China Reform Monitor: No. 1054

August 19:

The China-North Korea border area is experiencing a methamphetamine (aka “crystal meth” or “bingdu” in Chinese) epidemic thanks to increased North Korean production, the German newspaper Sddeutsche Zeitung reports (English summary in The Korea Herald). DPRK state-run factories have long produced methamphetamine for export to China, but to meet growing demand, underground and home laboratories under the protection of corrupt officials have quickly expanded production. As a result the number of meth addicts in Jilin Province has rapidly risen – particularly among teenagers and construction workers.

August 20:

China has officially informed Russia that after a month of heavy rains in the northeast its hydraulic facilities on border rivers “can no longer regulate water discharges,” Aleksandr Frolov, the head of the Russia’s Federal Agency of Hydrology and Meteorology (Rosgidromet), said in comments carried by Russia’s Guberniya TV. Over 37 million Chinese and 2.5 million Russians are suffering from flooding, which raised water levels in 32 rivers in Chinese border areas and caused some to burst their banks. According to the Russian report: “If China discharges all water into the tributaries of the Amur river waters levels in the river will increase 50 percent.” In Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning, a major grain-growing region, more than 787,000 hectares of farmland have been flooded and roads in some urban areas look like rivers, CNN reports.

August 22:

Upon the request of the China Metallurgical Group Corp. (MCC), Kabul is reviewing the $3 billion Aynak copper mine project contract inked in 2007. In an interview with Tolo TV News, Afghanistan’s Minister of Mines and Petroleum, Wahidollah Shahrani, said based on the current contract MCC should provide an $800 million concession to Kabul, but the firm wants to renegotiate. In return for control of the mine, MCC also agreed to extend a rail linking Hayratan (on the Uzbek border) and Sher Khan (on the Tajik border) to Torkham (on the Pakistan border) and also build a power station with the capacity of 400 MW in Logar. But four years later, MCC has specified its commitments were “conditional” and called for the project’s review. Shahrani will visit China next month, saying: “We are optimistic the Chinese company will accept our conditions, but if they did not accept, the Afghan government will make a decision, taking Afghanistan's real interests into consideration.”

August 23:

On the heels of his successful two-day “transit visit” to New York, Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou announced that his government will continue to procure weapons from the U.S. to safeguard national security. “Although tensions across the Taiwan Strait have gradually eased and cross-strait relations are now the most peaceful in more than six decades, we still cannot afford to be lax in terms of combat readiness,” Ma said at a ceremony on the outlying island of Kinmen Island, within sight of the mainland. The president arrived in Kinmen to attend a ceremony marking “the 55th anniversary of an artillery battle between the Republic of China military and communist Chinese forces,” Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reports.

August 24:

A week before Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s visit to China the official Global Times published a report entitled “Singapore PM: China could gain Diaoyu islands but lose its international standing” based on comments Lee made at the Nikkei International Conference on the Future of Asia in May. In response, Singapore’s Foreign Ministry claimed the paper “took Prime Minister Lee's comments completely out of context and grossly distorted and misreported what he said.” Singapore’s statement called the report “sensationalist” and said “unprofessional reporting are unhelpful and could harm bilateral relations and affect people-to-people ties.”

[Editor’s Note: The Straits Times republished Lee’s controversial comment: “If they [China’s leaders] are taking a long-term approach, they will make this calculation that whether it is the Senkakus [called the Diaoyu Islands by China], whether it is the South China Sea, what you gain on the Senkakus or the South China Sea, but you lose in terms of your broader reputation and standing in the world, you have to make that calculation very carefully.”]