August 2:
Hundreds of Chinese military personnel have been deployed to recover thousands of barrels of explosive chemicals that recent floods washed into the Songhua River in Jilin Province. Official said a total of 3,662 barrels filled with colorless and highly explosive chemicals – mainly trimethyl chlorosiliane and hexamethyldisilazane – and 3,476 empty ones were swept into waterways during floods that destroyed the warehouses of two chemical plants in Jilin City, Jilin Province. So far authorities claim to have recovered 6,387 chemical barrels but also admitted that tests show that the waters of the Songhua River entering Heilongjiang province are "chemically tainted,” the Press Trust of India reports.
August 4:
Indonesia has decided to throw its full diplomatic weight behind Southeast Asian countries and against China. Last month the Permanent Delegation of Indonesia at the United Nations sent a Diplomatic Note that for the first time openly challenged China's claims in the South China Sea. The note, which was presented to the UN Secretary General, states that “China's claim to the South China Sea has no basis in international law and violates the legitimate interests of the global community.” Unlike its Southeast Asian neighbors, Indonesia does not have a competing sovereignty claim in the South China Sea. However, an editorial in the Indonesian Newspaper Kompas explained that for Jakarta “ASEAN is Indonesia and Indonesia is ASEAN.” At the recent ASEAN Regional Forum in Vietnam, China said the South China Sea is a matter of "national interest" akin to Taiwan and Tibet.
August 5:
Hong Kong’s free press continues to write about what the Ming Pao calls the “increasingly tight media censorship in the mainland.” China’s Central Propaganda Department has been more frequently and rapidly been issuing bans to the media from reporting specific events. A ban on coverage of a specific event can now go out to news outlets as fast as two hours after it occurred. The Apple Daily reports that Nanjing officials were filmed reprimanding reporters from the Jiangsu web TV's metropolitan channel for reporting on a massive explosion at a plastics factory in Nanjing. Meanwhile, mainland media was also prohibited from covering the killing of three children and a teacher at a kindergarten in Zibo, Shandong Province, England’s the Guardian reports.
August 6:
China is expanding its agri-business investments in Africa and Latin America. China’s largest agricultural state-owned enterprise, the China Agricultural Group, is currently operating in 40 countries with 1 million employees posted abroad. In Tanzania the group controls 6000 hectares of land, and has invested in the food industries of Guinea, Benin and Zambia. The firm also has investments in Argentina and Peru and other state-run firms are expanding agri-business investments in Brazil’s soybeans and corn. The Chongqing Food group, for instance, has invested $300 million in Bahia, Brazil to buy 100 hecters of land for soybean production, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reports.
August 7:
The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Second Artillery unit in charge of its strategic missile force has established a new missile base in Shaoguan, northern Guangdong Province, the Shaoguan Daily newspaper and a local government report. Last June, the PLA set up a similar base in nearby Qingyuan, Guangdong and plans to build another missile base in Sanya, Hainan. Both Shaoguan and Qingyuan are in mountainous areas in northern Guangdong – ideal locations to hide strategic missile forces. Shaoguan will be equipped with DF-21C ballistic missiles and/or CJ-10 long-distance cruise missiles – both capable of precise strikes at over 2,000 km – placing Taiwan, the Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea within range. The bases suggest China’s missile forces are highly mobile, the South China Morning post reports.
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