For the first time in 25 years, a Chinese defense minister has arrived here on an official visit this Monday. Liang Guanglie was welcomed with military and state honors before he met with his Serbian counterpart Dragan Å utanovac.
Posts Tagged ‘chinese’
Chinese defense minister to visit Belgrade
September 5th, 2009 |
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Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie will be on a two-day official visit to Serbia starting Monday, September 7. In Belgrade, he will confer with top state officials on the political and military cooperation between Beijing and Belgrade.
Dalai Lama visits Taiwan typhoon victims amid Chinese anger
August 31st, 2009 |
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The Dalai Lama headed for typhoon hit areas of southern Taiwan Monday on the first full day of a tour that China has warned will hurt improving ties with the island. The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader headed straight for Hsiaolin, a village where at least 424 people died in Typhoon Morakot,
Chinese president invited to visit Serbia
August 21st, 2009 |
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Serbian President Boris Tadić has invited his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to visit Serbia. Their cabinets are now expected to determine a date for the visit. Sources with the Serbian state delegation, which is on a five-day official visit to China, said that Jintao accepted the invitation telling Tadić he would be pleased to visit “his beautiful country”, FoNet news agency reports.
Chinese Electricity Output Dropped by 1.7%
August 4th, 2009 |
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In the first half of 2009, Chinese electricity output was 1.6442 trillion Kw/h, dropping by 1.7% over the same period. In 2008, it increased by 12.9% over the same period. In June of 2009, Chinese electricity output was increased by 5.2% over the same period, changing the situation of continuous decline for 8 months. In [...]
OCBC’s $466m profit beats estimates on insurance: Update
August 3rd, 2009 |
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Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. posted a better-than-estimated 9.6% increase in second-quarter profit on trading income and higher earnings from its insurance unit, Singapore’s largest life insurer.
Net income climbed to $466 million in the three months ended June 30 from $425 million a year earlier, the bank said in a statement today. The average estimate was for profit of $356 million, according to a Bloomberg survey of six analysts.
OCBC profit beats estimates on insurance, trading
August 3rd, 2009 |
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Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., the Singapore lender that owns the island’s biggest life insurer, posted a better-than-estimated 9.6% increase in second-quarter profit on higher insurance and trading income.
Net income climbed to $466 million in the three months ended June 30 from $425 million a year earlier, the bank said in a statement today. The average estimate was for profit of $356 million, according to a Bloomberg survey of six analysts.
English example
August 2nd, 2009 |
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By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing
Chinese football players were so incensed with the referee’s decisions at a recent match that they chased him and hit him after the final whistle.
This violent display by the players from Tianjin earned the team an immediate ban, and angry criticism from the Chinese Football Association.
The incident sums up the poor state of Chinese football – which is why so many fans prefer to watch English Premier League teams.
This interest in English football has not been lost on the Premier League, which has seen an opportunity to export its brand.
The English league is currently trying to cash in by staging a tournament in Beijing featuring three Premier League teams.
English teams Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Hull City are battling it out in the Asia Trophy with Beijing team Guo’an.
Officials assaulted
Football in China, where there are millions of enthusiastic fans, has been in the doldrums for some time at both club and national level.
In club football there have been allegations of match fixing, suspected corruption involving referees and constant bad behaviour by players.
At the recent match involving Tianjin, the Chinese Football Association said players had damaged the image of the game.
"This was a serious breach of sportsmanship, trampling on the spirit of the sport," read a statement from the association released the day after last Sunday’s match.
Players not only attacked the referee, they also assaulted other competition officials, broke equipment and stormed the stands.
"Their behaviour was a disgusting violation of the rules and regulations, causing a bad social impact," the association statement went on to say.
The reputation of the national team is not much better.
Chinese people – and the government – believe sporting excellence is one way for China to promote its image abroad.
Officials spent millions of dollars to ensure China came top of the gold medal table at last year’s Beijing Olympic Games.
But success on the football pitch has been harder to achieve; the national team has only made it to one World Cup tournament, in 2002.
At those finals China lost all of its three matches, failed to score a single goal and went home early.
Disappointed fans
The national team’s record has not got any better since then – it has already failed to qualify for next year’s World Cup finals in South Africa.
The state of Chinese football is an annoyance to many local fans – even among those who like to watch Premier League matches.
Many of those who turned up for the first matches of the Beijing tournament were hoping that their own team, Guo’an, would do well.
One of those who does not like to see Chinese teams beaten by foreign clubs is 25-year-old Tottenham fan Liu Yang, who was at the first match of the Asia Trophy.
"It’s not a good feeling because, after all, football is the world’s number one sport and I myself am a football fan," he said.
"Football has a popular base here in China, but our teams just aren’t very good so many people are disappointed."
"This was a serious breach of sportsmanship"
Chinese Football Association after Tianjin players attacked a referee
European teams, particularly those from England, have capitalised on the fact that China has an eager fan base.
Some foreign clubs have set up Chinese-language websites to cultivate new fans, and others visit China as part of pre-season tours of Asia.
The Premier League is also keen to market itself in China – hence the staging of the Asia Trophy in Beijing this year.
It has also set up training events for young Chinese players to coincide with the tournament.
Pushing the Premier League brand might be easier this season in China because some matches will be available on free-to-air TV – for the first time in two years.
Guangdong TV are reported to have paid nearly $3m to show one live match and a highlights package each week next season.
And while Chinese football remains poor, there will always be millions of eager fans happy to support and watch foreign teams.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Chinese car industry: The ambition of Geely
July 30th, 2009 |
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A Chinese carmaker shrugs off the global downturn
AT A time when most carmakers are struggling to cope with the worst crisis the industry has experienced in living memory, the ambitions of Geely, China’s biggest privately owned car firm, are breathtaking. The company is simultaneously developing six modern platforms—an astonishing number even for a global giant such as Toyota—and is committed to launching nine new cars in the next 18 months and up to 42 new models by 2015. Its technical director, Frank Zhao, claims that Geely will have the capacity to make 2m cars a year by then.
Whether Geely will be able to sell anything like that number of cars is another matter. The firm says its sales for the six months to the end of June reached 138,000, fuelled partly by government tax breaks aimed at boosting demand for the smaller cars made by China’s indigenous manufacturers. That implies a rise from a year ago of no less than 52%, nearly three times the rate at which the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) estimates the market grew in the same period. But the numbers are confusing: J.D. Power Asia, an automotive market-research firm, reckons Geely sold more cars than that, but from a higher base, leaving its growth slightly below that of the market as a whole. Geely itself uses different figures in different statements. …
Robert Scheer: The Chinese Come Calling
July 29th, 2009 |
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What a hoot. The Chinese Communists invaded Washington on Monday demanding not that we sacrifice our freedoms but rather that we balance our budget. Creditors…
Mob Beats Chinese Steel Factory Executive To Death
July 29th, 2009 |
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Chinese state media confirmed Monday that a steel factory executive was beaten to death after thousands of workers gathered to protest the takeover of their company.
Nathan Gardels: Niall Ferguson: Is U.S.-China Economic Marriage on the Rocks?
July 27th, 2009 |
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As the G-2 “strategic dialogue” between the U.S. and China gets underway in Washington, I talked
with economic historian Niall Ferguson on relations between the two countries.
Chinese hack film festival site
July 26th, 2009 |
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Chinese hackers have attacked the website of Australia’s biggest film festival over a documentary about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.
Content on the Melbourne International Film Festival site was briefly replaced with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans on Saturday, reports said.
In an earlier protest on Friday, Beijing withdrew four Chinese films.
Melbourne’s The Age newspaper says private security guards have been hired to protect Kadeer and other film-goers.
She is due to attend the screening of Ten Conditions of Love, by Australian documentary-maker Jeff Daniels, on 8 August.
‘Vile language’
Chinese authorities blame Kadeer – leader of the World Uighur Congress – for inciting ethnic unrest in Xinjiang, charges she denies.
Earlier this month, around 200 people died and 1,600 were injured during fighting in the region between the mostly Muslim Uighurs and settlers from China’s Han majority.
Kadeer, 62, spent six years in a Chinese prison before she was released into exile in the US in 2005. In 2004, she won the Rafto Prize for human rights.
Richard Moore, head of the Melbourne International Film Festival, told the Age his staff had been bombarded with abusive emails after the festival refused the Chinese government’s demands to withdraw the film about Kadeer and cancel her invitation to the festival.
"The language has been vile," Mr Moore said. "It is obviously a concerted campaign to get us."
He said police were investigating the website attacks, which appear to come from a Chinese internet address.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Chinese directors shun festival
July 22nd, 2009 |
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Two Chinese directors have boycotted Australia’s biggest film festival over the screening of a documentary about political activist Rebiya Kadeer.
Richard Moore, head of the Melbourne International Film Festival, said their films were pulled after he ignored political pressure from Beijing.
He told the AFP news agency "It’s hard to draw any other conclusion."
Chinese authorities blame Kadeer – leader of the World Uighur Congress – for inciting ethnic unrest in Xinjiang.
Earlier this month, at least 197 people died and more than 1,600 were injured during fighting in the region between the mostly Muslim Uighurs and a growing number of settlers from China’s Han majority.
Kadeer, 62, spent six years in a Chinese prison before she was released into exile in the US in 2005.
In 2004, she won the Rafto Prize for human rights.
She is expected to attend the screening of Ten Conditions of Love, by Australian documentary-maker Jeff Daniels.
‘Annoyed and irritated’
In a statement, Mr Moore said Jia Zhangke, director of the short film Cry Me A River, and Emily Tang, the director of Perfect Life, "have decided to withdraw their films from this year’s festival".
He added that Ms Tang had cancelled her trip to Melbourne as a guest of the festival.
Mr Moore said the screening of Ten Conditions of Love, which has sold out at the event, was the subject of a phone call from a Chinese consular official last week.
But he said the festival would stand firm by its decision to include the documentary in the programme.
He told AFP: "It makes me feel angry, annoyed and irritated all at the same time, that they would try to interfere with our programme for blatantly political ends."
China has not commented on the films being withdrawn.
A third Chinese film-maker, Zhao Liang, has also asked the festival to drop his film Petition, a controversial documentary examining injustices in China’s court system. </p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Sun Danyong, Chinese Engineer, Kills Himself After Losing ’4G’ iPhone Prototype
July 22nd, 2009 |
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A Chinese worker has killed himself after a fourth-generation iPhone prototype he was responsible for disappeared.
The 25-year-old engineer, Sun Danyong, who worked for Foxconn, jumped from a 12-story building last week.
Andy Worthington: House Threatens Obama Over Chinese Interrogation Of Uighurs In Guantanamo
July 21st, 2009 |
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Last Thursday, while most U.S. media outlets were focused relentlessly on the marathon endurance test that was Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, the House…
British students in Chinese swine flu quarantine
July 19th, 2009 |
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A group of British students has been quarantined in China after four tested positive for swine flu, officials said on Saturday, as Georgia confirmed its first case and Singapore reported a first flu-related death. The four confirmed to have the A(H1N1) virus have been hospitalised while the
Chinese president’s son linked to multi-million pound African corruption probe
July 18th, 2009 |
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Hu Haifeng, a Chinese businessman and the eldest son of Chinese President Hu Jintao, has been linked to a multi-million pound African corruption probe and faces questioning in connection with the investigation.
Haifeng was the president of the state-owned Chinese company Nuctech until last year, from where three people have been arrested on charges of fraud, [...]
Behind Chinese walls
July 17th, 2009 |
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The detention of Rio Tinto employees in China has worrying implications
Correction to this article
THE detention of four executives of Rio Tinto, an Anglo-Australian mining giant, has transformed an industrial spat to a big test of how China intends to pursue its economic objectives. It has also sent a shudder through Chinese employees of Western companies in any area that is deemed important to the country’s welfare. …