Saturday, December 29th, 2007
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The new Apple OS has Japanese dictionaries built in.
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Our blog’s intention is to request the US government to grant us a chance to defend our mother country Japan at the American court of law regarding the resolution “Comfort Women” passed July 30, 07.
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“The speech has become a hot topic recently on our university’s BBS (bulletin board system) and students are very interested in Fukuda’s visit, the future of China-Japan relations and how to secure a ticket
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The Asahi Shimbun reported Thursday that the two countries held secret talks on the gas dispute ahead of Fukuda’s visit.
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The Japanese Education Ministry announced Wednesday that it would partly reinstate references in textbooks to the Japanese military’s role in forcing civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa
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Beijing, China’s water-poor and overpopulated capital, is stretching its resources to the limit. It is time for a new strategy, writes Xinyu Mei, the country should seriously consider moving its capital.
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A California free speech group whose board of directors includes Google and Yahoo said on Monday it had asked U.S. trade officials to challenge China’s Internet restrictions as a violation of global trade rules.
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[CCB] planned to open branches in London, Dubai and Doha according to a statement on its website.
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Friday, December 7th, 2007
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France’s president has urged China to commit to sustainable development. Dongying Wang talked to Brice Lalonde, the French climate-change ambassador, and asked him what China can learn from France’s new green initiatives.
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Negotiations between China Mobile and Apple hit a snag earlier this month over the business model, and there is a rumor in the Chinese press that the parties have walked away from the table.
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The Japanese finance minister, Fukushiro Nukaga, urged Chinese leaders at a meeting in Beijing to allow their currency to appreciate at a faster pace, joining calls from governments in Europe and the United States.
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“President Hu Jintao will visit Japan next year. As for the specific date, that is still to be decided by the two sides,” ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.
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Choking on Growth Part VI
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The summit did not produce much in the way of concrete results, much to Amaki Naoto’s consternation. The two governments agreed to cooperate on green technology, and Foreign Ministers Yang and Komura made resolution of the East China Sea gas fields disput
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Former US president Jimmy Carter said Wednesday that when ties with China were re-established 29 years ago, Beijing privately acknowledged that the United States would keep selling arms to Taiwan.
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Baidu is now the first Chinese company ever to be added to the NASDAQ index. It entered the Top 100 Monday when its stock rose 3.3 percent in trading.
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Keso was reprimanded by another writer in the general-interest forum. “No discussion of politics here!” his fellow netizen insisted.
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China’s government is studying a U.S. intelligence review that concludes Iran stopped developing nuclear weapons in 2003, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
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Thursday, November 29th, 2007
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Japan’s wartime leaders, hanged as war criminals, were martyrs like Jesus Christ, says the Japanese director of an upcoming film backed by nationalists that argues that the 1937 Nanjing massacre was a fabrication by China.
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Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
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Kevin Rudd’s election as prime minister of Australia could mean a substantial shift in Japan-Australian relations. Japan has found a valuable friend and ally in Australia in recent years. The relationship blossomed under the departing John Howard
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With usual caveats against sweeping generalization, what this made me think was: Japan is all about the way of doing things. Practice, ritual, perfectionism, as much fanatical attention to the process as to the result. China is all about finding a way to
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Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
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With this in mind, I sent a mass e-mail to about 100 of my friends back home, hoping to show the students a small slice of American-style democracy.
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The head of China’s central bank says Beijing wants a strong dollar, a government news agency said Thursday.
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Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton Friday slammed China for calling her criticism of made-in-China toys “slander,” and urged Washington to take “immediate, decisive steps” to protect US children.
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Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
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Japan plans to pledge 1.8 billion dollars worth of low-interest loans to Asian countries to help them combat environmental pollution at a summit next week in Singapore, reports said Friday.
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The directive, issued in June, called for burdensome new safety inspections for foreign-made medical devices — but not for those made in China. The Bush administration is crying foul.
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The already strained diplomatic relations between China and Germany worsened sharply on Thursday when German finance minister Peer Steinbrück was forced to cancel a visit to Beijing because his Chinese counterpart refused to meet him.
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Congress should pass legislation giving US companies a new tool to fight China’s “currency manipulation” and also put pressure on the White House to take action at the World Trade Organisation, a congressional watchdog panel said on Thursday .
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China’s commerce ministry warned on Thursday that a slowing US economy would trigger a drop in Chinese exports that would mark a “turning point” for China’s rapid economic growth.
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Students in Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan significantly outperform American students on math and science tests, according to a new study from a U.S. nonprofit organization.
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A human rights activist lamented on Thursday that no one from the Japanese government would meet the Dalai Lama during his nine-day visit to the country centred on Buddhist events.
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Recently some foreign correspondents have been detained, harassed and physically roughed up — two incidents Tuesday alone.
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The United States and China are working on a pact to promote use of ethanol and other biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and could announce an agreement as early as next month, an American official said Friday.
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A Chinese naval ship left Wednesday for a port call to Japan for the first time since World War II in a further sign of easing in the Asian neighbors’ often tense relations.
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Japan and China on Tuesday announced their first cabinet-level forum on closer business co-operation, highlighting the warmer political ties between Asia’s two largest economies after years of strain.
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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended the third East Asia Summit (EAS) which opened here Wednesday.
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The award marks the second straight year an imprisoned Chinese journalist has won the Golden Pen of Freedom
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The U.S. International Trade Commission voted on Tuesday to deny proposed duties on imports of glossy paper from China in a case that had prompted the U.S. Commerce Department to change a decades-old policy.
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Yasuo Fukuda, making his Asian diplomacy debut after taking office in September, held his first summit with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and also had lunch with the Chinese leader on the sidelines of an Asian leaders’ meeting in Singapore.
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JAPANESE Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao agreed to work together to improve bilateral ties at their first one-on-one meeting.
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The workers carried out a half-day nationwide walkout in response to a proposal to reduce their benefits.
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Climate change dominated the agenda at the one-day East Asia Summit, which included the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
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Hundreds of relatives of crew members of the Kitty Hawk had flown to Hong Kong to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.
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Thursday, November 15th, 2007
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via Japan Probe
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Style matters as much as substance; the US should be trying to coax Japan back to the table, not bludgeon it over the head until it concedes.
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米国務省のケーシー副報道官は１３日の記者会見で、北朝鮮に対するテロ支援国家指定の解除について「拉致問題は必ずしも具体的に関連づけられているわけではない」と述べた。
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And yet, as the Diet returns to business following the chaotic, unscheduled recess following the resignation of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his replacement by Yasuo Fukuda, Mr Ozawa’s victory may prove to be a poisoned chalice for both him and
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China, infuriated at Taiwan’s repeated bids to join the United Nations, sends back all mail arriving from the self-ruled island stamped with a U.N. slogan postmark, a government official said on Wednesday.
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Danwei正在开展一个互联网使用习惯的中文问卷调查。该调查一共十个问题，约需要五分钟左右。点击这里参加。
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The government is to introduce a new policy to help tap the country’s huge reserves of coal bed methane (CBM).
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The arms sales have “rudely interfered in China’s internal affairs, endangered Chinese national security and peaceful unification, and disturbed the improvement and development of China-US relations,” said the spokesman
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A former Chinese diplomat who served in Japan until 2001 was sentenced to death in China on charges he provided military information to a Japanese national, the Sankei newspaper reported from Beijing.
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Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
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The Dalai Lama is expected to visit Japan this week, organizers said, despite China’s protests over other trips overseas by the Tibetan religious leader. But top government officials are not expected to meet …
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China plans to end a 20-year ban on foreigners with HIV entering the country, the health ministry says.
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US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson looked ahead to the SED (strategic economic dialog) in December and outlined his and the Bush administration’s collective views on the state of China-US relations … at the China Institute Executive Summit.
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Mr. Yue, 45, was in New York in October for the opening of an exhibition of his paintings and sculptures that continues through Jan. 6 at the Queens Museum of Art.
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the biggest concern in Southeast Asia is the forests, and ASEAN’s position is that forests must be harvested in a systematic way.
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Asia, America and the Transformation of Geopolitics is the latest book by William H. Overholt, director at the RAND’s Center for Asia Pacific Policy
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Four elderly Japanese left behind in China at the end of World War II in 1945 arrived in Japan on Monday to locate their kin.
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However, given that “the prime minister is now Mr. Fukuda and it is unclear when we can have a summit meeting with China,” reaching some agreement in autumn will be difficult, Kitabata noted.
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US President George W. Bush will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in Washington on Friday, the White House confirmed Monday, with the two leaders set for key talks.
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Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda affirmed on Monday the singular importance of Japan’s alliance with the United States, but also made it clear that his government’s reach in global security affairs would not be as expansive as the Bush administration wants.
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Some of the biggest and most powerful dealmakers in the United States have found a way to keep the buyout boom going: by aggressively pushing into China.
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via Japan Probe: The government confirmed Tuesday it will not unconditionally accept a U.S. demand that Tokyo repeal the age limit on U.S. beef imports, government officials said.
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Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
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Not quite as widely covered (at least in English) as the aftermath of the coalition negotiations was the story of the mediator in the deal-to-be, Yomiuri Shimbun editor-in-chief Watanabe Tsuneo (a.k.a Nabetsune)
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China marked “Journalists Day” Thursday with state-run media hailing a new era of increasing press freedom in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, but Western rights groups are largely unimpressed.
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Tim O’Reilly’s first foray into China was my third Web2.0-related conference in Beijing in the span of one week.
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The Netherlands’ lower house has unanimously passed a resolution urging Japan to apologize for its wartime military’s sexual enslavement of young women in Asia. … also called on the Japanese government to pay compensation to the victims …
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China, one of the world’s leading producers of greenhouse gases, launched a government fund Friday to channel money from the sale of emission-reduction credits into environmental projects.
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Japan’s trade minister urged China on Thursday not to put the squeeze on Tokyo and other buyers of its rare metals as Beijing tightens its grip on the resources, which are indispensable for Japan’s high-tech industries.
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… [Xu Xi] soon discovered that being published in English by a small printing house in her hometown, Hong Kong, did not ensure the interest of the handful of companies based in the United States and Britain that dominate global English-language publishi
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By Moisés Naím - What happens when an authoritarian government and thousands of activists go head-to-head at the Olympics? China is about to find out.
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Mr. Gates told students and faculty members of Tokyo’s Sophia University that Americans “hope and expect Japan will choose to accept more global security responsibilities in the years ahead.”
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Many countries complained U.S. dominance wasn’t discussed enough during the first forum last year, in Athens. China, Iran, Russia and Brazil, among others, won an opening-day panel devoted to “critical Internet resources.”
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Beginning last week, all who want to audit classes at Beijing University will have to apply for an audit permit. … The new rule intends to shut the door to educational opportunity on what are being called “society’s wanderers (社会闲散人员).”
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Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi will visit Iran on Tuesday at the invitation of Iranian counterpart Manuchehr Mottaki
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The Chinese government is creating a database with profiles on the thousands of foreign reporters who will be covering next summer’s Beijing Olympics, a top official said in comments published Monday.
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A divided committee of Parliament voted Monday to renew a limited version of an Indian Ocean naval mission that was halted by a legislative impasse.
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Thursday, October 25th, 2007
I’ve been busy recently in Beijing and watching a lot of good stories go right by. You’ll forgive a Colorado native for using a baseball analogy: It’s time to make sure I don’t strike out looking. Here’s a quick summary of transpacific pitches I wish I’d had time to swing at.
Greener Beijing?
- Will Beijing’s air be ready for the Olympics? The Worldwatch Institute has a good summary of what’s being done, who’s doing it, and what the challenges are, from Yongfeng Feng, a journalist for China Guangming Daily.
- Alex Pasternack picks up on a Christian Science Monitor story on the emergence of short-term bike rental service in Beijing. Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned here is that folding bikes, trendy here despite being a pain to ride, have been banned on the subway recently to prevent overcrowding. Razor scooter, anyone?
Internet Filtering and Reactions
- Blogspot is blocked, again. It came back online along with Flickr, which I have just noticed is also blocked. Firefox users in the P.R.C. can use “Access Flickr!” to get those photo feeds back working.
- The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted the Global Online Freedom Act (H.R. 275) out of committee. The law, according to Forbes.com, would “penalize U.S. companies up to $2 million if they cooperate with the technological surveillance of political dissidents or share technology and information used for ‘Internet-restricting’ purposes.”
- Rebecca MacKinnon has smart commentary as usual on this issue. Go read what she writes, but here’s her bottom line:
GOFA’s intentions are honorable in many ways. I think many of the people who support it certainly have honorable intentions. I know and respect many of them, despite having had some pretty heated arguments with some members of the human rights groups who say they support it for strategic reasons. But from where I sit in Hong Kong, this proposed legislation comes off as something that my Chinese friends who hate censorship and surveillance would find arrogant, patronizing, and interventionist, with the likely result that it would kill U.S. tech companies’ ability to do business in China in the first place - a result which by the way they don’t think would enhance their freedom.
- Also from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I haven’t mentioned yet that Chairman Tom Lantos is calling Yahoo’s Jerry Yang back to Congress under suspicion of misleading Congress in previous testimony. Go check with MacKinnon on this, too. She’s been on the story since a civil society group published a document that contradicted Yahoo’s statement that they did not know the nature of the investigation when they turned over information on reporter Shi Tao to Chinese authorities.
- At Wired, a writer with firsthand experience being monitored on a reporting trip in China declares that the “Great Firewall” is futile. Maybe, but I had to enable Tor to get the full article to load. The article is a good read though for those interested in Oliver August’s experiences talking to Chinese dissidents.
- Wikipedia’s Chinese-language service was crippled by the mainland’s block, reports Eva Woo at BusinessWeek.com.
In other news…
- From the Tokyo Auto Show, Michael J. Dunne who works on China for J.D. Power and Associates, writing in the Detroit News, notes that the talk is about China, not Japan. My favorite is the writer’s casual contextual note about when his cohort got interested in China: “Fascination with the China market started when the Middle Kingdom first challenged Japan for sales leadership. Two years ago, Chinese bought 5.3 million vehicles, just shy of the 5.7 million cars and trucks sold in Japan.”
- U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said she sees protectionism in both countries as a threat to U.S.–China trade.
- Relatedly, Andy Scott at China Briefing Blog ventures a coinage for China’s WTO practices: “Compliance With Chinese Characteristics.”
- It’s not just the United States hosting the Dalai Lama. Japan’s doing it too.
- The questionably hyphenated Trans-Pacific Express will for the first time link the China and the United States with an undersea telecommunications cable.
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