China and Brazil in $30bn currency swap agreement
China and Brazil have agreed a currency swap deal in a bid to safeguard against any global financial crisis and strengthen their trade ties.
It will allow their respective central banks to exchange local currencies worth up to 60bn reais or 190bn yuan ($30bn; £19bn).
The amount can be used to shore up reserves in times of crisis or put towards boosting bilateral trade.
China is Brazil's biggest trading partner.
"As international credit remains scarce, we will have enough credit for our transactions," Brazil's Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, said.
A global yuan?
The agreement is the latest in a series of similar deals signed by China with its trading partners.
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China will keep being the place where to do business”
Guido Mantega
Finance Minister, Brazil
In March this year, it signed a swap deal with Australia worth up to A$30bn ($31bn; £20bn) to promote bi-lateral trade and investment.
It has also inked currency pacts with Hong Kong and Japan.
Analysts said that Beijing has been trying to push for trade to be settled in yuan, rather than in US dollars, as part of its plans to seek a more global role for its currency.
"The motivation is to be less reliant on the US dollar," Sean Callow, chief currency strategist at Westpac, told the BBC.
"We will see firms in the two countries settle their accounts in local currencies," he added.
Mr Callow added that with an increasing number of economies signing such agreements with China, its plans for a more global role for the yuan had received a major boost.
"It is a big positive for China on that account."
Closer co-operation
While trade between China and Brazil has surged, relations between the two economies have soured in recent times.
In Brazil, there have been concerns that increased imports of low-cost goods from China were hurting the local manufacturing industry.
Beijing, on the other hand, has accused Brazil of raising taxes on Chinese goods in a bid to protect the local industry, a move it says hurts its exports.
Brazil has also levied similar allegations against China.
Despite these tensions, the two countries have agreed to co-operate in various sectors to boost bi-lateral trade.
They said they will work closely in mining, industrial, aviation and infrastructure development.
The agreement also comes at a time when growth in China, the world's second largest economy, has been slowing.
China's economy grew at an annual rate of 8.1% in the first quarter, the slowest pace in almost three years. There are concerns that growth may slow further in the coming months.
However, Brazil's Finance Minister, Mr Mantega said "China will keep being the place where to do business".
US to invite Burma to military drills with Thailand
Re: China and Brazil in $30bn currency swap agreement
- More and more rich Chinese businesspeople are seeking residency in the US through investment
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By John Sudworth
There is one Chinese export product that is seemingly unstoppable at the moment - millionaires.
Porsche-driving Louie Huang lives in Shanghai, having made his money - a lot of money - in property.
He is having a 200-room villa built here and owns properties in at least five other cities around the world.
But while his business interests remain in China, he has also stumped up the sizeable investment needed to buy himself residency rights in Singapore.
He says it is for a number of reasons, in particular the opportunity it might bring his future family.
But he admits that for many of his wealthy friends it is a sense of insecurity which is leading them to ponder a life outside China.
"Most of them think I've got so much money here but one day maybe the government will change the policies and take it all back," he says.
Visa for jobs
Entrepreneurial, well-connected or just plain corrupt, it does not matter how they made their fortunes, there is mounting evidence to show that China's super-rich are heading for the exit.At a seminar in a plush office suite with a spectacular view of Shanghai, Chinese entrepreneurs with at least half a million dollars to spare are being encouraged to invest in the US economy.
The EB-5 visa scheme is an investment-for-residency programme, handing out green cards as long as the investment can be shown to have created at least 10 jobs.
In 2006 Chinese nationals were granted just 63 visas under the scheme. Last year the figure had leapt to more than 2,408 and this year it is already above the 3,700 mark.
It means a tidal wave of Chinese money is currently pouring into US infrastructure projects.
The scheme is open to any nationality but Chinese investors now make up 75% of the total.
China's rigid and opaque political system is perhaps one reason for the wealth-drain, particularly in a year in which there is due to be a changing of the guard at the very top of the Communist Party.
There are certainly lifestyle concerns too. Like Louie Huang the wealthy are often seeking cleaner air and a better education for their children.
Add to that the fears that China's decade-long economic boom may be losing steam and it is perhaps not surprising that China's rich are on the run.
The EB-5 data is not the only evidence. A survey last year of almost 1,000 Chinese dollar millionaires found 60% considering moving overseas.
China is now one of Australia's biggest sources of migrants with figures released for 2011 showing that it had overtaken the UK for the first time.
And American estate agents have been reporting a big jump this year in the number of high-value home buyers from mainland China and Hong Kong.
The party is far from over for China's wealthy, including Louie Huang - who has just opened a brand new nightclub.
As his patrons sit around tables containing a dozen or more bottles of champagne it is abundantly clear that many people are still making money here.
But in these economically uncertain times, there is a growing temptation for those with money to take it, and themselves, somewhere a little safer.
Re: Rich Chinese seeking overseas residency
Desmond Tutu calls for Blair and Bush to be tried over Iraq
2 September 2012 Last updated at 09:43 GMT
Tony Blair and George W Bush should be taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague over the Iraq war, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said.
Writing in the UK's Observer newspaper, he accused the former leaders of lying about weapons of mass destruction.
The Iraq military campaign had made the world more unstable "than any other conflict in history", he said.
Mr Blair responded by saying "this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say".
'Playground bullies'
Earlier this week, Archbishop Tutu, a veteran peace campaigner who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 in recognition of his campaign against apartheid, pulled out of a leadership summit in Johannesburg because he refused to share a platform with Mr Blair.
The former Archbishop of Cape Town said the US- and UK-led action launched against Saddam's regime in 2003 had brought about conditions for the civil war in Syria and a possible Middle East conflict involving Iran.
"The then leaders of the United States [Mr Bush] and Great Britain [Mr Blair] fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand - with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us," he said.
He added: "The question is not whether Saddam Hussein was good or bad or how many of his people he massacred. The point is that Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not have allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level."
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To say that the fact that Saddam massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens is irrelevant to the morality of removing him is bizarre”
Tony Blair
Archbishop Tutu said the death toll as a result of military action in Iraq since 2003 was grounds for Mr Blair and Mr Bush to be tried in The Hague.
But he said different standards appeared to be applied to Western leaders.
He said: "On these grounds, alone, in a consistent world, those responsible should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in The Hague."
In response to Sunday's article, Mr Blair issued a strongly worded defence of his decisions.
He said: "To repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence [on weapons of mass destruction] is completely wrong as every single independent analysis of the evidence has shown.
'Chemical weapons'
"And to say that the fact that Saddam massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens is irrelevant to the morality of removing him is bizarre.
"We have just had the memorials both of the Halabja massacre, where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons, and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million, including many killed by chemical weapons.
"In addition, his slaughter of his political opponents, the treatment of the Marsh Arabs and the systematic torture of his people make the case for removing him morally strong. But the basis of action was as stated at the time."
He added: "In short this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say. But surely in a healthy democracy people can agree to disagree.
"I would also point out that despite the problems, Iraq today has an economy three times or more in size, with child mortality rate cut by a third of what it was. And with investment hugely increased in places like Basra."
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It's now almost certain that the war was illegal because it breached the United Nations Charter provisions.”
Sir Geoffrey Bindman
Human Rights Lawyer
Human rights lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman told BBC Radio 4 the Iraq war was an illegal aggressive war.
He said a war crimes trial "should be and could be held on the basis a crime of aggression has been committed and the crime of aggression was starting the war.
"It's now almost certain that the war was illegal because it breached the UN Charter provisions which say that all member of the United Nations must refrain from the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."
Former Lord Chancellor Lord Charles Falconer said he disagreed with Desmond Tutu and Sir Bindman.
"The use of force is allowed among other reasons when the United Nations authorises it, and the United Nations authorised it by resolution 1441.
"The dispute between Geoffrey and myself would be whether or not resolution 1441 did or did not authorise war and we say that it did.
"Even that disagreement doesn't give rise to the possibility of war crimes, the world has very impressively over the last two decades come together and identified what they mean by war crimes; genocide, ethnic cleansing, torture and in a variety of ways brought people to trial for that"
Re: Rich Chinese seeking overseas residency
Clinton Begins Asia Trip, Trying to Ease Tension With China
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
eptember 1, 2012
RAROTONGA, Cook Islands — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton began a 10-day, 6-nation visit to Asia pledging to broaden American diplomatic, economic and security support in the Pacific, but also offering conciliatory remarks toward China at a time when tensions are rising over territorial disputes.
We all have important contributions and stakes in this region’s success — to advance your security, your opportunity and your prosperity,” she told leaders on Friday at the Pacific Island Forum, an annual conference of 16 nations and self-governing states located across a vast stretch of ocean. “I think, after all, the Pacific is big enough for all of us.”
Mrs. Clinton’s visit, the first by a secretary of state to the forum and to the remote Cook Islands, nevertheless highlighted an intensifying race between China and the United States for influence in a part of the world that President Obama has tried to make a greater focus of American foreign policy.
Mrs. Clinton, accompanied at the forum by the head of the Pacific Command, Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, pledged new assistance programs to boost economic development in the region and to remove unexploded ordnance on land and at sea that are still posing a threat 70 years after some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. The United States, she noted, spends $330 million a year on development projects in the Pacific.
She and Admiral Locklear also pledged to expand American Navy and Coast Guard patrols with local law enforcement agencies aboard ships and aircraft to combat illegal fishing, trafficking and other security challenges.
The competition for influence comes as China has been increasingly assertive about its claims on broad areas of the South China Sea and in other waters, increasing tensions with countries like the Philippines and Japan that declare ownership of disputed islands.
The United States has backed the smaller nations’ assertions that talks over disputes should be multilateral, rather than bilateral negotiations that could give China the advantage. The administration is also working to beef up the American military presence in the region.
Mrs. Clinton acknowledged, without explicitly mentioning China, that others view the renewed American commitment in Asia as a challenge to their own economic and security interests.
In recent months, American criticism of China’s trade and development policies — often with authoritarian governments the United States has sought to isolate, like Fiji in the Pacific — have prompted sharp rebukes from Chinese officials. She reiterated her calls for China to invest in more beneficial ways.
“Now here in the Pacific, we want to see China act in a fair and transparent way,” she said during a news conference with Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand, which administers security for the Cook Islands, a far-flung, sparsely populated archipelago of 15 islands. “We want to see them contribute to sustainable development for the people of the Pacific; to protect the precious environment, including the ocean; and to pursue economic activity that will benefit the people.”
Mrs. Clinton will visit Beijing later this week, her second trip there this year, as well as Indonesia, Brunei, East Timor and Russia for the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting, where she will represent the United States in place of a campaigning Mr. Obama.
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
eptember 1, 2012
RAROTONGA, Cook Islands — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton began a 10-day, 6-nation visit to Asia pledging to broaden American diplomatic, economic and security support in the Pacific, but also offering conciliatory remarks toward China at a time when tensions are rising over territorial disputes.
We all have important contributions and stakes in this region’s success — to advance your security, your opportunity and your prosperity,” she told leaders on Friday at the Pacific Island Forum, an annual conference of 16 nations and self-governing states located across a vast stretch of ocean. “I think, after all, the Pacific is big enough for all of us.”
Mrs. Clinton’s visit, the first by a secretary of state to the forum and to the remote Cook Islands, nevertheless highlighted an intensifying race between China and the United States for influence in a part of the world that President Obama has tried to make a greater focus of American foreign policy.
Mrs. Clinton, accompanied at the forum by the head of the Pacific Command, Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, pledged new assistance programs to boost economic development in the region and to remove unexploded ordnance on land and at sea that are still posing a threat 70 years after some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. The United States, she noted, spends $330 million a year on development projects in the Pacific.
She and Admiral Locklear also pledged to expand American Navy and Coast Guard patrols with local law enforcement agencies aboard ships and aircraft to combat illegal fishing, trafficking and other security challenges.
The competition for influence comes as China has been increasingly assertive about its claims on broad areas of the South China Sea and in other waters, increasing tensions with countries like the Philippines and Japan that declare ownership of disputed islands.
The United States has backed the smaller nations’ assertions that talks over disputes should be multilateral, rather than bilateral negotiations that could give China the advantage. The administration is also working to beef up the American military presence in the region.
Mrs. Clinton acknowledged, without explicitly mentioning China, that others view the renewed American commitment in Asia as a challenge to their own economic and security interests.
In recent months, American criticism of China’s trade and development policies — often with authoritarian governments the United States has sought to isolate, like Fiji in the Pacific — have prompted sharp rebukes from Chinese officials. She reiterated her calls for China to invest in more beneficial ways.
“Now here in the Pacific, we want to see China act in a fair and transparent way,” she said during a news conference with Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand, which administers security for the Cook Islands, a far-flung, sparsely populated archipelago of 15 islands. “We want to see them contribute to sustainable development for the people of the Pacific; to protect the precious environment, including the ocean; and to pursue economic activity that will benefit the people.”
Mrs. Clinton will visit Beijing later this week, her second trip there this year, as well as Indonesia, Brunei, East Timor and Russia for the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting, where she will represent the United States in place of a campaigning Mr. Obama.
Re: Clinton Begins Asia Trip, Trying to Ease Tension With Ch
11 September 2012 Last updated at 05:31
China sends patrol ships to disputed East China Sea islands
China and Japan have been locked in a diplomatic spat over the islands
Chinese state media says two government patrol ships have been sent to islands disputed with Japan.
The ships had reached waters near the islands to "assert the country's sovereignty", Xinhua news agency said.
The move came a day after Japan confirmed plans to buy the islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from private owners.
Tension has been brewing between the two countries over the East China Sea islands in recent months.
Japan controls the uninhabited but resource-rich islands, which are also claimed by Taiwan.
Meanwhile the Japanese cabinet has decided to release reserve funds for the islands' purchase, Japanese media reported.
The sales contract to buy the islands from the Kurihara family was due to be signed on Tuesday, local media said.
On Monday Japan's top government spokesman said Japan was buying the islands to promote their stable and peaceful management.
But China has denounced the plan as illegal and warned it will affect ties.
Its China Marine Surveillance - a maritime law enforcement agency - had "drafted an action plan for safeguarding the sovereignty and would take actions pending the development of the situation", a brief report from Xinhua said.
The islands, which lie south of Okinawa and north of Taiwan, sit in key shipping lanes and are thought to lie close to gas deposits.
China sends patrol ships to disputed East China Sea islands
China and Japan have been locked in a diplomatic spat over the islands
Chinese state media says two government patrol ships have been sent to islands disputed with Japan.
The ships had reached waters near the islands to "assert the country's sovereignty", Xinhua news agency said.
The move came a day after Japan confirmed plans to buy the islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from private owners.
Tension has been brewing between the two countries over the East China Sea islands in recent months.
Japan controls the uninhabited but resource-rich islands, which are also claimed by Taiwan.
Meanwhile the Japanese cabinet has decided to release reserve funds for the islands' purchase, Japanese media reported.
The sales contract to buy the islands from the Kurihara family was due to be signed on Tuesday, local media said.
On Monday Japan's top government spokesman said Japan was buying the islands to promote their stable and peaceful management.
But China has denounced the plan as illegal and warned it will affect ties.
Its China Marine Surveillance - a maritime law enforcement agency - had "drafted an action plan for safeguarding the sovereignty and would take actions pending the development of the situation", a brief report from Xinhua said.
The islands, which lie south of Okinawa and north of Taiwan, sit in key shipping lanes and are thought to lie close to gas deposits.
Re: China sends patrol ships to disputed East China Sea isla
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Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping has appeared in public for the first time in two weeks, state media say.
They say Mr Xi, who is expected to become China's next leader, attended an event on Saturday to mark national science day.
No official explanation has been given for his absence, which fuelled speculation.
There were rumours about the state of his health and suggestions of power struggles within the Communist party.
However, on Saturday China's official Xinhua news agency carried a brief report of Mr Xi's visit to the China Agricultural University in Beijing with a photograph showing the vice-president smiling and walking with other officials.
Mr Xi, 59, cancelled meetings with four foreign dignitaries including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
US Osprey military aircraft begin Okina base move
- The Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that can take off like a helicopter
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US Osprey military aircraft begin Okinawa base move
The US has begun the controversial deployment of Osprey military aircraft to the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, amid protests over the move.
The Ospreys arrived at a US base in western Japan in July, ahead of their deployment to Okinawa's Futenma airbase.
Two have now landed there and another four are on their way, reports say.
Okinawa residents have opposed the move, citing safety fears following crashes in Morocco and Florida.
The Osprey is a hybrid military aircraft that has a rotor and can take off like a helicopter but flies like a plane. A total of 12 are to be stationed at Futenma airbase.
They had been due to move on Friday but were delayed by a typhoon.
On Sunday police were called in to move protesters who had tried to seal off the gates to the airbase. Japanese public broadcaster NHK said that a crowd of more than 100 had gathered at the base early on Monday.
Protesters say they fear the aircraft are not safe
Earlier this month, announcing that permission had been given for test-flights, Japanese Defence Minister Satoshi Morimoto said the safety of the aircraft had been confirmed, with the two accidents "caused by human factors".
But opposition to the US military footprint in Okinawa is intense, amid a 15-year stand-off over a base relocation plan.
Many Okinawan residents want Futenma airbase - which sits in a densely-packed residential area - moved off the island.
The US and Japanese governments have agreed to close Futenma but say they will replace it with a new facility in the less populated north of Okinawa.
Local lawmakers and residents are fighting the plan, saying Okinawa already hosts a disproportionate number of US troops.
Re: US Osprey military aircraft begin Okinawa base move
- The US conducts the Cobra Gold exercise with Thai troops
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The US intends to invite Burma to observe a major military exercise in Thailand, Thai officials say, in what is seen as a sign of improving relations.
The annual Cobra Gold exercise early next year brings together US and Thai troops and observers from across Asia.
The US had stopped all co-operation with the Burmese military in the 1990s over its human rights record.
But it has begun lifting sanctions in response to Burma's series of reforms.
After decades of military rule, Burma has witnessed a series of political and social reforms since the military-backed civilian government came to power two years ago.
These include freeing hundreds of prisoners - political detainees among them - and introducing more press freedom.
Unnamed officials say that Thailand lobbied for Burma's inclusion in the exercise, Reuters news agency reports.
Washington has been easing sanctions against Burma, including a recent decision to end economic sanctions.
But renewing ties with the Burmese armed forces is a far more delicate issue for the US, analysts say.
US officials are now openly talking of re-establishing co-operation with the Burmese military, says the BBC's South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head.
This would challenge the predominant influence China has enjoyed for the past two decades in Burma, which has given its armed forces access to ports and monitoring posts on the Indian Ocean, our correspondent adds.
Cobra Gold, which began in 1980, is conducted in Chon Buri province, east of Thailand's capital, Bangkok.