February 15:
In an unusual 40-minute meeting in Beijing with Secretary of State John Kerry a group of Chinese bloggers has called on the U.S. to actively support internet freedom in China. “Will you get together with the Chinese who aspire for freedom” and help “tear down this great firewall that blocks the Internet?” asked Zhang Jialong, a reporter for Tencent Finance, a division of China’s largest social media company. Investigative reporter Wang Keqin said the cause of Internet freedom was “going backward.” “There is less of it,” he said in comments carried by the New York Times.
February 17:
Xinjiang police report that 13 terrorists, driving motorbikes and cars, and carrying explosive devices and knives attacked a group of police gathering before a park gate to start a patrol at around 4 pm in Wushi county, Aksu Prefecture. Police said the “terrorists” detonated LNG cylinders as suicide bombs. Two civilians and two police officers were injured in the attack and five police vehicles were damaged. Police shot eight Uighur attackers dead, three others were killed by their suicide devices, and one was captured. In 2012, Xinjiang recorded 190 “terrorist attacks,” a sizeable increase over 2011, the official China Daily reports. On January 24, six Uighurs were shot dead during an attack against a police station in Xinhe, Aksu Prefecture.
An unidentified “Chinese government company” is in negotiations with Ukraine to supply Kiev’s new corvette-class warship. Defense Minister Pavlo Lebedyev has requested the government allocate more funding for the program this year and noted the Chinese side has offered a “a government loan.” In comments carried by 5 Kanal TV, Kiev Lebedyev said Ukraine is in “serious” talks with the company, which “proposed the best price and payment conditions.”
February 18:
Kazakhstan is caught between the expansion of Chinese economic interest and radical Islamism, Tengri News reports. China has inked several opaque deals for Kazakhstan’s oil and gas resources. Meanwhile, “an Islamic rebirth is continuing in Kazakhstan, which is importing radical Islam into the local Kazakh Muslim community.” Over the last two decades Arab and Islamic charity organizations and the Persian Gulf monarchies have increased their presence in Kazakhstan, funding religious organizations, mosques, madrasahs, and providing scholarships for Kazakhs to continue their Islamic training in Saudi Arabia.
February 19:
After weeks of protest, Kyrgyzstan’s prime minister has suspended work at the new Chinese-built Zhongda oil refinery in Kara-Balta, reports the webesite Eurasianet.org. Since it opened last month, fetid smoke has emanated from the $300 million facility, and a recent soil sample collected near the refinery by the State Environmental Agency showed petroleum levels 175 times the legal limit. The Zhongda refinery was designed to process crude oil imported from Kazakhstan, an idea Bishkek embraced to boost employment and to help Kyrgyzstan break Russia’s fuel-supply monopoly. Russian fuel exports meet about half of Kyrgyz domestic demand and lower fuel costs.