Israel informs US of the trip, which was approved by the Defense Ministry; ban on arms sales to China still in place.

AUSTRALIA cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and must choose a ''godfather'' to protect it, according to a prominent Chinese defence strategist.

The warning by Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People's Liberation Army, comes after Foreign Minister Bob Carr was told by his Chinese counterpart that Australia's close military alliance with the US was a throwback to the Cold War era.

Senator Carr yesterday met the man expected to become China's next premier, Li Keqiang, in Beijing. Discussions centred on more comfortable matters including furthering trade and investment and the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations.

China has denied reports its military is preparing for war amid tensions with the Philippines over a disputed territory in the South China Sea.

“Reports that the Guangzhou military region, the South China Sea fleet and other units have entered a state of war preparedness are untrue,” the defense ministry said late on Friday, despite warnings to the Philippines claims on the disputed island amounted to an infringement of Chinese sovereignty and that military conflict is possible.

The Philippines said Wednesday the United States had pledged to protect it from attacks in the South China Sea, a day after China issued a warning over a territorial row in the waters.

Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said he had received the assurances during talks in Washington last week in which the Philippines’ increasingly tense dispute with China over rival claims to a shoal in the sea were discussed.

Gazmin said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Leon Panetta stressed they were not taking sides in the dispute, but they assured the Philippines the United States would honour a 1951 mutual defence treaty. “It includes armed attack (on) island territories in the Pacific (region),” Gazmin said, citing conditions for the allies coming to each other’s aid.

China told its citizens Thursday they were not safe in the Philippines and its state media warned of war, as a month-long row over rival claims in the South China Sea threatened to spill out of control.

The Philippine military on Thursday accused China of sending more ships to a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, describing the move as an insult that would further inflame tensions.

Four Chinese surveillance ships and 10 fishing boats have anchored off the disputed Scarborough Shoal, with the fishermen taking giant clams and corals that are protected under Philippine law, a regional military spokesman said.

It is the largest number of Chinese vessels seen at the shoal since the two countries began a sovereignty standoff there almost a month ago, according to Major Loel Egos, whose northern command covers the area.

“They are just worsening the insult, bringing in all these fishing boats and all we can do is resort to diplomacy,” Egos told AFP.

China should launch "decisive action" against the Philippines to reinforce Beijing's claim on the disputed Scarborough Shoal, a hardline Chinese army general said Friday.

People's Liberation Army (PLA) Major General Luo Yuan, in a commentary published by state-owned website china.org.cn, said China has not abandoned the idea of "war at all costs" to protect its interests.

"'Peaceful rise and 'period of strategic opportunity' preclude war," said Luo, who has been described by Western media as "hawkish" for his ultranationalist views.

"It is incorrect to assume that China will completely rule out military action in any event during this 'period of strategic opportunity,'" he said, referring to Beijing's dispute with Manila.

One of the most important articles I have read this week comes from Forbes contributor Gordon Chang. In it he states that China is preparing to avoid U.S. sanctions on Iran by paying for oil with gold. Not only that but he also mentions that China has already been bartering with Iran to get a hold of petroleum.

Armed vessels from the Philippines and China continue their two-week-long standoff after Chinese fisherman trespassed into contested waters, prompting swift reaction from both navies.

Greater U.S. involvement with the Philippines and surrounding areas are part of a broader imperial plan to counter China’s regional influence and unnecessarily provoke China and increase tensions. Such confrontations like this one could lead to gratuitous violence for a petty imperial contest.

China warned the Philippines on Wednesday not to "internationalize" the two countries' simmering territorial dispute in the South China Sea, as US and Philippine forces staged war games in the area.

China has been locked in a maritime dispute with the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, a body of water considered a potential Asian flashpoint due to the overlapping claims of several nations.

"Internationalizing this issue will only complicate and magnify the situation," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told reporters in response to a question about the current situation in the dispute.

"We do not wish to see the Philippines get other countries involved and get them to take sides over the issue."

American and Philippine troops waded ashore on Wednesday in a mock assault to retake a small island near disputed areas in the South China Sea, an exercise expected to raise tension with rival claimant China.

"Never was China ever mentioned in our planning and execution," Lieutenant General Juancho Sabban, commander of military forces in the western Philippines, told reporters.

"China should not be worried about Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises," he said. Sabban has jurisdiction over the disputed Spratly Islands and Reed Bank, where the Philippines is due to open oil-and-gas exploration bids on Friday.

Proview Technology (Shenzhen), which is battling Apple Inc in a Chinese court over the iPad trademark, is the rightful owner of that mark, a senior official with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) said on Tuesday.

"According to the ... provisions of the China Trademark Law, currently Shenzhen Proview is the legal registrant of the iPad trademark," Fu Shuangjian, a deputy director of SAIC, was quoted as saying at a news conference in Beijing.

Fu's remarks were the first public comments from a government official on the matter, and may signal how the court could rule.

China is often a country about which Washington’s moralists get on their high horse. However, China’s “authoritarian” government is actually more responsive to its people than America’s “elected democratic” government. Moreover, however incomplete on paper the civil liberties of China’s people, the Chinese government has not declared that it can violate with impunity whatever rights Chinese citizens have. And it is not China that is running torture prisons all over the globe.

GM, which closed 13 U.S. plants since its bankruptcy filing in 2009, has opened 15 plants in China in the last 10 years.

China has beefed up its naval might around the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, threatening a clash as the United States and Philippines hold joint military exercises in the vicinity of the potentially energy rich disputed maritime territory.

In a show of force, a state-of-the-art Chinese vessel, the Yuzheng 310, is now on patrol near the Scarborough Shoal, raising the strategic ante as its maritime standoff with the Philippines heads into a second week. Certain news reports have suggested as many as five other Chinese patrol vessels are now in the area.

"Whether this missile is the new road mobile intercontinental missile (ICBM) the administration has been warning about is, as yet, unclear based on these public reports," Turner wrote. "Of deeper concern, however, are allegations that the missile, unveiled at the recent military parade in Pyongyang, is based on Chinese technology, in violation of international obligations and a threat to the national security interest of the United States."

From discussing the problem with American experts working on military issues, it becomes clear that today the United States, in its confrontation with China, has at least three lines of strategic deterrence located all over the Pacific Ocean. The first is in close proximity to the Chinese territory, based on U.S. military bases and infrastructure on the Japanese archipelago, in South Korea, Okinawa and Taiwan. Intense negotiations are taking place on re-establishing the US naval base in Subic Bay in the Philippines. It has been confirmed that the U.S. and Vietnam have begun informal talks on leasing the former U.S. military base in Cam Ranh.

Unprecedented Latin American opposition to U.S. sanctions on Cuba left President Barack Obama isolated at a summit on Sunday and illustrated Washington's declining influence in a region being aggressively courted by China.

China and the Philippines deployed on Thursday ships to a disputed area of the South China Sea as a standoff simmered despite efforts by both sides to resolve the disagreement diplomatically.

China has territorial disputes with several countries in the region, including the Philippines, over areas of the South China Sea, which is believed to be rich in oil and gas and is crossed by important shipping lanes.

As the international community warily waits to see whether Kofi Annan’s ceasefire plan is going to work in Syria, Lebanese International University professor Jamal Wakim believes the West has still not given up its intention to topple President Bashar Al-Assad.

The Philippines says its main naval vessel is engaged in a stand-off with Chinese surveillance ships at a disputed South China Sea shoal.

The Philippines said its warship tried to arrest Chinese fishermen anchored at the Scarborough Shoal, but was blocked by the two surveillance boats.

Both countries dispute the ownership of the shoal, which lies off the Philippines' northwestern coast.

The Philippine government said it would "assert sovereignty" over the area.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario said after meeting Chinese ambassador Ma Keqing on Wednesday that both countries were committed to finding ''a diplomatic solution'' but negotiations were at an ''impasse''.

Broad hints have been coming out of China that the country might start small-scale military strikes over disputed waters that are believed to hold rich energy reserves. The consequences of such endeavors would be tolerable to Beijing, international experts say.

Bitter territorial disputes China has with neighbors in the East and South China Seas have long grabbed media headlines. Virtually all countries in the region are involved in spats with China, from South Korea and Japan to the Philippines and Vietnam. In March alone, Beijing had verbal clashes with Seoul over a submerged rock; with Manila over the Philippines' plan to build a ferry pier; and with Hanoi over China's biggest offshore oil explorer's moves to develop oil and gas fields.

The pieces of a new strategic kaleidoscope in the Asia-Pacific region are starting to fall into place as allies and security partners of the United States seek to deter China from using or threatening force to achieve its expansive aims, particularly in the South China Sea, which forms the maritime heart of Southeast Asia.

A contingent of about 200 U.S. Marines will soon arrive in Darwin, northern Australia. They are the forerunners of a bigger force of up to 2,500 marines agreed in November by leaders of the two allies.

The senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, with China the likely long-range winner if the American economy and domestic political system continue to stumble, according to an influential Chinese policy analyst.

China rejected President Barack Obama’s decision to move forward with plans for sanctions on countries buying oil from Iran, saying Saturday that Washington had no right to unilaterally punish other nations.

Chinese officials in Beijing are warning against any joint military patrols or exercises between Vietnam and the Philippines in the disputed South China Sea.

Vietnam and Philippines military officials have discussed conducting joint exercises in the disputed region in meetings earlier this month. The exercises could include joint patrols of the Spratly Islands, which both countries and China claim as their own.

China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan all claim South China Sea territories. China has claimed the largest portion of territory.

The contested waters are rich in oil and natural gas reserves and serve as one of the busiest shipping lanes in Asia.

South Africa will this week take some initial steps to unseat the US dollar as the preferred worldwide currency for trade and investment in emerging economies.

Thus, the nation is expected to become party to endorsing the Chinese currency, the renminbi, as the currency of trade in emerging markets.

Mr Bo, the Party Secretary of the mega-city of Chongqing in west China, was widely tipped to join the all-powerful, nine-strong Politburo Standing Committee in the autumn.

But he was sacked after his right-hand man and police chief, Wang Lijun, sought asylum at a U.S. consulate last month.

U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring China’s Internet say that from March 14 to Wednesday bloggers circulated alarming reports of tanks entering Beijing and shots being fired in the city as part of what is said to have been a high-level political battle among party leaders - and even a possible military coup.

The Internet discussions included photos posted online of tanks and other military vehicles moving around Beijing.

The reports followed the ouster last week of senior Politburo member and Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, who was linked to corruption, but who is said to remain close to China’s increasingly nationalistic military.

Up to 200 Marines from Hawaii will be the first to deploy to Australia in a landmark move that signals a shift in America's focus on the Asia-Pacific region.

An outspoken Chinese general has called for Beijing to enforce its territorial claims in the South China Sea by establishing a national coast guard, stationing troops on more disputed islands, and encouraging its fishermen and oil companies to start commercial operations around them.

Major General Luo Yuan, executive director of the China Military Science Society, also said China should establish a new administrative zone encompassing much of the South China Sea, parts of which are also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.

China on Monday called "totally unacceptable" U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's denunciation of its stand on Syria, and a top newspaper said that, after the Iraq war, Washington was "super arrogant" to claim to speak for Arab people.

A foreign ministry spokesman called the comments unacceptable, and the official Communist Party newspaper described the criticism as "super arrogant".

Army Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, disclosed new details of China’s space weapons programs last week, including information regarding China’s anti-satellite missiles and cyber warfare capabilities.

Burgess stated in little-noticed written testimony prepared for an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee that Beijing is developing missiles, electronic jammers, and lasers for use against satellites.

For someone who claims not to want a trade war with China, Romney is making a pretty compelling case for how his administration would make one all but certain.

Admittedly, this is the safest way to interpret Romney's most recent volley towards the Chinese: as the primary shifts back to his "home state", China presents an issue that certainly has bi-partisan traction in a manufacturing-sensitive midwestern economy like Michigan, where China's economy is perceived to have benefited at the expense of middle-class American blue-collar workers.

Boasting $3.2 trillion in foreign currency reserves, China has created a new fund aimed at financing takeover bids abroad. The fund also seeks to boost China's currency in global financial markets.

In its drive to step up overseas investment, the Chinese government has set up a new fund worth 12 billion yuan ($1.9 billion), Shanghai International Group said in a statement Friday.

Shanghai International said it was responsible for running the fund, describing it as China's "biggest ever fund of its kind."

"The yuan-backed fund will help domestic companies go abroad in seeking more investment opportunities," China's central bank deputy governor Liu Shiyu was quoted by the official Shanghai Daily newspaper as saying.

China's next space mission will carry three astronauts who will dock with and live inside an experimental orbiting module launched last year, state media said Friday.

The People's Bank of China said it will cut bank reserve ratio in a move to boost the slowing economic growth, AP reported.

China cut its holdings of United States Treasury securities by $3.19 billion in December to a 19-month-low of $1.10 trillion. The reduction came as the country continues to diversify its foreign-exchange reserves and indicates a growing interest in moving into euro assets.

The US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta also said during a testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the US planned to keep a rotational military presence in Australia and the Philippines.

There have already been many simmering tensions between Washington and Beijing over a number of issues including China’s currency policy as well as alleged cyber attacks on US companies and government agencies.

Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has recently warned that any possible involvement of China’s military in the hacking of American infrastructure will be considered as a “criminal” act.

Many view the new strategy as part of US attempts to hedge itself against China’s growing influence in the region.

China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping reached out to heartland America Thursday with billions of dollars in farm deals, as Republican Mitt Romney slammed the “prosperous tyranny” of Beijing.

China’s vice president, who is expected to lead the rising Asian power for a decade starting next year, hopped onto a tractor on an icy soybean and corn farm in Iowa and declared his love for the “very homey environment.”

“This is away from the sound and the fury of the cities, and the air here is very fresh,” Xi told fifth-generation farmers Rick and Martha Kimberley, smiling as their 36-year-old son Grant welcomed him in Chinese.

I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.

"Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war -- what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"

"In war? How?"

Following the ongoing European monetary crisis, European Union leaders visited Beijing this week seeking Chinese money to help bolster a planned fund of about 500bn euros ($665bn). The new fund would provide bailout financial guarantees to loans given by European national banks in the hope of kick-starting European economy. Yesterday, February 14, 2012, Premier Wen Jiabao offered co-operation to help stabilize debt-ridden EU nations, but made no specific promise to invest in the proposed European bailout fund.

Cities hire Chinese instead of American workers for building projects.

The US decision to station forces in the Philippines could have dangerous repercussions. Beijing may enact economic sanctions after Manila invited in US troops in response to an escalating territorial dispute over the South China Sea.

Dr. Pak-Nung Wong of the City University of Hong Kong told RT that the Philippines is merely cashing in on America's move.

“At the international level, the Philippines knows that the US has definitely returned to Asia – refocusing its military and security deployment in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, targeting China and Iran as the primary security concern,” he said.

Two decades after evicting U.S. forces from their biggest base in the Pacific, the Philippines is in talks with the Obama administration about expanding the American military presence in the island nation, the latest in a series of strategic moves aimed at China.

The European Union’s embargo on Iranian oil threatens to accelerate refinery closures in Europe, the head of Italy’s refiners’ lobby said.

“Asian countries not applying the embargo could buy the Iranian oil at a discount and sell cheap refined products back to us,” Piero De Simone, general manager of Unione Petrolifera, said in an interview in Rome yesterday. “Italy already risks the closure of five refineries and at a European level we’re talking about 70 possible shut downs.”

Despite fresh EU sanctions against Iran's oil exports, China has shown interest in Iran's oil with hiring at least two supertankers to ship oil from the country.

The U.S. Air Force's classified X-37B space plane should have returned to Earth in December.

But the top-secret unmanned spacecraft continues to glide along its unusually low orbit nearly one year after it was launched in March 2011, leading Spaceflight magazine to suggest the vehicle is spying on a Chinese spacelab called Tiangong-1, the BBC reports.

China and Qatar have been taking virtually opposite positions apropos events in Libya and Syria. Yet, they do not seem to be deterred by this little difference and are bonding in a big way in economic cooperation to mutual benefit.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who visited Doha last week, disclosed at a press conference on Friday: a) China proposes to invest in the manufacturing of ''downstream oil products, which are most urgently needed by Qatar''; b) China and Qatar signed an agreement to jointly build a refinery in Taizhou, Zheijiang, in China; c) Chinese companies propose to participate in infrastructure projects in Qatar; and d) China and Qatar are discussing a "long-term, stable and comprehensive cooperative partnership" in natural gas.

As US aircraft carrier groups gather in the Arabian Sea, a showdown between Iran and the West is rumbling on. If a war erupts, this will be another upshot of the US pursuit of absolute national security.

Mainstream forces in Washington are trying to sell a ludicrous standpoint to the American people: that it is worthwhile to bear financial costs and even lose some lives to confront lurking dangers to US security in the Middle East.

This is not a rational analysis, but rather a pious belief in US politics. With an appetite for national security causes, the US becomes increasingly meticulous in eliminating potential challenges.

Saudi Arabia signed an agreement with China in Riyadh Sunday for cooperation in the development and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, which will help to meet the Kingdom's rising demand for energy and cut its growing dependence on depleting resources.

EU IRAN OIL EMBARGO SAID TO BE LIKELY DELAYED BY SIX MONTHS

Why? Because the world slowly realized that the potential surge in oil prices would tip a world already on the verge of a recession even deeper into economic contraction. Not rocket science, but certainly something the US president apparently has been unable to comprehend, especially if hoping that he would merely transfer exports from Iran to his close ally Saudi Arabia which would cement its European market monopoly even further. Or, perhaps, someone just explained to Obama that Embargo in January + QE3 in March = No Reelection...

“Iran is our close neighbor, just south of the Caucasus. Should anything happen to Iran, should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security,” stressed Rogozin.

But China, which buys almost one-third of Iran's oil exports, reiterated its opposition to sanctions, which it has previously called improper and ineffective.

"Iran is also an extremely big oil supplier to China, and we hope that China's oil imports won't be affected, because this is needed for our development," Zhai Jun, China's vice foreign minister, told a news conference.

Some 300 Chinese Foxconn employees who manufacture X-box 360 machines said they would throw themselves from their Wuhan, China, plant if demands for lost wages were not met.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, visiting Beijing this week, is expected to press China’s leaders to reduce the country’s oil imports from Iran. But Geithner is likely to find Beijing resistant to putting financial pressure on the government in Tehran.

In a briefing for reporters Monday, Cui Tiankai, the vice foreign minister responsible for U.S. relations, said that China supports global nonproliferation efforts but that trade is separate from the Iranian nuclear issue.

Do you speak Chinese? If so, Israel’s Mossad needs you.

Located on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in Hubei Province, the Three Gorges Dam is now the world's largest water control and hydropower project, consisting of a 7,661 foot-long, 594 foot -high dam, a five-tier ship lock, with 26 hydropower turbo-generators generating 20,300 megawatts. Only Brazil’s Itaipu dam produces more electricity.

In addition to generating electricity, the Three Gorges Dam controls floods by storing excess water and helps to regulate the Yangtze's shipping capacity.

Germany officials have offered to take responsibility for the shipment to China though there is no record of Germany ever having received the missiles in the first place. There had been a shipment of PAC 2 missiles, 64, several months ago, which had been completed. No further shipment had been scheduled.

Germany is responding to a request from Netanyahu to Merkel to save Israel from a potential spy scandal.Similarly, a South Korean paper has published a story about the missiles but at no time has the South Korean embassy in Helsinki, made a statement or made contact with authorities as would be expected. This one gets more interesting every day.

Experts claim the U.S. plane could be spying on China's space program after it was noted that the two space craft's have closely matched orbits.

China said Wednesday it opposed "unilateral" sanctions against Iran, after US President Barack Obama signed into law new measures targeting the Islamic republic's central bank.

Washington's move came after the United States, Britain and Canada said in November they were slapping additional sanctions on Iran, citing evidence that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

Tehran denies the allegations, saying its nuclear programme is exclusively for medical and power generation purposes, and China has repeatedly said sanctions will not resolve the issue.

"China opposes placing one's domestic law above international law and imposing unilateral sanctions against other countries," said foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei in response to a question about US sanctions on Iran.

The U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines must combine resources to thwart any efforts by countries such as China and Iran to block America’s access to the South China Sea, the Persian Gulf and other strategic regions, according to a draft of a Pentagon review.

Sudan is in talks with China to see if the two countries can do business in Sudanese pounds and Chinese yuan, rather than U.S. dollars, Sudan’s central bank governor said on Wednesday.

A senior Communist official who helped defuse a rare revolt by villagers in southern China said the country should be ready for more protests as people demand their rights, state media reported Tuesday.

Zhu Mingguo compared the situation in the village of Wukan, where residents angered by years of illegal land grabs drove out their Communist leaders, to an apple that appears healthy but is “rotten to the core”.

“The task of managing the masses is becoming more and more difficult.”

Attempts to represent this as a sale of “second hand” PAC 2 missiles, stories filling the blogosphere, fail to address that these are PAC 3 advanced missiles and labeled for shipment to China, not Korea.

The next stop for this cargo, valued at over $4 billion even without the associated radar, which may well have been shipped via some other method, was Shanghai, China.

Police fired tear-gas and beat demonstrators who stormed government buildings in southern China on Tuesday to protest against a power plant, witnesses said, in the latest violent unrest to hit the country.

Residents of Haimen, a town in the province of Guangdong, are demanding the coal-fired plant be moved, saying it is damaging their health, demonstrators told AFP by telephone.

They said a 15-year-old boy had been killed and more than 100 others badly beaten by riot police, although this could not be independently confirmed.

Protesting villagers in southern China said Sunday they will march on government offices this week unless the body of a local leader is released and four villagers in police custody are freed.

The 13,000 residents of Wukan, in the wealthy province of Guangdong, are in open revolt against officialdom and have driven out local Communist Party leaders who they say have been stealing their land for years.

The villagers appear to be winning support from the public, with the first confirmed protest backing them held in the provincial capital Guangzhou on Sunday. The three demonstrators there were detained by police.

DigitalGlobe Inc., a commercial satellite company, said Wednesday that it took a photograph of China’s first aircraft carrier during a sea trial in the Yellow Sea, off the Chinese coast.

The Pentagon did not confirm the image, but Stephen Wood, the satellite company’s director, said he’s confident about the Dec. 8 photograph due to the carrier’s location.

For the first time on record, the Chinese Communist party has lost all control, with the population of 20,000 in this southern fishing village now in open revolt.

Seething tensions between China and South Korea over fishing in the Yellow Sea escalated Tuesday with the killing of a South Korean coast guard commando by the captain of a Chinese fishing vessel in hotly disputed waters.

South Korean coast guard commandos finally subdued the captain, and seized his vessel and eight-man crew, said South Korean officials, but not until the leader of the commando team was mortally wounded and another team member was injured. The dying commando and the injured team member were flown to the port city of Incheon, approximately 100 miles to the east, in the same helicopter with the Chinese fishing boat captain.

China on Monday announced setting up its first naval base abroad at Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. The former British colony, Seychelles, lies in parallel to the Maldives and the US-British base Diego Garcia in the East, the Somalian coast of Africa in the West, Gulf of Aden/ entrance to the Red Sea in the north, and Indian dominated Mauritius as well as the French colony Reunion in the South. While the Chinese defence ministry announced that its Navy would seek supplies and recuperate facilities through the base, the Seychelles foreign minister said that his country had invited China to set the base to fight against piracy.

In factory towns across China's export powerhouse in the Pearl River Delta, a vicious cycle of slowing orders from the West and increasing wage pressures has led to a series of major strikes that could reverberate through the economy.

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday urged the navy to prepare for military combat, amid growing regional tensions over maritime disputes and a US campaign to assert itself as a Pacific power.

The navy should "accelerate its transformation and modernisation in a sturdy way, and make extended preparations for military combat in order to make greater contributions to safeguard national security," he said.

China cut the amount of cash that banks must set aside as reserves for the first time since 2008 as Europe's debt crisis dims the outlook for exports and growth.

Reserve ratios will decline by 50 basis points effective Dec. 5, the People's Bank of China said in a statement on its website today. Before the announcement, the level was a record 21.5 percent for the biggest lenders, based on past statements.

The government moved before a report tomorrow that may show manufacturing contracted for the first time since February 2009 and after stocks tumbled today by the most in almost four months. Easing in the nation that contributes most to global growth may boost confidence as Europe's debt crisis worsens and the region's banks face a funding squeeze.

As one Asian analyst put it, "pressure can be good; but too much pressure can crack the fragile security architecture and split ASEAN." While several ASEAN countries supported the U.S. move, some had reservations. Predictably, the Philippines supported the U.S. "pivot" and involvement in the South China Sea disputes. But other ASEAN members were more wary, including Singapore and Malaysia.

The US aims to isolate and subordinate China in part through constructing a region-wide legal regime that serves the interests of, and is enforceable by, the US and its corporations.” It is interesting to note that many of the current TPP partners, including new prospective members support U.S. foreign policy initiatives. This ties in nicely with the Obama administration’s plans of expanding alliances and military bases in the Asia-Pacific region in an effort to contain China’s rising power.

It was billed as a new, bold President Obama who stood up to a rising China to reassert America`s power in the Asia-Pacific region. President Obama took a hard line at the recent Asian leaders summit in Bali, Indonesia, chastising China for not "playing by the rules".

But many in China do not view Obama`s recent assertiveness as a display of power but weakness. They view the President as desperate to find scapegoats to get votes in next year`s 2012 presidential election.

A rising chorus in China also thinks America is determined to keep China down, so they are pushing the government to respond forcefully. Obama runs the risk of precipitating a trade war or worse as a response.

The Seven Step Mainstream Media Country Destruction Guide

1. First, they start by targeting a country ripe for “Regime Change”, and brand it a “rogue state”; then...

2. They arm, train, finance local terrorist groups through CIA, MI6, Mossad, Al-Qaeda (a CIA operation), drug cartels (often CIA operations) and call them “freedom fighters”; then...

3. As mock UN Security Council Resolutions are staged that rain death and destruction upon millions of civilians, they call it “UN sanctions to protect civilians”; then...

4. They spread flagrant lies through their “newsrooms” and paid journalists, and call it "the international community’s concerns expressed by prestigious spokespeople and analysts…” then…

Right before the American Thanksgiving holiday, the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) said it would conduct military exercises in the Western Pacific this month.

The announcement has aroused wide attention, speculation and concern in the region. [1] There is some suspicion that this is China's tit-for-tat response to US President Barack Obama's announcement earlier this month of strengthening the US military presence in Asia-Pacific, including an increase in the number of US military troops in Australia - which raised protests by the Chinese government.

Before Australia, Obama hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Hawaii where further progress was made toward setting up a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that excludes China, the world’s largest exporter. The pact includes Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States.

The crux of the conflict is China’s attempt to assert its sovereignty over the South China Sea, a resource-rich conduit for roughly $5 trillion in annual global trade, of which $1.2 trillion is American, which U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared last year a matter of “national interest.”

Beijing’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea precipitated calls from Asian allies for the U.S. to deepen its involvement to be a strong counterweight. Those calls led to the formulation of Obama’s new Asia strategy, which administration officials admit changes America’s “military posture toward China” into something like the former East-West cold war. The first shots of the new war were heard last week.

Tyler pointed out yesterday and today that the risk of a Syrian war is quickly rising.

I want to amplify on three aspects of this issue:

(1) a war against Syria was planned 10 years ago

(2) the American people don't want a new war and

(3) Russia and China may strongly react against such a war

During U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Australia this week, he told the Australian Parliament, “Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in this region. The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.”

Along with making this quite bothersome promise, at least for those of us that don’t fancy perpetual war plaguing the entire planet in the name of “freedom” and “democracy” on the American taxpayer’s dime, Obama said that American military expansion is a top priority.

That’s right, Obama actually said that despite the fact that the U.S. debt is so massive it makes one’s head spin with incredulity, military expansion is a top priority.

Two brothers and their father were sentenced to death on Monday for cheating 15,000 investors out of over $1.1 billion in east China’s Zhejiang province.

The United States will provide a second warship to the ill-equipped Philippine military as it confronts China in increasingly tense territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a Philippine official said Thursday.

"The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay," he declared in a speech to the Australian Parliament, sending an unmistakable message to Beijing.

China is pushing back at criticism from U.S. President Barack Obama about Beijing's currency and trade policies. Obama says Washington does not want China to take advantage of the United States. China's foreign ministry responded hours later by saying Beijing's economic policies were not the cause of U.S. financial woes.

Ouch! It's strong stuff, and hardly the most diplomatic way for the leader of the world's biggest economy to talk about the world's second-biggest economy.

To be fair Barack Obama was a little more circumspect about the way he put it, but it's still a pretty extraordinary statement to make.

He was careful to begin by saying he welcomed China's "peaceful rise", and believed there could be "friendly and constructive competition" between the two.

But China's leaders, he said, need "to understand that their role is different now than it might have been 20 years ago or 30 years ago when, if they were breaking some rules, it didn't really matter, it didn't have a significant impact".

"Now they have grown up. They are going to have to help manage this process in a responsible way."

The Pentagon lifted the veil of secrecy Wednesday on a new battle concept aimed at countering Chinese military efforts to deny access to areas near its territory and in cyberspace.

The Air Sea Battle concept is the start of what defense officials say is the early stage of a new Cold War-style military posture toward China.

The plan calls for preparing the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps to defeat China’s “anti-access, area denial weapons,” including anti-satellite weapons, cyberweapons, submarines, stealth aircraft and long-range missiles that can hit aircraft carriers at sea.

A senior Obama administration official was more blunt, saying the new concept is a significant milestone signaling a new Cold War-style approach to China.

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin called China’s announcement that it will further study the IAEA report before deciding whether or not to sanction Iran a “bluff,” during a Thursday meeting with Chinese ambassador to Israel Gao Yanping.

Residential property prices are in freefall in China as developers race to meet revenue targets for the year in a quickly deteriorating market. The country’s largest builders began discounting homes in Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen in recent weeks, and the trend has now spread to second- and third-tier cities such as Hangzhou, Hefei, and Chongqing.

In the run-up to this year's East Asia Summit (EAS), the Philippines and Vietnam have sent a preemptive joint message: they are not willing to yield to rising Chinese pressure on unresolved South China Sea territorial issues.

The new loose alliance between the two Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) members aims to enhance their strategic cooperation and has effectively invited other regional powers to help counterbalance China's claims in the brewing multilateral dispute.

North Korea has been blamed for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March that killed 46 sailors. Last month, Pyongyang announced it had a uranium enrichment program. And, just before Thanksgiving, North Korea launched an artillery barrage on a South Korean island, killing four people, including two civilians.

China has been encouraging the resumption of six-party talks involving North Korea and regional powers. But U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg says Washington sees that as simply a reward for bad behavior.

Steinberg will lead an American delegation to China next week to talk with officials there about North Korea.

The US and Japan were forced to halt military exercises this week because of Russian jets flying nearby, Japanese officials have revealed.

Russia admitted its jets were flying above the Sea of Japan, but said the pilots had not breached any rules.

Moscow and Tokyo have argued recently over an island chain they both claim.

A late night Sunday telephone call between US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao underscored the mounting tensions between the two countries in the wake of last month’s military clash between North and South Korea.

Washington is proceeding at a breakneck – an alarming – pace with plans to politically and militarily polarize East Asia, using the crisis on the Korean Peninsula to do so. Attempts by China and Russia to defuse the conflict and resume negotiations aimed at its peaceful resolution are being spurned by headstrong and reckless U.S. government and military officials.

Russia and China share borders with North Korea. The U.S. is a continent away. A new conflagration on the peninsula would directly affect the first two nations. America can exploit a renewal of hostilities to reinstall itself in the Asia-Pacific region and use proxies – Japan as much as South Korea – to accomplish that objective.

Policy makers in China, which holds $883.5 billion in U.S. Treasuries, are concerned the nation with the world’s biggest economy is debasing its currency

A Chinese passenger train hit a record speed of 302 miles per hour (486 kilometers per hour) Friday during a test run of a yet-to-be opened link between Beijing and Shanghai, state media said.

The Xinhua News Agency said it was the fastest speed recorded by an unmodified conventional commercial train.