America's North Shore Journal

That trade surplus with the U.S.? China is using part of it to buy oil from the Russians. After the infrastructure is built, maybe the Chinese will just step in and take it.

“The numbers are terrible. The environment is awful,” said Ken Peng, an economist at Citigroup.

“The pressure on unemployment will be huge,” he added.

Parts of China are experiencing their worst drought in half a century, threatening the water supply of millions of people and putting the winter harvest at risk, state media reported.

“Maintaining stable and quite fast economic development is the main task for 2009’s economic work,” said China’s security chief Zhou Yongkang according to a report in the Chinese Communist Party journal Seeking Truth.

China has used its trade surplus with the US to fund its military expansion and to pay for the 10% plus growth it claims for its economy. What happens when the money dries up?

Yang spoke highly of the recent speech of Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, at a December 31 workshop to mark the 30th anniversary of the mainland’s “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan”.

Hu’s speech summed up 30 years’ experience in developing cross-Straits relations in a comprehensive way, and he made a series of new proposals to develop the relationship, according to the official.

The Chinese will operate al-Ahdab under a service contract initially negotiated under Saddam but renegotiated last year by the new Iraqi government which obtained more advantageous terms.

The government is expecting trouble during 2009, and China’s huge security apparatus is signalling it is prepared to crackdown on anything that disrupts social stability, our correspondent says.

At least 10 million migrant workers have lost their jobs, an official in the ministry, who asked not to be identified, told Beijing-based Caijing Magazine.