When it comes to news out of China, our coverage is often spotty. I do not know how much play these items will get in the western press, so I thought I may as well put them out.
Child trafficking and slavery is a huge global problem that is been reduced slowly as various cultures become modernized. Here we have evidence that such behavior is been tackled in China. In a population representing a sixth of the human race this is a small beginning but a powerful indication of social support for the practice to be stamped out.
I only wished that the rest of South East Asia took the problem just as seriously. There the dominant attitude is often to treat women and children as chattels. So much of it is unsaid that you really have to go looking for it. It is very much underground, but without such attitudes this traffic would be impossible. Yet young girls and children are been sold off and the community does not intervene.
Then we have our geniuses who adulterated milk for babies. Of course they got shot. There are times that it is unfathomable to understand why humans do certain things. This is one of them. I fail to see how they believed that they could escape detection. Or perhaps they were just that ignorant.
It is noteworthy that the legal system in China is visibly improving and step by step reaching out to the whole of society. Since no one would ever claim that ours is perfect, I am not sure how thrilled we should be. Yet it is now becoming something for which confidence is growing. Justice here is seen to be done.
The climate change conference in Copenhagen next month will once again prove China's importance in environmental and socio-economic affairs of the world. Beijing said it would cut "carbon intensity," by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with levels in 2005. This means Chinese emissions will grow at about half the rate they would otherwise have done. However, though the U.S. and China have both set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, experts say the combined amount is not enough to affect global warming efforts significantly.
Meanwhile, China's automakers are expecting a slower but robust growth in the country in 2010. The economic growth is expected to push sales up at least 10 percent in 2010, mainly because of incentives provided by the government. China’s importance has increased in the global auto market as it superseded the United States this year in becoming the world’s largest car market.
While the manufacturing sector is growing by leaps and bounds, on the worker safety front, serious problems persist. After last weekend's mining accident in northern China which killed more than 100 people, in northeastern China's Meikou city, 17 miners were trapped due to flooding. Rescue workers were trying to get help to these trapped people.
This past week, China's judiciary system came down heavily on those convicted of crimes against children. The Xinhua News Agencysaid China had executed two men for abducting and selling 15 children, including babies and toddlers. Chinese authorities reported that two officials involved in the contaminated milk scandal of September 2008 were also executed. The two men, Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping, were described as the “biggest culprits of the scandal,” in which more than 300,000 children fell sick after consuming milk products that were contaminated by melamine. Read more about China's economy, politics and other current events in the Daily Updates section of our website.
In our most recent multimedia article called “U.S. State Exports to China 1999-2008,” we use an interactive map to look at the blossoming U.S.-Sino trade over the past decade. Read this and other articles at our website.
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