China Economy - News & Updates

[grey boy 2]

AMD says China is expected to be its largest single market by 2012 - People's Daily Online December 03, 2009

Global innovative technology leader Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said yesterday that China could become the company's largest single market within the next two years, boosted by the country's booming rural market and increasing demand for notebooks.

The observation came from AMD President and Chief Executive Officer Dirk Meyer, whose company now stands as the world's second largest chipmaker.

"There are speculations that China will become the world's largest PC market by 2012, but for us, China could become our largest market sooner than that, as we have a higher market share in the country," he said.

China's PC market has showed signs of recovery during the past few months, as the government's economic stimulus package and efforts to subsidize rural computer buyers took effect.

According to figures from research firm Gartner, the PC market in China is estimated to have grown 28.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009, compared with a worldwide average growth of 0.5 percent in the same period.

AMD Senior Vice President and President of AMD Greater China Karen Guo said China's PC market has shown great potential during the financial crisis. She said the company's growth in the country is expected to come from rural areas and demand for notebooks in the future.

Since the company's entry into China in 1993, it has maintained sustained growth as it successfully won local customers such as Lenovo, Founder, Tongfang and Dawning.

The company also established a close relationship with key Chinese government organizations by transferring key x86 microprocessor technology and helping China develop its own supercomputing capability.

Lagging behind market leader Intel, AMD accounts for about 25 to 30 percent of desktop computers around the world, according to the company. In the emerging notebook market, the company's share is about 10 to 15 percent.

Guo said in China AMD's market share is relatively higher. She said the company would work closely with local governments and its partners in China to cash in on the plan to sell more computers in rural areas.

AMD now has nearly 2,000 employees in China and has the company's second largest research center in the country. The company also has a microprocessor test, mark and pack (TMP) facility in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu province.

Last month, the giant chipmaker Intel announced that it would pay $1.25 billion to settle its long-running disputes with AMD, ending the industry's most bitter legal war that covers both antitrust and patent claims.

Dirk said yesterday that most of the payment it received from Intel would be used to pay the company's current debt. "But we will assuredly increase our investment in emerging markets such as China where most of the PC shipment growth comes from," he said.

In the past few years, AMD has challenged its biggest rival Intel Corp as never before in the company's 40-year history.

Earlier this year, AMD decided to drop its "Smarter Choice" tagline in exchange for "The future is fusion", as it tries to highlight the combination of its microprocessor and graphics technologies.

Source: China Daily

 

[Seadog1]

Frankly speaking, I don't like GFW, which was created to solve one issue but created another. However, just let you know, we could bypass the wall if we want or we could simply choose countless domestic "youtube"s - faster and easier to use. And the most important is, people lived very well without youtube for years. It's not a fundamental element of people's daily life.

I am not a guardian of the censorship. However, I believe that in a developing country with 1.3 billion population, stability is more important than "free speech". We are extremely scrupulous on this point because we can't afford any anarchy.

I believe many years later, when our country is ready, we will be there. I have confidence.

I think it was Voltaire that said,,, I disagree with what you say but I would defend to the death your right to say it....I am not sure I have ever heard some one defend censorship before...

To Americans No right is more fundamental than freedom of speech. Without freedom of speech you sooner or later you wont be able to communicate your ideas and feelings, decry a social injustice, pursue an artistic vision, investigate scientific truth, practice a religion, or criticize government. If freedom of speech is destroyed, self-development is crippled, social progress grinds to a halt, and official lies become the only "truth."

Freedom of speech is considered one of the basic human rights, included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people"; and in the European Convention on Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers"; and guaranteed in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

 

[oct605032048]

I do appreciate the value of human right, but this thread is not for this argument. You may discuss your opinions in other posts. It is very impolite to interrupt offensively into this thread which is about China's economic development.

If you live in the States and never came to China, how would you know people in China have been cut off from the outside world?

Does youtube or other google's products equal human rights? If this is the result of your logical thinking, then no discussion is needed. Have you ever heard of Baidu, sina and qq? All chinese here on this forum can read, write and understand english and news on the so-called free media, but how many of you can read and understand chinese？Since your knowledge about china comes from secand-hand media than your opinion has no value here. The fact is there are 100 million Chinese people traveling abroad,come and back. If life in China is awful why would they come back?

Even if China were lacking human rights as you said, as a foreigner especially an american has no say here. because the history since 1840 taught people in China a lesson: national sovereignty and independence from the foreign powers are the most precious values. When Nanjing, the then capital was lost in the war against Japanese and millions of people were slaughtered, where are the moralist and their human rights?

Thanks for your concern for China's human rights, people in China have been pursuing and will defend their rights and there is no such a need of any foreign assistance/interference/conspiracy/lampoon/crocodile tears.

 

[Seadog1]

I do appreciate the value of human right, but this thread is not for this argument. You may discuss your opinions in other posts.

But it does lead to a logical question,,doesnt it...

What is that China fears, What is the problem that is so great that it is necessary for China to deprive 1.5 billion Chinese of one of their Basic Human Rights...and

that leads to the next logical conclusion is if Chinas stability is threaten by such a basic human right then China economy is threaten if Chinas stability is in danger.

 

[Kuuba]

I think it was Voltaire that said,,, I disagree with what you say but I would defend to the death your right to say it....I am not sure I have ever heard some one defend censorship before...

To Americans No right is more fundamental than freedom of speech. Without freedom of speech you sooner or later you wont be able to communicate your ideas and feelings, decry a social injustice, pursue an artistic vision, investigate scientific truth, practice a religion, or criticize government. If freedom of speech is destroyed, self-development is crippled, social progress grinds to a halt, and official lies become the only "truth."

Freedom of speech is considered one of the basic human rights, included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people"; and in the European Convention on Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers"; and guaranteed in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

You are a funny guy with comedy talent. It's really shameless for US to talk about human rights. Seriously. Politicians do that because shameless is their job. Do you also get paid because of shameless? Here I am not going to waste my time to list all the anti-human-right behaviors of yesterday and today done by US.

Who is innocent? - Godfather

What I disgust most is not bad, but bad in the name of good.

 

[Seadog1]

You are a funny guy with comedy talent. It's really shameless for US to talk about human rights. Seriously. Politicians do that because shameless is their job. Do you also get paid because of shameless? Here I am not going to waste my time to list all the anti-human-right behaviors of yesterday and today done by US.

Who is innocent? - Godfather

What I disgust most is not bad, but bad in the name of good.

What I find amuseing is people trying to defend that that which is indefenseable ..such as a country depriveing its citizens of basic human rights such as the freedom of speech. Dont get me wrong I strongly support China prosperity,,I dont see it as a threat to the USA but a blesssing for the people of China and the entire world,,,but I also forsee the posibility of major problems with a country that half capitalist and half communist and I am aware of the unrest in China.

 

[grey boy 2]

Goldman: China, emerging economies to lure funds for 20 years - People's Daily Online December 03, 2009

World's major emerging economies led by China are expected to attract more global investments away from the developed economies for the upcoming 20 years, the Goldman Sachs Group said a report.

Those flows will counter any impact on China's capital markets from government measures aimed at curbing over-speculation, the Bloomberg quoted Thomas Deng, Goldman Sachs' head of China strategy, as saying.

Corporate profit growth in China, estimated at between 20-30 percent on average in 2010, will fuel an equity market rally in China, said Deng. He recommended buying shares in China's auto and healthcare industries.

"Western countries' money is moving to oriental countries, and that means developed world money is flowing into developing countries,” Deng told reporters in Hong Kong on Wednesday. "This will be a trend in the next 10 to 20 years."

Developing economies will expand 5.1 percent in 2010 compared with 1.3 percent growth in the developed economies, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Goldman Sachs forecasts Hong Kong's Hang Seng China Enterprises Index will reach 17,000 by the end of next year, according to Deng.
China's CSI 300 Index will hit 4,300 by the end of 2010, the Bloomberg quoted Deng as saying.

An unprecedented $1.3 trillion of loans this year and a $586 billion stimulus package pushed China's economy to record 8.9 percent growth in the third quarter, the fastest expansion in a year. The credit boom helped the Shanghai Composite Index rally 80 percent this year and Hong Kong's H-share index surge 69 percent. Home prices in 70 major cities in China climbed at the fastest pace in 14 months in October.

People's Daily Online

 

[grey boy 2]

GM to cede venture control to China partner - People's Daily Online 08:51, December 04, 2009

US auto giant General Motors has reached a deal to hand control of its joint venture with China's SAIC Motor Corp to the Shanghai-based car maker, the New York Times said Thursday

SAIC said Thursday its shares had been suspended from trading pending an announcement on a "major assets restructuring."

According to the Times, the troubled GM will sell SAIC 1.0 percent of its stake in their joint venture which would then give China's largest car maker a 51 percent share of the company.

In return, GM will keep equal voting rights with SAIC and reserve the right to buy back the 1.0 percent stake at a later stage, the report said.

There was no immediate comment from General Motors on the report, and it was not known how much the sale would raise for the US giant which is undergoing a major restructuring.

But one person close to GM told the Times: "It's a big deal, it's a good deal."

SAIC shares, which closed down 0.04 percent at 25.53 yuan on Wednesday, will resume trading after the plan is announced, SAIC said

People's Daily Online

 

[grey boy 2]

China makes new carbon aircraft brake disk - People's Daily Online

10:15, December 06, 2009

China has invented a carbon aircraft brake disk, breaking foreign companies' monopoly on the product.

The brake disk, developed by the Xi'an Chaoma Technology Co. Ltd affiliated with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, passed experts' appraisal here Friday.

The brake disk has proprietary intellectual property rights and its function has reached international level, according to the appraisal meeting.

The disk costs half of the similar products overseas and can save about 100 million yuan (14.6 million yuan) a year for the Chinese civil aviation industry.

The disk applies the carbon-carbon composite materials, which has high intensity and stiffness. It's 40 percent lighter than the traditional metal materials and can resist temperature as high as 2,000 degrees Celsius.

The disk has got the manufacturing license for the Boing 757 and Airbus 318/319/320.

Source: Xinhua

 

[grey boy 2]

Sales of China's online gaming industry to hit 27.5 bln yuan in 2009 - People's Daily Online
11:45, December 06, 2009

The sales revenue of China's online gaming industry is expected to reach 27.5 billion yuan (about 4.03 billion U.S. dollars) in 2009, according to Ma Huateng, president and CEO of China's leading Internet service provider Tencent Holdings Limited.

Ma made the prediction at the opening ceremony of the Seventh China International Digital Content Expo on Friday.

The third quarter financial reports of major Chinese online game companies including Sohu, Tencent, NetEase and Shanda, showed most of them recorded a 60 percent or even higher increase in gross profit, Beijing Daily reported Saturday.

The sales revenue of China's online gaming industry reached 18.38 billion yuan in 2008, up 76.6 percent from 2007.

An executive from the gaming department of NetEase attributed the continuous growth of the online gaming industry to the development of Internet technologies and preferential policies from the government.

Chinese online game companies' expansion overseas also contributed to the growth.

The Nasdaq-listed Perfect World, a leading Chinese online game developer and operator, entered the Russian market and set up a branch company in the United States in 2009.

Source: Xinhua

 

[Seadog1]

Chinese Crime Rate Soars As Economic Problems Grow
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 21, 1999; Page A19

BEIJING—As economic conditions begin to worsen, China's Communist leadership faces a growing problem of internal security, manifested in a soaring crime rate and signals of a broader restiveness around the country.

Over the past two weeks, state-run media have reported three bombings that killed more than 21 people. A gang of masked thieves suspected of robbing jewelry stores throughout central China engaged in a dramatic shootout with police in the middle of Wuhan, a city of 7 million people. And a human rights organization said a tax protest by thousands of farmers in Hunan province on Jan. 8 left one protester dead and scores injured when police suppressed it.

Communist Party sources said that last year more than 5,000 protests -- in cities and the countryside -- severely taxed China's massive security services. Meanwhile, Chinese experts have been quoted in the state-run press as saying China is facing its most serious crime wave since the Communist revolution in 1949. Narcotics seizures are the highest ever. So are slayings of police officers.

The reports, collected over several weeks, seem to underscore the fears of senior Communist Party officials that 1999 will be a difficult year for China. The Asian financial crisis has begun to bite here, slowing the country's growth rate and increasing unemployment in major cities. Discontent with corruption within the Communist Party also is growing, triggering unrest.

Few, if any, analysts believe that China is tottering on the brink of a political breakdown. But the events of the past two weeks, coupled with a smattering of statistics released recently by the official media, paint a picture of a country with serious crime problems, a disgruntled population and no readily available means to improve the situation.

The reports follow one of the Communist Party's toughest crackdowns on dissent in years. Four dissidents were sentenced last month to 10 years or more in jail for attempting to establish an opposition political party, the China Democracy Party. That party formed preparatory committees in 23 provinces and was trying to register in 14 provinces and cities when China's security apparatus smashed it and arrested its organizers, who are veteran dissidents. The ability of the China Democracy Party to organize so quickly surprised the Communist Party and Western diplomats and was an indication of the depth of disquiet felt by many Chinese.

The main ingredients in the current strife appear to be the economic slowdown coupled with growing opposition to corruption within the Communist Party.

Opposition to corruption and to heavy-handed tactics is what prompted 3,000 farmers to protest on Jan. 8 in the village of Daolin, outside of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. The farmers marched on government offices after police arrested the organizers of an unofficial group called the Lower Taxes and Save the Country Society, according to the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization.

More than 1,000 security personnel broke up the protest, using clubs and tear gas, the center said. One man bled to death after he was hit by a canister. Authorities gave his family $7,000 in reparations. The protests continued the next day, and the People's Armed Police were called in to quell the disturbance; more than 110 people were detained. Residents in Daolin corroborated the Hong Kong report, but added that many of those detained have been released.

Hunan is not just a hotbed of rural dissent. It also has been battered by high urban unemployment. On Jan. 1, the Changsha city government issued an order "prohibiting attacks on state organs and blockages of traffic," according to a recent edition of the Hunan Economic Times, a state-run paper. It said that during the first 10 months of 1998, unemployed workers, angry at not being paid unemployment benefits, blocked traffic on the main boulevards of the provincial capital more than 60 times -- a rare acknowledgment of the extent of urban unrest.

Throughout the country, labor unrest is expected to increase with the economic decline. The official China Daily reported last week that 16 million city dwellers will not be able to find work this year -- 11 percent of the urban work force, and one of the highest percentages of unemployed since 1949. Another 120 million people in the countryside are out of work, and many of them have traveled in search of jobs, leading to social problems and crime waves.

Crime, after corruption, is fast becoming one of the main worries of city dwellers. Over the past two weeks, Chinese have been treated to a number of shocking reports.

Shortly after sundown on Jan. 4, a gang burst into a jewelry store in the Wuhan Square Shopping Center, stole about $500,000 worth of jewels and then fired a fusillade at police during their escape. Two police officers, one soldier and three passersby were wounded. Last year, 442 Chinese police officers were killed and 7,735 injured while on duty, the Public Security Ministry reported earlier this month.

On Jan. 6, in northeastern Liaoning province, a prospective thief blew up a bus, killing 19 people in a botched robbery attempt. The suspect had hoped to rob passengers after knocking them out with a controlled explosion. He was arrested and has confessed, official press reports said.

On Sunday, again in Hunan's Changsha, a man believed to be a rural migrant ignited a bomb on a bus injuring 37 passengers, including three who lost their legs, the New China News Agency reported. Last Wednesday, four people were injured in a blast in the southern city of Zhuhai. Official press reports said an "unidentified object" exploded near a downtown bus stop.

The bombs and Wuhan robbery are dramatic indications of the crime wave sweeping China.

In an interview with the state-run press last week, Cao Feng, an expert on crime statistics at the Chinese People's University of Public Security, said China was experiencing its "fifth peak of criminal activity" since the Communist revolution.

Cao said the incidence of crimes is running about eight times what it was a decade ago and illegal drugs are a particularly troubling problem because China had all but wiped out drug use following the revolution.

Narcotics seizures in 1998 were the highest in the history of Communist China.

Police seized more than seven tons of drugs, including 2.5 tons of heroin last year, the state-run press said last week. In all, narcotics seizures were up 19-fold over 1997, it said.

 

[Honor]

Chinese Crime Rate Soars As Economic Problems Grow
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 21, 1999; Page A19

BEIJING—As economic conditions begin to worsen, China's Communist leadership faces a growing problem of internal security, manifested in a soaring crime rate and signals of a broader restiveness around the country.

Over the past two weeks, state-run media have reported three bombings that killed more than 21 people. A gang of masked thieves suspected of robbing jewelry stores throughout central China engaged in a dramatic shootout with police in the middle of Wuhan, a city of 7 million people. And a human rights organization said a tax protest by thousands of farmers in Hunan province on Jan. 8 left one protester dead and scores injured when police suppressed it.

Communist Party sources said that last year more than 5,000 protests -- in cities and the countryside -- severely taxed China's massive security services. Meanwhile, Chinese experts have been quoted in the state-run press as saying China is facing its most serious crime wave since the Communist revolution in 1949. Narcotics seizures are the highest ever. So are slayings of police officers.

The reports, collected over several weeks, seem to underscore the fears of senior Communist Party officials that 1999 will be a difficult year for China. The Asian financial crisis has begun to bite here, slowing the country's growth rate and increasing unemployment in major cities. Discontent with corruption within the Communist Party also is growing, triggering unrest.

Few, if any, analysts believe that China is tottering on the brink of a political breakdown. But the events of the past two weeks, coupled with a smattering of statistics released recently by the official media, paint a picture of a country with serious crime problems, a disgruntled population and no readily available means to improve the situation.

The reports follow one of the Communist Party's toughest crackdowns on dissent in years. Four dissidents were sentenced last month to 10 years or more in jail for attempting to establish an opposition political party, the China Democracy Party. That party formed preparatory committees in 23 provinces and was trying to register in 14 provinces and cities when China's security apparatus smashed it and arrested its organizers, who are veteran dissidents. The ability of the China Democracy Party to organize so quickly surprised the Communist Party and Western diplomats and was an indication of the depth of disquiet felt by many Chinese.

The main ingredients in the current strife appear to be the economic slowdown coupled with growing opposition to corruption within the Communist Party.

Opposition to corruption and to heavy-handed tactics is what prompted 3,000 farmers to protest on Jan. 8 in the village of Daolin, outside of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. The farmers marched on government offices after police arrested the organizers of an unofficial group called the Lower Taxes and Save the Country Society, according to the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization.

More than 1,000 security personnel broke up the protest, using clubs and tear gas, the center said. One man bled to death after he was hit by a canister. Authorities gave his family $7,000 in reparations. The protests continued the next day, and the People's Armed Police were called in to quell the disturbance; more than 110 people were detained. Residents in Daolin corroborated the Hong Kong report, but added that many of those detained have been released.

Hunan is not just a hotbed of rural dissent. It also has been battered by high urban unemployment. On Jan. 1, the Changsha city government issued an order "prohibiting attacks on state organs and blockages of traffic," according to a recent edition of the Hunan Economic Times, a state-run paper. It said that during the first 10 months of 1998, unemployed workers, angry at not being paid unemployment benefits, blocked traffic on the main boulevards of the provincial capital more than 60 times -- a rare acknowledgment of the extent of urban unrest.

Throughout the country, labor unrest is expected to increase with the economic decline. The official China Daily reported last week that 16 million city dwellers will not be able to find work this year -- 11 percent of the urban work force, and one of the highest percentages of unemployed since 1949. Another 120 million people in the countryside are out of work, and many of them have traveled in search of jobs, leading to social problems and crime waves.

Crime, after corruption, is fast becoming one of the main worries of city dwellers. Over the past two weeks, Chinese have been treated to a number of shocking reports.

Shortly after sundown on Jan. 4, a gang burst into a jewelry store in the Wuhan Square Shopping Center, stole about $500,000 worth of jewels and then fired a fusillade at police during their escape. Two police officers, one soldier and three passersby were wounded. Last year, 442 Chinese police officers were killed and 7,735 injured while on duty, the Public Security Ministry reported earlier this month.

On Jan. 6, in northeastern Liaoning province, a prospective thief blew up a bus, killing 19 people in a botched robbery attempt. The suspect had hoped to rob passengers after knocking them out with a controlled explosion. He was arrested and has confessed, official press reports said.

On Sunday, again in Hunan's Changsha, a man believed to be a rural migrant ignited a bomb on a bus injuring 37 passengers, including three who lost their legs, the New China News Agency reported. Last Wednesday, four people were injured in a blast in the southern city of Zhuhai. Official press reports said an "unidentified object" exploded near a downtown bus stop.

The bombs and Wuhan robbery are dramatic indications of the crime wave sweeping China.

In an interview with the state-run press last week, Cao Feng, an expert on crime statistics at the Chinese People's University of Public Security, said China was experiencing its "fifth peak of criminal activity" since the Communist revolution.

Cao said the incidence of crimes is running about eight times what it was a decade ago and illegal drugs are a particularly troubling problem because China had all but wiped out drug use following the revolution.

Narcotics seizures in 1998 were the highest in the history of Communist China.

Police seized more than seven tons of drugs, including 2.5 tons of heroin last year, the state-run press said last week. In all, narcotics seizures were up 19-fold over 1997, it said.

Why are u posting a 10years ago information?

 

[GLOBAL HAWK]

Chinese Crime Rate Soars As Economic Problems Grow
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 21, 1999; Page A19

BEIJING—As economic conditions begin to worsen, China's Communist leadership faces a growing problem of internal security, manifested in a soaring crime rate and signals of a broader restiveness around the country.

Over the past two weeks, state-run media have reported three bombings that killed more than 21 people. A gang of masked thieves suspected of robbing jewelry stores throughout central China engaged in a dramatic shootout with police in the middle of Wuhan, a city of 7 million people. And a human rights organization said a tax protest by thousands of farmers in Hunan province on Jan. 8 left one protester dead and scores injured when police suppressed it.

Communist Party sources said that last year more than 5,000 protests -- in cities and the countryside -- severely taxed China's massive security services. Meanwhile, Chinese experts have been quoted in the state-run press as saying China is facing its most serious crime wave since the Communist revolution in 1949. Narcotics seizures are the highest ever. So are slayings of police officers.

The reports, collected over several weeks, seem to underscore the fears of senior Communist Party officials that 1999 will be a difficult year for China. The Asian financial crisis has begun to bite here, slowing the country's growth rate and increasing unemployment in major cities. Discontent with corruption within the Communist Party also is growing, triggering unrest.

Few, if any, analysts believe that China is tottering on the brink of a political breakdown. But the events of the past two weeks, coupled with a smattering of statistics released recently by the official media, paint a picture of a country with serious crime problems, a disgruntled population and no readily available means to improve the situation.

The reports follow one of the Communist Party's toughest crackdowns on dissent in years. Four dissidents were sentenced last month to 10 years or more in jail for attempting to establish an opposition political party, the China Democracy Party. That party formed preparatory committees in 23 provinces and was trying to register in 14 provinces and cities when China's security apparatus smashed it and arrested its organizers, who are veteran dissidents. The ability of the China Democracy Party to organize so quickly surprised the Communist Party and Western diplomats and was an indication of the depth of disquiet felt by many Chinese.

The main ingredients in the current strife appear to be the economic slowdown coupled with growing opposition to corruption within the Communist Party.

Opposition to corruption and to heavy-handed tactics is what prompted 3,000 farmers to protest on Jan. 8 in the village of Daolin, outside of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. The farmers marched on government offices after police arrested the organizers of an unofficial group called the Lower Taxes and Save the Country Society, according to the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization.

More than 1,000 security personnel broke up the protest, using clubs and tear gas, the center said. One man bled to death after he was hit by a canister. Authorities gave his family $7,000 in reparations. The protests continued the next day, and the People's Armed Police were called in to quell the disturbance; more than 110 people were detained. Residents in Daolin corroborated the Hong Kong report, but added that many of those detained have been released.

Hunan is not just a hotbed of rural dissent. It also has been battered by high urban unemployment. On Jan. 1, the Changsha city government issued an order "prohibiting attacks on state organs and blockages of traffic," according to a recent edition of the Hunan Economic Times, a state-run paper. It said that during the first 10 months of 1998, unemployed workers, angry at not being paid unemployment benefits, blocked traffic on the main boulevards of the provincial capital more than 60 times -- a rare acknowledgment of the extent of urban unrest.

Throughout the country, labor unrest is expected to increase with the economic decline. The official China Daily reported last week that 16 million city dwellers will not be able to find work this year -- 11 percent of the urban work force, and one of the highest percentages of unemployed since 1949. Another 120 million people in the countryside are out of work, and many of them have traveled in search of jobs, leading to social problems and crime waves.

Crime, after corruption, is fast becoming one of the main worries of city dwellers. Over the past two weeks, Chinese have been treated to a number of shocking reports.

Shortly after sundown on Jan. 4, a gang burst into a jewelry store in the Wuhan Square Shopping Center, stole about $500,000 worth of jewels and then fired a fusillade at police during their escape. Two police officers, one soldier and three passersby were wounded. Last year, 442 Chinese police officers were killed and 7,735 injured while on duty, the Public Security Ministry reported earlier this month.

On Jan. 6, in northeastern Liaoning province, a prospective thief blew up a bus, killing 19 people in a botched robbery attempt. The suspect had hoped to rob passengers after knocking them out with a controlled explosion. He was arrested and has confessed, official press reports said.

On Sunday, again in Hunan's Changsha, a man believed to be a rural migrant ignited a bomb on a bus injuring 37 passengers, including three who lost their legs, the New China News Agency reported. Last Wednesday, four people were injured in a blast in the southern city of Zhuhai. Official press reports said an "unidentified object" exploded near a downtown bus stop.

The bombs and Wuhan robbery are dramatic indications of the crime wave sweeping China.

In an interview with the state-run press last week, Cao Feng, an expert on crime statistics at the Chinese People's University of Public Security, said China was experiencing its "fifth peak of criminal activity" since the Communist revolution.

Cao said the incidence of crimes is running about eight times what it was a decade ago and illegal drugs are a particularly troubling problem because China had all but wiped out drug use following the revolution.

Narcotics seizures in 1998 were the highest in the history of Communist China.

Police seized more than seven tons of drugs, including 2.5 tons of heroin last year, the state-run press said last week. In all, narcotics seizures were up 19-fold over 1997, it said.

This is indeed worrisome!!
But hey Chinese CCP can crackdown on these easily!!!
Narcotics is a big headache to the whole world.

 

[Seadog1]

Why are u posting a 10years ago information?

My mistake thought it was 2009

This is better:

China riots 'won't lead to rebellion'

Tracy Quek
The Straits Times
Publication Date: 12-02-2009







The number of protests and riots in China is rising by the year, but there is little possibility that social unrest will result in an anti-government uprising, a Chinese academic said yesterday (February 11).

Mass incidents - the Chinese government's term for riots, demonstrations and protests - should not be mistaken for attempts to "rebel against or overthrow the government", said Dr Wang Erping of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Psychology.

Rather, these are instances of "ordinary Chinese people wanting to put pressure on local governments to solve problems or improve situations", he said in a discussion with journalists. He had been asked if recent and increasingly common reports of unrest were signs that Beijing could soon have a 'revolution' on its hands.


Using an analogy, Dr Wang, who has studied mass incidents from a psychological perspective, said current cases of unrest for the Chinese government 'are like ringworm infections: They make you feel uncomfortable, but they are not fatal'.

In fact, he said his research revealed that protesting or rioting was the last recourse for most Chinese. His team's survey of almost 10,000 ordinary Chinese carried out between 2004 and last year showed that if faced with grievances, a majority said they preferred to settle the matter privately or through legal and 'proper' channels, rather than resort to violent means.

The survey was carried out in 193 counties across five provinces located in China's western and central regions.

Even as China's top leaders grapple with a withering economy this year after three decades of red-hot growth, a bigger challenge will be to maintain social stability amid rising tensions exacerbated by the economic crisis and huge job losses.

Social unrest goes against President Hu Jintao's political mantra of a "harmonious society" and is seen by the ruling Chinese Communist Party as the biggest challenge to its rule.

China's Public Security Ministry reported 87,000 mass incidents in 2005, up 6.6 per cent over the number in 2004, and 50 per cent over the 2003 figure. The ministry has not released the latest figures.

According to Dr Wang's presentation yesterday, which he said was based on official statistics, there were at least 10,000 mass incidents recorded in 1993. The number ballooned to more than 60,000 in 2005. Two years later, it exceeded 80,000.

Asked if he had an estimate for the number of mass incidents last year, Dr Wang said a study had been done, but he would say only that the number was "higher than that in 2007, but the increase was not as big as the rise between 2005 and 2007".

He added that scholars researching the phenomenon have advised China's leaders since 2005 to "listen more to the voices and complaints of the ordinary people" in order to minimise unrest.

 

[grey boy 2]

China's solar power capacity will reach 20 mln kWh in 2020 - People's Daily Online

11:18, December 07, 2009

China plans to achieve the goal of 20 million kWh of installed solar power capacity in 2020, said Liang Zhipeng, head of the new and renewable energy division of China's State Energy Bureau. The goal is over 10 times the target set by the government two years ago.

"With fierce market competition and advancing technology, if the cost of solar power is comparable with wind power and thermal power, the total solar power capacity won't be limited to 20 million kWh," said Liang, expecting that annual growth of solar power capacity will be 5 to 10 million kWh by then.

In the wind power sector, the government set a goal close to market estimation. Liang said that China would establish 7 wind power bases which would have over 10 million kWh of power capacity each. By 2020, China's wind power capacity will reach 150 million kWh.

China's target for water power and biomass energy remained unchanged. By 2020, these two sectors are expected to have capacity of 300 million kWh and 30 million kWh respectively. Nuclear power will "see considerable growth," said Liang.

Capacity is not the Chinese government's only goal, Liang noted. "We are in pursuit of not only capacity, but also technology and industrial competitiveness."

Liang estimated that by 2020, China's renewable energy use will be equivalent to 800 million tons of standard coal, or one third of China's current annual energy consumption. By then, China will be able to reduce carbon dioxide emission by 1.8 billion tons annually.

By People's Daily Online