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Russia and China on Syria
Moscow against UN Security Council Taking Up Syria — Source MOSCOW, May 11 (Interfax) — Moscow is against the Syria issue being put before the UN Security Council, a Russian Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday. “Syria mustn’t be discussed in the Security Council, that is obvious,” the source told Interfax. China Calls on […]
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When China Overtakes the United States
Various observers have noted this week that China’s economy will be bigger than that of the United States in 2016. This comes from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) latest projections, which were made in its semi-annual April World Economic Outlook database. Since 2016 is just a few years away, and it will be the first […]
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The Brutal and Turbulent North
I was reading abundant materials and books to make good my promise of continuing writing on the Reflection of April 14 about the Battle of Girón when I had a look at the recent news that came yesterday, which were also as abundant as they are everyday. You could pile up mountains of news on […]
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China Reacts to Fukushima
The dark cloud hanging over the future of nuclear power because of the unfolding crisis in Japan may have a silver lining in China by increasing attention to reactor safety. Within days of the earthquake that crippled the nuclear plants in Japan, the Chinese government abruptly suspended approvals for new plant construction, suspended work […]
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China Expresses Regret for Military Strike against Libya
China’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday expressed regret over the multinational military strike against Libya, saying that it did not agree with resorting to force in international relations. “China has noticed the latest development in Libya and regrets the military strike against Libya,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. China, as it always, does not […]
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Bahrain’s Progressive Democratic Forum Appeals for Solidarity
Bahrain’s Progressive Democratic Forum issues the following statement as the Bahrain’s rulers deploy riot police and mercenaries to attack peaceful protesters camped in Pearl Square. Dear comrades, Security forces raided at dawn today on Pearl Square, which was the centre of protests in the Bahraini capital Manama, and used all means of force, including […]
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What Happens to Pent-up Anger? Interview with Michael D. Yates
Listen to the interview with Michael D. Yates: I know there’s a lot of pent-up anger. If you take a country like Egypt, where people are suppressed, when they get an opportunity, a real opportunity, like what happened in the wake of the revolt in Tunisia, they will do things, they will take to […]
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Labor Lawyer Imprisoned in Xi’an for Organizing against Corrupt Privatization of State Enterprises
Highlights: Zhao Dongmin, a labor lawyer and Maoist, was sentenced on 25 October 2010 to three years in prison for applying to set up a workers’ organisation to monitor the privatization of state enterprises and alert the authorities about cases of corruption. The Zhao Dongming case is significant for a number of reasons: First, […]
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If China Wants to Pay for Our Vacations, Should We Let Them?
Trade disputes with China have been heating up lately, but there really is no reason for the hostility. Essentially the dispute boils down to the fact that China wants to subsidize the consumption of people in the United States and elsewhere, by propping up the value of the dollar. This is raising objections from the […]
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China’s Export Conundrum
In 2009, the European Union, United States and Mexico filed a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against China’s export restrictions on certain raw materials, including bauxite, coke, fluorspar, silicon carbide and zinc. They said that, firstly, these constraints — in the form of export taxes, quotas, licences and so on — caused […]
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The Changing Face of China’s Labor Force
Steve Nettleton: Now, emboldened by new labor laws and a strong economy, more workers are taking a stand to demand higher salaries and better benefits. . . . The unrest comes as a new wave of workers in their twenties take their turn to fill the factory payrolls. They are the first generation born […]
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China, Iran, and Neocon Push for Secondary Sanctions
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based neoconservative “think tank” that has consistently promoted hard-line policies against the Islamic Republic, came out with what it describes as “a comprehensive report . . . identifying 10 major Chinese energy companies that continue to do business with Iran in spite of international sanctions.” According […]
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Export Dependence and Sustainability of Growth in China and the East Asian Production Network
Excerpt: [T]he conventional growth accounting based on the national income identity does not provide an adequate framework for assessing the contribution of components of demand to growth. The standard exports/GDP ratio overestimates the income (value-added) generated by exports because it ignores the foreign (import) contents of exports, which tend to be particularly high in […]
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What Difference Does a Revolution Make? A Preliminary Contrast of India and China
I. Commonalities At the time of their casting off of colonialism — India gaining independence from Britain in 1947, China putting an end to a century of imperialist domination in 1949 — the two largest countries in Asia shared many common characteristics. Each possessed an enormous continental landmass with a population in the hundreds of […]
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Shanghai Power Politics: China Shuts Out Iran from SCO
Two weeks ago, the 10th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council summit, held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, approved the SCO Rules of Procedure and the regulation on procedure for future membership expansion. Before the summit, Chinese diplomats ritually pointed out that approval of the admission regulations was the first step in forming the basis for a […]
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Iran Vote Shows China’s Western Drift
This month, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a resolution to tighten sanctions on Iran, imposing a ban on arms sales and expanding a freeze on assets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in response to the country’s uranium-enrichment activities, which Tehran says are for peaceful purposes but other countries contend are driven […]
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The Great China Currency Debate: For Workers or Speculators?
Everyone is talking about China’s currency, it seems. Amidst months of building tension, there is an apparent consensus among most economists, the financial press, and leading economic policy makers in the West that the renminbi is hugely undervalued, making China’s exports unfairly competitive. The global imbalances created by such ‘mercantilist’ and ‘protectionist’ exchange rate strategies, […]
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Position Statement of Old Revolutionaries on the Present Upsurge of Worker Action in China
Translator’s note: “Regarding the present upsurge of worker action in China, liberals have used their discursive power in the overseas media to frame the strike wave as a tale of workers’ struggle for ‘independent unions,’ as if this were a repetition of Solidarnosc. What do Chinese workers want? What is the direction of the […]
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US-China Investment Treaty: A Threat to Stability and Growth in China
Under the radar screen at the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (SE&D) last month, the US and China continued to discuss a bi-lateral investment treaty (BIT). If the final negotiated text looks like the majority of US BITs it could threaten financial stability and economic growth in China. The US and China began negotiations toward […]
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China’s Evolving Calculus on Iran Sanctions
As the United Nations Security Council moves toward a vote on a resolution imposing additional sanctions on Iran over its nuclear activities, China is being remarkably silent, at least in public. In the wake of the announcement of the Iran-Turkey-Brazil Joint Declaration in Tehran on May 17 and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement in […]