Motivation of the means...

The American Thinker has a piece up highlighting Li Xing's evaluation of climate change after attending the Copenhagen fiasco:

It is amazing that Chinese media examine what has recently come out revealing IPCC "mistakes" and conclude more serious examination of its work is in order. Yet the American mainstream media brush aside such concerns seeking to keep an obvious political agenda alive.

As, contributor, John McLaughlin, points out, the US Media is AWOL on the issue of "hide and decline."

The New York Times has a piece out today showing that China is surpassing everyone in "Clean Energy" production and research.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

I suspect that Global Warming is not the motivation for this exploration. Rather, dominating the world economy and being able to breathe in downtown Bejing without hacking up a lung is more likely...

New York Times has marble contest...

TIANJIN, China — China’s frenetic construction of coal-fired power plants has raised worries around the world about the effect on climate change. China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet.

But largely missing in the hand-wringing is this: China has emerged in the past two years as the world’s leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost.

While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building such plants at a rate of one a month.

Personally, I wasn't aware that we were in a competition with China to see which country could build the most coal-fired power plants. Secondly, the headline is disingenuous:

"China Outpaces U.S. in Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants"

The headline should read:

" Current Administration promised to bankrupt coal-fired plants, and his lemmings are letting him do it...and China is kicking our ass in this faux competition overseen by the NY Times..."

Of course, the US outpaces China in freedoms, convenience stores, brands of ice cream, life expectancy etc...you get the idea. However, this "journalist" finds this comparison necessary for some reason. I've seen other blogs point out that US journalists were incessantly anti-American. I guess this is one of those journalists.

Incidentally, what was all that nonsense during the last Summer Olympics about air quality? It must have been my imagination, but there seemed to be a filthy haze all around the venues. Anyone who has ever been to the metropolitan centers of mainland China knows just how filthy and lacking in environmental respect they really are. I'm wondering if KEITH BRADSHER has every been there...and I shouldn't have that concern from a regional journalist.

The coming storm...

BEIJING — Behind the west Beijing apartment building where Liu Xia keeps a fifth-floor flat, the police have built a guardhouse. Its purpose is not to protect Ms. Liu, who seeks no safeguarding. The house is for the guards who watch her.

Inside, they take notes to record her comings and goings. When she ventures out, a guard picks up the phone. Soon, a sedan with darkened windows carrying a man with a telephoto-lens camera is trailing her.

During a recent chat in a nearby teahouse, Ms. Liu wondered aloud why she unnerves China’s rulers enough to merit her own guardhouse. She is not active in politics, she said, and does not even use a computer. “I take photos, paint paintings, write poems, read books, cook food,” she said with a mirthless laugh. “And drink.”

But, of course, she knows why. She is married to Liu Xiaobo, a writer, philosopher and democracy advocate. On Dec. 10, Mr. Liu and 302 others issued a manifesto, called Charter 08, that urged China’s Communist Party to abandon monopoly rule and establish a multiparty system of government.

The police seized Mr. Liu two days before Charter 08 was released. He has been locked ever since in a windowless room about an hour’s drive north of central Beijing. He is denied access to lawyers, to pen and paper and, except for two brief visits, to his wife.

He is allowed to ask for books. His latest request was for the works of Kafka.

Ain't no such thing as a little pregnant. Ain't no such thing as a little Democracy. In order to compete and prosper in the global market, China was forced to make concessions. What they didn't count on is that their constituency (especially in the outer Provinces) would grasp onto a whisp and a dream.

China's Jimmy Hoffa era is afoote, and eventually someone will take a count and realize that you can't opress 3 Billion people with threats. I think it will get ugly, and the Tibetan Monk altercations are just the beginning.

Call me curious...

I've been following Gome Electrical in Hong Kong (well...China) because I found their "due process" for the perceived richest man in China interesting and intriguing.

Three months later, Huang and his wife and former co- director, Lisa Du Juan, remain incommunicado, along with Zhou Yafei, Gome’s former chief financial officer, somewhere in China’s penal system, leaving Greaves and his remaining co- directors scrambling to avert the company’s collapse.

Obviously, Gome Electrical had a falling out with the CPPCC, and it is time to make amends.

The survey estimated that migrant workers who returned home jobless accounted for about 15.3 percent of the total, or about 20 million people.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security estimated that China's labor oversupply problems would further exacerbate this year, as 24 million people are looking for jobs. This includes 13 million new job seekers, 8 million laid-off workers and 3 million unemployed workers.

The Chinese government makes it clear that unemployed migrant workers needed to be a priority issue...so what did Gome Electrical do?

Home electronics and appliance retailer Gome is planning to hire 20,000 migrant workers to fill up vacancies in its delivery, installation and maintenance divisions.

Gome Vice-president He Yangqing said the company would conduct the recruitment on a nationwide scale. He, however, did not indicate the time frame for the hiring process.

And, they don't have any of those pesky ACLU issues to deal with either.

He Yangqing said his company would look for people below 35 and with a keen eye for work. Gome will provide professional training programs to these migrant workers. The training would be in basic logistics, delivery, installation, maintenance and other professional services jobs.

There are a couple things to consider here. First off, the success of Gome Electrical is tied ever so neatly into the US financial stream...Specifically:

Gome’s investors -- which include Capital Research & Management, a unit of Capital Group Cos., the largest U.S. manager of stock and bond mutual funds; Warburg Pincus LLC; and clients of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley -- still can’t trade the suspended stock. All four fund managers declined to comment.

They are, by far, one of the biggest retailers in China. When their founder (and the richest man in China) was disappeared, the stock started to tank. Now, it would appear, in order to appease the communist government, they are taking on a large hiring task of migrant workers (presumably, lower cost labor). Gome Electrical went so far as to hire Ernst & Young LLP as a forensic auditing service to find any account irregularities, and they have found nothing to date.

So...what is really going on? How much stock was frozen? Why won't the US stock and bond traders comment? I'm just curious to know whether it was a pittance or a ransom.

I don't get the Communism thing...

Participants cross the finish line during a race of running in high heels at a shopping mall in Dongguan, south China's Guangdong province, March 8, 2009. The event attracted more than 400 people to mark International Women's Day. [CFP]

The State giveth...and the State taketh away...

Hey...remember this guy?

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Mystery surrounded the whereabouts of Huang Guangyu, one of China's wealthiest individuals, a day after reports surfaced that he was recently detained by the Beijing police for questioning over alleged financial wrongdoing.

Well, he's sort of found...sort of.

Three months later, Huang and his wife and former co- director, Lisa Du Juan, remain incommunicado, along with Zhou Yafei, Gome’s former chief financial officer, somewhere in China’s penal system, leaving Greaves and his remaining co- directors scrambling to avert the company’s collapse.

Apparently, he is under investigation for share manipulation. The details are a bit sketchy. But...relax...it's China's problem...not ours...right?

Gome’s investors -- which include Capital Research & Management, a unit of Capital Group Cos., the largest U.S. manager of stock and bond mutual funds; Warburg Pincus LLC; and clients of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley -- still can’t trade the suspended stock. All four fund managers declined to comment.

Curious...and it might not pass the smell test. How much have these US firm invested in the now nosediving Gome? I'd bet a bit more than "a little" since they're refusing to comment.

After Huang disappeared, Xinhua reported that he was suspected of having manipulated trading in shares of two other companies, Beijing Centergate Technologies (Holding) Co. and Sanlian Commercial Co.

Xinhua also reported in January that two investigators from China’s public security ministry had been detained for allegedly taking bribes during the investigation into Huang.

Other than that, Chinese authorities have released no details of the allegations against him.

Alarmed that Gome could collapse without its founders, the remaining directors set up an action committee headed by Sun. They also called in a forensic auditing team from Ernst & Young LLP to investigate any irregular transactions.

Greaves says nothing has been found so far. “When people do get taken in for questioning, they sometimes disappear for months or even years,” Greaves says. “That creates uncertainty, which is the worst thing for institutional shareholders, especially when the rest of their world is crumbling around them.”

Where's the outrage from our "Close GITMO" folks?

Melamine...it's what's for breakfast...

SHIJIAZHUANG, China—A Chinese court has handed down a death penalty to a man convicted of endangering public safety in the first sentencing connected with a contaminated milk scandal that shocked the country.

The Intermediate People's Court in Shijiazhuang gave the death sentence to Zhang Yujun. He was convicted of running a workshop that was allegedly China's largest source of melamine, the substance responsible for the health crisis.

A court spokesman said a second man, Zhang Yanzhang, was given a life sentence, also for endangering public safety.

The court is expected to hand down a sentence later Thursday for Tian Wenhua, the general manager of the dairy company at the heart of the scandal.

I can't say I disagree with the verdict and the punishment. According to the Chinese government, six infants died, and hundreds of thousands were sickened by the tained mixture. If we apply the Chinese "truth modifier" formula, the numbers of dead were probably a lot higher, and the number sickened would likely be higher as well.

What I find curious is that no Chinese officials were even included as defendants in the case. Those of you who have had business dealings with "Communist" nations will agree that not much goes on in the business world of such countries that those sitting on the Provincial throne don't know about.

The scandal involving tainted milk broke in September, although Sanlu authorities knew of problems with their company's products months earlier.

Middlemen who sold milk to dairy companies had watered down the raw milk and then mixed it with melamine, which gives an artificially high reading for protein.

Melamine is normally used to make plastics and fertilizer. If ingested in large amounts, it can cause kidney stones and kidney failure.

When a company in China plays a significant role in revenue creation (and therefore contributes significantly to the Chinese GNP) their profits are tracked religiously. The fact that hundreds of thousands were sickened by the milk suggests that this is one of the major dairy entities in that country. So, you know that someone's hand was in the till from the "official bureau of record keeping." How come those folks didn't have to face the music?

China makes a Whopper of a mistake...

BEIJING: The book spawned a genre, selling more than two million copies in China on the premise that any child, with the proper upbringing, could be Ivy League material.

Now, eight years after the publication of "Harvard Girl," bookstore shelves here are laden with copycat titles like "How We Got Our Child Into Yale," "Harvard Family Instruction" and "The Door of the Elite."

Their increasing popularity points to the preoccupation - some might say a single-minded national obsession - of a growing number of middle-class Chinese parents: getting their children into America's premier universities.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the ABSOLUTE downfall of China.

Taxing the Rich

This is how they tax the rich in China:

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Mystery surrounded the whereabouts of Huang Guangyu, one of China's wealthiest individuals, a day after reports surfaced that he was recently detained by the Beijing police for questioning over alleged financial wrongdoing.

This article places his worth at about $2.7 Billion. It's probably closer to $6 Billion...and Guangyu is, arguably, the richest man in China...or was.

FDA Roadshow...

I suppose that this is a good idea.

I do have an issue with the caption that accompanies the photograph of a consumer in a Beijing Wal-Mart inspecting some eggs, however.

The caption states:

A customer inspecting a carton of eggs at a Wal-Mart in Beijing. The new FDA offices, which are the first outside of the United States, hope to increase effectiveness in protecting American and Chinese consumers. (Elizabeth Dalziel/The Associated Press)

My concern is that the Food & Drug Administration, per that caption, is inspecting products to protect the Chinese consumer as well. I’m hoping that is just the patented and incessant Associated Press sloppiness at work. I couldn’t imagine thirteen FDA employees inspecting anything other than exports to the United States. However, it does point out, in the article, that the FDA representatives are certifying third party inspectors. I'm hoping that this is only for inspection of US bought goods.

So, you never know. If you know how bureaucracy works in Washington with the Federal Agencies…then you know that their relevance is defined by the size of their budget. And, you also know that their future budgets are based on how much they can spend this year. Of course, I’m sure the Chinese Communist Government doesn’t want us sticking our noses in their domestic cow pie…so it’s probably just the Associated Press being the Associated Press.