China Lunar Year Gold Rush

From Koos Jansen

Keiser Report with Alasdair Macleod

From RT

Published on Nov 26, 2013

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss WTF in the UK as RBS slaughters SMEs and then robs their still warm corpses; while over in the PRC, the PBOC has thrown a whole bunch of STFU at US Treasuries. They discuss the implications of both oil being priced in yuan on the Shanghai futures exchange and Iran being prohibited from trading oil for gold under the P5+1 deal.

In the second half, Max interviews Alasdair Macleod of GoldMoney.com about 400 ounce London .995 gold bars being sent to Switzerland from Arab holders and melted down to 1 kilo .9999 bars, thus moving gold from the London standard, to the new better Chinese standard - suggesting we may be entering a post-petrodollar world. In which case, petrodollars could be flowing back into NY in pure dollar form to cause high inflation. And, finally, Max and Alasdair suggest that unless you rig gold markets, your forex and libor rigging won't work.

Iran opens airspace to China warplanes

From PressTV:

The Islamic Republic of Iran has reportedly opened its airspace to Chinese warplanes taking part in joint military maneuvers with Turkey.

Ankara and Beijing conducted the drills in Turkey's Central Anatolia region last month.

The war games, codenamed the Anatolian Eagle, were the first involving Turkey and China. Turkey had previously carried out Anatolian Eagle maneuvers with the US and other NATO members as well as Israel.

Turkish F-16, Chinese Su-27 and Mig-29 fighter jets took part in mock dogfights during the drills.

The maneuvers come ahead of a planned visit by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to Turkey.

Turkey and China took their first step in military cooperation in the late 1990s with joint missile production, manufacturing weapons with a 150-kilometer range, the Hurriyet daily reported on its website.

The multinational Anatolian Eagle exercise is hosted by the Turkish Air Forces and is aimed at boosting aerial cooperation and training. The exercises have been performed since June 2001

Don't kowtow to the Chinese Govt.

From the Australian:

THE international community needs to engage Beijing in a web of rules and customs.

IS this the year that China's leadership lets us all know that it is determined not to abide by routine international norms but will use raw power to take whatever it wants?

That is too strong a conclusion just yet, but it has certainly been a year of rugged behaviour from Beijing, behaviour that we should study closely.

Consider, first, the contrasting cases of Stern Hu and Zan Qixiong.

Hu, you'll recall, is the Australian former No 2 for giant miner Rio Tinto. In July last year he was arrested, initially on charges of espionage. Later he was convicted of bribery and corruption charges. At the start the Chinese government wouldn't communicate with the Australian government over the matter. Later it barely conformed to the minimum requirements of the consular agreement between the two nations.

We will never know if Hu was remotely guilty of anything. We do know that corruption is rife in China and Hu was the only foreign executive singled out by the Chinese authorities this way.

We also know the context. The Chinese were annoyed by the prices they were paying for Australian minerals and deeply furious that their bid for a big equity stake in Rio Tinto had failed.

Within Australia the reliable pro-China gang, centred on the Australian National University, but well represented in business as well, told us in effect to keep quiet and not protest against Hu's punishment. We were to protect the Chinese legal system, as though that were not among the most corrupt and politicised legal systems in the world.

Now consider Zan's case. Zan is a Chinese fishing boat captain. He was plying his trade in the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Japan considers these islands to be part of Japan and exercises normal control over them. China also claims the islands, as it does much of the maritime domain of northeast and Southeast Asia.

Zan's boat was approached by the Japanese navy. Now, all over the world, what does an illegal fisherman do if approached by a national coastguard? Universally, the fisherman runs away.

But in Zan's case, according to the Japanese navy, he rammed the Japanese vessel. That is akin to piracy and is certainly equivalent to criminal damage.

Zan was taken into Japanese custody. He was not charged with being in Japanese waters illegally but with offences arising out of ramming the Japanese ship. Many analysts believe the fisherman's actions were directed by the Chinese government as a deliberate way of testing the Japanese.

The Chinese reaction could not have been more different from the Australian response to Hu. There were no significant voices within China urging that Japanese legal processes be allowed to unfold.

Instead, the Chinese reaction was brutal and effective. Beijing cancelled high-level meetings with Japanese officials, including with the Japanese Prime Minister. Groups of Chinese tourists were prevented from visiting Japan. Four Japanese in China were suddenly arrested in what looked like preposterous charges of photographing Chinese military establishments. A high-level torrent of abuse was directed at Japan from Chinese government and media sources.

It was alleged that China banned temporarily the export of rare earth metals -- vital in much hi-tech gadgetry -- to Japan, though this was later denied.

Eventually the Japanese gave in and let Zan go, at which point the Chinese demanded apologies and compensation. Outraged public opinion finally forced Tokyo to reject this.

The Zan episode needs to be seen in the context of three other episodes this year where the Chinese have flouted well-established international norms......read on

Exploding China

As a followup to an earlier post on Vacant China we now have Exploding China. It seems it is not enough just to stimulate the economy by building apartments no one wants the Chinese are now leveling perfectly good buildings and roads only to replace them. Seems the Communist Govt. is paranoid of growth falling below the mythical 8% rate where the people might revolt and eat the rich.

From China Hush:

China’s bizarre phenomena: buildings die unnaturally September 24th, 2010 by Annie Lee

As one of the most architectural productive country, China aggregates 2 billion m² of new building area every year, consuming about 40% of the world’s concrete and steel. However, on the flip side of the new building fever, there lie the rubbles and remains of other “older” buildings: people tear down four-star hotels to build five-star ones and bulldoze newly developed construction sites before they are even finished. Lots of young strong buildings are down, fulfilling their unnatural destiny in the roaring noise of blasting. (Source from ifeng.com and people.com.cn)

1. Vienna Wood Community in Hefei City(合肥维也纳森林花园小区), died before born on Dec. 10^th, 2005. The community covered about 20,000 m² construction area with the main structure raised to 58.5 m high. The tens of millions yuan worth building was blasted as a whole when its 16^th floor was still under progress. According to local government, the community punctuated the central divide of Hefei City, blocking the scenery between Huangshan Road and Dashushan Mountain. They couldn’t straighten Huangshan Road unless the community was out of the way.

2. The Bund Community in Wuhan(武汉外滩花园小区), 4 years old, blasted on March 30^th, 2002. “I give you the Yangtze River” the slogan of the community captured many people’s hearts, so did its view over the magnificent Yangtze River and Wuhan’s historic spot Yellow Crane Tower. It took only 4 years to build the community that was documented and verified by relative departments. Then it also took only 4 years for the once legitimate community to be identified as illegitimate buildings that violate the country’s flood protection regulations. Force demolition soon took place, resulting in over 200 million yuan direct economic losses, not to mention the costs that were times of its original investment government had to cover for the demolition and restoration of bund environment.

3. Yuxi Exhibition Center(瑜西会展中心), 5 years old, down on Aug. 20^th, 2005. The landmark building in Yongchuan City, Chongqing Municipality cost 40 million yuan to build, and 250 kg dynamite and about 5000 detonators to blow up. Besides holding exhibition, the center was also used as administrative reception center due to its convenient location and sound facility. However, the mine boss who bought the center for 30 million yuan decided it was an even better idea for the center to become the city’s first five-star hotel instead of holding some stupid exhibitions. Thus down with the landmark exhibition center and here was 250 million yuan to build the glorious five star hotel. To welcome the city’s first five-star hotel, vice mayor of Yongchuang City came down to the site in person and helped monitor the blasting process.

4. Zhongyin Building in Wenzhou City(温州中银大厦), 6 years old, life ended on May 18^th, 2004. Situated at the city’s golden area since 1997, the 93 m high building was never put into use as it was identified as unsafe building and soon brought out the city’s biggest financial crime ever, involving 43 suspects and over 30 million yuan corruption. And for that reason, it was also remembered as corruption building. Solving all of the building’s safety problems would demand more than the cost of building a new one, the authority then blow it up.

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