China's new anti-aircraft carrier missile, capable of striking U.S. warships, now has "initial operational capability," according to U.S. Admiral Robert Willard.
The missile uses satellites and unmanned drone aircraft to target ships, according to the FT.
One of the uncertainties in the auto industry lies in how much longer Chinese authorities will allow the country’s remarkable sales boom to go on and whether China will export a flood of cars if the authorities do clamp down.
Automakers have been struggling for years to keep up with demand in China, as sales have climbed at a pace never seen in a major auto market. The number of cars and light trucks sold in China was one-tenth of that in the United States in 2000. This year, sales in China have been more than 50 percent higher than in the depressed American market.
The result has been traffic jams in the largest Chinese cities, particularly Beijing. And that has elicited an unexpectedly strong response from policy makers.
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Auto executives and industry analysts say that the market will continue to expand in 2011. But they forecast that the growth rate is likely to fall to 10 percent after averaging 25 percent a year for the last decade.China's Trade With Africa Just Exploded To $115 Billion
China's trade with Africa has soared to $114.81 billion in the first 11 months of 2010, according to the Chinese government's first white paper on its economic and trade cooperation with Africa. To put that huge number in perspective, the paper pointed out that China-Africa bilateral trade volume was a mere $12.14 million in 1950. The trade relationship between the two has increased of 43.5% year-on-year. That number is expected to increase as Chinese demand for oil, gas, iron and other raw materials continues.
The report did not address criticism that Chinese control of Africa's resources has led to local African communities not being allowed to reap economic rewards from the trades or arguments that the continent's natural resources are being plundered. It also did not choose to put a spotlight on local disputes such as this past October when two Chinese mine bosses in Zambia were charged with attempted murder after shooting miners over a compensation dispute.A Personal Tour Of China's Eerily Vacant Commercial Real Estate
By now, you’ve probably heard of China’s ghost cities.
Pudong, China’s “New district,” is, from what we can tell, the country's attempt to replicate Western-style suburbs outside of Shanghai (which is fast becoming China’s financial center). There we discovered a number of completely abandoned “ghost” buildings, one of which came along with something even more alarming: a trickle of smoke coming out of a small pipe that was jutting out of the ground.
The building you are about to see is one of Pudong’s many abandoned commercial buildings, many of which appeared to us to be old factories. This one in particular was interesting because we were able to walk around it and see the bush growing up around the building and even inside the parking lot.How bad is inflation in China?
The basic premise here is sound, but the story really boils down to this: China can expand its money supply by 55% every few months forever, without consequences. If you believe that, you need to actually get some on-the-ground intelligence from China. My contacts on the ground are reporting the official 5% inflation rate is an absurd joke--prices of some food items are doubling or even tripling.
And so a funny thing happens on the way to the projections of skyrocketing commodity prices: inflation eats everyone alive below the top 5% in China and India. When people can't afford to eat the way they have become accustomed to due to skyrocketing prices, then they get rather testy and irritated at the Powers That Be, and massive civil unrest is the inevitable outcome.
The Chinese authorities have aimed a toy popgun at the tsunami of inflation (their pipsqueak .25% rate increase) and I suppose the water receding has caused them to chortle in great self-satisfaction. But then the water receding is just the tsunami's warning signal, and the little popgun will soon be revealed as utterly inadequate to stem the inflation which is ravaging the common people's budgets in both India and China. You can't double your money supply and prop up a housing bubble (flats that cost 40 times gross income, is that sustainable? Believe it if you want, I'll pass, thank you) without unexpected and uncontrollable consequences.
China Cracks Down on Illegal Industrial Mining
Rogue operations in southern China produce an estimated half of the world’s supply of heavy rare earths, which are the most valuable kinds of rare earth metals. Heavy rare earths are increasingly vital to the global manufacture of a range of high-technology products — including iPhones, BlackBerrys, flat-panel televisions, lasers, hybrid cars and wind-power turbines, as well as a lot of military hardware.
China mines 99 percent of the global supply of heavy rare earths, with legal, state-owned mines mainly accounting for the rest of China’s output. That means the Chinese government’s only effective competitors in producing these valuable commodities are the crime rings within the country’s borders.
And so Beijing, intent on maintaining its global chokehold on all rare earths, has begun an energetic campaign to crush the crime syndicates that dominate the open-pit mines in this part of Guangdong Province, home to most of southern China’s mining areas for heavy rare earths.
China to crack down on lavish public-funded fetes
China plans to crack down in the coming year on lavish parties and seminars organized by government officials, hoping to placate a public angered by corruption and accounts of sex and booze-fueled fetes held at taxpayer expense.
Along with vast improvements in quality of life for most Chinese, China's booming economic growth has led to an ever-larger gap between rich and poor and a surge in corruption that brings unwanted public criticism. The Communist leadership sees any public discontent as a threat to government stability.
Some of the parties to make headlines have seen officials die after excessive drinking at banquets. One official was arrested after diary entries he allegedly wrote appeared online describing casual sex, drinking and under-the-table payments at parties.
Lavish official tours to Las Vegas and other places cost taxpayers about 400 billion yuan ($58 billion) every year, according to state broadcaster CCTV. On one such trip two years ago, officials spent taxpayers' money on a $700-a-night Las Vegas hotel and visits to a San Francisco sex show.
It reached a point where President Hu Jintao gave a speech in April warning officials of the temptations of beautiful women, money and power.
Still, the government says some progress is being made. Spending of public money on overseas junkets, receptions and cars declined 5.7 billion yuan ($860 million) in 2010, according to Wu Yuliang, the ruling Communist Party's top corruption-fighting official. He did not say how much was spent on such activities overall.
Wu said 113,000 officials were punished this year for corruption, with more than 4,300 cases transferred to judicial authorities for possible legal action.
Wu, speaking at a news conference Wednesday, addressed the lavish parties specifically, saying a special campaign was under way to "eradicate the phenomenon of extravagance and waste."
China has launched numerous anti-graft campaigns in recent years. Some have seen judges and high-profile party figures sentenced to years in prison. Others have brought down some of China's top corruption hunters, who were found to be lining their own pockets. One even saw the head of the country's food and drug agency executed for approving fake medicine in exchange for cash.
Still, some critics say graft is too deeply ingrained in the system and can't be solved with regulations.An island's dizzying, troubling growth
One year ago, China's ruling State Council laid out a plan to transform its southernmost province into an international tourism destination, or the "Hawaii of the East," as Hainan Island was dubbed.
The result has been a 12-month frenzy of construction - lavish resorts, seaside villas, spas and a helicopter landing pad, still being built, for well-heeled visitors with no time to waste.
And then there are golf courses - plenty of them. By one local estimate, as many as 300 golf courses are being planned for the tropical island, which is about the size of Belgium. Twenty-six are complete, and 70 are under construction. They include the Mission Hills resort, which will boast 10 courses and 162 holes, spread over more than six square miles.
"Nearly every city and county is engaged in development of a golf course," said Liu Futang, 63, a former chief of Hainan's Forest Fire Prevention Bureau. "No golf course has actually earned money. Few of them have people coming to play."
The dizzying pace of construction has forced thousands of indigenous farmers off their land, driven property prices up tenfold and higher, and led many residents to ask how much development is too much.
"Hainan is a real-life example of that film 'Avatar,' " said Liu, who moved here 22 years ago to work in the island province's forestry ministry. "Except in Avatar, they could organize together to fight back." On Hainan, he said, "I don't have much hope - nothing can stop this change."
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