The Agonist - Asia: South-East

China condemns US trade action

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:51:55 -0800

Beijing | November 6

Al Jazeera - China has described as protectionist new US anti-dumping duties on steel pipes and demanded Washington's recognition that it is a market economy.

The reaction came a day after the US imposed preliminary anti-dumping duties ranging up to 99 per cent on $2.63bn in Chinese-made pipes used in the oil and gas industry.

The Chinese commerce department issued its preliminary decision on Friday, a week before Barack Obama, the US president, heads to Asia on a trip that includes stops in Shanghai and Beijing.

"China resolutely opposes the abuse of protectionist measures, and will take measures to protect the interests of our domestic industry," the ministry said on its website.

Scant details on reaction to U.S. envoys' Burma visit

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:07:20 -0800

Tim Johnston | Bangkok | November 6

WaPo - After a rare trip by high-level U.S. diplomats to Burma, there was little indication from either nation Thursday about how the Obama administration's overture of engagment had been received.

Burmese state media merely noted that Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Kurt Campbell and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scot Marciel met with Prime Minister Thein Sein during the visit on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The pair are the highest-level U.S. officials to visit Burma, also known as Myanmar, in 14 years. Marciel declined to say how the government, the opposition or Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader they also met with, received their visit.

"The main purpose of the visit was to explain to the key parties there -- the government, political parties, the opposition, ethnic minorities -- the context of our recently completed policy review, but also to hear from them their views and their ideas," Marciel told a seminar on his return to Thailand.

The policy review left U.S. sanctions in place while promoting engagement with the prospect that progress toward democratic principles would be rewarded.

China plans for humanoid Olympics

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:28:31 -0800

Nov 6

BBC -
China is planning to hold a robot Olympics in 2010.

The international event will be held in the city of Harbin and will see robots take part in 16 different events.

Robots will be able to compete in familiar Olympic sports such as athletics as well as those more suited to machines such as cleaning.

Entry to the competition will be restricted to robots resembling humans. They must possess two arms and legs. Wheels are banned.

The organisers of the games expect from more than 100 universities from around the world to send competitors to the event.

Cambodia appoints Thailand's Thaksin as economic adviser

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:24:01 -0800

Phnom Penh | Nov 4

AFP - Cambodia said on Wednesday it had appointed fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra economic adviser to premier Hun Sen in a move that adds to tensions between the countries.

The appointment was announced on state television almost two weeks after Hun Sen first riled Thailand by offering safe haven to Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006 and is living abroad to avoid a jail term for corruption.

"Thaksin has already been appointed by royal decree... as personal adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and the adviser to the Cambodian government in charge of economy," said a government statement read on television.

"Allowing Thaksin to stay in Cambodia is virtuous behaviour...good friends need to help each other in difficult circumstances," it added.

The statement went on to call charges against Thaksin "politically motivated" and vowed not to extradite him if he "decides to stay in Cambodia or travels in and out of Cambodia in order to fulfill his duties".

WOW

Two senior US officials have begun a fact-finding visit to Burma.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:46:58 -0800

Nov 3

BBC - Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and deputy Scot Marciel hope to hold talks with the ruling junta and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr Campbell, the top US diplomat for East Asia, is the highest ranking US official to visit Burma since 1995.

The visit is being seen as the latest move by President Barack Obama's administration to find ways to engage with the military regime.

The US diplomats are unlikely to see the reclusive chief of the junta, Than Shwe, but will instead meet Prime Minister Thein Sein in the remote jungle capital of Naypyidaw on Tuesday, according to Burmese officials.

They will then travel to Rangoon on Wednesday to meet Nobel Peace laureate Ms Suu Kyi, whose house arrest was extended by 18 months this year, provoking international outrage.

Khmer Rouge trial judges accused of bias

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:28:14 -0800

David Boyle | October 31

ABC News (AU)/Radio Australia - The beleaguered Khmer Rouge trials in Cambodia have hit another obstacle.

Two pre-trial judges, including Australian Rowan Downing QC, have been accused of taking instruction from their respective governments in a motion filed last week.

The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia were created to try the leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime, which is accused of killing more than 2 million people in the 1970s.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal has endured considerable controversy in its four years of existence and now many people believe it has become entrenched in its own politics.

The lawyers of accused war criminal, Ieng Sary, have filed a motion requesting that two pre trial judges, including Mr Downing, be removed from the court due to a public perception of bias.

China's military growth the 'minimum requirement', says general

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:36:51 -0700

Washington | Oct 27

AFP - A top Chinese general on Monday defended Beijing's rapid military modernisation, including the development of advanced weapons that threaten US forces in the Pacific, as aimed at meeting its minimum defence requirements.

General Xu Caihou, vice chairman of China's military commission, sought to allay US suspicions over the growing might of the Asian superpower by insisting that Beijing harboured no expansionist ambitions and wanted collaborative international relations.

"We will never seek hegemony, military expansion or an arms race," he told an audience of foreign policy experts at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

But when asked about its development of missiles designed to target US warships in the Pacific, Xu said Western suspicions about China's aims were unfounded.

"It is a limited capability, and limited weapons and equipment for the minimum requirement of its national security," he said, speaking through an interpreter.

Xu, whose position is the rough equivalent to a defence minister, also defended China's double-digit annual increases in defence spending as "quite low" both in real terms and as a percentage of its gross domestic product.

Whereas US defence spending amounts to 4.8 percent of GDP, China's was only 1.4 percent, he said.

The United States has repeatedly urged China to be more transparent about its military spending, warning of a shifting balance of power in the region that could arouse misunderstanding and miscalculation.

M&S makes palm oil pledge to save forests

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:53:09 -0700

Martin Hickman | Oct 24

The Observer - Commitment aimed at halting ecological damage done in South-east Asia

Marks & Spencer will commit to paying more for sustainable palm oil across its entire range of products today in an attempt to limit environmental damage in south-east Asia.

In a rolling programme over the next six years, M&S will buy GreenPalm certificates for sustainably produced palm oil equivalent to the amount it uses in almost 1,000 food, beauty and home products. Like other food manufacturers, M&S pours palm oil, the world's cheapest vegetable fat, into a wide variety of food and household products such as biscuits and convenience foods.

By early next year, the retailer said nine products, including 200g packs of oatcakes, a 500g cookie selection and seven types of cooked potatoes, would be covered by the GreenPalm scheme. By 2015, it promised to buy certificates for all relevant products. M&S, which would not disclose the cost of the commitment, is also funding a 120-acre wildlife corridor between plantations in Borneo.

China opens a new front in Kashmir

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:22:07 -0700

Oct 20

Asia Times - China, by issuing residents from Indian-administered Kashmir visas different from those given to Indians from other parts of the country, is treating the disputed area as a sovereign entity. This is a surprising departure from Beijing's traditional policy of leaving the Kashmir issue to India and Pakistan to resolve. Delhi suspects a hidden agenda.

Showcase: Infernal Landscapes

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:28:38 -0700

New York Times, By David W. Dunlap & James Estrin, October 14

Any effort to describe the photography of Lu Guang by reference to the work of other artists would almost certainly invoke the name of W. Eugene Smith. (It is, for instance, just about impossible to look at Slide 4 without thinking of “Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath.”)

So it seems especially fitting that Mr. Lu, a Chinese freelancer, is the recipient of this year’s $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his project, “Pollution in China.” The announcement was made Wednesday evening in New York by the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.

It is not just Mr. Smith’s work that comes to mind when looking at Mr. Lu’s depiction of the dark social and environmental consequences of China’s modern industrial revolution. There is a bit of Charles Sheeler and Edward Burtynsky. And Hieronymus Bosch.

“Because China’s economy is moving so fast, the pollution is incredibly severe,” he told us Wednesday through a translation by Orville Schell at the Asia Society. “As I became aware of the pollution as China opened up the western area, I felt that people needed to know about this.”

Terrible Scenes of China's Industrial Great Leap Forward.

Adrift On A Russian Island, Part 1

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:22:19 -0700

Oct 15

Asia Times -

ADRIFT ON A RUSSIAN ISLAND, Part 1
Koreans left high and dry

When Sakhalin Island, off Russia's east coast, became a Japanese colony in 1905, thousands of Koreans were brought in to work in the fishery and timber industries. When the Soviet Union regained the island 45 years later, the Koreans became virtual prisoners, and a stormy coexistence began that lasts to this day.

This is the first article in a two-part report.

Quite the history lesson~ tina

map: http://www.treehugger.com/2009/01/25-week/

Money and Mandarin lessons fuel China's African invasion

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:00:11 -0700

Daniel Howden | Oct 15

The Independent - From Liberia to Ethiopia, Beijing is constructing a 21st century empire thousands of miles from home

This afternoon more than a dozen Liberians are expected at the Samuel Doe sports stadium in the capital, Monrovia. In a makeshift classroom with some plastic chairs and a whiteboard their teacher, Li Peng, is waiting to finish the group's second week of instruction in Mandarin Chinese. Early attendances at the free daily lessons provided by the Chinese embassy have been poor, but officials are blaming heavy rain rather than light interest. The class is still struggling with the basics and few Chinese listeners apart from their teacher would recognise the strange "hellos" and "goodbyes" being called out.

"Learning Chinese may prove difficult," Mr Li admitted. "But if they work hard they will make it."

The West African country set up to settle freed American slaves in 1843 is English-speaking and the going is hard.

"Traditionally, we Liberians are closer to the Americans than we are to the Chinese," he says. "But the irony is that the Chinese are more open to us than the Americans are."

Liberia's government has no Mandarin speakers, and China's ambassador, Zhou Yuxiao, admits that he's uncomfortable that multibillion-dollar accords between the two countries are signed with one side unable to read the documents.

"We feel a little bit guilty at not being able to help Liberians to speak our language," he told the Associated Press.

On the same day last week that the Mandarin lessons were getting under way at the stadium in Monrovia, a much larger crowd was gathering about 300 miles to the northwest at another sports stadium, this time in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. The people had gathered to protest against the military junta and a young army officer, Moussa Dadis Camara, who with wearying predictability has been considering going back on earlier promises to hold free elections.

While Liberian students were grappling with Mandarin vowels more than 150 Guineans were being murdered. Scores of women were then raped. The massacre prompted international outrage, and the African Union meets next week to discuss possible sanctions. But it was revealed this week that China was preparing to throw the regime a lifeline in the form of nearly £4.3bn in oil and minerals deals.

It has left many wondering which is the real face of China in Africa: is it the quest for understanding being led by Mr Li in Monrovia? Or the naked pursuit of raw materials whose sale props up abusive governments like the one in Conakry?

China's engagement in Africa was supposed to have changed, experts say. Beijing's doctrine of "non-interference" in the domestic affairs of other countries was put to one side last year as it helped to nudge Sudan, one of its major oil suppliers, into allowing a beefed-up UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur. Then on a visit earlier this year China's president, Hu Jintao, signalled Beijing's intent to double aid to Africa.

According to Ian Taylor, a senior lecturer in international affairs at the University of St Andrews, the apparent contradiction is the product of a "clueless" approach to Beijing – "a tendency to treat China as if it's 'China Inc'."

Speaking from Beijing, he said: "There is no one Chinese policy towards Africa – it is a mixture of often-competing actors and influences that may or may not gel with official policy."

China reportedly detects deadly nerve gas at border with NKorea

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:48:12 -0700

Tokyo | Oct 9

AFP - China has detected deadly nerve gas at its border with North Korea and suspects an accidental release inside the secretive state, a Japanese news report said Friday.

The Chinese military is strengthening its surveillance activities after detecting the highly virulent sarin gas in November last year and in February in Liaoning province, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported, citing anonymous sources from the Chinese military.

Sarin gas, which was developed in Germany before World War I, was used in the deadly 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway by a doomsday cult.

The Chinese special operations forces found 0.015-0.03 microgrammes of the gas per cubic metre when they were conducting regular surveys while there were winds from the direction of North Korea, the report said.

China suspects that there were some experiments or accidents in its neighbouring country, it said.

China, NKorea vow to strengthen friendship

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:23:26 -0700

Seoul | Oct 5

AFP - China and North Korea vowed Monday to strengthen a friendship which they said preserved regional peace, as Premier Wen Jiabao pressed on with a mission to bring Pyongyang back to nuclear disarmament talks.

"History has proven that developing China-North Korea relations is in line with the fundamental interests and common aspirations of the two peoples and conducive to safeguarding regional peace and stability," said a Chinese foreign ministry statement quoting its President Hu Jintao and Wen.

"We are willing to work together with North Korea to... constantly push forward friendly and cooperative relations."

The statement, issued to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations, came on the second day of Wen's high-profile visit to Pyongyang. It made no mention of the North's nuclear programmes.

In the same statement, the North's leader Kim Jong-Il was quoted as calling the bilateral relationship "a common treasure".

Indonesian earthquake: 'They were sucked deep into the earth'

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:10:47 -0700

Kathy Marks | Oct 4

The Independent - Aid workers reach remote areas beyond Padang to find entire villages levelled by last week's disaster

In rural areas of Indonesia, weddings are communal, open-air affairs. Some 400 people attended the nuptials of a couple in Pulau Aiya, a village outside Padang, last Wednesday. Then the ground shook and swallowed everyone up.

"They were sucked 30m deep into the earth," Rustam Pakaya, head of the Indonesian Health Ministry's crisis centre, said yesterday. "Even the mosque's minaret, more than 20m tall, disappeared."

Three days after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake devastated Padang and surrounding areas on the west coast of Sumatra, the full impact of the tragedy is starting to become clear. Whole villages were found obliterated yesterday by rescuers pushing deeper into the disaster zone, where roads remain cut off and survivors – still desperately awaiting aid – are subsisting on coconut milk.

The official death toll from Wednesday's quake stood at 809 last night, but the Indonesian Red Cross believes up to 4,000 people are lying beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings.