Eideard

Suntech PV panels which also let light through sun shades

China’s solar panel maker Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. said Monday it will set up its first U.S. factory in the Greater Phoenix, Arizona area…

The plant will have an initial production capacity of 30 megawatts and is expected to begin production in the third quarter of 2010.

Steven Chan, Suntech’s Chief Strategy Officer, said in Beijing the company will make an initial investment of 10 million U.S. dollars…

The U.S. plant, which will be about 80,000 to 100,000 square feet, will employ over 75 full-time employees at launch and may double its staff within the year as the North American market develops.

They’ll be hiring administrative staff who speak English, Chinese and Spanish. They wish.

Silly remarks aside, what this addresses is the cost of transporting finished products to market becoming a qualitative portion of the whole equation.

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Touting himself as America’s “first Pacific president,” President Obama called on his own connections with Asia on Saturday as he pledged a renewed engagement with Asia Pacific nations based on “an enduring and revitalized alliance between the United States and Japan…”

Earlier, Obama told a packed house at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall that all Americans should know that what happens in Asia “has a direct effect on our lives at home.”

“This is where we engage in much of our commerce and buy many of our goods,” he said. “And this is where we can export more of our own products and create jobs back home in the process.

“This is a place where the risk of a nuclear arms race threatens the security of the wider world, and where extremists who defile a great religion plan attacks on both our continents. And there can be no solution to our energy security and our climate challenge without the rising powers and developing nations of the Asia Pacific…”

“There must be no doubt: As America’s first Pacific president, I promise you that this Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world,” he said.

He stressed that the United States was not interested in containing the emerging economic growth in China.

“The rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations,” he said. “And so, in Beijing and beyond, we will work to deepen our strategic and economic dialogue…”

“We see it as a relationship where we’re obviously going to have differences, where we are going to be competitors in certain respects,” he said. “But we want to maximize areas where we can work together, because the global challenges will simply not be met if we don’t…”

This only requires 36-hour days, 3 clones and 4 sets of rechargeable batteries. In addition to respect for – and a willingness to understand – cultures very different from the United States.

Chinese scientists from the country’s 26th Antarctic expedition are expected to complete the world’s first land cover map of the Antarctica at the end of this year.

It will be the most accurate map of the continent, presenting various land features, they told Xinhua correspondent aboard Xue Long (Snow Dragon) icebreaker in a recent interview…

The map, with the application of high resolution remote sensing technology, will for the first time in the history show the distribution of key features on the continent, including sea ice, snow, blue ice, rocks, soil marshes, lakes and ice crevasse…

The map is also based on 1,073 remote sensing images acquired from the U.S. satellite Land Sat mainly during the austral summer from 1999 to 2002, Cheng Xiao, deputy dean of the College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, told Xinhua via email…

The map will provide not only more accurate ground parameters for scientists to forecast global change or global warming with climate system models, but also important data for detection on the change of Antarctica land cover in a long run, Cheng said.

I’ve always been one of those geeks crazy about maps. Looking forward to seeing the final product.

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Leaders of East Asian countries have laid the groundwork for a European Union-style bloc that will cover half the world’s population…

The proposal for the so-called East Asian Community project was mooted by Yukio Hatoyama, the Japanese prime minister, to fellow leaders at the summit, saying the region should aspire to “lead the world”.

Japan is not a member of Asean, but if the project materialises, it – along with South Korea, China, India, Australia and New Zealand – would be part of ASEAN, which includes Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Other Asean member states are Brunei Darussalam, Burma, Cambodia, the Philippines and Cambodia.

Severino said a more cohesive Asia would have a bigger role in global affairs, especially after the region overcame the global economic crisis more quickly than the West. “It’s not just Asia coming together economically but politically as well. The more integrated you are, the more forceful you are,” Severino said.

ASEAN is already committed to setting up a single Southeast Asian free trade zone by 2015, creating a bloc with a total GDP of more than $1 trillion.

Asean still has major issues to resolve given its diverse membership, our correspondent said.

“There’s a huge difference in income between the countries. Singapore is the richest with a GDP a hundred and fifty times higher than Myanmar, the poorest in the bloc,” she said.

“Politically, the differences are even more diverse,” Vaessen said.

“You have democracies, you have monarchies, you have all kinds of different regimes in the region and it’s very difficult to find some kind of common ground.”

The easy bit is that unlike many Western politicians, there aren’t requirements on politics, morality and God that have to be agreed to before commerce is supported. They haven’t too many Republicans.

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Unfettered by public opinion, partisan squabbling or parliamentary opposition, Chinese leaders responded swiftly a year ago to the global economic downturn by authorizing a huge fiscal stimulus plan, followed up in short order with a loosening of monetary policy and a surge of bank credit.

The stimulus package, announced in November, promised 4 trillion yuan, or $585 billion, in spending over the following two years. As details trickled out, it became clear that public spending on large-scale infrastructure was to be a huge part of the mix.

Other recession-struck governments around the world had to struggle to find and fund enough so-called “shovel-ready” projects to stimulate the creation of construction jobs. But China, with countless such projects already on the drawing boards, faced no such
dilemma.

I have to chuckle because not only my oldest and dearest friends on the Left still try to explain that Keynesian reforms can’t work – even as modified and improved by Leontief – equally rigid and backwards ideologues ranging from Germany’s Christian Democrats to our forever retrograde Republicans attempt the same on the Right.

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At shops in the bustling Xinyang market in Shanghai, fake Apple iPhones and Bose speakers were displayed alongside bootleg copies of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system, a week before it officially was to go on sale.

“Which version do you want? Ultimate? Normal? English or Chinese?” one shopkeeper asked, proudly pointing out her ample supply of discs packed in unmarked white boxes.

People in mainland China have been able to buy pirated copies of the newest version of Microsoft’s Windows franchise this month for just 20 yuan, or $2.93, each — a fraction of list prices, which are as high as $320…

“The big issue that is driving piracy in China today is price,” said Matthew Cheung, an analyst at the research firm Gartner. “If you’re trying to sell a program that costs 2,000 yuan to a student living on 400 yuan a month, that’s simply not going to work out for most consumers…”

Violation of intellectual property rights has been a sore spot in China’s relations with its major trading partners, even as it has cracked down on rampant piracy of everything from Gucci bags to software.

Comparative incomes, cost of living, always make a difference. I grew up in a neighborhood with folks poor enough to steal shoes for the winter. And that wasn’t out of the ordinary.

Times change.

Schools in Beijing are quietly removing the Green Dam filter, which was required for all school computers in July, due to complaints over problems with the software.

China last month formally backed down on a plan to preinstall the Internet filter software on all new computers sold in the country after July 1 after an international and domestic outcry.

But schools were still ordered by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to install the web filter, which Chinese officials said would block pornography and other unhealthy content. Critics said it could be used to spy on Internet users and block politically sensitive sites.

Nonetheless, some schools have chosen to uninstall it.

“We will remove all Green Dam software from computers in the school as it has strong conflicts with teaching software we need for normal work,” said a notice carried on the home page of the Beijing No.50 High School.

A technology director, surnamed Wang, confirmed Tuesday that the software had been taken off most computers…

The software had proven incompatible with most of the software used for the school administration, he said.

Quietly, without offering up the sort of Advertisements for Myself common to western politics – China’s intelligentsia accepts a responsibility appropriate to their society and history.

Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg says it has teamed up with Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co Ltd (BAIC) to buy Saab from its US parent company GM, a move that gives Saab access to China’s rapidly growing car market.

Koenigsegg Group said BAIC, China’s fifth-largest automaker founded in 1958, would become a minority owner in Koenigsegg Group as part of a memorandum of understanding signed between the two parties.

BAIC already has joint ventures with Daimler and Hyundai.

“Koenigsegg Group will own 100 percent of Saab Automobile. The aim is to sign a final agreement later this year,” it said in a statement.

The Swedish group had been short $412 million to complete the acquisition of Saab first announced in June, though the total purchase price has never been disclosed…

Saab aims to increase its annual sales to 150,000, and the deal also opens the door to the rapidly expanding Chinese market as the carmaker prepares to launch several new models next year, including its new 9-5 sedan.

“Saab has no real presence in China and through Beijing Automative we will have access to the Chinese markets,” Eric Geers said…

Under GM’s stewardship, Saab rarely posted a profit and last year lost $341 million.

Perhaps Saab will once again start building quality cars, attractive designs – instead of knock-off baby Buicks.

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China plans to build 42 high-speed railway lines by 2012 in a massive system overhaul that is part of efforts to spur economic growth amid the global downturn, state media have reported.

China hopes to have added 13,000 kilometres of fast lines to its massive rail network in three years, the China News Service said Wednesday, citing Zhang Shuguang, deputy chief engineer at the railways ministry.

The tracks would be capable of handling trains running at up to 350 kilometres per hour.

The country would then have four north-south and four east-west high-speed rail arteries across its vast territory…

“China has the most advanced high-speed rail technology in the world,” Zhang said, adding the country’s fast rail network would have the capacity to carry seven billion passengers a year between 2011 and 2012.

A train that can travel at 500 kilometres per hour will be tested at the end of 2010, he said, according to other local media reports.

Don’t open the window to look at the water buffalos.

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A team of environmental scientists from Harvard and Tsinghua University has demonstrated the enormous potential for wind-generated electricity in China. Using extensive meteorological data and incorporating the Chinese government’s energy-bidding and financial restrictions for delivering wind power, the researchers estimate that wind alone has the potential to meet the country’s electricity demands projected for 2030.

The switch from coal and other fossil fuels to greener wind-based energy could also mitigate CO2 emissions, thereby reducing pollution…

China has become second only to the United States in its national power-generating capacity — 792.5 gigawatts per year with an expected future 10 percent annual increase — and is now the world’s largest CO2 emitter. Thus, added McElroy, “the real question for the globe is: What alternatives does China have?”

While wind-generated energy accounts for only 0.4 percent of China’s total current electricity supply, the country is rapidly becoming the world’s fastest-growing market for wind power, trailing only the United States, Germany, and Spain in terms of installed capacities of existing wind farms.

Development of renewable energy in China, especially wind, received an important boost with passage of the Renewable Energy Law in 2005; the law provides favorable tax status for alternative energy investments. The Chinese government also established a concession bidding process to guarantee a reasonable return for large wind projects…

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