China

China to overtake US as largest manufacturer

Financial Times Online

China is set to overtake the US next year as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods, four years earlier than expected, as a result of the rapidly weakening US economy. The great leap is revealed in forecasts for the Financial Times by Global Insight, a US economics consultancy. According to the estimates, next year China will account for 17 per cent of manufacturing value-added output of $11,783bn and the US will make 16 per cent. Last year the US was still easily in the top slot and accounted for a fifth of the total. China was second with 13.2 per cent.

Bush visits Beijing church, urges freedom

The Washington Times

BEIJING | President Bush continued his Olympics juggling act on Sunday, settling for a pointed remark in public to push for wider religious freedom in China and raising further political concerns privately with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Standing on the rain-splattered steps of the state-sanctioned Beijing Kuanjie Protestant Christian Church after attending an early morning service, Mr. Bush said it was "a joy and a privilege" to worship in the Chinese capital, as he did in 2005. "It just goes to show that God is universal. No state, man or woman should fear the influence of loving religion," he declared, alluding to the strict controls the Communist Party imposes on religion, while taking care not to embarrass his hosts - or the church pastor he encircled with his arm - with explicit criticism. 'JOY': President Bush speaks at the state-sanctioned Beijing Kuanjie Protestant Christian Church on Sunday. He later raised the issue of human rights abuses behind closed doors with Chinese President Hu Jintao. (Associated Press)

Bullet 333David Bossie, President, Citizens United
Bullet 333Rev. Clenard Childress, Jr., Assistant Director, Life Education and Resource Network
Bullet 333Ward Connerly, Author/Founder and Chairman, American Civil Rights Institute
Bullet 333Tom DeLay, Former House Majority Leader, United States House of Representatives
Bullet 333Len Deo, President, New Jersey Family Policy Council
Bullet 333William Devlin, National President, Redeem The Vote
Bullet 333Jessica Echard, Executive Director, Eagle Forum
Bullet 333Tim G. Echols, President/Founder, TeenPact
Bullet 333Steve Elliott, President, Grassfire.org
Bullet 333Joseph Farah, CEO, Founder, WorldNetDaily
Bullet 333Todd Friel, Radio Host, Way of the Master
Bullet 333James Gelfand, Senior Manager of Health Policy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Bullet 333Rick Green, President, Torch of Freedom Foundation
Bullet 333Colin Hanna, Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring
Bullet 333Dr. Janice Hollis, Bishop, Progressive Believers Ministries
Bullet 333Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church
Bullet 333Peter Lillback, President, Westminster Theological Seminary
Bullet 333Gary Marx, Executive Director, Judicial Confirmation Network
Bullet 333Joe Murray, Columnist, The Bulletin
Bullet 333Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President, Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny
Bullet 333Elizabeth Racine, Founder, Moralert.com
Bullet 333Phyllis Schlafly, President and Founder, Eagle Forum
Bullet 333Tony Strickland, Taxpayer Advocate
Bullet 333Lorianne Updike, President & Executive Director, The Constitutional Sources Project
Bullet 333Charl Van Wyk, Pastor/Author, “Shooting Back–The Right & Duty of Self-Defence"
Bullet 333Timothy Watkins, Producer/Director, Renegade Productions

China's leaders are resilient in face of change

International Herald Tribune

As Beijing was starting construction on its main Olympic stadiums four years ago, China's vice president and leading political fixer, Zeng Qinghong, warned the 70 million members of the ruling Communist Party that the party itself could use some reconstruction. Zeng argued that the "painful lessons" from the collapse of other Communist parties in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe could not be ignored. He said China's cadres needed to "wake up" and realize that "a party's status as a party in power does not necessarily last as long as the party does." Zeng, who is now retired, was alluding to the pressures of economic liberalization, political stagnation and globalization that many analysts have argued would ultimately topple one-party rule in China. The Olympics also posed a pressure point, as some analysts wondered whether the expectations and international scrutiny brought by the Games might help crack open another authoritarian political system - as happened in Seoul in 1988.

Bush to attend church in China, urge religious freedom

Breitbart.Com

US President George W. Bush plans to attend church while in China for the opening of the Olympic Games next month, and will speak about freedom of religion, a top aide said Wednesday. "When he goes to church on Sunday (August 10) he will make a statement afterwards in which he discusses his view on religious freedom in China," said national security council director of Asian Affairs Dennis Wilder. "You can deliver the message of freedom without politicizing the events of the game," Wilder said. "The president will have diplomatic meetings with the Chinese leadership that are separate from the games. And in those meetings with the Chinese leaders he will of course bring up these issues." Bush, a devout Christian, has walked a diplomatic tightrope over the Olympics, repeatedly insisting the games are not a political venue while recently stepping up his public criticism of Beijing's rights record. Bush will attend the August 8 opening ceremonies of the games, having rejected human rights activists' appeals for him to boycott the gala in protest of China's overall rights record, including a crackdown in Tibet in March.

China's economy to become world's biggest in 2035: study

Breitbart.Com

China's economy will overtake that of the United States by 2035 and be twice its size by midcentury, a study released Tuesday by a US research organization concluded. The report by economist Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said China's rapid growth is driven by domestic demand more than exports, and will sustain high single-digit growth rates well into the 21st century. "China's economic performance clearly is no flash in the pan," Keidel writes. "Its growth this decade has averaged more than 10 percent a year and is still going strong in the first half of 2008. Because its success in recent decades has not been export-led but driven by domestic demand, its rapid growth can continue well into the 21st century, unfettered by world market limitation." Keidel said the rise of China to the world's biggest economy will happen regardless of the method of calculation. Under current market-based estimates, China's gross domestic product is about three trillion dollars compared to 14 trillion for the United States. Based on a more controversial purchasing power parity (PPP) measure used by the World Bank and others to correct low labor-cost distortions, he said China's GDP is roughly half of that of the United States.

China's one-child policy has exemptions for quake victims' parents

International Herald Tribune

CHENGDU, China: In response to inquiries from grieving relatives, local officials announced Monday that parents whose only child was killed or grievously injured in the May 12 earthquake would be exempt from the country's one-child policy. The exception, issued by the Chengdu Population and Family Planning Committee in Sichuan Province, said qualified parents could apply for legal permission to have another child, according to The Associated Press.

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