects.

CDB is in talks with Brazilian state-owned Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4.BR), or Petrobras, regarding further loans for the oil company, Chen said.

"Both parties expressed interest in continuing cooperation and we are in talks regarding the next step of cooperation," Chen said, without elaborating on the size of potential loans.

China and Brazil reached a $10 billion oil-for-loan deal in 2009, under which Petrobras agreed to supply crude oil to China Petrochemical Corp. for 10 years in exchange for funding from China Development Bank.

Russia's Vnesheconombank is also in talks with CDB to borrow about US$1.5 billion worth of yuan for a currency swap between the two lenders, VEB's Chief Executive Vladimir Dmitriev said on the sidelines of the summit. He added that the BRICS countries are moving towards mutually trading each others' currencies, following Russia's launch of yuan trading in Moscow at the end of 2010.

The BRICS countries also said they welcome current discussions about elevating the role of Special Drawing Rights, a kind of synthetic reserve currency created by the International Monetary Fund, and discussions on changing its composition. Including the Chinese yuan in the basket of currencies that makes up the SDR is a reform currently being considered, although this wasn't specifically referred to in the BRICS countries' statement.

The five countries' leaders--Chinese President Hu Jintao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, South African President Jacob Zuma and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff--on Thursday also discussed expanding the BRICS grouping's membership and agreed they should all support a country before it can join, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Hailong said at a news briefing. Wu reiterated other countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS, but didn't name any countries.

When asked if the leaders discussed the yuan's exchange rate, Wu only said the topic wasn't on the meeting's agenda. Developing countries like Brazil in recent months have begun following developed countries like the U.S. and France in expressing concerns about China's undervalued currency.

The BRICS summit Thursday was the first if its kind to include South Africa. A shared position among the BRICS members on economic issues like how to address commodity price fluctuations could boost their joint heft in talks at the G-20, an increasingly influential forum for global economic policy debate and setting.

South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies on Wednesday said capital inflows from developed countries have fueled a rise in South Africa's currency, the rand, and that the BRICS countries are likely to take their concerns about currencies and global economic instability to the G-20.

The statement Thursday also said nuclear energy "will continue to be an important element in future energy mix of BRICS countries." International cooperation is needed, however, to ensure nuclear energy is developed in strict observance of relevant safety standards.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110414-704029.html

China promises sweeping economic change

China is promising an economic overhaul that would raise the status of consumers and entrepreneurs. But it has given no sign how it will tackle its politically volatile reforms.

Premier Wen Jiabao says Beijing wants to nurture self-sustaining growth driven by consumption and service industries. He made the comments in a weekend speech outlining this year's goals.

Achieving those goals will require cutting subsidies for state companies and other changes that might trigger a backlash within the Communist Party.

The changes could drive China's evolution from low-cost factory into a major consumer market. That might help to narrow a yawning wealth gap and ease tensions over China's trade surplus by boosting consumer demand for imports.

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http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9LPK5KO0.htm

Canada Hit by Cyberattack From China

OTTAWA — A federal cabinet minister said Thursday that hackers, perhaps from China, compromised computers in two Canadian government departments in early January, leaving bureaucrats with little or no Internet access for nearly two months.

The minister, Stockwell Day, the president of the Treasury Board, told reporters that hackers had infiltrated computers in his department, which supervises the bureaucracy and government operations, as well as in the Department of Finance, which is responsible for the government’s budget and fiscal policy.

“Every indication we have at this point is that our sensors and our cyberprotection systems got the alerts out in time, that the information doors were slammed shut,” Mr. Day said.

He added that the attack, the latest in a series of confirmed assaults on government computer systems, was more directly focused than were previous strikes against Canada.

“It was a significant one — significant that they were going after financial records,” he said.

After the attack was discovered in early January, the government largely isolated computers in the two departments from the Internet. The computers have, for the most part, remained disconnected while security officials searched individual computers for evidence in case of a criminal investigation and to remove the compromising software.

While the attack was not confirmed until late Wednesday, shortly before a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation report about it, signs that something was wrong have been evident for some time. For the past six weeks, thousands of public servants employed by the two departments have either been staying home to use Internet connections or slipping out of their offices to use wireless Internet connections at nearby cafes.

The employees were not told why they had been returned to the pre-Internet age, creating what one Treasury Board employee earlier called a “weird” situation in which it was difficult to complete work.

There are concerns that the hackers may have gained advance knowledge of the federal budget, to be released next month. Because Canadian budgets are generally not amended after being presented to Parliament, they are prepared in great secrecy to prevent advance knowledge of their contents from being used for financial gain.

Vic Toews, the minister of public safety, said in an e-mail that “we have no indication that budget security has been compromised.”

Mr. Toews and other officials have declined to publicly outline the nature of the attack. But a government computer specialist who was briefed about the attack confirmed the CBC’s report on the condition that he not be identified because of the government’s policy of not discussing computer security issues.

According to the CBC and other Canadian news organizations, the attackers adopted the same approach as the one used by a China-based computer espionage ring that stole information from the Indian Defense Ministry. That gang was exposed last year by a team of researchers from the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

The hackers used a technique that is sometimes known as “executive spear phishing.” First they took control of computers used by senior officials in the affected departments. Once inside, the hackers generated messages that appeared to be from those officials to the departments’ information technology section, which provided the hackers with passwords to various government computer systems.

At the same time, other employees in the departments received e-mails that falsely appeared to come from the senior officials that included Adobe PDF attachments. Once opened, those attachments started hidden programs that hunted for information on the government network to send back to the hackers.

While security scanning software is supposed to catch and block destructive software hidden in attachments, the hackers either developed programs that were unknown to software security companies or found a novel method of hiding their unwanted computer code.

The Canadian news reports said that the government had traced the hackers to an Internet address in China.

Rafal A. Rohozinski, one of the Munk School researchers who documented the earlier Chinese attack, said it should be possible for the Canadian government to determine if the attack originated in China or if the hackers had merely disguised their location by using Chinese servers.

Nevertheless, Mr. Rohozinski said that China was the most likely source of the attack, although that did not necessarily indicate that it was a government-sanctioned action.

“There are more people online in China than anywhere else,” he said. “Most of them are young, so you see a lot of digital promiscuity coming from China.”

Ma Zhaoxu, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, rejected suggestions of a link to China, Reuters reported. “What you mentioned is purely fictitious and has an ulterior motive,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rohozinski was skeptical that Canadian government investigators could demonstrate that no information was stolen from the systems. The government adopted a new computer security plan last fall, but he said that very little of the plan had been put in effect, leaving security largely uncoordinated and varying in quality from department to department.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/world/americas/18canada.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Japan eclipsed by China as world's second economy

TOKYO — Japan surrendered its 42-year ranking as the world's second-biggest economy to China in 2010, after data Monday showed a fourth-quarter contraction caused by weaker consumer spending and a strong yen.

While Japan was expected to fall behind a surging China in the year, the data underlined the weak state of a Japanese economy burdened by deflation, soft domestic demand and pressured by the industrialised world's biggest debt.

"It is difficult for the deflation-plagued Japanese economy to achieve self-sustained growth," said Naoki Murakami, chief economist at Monex Securities.

While China's leap forward reflects a shift in economic power as the country transforms itself from poverty-hit communist state to global heavyweight, it highlights the need for Japan to re-energise its economy, analysts said.

Its post-war "economic miracle" put it at number two behind the United States for 42 years, but stagnation after its property bubble burst in the 1990s helped put booming China on course to supplant it this year.

However, Japan remains around 10 times richer on a per-capita basis, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Japan's real gross domestic product slipped by an annualised 1.1 percent in the October-December quarter as the expiration of auto subsidies hit car sales, a new tobacco tax sapped cigarette demand and a strong yen hurt exports.

While the first contraction in five quarters was not as severe as analyst expectations of a 2.4 percent slide, according to a Dow Jones Newswires poll of economists, Japanese GDP data is subject to constant revision.

The economy grew 3.9 percent in 2010, government data showed -- its first annual growth in three years. But this was not enough to keep it ahead of surging China.

Nominal GDP of $5.474 trillion in 2010 put it behind China's $5.879 trillion, the data showed.

Despite Japan crawling out of a severe year-long recession in 2009, its recovery remains fragile with deflation, high public debt, weak domestic demand and a strong yen all concerns for policymakers.

Last month Standard & Poor's cut Japan's credit rating one notch to "AA-" from "AA", saying the government lacked a "coherent strategy" to ease a debt running near 200 percent of GDP, the highest of any developed nation.

Nearly a third of government spending is being swallowed up by a social security system catering to a rapidly greying society, Standard & Poor's warned, with that ratio set to rise without reforms as Japan continues to age.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan's centre-left government has prioritised social security reform and a tax system overhaul, but has seen his approval ratings tumble and the opposition has so far refused to begin talks on the issue.

Private consumption, accounting for about 60 percent of Japan's GDP, slid by 0.7 percent on-quarter in Oct-Dec as subsidies for green car purchases expired and as cigarette sales were dented by Japan's biggest ever tobacco tax hike.

Exports slipped in the quarter as the Japanese yen surged to 15-year highs against the dollar, making Japanese goods more expensive overseas and eroding repatriated profits.

But many analysts expect the economy to rebound in the January-March quarter as the rising tide of global recovery lifts Japan, amid a recent pick up in corporate spending and exports.

"The contraction will not last long," said Murakami. "Companies' manufacturing activities are recovering rapidly in January-March this year from their bottom in October 2010."

The government said Japan's economy would be helped by recovery elsewhere and could reap the benefits of its huge neighbour China, the world's number-one export market.

"We welcome, as a neighboring nation, that China's economy is advancing rapidly," said Kaoru Yosano, minister for fiscal policy.


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China, U.S. eager to put a happy face on relations

Reporting from Beijing —

The rhetoric in advance of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington that begins Tuesday sounds like an endless loop of the Communist Party's favorite buzzwords: Stability. Harmony. Cooperation.

It speaks to the image that Beijing wants to project to Americans — that of a benign giant whose rise will only benefit its neighbors and trading partners. But it's also a matter of self-interest. Selling that image abroad is key to ensuring that China can keep its economy booming at a time when its growth is alarming large parts of the world.

The White House is answering smiles with smiles: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke all made major speeches last week on the importance of U.S.-Chinese cooperation while Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was doing much the same in Beijing.

"You can't find another instance where you have all these different Cabinet-level officials giving speeches before a leader arrives in country," said Kenneth Lieberthal of the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-hu-20110118,0,5131382.story

Chinese inflation spikes on food costs

NEW YORK -- Higher food prices continue to be the main driver of inflation in China, raising the likelihood of an imminent interest rate hike as the country tries to reel in its red-hot economy.

Consumer prices rose 5.1% for the 12 months ended Nov. 30, according to government data released early Saturday in China. That comes on the heels of a 4.4% jump in October. And once again, a surge in food costs is the culprit. Food prices rose 11.7% during the period.

Excluding food prices, China's CPI edged up only 1.9%.

Compare that with the United States, where the CPI has been sluggish for months. In October, the U.S. CPI increased a modest 1.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Excluding the volatility of food prices, the U.S. CPI rose 0.6%.

The U.S. trade balance narrowed to a more-than-expected $38.7 billion, bringing the U.S. trade deficit to a 9-month low.

China tries to stave off inflation

But China is a different story.

China said its trade surplus narrowed to $22.9 billion in November -- a 16% decrease over October's $27.2 billion surplus. China's exports jumped 34.9%, while the country's imports rose 37.7%.

Fears of runaway inflation have led to rising speculation that the People's Bank of China will move to raise interest rates as early as this weekend.
0:00 /6:50The myth of China's building boom

Just one week ago, China said it would be more "prudent" about its monetary policy in 2011. And on Friday, the People's Bank of China raised the reserve requirement ratio for its banks by a half-percentage point for the third time in a month.

Month by month: CPI rose 1.1% in November, on a monthly basis. The increase was largely due to higher food prices. Meanwhile, core CPI was up a more modest 0.6%.

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http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/10/news/international/china_cpi_inflation/

Nobel Peace Prize win gives some Chinese hope

Pro-democracy lawmakers Emily Lau, second from left, Lee Cheuk Yan, center, and Albert Ho, second from right, show their support for Liu Xiaobo on Wednesday in Hong Kong.

BEIJING — Chinese democracy activists say the Communist Party's campaign to discredit the Nobel Peace Prize award to a Chinese dissident is proving to the world why Liu Xiaobo deserves the accolade.

Beijing's efforts to stop nations from attending Friday's award ceremony are "stupid and harm China's image," Beijing legal scholar Xu Zhiyong said Wednesday.

"The Chinese people have won a prize," said Xu, a supporter of Liu. "Over the long term, this Nobel will push freedom and democracy in China."

Liu, 54, is serving an 11-year sentence for inciting subversion of state power. His crime was to be a founder of Charter 08, a statement that says it is wrong for a government to deny its citizens election of public officials and freedom of religion and expression. Liu was convicted Christmas Day 2009 after a two-hour trial.

In awarding him the peace prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said Liu was being recognized for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" despite severe punishment for doing so against him and his family.

China will not allow Liu or any of his family members to leave the country to accept the prize and its $1.4 million award in Oslo. His wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest since the award was announced Oct. 8.

The Nobel Committee will only present the award to the laureate or close family members. In 1975, 1983 and 1991, family members collected the Nobel for winning Soviet, Polish and Burmese dissidents. Beijing's clampdown means this year's could be the first ceremony to lack a presentation since 1935, when Nazi Germany barred the pacifist Carl von Ossietzky from attending.

Other no-shows include envoys from 18 nations who appear to have bowed to Beijing's vigorous campaign for a boycott of the ceremony. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu claimed a "large majority" of nations would skip the event.

The Nobel Committee says at least 44 nations would attend.

Those boycotting include Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco.

Some of the boycotters share China's intolerance of dissent, but all have growing economic ties with China that some say they are afraid to jeopardize.

"China has been arm-twisting behind the scenes to stop governments from attending the Nobel Prize ceremony, using a combination of political pressure and economic blackmail," Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director for human rights group Amnesty International, said Tuesday.

The Philippines is a democracy, but Manila is nervous of angering Beijing, says Ellen Palanca, China studies director at Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City.

"The economic relationship with China is increasingly important to the Philippines," she said. Following the deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists during a botched hostage rescue in August, "the Philippines has to do more to show that it is a friend of China. The hostage crisis did a lot of damage."

A long-time U.S. ally and military aid recipient, the Philippines is also pursuing closer military links with China. This week, its armed forces chief of staff is visiting China to build goodwill, the Manila Standard Today newspaper reported.

China has also invented its own peace prize that it intends to award today. The Confucius Peace Prize will be awarded by a group with links to China's Ministry of Culture.

Meanwhile, Beijing has kept up its barrage of outrage at Liu's award.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang, whose office has called the Nobel prize an "obscenity" for honoring a convicted criminal, promised that China would not change because of "interference by a few clowns."

China's reaction shows why the Nobel should be awarded to Liu, human rights activists say.

For example, none of the travel restrictions placed on Liu's family are legal under Chinese laws, said Wang Songlian, research coordinator for the rights group China Human Rights Defenders.

"The government is making a fool of itself by showing the international community that all its talk about legal reform and human rights is merely talk — in practice they do not respect the law," she said.

The crackdown also reflects the government's response to a wider "yearning for justice and equality in China," Wang said. Although most Chinese have not heard of Liu, many people are restless and hungry for the moral ideals he represents, she said.

"At the moment they have no outlet, but the government fears that if the people get to hear about the ideals put forward by Liu and other dissidents, it could mean the end of the dictatorship," Wang said.

"That's why the government is very afraid of Liu Xiaobo."


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http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-12-09-chinanobel09_ST_N.htm

China Criticizes Joint Military Drills as Obstacle to Easing Korea Tension

China criticized planned military exercises by more than 40,000 Japanese and U.S. troops as an obstacle to easing tensions on the Korean peninsula, and reiterated its call for increased diplomatic efforts.

“Brandishing of force cannot solve the issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular briefing in Beijing today. “Some are playing with knives and guns while China is criticized for calling for dialogue, is that fair?”

The maneuvers are the latest show of deterrence following North Korea’s Nov. 23 shelling of a South Korean island that killed four people. Japan and the U.S. joined South Korea in condemning the attack, rejecting China’s call for talks and urging the government in Beijing to rein in its ally.

South Korea will send military observers to the drills for the first time, in a signal that North Korea’s provocations are tightening U.S. military and political alliances in the region.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said South Korea’s participation was “an important point from the perspective of promoting cooperation among the three countries.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will host Japan’s Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and South Korean counterpart Kim Sung Hwan on Dec. 6 to discuss regional security.

The week-long exercise beginning tomorrow has no link to any “existing or perceived political or geographical situation, nor is it directed at any nation,” U.S. Lt. Colonel Kenneth Hoffman, an Air Force spokesman, said in an e-mailed message.

George Washington

Fresh from maneuvers in the Yellow Sea with South Korea’s navy, the aircraft carrier USS George Washington will join a force of about 400 aircraft and 60 warships. Drills will include responding to ballistic missile attacks on Pacific islands, the Joint Staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces said in a statement.

China’s ties with North Korea “have witnessed significant progress this year,” Wu Bangguo, a member of the standing committee of China’s Politburo, said yesterday, according to a statement on the website of the Communist Party. Wu pledged to strengthen those links in his third meeting this year with Choe Tae Bok, a key aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

China has “much influence and therefore much responsibility,” Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a forum of the Center for American Progress in Washington yesterday. “We need China to step up.”

Stalled Negotiations

Chinese opposition has stalled United Nations Security Council negotiations condemning the shelling and North Korea’s expanding nuclear program.

Wang Jiarui, the head of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department, which helps carry out the country’s policy toward North Korea, yesterday met Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg in Washington, Xinhua News Agency reported.

North Korea last week confirmed it has a uranium-enrichment facility with thousands of centrifuges, which it said was intended for civilian use. The country is under UN sanctions because of previous atomic tests and concerns it is developing nuclear weapons.

South Korean National Intelligence Director Won Sei-hoon yesterday told lawmakers that North Korea may be planning another attack, Yonhap News reported.

Artillery Drills

South Korea’s military may carry out further artillery drills next week similar to those that sparked the North Korean shelling, according to Yonhap News, which cited government officials it didn’t identify. An official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff and another at the Defense Ministry said today that no decision has been made. Both requested anonymity, citing government policy.

The North said the shelling was a response to “military provocation” after the South fired into waters that it claims as its own. Two soldiers and two civilians died in the barrage, which shattered the windows in a school and torched houses in the fishing community and military base.

North Korea’s state-run news service said the government urged the South to call off exercises in the area and warned of a military response to infringement of its “inviolable territorial” waters. The North doesn’t recognize the maritime border laid out after the 1950-53 Korean War.

China on Nov. 28 proposed “emergency consultations” with negotiators from the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the U.S. to defuse tensions. Negotiations among the six countries aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear program have been stalled since April 2009.

“The talks we’re proposing aren’t a formal meeting, so this shouldn’t be difficult for anyone,” Yu said, adding that Russia supported the proposal. “Only when dialogue begins can there be the possibility of solving problems.”

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/japan-u-s-to-start-week-long-joint-military-drills-amid-korea-tensions.html

Russia Backs China’s Call for Six-Party Talks on North Korea

Russia supports China’s proposal to hold six-nation talks on military tensions stemming from North Korea’s Nov. 23 artillery attack on a South Korean island, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations said.

“We think that if everybody could come to those talks, they could be useful,” Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said in an interview today. “We sort of view this initiative as a positive one.”

China proposed on Nov. 28 that “emergency” talks to address the increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula be held early next month in Beijing. They would involve China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, North Korea and the U.S., a group that met several times, starting in 2003, to discuss North Korea’s nuclear program until the government in Pyongyang pulled out of the talks in April 2009.

The U.S., Japan and South Korea haven’t agreed to China’s proposal, saying they want to see more concrete action by North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program before restarting the talks.

Japan’s bid to bring the issue to the UN Security Council has run into resistance from China.

“We are trying our best,” Ambassador Tsuneo Nishida of Japan told reporters at the UN. “We have been really trying to form a consensus in the Security Council. You have noticed that the Security Council has not yet been in a position to do that.”

The U.S. and Japan, which has a seat on the Security Council until Dec. 31, have been holding bilateral talks with China, Russia and other panel members. The U.S. and Japan haven’t formally proposed action by the Security Council.

Russian Suggestion

Churkin suggested that Russia also would be open to Security Council involvement in the issue.

“It could be discussed in the Security Council,” Churkin said. “No one has brought it up.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed similar willingness to back a Security Council position on the artillery attack during a Nov. 25 news conference in Moscow.

“I hope that soon the Security Council will express its opinion, which will help calm the situation,” Lavrov said, according to a transcript provided by the Foreign Ministry.

China, while not openly rejecting the call for Security Council involvement, is pushing hard for the six-party format.

Yang Tao, political director of China’s mission to the UN, called the six-party talks “one of the most useful platforms” and said it had “some success” dealing with the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program.

“It is very important for this platform to play its dual role,” Yang said in an interview.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-30/russia-backs-china-s-call-for-six-party-talks-on-north-korea.html

UN condemns Burma's human rights and 'unfair' elections

A UN human rights committee has condemned Burma's recent elections, saying they were neither free nor fair.

The committee said it "deeply regretted" that the ruling junta had not taken steps to ensure the process was "transparent and inclusive".

But China defended Burma, saying "finger pointing" would not advance human rights in the country.

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest came too late for her to take part in the election.

She had urged her supporters to boycott the polls but has since said she is willing to meet the country's leader, Senior General Than Shwe, to work towards national reconciliation.

The UN committee welcomed her release and called on the junta to take up her offer of talks on moving towards democracy.

The resolution - sponsored by the EU, US and other Western nations - also strongly condemned the "ongoing systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms" in Burma.

It expressed "grave concern at the continuing practice of arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".
'No moral authority'

The resolution was backed by 96 nations but 28, including China and Russia, voted against it.

China's representative said the motion failed to reflect advances made in Burma and that "finger pointing does not protect human rights," the AFP news agency reports.

Burma's ambassador to the UN, Than Shwe, rejected the criticism and said the resolution had "no moral authority", the Associated Press reports.

The elections on 7 November - the first to be held in Burma in 20 years - were won by the biggest military-backed party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Six days later, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. Her now-disbanded National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last election in 1990, but was never allowed to take power.

She has urged her followers not to give up hoping for change and has also said she is willing to talk to Western nations about lifting sanctions on Burma, which she previously supported.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke to Aung San Suu Kyi earlier on Thursday, telling her she was "a source of inspiration for millions of people around the world".

In a statement, Mr Ban's office said he had reiterated the UN's commitment to "uphold the cause of human rights and support all efforts by the government, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all other stakeholders to build a united, peaceful, democratic and modern future for their country".

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11793615