1. AP: China's Xi amasses power to tackle grim challenges
Xi Jinping looks more powerful than any Chinese leader in recent decades as his government prepares to deliver its first one-year report card Wednesday, but a deadly weekend slashing spree by alleged separatists was a reminder of the serious challenges facing his administration. In recent weeks, Xi has put himself in charge of three policy-setting panels: a new top-level party committee focused on steering state security, a panel on driving sweeping economic reforms, and another on
cybersecurity. Meanwhile, he has burnished his populist image with unannounced public strolls to mix with ordinary folks and provide
photos ops. The moves come as Xi tries to better position the Communist Party to respond to grave challenges that test his leadership. Key among them is escalating ethnic unrest in the far west that spread to a southern city on Saturday in an attack that killed 29 people. The party also needs to tackle entrenched obstacles to tough economic reforms, slowing growth and rising territorial tensions with neighbors. When the annual session of the largely
rubberstamp legislature opens this week, the administration is expected to sum up its response to these and other challenges, and outline next steps. Premier Li Keqiang delivers the administration's work report to the National People's Congress on Wednesday. Only a little over a year in office, Xi is already seen as having consolidated more power than his predecessors. His leadership roles in the three policy-setting panels give him influence over
police, intelligence and military operations, the reform effort and Internet controls.
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2. Bloomberg: China attack gives Xi impetus to tighten grip on security
China’s Communist leader Xi Jinping, already emerging more powerful than his predecessor, has fresh impetus to tighten his hold on domestic security after an outcry over a knife attack on civilians three days ago. The Weibo
microblogging service lit up with outrage in the wake of the stabbing deaths of 29 people, many of them migrant workers, at a train station in the southern city of Kunming -- a shock officials blamed on members of the ethnic Uighur separatist movement. One such posting, said: “It isn’t possible to negotiate with you or make any concessions,” from “Drowning Fish.” Since coming to power Xi has concentrated control of the military and the domestic security apparatus, heading a new security council and a committee
on the restive western province of Xinjiang, home to the bulk of the Muslim Uighur minority. He ordered a clampdown on “terrorist activities” after the attack.
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3. NYT: Train station rampage further strains ethnic relations in China
Even with the objects of his ire in earshot, the landlord barely lowered his voice to describe his Uighur neighbors, who also happened to be his tenants. “During the day they look like human beings, but at night they are thieves and thugs,” he said as a group of elderly women in traditional head scarves drank tea in the courtyard of his building. “Even the police are afraid of them. We all hate them, but there’s nothing to be done about it.” A candlelight vigil Sunday at Kunming Railway Station, a day after a group of assailants killed 29 people and wounded scores
.China Blames Xinjiang Separatists for Stabbing Rampage at Train StationMARCH 2, 2014 It is fair to say that relations have never been easy between the ethnic Han who dominate this vast nation and the Uighur minority whose traditional homeland is in China’s far western borderlands. But since a group of identically dressed assailants rampaged through the Kunming Railway Station here in southwestern China on Saturday, killing at least 29 people and wounding 143 with long knives and daggers, the official narrative of a kaleidoscope of ethnic groups living in harmony is being tested by the news that the killers were from the western region of Xinjiang.
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4. NYT - Sinosphere: U.N. Security Council condemns ‘terrorist attack’ in Kunming
The United Nations Security Council has condemned as a “terrorist attack” the slashing rampage Saturday night
in a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming, in which a group of black-clad assailants with knives and daggers killed at least 29 people and wounded 143. Hong Kong news outlets said about 75 of those may be severely injured
.Apparently seeking to contain domestic anger against Uighurs — the Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim ethnic group from the western region of Xinjiang whom Chinese officials blame for the attack — and to censure some Western news media for not immediately describing the killings as terrorism, Xinhua, the state news agency, ran the United Nations statement prominently on the Chinese-language version of its website, along with comments from other governments and leaders, notably that of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
A police officer standing guard as mourners lighted candles at the scene of the attack at the main train station in Kunming. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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5. WSJ - Editorial: Terror in Kunming
China is mourning this week after assailants wielding long knives attacked a busy train station in Kunming on Saturday, killing 33 and injuring at least 143. Officials and state media blame Muslim Uighur separatists from the restive Xinjiang region for the atrocity. The killers, some wearing masks, attacked their victims indiscriminately. After 20 minutes, police shot and killed four attackers and captured one. Four more were arrested Monday, police said. The attack was crude but appears to have been carefully planned. If officials are right, this would be the largest, most organized attack ever carried out by Uighur extremists. Kunming, in southwest China, is some 2,500 miles away from Xinjiang. Beijing was quick to seize on the attack as evidence of Uighur perfidy, but mainstream Uighur leaders, including the exiled World Uighur Congress, just as quickly denounced the slaughter. China's roughly eight million Uighurs have long protested the central government's heavy-handed policies in Xinjiang, which include curbs on religious practice and bans on using the Uighur language in schools. But that has been
protest, not terrorism. The rise of alleged Uighur terrorism, while still not widespread, is worrying. Such blame-shifting denies justice to victims of attacks such as October's
or the weekend's, who must stand by as Beijing exploits their personal tragedies for its own political ends. It also diminishes Beijing's counterterrorism credentials abroad and among Han Chinese and Uighur citizens. Rather than attacking Mr.
Tohti or exiled World Uighur Congress leader Rebiya Kadeer, Beijing would do better to catch and try the perpetrators of this weekend's appalling attack as quickly and transparently as possible.
WSJ Back to Top
6. Bloomberg: Is China siding with Putin in the Ukraine crisis?
China’s leaders are struggling to come up with a comprehensible position on the crisis in Ukraine. The Chinese might
naturally sympathize with Vladimir Putin, someone willing to stick it to Western leaders such as President Obama. However, China has long opposed actions that smack of interference in other countries’ internal affairs, in part to keep outsiders away from such sensitive issues as Tibet and Chinese dissidents. So for now, the government’s solution seems to be simple:
obfuscate. The Chinese and Russian foreign ministers spoke by telephone today, and while Russia’s Sergei Lavrov said afterwards that the two countries are in agreement about the crisis, China’s official spokesman shied away from taking a stand.
Bloomberg Back to Top
7. Reuters: China central bank chief says recent yuan moves normal-Xinhua
Recent fluctuations in the China's yuan exchange rate are normal, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said in comments published on Tuesday on the Twitter-like Weibo platform of the official Xinhua news agency.
Yi Gang, a central bank vice head, made similar comments on the sidelines of the annual parliament meeting on Monday. Zhou also said that the authorities will not ban internet financial products, such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's <IPO-ALIB
.N> deposit-like
money market fund, Yu'e Bao, but will step up supervision over them.
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8. Bloomberg: G-20 renews vow on shadow banking amid talk of China risk
Global finance officials renewed their promise to address risks
from unregulated lending and said their drive to end
bailouts for large banks should be nearly finished this year.
Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Sydney over the weekend said they are focused on “substantially completing” efforts to prevent lenders from becoming too big to fail and addressing the risks of shadow banking before a summit of the nations’ leaders in November. In their communique, the officials included wording on shadow banking that was similar to
language used in a G-20 declaration in September. The statement referred to “ending too-big-to-fail,” more assertive than the previous promise to make progress toward that goal.
Bloomberg Back to Top
9. WSJ - China Real Time: First Lady Michelle Obama plans China trip
First Lady Michelle Obama will visit China later this month, focusing on “the power and importance of education,” the White House said Monday. The trip includes a meeting with Madame Peng, wife of China’s President Xi Jinping, and visits to a university and a high school in Beijing as well as a high school in Chengdu, according to the White House. She will be traveling to Beijing from March 20-23 Xi’an on March 24 and Chengdu from March 25 and 26, and will go with her mother, Marian Robinson, and daughters, Malia and Sasha, during their spring break. The White House said more details will be announced in coming weeks.
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10. Reuters: Michelle Obama to visit China schools in March
U.S.
first lady Michelle Obama will travel to three cities in China this month, her daughters and mother in tow, and plans to share stories of her travels with U.S.
students through a daily travel blog, the White House said on Monday. Michelle Obama will meet her counterpart, Peng Liyuan, during the trip, the White House said. The two first ladies did not meet last year when Peng traveled to California with her husband, Chinese President Xi Jinping, who held informal talks with President Barack Obama on thorny issues like cyber spying and the dispute between China and its neighbors over territory in the East China Sea. At that time, Michelle Obama wrote to Peng, saying she regretted missing the meeting, but hoped to visit China soon.
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11. WSJ - China Real Time: WSJ’s Chinese readers give Gary Locke high marks
The departing U.S.
ambassador to China, Gary Locke inspired mixed reactions during his two-and-a-half-year tenure. Though his unpretentious manner was widely praised, as the first American of Chinese descent to hold the job, criticism of him had a special bite. But the verdict of The Wall Street Journal’s Chinese readers is clear. Out of more than 12,000 respondents to a survey
on the WSJ’s Chinese-language website, 70% rated Mr. Locke’s performance as “outstanding.” Another 13% called him “competent,” while 14% pronounced him a “failure.” The rest said they didn’t know. (The poll was run as part of a daily question on CWSJ and is no longer available online.) The state-run China News Service took a different view, publishing a derisive editorial late last week (in Chinese) that described Mr. Locke as “a banana, with yellow skin and a white heart.” The article blasted him as a fake and a self-promoter who took an unnecessarily keen interest in human rights and Tibet. It added that bananas rot eventually.
Gary Locke, the outgoing U.S.
ambassador to China, during a farewell news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing last week. Associated Press
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12. Reuters: China's Sinopec sale points to next round of state privatization
China's decision last month to sell a stake in a subsidiary of Sinopec Corp (600028.SS) (0386.HK) signals more privatization of its bloated state-owned sector will take place soon, with plans likely to be discussed at this week's parliament session, officials and experts said. Sinopec, Asia's biggest oil refiner, said on February 20 that it would sell up to 30 percent of its marketing arm, which owns more than 30,000 petrol stations, in a multi-billion dollar asset restructuring. No details have been provided. It was China's first announcement of a major restructuring since President Xi Jinping unveiled sweeping reforms of the socialist economy at a Communist Party conclave last November. He promised to encourage more private participation in state-owned enterprises (SOE's), which include some of the world's largest companies.
A Chinese New Year lantern installation is displayed outside a Sinopec gas station in Hong Kong February 5, 2013. Reuters / Bobby Yip
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13. FT - Editorial: Time China got serious on pollution
Beijing must tackle ‘dirty rats’ as well as corrupt ‘tigers’ and ‘flies.'
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14. SCMP: Russia says China on board over its actions in Ukraine; Beijing less forthright
But Beijing offers a less forthright comment on Moscow's incursion into Ukraine.
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15. SCMP: 'Tough road' ahead for reform effort
Premier Li Keqiang has made progress in his first year with overhauling the economy, but he still faces huge challenges, analysts say.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Photo: AFP
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16. SD: Yuan sees biggest weekly loss on talk of reform
The yuan yesterday suffered the largest weekly loss on record on talk the Chinese central bank may reform the exchange rate market further. The yuan briefly hit a 10-month low of 6.1808 per US dollar before closing at 6.1450 yesterday. The closing was nearly 0.3 percent weaker than Thursday’s despite the People’s Bank of China’s slight firming of the central parity rate to 6.1214 per dollar. The yuan is allowed to trade between 1 percent on each side of the
daily fixing set by the PBOC. The
yuan weakened around 0.9 percent this week and was more than 2 percent lower than its 20-year high of 6.0406 reached on January 14.
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17. SD: US Consulate in Shanghai expands visa applications capacity by 50%
The expanded consular section of the US Consulate General in Shanghai opened Monday afternoon, with an increase in visa
applications capacity of about 50 percent to 600,000 applications a year,
consulate officials told Shanghai Daily today. The section has grown from 12 to 28 service windows to meet the growing demand for visa services in Shanghai and surrounding areas, officials said. The visa application waiting room has been expanded from 330 to 556 square meters, while the office space has grown from 932 to 1,942 square meters. Construction took only at night during the past year to prevent it from affecting daily visa processing work, said Jewell Evans, consular chief of US Consulate Shanghai.
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18. SCMP: China has a new state-run search engine - but will anyone use it?
ChinaSo will be jointly managed by Xinhua News Agency and People's Daily.
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19. WSJ: Why Apple is hiring more engineers in China
Apple’s move to transfer some production back to the U.S.
has been in the headlines, but that doesn’t mean the iPhone maker is scaling down its China operations. In fact, it’s still expanding. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Apple is poaching engineers from rival
smartphone maker HTC and other Taiwanese tech firms, to build up its teams in Shanghai and Taipei. The move is a reminder of the realities of globalization and the current limitations of factory automation. Industry executives and analysts agree that costs
for robotic arms have to come down quite a bit before it would be cost-efficient to switch en masse to automated assembly lines for devices like
smartphones and tablets. Until that happens, building an iPhone remains a labor-heavy process that is likely to stay in countries with cheaper labor such as China. “Automation has its limitations,” said Arthur Hsieh, lead analyst for UBS Asia technology hardware. “A product has to have a long life cycle to be suitable. And if demand is very volatile, then manual production makes more sense.”
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20. WSJ: China's currency move leads to liquidity boost
Central bank's guidance to weaken
yuan has drawn increased cash into
financial system.
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21. WSJ: Beijing's GDP goal under new scrutiny
After years as a planning formality, China's official target for economic growth is posing a problem for the country's leaders amid confusion about the signals the goal sends—and whether it even matters. Premier Li Keqiang will unveil the annual GDP target to the legislature on Wednesday. Some economists view the growth target as a holdover from the days of the planned economy and a symbol of short-term thinking. They say officials naturally will try to exceed the goal, generating growth without regard to environmental and social ills. "Targeting has achieved the goal of providing economic development incentives, but it also created a whole host of problems with land policy, with local government debt, with the banking system and generally rising debt levels," said Li Wei, an economics professor at Beijing's Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. At issue for Chinese leaders is where to set the target, given that overall growth is slowing—perhaps even faster than Beijing would like. Setting a high target would show that the government still places a premium on growth. A lower target would signal that the government's focus has shifted from growth at any cost to tackling debt, tax and other structural problems.
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22. Bloomberg: Volvo’s billionaire chairman says China should lift foreign cap
Li Shufu, the Chinese billionaire chairman of Volvo Cars, said China should allow foreign
carmakers to control their operations in the world’s largest auto market to encourage competition and bring down prices. “We should let the market decide and form real competition between Chinese companies and foreign companies,” Li, who is also chairman of Volvo’s parent, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., told reporters at a briefing in Beijing yesterday. “The interests of the consumers and the competitiveness of the country are being undermined with the current setup.” Li’s comments add to the growing debate about the merits of the rule requiring foreign
carmakers to set up joint ventures with predominantly state-owned companies to manufacture vehicles in the country. Geely was the first private automaker in China when it started 17 years ago and teamed up with Volvo Cars to manufacture in the country. A Ministry of Commerce official sparked the debate last year after saying that local automakers should prepare for the day when the foreign stake limit is relaxed. The comments, made during an industry forum discussion, prompted the country’s main auto association to say that Chinese brands would be “killed in the cradle” if foreign automakers are allowed to become more independent from their domestic partners.
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23. Reuters: Fear of losing tech edge factors into Pentagon budget plans
Concerns that cuts in defense spending could erode the U.S.
military's technological edge over rivals such as Russia and China are in part driving the Pentagon's plans to slash troop levels and retire aging weapons. U.S.
defense officials have watched in recent years as Moscow and Beijing have tested a string of sophisticated weapons, from radar-evading aircraft and anti-ship missiles that fly many times the speed of sound, to
integrated air defenses. "The development and proliferation of more advanced military technologies by other nations means that we are entering an era where American dominance
on the seas, in the skies, and in space can no longer be taken for granted," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said last week. Hagel will unveil a 2015 budget on Tuesday that includes cutting the Army
by 40,000 to 50,000 troops to levels last seen before the United States entered World War Two and killing off the fleet of tank-killing A-10 "Warthog" aircraft. The venerable U-2 spy plane from the Cold War era will be retired to allow the Pentagon to focus on developing the unmanned Global Hawk reconnaissance drone.
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