China Watch launched

After much work, a preliminary version of ZNet's China Watch site has finally gone online! The new site will be edited and maintained by myself as a sub-section of Z's Asia Watch site, which is handled by Justin Podur and Christina Bowman...

The site is still being worked on, but will basically consist of regular updates and original articles, along with whatever good material we can find from other sources.  There will be a focus section on WTO-related links and articles for a while, building up to the WTO ministerial planned for Hong Kong in December 2005. The site will also have links to websites and organizations focusing on issues in the greater China region.

A particularly exciting part of the project is a section for translations. It's a bit bare at the moment, but we are planning to have at least a couple of articles a month translated between Chinese-English and English-Chinese, on a variety of subjects. This would be our attempt to feature materials from Chinese writers and activists that would not ordinarily be found in English, and bring some radical writings in English to Chinese-reading people.

So, check out China Watch often to see what is going on in the region!

That's that.

There were recently a couple of interesting features in the Asia Times about relations between China and the Central Asian countries. These were apparently originally broadcast by the horrible US-based right-wing Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and so should be taken with a giant grain of salt, bearing the power dynamics in mind. But reluctant as I am to refer to them, they contain interesting information nonetheless. The first focuses more on 'big picture' geopolitical issues between, China Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. :

China's economy is booming, but its domestic oil and mining industries cannot keep pace with demand.

Chinese officials, as a result, have fanned out across the globe, including into          Central Asia, in search of suppliers, as Xu Yihe, senior reporter with the Dow Jones News wires in Singapore, told RFE/RL. "Chinese oil companies are almost everywhere in the world," Xu said. "They're dispatching teams of oil experts to negotiate oil projects, especially upstream projects in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and North America."...

"The Chinese do want natural resources," Swanstrom said. "They do want oil and gas because China is in desperate need of these as its  economy grows. But it goes deeper than that. They want to secure the borders. They want to make sure that Central Asia is a stable region. Because if Central Asia runs into military conflicts, it is likely to spread over to Xinjiang, China's westernmost province. And that would be a problem for the Chinese government.

The second piece deals with the issue of the environment and the presence of militant opposition groups in the region. Though the first piece referred to reveals some of its ideological credentials by referring to a common struggle against "Islamic militancy" in China and Central Asia, this second article attempts to take a somewhat closer look:

"...the radical groups appear to have different agendas. Those believed to be behind the Uzbek violence - or at least the main suspects, as it's still unclear who's responsible - seek social as well as political change with the creation of an Islamic state in the region."

So, these pieces are nothing groundbreaking, but filter out the ideological slant and there's an interesting summary of some of the issues involved. Take a look and see what you think.

Comments

[chucky]

Hi, I just wonder if you have a lot of people capable of reading and writing chinese to do the translation and sort. Just out of curiousity.

[Peter J. Herz 何培德]

I read and write Chinese. What are you offering your translators?