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When in Europe, 'gag' as the Chinese do

Wednesday, May 16 2012 By Nabeelah | Asia-Europe: did you know?

Early May saw Li Kegiang, 56, in Brussels before visiting Moscow and Budapest, but we would not know all there was to know of the Vice Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China. The European Union allows members from Russia or China to state who they will or will not answer questions from. In this article from EUobserver.com (fascinatingly managing to use the word dingdong in its article), it was painfully pointed out that the World Press Freedom Day had been hailed on the same day, Thursday 3 May. In this case, a high-level visit was graced with the presence of no press events. Maybe it's better so; after all, the EU needs Chinese money to help it in its bailout options.

In China, the mainstream media is owned by the state, the ruling communist party. The four big names to remember are CCTV, China Radio International (CRI), Xinhua news agency, and The China Daily. The Colombia Journalism Review recently published two interesting articles: one about reporting life inside China, and another for those expats outside.

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On 24 April, a few days before Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's visited Sweden, the former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer emphasised the future dominance of China, in this snippet of English translation taken from the Berlin-based organisation eurotopics:

'The official policy of 'Four Modernizations' (industrial, agricultural, military, and scientific-technological) that has underpinned China's rise has failed to provide an answer to that question, because the 'fifth modernization' - the emergence of democracy and the rule of law - is still missing. Clearly, national interests play a part in how the US and other Western countries apply values like human rights, the rule of law, democracy, and pluralism. But these values are not mere ideological window dressing for Western interests. They are indeed universal, and all the more so in an era of comprehensive globalization. The contribution of Asia ... to the development of this universal set of values is not yet foreseeable, but it will surely come if the 'fifth modernization' leads to China's political transformation. China's course as a world power will be determined to a significant extent by the way it confronts this question.'

In this, the year of the powerful dragon, fires must be kept firmly kept inhaled.

Image taken in Qingdao: (cc) Jellymon/ flickr/ jellymon.com/blog)

A brief guide: EU-China Summit on Valentine's Day, 2012

Friday, February 10 2012 By Nabeelah | Asia-Europe: did you know?

The big guys from the European Union and China are holding their fourteenth edition of talks on 14 February 2012 in Beijing, but what about the little ones outside China, who have sought refuge in a country of the EU?

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Take Liao Yiwu, a dissident writer who fled to Germany via Vietnam and Poland in the summer of 2011, to seek refuge from Chinese government persecution. (We should perhaps be writing more articles about how people actually escape a country they are under threat in, logistics wise...)

Human rights in China is a worry for other European countries too. On 8 February Italy passed a resolution showing the country's commitment to the human rights record in Tibet. It's one of the issues they'd most like to see tackled at the summit on 14 February, and which does actually make up one of the points on the programme. We need China's support on a UN level to stop the abuses taking place in countries such as Syria.

Bilateral relations between China and the EU only started officially in 1995. The summit, which has taken place annually since its first edition in London in 1998, usually between Beijing and the European country running the rotating presidency of the European council at the time, is already a big talking point. It was cancelled in 2008 after a man called the Dalai Lama was an invitee at the EU.

After the US, China is the second biggest trading partner for the EU (€395 billion in 2010), and so often talks centre around market access or the value of the yuan. These kind of questions are important; it's no secret the EU needs China to help rescue it in the middle of its crisis - keywords eurozone, bailout, debt...

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Exporting goods is one thing. When are the fat cats going to export goodwill? So far the EU and China work together to fight pirates, to set up business schools and launch 'erasmus-style' university partnerships, to tackle climate change. China has even been a European literary guest of honour on a state level. 2012 also marks the official EU-China year for cultural relations (it's officially the year of intercultural dialogue). Surely it's intercultural dialogue to talk about the Chinese people such as Nobel peace winner Liu Xiabo, who have to escape to the EU to survive, though they much want to live in China and be free, or live a life in detention.

Read cafebabel.com's recent special edition on China in the year of the dragon from a young, pan-European perspective here.

Images: (cc) Stuck in Customs; (cc) eddie/ both via flickr

'Europe's painful fight against Asia' - British prime minister quoted in Polish newspaper

Monday, January 30 2012 By Nabeelah

There's a great press service by the folks at 'eurotopics' in Berlin who aggragate European news every day of the week and translate excerpts into English.

Rarely, today there was a morsel from the Polish media in English, on Europe's relationship with Asia:

'Europe must urgently improve its competitiveness vis-á-vis the emerging Asian economies if it is not to lose its current leading global position, the former British prime minister Gordon Brown writes in an article published in the liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza:

"Europe's stagnating economy is in the throes of the transition from our 20th-century western-dominated economy to an Asian-led world. Once Europe was responsible for 40% of the world's output; already it is down below 20%. Within a decade - if we do nothing - it will be little more than half that, 11 percent. We are, in fact, at the sharp (and currently losing) end of huge historical processes moving production investment and trade from the continent of the first industrial revolution to the new Asia. And the jury is still out on whether today's crisis is, in effect, writing its own penultimate chapter in a story that will be entitled 'the decline of the west'. ... A strategy for growth through radically reforming our competitiveness would have been - and still is - Europe's best way of meeting and mastering this challenge, for without such a shift Europe will become marginal to global growth."

See more on eurotopics and follow the links to the original article here

'There is a platform encouraging public health dialogue between Asia and Europe'

Tuesday, January 17 2012 By Nabeelah | Asia-Europe: did you know?

Public health dialogue? Asia and Europe?

The platform can only be in Brussels, of course...

Like with all acrimonial disputes in this case the association is called ASEF (an offspring of the the Asia-Europe foundation) and was founded in 2009.

Prior to a meeting in February 2012, this is a blurb for one of the latest strategies the team is working on:

''Stand-alone public and private sector mechanisms are not adequate to overcome future pandemic threats. The recent H1N1 pandemic and e. coli outbreak underscore the need for better preparedness for public health emergencies. In response, the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) will organise a public briefing to share the ASEF-ASAP (Accurate Scenarios, Active Preparedness) scenarios for pandemic preparedness.''

For more information click here.

'For the first time in the history of the Philippines...' Peachy impeachment in Manila

Monday, January 16 2012 By Nabeelah | Asia-Europe: did you know?

Which Supreme Court Chief Justice is facing an impeachment trial? Why is that big news?

Read the full post on InAsia

Southern Philippines storm: two sources to check for information

Wednesday, January 4 2012 By Nabeelah

The Sendong tropical storm (called 'Washi') that hit the southern Philippines on 16 December was unexpectedly deadly.

Almost 1, 500 lost their lives in the two-day tragedy. 600, 000 are in need of a home. The UN appeal for funds, released on 22 December 2011, is here.

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'The water level in Laguna de Bay, one of the largest freshwater lakes in Southeast Asia, rose to a record high 14.62 meters in 1919 due to a typhoon. In 1978, typhoon-induced rains caused the level to rise to 13.58 meters,' reports one blog from the Philippines.

No-one expected the storm would kill hundreds of people. Dozens of typhoons hit us every year, but the recent one had a strange and rare path. Rarely does a typhoon hit the southern Philippines. That's why no one was prepared. The weather was already back to 'normal' two days later, but the next problem was the search for the missing people and now on rebuilding. It's sad it had to happen as christmas neared.

For more information about the news, two good sources we recommend are abs-cbnnews and inquirer.

by Jekki Pascual, Manila

Image: 'Nimbus Clouds moving into Laguna Lake, Southern Luzon. Photo taken approximately 3,000 ft over the province of Rizal' courtesy of (cc) Storm Crypt/ Flickr

'Asian countries train twice as many scientists compared to European member states, and three times as many engineers'

Wednesday, December 28 2011 By Nabeelah | Asia-Europe: did you know?

This food for thought was gleaned from a press release, 13 December 2011, called 'No European scientists left by 2020?' - as business leaders, European Schoolnet and the European Commission launch a €8.3mn initiative to encourage teenagers to study science and maths.

The release also says: 'This training gap is threatening the future of Europe’s economic recovery due to the lack of qualified scientific and technical human resources – the key drivers of scientific progress and innovation. Although the number of graduates in the fields is now increasing slowly, their academic achievement falls well behind that of their Asian counterparts according to PISA statistics.'

For more information, please contact: Alexa Joyce, InGenious Project manager, alexa.joyce@eun.org

Who we are: promoting journalism exchanges between Europe and Asia

By Nabeelah

The Asia-Europe Committee of Journalists is a non-profit organisation created in 2009 under the umbrella of the European Youth Press (EYP) that connects about 40, 000 young journalists across Europe, and the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), which similarly connects 1, 500 young journalists all over Asia.

AECJ has 4 European and 3 Asian members - all professional journalists - aiming to bring together Asian and European journalists, and build sustainable co-operations between them. We wish to provide opportunities for journalists from both continents through projects such as traineeships, mentoring, peer feedback and cultural exchange. AECJ also aims to create a platform to meet, co-operate and create actual media output together.

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Members and roles as of November 2011:

Contact person in Asia: Bruce Avasadanond (Thailand, Canada)

Contact person in Europe: Alessia Cerantola (Italy)

Shuk-Wah Michelle Chung (China, Australia)

Maciej Duszynski (Poland)

Dora Haller (France, Hungary)

Jekki Pascual (The Philippines)

Nabeelah Shabbir (England, Pakistan)

Associates:

Ngô Bích Ngọc (Vietnam) '' Karan Gupta'' (India)

See more about the team's first meeting in Singapore, 2009

This blog will be the European home for visibility of editorial content directly relating to the countries we represent amongst one another, as a starting point in sharing information. The Asian and official home of the Asia-Europe committee is INASIA.

What else do we want to do? Network, brainstorm, attend conferences, create opportunities for our countries to flower out, exploit the ones that exist,

So far there are seven of us based across various countries and we are defining our roles in maximising awareness and progress on both sides. We look forward to hearing from you!

Image (cc) ::Prad Prathivi @ Amodica::/ Flickr