Myanmar starts peace talks with top Kachin leaders in China

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's government started talks with top commanders of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) rebel group in China on Monday to try to rescue a faltering peace process and end one of the country's bloodiest ethnic conflicts.

The meeting in Ruili, just inside Chinese territory, was aimed at laying the foundation for further negotiations after 11 rounds of talks in which both sides failed to make any breakthrough, according to sources on both sides, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The talks come off the back of an unprecedented escalation in a conflict in which the military has been accused of using excessive force, discrediting a government lauded for its broad reforms and initiating a nationwide peace drive.

The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people since it broke out anew in June 2011, when a 17-year truce collapsed. The number of casualties is not known.

The KIA are fighting for autonomy for Kachin state within a federal Myanmar. The rulers of ethnically diverse Myanmar have long ruled out calls for autonomy from the Kachin and other minority groups.

The government sent its top negotiator Aung Min, a minister in the office of President Thein Sein, to Monday's meeting, which was also attended by the second-in-command of the KIA, General Gun Maw.

Gun Maw's no-show at talks in October was taken as a slap in the face for top generals in Myanmar's army, whom Thein Sein had worked hard to convince to attend, according to two sources with knowledge of the issue.

"The significance of today's meeting is General Gun Maw was present," one of the sources told Reuters by telephone.

Truces with ethnic minority rebel groups, some of which have fought central governments since the end of British colonial rule in 1948, were among a series of reforms that led to the suspension last year of most Western sanctions on Myanmar. The KIA is the only group that has yet to agree to a ceasefire.

COMPLEX TALKS

The conflict was thrust into the domestic and international spotlight when Myanmar's military admitted in December to using jets for air strikes to thwart what it said was KIA aggression.

Witnesses and activists say helicopter gunships were also deployed against the KIA, which is one of the strongest rebel armies in Myanmar and has its own munitions factories.

Retired general Thein Sein has been praised for reaching out and striking ceasefires with various groups including the Karen National Union (KNU), which had been fighting for autonomy for Karen state along the border with Thailand for 60 years.

But the heavy fighting in Kachin state has raised doubts about his ability to control the military, which ruled Myanmar from 1962-2011.

He repeatedly made public calls for troops not to launch offensives, but fighting has not stopped. The government says it wants peace.

Although Monday's talks could build some trust and reduce tensions, a lasting truce could be hard to come by and would require at least one party to soften its stance.

The government wants a ceasefire agreement signed before any long-term political deal is discussed, but the KIA, which harbors deep distrust of the military, wants a concrete proposal to be made before it signs a truce.

The sources close to Monday's meeting said representatives of the KNU also attended as a means of building confidence.

A deal with the KIA would allow the government to start political negotiations, which are expected to be highly complex. It has given no indication as to how it will bring groups that have sought autonomy into the political fold and what guarantees and inducements would be offered.

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)

View the original article here

Read More

China, Japan move to cool down territorial dispute

BEIJING (Reuters) - China and Japan sought to cool down tensions over a chafing territorial dispute on Friday, with Communist Party chief Xi Jinping telling an envoy from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he was committed to developing bilateral ties.

Xi will consider holding a summit meeting with Abe, Natsuo Yamaguchi, a senior lawmaker and head of the junior partner in Japan's ruling coalition, told reporters after his talks with the Chinese leader.

The meeting came as China took the dispute over a series of uninhabited islands to the United Nations.

It was not immediately clear if the U.N. involvement would increase the likelihood the row would be resolved peacefully. But launching an international legal process could reduce the temperature for now.

At China's request, the United Nations will, later this year, consider the scientific validity of a claim by Beijing that the islands, called the Diaoyu in Chinese and the Senkaku by Japan, are part of its territory. Japan says the world body should not be involved.

"The China government's policy to pay close attention to China-Japan relations has not changed," Xi told Yamaguchi at the meeting in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, according to a statement on the Chinese foreign ministry's website.

But he added: "The Japanese side ought to face up to history and reality, take practical steps and work hard with China to find an effective way to appropriately resolve and manage the issue via dialogue and consultations."

China's media have portrayed the territorial dispute as an emotional touchpoint for Chinese people that evokes memories of Japan's 1931-1945 occupation of parts of the mainland. Chinese textbooks, television and films are full of portrayals vilifying the Japanese.

Relations between the countries, the world's second- and third-largest economies, plunged after the Japanese government bought three of the islands from a private owner last year, sparking widespread, violent anti-Japan protests across China. Some Japanese businesses were looted and Japanese citizens attacked.

Yamaguchi handed a letter from to Xi from Abe, who wrote that he hoped to develop peaceful relations between the two countries, Yamaguchi said.

BROAD VIEW

Japan takes a broad view of the issue and believes tensions can be resolved between the two countries, he told reporters before returning to Tokyo after a four-day visit.

"Japan wishes to pursue ties with China while looking at the big picture," Yamaguchi said he told Xi, who is set to take over as China's president in March.

"I firmly believe our differences with China can be resolved," Yamaguchi said, adding that he did not directly discuss the islands issue with Xi.

"We agreed that it is important to continue dialogue with the aim of holding a Japan-China summit between the two leaders," he added, though no specific details were given. "Secretary Xi said he will seriously consider a high-level dialogue with Japan."

While Yamaguchi has no formal position in the government, he is leader of relatively dovish New Komeito party, a coalition partner of the Liberal Democratic Party that was voted to power in December.

Taking the issue to the United Nations is an effort to underscore China's legal claim to the islands, but also a way to reduce tensions in the region, said Ruan Zongze, deputy director of the China Institute of International Studies, a think-tank affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"It's two things: it's part of the legal efforts, and we want to exert our legal claim in a less confrontational way," Ruan said. "We don't want to see escalation, particularly with fighter jets. That would be very dangerous from any point of view."

In a submission to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, China claims that the continental shelf in the East China Sea is a natural prolongation of China's land territory and that it includes the disputed islands.

Under the U.N. convention, a country can extend its 200-nautical-mile economic zone if it can prove that the continental shelf is a natural extension of its land mass. The U.N. commission assesses the scientific validity of claims, but any disputes have to be resolved between states, not by the commission.

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina,; editing by Jonathan Standing and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

View the original article here

Read More

ZTE Nubia Z5 quad-core smartphone in China

Today, ZTE, the Chinese company is announcing its surprisingly high-end specs phablet, the ZTE Nubia Z5. The smartphone has a 5-inch touchscreen display at full HD 1920 x 1080p resolution. Yesterday, the company was announced another upcoming phablet, the ZTE U887 but its looks typically low-end device.

Unlike the U887 smartphone, the ZTE Nubia Z5 boasts a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 2,500mAh battery. Coming with small bezel and three buttons on the bottom, the Nubia Z5 packs a 13MP rear-facing camera, a 2-megapixel camera on the front, and runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system.

The ZTE’s flagship smartphone is offered at price of around $400. There is no information about availability outside of China.

View the original article here

Read More

Japan scrambles F-15s after China flies over disputed islands

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The territorial standoff between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea further escalated today after a Chinese plane was spotted in what Tokyo considers its airspace.

Though the Chinese plane was not a military aircraft, its presence is the latest provocation in a dispute that has affected economic relations between the two countries and comes just three days before Japanese elections.

The Chinese state maritime agency said that the marine surveillance plane was sent to patrol the disputed islands – known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan – along with four boats, according to China’s Global Times. Japanese boats also patrolling the disputed area were asked to leave immediately, in line with the Chinese government’s stance, the Global Times reports.

RELATED: East Asia's top 5 island disputes

Japan’s defense agency dispatched eight F-15 jets in response, but the Chinese plane had already left the area by the time they arrived, according to the Associated Press. The Japanese government also issued an official complaint, however. China responded that it was “carrying out a normal operation,” reports AP.

“I want to stress that these activities are completely normal. The Diaoyu and its affiliated islands are China’s inherent territory since ancient times,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said of the plane. “China requires the Japanese side stop illegal activities in the waters and airspace of the Diaoyu islands.”

Osamu Fujimura, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, called the Chinese move “extremely regrettable.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, an airspace violation could take the dispute to the next level.

International law forbids entering another nation's airspace without permission and gives countries the right to expel unauthorized aircraft with force immediately. In contrast, foreign ships are able sail through a nation's territorial waters as long as it is considered "innocent passage."

The incident also puts further pressure on [Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda], whose ruling Democratic Party of Japan is likely to face a decisive defeat in Sunday's elections, according to various national polls. Shinzo Abe, who's likely to take his job away, has criticized Mr. Noda for his handling of the territorial issues, and called for a confrontational approach focused on the use of "physical power," rather than diplomacy.

Mr. Abe is expected to invest more money into the Japanese coast guard and defense, Reuters reports. The coast guard has gained popularity since the confrontation reignited earlier this year, with the most recent escalation taking place after Japan purchased the islands from a private Japanese investor in September. The move inspired anti-Japanese rallies across China, “with people looting and torching Japanese-owned businesses,” according to The Christian Science Monitor.

The New York Times reports that today’s incident was an “embarrassment for the current administration” in Japan because its radar system failed to register the Chinese plane. The alert came from Japanese ships near the islands.

The Japan Daily Press notes that the coast guard has earned fame from the action surrounding the charged island dispute, “causing a surge in job applications and even inspiring a local box-office hit film.” However, the civilian-staffed guard is “being stressed and tested to its limits.”

[I]n order not to escalate the situation, the government isn’t using the military Self Defense Forces. Instead, it has tasked the Coast Guard, composed of civilians and run by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. Although somewhat on par with their Chinese counterparts, the Coast Guard is being stretched thin. Its crew, used to shifts of at most two weeks, are on duty without time off for months. They are also forced to skip crucial training, in a time when they are expected to be able to ward off and restrain offenders both on sea and on remote islands. Ships also receive only temporary repairs instead of much-needed overhauls.

… The situation has become a rallying and unifying point of many of the political parties and candidates running for election in a few days, with promises of allocating funds and beefing up the Coast Guard to empower it to respond to situations and emergencies that the pacifist nation hasn’t faced in decades.

Today was the first time both countries have used planes in the dispute. Reuters reports that Japanese analysts are concerned over the use of aircraft.

"This is serious ... intrusion into Japan's airspace is a very important step to erode Japan's effective control over the area," said Kazuya Sakamoto, a professor at Osaka University.

"If China sends a military plane as a next step, that would really make Japan's control precarious."

Toshiyuki Shikata, a Teikyo University professor and a retired general, said the use of aircraft by both sides was significant.

"Something accidental is more likely to happen with planes than with ships," he said.

The uptick in interest in the islands is likely linked to the potential for oil and gas in surrounding waters, but “For most of human history,” The Christian Science Monitor’s China bureau chief Peter Ford wrote this fall, “the five rocky islets in the eye of the current diplomatic storm between China and Japan have sat in remote and irrelevant obscurity, lapped by the tropical waters of the East China Sea.”

Japan bases its claim to the islands, which it calls the Senkaku, on a cabinet decision in January 1895 whereby because there was no trace of anyone else controlling them they were deemed "terra nullius," nobody else's, and Tokyo incorporated them into its territory.

China disputes that claim, pointing to 15th-century accounts of sea voyages by Chinese envoys and a 17th-century map of China's sea defenses, among other documents, to show that "the Diaoyu islands were first discovered, named, and exploited by the Chinese," in the words of a Foreign Ministry statement.

IN PICTURES - Troubled waters: disputes in the China Seas

Related stories

Read this story at csmonitor.com

Become a part of the Monitor community

View the original article here

Read More

Apple falls on lower shipment forecasts, muted China debut

(Reuters) - Apple Inc shares fell 3.9 percent on Friday after the iPhone 5 debuted in China to a cool reception and two analysts cut shipment forecasts.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek trimmed his iPhone shipment estimates for the Jan-March quarter, saying that the technology company had started cutting orders to suppliers to balance excess inventory.

Shares of Apple suppliers Jabil Circuit Inc, Qualcomm Inc, Skyworks Solutions Inc, TriQuint Semiconductor Inc, Avago Technologies Ltd, and Cirrus Logic Inc also fell in early trading.

Apple shares have lost a quarter of their value since they hit a life high of $705.07 on September 21, as it faces increasing competition from phones using Google Inc's Android operating system.

Misek cut his first-quarter iPhone sales estimate to 48 million from 52 million and gross margin expectations for the company by 2 percentage points to 40 percent.

UBS Investment Research cut its price target on Apple stock to $700 from $780 on lower expected iPhone and iPad shipments for the March quarter.

The brokerage said it was modeling more conservative growth for the world's biggest technology company after making supply chain checks that revealed that fewer iPhones were being built.

"Some of our Chinese sources do not expect the iPhone 5 to do as well as the iPhone 4S," UBS analyst Steven Milunovich wrote in a note to clients.

Apple launched the iPhone 5 in China on Friday, a move widely expected to bring the Cupertino-based company some respite from a recent slide in market share in China, but early reports indicated that demand may not be as great as expected.

"The iPhone 5 China launch has been surprisingly muted but (we) are unsure how much weather (snow) or the required pre-ordering (to prevent riots) are factors," Misek said.

Apple shares fell as low as $508.50 in morning trading on the Nasdaq on Friday.

(Editing by Supriya Kurane)

View the original article here

Read More

North Korea rocket launch: Why China only 'expresses regret'

As the United Nations Security Council prepared to debate North Korea’s satellite launch earlier today, China signaled that it would likely veto any bid to punish its maverick ally with stiffer sanctions.

“The Security Council reaction should be prudent and moderate, conducive to peace and stability, avoiding an escalation of the situation,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, told reporters.

“I do not think China will support any effort to strengthen sanctions for fear that this would contribute to political instability in North Korea,” explains Cai Jian, a North Korea expert at Fudan University in Shanghai. “Beijing will not take any concrete action.”

What do you know about China? Take our quiz.

Japan called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council today after the North Korean rocket passed over its territory. Japan’s government said it “cannot tolerate” the “extremely regrettable” launch, and Tokyo was reportedly seeking wider sanctions against North Korea in retaliation.

The successful launch of the rocket, which appears to have put a satellite into orbit as planned, marks a major advance in Pyongyang’s program to build an intercontinental ballistic missile that might one day carry a nuclear weapon. Today's launch followed the failure of North Korea’s four previous efforts to make a multistage rocket fly.

Though North Korean media celebrated the event as an example of its peaceful use of space, the US condemned it as a violation of previous UN resolutions that ban North Korea from staging “any launch using ballistic missile technology.”

“The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences,” the White House said in a statement.

CAN CHINA DO MUCH AT THE MOMENT?

Beijing, however, was more restrained. Mr. Hong said that his government “expressed regret” and noted that North Korea is “obliged to abide by the relevant (UN) resolutions.” But he refused to answer a reporter’s question as to whether Beijing regarded the launch as a violation of UN resolutions.

The UN imposed two sets of sanctions on North Korea, in 2006 and 2009, banning the sale of heavy military equipment, dual use items, and luxury goods, imposing financial sanctions on individual leaders and North Korean institutions, and allowing states to stop and search North Korean vessels believed to be violating sanctions.

China went along with these resolutions, but only because they were imposed as a response to nuclear tests, says Prof. Cai. “Beijing is more tolerant of missile tests, because the missiles have not yet been put to military use,” he adds.

“China cannot do much at the moment because, although it opposes North Korea’s challenges, it is more concerned with the country’s domestic political stability,” Cai believes. Beijing sees North Korea as a strategic counterweight to US-backed South Korea, “so it wants the current government in Pyongyang to survive.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who took over from his father last December, is young and leads a government that has recently shown signs of divisions. “There are still a lot of risks and uncertainties,” says Cai. “If the international community applies too much pressure, the regime might collapse.”

Beijing also fears that a tough UN resolution might make the regional security situation worse, suggests Daniel Pinkton, a Seoul-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, an international think tank.

“North Korea could take additional steps that could cascade into further reactions,” says Mr. Pinkton. In the past, Pyongyang has launched an artillery assault across its border with South Korea, sunk a South Korean naval vessel, tested nuclear devices, and launched missiles near its neighbors’ territory.

“There are a lot of things they could do … to express their displeasure with anything the UN might do,” Pinkston points out.

And while China is North Korea’s only major ally, supplying fuel, food, and aid on which the Pyongyang government depends, “we cannot impose our will” on the independent-minded government, says Liu Xuecheng, an analyst at the China Institute for International Studies, a Beijing think tank associated with the Foreign Ministry.

LIMITED US OPTIONS AS WELL

US options appear limited, as officials ponder fresh ways of pressuring North Korea into abandoning its nuclear and missile ambitions. Six-party talks chaired by China and aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula broke down four years ago after achieving very little, and sanctions have not deterred Kim Jong-un from testing his country’s missile technology.

When Washington sought to tighten the UN sanctions regime in the wake of a failed missile test last April, by adding North Korean banks, businesses, and institutions to the financial sanctions list, China vetoed all but three of the 40 entities that the US proposed.

As President Obama begins his second term of office, and new leaders take over in Japan and South Korea, where elections are due later this month, Wednesday’s rocket launch “poses a challenge to them,” says Pinkston. “They are going to have to come up with new policy responses.”

Related stories

Read this story at csmonitor.com

Become a part of the Monitor community

View the original article here

Read More

Japan scrambles F-15s after China flies over disputed islands

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The territorial standoff between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea further escalated today after a Chinese plane was spotted in what Tokyo considers its airspace.

Though the Chinese plane was not a military aircraft, its presence is the latest provocation in a dispute that has affected economic relations between the two countries and comes just three days before Japanese elections.

The Chinese state maritime agency said that the marine surveillance plane was sent to patrol the disputed islands – known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan – along with four boats, according to China’s Global Times. Japanese boats also patrolling the disputed area were asked to leave immediately, in line with the Chinese government’s stance, the Global Times reports.

RELATED: East Asia's top 5 island disputes

Japan’s defense agency dispatched eight F-15 jets in response, but the Chinese plane had already left the area by the time they arrived, according to the Associated Press. The Japanese government also issued an official complaint, however. China responded that it was “carrying out a normal operation,” reports AP.

“I want to stress that these activities are completely normal. The Diaoyu and its affiliated islands are China’s inherent territory since ancient times,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said of the plane. “China requires the Japanese side stop illegal activities in the waters and airspace of the Diaoyu islands.”

Osamu Fujimura, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, called the Chinese move “extremely regrettable.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, an airspace violation could take the dispute to the next level.

International law forbids entering another nation's airspace without permission and gives countries the right to expel unauthorized aircraft with force immediately. In contrast, foreign ships are able sail through a nation's territorial waters as long as it is considered "innocent passage."

The incident also puts further pressure on [Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda], whose ruling Democratic Party of Japan is likely to face a decisive defeat in Sunday's elections, according to various national polls. Shinzo Abe, who's likely to take his job away, has criticized Mr. Noda for his handling of the territorial issues, and called for a confrontational approach focused on the use of "physical power," rather than diplomacy.

Mr. Abe is expected to invest more money into the Japanese coast guard and defense, Reuters reports. The coast guard has gained popularity since the confrontation reignited earlier this year, with the most recent escalation taking place after Japan purchased the islands from a private Japanese investor in September. The move inspired anti-Japanese rallies across China, “with people looting and torching Japanese-owned businesses,” according to The Christian Science Monitor.

The New York Times reports that today’s incident was an “embarrassment for the current administration” in Japan because its radar system failed to register the Chinese plane. The alert came from Japanese ships near the islands.

The Japan Daily Press notes that the coast guard has earned fame from the action surrounding the charged island dispute, “causing a surge in job applications and even inspiring a local box-office hit film.” However, the civilian-staffed guard is “being stressed and tested to its limits.”

[I]n order not to escalate the situation, the government isn’t using the military Self Defense Forces. Instead, it has tasked the Coast Guard, composed of civilians and run by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. Although somewhat on par with their Chinese counterparts, the Coast Guard is being stretched thin. Its crew, used to shifts of at most two weeks, are on duty without time off for months. They are also forced to skip crucial training, in a time when they are expected to be able to ward off and restrain offenders both on sea and on remote islands. Ships also receive only temporary repairs instead of much-needed overhauls.

… The situation has become a rallying and unifying point of many of the political parties and candidates running for election in a few days, with promises of allocating funds and beefing up the Coast Guard to empower it to respond to situations and emergencies that the pacifist nation hasn’t faced in decades.

Today was the first time both countries have used planes in the dispute. Reuters reports that Japanese analysts are concerned over the use of aircraft.

"This is serious ... intrusion into Japan's airspace is a very important step to erode Japan's effective control over the area," said Kazuya Sakamoto, a professor at Osaka University.

"If China sends a military plane as a next step, that would really make Japan's control precarious."

Toshiyuki Shikata, a Teikyo University professor and a retired general, said the use of aircraft by both sides was significant.

"Something accidental is more likely to happen with planes than with ships," he said.

The uptick in interest in the islands is likely linked to the potential for oil and gas in surrounding waters, but “For most of human history,” The Christian Science Monitor’s China bureau chief Peter Ford wrote this fall, “the five rocky islets in the eye of the current diplomatic storm between China and Japan have sat in remote and irrelevant obscurity, lapped by the tropical waters of the East China Sea.”

Japan bases its claim to the islands, which it calls the Senkaku, on a cabinet decision in January 1895 whereby because there was no trace of anyone else controlling them they were deemed "terra nullius," nobody else's, and Tokyo incorporated them into its territory.

China disputes that claim, pointing to 15th-century accounts of sea voyages by Chinese envoys and a 17th-century map of China's sea defenses, among other documents, to show that "the Diaoyu islands were first discovered, named, and exploited by the Chinese," in the words of a Foreign Ministry statement.

IN PICTURES - Troubled waters: disputes in the China Seas

Related stories

Read this story at csmonitor.com

Become a part of the Monitor community

View the original article here

Read More