CHINA: Travel Alert

This Travel Alert is being issued to warn U.S. citizens residing or traveling in China about the ongoing threat of flooding in many places in the country.  U.S. citizens in the region should monitor local weather reports and use caution when travelling in flooded areas. This travel alert expires on October 15, 2010.

Since June, more than 1,000 people have died or are missing as a result of flooding, landslides, and collapsed roads and bridges caused by torrential rains. Over three quarters of the provinces in China have been affected, with Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Henan Provinces most heavily impacted since mid-July. More than 25 major rivers are over flood stage. 

While less-developed, remote rural areas have been most affected, some U.S. citizen tourists have reported travel disruptions in other areas.  Trains have been stopped or diverted, roads closed and flights delayed by severe storms.  Travelers should expect further closings, detours, and danger from flooding and landslides if the rains persist. 

U.S. citizens traveling in China are urged to check with local authorities for weather and safety updates before starting out on long overland trips or going to rural areas.  Travelers should also consider carrying extra food, water and prescription medicine as a safeguard for unexpected delays.

We encourage all U.S. citizens abroad to register with the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate through.  the Department of State’s travel registration website.  By registering, you can receive the embassy's or nearest consulate's most recent security and safety updates during your trip.  Registration also ensures that we can reach you during an emergency either abroad or at home.  While consular officers will do their utmost to assist you in a crisis, please be aware that local authorities bear primary responsibility for the welfare of people living or traveling in their jurisdictions.  In case of difficulties registering online, please contact the closest U.S. embassy or consulate.

Beijing: The U.S. Embassy is located at No. 55 An Jia Lou Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100600. You can reach the American Citizen Services section between 8:00 a.m. and noon and 1:00 and 5:00 p.m. and for after-hours emergencies at (86) (10) 8531-4000.  For detailed information please visit the U.S. Embassy website. The Embassy consular district includes: the municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin and the provinces/autonomous regions of Gansu,Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, and Xinjiang.

Chengdu:  The U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu is located at Number 4, Lingshiguan Road, Section 4, Renmin Nanlu, Chengdu 610041; tel. (86)(28) 8558-3992, 8555-3119; after-hours emergencies (86)(28) 1370-800-1442, and can be contacted via email This consular district includes: the provinces/autonomous region of Guizhou, Sichuan, Xizang (Tibet) and Yunnan, as well as the municipality of Chongqing.

Guangzhou: The main office of the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou and the mailing address is Number 1 South Shamian Street, Shamian Island, Guangzhou 510133. The Consular Section, including the American Citizens Services Unit, is located on the 5th Floor, Tianyu Garden (II phase), 136-146 Lin He Zhong Lu, Tianhe District; tel. (86)(20) 8518-7605.  For after-hours emergencies, call (86)(20) 8121-8000; and. can be contacted by email. This consular district includes: the provinces/autonomous region of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and Fujian.

Shanghai: The Consular Section of the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai is located in the Westgate Mall, 8th Floor, 1038 Nanjing Xi Lu, Shanghai 200031; tel. (86)(21) 3217-4650. For after-hours emergencies, call  (86)(21) 6433-3936; inquiries can be made via email. This consular district includes: Shanghai municipality and the provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Shenyang: The U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang is located at No. 52, 14th Wei Road, Heping District, Shenyang 110003; tel. (86)(24) 23221198; for after-hours U.S. citizen emergencies,  call (86)(24) 137-0988-9307. Contact may be made via email. This consular district includes: the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning.  

For further information about travel in China, U.S. citizens should consult the Department of State's Country Specific Information for China as well as the Worldwide Caution located on the Bureau of Consular Affairs website.

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RUSSIA: Russia for Russians

SHANGHAI, CHINA: Destination Shanghai

Terry McCarthy travels to Shanghai to find out why it is fast becoming the nation's business epicenter.

View Video: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6711874n&tag=cbsnewsVideoArea.0#ixzz0uj4Yu3xu

CHINA: THE MIDDLE CLASS

As recently as two decades ago there was no distinct middle class in the People’s Republic of China. Today, any meaningful discussion of China’s economy, politics, or society must take into account the rapid emergence and explosive growth of the Chinese middle class.[1]

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[1] July 14, 2010 5:00:00 PM PDT,  China’s Emerging Middle Class:  Beyond Economic Transformation,  The Brookings Institution

JAPAN: Tough Task for DPJ

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CHINA & ITS NEIGHBORS: INDIA

A densely packed crowd in front of Jama Masjid in New Delhi Photo: ALAMY

Officials say the rise in population to more than 1.6 billion by 2050 will threaten the country's rapid economic development.

India will overtake China to become the world's most populous nation within the next 16 years, according to new government figures.[1]

•   India's current population of 1.1 billion will swell by 371 million in 2026, the report said, taking it beyond China's current 1.35 billion.
•  The report's publication provoked a clash between India's population experts and leading commentators over whether the rise will help or hinder the country's remarkable growth story.
•  India's economy is currently growing at more than nine per cent – second only to China.
• A quarter of India's teenage girls were either pregnant or mothers by age eighteen.

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[1] July 12, 2010 1:55:18 PM PDT, India to overtake China as world's biggest country by 2026, says report, The Telegraph

RUSSIAN FAR EAST: Siberia's Status in Russia on Par With Russia's in the World

12 July 2010

By Paul Goble

VIENNA — Siberia increasingly is to Russia what Russia is to the world, a supplier of raw materials that those who are consuming them take without much thought to what is happening at their source economically or ecologically, a pattern that Siberians find increasingly unacceptable, according to a leading economist in that region.

At an academic conference last week in Ulan-Ude, Viktor Suslov, the deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, called for new laws that would require Moscow to pay rent for its exploitation of Siberian resources...

View The Moscow Times Article...

A Changing Japan in a Changing World

On July 8, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at Brookings (CNAPS) hosted His Excellency Ichiro Fujisaki, ambassador of Japan to the United States, for an address on the changing politics and policies under Japan’s new Prime Minister Naoto Kan. Ambassador Fujisaki discussed Japan’s response to ongoing global challenges and also commented on Japan’s critically important alliance with the United States.

ASIA: Launching Pad for Tomorrow's Emerging Markets

July 1, 2010

• Enduring lessons from Asia's dynamic emerging markets
• Asia's low-income countries have enormous potential
• New development challenges, opportunities in today's world

Following in the footsteps of Asia’s dynamic emerging markets, low-income countries in the region are poised to become the emerging markets of tomorrow, in the view of IMF economists. This will further help to propel Asia’s global economic leadership.

With the Fund predicting that Asia will become the largest economic region in the world in about 20 years, the future of low-income countries in the region is a keenly debated topic. Speaking at an IMF-sponsored conference in Vietnam earlier this year, IMF First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky said that “the region’s developing countries should be central participants and beneficiaries … by moving up the ladder.”

The IMF is committed to supporting these countries make the transformation into emerging markets. How best to do this will be a major topic discussed at a high-level conference co-hosted by the Government of Korea and the IMF in Daejeon, Korea on July 12–13.

Min Zhu, who will open the conference session on this topic, said, “This discussion will allow us to hear a wide range of views of how Asia’s low-income countries can improve their growth prospects. We can find lessons in the path taken by today’s emerging markets in the region, but how countries take advantage of new opportunities and manage risks will also be a crucial factor in determining tomorrow’s emerging markets.”

Rise of Asia’s emerging markets

Asia has had enormous success in transforming low-income countries into emerging markets, raising their level of development and average incomes. Sustained economic growth and expanding employment opportunities have been crucial.

A 2008 report by the Commission on Growth and Development, chaired by Michael Spence who is a keynote speaker at the Korea conference, identified only 13 economies worldwide that had grown on average by 7 percent or more per year, for 25 years or longer. Of those 13 economies, nine are in Asia: China, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan POC, and Thailand. India and Vietnam may soon join this list.

Experience in these dynamic emerging markets points to several common success factors.
An important part of their development strategies focused on building competitive manufacturing sectors to export goods to the rest of the world. They also managed to have high rates of saving and investment, and used foreign investment as an important source of financing and new technologies.

But, according to the Commission’s report “no economy can flourish in the midst of macroeconomic instability.” Macroeconomic policies that helped to reduce economic volatility and uncertainty, allowed these economies to attract investment and expand the private sector.

Many of these factors are behind Asia’s recent economic success.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn underscored this point in a recent interview with Yonhap news agency, citing Korea’s sound macroeconomic policies and reforms over the past decade. As a result,

“the Korean economy faced the latest global economic and financial crisis from a relatively strong position, which helped facilitate the economy’s impressive rebound from the downturn,” Strauss-Kahn said.

Analysts wonder if the performance of Asia’s emerging markets can be repeated by employing similar export-oriented growth strategies.

The next emerging markets

Anoop Singh, Director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, recently blogged about the “Flying Geese Paradigm”—first conceived by Japanese economist, Kaname Akamatsu—as a way of explaining “the successive waves of Asian countries achieving … emerging or developed market status”. He identified Cambodia, Laos, and Nepal as among the Asian economies preparing to take off. “These countries have huge potential,” said Singh.

For one, they still have lower labor costs than in the region’s emerging markets. But, compared to their predecessors, low-income countries today also face new challenges and new opportunities.
Stricter environmental standards and multilateral trade agreements today limit countries’ pursuit of policies that strategically manage industrialization. The more interconnected global economy means that countries are also more vulnerable to adverse developments in other countries and regions. During a recent visit to Singapore, IMF Deputy Managing Director Naoyuki Shinohara said that, in the wake of the global crisis, weaker demand could disrupt Asia’s export markets.

However, Asia’s low-income countries also have access to a broader pool of technologies that can help them exploit lower communication costs to export services, rather than relying mainly on exporting goods.

And, even if demand elsewhere in the world remains subdued, the expanding middle class within Asia will provide a new export market. “I believe we will see ... emerging Asia becoming a centerpiece of a whole new global trade pattern,” said IMF Special Advisor Min Zhu in an interview for the June 2010 issue of Finance and Development.

Discussing new ideas for growth

With this new economic environment, an open question is whether existing ideas or new ideas, or some combination of the two, can best nurture growth in low-income countries.

Sharing Anoop Singh’s views about the potential of low-income countries in the region, John Lipsky said that, “at a fundamental level, Asia’s developing countries are qualitatively different from their counterparts in other regions. Living standards are higher, populations are less marginalized, and the middle class is more prominent.”

“Of course possessing potential and realizing it is not the same thing. Countries need to make the most of their potential by being well prepared with sound macroeconomic policies and a robust financial sector,” Singh said.

The IMF’s latest Asia and Pacific Regional Economic Outlook said that low-income countries in the region “also need to make significant progress in a series of structural reforms needed to raise their competitiveness.” Priority areas include improving the business environment and ensuring a sound banking sector.

The IMF is committed to helping these countries reach the next level of development through policy advice and capacity building, but also by taking the policy dialogue to the region.

The challenge of achieving emerging market status was the focus of a conference earlier this year in Hanoi organized by the IMF. Speaking at the conference, John Lipsky emphasized that boosting long-term growth in low-income countries requires investment in infrastructure and stronger social safety nets. In this regard, the conference identified the need for increased investment in health and education, and the importance of achieving equitable growth—not just high growth—to reduce poverty.

The IMF will continue its dialogue with member countries in Asia and their development partners, with a session dedicated to this topic, at the high-level conference in Korea in July.


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RUSSIA: Russia and U.S. downplay spy case

Thu Jul 1, 2010 3:39pm EDT

Michele Kambas

(Reuters) - Police in Cyprus issued an arrest warrant on Thursday for a suspected Russian spy wanted by the United States who vanished shortly after being freed on bail on the Mediterranean island.

Christopher Robert Metsos, 55, who American authorities accuse of being the paymaster for a network of Russian agents in the United States, failed to report to a police station on Wednesday, violating terms of his bail granted a day earlier.

A police statement issued on Thursday said Metsos was wanted for "disobeying a court order" on June 30. "We have no indications of where he may be," Michalis Katsounotos, a police spokesman, said, adding that he had cleared out his apartment.

The spokesman declined to speculate about whether he had fled Cyprus. Police were searching for him on the island.

Police released a photograph of Metsos on Thursday. The suspect was of medium build, balding with grey hear, rimless spectacles and a neat mustache. It was taken in Cyprus on June 29, shortly before he was released on bail, police said.

Metsos is accused by U.S. authorities of having managed payments to a group of agents collecting information for Russian intelligence for at least a decade. Ten suspects were arrested in the United States on Sunday, causing a diplomatic stir.

A Canadian passport holder, Metsos was arrested as he attempted to fly out of Cyprus in the early hours of June 29 for Budapest. On the same day, a local court ordered he be freed on bail, rejecting a request from police he remain in custody until an extradition hearing scheduled for July 29.

Metsos had checked in with police on the first day of his bail, on June 29. On Wednesday, the day of his disappearance, he was expected to discuss terms of his case with his lawyer, but Metsos did not communicate with him, the lawyer told Reuters.

RISK OF FLIGHT

It is unusual for Cypriot courts to grant foreigners bail, since prosecutors cite the risk of flight from the island, particularly through a breakaway state in northern Cyprus.

Larnaca, a pretty seafront town where Metsos had been staying from June 17 is about 20 kilometres away from the ceasefire line which splits the island.

There are a number of designated checkpoints linking Cyprus's estranged Greek Cypriot community in the south, and the Turkish community in the north.

A spokesman for Turkish Cypriot police said they had no knowledge of Metsos being in the north.

After checking out of one hotel on Tuesday, Metsos checked in to another complex of modest holiday apartments off the Larnaca seafront promenade.

In the United States, Metsos and his 10 co-accused face charges of collecting information ranging from research programs on small-yield, high-penetration nuclear warheads to the global gold market, and seeking background on people who applied for jobs at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The 55-year-old had specifically been accused of receiving and making payments to the other members of the group.

U.S. Justice Department documents say he received payments during a brush-pass with aRussian government official who was affiliated with the Russian mission to the United Nations in New York, and of burying cash which was then retrieved by other suspects.

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JAPAN: NYT's Photo of the Week

Itsuo Inouye/Associated Press

A diver feeds fish at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise, and aquarium in Yokohama, Japan.

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