1. Reuters: Kerry to visit China, South Korea, Indonesia and Abu Dhabi
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will begin a trip this week to China, South Korea, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, the State Department said on Sunday, at a time of high tensions in Asia over China's increasingly assertive territorial claims. The trip, which runs from Thursday to February 18, will be Kerry's fifth visit to Asia since he became secretary of state just over a year ago, and comes before a planned visit by President Barack Obama in April to promote a strategic U.S. "
pivot" to the region announced in 2011. Kerry will visit Seoul, Beijing, Jakarta and Abu Dhabi "
to meet with senior government officials and address a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. In Beijing and Seoul, Kerry's talks are expected to focus on an air defense zone China declared last year covering territory also claimed by South Korea and Japan, including uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. He is also expected to discuss concerns about North Korea's nuclear program.
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2. Economist: The global economy - The worldwide wobble
The world economy will have a bumpy 2014. But the recovery is not, yet, at risk.
Economist Back to Top
3. DealBook: Chinese official made job plea to JPMorgan Chase chief
The executive suites of JPMorgan Chase in Midtown Manhattan may seem a world away from the politically connected Chinese job applicants who landed on the bank’s payroll. But a confidential
email has emerged that shows a top Chinese regulator directly asked Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive, for a “favor” to hire a young job applicant. The applicant, a family friend of the regulator, now works at JPMorgan. Mr. Dimon
met the applicant in June 2012, according to interviews and the previously unreported email, one of several documents that JPMorgan recently turned over to federal authorities as part of an investigation into hiring at the bank. At the meeting with Mr. Dimon in New York, the applicant acted as an interpreter for the Chinese insurance regulator.
JPMorgan bankers in Hong Kong, hoping to help her job prospects, knew in advance that she would attend.
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4. FT: US blames China for rising tensions in South China Sea
The Obama administration
has significantly sharpened its rhetoric about China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea over the last week amid growing pressure from allies in the region for Washington to take a firmer line. In public statements in recent days, senior US officials placed the blame for tensions in the region solely on China and warned that the US could move more forces to the western Pacific if Beijing were to declare a new air
defence zone in the South China Sea. Although President Barack Obama is due to visit the region in April, several
Asia governments have complained privately that the administration has become distracted in the Middle East and has left the way open for China to pursue its claims with greater confidence. “They [the administration] are definitely trying to turn up the volume about China,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. “This is as close as the Obama administration has come to saying that the nine-dash line is illegal. It is quite significant because they previously danced around the issue.” The nine-dash line is a map produced by
China which appears to claim that the bulk of the South China Sea is under Chinese control.
FT
5. WSJ: China hits back at U.S. over South China Sea
Beijing is refusing to back down in a verbal
stand-off with the U.S.
over China’s territorial ambitions in South China Sea, with China’s foreign ministry rejecting comments by a U.S.
diplomat that Chinese moves threatened stability in the region. The U.S.
has recently cranked up
rhetoric around Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, urging the country to respect international law and warning China against establishing an air defense zone in the area. “As a sovereign state, China is fully entitled to take any measures it sees fit as regards air security, including the establishment of an air-defense identification zone, to safeguard national security,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said during a regular press briefing on Friday, calling U.S.
comments on the issue “irresponsible.” Mr. Hong’s comments came two days after U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Danny Russell said in testimony on Capitol Hill that the U.S.
did not recognize a similar air-defense zone China recently announced over the East China Sea and said China “should refrain from taking similar actions elsewhere in the region.”
WSJ Back to Top
6. Reuters: China decries U.S. comments on South China Sea as 'not constructive'
China has accused the United States of undermining peace and development in the Asia-Pacific after a senior U.S.
official said concern was mounting over China's claims in the South China Sea. "These actions are not constructive", Hong Lei, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement issued late on Saturday. "We urge the U.S.
to hold a rational and fair attitude, so as to have a constructive role in the peace and development of the region, and not the opposite," Lei said. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Danny Russel told a congressional testimony on Wednesday the United States had "growing concerns" that China's maritime claims were an effort to gain creeping control of
oceans in the region. China's claims had "created uncertainty, insecurity and instability", Russel said. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei all claim parts of the sea that provides 10 percent of global fish
catches and carries $5 trillion in ship-borne trade.
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7. Bloomberg: U.S. general says China war comparisons unhelpful as risks rise
Comments by the leaders of Japan and the Philippines drawing parallels between China’s growing assertiveness in the region and events in pre-war Europe are “not helpful,” said the commander of U.S.
air forces in the Pacific. “The rise of Germany and what occurred between the U.K.
in particular and Germany, and what happened in Europe, I don’t draw that comparison at all to what’s going on today” in the Asia-Pacific, General Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, 58, said in an interview yesterday in Singapore. “Some of the things, in particular that have been done by Japan, they need to think hard about what is provocative to other nations.” Carlisle urged all countries involved in territorial disputes with China in both the East and South China Seas to try and defuse tensions. He said any move by China to extend an air-defense identification zone south, where it has disputes over
oil-rich waters with the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia, would be “very provocative”.
Bloomberg Back to Top
8. FT - Editorial: Abe’s nationalism takes a worrying turn
Attempt to stifle Japan’s national broadcaster is deplorable.
FT Back to Top
9. SCMP: Further economic reforms a tough task, warns Xi Jinping
Pushing through further economic reforms will prove tough and there may be dangerous times ahead, President Xi Jinping said in an interview with Russian state TV on the sidelines of the Sochi Winter Olympics. "The easier reforms that could make everyone happy have already been completed. The tasty meat has been eaten up. The rest
are tough bones to crack," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying. "[We] should dare to
gnaw even tough bones and dare to ford dangerous rapids." The Communist Party announced a series of reforms last November at a plenum of party leaders in Beijing, including giving more profits from state enterprises to the government and scrapping the re-education through
labour prison system.
SCMP Back to Top
10. Caijing: Qualcomm may face $1bn fine in China anti-trust probe
Qualcomm could face a fine worth up to $1billion in China as the world's largest maker of
cellphone chips is going through an anti-trust investigation launched by the country's top regulator. The U.S.
chip maker is cooperating with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) after being accused of overcharging for royalty fees and bundling sale by an alliance of Chinese mobile phone makers, the CCTV reported. A report by the China Mobile Phone Alliance showed royalty rates Qualcomm charges handset manufacturers range from 4 to 6 percent of the wholesale price of a handset. CCTV said the company has set up a subsidiary firm exclusively for charging licensing fees which helped it made billions in China. Any company violating China's
Anti-Trust Law could receive a fine ranging from 1 to 10 percent of its China revenue from the NDRC, which means the Qualcomm fine could possibly worth up to more than $1billion.
Caijing Back to Top
11. See China's countryside, outgoing US envoy Gary Locke tells Max Baucus
Outgoing US ambassador shares fitness tips and urges successor to visit China's rural areas in what may be his last interview as envoy to Beijing.
SCMP Back to Top
12. SCMP: Overseas meat suppliers struggle to keep up with rising Chinese demand
Livestock exports to China are booming, but many overseas suppliers struggle to satisfy demand.
SCMP Back to Top
13. Bloomberg: China extends electric-car subsidies to fight air pollution
China will give more subsidies for electric vehicles than previously announced as part of government plans to tackle pollution. Shares of BYD Co. (1211) rose. Subsidies for 2014 will be cut by 5 percent, instead of the previously announced 10 percent, and decreased by 10 percent in 2015, instead of 20 percent, the finance ministry said in a joint statement with the National Development and Reform Commission, technology and industry ministries. Pressure is mounting for China to contain air pollution, which reached record levels in Shanghai last year and prompted many cities to introduce emergency measures, including restricting the use of vehicles on heavily polluted days. The nation is lagging behind its target to have 5 million of the vehicles by 2020 because of high costs.
Bloomberg Back to Top
14. NYT: Chinese dissident lands at Cato Institute with a caution to colleges
A Chinese dissident, dismissed from his job as an economics professor at Peking University after clashes with his government over liberalization, will become a visiting fellow at the Cato Institute on Monday, he said. In an interview on Friday, the dissident, Xia Yeliang, warned that American universities should be careful about partnerships with Chinese universities. “They use the reputations of Western universities to cover their own scandals,” he said. “Perhaps Western universities do not realize that Chinese universities do not have the basic value of academic freedom, and try to use Western universities to cover their bad side,” Professor Xia added. He said he had been told that the foreign support he received — including a September letter from professors at Wellesley College — hurt his chances of keeping his job at Peking University. Interviewed at the New Jersey home of a childhood friend, Professor Xia, 54, said he would miss direct engagement in the struggle to change China, but hoped his writing and research would continue to have an impact. While his wife will remain an accountant at Peking University for the time being, he said, he is unlikely to return to China until the political situation changes.
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15. Economist: Internal trade - It’s a continent, actually
China’s external imbalances are as nothing compared
with its internal ones.
Economist Back to Top
16. Economist: The party and the media - Learning to spin
At a Communist Party training school, functionaries learn how to handle more aggressive news media.
Economist Back to Top
