Welcome to ChinaWatch, WMB’s digest of news from the country with the world’s second largest economy. Click the links for more info. Firewall May Expand
The Great Firewall of China is rock solid with Google forced to relocate operations to Hong Kong and Facebook sequestered in 404 Not Found Territory on China's Internet.
But what about Skype -- the Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) provider? Surely, China's Big Brother doesn't want to censor phone calls, too?
Well, in a sense yes, blogs Ron Callari at inventorspot.com.
It's not the content of such phone calls the Chinese are concerned with, so much as the loss of revenue by government-run telecom services China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom.
The Chinese Ministry of Information and Technology says it’s collecting evidence against VoIP services in preparation for legal proceedings. The target is believed to be the Internet telephony service Skype.
If China moves against Skype, it would join the rank of a number of well-known Western Internet companies in the online graveyard of the Far East -- Flickr, Youtube, Facebook and Google.
Manufacturing Growth Eases
The pace of growth among China's manufacturers eased last month but output continued to expand, figures suggest.
The China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing says its purchasing managers index fell to 53.9 in December, from 55.2 in November and 54.7 in October. It was the first time in five months that the measure had fallen, BBC News reports.
Monthly PMI (Purchasing Manager Index) readings have stayed above 50, indicating expansion, for 22 months.
Analysts say strong domestic demand has continued to offset weakness in some of the country's export markets such as the United States and Europe.
Chinese authorities have been taking steps to try to control growth in a bid to control inflation -- which in November hit a 28-month high.
On Christmas Day, Beijing raised key interest rates, the second such move in less than three months. And the amount of money banks keep in reserve also has been restricted to try to reduce bank lending levels.
The latest data shows China's economy grew at an annual pace of 9.6% in the three months to the end of September, from 11.9% in the first quarter of this year.
Space Ventures Grounded
Prospects for cooperation between the United States and China in space are fading even as proponents say working together could help build bridges in often-testy relations on Earth.
The idea of joint ventures in space, including spacewalks, explorations and symbolic “feel good” projects, have been floated from time to time by leaders on both sides, according to Reuters.
Efforts have gone nowhere over the past decade, swamped by economic, diplomatic and security tensions, despite a 2009 attempt by President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to kick-start the bureaucracies.
U.S. domestic politics make the issue unlikely to advance when Obama hosts Hu at the White House on Jan. 19.
Washington is at odds with Beijing over its currency policies and huge trade surplus but needs China’s help to deter North Korea and Iran’s nuclear ambitions and advance global climate and trade talks, among other matters.
Hu’s state visit will highlight the importance of expanding cooperation on “bilateral, regional and global issues,” the White House says.
But space appears to be a frontier too far for now, partly because of U.S. fears of an inadvertent technology transfer. China may no longer be much interested in any event, reckoning it does not need U.S. expertise for its space program.
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