REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

What does China want with south Texas? Hint: cleaner energy know-how

Drilling shale to capture oil and gas is a technology that China, which burns a lot of coal, is eager to learn. That's why it's a partner in a south Texas 'fracking' project.

Austin, Texas

Last month, China's thirst for energy came to American shores. On Oct. 11, the government-run China National Offshore Oil Corp. agreed to pay $2.2 billion for access to oil and gas assets in south Texas – marking China's first successful energy investment in the American market.

 

It's the latest recognition that south Texas – long overlooked by the US energy industry – is becoming an important frontier in what one official calls the "gold rush of the 21st century." A host of energy companies from Norway to India have already made deals in this sparse land of tall grass and Texas mulberry.

This region offers plentiful natural gas and oil locked in shale rock formations. But until recently they were difficult and expensive to tap. Since 2000, however, the United States has become a leader in fracturing these shale formations and collecting the trapped fossil fuels – a process called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking."

This is why China and other countries have invested nearly $5 billion this year in south Texas drilling projects. They're not looking to ship American natural resources back home, but to learn how to do hydraulic fracturing themselves.

It's a development that could have a major impact on global energy.

Read more at Christian Science Monitor

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's first domestic-made light civilian helicopter makes debut

An AC311 multi-purpose helicopter, developed and manufactured by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), is seen during its first test flight in Tianjin, north China, Nov. 8, 2010. The first light civilian helicopter developed and manufactured in China made its successful maiden flight on Monday. The two-tonne helicopter has a seating capacity of six and can be used for flight training, policing, communication command, aerial photography, medical aid, power line patrol, forest fire prevention and pest control. (Xinhua/Liu Haifeng   TIANJIN, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The first light civilian helicopter developed and manufactured in China made its successful maiden flight in northern port city of Tianjin Monday. The two-tonne AC311 helicopter, developed and manufactured by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), has a seating capacity of six and can be used for flight training, policing, communication command, aerial photography, medical aid, power line patrol, forest fire prevention and pest control. The aircraft was equipped with a fuel-efficient engine, a durable and flexible composite rotor system, and a highly integrated avionics system, said Wang Bin, general manager of Avicopter Corporation Limited, a joint venture between AVIC and the Tianjin municipal government. "Its technology and performance are close to the international advanced level. In terms of cost, it is about 10 to 15 percent less than similar products from other manufacturers," Wang said. "The AC311 helicopter will be sold wordwide. The first two have been purchased by police from Tianjin's Binhai New District and Guiyang (capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province)," he said. The AC311 helicopter is expected to obtain a type certificate from China's civil aviation authorities in October 2011 and go on the market in 2012, he said. "It is expected that the market demand for this type of helicopter will reach 500 in the next 10 years," he said. Read more at XINHUANET

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

Amazon's Kindle offers access to banned sites in China

Amazon's Kindle devices are selling in China because the e-reader allows users to log on to banned sites such as Twitter and Facebook, reports say.

The device bypasses the infamous Great Firewall, making it popular on the so-called grey market according to the South China Morning Post.

Officially the Kindle is not available in mainland China.

But a quick search of Chinese auction site Taobao reveals hundreds of them on offer.

Facebook dream

The device sells for between 1200 (£112) and 3500 (£327) yuan.

Chinese bloggers told the paper they were surprised to get access to sites banned by the Chinese authorities.

"I still can't believe it. I casually tried getting to Twitter and what a surprise, I got there,"

Read more at BBC

China’s online-video market goes legit

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — If there is one sector that has lived up to the China growth-story hype with truly big numbers, it is media and telecoms, with 450 million Web users, 800 million cell-phones users, and roughly 370 million TV households.

Last week, a couple of new numbers came to my attention which are also worth mulling over — 220 million unique Web visitors a month and 600 million smartphone users. The former comes from video Web site Tudou, and the latter is a forecast for the mainland Chinese market in 2015.

Of course, in equal doses with the hype around these eye-boggling figures has often been the disappointment for foreign companies seeking a meaningful piece of these industries. You can go through the biggest U.S. names in Hollywood, and the biggest telecom operators and vendors, and more recently Google /quotes/comstock/15*!goog/quotes/nls/goog (GOOG 613.10, -0.60, -0.10%)   — all have their own hard luck story to tell.

But will Apple /quotes/comstock/15*!aapl/quotes/nls/aapl (AAPL 303.29, +2.31, +0.77%)   buck the trend? Controlling the branded end-user market where the consumer makes the final choice has always trickier for the state to control — even in China.

Read more at MarketWatch

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

China Claims World's Fastest Supercomputer

The Tianhe-1A hits 2.507 petaflops, surpassing the Cray XT5 Jaguar of the U.S., but the official word will come from International Supercomputing Conference in Germany.

China has built what may be the world's fastest computer, a signal that the Chinese are ready to present a serious challenge to the U.S. as the dominant force in supercomputing.

The Tianhe-1A, unveiled Thursday, set a performance record of 2.507 petaflops, easily surpassing the current record holder, the Cray XT5 Jaguar. Whether the Chinese system is officially crowned the world's fastest computer will have to wait a couple of weeks, when the Top 500 list is scheduled to be released at the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany.

In the meantime, the stats for the Tianhe-1A make it appear to be the leader. The system, powered by 7,168 Nvidia Tesla M2050 GPUs and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs, speeded past Jaguar's 1.75 petaflops. The latter supercomputer, housed at the Oak Ridge, Tenn., National Laboratory, uses 224,162 Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices. A petaflops is equal to 1,000 trillion operations per second.

Read more at InformationWeek

China: Beijing in the running to take crown for wind turbines

When the world’s largest offshore wind farm, in the English Channel off Kent in south-east England, started producing power in September, it was a rare moment in the spotlight for the popular retirement destination. But it is likely soon to have to share its crown with somewhere more accustomed to grabbing headlines.

Next year, work begins on a plant in the waters off Jiangsu province in southern China which, like the Kent one, will boast a capacity of 300 megawatts. This marks a new turn in the story of China’s runaway windpower build-out: so far the country has only one offshore wind farm. But it has plenty of the terrestrial variety.

China’s appetite for wind power equipment more than doubled in each of the past four years and it is on course to beat its official target of 30 gigawatts installed wind power by 2020 this year and may surpass the US to have the world’s largest wind power capacity.

On optimistic assumptions, it could have 230GW by 2020, concluded an October report by the Global Wind Energy Council, Greenpeace, and the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.

The turbines towering over the windy northern reaches are only the most visible symptom of a centrally mandated push into greener energy. This began cranking up in 2006, when the Renewable Energy Law came into force, aiming to raise renewable energy’s share of total consumption to 15 per cent by 2020.

Internationally, China has come in for much criticism over its role in stalled talks about a climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto treaty. But, Thibaud Voita, a Beijing-based energy efficiency specialist with the Institute for Industrial Productivity, a non-profit organisation, says that observers should not conflate events on the global stage with the situation on the ground.

“China is making huge efforts to green its energy production and become more energy-efficient,” he says. “There is a strong commitment in the central government.”

Read more at Financial Times

China Lithium Technologies Unveils New Lithium Magic Cube Product Series at the China Import and Export Fair in Guangzho

NEW YORK and BEIJING, Oct 28, 2010 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) --

China Lithium Technologies Inc. (OTCBB: CLTT | PowerRating), a leading lithium-ion battery module, lithium-ion battery charger and lithium-ion battery management system manufacturer and distributor, today announced that on October 14-19 it participated in the annual Import and Export Exhibition in Guangzhou, the largest consumer products exhibition in China. The company unveiled its newly developed Lithium Magic Cube product series, which includes battery modules, battery management systems, and charging systems for lithium-ion batteries, all of which received high accolades at the event.

The Lithium Magic Cube product series includes a range of products with varying voltage and capacity. The 60Ah/80Ah products from the Lithium Magic Cube series can be used in electric automobiles through parallel connections. This technology makes it possible to seamlessly upgrade a battery system from lead-acid batteries to Lithium-ion batteries, and represents a major advancement in electronic vehicle technology. Additionally, the company's 10Ah and 20Ah products from the Lithium Magic Cube series weigh 1/3 of a comparable lead-acid battery and are becoming popular in electric bicycles and motorcycles.

Read more at Trading Markets

How The Internet Plays Key Role In China’s New Long March To Modernization

October 1 marks the 61st anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. For Chinese, 60 years represent one cycle in the Chinese calendar, which gives this 61st anniversary special significance.

For the first 30 years of the People’s Republic, China was dominated by Mao’s presence and his emphasis on politics and political movements at the expense of almost everything else. In the beginning, the political campaigns began as an inconvenience, but gradually became more extreme, culminating in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, which permanently scarred Chinese society in very profound ways. The next 30 years after Mao died were largely about bringing China up from poverty and healing those wounds.

The period from 1978 till today, from an economic development point of view, are a huge success. China has risen from beggar nation status to one of the world’s wealthiest if measured by cash reserves. The Chinese government speaks with a new confidence, which often comes across as worrying, especially to its neighbors in the region, such as Japan, India and the members of ASEAN. In the Chinese officially controlled media, there are endless reminders of how much the government has done to raise Chinese standards of living, and frequently vilifying any criticism of official policy. The official line is that everything will be fine if China continues on its current path of development.

The only problem is that no one in China really believes that continuing previous policy will work. Chinese, through their actions, have made it very clear that they want more than just a higher standard of living and economic growth. Frequently, they feel that they are victims of corrupt local officials who have abused their power to enrich themselves. Furthermore, the system does not have checks and balances through which people can make appeals for justice. Since all political, legislative and executive power is dominated by one institution which has 79 million members, there are no other channels for the average Chinese citizen.

Until now.

Read more at FORBES

How to Drive U.S. Clean-Energy Job Growth? Collaborate With China

Small homes are a part of the character of San Francisco. So when the owners of the largest residential lot in the city announced their plans to increase the footprint on their nearly one acre property, the neighbors went to battle.  Located in Monterey Heights, the "Asian Beverly Hills" of San Francisco, the home belongs to the Chinese Consulate, and is therefore afforded special protections by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.  The diplomatic mission could do as they pleased.  Still, they pursued a diplomatic solution to help appease their neighbors, and soon after began construction on a seven-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-sitting room and two-tearoom add-on to the compound. 

The neighbors didn't know that the expansion of the Consulate was only one sign of an increasingly close relationship between the city of San Francisco and China.  In particular, the city of San Francisco has been pursuing a thoughtful policy to recruit Chinese clean technology companies to headquarter themselves in the city.  San Francisco's approach stands in stark contrast to the tenor of many recent U.S. gestures towards China. 

An increasing number of voices in the U.S. are ratcheting up the rhetoric on China's domestic clean technology investments, in the hopes of creating a domestic groundswell for U.S. leadership.  New York Times columnist Tom Friedman writes, "[China] sees the future trends and is betting on them. Indeed, I suspect China is quietly laughing at us right now." Elizabeth Lynch, in Foreign Policy Digest, writes, "In today's globalized economy, rising powers like China are willing and readily able to capitalize on America's missed opportunities." Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has said that "there's no question that China is ignoring trade rules in order to cheat themselves into first place in the clean energy manufacturing race." 

Read more at The Atlantic

Nationwide holiday ups China's risk to Stuxnet

Computer hackers have warned that the week-long National Day holiday in China that began Friday could leave the country vulnerable to further attacks from Stuxnet, according to a report by news agency AFP.

The cyberworm, which may have been designed to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, has already hit millions of computers around the country, most of them industrial facilities.

"With the entire nation going on holiday from Friday, cybersecurity staff at large state-owned enterprises would be minimal," said China's biggest hacker group Chinese Honker Union. "So if they [cybercriminals] are up to something, they may very likely do it now."

In another report published by The H Security, it quoted Chinese media reports as saying that millions of PCs and close to 1,000 industrial facilities in the country have already been infected by Stuxnet.

However, an analyst at China Information Technology Security Evaluation Centre said no major damage had been observed.

The South China Morning Post reported that the Chinese government "plans to carry out a nationwide assessment of plants using Siemens software and examine whether contracts should continue to be awarded to Siemens in future."

The Stuxnet cyberworm is believed to target control systems made by the German industrial giant, which are used to manage water supplies, oil rigs and power plants. Security experts worry that such an attack may lead to malfunction of these critical systems, causing widespread fear and disaster.

Read more at ZD Net

Dell Plans Second Major China Operations Center in Chengdu

BEIJING—Dell Inc. said it will open its second major operations center in China in the western city of Chengdu, making it the latest foreign electronics maker to expand in China's hinterland as sales grow in the region and labor costs rise in the more-developed coastal areas.

The U.S.-based personal-computer maker said Thursday that its new center is intended to support rapid business growth in western China, which PC makers regard as a promising place to increase sales beyond the saturated markets of China's more-prosperous coasts. Dell, like other foreign PC makers in China, has struggled to increase its market share against homegrown leader Lenovo Group Ltd.

Dell's new operations center, which it expects to start operations in 2011, will have manufacturing, sales and services facilities and could eventually employ as many as 3,000 employees, the company said in a statement. It also said it will expand its existing operations center in the southeastern city of Xiamen by hiring as many as 500 new employees.

Dell estimated it will spend more than $100 billion over the next decade in China on facilities, employment, research and development and purchases from Chinese suppliers.

The company accounted for 9% of the 16.6 million PCs shipped in China in the second quarter, making it No. 2 in the China market behind Lenovo's 28.7% share, according to market researcher IDC. Third-place Hewlett-Packard Co. had an 8.2% share.

Rising wages and labor disputes in the coastal areas and government incentives aimed at funneling more investment to the country's interior have encouraged companies to expand westward. Recent strikes at factories producing cars and parts for Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. have highlighted local workers' demands for better pay and conditions.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

Yahoo rejects offer

Ms Bartz said on Wednesday the company had no plans to sell its stake in Alibaba, and that she would 'probably' join Alibaba's board later this year. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

SHANGHAI - CHINA'S e-commerce giant Alibaba Group said on Thursday it had offered to buy back part of a 39 per cent stake held by Yahoo but it had been rejected, as relations between the two companies deteriorate.

'We made an offer that included a partial sale and a specific plan to maximise the value of their remaining stake,' John Spelich, a spokesman for the Hong Kong-listed unit Alibaba.com, said in a statement.

'That offer was rejected and they countered with a very different proposal which we found unjustifiable and we terminated the discussions.' Alibaba Group sold the 39 per cent stake to Yahoo in 2005 in exchange for control of Yahoo's China operation and US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion).

The group also owns China's largest online consumer e-commerce site Taobao as well as wholesale platform Alibaba.com.

Mr Spelich said Alibaba was unaware that Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz was seeking a seat on the Chinese company's board.

Ms Bartz said on Wednesday the company had no plans to sell its stake in Alibaba, and that she would 'probably' join Alibaba's board later this year, when Yahoo gets a second Alibaba board seat under its 2005 agreement with the company, Dow Jones Newswires reported. -- AFP

The Straits Times

China Mobile Challenges Baidu With Plans for Online Search

China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou. Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg

China Mobile Ltd., the world’s biggest phone carrier by customers, plans to start an Internet- search engine next year, challenging Baidu Inc., as the slowing wireless market leads the company to data services for growth.

“Because the penetration rate of mobile phones in China is very high, it’s very normal that we have a growth slowdown,” China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou, 61, said in an interview yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China. “Many shareholders ask us ‘What will be your next source of growth?’ We think the next source of growth will be data.”

The move to enter a market led by Baidu may highlight the end of the type of growth that helped China Mobile’s revenue jump almost sevenfold and its market value trump those of AT&T Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc this decade. The operator joins carriers in the U.S., Europe and Japan in turning to data services to spur earnings as the Chinese phone market saturates.

“For China Mobile to get a meaningful contribution from new businesses, they really have to turn into big successes to make a difference, as the company is so big,” said Jim Tang, who rates the stock “neutral” at Shenyin Wanguo Securities in Shanghai. “China Mobile gets about 70 percent of its revenue from voice, and growth is completely flat there.”

Read more at Bloomberg

ID required for mobile phone users starting Wednesday

Telecommunication authorities are requiring millions of mobile phone users in China to register with their real names when subscribing to services starting Wednesday, in an attempt to increase monitoring and crack down cell phone-based crimes.

But the move has raised concerns over security of personal data, and it is feared the new regulations will complicate the subscription process.

Ji Jinkui, a senior official with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), confirmed to the Global Times Tuesday that all three telecommunication service providers - China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom - are required to start real-name registration for their new users beginning today. A specific plan for existing users is under discussion and is expected to take effect soon, Ji added.

Existing mobile phone users will be asked to register their real names with identity cards before 2013, or their numbers might be suspended, Chen Jinqiao, with the telecommunication economic expert committee at MIIT, told the Global Times Tuesday.

Prepaid SIM card buyers will also be asked to produce identity cards when making a purchase.

Read more at The Global Times

Lenovo Plans to Sell Video-Game Console in China

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Lenovo Group Ltd., China’s biggest maker of personal-computers, said it plans to sell a video-game console in the country by year-end as the company expands the range of its products for consumers.

Lenovo set up a venture, Beijing Eedoo Technology Ltd., this month to operate the game-console business, Jay Chen, a company spokesman in Beijing, said by phone today. Other investors in Eedoo include Legend Holdings Ltd., the controlling shareholder of Lenovo, he said.

The maker of Thinkpad laptops will enter a market where Nintendo Co. and Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. have struggled as Chinese players mainly subscribe to play games online on their PCs. Software piracy in the world’s second- biggest economy has also limited growth of the game-console industry, according to analyst Zhao Xufeng.

Read more at BusinessWeek

Iphone tanks in China

THE HOPE that Apple could flog its products in the massive Chinese market at the same high prices that it gets away with in western countries has proven fruitless.

All the way down the line, Jobs Mob has made mistakes in the Far East. First it teamed up with China Unicom, which is the also ran to the biggest player, China Mobile.

China Unicom understandably wasn't Steve Jobs' first choice but he also did not want to back down on pricing to get China Mobile on board. China Mobile's executives apparently listened to what Jobs told them they had to pay him and politely told him to go forth and multiply in the best ancient Chinese tradition.

China Mobile instead launched a bunch of Android smartphones and is laughing all the way to the bank. It reported a better-than-expected 6.8 per cent increase in profits for the quarter, earning $4.7 billion.

Apple had hoped that its magic would work at Unicom, which did what it was told and gave Steve Jobs all he wanted.

Dispite some small sales of the Iphone in China, the product tanked and Unicom reported a staggering 54 per cent fall off in profits for the second quarter, with earnings of only $205 million.

Read more at theInquirer

Google Voice Offers Free Calls

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - Google, already known for its free e-mail service and a long list of other features, has now added free voice calls.

Google added the feature on Wednesday to Gmail, putting it in direct competition with the popular Skype software application that lets users make voice calls over the Internet and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services.

The service adds a plugin that lets users launch a dial-pad from their Gmail account. The Google Voice Blog instructs users to click the call phone link in Gmail and enter any number or name from their address book to use it.

To receive voice calls, users can click the box next to Google Chat in their list of forwarding phones. The blog said if someone calls the Google Voice number, Gmail will notify the user of an incoming call and let the user take the call or listen as the caller leaves a message.

Calls from Gmail will display the Google Voice phone number. Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free through at least the rest of 2010 while international calls will be charged the same as users already using the Google Voice phone management system. Rates start at 2 cents per minute for calls to the UK, China, France and Germany

Read more at FOX

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

US to supply Taiwan radar equipment for air defense system and fighter jets

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - The United States said it will supply radar equipment to Taiwan's air force, an approval of a relatively marginal item less likely to anger China than the F-16 fighter jets the island's president urged Washington to provide last week.

U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said Tuesday that the U.S. sale includes "defense services, technical data, and defense articles" for Taiwan's air defense system, and radar equipment for the island's Indigenous Defense Fighter jets.

Crowley did not put a monetary figure on the deal or identify the American companies involved.

The U.S. is obligated by law to provide Taiwan defensive weapons.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry did not comment immediately on the transaction, but the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, a private advocacy group based in suburban Washington, called it "a small move."

Read more at Canadian Business

Shanda Prepares for Wide Release of E-reader in China

Shanda Literature, one of China's largest online publishers, will be releasing its Bambook e-reader to the Chinese public on Sept. 28, just weeks after the company completed a trial sale of the new device.

Earlier this month, the company finished an "internal test" sale of the device, releasing a total of 3,500 Bambooks to invited users. Now Shanda Literature is preparing for a wider release of the e-reader after seeing the device's initial success among customers, said company spokeswoman Wang Jing.

The e-reader has a 6-inch, 800-by-600 pixel display, Wi-Fi and 3G connections, and a battery that can keep the e-reader on standby for 24 days on a single charge. But one of the e-reader's main selling points has been its low price, now marked at 999 renminbi (US$147). Users can already reserve one through the Bambook website.

By releasing its Bambook, Shanda has sought to strengthen the still-developing e-reader market in China, as well as leverage its already vast e-book library of 3 million titles, Wang said.

Read more at PC World

 

UPDATE: China, South Africa Sign Deals To Deepen Ties In Resources, Energy

BEIJING (Dow Jones)--China and South Africa on Tuesday signed a raft of commercial deals in mining, finance, nuclear energy and other sectors during a visit by South African President Jacob Zuma, as Beijing strengthens its commercial ties with Africa's largest economy.

The list of more than 10 deals, the total value of which wasn't announced, reflects China's focus on expanding its resources and energy reach in South Africa to fuel continued growth of China's booming economy, which is on pace to surpass Japan's this year as the second largest after the U.S. China's demand for resources has lent great support to South Africa's economy as well as its currency, the rand, in recent years.

Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said Beijing will encourage domestic companies to invest in South Africa's mining and resources sectors as well as higher value-added sectors. But senior South African officials also indicated some discontent with the trade relationship. They called on China not to focus exclusively on investing in raw materials and other "primary goods," and to buy more value-added goods from South Africa to help promote more balanced trade.

"We want to work together with China to try to address that so we have a more equitable balance of trade, in terms of the composition of trade as well as in terms of the actual value," South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said at a briefing.

Davies also said South Africa sees China as something of a model for its currency policy. China's defense of its competitive currency as part of its industrial development is a "lesson" for South Africa, he said, adding that the rand is too volatile. There is a consensus that South Africa needs a more competitive and stable currency, Davies said, but the rand "has appreciated too much" in the wake of Europe's debt crises this year and the government isn't hoping to see a further appreciation.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal