China Attack Aims at iCloud, Apple’s Service for Storage

By PAUL MOZUR, NICOLE PERLROTH and BRIAN X. CHEN.OCT. 21, 2014

The New York Times

HONG KONG — For Apple in China, trouble seems to be the new normal.

Cybersecurity monitoring groups and security experts said on Monday that people trying to use Apple’s online data storage service, known as iCloud, were the target of a new attack that sought to steal users’ passwords and then spy on their activities.

Hong Kong Protests: China Pushes Back Against U.S.

The Wall Street Journal

By CHARLES HUTZLER

Oct. 1, 2014 11:56 p.m. ET

In a rare public spat, China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, pushed back against U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on the Hong Kong protests, with the Chinese official saying the U.S. should stay out of China's internal affairs.

For China, Limited Tools to Quell Unrest in Hong Kong

By EDWARD WONG and CHRIS BUCKLEYSEPT. 29, 2014

The New York Times

BEIJING — China’s Communist Party has ample experience extinguishing unrest. For years it has used a deft mix of censorship, arrests, armed force and, increasingly, money to repress or soften calls for political change.

Insight - With canal and hut, India stands up to China on disputed frontier

BY SANJEEV MIGLANI

NEW DELHI Thu Sep 25, 2014 4:06am IST

(Reuters) - Earlier this month, the Indian army, stationed on a remote Himalayan plateau, built a small observation hut from where they could watch Chinese soldiers across a disputed border.

The move so irked China's military that it laid a road on territory claimed by India and demanded that the tin hut be dismantled. India refused, destroyed a part of the new road and promptly raised troop numbers in the area.

Wall Street Retreats, as China’s Weakening Growth Pulls Shares and Oil Lower

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSSEPT. 22, 2014

(Published in the Wall Street Journal) 

Worries about the outlook for growth in China and a slide in the price of oil pushed the stock market to its biggest loss in almost seven weeks on Monday.

Investors are nervous about China after a run of soft economic data that suggested growth there, the No. 2 economy after the United States, was slowing. The worries about China helped push down the price of oil, and that in turn weighed on energy stocks.

China: Wealth and Democracy

Will Western levels of income mean that China adopts Western models of democracy?

By Christopher Ernest Barber

June 10, 2014

http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/china-wealth-and-democracy/

In a recent article, I discussed a report tabled by the IMF on China’s economic future. In it, IMF economists Malhar Nabar and Papa N’Diaye argued that if Chinese authorities are able to complete the necessary economic reforms, then China will become a high-income economy by 2030. In nominal terms, high-income economies have a Gross National Income (GNI) of more than $12,616 per capita. This effectively demarcates those nations that are rich and those that are not. Of course, while China will enter the rich nations club, with its current GNI of $5,720, the dragon economy will have a long way to go in order to match the sheer wealth of the United States (which has a GNI of $52,340). Nevertheless, given its relative size, China is set to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy by 2030.

China economic clout good for U.S.: Column

Ted C. Fishman 4:05 p.m. EDT June 15, 2014

USA Today

Instead of feeling threatened, Chinese buying power can help us and improve relations.

Early this spring, the World Bank announced that, by one measure, the size of the Chinese economy at the end of 2011 was nearly equal to that of the U.S. and, this year, it will be bigger. Americans are fearful of China lately. A bigger economy seems to be giving China sharper elbows. The Asian giant has been pressing territorial demands. China's military supports cyber spies who steal American industrial secrets. China's President Xi Jinping warns the U.S. in speeches that America will get burned if America stymies China's assertion of its goals.

Should Americans feel threatened? Surprised?

China Said to Push Banks to Remove IBM Servers

By Bloomberg News  May 27, 2014 9:58 AM GMT+0300

The Chinese government is pushing domestic banks to remove high-end servers made by International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and replace them with a local brand, according to people familiar with the matter, in an escalation of the dispute with the U.S. over spying claims.

Government agencies, including the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance, are reviewing whether Chinese commercial banks’ reliance on IBM servers compromises the country’s financial security, said the four people, who asked not to be identified because the review hasn’t been made public.

The review fits a broader pattern of retaliation after American prosecutors indicted five Chinese military officers for allegedly hacking into the computers of U.S. companies and stealing secrets. Last week, China’s government said it will vet technology companies operating in the country, while the Financial Times reported May 25 that China ordered state-owned companies to cut ties with U.S. consulting firms.

China and Japan trade barbs after close encounter over South China Sea

Chinese defence ministry calls on Japan to stop all reconnaissance activity after jet incident over disputed territory

Associated Press in Beijing

theguardian.com, Sunday 25 May 2014 16.10 BST

Chinese and Japanese officials have traded accusations after Chinese fighter jets came within a few dozen metres from Japanese military aircraft that had entered Beijing's air defence zone over the East China Sea.

China's defense ministry claimed that a Japanese surveillance plane and one other entered the zone on Saturday during a joint military drill with the Chinese and Russian navies.

$400 Billion Gas Deal Shows Russia Looking To China To Replace Western Money

Forbes

Chris Wright, Contributor

The news that China and Russia have signed a $400 billion deal through which Gazprom will supply China National Petroleum Corp with 30 years of natural gas is the clearest illustration yet that Russia will be looking east, not west, for international funding.

Last week, in Will China Save Russia With Investment?, I reported a series of new Russia-China deals were about to be launched by the two countries’ sovereign wealth funds, the Russian Direct Investment Fund and China Investment Corporation. Those deals have since been announced: they involve Vcanland, a developer of tourism infrastructure and senior living communities; the first ever railway bridge over the Amur River on the Russia-China border; and logistics services investment.In dollar terms, they may have involved as much as $1 billion of investment, but while the number itself is insignificant compared to the outflows Russia is experiencing, the trend is very important – and is underlined by the new gas deal.

U.S. accuses China of cyber spying on American companies

BY JIM FINKLE, JOSEPH MENN AND ARUNA VISWANATHA

Mon May 19, 2014 6:04pm EDT

(Reuters) - The United States on Monday charged five Chinese military officers and accused them of hacking into American nuclear, metal and solar companies to steal trade secrets, ratcheting up tensions between the two world powers over cyber espionage.

China immediately denied the charges, saying in a strongly worded Foreign Ministry statement the U.S. grand jury indictment was "made up" and would damage trust between the two nations.

Officials in Washington have argued for years that cyber espionage is a top national security concern. The indictment was the first criminal hacking charge that the United States has filed against specific foreign officials, and follows a steady increase in public criticism and private confrontation, including at a summit last year between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Is China No. 1?

The Washington Post

By Robert J. Samuelson, Published: May 14

It’s probable that the U.S. economy is no longer the world’s largest. New World Bank figures, notes economist Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute, suggest that sometime in 2014 China will overtake the United States in gross domestic product — the production of goods and services.

We knew this day was coming, but if the World Bank figures are correct, it has arrived sooner than many experts predicted. Using those figures — which stop at 2011 — I estimate that China’s GDP in 2014 will hit $16.8 trillion compared with $16.1 trillion for the United States. (All these figures are in “constant” 2011 dollars.)

Why India Will Soon Outpace China

FORBES ASIA 5/04/2014 @ 11:00AM

By James Gruber

On the face of it, the title of this article will seem absurd to many. While China’s economic growth has slowed, it’s still running at a brisk 7.4% annual rate. Moreover, the Chinese government seems to be successfully slowing credit in order to rein in a burgeoning debt issue. And it’s implementing a plethora of reforms which should propel the next phase of growth.

Meanwhile, India’s a mess. This fiscal year’s GDP will be below 5% and near decade lows, government and corporate debt is high, the current account deficit has been out of control until recently, inflation reached double-digits late last year, business confidence and investment are at extreme lows and corruption remains rampant.

China economic growth slows to 18-month low in first-quarter

BY ADAM ROSE AND XIAOYI SHAO

BEIJING Wed Apr 16, 2014 2:29am EDT

(Reuters) - China's economy grew at its slowest pace in 18 months at the start of 2014, but did a touch better than expected and showed some improvement in March, suggesting Beijing will not rush to follow up recent steps to support activity.

Authorities have ruled out major stimulus to fight short-term dips in growth, signaling the slowdown was an expected consequence of their reform drive, even as some analysts think the economy will lose further momentum.

During Hagel Visit, China Showed Its Military Might, and Its Frustrations

By HELENE COOPERAPRIL 10, 2014

The New York Times

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia — When Robert M. Gates visited China in 2011 as the United States defense secretary, the military greeted him with an unexpected and, in the view of American military officials, provocative test of a Chinese stealth fighter jet, a bold show of force that stunned the visiting Americans and may even have surprised the Chinese president at the time, Hu Jintao.

Growing service sector won't avert China slowdown

BY ADAM ROSE AND XIAOYI SHAO

BEIJING Thu Apr 3, 2014 2:40am EDT

(Reuters) - A robust services sector will not stop China's economy from slowing into the middle of the year, analysts said after modest government stimulus was seen as a signal authorities want to steady growth to keep their reform drive on track.

Two surveys on Thursday showing growth in the service sector offered some relief after a run of disappointing data this year, but did little to alter the view that the world's second-largest economy has lost more momentum than expected in 2014.

Exclusive: China seizes $14.5 billion assets from family, associates of ex-security chief: sources

BY BENJAMIN KANG LIM AND BEN BLANCHARD

BEIJING Sun Mar 30, 2014 8:31am EDT

(Reuters) - Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) from family members and associates of retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is at the centre of China's biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades, two sources said.

More than 300 of Zhou's relatives, political allies, proteges and staff have also been taken into custody or questioned in the past four months, the sources, who have been briefed on the investigation, told Reuters.

China’s Rapid Growth Hits the Brakes

By NEIL GOUGHMARCH 18, 2014

The New York Times

HONG KONG — New pockets of economic weakness in China emerged on Tuesday, as the collapse of a highly indebted real estate developer and weak home sales pointed to a slowdown in the sprawling property sector.

The latest batch of difficulties add to the continuing debate over China’s commitment to economic reforms. While Beijing is pushing through initiatives to reform its economy, the worry is that the country’s slowing economy will prompt it to reverse course.

China's yuan dips in widened band, but scope for big swings seen limited

BY LU JIANXIN AND SAIKAT CHATTERJEE

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG Mon Mar 17, 2014 5:46am EDT

(Reuters) - China's yuan eased against the dollar on Monday after the central bank doubled the currency's daily trading band as part of its commitment to let markets play a greater role in the economy.

Yet the currency moved in a relatively narrow range reflecting market views that the People's Bank of China will seek to limit currency swings at a time when markets fret over China's cooling growth and the quality of corporate debt.

Why Mexican drug-traffickers started smuggling iron ore to China

The Economist explains

Mar 9th 2014, 23:50 by H.T. | MEXICO CITY

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/03/economist-explains

The Economist

IT IS big, bulky, you can’t snort it, and it doesn’t get you high. Per tonne, it sells for about $125, compared with cocaine, which fetches at least $50m wholesale. By any reckoning, iron ore would seem like a daft thing to peddle if you were in the drugs trade. Yet on March 3rd Mexican authorities seized nearly 120,000 tonnes of it near the port of Lázaro Cárdenas on the Pacific coast. Much of it they reckon was due to be smuggled to China by the Knights Templar, a bloodthirsty drug-trafficking outfit. Officials say that the business had become even better for the Templars than drugs.