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The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific has called on China to give up any plans to develop what he calls "high-end military options," and says the United States has no intention of abandoning its position as the leading military power in Asia.Admiral Keating says Chinese leaders should not expect to be able to become Asia's dominant military power."It is absolutely essential for us to continue efforts to engage our Chinese colleagues in dialogue, to exchange personnel, to share tactics, techniques and procedures primarily to ensure they understand our preeminent role as the dominating military in the Pacific, our...

The United States has warned Beijing over reported use of Chinese weapons by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Asian giant's continued sale of arms to Iran, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Thursday. He said he conveyed the concerns personally to Chinese officials during his visit to Beijing this week. "Just the other day, Monday, when I was in Beijing, this was one of the issues I raised -- concern about Chinese weapons or Chinese-designed weapons showing up in some of these battle areas, be it Iraq or Afghanistan," he told a congressional hearing on...

My name is Jessie from the United States; I am 30-years-old,i`m a career woman. I work in an insurance company, learning Chinese almost a year. China's Tibet after the incident, I have read many Chinese sites, though not all understand, but a year of learning is not wasted. I found that our own media reports in China and Tibet there are many things inconsistent, in some cases are completely reversed the facts, when I heard C-N-N's Jack Cafferty with the insulting remarks at a shame, I do not know Whether they live in a stress on democracy and freedom, speaking...

A Chinese primary school teacher and a beautician have filed a suit against CNN in New York over remarks they say insulted the Chinese people and are seeking $1.3 billion in compensation -- $1 per person in China, a Hong Kong newspaper reported. The case against the Atlanta-based cable channel, its parent company Turner Broadcasting and Jack Cafferty, the offending commentator, comes after 14 lawyers launched a similar suit in Beijing alleging that Cafferty's remarks earlier this month violated the dignity and reputation of the Chinese people. Cafferty said the United States imported Chinese-made "junk with the lead paint on...

China's stock market has lost half its value since October in one of the most spectacular bear markets of the last half century, eliminating $2.5 trillion (£1.25 trillion) of paper wealth. Chinese investors suffer in price crash A report by UBS said Chinese exporters had so far proved immune to the US slowdown The Shanghai Composite briefly fell below the key psychological level of 3,000 yesterday, down 50pc from its peak. The near panic sales over recent weeks have caused heavy losses for millions of Chinese savers who jumped into the market at the top of the boom, but this...

American Chinese and Chinese students across the United States have been voluntarily and spontaneously staging a series of peaceful protests against the Dalai Lama's separatist activities as he tours the country. "Wherever Dalai goes, he will always meet protests from Chinese people and all peace-loving folks," Ge Yan, a Chinese student studying in Minnesota, told Xinhua on Friday. During the Dalai Lama's stop in Rochester, Minnesota, on Wednesday, some 200 Chinese Americans and Chinese students lined up on the streets, condemning the Dalai clique's attempts to sabotage the Beijing Olympics and expressing firm support for the Games and the torch...

Tibetan Government-in-exile denounced China's dumping of nuclear waste in Tibet way back in 1980s. In 1987 His Holiness the Dalai Lama released the Five Point Peace Plan for Tibet, the fourth point in this plan called for: Restoration and protection of Tibet's natural environment and the abandonment of China's use of Tibet for the production of nuclear weapons and dumping of nuclear waste. Tibetan government-in-exile's consistent condemnation of China's storing of nuclear waste in Tibet was reckoned with skepticism by the international media. The existence of nuclear waste was denounced by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at a press conference...

Tibetans have a strong case against Beijing. But mixing it in with the Olympics and Darfur is a red rag to a wounded young bull. Nationalism is more often aroused by setbacks than success, so the Tibet problems and the possible threats to a triumphal Olympics are stirring it in China. On the horizon is the possibility that these will combine with high inflation, stagnating exports and trade tensions with the United States to create a perfect nationalistic storm. The Chinese leadership faces a difficult balancing act. As its legitimacy is now based on national achievement, not communist ideology, it...

Officials put out Olympic torch 3 times By JEROME PUGMIRE and ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press Writers 1 hour, 12 minutes ago Security officials extinguished the Olympic torch three times Monday as protests against China's human rights record turned a relay through Paris into a chaotic series of stops and starts. Despite massive security, at least two activists got within almost an arm's length of the flame before they were grabbed by police. Officers tackled many protesters and carried off some of them. A protester threw water at the torch but failed to extinguish it and was also taken away. At...

500 protest Olympic torch relay in Paris By JEROME PUGMIRE and ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press Writers 49 minutes ago Paris became the stage Monday for the latest round of global protests against China, with thousands of police deployed to protect the Olympic torch relay after chaos in London the day before. About 500 protesters congregated at the Trocadero Square, which faces the Eiffel Tower, the relay's start-point. They carried signs reading "Save Tibet," and "Act fast, Tibet is dying." Across town, City Hall was draped with a banner reading, "Paris defends human rights around the world." In London on Sunday,...

BEIJING (AP) — Police fired on hundreds of protesters in a Tibetan area of western China, killing eight people, overseas activist groups said. State media reported one government official was seriously injured in what it called a riot. Two monks also committed suicide late last month because of government oppression, another Tibetan activist group said Saturday. The reports indicate that unrest is continuing in China's Tibetan areas despite a massive security presence in place since anti-government demonstrations in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, and neighboring provinces broke out in mid-March. The protests are the longest and most sustained challenge to China's 57-year...

Prosecutors called Chi Mak the "perfect sleeper agent," though he hardly looked the part. For two decades, the bespectacled Chinese-born engineer lived quietly with his wife in a Los Angeles suburb, buying a house and holding a steady job with a U.S. defense contractor, which rewarded him with promotions and a security clearance. Colleagues remembered him as a hard worker who often took paperwork home at night. Eventually, Mak's job gave him access to sensitive plans for Navy ships, submarines and weapons. These he secretly copied and sent via courier to China -- fulfilling a mission that U.S. officials say...

Tibetan monks shouting pro-independence slogans caught Chinese officials by surprise Thursday during a highly scripted tour for Western journalists in Lhasa’s central Buddhist temple, disrupting China’s effort to portray the recent Tibetan rioting as the work of violent criminal thugs and separatists. “Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!� yelled one young Buddhist monk, who then started crying, according to an Associated Press correspondent in the tour. Government handlers shouted for the journalists to leave and tried to pull them away during the 15-minute protest by about 30 monks at the Jokhang Monastery in central Lhasa. It was unclear...

Countries urged to see 'true face' of Dalai Lama By Qin Jize (China Daily) Updated: 2008-03-26 07:10 Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang yesterday again urged the international community to see the Dalai Lama's "true face" and offer no support for his secessionist activities. Qin made the remarks in response to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent call for China to consider a new policy to address the Tibet issue and to start talks with the Dalai Lama. US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi also visited the Dalai Lama last week. Qin said the position of just a few...

China on Wednesday expressed its "grave concern and strong displeasure" over what the United States said was an accidental shipment of ballistic missile components to Taiwan. China has asked the United States "to thoroughly investigate this incident, and report their findings to the Chinese side in a timely, truthful and detailed manner," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement on the ministry's Web site. "We once again remind the United States to abide by the Sino-U.S. joint communique of August 17, and cease arm sales to Taiwan and contact with the Taiwanese military, in order to avoid damaging...

The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China. But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right. Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world's oldest nations,...

A Chinese-born engineer convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China was sentenced Monday to 24 1/2 years in federal prison by a judge who said the defendant betrayed his adopted country. Chi Mak, 67, who worked on naval propulsion systems, was also convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, attempting to violate export control laws and making false statements to the FBI. Federal prosecutors asked for 30 years, while Mak's defense team proposed 10 years. There is no parole in the federal prison system. Mak asked U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney for leniency before sentencing....

WE HAVE recently witnessed violent protests in Tibet. I support the struggle of the people of Tibet. The question that arises now is what is the case all about and how is India affected by this conflict? Recently, Indian Prime Minister visited Arunachal Pradesh. While addressing a rally in Itanagar, he said that Arunachal Pradesh is India’s land of rising sun. China lodged its protest on Manmohan Singh’s assertion over this claim of India. China has always said that Arunachal Pradesh is part of China. Officials on Indian side are numb since then over an issue, which has potential to...

This is the aspect of China that does not seem to change, despite our liberal progressive conviction that it must. In the 1990s, China watchers insisted it was only a matter of time before China opened. It was precisely this current generation of technocrats, not schooled in Soviet-style communism, who were supposed to begin reforming the system. Even if they didn't want to reform, the requirement of a liberalizing economy would leave them no choice: The growing Chinese middle class would demand greater political power, or the demands of a globalized economy in the age of the Internet would force...

Nearly six decades of struggle against the might of China has taught the Tibetans one thing: Ask the world for little, expect less. As Tibetans rose up in recent weeks against China's harsh rule over the Himalayan region and China sent forces to quell the protests, Tibet's government-in exile-sent its envoys to far-flung capitals with appeals for help. But guided by the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, they kept their requests modest. They know few countries have the appetite to cross China, particularly at a time the world is counting on the emerging superpower to keep the global economy...

China on Saturday vowed to “resolutely crush� the “Tibet independence forces� even as the Dalai Lama, Buddhist spiritual leader, warned that the younger generation may launch more vigorous and violent struggle against Beijing after his death. Updating its earlier toll of 13 in the unrest in Lhasa, which started on March 10 coinciding with the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Communist rule in Tibet, Chinese authorities said the violence claimed the lives of 18 civilians and a police officer. “[We must] resolutely crush the ‘Tibet independence’ forces’ conspiracy and sabotaging activities,� The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the...

(WASHINGTON) — A manufacturer of the blood thinner heparin initiated a nationwide recall Friday because some products may contain a potentially dangerous contaminant. Contaminated heparin from a different manufacturer has been associated with 19 deaths and hundreds of allergic reactions. In the recall announced Friday, B. Braun Medical Inc. said it was recalling 23 lots of heparin as a precautionary measure. No adverse events have been reported in connection with their product, company officials said in a press release. The company issued the recall after one of its suppliers, Wisconsin-based Scientific Protein Laboratories, disclosed that an ingredient it provided contained...

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2008 – The top U.S. general in the Pacific told Congress yesterday that he’s working to strengthen the U.S.-Sino relationship, but he emphasized the need to keep a close eye on China as it strives to expand its influence in the region.Keating described what he thinks, but isn’t sure, was a tongue-in-cheek comment a senior Chinese officer made during the admiral’s first visit there as PACOM commander. With a straight face, Chinese officer said, “As we develop our aircraft carriers,” -- a remark Keating said he found interesting in itself -- “why don’t we reach an agreement,...

US military secrets sent to Suffolk tourist site By Tom Chivers Last Updated: 5:00pm GMT 29/02/2008 A tourist information website promoting a small Suffolk town has had to shut down after it received a barrage of thousands of classified US military emails. USAF F16s from Mildenhall. Thousands of sensitive emails have been misdirected to a tourist website Sensitive information including future flight paths for US Presidential aircraft Air Force One, military strategy and passwords swamped Gary Sinnott's email inbox after he established www.mildenhall.com, a site promoting the tiny town of Mildenhall where he lives, the Anglia Press Agency reports. As...

BHP Billiton is understood to be planning to push ahead with its $119 billion (£61 billion) offer to buy Rio Tinto, despite a last-minute attempt by China’s Government to break up the deal. China’s purchase of a 9 per cent stake in Rio Tinto on Friday stunned the markets and BHP and cast doubt on whether the mining group would be able to launch a full offer by a Takeover Panel deadline on Wednesday. Sources said that it would be hard for BHP to proceed, given that Bejing effectively now has a blocking stake in Rio Tinto and is determined...

After seven Democratic presidential candidates debated on Nov. 15, CNN treated us to a debate of eight Republican hopefuls on Nov. 28. The transcript of the debate numbers 25 pages. Its first major subject is “illegal immigration,” which runs to Page 10, or about a third of the debate. Illegal immigration? The word “state” in the political sense (as in “the United States of America”) implies that foreigners cannot come to and live in a “state” as they could on land owned by no one. Otherwise, the “USA” should have been called “NOLA,” “No One’s Lands of America.” (Snip) Unwilling...

KOLKATA/GANGTOK: A few weeks before the first ever India-China military exercises, the real war games have begun. On November 8, Chinese forces demolished some unmanned Indian forward posts near two Army bunkers against which Beijing had raised objections since July. "The Chinese came, destroyed the posts and went back," said an Army officer. The incident is learned to have taken place around November 8. The revelation came on the day a 12-member People's Liberation Army delegation landed in Kolkata on a recce for the military exerci

Having arrived here a couple of days ago full of thoughts about the falling dollar and the improving state of American trade, it is fascinating to observe at first hand that perceptions of low quality in Chinese products are the issue that seems to be driving consumers away from imports. Recent recalls of badly designed toys and toxic toothpaste seem to have driven a surge of interest in the "Made in America" label. Websites such as usmadetoys.com offer lists of US products that don't bite or poison you. This site offers an eco-friendly four tips on buying lead-free toys made...

Hsu Wowed the Democrats As He Beguiled Investors; 'He Craved Attention' November 12, 2007; Page A1 By the time Norman Hsu flew to Beverly Hills in early September and checked into the Raffles L'Ermitage hotel, the life of the top Democratic donor and self-professed clothing magnate was coming unraveled. Mr. Hsu, a slight, 56-year-old immigrant from Hong Kong, was under investigation for campaign-finance violations. An old grand-theft charge had come back to haunt him. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and other politicians had begun returning his donations. He was so distraught that he sent off suicide notes before leaving his Manhattan...

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it was investigating how engines made by a Canadian subsidiary of United Technologies Corp wound up in prototypes of the Z-10, China's first domestically developed military attack helicopter. State Department spokesman Karl Duckworth said information was being gathered before deciding whether to take any action. "We are reviewing the matter and have no further comments at this time," he said.

Obama courted HsuBy: Mike Allen Oct 8, 2007 10:02 AM EST Julianna Smoot, national finance director of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, originally sought the support of Norman Hsu, the top fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton who is now the subject of a federal criminal complaint accusing him of wire, mail and election fraud. Obama’s campaign tells Politico that the overture was not serious, but it could take some of the heat off the Clinton campaign for inadequate vetting of Hsu, who also supported many leading Democratic senators. Hsu is a “HillRaiser,” meaning that he raised at least $100,000 for her presidential...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Toymaker RC2 Corp. on Wednesday announced another recall of 269,000 of its Thomas & Friends wooden railway toys because the surface paint on the products contains high levels of lead. This is the second recall from RC2 (Charts) this year for the same brand of toys. The company recalled 1.5 million other Thomas & Friends railway toys in June due to excessive lead content found in the paint used on the toys. The new recall from RC2 Corp. includes the All-Black Cargo Car, the Olive Green Sodor Cargo Box, the All Green Maple Tree Top and...

Taiwan will make yet another attempt to become a member of the United Nations on Wednesday. A key UN committee will decide whether to even allow a debate on Taiwan's application to take place. But the request is likely to be defeated, just as the island's 14 previous attempts have been. Taiwan has long sought recognition as a UN member in its own right but China, which still claims Taiwan as a province, is fiercely opposed to this. The dispute goes back to 1949 when Taiwan and China split amid civil war. Demonstrations Taiwan became the stronghold of the nationalists,...

(JAKARTA, Indonesia) -- After hearing about dangerous Chinese products elsewhere, Indonesia this summer began testing popular Chinese-made items on its own store shelves. What it found has added to the list of horrors: mercury-laced makeup that turns skin black, dried fruit spiked with industrial chemicals, carcinogenic children's candy. The Chinese government called up in August saying it had a possible solution. Husniah Rubiana Thamrin Akib, head of Indonesia's top food and drug safety agency, was pleased and welcomed her counterparts to her office. But according to Husniah, the Chinese suggested Indonesia lower its safety standards. Husniah said she was "very...

With the opening of China's economy, women are also becoming more open about showing their bodies, and they can do it with bikinis in the summer. This swimwear is becoming popular among Chinese girls. But before wearing a bikini, there are a few things women need to know before donning a bikini. Many women will try to lose weight before wearing a bikini. Yet fashion experts say that in order to look attractive in a bikini, the following eight things are more important than weight. Tip 1: The color of your skin means much more than the color of the...

THE US has added farm-raised fish and shrimp to a growing list of Red Chinese products deemed unsafe for US consumers. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it would block the import of farmed Communist Chinese seafood until importers could prove the shipments were free of unsafe contaminants. The move comes just days after politicians urged a recall of up to 450,000 Red Chinese tyres because of safety defects and weeks after thousands of cats and dogs died because of tainted Communist Chinese pet food. Dangerous toys, fake drugs, toxin-coated cosmetics, illicit pesticide-laden mushrooms, errant fireworks, tainted toothpaste...

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Federal safety officials have ordered a tiny tire importer to recall as many as 450,000 tires that it bought from a Chinese manufacturer and sold to U.S. distributors. Foreign Tire Sales Inc., of Union, said an unknown number of the light truck radials it imported since 2002 from Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co., of Hangzhou, China, could suffer tread separation, a problem that led to the nation's largest tire recall in 2000. FTS said an unknown number of the tires it sold were made without a safety feature, called a gum strip, which helps bind the belts...

Increasing food imports from China could pose a risk to public health in Sweden, according to the food products governing body. During the first five months of the year, Sweden's National Food Administration (Livsmedelsverket) was made aware of 138 cases within the EU of food imported from China that was not fit for consumption. By the same time last year the figure had reached 88. Examples included food containing banned colouring, antibiotics, preservatives or pesticides. There were also cases of illegally imported, unclean or foul-smelling food, as well as products with high levels of heavy metals, poisonous mould and dioxins,...

BEIJING - China, facing increased international pressure for exporting unsafe products, will update and strengthen enforcement of its food safety standards, the head of the country's regulatory body said Wednesday. Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine was blamed for dog and cat deaths in North America. Other products turned away by U.S. inspectors include toxic monkfish, frozen eel and juice made with unsafe color additives, while Chinese-made toothpaste has been rejected by handful of countries. "China will speed up revisions to national and industry standards on farm produce and processed food products," Liu Pingjun, chief of the National...

Investigators are scrambling today to figure out how many tubes of counterfeit Colgate toothpaste, tainted with a toxic chemical, were bought in discount stores. The toothpaste scare is a reminder that counterfeit products are often sold in the United States without consumers' knowledge. Rosemarie Rodriguez believes her family may have used the counterfeit Colgate toothpaste. Rodriguez says her twin daughters got sick after brushing their teeth. "My head hurt," Franchesca Rodriguez said. "It was hurting a lot, because I didn't feel well, and my eyes (hurt), too." The Food and Drug Administration uncovered the tainted toothpaste during a dragnet operation....

China Goes on the Offensive, Singles Out US Products That Don't 'Meet Sanitary Standards' BEIJING (AP) -- Certain health supplements and raisins imported from the United States failed to meet Chinese safety standards and have been returned or destroyed, the country's food safety agency said Friday, turning the tables on the U.S. amid growing worries over dangerous Chinese products.

California jury convicts engineer of conspiring to steal U.S. military secrets for China Friday May 11, 2007 By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press Writer SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) After a six-week trial, a federal jury convicted a Chinese-born engineer of conspiring to export U.S. defense technology to China, including data on an electronic propulsion system that could make submarines virtually undetectable. Friends and colleagues knew Chi Mak as an unassuming, brilliant man who worked 12-hour days as an engineer for a defense contractor, rarely went out and scrimped to pay off his 700-square-foot suburban home. Federal prosecutors portrayed Mak as a...

China's leaders are hoping that Karl Marx can shift the country's Internet users away from "decadent" content and help them clean up the Web, state media reported. The Communist Party's Politburo this week asked media and cultural groups to promote and produce more "healthy online cultural products" including promotion of the ideology of Marxism, Xinhua news agency reported late Monday. The government wants the Internet to "represent the social progress and the splendid traditional culture of China", the agency said, quoting a release from the meeting, which was led by President Hu Jintao.

The United States has been exaggerating China’s nuclear clout in a process that could lock the two into a Cold War-style arms race, two arms-control advocacy groups said in a Nov. 29 report

China is increasing its competitiveness in the nanotechnology market, according to research announced Friday. The United States is still a leader in nanotech, but the low cost of doing business in China is boosting that country's ranking for nanotech research and development investments, according to a report that Lux Research released Friday. Public and private groups invested $12.4 billion in the industry's research and development worldwide in 2006, while companies sold more than $50 billion worth of nano-enabled products, according to the report, "Profiting from International Nanotechnology." Lux researchers viewed government spending, patents, publications, and other metrics to analyze the...

A protest staged by thousands of rural workers in central China ended in violent clashes last week, media reports and an official said.Several people were injured as up to 20,000 people clashed with 1,000 police in Hunan province on Friday, a local official told Reuters news agency. A report on the Boxun Chinese news website said the clash was sparked by rising public transport costs. Rural regions of China have mounting unrest in recent years. Thousands of protests were held last year amid growing discontent over the widening gap between rich and poor and corruption among officials at local...

IMMERING tensions between China and Taiwan have boiled over, with Beijing criticising Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian for demanding independence and Taipei test-firing a cruise missile capable of hitting Shanghai. The missile was tested from the Chiupeng military base in Taiwan's south on Friday - carefully timed, like Mr Chen's speech, to precede the opening of China's National People's Congress. Senior Taiwanese government politicians, including Defence Minister Lee Jye, witnessed the test - which may be seen as a counter to the 17.8 per cent rise in China's military budget now before the NPC. Taiwan claims that China already has 400...

FEATURES: China's Stubborn Anti-Democracy By Ying Ma Hoping for change isn't enough. For more than a decade, successive U.S. presidents have declared that political liberalization leading ultimately to democratization in China would be desirable and decidedly in America’s — and the world’s — interests. The Clinton administration, after some initial tortuous twists and turns, fashioned a policy of “constructive engagement” with the Chinese government that called for close bilateral economic and political cooperation along with U.S. advocacy for democracy, open markets and human rights in China. The George W. Bush administration, though openly suspicious of China’s opaque military buildup and...

Wal-Mart, king of the capitalist retailers, has climbed further into bed with the Chinese Communist government that supplies its stores with so many cheap goods by setting up a Communist Party branch in its corporate headquarters in Shenzhen. Dubbed "another breakthrough" for Wal-Mart by Wang Suiming, a Communist official in the city, the new organization was established last month, according to Shenzhen Special Zone Daily. Wang anticipates the move will lead to other foreign-financed companies boosting the Communist Party. In August, Wal-Mart set up its first party branch in the northeast city Shenyang. According to the Constitution of CPC, every...

HONG KONG: The “security barriers” that inhibit Chinese firms’ attempts to make inroads into strategic areas of the Indian market is one of the topics that will come up for discussion during President Hu Jintao’s visit. The issue has proved particularly bothersome to the Chinese side, and has induced a shrillness in rhetoric emanating from Beijing on this subject. Wang Jinzhen, a senior Chinese trade promotion official, recently drew attention to the plight of Chinese companies, who he said were keen to invest in India but were coming up against a wall of resistance from Indian officials. China’s Ambassador to...