GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The new US ambassador to China, Gary Locke, told reporters at his first press conference in Beijing Sunday 14 August that the US is committed to “getting our fiscal house in order”, in response to Chinese criticism in recent days of what official media have called the American “addiction to borrowing”. China reportedly held $1.16 trillion in US debt, government securities, at the end of May, more than any other country. The criticism followed the downgrading of US credit by rating agency Moodie’s earlier this month.
Locke is a third-generation Chinese-American, whose family emigrated from Hong Kong, with roots in southern Guangdong province. He became the first US state governor of Chinese descent in 1996, re-elected to the post in 2000. He has most recently served as US secretary of commerce. He speaks fluent Cantonese.
He and his wife and three children arrived in Beijing 11 August.
Links to other sites: Economic Times of India, New York Times, Politico, Xinhua
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The death toll has risen to 54 in Jiangxi province alone in eastern China as welcome rains have caused serious flooding in some areas, following a months-long drought that parched much of central and southern China. Some 4.81 million people are affected by the floods, reports Xinhua, with 21 people dead in Guizhou province.
The country has been pounded by storms this week: Beijing recorded “1,000 thunderstrikes” late Tuesday and early Wednesday says the news agency.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND - Hainan Airlines, one of the fastest-growing airlines in the industry and China’s fourth largest, starts three-times weekly flights between Zurich and Beijing Tuesday 31 May, the beginning of what promises to be stronger aviation ties between Switzerland and China.
Swiss is reportedly targeting Zurich-Beijing as one of its next offers, possibly linked to Swiss’s purchase of five new planes.
Photo: bridgestochina.com (Life in Beijing)
Hainan Air’s non-stop service will used an Airbus A330 with 34 business class and 179 economy seats. The flight runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday in each direction. Flights leave Zurich at 13:20 and arrive at Beijing International Airport at 05:20 local time the next morning. The departing time from Beijing is 01:50 local time, landing at Zurich Airport at 7:05 the same day. Both arrival times offer the possibility of good connections for further travel, says Hainan Air, China’s largest private airline.
“The frequency is much likely to be increased if the market demand is higher,” notes Hainan in a press release about the new line. It also notes that with code-sharing with its partner Air Berlin for Zurich-Berlin flights that connect with Berlin-Beijing on Hainan, Switzerland and China now have nearly daily connections between their capitals, on Hainan.
Geneva airport
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Hainan Airlines, which will begin operating non-stop flights between Zurich and Beijing 31 May, is opening sales in Zurich 1 May with Aviareps handling bookings and service for the privately owned Chinese company.
Hainan Air will initially offer three flights a week, but this is scheduled to increase if the demand is strong enough.
Geneva to Amsterdam seats will increase by 14 percent on KLM this summer and Basel will have Swiss flights to Nice starting 1 July for an introductory fare of CHF99. Swiss is also adding 7 flights a week to Rome’s Fiumicino Airport from Basel 27 March, in addition to its current four from Zurich.
Szeto Wah, a Hong Kong union leader and political activist, has died in a Hong Kong hospital after a long bout with lung cancer. Szeto opposed British colonial rule and was part of the committee set up to draft Hong Kong’s constitution, the Basic Law. Thought to be close to the government in Beijing he broke with it after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, and organized the first candlelight vigil in 1990 to commemorate the deaths, which continues to draw many thousands every year.
Links to other sites: New York Times, The Standard
China has called off ministerial-level government contacts over the Japanese detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain whose boat collided with Japanese coast guard ships 8 September near uninhabited islands in a disputed area of the East China Sea. The two countries have broken off coal and joint gas exploration agreements. Shares in the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company, the country’s largest offshore energy company dropped 1.6 percent in Hong Kong trading 20 September.
Thousands of Chinese tourists have cancelled trips to Japan, and protesters have gathered outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing. Japan’s recent economic recovery is due in large part to strong exports to China.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, New York Times, Washington Post, Xinhua
A mini-economy, with roadside merchants supplying food and drink, has appeared on the Jining-Beijing highway in China, part of the Tibet to Beijing expressway, where a 100-km tailback is now in its ninth day, making it a candidate for the world’s worst traffic jam. The slowdown is the result of road works and a traffic spike caused by heavy trucks on this main goods route into the city, which is under repair due to the damage caused by constant heavy goods traffic. The highway operated at a crawl during July, as well, and according to China’s government-owned Global Times, some motorists have while away the hours by playing cards.
Links to other sites: AFP/Vancouver Sun, Global Times, China
Huang Guangyu, once the richest man in China, has been sentenced to 14 years in prison by a Beijing court that found him guilty of bribes, insider trading and illegal business dealings. The 41-year-old set up a company, Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings, which has become China’s largest home appliance chain. By 2005 his worth was said to be over $6 billion.
Links to other sites: China Daily, Reuters
Zhao was performing Chopin in concerts at age 8
Melodie Zhao, age 15 (photo: Vera Makus)
Updated 7 March: link to review in Le Temps Geneva / Saint Prex, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Mélodie Zhao, age 15, will sit down at a grand piano at Geneva’s Victoria Hall Tuesday evening, to a sellout crowd of nearly 2,000 people, to interpret Chopin, in honour of his 200th birthday. It’s one of several Chopin events this week in Geneva which include 24 pianists from around the world, each interpreting one of his Etudes, also at Victoria Hall.
Zhao will perform the complete 27 Etudes (Op. 10 and Op. 25 and three without opus numbers) in one concert, a challenge rarely met by pianists.
“Ernesto”, president of Zamis OSR (Friends of the Suisse Romande Orchestra), which organized Zhao’s concert, calls her “phenomenal” and British classical pianist Andràs Schiff says she is “fantastic.” Ernesto noted in a recent letter to members of the group, inviting them to Tuesday’s concert, that “I will hardly insist on the extraordinary feat that performing all 27 of Chopin’s Etudes in one concert represents: it’s enough to say very few pianists are even up to this.”
Zhao’s relationship to Chopin is very special: at age 13 she became the youngest person to record his complete 24 Etudes with opus numbers, in the Tibor Varga Studios in Switzerland. At age eight she was already performing Chopin’s work in concert halls.
Her relationship to Geneva is also special, with her first completely solo recital at age 10 performed at the Palais de l’Athénée in Geneva, a programme of 70 minutes, with works from several periods.
She has been invited, since age 12, to perform at major festivals and concert series including, in Switzerland, the Davos Festival, Musiksommer am Zurichsee, and les Sommets du Classique in Crans-Montana.
Tuesday’s concert is a return trip to Geneva’s Victoria Hall, where she and Chopin have already enchanted audiences, notably in June 2009 when she played as a soloist with the Geneva Symphony Orchestra (Ed. note: YouTube videos are at the end of this article).
Melodie Zhao and sister Cadenza, at home (photo ©2010: Ellen Wallace)
Saint Prex pianist was Geneva’s youngest recipient of bachelor’s degree
Mélodie, who lives in Saint Prex and attended local schools while also studying from age nine at the Conservatoire in Geneva, is now the youngest student in the master’s degree programme at the conservatory. In 2009 she became the youngest person, at 14, to be awarded a bachelor’s degree by the canton of Geneva.
At the ripe old age of 15, with a demanding schedule of four to eight hours of music a day, six days a week, and a musical maturity uncommon for her age, she’s moved on to other composers.
Close of Olympic Games for doping
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne has stripped Rashid Ramzi from Bahrein of his gold medal. He won the men’s 1,500 metre race in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Italian Davide Rebellin, who placed second in the men’s road cycle event, will have to return his silver medal, the IOC announced. The world governing body for the Olympic Games sanctioned three other athletes who participated in the Beijing Olympics for using the banned hormone CERA, 18 November.
The IOC’s zero-tolerance policy in the use of endurance or performance-enhancing drugs means that it will store blood and urine samples taken during the Games for eight years so that the laboratories can do retroactive testing.
US President Barack Obama has arrived in Beijing, China after visiting Shanghai where he met with students and called for greater Internet freedom for the Chinese. Obama said in a town-hall style meeting with students that he believes the free flow of information strengthens societies. Obama will try to calm Chinese fears about Washington’s response to the global economic crisis. China is the world’s biggest owner of US Treasury bonds. Chinese leaders have said they fear that the US will try to devalue its way out of the massive obligations it has assumed to save the banking industry and to stimulate a faltering economy.
The government’s head of banking regulation, Liu Mingkang, Monday 16 November criticized the US Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy, saying it is having a “massive impact on global asset prices.” He said a weak dollar and low interest rates were endangering the economic recovery, especially in emerging econmies.
The US continues to call on China to revalue its currency, which it says is making Chinese exports cheaper and undermining other countries’ efforts to stimulate their economies. Economist, Financial Times, Reuters
Communist China celebrates 60, Chappatte cartoon
Rockets were fired in China Thursday and no, they weren’t to disperse crowds or to make a pretty display: they were shot into the skies in provinces around Beijing to make sure rain clouds dumped their water before they reached the capital, the largest weather intervention since the 2008 Olympics. A major parade, special lighting around buildings, outdoor theatre and a major fireworks display is all part of the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Communist Party’s rule in China. BBC, CNN, Xinhua
US Embassy representatives in Beijing met with Chinese officials from two ministries in Beijing Friday 19 June to discuss China’s tough new restrictions on Internet access and to ask China to engage in dialogue about the issues raised by the curbs on access. In what the Financial Times describes as a “rare direct intervention by the US over internet freedom, which has steadily risen in importance as an issue between the two countries in recent years” the US State Department is saying that the free flow of information but also trade issues are at stake. China will require all new computers sold from 1 July to have Green Dam filtering software. China 18 June ordered Google to prevent access to web sites outside China, citing pornography concerns. The US-based company has recently overtaken Baidu, the main Chinese search engine. Xinhua
Kim Jong-un, the 26-year old third son of North Korea’s dear leader Kim Jong-il paid an official and secret visit to Beijing 10 June and was presented to the Chinese leadership as his father’s designated heir. Analysts speculate that the Swiss-educated Kim was named by his father to succeed him because of the elder Kim’s failing health. In Bern, Switzerland, a public school in Koeniz called a press conference after reports in Japanese newspapers that the younger Kim had also attended a public school there, not just the private International School in Guemligen. Reuters, NZZ (Ger)
The United States and Britain are encouraging China to come out into the open about what happened during the student uprising in Tiananmen Square in Beijing 20 years ago, June 1989, reports the BBC, with statements from British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s statement is interpreted by at least one experienced observer as the US taking a firmer stance with China on human rights. Western media are carrying the 20th anniversary story as headlines news, while in China security is tight and there is virtually no media mention of Tiananmen. CNN‘s bureau chief Jaime Florcruz, who has been in Beijing for some 30 years, notes that for the younger generation of Chinese, there is little interest in the protests of two decades ago, a theme carried by Le Monde (Fre). Globe & Mail, Canada, New York Times, Times, UK,
US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, struck a relatively upbeat note on the economy, saying the downturn appears to be losing force, in a speech where he emphasized US-China cooperation, at the start of his first visit with Chinese officials in Beijing, Sunday. He meets Monday with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Qishan, vice-premier. Xinhua, the official Chinese media, notes that according to their diplomatic sources his visit prepares the way for the “first China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington DC this summer,” with Geithner and Wang responsible for the economic dialogue and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo in charge of the strategic talks. New York Times/IHT
The Chinese government has been cracking down on the “wiley” population of street vendors who hawk counterfeit goods, but the hawkers are fighting back in a battle that highlights an underlying problem: “China’s government has pledged to crack down, and it faces increasing pressure to show progress. But some doubt much will change until China graduates from manufacturing goods to designing them, and has more to lose than gain.” International Herald Tribune
Ten-metre high flames were part of a fire reportedly started by fireworks that were part of China’s Lantern Festival in Beijing 9 February, which destroyed a building in the CCTV complex. A new high-rise Mandarin Oriental Hotel, scheduled to open in 2009, appears to have been destroyed, but no deaths or injuries were reported in the unoccupied building. International Herald Tribune
The company that runs the Bird’s Nest National Stadium in Beijing, Citic Group, says that within three to five years it will turn the stadium into an entertainment and shopping centre, with a vocation that is primarily tourism, although it will continue to host sports events. The company says annual maintenance on the 250,000m2 stadium is expected to be nearly $9 million. Xinhua
