Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in October 2017

China’s anti-pollution drive will hit economic growth, raise prices, economist says

Bloomberg report in South China Morning Post, Oct 2, 2017 China’s drive to cut pollution could reduce economic growth by 0.25 percentage points in the next six months while boosting factory inflation, according to Paris-based banking and financial services firm Societe Generale. Production cuts to curb emissions and tougher nationwide environmental inspections would also support the profits of large industrial companies as producer prices rose, Yao Wei, the company’s chief China economist, said. The campaign…

China’s Djibouti military base: ‘logistics facility’, or platform for geopolitical ambitions overseas?

by Sarah Zheng in South China Morning Post, Oct 2, 2017 Chinese troops at the country’s only overseas military base conducted their first live-fire exercises last week in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, near some of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Beijing has described its military outpost as a logistics facility for resupplying Chinese vessels on peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. But satellite imagery and unofficial reports show the base has military infrastructure, including barracks…

Chinese Muslims ‘told to hand in’ copies of Holy Quran in Xinjiang

report in The Express Tribune News Desk: Chinese officials have reportedly told residents of the Muslim-majority Xinjiang to handover copies of the Holy Quran, prayer mat and other items symbolic of Islam, BBC Urdu reported. Quoting a report by Radio Free Asia, the British publication said officials have made announcements through local mosques and neighbourhoods of the province, where mostly Muslims of the Uighur, Kyrgyz and Kazakh origins reside, to abide by the directives or…

Provincial chief expresses support for Sun Zhengcai’s expulsion from China’s Communist Party

by Jun Mai in South China Morning Post, Oct 1, 2017 A Communist Party chief in southern China and a possible future leader has voiced his support for Beijing’s decision to expel disgraced senior official Sun Zhengcai. Hu Chunhua, party boss of Guangdong province, chaired a meeting of senior cadres on Saturday, at which he relayed details of the investigation into Sun and his subsequent dismissal, according to official media reports. He also expressed his…

$3 Billion Indian Credit to B’desh: Half a billion used in 7yrs

By Rejaul Karim Byron in The daily star, Oct 1, 2017 Bangladesh’s utilisation of Indian lines of credit has been nothing more than a sorry state of affairs in the past seven years. Over the period, Dhaka has witnessed renewed vigour in New Delhi’s commitments to financing projects with credits doubling and redoubling. On top of two LoCs involving $3.06 billion that India already committed, a third one amounting to $4.5 billion is now in…

China Fears India May Be Edging It Out in Culture Battle

By Amy Qin in The NY Times online, Sept 30, 2017 BEIJING — One of the most popular movies in China over the summer ran 161 minutes, so long that it was sometimes shown with an intermission. Unlike Hollywood blockbusters, there were no special effects, speeding cars or epic battle scenes. Nor was the film a Chinese production with a Chinese cast. Instead, it won over audiences with a simple but powerful tale: the true…