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Bo Xilai and Zhang Ziyi mired in $110M Prostitution Sex Scandal The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star is reportedly under investigation by the Chinese government for being paid to have sex with disgraced former top government official, Bo Xilai. Hong Kong's Apple daily and other Chinese media reported that the pair was first introduced by Bo's associate, Xu Ming, who is the founder and chairman of Dalian Shide Group. Sources say Xu confessed to paying Zhang 6 million yuan (S$1.2 million) in 2007, to have sex with her for the first time. He later negotiated a ... http://www.chariweb.com/2012/05/bo-xilai-zhang-ziyi-mired-in-110m.html

I was reading about the Cox Report. Interesting stuff. •China stole design information regarding 7 thermonuclear weapons in the US arsenal. W56 for Minuteman II ICBM, W62 for Minuteman III ICBM, W70 for Lance SRBM, W76 for Trident C4 SLBM, W78 for Minuteman III ICBM, W87 for Peacekeeper ICBM and W88 for Trident D5 SLBM. •These stolen secrets enabled the PLA to accelerate the design, development and testing of its own nuclear weapons. •China's next generation of nuclear weapons would contain elements of stolen U.S. design information and would be comparable in effectiveness to the weapons used by the United...

Sometimes in journalism it is best to let people simply speak for themselves. Yesterday I went to the first major public engagement of Chen Guangcheng since he left China to study for a while in the US Chen took questions for an hour at the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think-tank in New York. He spoke of his fears for the fate of his family back in China but also his hopes for democracy in China and his faith that the ‘innate goodness’ of Chinese people will ultimately triumph over the dead, perverting hand of an authoritarian state. The...

“Marxism is a religion for them,” Noted Dr. El Tassa. “They are very simplistic. They are so simplistic that you cannot compare them to other communities at all. They cannot imagine certain abstract concepts any more. The idea of God is completely out of their reach. They cannot conceive of God any more. And it was not always like that in China.”

Insight: From a ferry, a Chinese fast-attack boat (Reuters) - It looked like a textbook win-win deal when Australian high-speed ferry designer AMD Marine Consulting formed a joint venture in 1993 with the engineering arm of a state-owned Chinese shipbuilder. The joint venture partner, Guangzhou Marine Engineering Corporation, a subsidiary of the giant China State Shipbuilding Corporation, gained access to state-of-the-art technology in wave-piercing, aluminum-hull designs. For AMD, a Sydney-based private company, the payoff was a foothold in China's maritime market during a period of rapid growth. The joint venture, Seabus International Co, began designing high-speed aluminum catamaran ferries and...

Bo Xilai is down, but not out yet Thursday, May 31, 2012 By David Kan Ting, Special to The China Post The oft-quoted Chinese saying, “people's eyes are snow-brilliant,” (人民的眼�是雪亮的) has a ring of truth, after all. The adage, attributable to Chairman Mao Zedong, asserts that the eyes of people are piercing and sharp, able to see the difference between right and wrong, and to penetrate the smoke and mirrors of the reactionaries and counterrevolutionaries. The chairman seems to have got it right again this time as mainland China is rocked by scandal after scandal. Time magazine called the country...

A report issued by the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China has included U.S. gun ownership among a list of human rights violations, Law Enforcement Examiner Jim Kouri reported yesterday. "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011" was published last Friday on the PRC’s Consulate General in New York website. “The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens' lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gun ownership,” the report claims. “The U.S. people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent...

Regardless of how much of your money Obama throws at them, Government Motors clearly has NO interest in working with his UAW pals over the long-run- and why should they?  GM executives were left to do pretty much as they please... You can be forgiven for thinking that the serially-incompetent Obama Administration might have placed some restraints upon the $80B TARP bailout- but they didn't.  The result? GM has been aggressively expanding not only sales networks but manufacturing and R-n-D work to the People's Republic of China, where Buick is their leading brand. Since the TARP bailout of GM, almost...

Russia’s ‘no’ on arms sale to China aids Taiwan The Taiwanese air force will perhaps sigh in relief at the news that Russia is refusing to sell China Sukhoi Su-35 multirole aircraft — one of the world’s most advanced fighters — and top-of-the-line S-400 air defense systems over fears that Chinese engineers could eventually copy the technology. The Russian-language Kommersant business newspaper reported earlier this year that Beijing last year had requested 48 Su-35s, valued at more than US$4 billion, as well as an unspecified number of S-400 systems. With Taiwan already playing catch-up in the race for control of...

China readies new missile corvette LATEST TYPE:Defense analysts believe that the new missile boats will be perfectly suited to meet the challenges that China is facing in its South China Sea disputes A new type of Chinese missile corvette, the principal role for which might be to project power in the South China Sea, could be launched “within days,” military watchers said on the weekend. Talk of a Type 056 class first emerged in late 2010. So far, little technical information has been released about the corvettes, which are believed to lie in the 1,400-to-1,700-tonne category. Two shipyards, Hudong Shipyard...

A report issued by the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China has included U.S. gun ownership among a list of human rights violations, Law Enforcement Examiner Jim Kouri reported yesterday. "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011" was published last Friday on the PRC’s Consulate General in New York website. “The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens' lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gun ownership,” the report claims. “The U.S. people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent...

The global warming alarmism that has pretty much faded from public concern always has been transparently fraudulent for those who care to look closely. And now as the world’s nations desire to carve up the carbon footprint profit, you have to love the arguments. “BONN, Germany — Another round of U.N. climate talks closed without resolving how to share the burden of curbing man-made global warming, mainly because countries don’t agree on who is rich and who is poor,” reports the Associated Press. For those who haven’t been keeping score...

BEIJING -- The Warren Buffet-backed Chinese carmaker BYD Co. defended the safety of its e6 electric car Tuesday after the vehicle was involved in a fiery collision that killed three people and raised new concerns about one of China’s most ambitious companies. BYD, which was considered one of China’s most promising brands just a few years ago, said Saturday's crash in the southern city of Shenzhen took place after a drunk driver in a Nissan GT-R coupe, speeding at 112 mph, slammed into an e6 taxi, killing the driver and two passengers. The driver of the Nissan sports car fled...

Bo Xilai, Zhang Ziyi mired in $1.5m prostitution scandal 2012-05-29 19:36 Bo Xilai, the former party secretary of Chongqing, China, and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi are mired in a scandal after a news report said Zhang provided sexual services for Bo in exchange for money. U.S.-based Chinese-language news Website Boxun was quoted by news reports as saying that Bo’s associate Xu Ming, founder and chairman of Dalian Shide Group, arranged secretive meetings for the two more than 10 times from 2007-2011. The report said Zhang was paid about 46 million Taiwanese dollars ($1.55 million) per deal. The meetings all occurred...

Cambridge University researchers find that a microprocessor used by the US military but made in China contains secret remote access capability A microchip used by the US military and manufactured in China contains a secret "backdoor" that means it can be shut off or reprogrammed without the user knowing, according to researchers at Cambridge University's Computing Laboratory. The unnamed chip, which the researchers claim is widely used in military and industrial applications, is "wide open to intellectual property theft, fraud and reverse engineering of the design to allow the introduction of a backdoor or Trojan", they said. The discovery was...

Counterfeit electronics and military hardware risks American lives It would be reasonable to expect the United States military contractors building the aircraft our military uses to defend the nation to be absolutely sure electronics they use in the aircraft are legitimate and don't suffer from any security issues. However, a Senate report indicates that this not always the case. The Senate Armed Services Committee issued a report documenting the year-long investigation launched by Democratic Chairman Carl Levin and ranking Republican John McCain into counterfeit Chinese electronics in military aircraft. The report spans 112 pages shows that 1,800 cases of bogus...

The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011 on May 24, 2012. As in previous years, the reports are full of over-critical remarks on the human rights situation in nearly 200 countries and regions as well as distortions and accusations concerning the human rights cause in China. However, the United States turned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation and kept silent about it. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011 is hereby prepared to reveal the true human rights situation of the United States...

JERUSALEM—After a prolonged chill, security ties between Israel and China are warming up. With Israel offering much-needed technical expertise and China representing a huge new market and influential voice in the international debate over Iran's nuclear program, the two nations have stepped up military cooperation as they patch up a rift caused by a pair of failed arms deals scuttled by the U.S. The improved ties have been highlighted by this week's visit to Beijing by Israel's military chief and a training mission to Israel by the Chinese paramilitary force that, among other things, polices the restive Tibetan and Muslim...

This article is a Chinese science study: Early behavioral studies found that human adults responded faster to their own faces than faces of familiar others or strangers, a finding referred to as self-face advantage. The current study investigated whether and how Christian belief and practice affect the processing of self-face in a Chinese population. Christian and Atheist participants were recruited for an implicit association test . . Hierarchical regression analyses further showed that the IAT effect positively predicted self-face advantage in atheists but not in Christians. Our findings suggest that Christian belief and practice may weaken implicit positive association with...

It was an innocuous moment in an ad with at least one tougher attack line, but it certainly got the attention of the White House and the Obama campaign, as Olivier Knox discovered. At the 14-second mark of the ad released yesterday by the Romney campaign, the announcer says that Mitt Romney “stands up to China on trade and demands they play by the rules” on Day 1 of his presidency. That’s a lot less direct a criticism than what precedes it in the ad — Romney’s promise to “end Obama Era of Big Government” — and yet from the...

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Spanish-Chinese oil venture Repsol Sinopec announced Thursday it has discovered a large hydrocarbon reserve in the pre-salt layer of the Campos Basin, off Brazil's southeastern coast. The discovery is one of the largest finds in the world this year, the company said. The company estimates the BM-C-33 block, where the discovery was made, could hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The most recent discovery in the block, the Pao de Acucar (1-REPF-12D-RJS) well, is located some 195 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state, in a water depth...

Just because you were once the most powerful nation on earth does not mean that you will always be the most powerful nation on earth. Every single year, hundreds of billions of dollars leaves the United States and goes to China. This enormous transfer of wealth has had a dramatic effect on both countries. In case you haven't noticed, many of our formerly great manufacturing cities such as Detroit are rotting away while shining new factories and skyscrapers are going up all over China. If you go into any major retail store today and start turning over products, you will...

BEIJING, May 24 (UPI) -- China National Offshore Oil Corp. announced Thursday it made a new oil discovery in the shallow waters of south Liaodong Bay. CNOOC announced it encountered an oil pay in its Luda 21-2 prospect with a thickness of about 550 feet, which it said was one of the thickest oil layers ever encountered in the area. Zhu Weilin, general manager for exploration at CNOOC, said in a statement the prospect has "fairly good economics in exploration and development." The prospect is located northeast of Bohai Bay, which is estimated to hold as much as 146 billion...

China: Two Incidents Open Pandora’s Box – Analysis May 22, 2012 By Bhaskar Roy Two incidents, one regarding Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, and the other involving a blind human rights activist and self-taught lawyer Chen Guangchen, destroyed the myth that the Chinese system is a well oiled machine. Policy, individual, and bitter factional rivalries are kept sealed from the public to ensure the Party’s inviolability. This is the biggest political quake the country has experienced since the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. The new age of social communication, the internet, has also damaged the Party’s secrecy. Even people inside the...

Exclusive: China leadership rules Bo case isolated, limits purge: sources By Benjamin Kang Lim and Chris Buckley BEIJING | Fri May 25, 2012 2:07am EDT (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao has demanded senior Communist Party officials stifle tensions over the ousting of ambitious politician Bo Xilai and show unity as they prepare for a change of leadership, sources briefed on recent meetings said. Hu urged the party to close ranks at a meeting of about 200 officials early this month at a Beijing hotel, declaring the downfall of Bo - China's biggest political scandal in two decades - to...

Ros-Lehtinen calls out Chinese government in Seoul Posted By Josh Rogin Thursday, May 24, 2012 - 4:15 PM House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) participated in a candlelight vigil outside the Chinese Embassy in Seoul Thursday and chastised the Chinese government for forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees who flee to China. "I too was a refugee," she said, standing beside Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) and South Korea Assemblywoman Park Sun Young. "Having fled communist totalitarianism in Cuba, I have walked their lonely road and have experienced both the fears and the hopes that combine to motivate their arduous...

Just six months after issuing its latest warning about chicken jerky dog treats made in China, the Food and Drug Administration confirms it has logged more than 900 complaints from pet owners who say their dogs either were sickened or died after eating the treats. The number of complaints has nearly doubled since the story was first reported by ABC News in March. The FDA says its investigation is ongoing and that it continues to test samples of the popular treats, which dog owners across the country say have caused kidney failure in their pets, resulting in severe illness or...

Who could not despise the tottering Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria? The Syrian strongman has killed some 10,000 protestors over the last year; thousands of Syrians are now refugees. The autocracy arms and aids the terrorist organization Hezbollah. It targets democratic Israel with thousands of missiles, and still does its best to ruin neighboring Lebanon. Theocratic and terrorist-sponsoring Iran has few allies -- but Syria remains its staunchest. Almost no country over the last half-century has proved more hostile to the United States than has Syria. With sanctions not working, and with the Chinese, Iranians and Russians not eager to...

It is rare in diplomatic circles for governments to speak bluntly, particularly in the Orient, where manners are highly prized. The exceptions to this rule are retired military officers, who are often able to voice sentiments too impolitic for other channels. One of the more startling pronouncements in this vein occurred last week when Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People's Liberation Army, warned that Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and "Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later. Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is...

Mainland China's Top Investment Bank Say China Will Crash If Greece Exits The Eurozone Also Sprach AnalystMay 23, 2012 Everyone has their own opinion on what will happen to the Chinese economy if Europe blows up. That ranges from a totally delusional “nothing happen” to, well… Given the consensus remains hugely delusional and bullish, this is probably the most bearish I have come across. From the China International Capital Corp (CICC), they believe that if Greece exits the Euro, China’s economy growth would be cut down to just 6.4% for 2012 without fiscal stimulus, which is 1.7 percentage point lower...

'More than a million fake electronic parts from China have been found in US military aircraft, posing a risk to national security, an investigation has revealed. A report by the US Senate uncovered 1,800 cases of bogus parts - including some in special operations helicopters and the US Air Force's largest cargo plane. The total number of individual components involved in these cases exceeded one million, the Committee on Armed Services publication said. "This flood of counterfeit parts, overwhelmingly from China, threatens national security, the safety of our troops and American jobs," committee chairman Senator Carl Levin said. "It underscores...

Rogue N.Korean Soldiers Suspected in Hijack of Chinese Boats Three Chinese fishing boats that were seized by a small North Korean Navy boat on the West Sea on May 8 returned to Dalian Port at around 7 a.m. on Monday. The fishermen were given a health check immediately after they arrived. Three complained of extreme dizziness, and three others showed clear signs of external injuries, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. Twenty eight Chinese fishermen had been abducted, not 29 as reported earlier. The owners of the Chinese fishing boats said the crew were taken to the coast of...

China's Dalian Wanda Group and AMC Entertainment announced Monday a $2.6 billion deal to take over the U.S. theater group, forming the world's largest cinema chain, according to a new release on the deal. The move is the latest in a raft of deals between U.S. entertainment companies and Chinese firms, linking the world's largest theater market with the world's fastest growing. "This acquisition will help make Wanda a truly global cinema owner, with theatres and technology that enhance the movie-going experience for audiences in the world's two largest movie markets," said Wang Jianlin, chairman and president of Wanda.

AMC Theaters Purchased By Chinese Conglomerate Posted: May 21, 2012 AMC Theaters Bought By China CompanyU.S. owned AMC Theaters is being sold to Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group Co. for $2.6 billion, marking the largest China takeover of an American company to date. According to the Dalian Wanda Group the purchase will place them directly in charge of the world’s biggest movie theater operation. Based in Beijing the group says it will immediately invest $500 million to help expand AMC’s development, creating a much bigger machine. According to Wanda chairman Wang Jinlin: “We support AMC becoming bigger, not only in...

(Reuters) - China can now bypass Wall Street when buying U.S. government debt and go straight to the U.S. Treasury, in what is the Treasury's first-ever direct relationship with a foreign government, according to documents viewed by Reuters. The relationship means the People's Bank of China buys U.S. debt using a different method than any other central bank in the world. The other central banks, including the Bank of Japan, which has a large appetite for Treasuries, place orders for U.S. debt with major Wall Street banks designated by the government as primary dealers. Those dealers then bid on their...

China has a secret: It owes American investors hundreds of billions of dollars. The Chinese government doesn't like to talk about it and the U.S. government doesn't want to raise it. But decades ago, Beijing defaulted on debt owed to Americans, as well as investors and governments around the world. In one case, it was paid. In the rest it was not. More than 20,000 American investors own this debt. The U.S. government may also own Chinese war debt, unpaid since World War II. With the simple stroke of an executive proclamation, President Barack Obama can begin the process of...

Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic Party-controlled state Legislature and the army of bureaucrats and tax collectors doing their bidding have triumphed again. California-based Apple Computer will build a spanking new, $210-million manufacturing plant. In China. Is anyone surprised? The corporate tax rate in California is horrendous, the workforce is taxed worse than the corporations, the cost of living is off the charts thanks in large part to the costly burdens added by government regulations and housing, well, you know how that compares for California versus the rest of the world...

Wanda Group of China Buys AMC Entertainment By Richard Verrier May 20, 2012 The owner of China’s largest movie theater circuit took a big leap forward into the U.S. market, acquiring AMC Entertainment Inc., the nation’s second-largest theater chain, the latest in a flurry of high-profile deal-making between the countries’ entertainment industries. Dalian Wanda Group, a Chinese conglomerate, said in a statement that it had reached an agreement to acquire AMC’s 5,048 screens in 347 theaters in the U.S. and Canada. The Kansas City, Mo., theater chain is owned by several investment firms, including JPMorgan Partners, Apollo Investment Fund and...

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese conglomerate has announced it will buy U.S. cinema chain AMC Entertainment Holdings for $2.6 billion to create the world's biggest movie theater operator. Dalian Wanda Group Co. said Monday it is willing to invest an additional $500 million to fund AMC's strategic and operating initiatives.

Its three great basins -- the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra -- are the most densely populated area in the world. The Ganges alone supports half a billion people. Seventy per cent of South Asia's 1.5 billion people live in farming families, and depend on the water of those basins for their survival. That number grows by 25 million every year. For generations the rivers have watered the bread basket of the Punjab, the cotton plants and fruit trees of the Sindh, and the rice paddies of Bangladesh, and grown this region faster than anywhere else. But South Asia's...

The saga of Chinese democracy and pro-life activist Chen Guangcheng will conclude today with a much happier ending than first feared. The New York Times reports than Chen has boarded a flight to the US and is already in transit — along with his family: Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal defender who made a dramatic escape from house arrest and whose decision to seek refuge in the American Embassy here jolted American-Sino relations, left China aboard a commercial flight bound for Newark on Saturday.Mr. Chen and his family departed around 5:30 p.m. on a United Airlines flight after facing earlier...

The Liuhuaishan site is an important early Paleolithic site found in the Bose Basin. In December 2008, Scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Youjiang Museum for Nationalities, Bose, carried out a short survey around this site and found three new Paleolithic localities with a collection of 37 stone artifacts. This new finds will help better understand the human behavior at open-air sites in south China, researchers reported in the latest issue of Acta Anthropologica Sinica 2012 (2). The stone artifact assemblage included cores, flakes, chunks, choppers and chopping tools, and picks,...

Forget Greece, China Biggest Risk to Global Economy: Faber Published: Friday, 18 May 2012 | 6:16 AM ET By: Jean Chua Writer for CNBC.com Forget Greece, which is an "insignificant" economy, it is China that poses the biggest risk to the global economy, Marc Faber the editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report told CNBC on Friday. "I think the biggest risk is actually China because if you look at Greece, it's an insignificant economy," Faber said on CNBC Asia's “Capital Connection.” "Yes, they owe money, but the market knows that it's bankrupt." The European Central Bank...

The Pentagon said on Friday it believes China spent up to $180 billion on its military buildup last year, a far higher figure than acknowledged by Beijing, and it accused "Chinese actors" of being the world's biggest perpetrators of economic espionage. The Pentagon, in its annual assessment to Congress of China's military, flagged sustained investment last year in advanced missile technologies and cyberwarfare capabilities and warned that Chinese spying threatened America's economic security. "Chinese actors are the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage," the report said. "Chinese attempts to collect U.S. technological and economic information will continue...

Flying over the skies of Chengdu in southwest China, the Chinese's latest stealth plane - the J-20 Might Dragon - is a testament to China's growing prowess in military technology. The debut flight of the plane may serve as a warning to the U.S. air force, which has been plagued by a list of problems in their jets - including the revelation that some of their jets have a faulty oxygen system which have slowly been poisoning their pilots. Sightings of the black plane taking off have again led to claims that the plane was developed off the back of...

BANJIEHE, China -- A Chinese farmer has invented a wind-powered, electric car that he says could save his country from the pollution caused by its rapidly growing car market. An hour from downtown Beijing, the dusty village of Banjiehe looks an unlikely place to produce scientific innovation. Its rows of brick, utilitarian houses are surrounded by cornfields and fruit trees. But in a small tractor workshop, 55-year-old farmer Tang Zhenping has invented the prototype of a car that he believes could revolutionize China's auto industry. Tang's model -- built in just three months for around US$1,600 -- is electric

In late February of 2002, the New York Times reported on the creation of the NATO-Russia Council, with officials heralding a new era of cooperation and trust between Putin’s Russia and the alliance of democracies. They were former rivals and future friends, with a period of strategic partnership easing the transition. Yet the tone of the reporting betrayed the presence of tension in the proceedings.The Times headlined the story: “NATO Offers Russia New Relationship, but Without Any Veto.� As if repeating this like a mantra would make it true, the report stated, in the second paragraph, that Russia “will...

Why did Canada and the EU abandon Chen Guangcheng? (Hint: Pandas ain't free.)In December 2010, a trio of Western diplomats stationed in China -- one each from Canada, Switzerland, and the European Union -- drove from Beijing to the village of Dongshigu, eight hours away in Shandong province, hoping to visit the detained dissident Chen Guangcheng. No one has spoken publicly about what happened next. They did not mention the excursion itself, and certainly not the rough reception they received from the hands of the guards who prevented them from seeing Chen. But one person with knowledge of the incident...

North Korean officials have demanded payment before they will release Chinese fishing boats with a total of 29 men on board, Chinese media reported on Thursday, in a rare public spat between the neighbors and longtime allies. The Chinese owners of the boats said they were seized by a North Korean gunboat on May 8 in the Yellow Sea, between China and North Korea, the Beijing News reported. The owners said the vessels were fishing in Chinese waters. North Korea has not made any public comment on the case. The North Koreans holding the boats and sailors demanded payment of...

WASHINGTON — Foreign demand for U.S. Treasury securities rose to a record high in March. China, the largest buyer of Treasury debt, increased its holdings for a third straight month. Total foreign holdings rose 0.3 percent to a $5.12 trillion, marking the eighth consecutive monthly increase, the Treasury Department reported Tuesday. U.S. government debt is considered one of the safest investments. Demand has increased as investors worry about the uncertainty surrounding Europe’s debt crisis. China boosted its holdings 1.3 percent to $1.17 trillion, its third straight increase. China had trimmed its holdings for five straight months before the January increase....