Month: July 2019

(Peoples Daily Online)09:18, July 04, 2019

Applauding Chinese-built Hongshi-Shivam Cement Private Limited in Nepal, the head of the plants electrical team explained that working in the plant has dramatically alleviated the pressures of life, and more importantly, the brand new equipment in the plant provides an opportunity to learn advanced technologies.

Hongshi-Shivam Cement Private Limited, a joint venture of Chinas Hongshi Cement and Nepals Shivam Group, has employed over 400 local workers like him. He disclosed that if peak construction employment and indirect employment are also considered, the company has created jobs for over 10,000 local people.

With a total investment of $350 million, Hongshi-Shivam Cement represents Nepals first modern cement plant and the most substantial foreign direct investment (FDI) in Nepal so far. While the factory produces cement in a low-carbon, safe, and environmentally-friendly way, it dramatically boosts economic and social development in the local area, contributing to the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Located in Lumbini Zone, Nawalparasi District of Nepal, covering an area of 66.7 hectares, Hongshi-Shivam Cement, with a production line that produces 6,000 tonnes of clinker cement per day and a waste heat power generation system with a capacity of 12 megawatts (MW), was built in just 16 months, completed in May 2018.

In just two years, Chinese friends materialized the things that used to be impossible for us and brought great changes here, said Gaurav Goel, deputy general manager of Hongshi-Shivam Cement, expressing that Chinese investment has changed the small village where the plant is located into a prosperous area.

The cement produced with Chinese technologies is of high quality and very well received in the local market, said the distributor. He noted that his clients are striving to use cement produced with Chinese technologies, and that his company has taken up about 60 percent of the market share of Nawalparasi District because of the cement produced by Hongshi-Shivam Cement.

Tests from multiple Nepali institutes showed that various quality indexes of the Hongshi-Shivam Cement came out on top, among which the strength of the product is more than twice that of the Nepali standard, so the cement has quickly gained popularity. Now the company supplies clinker cement to over 80 percent of cement producing companies in Nepal, according to a credible source.

With an annual clinker cement output of about 2 million tonnes, the equivalent of one-fourth of the total clinker cement output in Nepal, Hongshi-Shivam Cement has adequately filled the gap in Nepals cement market, saving Nepal $200 million in foreign exchange.

With the efforts of Hongshi-Shivam Cement, cement in Nepal is changing from luxury into consumer goods, said Liu Shuguang, regional general manager of Hongshi Cements Nepal division, disclosing that Nepali government fully recognizes Hongshi-Shivam Cements contribution to Nepals economic and social development, granting the project several awards including honorable project of Chinese investment and best FDI project.

While inspecting Hongshi-Shivam Cement at the end of 2018, Nepali Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada said he appreciates the companys cross-border development idea, its level of environmental protection in technologies, and the construction speed.

The project significantly improved Nepals overall level of cement manufacturing, and now provides high-quality cement for Nepals infrastructure construction. It has become a new engine of Nepals economic development and is serving as a demonstration in the country, said Khatiwada.

(Xinhua)09:25, July 04, 2019

BEIJING, July 3 (Xinhua) — Experts at a key international security forum have called for farsightedness and wisdom in developing the bilateral relations between China and the United States.

David Firestein, inaugural executive director of the China Public Policy Center of the University of Texas at Austin, stressed that China is enormously important to the United States for many different reasons and vice versa.

Ultimately, the two countries cannot long sustain a situation in which they are adversaries, said Firestein, who is here to attend the second Wanshou Dialogue on Global Security.

As to the voices in the United States seeking to demonize China, Firestein said they came from people who have fairly little familiarity with the country and they do not necessarily represent the grassroots or average citizen, as most Americans have a more moderate view on China.

Highlighting the massive level of bilateral trade between the United States and China, he said he continues to hold the view that Chinas development is actually a good thing for the United States in a very broad sense that the more prosperous China is, the more capable it would be of purchasing American goods and services.

On the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with his U.S. counterpart, President Donald Trump. They agreed to continue to advance a China-U.S. relationship featuring coordination, cooperation and stability and announced the restart of economic and trade consultations between their countries on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

Firestein said if the two countries do not get a handle on the trade war and the broader frictions in the relationship, neither will benefit.

The meeting is good for both of the countries and good for the world, and what we need now is cool-headedness and stable handling of this important relationship in a sense of vision and farsightedness, said Firestein, who is also president and CEO of the George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations.

Douglas Bandow, a special assistant to former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, also spoke highly of the meeting between the heads of state and stressed that the resumption of negotiations on trade issues is important to all.

He said he personally hoped that the United States and China could maintain a friendship and cooperate into the future. The world will be a much better place if we are able to continue to cooperate, said Bandow.

By CurtisStone (Peoples Daily Online)11:16, July 04, 2019

Members of the scholarly, foreign policy, military, and business communities, overwhelmingly from the United States, including many who have focused on Asia throughout their professional careers, signed an open letter to US President Donald Trump and Congress, saying they are deeply concerned about the growing deterioration in US relations with China, which they believe does not serve American or global interests.

The letter, which was published in The Washington Post on July 3, was circulated by M. Taylor Fravel, J. Stapleton Roy, Michael D. Swaine, Susan A. Thornton, and Ezra Vogel, and it included seven propositions which represent their collective views on China, the problems in the US approach to China, and the basic elements of a more effective US policy.

Though the members think that various challenges exist, they also said that the current approach to China “is fundamentally counterproductive.”

“We do not believe Beijing is an economic enemy or an existential national security threat that must be confronted in every sphere,” the members said in the letter.

The members also warned that US efforts to treat China as “an enemy” and decouple it from the global economy will damage the United States’ international role and reputation and undermine the economic interests of all nations, saying that the United States cannot significantly slow China’s rise without damaging itself. If the United States presses its allies to treat China as an economic and political enemy, it will weaken its relations with those allies and could end up isolating itself rather than Beijing, they warned.

The members of the letter also said that the fear that Beijing will replace the US as the global leader is exaggerated, and urged the US government to work with members of the international community to create a more open and prosperous world rather than carry out efforts to isolate China.

They concluded by saying that a successful US approach to China must be based on a realistic appraisal of China. Ultimately, they said, the United States’ interests are best served by restoring its ability to compete effectively in a changing world and by working alongside other nations and international organizations rather than by promoting a counterproductive effort to undermine and contain China’s engagement with the world.

“We believe that the large number of signers of this open letter clearly indicates that there is no single Washington consensus endorsing an overall adversarial stance toward China, as some believe exists,” they ended.

The letter was signed by 95 members of the scholarly, foreign policy, military, and business communities, in addition to the five members who circulated the letter, including Stephen A. Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations and a number of notable scholars from across the United States, including Harvard University Professor Emeritus Joseph Nye, who coined the term “soft power” in the late 1980s..

(Xinhua)13:32, July 04, 2019

BAGHDAD, July 3 (Xinhua) — A total of 18 Islamic State (IS) militants were killed on Wednesday in operations by Iraqi security forces and airstrikes by international U.S.-led coalition aircraft, the Iraqi military said.

In Iraqs western province of Anbar, four IS militants were killed and their vehicle destroyed when paramilitary tribal fighters raided their hideout in Akashat area in the desert near the border with Syria, the media office of the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.

Also in the province, the international aircraft carried out an airstrike on IS hideout in south of Sneislah Lake in east of the borderline with Syria, killing four of the extremist militants, the statement added.

IS militants are still active in the vast Anbar desert which stretches to the border with neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, as many civilians have been kidnapped or killed by the extremist group recently.

In Iraqs northern province of Nineveh, the Iraqi army carried out an anti-IS operation in Sekheirat area in west of the provincial capital Mosul, killing two IS militants and destroying their vehicle, in addition to destroying a tunnel and killing five more IS militants inside, the JOC said in a separate statement.

Separately, the U.S.-led coalition aircraft, based on intelligence reports, bombed an IS vehicle and killed three extremist militants in west of al-Munayif Mountain in a desert area near the border with Syria, a JOC statement said.

The security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremists IS militants across the country late in 2017.

IS remnants, however, have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.

(Xinhua)13:34, July 04, 2019

UNITED NATIONS, July 3 (Xinhua) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is outraged by the overnight airstrikes that hit a detention center east of Tripoli, the capital of Libya, his spokesman said on Wednesday.

The UN chief condemned this horrendous incident, which killed at least at least 44 migrants and refugees, in the strongest terms, said the spokesman Stephane Dujarric, adding that he expressed deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wishes a quick recovery to those injured.

The secretary-general called for an independent investigation of the circumstances of this incident, to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice, noting that the United Nations had provided exact coordinates of the detention center to the parties, said Dujarric.

According to Dujarric, Guterres reminded all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian lives, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects, and to refrain from directing attacks against civilians.

This incident underscores the urgency to provide all refugees and migrants with safe shelter until their asylum claims can be processed or they can be safely repatriated, he added. The Secretary-General reiterates his call for an immediate ceasefire in Libya and a return to political dialogue.

Libya has been suffering from escalating violence and political instability since the fall of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.