China tightens restrictions on Chen family
May 11, 2012 Authorities in the hometown of activist Chen Guangcheng have notched up restrictions on members of his extended family
while he awaits permission in Beijing to travel abroad under an agreement between China and the U.S.
Chen Guangcheng's brother and sister-in-law have been placed under house arrest, his nephew is in police detention,
and several other relatives face some form of restriction on their movements in their village in Shandong province, according to Chen, his lawyers and a rights group.
Chen's flight from abusive house arrest in Shandong and into the protection of U.S. diplomats — which led to an agreement with Beijing to let him study in the U.S. accompanied by his wife and children
has exposed the impunity of local officials and embarrassed the central government.
"I feel that Shandong's retribution against me has already started," Chen said in an interview Thursday from a hospital where he is being treated for injuries suffered during his dramatic escape from his guarded farm house.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday the U.S. made inquiries with China and "expressed our concern should there be any sense of reprisal."
Chen's nephew, Chen Kegui, is believed to have been detained in relation to a clash with officials who reportedly broke into his home after the activist's escape in late April.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/worl...s-activist-chen-family/54896162/1
No progress on Chen passport application
May 11, 2012 When he left the US embassy China promised him he could apply to study abroad.
But over a week later Mr Chen said there is no movement. He is confined in a hospital under Chinese guard.
Chinese officials visited him but there had been no forms to fill in and no photograph had been taken.
He was offered a place to study law at New York University and the US formalities appear to have been completed.
No US diplomats have visited him recently.
China is taking "crazy revenge" on his home village.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18031744
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Last edited by CJ on Wed May 16, 2012 5:59 am; edited 2 times in total
China's sovereign wealth fund has stopped buying European government debt due to worries about turmoil in the euro zone, China Investment Corp. President Gao Xiquing said Thursday, according to Bloomberg.
"What is happening in Europe right now is of course of concern," Gao said in an interview in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Bloomberg reported.
We still have our people looking at opportunities in Europe, even though we don't want to buy any government bonds," he said.
Gao said CIC will continue to look for new European investments as it aims to boost allocations to infrastructure, private-equity assets as well as emerging markets, the report said.
Why Is The Obama Administration Allowing The Chinese Government To Buy Up U.S. Oil And Gas Deposits Worth Billions Of Dollars?
If we are trying to become independent of foreign oil, then why is the Obama administration allowing the Chinese government to buy up U.S. oil and gas deposits worth billions of dollars? This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The United States desperately needs to maintain control over its own domestic energy resources so that we can end our addiction to foreign oil. As I have written about previously, the United States actually has plenty of oil. If we would simply use the resources that we already have, we would never have to import a single drop of foreign oil. But instead, we continue to be the largest importer of oil on the planet and we are allowing China to rapidly buy up oil and gas deposits inside the United States. This is fundamentally wrong and it is a serious threat to our national security. But apparently everything is for sale in the United States today, and that includes our precious energy resources. (Read More.....)
http://endoftheamericandream.com/...eposits-worth-billions-of-dollars
Chen Calls US Congress again
15 May 2012 Chen Guangcheng has called the US Congress for a second time, accusing local Chinese authorities of harassing his family in China.
China brought trumped up murder charges against his nephew.
US said visas for Mr Chen and his family to travel to the US were ready.
Chen is waiting for Beijing to let him leave, but no progress had been made in his passport application.
It is unclear when he and his family may be able to travel.
Mr Chen first spoke to US lawmakers over the telephone two weeks ago to plead for help to leave China with his family.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18081976
China home prices drop in most major cities
18 May 2012, by Chris Oliver - Hong Kong (MarketWatch)
Chinese new home prices showed a broadening slowdown in April, with fewer urban centers registering gains, according to official data released Friday.
For the month, 43 cities showed declines in prices compared to March, while 46 cities showed declines on a year-on year basis, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, which tracks 70 cities in its survey.
Three cities saw new home prices higher in April from March, though gains were slight, averaging 0.2%, the data showed.
In March, eight cities had registered month-on-month price gains, the statistics bureau said.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/...p-in-most-major-cities-2012-05-18
Blind Chinese activist Chen at airport with his family waiting to leave for the
United States Saturday. He and his family checked in and are expected to travel on a United flight from Beijing to
Newark NJ Airport. Chen, his wife and 2 children were waiting to clear security, although they had had
not yet seen their own passports.
Chen arrives in New York
May 20, 2012 Chen, 40, who taught himself law, was a leading advocate of the rights defense movement in China.
He gained prominence by campaigning for farmers and disabled citizens and exposing forced abortions.
Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States on Saturday and declared "equality and justice have no boundaries" after China let him leave a Beijing hospital to quell a sensitive diplomatic rift between the two countries.
Chen escaped from house arrest in northeastern China last month and sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, embarrassing China and creating an uncomfortable backdrop for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to improve ties between the world's two biggest economies.
"I am very gratified to see that the Chinese government has been dealing with the situation with restraint and calm and I hope to see that they continue to open discourse and earn the respect and trust of the people," Chen, speaking through a translator, told reporters outside a New York University housing building in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.
Chen, one of China's most prominent dissidents, is going to study as a fellow at the NYU School of Law. Leaning on a crutch because of an injury suffered during his escape, he smiled and waved to a cheering crowd before speaking to reporters.
"I'm very grateful for the assistance of the American Embassy and also (for) receiving a promise from the Chinese government for protection of my rights as a citizen over the long term," he said. "I believe that the promise from the central government is sincere and they are not lying to me."
"I believe that no matter how difficult the environment nothing is impossible as long as you put your heart to it ... I hope everybody works with me to promote justice and fairness in China," he said. "Equality and justice have no boundaries."
http://news.yahoo.com/blind-chine...ivist-arrives-york-001051891.html http://www.latimes.com/news/natio...ent-20120520,0,3543636,full.story
China firm buys AMC to form world's largest cinema chain
21 May 2012
Quote:
(CNN) - China's Dalian Wanda Group and AMC Entertainment announced Monday a $2.6 billion deal to take over the U.S. theater group, forming the world's largest cinema chain, according to a new release on the deal.
The move is the latest in a raft of deals between U.S. entertainment companies and Chinese firms, linking the world's largest theater market with the world's fastest growing.
AMC operates 346 multiplex theaters, largely in North America, with a total of 5,034 screens. Headquarters of AMC, a privately held company, will remain in the Kansas City area and day-to-day operations, including the process for film programming, will remain unchanged, the release said.
The U.S. Treasury Department has granted China's central bank the ability to buy U.S. government debt without going through a primary dealer-so-called direct bidding status, according to a report Monday by Reuters.
The People's Bank of China now has a direct computer link to Treasury's auction system, the report said.
Treasury refused to confirm or deny the report.
"Direct bidding is open to a wide range of investors, but as a matter of general policy we do not comment on individual bidders," said Matt Anderson, a Treasury spokesman.
Which begs the question for some analysts — was China really selling? Or was China stealthily buying direct from the U.S. Treasury (unrecorded) and selling back into Wall Street (recorded)?
Well, according to the Treasury, the Treasury International Capital data seeks to record foreign holdings of U.S. securities, not just the flows, and given that the Treasury was the seller in these direct transactions (and so obviously was aware of them) there’s no reason to believe that they wouldn’t include any such direct outflows in the data. That suggests very strongly that yes, China really was selling.
And maybe the real reason that the Treasury offered China direct access (thus cutting out the middleman and offering China cheaper access than ever) was precisely because China was selling, and because the Treasury was concerned about the effect on rates, and wanted to give China some incentive to keep buying. As Jon Huntsman noted in a 2010 cable leaked by Wikileaks, the PBOC has felt pressured to keep buying, and as various PBOC officials have hinted in recent months, China is actively seeking to convert out of treasuries and into gold. And that makes sense — treasuries are yielding ever deeper negative real rates. People holding treasuries are losing their purchasing power. No wonder the treasury is willing to cut Wall Street out of the deal.
And it isn’t like the Treasury would have taken this move lightly — cutting Wall Street out of the equation is a slap in the face to Wall Street.
The Chinese Schrodinger conundrum, in which two different distinct PMI indicators continue to paint opposite pictures of the economy, as explained first here, continues.
Moments ago, the HSBC Flash PMI posted a decline from 49.3 in April to 48.7.
This is the 7th consecutive month in which the economy is in a contraction according to HSBC, and 10th of the last 11.
Needless to say, this is only half of the story, and we expect that the official Chinese PMI index will post another increase well into expansionary territory as the random number generator known as China_Economy.xls spews fresh gibberish every time F9 is hit.
In the meantime, the spin has already begun, worse is better, and futures are higher simply because the expectation is that another perfectly futile RRR hike (which does virtually nothing for real cash circulating in the economy) will follow suit.
China Warns Australia - Choose Between us or the United States
5/22/12
It is rare in diplomatic circles for governments to speak bluntly, particularly in the Orient, where manners are highly prized.
The exceptions to this rule are retired military officers, who are often able to voice sentiments too impolitic for other channels.
One of the more startling pronouncements in this vein occurred last week when Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People's Liberation Army, warned that Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and "Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later. Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is to be the 'son' of the US or 'son' of China. (It) depends on who is more powerful, and based on the strategic environment." Noting the rising importance of China as an export market Song added that Australia depended on exporting iron ore to China "to feed itself," but "Frankly, it has not done well politically."
What is also notable about Song’s remarks is that they coincided with Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr's first official visit to China, where Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi urged Australia to dismiss its alliance with the United States, a decades-old bipartisan and central pillar of the nation’s foreign policy, as ''the time for Cold War alliances has passed.''
Full article at: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy...Choose-Godfather-China-or-US.html
Credit Suisse joined others Wednesday in predicting that China's commodity-demand peak has passed, saying the nation will no longer serve as a driver in the global commodity supercycle.
It said demand for commodities is set to trend lower as China's growth rate cools and its economic focus switches to consumerism.
Among factors weighing negatively, Credit Suisse cited the end of the infrastructure-building frenzy, a housing market boom that now appears to be in its twilight stage, and the dying out of what it said was the "golden age" of government stimulus to help drive growth.
"We see China's trending growth pace as likely to slow to 7%-8% over the coming decade, while the driver of growth is likely to shift to consumption, which demands less commodities," Credit Suisse analysts said Wednesday.
The analysis furthers views from a Credit Suisse report in March highlighting a structural decline in China's commodity demand.
The following are 45 signs that China is colonizing America....
#1 It was recently announced that China’s Dalian Wanda Group has bought U.S. movie theater chain AMC Entertainment for a whopping 2.6 billion dollars. This deal represents China's biggest corporate takeover of a U.S. firm ever.
#2 Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve announced that it has given approval for banks owned by the Chinese government to buy stakes in U.S.-owned banks.
#3 A few days ago Reuters reported that China is now able to completely bypass Wall Street and purchase U.S. debt directly from the U.S. Treasury Department.
#4 A recent investigation by the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services found more than one million counterfeit Chinese parts in the Department of Defense supply chain. How in the world could we be so stupid?
#5 After being bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, General Motors is currently involved in 11 joint ventures with companies owned by the Chinese government. The price for entering into many of these "joint ventures" was a transfer of "state of the art technology" from General Motors to the communist Chinese.
#6 A Chinese company known as "Sino-Michigan Properties LLC" has purchased 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan. The goal is to build a "China City" with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens.
#7 As I reported on recently, corporations controlled by the Chinese government have been rapidly buying up U.S. oil and gas deposits worth billions of dollars.
#8 Chinese investors have been gobbling up real estate all over New York City. The following is from a recent Forbes article....
According to a recent report in the New York Times, investors from China are “snapping up luxury apartments” and are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on commercial and residential projects like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Chinese companies also have signed major leases at the Empire State Building and at 1 World Trade Center, the report said.
#9 The Chinese are also doing huge real estate deals in cities in the middle part of the country. The following example is from an article in the Toledo Blade....
Dashing Pacific Group Ltd., which has already purchased the nearby Docks restaurant complex for $2.15 million, put its $3.8 million offer to buy the southern 69 acres at the Marina District in East Toledo back on the table for approval by Toledo City Council. Additionally, Dashing Pacific Chairman Yuan Xiaohong, in a letter signed in Hangzhou, said the firm wants a two-year option to buy the decommissioned Toledo Edison power plant property on the site.
#10 According to ABC News, major road and bridge projects all over the United States are being built by Chinese companies. Meanwhile, there are millions upon millions of blue collar American workers that cannot find jobs. The following is a brief excerpt from a recent ABC News article....
In New York there is a $400 million renovation project on the Alexander Hamilton Bridge.
In California, there is a $7.2 billion project to rebuild the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland.
In Alaska, there is a proposal for a $190 million bridge project.
These projects sound like steps in the right direction, but much of the work is going to Chinese government-owned firms.
"When we subsidize jobs in China, we're not creating any wealth in the United States," said Scott Paul, executive director for the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
#11 The new World Trade Center tower is going to include glass that has been imported from China.
#12 The new Martin Luther King memorial on the National Mall was made in China.
#13 Check out this incredible photo which contrasts the decline of Detroit over the years with the amazing rise of Shanghai, China.
#14 A couple of years ago, a large Chinese company was considering building "a 10,000- to 30,000-acre technology zone for industry, retail centers and homes" just south of Boise, Idaho.
#15 Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5 billion. That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the planet.
#16 In 2011, our trade deficit with China was 28 times larger than it was back in 1990 and more than 49,000 times larger than it was back in 1985.
#17 Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Today, China's high-tech exports are more than twice the size of U.S. high-tech exports.
#18 America has lost more than a quarter of all of its high-tech manufacturing jobs over the past ten years.
#19 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.
#20 The U.S. spends about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States. Does that sound like "fair trade" to you?
#21 While we allow Chinese goods to freely flood our shores, China just keeps slapping new tariffs on American-made goods. According to the New York Times, a Jeep Grand Cherokee that costs $27,490 in the United States costs about $85,000 in China thanks to all the tariffs.
#22 According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities a day closed down in the United States during 2010.
#23 The United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month and more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been shut down since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
#24 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#25 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.
#26 In 2010, China produced more than twice as many automobiles as the United States did.
#27 In 2010, China produced 627 million metric tons of steel. The United States only produced 80 million metric tons of steel.
#28 In 2010, China produced 7.3 million metric tons of cotton. The United States only produced 3.4 million metric tons of cotton.
#29 Today, China produces nearly twice as much beer as the United States does.
#30 85 percent of all artificial Christmas trees are made in China.
#31 China is now the number one producer of wind and solar power on the entire globe.
#32 Chinese solar panel production was about 50 times larger in 2010 than it was in 2005.
#33 Right now, China is producing more than three times as much coal as the United States does.
#34 China is now the number one supplier of components that are critical to the operation of U.S. defense systems.
#35 According to author Clyde Prestowitz, China's number one export to the U.S. is computer equipment. According to an article in U.S. News & World Report, during 2010 the number one U.S. export to China was "scrap and trash".
#36 According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades.
#37 The United States had been the leading consumer of energy on the globe for about 100 years, but during the summer of 2010 China took over the number one spot.
#38 15 years ago, China was 14th in the world in published scientific research articles. But now, China is expected to pass the United States and become number one very shortly.
#39 China now awards more doctoral degrees in engineering each year than the United States does.
#40 China now possesses the fastest supercomputer on the entire planet.
#41 China now has the world's fastest train and the world's most extensive high-speed rail network.
#42 The Chinese economy has grown 7 times faster than the U.S. economy has over the past decade.
#43 The Chinese economy is projected to be larger than the U.S. economy by 2016.
#44 One economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.
#45 China now holds approximately 1.17 trillion dollars of U.S. government debt. If you were alive back when Jesus was born and you had spent a million dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent that much money by now.
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