China's Biggest Plastic-Bag Maker Closes Down

Suiping Huaqiang Plastic Co. Ltd., China's biggest maker of plastic bags, closed down after new laws banned the use of most of its products, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing a local government official.

The company could make 250,000 tons of bags worth 2.2 billion yuan ($307 million) annually, Xinhua said, citing Liu Henglie, director of the commerce bureau in Suiping County in the northern province of Henan. Its parent is Nanqiang Plastic Industrial Co. in Guangzhou in southern China, Xinhua said.

The 20,000-worker company stopped production last month because more than 90 percent of its products are banned under new environmental rules, Xinhua said. The State Council, China's cabinet, on Jan. 9 ordered a stop to the production, sale and use of plastic bags thinner than 0.025 millimeters starting on June 1, Xinhua said.

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After environmental laws banned the use of more than 90 percent of Suiping Huaqiang Plastic Co. Ltd.'s products, the company shut down. The company made 250,000 tons of plastic bags each year, which was worth about $307 million annually.

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China's thriving Confucian schools

As soon as they walk into the tiny school, a converted apartment in a tower block, the children are bundled into grey cotton wraparound robes, fastened at the back with modern Velcro.
Flowing sleeves flap round their wrists, square black hats wedged on to their heads - some, too big, slip down over the eyes.
The children, from three to six years old, have come to special weekend classes to learn the teachings of China's ancient sage, Confucius.
The teacher shows the children how to put their hands together and bow to him before the start of each lesson.
In some classes, they sing and play chasing games. In others, the teacher holds up complex Chinese characters on white cards and the children recite the sayings of the great teacher.
"In a group of three people, one of them will become my teacher," they chant in high voices.
Many of the sayings extol the virtues of harmony, humility and courtesy to others.

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This school of Confucious is expected to emphisezi childrens kindness and self disciplin at an early age. Children ages 3-6 enroll and learn traditions that are said to forgotten. Many schools that teach confucious shut down soon after it is opened. But the rehibilitation Chinese culture is now expected to grow through confucious.

China Willing to Resume Human Rights Talks With U.S.

China's government said it's willing to resume a dialogue with the U.S. on improving human rights after a five-year halt, taking a step to prevent rights advocates from boycotting Beijing's Olympic Games in August.

``The Chinese side is willing to keep contact with the U.S. in all areas,'' Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said today at the end of a Beijing press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, neither elaborating nor giving her the chance to respond. ``We're ready to resume the dialogue.''

Chinese President Hu Jintao wants to prevent the world's largest sporting event from becoming a pressure point on issues from political freedom to China's role in Sudan and Myanmar. Director Steven Spielberg on Feb. 12 quit as an artistic adviser for the games' opening and closing ceremonies, citing his concern over China's failure to help end Sudan's ethnic conflict.

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China has said that it is willing to re-start communication with the US about human rights. China has not participated in this communication for five years, but is willing to do so to prevent boycott of the Olympics for political reasons.

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Hamster prices triple in China

Pet shop owners say stocks are running low - and prices high - as children clamour for a furry friend.
According to the Chinese media, prices have tripled to about 30 yuan ($4.20, £2.10) per hamster across the country.

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Hamsters have become the must have pet in China. The prices for these gentle rodents have doubled since the year of the rat began February 7.

China finishes canal to ensure water for Olympics: report

BEIJING: Beijing has completed a water diversion canal that will provide emergency supplies to the August Olympics, state press said on Tuesday, despite ongoing shortages crippling much of northern China.

"In order to amply safeguard the security and the quality of the Games, the construction of the north-south water diversion project has been completed without glitches," the Beijing Evening News quoted city water bureau chief Jiao Zhizhong as saying.

"We have established the basis for diverting water to Beijing," he said at a Tuesday meeting on addressing the capital's water shortage.

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China has built a 210 kilometer canal from Shijiazhuang city in Hebei province to Beijing. The canal will begin operating by April, which will help the 30 percent water demand increase which is expected during the Olympic season.

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China warns against share issues

The announcement was carried on the front page of many newspapers and came a day after share prices dropped to a seven-month low.
Regulators fear the market may fall further, as a potential slew of new shares could overwhelm investor demand.
Following the warning, insurer Ping An said it might scale back or postpone a massive $17bn share issue.

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China's stockmarket warns companies about making a big deal about making big issues about new shares to faise funds. Authorities have approved at least five new mutual funds to boost demands for shares.

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China inflation hits 11-year high

Soaring food prices were largely blamed for pushing consumer inflation up to 7.1% last month, from 6.5% in December.
Inflation in China continues to rise despite higher interest rates and other measures by Beijing to keep the economy from overheating.
The worst winter for decades hit food supplies, sending food costs up 18%.
Massive snowfalls wrecked crops and killed millions of livestock.
But analysts cautioned that the severe weather was not the only factor behind rising food costs, and warned that prices could still increase further.

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Chinese inflation hit and 11 year high in January of 2008. Alot of this was caused by the major cold weather problems that they have been experiencing. The last all time high was in 1996 at 7.1%. The inflation rate is now 7.4%.

This land is my land

“LAND to the tiller” has been a slogan of Chinese revolutionaries since Sun Yat-sen used it in 1924. Mao Zedong came to power in 1949 with just such a promise. Now some of China's peasants want his party to make good on the pledge. Late last year groups in different parts of China began simply claiming land as their own individual private plots.
China's constitution decrees that rural land is owned by “collectives”. But it does not make clear who represents these collectives. This vagueness has been one of the biggest causes of rural unrest in recent years. Rural officials, eager to make money for themselves as well as their localities, often appropriate land from farmers to sell to developers. They say they are acting on behalf of the collective. The farmers disagree. If they receive any compensation at all, it is only a fraction of the market value.

Isolated groups of peasants elsewhere followed suit, including some in Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Tianjin. Villagers have likened themselves to the group of peasants in 1978 in a village in central Anhui, who broke up the land into plots farmed by individual households. At the time, they seemed to be taking a big risk. But the party itself soon decided that the Mao-era communal farms had failed and households should be allocated plots of land. The Anhui villagers became famous and the new “household-responsibility system” pushed up yields and incomes. Land ownership remained unchanged.

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In the past, rural officials have taken land from farmers and peasants to sell to developers in order to make money. These people fell that they have been violated and are starting to take a stand against this act.

From Mao to the mall

Amid all the global gloom, the good news is that China is turning into a nation of spenders, as well as sellers
THE past year has seen a lively debate among economists about China's rapid economic growth. Some, such as Brad Setser from the Council on Foreign Relations, believe that exports have been the main generator; others, like UBS's Jonathan Anderson and The Economist, think that domestic demand—spending on roads and railways, cars and clothes, and the like—has been the driving force. Just now, a lot turns on this argument: both how badly China's economy could be hurt by an American recession and also the extent to which Chinese spending could help to prop up the rest of the world economy. Some new figures suggest Chinese demand is rising strongly enough to help offset the increasing weakness in China's export markets. That could be good news for the world at large.
It is certainly true that China's current-account surplus rose to a record 10% of its GDP last year, which means that it produced a lot more than it consumed and so relied on foreigners to buy the excess. But it is the change in a country's trade surplus, not its absolute size, which matters for GDP growth. The increase in net exports (exports minus imports) has never been the main source of China's growth. It contributed two to three percentage points to annual GDP growth between 2005 and 2007, whereas domestic demand (consumption and investment) added eight to nine percentage points. But the latest figures show that exports have become even less important as a driver of growth. The World Bank's latest China Quarterly Update suggests that net exports contributed only 0.4 percentage points to GDP growth in the year to the fourth quarter of 2007 (see left-hand chart). Overall GDP growth slowed only modestly (to 11.2%) because of faster growth in domestic demand, which contributed an impressive 10.8 percentage points.

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China's economic growth is increasing rapidly. It is believed to be caused by the money being spent on roads, railways, cars and clothes. It is also believed that this could hurt the Chinese economy, or that this change could be good and help to prop up the rest of the world's economy.

China to open hole in Great Firewall during Olympics

SHANGHAI -- It looks like China will have no problem living up to its promise to give the world's media free and uncensored access to the Internet during next summer's Olympic Games.

But, it will do it without loosening its grip on what its own citizens can see and hear on the web.

In an article in the March edition of The Atlantic magazine, correspondent James Fallows reveals that the Chinese Internet censorship system -- often called the Great Firewall of China -- is now sophisticated enough so that it can pinpoint specific locations in Beijing and make sure anyone who goes online from them has free and clear access to the web.

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Web sites are continually blocked in China due to media censorship. The internet censorship system, also called "The Great Firewall of China," is now sophisticated enough that specific areas can be pinpointed. This will allow foreign visitors to access the internet during their stay in Beijing for the Olympics.

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Is China Unfairly Blamed for Global Inflation?

With inflation on the march around the globe, the links between prices of
goods in different countries are now getting lots of attention. Low-priced
products from China have been given some of the credit for low global inflation
in years past, but higher costs for labor and materials in China are also
getting some of the blame for the current rise in prices.

Imports constitute around 15% of U.S. GDP and around 13% of that comes from
China,” the authors write in an article in the latest issue of China & World
Economy, an English-language journal published by the Chinese Academy for
Social Sciences. On their back-of-the-envelope calculation, that means a 1
percentage point increase in China’s inflation rate should lead to an increase
in U.S. inflation of 0.02 to 0.03 percentage points.

“It is estimated that something like half of total imports would need to
come from China for a 1% Chinese price increase to translate into a very
moderate 0.1% price increase in Japanese and U.S. prices,” the authors write.
“For any noticeable effect on inflation, China would need to dominate
international trade on a large scale.”

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This Article Takes up for China in regards to China being blamed for large scale global inflation problems.

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Plant In China Under Scrutiny

CHANGZHOU, CHINA -- The maker of a blood thinner suspected in four U.S.
deaths and allergic reactions in 350 people said Tuesday that its investigation
was focusing more closely on whether something went awry during the processing
of ingredients in China.

Baxter Healthcare Corp. spokeswoman Erin Gardiner said testing had detected
irregularities in samples of the drug, heparin, that were processed in China
from raw material extracted in China. No such irregularities were detected in
heparin made from raw materials from China but processed at a supplier's plant
in Wisconsin

Baxter has said that a Chinese plant here, Changzhou SPL, was the source of
much of the active ingredient in its heparin. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration said it never inspected the factory because the agency mixed up
the company with another one that has a similar name. Changzhou SPL apparently
wasn't examined by Chinese drug regulators either, because it isn't licensed as
a pharmaceutical manufacturer with the Chinese government.

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This is a very troubling article regarding the Chinese regulations regarding healthcare exports. Mistakes like these are unacceptable. China may not be ready to handle the responsibility of being a world super power.

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China reports bird flu outbreak in Tibet, human death

BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese authorities on Tuesday reported a fresh bird flu outbreak among poultry in Tibet, a day after confirming a 22-year-old man in central China had died of the deadly virus.

The agriculture ministry said 132 poultry had died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in a village outside the regional capital Lhasa and about 7,700 birds had been slaughtered to bring the outbreak under control.

It was the second outbreak of bird flu in the Himalayan region this year.

In January, about 1,000 birds died and 13,000 were slaughtered during an earlier outbreak in Gongga county, which lies about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Lhasa.

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The latest outbreak of bird flu in China was announced shortly after authorities confirmed the eighteenth human bird flu fatality. It was declared late on Monday that a 22-year-old man from Hunan province died from the H5N1 strain. Scientists' main concern is that the flu will change into a form which can be transferred more easily by humans, and cause a global outbreak of the disease.

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Fear that China will push up world inflation after prices rise 7%

Fears that China may export inflation to the rest of the world were heightened yesterday when Beijing announced the sharpest rise in the cost of living in 11 years.

With food prices rising rapidly following severe new year storms, the annual inflation rate in the fast-growing developing economy reached 7.1% last month.

Food prices were up 18% on January 2007 as blizzards took 7m hectares of agricultural land out of production and paralysed distribution systems across China.

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There are major concerns that the price rises in food in China will spread to the rest of the economy, which will be a problem for countries that import chinese goods. This will create pressure for the exchange rate of it's currency, the yuan, to rise even more.

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China steps up efforts to fight pollution

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will aim this year to reduce its emissions of sulphur dioxide by 6 percent from their 2005 levels as it steps up efforts to fight pollution, its top environmental official said in remarks published on Tuesday.
The official Xinhua news agency cited Zhou Shengxian, head of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), as saying that the government would close many small coal-fired power plants, as well as steel mills and cement plants, to cut emissions of the acid rain-causing pollutant.
Zhou also said the government aimed to reduce COD, or chemical oxygen demand, a measure of water pollution, by 5 percent from its 2005 level this year.

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China prepares to fix the pollution problem that has been an issue since 2005. SEPA is closing many coal fired plants along with other businesses that produce lots of pollution. These actions are expected to lower the pollution rate.

The ecumenism of commerce

Their sense of solidarity is deepened by the loneliness of being in a foreign country. Some of them have been based here as long as eight years. But most of Yiwu's Middle Easterners have only a rudimentary grasp of Mandarin. “It's hard learning a new language at my age,” sighs one Iraqi. Commerce forms their chief bond with Yiwu, China's largest small-commodities market. The Middle Easterners come on long-term business visas; after buying cheap clothes and hardware in bulk, most jet to Dubai, Baghdad or Tehran before returning for another six months of trade. Some work as consultants or visa agents. For the entrepreneurially inclined, Yiwu offers a wealth of opportunity.

The Middle Eastern presence has served as a magnet for Chinese Muslims. Although Arab merchants called here in centuries past, Yiwu had virtually no Muslims till about 2000, when Middle Eastern traders were drawn to its burgeoning market. Hui (members of China's indigenous Muslim minority) from as far as Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai in the west followed. Yiwu is cosmopolitan and friendlier to Islam than parts of China's west. Many of the Hui who come speak Arabic, allowing them to find lucrative jobs with Middle Eastern businessmen. At its peak, says a local imam, the city's Muslim population (foreign and Chinese) now reaches 20,000.

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Men eating at a resteraunt in Yiwu, China, discussed publicly their opinions on China's "athiest" religion. These Iraquis were muslim and felt that their beliefs would benifit China's economy.

China steps up efforts to fight pollution

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will aim this year to reduce its emissions of sulphur dioxide by 6 percent from their 2005 levels as it steps up efforts to fight pollution, its top environmental official said in remarks published on Tuesday.

The official Xinhua news agency cited Zhou Shengxian, head of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), as saying that the government would close many small coal-fired power plants, as well as steel mills and cement plants, to cut emissions of the acid rain-causing pollutant.

Zhou also said the government aimed to reduce COD, or chemical oxygen demand, a measure of water pollution, by 5 percent from its 2005 level this year.


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Bejing, this year's olymic host city, along with many other cities in China, suffers from choking smog. This has been a major concern of the organizers of the Games because of its possible effects on the atheletes. China plans to cut the two pollution measures, Sulphur dioxide and COD, by 10 percent between 2006 and 2010.


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New species of prehistoric flying reptile found in China: study

CHICAGO (AFP) — Paleontologists have discovered the fossil of a new species of tiny prehistoric flying reptile in northeastern China, a study released Monday said.

The miniature reptile lived about 120 million years ago and was about the size of a sparrow, with a wingspan less than a foot across.

It was toothless and had some unique anatomical features, notably curved claws that appeared to be designed to clutch tree limbs.

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The discovery of this flying reptile's fossils will help scientists better understand the evolution of the pterosaurs group of reptiles. The species has been named Nemicolopterus crypticus, which means "hidden flying forest dweller" in Greek.

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Our friends in the north

MOST locals, who are lucky if they enjoy two hours of electricity an evening, are unaware of their region's bounty: South-East Asia's biggest proven gas reserve lies in the Shwe field, just off the coast of Ramree Island. This year work will begin on a pipeline to carry these riches to China. From perhaps as early as late 2009, a parallel pipe will carry Middle Eastern and African oil from a new deep-water harbour at Kyaukphyu, bypassing the Strait of Malacca and fuelling the economy of China's south-west.
The site of the harbour, like the former fishing grounds where the gas lies, is now strictly out of bounds to locals. Despite a small poster campaign by underground activists, few people here know much about it. Those who do are worried. According to one, farmers fear losing their land. They have good reason for concern, judging from the mass dispossessions and human-rights abuses that surrounded the construction of earlier pipelines from the south to Thailand. Residents of nearby Baday Island have already been told that they must leave.

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Pipelines are being put in to transport oil to China. Citizens living near these areas of instilation feel that their rights are being violated. Families living near Baday Island have already been asked to leave.

US arrests four 'Chinese spies'

A 72-year-old former Boeing engineer is accused of giving China details about the space shuttle and other aerospace programmes.

In a separate case, two men and a woman are accused of handing over US defence department documents about Taiwan.

A US justice department spokesman said the cases represented serious breaches of national security.

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Four people have been arrested in the United States for passing secret defense information to China. 72 year-old Dongfan "Greg" Chung "faces charges including eight counts of economic espionage, conspiracy, and making false statements to FBI investigators." He is a naturalized US citizen who worked in the aerospace industry for about thirty years.

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China frees Hong Kong journalist

A Hong Kong journalist who was jailed in mainland China on spying charges has been released after serving less than half a five-year sentence.

Ching Cheong was detained in 2005 and sentenced to five years in jail in a case that angered human rights groups.

Chinese officials accused him of buying information and passing it to Taiwan - charges his family and his employer, Singapore's Straits Times, rejected.

He has now returned to Hong Kong to spend Lunar New Year with his family.

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The Chinese government has granted Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong journalist, parole. Ching was arrested in April 2005 in Guangzhou, China. He was arrested after traveling to China to collect documents about Zhao Ziyang, a former chinese leader, and he will now return to Hong Kong to spend the new year with his family.

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Dumplings poisoned 'on purpose'

The frozen dumplings were contaminated with a highly toxic organophoshate pesticide methamidophos.
"Judging from the circumstantial evidence, we'd have to think that it's highly likely to be a crime," Yoichi Masuzoe told reporters.
The issue has triggered intensive media coverage and public alarm in Japan.
Japanese police say they want to work with their Chinese counterparts to investigate how the dumplings, known as gyoza in Japan, were poisoned.

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Dumplings that were sold to Chinese citizens were found to be poisoned. It is believed, by Japan's heath minister, that this poison was not an accident. Japan is trying to keep out the idea that it was poisoned in Japan before they were transported to China. The product was recalled but Japanese police are working with their Chinese counterparts to investigate how the dumplings were poisoned.

Chinese party unveils new leaders

China's Communist Party has unveiled the leadership line-up that will steer the country for the next five years.

President Hu Jintao won a second term as party and army chief, while four new faces joined the party's top body, the Politburo Standing Committee.

They included two men seen as potential successors to Mr Hu in 2012 - Shanghai party chief Xi Jinping and the head of Liaoning province, Li Keqiang.

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The leaders chosen will rule China for the next five years. They were announced at the five-yearly congress which sets the political agenda for the future. Mr. Hu was pleased with the party's decision to give him more power for economic reform.

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Alternative reality

ONE of the more striking end-of-year statistics pumped out recently by the Chinese government was an update on the number of internet users in the country, which had reached 210m. It is a staggering figure, up by more than 50% on the previous year and more than three times the number for India, the emerging Asian giant with which China is most often compared. Within a few months, according to Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, China will have more internet users than America, the current leader. And because the proportion of the population using the internet is so low, at just 16%, rapid growth is likely to continue for some time.

The Chinese way
Yet it is all these limitations, paradoxically, that make the internet so popular in China. In the West online activities have transformed existing businesses and created new ones; in China, by contrast, the internet fills gaps and provides what is unavailable elsewhere, particularly for young people. More than 70% of Chinese internet users are under 30, precisely the opposite of America, and there is enormous pent-up demand for entertainment, amusement and social interaction, says Richard Ji, an analyst at Morgan Stanley. Rich rewards await those entrepreneurial internet companies able to meet that demand and establish themselves in the market: operating margins for leading internet firms are 28% in China, compared with 15% in America. And internet companies' share prices have shot up, with their collective market capitalisation nearly doubling every year since 2003 to reach over $50 billion today.

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China will soon have the most internet users in the world. The number of users have doubled since last year and these rates are expected to keep rising. The most popular users are those under the age of 30. This statistic is the opposite in the US. Chinese internet is used as television, movies, and other things. It is their leading search engine.

China Seeks To Block BHP-Rio Deal

China's reported attempt to use the British legal system to stymie a mega-merger in the mining industry is likely to benefit the Clifford Chance law firm.

Beijing wants to make sure that BHP Billiton's attempted takeover of mining peer Rio Tinto doesn't work out as planned, and officials from the Chinese embassy in London are reportedly seeking legal advice as to whether it will be possible to block the multi-billion dollar deal.

London lawyers said Monday that Clifford Chance, which already represents state-controlled aluminum firm Chinalco, holder of a 12% stake in Rio Tinto, had been approached by officials from the Chinese embassy in London to advise them on how Beijing could upset the takeover, which BHP is scheduled to re-launch by this Wednesday.

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China doesn't want the world's largest miner, BHP Billiton, to buy Rio Tinto in a multi-billion dollar deal. China wants cheap and easy access to minerals, so it does not want a powerful company such as BHP to dominate the market.

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China Coal in 'lacklustre' debut

Shares in China Coal Energy Corp have risen 28% on their $3.6bn (£1.8bn) debut on the Shanghai stock exchange.
The performance disappointed some investors, as in some recent Chinese listings companies have seen their share prices double.
Its shares were trading at 21.62 yuan, up 28% from their debut price of 16.83 yuan. The stock had been expected to trade in a range of 26 to 32 yuan.
China is the world's largest producer and consumer of coal.

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Since China is the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, many investors were upset with the coal shares were only raised 28%. Prices usually double and that is why investors and disappointed with the China Coal Energy Corp.

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China 'Not Ready' For Snow Crisis

Chinese weather experts have admitted that they were not
properly prepared for the snow storms that have left hundreds of thousands
stranded.

Officials have blamed freak conditions, but on Monday the head of the China's meteorological office said "we did not make enough preparation

According to a BBC correspondent in Beijing, Michael Bristow, there are few facilities in the south to deal with icy roads, and power lines are too thin to cope with too much snow and ice.

China's leaders have been working hard to convince people that they are tackling the situation in order to prevent frustration boiling over into unrest.

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This article reveals some harsh truths about China's infrastructure. How can a country who is shut down by a snow storm aspire to becoming a world super power? There isn't alot you can do about the weather, but you owe it too your citizens to be prepared for the worst

China Activist Formally Arrested

A prominent Chinese activist has been formally arrested more
than a month after
being taken into custody.

Hu Jia, who publicises human rights abuses across China, has been accused of
inciting subversion of state power.

Campaigners say his arrest shows that China is not keeping its promise to
improve human rights ahead of this year's Beijing Olympic Games.

He had become a kind of one-man clearing house for information, passing it on
to journalists, organisations and foreign embassies.

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This article is one that is a cause for great discomfort. It clearly exemplifies the lack of progress in China in regards to human rights.

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