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China May Not Overtake America this Century After All

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Photo Credit: GettyThe world’s tallest tower should have been built by now. Officials said last year that the great edifice with 220 floors would be erected in three months flat in China’s inland city of Changsha by March, snatching the crown from Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

The deadline has come and gone, yet the wasteland sits untouched. It now looks as if the fin d’époque project – using prefab blocs – may never be approved. Even China knows its limits.

Prime minister Li Keqiang has asked the State Council to clamp down on the excesses of the regions. Not before time. A top regulator says local government finances are “out of control”.

Mr Li aims to cut China’s economic growth to a safe speed limit of 7pc next year and rein in rampant investment – still a world record 49pc of GDP – before it traps the country in a boom-bust dynamic of frightening scale.

Vested interests are conspiring to stop him, launching a counter-attack from their power-base in the $6 trillion state industries. Even so, uber-growth is surely over.

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U.S. Directly Blames China’s Military for Cyberattacks, Espionage

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Photo Credit: Gary LerudeThe Obama administration on Monday explicitly accused China’s military of mounting attacks on American government computer systems and defense contractors, saying one motive could be to map “military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis.”

While some recent estimates have more than 90 percent of cyberespionage in the United States originating in China, the accusations relayed in the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on Chinese military capabilities were remarkable in their directness. Until now the administration avoided directly accusing both the Chinese government and the People’s Liberation Army of using cyberweapons against the United States in a deliberate, government-developed strategy to steal intellectual property and gain strategic advantage.

“In 2012, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military,” the nearly 100-page report said.

The report, released Monday, described China’s primary goal as stealing industrial technology, but said many intrusions also seemed aimed at obtaining insights into American policy makers’ thinking. It warned that the same information-gathering could easily be used for “building a picture of U.S. network defense networks, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis.”

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China’s H7N9 Killer Bird Flu Virus Has Now Spread to Dozens, 24% Mortality Rate

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Photo Credit: anthrovikHealth officials in China reported two new H7N9 infections, both from Fujian province, and four more deaths, boosting the outbreak’s total to 130 cases, 31 of them (24%) fatal.

One of the patients is a 9-year-old boy whose infection was detected during routine flu surveillance, according to official and media reports today. He has been discharged from the hospital, according to a statement Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP).

The other patient is a 69-year-old man who is hospitalized, according to a separate statement yesterday from the CHP. So far none of the man’s nine close contacts have shown any symptoms.

China’s National Health and Family Commission today put the number of deaths at 31, an increase of four since the group’s last update, Xinhua, China’s state news agency, reported today. The report did not include any other details about the deaths. The report also said 42 patients have recovered from their H7N9 infections.

In other developments, China’s agriculture ministry yesterday announced five more poultry and market environmental samples that tested positive for H7N9, according to a report from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE)…

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Chinese Caught Selling Rat Meat as Lamb

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Photo Credit: jo-hEven for China’s scandal-numbed diners, inured to endless outrages about food hazards, news that the lamb simmering in the pot may actually be rat tested new depths of disgust.

In an announcement intended to show that the government is serious about improving food safety, the Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday that the police had caught a gang of traders in eastern China who bought rat, fox and mink flesh and sold it as mutton. But that and other cases of meat smuggling, faking and adulteration featured in Chinese newspapers and Web sites on Friday were unlikely to instill confidence in consumers already queasy over many reports about meat, fruit and vegetables laden with disease, toxins, banned dyes and preservatives.

Sixty-three people were arrested and accused of “buying fox, mink and rat and other meat products that had not undergone inspection,” which they doused in gelatin, red pigment and nitrates, and sold as mutton in Shanghai and adjacent Jiangsu Province for about $1.6 million, according to the ministry’s statement. The report, posted on the Internet, did not explain how exactly the traders acquired the rats and other creatures.

“How many rats does it take to put together a sheep?” said one typically baffled and angry user of Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblog service that often acts as a forum for public venting. “Is it cheaper to raise rats than sheep?”

Residents of Shanghai recently endured the sight of thousands of dead hogs floating down a nearby river, apparently the dumped victims of disease in piggeries upstream.

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Chinese Create New Strains of Bird Flu in Lab

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Senior scientists have criticised the “appalling irresponsibility” of researchers in China who have deliberately created new strains of influenza virus in a veterinary laboratory.

They warned there is a danger that the new viral strains created by mixing bird-flu virus with human influenza could escape from the laboratory to cause a global pandemic killing millions of people.

Lord May of Oxford, a former government chief scientist and past president of the Royal Society, denounced the study published today in the journal Science as doing nothing to further the understanding and prevention of flu pandemics.

“They claim they are doing this to help develop vaccines and such like. In fact the real reason is that they are driven by blind ambition with no common sense whatsoever,” Lord May told The Independent.

“The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring. They are taking it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It’s appallingly irresponsible,” he said.

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First Strike: China Omission of No-First-Use Nuclear Doctrine in Defense White Paper Signals Policy Shift

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Photo Credit: APChina omitted a reference to its no-first-use strategic nuclear weapons doctrine in a recently published government white paper, indicating Beijing shifted the policy as part of its large-scale nuclear arms buildup.

The omission, along with recent comments by a senior Chinese military officer, is raising new concerns among Pentagon officials about China’s nearly opaque strategic arms buildup.

Chinese Maj. Gen. Yao Yunzhu, a senior researcher at China’s Academy of Military Science, revealed earlier this month that China is considering expanding its growing nuclear arsenal in response to U.S. missile defense deployments and upgrades.

“The current development, especially the deployment of missile-defense systems in East Asia would be, in Chinese eyes, would be a very, very disturbing factor having implications for the calculation of China’s nuclear and strategic arsenal,” she told a conference April 8 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The statement was initially viewed as the general seeking to exploit U.S. concerns about China’s nuclear buildup as a way to force the Pentagon to scale back missile defenses, which China regards as undermining its large missile force.

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China Stabs U.S. in Back After Kerry's Visit; Accuses U.S. of Being Threat to Asia

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Photo Credit: Reuters

China’s defense ministry made a thinly veiled attack on the United States on Tuesday for increasing tensions in the Asia-Pacific by ramping up its military presence and alliances in the region, days after the top U.S. diplomat visited Beijing.

China is uneasy with what the United States has called the “rebalancing” of forces as Washington winds down the war in Afghanistan and renews its attention further east. China says the policy has emboldened Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in longstanding territorial disputes with Beijing.

China faces “multiple and complicated security threats” despite its growing influence, the Ministry of Defense said in its annual white paper, adding that the U.S. strategy meant “profound changes” for Asia.

“There are some countries which are strengthening their Asia Pacific military alliances, expanding their military presence in the region and frequently make the situation there tenser,” the ministry said in the 40-page document, in a clear reference to the United States.

Such moves “do not accord with the developments of the times and are not conducive towards maintaining regional peace and stability”, ministry spokesman Yang Yujun told reporters.

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North Korea Says it Won't Warn South Korea Before an Attack

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Photo Credit: AP

By Jethro Mullen. North Korea is raising the temperature on its neighbors, saying in its latest threat that it would not give any advance warning before any attack on South Korea.

“Our retaliatory action will start without any notice from now,” Pyongyang said in a statement published Tuesday by its official news agency, KCNA.

North Korea said it was responding to what it called insults from the “puppet authorities” in the South, claiming that there had been a rally against North Korea in Seoul — a rally it called a “monstrous criminal act.”

The renewed menacing rhetoric came a day after North Koreans celebrated the birthday of their country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, who launched the Korean War.

Kim Min-seok, a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, said the latest threat from the North was regrettable. Read more from this story HERE.

North Korea, Marking Leader’s Birthday, Shows More Ire

By Eric Talmadge. After a day of festivities to mark the 101st birthday of its first leader, North Korea on Tuesday offered new prickly rhetoric against the United States and South Korea, which are watching closely for signs whether it will conduct a medium-range missile test in defiance of international concerns.

State media said the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army issued an ultimatum demanding an apology from South Korea for “hostile acts” and threatening that unspecified retaliatory actions would happen at any time.

The statement, relayed through the KCNA state media agency, came after a day of festivities in North Korea’s capital that featured art performances, public dances and crowds thronging to giant bronze statues to pay homage to the late leader Kim Il Sung,

The renewed rhetoric was sparked by a protest in downtown Seoul, where effigies of Kim Il Sung and his son and successor, late leader Kim Jong Il, were burned. Such protests are not unusual in South Korea and this one likely gave the North a pretext to react negatively to calls for joining in dialogue with its neighbors than an actual cause for retaliation.

The North’s statement said it would refuse any offers of talks with the South until it apologized for the “monstrous criminal act.” North Korea often denounces such protests, but rarely in the name of the Supreme Command, which is headed by Kim Il Sung’s grandson and North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong Un. Read more from this story HERE.

China points finger at U.S. over Asia-Pacific tensions

By Ben Blanchard. China’s defense ministry made a thinly veiled attack on the United States on Tuesday for increasing tensions in the Asia-Pacific by ramping up its military presence and alliances in the region, days after the top U.S. diplomat visited Beijing.

China is uneasy with what the United States has called the “rebalancing” of forces as Washington winds down the war in Afghanistan and renews its attention further east.

China says the policy has emboldened Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in longstanding territorial disputes with Beijing.

China faces “multiple and complicated security threats” despite its growing influence, the Ministry of Defense said in its annual white paper, adding that the U.S. strategy meant “profound changes” for Asia.

“There are some countries which are strengthening their Asia Pacific military alliances, expanding their military presence in the region and frequently make the situation there tenser,” the ministry said in the 40-page document, in a clear reference to the United States. Read more from this story HERE.

Bird Flu Widens Reach in China, Worrying Public Health Officials Worldwide

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Photo Credit: Yahoo

Officials in Beijing confirmed today that a 7-year-old girl is infected with H7N9 avian influenza, widening the geographic spread of the virus that’s already killed 11 people.

The girl, whose parents sell live poultry, was admitted to the hospital Thursday with pneumonia and is the first case reported outside eastern China, where the virus was first reported in late March.

Government officials said the total number of new bird flu infections across the country rose to 47 today as the eastern province of Jiangsu reported two fresh cases and shanghai reported one, The Associated Press reported.

What is concerning about this latest report is the distance between Shanghai and Beijing. The virus was able to travel more than 750 miles without leaving a trail of dead birds.

Unlike the H5N1 bird flu that raised concerns starting in 2003, H7N9 does not seem to make birds very sick or sick at all. This makes tracking the movement of the virus and containing it to limited flocks of birds next to impossible.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Intel Chair: The Iranians, Russians and Chinese are Already on Your PC

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Photo Credit: AP

The House Intelligence Committee is warning that “time is running out” before the next major cyberattack: The Russians, Iranians, Chinese and others are likely already on your computer.

“You have criminal organizations trying to get into your personal computer and steal your personal stuff. And by the way, the Chinese are probably on your computer, the Russians are probably on your personal computer, the Iranians are already there,” House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R.-MI). told Fox News.

“They’re trying to steal things that they think are valuable or use your computer to help them steal from someone else,” he said. “That’s a real problem.”

Experts say Rogers may be stretching the truth: most people’s computers likely aren’t infected by agents of foreign governments.

“The Iranians, the Chinese, and the Russians are probably already on my computer? Sheesh … I guess it must be getting pretty crowded in there,” joked Graham Cluley, a consultant with U.K. Web security company Sophos. But the threat Rogers describes is certainly real, he pointed out.

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