Sunday, June 8, 2014

This China Post Will Crack You Up

‘‘Groups like Al Qaeda and others are now beginning to think that China could be a new oppressor of the Muslim world.’’

Ha, ha, ha. 

CIA-Duh going after China now? After what the EUSraeli has and is doing? 

This is laughable! This is bad propaganda. 

So now China is on our side? Or is it Al-CIA-Duh!? 

Propaganda so bad shows you what its about: fighting the whole world, anyone who will not go along with plan. The propaganda has gotten so bad its bankrupted itself.

31 killed, 90 injured during terror strike in restive Chinese region

A hallmark of CIA-Duh-connected groups.

China urges terrorists to surrender

‘‘terrorist training camps.’’  

Who in the world could they be referring to?

China says 200 terror suspects arrested

"China sentences 55 at mass rally" Associated Press   May 29, 2014

BEIJING — In a stadium filled with 7,000 people, a Chinese court announced guilty verdicts for 55 people on charges of terrorism, separatism, and murder as the government tries to display its determination to combat unrest in the troubled northwest region.

The public event was a show of force in Xinjiang after 43 people were killed last week in an attack at a vegetable market in the regional capital, Urumqi.

Such sentencing rallies — designed to humiliate the accused and feed a public thirst for retribution — were formerly common across China.

But in recent years such rallies have been mostly restricted to Xinjiang and the neighboring restive region of Tibet.

That appears to speak to a separate brand of justice carried out against government critics and others accused of crimes who hail from minority ethnic groups, underscored by the announcement last week of a special one-year security crackdown in Xinjiang focusing on suspected terrorists, religious extremist groups, illegal weapons makers, and terrorist training camps.

--more--"

It's like looking in a mirror.

Also seeChina sentences 81 on terrorism charges

Not so funny:

"Russia to supply gas to China" by Jane Perlez | New York Times   May 22, 2014

BEIJING — China and Russia agreed to a 30-year natural gas deal Wednesday that would send gas by pipeline from Siberia to China, according to China National Petroleum Corp.

The announcement caps a decade of negotiations and helps bring Russia and China closer than they have been in many years. The contract was driven to a conclusion by the presence of President Xi Jinping of China and President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Shanghai for the last two days.

A notice on China National Petroleum’s website said that beginning in 2018, Russia would supply 38 billion cubic meters of gas each year to China. China will build the pipeline within its borders, while Russia will be responsible for development of the fields and pipeline construction in its territory.

The notice did not mention price, but experts said hard bargaining by China for a lower price than European countries were paying was at the core of the negotiations.

The deal is expected to be worth about $400 billion, said James Henderson, a senior analyst at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Putin told reporters after a signing ceremony that the price was based on the market price of oil, just as it was for European countries.

“The gas price formula as in our other contracts is pegged to the market price of oil and oil products,” Itar-Tass quoted Putin as saying. The deal is the largest for the Russian natural gas industry, he said.

Russia will invest $55 billion in infrastructure for transporting the gas to China, said Alexei B. Miller, the chief executive of Gazprom.

Putin has been eager to diversify Russia’s gas sales to Asia and away from the stagnant European markets. At the same time, he was anxious to demonstrate that Russia, in the face of sanctions over the annexation of Crimea, was not dependent on the West.

And Xi, who has met Putin seven times since assuming power, was willing to help the Russian leader, said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

Expectations that the deal would be sealed when Xi and Putin met Tuesday were dashed when negotiators from China National Petroleum and Gazprom failed to reach a deal.

Political considerations, including Putin’s visit to Europe in early June — when he will meet with President Obama and Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel — were probably a vital impetus to getting the contract over the finish line, energy experts said.

Xi and Putin met on the sidelines of a conference of Asian nations. During his address to the gathering, Xi proposed a new Asian structure for security cooperation, based on a regional group that would include Russia and Iran but exclude the United States. 

It has a name.

The proposal is another indication that Russia and China, though wary of each other, are interested in working together outside the confines of global and regional institutions dominated by the United States.

That is also why both are dumping the dollar.

A central issue in the negotiations was how to bridge the difference between the premium prices Russia charges European countries and the lower prices China pays for natural gas from Central Asia, primarily Turkmenistan, said Kenneth S. Courtis, a founding partner of Thames Investment.

Gazprom had indicated it was not going to bend on the principle of a gas price based on oil prices, analysts said. But how to structure that price relationship had appeared to be a major stumbling block.

China National Petroleum asked for equity stakes in the two Gazprom gas fields, much as China had negotiated successfully with other Russian energy companies, Henderson said. It was not clear whether it succeeded this time.

Related:

"The political situation definitely helped ease the negotiations, said Keun-Wook Paik, associate fellow in energy, environment and resources at Chatham House, a policy institute based in London. Putin needed to find "an umbrella to show that he's not completely isolated."

He doesn't seem isolated at all. It's EUSrael finding itself more and more isolated.

--more--"

RelatedVisa, MasterCard weigh Russia exit

"China treads carefully as it pursues influence" by Louise Watt | Associated Press   May 25, 2014

SHANGHAI — China is carrying on a high-stakes balancing act aimed at building influence and access to resources abroad without damaging ties with its most important economic partner — the United States.

In rapid-fire moves Wednesday, President Xi Jinping called at a conference of Asian governments for a new regional security structure that implicitly excludes Washington. Hours later, China agreed to buy Russian gas worth about $400 billion, binding the diplomatically isolated government of President Vladimir Putin more closely to Beijing and the huge Chinese economy.

I'm getting tired of the one-sided distortion and propaganda.

Russian politicians hailed the deal as part of a new strategic relationship and a thumb in Washington’s eye. But Xi also appeared to be trying to reassure the United States and its Asian allies. In his speech to an audience that included Putin and the president of Iran, the Chinese leader said a military alliance that was offensive in posture rather than defensive would not help regional security.

Irked by the Obama administration’s effort to shift its foreign policy emphasis to Asia at a time of Chinese territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam, and other neighbors, Beijing is nevertheless treading carefully because it knows it cannot dominate any international organization, experts say. Instead, it is pressing to have its needs respected abroad.

Chinese leaders place ‘‘top priority’’ on the relationship with the United States even as they worry Washington is trying to contain their country’s rise, said Joseph Cheng, a specialist in Chinese politics at the City University of Hong Kong.

At the same time as it strengthens ties with Russia, Beijing will ‘‘try its very best to maintain a cordial relationship with the US,’’ said Cheng.

China has been steadily raising its profile abroad since the late 1990s, emerging from decades when it followed the late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping’s injunction to maintain a low profile and focus on economic development.

‘‘The Chinese government has been calling for security cooperation based on communities rather than alliances, where third-parties are not targeted and there is a focus on respecting sovereignty and joint problem-solving,’’ said Marc Lanteigne, director of research at the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre of Victoria University of Wellington.

Xi invoked such ideals Wednesday when he called for a ‘‘new regional security cooperation architecture’’ that covers all of Asia based on a previously obscure group, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, founded in 1992 as a regional discussion forum.

He called for a ‘‘defense consultation mechanism’’ and a ‘‘security response center’’ for major emergencies but gave no details.

Such organizations show countries such as China and Russia are ‘‘more eager to embrace multilateralism’’ than the United States, said Cheng.

In Southeast Asia, Beijing has displayed its growing diplomatic skill by playing on rivalries among the region’s governments to prevent them from siding with Vietnam in the conflict over a Chinese oil rig sent to disputed waters.

Related: Vietnam Initiates Violence Against China 

China has not retaliated.

Chinese leaders have been trying to build up groups of Asian and developing governments to offset the influence of the United States and other Western nations in global affairs.

Still, forging any but the loosest ties between CICA’s 24 member nations would be a diplomatic challenge. They range from Iran to US allies such as Israel and South Korea. Others such as Mongolia and Vietnam are wary of growing Chinese influence.

Beijing and Moscow, once rivals for leadership of the communist movement, have built a strategic partnership since the end of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, driven by their shared unease at US dominance.

In 2001, they cofounded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization with four Central Asian governments to counterbalance rising American influence in the region and combat Islamic and separatist political movements.

Wednesday’s gas deal highlights the mix of interests and potential conflicts between Beijing and Moscow.

An agreement was important to both sides but they haggled for more than a decade over the price, a hard-headed commercial issue.

Look at the propaganda pre$$ pooh-pooh the deal!

The gas deal helps Russia out of its isolation by Western governments unhappy with its role in the Ukraine crisis. Russian state behemoth Gazprom will be able to reduce its reliance on European customers while meeting some of China’s pressing energy needs.

Washington warned China it didn’t want any other nations doing business deals with Moscow to detract from sanctions imposed over Ukraine but said it understood the Chinese economy’s need for energy.

‘‘Chinese officials clearly understood the distinction between deals in which there have been ongoing negotiations for some time and new deals that opportunistically fill the space left by US and EU sanctions,’’ the US Treasury said in an e-mail.

Despite declarations of friendship, China’s $89 billion in trade with Russia last year was barely one-sixth its $521 billion in total imports and exports with the United States, also an important source of investment and technology.

Russia and China see each other as rivals in the global balance of power, said Mark Harrison, an economist at the University of Warwick, in an e-mail.

‘‘The balance of power in Asia is moving steadily against Russia,’’ he said. ‘‘Smiles around the table in Beijing do not betoken true affinity.’’

These guys are either idiots or delusional.

--more--"

"Vietnam won’t be pushed around by China" by H.D.S. Greenway |    May 25, 2014

Vietnam may prove harder to push around than some of China’s other maritime neighbors in contested waters. Vietnamese and Chinese ships recently rammed each other and fired water cannons to contest China’s bringing in a giant oil rig off the barren sandspits called the Paracel Archipelago that both claim in the South China Sea. It was not the first such confrontation.

Forty years ago, when there was still a South Vietnam, I watched South Vietnamese war ships holed by gunfire limp home into the port of Danang. They had not been fighting their mortal enemy, North Vietnam. They had clashed with Chinese forces off those same disputed Paracel islands that lie about equidistant from the Chinese and Vietnamese coasts. China made a big fuss over the confrontation at the time, saying its forces had protected the motherland. South Vietnam scored a propaganda victory over Hanoi by calling upon all Vietnamese, of whatever political persuasion, to denounce the Chinese occupation of sacred Vietnamese soil.

The following year, as North Vietnamese forces were closing in on Saigon and South Vietnam was in its death throes, the North Vietnamese attacked and displaced a small South Vietnamese garrison on the Spratly Islands further south which were, and are today, also claimed by China as well as Vietnam, the Philippines, and even tiny Brunei. The significance was that, even though the war between the two Vietnams was still raging, Hanoi made the decision to steal a march on China, its vital ally, just to make sure that, once the war was over, a Vietnamese garrison remained on the remote islands Vietnam claimed.

In 1979 China actually attacked Vietnam along its northern border, not over islands in the South China Sea, but in order to punish Vietnam for its invasion of Cambodia in order to oust the loathsome Khmer Rouge regime, a China ally. In that encounter the Chinese army received a bloody nose from the more battle-hardened Vietnamese.

Many of Vietnam’s traditional heroes, such as the Trung sisters in the first century AD and Le Loi in the 15th century, gained their place in history for anti-Chinese resistance. China occupied Vietnam for nearly 1,000 years from the first century BC until the 10th century AD. There were other periodic Chinese invasions during the Ming Dynasty.

After World War II the Chinese were back again when Chiang Kai-shek’s troops were tasked with disarming the Japanese in the north. When Ho Chi Minh was criticized by Vietnamese nationalists for agreeing to have the French return to their old colony to replace Chinese troops, Ho told them that European colonialism was dying. He said he would rather smell French excrement for a few years more than Chinese excrement for another millennium.

The famous Pentagon Papers revealed that a major reason for America waging war in Vietnam was to keep Red China out of Southeast Asia. But what Washington didn’t realize at the time was that, although China was an all-important supporter and supplier of arms and equipment to Hanoi, that alliance would not survive the exit of the French and the Americans, and that the best block against China taking over Southeast Asia was the North Vietnamese army.

Today Vietnam is no match for China when it comes to military power and never will be. But that has not stopped Vietnam from building up its military and naval forces — especially submarines which they have bought from the Russians. Vietnam is also building and improving its missiles and air force, and it has bought two modern warships from the Netherlands. Nobody believes Vietnam could resist China in an all-out war, but Vietnam could make further Chinese attempts to control all of the South China Sea expensive and dangerous.

Some see irony in the fact that today, as the Chinese threat grows, Vietnamese are cozying up to American power which they fought so long and so hard to expel just four decades ago. But, for the Vietnamese, the Chinese menace is woven into the fabric of their existence while America was but a passing unpleasantness. The Chinese cannot expect to have it all go easily for them in the South China Sea.

Looks like war to me.

--more--"

"China-Vietnam tension may be costly" by Chris Brummitt | Associated Press   June 04, 2014

HANOI — Like thousands of other factory owners in Vietnam, Nguyen Van Phuc relies on China for expertise and raw materials to keep his production line humming. But tensions between Hanoi and Beijing over maritime territorial claims are threatening that relationship and his bottom line.

Chinese technicians scheduled to upgrade his equipment are too spooked to visit following anti-China violence. His Chinese suppliers no longer accept cash on delivery, fearing an even sharper deterioration in relations; Phuc must now pay more to a third-party supplier.

‘‘One hundred percent of Vietnamese companies just want to have peace to do their business,’’ he said at his electric cable company in Hanoi.

China has long feuded with its neighbors over who owns what in the South China Sea, a region potentially rich in oil and natural gas. In recent years, Beijing has been more forceful in pressing its expansive claims, bringing it into conflict with Vietnam and the Philippines.

The latest upheaval followed a decision May 1 to put an oil rig in part of the sea claimed by Vietnam. Ships sent by both sides have played a cat and mouse game of harassment, with some colliding. Deadly anti-China riots broke out in Vietnamese industrial parks.

A shooting war is a remote possibility, but relations are unlikely to get better anytime soon. With China ignoring Vietnam’s appeals for it to withdraw the rig, Hanoi is threatening a legal challenge. That carries the risk that China, the world’s second-biggest economy, will retaliate economically against its smaller neighbor.

A possibility nonetheless! Some are sure hoping!

Vietnam’s authoritarian rulers are in a difficult position: their legitimacy rests in large part on an ability to raise living standards for the country’s 90 million people.

Much of the nation is in poverty thanks to the sweatshop slavery.

Good relations with China, Vietnam’s largest trading partner, a major source of development funding and an important investor in the textile and power industries, are vital.

Yet there is deep anger over Beijing’s latest move. Some analysts predict an economic slowdown as a result of the current tensions.

Nguyen Duc Thanh, director of Vietnam’s Economic and Policy Research Center, said the tensions could result in a 1 percentage point drop in gross domestic product growth this year, due to delays in infrastructure projects, particularly power plants. ‘‘China is building a lot of them. I don’t think they will totally stop, but they will be delayed,’’ he said.

Other factors include trade being hurt by tougher customs clearance at the land border, fears of greater instability deterring foreign investment, and a drop in the number of Chinese tourists.

For Vietnam’s companies, there are few alternatives to trading with China, which supplies everything from components for smartphones to fiber that is woven into sweat shirts and T-shirts. 

Is destroying your economy worth it just to please the AmeriKan master?

Last year, the Philippines filed a complaint against China with an international tribunal in The Hague, challenging the legality of its territorial claims in the South China Sea. It did this despite threats from China, which wants one-on-one talks with each of its rival claimants.

Vietnam stayed silent then, but Beijing’s oil rig gambit appears to have changed things.

And Beijing will have to consider the potential cost to Chinese businesses before taking any action against Hanoi. 

I wish the U.S. would consider such things before plunging into wars.

‘‘The thing with using economics as a weapon is that it is artillery fire in both directions,’’ said Jason Morris-Jung, a Vietnam expert at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. ‘‘If you punish a seller in Vietnam, you also hurt a buyer in China, and vice versa.’’

--more--"

So who else could the U.S. get to start a war with China?

"Japan to offer aid to nations in disputes with China" by Martin Fackler | New York Times   May 31, 2014

TOKYO — Saying that his nation will play a larger role in regional security, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said Friday that his government will support Vietnam and other nations that have territorial disputes with China by providing patrol ships, training, and military surveillance equipment.

Abe, speaking at an international security meeting in Singapore, said he wants Japan to shed the passiveness that has marked its diplomacy after World War II and take more responsibility for maintaining regional stability. He said Japan will cooperate with the United States and other like-minded nations such as Australia and India to uphold international rule of law and freedom of navigation, and to discourage China’s increasingly assertive efforts to take control of islands and expanses of ocean that are claimed by other Asian nations, including Japan.

See: Japan Joins With U.S.

“Japan intends to play an even greater and more proactive role than it has until now in making peace in Asia and the world something more certain.”

That kind of talk makes people in the region nervous.

Referring to the Association for Southeast Asian Nations, Abe said, “Japan will offer its utmost support for efforts by Asean member countries to ensure the security of the seas and skies and rigorously maintain freedom of navigation.”

Japan has been stepping up efforts to serve as at least a partial counterbalance to China’s rising economic and military power in the region, by building new security ties with Australia and Southeast Asia and by serving as a more fully fledged US ally. Japan has been moving slowly and carefully for years to set aside its postwar aversion to military power and play a larger security role in East Asia, a region still scarred by Japan’s brutal imperialism in the early 20th century.

What about the brutal EUSraeli imperialism of the 21st century?

South Korea and China, which are closer geographically to Japan, have criticized Abe’s policy as an attempt to revive Japanese militarism. But Abe has made building closer security ties in the region a pillar of his foreign policy.

In his speech Friday, he noted that he visited 10 Southeast Asian nations last year and is trying to build “a new special relationship” with Australia that includes joint military training and development of military equipment.

--more--"

Related:

"Cuddly robots are not new in Japan, a nation dominated by ‘‘kawaii,’’ or cute culture, but...."

Also seeToeing the Boston Globe Line

It's looking like using Korea or the Philippines to get a war going won't be working, either.

U.S will just have to take it upon themselves then:

"WTO Sides With U.S. in Dispute Over Chinese Car Tariffs" New York Times   May 24, 2014

WASHINGTON — The World Trade Organization in Geneva sided with the United States on Friday in a dispute over punitive Chinese tariffs on US exports of cars and SUVs. China had already lifted the tariffs in question but US officials declared it a victory, citing the decision as the latest in a series of rulings that it has won against Beijing.

“China has had 14 years — 14 years — to start playing by the rules,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, at a news conference in Washington. “As long as China keeps up this illegal behavior, we can and must respond with these kinds of strong enforcement actions.”

The decision comes against a backdrop of increasing acrimony between Beijing and Washington as the Obama administration is pushing Chinese leaders on commercial spying and hacking while China has become more aggressive in asserting its claims against US allies in the South China Sea.

SeeHacker Helped FBI

Also see: 

NSA Unlocking Your Secrets
Obama Keeping an Eye on China
Chink in Obama's Armor
Googling China

It would funny were it not so sad.

In late 2011, China’s commerce ministry abruptly imposed antidumping and antisubsidy tariffs on some large-engine family vehicles, alleging that they were being sold to dealers in China for less than the full cost of manufacturing them.

I wish I had a government that jealously guarded my country's manufacturing industries, instead of encouraging them to move to China with tax breaks.

--more--"

RelatedJD.com soars in first day of Nasdaq trading

Also see: Yahoo For Alibaba

"China sees US hypocrisy in snooping on foreign firms; NSA admits that local laws are no obstacle" by David E. Sanger | New York Times   May 21, 2014

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has never said what it was seeking when it invaded the computers of Petrobras, Brazil’s huge national oil company, but angry Brazilians have made plenty of guesses: The company’s troves of data on Brazil’s offshore oil reserves, or perhaps its plans for allocating licenses for exploration to foreign companies.

Nor has the NSA said what it intended when it got deep into the computer systems of China Telecom, one of the largest providers of mobile phone and Internet services in Chinese cities. But documents released by Edward J. Snowden, the former agency contractor now in exile in Russia, leave little doubt that the main goal was to learn about Chinese military units, whose members cannot resist texting on commercial networks. 

Looks like HACKING to me!

The agency’s interest in Huawei, the giant Chinese maker of Internet switching equipment, and Pacnet, the Hong Kong-based operator of undersea fiber optic cables, is more obvious: Once inside those companies’ proprietary technology, the NSA would have access to millions of daily conversations and e-mails that never touch American shores.

Then there is Joaquín Almunia, the vice president of the European Commission responsible for competition. He runs no company, but has punished many, including Microsoft and Intel, and just reached an accord with Google that will greatly change how it operates in Europe.

In each of these cases, US officials insist, when speaking off the record, that the United States was never acting on behalf of specific American companies. But the government does not deny it routinely spies to advance US economic advantage, which is part of its broad definition of how it protects national security.

Meaning they are STEALING TRADE SECRETS, the same behavior they accuse and denounce in others!! 

In short, the officials say, while the NSA cannot spy on Airbus and give the results to Boeing, it is free to spy on European or Asian trade negotiators and use the results to help US trade officials — and, by extension, the American industries and workers they are trying to bolster.

Now, every one of the examples of NSA spying on corporations around the world is becoming Exhibit A in China’s argument that by indicting five members of the People’s Liberation Army, the Obama administration is giving new meaning to capitalistic hypocrisy. In the Chinese view, the United States has designed its own system of rules about what constitutes “legal” spying and what is illegal.

The whole world sees how ugly we have become.

That definition, the Chinese contend, is designed to benefit a US economy built around the sanctity of intellectual property belonging to private firms. And, in their mind, it is also designed to give the NSA the broadest possible rights to intercept phone calls or e-mail messages of state-owned companies from China to Saudi Arabia, or even private firms that are involved in activities the United States considers vital to its national security, with no regard to local laws.

The NSA says it observes US law around the globe, but admits that local laws are no obstacle to its operations.

“China demands that the US give it a clear explanation of its cybertheft, bugging, and monitoring activities, and immediately stop such activity,’’ the Chinese Defense Ministry said in a statement released on Tuesday. It was part of a broad Chinese effort to equate what China’s Unit 61398 does — the cyberwar operation named in the indictment of five unit members that was announced Monday — with what the NSA does.

Maybe you would like to chat about that?

“What we do not do, as we have said many times,” James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said after some of the initial NSA revelations last year, “is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of — or give intelligence we collect to — US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line.’’ 

LIAR! 

Related: THE BUGGING OF THE APEC IN SEATTLE

One reason for that policy, officials say, is that unlike the Chinese they would not know which companies to help: Apple but not Dell? Google but not Yahoo?

But in the case of Almunia, the stream of data intercepted by the NSA was most likely highly company-specific. Almunia was dealing with antitrust issues involving Apple, Motorola Mobility, Intel, and Microsoft.

It is unclear what, if anything, those companies gleaned from US officials who had access to the resulting intelligence. But former intelligence officials say the companies are walled off from any intelligence that might help them compete.

As if anyone believed US officials or their mouthpieces.

US officials sometimes dig into corporations because they are suspected to be witting or unwitting suppliers of technology to the North Koreans or the Iranians.

Siemens, the German telecommunications firm, was the chief supplier of the factory controllers that ran the centrifuges in Iran’s main nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz.

The Stuxnet computer worm, designed by the United States and Israel in a secret operation named “Olympic Games,’’ was designed to attack Siemens equipment — and it has never been clear whether the company knew that its machines were under US and Israeli attack.

Looks offensive to me.

Related: Feds: 3 nabbed for widespread Gozi computer virus

Is that in line with the USraeli-created Stuxnet, or is it similar to Duqu, Gauss, or Flame

I didn't realize hacking was such big business.

But in that case, US officials could argue that national security, not corporate competitiveness, was the goal. In contrast, when Unit 61398 went after Westinghouse and Alcoa, it was to steal trade secrets and strategies to enter the Chinese market.

Yeah, right, we are better than them because we can cite disingenuous plausibility. 

I'm not laughing anymore, readers. In fact, I'm getting angry.

But other elements of the indictment, some outside experts say, could give the Chinese the opportunity to turn the rationale of the Justice Department against its own government. Some of the supposed Chinese online espionage against the United Steelworkers union and a solar energy firm, SolarWorld, appeared intended to gain intelligence about trade complaints.

--more--"

"China threatens security checks for tech firms after US indictments" by Chris Buckley | New York Times   May 23, 2014

HONG KONG — A Chinese state agency that threatened retaliation after the United States obtained indictments of five People’s Liberation Army officers on charges of cyberespionage disclosed plans Thursday for tighter checks on Internet technology companies that do business in China.

Oh, yeah, thanks for destroying the AmeriKan IT business with all the spying, government.

The State Internet Information Office said the Chinese government would establish new procedures to assess potential security problems with Internet technology and services used by sectors “related to national security and the public interest,” reported Xinhua, the state-run news agency.

The disclosure came three days after US prosecutors laid out charges against the five Chinese military officers, accusing them of stealing sensitive commercial information over the Internet to benefit Chinese state companies. The indictment drew harsh denunciations from the Chinese government.

But you know what? From what I read above they need us economically, so nothing to worry about. Just don't dump all those T-bills, 'kay?

The proposed vetting rules appear to have been under preparation for some time, but the timing of their unveiling is unlikely to be mere chance, said Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA China, which advises investors on the Chinese high-tech and Internet sectors.

“I don’t think any of these things are coincidence in terms of this particular topic, because they’re looking for retaliatory measures,” Clark said in a telephone interview from Beijing. “But already, especially since Edward Snowden’s accusations, they’ve been increasingly concerned about Internet security.”

The procedures will “stipulate Internet security assessments for important Internet information technology products and their suppliers entering the Chinese marketplace,” Xinhua reported, citing Jiang Jun, a spokesman for the State Internet Information Office.

The move is intended to “prevent product suppliers illegally controlling, interfering in, or interrupting user systems, or illegally collecting, storing, handling, or exploiting information about users,” Xinhua said.

Products and services that do not meet security requirements will be excluded from use in China,” Xinhua said.

Disclosures by Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, about the scale of US intelligence gathering over the Internet showed that “without cybersecurity, there can be no national security,” said Jiang.

“The vetting will focus on IT products and services used in communications, finance, energy, and other key industries that concern national security and public interests,” Li Jingchun, an engineer with China’s National Research Center for Information Technology Security, told Xinhua.

The companies affected could include Cisco Systems, IBM, and Microsoft, suggested a commentary about the new policy on the website of China Daily, a state-run newspaper. The new procedures may oblige such companies to share sensitive data and technology, like encryption processes, a demand that has been a source of trade and commercial friction with China in the past, said Clark.

The move is potentially a major headache for companies that sell Internet hardware and services in China, especially to arms of the government. The reports suggested that such foreign companies were colluding with espionage and illegal data collection agencies.

Yeah, they ALL SUPPLIED TRAPDOOR BACKDOORS for the NSA!!

“The foreign companies are already being hit really hard,” said James McGregor, chairman of the greater China region for APCO Worldwide, who advises companies on investment and dealing with government in China. “It was getting tough already, but since Snowden it’s gotten tougher.”

Yeah, blame him for letting the cat out of the bag.

--more--"

"China calls on US to stop ‘unscrupulous’ spying" AP   May 27, 2014

BEIJING — China called for a halt Tuesday to what it called unscrupulous US cyberspying, saying that a months-long investigation into reports on the ‘‘ugly face’’ of US espionage has concluded that China is a major target of those efforts.

The complaint in the form of a government agency report came a week after US prosecutors charged five Chinese military officers with hacking into American companies to steal trade secrets.

The report by China’s Internet Media Research Center, cited Tuesday by the official Xinhua News Agency, mentioned media reports of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks and said a subsequent investigation by Chinese authorities ‘‘confirmed the existence of snooping activities directed against China.’’

‘‘The United States’ spying operations have gone far beyond the legal rationale of ‘antiterrorism’ and have exposed its ugly face of pursuing self-interest in complete disregard of moral integrity,’’ said the report, dated Monday.

--more--"

Also seeWounded by Snowden, the US focuses on Chinese cyberspying

That would be this then (poor US):

"US says 5 from China’s military stole trade secrets; First criminal charges against foreign country for cyberspying" by Ellen Nakashima, William Wan and William Branigin | Washington Post   May 20, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Monday accused five members of China’s military of conducting economic cyber-espionage against American companies, the first time the United States has leveled such criminal charges against a foreign country.

They could have charged Israeli spies for years, but let them go home instead.

Industries targeted by the alleged cyberspying ranged from nuclear to steel to solar energy, officials said. The hacking by a military unit in Shanghai, they said, was conducted for no other reason than to give a competitive advantage to Chinese companies, including state-owned enterprises.

They keep missing the target.

In a statement, Attorney General Eric Holder said: ‘‘The range of trade secrets and other sensitive business information stolen in this case is significant and demands an aggressive response.”

Holder said the Obama administration ‘‘will not tolerate actions by any nation that seeks to illegally sabotage American companies and undermine the integrity of fair competition in the operation of the free market.’’

Unless we are the ones doing it!!!

In response, China’s Foreign Ministry said the US government ‘‘fabricated facts’’ in the indictment, which it said ‘‘seriously violates basic norms of international relations and damages Sino-US cooperation and mutual trust.’’ It said China lodged a protest, urging the United States to ‘‘correct the error immediately and withdraw its so-called prosecution.’’

It wouldn't be the first time the US government has fabricated something, and it won't be the last!

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang denied in a statement that Chinese government, military, and ‘‘associated personnel’’ have ever engaged in ‘‘the theft of trade secrets through cyber means.’’ Qin called the accusations ‘‘purely fictitious, extremely absurd.’’

Again, nothing new from the god-damned US government.

‘‘China is the victim of US theft and cyber-surveillance,’’ Qin said.

In retaliation, the statement said, ‘‘China has decided to suspend the activities of Sino-US Cyber Working Group.’’ It left open the prospect of ‘‘further reaction’’ in the case.

The indictment against members of the People’s Liberation Army follows vows by senior administration officials to hold other nations to account for computer theft of intellectual property.

China is widely seen as the nation that has been most aggressive in waging cyber-espionage against the United States. 

Says who? The piece of $hit Zionist pre$$ and WaPo?

Holder said a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh returned an indictment against five members of a Chinese military unit in a Shanghai building, accusing them of conspiring together and with others to hack into the computers of six US entities. Named as defendants were Wang Dong, Sun Kailiang, Wen Xinyu, Huang Zhenyu, and Gu Chunhui, all officers of Unit 61398 of the 3d Department of the People’s Liberation Army. Wang is also known as UglyGorilla, his hacker handle. Gu used the alias KandyGoo, and Sun was also known as Jack Sun, prosecutors said.

Related: ISRAEL DID 9/11 

That's my kind of gorilla.

Victimized were Westinghouse Electric Co., Alcoa, Allegheny Technologies Inc., United States Steel, the United Steel Workers Union, and SolarWorld, officials said.

The indictment alleges that in some cases the hackers stole trade secrets that would have been particularly beneficial to Chinese companies. For example, it alleges an Oregon producer of solar panel technology, SolarWorld, was rapidly losing market share to Chinese competitors who were systematically pricing exports well below production costs. At the same time, defendant Wen stole thousands of files containing cost and pricing information from the company, the indictment says.

It also alleges that while Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power plant manufacturer, was negotiating with a Chinese company over construction of four power plants in China, defendant Sun stole confidential specifications for pipes, pipe supports, and pipe routing for those plants — information that would enable any competitor looking to build a similar plant to save on research and development costs.

Each of the defendants was charged with 31 counts for alleged offenses between 2006 and 2014. If convicted, they would face decades in prison. However, they are in China, US officials acknowledged, and there is virtually no chance the Chinese government would turn them over.

Do we turn over and extradite CIA torturers to other countries? 

Okay then.

The five were indicted May 1, and the indictment was unsealed Sunday and docketed Monday.

The charges are being brought in Pennsylvania, where several companies that were allegedly victimized are located.

Estimates of the cost to the United States of commercial cyber-espionage range from $24 billion to $120 billion annually. China is by far the country that engages in the most such activity against the United States, according to a US national intelligence estimate.

You know where US intelligence estimates can go. 

(Sound of toilet flushing)

--more--"

So how come the NSA can't find the hackers, can't find the perverts, can't prevent nut-job violence, can't prevent financial fleecing? 

So what other way can we make China pay?

"Petco to stop selling pet treats made in China"  AP   May 21, 2014

NEW YORK — Petco said Tuesday that it will stop selling dog and cat treats made in China by the end of this year due to ongoing fears that the imported treats are making pets sick.

Investigators at the Food and Drug Administration haven’t been able to figure out why pets are getting ill from the treats since the agency began receiving reports of illnesses in 2007.

The FDA said it has received more than 4,800 complaints of pet illnesses and more than 1,000 reports of dog deaths after eating Chinese-made chicken, duck, or sweet potato jerky treats. The FDA said tests found antiviral drug amantadine in some samples of imported chicken jerky treats sold a year or more ago, but doesn’t think it caused the illnesses. The FDA said it will continue to investigate.

Petco said that shoppers have asked it to stop selling treats from China. The pet food retailer said it is switching them out for treats that are made in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and South America.

It already began cutting down on the amount of Chinese-made treats three years ago, said Petco vice president John Sturm. It expects to completely get rid of them in all its 1,300 stores by the end of this year. The San Diego company doesn’t sell any pet food made in China.

--more--"

Related:

"Last year, the Department of Energy funded a $120 million Critical Materials Institute at the Ames Laboratory in Iowa, devoted to increasing production and developing substitutes that could prevent shortages of entire swaths of the periodic table that most people have never heard of are crucial for technology and clean-energy generation, which is crucial in applications that range from motor scooters to fighter jets. And for the past five years, its availability and price has been in doubt because of changes in China’s production and export of rare-earth elements. The issues with China’s trade controls appear to be on their way to resolution, but....

You know, the stuff the US needs for guided missiles and such things

The more things change, 'eh?

--more--"

Here are some more laughs for you. 

They say always leave them laughing, so....