REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

How bacteria could solve China's rush-hour blues

Software that imitates the collective behaviour of bacteria could help create intelligent traffic lights that manage teeming masses of city traffic.

As the largest city in southern China, with a population of around 13 million, Guangzhou has traffic so bad it's legendary. One way to alleviate it would be to increase the intelligence of traffic lights – converting them from dumb beasts that beat out the same rhythm all day long into dynamic managers of vehicle flow.

And now two Chinese researchers have proved, at least theoretically, that insights borrowed from the lowly bacterium E. coli could markedly increase the throughput of a real-world traffic light in Guangzhou. No one knows what effect this could have if it were applied to an entire city, but it's fitting that a solution from a class of algorithms that seek to mimic the collective behaviour of organisms should be applied to the teeming masses of Guangzhou's trucks and automobiles.

Traffic lights around the world, from Guangzhou to Geneva, are managed by computerised systems housed in a metal cabinet at the side of the road, which regulate the cycle of changes from red to green to red either through fixed time periods, or through sensors in the road that can detect when a car is stationary. Both options work well when traffic is low, less so during rush hour, as any driver will tell you.

The solution Qin Liu and Jianmin Xu have proposed for improving flow during high traffic periods is what's known as a Bacterial Foraging Optimisation (BFO) algorithm. The algorithm varies when and for how long a given light is red or green. So, for example, the algorithm has an almost traffic cop-like sense for which road at an intersection has a higher volume of traffic, and when to strategically deprioritise traffic that may be waiting on a less-used road. Simulations of a Guangzhou intersection showed that BFO-regulated lights reduce the average delay of vehicles by over 28% compared with those regulated by a fixed time cycle.

Read more at The BBC

China on course to overtake U.S. as world's leading scientific superpower

Britain maintains its scientific position in third place

China is fast becoming a scientific superpower and now ranks second only to the U.S. in its share of published research, it was revealed today.

A decade ago the country was number six in the league table of authorship in recognised scientific journals.

Today it has ousted Japan as the second most prolific scientific nation and could overtake the long-dominant U.S. as soon as 2013, according to a report by the Royal Society.

Britain, meanwhile, has maintained its position in third place.

Fast rising: China has ousted Japan as the second most prolific scientific nation and could overtake the long-dominant U.S. as soon as 2013

Science is also flourishing in Brazil, India and several countries in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, which until recently made little or no contribution to global research.

One of the big surprises in the report, entitled Knowledge, Networks And Nations: Global Scientific Collaboration In The 21st Century, is what has happened in Iran.

The Islamic nation has the fastest growth in scientific output in the world. Between 1996 and 2008, the number of research publications produced in Iran shot up from 736 to 13,238.

Iran has said it is committed to a 'comprehensive plan for science' which will see research and development investment increased from less than 1 per cent to 4 per cent of its gross domestic product by 2030.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1371044/China-course-overtake-U-S-worlds-leading-scientific-superpower.html#ixzz1Hzh8Mfvo

Fighting Trend, China Is Luring Scientists Home

BEIJING — Scientists in the United States were not overly surprised in 2008 when the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland awarded a $10 million research grant to a Princeton University molecular biologist, Shi Yigong.

Dr. Shi’s cell studies had already opened a new line of research into cancer treatment. At Princeton, his laboratory occupied an entire floor and had a $2 million annual budget.

The surprise — shock, actually — came a few months later, when Dr. Shi, a naturalized American citizen and 18-year resident of the United States, announced that he was leaving for good to pursue science in China. He declined the grant, resigned from Princeton’s faculty and became the dean of life sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

“To this day, many people don’t understand why I came back to China,” he said recently between a crush of visitors to his Tsinghua office. “Especially in my position, giving up all I had.”

“He was one of our stars,” Robert H. Austin, a Princeton physics professor, said by telephone. “I thought it was completely crazy.”

Read more at The New York Times

Mistrust stalls U.S.-China space cooperation

 

Chinese astronauts, left to right, Jing Haipeng, Zhai Zhigang and Liu Boming during a send-off ceremony before the launch of the Shenzhou 7 space craft at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu province, on Thursday Sept. 25, 2008. (Str - AP)

Read more at The Washington Post

Korean deaths spark inquiry

Cases highlight the challenge of policing multinational trade in stem-cell treatments.

RNL Life Science offers patient testimony at its California offices.D. Cyranoski

The controversy over stem-cell tourism, in which patients travel to other countries for unapproved stem-cell treatments, continues to grow. In June, researchers in Thailand reported finding "strange lesions" in a patient who had died following stem-cell therapy for kidney disease (see Nature 465, 997; 2010). And in August, an 18-month-old Romanian boy died after receiving a brain injection of stem cells.

Now South Korea is trying to crack down on the practice. Following the recent deaths of two Koreans who had received injections of stem cells, the Korea Food and Drug Administration and the health ministry last week launched an investigation into companies offering the treatments. But the latest cases highlight the difficulty of policing these therapies or determining their safety, because some companies are setting up operations around the globe, taking advantage of loopholes in other countries' regulations.

One of the companies under scrutiny is Seoul-based RNL Bio, which formulated the cells used to treat the two Korean patients. The firm prepares stem cells at its processing centre in Seoul and sends them to affiliated clinics in China, Japan or elsewhere. Patients travel to these clinics to have the injections, which are illegal in South Korea.

Drug or body part?

In a statement, RNL Bio's chief executive, Ra Jeong-chan, has denied that his company's treatments had anything to do with the deaths. The Korean media are reporting that one patient, a 73-year-old man, died in Japan following a pulmonary embolism; the other failed to wake after receiving an anaesthetic while in China.

Jin Han Hong, president of RNL Life Science, the company's subsidiary in Los Angeles, California, says that the government's investigation will try to determine whether their stem-cell processing in Korea should be banned. "The government wants to define it as a drug and make it illegal," says Hong, who defends the practice: "From our viewpoint it is just part of the patient's body."

Nobuyoshi Tani, head of the regenerative medicine office of the Japanese health ministry's Research and Development Division, says that companies must gain government approval before they can sell stem-cell therapies in Japan. But Japanese doctors don't need approval to import stem cells for use in their practice.

Last year, China passed regulations that would require stem-cell therapies to pass clinical trials, but there has been much debate about how those rules should be implemented. While the gov­ernment puts together guidelines, companies such as RNL Bio face an uncertain regulatory situation.

Read more at Nature News

China shows its skills in space by manoeuvring satellite near another in Earth orbit

DENVER — China has pulled off a tricky and uncommon feat in space flight, manoeuvring one of its satellites to within about 300 metres of another while they were orbiting Earth, space analysts say.

Some analysts view the rendezvous as a potentially ominous sign of China's ability to carry out a hostile act or espionage against a rival satellite in space. Others say it could have been a test of docking skills.

China is not saying why it conducted the August manoeuvr, but it comes as the nation is ambitiously expanding its space program, including building a space station and conducting lunar missions. It is expected to launch the first module of its space station next year, followed by a manned spacecraft to dock with it.

Using unclassified tracking data from the U.S. military, space-watchers calculated that China manoeuvred its SJ-12 satellite close to its SJ-06F satellite on about Aug. 19.

The military releases estimates on the paths of about 1,000 active satellites and 20,000 pieces of debris in space to help commercial and civil satellite operators avoid collisions.

U.S. military officials confirmed the Chinese satellite rendezvous occurred but released few details, citing security concerns. Chinese space officials didn't respond to written questions submitted by The Associated Press in Beijing.

The rendezvous marks a milestone for China's space skills, said Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation, a Colorado think-tank and advocacy group that focuses on the use of space.

Read more at Google Hosted News

China to build another nuclear reactor for Pakistan

Pakistan and China deepened their relationship on Monday when it emerged there were plans for a fifth Chinese-built nuclear reactor. The revelation was timed to coincide with President Barack Obama's visit to India, Islamabad's arch rival.

President Asif Ali Zardari is due in China this week for the opening of the Asian Games

Pakistan's increasing reliance on China will be seen as headache for the US, which uses civilian and military aid to gain leverage over Islamabad in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists.

"It's no secret that this is in the pipeline. We have a power shortfall and this is one of the ways of meeting it," said an official speaking on condition of anonymity.

President Asif Ali Zardari is due in China this week for the opening of the Asian Games.

Plans for a fifth atomic energy reactor follow confirmation of a deal to build two 650MW reactors at Chashma, in Punjab province, on top of one civilian reactor which has already been completed and another due to be finished next year.

The US has opposed the plans because Pakistan has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Read more at the Telegraph

China unveils photos of moon

BEIJING — China on Monday unveiled photos taken by its lunar probe of the moon's Sinus Iridium, the area marked out for the nation's first landing, highlighting the success of the mission so far.

The photos of the moon's surface, made public by Premier Wen Jiabao, were taken at the end of last month by the Chang'e-2 unmanned probe, the National Space Administration said in a statement.

Chang'e-2 was launched on October 1 and went into orbit eight days later. It was due to first circle the moon at a distance of 100 kilometres (62 miles), and then drop into orbit 15 kilometres from the moon's surface.

The images of Sinus Iridium, also known as the Bay of Rainbows, show the surface is "quite flat" with craters and rocks of different sizes. The biggest hole has a diameter of two kilmetres, according to the statement.

The bay was formed by a massive impact billions of years ago, and is considered one of the moon's most beautiful landmarks.

Read more at Google Hosted News

U.S. says China building 'entirely indigenous' supercomputer

Petaflop-class supercomputer 'expected to be complete within the next 12 to 18 months,' DOE says

Computerworld - WASHINGTON -- China may be no more than a year away from developing a supercomputer built entirely from its own technology, a big step toward freeing itself of Western technology.

This is the view of some research and industry experts in the U.S., but most notably Steven Koonin, the undersecretary for science at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), who says China is now working on a petaflop-class supercomputer "using entirely indigenous components that is expected to be complete within the next 12 to 18 months."

Read moe at ComputerWorld

China plant opts for osmotics tech that slashes energy needed for desalination

I’ve gotten to explore all sorts of concepts in my role here at GreenTech Pastures, including one of my favorites from high-school biology, osmosis. For those of you without school-age kids, this is the process by which water moves through membranes or flows from cell to cell. Confession: I had to look the word up as a refresher, so don’t feel bad if you have to do the same.

As I’ve written here before, the principles of osmosis have some compelling, emerging applications when it comes to energy generation and, in particular, energy related to water desalination. A report that I covered here earlier this year suggested that osmotic technologies located near deltas and estuaries could generate from 1,600 to 1,700 terawatt-hours of electricity per year by 2030. That amount is roughly half the total energy demand in Europe.

I’m not so sure about those numbers, but the fact is that reverse osmotics could help reduce the amount of energy needed to create fresh water out of saltwater. Essentially, you use the pressure of the water and the motion that it creates moving throughout the process to help power the process.

This is very important, since our freshwater supply is increasingly being called into question and we really need to start looking more at our desalination options, especially in places like California where water is pumped a ridiculous distance–and at a huge waste.

Read more at ZDNET

US drifting from China in space

US drifting from China in space
By Peter J Brown

In mid-October, a few days after administrator Charles Bolden, head of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration

(NASA) returned from his lengthy visit to China, NASA issued this brief statement:

On behalf of the NASA delegation that traveled to China, I want to express my appreciation to the China Manned Space Engineering Office, our hosts for my visit. Our delegation conducted a very comprehensive visit to Chinese human spaceflight related facilities including the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and conducted meetings with relevant senior officials in the Chinese government.

I am pleased that NASA was able to meet its objectives for the visit, which included becoming acquainted with relevant Chinese space officials and institutions, better understanding Chinese human spaceflight programs and plans, and reaching a common understanding of the importance of transparency, reciprocity and mutual benefit as the underlying principles of any future interaction between our two nations in the area of human spaceflight.

Read more at Asia Times Online

First Complete Remains of Early Sauropod Dinosaur Found

Scientists have discovered in China the first complete skeleton of a pivotal ancestor of Earth's largest land animals – the sauropod dinosaurs.

The new species, tentatively dubbed Yizhousaurus sunae, lived on the flood plains around Lufeng in the Yunnan Province of South China about 200 million years ago. The species helps explain how the iconic four-footed, long-necked sauropod dinosaurs evolved.

Unlike the 120-foot-long, 100-ton sauropod giants that came later, Yizhousaurus was about 30 feet in length, but it shows all of the hallmarks of later sauropods: the beginning of a long neck, a robust skeleton and four-legged posture. It also comes with an intact fossilized skull – which is very rare and crucial for understanding its place in the evolution of sauropods.

“Sauropods have these big bones but their skulls are very lightly constructed and also very small,” said paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University. Chatterjee presents the discovery on Sunday, Oct. 31 at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver.

Read more at NewsRoom America

China is on path to 'militarization of space'

The Asian space race is moving along slowly, but steadily – and China is in the lead, with technology that could give it a military advantage over the US.

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In this photo released by China's official Xinhua news agency, a Long March 3C rocket carrying China's second unmanned lunar probe Chang'e II is launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan province on Oct. 1.

Newscom

Taipei, Taiwan

China looks set to pull ahead in the Asian space race to the moon, putting a spacecraft into lunar orbit Oct. 6 in a preparatory mission for an unmanned moon landing in two or three years.

Chinese engineers will maneuver the craft into an extremely low orbit, 9.5 miles above the moon's surface, so it can take high-resolution photos of a possible landing site.

Basically, China is looking for a good "parking space" for a moon lander, in a less-known area of the moon known as the Bay of Rainbows.

The mission, called Chang'e 2 after a heroine from Chinese folklore who goes to the moon with a rabbit, highlights China's rapidly growing technological prowess, as well as its keen desire for prestige on the world stage. If successful, it will put China a nose ahead of its Asian rivals with similar lunar ambitions – India and Japan – and signal a challenge to the American post-cold-war domination in space.

Read more at The Christian Science Monitor

Scientists behaving badly

Recent events show China needs to clean up its scientific act

DISPUTES about science in Western countries can sometimes be heated. Seldom, though, do they descend into fisticuffs. But this is what seems to have happened in China on August 29th. That day Fang Shimin, a well-known scientific blogger and self-proclaimed “science cop”, was attacked in the street by a gang. Nor was this the first such incident. In June Fang Xuanchang (no relation), a science journalist on Caijing magazine, was on the receiving end of similar treatment.

So far, it might be thought by smug Westerners, so depressing. But then there was a twist in the tale. One of the objects of the two Fangs’ criticisms, Xiao Chuanguo, a urologist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, was arrested and charged with organising the assaults. Even more extraordinary (or perhaps not, considering that he had been detained for seven days without access to a lawyer), he confessed his guilt on television, on September 28th.

Virtue, then, has prevailed. And Chinese science has taken a step towards the standards of civilised discourse that Westerners like to think prevail in their own countries. Maybe. For the more you dig into this strange tale, the more illuminating it is of the need for Chinese science to clean up its act.

Fang Shimin claims that Xin Yu Si (New Threads), the website he runs, posts about 100 allegations of scientific fraud a year, and he has become a folk hero as a result. China has no proper procedures for dealing with such fraud and Dr Fang believes that, in the absence of such official channels, a platform of the sort his website provides is indispensable to the fight against misconduct in science.

Some of the accusations undoubtedly stand up and shine a light on the often-murky business of Chinese science. Many, however, are anonymous and lack specifics, making it difficult for those accused to mount a rebuttal even when they are innocent. Indeed, New Threads reminds some of those with longer memories of the hysteria of the Cultural Revolution, when anybody could post any accusation on da zi bao (big-character posters), and countless lives were ruined as a consequence. Not surprisingly, Dr Fang has many enemies.

Read more at The Economist

Beyond Animal Rights, the Antibiotics Battle

I’ve reported in Iraq and Afghanistan and walked through a SARS ward in China at the height of that deadly epidemic. But my scariest moment as a reporter came this summer, when I visited an egg farm in Ohio to write about the debate over factory farming and animal confinement. I’m dangerously allergic to feathers, and I had to will myself (aided by a Benadryl) to walk into a barn filled with 168,000 hens.

Brian C. Frank for The New York Times Pigs near Ralston, Iowa, are given antibiotics in their feed. The blue spot indicates they are ready for market.

As it turned out, I was astonished at how well the ventilation system worked to keep the air clear; I didn’t suffer more than some sniffles. That was just one of the impressive features of an operation that yielded millions of eggs every day. If only it didn’t also involve cramming all those birds for life into tiers of cages — an efficient production method that has brought the wrath of animal rights activists and, in several states, new restrictions on caging.

Then last month I toured a large pork farm in Iowa while reporting on the feeding of antibiotics to healthy animals, which health officials want to curb because it breeds drug-resistant bacteria that threaten humans. I don’t think I’m particularly allergic to pigs — although, since I haven’t had to cope with pillows and jackets stuffed with pig down, how would I know? But I was astonished by the absence of foul smells. Living on slatted floors that let the manure fall through, the pigs, for better or worse, never wallow in mud or garbage

Read more at The New York Times

China succeeds in a manned dive to over 3,700 meters below sea level

BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- A China-made manned submersible designed to dive to a depth of 7,000 meters has successfully reached 3,759 meters beneath the waves during a manned test, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) announced Thursday.

It makes China the fifth country, following the United States, France, Russia and Japan, to have the technologies for a manned dive to more than 3,500 meters below sea level, the two authorities announced at a press conference.

The submersible, dubbed "Jiaolong," completed 17 dives in the South China Sea from May 31 to July 18, with the deepest reaching 3,759 meters and with three crew on board, the SOA said in a report.

"We went through strict selection and training procedures before we managed to get on board the submersible," said Ye Cong, one of the crew on board.

"The submersible is very convenient to manoeuvre and we operated it quite well under the water," he said.

"I think we've only achieved initial success in the test. The future application of the vessel will be more remarkable than this test," he said.

Red more at XINHUANET

China Grants Samplify Second Series of Patents for Medical Imaging Technologies

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Samplify Systems, Inc., a leading provider of signal-compression technology, semiconductors, and solutions, today announced that the Chinese Government has granted the company its second series of technology patents for medical imaging applications.  These new patents come on the heels of the first series of patents that were granted earlier this month for wireless base station compression.  More specific, China utility model patents were granted by the China State Intellectual Property Office covering the use of compressing and storing x-ray projection data in Computed Tomography (CT) systems.  CT projection data is generated when x-rays are digitized and are transferred, stored, and processed by CT image reconstruction computers.  Samplify's patented compression technology reduces CT projection data bandwidth and storage requirements by a factor of four.  These patents include:

With the granting of this second series of patents in China, Samplify's Prism CT compression technology is now protected in a market and region that is strategically important for the company.  Indeed, Samplify continues to make inroads with the leading medical system companies in China.  As important, these OEMs continue to leverage China's significant stimulus funding of $125B, part of which will be used for the deployment of next-generation CT equipment.  Samplify's innovative compression technology for medical applications saves medical imaging OEMs significant design, development, and manufacturing costs for the transport and storage of CT projection signals from the x-ray detectors on the rotating gantry to the image reconstruction workstation.

According to Al Wegener, Samplify CTO and founder, "Medical equipment OEMs who are developing new, lower-cost CT systems, are challenged to transport and store huge amounts of digital data in real time.  Samplify's Prism CT compression technology offers these OEMs an innovative way to reduce these transfer and storage bottlenecks in a cost-effective manner. No other solution can match Samplify's low complexity and low-cost solutions while operating at compression rates greater than 200 Msps."

"Today's announcement is another example of the Chinese government's willingness to open up its markets to foreign corporations in an effort to gain access to the best technologies and intellectual property for its own corporate base," says Tom Sparkman, Samplify CEO.   "We are very pleased," he added, "that we are able to make inroads with Chinese OEMs using our technology in such a protected fashion."

Read more at PR NewsWire

Experts find gene variants for stomach, gullet cancer

Aug 23 (Reuters) - Scientists have identified genetic mutations that appear to be associated with both esophageal and stomach cancer in two studies in China, suggesting they may share similar triggers.

This finding adds to the understanding of how these cancers develop and may help in the hunt for cures.

In the first study, Chinese researchers analysed genes of 9,053 patients with esophageal cancer and 2,766 with stomach cancer. The research also included a smaller number of esophageal cancer patients of Uighur-Kazakh descent.

Two mutations -- PLCE1 at location 10q23 and C20orf54 at location 20p13 -- showed up consistently in all these patients, the researchers wrote in a paper published in Nature Genetics on Monday.

"These results show that genetic variations at 10q23 and 20p13 contribute significantly to risk for esophageal cancer and (stomach) cancer in Chinese Han and Uighur-Kazakh populations," wrote the researchers, led by Wang Lidong at the Xinxiang Medical University in China's central Henan province.

China bears roughly half of the world's burden of these two cancers. Stomach cancer, the number-two killer after lung cancer, kills 803,000 people around the world each year, while esophageal cancer kills 400,000.

Read more at REUTERS

Moore's Outlaws

Cyber attacks are increasing exponentially. Here's what recent episodes can teach us about thwarting cyber crime, espionage, and warfare.

By David Talbot

Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of the Russian antivirus company Kaspersky Lab, admits it crossed his mind last year that he might die in a plane crash caused by a cyber attack. Kaspersky is a man of eclectic tastes and boyish humor; when we met in his office on the outskirts of Moscow, he was munching a snack of sweetened, freeze-dried whole baby crabs from Japan, and at one point he showed me a pair of men's undergarments, bought on a Moscow street, that had been stamped "Protected by Kaspersky Anti-Virus." But he grew quite serious when the subject turned to the days leading up to April 1, 2009.

That was the date a virulent computer worm called Conficker was expected to receive an update from its unknown creator--but nobody knew to what end. A tweak to Conficker's code might cause the three million or so machines in its army of enslaved computers, called a botnet, to start attacking the servers of some company or government network, vomit out billions of pieces of spam, or just improve the worm's own ability to propagate. "It's like if you have a one million army of real soldiers. What can you do?" �Kaspersky asked rhetorically. "Anything you want." He let that sink in for a moment. "We were waiting for April 1--for something. I checked my travel schedule to make sure I didn't have any flight. We had no idea about this functionality. Security officials were really nervous." In the end? "Nothing happened. Whew! Whew!" Kaspersky cried out. He crossed himself, clasped his hands in a prayerlike pose, and gazed toward the ceiling.

The unknowns about Conficker in the spring of 2009 (the infection remains widespread but, so far, inactive) reflect larger unknowns about just how bad cyber security will get (see Briefing). The trends aren't promising: tour Kaspersky's labs--or those of any computer security company or research outpost--and you quickly learn that malware is tougher to detect, spam delivery faster, and attacks growing in number and financial impact (see "The Rise in Global Cyber Threats" see slideshow). Security

experts and attackers are locked in a kind of arms race. In Kaspersky's case, his engineers and cryptographers do everything from seeking faster automated virus-detection methods to trolling Russian-language hacker blogs for clues about what's coming.

Ingenious solutions are multiplying, but the attacks are multiplying faster still. And this year's revelations of China-based attacks against corporate and political targets, including Google and the Dalai Lama, suggest that sophisticated electronic espionage is expanding as well. "What we've been seeing, over the last decade or so, is that Moore's Law is working more for the bad guys than the good guys," says Stewart Baker, the former general counsel of the National Security Agency and a former policy chief at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, referring to the prediction that integrated circuits will double in transistor capacity about every two years. "It's really 'Moore's outlaws' who are winning this fight. Code is more complex, and that means more opportunity to exploit the code. There is more money to be made in exploiting the code, and that means there are more and more sophisticated people looking to exploit vulnerabilities.

Read more at Technology Review

Haier: A Chinese Company That Innovates

Is China capable of producing global brands? Will Chinese companies ever be able to foster domestic innovation without technology transfer from western multinationals? These two questions are at the forefront of mainstream analysis on China’s next stage of economic development. Both the Economist and Washington Post recently published detailed articles addressing these issues, and I myself have written about Chinese local innovation in the past.

I do not aim to answer these two questions in this article; instead, I would like to highlight a Chinese company with a global presence that is consistently coming up with targeted innovations for one of China’s largest consumer groups: rural consumers. No domestic consumer goods company in China is doing a better job at innovating and meeting the needs of these consumers than appliance maker Haier. (Haier's chairman agrees--of course--in an article he wrote for Forbes in September 2009.)

Haier is in the middle of an incredible market opportunity to benefit from government subsidies in excess of 15 billion RMB (roughly $2.23 billion) for rural residents to purchase appliances. The government subsidies are aimed at increasing domestic consumption to diversify economic growth that has previously relied heavily on exports and infrastructure spending. According to this article the Chinese government reported that rural consumers purchased 41.7 billion RMB in household appliances as a result of the subsidies over the first 4 months of 2010 (equivalent to a 510% increase year-on-year). Accordingly Haier’s growth in Q1 more than doubled.

How is Haier successfully targeting rural consumers in China? It does what every good company should do: listen to its customers’ complaints and deliver products that address their needs.

Read more at Forbes

Renhuang to Launch New All-Natural Anti-depressant and Nerve Regulation Product - Compound Schisandra Tablets

HARBIN, China, June 22, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Renhuang Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Pink Sheets: RHGP) ("Renhuang" or the "Company"), a developer, manufacturer and distributor of botanical products, bio-pharmaceuticals and traditional Chinese medicines ("TCM"), today announced that the Company plans to launch its new all-natural anti-depressant and nerve regulation product - Compound Schisandra Tablets ("Schisandra Tablets"), a single plant based medicine, in July 2010. Renhuang estimates that Schisandra Tablets will generate revenues of RMB 3.0 million (approximately $44,000) in fiscal year 2010.

Schisandra, also known as magnolia vine, has been clinically proven to have significant benefits to the functioning and regulation of the central nervous system and for upper body respiration. According to China Pharmacopoeia, Schisandra is used as a remedy for many ailments, such as: to generate body fluids and alleviate thirst, nourish the kidneys, cure insomnia and palpitations, and is also widely used as treatment for neurasthenia (a term most commonly used in Traditional Chinese medicine to denote a complex of symptoms characterized by chronic fatigue and weakness, loss of memory, and generalized aches and pains).

"Compound Schisandra Tablets are an exciting new plant-based anti-depressant and nerve regulation product, which complements our existing product portfolio, provides additional revenue generation opportunities and strengthens our leading market position in this important and rapidly growing market segment," commented Mr. Shaoming Li, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Renhuang. "We plan to extensively promote this new product to instill strong market acceptance amongst our target audience. We expect Schisandra will generate RMB 10.0 million (approximately $1.5 million) in revenue in fiscal year 2011."

Read more at MarketWatch

India to Resist China-Pakistan Reactor Plan, Officials Assert

High-level Indian officials said their country would seek to halt China's bid to construct two new nuclear power reactors in Pakistan, the Times of India reported yesterday (see GSN, June 17).

The 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, of which China is a member, bans atomic trade with most countries that have not joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Beijing, though, has contended that constructing the new reactors at Pakistan's Chashma site would not violate its NSG commitments because it had built two reactors at the location before joining the organization.

India received the right in 2008 to import nuclear materials and technology from NSG member states even though New Delhi had not signed the nonproliferation treaty (see GSN, Sept. 8, 2008). Although Pakistan has only a minimal chance of winning a similar exemption, Indian government sources were concerned that NSG members could endorse Beijing's right to build additional reactors at the Chashma location, according to the Times of India.

“As far as we know, the pre-2004 pact accounted only for the Chashma 2 reactor and maybe some other research reactors. For several years, there was no mention of any further nuclear reactor to Pakistan by the Chinese. It’s only now, after India secured a clean waiver for nuclear commerce, that this entirely new deal has come up,” one official said.

India's lack of proliferation history distinguishes it from Pakistan, the source added (see GSN, May 28).

“We have to wait and see what happens. In case [a Pakistani nuclear trade] exemption is sought, an economic powerhouse like China can influence many nations into backing it. However, there can’t be an easy way out of this by allowing Beijing to grandfather the deal,” the official said (Sachin Parashar, Times of India, June 20).

"India is ... in touch with partners at the Nuclear Suppliers Group and [officials] have explained its position on the issue during the interactions at various levels and have expressed its reservation to Beijing at [the] diplomatic level," Asian News International quoted a government source as saying.

Pakistan's nuclear work should adhere to NSG and International Atomic Energy Agency rules, Indian officials added (Asian News International/Oneindia.com, June 20). Islamabad indicated Thursday that its nuclear trade with Beijing is strictly peaceful in nature and under IAEA monitoring, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported (Associated Press of Pakistan, June 17).

Top diplomats from involved countries could address the matter in a meeting on Thursday, officials suggested (Asian News International).

Read at Global Security

China to build 550 mental hospitals in response to school stabbings

China has announced that it will build 550 more mental hospitals over the next two years as it struggles to find a response to a wave of murders by mentally ill criminals

Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

Pupils hold a vigil at Nanping City Experimental Elementary School where eight children were stabbed to death Photo: REX FEATURES

 

Yin Li, the vice minister of Public Health, said China was determined to bolster its mental health care by building hundreds of new facilities.

He said improved treatment for mentally ill patients would reduce the chance of "social disturbances", including the "recent offences by mental patients in some areas" according to the state-owned China News website.

Earlier this year, China suffered a series of copycat attacks on kindergartens, with tens of children being stabbed to death by crazed knifemen. In some of the cases, including the killing of eight children on March 23 in Fujian province, the authorities determined that the attackers had been mentally unstable.

Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, said that China had to "pay attention to the deeper motives" that led to the attacks.

"China is undergoing a huge social transformation and consequently large numbers of mental patients are emerging because of various social problems," said Jiang Qianjin, a professor of psychology at Zhejiang University.

"From the point of view of maintaining stability, the new hospitals are definitely good news. There are a large number of poor and mentally-unstable people scattered around the country, but the hospitals have had poor facilities and treatment and the attention they were given was far from sufficient."

The Telegraph

India to ‘expose’ China-Pakistan N-deal

NEW DELHI: India will oppose all attempts by China to ‘grandfather’ two more nuclear reactors to its pre-2004 deal for civil nuclear cooperation with Pakistan. According to senior government officials, India may not be a member of the NSG, which is meeting in New Zealand next week, but it will diplomatically oppose such a move as it is a Chinese “afterthought and a knee-jerk reaction” to India’s nuclear deal with the US in 2008.

The China-Pakistan nuclear rendezvous is not officially on the NSG agenda, but Beijing is likely to make a statement on its decision to supply two more nuclear reactors to Islamabad during the session. While the US has expressed its reluctance to back such a deal between China and Pakistan, and it is highly unlikely that Pakistan will be able to get an India-like exemption, Indian officials believe there is an outside chance of NSG countries coming together to let Beijing grandfather its latest deal to the nuclear pact with Pakistan before 2004, when China was not a member of NSG.

For India, as an official put it, it is important to call this bluff. “As far as we know, the pre-2004 pact accounted only for the Chasmah 2 reactor and maybe some other research reactors. For several years, there was no mention of any further nuclear reactor to Pakistan by the Chinese. It’s only now, after India secured a clean waiver for nuclear commerce, that this entirely new deal has come up,” he said, adding that there is no question of drawing any parallel between India and Pakistan over the issue because of India’s immaculate non-proliferation record.

Read more at The Times of India

Is China Really Changing?

Investment banker Robert Lawrence Kuhn sees China moving toward democracy, a particularly Chinese form of democracy. Why devaluing the yuan makes sense. Big challenge: the largest planned migration in history.

ROBERT LAWRENCE KUHN, an international investment banker, corporate strategist and author, has spent much of the past two decades trying to understand how China's leaders think.

By his reckoning, he has visited that nation more than 100 times and interviewed hundreds of its top political figures, bureaucrats and technocrats.

In the past few years, he has been on a self-financed China Odyssey to some 40 cities in 20 provinces on the mainland. The result is How China's Leaders Think, a 546-page book published this year by Wiley, that looks at reforms taking place in today's China and what they mean for the U.S. and other countries.

The 65-year-old Kuhn has written or edited more than 25 books, including a 710-page biography of China's former president—The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin (Crown, 2005). It was the first biography of a living Chinese leader to be published on the mainland and a bestseller; more than 1.1 million copies of the Chinese translation were purchased.

A former investment banker and mergers and acquisitions specialist who sold his company to Citigroup in 2001 and a commentator on the government-owned China Central Television (CCTV) network, Kuhn is an advisor to BNP Paribas and counsels multinational corporations on their strategies, structures and relationships with China. A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, Kuhn also holds a Ph.D. in brain research from UCLA.

Barron's spoke by phone with the peripatetic Kuhn while he was in Shanghai. To learn his views on the world's most populous country, read on.

Barron's: You were educated as a brain scientist and have worked as an investment banker and merger specialist. How did you suddenly end up writing about Chinese politics?

Kuhn: It wasn't sudden. In early 1989, as an investment banker and a scientist, I was invited by China's State Science and Technology Commission to advise on reform. Then came the suppression of student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and I, like many foreigners, refused to return to China. But in the summer of 1990, I invited a Chinese government scientist to a conference I was co-chairing at UCLA on creativity in large organizations. During a break, several of us confronted him about Tiananmen and he said something remarkable. He agreed that China was moving backward, but he argued that it was more our fault than his, because by turning our backs on China, we in the West were abandoning domestic reformers. His appeal touched me and changed my life.

Read more at Barron's