China calls Tibetan immolators criminals, outcasts

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese officials sought Wednesday to discredit about two dozen Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest China's rule over their region as outcasts, criminals and mentally ill people manipulated by the exiled Dalai Lama.


The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader has said he does not encourage the self-immolations. However, Chinese officials have sought to portray the past year's wave of immolations - including three since Saturday - as the result of outside orchestration rather than what activists say is local unrest over the government's suppression of Tibetan religion and culture.


Many of the protesters have been linked to a Buddhist monastery in the mountainous Aba prefecture of Sichuan province.


"Some of the suicides are committed by clerics returning to lay life, and they all have criminal records or suspicious activities. They have a very bad reputation in society," said Wu Zegang, an ethnic Tibetan who is the government's top administrator in Aba.


Wu told reporters in Beijing that the self-immolations were "orchestrated and supported" by the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence forces. He said that before setting themselves on fire, the immolators shouted "independence for Tibet and other slogans that aim to divide the nation."

China, Russia stand firm in backing Assad

Russia, China and Iran showed support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday, days before an international meeting likely to pile more pressure on him to step down in the face of an increasingly bloody uprising.


Assad met a senior Russian politician in Damascus, who reiterated Moscow's support for his self-styled reform program and spoke out against any foreign intervention in the conflict, Russian and Syrian news agencies reported.


China accused western countries of stirring up civil war in Syria, and two Iranian warships docked at a Syrian naval base, underscoring rising international tensions over the near year-long crisis.

China renews promises of 'more flexible' yuan

The official Xinhua News Agency cited Zhou Xiaochuan as saying on Friday that the exchange rate of China’s yuan will be made "more flexible," but in a "step—by—step" way.

China’s central bank governor has renewed promises to ease controversial currency controls, but says change will be gradual.

The official Xinhua News Agency cited Zhou Xiaochuan as saying on Friday that the exchange rate of China’s yuan will be made “more flexible,” but in a “step—by—step” way.

Washington and other governments complain China keeps the yuan undervalued, giving its exporters an unfair price advantage and swelling its huge trade surplus.

Beijing made a similar pledge of more flexibility in June, but the U.S. government says the increase in the yuan’s value since then has been too slow.

China continues to show strong growth but so does inflation

China's runaway growth was even stronger than expected at the start of this year, official figures showed, stoking fears about overheating as inflation rocketed to a 32-month high.



Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 9.7pc year-on-year in the first three months of 2011, just off the 9.8pc seen the previous quarter and confounding forecasts of an easing to 9.4pc. Quarter-on-quarter, growth was 2.1pc.

The downside of the surging growth is prices are rising too fast. Despite efforts from Beijing to curb the country's credit boom - raising interest rates four times since October - inflation showed no signs of easing as it reached 5.4pc in March from February's 4.9pc.

Food prices were up 11.7pc on the previous year, which is making Beijing particularly worried about social unrest.

"The government cannot seem to slow the economy down," said Alistair Thornton, an economist at IHS Global Insight. India also reported a higher-than-expected inflation yesterday, at just under 9pc in the year to March.

The strong growth of China, India and other newer economic powers is driving the cost of oil, grain and other commodities upwards, translating into mounting price pressure in those economies and elsewhere in the world. The US inflation rate yesterday came in at its strongest in over a year, just off 2.7pc.

Mounting inflation pressures raise the prospect of steeper tightening measures from authorities to rein in prices, which would drag on growth around the world.

The Chinese figures also marked the fifth time in six months that the inflation number was widely reported ahead of its official released.

China's National Bureau of Statistics said it condemned "any leak", but data on prices keeps appearing early as it is highly prized by markets.

The UK's Office for National Statistics this week saw rumours surround its own March inflation figure, after talk among traders anticipated a shock fall to 4pc. A spokesman said there was "no evidence of a leak.

Factory boss in China arrested over lead poisoning

State media say a battery factory manager was arrested after 168 villagers living near the manufacturer in eastern China suffered lead poisoning.

The official Xinhua News Agency says Ying Jianguo, general manager of Taizhou Suqi Storage Battery Co. Ltd., was taken into custody Friday in the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang province.

Three government officials have been suspended for failing to properly supervise the region. One official was the deputy chief of the district environmental protection office.

Xinhua on Friday reported 139 cases of lead poisoning near the plant. More testing reported Sunday found at least 168 villagers, including 53 children, had high lead levels.

Lead poisoning can damage the nervous, muscular and reproductive systems. Children are particularly at risk.

Earthquake hits Myanmar near China and Thai borders

A powerful earthquake hit Myanmar Thursday near its borders with China, Thailand and Laos, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake hit in eastern Myanmar, about 70 miles (110 km) from Chiang Rai, Thailand, the survey reported.

It had a magnitude of 6.8, the survey said, revising the estimate down from an initial reading of 7.0.

It was a relatively shallow quake, which can be very destructive.

The Geological Survey initially said the quake had a depth of 142 miles (230km), but it later revised its estimate to say the quake was 6 miles (10 km) deep, putting it fairly close to the surface.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

A destructive tsunami is not expected, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. In advice to government agencies, the center said the quake "is located too far inland and too deep inside the earth to generate a tsunami in the Indian Ocean."

Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, has been badly hit by natural disasters in the past few years.

A powerful cyclone in 2008 left an estimated 100,000 people dead, and another one two years later left 70,000 people homeless, the United Nations estimates.

China takes hard line on activists, dozens missing

The last time the prominent Chinese lawyer Jiang Tianyong was seen or heard from, he was visiting his brother in a Beijing suburb when police grabbed him and threw him into a waiting van, pushing aside his elderly mother who had clung on to the vehicle.

Jiang is among dozens of well-known lawyers and activists across China who have vanished, been interrogated or criminally detained for subversion in recent weeks, a crackdown that human rights groups say is on a scale and intensity not seen in many years.

Activists say China's massive security apparatus is using the government's anxiety over possible Middle East-inspired protests as a pretext for the crackdown.

"None of them will tell me anything about why he was taken away or where he has been taken to," Jiang's wife Jin Bianling said Monday. She said that after her husband's disappearance last month, a Beijing police officer told her verbally that "the case was being handled," meaning he was under investigation, but her repeated efforts to get more details from police have been fruitless.

More than 100 people have been questioned or followed by police or placed under house arrest, the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders, or CHRD, said in a recent statement. It said Jiang and others who have disappeared for weeks were at risk of being tortured to extract confessions.

Human Rights Watch senior Asia researcher Nicholas Bequelin said the crackdown is even more serious than the one in December when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a jailed Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo. He said it is also more extensive than when police questioned and detained activists involved in signing Charter 08, a manifesto for peaceful democratic reform that Liu co-authored, in 2008.

"There is a sense that the authorities want to put an end to the kind of open defiance of the government by rights activists, people who have been fairly active on Twitter and other social networks who were allowed for a couple of years to do that," Bequelin said.

Beijing police did not immediately respond to a fax asking whether they had any of the activists in custody.

China prepares to pull its citizens from NE Japan

China became the first government to organize a mass evacuation of its citizens from Japan's northeast on Tuesday, while other foreigners left the country following radiation leaks at an earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant.

Austria said it is moving its embassy from Tokyo to Osaka, 250 miles (400 kilometers) away, due to radiation concerns. France recommended that its citizens leave the Japanese capital, while the U.S. government advised Americans to avoid travel to Japan.

China's announcement came as Japan's nuclear crisis took a dramatic turn for the worse following an explosion and a fire at reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex. Japanese authorities said the fire caused radiation to spew into the air and told people living nearby to stay indoors.

The Chinese Embassy in Tokyo said on its website that it was preparing to send buses to remove its nationals from Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki and Iwate prefectures, the hardest-hit provinces.

China charges man with sedition over protest calls

A human rights group says an Internet activist has been charged with subversion for spreading calls on the Internet for Middle Eastern-style anti-government protests in China.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy says Guo Weidong was detained on Thursday night and his home in China's eastern city of Haining searched. It says a document was delivered to his wife the next day stating that he was being charged with the vaguely defined charge of "incitement to subvert state power."

The center said Friday that the 38-year-old Guo is the ninth person to be charged for spreading the calls, which began appearing on Internet forums last month. China's authoritarian communist leaders respond harshly to all challenges to their authority.

22 dead as quake topples buildings in SW China

An earthquake toppled houses and damaged a hotel and supermarket in China's extreme southwest near the border with Myanmar on Thursday, killing at least 22 people and injuring more than 200, officials and state media said.

Photos from the scene showed buildings that buckled, crushing their lower floors. Police, firefighters and soldiers rushed to the area to pull out people trapped in the rubble, including a man and girl stuck in the stairwell of a four-story building, according to state broadcaster China Central Television.

One sidewalk was lined with injured people, lying on blankets and being shielded from the sun by large vendor umbrellas.

The quake hit while many people, including students, were home for a customary midday rest, the broadcaster said. In addition to the 22 killed, 201 people have been injured, it said. The report said at least two students were among those killed but didn't give details.

The website of the Chinese government earthquake monitoring station said the magnitude-5.8 quake was centered on Yunnan province's Yingjiang county and struck just before 1 p.m. (0500 GMT) at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers). The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 5.4 and at a deeper 21 miles (35 kilometers).

Tremors continued to be felt in the area throughout the afternoon and evening, according to CCTV reporter Shu Qian, who was at the disaster scene in Yingjiang County.

The quake's epicenter was in Shiming Village, just over a mile (two kilometers) from the county seat, but triggered a power outage across Yingjiang, which has a population of about 300,000 people, Xinhua said.

Obama nominates Locke to be ambassador to China

President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as ambassador to China. If confirmed by the Senate he would be the first Chinese-American to hold the sensitive post.

Locke would succeed Republican Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who's seen as a potential challenger to Obama in the 2012 presidential race.

"Our relationship with China is one of the most critical of the 21st century," Obama said at the White House with Locke and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at his side.

"As the grandson of a Chinese immigrant who went on to live the American dream, Gary is the right person to continue this cooperation," Obama said.

The ambassadorship to China is one of the most critical jobs in U.S. diplomacy given America's complex and sometimes strained ties with the huge and growing Asian power.

Obama said he'd be counting on Locke to advocate for American businesses and boost exports and American jobs, and draw on management skills he developed as governor of Washington state to develop the complicated relationship with China.

Locke, 61, drew on his family history in accepting the nomination. He talked about how his grandfather first came to America to work as a houseboy in a Washington home in exchange for English lessons. His father, who also was born in China, died in January, and Locke said it would have been "one of his proudest moments to see his son named as the United States ambassador to his ancestral homeland."

"I'm going back to the birthplace of my grandfather, my father, my mom and her side of the family. And I'll be doing so as a devoted and passionate advocate for America, the country where I was born and raised," said Locke, as his wife and young children watched on in the Diplomatic Room.

In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this week, Locke touted the economic relationship he has helped build between the U.S. and China and said U.S. exports to China increased 34 percent last year.

Obama has set a goal of doubling within five years the amount of American goods that are sold to other countries - an effort in which Locke has been a key cheerleader.

Despite the administration's increased pressure on Beijing, the U.S. trade imbalance with China reached an all-time high last year - $273.1 billion.

Before taking over at Commerce, Locke worked on China issues for a Seattle-based law firm. He joined the firm after declining, for family reasons, to seek a third term as Washington state's governor; Locke became the nation's first Chinese-American state chief executive when he was elected governor in 1996.

He'll become the first member of Obama's Cabinet to leave the Cabinet.

China blogger angered over losing Facebook account

Chinese blogger and activist Michael Anti wants to know why he is less worthy of a Facebook account than company founder Mark Zuckerberg's dog.

Anti, a popular online commentator whose legal name is Zhao Jing, said in an interview Tuesday that his Facebook account was suddenly canceled in January. Company officials told him by e-mail that Facebook has a strict policy against pseudonyms and that he must use the name issued on his government ID.

Anti argues that his professional identity as Michael Anti has been established for more than a decade, with published articles and essays.

Anti, a former journalist who has won fellowships at both Cambridge University and Harvard University, said he set up his Facebook account in 2007. By locking him out of his account, Facebook has cut him off from a network of more than 1,000 academic and professional contacts who know him as Anti, he said.

China: Tibet won't fall apart if Dalai Lama dies

Tibet will likely experience small shock waves when the Dalai Lama dies, but a Chinese official said Monday that the government would not now allow any serious instability to rock the region.

Although the Tibetan region is quiet now, it was roiled by violent anti-government riots three years ago that killed at least 22 people and set off a wave of protests across Tibetan areas of western China. Beijing blamed the unrest on followers of the Dalai Lama, who it says are seeking to separate Tibet from China. The Tibetan spiritual leader has denied that, saying he is working only for a high degree of autonomy under Chinese rule.

In the wake of the riots, China closed off the remote Himilayan region, barring international tourists for about a year. On Monday, Chinese travel agents said they had been ordered not to allow foreign visitors into the region around the upcoming third anniversary of the riots. Foreigners heading to Tibet have always needed special permits in addition to their Chinese visas and must travel with tour groups.

As part of its efforts to maintain control over Tibet, China regularly maligns the Dalai Lama, who is the head of Tibet's government-in-exile, and tries to play down his importance to the people in the region. Tibet's former Beijing-appointed governor, Qiangba Puncog, said Monday that the exiled spiritual leader still has religious clout but no political influence in China.

Tibet leader says separatism still a threat

The top Chinese government official in Tibet says the Himalayan region continues to face serious challenges from separatism three years after major anti-government protests.

Regional Communist Party head Zhang Qingli says those seeking to overthrow Chinese rule threaten Tibet's stability and therefore its economic development.

Zhang was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying that officials and the Tibetan public should remain vigilant against anything that could sabotage public order.

His remarks Sunday at a meeting of Tibetan delegates to the national legislature in Beijing underscore the government's relentless crackdown on all dissent in the region.

The March 2008 rioting in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, left at least 22 people dead.

China says it will tackle inflation, boost incomes

China's government called Saturday for higher social spending, controls on inflation and measures to urgently close a divisive rich-poor gap, betting that rising living standards and better services will dampen growing public expectations for change.

In a speech that is China's equivalent of a state-of-the-nation address, Premier Wen Jiabao said the government will boost spending 12.5 percent this year, with bigger outlays for education, job creation, low-income housing, health care and pensions and other social insurance.

More than just an economic plan, Wen reiterated several times during his two-hour-plus speech that the authoritarian government sees the program as crucial to forestalling unrest among a population grown used to greater prosperity and expecting more.

"We must make improving the people's lives a pivot linking reform, development and stability ... and make sure people are content with their lives and jobs, society is tranquil and orderly and the country enjoys long-term peace and stability," Wen told the 2,923 delegates gathered in the Great Hall of the People for the opening of the national legislature's annual session.

The emphasis comes as the government seems increasingly anxious about calls of unknown origin posted online urging Chinese to stage peaceful rallies every Sunday like the ones that topped autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt. Beijing has been smothering under ever heavier security since the Internet messages first appeared more than two weeks ago.

UPDATE 1-China internal security spending jumps past army budget

China's spending on police and domestic surveillance will hit new heights this year, with "public security" outlays unveiled on Saturday outstripping the defense budget for the first time as Beijing cracks down on protest calls.

 China's ruling Communist Party also issued its loudest warning yet against recent Internet-spread calls for "Jasmine Revolution" protest gatherings inspired by popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.

The 13.8 percent jump in China's planned budget for police, state security, armed civil militia, courts and jails was unveiled at the start of the annual parliamentary session, and brought planned spending on law and order items to 624.4 billion yuan ($95.0 billion).

By contrast, China's People's Liberation Army budget is set to rise 12.7 percent to 601.1 billion yuan ($91.5 billion). "This would be the first time that the openly announced domestic security budget has surpassed military spending", said

Xie Yue, a political scientist at Tongji University in Shanghai. He called the figure a gauge of China's spending on what officials call "stability protection."

"This shows the rising costs of maintaining internal control," said Xie, who studies China's domestic security

policies and spending. "This system is very sensitive to any instability or contention."

China's main political risks:

China defence budget rises

Succession pressures stoke crackdown

China stability spending raises alarm

Protest call smothered in Beijing:

Risks slim of China soon erupting

China tightens reporting restrictions

Last group of Chinese flown home from Libya

State media say the last batch of Chinese workers in Libya has been flown home safely.

China Central Television says a plane carrying more than 300 Chinese workers who had been trapped in the strife-torn country arrived Saturday in Guangzhou in southern China. The workers were picked up in neighboring Tunisia, where many fled following the chaos in Libya.

An estimated 30,000 Chinese were working in Libya, mostly in the construction and oil industries, comprising one of the largest blocs of foreign laborers there.

China dispatched military transport planes to evacuate its citizens.

California firm to sell China-made electric cars

A startup California developer of electric cars said Wednesday its first model will be manufactured in China and go on sale in the United States this year.

CODA Automotive Inc.'s four-door sedan will be produced by a Chinese partner based on one of its models that has been adapted for electric drive and to meet U.S. safety standards, said CODA's CEO, Philip F. Murtaugh. He said CODA will produce batteries in China with another partner and supply technology and engineering skills.

CODA plans to begin sales in California this year and expects to sell 10,000 to 14,000 vehicles in its first 12 months, said Murtaugh, a former chairman of General Motors China who joined Santa Monica-based CODA last month.

"I'm very confident we will launch our vehicle in the second half of this year," he said in an interview with a group of reporters.

If it can meet that deadline, CODA could become one of the first companies to sell a Chinese-made car in the United States following announcements by several brands of plans for such sales. CODA has postponed previously announced sales timelines, but Murtaugh said it should be able to stick to its latest schedule.

CODA's plans and the unusual structure of its manufacturing partnership expand on fast-growing ties between auto companies in the United States and China, the world's two biggest vehicle markets.

Morgan Stanley hit by China-based hackers: report

Morgan Stanley experienced a "very sensitive" break-in to its network by the same China-based hackers who attacked Google Inc's computers more than a year ago, Bloomberg reported, citing leaked emails from an Internet security company.

The emails from the Sacramento, California-based computer security firm HBGary Inc said that Morgan Stanley -- the first financial institution identified in the series of attacks -- considered details of the intrusion a closely guarded secret, the report said.

Bloomberg quoted Phil Wallisch, a senior security engineer at HBGary, as saying that he read an internal Morgan Stanley report detailing the so-called Aurora attacks.

The HBGary emails don't indicate what information may have been stolen from Morgan Stanley's databanks or which of the world's largest merger adviser's multinational operations were targeted, according to the report.