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China Summons U.S. Ambassador Over Dalai Lama Meeting

Source: Beijing, China (CNN) - China summoned the U.S. ambassador on Friday to express its "strong dissatisfaction" over the Dalai Lama's meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama a day earlier.

China didn't disclose what was discussed during the session with Ambassador Jon Huntsman at the Foreign Ministry. But Beijing had warned that a meeting between the president and the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader would damage its ties with Washington.

"The Chinese side expresses strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to this meeting," a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement after Thursday's meeting at the White House.

"China demands the U.S. seriously consider China's stance, immediately adopt measures to wipe out the adverse impact, [and] stop conniving and supporting anti-China separatist forces."

The U.S. Embassy didn't characterize Friday's meeting, but it provided the message Huntsman delivered to Deputy Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai.

"Now is the time to move forward and cooperate in ways that benefit our two counties, the region and the world," Huntsman said, according to the U.S. Embassy.

The meeting has the potential to further complicate Sino-U.S. tensions, which have been rising in recent months.

The Dalai Lama has said he favors genuine autonomy for Tibetans, not independence for Tibet. Beijing regards the Nobel Peace Prize laureate as a separatist who wishes to sever Tibet from China.

Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama "runs against the repeated commitments by the U.S. government that the U.S. recognizes Tibet as part of China and gives no support to 'Tibet independence'," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said.

During the meeting, Obama stressed his "strong support for the preservation of Tibet's unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity, and the protection of human rights for Tibetans," according to a White House statement.

The president praised the Dalai Lama's "commitment to nonviolence and his pursuit of dialogue with the Chinese government," the statement added. He also stressed the importance of having both sides "engage in direct dialogue to resolve differences, and was pleased to hear about the recent resumption of talks," it noted.

The Dalai Lama, while acknowledging that he raised concerns about Tibet during the meeting, did not provide further specifics about his home region's political situation while addressing reporters.

He said he admired America as a "champion of democracy and ... freedom," and cited the need to promote "religious harmony" and "human value."

He also met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The meeting between the Dalai Lama and Obama could "seriously undermine the Sino-U.S. political relations," Zhu Weiqun, a senior Communist Party leader in charge of ethnic and religious affairs, warned recently.

"We will take corresponding action to make relevant countries see their mistakes."

On Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman said the meeting "grossly violated the norms governing ... international relations."

Obama did not meet with the Dalai Lama when the spiritual leader visited Washington last fall, making it the first time since 1991 that such a meeting did not occur. Ahead of a summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Obama persuaded Tibetan representatives back then to postpone the meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Thursday's encounter took place against the backdrop of several contentious issues already threatening to sour the relationship between America and China, including trade disputes, a recent U.S. arm sales deal for Taiwan -- which China considers an illegitimate breakaway province -- and a censorship row over Internet search engine Google Inc.

The meeting is "another event in the recent, one has to say, downward spiral in U.S.-China relations," said China scholar David Shambaugh.

It's also troublesome for the Chinese for one other important reason, Shambaugh said.

"He could have met him as a spiritual leader in a neutral place like a church," he said. But receiving him in the White House "is a political act. And that is going to irritate China very much."

The meeting did not take place in the formal, official setting of the Oval Office. It was instead held in the White House Map Room, which is considered part of the presidential residence. The choice of settings was considered by many observers to be a sign of Washington's acknowledgment of Beijing's political sensitivities.

Some analysts said the Chinese government could retaliate by cutting off political exchanges as they did after the Dalai Lama met with the heads of state of France and Germany. And Hu could turn down an invitation to visit Washington in April.

Neither China nor the United States can afford strained relations, said Douglas Paal, a diplomat and investment banker who has served as a presidential adviser on China.

"We both need each other," he said. "We need each other for a number of international security issues -- to deal with the global climate crisis, to deal with the global financial crisis."

China is the largest growing export market for U.S. companies, Paal said, expanding by 65 percent last year alone.

Nearly three-quarters of all Americans think that Tibet should be an independent country, according to a new national CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll.

But the survey, released Thursday, also indicates that most Americans think it is more important to maintain good relations with China than to take a stand on Tibet.

Tai Shan Leaves the Zoo for China

Source: Washington Post - The black-and-white bear who was born at the National Zoo at 3:41 a.m. on a Saturday morning in July 2005, departed the zoo at 9 a.m. in a special crate, aboard a special truck via an undisclosed route for a special flight to the Orient out of Dulles International Airport.

His departure will end an unlikely 4 1/2-year love fest between the hard-boiled nation's capital and an oddball bear with black ears, a mesmerizing gaze and an appetite for pears.

Born so small and nearly hairless he was nicknamed "Butterstick," Tai Shan came to fascinate millions of people who saw him in person or via the zoo's pandacams. He spawned a fan club, panda merchandise, bumper stickers, postage stamps, videos, documentaries, license plates. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty once called him Washington's most important citizen.

But as the cub grew older and more mature, his days here grew numbered. Although he was born at the National Zoo, he remained the property of China by the terms of the agreement that brought his parents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, here 10 years ago.

Giant pandas are native to China and are endangered. Tai Shan is being sent to join a breeding program there to help increase the giant panda population.

The Thursday plan called for Tai Shan to be coaxed from his indoor compound into the specially built, steel and see-through plastic shipping crate, which keepers have been training him to enter for weeks.

By shortly after 8 a.m., FedEx workers had loaded the panda's food -- about four armloads of wet bamboo -- onto the truck, and all that left was the loading of the panda himself.

Soon, word came that the panda had entered his crate. The white shipping container, which is decorated with Tai Shan's name and the emblems of the Smithsonian Institution, FedEx, and a Chinese panda conservation center -- was carried by forklift to a loading area. Four of Tai Shan's keepers knelt before it for a somber last moment, feeding the bear sliced apples through the thick metal bars.

At 8:43, the container was secured to a shipping pallet, sealed and -- at 8:50 -- loaded into a FedEx tractor-trailer with a huge panda face painted on the side and "FedEx Panda Express" emblazoned on the back. The workers handling the crate wore jackets that said "FedEx Panda Team."

The truck left the zoo at 9 a.m., driven by Dennis Halsey, the same person who drove Tai's parents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, from the airport to the zoo when they arrived from China 10 years ago.

Halseyis taking Tai Shan to Dulles in a seven-vehicle convoy that will include two carloads of U.S. Park Police SWAT officers and a car filled with zoo experts. Officials declined to disclose the route, citing security reasons.

Tai Shan, the adolescent giant panda who has been a beloved symbol of Washington for the past four years, left town Thursday morning for China after a week of farewells and tearful goodbyes. 

Check out the clip below:

Chinese City Renames Mountain After 'Avatar'

Source: BEIJING (AFP) – A city in central China has renamed a mountain after the US blockbuster movie "Avatar," which set a Chinese box office record until its run in the country was cut short.

The majestic peak in Hunan province previously known as "Heaven and Earth Pillar" or "South Sky Pillar" has been officially renamed "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain," the Zhangjiajie city government said in a statement.

The statement, posted Monday on the government's website, said the peak was believed to have inspired a floating mountain, one of the most dramatic images in the movie, set on fictional Pandora.

Juxtaposing photos of the mountain with stills from the film, a report in the local Xiaoxiang Morning News said a Hollywood photographer came to the area on a four-day trip in December 2008 and shot a number of photos that were used by the film's artists.

The futuristic adventure was released in both 2-D and 3-D versions January 4 and has become China's all-time box-office champion, topping 80 million dollars in sales, state media said last week.

However, its 2-D run in China ended on Friday amid reports it was pulled ahead of schedule by the government to make way for the patriotic biopic "Confucius," about the ancient Chinese philosopher. It is still running in 3-D.

The Xiaoxiang Morning News said officials expect the mountain's similarity to the film version to trigger a tourism boom during the week-long Spring Festival holiday starting on February 14.

The mountain is in the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, which is famed for its soaring sandstone pillars and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.

China Says it Needs No Internet Lessons from U.S.

Source: Reuters BEIJING - China needs no lessons about its Internet from the United States, the head of an online media association said through official media on Saturday after the United States rapped Beijing over information freedom.

A speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday showed a lack of respect for China, which cannot accept conditions on matters of "national security" or "social stability," said Beijing Association of Online Media Chairman Min Dahong.

The Internet has joined trade imbalances, currency values, U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan and tensions over human rights and Tibet among the quarrels straining ties between the world's biggest and third-biggest economies.

"How China's Internet develops and how it is managed are Chinese people's own affairs," Min said in an interview with state-run Xinhuanet.com.

"On the Internet question, China doesn't need any lessons from the United States on what to do or how," he said.

Clinton's speech criticized the cyber policies of China and Iran, among others, and demanded Beijing investigate complaints by Google Inc about hacking and censorship.

Google, the world's top search engine, said it may shut its Chinese-language google.cn website and offices in China after a cyber-attack originating from China that also targeted other firms and human rights campaigners using its Gmail service.

Websites Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked in China, which uses a filtering "firewall" to prevent Internet users from seeing international web sites with content China's Communist Party opposes.

"Hillary's speech on January 21 insinuating that China lacks freedom of information and speech is in fact disrespectful and doesn't stand up," Min said.

Care For a Bite Out of the Great Wall of China?

Source: Yahoo! - (BEIJING) The Great Wall never looked so tasty: a team of Chinese confectioners have built a 10 meter (33 ft) long replica of the structure entirely out of chocolate in a bid to entice Chinese to eat more of the sweet stuff.

The chocolate wall is made from solid dark chocolate bricks stuck together with white chocolate and is one of the attractions at the World Chocolate Wonderland exhibition and trade show which will open to the public later this month.

Chocolatier Wang Qilu said his version of the ancient wall was a feat of engineering in itself, with a carefully constructed crumbling section at one end to resemble the real thing. He also had to make sure his materials did not melt.

"You have higher and lower levels and you have to fit each brick into place, one by one, to build it up, it's difficult," he said.

Up to 80 tons of chocolate were used in making the displays, which include a mini-army of 560 chocolate replicas of the famous Terracotta Warriors standing to attention on a layer of chocolate flakes.

The show's general manager, Tina Zheng, said she hoped the displays would give chocolate a boost in the Chinese market and its billion-plus consumers.

"Chocolate has not been around in China that long, it doesn't have that several-thousand-year history that it does in the West which has made chocolate as common as milk or fruit," she said.

"While in China, chocolate is a specialty or something given to children, in general, it is not widely known."

Local and foreign chocolate manufacturers will take part in the show, she added.

Obama Experiences China's Great Wall

LA Times - "Reporting from Beijing -  When it came to China, President Obama's famous powers of persuasion failed to persuade.

He came bearing a long shopping list, including Chinese support for tougher sanctions on Iran and more flexibility by Beijing on currency exchange rates, but Obama was met with polite, yet stony, silences.

Only one more key meeting was scheduled for today before Obama's departure, a working lunch with Premier Wen Jiabao. Before flying to South Korea, the president will tour the Great Wall -- the famous symbol of Chinese tenacity and an appropriate backdrop for a visit in which China again showed its resistance to U.S. entreaties.

Not only is the U.S. president coming away without any definable concessions, but the Chinese appeared to be digging in their heels.

On Tuesday, just hours after Obama stood with President Hu Jintao in the Great Hall of the People, praising China's commitment to "move toward a more market-oriented exchange rate over time," a senior Chinese official called a news conference across town to issue a rebuttal.

"We maintained a stable yuan during the financial crisis, which not only helped the global economy but also the stability of the world's financial markets," He Yafei, deputy foreign minister, said, adding that it was too soon since the worldwide financial crisis to talk about a change of strategy.

The Chinese official also slapped down Obama's call for more Internet freedom, saying that "we need to ensure that online communications do not affect our national security."

Perhaps most disappointing was China's failure to budge in its opposition to tougher sanctions on Iran. With their extensive oil interests influencing their policies toward Tehran, the Chinese are increasingly seen as an obstacle to reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions.

But Obama had hoped that China would at least fall into step with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who publicly criticized Iran's intransigence during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit over the weekend in Singapore.

"I would not say that we got an answer today from the Chinese, nor did we expect one," said Jeffrey Bader, director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council, briefing U.S. journalists after the meeting between the presidents. He acknowledged that the Chinese were less worried about Iran's nuclear program than about North Korea's.

During the news conference at the Great Hall of the People, where the presidents each read 15-minute statements outlining the highlights of the meetings as they perceived them, Hu conspicuously omitted mention of sanctions against Iran, saying only that there were differences on some issues.

After the ritual handshake and posing for photographs, the leaders left the podium -- refusing to answer questions from reporters, which is unusual for a news conference, even in China.

It was in keeping with the character of a presidential visit notable for its formality and lack of spontaneity. Every aspect of Obama's visit was carefully scripted, with the Chinese government taking pains to make sure nothing was left to chance. Obama did not meet with Chinese journalists, lawyers, human rights advocates, environmentalists or any ordinary Chinese, and an expected meeting with Hu Shuli, who recently resigned as editor of China's leading business magazine, did not materialize.

During Obama's "town hall" meeting in Shanghai on Monday, the 50 students selected to question him were mostly officers of the Communist Youth League. Wary that Obama might say something provocative, the Chinese government refused White House requests that the event be broadcast live on nationwide television. Instead, it was broadcast only on Shanghai television.

Coverage of Obama's visit was also subdued, with noticeably fewer stories in the Chinese newspapers and shorter television reports than during other presidential visits.

Obama's limited results in part reflect the profound shift in Sino-U.S. relations and global politics, with China's rapid rise and America's weakened position, especially in the wake of the financial crisis.

"It used to be the U.S. could go around and say 'Do this and do that' because they had so much leverage," said Dali Yang, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago. "Today, the U.S. can't do that." Read more at LATimes.com

Team Earth Campaign

ecorazzi - "Backed by inspiring music, Harrison Ford is supporting and voicing a new campaign called “Team Earth”. The 67-year-old actor is a long-time conservationist and last summer, at the height of the Indiana Jones 4 media blitz, waxed a portion of his chest to highlight deforestation. For this new effort, Ford is once more promoting preservation of the forests by partnering this campaign with Prince Charles’ Rainforest Project.

“Saving the planet won’t be easy — and it’s certainly not something you can do alone,” he writes. “That’s why I need your help — and that’s why I’ve joined teamearth.com. We all know that our planet is at a critical juncture: and humanity needs a healthy planet to survive.”

Check out the video below, or visit the official site here to join up

Jet Li And Tony Blair Enlighten China

  

ecorazzi -"Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and action-star Jet Li are teaming up on a new solar initiative in China. The two recently attended a conference on environmental protection in Guiyang, capital of southwest China’s Guizhou Province, and took the opportunity to announce the “Solar-powered LED Lighting One Thousand Villages Project”. Over five years, the initiative aims to make more than 1,000 villages in China, India, and Africa less dependent on “dirty” sources of electricity by integrating solar technology. The effort is being supported by Li’s One Foundation and the Climate Group.

“Because the power supply of some remote villages still isn’t connected to the country’s electricity network, using this kind of solar-powered LED light technology has become a very good idea as a substitute,” said Li on his blog. “Not only will this kind of technology solve lighting problems in some areas around China, it will also reduce the amount of greenhouse emissions in village areas because solar-powered LED lights is powered by the sun, a clean and unlimited source of energy.”

Kobe Spreads the Love Around Like a True Champion

celebsgonegood - “The kids in China are brilliant and they continue to amaze me every time I’m here…My goal is to inspire these guys to work even harder to improve their skills and never give up their vision of becoming great players.”

Kobe Bryant is currently touring Asia and sharing his basketball skills through the “NIKE Champion Returns – Kobe Training Camp.” He made his way through China this weekend to launch an awesome new charity initiative that will provide health and education programs to Chinese youth. He is also bringing some of the culture home with him! The Kobe Bryant Foundation will pay the salaries of four teachers to teach Mandarin and Chinese culture to middle-school students here in the US!"