India - China: Relations And Developments-2

HareKrishna · 11-02-2009, 12:12 PM

QUOTE(Husky @ Nov 1 2009, 01:24 PM)

the air-force is the only viable strategic option in the NE agains the chinese. that is because the chinese troo
the truth is coming out. our hydrogen bomb failed, so china can do whatever it wants to us.

India don't have even reliable nuclear missiles ;relay more on bomber planes to drop nuke-bombs which are less efficient then nuclear missiles

**acharya** · 11-04-2009, 03:08 AM

QUOTE(HareKrishna @ Nov 1 2009, 06:42 PM)
India don't have even reliable nuclear missiles ;relay more on bomber planes to drop nuke-bombsÂ which are less efficient then nuclear missiles
[right][snapback]102328[/snapback][/right]

Where is the proof. Indicate where does it say that India does not have reliable nuclear missles

HareKrishna · 11-04-2009, 11:58 AM

QUOTE(acharya @ Nov 4 2009, 03:08 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(HareKrishna @ Nov 1 2009, 06:42 PM)
India don't have even reliable nuclear missiles ;relay more on bomber planes to drop nuke-bombsÂ which are less efficient then nuclear missiles
[right][snapback]102328[/snapback][/right]

Where is the proof. Indicate where does it say that India does not have reliable nuclear missles
[right][snapback]102351[/snapback][/right]
</div>
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1292/1

**acharya** · 11-04-2009, 10:38 PM

QUOTE(HareKrishna @ Nov 3 2009, 06:28 PM)
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1292/1
[right][snapback]102357[/snapback][/right]

That is a western propaganda. We need objective source here. Western news source is biased against India.

HareKrishna · 11-05-2009, 11:18 AM

QUOTE(acharya @ Nov 4 2009, 10:38 PM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(HareKrishna @ Nov 3 2009, 06:28 PM)
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1292/1
[right][snapback]102357[/snapback][/right]

That is a western propaganda. We need objective source here. Western news source is biased against India.
[right][snapback]102362[/snapback][/right]
</div>
Supposedly the West is pro-India.Didn't West support democracy?

**acharya** · 11-05-2009, 09:28 PM

QUOTE(HareKrishna @ Nov 4 2009, 05:48 PM)
Supposedly the West is pro-India.Didn't West support democracy?
[right][snapback]102370[/snapback][/right]

Does not matter. West also supports islmic dictators and totalitarian countries like China.

Where is the proof that Indian armaments are not right

HareKrishna · 11-06-2009, 12:40 AM

QUOTE(acharya @ Nov 5 2009, 09:28 PM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(HareKrishna @ Nov 4 2009, 05:48 PM)
Supposedly the West is pro-India.Didn't West support democracy?
[right][snapback]102370[/snapback][/right]

Does not matter. West also supports islmic dictators and totalitarian countries like China.

Where is the proof that Indian armaments are not right
[right][snapback]102374[/snapback][/right]
</div>
I have no other site except the one above.

11-06-2009, 05:26 AM

QUOTEAfter tough talk, India moves to appease China
pioneer.com
PNS | New Delhi
Denies permit to foreign scribes to cover Dalaiâs Arunachal visit 

Several foreign journalists have been denied permit to travel to Arunachal Pradesh to cover the Dalai Lamaâs visit to Tawang starting on November 8. The development comes in the backdrop of China opposing Dalai Lamaâs visit and India claiming the Buddhist spiritual head was free to go anywhere within the country.

The decision to deny these foreign journalists permission to cover the event will âpleaseâ China since it does not want Dalai Lama to get international publicity when visiting Arunachal Pradesh, which it considers a disputed territory.

While the Arunachal Pradesh Government denied that foreign journalists were denied permission to visit the State, the Associated Press (AP) said here on Thursday the Government revoked passes previously provided to four foreign journalists, including two AP reporters.

âWe are incredibly surprised and disappointed to learn that reportersâ visas to Arunachal Pradesh have been cancelled ahead of the Dalai Lamaâs visit,â said Heather Timmons, president of the New Delhi-based Foreign Correspondentsâ Club, according to the AP.

Government sources said that these journalists were denied the permit because they had not contacted the Centre and directly approached the Arunachal Pradesh administration.

Chairman of the State-level reception committee TGR Rimpoche said he had heard of an advisory to restrict the movement of foreign journalists, âbut it is not in black and white. It may be verbal.â

Rimpoche, a close aide of Dalai Lama and a former Minister, said according to his information some foreign journalists have reached Tawang and some more may go in the guise of tourists. âWe cannot drive them away from Tawang,â he said.

The PTI reported from Itanagar that around 50 newsmen, including those representing foreign media, have so far contacted the administration of the border town of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh for accommodation and permits to cover the visit of the Dalai Lama.

Chief Secretary Tabom Bam denied having received any instruction from the Centre about restrictions on foreign mediapersons following the recent war of words between India and China over the visit. 

As Alexander Hamilton said, A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one
Already tail is between legs.

11-06-2009, 05:31 AM

QUOTEIndia downplays China's dam construction on Brahmaputra
pioneer.com
PTI | New Delhi
India on Thursday downplayed the issue of building of a dam by China on Brahmaputra river saying the construction site is 1,100 km away from the country's boundary.

"The point where they were making a dam is 1,100 kilometres away from our boundary. It's a small dam and no reservoir as such. They already have such 15 dams there which they are using for local purposes," water resources minister P K Bansal said here.

"For their run of the river, we have no right. Our concern should be that there is no diversion in existing flow of the 79 BCM water from the river into India. There is no evidence for any such diversion so far," Bansal said.

"There is no cause of concern right now but we always have to be watchful," was the refrain of the minister when asked whether there was nothing to worry about the issue.

His response came when asked about media reports that China has constructed a dam on the river as part of the Nagmu hydroelectric project which was inaugurated on March 16. He was speaking at a Rajya Sabha workshop on "Parliament and Media".

The minister also informed that the government has decided to launch new projects in Arunachal Pradesh for the use of the 79 BCM water coming from the region, to strengthen India's claims on the right to use that water.

11-07-2009, 08:20 AM

Comparing India and ChinaQUOTERyan Streeter, a fellow at the Legatum Institute, tells me that âIndia beats China solidly owing to the way that its governance contributes to the economy. That is the democratic institutions index, where India is 36 and China 100. Couple that with other key measures of governance, freedom and social capitalâsocial capital is amazingly high in India, which is ranked fifth in the worldâand India is far more prosperous than its rivalâ.

The social capital component is especially interesting. âIndian citizens report high levels of membership in community organizations, allowing for a broad network of social capital,â the report concludes.

Indians seem to be like Americans in this respect. When Alexis de Tocqueville published his magisterial account of the American experiment, Democracy in America, he was struck by the high degree of social capital he observed during his travels. Americans were a nation of joiners, he witnessed. Indians seem to be similar in that regardâindeed, Indians are even ahead of the US on this metric, which ranks two spots behind, at seventh, in the world. And the reportâs authors note that high levels of social capital are needed to bolster human happiness.

My colleague at the American Enterprise Institute Roger Bate notes that âChina outperforms India in both of the main economic sub-indices because it provides greater economic certainty to investors, receiving far more foreign investment than India. Still, the overall index implies that trouble is brewing for China as it loses out to India in all other sub-indices, especially in its lack of democracy and personal freedomâ.
...............
Indeed, on my visits to India, I am always struck at how vibrant Indian democracy is and how robustly pervasive the sense of personal freedom is. There is a rowdy, even chaotic, spirit in India that is refreshing and lively and is the hallmark of a free people enjoying their rights and liberties.

There are, of course, areas in which India needs to make significant progress. Education, health, and safety and security are all areas in which Indiaâs performance is badly lagging much of the rest of the world.

But the overall picture is quite encouraging. And in this version of the India versus China parlour game, we must tip our cap to India.

11-09-2009, 08:01 AM

QUOTEMaoists getting weapons from China: Home Secretary
pioneer.com
PTI | New Delhi

Government on Sunday indicated that China may be a source of arms for Maoists with whom it is willing to have a dialogue but they should abjure violence.

"Chinese are big smugglers... Suppliers of small arms. I am sure that the Maoists also get them," Pillai said when asked if the Naxals were having links with China.

This is for the first time that someone high in the government has said that the Maoists are getting arms from China.

He, however, said the government no information that the Maoists have any links with China except getting arms. "I do not think so, except getting arms," he told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
Nothing new, same was happening with J&K terrorist .

11-09-2009, 08:07 AM

QUOTEDalai Lama trashes China claim on Arunachal
pioneer.com
Sukhendu Bhattacharya | Tawang
Arrives to rousing welcome from people in Tawang

Arriving in this border town to a rousing reception on a visit resented by China, the Dalai Lama on Sunday rebuffed it for objecting to his trip to Arunachal Pradesh and expressed surprise over its claims to Tawang, a revered seat of Buddhism.

The 74-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader, who is visiting this remote Northeastern State after a gap of six years drawing international attention in the wake of Chinese protests, also rejected Beijingâs charge he was encouraging a separatist movement calling it baseless.

The Nobel Laureate characterised his âemotionalâ visit to Tawang, which has strong ties to Tibet, as non-political. âIt is totally baseless on the part of the Chinese Communist Government to say that I am encouraging a separatist movement. My visit to Tawang is non-political and aimed at promoting universal brotherhood and nothing else,â he said.

The Dalai Lama said the Peopleâs Liberation Army of China had occupied Tawang and nearly reached Bom Dila during the Sino-India war in 1962.

âBut the then Chinese Government declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew (its forces). Now the Chinese have got different views. This is something which I really donât know. I am a little bit surprised,â he said in a clear reference to Chinese claims over Tawang.

The Dalai was talking to newsmen after opening a museum at the 400-year-old Tawang Monastery here. China has strongly objected to the Dalai Lamaâs visit and in recent days it has stepped up rhetoric claiming Tawang and whole of Arunachal as part of their country.

He said there was no point in holding talks with China on the Tibet issue unless Beijing spells out its policy on it. âIt is quite usual for China to step up campaigning against me wherever I go,â he added.

The Dalai recalled his visit to Tawang 50 years ago while fleeing across the Himalayas after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet. The spiritual leader, who flew to Tawang from Guwahati on Sunday morning, was welcomed by cheering Tibetans as he drove along the 10-km stretch from the helipad to the Tawang Monastery, accompanied by Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Kandu.

11-09-2009, 12:46 PM

Dalai Lama draws huge crowds on visit slammed by ChinaQUOTETens of thousands of Buddhist devotees gathered on Monday to hear the Dalai Lama on his visit to a Tibetan border region that he insists is "non-political" but which China views as deeply provocative.

Some 30,000 people, many of whom had arrived days in advance, were expected to attend a mass session of religious teaching by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader at the remote Tawang monastery in the northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh

Husky · (This post was last modified: 11-12-2009, 11:13 PM by Husky.)

1. http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/11/han...ating-into.html
QUOTEthe hans are physically infiltrating into india as well
nov 8th, 2009

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_wo...tyle/print.html
Posted by nizhal yoddha at 11/08/2009 11:19:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post 

2. http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/11/mao...d-by-china.html
QUOTEMaoists helped by China
nov 10th, 2009

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Giri

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/maoists-helped-...e/104824-2.html

Home Secretary G K Pillai said the Naxals were getting arms from India's neighbour, China. This is the first time the Centre has officially admitted to any body from China to have had a hand in the Naxal movement.

Posted by nizhal yoddha at 11/10/2009 08:23:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post How entirely unforeseen.
Ideological brethren know no bounds after all: so the AmeriKKKan Baptists arm the christian terrorist NLFT, the islamist Pakis arm the Indian islamists, and KKKommunist China arms the Maoist terrorists of India. (And probably somewhere in there, the christians and communists together arm the christian maoists of Nepal and Orissa.)

11-17-2009, 11:10 PM

China built a city for 1 million people and nobody moved in. This is an amazing video.

China's empty city - 10 Nov 09

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h7V3Twb-Qk[/media]

11-19-2009, 10:34 PM

Today I was listening to discussion on US-China equation on radio. Expert was Gordon Chang of Forbes magazine. He was promoting India big time. I was checking his latest article, no where he had promoted India as serious US strategic partner in Asia. Importance of sea-line and US and China are heading for split. He was disappointed by Obama's approach towards India.

**acharya** · 11-24-2009, 04:57 AM

Land of Eastern promise
Nov 19th 2009
From The Economist print edition

India's membership of Asia remains primarily cartographic

Illustration by M. Morgenstern

AN EASY but instructive way to bait an Indian economist is to credit the Chinese economy with coming to Asiaâs rescue and arguably the worldâs. It is, claims the economist, an example of anti-India bias. Why does India not get equal credit for robust growth? In all the frothy coverage about Asiaâs amazing rebound, including in The Economist, where is India? âYouâd thinkâ, the economist complains, âthat India isnât even part of Asia.â

To what degree Indiaâs economy is part of a vibrant Asian whole has long been a preoccupation among Indian policymakers. Now the global slowdown has given the debate a keener edge, for it has disproportionately hit the commercial markets in America and Europe to which India traditionally looks. âLook Eastâ, long an avowed tenet of government policy, is in vogue.

There is something to the economistâs complaints. For all the credit that it gets for its recovery, Chinaâs near double-digit show this year is mainly a command-economy extravaganza involving massive state-directed spending. When that show is over, the skew in Chinaâs economyâan undervalued currency, a mercantilist bias in favour of manufactured exports and an obsession with accumulating foreign reservesâremains less the solution to global imbalances than one of the fundamental causes.

By contrast, though Indiaâs annualised growth rate of around 6% this year is below Chinaâs heady levels, it is impressive against a backdrop of global turmoil. What is more, government stimulus plays only a small part in the growth. Levels of capital and infrastructure investment compare favourably with Chinaâs. And, much more than in China, the hot story in India is domestic demand. India is no mercantilist adding to global imbalances. It imports more than it exports, creating much needed global demand. Indiaâs long-run growth will overtake even Chinaâs.

All well and good. But it does not explain how much India is indeed part of Asia. Flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) suggest that the bond is ever tighter. India is now the second-most- popular global destination for FDI, behind only China, and much of this is Asian investment. Total inward investment was $23 billion in 2007 (the latest available figure), up over two-fifths on a year earlier. The target of $30 billion for 2008-09 is unlikely to be met, but inflows into India still defy the global slump.

Moreover, India is playing late catch-up with China, with FDI rising from just a few percent of Chinaâs figure in 2000 to about a quarter today. Much of the increase has come from East Asia. Measured by flows, India is overtaking China as Japanâs biggest destination for foreign investment and, according to a survey by the Japan Bank for International Co-operation, will be the most favoured destination for long-term Japanese investments over the next decade. As for South Korea, consumer-electronics firms are driving a push into India. Cracking the rumbustious marketâLG Electronics advertises in a dozen Indian languagesâis the kind of offensive that Koreaâs shock-troop salesmen relish.

Three years ago the then Japanese government defined a wide âarc of freedom and prosperityâ, one end anchored in Japan, that took in India on its path. The new government of the Democratic Party of Japan has dropped the arc in name, but it survives in practice. India and Japan are strengthening economic and security ties. Japan sends 30% of its official aid to India and has promised over $4 billion for a âDelhi-Mumbai industrial corridorâ. In South Korea, a finance-ministry bigwig says his urgent priority is to persuade young ministry high-flyers, who invariably apply for an American posting, to go to India instead.

And yet. Indiaâs economic ties with East and South-East Asia fall short. For this columnist flying the free, prosperous arc from Tokyo to Delhi means an 18-hour schlepp via Hong Kong and Bangkok. Direct flights between Delhi and Beijing began only three years ago, and run to only four a week, with the odd supplement provided by Ethiopian Airlines.

And although India is opening some sensitive industries, such as telecoms and retail, to foreign investors, ownership limits remain. The obstacles work both ways. Indiaâs information-technology giants, stars of international outsourcing, bang their heads in Japan and South Korea, where conglomeratesâ ingrained habits of managing IT in-house persist. In trade (both goods and services), a welter of impediments persist. For instance, Indiaâs drug companies are shut out of Japan, the worldâs second-biggest market for pharmaceuticals. Auditing, advertising, textiles, medicines, you name it: one or other country has objections. Free-trade negotiations between India and Japan have dragged on for years, with no deal in sight.

The missing link
Most glaring of all, India is largely absent from those supply chains in East and South-East Asia that have come to exemplify globalisation itself. Partly that is because by the time India started to open up in the 1990s they were already established. Partly it is because Indian elites have long looked to America and then Europe for their education and business opportunities. But partly it is because of abiding suspicions of China, which happens to lie at the heart of the networks.

Some suspicions are economic. At home, small Indian businesses have lobbied to block the negotiation of a China-India free-trade agreement for fear of Chinese competition. But they are mainly geopolitical. Indeed, Chinaâs preponderance in East Asia seems to provide the rationale for Indiaâs âLook Eastâ policy, and its encouragement by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which also seeks closer ties with India. India is welcomed in the region as Chinaâs counterweight. On security grounds, the impetus may be justified. On economic grounds, unless surviving trade impediments are broken down, it makes for pretty lousy policy.

12-29-2009, 11:03 AM

[url="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1238454/Akmal-Shaikh-Time-running-says-daughter-death-row-Briton-executed-hours.html"]Akmal Shaikh: Briton executed by Chinese firing squad, his body will not be returned[/url]

Husky · (This post was last modified: 12-29-2009, 06:07 PM by Husky.)

This is pretty yuck. Warning and all.

Large incidents of psychopathic behaviour in what used to be Filial Piety Daoist and Buddhist China.

Surely someone would have done studies on how the presence of christoislamicommunism (secularism is included in christianism/communism) is directly proportional to psychopathic and sociopathic occurrences in society - in fact, that there is a causal relationship, in the direction given. (The causal relationship with moronic behaviour has already been ascertained I'm sure. Not called christoislamicommunimoronism for nothing.)

1. au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6624504/family-of-five-hacked-to-death-in-china/

Quote:Family of five hacked to death in China

AFP - December 27, 2009, 2:00 pm

BEIJING (AFP) - Police in southwest China have arrested a man suspected of hacking a father and his four children to death, the latest in a string of grisly killings to occur in the nation, state press said Sunday.

Deng Xueyun was captured by police in Guizhou province on Saturday, about 17 hours after allegedly murdering his neighbour Deng Zhaoxiang, 40, and his four young children, the Beijing News reported.

The elder Deng was hacked to death outside the door of his home in Lushan village late Friday, while the two boys and two girls were killed while asleep in bed, it said.

The children were aged between six and 11 years of age, it added.

The report identified the suspect as a neighbour of the victim. It was not immediately clear if they were related.

The murders were the latest to occur in China in recent weeks.

On December 13, a 34-year-old man allegedly shot and hacked to death 12 family members in a forested area in central China's Hunan province and torched some of their homes.

Earlier this month, police in southwest China captured a man suspected of murdering his parents and four other relatives after he escaped from a mental hospital in Yunnan province.

In late November, police in southern Hainan province captured a man suspected of hacking to death his parents, wife, sons and sister in Beijing.

On November 28, a man suspected of the stabbing murders of six people committed suicide in Inner Mongolia.

2. news.msn.co.nz/article/988488/man-murders-his-relatives-in-china

Quote:Man murders his relatives in China

By MSN NZ

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Chen Qian of northern China has killed six of his relatives and injured another four before taking his own life in a move of revenge over family arguments.

The thirty-something male murdered the members of his uncleÃ¢â¬â¢s family living in Hebei provinceÃ¢â¬â¢s Qinghe County. Chen then left the scene for the home of another relative injuring four with a hunting rifle.

According to the police report, Chen ended the violent spree by jumping off a building, killing him instantly.

The attack is the latest of many violent crimes in China.

On Saturday, police in southwest China arrested a man suspected of stabbing a father and his four children to death, and another man allegedly shot and killed 12 family members in over two weeks ago.

Southwest Chinese police also captured a man believed to have killed his parents and four other relatives after escaping from a mental health facility.

Late last month police in the Hainan province captured a man suspected of hacking to death his parents, wife, sons and sister in Beijing.

Of course, there is that more disturbing suspicion. Could it be the nouveau communist means of disposing of Chinese in plain sight? When Communist China has Execution Buses to ... dispose of certain undesirable/otherwise-in-the-way Chinese, it is hardly beyond the communist govt to massacre entire families at its convenience and then declare that the chosen fall-guy suicided himself in its papers. What is the People's Paper for but to publish that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia (oh whatever, I forget - you know what I mean) and to spin inconvenient events in most convenient ways.

Have to admit that it would explain the sudden and suddenly regular occurrences of 4, 6 and 12 people at a time being been massacred out of the blue, with the perpetrator conveniently dead too or declared mad and locked up in a lunatic asylum/prison.

Not at all past communist China. Communism is the king of suiciding people and then writing the fictional obituary.

The fact that these obituaries make it to the international press so easily - when China otherwise does a lot to prevent its messy laundry from being aired in public - does seem to indicate that the Chinese government is rather eager for the world to know Exactly Who Did What To Whom And How (and who therefore *couldn't* have done it).

Husky · (This post was last modified: 12-31-2009, 07:45 AM by Husky.)

1. www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10617828&pnum=0

Quote:China shows defiance with Briton's execution

By Christopher Bodeen

8:55 AM Wednesday Dec 30, 2009

Akmal Shaikh was executed yesterday afternoon. Photo / AP

BEIJING - China executed a British man for drug smuggling yesterday, ignoring international pleas for clemency on the grounds he was mentally unstable and warning London that its outrage threatened relations.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "appalled" by the execution - China's first of a European citizen in nearly 60 years. But Beijing dismissed claims by relatives and rights groups that 53-year-old Akmal Shaikh's mental instability was exploited to lure him into smuggling a suitcase of heroin into the country.

Beijing's insistence in carrying out the death sentence reflects both the communist government's traditional distrust of foreign interference and its newfound power to resist Western pressure.

"We express our strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British accusation," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters at a regularly scheduled news conference. "We urge the British side to correct its wrongdoing to avoid causing damages to bilateral relations."

[color="#800080"](Such a communist speech. It's like straight from some bad parody movie. But then, communists aren't originals: they're just sheep and so they *do* all sound the same, sound just like this.)[/color]

Though rare, China has in the past pardoned prisoners or released them early in response to international pressure, particularly those accused of spying or political or economic crimes.

But with its rising global economic and political clout, China appears increasingly willing to ignore Western complaints over its justice system and human rights record. And as it relies more and more on China's cooperation to solve global problems - from the recession to climate change - the West has few ways to exert pressure on Beijing.

China's leaders "feel freer than their recent predecessors to disregard world pressures," said Jerome Cohen, an expert on China's legal system at New York University School of Law.

Whereas in the past, the West may have held out its approval as a carrot for China to improve its record on human rights, analyst Kerry Brown said now countries like Britain are now the ones eager to maintain good relations.

"There is a feeling that we have very limited leverage on China. We have to pick our territory where we can have an impact," said Brown, a China expert at the Chatham House think tank. "It's becoming more complicated by the day."

Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis called Tuesday a "deeply depressing day for anyone with a modicum of compassion or commitment to justice." Prime Minister Brown said he condemned the execution "in the strongest terms, and am appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted."

But tellingly, Lewis also said "we must and will continue to engage with China."

[color="#0000FF"]Recent weeks have seen China flex its new muscle repeatedly, and criticism from the West has mattered little.

Last week, a court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, the co-author of a political reform manifesto, to 11 years in prison in what rights groups called a direct rebuff to international pressure.

Earlier in the month, China urged Cambodia to interrupt a UN refugee screening process and subsequently Phnom Penh repatriated 20 ethnic Uighur asylum-seekers accused of involvement in ethnic unrest in western China.[/color]

The drug trafficking accusation against Shaikh made the case particularly sensitive in China, said University of Miami politics expert June Teufel Dreyer.

Chinese nationalists say European powers, especially Britain, foisted opium on an unwitting populace in the 19th century after the country was forced to open its borders to European trade.

"Part of the narrative of the communists' liberating China from oppression is the wicked practice of foreign imperialist powers foisting drugs on a weak China," said Dreyer.

Eradicating widespread opium use was one of the founding legacies of the communist state, and Chinese nationalists have long pointed to the introduction of the drug as evidence of the nefarious influence of foreign powers.

Today, China's harsh penalties for drug use and selling also reflect its obsession with maintaining law and order amid sweeping social change.

Shaikh, a Pakistan-born former cab company manager, was arrested in 2007 for carrying a suitcase with almost four kilograms of heroin into China on a flight from Tajikistan. His cousins said he was lured to China from a life on the street in Poland by men playing on his dreams to record a pop song for world peace.

He was convicted in 2008 after a half-hour trial. China has said there was no proof he was mentally ill, but one of Shaikh's Beijing-based lawyers said Tuesday that the country's highest court never evaluated his client's mental status.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said Shaikh was put to death by lethal injection. [color="#FF0000"]China, which puts to death more people each year than any other country, is increasingly abandoning firing squads for lethal injection. Earlier this year, Amnesty International said China executed at least 1,718 people in 2008. The exact number is not known.[/color]

The press office of the Xinjiang region where Shaikh had been held confirmed the execution.

The last known European executed in China was Antonio Riva, an Italian pilot who was shot by a firing squad in 1951 after being convicted of involvement in what China said was a plot to assassinate Mao Zedong and other high-ranking communist officials.

Shaikh's daughter Leilla Horsnell was quoted by the BBC and other British media outlets as saying she was "shocked and disappointed that the execution went ahead with no regards to my dad's mental health problems, and I struggle to understand how this is justice."

- AP

By Christopher Bodeen

2. www.nzherald.co.nz/crime/news/article.cfm?c_id=30&objectid=10617738

Quote:China executes 'mentally unstable' Briton

6:05 PM Tuesday Dec 29, 2009

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has condemned the execution of Akmal Shaikh by China. Photo / AP

China today executed a British man convicted of drug smuggling in its first execution of a European citizen in half a century, drawing a strong condemnation from Britain's prime minister.

Britain's Foreign Office confirmed the execution of Akmal Shaikh, whose relatives say was mentally unstable and was unwittingly lured into the crime.

"I condemn the execution of Akmal Shaikh in the strongest terms, and am appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted. I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment was undertaken," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement issued by the Foreign Office.

Shaikh, 53, was the first European citizen to be executed in China in five decades.

Shaikh first learned of his death sentence yesterday from his visiting cousins, who made a last-minute plea for his life. They said he was mentally unstable and was lured to China from a life on the street in Poland by men playing on [color="#FF0000"]his dreams to record a pop song for world peace.[/color]

[color="#800080"](It's so tempting to comment on this. I'm doing my best to resist the temptation, Oscar Wilde's universal maxim not-withstanding.

Well, at least I may say this. Shades of Miss Congeniality: "...and... and... and... World Peace!....")[/color]

Brown had spoken personally to China's prime minister about his case.

Shaikh was arrested in 2007 for carrying a suitcase with almost 4 kilograms of heroin into China on a flight from Tajikistan. He told Chinese officials he didn't know about the drugs and that the suitcase wasn't his, according to Reprieve, a London-based prisoner advocacy that helped with his case.

He was convicted in 2008 after [color="#0000FF"]a half-hour trial.[/color] [color="#FF0000"]In one court appearance during his trial and appeal process, the judges reportedly laughed at his rambling remarks.[/color]

It was not known how Shaikh, of Pakistani descent, was executed. China, which executes more people than any other country, is increasingly doing so by lethal injection, although some death sentences are still carried out by a shot in the head.

An Associated Press reporter who was detained by paramilitary police while trying to take pictures of the Xishan Detention Centre, where Shaikh was held during his incarceration, was told by a prison police officer who refused to give his name that prisoners in the Xinjiang region were all now executed by lethal injection.

[color="#0000FF"]The officer said Shaikh did not appear to have mental problems, was friendly with other prisoners and had learned to speak a little Chinese while detained.[/color]

China has defended the handling of Shaikh's case, saying he received a [color="#FF0000"]fair trial[/color].

[color="#800080"](I was going to look up the meaning of "fair trial" since it suddenly seemed to mean the opposite of what I had thus far thought it meant. But silly me. I'd been thinking of the wrong dictionary. So I made my way to the Collection Of Established Words And Phrases As Commonly Applied in Communism, and the more definitive, Stalin-commissioned, chairman Mao-approved release of The Dictionary Of Doublespeak (Communist Edition naturally; the christo-edition, being the superset, runs into several volumes). And it confirmed the matter: "Fair trial" in the communist context means pretty much just as the recent example has illustrated with the half-hour sham trial, judges who laugh at the baa-baa speech of the defendant, who was deemed guilty even before being proven guilty - "So why the undue process, let's just inject him already". "No let's wait half an hour and laugh at him in the meanwhile." "Yeah, let's." <Insert Beavis & Butthead laughter.>)[/color]

"Drug smuggling is a grave crime. The rights of the defendant have been fully guaranteed," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a news conference last week.

Executed in China: Antonio Riva

According to human rights groups, the last European to be executed in China was Antonio Riva, an Italian pilot who was shot by a firing squad in 1951 for "counter-revolutionary activities".

The 55-year-old was executed alongside Japanese citizen Ruichi Yamaguchi after they were convicted of involvement in an alleged US plot to assassinate Communist leader Mao Zedong and other high-ranking officials.

Riva was credited with at least seven aerial victories during the First World War and had been awarded a medal for military valour.

- AP, INDEPENDENT

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