ChinaWatch: Smoking Into Space

Welcome to ChinaWatch, WMB’s digest of news from the country with the world’s second largest economy and our chief rival to global dominance. Our aim is to keep you informed.



Smoking Stamped Out

A smoking ban is now in effect in most public places in China, a move that health experts say will help raise awareness of the dangers of smoking in a country where tobacco use is deeply ingrained.

There is a lack of public awareness of the health risks of smoking in China.

The World Health Organization says seven out of 10 non-smoking adults in the East Asian nation are exposed to second-hand smoke each week. Smokers light up in elevators and offices, and even in hospital waiting rooms.

With the new ban, the country’s estimated 300 million smokers will no longer be allowed to puff their cigarettes in what the Chinese government is calling “enclosed public places.”

These include hotels, restaurants, theaters and public transport waiting rooms. The ban does not cover offices or factories.

Hong Kong University School of Public Health Director Tai Hing Lam says the ban will be effective in informing the public about the dangers of smoking.

“With this new legislation, this will promote awareness, and that is a major step,” Lam says.

He says non-smoking Chinese, who make up the majority of the population, should understand second-hand smoke is harmful to their health. He hopes the new ban will help encourage them to ask for more smoke free places.

“Non smokers at the moment are too passive, let us put it that way, because they’re so used to being exposed,” he says. “So, they do not realize that they have the right to demand it (smoke free places). Now, the law actually empowers them.”

Stepping Into Space

China may fly a woman astronaut into space next year as it embarks on an ambitious program for the next decade which includes a mission to land a rover on the moon and setting up a space station with a cargo spaceship to transport supplies.

China plans to fly two more spacecraft next year to improve the rendezvous and docking technologies and one of it will be a manned one, says Yang Liwei, deputy director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, hinting it could as well be a woman.

China plans to carry out its first space docking between two unmanned vehicles this year, followed by one manned and one unmanned space missions next year as part of its efforts to set up a space station.

“Two to three astronauts will be sent to space in that manned mission next year,” he was quoted by the state-run China Daily as saying.

Fei Junlong, leader of China's astronaut team, says the two women astronauts and five men astronauts – the second batch of Chinese astronauts, who were selected last year – have to take a three-year training course before carrying out space missions.

But Yang says there are possibilities for the women to join next year's mission.

The two women astronauts, both pilots from the People's Liberation Army Air Force, are the first women astronauts in China. The 14 astronauts in the first batch, who were recruited in 1997, are all men.

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ChinaWatch: Breaking Down Walls

Holes In The Great Wall

The U.S. government has figured out how to bust through Internet censorship filters in order to deliver news and other vital information via e-mail to people in countries like China, a report claims.

The report from the Broadcasting Board of Governors detailed successful testing the agency conducted last year as it tried to slip data into inboxes in Hong Kong and China. The testing involved technology known as Feed Over e-mail, or FOE, to bypass traps the Chinese government has in place to screen out unwanted Internet content.

According to the report, first obtained and published by the nonprofit GovernmentAttic through a Freedom of Information Act request, the technology “performed well in all tests.” BBG confirmed the report's authenticity to FoxNews.com.

Experts behind the testing say this information weapon probably could not have done much good in a situation like that unfolding in Egypt, where the government was flat-out blocking Internet access in response to the political unrest.

“If there's a blackout ... nothing works,” BBG Director of Information Security Ken Berman says.

But the agency's testing demonstrated that, at least in China, it can be used effectively to transmit everything from RSS feeds to downloadable files to proxy web addresses which users can access to browse an uncensored version of the Internet.

Follow The Money Trail

Changes under way in China “will gradually erode” the country's ability to closely manage the value of its currency and force the renminbi to float more freely on world markets, the U.S. Treasury says in a report that declined to cite China as a “currency manipulator.”

As in previous biannual Treasury reports on currencies, the document addressed the politically contentious issue of China's currency management, which critics argue is used to keep its exports unfairly cheap, The Washington Post reports.

Members of Congress and others have urged the Obama administration to brand China a “currency manipulator,’’ which, under U.S. law, would trigger negotiations and possible sanctions.

But like his predecessors, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has tried to resolve the issue through diplomatic channels – criticizing Chinese policy and urging them to make changes without formally invoking U.S. law.

With U.S. unemployment still at 9 percent, the issue has become particularly sensitive, but the latest Treasury document notes China's currency has appreciated modestly this year – by close to 4 percent in nominal terms, but by much more than that if the impact of inflation is included.

The document notes China is taking steps to liberalize how the renminbi can be bought and sold overseas.

“These reforms will gradually erode the controls that help the authorities manage the level of the exchange rate and, over time, will contribute to a more market-determined exchange rate,’’ the report concludes.

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ChinaWatch: Space Between Walls

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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.

Google, China ... And The Wall

Google, the largest Web search engine, will no longer offer its services directly to mainland China — home to most of the planet's Internet users. The move signals an interesting turning point in what can be simply described as a battle between oppression and freedom.

Still, it's far from clear who will ultimately win this battle, but the first round seems to have gone in favor of the Chinese government, which fears outside influences corrupting the mindset of its people.

Chinese users lost official Google access two weeks ago in response to government censorship and hacker intrusions. The Mountainview, Calif.-based company pulled the plug on its Chinese-language search Web site, Google.cn, and redirected Internet users in mainland China to Google's service in Hong Kong — Google.com.hk — which is not subject to some of China's regulations.

The Chinese government, under President Hu Jintao, has cracked down on online freedoms in recent years with censorship that blocks certain words when entered into a search engine. Words such as oppression, democracy, genocide and human rights are blocked by search engines such as Baido.cn or Yahoo.cn, reports Timothy Fenster of the Stylus.

Outrage by the Chinese people is tough to measure, but it may not be as Draconian as it appears to those of us in the Western World.

"Mostly, I think we exaggerate the disaffection of Chinese toward their government,'' writes Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times op-ed columnist. "Most Chinese citizens aren’t very political and aren’t deeply upset by the lack of a ballot — as long as living standards continue to improve. And many Chinese prefer a local search engine, Baidu, to Google. Still, ordinary Chinese are profoundly irritated by corruption, nepotism, lies, official arrogance — and hassles when they try to use the Internet,'' Kristof says.

Sherman So, a Hong Kong-based correspondent writing for Asia Times Online, sees winners in the faceoff between the Chinese government and Google.

"One clear winner is Baidu, Google's main rival in the mainland,'' So says. "Baidu's Nasdaq-listed shares soared 50 percent from Jan. 12, when Google announced its intention to leave China, to April 1, adding $6.9 billion to the Chinese company's valuation. Google's shares dropped 5 percent in the period, costing $10 billion in market capitalization, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index gained about 3.9 percent.

"By standing firm in the face of Google's demands that it be allowed to run uncensored Internet searches, (the government) upheld the principle that every company in China has to obey Chinese laws," So says. "The company can say it stood by the principle of Internet freedom (and its motto of 'do no evil') and its wish to run an unfiltered search engine in China. At the same time, it is still milking the vast Chinese market through its other interests."

Some see this outcome as a way both sides can save face, according to So, who notes the Chinese government has "mastery in blocking unwanted information over the Internet, what the industry calls the 'Great Firewall' of China. Popular social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (which belongs to Google), and Blogger (also Google's) have long been routinely blocked, to the frustration of many people living in Beijing and elsewhere."

Kristof, of The New York Times, says access to an unfettered Internet in mainland China is viewed by high-ranking officials as a real threat to the government's control over citizens, especially the younger generation.

"The mood among young Chinese reminds me of Taiwan or South Korea or Indonesia in the 1980s, when an increasingly educated middle class — beneficiaries of enlightened economic policies of oppressive governments — grew to feel stifled and patronized by their governments. Eventually, in each case they upended one-party rule and achieved a democracy.

"Chinese leaders surely fear that parallel, and that is likely to be one of the reasons they are cracking down frantically on dissent," Kristof writes.

One can only hope the "enlightened" people of mainland China find the courage to seek more knowledge of the outside world. The more they learn the better the planet will be for all of us. Knowledge is power and, used wisely, there is no greater force.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com.