Human rights advocate Harry Wu dies

The great human rights advocate Harry Wu sadly has passed away. Here is how Wu is commemorated by the Washington based Laogai Research Foundation, which he founded:

It is with great sadness that the Laogai Research Foundation announces the passing of its founder, Harry Wu, who died in Honduras this morning at the age of 79. Mr. Wu was vacationing with friends when he passed away.
Harry Wu was a Catholic and a well-known presence on Capitol Hill for his defense of people who suffered in China’s brutal Laogai camps. The Laogai are China’s forced prison labor camps that began under Mao and continue in China today.
While a college student, Mr. Wu was sentenced to 19 years in China’s Laogai after being labeled a counter-revolutionary for speaking out against the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary.
Harry Wu was released in 1979 and came to the United States in 1985 with just $40 in his pocket. Since then, he traveled back to China multiple times to further investigate Laogai camps and promote human rights developments in China. Mr. Wu founded the Laogai Research Foundation in 1992 to gather information and raise public awareness of the Chinese Laogai.
In 1995, Chinese authorities arrested and charged Mr. Wu, then a US citizen, with "stealing state secrets" in retaliation for his efforts to expose human rights abuses in China, among them his participation in a CBS 60 Minutes segment documenting China's vast labor camp system. A Chinese court subsequently sentenced him to another 15 years in prison. Due to the tireless efforts of US politicians, human rights activists, and diplomats, Chinese authorities deported Wu just prior to the beginning of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which Hillary Clinton attended in 1995.
Harry Wu was the author of many books including “The Chinese Gulag”, “Bitter Winds”, and “Troublemaker.” He dedicated his book “Troublemaker” “To the Chinese people who have suffered, who have left, who have stayed; someday soon, no more Laogai.”
Harry Wu spoke out for international labor rights and religious freedom, and against the death penalty, forced organ harvesting, and China’s brutal one-child policy. Harry Wu was a great supporter of the Dalai Lama, a Free Tibet, and 2010 Nobel Prize Honoree Liu Xiaobo.
In 2008, Harry Wu opened the first Laogai Museum in Washington, DC. Mr. Wu was the recipient of many international awards and honors.
Harry Wu is survived by his son, Harrison, and his former wife, Ching Lee. He was beloved by many.

China and COP 21: A return to fossil free transportation?

China has joined the "historic" COP 21 climate change agreement. The ruling Communist Party government is now seriously considering a return to this proven - 100% fossil free - mean of
transportation:

 

 

PS

 

The Prince of Wales and other royal greenies might also be interested. And, yes, this could very well become the prefered mode of transportation for the top EU bureaucrats ... :-)

Communist China tortures lawyers

Communist China´s human rights violations should not be forgotten!

Beijing prosecutor and lawyer Tang Jitian was on the grounds of a Chinese black jail last year, investigating a case, when local police officers handcuffed and attacked him.

 

“I was first strapped to an iron chair, slapped in the face, kicked on my legs, and hit so hard over the head with a plastic bottle filled with water that I passed out,” Tang said to Amnesty International of his sudden detention. Three other lawyers with him received the same treatment that day.

 

Under the ever-tightening censorship policies of China’s central government, human rights activists and lawyers in the country have found themselves subject to a brutal, sweeping crackdown this year. On Nov. 12, human rights organization Amnesty International released a new report that tells Tang’s chilling story—as well as dozens of others from lawyers who’ve also been assaulted by the Chinese government.

 

These personal accounts come to light at a crucial time: Next week, China will answer questions from a United Nations anti-torture committee at a conference in Geneva—the UN’s fifth probe into the country’s torture practices.

The beginning of the end for China´s ruling Communist Party?

This is far more important than Greece! The beginning of the end for China´s ruling Communist Party?:

Chinese equities have suffered the sharpest one-day crash in eight years, sending powerful tremors through global commodity markets and smashing currencies across East Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The Shanghai Composite index fell 8.5pc despite emergency measures to shore up the market, with a roster of the biggest blue-chip companies down by the maximum daily limit of 10pc. The mood was further soured by news that corporated profits in China are now contracting in absolute terms, falling 0.3pc over the past year.

Obama´s "climate breakthrough" with China: Hype and reality

 

The hype: 

 

 

 

With his popularity continuously sinking in the US, president Obama resorts to non-binding hype with China on "climate change". Fortunately the Republican dominated US Congress will most certainly roll back Obama´s spurious carbon "pollution" targets.

Of course China needs to control its real air pollution, but that has nothing to do with the kind of hype now agreed in Peking.


When Obama returns to Washington D.C. he will get a less than warm welcome:

The reality:

 

From the Rockies to the heartland, ferocious winds are ripping across the Plains, bringing freezing temperatures as far south as Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle.

And there's more coming.

"Round two gets colder. This is not over by any means," CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said Tuesday. "The next 10 days over the entire eastern half of the country will be below normal."

Hardly anyone in the eastern two-thirds of the nation will be spared by the time the weekend hits.

 

And this winter also Europe will be hit:

 

A FREAK series of rare atmospheric events is set to plunge Britain into the worst winter of modern times with heavy snow paralysing the entire country within WEEKS.

 

Shocked forecasters warned tonight the latest high-tech weather models point to a CATASTROPHIC big freeze in late 2014 with THREE MONTHS of blizzards and Arctic gales.
They fear a lethal and unprecedented combination of low pressure, above-average rainfall and a freak Polar vortex will come together in a perfect storm of misery for Winter 2014.

 

 

PS

This is what Senator James Inhofe has to say about Obama´s "historic" deal in Peking:

 

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, released the following statement today about the announced deal between the United States and China to address climate change:
"In the President's climate change deal, the United States will be required to more steeply reduce our carbon emissions while China won't have to reduce anything. It's hollow and not believable for China to claim it will shift 20 percent of its energy to non-fossil fuels by 2030, and a promise to peak its carbon emissions only allows the world's largest economy to buy time. China builds a coal-fired power plant every 10 days, is the largest importer of coal in the world, and has no known reserves of natural gas. This deal is a non-binding charade. The American people spoke against the President's climate policies in this last election. They want affordable energy and more economic opportunity, both which are being diminished by overbearing EPA mandates. As we enter a new Congress, I will do everything in my power to rein in and shed light on the EPA's unchecked regulations.”

The arrest of a prominent human rights lawyer shows that China is a thugocracy

The arrest of prominent human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang is further proof that China is a thugocracy:

Chinese authorities formally arrested prominent lawyer Pu Zhiqiang on Friday for "picking quarrels and creating a disturbance."

His other alleged crime was "illegally obtaining citizens' personal information," Beijing police said on their official microblog, adding that the investigation into Pu is still ongoing.

Pu, 49, was detained in early May after attending a low-key seminar in a private home to mark the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. State-run Global Times newspaper said in an editorial at the time that he had crossed "a legal red line" by associating himself with a topic still considered taboo in China.

Pu took part in the student-led demonstrations in 1989 that ended in a bloody military crackdown on June 4 of that year. He later become one of the best-known lawyers in China for defending human rights in courts as well as in the media. --

Pu's arrest comes as the latest development in a new wave of government crackdowns on human rights advocates. Police put nearly 100 people in detention or under house arrest before this year's Tiananmen anniversary, said Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Washington-based monitoring group.

When President Xi Jinping took office in 2013, some activists hoped he would preside over a system more tolerant of dissent and discussion. His government, however, is now widely seen as tightening the screws on the work of activists and intellectuals, including the sentencing of Xu Zhiyong, another well-known human rights lawyer, to four years in prison in January after he pushed for financial transparency for senior officials.

Further proof that Vladimir Putin's China gas deal is an expensive failure

Vladimir Putin's much lauded China gas deal is nothing but a huge failure, as I pointed out right after the signing.

I'm pleased to note the Royal Institute of International Affairs agrees:

The $400 billion natural gas deal Gazprom signed with China National Petroleum Corp. last month strongly favors the Chinese company and its country, writes an analyst with Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London (OGJ Online, May 21, 2014).
“At best, the contract with China will barely allow Gazprom to cover costs,” writes Ilya Zaslavskiy, Robert Bosch fellow in the think tank’s Russia and Eurasia Program. “At worst, it could expose its monopoly and result in huge losses.”
Gazprom is to supply 38 billion cu m/year of gas under the 30-year deal at an average price, confirmed by Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, of $350/thousand cu m (Mcm), Zaslavskiy reports. Links to the price of oil remain vague.
Undisclosed take-or-pay requirements and future price negotiations probably are less favorable to Gazprom than those features of the Russian company’s contracts with European customers, the analyst says. CNPC had the stronger bargaining position because of its alternative gas supplies from Central Asia, Myanmar, LNG, and domestic resources of gas and coal.
Zaslavskiy estimates Gazprom’s direct expenses on production, processing, and transit might exceed $300/Mcm.
That total includes $100/Mcm for development of Chayanda and Kovytka fields in eastern Siberia. Costs related to transportation and processing—including construction of the Power of Siberia pipeline, expansion of the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline, and construction of a processing plant and petrochemical facility in Belogorsk—will be at least $150-200/Mcm, the analyst says.
Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended the mineral extraction tax in a move that will lower government receipts by $30 billion over the life of the contract.
“The real winner,” writes Zaslavskiy, is China.

It is sad to see how the failed dictator Putin is wasting enormous sums of money (that would be needed to improve the crumbling Russian economy) on this entirely political deal.

Reuters praises Putin's disastrous China deal

Reuters is doing a great job as Vladimir Putin's PR agency:

China and Russia signed a $400-billion gas supply deal on Wednesday, securing the world's top energy user a major source of cleaner fuel and opening up a new market for Moscow as it risks losing European customers over the Ukraine crisis.
The long-awaited agreement is a political triumph for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is courting partners in Asia as those in Europe and the United States seek to isolate him over Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.

The China deal is in reality a result of Chinese extortion in a situation where the Russian dictator was forced to make a deal which in the end will be highly unprofitable for the Russians. Gazprom - the pipe laying company - will have to invest a huge amount of money in new pipelines, which most likely never will be profitable. And the Chinese will be able to demand even lower prices, whenever the situation in the world gas markets change.

This deal is far from the "triumph" described by Reuters. It is a political deal, which in the end will lead to an even more weakened Russia.

China should free Christian lawyer, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Gao Zhisheng

China should free the Christian lawyer, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Gao Zhisheng, who was kidnapped and imprisoned five years ago:

As China celebrates its New Year, a Christian human rights lawyer who has been kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured faces the fifth anniversary of his disappearance on February 4, 2009.
On that day, Gao Zhisheng, twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for defending the persecuted, was snatched by a dozen police officers from his apartment. He has publicly accused the authorities of brutally torturing him behind bars.
Little more than a week ago, on January 26, China sentenced another prominent human rights lawyer, Xu Zhiyong, to four years in prison. Christian lawyers have also come under surveillance.
More than a year has passed since Gao Zhisheng’s family were allowed to contact him at the prison in Xinjiang, despite repeatedly begging for permission to see him. On his last visit, Gao’s elder brother was forbidden from asking about conditions at the prison. He said he was worried about Gao’s health and described him as emaciated, with a sore on his face.
‘Release partners are worried that Gao’s health will deteriorate if he remains in the custody of the Chinese Government,’ says Colin King, the UK director of Release International, which serves the persecuted church. ‘Release is urging China to set him free and allow him to return to his family.’
49-year-old Gao Zhisheng has vigorously defended the rights of persecuted Christians, religious minorities and the poor. The authorities shut down his Beijing law firm after he wrote three open letters to China’s leaders, calling for an end to the persecution of the Falun Gong.
The authorities revoked his licence and found Gao guilty of ‘inciting to subvert the state power’. The lawyer later described in detail how he had been tortured under interrogation.
On February 4, 2009, he was again arrested at his home in front of his family and taken away.
At the end of 2011 he was sent to Shaya Prison in Xinjiang to serve out an earlier three-year sentence. There has been no news of Gao Zhisheng for more than a year.

Source

Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng praises the success of democracy in Taiwan

Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese human rights activist, right now on a visit to Taiwan, has a clear message that should not be forgotten: 

Chen, who has long been a critic of China's botched human rights record, sought to encourage China to follow the example of Taiwan's democracy at a press conference on Monday in Taipei.

"The democracy and rule of law in Taiwan show that democracy is not an institution that is unique to the West," Chen said at the press conference, as reported by The New York Times. "The success of democracy in Taiwan also exposed the Chinese government's lie that democracy does not work for the Chinese."

According to The Associated Press, Chen went on to assert that China's eventual democratization could "spell the end of dictatorship for the entire humankind."

Read the entire aticle here

Two high level Chinese delegations visiting Sweden

An official Chinese high level delegation  together with their Swedish hosts in Stockholm in 1906. 

In the spring of the year 1906 a high level official Chinese delegation visited Europe. A visit to Sweden was also included in the study tour. The Chinese mandarins, among them two viceroys, arrived in Stockholm on April 22. During their stay in Sweden the Chinese guests met with Swedish officials and visited several industrial plants. 

However, the Swedish weekly Hvar 8 Dag, which published the photo above, considered it very unlikely that the visit would result in any reforms in China. 

106 years later, in 2012, another official Chinese delegation, led by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, visited Sweden. As in 1906, the Swedish hosts had included a visit to an industrial plant in the program. 

The difference was that this time the Chinese were visiting one of their own plants. Since 2010 the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group owns Sweden's probably most famous industrial brand, Volvo cars. 

As Bob Dylan used to say, The Times They Are a-Changin'...

Obama's "shirt-sleeves' summit" with China's Xi Jinping is a mistake

Later this week, US President Barack Obama will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in California. Yale historian Michael Auslin thinks - rightly - that the meeting, which is pitched as a 'shirt-sleeves' summit', is a mistake: 

... summits like this one should be reserved for friends and allies with whom the United States has close working relationships.--

While it is too late to pull out of this summit, the president still has time to come up with a concrete list of issues that Washington expects movement on. He should make it clear that this experiment in going outside the boundaries of traditional Sino-U.S. meetings will be a one-off if there is no change in Chinese behavior. A better approach in general would be to restrict such top-level meetings until truly necessary, or when it is clear that some agreement on a significant issue has been reached and there will be a measureable outcome. Washington needs not merely to accept that its relations with China are purely transactional, but to act that way, as well. 

Focusing on results during future summits would communicate that Washington is serious about protecting its interests. While our diplomats certainly deal seriously with their Chinese counterparts, the tone set at the top of this administration (and previous ones) has been too accommodating, too willing to play what we think is the long-game of engagement, while ignoring the longer Chinese game of undermining U.S. influence in Asia and globally while avoiding commitment to solving disagreements between us. Unfortunately, this week's "shirt-sleeves" summit will fail to produce a more meaningful U.S.-China relationship because it is driven by wishful thinking, and not by a ruthless desire to protect U.S. interests.

In addition, people should not forget that Xi is in charge of one of the world's most corrupt countries. Although Xi is officially fighting corruption, it should be remembered that his extended family has enriched itself enormously during his time as a Communist Party apparatchik, as Bloomberg found out last year: 

As Xi climbed the Communist Party ranks, his extended family expanded their business interests to include minerals, real estate and mobile-phone equipment, according to public documents compiled by Bloomberg.

Those interests include investments in companies with total assets of $376 million; an 18 percent indirect stake in a rare- earths company with $1.73 billion in assets; and a $20.2 million holding in a publicly traded technology company. --

Most of the extended Xi family’s assets traced by Bloomberg were owned by Xi’s older sister,Qi Qiaoqiao, 63; her husband Deng Jiagui, 61; and Qi’s daughter Zhang Yannan, 33, according to public records compiled by Bloomberg. --

Deng, reached on his mobile phone, said he was retired. When asked about his wife, Zhang and their businesses across the country, he said: “It’s not convenient for me to talk to you about this too much.”

Neither should it be forgotten, as Robert I. Rotberg points out, that Xi is "a corrupt autocrat's best friend": 

African autocrats absolutely adore China’s President Xi Jinping. At a meeting last month with 13 prominent African leaders in Durban, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea’s hard-fisted President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo led the others in lavishing praise on China. The front page of the weekend China Daily for March 29 trumpeted their obsequieousness and China-Africa friendship.

None of Africa’s despots dare bite the hand that has fed so well, and so consistently. While Chinese support keeps rolling in, these leaders enrich themselves and their inner circles while their people go without.

China directly supports the leaders and enables their continued internal tyrannies by refusing to “interfere” in local politics, by willfully ignoring well-documented trails of human rights violations, by turning a blind eye to egregious corrupt practices, and by protecting presidents such as Zimbabwae’s Robert Mugabe and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir when the UN or other regional organizations threaten to investigate their regimes. China has also helped to shield Bashir from the consequences of his indictment for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

China has also provided weapons of war to enable Africa’s worst regimes to prey on their internal opponents.  Chinese aircraft and ammunition were used by the Sudan against its opponents in Darfur and now in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. Zimbabwe received Chinese jets, uniforms for its army, a military staff training college constructed by Chinese labour, and material assistance when Mugabe’s military and family forcibly ousted artisanal miners from Zimbabwe’s lucrative Marange diamond fields.

Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will discuss cybersecurity and closer military ties

We are told that President Barack Obama will discuss cybersecurity with Chinese President Xi Jinping when two two meet in California next week. 

This comes after a Washington Post report that Chinese hackers have been able to access designs of some of the most advanced US defense systems:

Designs for many of the nation’s most sensitive advanced weapons systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, according to a report prepared for the Pentagon and to officials from government and the defense industry.

Among more than two dozen major weapons systems whose designs were breached were programs critical to U.S. missile defenses and combat aircraft and ships, according to a previously undisclosed section of a confidential report prepared for Pentagon leaders by the Defense Science Board.

At the same time Obama's National Security Adviser is calling for deeper military ties with communist China:

The United States called for deeper military ties with China on Tuesday, including working closer together in areas like peacekeeping, fighting piracy and disaster relief, despite growing tensions between the two on a range of security issues.

White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon made the remarks at a meeting with senior Chinese military leader Fan Changlong, two weeks ahead of a summit between the U.S. and Chinese presidents in California.

"An essential part of building a new model for relations between great powers is ensuring we have a healthy, stable and reliable military to military relationship," Donilon told Fan at the Chinese Defence Ministry, in brief comments before reporters.

If Obama's intention really is to have "a healthy, stable and reliable military to military relationship" with the People's Liberation Army, then the question of Chinese military hackers should not be a problem. So maybe Obama actually will tell comrade Xi that he can order his Army of Hackers to concentrate on other, more interesting jobs, because within the framework of the new healthy military relationship, he could have the new weapon designs delivered by ordinary mail, for a modest fee, of course....

China's red capitalists cashing in on the economic mess created by Europe's failed political leaders

The owners of Volvo Car Corporation are nowadays Chinese.

"First they took our jobs by inundating Europe with cheap plagiarized products made by slave workers. Now they are buying up what is left of formerly profitable companies." 
NNoN

The economic mess - a deadly cocktail of a failed common currency, insane climate change policies and disastrous tax payer subsidized wind and solar energy programs - created by Europe's political leaders is an open invitation for China's ruling red elite to come and take over what is left of once profitable industries in the European Union: 

Europe has become the world's largest recipient of foreign investment by Chinese firms. While North America largely views them with suspicion, China's state-owned corporations have been largely welcomed in a continent plagued by recession and in desperate need of cash.

Chinese state-owned companies are expanding their influence in Europe, investing more than $12.6 billion (€9.6 billion) in the Continent last year, according to a study by the Hong Kong-based private equity firm A Capital.

The amount represented an increase of about one-fifth in comparison to 2011, and was all together larger than investments in North America and Asia combined. About 86 percent of the investments were in the service and industrial sectors.

"Many Chinese investors regard Europe's current weakness as an opportunity to jump in," said A Capital CEO André Loesekrug-Pietri. "They're looking for technology, know-how, high-value brands -- and they find them here." Many European firms are world leaders in sectors like industrial manufacturing, auto manufacturing, the environment and health care.

The Chinese leadership is setting these key sectors as a top priority in their newest five-year plan. The State Council is supporting companies' expansions abroad with cheap credit and tax breaks, with 93 percent of Chinese investments in Europe coming from state-owned corporations.

"In Europe, the resistance to these kinds of investments is lower than in other places," Loesekrug-Pietri said. Reservations about the opaque interests of Chinese state companies are greater in the United States, where the government Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) essentially blocked the sale of US aircraft manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft to a Chinese buyer for national security reasons. In 2008, the committee blocked the now-defunct electronics maker 3Com from being partially sold to Chinese state corporation Huawei.

In contrast, Europe has been a largely welcoming place for Chinese buyers. State fund CIC acquired a 10-percent stake in London's Heathrow Airport late last year, and a 7-percent stake in the French satellite provider Eutelsat. And Portugal's government negotiated its largest-ever privatization in late 2011, agreeing to sell its 21-percent stake in the massive power company Energias de Portugal to China's Three Gorges. The sale was Lisbon's first privatization mandated under its bailout program earlier that year.

The man interviewed by German Der Spiegel, A Capital CEO André Loesekrug-Pietri, must be a rather naive person, or - more probably - have a personal interest in Chinese foreign investment activities:

"The Europeans see things more pragmatically than the Americans," said Loesekrug-Pietri. The economies of recession-plagued Southern Europe are particularly in need of fresh capital. In addition, many small and mid-sized companies -- the so-called Mittelstand that are the backbone of the German economy -- are hoping their new shareholders will provide easier access to the booming Chinese market.
"What we're seeing with these deals is just the beginning," Loesekrug-Pietri said, adding that the coming years show tremendous potential.

Read the entire article here

If there really are German and other European business leaders, who believe that Chinese government investors will save Europe from the failures created by the political leaders, they will soon be in for a huge disappointment. 

While the Chinese are buying European companies and technology, the European Union - in spite of being in the middle of a seemingly endless recession -  continues to pour European taxpayers' hard earned money into dubious climate change projects in China:

The EU will help China in meeting its environmental, energy- and carbon-intensity targets and in the long run, contribute towards achieving a global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The EU support will result - through pilot projects - in providing technical assistance, training and fostering exchanges of experience, best practice and know-how in areas like the low-carbon economy and the green economy. The three projects -for which the EU contribution amounts to €25 million- will be implemented over a period of 4 years and focus on areas like water, waste and heavy metal pollution, emission trading system (ETS) and sustainable urbanisation. 

China's ruling communist autocrats of course accept the EU development aid with a polite smile. But behind Barroso's and Hedegaard's backs, they must be laughing. 


PS

It took less than five seconds to find out about Loesekrug-Pietri:

André Loesekrug-Pietri is the founder of A Capital, the first private equity group focused on Chinese outbound investments, and has fifteen years of private equity, automotive and aerospace industry experience. The most recent transaction conducted by A Capital was China's largest private conglomerate Fosun's strategic investment into Club Méditerranée.

(image by wiki)

Putin and Xi Jinping to meet in Moscow

Xi greeting Putin's puppet, Dmitry Medvedev in 2010.

Xi Jinping, the authoritarian communist apparatchik, who recently was "elected" President of China, is today due to meet his colleague, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, in Moscow. 

Although Xi is expected to sign a number of economic agreements during his visit, it is highly unlikely that Putin will be able to convince the Chinese to buy overpriced Russian gas:

It seemed unlikely that the visit would resolve an impasse over an ambitious deal that would see Russia deliver 68 billion cubic meters of gas to China annually for 30 years, an amount equal to about half of what Gazprom exported outside the former Soviet Union last year. China has rejected the offering price as too high, and the two governments now set a new deadline for the end of the year to reach an agreement.

However, ahead of Xi's visit, Putin seems eager to point out that the two empires share a common interest in protecting criminal and corrupt dictators and authoritarians worldwide:

Ahead of a visit by China's new president, Russian President Vladimir Putin says the Moscow-Beijing partnership is aiding global security and helping create a fairer world order.

He added that Russia and China have set an example of a "balanced and pragmatic approach" to international crises — an apparent reference to their lockstep opposition to U.N. sanctions against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

On a more personal level, Putin and Xi also will have a chance to share their views about matters of common interest: 

Putin:
"here’s the Russian President Vladimir V. Putin who is rumored to be among the world’s wealthiest men, with a fortune worth tens of billions, which he of course denies. Born in a middle class Soviet family, Putin who also once compared ruling Russia to being a ‘galley slave’ reportedly lives a ‘king-size’ lifestyle with access to Presidential perks including four grand yachts, 20 homes with opulent fittings, 58 aircrafts with one Russian-made Ilyushin Presidential jet with a $75,000 toilet, not to forget Putin’s ultra-expensive watch collection worth $700,000."

Xi:

"As Xi climbed the Communist Party ranks, his extended family expanded their business interests to include minerals, real estate and mobile-phone equipment, according to public documents compiled by Bloomberg.

Those interests include investments in companies with total assets of $376 million; an 18 percent indirect stake in a rare- earths company with $1.73 billion in assets; and a $20.2 million holding in a publicly traded technology company."

In an interview given before the visit to Moscow, Xi wanted to impress his hosts by giving the impression that he is a great friend of Russian culture:

In a potential boost to bilateral ties, Xi told the Russian state newspaper that classic Russian literature, including the works of Pushkin, Lermontov and Tolstoy, "deeply influenced" him in his youth.

Here Xi must have been seriously misinformed by his underlings. They should have known that Putin probably never has read a book by any of the above mentioned authors. 

If one is to believe Putin's personal website, the dictator does not have any literary interests - he is mainly interested in the martial arts:

Vladimir Putin firmly believes that martial arts teach such knowledge, abilities and skills that every politician needs, among them the ability " to see the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses".

China's new leaders vow to fight corruption: "Time" will tell, whether they succeed

China's new leaders have promised to fight corruption: 

President Xi Jinping told the nearly 3,000 delegates gathered at Beijing's hulking Great Hall of the People that his government would "resolutely reject formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance, and resolutely fight against corruption and other misconduct in all manifestations."--

Shortly afterward, freshly appointed Premier Li Keqiang said the central government would slash its payroll and freeze spending on overseas trips, guest houses, office buildings and new vehicles in response to falling revenues.--

Niu Jun, a scholar at Peking University's School of International Relations, said Xi and Li hit on topics familiar to a Chinese public that has grown weary of promises to fight inefficiency, corruption and waste.

"I don't have terribly high expectations for these new pledges," he said.

Maybe we should say, that time will tell, how well the latest campaign against corruption will succeed:

PS

Corrupt politicians and officials seem to share the same interest in watches also in a neighboring country:

The rise and fall of the solar power industry: Even the Chinese solar panel industry is beginning to crumble

We have seen major manufacturers of solar panels file for bankruptcy in the U.S. , as well as in Europe. Politicians and solar industry lobbyists have blamed Chinese cheap solar panel manufacturers for the failures. But soon there is no-one left to blame: Even China's government supported solar panel industry is beginning to crumble. The collapse of Suntech Power, one of the world's largest manufacturers, is just the beginning: 

One of the world’s largest manufacturers of solar panels, Suntech Power, has nearly run out of cash and is poised to be taken over partly or entirely by the municipal government’s holding company in its hometown, Wuxi, China, solar industry executives and a Wuxi official said Wednesday.

The collapse of Suntech is a milestone in the precipitous decline of China’s green energy industry in the last four years. More than any other country, China had bet heavily on renewable energy as the answer to its related problems of severe air pollution and heavy dependence on energy imports from politically unstable countries in the Middle East and Africa.

So far the solar and wind power producers (as well as panel and turbine manufacturers) have been able to reap windfall profits thanks to government and state support and subsidies. But all over the world the trend is against artificially supporting these ineffective and expensive forms of energy production. Indeed, why on earth should taxpayers enrich the people behind failed technologies, when there is more than enough cheap and clean shale gas and oil around!:

With the advent of US shale production, the domestic supply of natural gas is in such abundance that when adjusted for inflation it’s practically as cheap as it was back in 1999. As a result, gas-fired power is far cheaper than anything else on the wholesale market, with the exception of especially efficient hydro facilities. Even nuclear plants–with their extremely stable fuel costs–can’t always compete, as plans to shut down a small plant in Wisconsin and a larger but problem-plagued facility in Florida demonstrate.

Where does the U.S. shale gas revolution leave Europe?

Shale gas drilling in Appalachia.
(image by Meredithw at en.Wikipedia)

A research note by Morgan Stanley summarizes the benefits of the shale gas revolution for the U.S.:
The new technology is unlocking oil and shale gas resources, spurring economic activity and giving industry a competitive edge with less expensive gas and electricity prices.

These developments could lead to the industrialization of the U.S. economy and could deliver sustainable growth, Morgan Stanley said in a research note on Wednesday.

With the help of cheap energy, manufacturing will pick up and move down the ladder to capturing the production of less "sophisticated" goods (computers, fabricated metals and automobiles) currently manufactured in emerging nations. As a result, the United States will likely compete with emerging markets for market share rather than being a consumer, Morgan Stanley said.

"As the manufacturing renaissance takes hold in the U.S., the move down the value-added ladder in the U.S. is likely to clash with China's need to further increase the sophistication of its manufacturing base," it said. 

And as the bank details, China needs to move up that ladder to not only produce medium-term growth but to protect against economic stagnation, the "middle-income trap" and move from an emerging to a developed market.-- 

A continued fall in U.S. oil imports means North America could become a net oil exporter by around 2030, according to the IEA, and the United States could become almost self-sufficient in energy by 2035. 

And the U.S. shale gas revolution will not only impact on China: 

"U.S. reindustrialization will likely challenge Russia's presence in steel, chemicals and industries to support that very renaissance," it said.

The Morgan Stanley research note does not seem to mention where the U.S. shale gas revolution leaves Europe. But you do not have to be a financial expert in order to understand what is in store for the EU: 

The deadly combination of a failed energy policy (read: taxpayer subsidized, ineffective and costly wind and solar energy) and a recession generating failed common currency cannot result in anything else than an accelerated marginalization of Europe.

The views of Peter Altmaier, Germany's "conservative" environment minister, exemplify what is wrong with the European approach:

One one hand, Altmaier seems to understand the devastating costs (for consumers) of the German energy transition policy:

"Energy transition could end up costing up to a trillion euro"

On the other hand, the same Altmaier, echoing Greenpeace and other envirofundamentalist NGOs (and Russia's Gazprom) has this to say about the shale gas revolution: 

"For now I cannot see that fracking is acceptable anywhere in Europe. This also applies to Germany". 

Germany's export successes have been considerable during the last few years, but there are already clear signs that the German economy is joining the rest of Europe in the downward spiral:

In Europe, the decline in industrial production previously observed in a few countries of the European Union spread across the continent. Industrial production systematically decreased there in all four quarters of 2012, UNIDO reported.

Manufacturing output in the fourth quarter fell by 3.9 per cent in France, 2.9 per cent in Germany, 6.9 per cent in Italy and 1.8 per cent in the United Kingdom.

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng urges global pressure on China over human rights

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, who yesterday received the Tom Lantos Human  Rights Prize in Washington, urged United States not to let business concerns prevent it from pressing China over human rights:

“We must not only remember the atrocities of the fascists, but also recognise that today authoritarianism is firmly entrenched, and that the barbarism of the authoritarian system is the greatest threat to civilized societies,” said Chen. -

“We must not only remember the atrocities of the fascists, but also recognise that today authoritarianism is firmly entrenched, and that the barbarism of the authoritarian system is the greatest threat to civilized societies,” said Chen.-

“Recently, many friends and neighbours who I have been in touch with by phone have been taken into custody by the authorities for questioning. They have been threatened and made to describe what our conversations have been about,” he said.

The United States bore a special responsibility to uphold and promote its basic founding principles, despite economic weakness that has prompted some deference to fast-growing power China over human rights in recent years, he said.

While “it is clearly difficult to shift attention away from issues of finance and the economy, remember that placing undue value on material life will cause a deficit in spiritual life,” said Chen.

“You must establish a long-term plan for human rights and not compromise on it, ever,” he added.-

“Democracy, freedom and justice don’t just happen. We must strive for them through action,” he said.

“Last year, Myanmar lifted the ban on political parties, and last Friday it abolished media censorship. What the people in Myanmar do, we can do, too,” said Chen.

Read the entire article here

Chen's appeal is of course also directed to all other western leaders, who for years now have been kowtowing to China's corrupted communist party bosses in a vain hope of reaping economic rewards. 

Germany's green hypocrisy

A German hypocrite

In order to show her "green" credentials, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (along with other leading German politicians) likes to talk about the catastrophe that will brought upon humanity if the international community is not able to agree on a binding global agreement reducing purported  human caused global warming. At the Petersberger Climate Dialogue last July, Merkel warned that non-action will have "terrible consequences" for the world. 

But all this "greenie talk" is of course nothing but political window dressing. On other fora the same Merkel openly - and rightly - praises Germany's incredible export successes, the main reason behind the country's stable economic development. 

A considerable part of the German export success comes from the exports of "polluting" luxury cars to China (and also Russia): 

China's luxury car sales increased about 18 percent to 1.2 million units last year. German companies together accounted for three-quarters of the total.

German automakers continued their reign in China's luxury car market last year, again reporting record sales to consolidate a dominance that is unlikely to be challenged in foreseeable future.

In 2011 the total value of German exports to China was 65 billion euros, and according to the Federation of the German Export Trade it is only a matter of time before China will overtake France as the number one German export country. 

The German export industry is to be congratulated for the country's export "miracle". But to boast about it, while at the same time warning about the catastrophic consequences of global warming is pure hypocrisy. But that's what Merkel and most politicians everywhere specialize in, hoping that nobody will notice ...