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TAIPEI, Taiwan, Dec. 27 — After four years of renovations that closed two-thirds of the building, the museum housing the world’s most famous collection of Chinese art is reopening this winter and holding a three-month exhibition of its rarest works.

North Korea has been isolated further from the global financial system with the decision of a Vietnamese bank to order the immediate closure of all accounts linked to Pyongyang. East Asia Commercial Bank made the move even as diplomats tried to make progress during six-party nuclear talks last week. The isolation of North Korea has overshadowed efforts to persuade Kim Jong-il’s regime to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, with Pyongyang refusing to discuss nuclear issues while the US-led crackdown continues. Since the US started targeting the regime’s financial activities a year ago, banks, including those in friendly communist countries such...

The resumption of international talks on North Korea next week provides yet another opportunity to roll back Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. It would be a mistake, however, for negotiators in the six party talks – involving the two Koreas, the US, Japan, Russia and China – to assume that Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s leader, could be enticed into giving up his nuclear ambitions with economic aid and security reassurance alone. He must be confronted with a new strategic reality that forces him to choose between regime survival and nuclear weapons. Washington needs a drastic rethink of its strategy. If the US...

TOKYO: Sometimes I wish China would just do it: announce an immediate 40% strengthening of the yuan to show the world what would happen. US interest rates would shoot higher as China — and Asian central banks in general — sell devalued Treasuries. Sticker prices at Wal-Mart and Best Buy would skyrocket. China’s economy, one on which Japan is now highly dependent, would grind to a halt, risking social instability in the world’s most-populous nation. Shock waves would sweep through corporate America. A sharply stronger yuan would make household-name US companies cheaper for acquisitive Chinese executives. If you think China...

Beijing (FORTUNE) -- Senior U.S. officials, led by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, arrived inside the Stalinist-style Great Hall of the People Thursday morning, briefed and breakfasted and eager to offer guidance to Chinese leaders on how to become a "responsible stakeholder" in the global economy. But Vice Premier Wu Yi had other ideas. Like an impatient schoolmistress, she opened this historic gathering with a lecture. Her talk was one part history lesson (China has 5,000 years experience as a global citizen) and one part 21st century civics lesson (the goal is a "socialist harmonious society"), with no sign that her...

With the upstream and extraction portion of the Northern Lights oilsands venture pegged at $4.4 billion - a pricetag which has more than doubled and could rise another 30% - project operator Synenco Energy is looking to Asia for cost relief. The Calgary-based company said today it will have modules as large as 2,000 tonnes fabricated in Asia and then shipped to northern Alberta for assembly. The move is expected to result in a savings of about $1.2 billion. "There is no question that costs affecting capital-intensive oilsands projects have changed dramatically in just a few months - largely due...

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Thursday urged the United States to ease its export controls on China, saying it would help balance bilateral trade. Qin made the remarks at a regular press conference when commenting a possible US policy change. Two dozen groups representing some of the biggest U.S. companies, including Boeing and Microsoft, urged the Commerce Department on Dec. 1 to scrap a proposal to tighten national security controls on exports to China. A new proposal by the U.S. Commerce Department in July may further tighten controls, but the proposal is still under discussion. Qin said China...

Among the more disappointing aspects of US international economic policy over the past few years is how little progress has been made in putting Sino-US trade relations on a sounder footing. While China keeps talking the talk of taking the necessary steps to wean its economy from an excessive and unfair reliance upon export-led growth, it singularly fails to walk the walk in either pursuing greater currency flexibility or in cracking down on rampant intellectual property piracy. And there is every reason to expect that China will continue to do so as long as the Bush administration perseveres with its...

WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who leads a high-level delegation to China next week to press Beijing for economic and currency reforms, said he will warn Beijing the rest of the world is growing impatient. Interviewed on CNBC television, Paulson said China has become too large a player in the global economy to keep pleading for time to make reforms that others see as necessary in the face of growing deficits on trade with China. "If they were a small country it might be easier for them to say, we're in transition, give us more...

THE COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS Chapter 1 — The U.S.-China Trade and Economic Relationship Currency manipulation 1. The Commission recommends that Congress urge the Administration to take to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) a complaint about China’s manipulation of its currency. This manipulation contravenes both the letter and the spirit of WTO rules and the IMF charter. 2. The Commission recommends that Congress pass legislation to modify the requirements of the Treasury Department’s biannual report on countries that practice currency manipulation, by making it clear that countries that artificially peg their currency in order to gain...

OTTAWA : Chinese President Hu Jintao's refusal to meet with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the sidelines of an APEC summit in Vietnam this weekend has experts speculating Beijing is upset with Ottawa. China had asked to hold bilateral talks, but backed out at the last minute, suggesting a backlash over Harper's fierce human rights criticisms of Hu's Communist regime, Canadian media said. Harper spokeswoman Sandra Buckler told local reporters Beijing had decided not to hold talks with the Canadian prime minister during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on November 18-19 in Hanoi. But she would not say...

KH strike group gets underway for fall cruise By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Matthew Reinhardt, Kitty Hawk public affairs USS KITTY HAWK, At Sea – USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) and its strike group departed Yokosuka, Japan, Oct. 17, for a fall deployment with embarked Carrier Air Wing 5 after completing a month of maintenance. The strike group is expected to return to Yokosuka by the end of the year. Other ships departing with the Kitty Hawk on Tuesday included the guided-missile cruiser USS Cowpens (CG 63), and guided missile destroyers USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), USS Fitzgerald (DDG...

Adm. Gary Roughead was scheduled to meet with China's military officials during his stay and help plan a November 19 search-and-rescue exercise, the second half of a two-part operation that began in the United States. "The thrust of our discussions will really be in how our navies can gain a better understanding of one another," said Roughead, who was visiting China the first time since taking the post. He also told reporters he "really would like to know what the intent is in some of the developments" he's seen in the navy of the 2.3 million strong People's Liberation Army,...

I. Overview – China’s “Go Out” policy for energy security China considers its energy supplies, particularly oil and natural gas, to be increasingly insecure. While prior to 1993 it was a net oil exporter, China now has the largest annual increases in oil consumption in the world, forecast to run at a rate of around 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2006 and 2007 by the US Department of Energy. This is being driven by economic growth of about 10% per year. Despite efforts to slow this runaway growth rate, China will still be the largest single driver of growth...

Ben Cook's fingers flurried so fast you couldn't see what he was doing until he had done it. But when the cell-phone screens cleared, the world's fastest text messenger was handed his first head-to-head defeat Tuesday: a voice-recognition computer had bested his record time on a complicated 27-word message. "I'm a little humbled to have been beaten like that," the 18-year-old Provo, Utah, man said with a smile after the race. The exhibition was sponsored by Nuance Communications Inc., a company that hopes to deploy its new software across several wireless carriers next year. Nuance recruited Cook to test him...

Below are excerpts of this gentleman's Congressional Testimony. For the full transcript go to the source. I think he's not telling all he should, and is protecting the so called 'interests' of US China Relations. ---- I speak to you as someone who spent a considerable amount of time in the first term of the Bush administration focused on North Korea and its relationship to the PRC, serving as the Senior Advisor for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, North Korea Working Group Coordinator at the State Department, and a participant in the Six Party talks. However, particularly for these reasons,...

Why China won’t act One thing is clear about the North Korean nuclear problem, that China is divided on the issue. I want to help make sense of why China does what it does. A closer examination of China’s internal politics really is timely here. First point. To say China ‘supports’ the N. Korean move would not be exactly accurate. There are though groups within China that benefit from it. The distinction should be noted. For the sake of this discussion let us divide China into two major camps. There are more but these are the two most popular ones....

A Chinese trademark application for a condom brand has been turned down because the name of the product sounded too much like China's state-run television company, state press said yesterday. An entrepreneur from Fujian Province caused a stir early last month when he applied to name his condom brand Zhongyang yitao, which sounds like "China Central Television (CCTV) channel one" but also means "central condom number one." The play on words has not been taken well by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce which oversees trademark registrations, the Southeast Express newspaper reported. "The Zhongyang yitao name already has a...

Carolyn Bartholomew Vice Chairman, U.S. China Commission Before the Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco Asia-Pacific Affairs Forum - China Series “China: Competition or Cooperation? Charting a Course that Serves U.S. Interests” August 15, 2006 Good evening and thank you for inviting me to speak today. Thank you, particularly, to Cynthia Miyashita, Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Affairs Forum, for including the U.S.-China Commission in your China series. I would also like to acknowledge the leadership of your Congresswoman and my former boss, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who appointed me to the Commission. Thank you to the members of the...

China only looks as if it can defy gravity. In reality, its growth appears much less magical when we take a closer look. As an initial matter, foreign parties have been constantly investing cash in large amounts in China and thus are continually adding fuel to its economy. As long as they continue to do so, the country will prosper regardless of the soundness of its policies. More important, state intervention in the economy is still significant. Despite what many believe, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is not code for capitalism. If the phrase stands for anything, it means using market...