Saudi Arabia And China Team Up To Build A Gigantic New Oil Refinery - Is This The Beginning Of The End For The Petrodollar?
The Economic Collapse blog
by Michael T. Snyder, Esq.
March 22, 2012

The largest oil exporter in the Middle East has teamed up with the second largest consumer of oil in the world (China) to build a gigantic new oil refinery and the mainstream media in the United States has barely even noticed it.  This mammoth new refinery is scheduled to be fully operational in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu by 2014.  Over the past several years, China has sought to aggressively expand trade with Saudi Arabia, and China now actually imports more oil from Saudi Arabia than the United States does.  In February, China imported 1.39 million barrels of oil per day from Saudi Arabia.  That was 39 percent higher than last February.  So why is this important?  Well, back in 1973 the United States and Saudi Arabia agreed that all oil sold by Saudi Arabia would be denominated in U.S. dollars.  This petrodollar system was adopted by almost the entire world and it has had great benefits for the U.S. economy.  But if China becomes Saudi Arabia's most important trading partner, then why should Saudi Arabia continue to only sell oil in U.S. dollars?  And if the petrodollar system collapses, what is that going to mean for the U.S. economy? Read more here

What to do About Apple and Fraud Friendly Manufacturing in China?
Naked Capitalism
Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Former banking regulator and white collar criminologist Bill Black gives an unvarnished view of the behavior of Apple and other technology companies in dealing with suppliers in China. He does not buy the idea that the US is powerless to do anything about work condition in China and provides some concrete suggestions. Watch on YouTube

Foxconn to rely more on robots; could use 1 million in 3 years
Reuters
By Lee Chyen Yee

and Clare Jim
August 1, 2011


(Reuters) - Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, known for assembling Apple's iPhones and iPads in China, plans to use more robots, with one report saying the company will use one million of them in the next three years, to cope with rising labor costs.

Foxconn's move highlights an increasing trend toward automation among Chinese companies as labor issues such as high-profile strikes and workers' suicides plague firms in sectors from autos to technology.

Contract manufacturers such as Foxconn, which also counts Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Nokia among its clients, are moving parts of their manufacturing to inland Chinese cities or other emerging markets.

They are also boosting research and development investments to lift their thin margins.
"Workers' wages are increasing so quickly that some companies can't take it longer," said Dan Bin, a fund manager at Shenzhen-based Eastern Bay Investment Management, which invests in technology and consumer-related shares in China and Hong Kong.

"Automation is a general trend in many sectors in China, such as electronics. Of course some companies will consider moving their manufacturing overseas, but it's easier said than done when the supply chain is here."

Foxconn, whose listed units include Hon Hai Precision and Foxconn International Holdings Ltd, issued a statement later saying Gou told staff at its campus in Longhua, China, that he planned to move its more than 1 million employees up the value chain beyond basic manufacturing work.

STRIKES, SUICIDES

Foxconn, which has been plagued by a spate of workers' suicides in its Chinese factories since last year, plans to use the robots for simple assembly line procedures, the statement quoted its chairman Gou as saying.

Since last year, China has been struck by a series of labor-related issues, such as high-profile strikes and suicide cases at well-known companies as heady economic growth fueled the need for wage increases.

In southern China, auto and parts factories owned by Japan's Honda Motor and Toyota Motor went on strike.

"Rising salary costs should be the key reason why Foxconn is doing this. This year's wage increase has been quite significant and I don't expect the pace to slow down next year," said C.K. Lu, a Taipei-based senior analyst at research firm Gartner.

"If they don't do this, they will have to move their factories elsewhere."

At Foxconn, a worker fell to his death last month at a manufacturing plant in southern China, local media reported.

The worker's death was the latest in a series of apparent suicides by young migrant workers at its factory complexes in the past two years.

Foxconn employs about 1.2 million workers, one million of which are based in mainland China, the China Business News said.

"The use of automation is driven by Foxconn's desire to move workers from more routine tasks to more value-added positions in manufacturing such as R&D, innovation and other areas that are equally important to the success of our operations," Foxconn said.

Foxconn plans to buy a set-top plant in Mexico from Cisco Systems and is looking into investing more in Brazil, where it is already making mobile phone handsets.

It has bought LCD TV plants from Japan's Sony Corp in Mexico in 2009 and Slovakia in 2010 and is in cooperation talks with a number of top Japanese hi-tech firms, including Sharp, Canon and Hitachi.

On Monday, Hon Hai Precision's Taiwan shares rise 3.3 percent, while Foxconn's cellphone maker unit Foxconn International's Hong Kong shares ended up 4.3 percent.
Shares of another of the group's unit, Foxonn Technology Holdings Ltd, which mainly makes casings, jumped 6.8 percent. Read more here

(Additional reporting by Argin Chang in TAIPEI and Melanie Lee in SHANGHAI Editing by Charlie Zhu and Vinu Pilakkott)

Complete Chinese War Preparedness And Military Update
Zero Hedge
by Tyler Durden
August 25, 2011

Now that Keynesianism has failed (repeatedly and miserably, although certainly not during wartime - during those times it is curiously successful at 'stimulating'), and only those willfully blind refuse to see how this extended slow-motion collapse ends, below we present the latest, 2011 Edition, of the Annual report to Congress revealing "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China" or, in short, everything that one needs to know to defend from and/or attack the world's most populous nation. For those short on time, here are the key charts. Read more here

China tells U.S. "good old days" of borrowing are over
Reuters
By Walter Brandimarte

and Melanie Lee
August 6, 2011

(Reuters) - China bluntly criticized the United States on Saturday one day after the superpower's credit rating was downgraded, saying the "good old days" of borrowing were over.

Standard & Poor's cut the U.S. long-term credit rating from top-tier AAA by a notch to AA-plus on Friday over concerns about the nation's budget deficits and climbing debt burden.
China -- the United States' biggest creditor -- said Washington only had itself to blame for its plight and called for a new stable global reserve currency.

"The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone," China's official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary.

After a week which saw $2.5 trillion wiped off global markets, the move deepened investors' concerns of an impending recession in the United States and over the euro zone crisis. Read more here

China's economy is continuing to grow despite the global recession, helped by a massive government stimulus package of $585bn. But doubts remain whether such strong growth can be sustained by public spending alone. Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan reports from Inner Mongolia, where a whole town built with government money is standing empty. Watch on YouTube

It’s been called the Dubai of northern China, showered with wealth, packed with public infrastructure and located near to precious natural resources in a region plagued by water-supply troubles. But the urban center of Ordos City, known as ‘Kangbashi New Area’, has been mostly deserted for five years. Kangbashi isn’t a ghost town due to economic issues, contamination or any other common cause of such abandonment – the government simply can’t convince people to move there. Read more here

It may seem like a bizarre folly on behalf of the Chinese government, borne of severely misplaced optimism. But Ordos is indeed expanding at a rapid pace, home to a growing number of coal millionaires and producing China’s highest gross domestic product per capita. And pouring money into such new urban areas is part of a plan by China’s government to increase its middle class, benefiting the nation’s economy as a whole. Despite the current eerie silence of its streets, it’s probably safe to say that Kangbashi won’t be empty for long. Read more here

Special report: The "shorts" who popped a China bubble
Reuters NEW YORK/SYDNEY
by Daniel Bases, Ryan Vlastelica, Clare Baldwin and Mark Bendeich
August 5, 2011

NEW YORK/SYDNEY (Reuters) -They are a rag-tag bunch, often working from home or tiny offices scattered round the world, from rural Texas to Beverly Hills and a suburb near Australia's Bondi Beach.

Some have never even been to China; most don't speak or read Chinese. And yet in the past nine months, this small group of "short sellers" has published research exposing accounting fraud at a series of Chinese companies listed in the United States and Canada, and made as yet unproven allegations against a whole bunch more.

As a result they have scuttled a once hot sub-sector of the American capital markets.

In a number of cases they claim to have made a killing by shorting those stocks - placing a bet that the shares would fall in value - before publishing the research. They insist they operate independently but are clearly influenced by one another's ideas and tactics.

Altogether, they have been the catalyst that has wiped more than $21 billion off the market value of Chinese companies listed in North America. The sell-off has led to big losses for some very prominent investors, including hedge fund manager John Paulson and former AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg.

In the aftermath, a series of companies have been delisted by U.S. exchanges, auditors have quit at a number of others, investors are filing class action lawsuits, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is pursuing investigations.

To their supporters, the short sellers are doing the regulators' work for them by exposing fraud. They argue that many of these companies, which are often legally domiciled in offshore havens such as the Cayman Islands, should never have been allowed to list in America in the first place.

To their detractors, the short sellers have leveraged a handful of correct calls on accounting shenanigans into a campaign that has tainted many legitimate Chinese companies. Some accuse them of conspiring with big hedge funds to take short positions before they publish their research.

Many have jumped into the Chinese short selling game; Reuters has identified the five below as among the most prominent players. Read more here

Chinese Officials Seized and Sold Babies, Parents Say
The New York Times
By Sharon LaFraniere
August 4, 2011

LONGHUI COUNTY, China — Many parents and grandparents in this mountainous region of terraced rice and sweet potato fields have long known to grab their babies and find the nearest hiding place whenever family planning officials show up. Too many infants, they say, have been snatched by officials, never to be seen again.

But Yuan Xinquan was caught by surprise one December morning in 2005. Then a new father at the age of 19, Mr. Yuan was holding his 52-day-old daughter at a bus stop when a half-dozen men sprang from a white government van and demanded his marriage certificate.

He did not have one. Both he and his daughter’s mother were below the legal age for marriage.
Nor did he have 6,000 renminbi, then about $745, to pay the fine he said they demanded if he wanted to keep his child. He was left with a plastic bag holding her baby clothes and some powdered formula.

"They are pirates," he said last month in an interview at his home, a half-hour trek up a narrow mountain path between terraced rice paddies. Nearly six years later, he said, he still hopes to relay a message to his daughter: "Please come home as soon as possible." Read more here

Jeffrey Immelt

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, The Head Of Obama’s Jobs Council, Is Moving Jobs And Economic Infrastructure To China At A Blistering Pace

The Economic Collapse blog
by Michael T. Snyder, Esq
July 29, 2011

Jeffrey Immelt, the head of Barack Obama's highly touted "Jobs Council", is moving even more GE infrastructure to China.  GE makes more medical-imaging machines than anyone else in the world, and now GE has announced that it "is moving the headquarters of its 115-year-old X-ray business to Beijing".  Apparently, this is all part of a "plan to invest about $2 billion across China" over the next few years.  But moving core pieces of its business overseas is nothing new for GE.  Under Immelt, GE has shipped tens of thousands of good jobs out of the United States.  Perhaps GE should change its slogan to "Imagination At Work (In China)".  If the very people that have been entrusted with solving the unemployment crisis are shipping jobs out of the country, what hope is there that things are going to turn around any time soon? Read more here

Organ trafficking: 'Her heart was missing'
Al Jazeera
by Chris Arsenault
May 17, 2011

This Chinese man is offering to sell his organs to pay the bills, which is typical as poverty drives the shadowy trade worth an estimated $50m globally [GALLO/GETTY]

The stories are grim and often impossible to confirm: illicit clinics, corrupt doctors and global networks dealing in human flesh.

International organ trafficking is a big business, with an estimated value of $50m in 2008, according to Michael Bos from the European Platform on Ethical Legal and Psychosocial Aspects of Organ Transplantation.
 
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated in 2007 that organ trafficking accounts for between five and 10 per cent of kidney transplants performed annually across the globe.
Antonio Medina, 23, a paperless Central American migrant moving through Mexico to the US, says he knows a fellow traveller who witnessed organ trafficking, after he and his wife were captured by a criminal gang.

"He was travelling with his wife and they [gangsters] took both of them," Medina told Al Jazeera during an interview in Mexico. "They [gangsters] put them in separate rooms. He heard his wife screaming. After he went in and saw her on a table with her chest wide open and without her heart or kidney."

Medina's friend said he was saved from the grisly house-turned-clinic by Mexican soldiers. The claims, like many aspects of the organ trafficking business, are impossible to independently verify. Read more here

For Chinese, kidney donation is a click away
Al Jazeera
by Mitch Moxley
May 12, 2011

Many of the black market organ donors in China are migrant workers who are unemployed or need to pay off debts [GALLO/GETTY]

In China, where a growing demand for organ transplants coupled with a dramatic shortage of donors has fuelled a rampant black market trade, selling your organs for cash is a mouse click away.

An internet search reveals a website offering kidneys for sale and the contact information of those able to procure them. A young woman, posing as a migrant worker from Hebei province, calls a man who has advertised on the website, identified as Mr He.

"I need money," she says over the phone. "Do you want a woman's kidney?"

Mr He asks her age. Twenty-five, she replies.

"Of course we want your kidney."

Mr He tells the woman to travel to Xuzhou city, Jiangsu province, where somebody will be waiting when her train pulls into the station. She'll be given a physical examination and, if she's found to be in good health, Mr He will find a suitable transplant candidate. He says he'll pay RMB 320,000 (50,000 dollars) - a dubious offer, since most kidneys in China sell for around RMB 100,000 (15,000 dollars) - and promises to transfer the money before surgery.

In China, around 1.5 million people require organ transplants, but just 10,000 receive them each year. The vast majority of organs in China still come from condemned prisoners, but new government regulations have reduced the number of organs available for transplant. Meanwhile, few Chinese agree to donate their organs upon death, widening the gap between supply and demand. Read more here

36 Killed in China, High Speed Train Crash
All Voices.com
by Ranaji
July 23, 2011

The first train accident occurred on Saturday after falling below the strike of lightning crashed and lost the power of a bullet train, the fastest growing state television said the rail network to protect raise new questions.

Two foreigners accident, the city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province took place near a bridge that I was dead, some 860 miles (1,380 kilometers) south of Beijing on Sunday. A semi-official news agency, China News Service said one of them was a woman in her 20s. 

Hangzhou, Zhejiang provincial capital, the government was not available for comment.

Rescuers said they still were searching for survivors, broken bridge to reach the carriages are lying down.

35-year-old aid worker Wang Jun. "The task now for us to clear the debris and we were not in these areas to check for survivors," the

"Right now, we still do not know what to do any survivors. That's our main job. Moreover, the operational railway line we are trying to recover."

Dozens of rescue workers and firefighters as they used to dig more bodies from the carriages that moment was but one link in the wreckage of a train moving. It was unclear how many trains were at the time of the accident. Read more, and view 32 photos

Furnace and workers in China

Dangerous Chinese Factories and Mines
Facts and Details.com
by Jeffrey Hays
Last updated April 2010

Chinese factories are very dangerous and every year there are hundreds of thousands of fatalities and injuries. Welders rarely wear masks, workers disappear into uncovered holes, and arms or heads are sucked into limb-eating machines. Many factories are illegal because they have workers working and living in the same building where toxic chemicals and flammable material are used

Factories workers live in cramps dormitories, with to 20 in a room and each workers space limited to a bed on a bunks bed. Some say prisoners in jail live in better conditions. In some cases conditions are getting worse rather than better. The companies are just better at manipulating the workers and hiding the offenses. As far as pressure from abroad, Chinese companies are responding more to demands by retailers such as Wall-Mart to cut cost rather than calls by human rights groups to improve working conditions

The most draconian factories do not allow their workers to leave the factory compound and deny workers bathroom breaks, demand sexual favors. At one prison-like Taiwan-owned factory that had a hundred guards watching 2,700 workers, a worker died during an escape attempt. Read more here

Worker fatalities: How does China compare to U.S.?
Safety News Alert
by Fred Hosier
March 4, 2010

China says 83,196 people lost their lives in work-related incidents last year. China’s State Administration of Work Safety reported 380,000 incidents in the workplace that caused death or injury.

How does that stack up compared to the U.S.? To put the situation into perspective, the U.S. has a workforce of 155 million, while China has over five times that amount, at about 801 million.
The U.S. reported 5,071 worker deaths in 2008.

So the number of workplace fatalities in China is 16 times that of those in the U.S. Approximately 14 workers die per day in the U.S. compared to 228 in China.

Coal mining accounted for 2,631 deaths last year in China — 7 deaths per day. China relies on coal for 70% of its energy needs.

One thing China and the U.S. have in common regarding this topic: Both countries’ safety agencies make sure to point out the declining number of workers dying per year. China points out it had almost 8,000 fewer worker deaths in 2009 than in 2008. Read more here

Human Rights Record of the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Human Rights Record of the United States (informally referred to as the "China Human Rights Report") is a publication on the annual human rights record in the United States of America, published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The report was first issued in 1998 as a response to the United States' practice of criticizing China in its own annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which each of the Chinese reports cites in the first paragraph. It has since been published annually since 2000. Read more here

China Strikes Back Against US Human Rights Report
Forbes blog, by Kenneth Rapoza

April 10, 2011

China and the US had a tough weekend together. It started Friday when the US Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor issued its reports on various countries worldwide.

In it, State said the "negative trend in key areas of the country’s human rights record continued, as the government took additional steps to rein in civil society, particularly organizations and individuals involved in rights advocacy and public interest issues, and increased attempts to limit freedom of speech and to control the press, the Internet, and Internet access."

In April 2009 the Supreme People’s Procuratorate disclosed that at least 15 prisoners died "unnatural deaths" under unusual circumstances as of the 2009 disclosure. According to a Chinese press report, seven of the prisoners died of beatings, three were classified as suicides, two were described as accidents, and three remained under investigation.

Needless to say, Chinese officials — who want to portray their country as both modern and if not democratic, at least aware of the problems under their roof — were not pleased.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei charged that the US used human rights issues as a means to interfere in internatl affairs of other countries, Xinhua newswire reported.  Lei told Chinese reporters that, "We are firmly against interfering in our internal affairs under the pretext of human rights issues," adding that the US should "practice what it preaches."

Late Sunday, China released its own detailed report on US human rights abuses it said. The massive tome lists rising poverty and spending cuts on the poor, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and America’s rising prison population. Read more here

China refutes US human rights report

English.xinhuanet.com

April 10, 2011

BEIJING - China on Saturday urged the US to stop interfering in its internal affairs under the pretext of human rights issues.

China and the US have disagreements on human rights issues, about which we are willing to engage in dialogues based on equality and mutual respect, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

"But we are firmly against interfering in our internal affairs under the pretext of human rights issues," Hong said.

His comment came after the US State Department released an annual report on human rights around the world and criticized China's human rights status.

The Chinese government attaches importance to protecting human rights. With continuing economic growth, constantly improving democracy and law system, ever booming cultural development, all ethnic groups in China enjoy extensive freedom and rights, Hong said.

The spokesman urged the US to reflect more on its own human rights issues rather than acting as a "preacher of human rights". "The US should stop interfering in other country's internal affairs with human rights report." Read more here

China refutes US human rights report

China Daily
April 10, 2011

BEIJING - China on Saturday urged the US to stop interfering in its internal affairs under the pretext of human rights issues.

China and the US have disagreements on human rights issues, about which we are willing to engage in dialogues based on equality and mutual respect, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. Read more here, including over 100 comments

TSA gropes kids

EDITORIAL: China bashes U.S. human-rights record
The Washington Times
April 15, 2011

The Chinese government last week released its annual assessment of what it calls the "Human Rights Record of the United States." The document is a jab at our own State Department's surveys of political freedom and human rights in the Middle Kingdom. Complaints of abuse emanating from a nation that oppresses the people of Tibet, suppresses Christians and mows down political protesters with tanks would be easy to ignore. As hard as it is to say this, China has a point.

Beijing identifies a number of areas in which the United States fails to live up to the lofty promise of the Bill of Rights. At airports, for example, U.S. customs officials have confiscated laptops and cellphones from thousands of international passengers - including U.S. citizens and journalists - to download all of the information contained on the devices in a dragnet sweep looking for a crime. "There is no provision for judicial approval or supervision" of these techniques, the Chinese report notes. Despite court rulings on the subject, it's impossible to rationalize this conduct under any reasonable interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. Likewise, many states allow police officers to attach GPS devices to vehicles as a means of covert tracking without first obtaining a warrant.

Mao Zedong
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mao Zedong, commonly referred to as Chairman Mao (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerilla warfare strategist, political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held authoritarian control over the nation until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to Marxism-Leninism, along with his military strategies and brand of policies, are collectively known as Maoism.

Mao rose to power by commanding the Long March, forming a Second United Front with Nationalists during the Second Sino-Japanese War to defeat regional warlords and repel a Japanese invasion, and leading the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War. After solidifying the reunification of China through his Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, Mao enacted sweeping land reform, by using violence and terror to overthrow the feudal landlords before seizing their large estates and dividing the land into people's communes. During the years when Mao was China’s 'Great Helmsman', a range of positive changes came to China. These included doubling the school population, providing universal housing, abolishing unemployment and inflation, increasing health care access, and dramatically raising life expectancy. As a result, Mao is still officially held in high regard by many in China as a great political strategist, military mastermind, and savior of the nation. Maoists further promote his role as a theorist, statesman, poet, and visionary, while anti-revisionists continue to defend most of his policies. Read more here

People's Republic of China
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly known as China, is the most populous state in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, it is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China (CPC). The PRC exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly administered municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two highly autonomous special administrative regions (SARs) – Hong Kong and Macau. Its capital city is Beijing.

At about 9.6 million square kilometres (3.7 million square miles), the PRC is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area, depending on the definition of what is included in that total, and the second largest by land area. Its landscape is diverse, with forest steppes and deserts (the Gobi and Taklamakan) in the dry north near Mongolia and Russia's Siberia, and subtropical forests in the wet south close to Vietnam, Laos, and Burma. The terrain in the west is rugged and elevated, with the Himalayas and the Tian Shan mountain ranges forming China's natural borders with India, Nepal and Central Asia. In contrast, mainland China's eastern seaboard is low-lying and has a 14,500-kilometre (9,000 mi) long coastline (the 11th longest in the world), bounded on the southeast by the South China Sea and on the east by the East China Sea, beyond which lie Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Read more here