December 21:
Economic integration with China remains a highly contentious issue in Taiwan. After arriving in Taiwan for a new round of talks with his Taiwanese counterpart, Chen Yunlin, Beijing’s chief negotiator with Taipei, said that the two sides should expand economic exchanges and cooperation in 2011. Chen invited Taiwan to join China's new 12th five-year plan, which is expected to generate new opportunities for cross-strait economic cooperation and focus on emerging industries including internet technology, biomedicine and clean cars. Meanwhile, Huang Chi-shih, director of the Statistics Department at Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, warned that the island could become reliant on China for production if Taiwanese companies continue outsourcing Taiwan-based production lines to China and suspending new production technology development at home. Although this trend permits large businesses to make money, Huang said, it contributes few job opportunities for Taiwanese workers. He called on firms to invest in more value added products made in Taiwan, Focus Taiwan News Channel reports.
December 22:
India’s Hindustan Aeronautics and Russia’s Rosoboronexport and Sukhoi signed a major contract to jointly design a Indo-Russian fifth generation fighter aircraft; New Delhi’s largest-ever defense project. India, which accounts for about 35% to 40% of Russia's annual $8.6 billion in international arms sales, will spend $35 billion over the next two decades on the project. With the deal, India, the Financial Express reports, “looks beyond a traditional military rivalry with Pakistan to counter China's rising power.” The aircraft will be based on Russia's T-50 prototype fifth-generation fighter and will boast “advanced features such as stealth, supercruise, ultra-maneuverability, highly integrated avionics, enhanced situational awareness, internal carriage of weapons and Network Centric Warfare capabilities.”
December 24:
In April, 2010 a court outside Urumqi quietly sentenced Memetjan Abdulla, an editor for the Uighur language service of the official China National Radio, to life in prison on charges that he spread subversive information around the time of deadly rioting in Xinjiang in June and July 2009, the New York Times reports. Outside of work, Abdulla, who is in his early thirties and grew up in the city of Karama, Xinjiang, helped manage the Salkin website, an independent source of information for Uighurs. On June 26, 2009 he translated the World Uyghur Congress’ call for Uighur exiles to protest the lynching of Uighur workers by Han colleagues at a factory in Guangdong and posted it on Salkin, Radio Free Asia reports. Abdulla also gave interviews to foreign journalists in Beijing about the Guangdong factory killings; anger over which later sparked the deadly rioting in Urumqi, the provincial capital.
[Editor’s Note: The rioting in Xinjiang enhanced fears among government officials that the internet could help spread unrest in the region. They shut down Xinjiang’s internet services immediately after the rioting started and kept it down for months. Courts have given out particularly harsh sentences to Uighurs involved in running websites. Last July, Gheyret Niyaz, a Uighur intellectual who managed a website, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Later that month, three more Uighur webmasters were given prison terms ranging from three to ten years.]
December 25:
In the aftermath of Shanghai’s most deadly fire in decades, prosecutors have detained the director of the Jing An district construction and transportation commission, the head of the commission’s general office, and the vice head of the commission’s construction project management office. The blaze, which began on November 15th, killed 58 people and injured 70 others. More than 60 fire engines responded to the four-hour blaze but their fire hoses could not reach the upper half of the 28-story building. Investigators blame unregistered welders at a state-owned construction company for starting the fire by igniting the nylon netting and bamboo scaffolding around the 13-year-old building, which was under renovation. Shanghai officials have detained 13 welders and construction company officials and censored criticism of firefighters inability to control the blaze from the state-run press. The New York Times reports that a week after the fire over 10,000 people gathered at the building to mourn the victims. Singapore’s Lianhe Morning News reports that officials are pressuring victims to move back into the damaged building and out of the hotels the city had placed them in.