Posts tagged China
US Under Obama Loses Top Producer Title To China
Feb 10th
China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, official figures from both countries show.
U.S. exports and imports of goods last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S.
Commerce Department said last week. China’s customs administration reported last month that the country’s trade in goods in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion. source – Bloomberg
US Remains Silent As United Nations Works To Place Internet Under ‘International Control’
Feb 21st
UN seeks to silence the Internet
Like most people, it is likely that you have never heard of the ITU before now. So please allow us to get you up to speed. The ITU, or International Telecommunication Union, is a treaty-based organization under the direct control of the United Nations. As you will see in this WSJ article, there is a major push on right now to wreste control on the Internet from it’s current public domain, and place it under “international control” (read ‘censorship’). This current assualt starts February 27th, 6 days from today.
From WSJ: On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year’s end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish “international control over the Internet” through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.
If successful, these new regulatory proposals would upend the Internet’s flourishing regime, which has been in place since 1988. That year, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Australia to agree to a treaty that set the stage for dramatic liberalization of international telecommunications. This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time.
Russia, China and their allies within the 193 member states of the ITU want to renegotiate the 1988 treaty to expand its reach into previously unregulated areas. Reading even a partial list of proposals that could be codified into international law next December at a conference in Dubai is chilling:
• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;
• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for “international” Internet traffic, perhaps even on a “per-click” basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;
• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as “peering.”
• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;
• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;
• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.
While precious time ticks away, the U.S. has not named a leader for the treaty negotiation. We must awake from our slumber and engage before it is too late. Not only do these developments have the potential to affect the daily lives of all Americans, they also threaten freedom and prosperity across the globe. source – Wall Street Journal
EXPOSED! Satellite Photo Reveals China’s First Aircraft Carrier At Sea
Dec 14th
Hidden no longer
A commercial satellite operator says it has captured a rare image of China’s first aircraft carrier as it sailed through the Yellow Sea, after going through an exercise that’s the 21st-century equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.
This satellite image provided by the the DigitalGlobe Analysis Center shows the Chinese aircraft carrier Shi Lang (Varyag) sailing in the Yellow Sea. The picture was acquired Dec. 8 by DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite.
DigitalGlobe said the aircraft carrier showed up on a cloud-filled picture snapped on Dec. 8 by its polar-orbiting QuickBird satellite from a height of 280 miles (450 kilometers). An analyst spotted the ship while checking the image on Tuesday, said Stephen Wood, the director of the company’s analysis center.
“There is something that is always indispensable about having people involved,” Wood told me. The ship was identified “using a combination of the satellite imagery plus open-source material on the Internet, and geography,” he said, but “at the end of the day, it still comes down to a person.”
Experts have been hoping for months to get a glimpse of the aircraft carrier at sea. The former Soviet Union started building the ship, originally known as the Varyag, but never finished it. After the Soviet breakup, the Varyag ended up in the hands of the Ukrainian government. The ship was auctioned off to the Chinese in 1998. Since then, the Varyag, which has reportedly been rechristened the Shi Lang, has been under refurbishment for sea service.
“This is a ship and a story that has had legs for many years,” Wood said.
DigitalGlobe said this picture was taken during the carrier’s second sea trial, approximately 62 miles (100 kilometers) south-southeast of the port of Dalian. Wood said the picture indicates that the ship is “moving at a decent rate of speed, which would be expected in the middle of the ocean.” The U.S. military could no doubt glean more information about the Shi Lang’s status, from QuickBird’s pictures as well as from classified, higher-resolution imagery. source – MSNBC
China President Hu Urges Navy To PREPARE FOR WAR
Dec 6th
Chinese President Hu Jintao Tuesday urged the navy to prepare for military combat amid growing regional tensions over maritime disputes and a US campaign to assert itself as a Pacific power.
The navy should “accelerate its transformation and modernisation in a sturdy way, and make extended preparations for military combat in order to make greater contributions to safeguard national security,” he said.
Addressing the powerful Central Military Commission, Hu said: “Our work must closely encircle the main theme of national defence and military building.”
His remarks, which were posted on a statement on a government website, come amid growing US and regional concerns over China’s naval ambitions, particularly in the South China Sea.
China claims all of the maritime area, as does Taiwan, while four Southeast Asian countries declare ownership of parts of it, with Vietnam and the Philippines accusing Chinese forces of increasing aggression there.
In a translation of Hu’s comments, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the president as saying China’s navy should “make extended preparations for warfare.”
But the Pentagon on Tuesday downplayed Hu’s speech, saying that Beijing had the right to develop its military, although it should do so transparently.
“They have a right to develop military capabilities and to plan, just as we do,” said Pentagon spokesman George Little, but he added “we have repeatedly called for transparency from the Chinese and that’s part of the relationship we’re continuing to build with the Chinese military.”
“Nobody’s looking for a scrap here,” insisted another spokesman Admiral John Kirby. “Certainly we wouldn’t begrudge any other nation the opportunity, the right to develop naval forces to be ready.
“Our naval forces are ready and they’ll stay ready.”
US undersecretary of defence Michelle Flournoy is due to meet in Beijing with her Chinese counterparts on Wednesday for military-to-military talks.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last month warned against interference by “external forces” in regional territorial disputes including in the South China Sea, a strategic and resource-rich area where several nations have overlapping claims.
And China said late last month it would conduct naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean, after Obama, who has dubbed himself America’s first Pacific president, said the US would deploy up to 2,500 Marines to Australia.
China’s People’s Liberation Army, the largest military in the world, is primarily a land force, but its navy is playing an increasingly important role as Beijing grows more assertive about its territorial claims.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon warned that Beijing was increasingly focused on its naval power and had invested in high-tech weaponry that would extend its reach in the Pacific and beyond. source – Yahoo News
Is China Preparing For War Using Space Satellites?
Nov 15th
Google map mystery of giant lines spotted by satellite in Gobi desert
“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” Revelation 16:12
A Google Maps satellite has spotted a series of bizarre structures during a sweep of the Gobi desert in China. The internet is buzzing with theories about what their purpose is, with suggestions ranging from giant QR readers to practise targets for military satellites.
Unidentified: This bizarre structure was spotted by a Google Maps satellite on the borders of Gansu province and Xinjiang
To add to the intrigue, they are located on the borders of Gansu province and Xinjiang in northwestern China – an area that the superpower uses to build military, space and nuclear equipment.
In fact, some of the sites are less than 100 miles from Jiuquan, where China’s space programme headquarters and launch pads can be found.
Some internet users have been trying to overlay one of the strange structures on to various U.S. city maps, worried that there may be a sinister military purpose behind them. Others have pointed out that if China wanted to attack a U.S. city, it doesn’t need a practise map in the desert.
What’s also fuelling the mystery is that it’s just too difficult to tell what the structures are made of – whether they are painted on or dug into the landscape. However, upon zooming in, planes and burnt-out trucks can be seen on some of the photographs, which hints that they may indeed be targets of some kind.
This is the second time in a number of days that the search giant has published photographs of possibly secret facilities. Last week it published pictures of Iranian facilities which the UN says may be used to develop nuclear weapons.
Close-up: A zoomed in version of the grid has fulled speculation over the purpose of the structures
Satellite images of Arak and Natanz show changes to the facilities in the areas when compared with images taken in October 2010.
The overhead pictures were released by Google following a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which expressed ‘serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme’. source – Daily Mail UK
Is China Planning a Surprise Missile Attack On United States?
Sep 1st
Could this be why America is not in bible prophecy?
“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. ” Revelation 16:12
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NTEB reported last Novemeber on the Chinese missile that was launched off the coast of California while Obama was in India.
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A retired Chinese general recently revealed that his country might be planning a surprise missile attack on the United States. The public comment of Xu Guangyu came in response to WikiLeaks revelations that last year Washington had warned its allies beforehand of China’s test of a missile interceptor.
- China has experienced an amazingly fast military buildup over the past few years.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a classified cable sent last January 9th, instructed American embassies in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand to notify those countries of upcoming Chinese launches two days later. The cable included details of the launch sites for the interceptor and the target, the models of the missiles, the purpose of the test, and the test date.
Yesterday, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post carried comments from Xu, now at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, to the effect that American satellites would have detected activity at the launch sites but that some of the information in the cables—specifically the types of missiles and the day of the test—must have come from a source on the ground. WikiLeaks’s release of this cable, revealing one or more American spies in China’s strategic missile corps, is perhaps the website’s most significant compromise of US security to date.
The Hong Kong paper noted that Xu said that “if China could no longer keep secret its missile launches, it would not be able to launch a surprise attack on the US.”
Is China really in the process of planning to destroy the American homeland with a preemptive barrage of nuclear-tipped missiles? Xu’s comment, of course, is not proof, but it does reveal that Chinese flag officers are thinking about doing so.
Unfortunately, Xu’s hostile sentiment fits within a worrisome trend. Especially since the beginning of last year, there has been a series of belligerent comments from China’s generals, admirals, and colonels, some talking about war with the US in the near future. Last February, for instance, Colonel Meng Xianging said the People’s Liberation Army would “qualitatively upgrade” its capabilities to force a showdown on US policy toward Taiwan within the decade “when we’re strong enough for a hand-to-hand fight with the US.”
Given the belicose statements coming from some of China’s military brass—along with China’s well-documented aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and other peripheral waters—it is difficult to imagine how Western observers can deny China’s intentions and the clashes that lie ahead. Thank you, General Xu. source – World Affairs Journal
America’s #1 Export Under Obama? DEBT!
Aug 16th
Biden to sell debt ceiling deal during trip to China, Japan
Vice President Biden will tout the debt ceiling deal during a trip to China and Japan, two holders of huge amounts of U.S. debt.
Biden will travel to top lender China on Wednesday and to Japan, the second-biggest holder of U.S. bonds, on Aug. 22. The vice president “will be in a good position to talk about the very strong deficit package that we concluded here recently,” Undersecterary of the Treasury Lael Brainard told reporters Monday in comments previewing the vice president’s visit.
The debt-ceiling deal signed by President Obama could cut up to $2.5 trillion from budget deficits over the next decade, but it was a smaller package than the grand bargain Obama flirted with striking.
Standard & Poor’s downgraded the nation’s AAA rating to AA+ a few days after Obama signed the legislation. S&P had called for a $4 trillion package, and said it was left uncertain that U.S. politicians could agree to a larger deficit-reduction package. source – The Hill
