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Snuffysmith
Jan 26 2009, 12:40 PM
China

Snuffysmith
Jan 27 2009, 10:15 AM
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Jan 28 2009, 07:45 AM
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Jan 28 2009, 07:51 AM
Snuffysmith
Jan 28 2009, 01:50 PM
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/de...nnel012009.html

Hyperinflation Will begin In China And It Will Destroy The Dollar
Snuffysmith
Jan 29 2009, 07:31 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 2 2009, 08:50 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 3 2009, 09:23 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 3 2009, 09:27 AM
From the Federation of American Scientists:

(If the formatting prevents you from seeing pictures or graphs, please visit: http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/02/patrols.php)

Chinese attack submarines sailed on more patrols in 2008 than ever before, according to information obtained by Federation of American Scientists from U.S. naval intelligence.

The information, which was declassified by U.S. naval intelligence in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists, shows that China’s fleet of more than 50 attack submarines conducted 12 patrols in 2008, twice the number of patrols conducted in 2007.

China’s strategic ballistic missile submarines have never conducted a deterrent patrol.

Highest Patrol Rate Ever

The 12 patrols conducted in 2008 constitute the highest patrol rater ever for the Chinese submarine fleet. They follow seven patrols conducted in 2007, two in 2006, and zero in 2005. China has four times refrained from conducting submarine patrols since 1981, and the previous peaks were six patrols conducted in 2000 and 2007 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1:
Chinese Submarine Patrols 1981-2008

Chinese attack submarines conducted 12 patrols in 2008, double the number from 2007. Yet Chinese ballistic missile submarines have yet to conduct a deterrent patrol.
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While the increase is submarine patrols is important, it has to be seen in comparison with the size of the Chinese submarine fleet. With approximately 54 submarines, the patrol rate means that each submarine on average goes on patrol once every four and a half years. In reality, the patrols might have been carried out by only a small portion of the fleet, perhaps the most modern and capable types. A new class of nuclear-powered Shang-class (Type-093) attack submarines is replacing the aging Han-class (Type-091).

Few of the details for assessing the implications of the increased patrol rate are known, nor is it known precisely what constitutes a patrol in order for U.S. naval intelligence to count it. A request for the definition has been denied. It is assumed that a patrol in this case involves an extended voyage far enough from the submarine’s base to be different from a brief training exercise.

In comparison with other major navies, twelve patrols are not much. The patrol rate of the U.S. attack submarine fleet, which is focused on long-range patrols and probably operate regularly near the Chinese coast, is much higher with each submarine conducting at least one extended patrol per year. But the Chinese patrol rate is higher than that of the Russian navy, which in 2008 conducted only seven attack submarine patrols, the same as in 2007.

Still no SSBN Patrols

The declassified information also shows that China has yet to send one of its strategic submarines on patrol. The old Xia, China’s first SSBN, completed a multi-year overhaul in late-2007 but did not patrol in 2008.

Neither the Xia-class (Type-092) ballistic missile submarine (image) nor the new Jin-class (Type-094) have ever conducted a deterrent patrol.
.

The first of China’s new Jin-class (Type-094) SSBN was spotted in February 2008 at the relatively new base on Hainan Island, where a new submarine demagnetization facility has been constructed. But the submarine did not conduct a patrol the remainder of the year. A JL-2 missile was test launched Bohai Bay in May 2008, but it is yet unclear from what platform.

Two or three more Jin-class subs are under construction at the Huludao (Bohai) Shipyard, and the Pentagon projects that up to five might be built. How these submarines will be operated as a “counter-attack” deterrent remains to be seen, but they will be starting from scratch.


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Snuffysmith
Feb 4 2009, 07:45 AM
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Feb 5 2009, 07:49 AM
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Feb 6 2009, 08:07 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 6 2009, 09:15 AM

Beijing rocked by 26 million lost jobs An estimated 26 million poor rural Chinese are now without jobs after pinning their hopes on the once-booming manufacturing sector, where work has dried up due to the global economic slowdown, a government advisory body said. The Independent
Snuffysmith
Feb 6 2009, 02:32 PM

China may be centre of next Great Depression
Irish Times - Dublin,Ireland
The notion that the emerging economies of the Far East could withstand an economic recession in the western world was built primarily on the dubious logic ...
Snuffysmith
Feb 9 2009, 07:43 AM
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Feb 10 2009, 09:07 AM
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Feb 11 2009, 07:58 AM
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Feb 12 2009, 08:52 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 12 2009, 10:25 PM
Chinese president heads to Africa for whistle-stop tour
Bamako (AFP) Feb 12, 2009 - Chinese president Hu Jintao was set to arrive in Mali Thursday, the first stop in his whirlwind tour of four African countries, as Beijing stressed its interest in Africa goes beyond the purely economic. Hu is scheduled to visit Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius as part of his first overseas trip in 2009. Beijing is often criticised for its alleged drive to secure natural resources from ... more

economy
+ China to boost shipbuilding sector: state media
Beijing (AFP) Feb 11, 2009 - China said on Wednesday it would take policy steps to boost demand for domestically produced ships and financial support for the industry to help it weather the global economic downturn. However, neither the government nor the country's state-controlled media mentioned specific policy measures planned under the "stimulus package". The announcement follows recent moves to help the textile ... more

economy
+ China's returning migrants: Strangers in a strange land
Zhugao, China (AFP) Feb 12, 2009 - With his Phoenix Suns windbreaker and a trendy hairdo that blasts off to one side of his head, Liu Tong appears totally out of place in the backward Chinese farming town he is forced to call home. No one knows it more than Liu, 22, a migrant worker from Zhugao in rural Sichuan province who is struggling to readjust to life here after getting laid off from a factory job on China's vastly more ... more

gas
+ Chinese presence felt on the streets of Dakar
Dakar (AFP) Feb 12, 2009 - Rows of adjoining Chinese shops line Dakar's General de Gaulle boulevard, this is the face of Chinese presence in Senegal which is growing each year. Chinese New Yorker George Qian lives part of the year in the Senegalese capital "for business". He is supervising the construction of five new stores on the boulevard that will be rented out to Chinese shopkeepers. "The Chinese are here to ... more

trade
+ China Jan exports fall sharpest in over a decade: govt
Beijing (AFP) Feb 11, 2009 - China's exports fell by the steepest margin in more than a decade in January, the government said Wednesday, as the global crisis combined with a major holiday to hit overseas shipments. Last month's exports totalled 90.5 billion dollars, down 17.5 percent from the same month a year ago, customs authorities reported. "Such a steep fall in exports is very rare historically," said Su Chang ... more
Snuffysmith
Feb 15 2009, 09:47 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 17 2009, 11:12 AM
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Feb 18 2009, 10:04 AM
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Feb 19 2009, 07:31 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 19 2009, 07:06 PM
A bit of background relevant to the 20-year, $25 billion Sino-Russian deal reported yesterday. A similar Chinese deal is said to be in the works with Brazil.

China to use forex reserves to acquire energy assets
17 February 2009
China, which replaced Japan as the second-largest oil consumer after the US in 2003, is mulling utilising its huge foreign exchange reserves to create a fund for its state-owned oil companies for overseas energy exploration and acquisitions. The Chinese government floated this idea at the recent National Energy Work Conference that looked into the country's three-year energy plan aimed at boosting its oil and gas output.

Armed with a massive $1.85-trillion foreign exchange reserves, China will make available ample funds at low interest rates to its state-owned oil companies to spend on overseas energy assets by either investing in, or acquiring foreign energy firms.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the country's largest oil producer posted this news on its website, though with few details on the size of fund or when it is expected be set up.

China is currently the third-biggest importer of oil, as its strong economic development has made the country into a giant consumer and importer of oil. Since 1993, China has become an oil importing country and the decreasing domestic oil production has since driven the three big state-owned oil companies into acquiring assets overseas. Analysts say that China is making a strategic move in exploiting the current global economic slowdown to create a fund to acquire energy assets at possibly rock bottom prices, more so since the price of oil has hit rock bottom from last July's highs of $147 a barrel seen in July to the current $40 a barrel.

In 2007, China produced 3.74 million barrels of crude oil per day while it imported 3.26 million barrels of oil, 12.3 per cent higher than in 2006. While domestic production remains flat, fast growth in imports increased China's dependence on imported crude oil from 19.3 per cent in 1999 to 47.1 per cent in 2007.

Currently, CNPC is China's biggest oil producer and the Sinopec Group is China's largest refiner. CNPC accounts for more than 65 per cent of the total crude oil production.

China wants to increase it crude production by 1.2 per cent to 192 million tons and targets its output to reach 198 million tons in 2011 while it wants its gas output to reach 86 billion cubic metres and aims to increase its gas production to 120 billion cubic metres by 2011.

Heilongjiang province in the Northeast, is the largest crude oil producing province and accounted for 23.5 per cent of China's total oil production in 2006, its production reached 317 million barrels, but production has decreased substantially after a few decades of exploitation.

Other oil production provinces are Shandong, Xinjiang, Shaanxi while Tianjing has mainly offshore oil exploration platforms.

Since the Western region of China has huge natural gas resources, it had built a 4000 km gas pipeline called the ''West-East Gas Pipeline'' that stretches from Lunnan in the West to Shanghai in the East.

It has begun constructing a second West-East pipeline, which will have a capacity to transport 30 bcm of gas per year from central Asia and is expected to be completed by 2010 and it will also build pipelines to import oil and gas from Myanmar before the end of 2011.

In is also looking at liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an alternative energy resource and it had built a huge LNG terminal in Guangdong in 2007.

Currently, there are more than ten LNG projects that are in the construction or planning stages with Qingdao, Ningbao, Tangshan and Zhuhai among them.


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Snuffysmith
Feb 20 2009, 09:20 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 21 2009, 12:51 AM
China, taking advantage of global recession, goes on a buying spree
China's government is bargain-hunting internationally as the financial crisis pushes down prices of energy resources and assets.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the February 21, 2009 edition

Beijing - General Motors is doing it. The world's second-largest mining group is doing it. Russia, Brazil and Venezuela are doing it. And China is loving it.

Squeezed between falling profits and the credit crunch, a growing number of troubled corporations and countries are turning to cash-rich China for a bailout. And with foreign assets cheaper than they have been for years, Beijing is going on an international spending spree.

"The international financial crisis ... is equally a challenge and an opportunity," China's energy czar, Zhang Guobao, wrote recently in the official newspaper People's Daily. "The slowdown ... has reduced the price of international energy resources and assets and favors our search for overseas resources."

So far, the government has concentrated on natural-resource deals, securing supplies of oil and minerals in return for large amounts of cash. But private Chinese firms are also taking advantage of the crisis in other sectors: Diesel-engine giant Weichai Power is expected to buy a French plant that GM is selling off in its struggle to survive.

Though the Chinese economy has also been hit by the crisis, cutting growth by almost half, "what sets China apart is that Chinese banks have not been so badly hurt, and the policy banks still seem ready to lend" in support of key government objectives, says Erika Downs, a China energy specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

The China Development Bank, for example, is financing China's biggest-ever foreign investment – a $19.5 billion bid by the mostly state-owned Aluminum Corp. of China for an 18 percent slice of Rio Tinto. The Australian mining company desperately needs the cash in order to pay off $19 billion in debt over the next two years.

That deal, still to be approved by Australian regulators, is seen here as a pathfinder. "It illustrates Chinese state business's strong capacity ... and gathered experience for state-owned firms to operate abroad in the future," explained an article published earlier this month in People's Daily.

Other recent multibillion-dollar deals include the purchase by China Petrochemical Corp., the country's second-largest oil producer, of Canada's Tanganyika Oil, which works in Syria, and the bid that China Minmetals has made for OZ Minerals, an Australian zinc producer on the verge of bankruptcy.

"The amount of money coming out of Beijing suggests they are confident that we are at the bottom of the market," says Paul Cavey, an analyst with Macquarie Bank. And with China's trade surplus still wide, since imports have fallen even faster than exports, "they still have a lot of money to play with," he adds.

Last week the Chinese government sank $39 billion of that money in three separate deals to secure future oil supplies from Russia, Brazil, and Venezuela.

A $25 billion loan to Russia, whose economy is reeling from plummeting oil prices, won a promise to supply 290,000 barrels per day for the next quarter-century and to build a pipeline into China.

"The slowdown in the Russian economy, declining crude prices, and production and the credit crunch have lent the Chinese far better bargaining power," wrote Gordon Kwan, head of China energy research at CLSA brokerage, in a research note last week.

A $10 billion loan to Brazil, announced during a visit to the country by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, secured a similar pledge to provide up to 160,000 barrels of crude a day, while Mr. Xi also signed a deal with Venezuela for up to 1 million barrels per day by 2015 in return for another $4 billion from China to top up an existing development fund.

"More than anything else, China always wants security of resources going into the future," says Mr. Cavey. The crisis, and falling asset prices, "open up a significant part of the world," he adds. "China will think of investing pretty much anywhere there are resources, not just the places that other countries don't want to go."

Few expect Beijing to invest in the troubled financial sector, however, despite the hopes some foreign banks have harbored of attracting Chinese money. "Natural resources are so strategic for a country, they can justify investments there, but they can't justify another financial sector deal," says Andy Xie, an independent economist.

China's sovereign wealth fund has lost between half and two-thirds of investments it made over the past two years in Morgan Stanley, Blackstone, and Barclays, Mr. Xie points out.

As China begins to move again on the international scene, taking advantage of low prices, it remains to be seen how much political resistance its bids will provoke.

In 2005, political pressure in Washington forced China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) to withdraw its bid for the US oil firm Unocal, even though the Chinese firm offered more money than its rival, Chevron.

"The situation is so bad that there is a desperation now to get money," says Cavey. "But it will still be a difficult political balance to strike" for the state-owned firms that are expected to be most active abroad.

Especially touchy will be the question of state assistance for Chinese firms, potentially giving them an advantage over Western competitors. The China National Petroleum Corp.'s website last week carried a report on the government's yet-unpublished oil and gas development plan, which suggested such assistance is foreseen.

"China will encourage enterprises to develop the exploration and acquisition of overseas resources and will offer low-interest loans and preferential lending rates for major overseas energy investment projects," the report said.

"With low oil prices, we may see Chinese banks playing a bigger role" in funding acquisitions, says Dr. Downs at Brookings. "And if it is known that Chinese companies are getting money from state banks at low interest rates, we will see concern that this support creates a playing field that is not level."
Snuffysmith
Feb 21 2009, 08:29 AM
Asia's 10 Most Profitable Companies by David Hunkar
Snuffysmith
Feb 22 2009, 08:31 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 24 2009, 09:19 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 25 2009, 09:23 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 26 2009, 07:27 AM
Snuffysmith
Feb 27 2009, 08:28 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 1 2009, 05:39 PM
Snuffysmith
Mar 2 2009, 10:33 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 4 2009, 07:34 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 5 2009, 08:18 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 5 2009, 03:37 PM
US Dollar Shines in a Depression as China buys Metals - 5th Mar 09
Snuffysmith
Mar 6 2009, 09:52 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 6 2009, 01:38 PM
Most Chinese Economists Favor Gold Over US Treasuries for Their National Reserves
Barbarously inconvenient to the global dollar hegemon.

Time for another announcement of an IMF gold sale? Sounds as though China would like to know when they will be able to take delivery.

Zimbabwe Ben will simply have to pick up the slack.

In all seriousness, if China starts pressing this issue the US will have no choice but engage in the long overdue revaluation of its national gold reserves significantly higher. This would be one method of reducing the national debt to China and buying back some of the Treasury bonds.

Unfortunately in this case 'higher' would be a factor of x5 at least, or as high as an order of magnitude, x10.

Perhaps the Chinese would settle for an option on West Texas, if Mexico is not interested.

And the angel shouted, "Fallen! Powerful Babylon has fallen..." Revelation 18:2


ChinaStakes
Survey: Over Two-Thirds of Chinese Economists Favor Gold Over US Bonds
by CSC staff, Shanghai
March 02,2009

In a survey of major Chinese economists, more than two-thirds are reportedly bearish on the prospect of China increasing its holdings of US government bonds, and believe instead the nation should putting more of its hard-earned into gold.

According to a China Business News survey of 70 Chinese economists (including one foreign economist), the exact figure is 71.4% anti-bonds and pro-gold.

The use of China's huge foreign exchange reserve is a topic of concern and controversy. The remaining 28.6% of those polled believe China should continue to buy U.S. Treasury bonds. 38.6% think that China should not continue to buy, but also should not to sell US bonds. 32.8% believe that China should unload the bonds, 22.8% of whom think we should have a slight sell-off, while 10% think China should drop them like a bad habit.

All this is against a backdrop of China surpassing Japan to become America's largest US bond holder and of the ever-widening global financial kerfuffle.

The survey also brings to light the question of whether China's gold reserves should be increased. Recent gold futures prices broke through US$1000/ounce, making gold the most outstanding asset in the financial turmoil. One economist thinks China's current gold reserve of 600 tons is an unnecessary load and that the opportunity should be grasped to sell off a bunch of it at a good price.

21.4% of economists said that the gold reserve level was fine and leave it alone.

But 75.7% of the economists asked believe that China should increase its holdings of gold, with 48.6% opting for a slight increase while 27.1% think China should pile in.

At US$1000 an ounce?!
Snuffysmith
Mar 8 2009, 09:17 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 9 2009, 09:50 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 10 2009, 07:17 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 10 2009, 10:27 AM
With China we trade
President Barack Obama, in making Beijing a priority destination for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was following advice and interest dating back to George Washington and the Founding Fathers. Even in its earliest and most fragile days as a nation, the United States turned to China as a lifeline of trade. - Dave Wang
Snuffysmith
Mar 11 2009, 07:50 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 12 2009, 08:32 AM
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Mar 13 2009, 09:30 AM
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Mar 16 2009, 08:35 AM
Snuffysmith
Mar 17 2009, 12:56 PM
Snuffysmith
Mar 17 2009, 01:00 PM
Aided by Financial Crisis, China Snaps Up Natural Resources Worldwide
Snuffysmith
Mar 18 2009, 09:22 AM
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