CSG news update -- 2006-04-28

[China Study Group <chinastudygroup@gmail.com>]

China Study Group news update

Rebels' arms made in China
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20060427-101338-2606r.htm
Washington Times | 2006-04-28
Daniel Pepper
ALONG THE CHAD-SUDAN BORDER -- Many of the weapons used by Chadian rebels who nearly overthrew the government this month -- from the ubiquitous Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades to more advanced artillery pieces mounted on Toyota Land Cruisers -- come from China, probably indirectly t...

China secures major oil deal in Nigeria
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/world.aspx?ID=BD4A191675
Reuters | 2006-04-28
Tom Ashby
ABUJA - A day after Nigeria signed a deal giving China four oil drilling licences in exchange for a commitment to invest $4bn in infrastructure, President Hu Jintao said in Abuja his country wanted a "strategic partnership" with Africa.  In a speech to Nigerian legislators yesterday Hu said China ...

The perils of picking bad buddies
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=20&art_id=17501&sid=7676206&con_type=1&d_str=20060428&sear_year=2006
Washington Post | 2006-04-28
Gary Bass
In years past, the central government's poor human rights record was only a problem for you if you happened to be Chinese. But as China's power and influence in Asia grow, its hostility toward human rights is becoming a problem for non-Chinese, too.  Propelled mostly by economic opportunis...

Private enterprises have great potential for providing jobs
http://en.ce.cn/Insight/200604/28/t20060428_6848930.shtml
China Economic Net | 2006-04-28
Li Yuyang and Dong Maobin
A trend to get jobs in private enterprises  Liu Ping, thirty-one years old, is taking charge of a non-governmental enterprise. Their company had just bought a small building in Beijing Zhongguancun Headquarter Base when the reporter interviewed him in the Base. When graduating from the university,...

Those Maoists are nothing to do with us, says Beijing
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=17&art_id=17550&sid=7704910&con_type=1&d_str=20060428&sear_year=2006
Reuters | 2006-04-28
China distanced itself from Nepal's self-styled Maoist rebels Thursday, saying the group had no connection with any Chinese person or organization.  China has refused to identify with or provide help to Nepal's Maoists, who take their inspiration and name from late communist leader Mao Zed...

Chinese govt moves to cool economic growth
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/28/content_579180.htm
Xinhua | 2006-04-28
China's economic watchdog is moving to slow economic growth after recording a rise in fixed assets investment of almost 30 percent in the first quarter.  The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has urged local governments to tighten controls on land use and lending to prevent inv...

Are these profits or losses?
http://en.ce.cn/Business/Macro-economic/200604/28/t20060428_6850897.shtml
Beijing Review | 2006-04-28
Feng Jianhua
China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) present a strange dilemma--they are making profits but also draining state assets. This has prompted the National Audit Office to set the examination of SOEs' financial accounts as a key task for this year.  According to a Ministry of Finance report i...

China raises bank lending rate to slow investment
http://en.ce.cn/Industries/Financial-services/200604/28/t20060428_6849319.shtml
China Daily | 2006-04-28
China, the emerging economic powerhouse, raised benchmark bank lending rates for the first times in 18 months on Thursday, prompting sky-high world oil and commodity prices and some major stock markets to take the U-turn.  The People's Bank of China raised one-year lending rates to 5.85 percen...

China seeks "strategic partnership" with Africa
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/04/27/china_seeks_strategic_partnership_with_africa/
Reuters | 2006-04-27
Tom Ashby
ABUJA - China wants a "strategic partnership" with Africa, President Hu Jintao said on Thursday, seeking to add a new political dimension to a blossoming economic romance.  In a speech to Nigerian lawmakers, Hu underlined China's respect for African "independence and sovereignty," which analys...

Chinese Internet Writer Charged with Subversion
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-rights-china.html
Reuters | 2006-04-27
BEIJING - A Chinese Internet writer has been charged with attempting to ``subvert state power'' for backing a movement by exiled dissidents to hold free elections for a new democratic government, his lawyer said on Thursday.  Yang Tianshui, 45, faces up to 15 years in prison for posting es...

China strikes back as modern artists push boundaries
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0427/p01s03-woap.html
Christian Science Monitor | 2006-04-27
Robert Marquand
BEIJING – Chinese modern art has been pushing the borders of the acceptable. But just as limits seemed to fall, the local culture police struck back, albeit politely. Three galleries at the chic Dashanzi art area were told to remove more than 20 paintings in recent weeks, all with political themes...

Asia faces jobs crisis that could hit growth
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/33b345be-d617-11da-8b3a-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2006-04-27
Jo Johnson
Asia is heading towards an employment crisis that could lead to social breakdown and a rapid collapse in growth rates, the Asian Development Bank has warned.  "The outlines of an Asian employment crisis are already taking shape," Ifzal Ali, the ADB's chief economist, said in New Delhi. "Strong...

China grapples with a labor dragon
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HD27Cb06.html
Inter Press Service | 2006-04-26
Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - As China is assailed by a surge of protectionist sentiments in the United States and the European Union - its largest trade partners - it now also faces a multitude of accusations from Western trade-union groups about unfair competition and workers' exploitation.  China was not oblig...

Shattered dreams - how China eats its young
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=20&art_id=17319&sid=7607945&con_type=1&d_str=20060426&sear_year=2006
Washington Post | 2006-04-26
Rebecca MacKinnon
On February 16, Hu Jia, a Chinese AIDS activist, was asked to get in a car with men he didn't recognize. They put a black hood over his head and pushed him down so he couldn't see where he was being taken. Then they locked him in the inner room of a hotel suite and interrogated him for 41 da...

Citigroup caught in Beijing tussle
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HD27Cb05.html
Asia Times | 2006-04-26
Sue Anne Tay
Foreign investors in China's bank sector, especially US bank giant Citigroup, have been confused by the mixed signals Chinese banking regulators have sent regarding caps on foreign investment in domestic banks over the past few weeks.  On April 20, Lai Xiaomin, the deputy general of the China ...

 Chinese paradox: A shallow pool of talent
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/24/news/talent.php
International Herald Tribune | 2006-04-25
David Lague
BEIJING - When Grace Li started a recruiting drive through China's elite universities and technical colleges late last year, she soon turned up about 500 potential employees for her client, a U.S.-based scientific services company.  The company was seeking as many as 150 graduates with basic o...

Globalization's New Underclass
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HD26Dj01.html
Japan Focus | 2006-04-25
Stephen Roach
Billed as the great equalizer between the rich and the poor, globalization has been anything but. An increasingly integrated global economy is facing the strains of widening income disparities - within countries and across countries. This has given rise to a new and rapidly expanding underclass that...

Losing Control?
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20060425-tue.html#anchor0
Morgan Stanley | 2006-04-25
Andy Xie
Summary & Conclusions  China's massive loan growth in 1Q06 has set off alarm bells in many parts of the government, and some tightening measures (e.g., increasing deposit reserve requirements and limiting land supply as in 2004) could be adopted.  However, such measures may not work, in our vi...

China's many messages to quell unrest
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0425/p01s02-woap.html
Christian Science Monitor | 2006-04-25
Robert Marquand 
BEIJING – As Chinese leaders fret over rising peasant protests, political instability, and a decay of traditional values, the Communist Party is experimenting with multiple new messages - designed to capture the hearts and minds of ordinary people.  "It is a very intelligent strategy," says a We...

Waging war on the boss
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=15&art_id=17176&sid=7553330&con_type=1&d_str=20060424&sear_year=2006
The Standard | 2006-04-24
The Guangdong government is taking some "iron-fist" measures to crack down on sweatshop working conditions in manufacturing factories.  If successful, the move together with the chronic labor shortage, will inevitably force the Pearl River Delta economy, which has largely been built on sweatshop f...

Chinese flee backlash from Pacific cold war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1759959,00.html
The Guardian | 2006-04-24
Brian Whitaker
Australia and New Zealand sent more troops to the troubled Solomon Islands yesterday as Chinese residents continued to flee violence sparked by claims of electoral corruption.  The former British protectorate, with a population of little more than 500,000, was the scene of riots and looting last w...

Pollution fuels protests and riots, says environment boss
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=5&art_id=17058&sid=7588930&con_type=1&d_str=20060421&sear_year=2006
Reuters | 2006-04-21
China's environment chief has made a rare official admission that serious water and air pollution is fueling social tensions, protests and riots.  "The environment has become a focal issue that triggers social contradictions," Thursday's edition of the Beijing News quoted Zhou Shengxian, h...