The East Asia Thread

[Takhisis]

Once again, you put words in my mouth. Stop trying to exasperate people into leaving the thread.

 

[Glassfan]

In Meeting With NLD Cofounder, Wirathu Cautions Against Suu Kyi Presidency



RANGOON — The controversial Buddhist monk U Wirathu, leader of Burma’s ultranationalist 969 movement, has advised the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) to refrain from pushing the presidential candidacy of democracy icon and party chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Mandalay-based monk conveyed the message in a meeting with NLD cofounder Win Tin on Saturday in Mandalay, where he said a constitutional provision that currently bars Suu Kyi from presidential eligibility should remain in place, despite his admiration for the long-time democracy campaigner turned parliamentarian.

“Everyone in the country, including me, wants Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to be president. But I am worried about those who are not ethnic people [who identify as one of Burma’s officially recognized ethnicities], such as Chinese and Muslim, will become president in the country if Article 59 is amended,” Wirathu told The Irrawaddy on Monday, saying he feared foreign influence in the nation’s affairs if an ethnic Chinese or Muslim were elected president.

 

[Glassfan]

China looks for blue-sky solutions as smog worsens

(CNN) -- Beijingers are once again choking as smog levels hit "heavy or even worse" levels in the capital and a number of other cities across the country.

Persistent problems with city air have prompted officials and entrepreneurs to consider ways to protect their citizenry from the pollution.

Beijing was under an "orange" smog alert Monday, which marks the first time the second-highest warning level of a new system introduced last year has been raised. The National Meteorological Center (NMC) Tuesday continued the alert for another 24 hours.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

China Ready to Work with CELAC

Old news, but I hadn't visited the Granma International page in a while.

Beijing, Feb 7 (Prensa Latina) China declared today to be ready to work with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to establish, before the end of 2014, the common forum approved at the recent summit of the regional body held in Havana.

The spokesman of the Foreign Minister, Hong Lei, said that Beijing will maintain contact with the CELAC on the mechanisms and areas of cooperation, and will work for the formal establishment of the forum and hold the first joint ministerial meeting this year.

In the first contact with the press after a suspension during the holidays on the occasion the New Lunar Year (Tet), Hong referred to the special declaration adopted at the Second Summit of Havana, on 28 and 29 January.

He said that China and CELAC are committed to the establishment of this forum, that will be an important platform for the development of a comprehensive partnership China-Latin America based on equality, mutual benefit and common development.

Hong also recalled the expressions of praise by President Xi Jinping at the adoption of this document in the high-level meeting of that regional organization of Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the spokeman, the statement adopted in Havana shows the common aspirations of Latin America and China in terms of cooperation.

Composed by 33 nations of that regionof the world, except the United States and Canada, CELAC emerged in 2011 and works with a pro tempore presidency occupied by Chile, Cuba and holds now by Costa Rica.

China is trying to deal with pollution, and Cuba practically has none. So, connection?

 

[Glassfan]

Tokyo bitcoin exchange files for bankruptcy

The Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in Tokyo filed for bankruptcy protection, acknowledging that a significant amount of the virtual currency had gone missing.

Kyodo News said debts at Mt. Gox totalled more than 6.5 billion yen ($65 million), surpassing its assets.

The exchange’s unplugging this week drew renewed regulatory attention to a currency created in 2009 as a way to make transactions across borders without third parties such as banks.

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox files for bankruptcy with debts of $63.6 million

The fall of Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest exchange for the digital currency, came amid reports that about 744,000 bitcoins had gone missing, either due to criminal fraud or theft.

 

[Glassfan]

Japan may act on Bitcoin: finance minister


Japan's finance minister said Friday he always thought Bitcoin was suspect and said the country might take action following the apparent collapse of a Tokyo-based exchange for the virtual currency.

The global Bitcoin community has been shaken this week by claims that hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of the unit have been syphoned from the digital vaults of the MtGox exchange.

Withdrawals were frozen earlier this month because of what the firm said was a bug in the software underpinning Bitcoin that allowed hackers to pilfer them.

In Tokyo on Thursday night, investors were calling for a legal probe and possible criminal action against the chief executive of the embattled MtGox, Mark Karpeles.

American IT engineer Aaron Gotman said he had 463 bitcoins at MtGox, worth well over $200,000.

"What happened at MtGox was first incompetence, but then it could have gone to fraud at the end if they were knowing they didn't have the Bitcoins they were selling," he said.

 

[Takhisis]

Crazy knife-nut attack in China!

'Violent terror attack' at Chinese train station by knife-wielding men leaves 28 dead, 113 injured

Five assailants 'dressed all in black' shot dead by police officers


A group of knife-wielding attackers stormed through a railway station in south-west China on Saturday, stabbing people at random in an incident which left 28 dead and at least 113 others injured.
Police said five of those who died at Kunming Train Station in Yunnan province were assailants shot dead by officers.

More suspects had been “controlled” at the scene, according to local media reports.

Eyewitnesses said the men, dressed all in black, had attacked people indiscriminately with long knives.

Graphic photographs surfacing on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, showed a row of bloody bodies on the station concourse and at the Kunming No 1 hospital. Other users of the network suggested that the pictures should be taken down, for fear of encouraging copycat killings.
The attacks were described by Chinese authorities as a terrorist attack that had been “pre-meditated”, although no specific motive was given.

The Security Management Bureau, under the Ministry of Public Security, said the attack was a “severe violent crime” in its own message on Sina Weibo, adding: “No matter what motives the murderers hold, the killing of innocent people is against kindness and justice. The police will crack down the crimes in accordance with the law without any tolerance.”

The attack came ahead of the National People’s Congress in Beijing on Wednesday, where leading government figures meet to discuss the country’s progress over the past year.​

 

[Glassfan]

David Ignatius: What does China want?

By David Ignatius
Washington Post

SHANGHAI: A Chinese military expert is explaining to a conference here what he sees as the benign inevitability of Beijing’s rising power in the Pacific. “You should trust China,” he says cheerily. “In 10 years, we will be much stronger, and you will feel safer.” (sic)

This Chinese prediction did not appear to reassure most of the several dozen European and American experts gathered for discussions last weekend. Instead, there was a consensus, even among most of the Chinese participants, that Beijing’s growing military power has worried its neighbors and led to friction with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam over disputed islands and maritime rights.

“You think we are a bully,” conceded the Chinese military expert. “We think we are a victim.” But nobody in the room disagreed about the reality that tensions in the Pacific are rising — and that China and its neighbors cannot seem to find a way out. Which leaves the United States awkwardly in between, trying to support traditional allies such as Japan, without encouraging them to take reckless moves.

The Shanghai discussions also highlighted what’s ahead for the United States in what strategists see as its role as “offshore balancer” of Chinese power. America is committed by treaty to defend Japanese administrative control in the Senkaku Islands; the U.S. military has plans to defeat any Chinese “short, sharp war” there. But the U.S. doesn’t want to get dragged into war over a few crags of rock, either, so Washington is also urging caution to Tokyo.

In the South China Sea, China’s ambitions involve what it calls the “nine-dash line,” which vaguely asserts Chinese maritime claims almost to the coasts of Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. This line has no legal foundation, in America’s view, and even the Chinese don’t define just what the line represents. The Philippine government has filed an international arbitration claim challenging the nine-dash demarcation, so perhaps legal limits will be placed on China’s maritime expansion.

 

[Takhisis]

Now the Chinese government says that it's Uighur separatists who're behind the knife attacks.

Spoiler :

China train station knife attack: police hunt suspects

Xinjiang separatists blamed for Saturday's attack at railway station in Kunming in which at least 29 people died

Chinese police said they were still hunting five of the assailants who hacked to death at least 29 people at a train station in south-western Kunming, in an attack the government has blamed on Xinjiang separatists.

More than 130 were injured in the brutal attack, which began just after 9pm on Saturday. Police shot dead three male and one female attackers at the scene and captured a female suspect, state news agency Xinhua reported. About five others remain on the run.

Xinhua described the violence as "an organised, premeditated violent terrorist attack", and said evidence at the station showed separatists were responsible, citing the Kunming government. It took place days ahead of high-profile political meetings in Beijing.

Witnesses described attackers in black clothing hacking at people apparently at random. Sixteen-year-old student Qiao Yunao told the Associated Press she was waiting to catch a train when people started crying out and running. She then saw a man cut another man's neck.

"I was freaking out, and ran to a fast food store, and many people were running in there to take refuge," she said via the Sina Weibo microblog. "I saw two attackers, both men, one with a watermelon knife and the other with a fruit knife. They were running and chopping whoever they could."

Graphic pictures showing bloodied bodies and accounts of the incident appeared on Sina Weibo, but many were quickly deleted by censors.

The timing is striking because the annual session of China's largely rubber-stamp parliament opens in Beijing on Wednesday. Security is tightened in and around the capital during the runup to the event.

China's president, Xi Jinping, has urged security officials to spare no effort to bring to justice the perpetrators. "Severely punish in accordance with the law the violent terrorists and resolutely crack down on those who have been swollen with arrogance," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying. "Understand the serious and complex nature of combating terrorism … Go all out to maintain social stability."

Security chief Meng Jianzhu, who visited the injured in Kunming, said the attack had exposed the inhuman nature of terrorists. "They inevitably will face the severe punishment of the law. We must mobilise all resources and adopt all means to break this case," he said.

The violence in Kunming follows an incident in Beijing's political heart last October, when a car ploughed into tourists in Tiananmen Square, killing two pedestrians and the three people in the vehicle. Officials blamed that, too, on extremists from the troubled north-western region of Xinjiang, where many in the large Uighur Muslim population chafe at Chinese rule and some seek independence.

At least 100 people have died in outbreaks of violence in the region in the past year. Last month, police killed eight people who they said had attacked patrol cars in Xinjiang. In 2009, almost 200 died in vicious ethnic riots in its capital, Urumqi.

But Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, is hundreds of miles from Xinjiang. In July 2008, just before the Olympics, a Uighur separatist group claimed responsibility for two bus explosions in the city, but officials said there was no evidence of terrorism.

Sean Roberts, who studies Uighurs at George Washington University, said that if Uighurs were responsible for the train station deaths it would be a new kind of attack – premeditated and outside Xinjiang – but still rudimentary in weaponry. "If it is true that it was carried out by Uighurs, it's much different than anything we've seen to date," he told AP.

But Roberts said it was unclear whether there was an organised Uighur militant group and that attacks so far do not appear linked to any "global terrorist network because we're not seeing things like sophisticated explosives or essentially sophisticated tactics".

A commentary on the English website of the state newspaper Global Times described the attack as "China's 9/11", warning: "The latest attacks in Beijing and Kunming have clearly indicated a despicable trend that separatists are targeting civilians out of Xinjiang. "It also showed a shift in their attack strategies from targeting symbols of the government, such as public security stations and police vehicles, to roadside civilians."

The United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, has condemned the "terrible" attack. "The secretary-general notes that there is no justification for the killing of innocent civilians and hopes that those responsible will be brought to justice," a UN spokesperson added.

 

[Glassfan]

...and yet in a social-media-savvy country, no militant group has claimed credit for the action. Hmmn...

Stories about knife-violence have been on the rise in recent years, but whether this is an actual increase, or a reflection of decreased censorship is unknown to me.

In most stories I've read, a government spokesman speculates on why it happened or who's responsible and then we never about it again.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Don't they have security personnel at train stations?

 

[Glassfan]

Don't they have security personnel at train stations?

It was a sizable, organized and determined group that assaulted the pedestrians, yet it sounds as if the police responded promptly.

 

[Glassfan]

Leftover Women

剩女 Sheng nu

Leftover Women of China

Leftover...Women?

Too old? Too educated? Too Picky? As Chinese women get older, are they worth less?

China’s ‘Leftover’ Women

Spoiler :

And once a “leftover” woman finds marital bliss, what should she do if her husband has an affair?

The Women’s Federation comes to the rescue, with the headline, “Faced With A Marital Crisis, Women Need to Improve Themselves”:

When you find out that he is having an affair, you may be in a towering rage, but you must know that if you make a fuss, you are denying the man “face” ... No man is capable of spending a lifetime being loyal to an outmoded wife who never changes ... Try changing your hairstyle or your fashion. Women must constantly change for the better.

In short, it’s the woman’s fault for refusing to get married, and once she is married, it’s the woman’s fault if her husband has an affair. Of course.

 

[LoneRebel]

“You think we are a bully,” conceded the Chinese military expert. “We think we are a victim.”

It's a little too late to still be thinking of yourself as a victim when you're already the second largest economy in the world.

The nice thing about this kind of victim mentality is, it allows you to justify your own victimization of others. Very convenient.

 

[CavLancer]

What he said.

 

[Dann]

Spoiler :

And once a “leftover” woman finds marital bliss, what should she do if her husband has an affair?

Depends from where she's from:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=238717

 

[Glassfan]

The salient point there was that the All-China Women's Federation's attitudes and advice are male-face-saving, ie., not really helpful to women at all.

 

[Cutlass]

Leftover Women

剩女 Sheng nu

Leftover Women of China

Leftover...Women?

Too old? Too educated? Too Picky? As Chinese women get older, are they worth less?

China’s ‘Leftover’ Women

Spoiler :

And once a “leftover” woman finds marital bliss, what should she do if her husband has an affair?

The Women’s Federation comes to the rescue, with the headline, “Faced With A Marital Crisis, Women Need to Improve Themselves”:

When you find out that he is having an affair, you may be in a towering rage, but you must know that if you make a fuss, you are denying the man “face” ... No man is capable of spending a lifetime being loyal to an outmoded wife who never changes ... Try changing your hairstyle or your fashion. Women must constantly change for the better.

In short, it’s the woman’s fault for refusing to get married, and once she is married, it’s the woman’s fault if her husband has an affair. Of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China

Sex ratio


At birth 1.18 male(s)/female (2010 census)
Under 15 1.13 male(s)/female (2008 est.)
15–64 years 1.06 male(s)/female (2008 est.)
65 and over 0.91 male(s)/female (2008 est.)

There are more males than females in China up to about 60 odd years old. So it's strange that there are a lot of leftover women.

 

[Glassfan]

There's been a lot of speculation as to how the one-baby policy would effect Mainland China. Combine with vast population density and expect a certain degree of weirdness. Male homosexuality should be on the rise. Women aught to be at an advantage - except they are in a traditionally male-dominated society - so not so much.

 

[CavLancer]

nevermind