“I think it’s one very poisonous step by Beijing among their thousands of malevolent actions,” Nguyen Quang A, a former adviser to the Vietnamese government, told The Financial Times, which first reported on the modified passports.

A senior diplomat based in Beijing told the paper that the new map represented “quite a serious escalation because China is issuing millions of these new passports and adult passports are valid for 10 years. If Beijing were to change its position later it would have to recall all those passports.”

[…] John Blaxland, a research fellow at the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at Australian National University, said the map gambit was “pretty clever.”

“It basically forces everyone who’s a claimant of South China Sea elements to acknowledge it by stamping it,” he told VOA News, calling it part of the “long game” being played by Beijing.

For now, the Philippines is playing along, but Vietnam has started issuing new visas on separate pieces of paper and invalidating existing ones to avoid endorsing the new passports. India has been more assertive, reports Rama Lakshmi at The Washington Post:

Now, the Indian Embassy in Beijing is doing a tit-for-tat with its own map. It has started stamping its version of the Indian map on visas issued to Chinese citizens, one that includes the two regions.

[…] Two years ago, China caused much irritation among Indian officials when it began stapling the visas of residents of Kashmir, a Himalayan province where Indian troops are fighting to put down a Pakistan-backed separatist Islamist insurgency for more than two decades. By stapling the visas, instead of stamping them, Beijing was declaring that they regarded Kashmir was a disputed region as well.

Indian officials had to sternly remind Beijing in 2010 to be “sensitive” to its concerns about Kashmir, just as New Delhi is sensitive to Beijing’s attitude about Tibet.

Earlier this year, Beijing declined to issue a visa to an Indian air force officer who hails from Arunachal Pradesh. The row led New Delhi to cut the size of the military delegation that visited China in January.

The controversy arrives barely a month after the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Sino-Indian War, fought over disputed territory in Arunachal Pradesh. Future conflict between the two countries may be more likely at sea, however. From The Economist:

China suspects India of complicity in efforts to undermine its sweeping claim to sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea. It saw evidence of this in India’s involvement in oil-and-gas exploration in waters disputed by China and Vietnam. The underlying fear is of an American-led plot to contain China. Even were such a plot hatched, India would be a reluctant conspirator. But it and China are in a “security dilemma”, where one country’s “essential steps” to safeguard its interests are taken by the other as threats that demand a response.

[…] The risk, as Chinese and Indian warships venture farther afield, is akin to that in China’s maritime disputes with Japan and its South-East Asian neighbours: of an accidental conflict that escalates. This is exacerbated by an absence of codes of conduct and forums to thrash out disputes. The East Asian Summit, which includes America, might one day become such a gathering. But for the time being it aims only at “confidence-building”. Marred this year again by squabbles about how to discuss disputes in the South China Sea, the summit finds even that elusive.

Meanwhile, The Japanese government and The Washington Post’s Max Fisher have both suggested that the hotly disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands are absent from the passport map. (CDT believes it can see a slight thickening of the map’s texture in roughly the appropriate location, though well short of anything that might indicate a duplicate set of islands). Even allowing for the islands’ tiny size, one would expect them to be more obviously visible given China’s recent demands for cartographical fastidiousness. At the height of the islands row in September, Beijing increased penalties for publishers of maps which failed to include all outlying islands claimed by China. From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

Current regulations, drafted in 1995, allow for a maximum fine of 10,000 yuan (US$1500) which would increase to 100,000 yuan (US$16,000) if the new law is passed, according to the Xinhua news agency.

The draft also proposed greater supervision of Internet map services, requiring providers to place data servers within China’s territory and use only approved maps.

Charles Custer tweeted that these regulations can greatly complicate magazine design, as not only formal maps but any graphical representation of China’s shape must include “ALL distant islands”.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Aksai Chin, Arunachal Pradesh, containment, diaoyu islands, diplomacy, India, Japan, Kashmir, maps, New Delhi, Pakistan, philippines, South China Sea, Taiwan, Tibet, Vietnam, visa
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Indian political scientists often look enviously at China’s one-party political system, viewing it as more efficient and more capable of curbing problems like corruption. But, as in India, Chinese leaders are increasingly identifying corruption as a major problem, with Premier Wen Jiabao saying earlier this year it could lead to instability in the country.

While both India and China suffer from endemic corruption, they differ in their approaches to handling corruption cases. In India, the cases go through lengthy court proceedings amid a huge backlog of cases. China, on the other hand, has been dealing with the corrupt officials in recent years more aggressively—and, critics say, repressively ….

Perhaps taking a cue from their northern neighbor, some of India’s recent anti-corruption crusaders like Baba Ramdev have been demanding capital punishment for those convicted of corruption.

“Corruption can happen to any political party in the world,” said Mr. Chen, adding that the Communists were “committed to combat corruption effectively because we want to be the ruling party for a longer time.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: corrupt officials, corruption, courts, execution, India, New Delhi, Wen Jiabao
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While US emissions fell substantially in 2009, to levels not seen since 1995-96, China surged ahead with an increase of more than 13% on the previous year – the equivalent of adding the yearly emissions of Germany, Greece and Peru combined ….

The map reveals how heavily future emissions trends depend on China, which overtook the US as the world’s biggest emitter in 2006-07. China’s emissions have so far risen just as fast as its runaway economic growth, but the government is hoping to “decouple” the two in the next decade, reducing the country’s emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45% by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. Doing so will be essential if global greenhouse gas emissions are to fall in line with scientific warnings.

But green campaigners want to stop western companies using the focus on China and their own falling output as an excuse for backpedalling on climate change. They have urged governments in developed countries to strengthen their emissions targets to prevent businesses from taking what would amount to an “emissions holiday”.

Meanwhile, the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs has published a new Air Quality Transparency Index together with the Renmin School of Law. Beijing-based doctoral student Angel Hsu writes:

Building off of similar indices aimed to gauge the availability and access of environmental information, such as the Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI), the AQTI’s aim is to compare the transparency of air quality information in 20 Chinese cities and 10 international cities, mainly from North America and Europe.

The AQTI is significant start in providing greater and much needed context for air quality data in China, which have often been criticized for being confusing and misleading at times. Moreover, international agencies such as the World Bank has reported harrowing statistics suggesting China is home to some of the post polluted cities in the world. While reports like these do point to the serious environmental and health hazards caused by air pollution in many Chinese cities, it is important to note that international scrutiny of China’s air quality data would not even be possible of China didn’t make the data publicly accessible in the first place.

Of the Chinese cities included, only Beijing manages to scrape past New Delhi, ranked 10th and last among the international cities. Mexico City, in 9th place, lies some way ahead. Nevertheless, Beijing might take some comfort in a record streak of Blue Sky Days, surpassing even the two long periods in summer 2008 when authorities implemented exceptional anti-pollution measures to coincide with the Olympics.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: air quality, Beijing, Beijing Olympics, blue sky, environmental data, Germany, Greece, greenhouse gas emissions, mexico, New Delhi, Peru, World Bank
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Tibetan exiles living in India scaled the fence at the Chinese embassy and set fire to Chinese flags on Monday, protesting against a nearly-completed railway linking Tibet with the rest of China.

Several protesters, some dressed in Buddhist robes, were arrested after a violent scuffle with embassy guards and police in New Delhi‘s diplomatic enclave. Dozens outside the embassy screamed “Free Tibet.”

China says the link will promote development in Tibet but Tibetan activists say it will only increase Chinese migration into the region, diluting Tibetan culture. A limited passenger service is due to start on Saturday. [Full Text]

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Read the rest of Tibetans in India Protest Against Train to Lhasa – Reuters (8 words)

© Michael Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2006. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: New Delhi, protests, Tibet railroad, Tibetan refugees
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