China – Page 3

Indian women lose 1-2 to China in Hawke's Bay Cup hockey

April 11, 2015 by Nasheman

Hastings: The Indian women’s hockey team lost 1-2 to China in the opening match of the Hawke’s Bay Cup at the Hastings Sports Park here on Saturday.

While Anuradha Thokochom scored for India in the 31st minute, Mengyu Wang (34th) and Qian Yu (38th) gave China the victory in the eight-nation tournament.

Both the teams in their bid not to allow easy goals ensured a strong defence, resulting in the first two quarters being goalless.

Real action was witnessed in the third quarter when India finally opened their account one minute into the third quarter.

Immediately into the second half, India broke the shackles and scored as Anuradha slammed the ball past the New Zealand goalkeeper.

China came roaring back to contention and equalised in the 34th minute when they earned a penalty corner that was converted by Mengyu.

Stung by the equaliser, India counter attacked immediately. But China struck again in the 38th minute as Qian scored a field goal.

The rest of the session saw India attacking and trying to look for the equaliser but failed to do so.

Centre-half Ritu Rani-led India attacked in the last quarter, maintaining a good ball possession but were unable to equalise and lost the game 1-2.

In the next match on Sunday, India will take on the United States.

(IANS)

China to neighbours: Send us your Uighurs

February 21, 2015 by Nasheman

Afghanistan is among several countries under pressure to deport Chinese members of the Muslim ethnic group.

Anti-terrorism posters are pasted along the streets of Urumqi, in China’s Xinjiang region [Getty Images]

by Bethany Matta, Al Jazeera

Kabul: Isreal Ahmet, an ethnic Uighur who immigrated to Afghanistan from western China, lived and worked in Kabul for more than a decade before being detained and deported by Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) last summer.

Ahmet, who lived in a meagre, mud-brick house, was described as an honest businessman by those who know him.

An NDS official – speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorised to talk to the media – told Al Jazeera that Ahmet was detained for lacking legal documentation and carrying counterfeit money. He was held in a jail cell with more than two dozen other Chinese Uighurs, including women and children.

Flagged as a spy, Ahmet was quickly escorted to the Kabul International Airport, where Chinese officials were waiting for him. He boarded a plane and has not been heard from since.

Eleven other Uighur men sharing a cell with Ahmet were also sent back to China, according to the NDS official, adding that six women and 12 children in another cell had refused to go. The whereabouts of these women and children are currently unknown.

“Some [of the detainees] were spies, some were [potential] suicide attackers and some illegally entered the country,” said the NDS official.

In recent weeks, five more Uighurs were detained in Afghanistan, the official said, however, all five managed to “escape”.

China’s ‘Strike Hard’ crackdown

Most Uighurs – an ethnic minority that practices Islam – live in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in western China, which has a short border with Afghanistan.

Many have fled China in recent years to escape the government’s crackdown on practising Muslims in Xinjiang, which has included restrictions on fasting during Ramadan and wearing the veil.

The deportation of Ahmet and other Uighurs in Afghanistan occurred during China’s ongoing “Strike Hard” campaign, which was launched the day after a deadly attack on a market killed dozens of people in Urumqi, the Xinjiang region’s capital, last May.

The secretive deportations of Uighurs living in Afghanistan highlight China’s growing influence on its neighbours, who in recent years have come under pressure to hand over members of the persecuted minority living within their borders.

William Nee, a China researcher at Amnesty International, said the Chinese government has exerted diplomatic pressure on Thailand, Turkey and other countries to repatriate Uighurs.

Last November, China criticised Turkey for sheltering 200 Uighurs who had been rescued from human smugglers in Thailand. In 2009, China signed trade deals with Cambodia that were collectively worth about $1bn – two days after Cambodiadeported 20 Uighurs to China.

During Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s visit to China last October, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance, training and scholarships. Most importantly, China – an ally of Pakistan – offered to help the Afghan government in its peace talks with the Taliban, which enjoys support in parts of Pakistan’s tribal areas.

In return, Ghani reassured Xi of Afghanistan’s support for China’s fight against the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uighur separatist group that China blames for a number of deadly attacks in the country over the past decade.

“No written agreements have been made between the two countries, just verbal,” said Sultan Ahmad, the former Afghan ambassador to China who now serves as a director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul.

“We see this as a window of opportunity. China is worried about their own security, and they need cooperation from all countries. They can help us with the reconstruction of Afghanistan and our relationship with Pakistan, with whom they share close relations. For us, it is very important to have a relationship with the Taliban and Pakistan.”

Acting NDS Director Rahmatullah Nabil, who visited Beijing just before Ghani’s trip, declined to comment for this article.

‘We’re warning Beijing’

During Afghanistan’s rule by the Taliban, about a dozen ETIM fighters were based in Kabul under the command of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), according to Waheed Mozhdah, a political analyst who served as an official in the foreign ministry at the time. Taliban and Chinese officials met several times about the issue.

After the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, ETIM fighters crossed the border into Pakistan.

Today, about 200 ETIM members are believed to reside in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan’s Kunar province and Pakistan’s tribal belt, according to Mozhdah.

The number of attacks in China attributed to Uighur separatists has increased in recent years. “Yet, there is still no evidence that the things that have happened have any international ties,” said cultural anthropologist Sean Roberts, a professor at George Washington University.

“In fact, they are still very rudimentary type of attacks that look to be more home-grown.”

Last month, reports emerged of a Taliban delegation in Beijing holding talks with Chinese officials. Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid declined to comment, saying top leaders had not yet confirmed the news.

He also said he didn’t have information regarding the treatment of Uighurs in China, or of those detained by the Afghan government.

“Before the American invasion, there were Uighurs here, but now we don’t know,” Mujahid said.

“For China, Central Asian states and our neighbours, we first want to make our strategy clear. We want them to understand why we are fighting here. And then, if there is an issue regarding the repression and killing of Uighurs in China, we would likely raise that subject during our talks with them.”

The issue has not gone unnoticed by other armed groups in the region, who have threatened China for its policies in Xinjiang.

In November 2014, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat-ul Ahrar – an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban – published an article in its official magazine, which said: “We’re warning Beijing to stop killing Uighurs. If you don’t change your anti-Muslim policies, soon the mujahideen will target you.”

Restricting Islamic practices

Meanwhile, what is happening within China’s borders is worrisome, said Amnesty’s Nee.

The public wearing of veils, beards and T-shirts featuring the Islamic crescent has been banned in many cities across Xinjiang. Students have been restricted from observing Ramadan, and there have been reports of force-feeding those who insist on fasting. Others have been disciplined for openly worshipping or downloading unsanctioned material.

Last month, local authorities in Urumqi banned wearing the veil in public. Meanwhile, the number of people whom the Chinese government has sentenced to death has risen, said Nee.

“Religious extremism is being lumped together with violent terrorism. For example, any religious practice [that is] not state-sanctioned … then you could be characterised as participating in religious extremism,” Nee explained.

“One concern for Amnesty International is that normal migrants will be repatriated to China under the framework of anti-terrorism – people who may just be fleeing for better economic conditions. Maybe they are first going to Afghanistan before going to United States or Europe, and they are hauled back to China.”

China’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Deng Xijun declined requests for comment.

Little information

Bo Schack, the United Nations refugee agency’s (UNHCR) representative in Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera he has little information about deported Uighurs.

“There is currently no one in detention. We believe some were returned to their country,” he said.

“There are rules under the international convention [prohibiting the deportation of people to countries where their lives may be at risk]. But Afghanistan has no laws in place.”

Schack also said UNHCR had no record of female and children Uighurs being detained, which contradicts other accounts.

Under international refugee law, the principle of non-refoulement prohibits states from returning refugees to a place where their lives or freedom is under threat. Yet, in the absence of an extradition treaty, activists say Afghanistan has discretion on whether to comply with China’s request.

China forces imams to dance in street

February 12, 2015 by Nasheman

China has forced the imams of Xinjiang to dance in the street, and swear to an oath that they will not teach religion to children as well telling them that prayer is harmful to the soul.

In another crackdown on religious freedoms, China has forced the imams of eastern Muslim majority district of Xinjiang to dance in the street, and swear to an oath that they will not teach religion to children as well telling them that prayer is harmful to the soul.

During the incident, reported by World Bulletin on Monday, February 9, Muslim imams were forced to brandish the slogan that “our income comes from the CKP not from Allah”.

State Chinese news said the imams were gathering in a square in the name of civilization where they were forced to dance and chant out slogans in support of the state.

The slogans included statements glorifying the state over religion such as ‘peace of the country gives peace to the soul’.

They also gave speeches telling youth to stay away from mosques, and that the prayer was harmful to their health, encouraging them to dance instead.

Female teachers were instructed to teach children to stay away from religious education and made to swear an oath that they will keep children away from religion.

Uighur Muslims are a Turkish-speaking minority of eight million in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

Xinjiang, which activists call East Turkestan, has been autonomous since 1955 but continues to be the subject of massive security crackdowns by Chinese authorities.

Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of religious repression against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in the name of counter terrorism.

Last November, Xinjiang banned the practicing of religion in government buildings, as well as wearing clothes or logos associated with religious extremism.

In August, the northern Xinjiang city of Karamay prohibited young men with beards and women in burqas or hijabs from boarding public buses.

Earlier in July, China banned students and government staff from observing Ramadan fasting, as officials tried to encourage locals in Xinjiang not to wear Islamic veils.

(Agencies)

China bans public practice of Islam in Xinjiang province

December 2, 2014 by Nasheman

by CII Broadcasting

China‘s Xinjiang region (East Turkestan) has banned the practise of religion in government buildings and will fine those who use the Internet to ‘undermine national unity’, in a package of new regulations.

The rules, passed by the standing committee of Xinjiang’s parliament on Friday, stipulate penalties of between 5,000 and 30,000 yuan ($4,884) for individuals who use the Internet, mobile phones or digital publishing to undermine national unity, social stability or incite ethnic hatred.

Equipment used in the offences also can be confiscated, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.

The regulations, which come into effect Jan. 1, also prohibit people from distributing and viewing videos about ‘radical’ religious subjects in or outside religious venues, and requires religious leaders to report such activities to the local authorities and police, the China Daily reported at the weekend.

“An increasing number of problems involving religious affairs have emerged in Xinjiang,” said Ma Mingcheng, deputy director of the Xinjiang People’s Congress and director of its legislative affairs committee, according to the Chinese newspaper.

People will not be allowed to practice religion in government offices, public schools, businesses or institutions. Religious activities will have to take place in registered venues, the report said.

They also are prohibited from wearing or forcing others to wear clothes or logos associated with religion, although the types of clothes and logos aren’t specified, the newspaper said.

Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people, has been beset by violence for years, blamed by the government on “extremists who want an independent state called East Turkestan.”

Rights groups and exiles say the problem is more to do with Beijing‘s harsh restrictions on the Uighur people’s religious and cultural customs and doubt the existence of a cohesive group fighting the government.

Last week, 15 people were killed in the latest bout of unrest in Xinjiang.

The energy-rich region sits strategically on the borders of Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Russia and China prepare to fight US internet domination

November 17, 2014 by Nasheman

There’s no physical fences in cyberspace, that doesn’t mean there’s no border controls. paolo_cuttitta, CC BY

by Eerke Boiten, The Conversation

While there is only one world power on the internet, that situation will not last forever. The internet’s underpinning technologies were mostly created in the US, the initial networks were based there – and today the US hosts the majority of the most powerful internet companies.

Although minor battles have been fought on internet sovereignty for years, the de facto power that stems from the US for a long time seemed acceptable. But with the revelations – not even all following from Snowden – about international mass surveillance by the US and its allies, it’s inevitable the gloves have had to come off.

In a replay of an imaginary Cold War nightmare scenario, Russia and China appear to have identified a common enemy. The nations are expected to sign a collaborative cyber-security treaty to “oppose the use of IT and the internet to interfere in the internal affairs of independent states”.

There has also been discussion in mainland Europe, particularly Germany, about “Schengen-routing”, which would keep internet traffic away from the parts of the network where NSA and GCHQ could easily snoop on them. Edward Snowden has claimed that establishing a “European cloud” may not be effective, however.

Generally there are two main reasons for states to want to take control of the internet: they want to defend against outsiders – and to defend against insiders.

The enemy outside

Effectively the US still claims sovereignty over large parts of the internet. This is not just de facto sovereignty based on the residence of large internet companies and most cloud servers within the US. It is not even because the Snowden files have shown us that the NSA hoovers up most internet traffic. In a recent court case it was established that US law enforcement agencies can demand data from US companies even when it is stored abroad (in this case, Microsoft servers based in Ireland).

The discrimination in NSA procedures and US law that treats US and non-US citizens differently (worse) is also irksome.

Nor are US allies, chiefly Britain, innocent in this context. Unexplained spying by GCHQ abroad is well-documented, with the claims of eavesdropping at climate change conferencesthe most recent. The explicit extension of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 introduced through this summer’s “emergency” DRIP Act also plays a role. The act’s clause 4allows the interception of communications even relating to activity outside the UK by persons and companies based outside the UK.

For countries such as Russia and China, the threat from outside is more acute given that both countries have problems with territorial conflicts. There have been reports of cyber attacks in both directions between Russia and Ukraine. And China has been suspected of carrying out man-in-the-middle attacks in order to spy on citizens using encrypted connections.

These countries have a greater need to take control. Russia, for example, has recently been reported to be investing US$500m to establish a cyber warfare division, for offensive and defensive operations.

The enemy within

When governments tighten their hold over the internet within their own country it’s normally a slippery slope towards the restriction of civil rights. The so-called “great firewall of China” is to restrict freedom of expression and access to information for the Chinese population – to control those within, not those without. Google played along with this by censoring search results within China until 2010, when they moved their operations to the slightly freer jurisdiction of Hong Kong.

Amnesty International has taken up cases of people persecuted for political use of the internet in countries such as Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Egypt. North Korea has even gone as far as closing down all access to Twitter and Facebook.

On the other hand, Russia is close enough to Europe to not want to be painted as a politically repressive country. Instead Russia controls its internet through more subtle means. For example, its compulsory identity verification for social networks is justified as a defence against identity theft. While many nations operate a blacklist to restrict access to child pornography sites and those distributing copyrighted material, the Russian government added some independent news sites to the list, allegedly to prevent unauthorised protests – and pages on social network VK were highlighted by public prosecutors as advocating terrorism.

However, with its recent explicit attacks on freedom of speech, it seems Russian authorities no longer feel especially restrained in exercising censorship. Putin’s claims to support online freedoms like any other democratic country sound a bit shrill taken alongside his description of the internet as “a CIA project”.

Setting an example

Not that the UK emerges as a shining example in this respect. Dubious laws have been used to arrest a peer joining a demonstration – and years of spying on eminent historians by MI5 has just come to light. Meanwhile the police feel free to spy on journalists, prison staff listen in on MPs’ phone callsand intelligence agencies breach client-lawyer privilege. So it’s hard to swallow claims made by the home secretary, Theresa May, and GCHQ that efforts to improve mobile coverage and use encryption shouldn’t be allowed because of “security threats”.

Of course with elections around the corner, the major parties are making promises about restoring civil rights and establishing safeguards and oversight. But it seems there’s been little progress towards David Cameron’s promises in 2009 to erode the “control state” his government inherited.

Southeast Asian nations pledge to tackle global climate change

November 15, 2014 by Nasheman

Nay Pyi Taw/Xinhua: Leaders from Southeast Asian nations have confirmed their determination to unveil respective national targets for mitigation efforts “well in advance of” a key global climate change meeting scheduled for December next year, according to a joint statement adopted at a regional summit here.

Those who are ready are also encouraged to put forward their ” intended nationally determined contributions” by the first quarter next year, the leaders said Wednesday at the 25th summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the Myanmar capital.

The ASEAN leaders also urged developed countries to continue to demonstrate leadership and come forward early with ambitious emission reduction targets by March 2015, and help the developing countries in climate change efforts.

“Climate change is already having significant impacts, causing major loss and damage throughout the ASEAN region, and disproportionately affecting developing countries,” they said, citing the Cyclone Nargis hitting Myanmar in 2008 and the Typhoon Haiyan lashing the Philippines last year.

The ASEAN climate declaration came on the same day as UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon praised pledges made by China and the United States to limit greenhouse gases and called on the rest of the world to follow suit. Ban was also in Nay Pyi Taw for an ASEAN-UN summit.

Earlier on Wednesday, Chinese president Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Barack Obama promised to take action to limit greenhouse gases. China set a target for its emission to peak by 2030, or earlier if possible, and for the share of non-fossil fuel energy to rise to about 20 percent by 2030.

The United States set a new target to reduce its emissions of heat-trapping gases by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. That’s a sharp increase from Obama’s first administration, when he pledged to cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020.

The new commitments are expected to inject fresh momentum into the global fight against climate change ahead of the UN climate conference in Paris next year.

At the summit, the 10 ASEAN leaders also reviewed progress made ahead of the target of realizing an ASEAN Community by the end of 2015, and adopted a declaration on the ASEAN Community’s post-2015 vision.

They are determined to “shape a bold and forward-looking future for ASEAN which will strengthen the ASEAN Community and enable the realization of a politically-cohesive, economically integrated, socially responsible, and a truly people-oriented, people-centered and rules-based ASEAN,” the statement said.

The summit also adopted a declaration on the ASEAN Secretariat, which is aimed at strengthening the institutional capacity of ASEAN and maintaining the centrality of ASEAN in an evolving regional architecture.

U.S-China agreement will not fix the climate

November 13, 2014 by Nasheman

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with U.S. President Barack Obama at a press conference following their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2014. (Photo: Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

by Friends of the Earth

In response to the announcement of a negotiated deal between the United States and China on greenhouse gas reductions, Friends of the Earth U.S. President Erich Pica made the following statement:

While the U.S.-China Announcement on climate change creates important political momentum internationally, it falls significantly short of the aggressive reductions needed to prevent climate disruption. The announced U.S. emissions reduction target — 26-28 percent below 2005 levels, by 2025 — is grounded in neither the physical reality of climate science nor the lived reality of hundreds of millions of people in developing countries whose lives and livelihoods are in jeopardy due to drought, flooding, fire and other extreme weather events. Simply put, the non-binding target falls miserably short of what science, justice and equity demand.

Further, the announcement is silent on the U.S. commitment to adaptation, technology transfer and climate finance in regards to the rest of the world. These commitments are fundamental for a meaningful climate agreement in Paris in 2015. The first litmus test of how serious the U.S. is about success in Paris will come during the Green Climate Fund pledging session later this month.

Looking ahead toward the 2016 presidential race, I hope that this pledge becomes a very low floor for presidential aspirants and not a ceiling for what is possible in the United States. Using executive authority, the President can and must go further by denying new fossil fuel leases, rejecting the Keystone pipeline and regulating other forms of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Saudi oil war against Russia, Iran and the U.S

October 17, 2014 by Nasheman

A fisherman pulls in his net as an oil tanker is seen at the port in the northwestern city of Duba.(Reuters / Mohamed Al Hwaity)

– by Pepe Escobar, RT

Saudi Arabia has unleashed an economic war against selected oil producers. The strategy masks the House of Saud’s real agenda. But will it work?

Rosneft Vice President Mikhail Leontyev; “Prices can be manipulative…Saudi Arabia has begun making big discounts on oil. This is political manipulation, and Saudi Arabia is being manipulated, which could end badly.”

A correction is in order; the Saudis are not being manipulated. What the House of Saud is launching is“Tomahawks of spin,” insisting they’re OK with oil at $90 a barrel; also at $80 for the next two years; and even at $50 to $60 for Asian and North American clients.

The fact is Brent crude had already fallen to below $90 a barrel because China – and Asia as a whole – was already slowing down economically, although to a lesser degree compared to the West. Production, though, remained high – especially by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – even with very little Libyan and Syrian oil on the market and with Iran forced to cut exports by a million barrels a day because of the US economic war, a.k.a. sanctions.

The House of Saud is applying a highly predatory pricing strategy, which boils down to reducing market share of its competitors, in the middle- to long-term. At least in theory, this could make life miserable for a lot of players – from the US (energy development, fracking and deepwater drilling become unprofitable) to producers of heavy, sour crude such as Iran and Venezuela. Yet the key target, make no mistake, is Russia.

A strategy that simultaneously hurts Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Ecuador and Russia cannot escape the temptation of being regarded as an “Empire of Chaos” power play, as in Washington cutting a deal with Riyadh. A deal would imply bombing ISIS/ISIL/Daesh leader Caliph Ibrahim is just a prelude to bombing Bashar al-Assad’s forces; in exchange, the Saudis squeeze oil prices to hurt the enemies of the “Empire of Chaos.”

Yet it’s way more complicated than that.

Sticking it to Washington

Russia’s state budget for 2015 requires oil at least at $100 a barrel. Still, the Kremlin is borrowing no more than $7 billion in 2015 from the usual “foreign investors”, plus $27.2 billion internally. Hardly an economic earthquake.

Besides, the ruble has already fallen over 14 percent since July against the US dollar. By the way, the currencies of key BRICS members have also fallen; 7.8 percent for the Brazilian real, 1.6 percent for the Indian rupee. And Russia, unlike the Yeltsin era, is not broke; it holds at least $455 billion in foreign reserves.

The House of Saud’s target of trying to bypass Russia as a top supplier of oil to the EU is nothing but a pipe dream; EU refineries would have to be reframed to process Saudi light crude, and that costs a fortune.

Geopolitically, it gets juicier when we see that central to the House of Saud strategy is to stick it to Washington for not fulfilling its “Assad must go” promise, as well as the neo-con obsession in bombing Iran. It gets worse (for the Saudis) because Washington – at least for now – seems more concentrated in toppling Caliph Ibrahim than Bashar al-Assad, and might be on the verge of signing a nuclear deal with Tehran as part of the P5+1 on November 24.

On the energy front, the ultimate House of Saud nightmare would be both Iran and Iraq soon being able to take over the Saudi status as key swing oil producers in the world. Thus the Saudi drive to deprive both of much-needed oil revenue. It might work – as in the sanctions biting Tehran even harder. Yet Tehran can always compensate by selling more gas to Asia.

So here’s the bottom line. A beleaguered House of Saud believes it may force Moscow to abandon its support of Damascus, and Washington to scotch a deal with Tehran. All this by selling oil below the average spot price. That smacks of desperation. Additionally, it may be interpreted as the House of Saud dithering if not sabotaging the coalition of the cowards/clueless in its campaign against Caliph Ibrahim’s goons.

Compounding the gloom, the EU might be allowed to muddle through this winter – even considering possible gas supply problems with Russia because of Ukraine. Still, low Saudi oil prices won’t prevent a near certain fourth recession in six years just around the EU corner.

Reuters / Hamad I Mohammed

Go East, young Russian

Russia, meanwhile, slowly but surely looks East. China’s Vice Premier Wang Yang has neatly summarized it; “China is willing to export to Russia such competitive products as agricultural goods, oil and gas equipment, and is ready to import Russian engineering products.” Couple that with increased food imports from Latin America, and it doesn’t look like Moscow is on the ropes.

A hefty Chinese delegation led by Premier Li Keqiang has just signed a package of deals in Moscow ranging from energy to finance, and from satellite navigation to high-speed rail cooperation. For China, which overtook Germany as Russia’s top trading partner in 2011, this is pure win-win.

The central banks of China and Russia have just signed a crucial, 3-year, 150 billion yuan bilateral local-currency swap deal. And the deal is expandable. The City of London basically grumbles – but that’s what they usually do.

This new deal, crucially, bypasses the US dollar. No wonder it’s now a key component of the no holds barred proxy economic war between the US and Asia. Moscow cannot but hail it as sidelining many of the side effects of the Saudi strategy.

The Russia-China strategic partnership has been on the up and up since the “epochal” (Putin’s definition) $400 billion, 30-year “gas deal of the century” clinched in May. And the economic reverberations won’t stop.

There’s bound to be an alignment of the Chinese-driven New Silk Roads with a revamped Trans-Siberian railway. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit last month in Dushanbe, President Putin praised the “great potential” of developing a “common SCO transport system” linking “Russia’s Trans-Siberian railway and the Baikal-Amur mainline” with the Chinese Silk Roads, thus“benefiting all countries in Eurasia.”

Moscow is progressively lifting restrictions and is now offering Beijing a wealth of potential investments. Beijing is progressively accessing not only much-needed Russian raw materials but acquiring cutting-edge technology and advanced weapons.

Beijing will get S-400 missile systems and Su-35 fighter jets as soon as the first quarter of 2015. Further on down the road will come Russia’s brand new submarine, the Amur 1650, as well as components for nuclear-powered satellites.

Reuters / Hamad I Mohammed

The road is paved with yuan

Presidents Putin and Xi, who have met no less than nine times since Xi came to power last year, are scaring the hell out of the “Empire of Chaos.” No wonder; their number one shared priority is to dent the hegemony of the US dollar – and especially the petrodollar – in the global financial system.

The yuan has been trading on the Moscow Exchange – the first bourse outside of China to offer regulated yuan trading. It’s still at only $1.1 billion (in September). Russian importers pay for 8 percent of all Chinese goods with yuan instead of dollars, but that’s rising fast. And it will rise exponentially when Moscow finally decides to accept yuan under Gazprom’s $400 billion “gas deal of the century.”

This is the way the multipolar world goes. The House of Saud deploys the petrodollar weapon? The counterpunch is increased trade in a basket of currencies. Additionally, Moscow sends a message to the EU, which is losing a lot of Russia trade because of counter-productive sanctions, thus accelerating the EU’s next recession. Economic war does work both ways.

The House of Saud believes it can dump a tsunami of oil in the market and back it up with a tsunami of spin – creating the illusion the Saudis control oil prices. They don’t. As much as this strategy will fail, Beijing is showing the way out; trading in other currencies stabilizes prices. The only losers, in the end, will be those who stick to trade in US dollars.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.

China just overtook the U.S as the World's largest Economy

October 9, 2014 by Nasheman

Photo: Reuters

– by Mike Bird, Business Insider

Sorry, America. China just overtook the US to become the world’s largest economy, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Chris Giles at the Financial Times flagged up the change. He’d also alerted us back in April this year that it was all about to happen.

Basically, the method used by the IMF adjusts for purchasing power parity, explained here. The simple logic is that prices aren’t the same in each country: a shirt will cost you less in Shanghai than San Francisco, so it’s not entirely reasonable to compare countries without taking this into account. Though a typical person in China earns a lot less than the typical person in the US, simply converting a Chinese salary into dollars underestimates how much purchasing power that individual, and therefore that country, might have. The Economist’s Big Mac Index is a great example of these disparities.

So the IMF measures both GDP in market exchange terms, and in terms of purchasing power. On the purchasing power basis, China is overtaking the US right about now and becoming the world’s biggest economy.

We’ve just gone past that cross-over on the chart below, according to the IMF. By the end of 2014, China will make up 16.48% of the world’s purchasing-power adjusted GDP (or $17.632 trillion), and the US will make up just 16.28% (or $17.416 trillion):

IMF, Google Public Data Explorer

It’s not all sore news for the US. It’ll be some time yet until the lines cross over in raw terms, not adjusted for purchasing power. By that measure, China still sits more than $6.5 trillion lower than the US, and isn’t likely to overtake for quite some time:

IMF, Google Public Data Explorter

But in terms of the raw market value of China’s currency, it still has a long way to go.

More Washington lies on Hong Kong, ISIS, and more

October 2, 2014 by Nasheman

Barack Obama, Oslo, Norway Photo: Sandy Young/Getty Images

– by Paul Craig Roberts

Hong Kong:

Whatever is occurring in Hong Kong, it bears no relation to what is being reported about it in the Western print and TV media. These reports spin the protests as a conflict between the demand for democracy and a tyrannical Chinese government

Ming Chun Tang in the alternative media CounterPunch says that the protests are against the neoliberal economic policies that are destroying the prospects of everyone but the one percent. In other words, the protests are akin to the American occupy movement.

Another explanation is that once again, as in Kiev, gullible westernized students have been organized by the CIA and US-financed NGOs to take to the streets in hopes that the protests will spread from Hong Kong to other Chinese cities. The Chinese, like the Russians, have been extremely careless in permitting Washington to operate within their countries and to develop fifth columns.

ISIS:

Americans are forever deceived. Remember the bullshit about “Mission Accomplished!”

The only mission that has been accomplished is the enrichment of the military/security complex and the creation of the American Police State. After eight years of the US military battering Iraq, Patrick Cockburn, one of the last front line reporters, tells us: “ISIS at the Gates of Baghdad.”

What is ISIS? There are a number of offered explanations. One from Washington and its puppet states is that it is a demonic threat to the West that cuts off people’s heads.

Another is that it is a CIA recruited and funded operation that is carrying out the neoconservatives plan to overthrow the governments in the Middle East.

My tentative explanation is that ISIS consists of Sunnis who are tired of existing in artificial states created by the British and French after World War I when the Western colonialists seized the territories of the Ottoman Empire. They are tired of being suppressed by Shia majorities or by secular dictators who use suppression to control conflict between Sunni and Shia. They are tired of being murdered, plundered, and raped by the Americans and Europeans. They are tired of being displaced and dispossessed. They are tired of the immoral Western culture imposed on them by modern technology. The Islamic State is redrawing the artificial boundaries that the Europeans created, and they are establishing an Islamic government free of the moral corruption of Western materialism and sexual promiscuity.

In short, they are tired of being dictated to and having their culture suppressed.

The huge sums of money taken from the gullible American taxpayers, people who, unlike ISIS, are willing to accept any imposition, for training the Iraqi army went entirely into the coffers of the American firms that got the training contracts. As Patrick Cockburn reports, the American trained and equipped Iraqi Army defending Mosul nominally numbered 60,000, much larger than the attacking force, but only one-third were actually present. The rest had kick-backed half their salaries to their officers in order to stay at home or to work a better paying job. When the Islamic State attacked, the Iraq army collapsed.

Afghanistan:

The new “president” of Afghanistan has agreed to Washington’s demands to which even the corrupt Karzai would not agree. The new bought-and-paid-for-puppet president has agreed for US troops to remain in Afghanistan. We will see what the Taliban have to say about this.

Ebola:

We now have the first ebola case in the US. A person in a hospital in Dallas, Texas, has brought ebola from Liberia to the US. The CDC says that the virus can be contained, like ISIS, and that no one is in danger. This remains to be seen. Because of the years of transparent lies emanating from Washington, many Americans already believe that the importation of ebola is part of the one percent’s plan to destroy the rest of us so that they have the country to themselves.

This is what comes of a government and a media that serves only the One Percent and that inflicts endless lies and disinformation on the rest of us.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.