The train is part of an initiative by Chinese leader Xi Jinping
China launched its first freight train to London on Sunday, according to the China Railway Corporation.
The train will travel from Yiwu West Railway Station in Zhejiang Province, Eastern China to Barking, London, taking 18 days to travel over 7,400 miles. Continue reading
CHINESE authorities are clamping down on underground churches and threatening to “transform the thoughts” of Christians who do not comply.
The communist party strictly monitors religion with Christians expected to attend state-approved churches.
But unverified reports found on Chinese social media show a wave of underground churches have begun to thrive as Christians turn their back on the China Christian Council. Continue reading
Russian software security giant Kaspersky Lab has formed a strategic partnership with a Chinese state-own company as Beijing and Moscow work more closely in policing their cyberspace.
The deal was signed on Wednesday at one of the panel meetings of China’s second World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. Continue reading
Last week IHS Jane’s reported that satellite images from October 2014 show that China is building a heliport with 10 landing pads and wind turbines on Nanji Island, which is one of 52 islands on an archipelago that is part of Zhejiang province. Nanji Islands is only 300 km from the disputed Senkaku Islands. By contrast, Okinawa— which hosts major U.S. and Japanese military bases— are 400 km away from the disputed islands. Continue reading
After commissioning three Type 052C guided-missile destroyers — Changchun, Zhengzhou and Jinan — between 2013 and 2014, a destroyer division of the PLA Navy’s East Sea Fleet based in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province is expected to soon get its fourth destroyer, Xian, equipped with the Zhonghuashendun system also known as the Chinese Aegis.
These Chinese ‘geologists’ could also very likely be understating the true significance and size of the deposits. The state-run oil companies do the bidding of the CCP. Today’s CCP is still rooted in ancient Chinese history and follows the philosophy of Sun Tzu, therefore appearing weak when strong, and applying this method to any given situation. The territory dispute is another story. However, in hindsight, the Chinese wouldn’t be trying so hard to acquire this field given the fact that the deposit size will only contribute a fraction of the gas output they need.
BEIJING: Chinese state-run oil companies hope to develop seven new gas fields in the East China Sea, possibly siphoning gas from the seabed beneath waters claimed by Japan, a move that could further inflame tensions with Tokyo over the disputed area.
Beijing had slowed exploration in the energy-rich East China Sea, one of Asia’s biggest security risks due to competing territorial claims, but is now rapidly expanding its hunt for gas, a cheaper and cleaner energy to coal and oil imports. Continue reading
HANGZHOU – A Chinese-developed next-generation stealth frigate was commissioned to the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) on Tuesday.
The country’s first “type 056” stealth frigate, formerly known simply as ship 582, was renamed Bengbu at a commission ceremony held in a naval port in Zhoushan, a coastal city in East China’s Zhejiang province. Continue reading
And it wasn’t just in Fujian province. These military vehicles were spotted further up the coast, in neighboring Zhejiang province. According to dissident website, molihua.org, these tanks in Hubei province are being transported from a military base to the coast.
The troop movements come after months of escalating tensions between China and Japan over the disputed territory of the Diaoyun, or Senkaku islands and they’re known in Japan. It’s caused international worries that the two countries may be on the cusp of war. Both sides have scrambled jets and warships in the region. In January, during naval exercise near the disputed waters, Chinese warships reportedly directed their targeting radar at a Japanese vessel. Continue reading
Something to keep an eye on in Red China is the reaction of an already supressed population under Communism. The suicide bombing is a new phenomenon that could also become the norm when the opressive clamp of a dictatorship on every facet of day-to-day life is tightened even more.
This much is known: last Thursday, at the start of business hours in Qiaojia county, in the remote northeastern corner of China’s Yunnan province, someone walked to the front door of a local government office and blew themself up.
The other facts of the case – such as who the bomber was and why they did it – remain hotly disputed a week after the bombing, which shocked China and left four people dead and 16 others injured.
As the official story shifts, and new bombers and motives are found, the already battered reputation of China’s justice system is emerging as another casualty. Some blame it some for causing the sense of desperation that inspired the bombing in Qiaojia. Others accuse it subsequently of trying and failing to cover up what really happened there.
Initial news reports distributed over the official Xinhua newswire were tragic to read. Quoting from local newspapers that had spoken to eyewitnesses, Xinhua reported that a woman had detonated the explosives outside the office, which was handling compensation payments for local residents whose homes were slated for demolition. Other reports, quoting local villagers, suggested the woman’s home was about to be knocked down to make way for a hydroelectric power station. Some said she had a 15-month-old baby strapped to her when the bomb went off.
The worst part about the story was that it was believable. Suicide bombings are very rare in China, but if there’s anything that might drive a Chinese citizen to such a rash action, it could be the relentless effort of local governments to force poorer citizens out of their homes and land so the property can be used for other purposes. Forced evictions have bred a string of appalling stories in China in recent years, including that of a 70-year-old grandmother beaten and then buried alive by bulldozers in 2010 after she refused leave her home that had been slated for demolition.
China’s justice system favours the rich and the connected, meaning acts of desperation are sometimes all that’s left. On May 4, a man in another land dispute set his motorcycle on fire outside the same office in Qiaojia where the bombing occurred six days later. Last month, police there beat another man to death for opposing the demolition of his home.
A suicide bombing, however, was a new level, one that risked setting a dangerous new precedent for such disputes.
As a result, many in China smelled a diversion when the Yunnan government declared the day after the bombing that the initial reports had been wrong. The suicide bomber, they said, was not a woman carrying a child, but another of the four people killed in the blast, a 26-year-old man named Zhao Dengyong, a motorcycle-taxi driver who had no known dispute with the property office. Producing angry quotes from messages Mr. Zhao had allegedly sent to a friend via an online service, police said the bombing had been the work of someone who had been angry at society as a whole, not the local government.
“Society has become so much crueler, it is pressing me to revolt. I do not know how many people I will kill if I become really sick of my current situation,” read the police transcript of Mr. Zhao’s alleged conversation in 2009.
By Monday, the head of Yunnan’s Public Security Bureau, Yang Chaobang was publicly declaring the case closed, even though police had yet to identify even what type of explosive had been used in the blast. “I will stake my reputation and career on it: Zhao Dengyong is the suspect in the case,” Mr. Yang told a press conference. “As to whether there were other people involved, police are still investigating.”
And that’s when many Chinese, including someone within the justice system, began to question what was going on in Yunnan. “As a legal professional, this kind of talk should either seldom be spoken, or not spoken at all,” someone wrote in a public response to Mr. Yang, using the official Weibo (a Chinese Twitter-like service) account of the prosecutor’s office in the city of Shaoxing, in faraway Zhejiang province. “Proving whether or not someone is guilty of a crime depends of proof. A question: Can your reputation and future be used as proof?”
Full article: Mysterious suicide bomb raises suspicion in China (The Globe & Mail)
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