Monthly Archives: March 2010
Rio 4 Trial Ends
The trial of the Rio 4 is over. No verdict or sentence has been handed down yet by the Shanghai court. That could take weeks. Three of the four Rio employees pleaded guilty to taking bribes; it is not known … Continue reading
Filed under China-Australia, Politics & Society
Severe Weather Continues
The severe weather that has marked the past few months shows no signs of abating. The sandstorm that engulfed Beijing last weekend swept in from the far west, where the one coming along behind swirled over four prefectures in southern … Continue reading
Filed under Environment
Rio 4 Trial: Look It Up Once It’s Done
Stern Hu, head of Rio Tinto’s Shanghai office, who stands accused of taking bribes and engaging in industrial espionage, has admitted taking bribes, though he contests the size of them. We know that via one of the attorney’s representing one … Continue reading
Filed under Politics & Society
China and Rio Tinto: Coinhabiting Parallel Universes
While gathering our thoughts for a preview of Monday’s start of the Rio 4 industrial espionage trial, we received word of Rio Tinto’s $1.35 billion iron ore joint venture with Chinalco in Guinea. Having slept on it for more than … Continue reading
Filed under China-Australia, Economy, Politics & Society
Fixing China’s Local-Government Finances
What strikes this Bystander as interesting about the World Bank’s latest quarterly update on China’s economy is not so much the 9.5% forecast of GDP growth for this year. A glance at any factory, wharf or store gives one an … Continue reading
Filed under Economy
Currency Manipulation Countdown
The U.S. Treasury Department has to make its annual ruling for the U.S. Congress on whether it believes China is manipulating its currency by April 15. For 16 years, it has always come up short of doing so, for that … Continue reading
Filed under China-U.S., Economy
Wen Rips Into Washington
No sign of any rapprochement in relations with the U.S. at Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s customary post National People’s Congress press conference. He ripped into Washington over Taiwan, the Dalai Lama, the yuan, the Copenhagen climate conference, you name it. … Continue reading
Filed under China-U.S., Politics & Society
China Eyes Building High-Speed Railways In U.S. And Europe
China is well into building 25,000 kilometers of high-speed railway lines and spending $300 billion over the next decade on doing so. It is already recouping some of the investment in the expertise is its gaining along the way by … Continue reading
Filed under China-U.S., Transport
Inflation Jump Heralds Stimulus Exit
The 2.7% year-on-year increase in consumer prices in February takes the monthly inflation rate perilously close to the 3% ceiling that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao set in his National People’s Congress speech. It is both a sharp rise from January’s … Continue reading
Filed under Economy
China’s Glorious Billionaires
To get rich is glorious, said Deng Xiaoping. What strikes this Bystander as most telling from Forbes’s latest annual list of the world’s billionaires is that while every part of the world has more of these very rich people than … Continue reading
Filed under Economy, Politics & Society
