54 China cancels minister's trip to Australia, & Japan navy visit, over Uighur leader

China cancels minister's trip to Australia, & Japan navy visit, over Uighur leader

(1) China cancels a minister's trip to Australia in protest against visit by Uighur leader
(2) Chinese Minister Snubs Australia - Wall St Journal
(3) Australian moves sour relations - China Daily
(4) China threatens to cancel Japanese warship's visit over visa for Uighur leader
(5) China 'rejects' Japan navy visit
(6) Stand up to China's bullying ways - Brown
(7) India wary as China conducts biggest "long-range" war games
(8) India's Female Vigilantes

(1) China cancels a minister's trip to Australia in protest against visit by Uighur leader

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/18/2659713.htm

Smith regrets China's diplomat decision

Posted August 18, 2009 17:22:00

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has hit back over China's decision to cancel a minister's trip to Australia in protest against a visit by exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.

Australia's relationship with China has been strained in recent months for several reasons, including Ms Kadeer's visit, the detention of Australian citizen Stern Hu and the collapse of an investment deal between Rio Tinto and Chinalco.

China strongly opposed the visit by Ms Kadeer last week and was vocal about its displeasure to the Australian Government.

Speaking in Federal Parliament today, Mr Smith said Chinese Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs He Yafei's decision to cancel a scheduled visit to Australia was "regretful".

"If it does take further action as a result of us allowing Rebiya Kadeer to come to Australia we will of course regret that," he said.

"From time to time in any bilateral relationship there will be difficulties.

"These difficulties need to be managed carefully and successfully as Australia is currently managing difficulties in the relationship we have with China."

Mr Smith defended the decision to allow Ms Kadeer into the country.

"The Chinese authorities at a range of level ... made very strong representations to Australia about the proposed visit to Australia of Rebiya Kadeer," he said.

"I considered those representations and came to the conclusion there was no basis for denying her entry to Australia."

Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu has been held in Shanghai for over a month and was last week charged on suspicion of violating commercial secrets and bribery.

The Government has urged China to quickly resolve his case.

(2) Chinese Minister Snubs Australia - Wall St Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125058133438939485.html

    * AUGUST 18, 2009, 3:55 A.M. ET

Chinese Minister Snubs Australia

By RACHEL PANNETT

CANBERRA -- In the latest sign of a growing diplomatic rift between Canberra and Beijing, Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Tuesday that China downgraded an official visit to Australia earlier this month after Canberra granted a travel visa to exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.

The scheduled visit by Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei to an Australia-led Pacific Islands forum in Cairns, Queensland state, Aug. 4-7 was canceled and China sent a special envoy instead, Mr. Smith told lawmakers in Canberra. The decision meant high-level talks between Australia and China couldn't take place, he said.

The relationship between China and Australia has been tested in recent times, both by the Kadeer case, and by China's detention of Rio Tinto Ltd. executive and Australian citizen Stern Hu, on charges of bribery and infringing on trade secrets.

Disquiet is also growing among some Australian politicians and commentators about the amount of Chinese investment in Australia's mining sector.

Malcolm Turnbull, leader of the conservative Liberal-National opposition, said earlier Tuesday that diplomatic relations with China are "at the lowest ebb they have been for many, many years".

Australian officials have stressed that the diplomatic issues haven't affected trade flows between Australia and China, which, before the outbreak of the global financial crisis curbed commodities exports, was Australia's biggest trade partner. However, Trade Minister Simon Crean last week warned the Hu case could affect the way other firms conduct their business in China unless it is resolved "expeditiously and satisfactorily".

Mr. Smith said Tuesday that although he chose not to interfere with normal immigration processes in relation to Ms. Kadeer, he did indicate to China that Australia "of course respected the territorial sovereignty and integrity of China over the Western provinces."

"Australia very much regrets that China has decided to effect that response," Mr. Smith said.

The foreign minister said it is unclear whether China will take further action against Australia over the incident. But he emphasized Australia's "long-standing, productive economic relationship with China".

"From time to time in any bilateral relationship, there will be difficulties," Mr. Smith said. "These difficulties need to be managed carefully and successfully as Australia is currently managing the difficulties in our relationship with China."

China has condemned Ms. Kadeer, an exiled businesswoman and dissident, as the mastermind of last month's riots that killed 197 people in the northwest region of Xinjiang, home to nine million ethnically Turkish Uighurs. Ms. Kadeer denies she instigated the July 5 protests in her home town of Urumqi.

She traveled to Australia last week, speaking at a Melbourne film festival where a documentary about her life, "The 10 Conditions of Love," was shown for the first time. She also delivered an address at the National Press Club in Canberra.

After Beijing failed to convince festival organizers to withdraw the documentary, Chinese filmmakers withdrew their own movies in a move widely seen as government-orchestrated.

Despite the diplomatic tensions, China is spending more on Australian acquisitions than ever before. Australian deals have accounted for about 29% of China's $31.18 billion of total cross-border mergers and acquisitions by dollar volume this year, according to Dealogic.

Write to Rachel Pannett at rachel.pannett@dowjones.com

(3) Australian moves sour relations - China Daily

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-08/19/content_8585355.htm

By Zhang Xin and Peng Kuang in Beijing AP, Reuters in Canberra (China Daily)

Updated: 2009-08-19 06:43

* Experts believe friction between nations will not last long due to major common interests shared by the two nations.

China canceled plans for Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei to visit Australia earlier this month, reportedly due to Canberra granting a visa to Rebiya Kadeer, the mastermind of the July 5 Urumqi riot.

The decision was the latest sign that ties between the two countries are strained.

"Australia very much regrets that China decided to take that response," Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Parliament yesterday.

China's Foreign Ministry yesterday refused to comment.

Kadeer, who lives in exile in the US, was allowed to visit Australia, despite strong protests from Beijing.

As a result, He did not attend a summit of 16 Pacific nation leaders nor a bilateral meeting in the northern city of Cairns in early August, Smith said.

Chinese officials told Australia of the decision via "diplomatic channels", Smith's office said in a statement. The Chinese delegation was led instead by a more junior envoy.

"We regret that the Chinese government has felt obliged to take these steps," the statement said, adding that Australia supports Chinese sovereignty over Xinjiang.

Beijing's displeasure over Kadeer's trip came after Canberra voiced concern at the detention of an Australian mining executive on charges of bribery and commercial espionage.

Four employees of the mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd, including Australian citizen Stern Hu, were charged with bribery and infringement of trade secrets in the multibillion-dollar iron ore trade.

Smith described the situations with Kadeer and Hu as "difficulties that we have in our relationship with China" that Australia was "managing".

Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull accused Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat to Beijing, of bringing bilateral relations to "the lowest ebb that they have been for many, many years".

"He obviously has no leverage with China left at all," Turnbull said.

Chen Fengying, an expert at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said it was "natural" for China to have made the move because it was dissatisfied with Australia granting Kadeer a visa.

"This was not a surprise, because thousands of Chinese web users have voiced their anger at the Australian move," Chen said.

But she said there would be no permanent damage to bilateral relations, citing major common interests shared by the two nations.

Australia needs to maintain its relationship with China, which is its largest trade partner, she said.

Zhu Feng, a professor at Peking University's School of International Studies, said that given the tension between the two nations, it was not proper for He to visit Australia.

"China has valued its relations with Australia. But Australia did not show enough respect for China," he said, citing the Kadeer visit and the Rio Tinto case.

Shen Shishun, a former Chinese diplomat and now senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, said he did not expect the friction to do lasting damage.

"The Chinese people feel very strongly about the July 5 riot, so there is anger about Kadeer going to Australia," Shen said.

Michael McKinley, an expert on global relations at Australian National University, said the relationship was stable because of underlying economic interests.

"Australia needs to sell stuff and the Chinese need to buy it," he said.

Yesterday, the two countries signed their biggest trade deal ever as ExxonMobil and PetroChina, the world's two most valuable listed oil companies, agreed on a $41-billion liquefied natural gas deal.

(4) China threatens to cancel Japanese warship's visit over visa for Uighur leader

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-08/18/content_8580389.htm

Warships' visit floats up agenda

By Li Xiaokun (China Daily)

Updated: 2009-08-18 07:09

China has good reason to refuse a proposed visit to Hong Kong of three Japanese warships, Chinese media and experts are saying.

They said the ships should not be made welcome following recent decisions in Tokyo to host Xinjiang separatist Rebiya Kadeer and allow planned visits from former Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui and the Dalai Lama.

The website of Japan's Asahi Shinbun newspaper reported Sunday that the three Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) vessels, with more than 700 naval officers and crew on board, set off from Tokyo in April. The ships called in at 13 countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe and are due back home in early September.

Though the mini fleet had no plans initially to visit Hong Kong, Japan has since raised the idea of a stopover sometime late this month or in early September in an attempt to improve exchanges with the Chinese navy, said the website.

According to the report, the Chinese government told the Japanese embassy in Beijing that "it is a sensitive issue, so far there is no atmosphere for approving Japanese warships' stopover in Hong Kong".

The report quoted Japanese analysts as saying that China was expressing its discontent following Japan's reception of Kadeer, Lee Teng-hui and the Dalai Lama.

Kadeer is head of the World Uighur Congress, which is suspected of having instigated the July riots in Xinjiang that claimed at least 197 lives.

Lee and the Dalai Lama are scheduled to visit Japan and make speeches there in September and November.

A diplomat with the Japanese embassy, who declined to be named, told China Daily yesterday that Japan was still negotiating with China about the suggested visit.

An official with the Foreign Ministry's spokesman's office said the ministry was studying the case, while the Ministry of National Defense made no comment yesterday.

Hong Kong-based Shing Pao Daily News said in an editorial yesterday that "Beijing is assured and bold with justice" in declining the visit.

"The request for JMSDF ships to visit Hong Kong would ordinarily be normal practice among military exchanges with China but what the Japanese government did recently contradicts with the principal of friendly cooperation and made the atmosphere unsuitable," it said.

Su Hao, director of China Foreign Affairs University's Center for Asia-Pacific Studies, said the request from the Japanese warships to visit Hong Kong was significant because it was unprecedented, even though there is an agreement between Beijing and Washington to allow US warships to stop in Hong Kong for supplies.

The first Japanese warship to visit China after World War moored at a naval base in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, last summer, drawing national attention because of Japan's past invasion of China.

"It's understandable for the government to decline such a request at a time when many sensitive issues have emerged in bilateral relations," Su said.

(5) China 'rejects' Japan navy visit

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8208726.stm

Page last updated at 08:50 GMT, Wednesday, 19 August 2009 09:50 UK

China has rejected a requested port call in Hong Kong by Japan's navy, Japanese media have reported.

The Asahi Daily quoted Japanese and Chinese officials as saying the visit was blocked because of "sensitive issues" and "technical details".

China's state-run China Daily said there was good reason to block the requested naval visit.

It cited trips to Japan by the Dalai Lama and Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer - considered separatists by Beijing.

China says Mrs Kadeer and the Dalai Lama want to split China by fomenting unrest from exile abroad.

Japan's Asahi Daily newspaper quoted unnamed Japanese officials saying the request for two training vessels and one destroyer to make a stop in Hong Kong was rejected on 12 August because of "sensitive issues".

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang was quoted by the Asahi Daily as saying: "Due to technical reasons, it is not convenient for China to receive the Japanese Self-Defence Forces warships in Hong Kong."

The ships are on a 13-nation tour and had hoped to visit Hong Kong later this month or early in September.

Chinese officials protested to Japan over the visit to Tokyo last month of activist Rebiya Kadeer.

China has accused Mrs Kadeer of instigating ethnic riots in Xinjiang province last month that resulted in 192 deaths, according to official Chinese accounts.

The China Daily reported that a Japanese diplomat who declined to be named had said Tokyo and Beijing were still negotiating the visit.

It also quoted a Hong Kong Chinese-language newspaper's applause of any decision to block Japan's port call request.

The first Japanese warship to visit China since World War II moored at a naval base in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province last year, drawing national attention because of Japan's past invasion of China.

It is not the first time China has refused access to Hong Kong for a foreign navy. US warships were turned away in 2007 because of, a foreign ministry official said, US arms sales to Taiwan and Washington's award of a medal to the Dalai Lama had harmed relations.

(6) Stand up to China's bullying ways - Brown

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25956351-5005961,00.html

Article from: AAP

August 20, 2009 12:20pm

THE Federal Government needs to stand up to China which is run by "a mob of bullies", Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown says.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has reportedly recalled ambassador Geoff Raby back to Australia for an emergency summit as relations with China continue to deteriorate.

The Australian newspaper says China's main state-run English language newspaper has accused Australia of being a "champion of an anti-China chorus".

It comes after Chinese authorities tried to stop a film about Uigher leader Rebiya Kadeer being shown in Melbourne.

They also attempted to stop Ms Kadeer speaking at the National Press Club.

"My concern is that our government won't stand up to China," Senator Brown said.

"We are dealing with a mob of bullies in Beijing who think they can rattle a sabre and politicians elsewhere ... will fall into line."

(7) India wary as China conducts biggest "long-range" war games

India's Navy chief says his military is no match for China's growing forces.

By Dan Murphy | Staff writer 08.11.09

http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/08/11/india-wary-as-china-conducts-biggest-long-range-war-games/

Less than a week after India and China held what they described as fruitful talks on a long-standing border dispute, China embarked on a massive war-game designed to improve its ability to dispatch troops over long distances.

Not surprisingly, some in India are concerned.

As China’s economy has grown, so has its offensive military capabilities, which has fueled something of an arms race in Asia, particularly with the region’s other emerging economic power, India.

As we reported in June, the Indian Ocean – the vital transport hub for the region’s goods and energy – will likely become a region of increasing strategic jockeying as the world’s two largest countries seek to secure their economic positions. China’s approach is dubbed the "String of Pearls" strategy by US military officials.

China and India fought a border war over their poorly demarcated boundary in the Himalayas in 1962, and China has at times since claimed sovereignty over territory that appears to be well on the western side of the border (this map shows the disputed area.)

On Tuesday, China began a series of military maneuvers that it is describing as its "largest-ever tactical military exercise." The war games, called "Stride-2009," will involve 50,000 troops form China’s more than 2 million-member standing army, and are designed to help China improve its "long-range force projection" by using high-speed civilian rail and civilian aircraft in rapidly moving troops, according to state news agency, Xinhua.

    According to the PLA General Staff Headquarters, in charge of organizing the exercise "Stride-2009," one army division from each of the military commands of Shenyang, Lanzhou, Jinan and Guangzhou, will participate in a series of live-fire drills lasting for two months. Unlike previous annual tactical exercises, the army divisions and their air units will be deployed in unfamiliar areas far from their garrison training bases by civilian rail and air transport.

The exercise will have troops operating from up to 1,000 miles from their home bases. Though China is a vast country with significant internal dissent – rioting by ethnic Uighurs in Urumqi this July (and in Tibet last year) occurred more than 2,000 miles from Beijing – some neighbors fear it is intent on expansion.

The Times of India said strategists have long worried about the possibility that an expanding rail network in China could be used to "enhanc(e) China’s military superiority over neighboring India."

On Monday, Indian Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta warned in rather stark terms that China’s military is outstripping India’s, according to the Hindustan Times. It was an unusually blunt admission:

    "In military terms, both conventionally and unconventionally, we can neither have the capability nor the intention to match China force for force…" He said Beijing was in the process of consolidating its comprehensive national power and creating formidable military capability. "Once that is done, China is likely to be more assertive on its claims, especially in the immediate neighbourhood," said Mehta, who as the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, is the country’s senior most military commander.

Two months ago, India’s former Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major said China was a greater threat to India than Pakistan.

(8) India's Female Vigilantes

From: World View <ummyakoub@yahoo.com>  Date: 20.08.2009 01:06 PM

India's female Pink Gang are vigilantes
Anuj Chopra
Sunday, June 14, 2009
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/13/MNRR15FURD.DTL#ixzz0OeJjUIGM

Banda District, India --

On a hot afternoon, a throng of two dozen women clad in candy-pink saris gathered beneath the cool shade of a gnarled banyan tree. They listened with rapt attention as a sinewy but robust woman they called "commander" delivered a military-type briefing.

"To face down men in this part of the world, you have to use force," she said. "We function in a man's world where men make all the rules. Our fight is against injustice."

The "commander" is Sampat Pal, the 47-year-old leader of thousands of female vigilantes known as the Gulabi (Pink) Gang. Since its inception three years ago in a lawless area of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, women from some 600 villages have joined the group, wielding heavy clubs and and traditional bamboo batons, called lathis, used by police for crowd control to "convince" wife beaters, rapists and corrupt bureaucrats to change their ways.

Chuniya Devi, a diminutive 30-year-old mother of six, joined the Pink Gang three years ago to learn how to restrain her husband, Seevan's, alcohol-fueled outbursts. She says her broad-shouldered husband stopped the beatings soon after she joined the gang for fear of being pummeled himself.

"I learned that the more you suffer silently, the more your oppressor will oppress you," said Devi.

The vigilantes' unconventional ways have fired the imagination of Banda women, who widely hail the group as heroes in this feudalistic region of India. Banda is among the nation's poorest areas with nearly 20 percent of its 1.6 million inhabitants at the bottom rung of India's caste hierarchy, according to government estimates. Many are not taken seriously by police when crimes are committed against them.

A lower-caste family from the town of Bulandsharar, for example, asked the Pink Gang for help after their landlord raped their teenage daughter and paid police not to investigate. When Pal called the town's chief of police, he registered the case out of fear that he would be mobbed by Pink Gang members if he didn't, the family says.

For Pal, seeds of rebellion were sown after her parents refused to send her to school. She protested by scribbling the ABCs on village walls and floors. They finally relented, only to remove her from school at age 12 to marry a man 13 years older than her.

She then went to live with her husband, Munni Lal Pal, an ice cream vendor. A year later, she had the first of her five children.

At 18, Pal, who says she was moved by the plight of poor Indian women, began meeting with local nongovernmental organizations to work on women's health issues and combat child marriages, dowry abuse and domestic violence. Leaving the house to speak with men and relinquish the ubiquitous Hindu veil known as ghunghat was initially opposed by her husband, but her zeal changed his attitude. "He supports me now," she said.

In 2006, Pal's impatience with traditional activism and red tape surrounding women's aid programs pushed her to form the Pink Gang with a handful of women. Since then, several thousand women - many of whom are victims of domestic violence - have joined the group.

Over time, Pal realized that the fight is not just against abusive men. Corruption, she says, is a major player in stalling economic development in Banda and other impoverished districts. Transparency International, a watchdog group in Berlin that addresses worldwide corruption, estimated that Indians, particularly the poor, paid $4.5 billion in bribes to officials for basic services in 2005.

Last year, the Pink Gang discovered a government-run shop selling tons of grain on the black market that should have been handed out free to the poor. Despite threats from knife-wielding drivers, two female vigilantes stopped several trucks loaded with grain headed for the illegal market by deflating tires and confiscating the drivers' keys. The pink-clad women then publicly pressured government officials to seize the grain and distribute it to the poor as intended.

When residents of the Banda village of Atarra were long ignored about paving the village's rutted dirt roads, the Pink Gang stepped in. "We realized that they would not act until their palms were greased," Pal said.

The women then swarmed the office of District Magistrate G.C. Pandey, holding him down and smearing his face with black paint in a public act of shaming. He soon authorized the road construction.

To be sure, the Pink Gang is often criticized for breaking the law. Pal, for example, has been charged with 11 criminal offenses for the attack on Pandey and is out on bail.

"She is a bold woman," said Ashutosh Kumar, Banda's superintendent of police, who says he admires her grit. "But she works like a kangaroo court."

Such criticism or the threat of imprisonment, however, doesn't bother Pal.

"There used to be a pervasive feeling of helplessness, a collective belief that fighting back is just not possible," said Pal. "But that is slowly changing."

E-mail Anuj Chopra at foreign@sfchronicle.com.