Fu Lai
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Posts posted by Fu Lai
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I think the Republic of China is taking action and is fully supported by the mainland judging by the articles produced. Like the Diaoyu Islands, the USA would be better off staying neutral - better off really just backing off a lot of things in east asia.
Seems more and more the USA is just meddling, from Japan to Korea to the Philippines and Taiwan but that is what the US does better than anyone. Besides the kooky DPRK there is no reason the USA needs to be there. But that is just a side rant from a frustrated American.
Instead of something armed, the ROC the article states "actions include freezing all employment applications by Philippine laborers, recalling its representative to the Philippines and asking the representative of the Philippines in Taipei to leave." It is this kind of diplomacy which the region supports now and military takes a back seat. Good for them!
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I am going on what my wife told me, she worked as an accountant in Shenzhen. She said normally they make 2-3000RMB a month.
Kids from here would go to Shenzhen during school breaks and earn that much.office workers make 2-3000RMB in Shenzhen... maybe she bought her mother a house and it cost about 50-75,000RMB in a small country town. Do the math and it does not work out though.
Hee hee, this conversation is funny.
Point is, that she had made her contribution to her parents well being, and apparently wasn't concerned about sending more (at least for the time being). Any arithmetic you put to it is simply more speculation.
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I had a feeling this would be bigger than the India thing...
Watch VideoTaiwan’s leader Ma Ying-jeou says he will give the Philippines 72-hours to respond to demands regarding the shooting death of the Taiwan fisherman Hung Shih-Cheng, or Taiwan will retaliate.
Possible actions include freezing all employment applications by Philippine laborers, recalling its representative to the Philippines and asking the representative of the Philippines in Taipei to leave.
In his latest statement, Ma demanded the Philippines apologize, clarify what happened and punish those responsible. He also said the Philippines should offer compensations for the fisherman’s death and damage to the fishing boat. Negotiations with Taiwan should also be started as soon as possible on a fishery agreement. Earlier in the day, Ma Ying-jeou inspected a coast guard drill in central Taiwan.
Ma Ying-jeou said, "Once more, we are asking for an apology from the Philippine authorities and that whomever is responsible be punished. We need a guarantee from the Philippines that this will never happen again. Justice will be done for our fellow fisherman, and we will not rule out sanctions toward the Philippines. We will not give up, until the murderer is brought to justice. "
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I decided to change universities from the one where I have a z visa now to a new one. What do I have to do? Do I need to get my new school to sign for a z visa for next year? I married here last year to a Chinese national. Also I think I have to change my foreign expert/residence permit AND get a new health test. Is that all correct? Is there anything else? Everything I have expires in September.
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office workers make 2-3000RMB in Shenzhen... maybe she bought her mother a house and it cost about 50-75,000RMB in a small country town. Do the math and it does not work out though.
Hee hee, this conversation is funny.
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Good! But OMG expensive... 150-175RMB??? I buy the one I use for less than 2RMB.
We bought totobobo pollution masks. When the pollution index is 250 or higher in Beijing, I wear mine whenever I'm outside, including on busses, in the subway, etc. It makes an enormous difference––when I take it off, the smell of the pollution is overwhelming. It's disgusting to see how quickly the filters turn grey and, eventually black.
That being said, we noticed a much larger difference in day-to-day health when we bought our first air filter. We have it running in the bedroom 24/7, and it stopped us from waking up with a cough and stuffed up noses. We bought a relatively simple Midea HEPA filter for ~1,000 RMB at Guomei. Later we replaced it with a BlueAir filter, which cost quite a bit more. Build quality on the BlueAir is far superior to that of the Midea, which is starting to fall apart after two years use.
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MANILA - The explanation Philippine authorities have offered on Thursday's killing of a fisherman from China's Taiwan region is utterly untenable.
In a statement delivered a day after the incident, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) admitted that its officers were responsible for the shooting death of 65-year-old Hung Shih-Cheng.
However, the first yet belated official response not only failed to depict a true picture of what happened, but also appeared as an attempt to excuse the shooters' barbaric acts.
Firstly, the incident happened some 160 nautical miles southeast of the southernmost tip of the island of Taiwan.
The Philippines claimed that the location is in its "exclusive economic zone". But according to Taiwanese authorities, the site is in an overlapping area of the two sides' exclusive economic zones, and no bilateral fishing arrangement has been reached.
Moreover, it would be shocking to any reasonable mind that the 13-meter-long "Guang Ta Hsin 28" fishing boat had intended -- as the Philippines alleged -- to ram itself against the 34-meter-long, steel-made and well-equipped maritime surveillance ship.
And what the PCG termed as warning shots it was forced to fire left dozens of bullet holes on the unarmed Taiwanese fishing vessel and claimed the life of Hung.
Furthermore, Taiwanese authorities said that even when the attacked fishing vessel was fleeing at full speed, the Philippine ship chased it for about one hour.
Thursday's episode was not the first time the Philippine side had brutally treated fishermen and fishing boats from China's mainland and Taiwan.
Two Chinese fishing boat skippers were killed by Philippine maritime officers respectively in May 2000 and in January 2006. And Chinese fishing boats have also been frequently intercepted and detained by Philippine authorities.
On the disputes in the South China Sea, recent years have seen the Philippine government playing little tricks on the one hand while trumpeting its commitment to peaceful solutions on the other.
What its coast guard did Thursday, however, not only ran against the peaceful approach Manila has touted, but also violated the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.
China's mainland and Taiwan have both condemned Thursday's killing and demanded the Philippines conduct a thorough investigation and handle the incident properly.
The Philippines should carry out a serious probe and adopt effective measures to prevent repetition of similar events, so as to safeguard China-Philippines relations as well as regional peace and security with genuine sincerity and concrete deeds.
Can't be good for the Filipinos to be doing such things.
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The latest in this regional hotpoint... another USA-backed country batting at China...
TAIPEI - Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin announced on Saturday the suspension of inter-city exchanges with the Philippines after a Taiwanese fisherman was shot dead by Philippine coast guards at sea.
The Philippines will also not be allowed to take part in Dragon Boat Festival races in Taipei on June 12, Hau said.
Hau condemned the Philippines over the shooting, and called it a violent act to fire upon an unarmed fisherman. He urged the Philippine government to apologize, release investigation reports and hold those responsible to account.
He also advised the Taiwanese authorities to take a hard stance on the Philippines by halting Philippine-bound tourism, suspending labor imports from the country and increasing fishing protection patrols.
The shooting happened on Thursday morning 164 nautical miles southeast of the southernmost tip of Taiwan, according to the island's coast guard authority.
The victim was identified as Hung Shih-Cheng, 65, one of four crew members of the Taiwanese fishing vessel Guang Ta Hsin 28. Hung's body was taken back to Taiwan early Saturday morning.
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Good point. Yes, the guy must be truthful and helpful as much as he can. I think these two had a tremendous language and cultural barrier. They both found out quick enough. She has to know what she is getting into coming to a foreign country like this though.
Another point I noticed in the show was before the wedding, at any point she could have returned to China but chose to stay. Maybe she was destitute and had no money to return (I jettison the "lose face" argument she said because it is called "facing the music" here)? Maybe they never planned for it on who would pay. Geez, lack of foresight.
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I am with Tsap 110%.
At 20 years old, you can marry because your in love, and blow thousands of someone elses (usually your parents) money on a wedding.
At 60, you should be responsible, and understand that IF you choose to marry (doesn't matter ethnicity) you need to be able to provide for yourself 100%, and plan on providing at least SOMETHING to support your spouse.
Add on top of that, bring a girl from the other side of the world to America, you should expect to provide for her 100%. When a person from a foreign country tries to find work in a new culture and country it is VERY difficult. For 5-10 year the foreign spouse will struggle to find employment, your citizen needs to plan they support!
Fu Lai, I agree marriage is 50/50, but I watched the pain my wife suffered looking for a job in America. It is not easy, and any man who brings a wife to his country should be responsible for that person 100%, and any income she CAN find should be a bonus.
Well the lady was 30 and the guy did provide for himself AND her 100%.
Credzba, I just can't agree that the woman has no responsibility for her own actions... she signed up at the dating site, she conversed with the guy for a time, she accepted (or told him) marriage,.. she went through the whole K-1 process... if it was me I'd accept it was my basically own fault if it failed because I did it of my own free will. We are not knights in shining armor on white steeds sweeping maidens off to a castle. Nowadays man and woman are partners and there is always enough blame to go around.
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awwwwww, jiangsu-expat used to be near there, we are a few hours away by train in Wuhan
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wow guys, you do know the woman is responsible for her own welfare too? no one put a gun to her head and forced her to come you know? he had a nice apartment in San Francisco (prob $2500-3500 a month) plus a good job at SFO (those are pretty secure and well paid with benefits). he prob makes more in a week than she made in a month at the factory, and he told her he wasn't rich and he did not expect her to be either. So money was not part of their decision.
I'd leave it at both were not very smart (my wife was embarrassed at how bad the woman's Chinese was, not to mention English, educated "like a country stone"). he at having his head in a dream world and her for the same thing, both thinking they knew the right way.
I think the best part of the show was when it showed that BOTH of them had to make a BIG attitude adjustment, kind of like a reboot in order to continue. Something all guys need to be ready for when they marry a Chinese woman. You AND her will have to adjust.
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Here's a blog article I found thought-provoking:
What’s wrong with China? Hint: it’s not the government
After living here for more than 9 months, I have come to a most repugnant conclusion. It pains me to even think about it for I am a Chinese person who has often defended the traditions, institutions, values and dignity of the Children of Heaven. But the truth is often painful at first. I realize now that much of the problems in Chinese society, and a plethora of problems there are, are not from the Chinese government (not a surprise to me since I am a long time China watcher suspicious of the anti government rhetoric of the west). What is surprising is that the myriad problems within Chinese society comes from the behavior, values and the beliefs of its people, a people that with all their traditions of wisdom behave in the most atrocious, despicable manner towards each other today. In a sense, I’d always expected this but were perhaps too proud to admit it and needed first hand experience for verification. Now I cannot escape that basic truth.
I once remember long ago watching a documentary in the US. A Chinese man said that the problems with China is that the nation has so many “low quality people”. I remember feeling palpably shaken and offended. Angry even at these words. Surely this is racist propaganda from the west permeating a gullible if not corrupt Chinese mind. I will detail my opinions formed from my experiences and they may be offensive at first to many overseas Chinese and even some mainland Chinese but ultimately I hope for us, all of us, to reflect on the veracity of my reasons. I sincerely hope that my experiences are only representative of Beijing or other northern cities and places. Indeed, in my experience, people from the more developed South are better which you’d expect as the South is far more developed and better educated than the North. Two disclaimers: This is not to say that the media in the west isn’t racist against the Chinese. It most certainly is. In fact, Asians in general I believe are some of the most discriminated against groups in the US. Also I sincerely hope that people will put this in context, not seeing it as a rant but as social criticism and thus not react to it instinctively but as food for reflection.
The Chinese people especially in the north, display selfishness, rudeness, greed, ignorance, and pettiness the likes I have never seen before. There are too many examples from my own experience to give an illustration of all their deficiencies. But for those who are in China and who can speak passable Chinese, I’d like to offer you one experiment so that the point my be partially illustrated to yourself. Ask a sample of Chinese women what their hobbies and interests are. Take note how many of them say “shopping” and “sleeping” just to get a taste of what they are like.
Granted, this kind of shallowness shouldn’t be a demonstration of any kind of deep defect on the Chinese population of course. It’s just shallowness, partially excused by the fact that capitalism is so new to Chinese. But it is a surface of an iceberg and it is indicative of deeper problems with modern China and its people.
In my experience, many Chinese are quick to blame their government for all the problems in their society such as air pollution, traffic, corruption etc. These are all real problems. Moreover these are problems faced by almost all of the world’s developing economies and many of the developed ones too. But what is interesting in the Chinese case is that the Chinese people often do the blaming based on rumor and from an ignorant conception of themselves and the rest of the world. Take one example. I know someone in Beijing who is the CEO of a large international company. Though I can’t be sure because I don’t know him that well, he seems otherwise a gentle and kind man but he displays a kind of ignorance and hypocrisy that is common in the Chinese people. When I told him I was an American, the first thing he mentioned to me was how much he admired the American government and how defective his own government is. I was instantly curious. Why was he so approving of American style governance? What made the US government so much better in his eyes? What has the Chinese government done to deserve such opprobrium? He mentioned that the Chinese government has done little to narrow the wealth gap and made the air less polluted in Beijing.
Then I asked him what car he drives. He said he just bought a very large American style SUV. He also plans to buy an even bigger SUV and moreover already owns several other luxury cars. Surely he is aware and ashamed of his contributions to the bad air quality in Beijing? Doesn’t seem to me like he is even aware of his behavior as a contributing factor. I also asked how many houses he has. He has three. Three large houses. Again, he doesn’t seem to be aware that his behavior and that of those in his tax bracket are contributing in buying up property they don’t even use but as a mark of mere patrician vanity to the fact that so many Chinese, i.e., the 99% beneath his economic class can’t afford houses in China.
He is part of the problem. I choose this example not because it is so exceptional (rather it is typical) but it is so representative of larger problems. If the government had made stricter controls on vehicles, many Chinese like him would complain that this was “totalitarianism” in preventing people from their “right” to own a large American SUV. Indeed, the government already taxes some luxury and gas consuming vehicles so that they cost twice as much as they do in the US but that is not preventing Chinese from buying them whenever they get a chance. In Shanghai, it’s even worse. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a Maserati or a Lamborgini, cars which get even worse mileage per gallon than American SUVs. There’s no doubt in my mind that the people sitting behind the wheels of these vehicles bitch and moan all the time about how ineffective their government is at preventing air pollution completely oblivious to the fact that they are a large part of the problem. Of course, to them, the problem of bad air quality is the government’s fault never the Chinese people’s ridiculous need for ostentatious displays to garner social approval. In many Chinese people’s minds, the Chinese public is never the problem. They are the solution. And changes to the government is just the antidote to all of China’s ills. It’s difficult to run a large country with such an ignorant and uneducated population and the “solutions” many propose will make things far worse. The government has to balance growth with environmental protection and in my opinion, it has done that better than any country in history, certainly better than the US and England during comparable times of development. When will Chinese people start buying less cars, stop littering, start recycling and in general doing their share to clean up the environment, an environment they have degraded?
It’s becomes painfully obvious to me how something like the Great Leap Forward could happen in China where millions starved. When a society is built on so many layers of superficiality, bullshit and hypocrisy, and passing off responsibility to others, getting at the truth to solve real problems becomes impossible.
They are blind to their own behavior and moreover show an incredible naivete of America. Perhaps it’s because of too many rap videos or other stupid sitcom shows or even western propaganda of the western lifestyle and the “American dream” (which has always been just that, a dream) but many Chinese people see that lifestyle or at least popular images of that lifestyle in the media and probably think that that is the norm in the US. They then automatically attribute that “success” to the wondrous perfection of the US government. Rather than the real cause for America’s wealth (or at least that of its corporations and its 1%), such as the availability of resources (often obtained through aggressive and morally if not legally illicit means), of American willingness to accept new ideas, of the long hard battle by its citizens for the rule of law, etc, it is the structure of its government that is the attributed cause in many Chinese people’s minds.
I often tell people here that the US is just as economically polarized as China. I also tell them that corruption is a serious problem in the US (of course, it’s “de facto” corruption but isn’t that just as bad?) and that the president and the congress in both parties are essentially completely controlled by the corporations and the 1/10th of 1 percent, their financial lifeline, and that the US was once even more polluted than China is today. Despite the fact that all this is supported with a wealth of empirical evidence, it usually elicits incredulous stares; surely no place on earth is as polluted/corrupt/inefficient/poor as China? They are completely ignorant of all the injustices that happen in the US. Again, their ignorance runs in so many directions it’s hard to keep track.
Moreover, it’s incredible how little people know how to behave among others. Basic etiquette that all civilized societies must have (such as not cutting in line) often show little practice in China. People are routinely run down by cars running red lights. I have been hit by a car simply walking in a parking lot quite recently because the driver was oblivious to what was going on as he backed his car out of the stall, displaying no consideration for pedestrians. Luckily it was just a minor bump without any injury but many people are not so fortunate and are hit by idiotic drivers with little regard for other people’s (and perhaps their own) lives. I can’t emphasize how often this occurs and how even more incredibly, this kind of behavior is not met with any more serious reactions from others who stand by. Much of what passes as unacceptable behavior in other countries are accepted without anyone doing anything to curtail it.
The traffic problems here also stem from incredible ignorance and selfishness. People run red lights, pedestrians cross whenever they feel like it not realizing that this endangers others and moreover causes huge traffic inefficiency. The government has recently spent millions putting up fences near roads and center dividers and putting crossing guards (which in China is meant to guide adults and not children to cross the road like it is in the west) and enforcing the existent rules of the road often in ingenious ways. This is the right way to go. But I feel incredibly sympathetic to their plight of fighting such behavior in that the behavior that these improvements are fighting against is a tide of ignorance, a tide composed of a billion selfish and ignorant people all of whom thinking that they are an exception to any rule. A lack of insight that one’s own behavior has ramifications and multiplier effects within society also contributes. For example, many Chinese people reason very linearly, rationalizing their behavior by thinking that since they are not hurting anyone by crossing the road (or running a red light) they should be allowed to do it. They don’t think in nuanced and comprehensive ways. They don’t take into account that when they do things like cross in traffic, others see it and are thus encouraged to follow in like manner. This then encourages drivers to behave in dangerous ways such as weave through jay walking pedestrians and so on. The end result is a vicious cycle ending in dangers which can all be avoided.
I believe that the problem just illustrated is analogous to other problems such as corruption and many other things which plague modern China. When you have social pressure and ignorance of consequences of one’s action that all encourage things like bribes, you have at the end of a long spiraling chain which descend into the depths of a very deep shit hole. The implicit Chinese social system of guanxi puts enormous pressures to fulfill social obligations that can turn venal and it is this pressure at the root of so my corrupt practices in China today. It becomes so obvious to an outsider like myself. It is the responsibility of its citizens to take notice and change these problematic practices and values.
Public health is also a huge problem that at its very root, stems not from governmental incompetence or malfeasance but mostly from public ignorance, selfishness and superstition. People routinely spit, blow snot rockets, have their children urinate and make bowl movements, and puke on the street completely unaware of the serious health hazards this posses. Things like SARS and H7N9 and many routine flus are spread quickly in China because people’s lack of personal hygiene and responsible behavior. Hepatitis is common in China. People complain about the air quality all the time but smoking causes far more health issues than smog but so many people smoke in public that it is a far bigger threat to public safety. The common sight of someone worrying about the air then lighting up a cigarette would be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that their cigarette contributes to the decline of health in others.
The ignorance and hypocrisy is merely the tip of the iceberg when detailing what is wrong today with many Chinese people. There is also incredible dishonesty. Much more so than even in American society in my opinion. In talking with many Chinese, they are well aware of this social problem (how could they not be?) but are quick to blame the fact that there are so many people in their country making it very competitive and the fact that most people receive poor education. All that may very well be the case but I have been to many countries where the people are even poorer and less educated and I don’t always have to count my change in worrying about being short changed in those countries.
For example, when I got my current apartment, I was told that it was a two bedroom apartment. That’s what was sold to me. When I moved in, I found one of the doors to a bedroom locked. I was then told completely casually by the rental agent that the family wants to use that room for storage and that I was not allowed to use it, initial promises and the lease be damned. Unfortunately for them, and unlike most Chinese people, I actually care about truth and justice and threatened to sue them. I called the cops and had a locksmith sent to my house and open the lock. Of course, since the lease clearly stipulates that the whole apartment was mine to use, they knew they didn’t have a chance in court and would lose and would have to pay my lawyer fees and storage fees; they capitulated and now I have complete use of the whole apartment. Most Chinese people have put their tails between their legs and caved under the demands of the landlord not wanting to stir up “trouble” and moreover thinking their behavior “civilized” when it is just cowardly and shortsighted. They would have swallowed their flickering sense of resentment and injustice and merely complained to their friends while doing absolutely nothing about it.
Again, this kind of dishonesty is so common in China that people are now use to it and it happens because people don’t give a damn. Lies are told as if they were greetings. There is no sense of civic responsibility either for their own behavior or in dealing with others. It happens everywhere in Beijing at least and all the time. Everyone that I know living in China has many stories just like this. Again, the police (who even gone to the great lengths of giving the senior mother of the landlord a severe tongue lashing for the behavior of her family) and the legal system, i.e., the representatives of authority and the “despotic” government, were the good guys protecting my rights while the despicable behavior are from ordinary Chinese citizens. In the US, consumer rights came at the end of long, hard battles by citizens who cared about justice. Many sacrifices were made. I am doubtful that the Chinese people today are willing to make those sacrifices and moreover, I am more worried that their lack of civic responsibility will be masked by rationalizations that attribute spurious causes such as blaming the government for problems of their own deficiencies. Much of the formal institutions to protect people’s rights are already in place in China. But how will they be put in practice if people don’t have the wisdom, personal responsibility and the sense of justice to carry out actions? They need to be exercised by a competent public to work. They don’t work by magic.
That’s not to say the government is perfect. They should have instituted many measures much earlier. But the thing is, they admit this. Take a look at the speech given by Xi and Li at the 18th congress to see such candid admissions. They take personal responsibility. In the end, I believe that at least the central PRC government is not only one of the most competent but also most moral governments in the world. It’s not just what they have done but what they have had to go against. To lift half a billion of the world’s poorest and most ignorant people from abject poverty is nothing short of miraculous. Despite the large economic inequalities that exists in China today, I believe that the positives of living a minimally decent life far outweighs the negatives of extreme inequality (perhaps that’s just my Rawlsian intuitions kicking in). In the US, the rise of inequality has not been coupled with a rise in pulling people out of poverty. In fact the opposite has happened over the last 40 years.
Also, while the Chinese government is an embodiment of a deliberative democracy, it stops short of allowing full freedom of expression and transparency. But after living here, I no longer have the faith in the Chinese people (as I once did) to be responsible with that freedom. I now quite firmly believe that that will take more time for Chinese people to be able to handle living in a fully deliberative and modern democratic state for that kind of state requires a level of wisdom and civic responsibility that the Chinese people do not currently possess. The Chinese government is right to gradually step in that direction instead jumping straight in by giving everyone full freedom of expression. It’s impossible to build a fully deliberative democracy when such large percentages of its population are concerned with nothing more than money, sleeping and shopping and shy away from any kind of deep reflection and sincere debate about issues that really matter. If the Chinese people spent as much time and energy learning about the world and publicly deliberating the problems that plague their society as they do playing video games, text messaging, watching vapid American sitcoms and shopping for trendy brands, China would already be a completely advanced country and moreover a genuinely democratic one. What’s stopping them is not their government but themselves.
The problems with China are many but they are often embodied within its people. I can’t emphasize how normal the above behavior is. You see it almost everyday. You see people obnoxiously honking their horns for minutes at someone blocking the road with their obnoxious SUVs then proceed to block the road with their own obnoxious SUVs. At one time, Chinese people looked down on foreign others as barbarians, people who did not have the social refinement, education, and virtues of the Chinese. But now it is the Chinese people who must learn to be civilized. It will take time. I have no doubt that eventually they will move in that direction but like all developed nations, it took great changes within society, within individuals, to effect change. It starts with taking personal responsibility. The last message to the Chinese people I’d like to give is that if you want to see what the causes of those problems that face you are, take a look in the mirror and you have its source.
Hidden Harmonies China Blog: As China Re-Awakens, Finding Harmonies in a Brave New World
http://blog.hiddenharmonies.org/2013/05/whats-wrong-with-china-hint-its-not-the-government/
The comment section is also very good. -
Beijing, New Delhi discuss relations days after border standoff resolved
Top diplomats of China and India met in Beijing on Thursday, right after an end to their three-week standoff along a disputed border.
The visit, however, was not under a cloud because of the border incident, as Indian Minister of External Affairs Salman Khurshid is in China's capital preparing for diplomatic arrangements in relations between Beijing and New Delhi this year, observers have said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20130510/0023ae9885da12f669810c.jpgForeign Minister Wang Yi (right) meets with his Indian counterpart, Salman Khurshid, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. After the talk, the two signed a protocol on cooperation in bilateral relations between the two ministries of foreign affairs. Wang Jing / China Daily
Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Khurshid in the evening. After the talks, a protocol was signed to boost cooperation of the two countries' foreign ministries.
Wang highlighted the significance of Khurshid's visit, saying ties between Beijing and New Delhi are now embracing new opportunities.
"At present, the China-India relationship has shown a good momentum of development, as both sides are actively preparing the exchanges of visits between our leaders within this year," Wang said.
He said China and India need to work toward the common goal of further pushing forward the strategic and cooperative partnerships.
Khurshid said he believes a good working relationship can be established between the two governments, as China and India, two important countries in the world, are playing critical roles on the global stage.
As his first visit to China after assuming the position, Khurshid said he will be committed to expanding and deepening bilateral relations.
The visit came one day after Khurshid said in India that he was "comfortable" with the way India and China showed "tremendous maturity" in handling the border standoff that started in mid-April.
"The incident was handled at a proportional, limited and localized level. This fundamental understanding was developed over the past several years," Khurshid told journalists on the eve of his first visit to China as foreign minister.
The issue has now been resolved peacefully with the two countries agreeing to restore the status quo along the Line of Actual Control in the western sector of the border.
Beijing called on Monday for the two countries to work together to achieve a fair and reasonable border treaty that is acceptable to both sides. An Indian foreign ministry source in New Delhi told AFP that discussions on a cooperation agreement for better communications on the Line of Actual Control were "most likely".
Ye Hailin, an expert on South Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the two ministers "will touch upon the border confrontation, but it is definitely not the point of the visit".
Khurshid is in China mainly to make diplomatic arrangements with China, he said. It has been reported that a Chinese leader might visit India soon, but that has yet to be confirmed.
Khurshid said on Wednesday he eyed "huge potential" in cooperation between the two nations and was expecting to build good working and personal relations with Wang.
During the trip, "both countries will discuss the future, and the leadership is committed toward that and the great things India and China can and must do together", he said.
He said both countries were ancient Asian civilizations and should "accommodate" each other's fundamental interests on issues such as border disputes with patience.
"We can learn from each other's experiences. Although we cannot be completely alike, we could align our position in the future over various issues," he added. The Indian source told AFP that commerce will feature "prominently" in the visit, describing India's trade deficit with China as a "huge issue".
Very nicey nice.
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Guangzhou moves to abolish rural hukouBy ZHENG CAIXIONG in Guangzhou ( China Daily)
Guangzhou has taken the lead in Guangdong province to scrap a rural hukou, or household registration system, which is preventing farmers from enjoying many rights and advantages enjoyed by their urban peers.
Starting this week, household registration departments under the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau have required local residents to change their residence booklets to identify them as permanent Guangzhou residents, according to a notice on the bureau's official website.
"That indicates all the farmers in the southern metropolis will become urban residents after they have changed their residence booklets in the following months," said the notice.
"The move will safeguard the employment rights, education and other legal interests of the city's many farmers who are now losing their farmland because of rapid industrial and service-sector development," the notice said.
In previous years, farmers have not been entitled to be registered as permanent urban residents of the city in accordance with regulations in cities and towns, a policy created several decades ago.
That means farmers who are registered with rural hukou do not have the same status as urban residents in training, education, pension and medical insurance programs.
And farmers usually have no unemployment relief payments, like urban residents, if they fail to find jobs in urban areas.
"Scrapping the rural hukou will also help speed up the city's urbanization construction drive," the notice said.
Zheng Zizhen, researcher and former dean of the Sociology and Population Institute of the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, said that merely removing the rural hukou for farmers is not enough.
"Scrapping the rural hukou is meaningless if the farmers' social welfare cannot really be improved after they have changed their residence booklets to be registered as urban residents," he said.
"City departments should still have to work hard and try to afford farmers the same social welfare, including employment, education, training, housing, pension, medical and social security, after they have changed the new residence booklets," Zheng said.
Zheng said that many cities in Guangdong and other parts of the country have also scrapped rural hukou in past years, but the social welfare of the farmers did not improve after they became urban residents.
He cited Foshan, a city located near Guangzhou, as an example.
"Foshan has not had rural hukou for some years, but its pace of the urbanization is still very slow because most of the farmers' social welfare cannot be improved after they have become urban residents," he said.
"Government departments should do more than just drop the rural hukou to improve farmers' social welfare and status," he added.
Lin Chengyao, a Guangzhou office worker, said city departments should remove the city-rural fences and eliminate the differences between rural and urban household registration because those differences are not fair to the farmers.
"Many farmers who do not have urban hukou have actually lived in the urban area, or in the city's urban villages, after their farmland has been requisitioned for industrial and service development in past years," Lin said.
Guangzhou has a population of more than 12 million according to a 2011 census, including a large number of migrant workers.
In a related development, the State Council, China's Cabinet, had planned to introduce a new city residential permit system to replace the current hukou system during a meeting on Monday.
The hukou system has brought many difficulties to migrant workers since their children can't enjoy equal education rights in the city with the native residents. There are 252.78 million migrant workers nationwide, the National Bureau of Statistics said in April.
Well, it's a start and in one of China's largest cities.
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My wife ("a Chinese lady") said the narrator wanted the marriage to fail almost and was disrespectful to them in her talking on the film. She also thought the bride had a very bad temper and was badly uneducated, thought the groom seemed like a nice guy with a good temper, and said there was little true love and they only stay married for convenience...
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Yes sir, that is what I meant too and trying to keep it short. Sorry.
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cute girls your tour!
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Agree, most likely no affect
Probably would have no affect...
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the producer has many stereotypes "asianphile" indeed! What about calling asian women who are with white guys, "caucasiphiles"? Kinda offensive
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India has agreed to a Chinese demand to demolish a remote army position near their de facto border in the Himalayas, Indian sources said, as part of a deal to end a standoff that threatened to scupper slowly improving relations.
Indian and Chinese soldiers faced off 100 meters (330 feet) apart on a plateau near the Karakoram mountain range, where they fought a war 50 years ago, for three weeks until they reached a deal on Sunday for both sides to withdraw.
The tension had threatened to overshadow a visit by the Indian foreign minister to Beijing on May 9. China's Premier Li Keqiang is expected to visit India later this month.
India said up to 50 Chinese soldiers set up camp in its territory on the western rim of the Himalayas on April 15. Some Indian officials and experts believed the incursion signaled Chinese concern about increased Indian activity in the area.
The Chinese camp was in an area India said was 19 km (12 miles) beyond what it understands to be the border in the Ladakh region of Kashmir, a vaguely defined line called the Line of Actual Control, which neither side agrees on.
Details of the deal have not been made public and there were differing versions about what had been dismantled. A source with direct knowledge of the decision making in New Delhi said India agreed to take down a temporary metal-roofed shelter in the Chumar area, further south along the disputed border.
The source said the dismantled shelter had been erected in Chumar shortly after China set up camp on the plateau.
However, an official from the Indian army's northern command said India had taken down more permanent structures from Chumar.
"The bunkers in Chumar were dismantled after we acceded to Chinese demand in the last flag meeting. These bunkers were live-in bunkers," the army officer told Reuters on Tuesday.
China won the border war they fought in 1962, which soured relations for decades, but ties between the Asian giants have been improving. China is India's top trade partner and the two occasionally hold joint military exercises.
India has been beefing up its military presence for several years on the remote Ladakh plateau, building roads and runways to catch up with Chinese development across the border in a disputed area known as Aksai Chin
The decision to agree to the Chinese demand followed heavy criticism of the Indian government over its handling of the incident by the opposition.
An official in India's Defense Ministry said on Monday the deal to end the standoff was "quid pro quo" and said China had also demanded India take down listening and observation posts in the Chumar area, which is close to a Chinese road through Tibet.
The source in New Delhi denied India was dismantling anything more than the border shelter.
Curious how this is so-called "no man's land" yet both countries have military there
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Pay to go services require only money, this articles sounds like home service.
In the states, you can buy phone cards without ID, you can also buy trac-phone and other cell phone services without ID, as for internet access, one really does not need to buy that either, just get on line at any open hot spot.
My cell carrier Straight Talk, i could simply by the sim card at Walmart, and buy access at the check out in the form of pre-paid phone cards, no ID needed.
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SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI, Indian (Reuters) - India and China simultaneously withdrew troops from camps a few meters apart in a Himalayan desert on Sunday, apparently ending a three-week standoff on a freezing plateau where the border is disputed and the Asian giants fought a war 50 years ago.
The two sides stood down after reaching an agreement during a meeting between border commanders, an Indian army official told Reuters, after the tension threatened to overshadow a planned visit by India's foreign minister to Beijing on Thursday.
But it was not immediately clear how far China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers had withdrawn - Delhi had claimed they were 19 km (12 miles) beyond the point it understands to be the border with China, a vaguely defined de facto line called the Line of Actual Control, which neither side agrees on.
Defence and foreign ministry spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"Our troops have moved one kilometer backwards from the position they were on since April 16," said the officer, from the Indian army's Northern Command, which oversees the disputed region on the fringes of India's Jammu and Kashmir state.
"Chinese troops have also moved away from their position they were holding on since April 15 when they intruded in Indian territory. It is not clear yet how (far) the PLA moved back."
India considered it the worst border incursion for years.
New Delhi often appears insecure about relations with its powerful neighbor, despite slowly warming relations between Asia's largest countries. China is India's top trade partner, but the unresolved border sours the friendship.
India's opposition and much of the media has been critical of the government's handling of the standoff, drawing parallels with a 1962 war which ended in its humiliating defeat. On Friday, parliament was adjourned after members shouted "Get China out, save the country".
"YOU ARE IN CHINESE TERRITORY"
India says Chinese troops intruded into its territory on the western rim of the Himalayas on April 15. Some officials and experts believe the incursion signaled Chinese concern about increased Indian military activity in the area.
A group of about 30 Chinese soldiers, backed by helicopters, had pitched several tents near a 16th century Silk Road campsite called Daulat Beg Oldi, close to an air strip New Delhi uses to support troops on the Siachen glacier.
Each day since, Indian and Chinese soldiers and border guards left their camps and stood about 100 meters (330 feet) apart on the Depsang Plain, a 5,000 meter (16,400 feet) high desert ringed by jagged peaks of the Karakoram range.
Winter temperatures can drop to minus 30 degrees centigrade, and the area is lashed by icy strong winds all year round.
A photograph released by a source in the Indian army showed a group of six Chinese soldiers on a rock-strewn landscape holding a bright orange banner that read, in English and Mandarin, "This is the Line of Actual Control, You are in Chinese territory".
Delhi reopened the Daulat Beg Oldi airstrip in 2008. Two other runways, out of use since the war, have been opened and Daulat Beg Oldi has been upgraded since.
Siachen, at the north of the disputed region of Kashmir, is claimed by both India and Pakistan and has the dubious distinction of being the world's highest battlefield.
Tensions are likely to persist given India and China's increased presence in an area that for centuries was largely unclaimed and criss-crossed with caravan routes. Now the land abuts the Karakoram Highway joining Pakistan to China, which Beijing hopes to develop further as trade route linking it to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.
Speaking before Sunday's resolution, Srikanth Kondapalli, an Indian analyst who specialises in China studies, said the dispute lay close to large hydroelectric projects and an ambitious plan to expand the Karakoram highway.
He said the lack of agreement about where the border lies, combined with increased military and infrastructure activity meant more flashpoints were likely.
"It is a no-man's land," said Kondapalli, who considers the current standoff to be more serious than the usual cross-border incidents. "Even if the (present) issue is resolved, this will only flare up."
Whew! WORLD WAR THREE AVERTED!!!!
:cold:
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just translate