November 30:
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has received Askhat Karimboy, member of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the political council of China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. At the meeting they discussed plans for China to help build Tajikistan’s energy infrastructure including the Nurobod-1 hydroelectric power plant, the Dushanbe thermal power station, the 500-kilovolt Roghun substation and high-voltage power lines from Roghun to Dushanbe and from Khujand to Ayni, the state-owned Tajik news agency Khovar reports.
China’s updated national essential drug list comprising 307 drugs (of which 205 are Western and 102 types are traditional Chinese medicines) will be introduced in 30 percent of China's grassroots medical institutions before the end of the year. The system will reach 60 percent of grassroots clinics next year, and 100 percent by 2011, Russia’s Interfax News Agency reports. Beijing is expecting that over the next five years or so the growth of public hospitals will slow as people become acquainted with the new system.
Russia’s weapons sales to China are facing a “crisis” after General Guo Boxiong’s, vice chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission, visit to Moscow. Guo, who was investigating further bilateral military-technical cooperation, was received by President Dmitri Medvedev and Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov. Both sides played down the meeting, which concluded without an agreement. According to the Russia’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta: “Beijing already has bought everything that is possible in Moscow, and it will produce the greater share of weapons by itself. All of the new types of weapons that the PRC needs are only at the development stage in Russia, or else there are problems in producing them.” The Chinese delegation was reportedly shown Russia’s new generation of weapons, but Russia was unwilling to sell them. “Moscow wants to establish gentlemen's agreements with Beijing in the area of military-technical cooperation in order to avoid pirate copying of our technology. Moscow is thinking about refusing to sell Beijing a major part of the SU-33 fighter out of fears that the Chinese will illegally copy this airplane as they did earlier with the Su-27.”
December 1:
A series of protests that took place in China this week reflect the different types of civil disobedience in China. On November 25, in Dangshan, Anhui over 1000 local villagers who had refused the land requisition compensation for a local development project attacked the construction site, set fires and clashed with some 200 policemen. Three police vehicles were smashed, 20 villagers were injured, and 30 were arrested. On November 29th in Chongqing, more than 1000 retired workers of the Chongqing Jialing Motorcycle Factory blocked two highways to demand the reorganization of their pensions. A large number of policemen were there, but there were no incidents of violence, the Hong Kong Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reports. On November 30, in Hong Kong, 1000 people from 20 organizations marched against the construction of the $HK65 billion Hong Kong- Guangzhou - Shenzhen express rail link, The Standard reports. Meanwhile in Guangzhou, plans to build a massive garbage incinerator lead over 1000 residents to gather outside a government office building last month. The official People’s Daily reports that they recently succeeded in pressuring the government into conducting an environmental assessment of the project.
December 3:
The World Bank and Beijing are in discussions about setting up low-cost factories in new industrial zones in Africa to help the continent develop a manufacturing base and reverse its declining share of global trade. “I’ve discussed with the minister of commerce, Chen Deming, that there may be possibilities of moving some of the lower-value manufacturing facilities to sub-Saharan Africa – toys or footwear,” Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, told the Financial Times. Last month, Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, pledged $10 billion in low-cost loans over the next three years, an end to tariffs on 60 percent of exports from the poorest nations, and more debt forgiveness for poor countries. Yet, the idea has its critics in China’s interior provinces, which are desperate to locate new markets for Chinese factories, not to shift their production elsewhere.