Monthly Archives: September 2010

China Frees Three Of Four Detained Japanese

China has released three of the four Japanese arrested at the height of the fishing trawler dispute and accused of entering a military facility in Hebei. Xinhua reports that the three admitted to having broken Chinese law. The fourth, Sada … Continue reading

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Filed under China-Japan

U.S. Lawmakers Move Anti-China Currency Bill Past The Easy Stage

The U.S. House of Representatives has backed the high-profile trade sanctions legislation that targets countries that hold down the value of their currencies, as many American lawmakers accuse China of doing. The bill, which would require the U.S. Commerce Department … Continue reading

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Filed under China-U.S.

China’s North Korea Policy

President Hu Jintao sent an effusive congratulatory note to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, on his recent guest’s reelection as general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). That the Chinese leader would not have sent fraternal felicitations … Continue reading

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Filed under China-Koreas

China’s Economic Rebalancing Act

The Asian Development Bank’s latest update to its quarterly economic outlooks leaves China’s gross domestic product growth for the year unchanged at a forecast 9.6%. But it notes that the pace of growth has started to moderate and will continue … Continue reading

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Rare State Spotlight Shone On China’s Black Jails

The day after the government published a report highlighting what it says are improvements in human rights, state media are reporting that police are investigating the detention of petitioners against local and provincial governments in secret prisons — so-called “black … Continue reading

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Filed under Politics & Society

China Readies New Crackdown On Melamine In Milk

Despite the melamine-tainted milk powder scandal that killed six babies, sickened more than 300,000 children and all but closed down China’s dairy exports in 2008, batches of contaminated milk are still turning up, the latest only this month. Some of … Continue reading

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Filed under Product Safety

Is China Now Overplaying Its Hand?

We updated our previous post on the Sino-Japanese trawler incident to note that Beijing had demanded a formal apology from Tokyo and compensation for the detention of the vessel’s captain, Zhan Qixiong, both demands for which Japan has rebuffed. The … Continue reading

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Protectionist Spirits Rise In Washington

A U.S. Congressional committee has voted out a bill that would subject China to retaliatory trade sanctions on the basis that Beijing keeps the yuan undervalued against the U.S. dollar to give its exports an unfair advantage. The full House … Continue reading

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Japan Defuses Trawler Row, Moves On To Next China Test

It looks, as this Bystander suggested yesterday, that arms have been discreetly twisted. Japanese prosecutors say that the continuing detention of Zhan Qixiong, a Chinese fishing trawler captain at the center of a row between the two countries, would be … Continue reading

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The New World Of Security In East Asia

Word from our man in Tokyo throws some new light, for us, on the fishing trawler dispute between China and Japan. He says that there is a sense among officials that this is only the latest, if most serious, incident … Continue reading

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