May 2:
Protesters have projected the image of the detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei with the words “China's Conscience Ai Weiwei” on the wall of the Central Government’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong. Protesters also threw jasmine flowers and banners calling for Wei’s release into the compound before a struggle broke out with police, the Apple Daily reports. The Beijing-controlled Ta Kung Pao’s opinion page responded with a call for severe punishment for the perpetrators and a stern reminder that “Hong Kong protesters should not show their support for Ai Weiwei as his case has been put under investigation and he has been detained in mainland China in accordance with the law.”
May 3:
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reports that the strengthening of Chinese competition in the global arms and military equipment market is the most serious threat facing the Russia’s military-industrial complex. “In the field of military-technical cooperation, Russia and China are focused on the same regional markets, large emerging countries keen to pursue a military-political line that is relatively independent of Western countries,” the report noted. On the other hand, however, “Chinese policy is giving rise to increasing fears among neighboring states in Southeast Asia, which provides Russian exporters with new opportunities.” The article said close military-technical cooperation between China and Pakistan has pushed India to import more military equipment from Russia, making New Delhi key market for Moscow’s arms manufacturers. Meanwhile, China’s growing military strength has pushed Vietnam to become one of Russia's closest military partners and during a recent air force tender by Myanmar, the country’s ruling junta rejected Beijing’s attractive offers and “surprisingly” opted for Russian RSK MiG-29s. The first 20 aircraft ordered under the roughly $553 million deal are expected to be delivered to Myanmar over the over the next few months, Myanmar News reported last month.
May 7:
In response to China’s rapid development of road and rail networks in Tibet, India will complete a network of military roads on its side of the boarder by 2013, India’s Border Roads Organization (BRO) Director, General S. Ravi Shankar said in comments carried by India’s Economic Times. About 63 percent of work has been completed on 27 roads in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and 12 more in Ladakh are already complete, he said. In response to China the BRO has undergone a restructuring process since 2007 and has purchased equipment that will allow it to build 5 km of roads per day in the inhospitable mountainous environment. “We are responsible for maintenance of 15,000 km of roads in border areas. We have also built 19 airfields and 36 km of bridges,” Shankar said. China and India have both beefed up their military presence along the border with each adding thousands of extra combat troops, armor and expanded airbases and troop barracks.
[Editor’s Note: The disputed China-India border has been the subject of fourteen rounds of fruitless talks since 1962, when the two nations fought a brief but a brutal war over the issue. Premier Wen Jiabao met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi late last year and reaffirmed a 1993 pledge to maintain peace in border areas and continue talks.]
May 10:
In Kazakhstan the opposition political party co-chairman Azat, Bulat Abilov, has called on the Kazakh authorities “to suspend all the contracts currently in force with China, make them public and make all the loans attracted during the past two years - almost $20 billion - the property of the public.” Abilov said that the party would submit to the city mayor's administration a request to hold an anti-Chinese rally in Almaty on May 28 to oppose the “influence of China on the country's economy.” In comments carried by the privately-owned Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, he said: “Chinese expansion, Chinese influence, Chinese capital and investments are increasingly penetrating the economy of Kazakhstan and over the past five years Chinese companies have virtually become owners of Kazakh oil resources.”