Martin Lee Overstates the Case of China’s Promises on Democracy in Hong Kong: ABC Analysis

Further to a previous post refuting the has-been agitator for ‘true democracy’ in Hong Kong Martin lee’s wrongful claims that China promised full-fledged democracy in the Basic Law, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Fact Check special report has done a good service in clarifying whether Mr Lee is right in his claims.  Asked for the basis of his claim that democracy was promised to Hong Kong, Mr Lee referred to three documents that supposedly supported his claim: the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong’s handover, Hong Kong’s Basic Law, and international law.

Fact Check’s verdict:  Mr Lee overstates his case. 

 

Here are some excerpts from the lengthy Fact Check:  Was Hong Kong ever promised democracy? 

On the negotiations leading up to the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong’s handover:

…Britain’s chief negotiator and ambassador to China from 1978 to 1983, Sir Percy Cradock, said in an interview broadcast on ABC’s Four Corners a week before the 1997 handover, “unfortunately over the last four years we have given them the impression… they could have improved democracy now and also improved democracy after 1997.”

“That was never a possibility and when they’ve come to realize it, as they have now, they are naturally feeling bitter and disillusioned,” he said.

British diplomats to China, and later Hong Kong’s last governor, Chris Patten, have hinted at the difficulties in negotiating to have more stringent democratic principles enshrined in Hong Kong law, and the backflip performed by Britain on the issue as it struggled to maintain close diplomatic and trade ties with China.

On the Joint Declaration:

…The UK Parliament’s Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has intermittently reported on the status and stability of Hong Kong since the 1997 handover.

In a report released in November 2000, the Committee stated that during negotiations between Britain and China for the handover, there was a preference by both parties to leave out any reference to democracy, given “there was nothing approaching democracy in Hong Kong… when the Joint Declaration was signed [in 1984].”

The UK Select Committee concluded:

“The Chinese government has therefore formally accepted that it is for the Hong Kong government to determine the extent and nature of democracy in Hong Kong. However, there are reasons for doubting whether the Chinese government is in practice sanguine about the prospect of untrammeled democracy developing in Hong Kong

On Hong Kong’s Basic Law:

In 1990, China approved Hong Kong’s Basic Law, which is recognized as operating like a constitution governing Hong Kong, and came into effect after the handover in 1997.

Mr Lee says several sections of the Basic Law underpin Hong Kong’s right to democracy – Articles 26, 45 and 68, and Annexes I and II.

Article 26 reads:

Permanent residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall have the right to vote and the right to stand for election in accordance with law.

Article 45 states in part:

The method for selecting the chief executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.

Article 68 refers to the legislative council and says the “ultimate aim is the election of all the members of the legislative council by universal suffrage”.

Following the release of China’s August 2014 decision, vice secretary-general of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee Li Fei disputed calls to implement an internationally accepted definition of democracy in Hong Kong. He told a press conference that “international standards” clearly run against the Basic Law, and such “unpractical” calls had led to “a tremendous waste of time” in Hong Kong society.

“Having two or three election candidates will make for an efficient election system and complies with the opinions of the majority expressed during a five-month consultation conducted by the HKSAR government”.

On international law:

Mr Lee referred Fact Check to basic democratic rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the protesters say should extend to how elections are held in Hong Kong, because the language used in Article 3(5) of the Joint Declaration reflects certain rights contained in the ICCPR.

Hong Kong is not a signatory to the ICCPR. Instead, in 1976 the United Kingdom ratified the international treaty, and extended the protections contained in the document to its dependent nations, including Hong Kong. 

Crucially, however, it carved out Article 25 of the ICCPR and said it did not apply to Hong Kong. This was in recognition of the fact that Hong Kong was not a democracy.

That Article contains the right for any citizen, without unreasonable restrictions, to “take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly, or through freely chosen representatives”, and “to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage…”

Academic Geping Rao wrote in a legal journal in 1993 that “The United Kingdom stated that based on the fact that no seats in the Legislative Council in Hong Kong were elected at that time, it would reserve Article 25 for the reason that its intent was not to require the establishment of an elected executive or legislative council in Hong Kong, where none had previously existed.”

“Changes have since occurred which put into question the necessity of continuing this reservation,” he said.

When Hong Kong later mirrored the language of the ICCPR in Article 3(5) of its Basic Law in 1990, it again left out the reference in Article 25 of the ICCPR to citizens being able to vote, “and be elected at genuine periodic elections”.

On Hong Kong electoral reforms:

…Beijing has the power to amend Hong Kong’s Basic Law. The NPCSC did so in December 2007, and again in August 2014 when it released rulings on how elections are to be carried out.

The NPCSC’s 2007 decision foiled hopes of democratic groups by ruling out direct elections in 2012. Instead, it suggested 2017 as a possible date to implement universal suffrage, declaring:

… that the election of the fifth chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the year 2017 may be implemented by the method of universal suffrage; that after the chief executive is selected by universal suffrage, the election of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region may be implemented by the method of electing all the members by universal suffrage.

China’s 2007 decision repeats the limitation contained in Article 45 of the Basic Law that a “broadly representative nominating committee” would be formed to nominate a certain number of candidates, who would then be elected “through universal suffrage by all registered electors of [Hong Kong]… and officially appointed by Beijing”. The size of the committee has been progressively increased from 400 in 1998 to 1200 in 2012.

The verdict

Martin Lee says Hong Kong was promised democracy and that three legal instruments prove it. British diplomats involved in negotiating the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China have said no such promise was explicitly given. 

The legal instruments do not preclude a gradual and steady move towards democracy, although there is argument about how China and Britain, and now Hong Kong, define democracy.

Legal academics have various opinions: some say the documents support China’s position that chief executive candidates were always intended to be elected from those chosen by a committee; others say the documents prove China intended for Hong Kong to move towards a government based on universal suffrage.

The documents are ambiguous and can be interpreted to favour either side’s argument, however any claim that Hong Kong has been promised democracy should be tempered by evidence that China did not explicitly include a timetable for steps to universal suffrage, did not define democratic principles, and did not allow international standards for free and fair elections to apply in Hong Kong.

Mr Lee’s claim is overstated.

 

The Fact Check in its entirety can be seen at:  https://au.gwn7.yahoo.com/w1/news/a/-/local/25786050/fact-check-was-hong-kong-ever-promised-democracy/

 

Canada China Sign Pact to Extradite Criminals’ Ill-Gotten Gains

A couple months back, I posted urging the Canadian government to sign an extradition treaty with China on the heels of the Australian authorities agreeing to extradite seized assets of corrupt Chinese officials.  Now, the Canadian government has followed suit but the Canadian Ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques was emphatic to the China Daily that Canada had no plans to sign a treaty.  Although again slow off the blocks, Canada at least has agreed to do this.  Now, the pressure is on laggard US to ink a deal but I’m not holding my breath.

———-

Canada is set to sign a deal with China to return ill-gotten assets seized from those suspected of economic crimes, the official China Daily reported on Monday, as Beijing works to track down corrupt officials who have fled overseas.

The world’s second-largest economy has vowed to pursue beyond its borders a search, dubbed Operation “Fox Hunt”, for corrupt officials and business executives, and their assets.

With the deal Canada, one of the top two destinations for suspected economic fugitives from China, becomes the third nation to agree to help Beijing bring such offenders to book, following offers this year from France and Australia.

The pact will cover “the return of property related to people who would have fled to Canada and would have been involved in corrupt activities”, Canada’s ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, told the China Daily in an interview.

“No country should become a haven for the corrupt to seek refuge from the law,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a daily news briefing but gave no details of the pact.

China has extradition pacts with 39 countries but not the United States or Canada, the two places suspected economic fugitives are most likely to go, the Foreign Ministry says.

This month, France said it was ready to help track down people suspected of corruption who may be on French soil. In October, Australian police agreed to assist in the extradition and seizure of assets of corrupt Chinese officials, media said.

China this month asked the U.S. to help it track down more than 100 people suspected of corruption. At least 428 Chinese suspects were captured abroad by the end of October under the “Fox Hunt” campaign, state media reported.

Reuters

Takeaways From the ‘Occupy Central’ Fiasco

Here are 10 calmly reasoned lessons from the Hong Kong ‘Occupy Central’ protests offered by Han Zhu, a senior fellow at the Shanghai-based Chunqiu Institute for Development and Strategic Studies.  I would add a couple more, themes that I have elaborated on in past posts:  political protest cannot mask economic resentment of mainlanders; Hong Kong political reform cannot be pursued in isolation from the mainland.

1. Beijing will not budge under pressure.

2. Hong Kong citizens reject illegal actions.

3. Pursuit of democracy by undemocratic means won’t work.

4. Street politics lead to anarchism.

5. Street politics divide society.

6. Democracy can only be built incrementally.

7. Political turbulence hurts the economy.

8. Poverty and inequality must be tackled.

9. Fat cats are getting too fat.

10. Cooperation is the only way forward.

The full article can be seen at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/han-zhu/10-lessons-from-hong-kong-protests_b_6316096.html?utm_hp_ref=world

China Offers Iraq Help in Fighting ISIS

If this FT report is accurate, it means China is stepping up its involvement in the Middle East, albeit not with boots on the ground but through intelligence support and logistics.  China’s growing investments throughout the region requires greater engagement in the form of advisors, personal training, and the supply of certain arms and munitions.  The only exception to China’s reluctance to send troops abroad is dispatching peacekeeping soldiers to troubled regions such as Lebanon and Mali and personnel for anti-land mine operations as well as building roads and the such or escorting ships off the coast of Africa to fend off pirates under UN mandate.

In any case, due to its long standing principle of non-interference, China is hard pressed to get involved in any foreign-led expeditionary force, even at the invitation of the host country.  So, contrary to active Western imaginations and wishful-thinking, you won’t be seeing the Liaoning aircraft carrier sailing to the Persian Gulf and J-15 carrying out sorties into Iraq or Syria any time soon.

China has offered to help Iraq defeat Sunni extremists with support for air strikes, according to Ibrahim Jafari, Iraq’s foreign minister.

Wang Yi, Mr Jafari’s Chinese counterpart, made the offer to help defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, when the two men met in New York at September’s UN antiterrorism meeting, Mr Jafari said.

Any Chinese assistance would be outside the US-led coalition. “[Mr Wang] said, our policy does not allow us to get involved in the international coalition,” Mr Jafari told the Financial Times in Tehran, where he was attending an anti-extremism conference this week.

“I welcomed this initiative. I told him . . . we are ready to deal with the coalition and also co-operate with countries outside this coalition.”

China’s official policy is of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs. Although it does sell weapons to many other countries, China has avoided direct military involvement beyond its borders.

Growing economic and strategic interests have tested that policy. China’s navy began escorting ship convoys around the Horn of Africa after Somali piracy threatened oil and ore cargoes. Last year for the first time it contributed troops to a UN peacekeeping operation in Mali. A battalion of 700 Chinese troops is now joining UN Peacekeepers in South Sudan, with a mandate to guard Chinese-invested oilfields there.

Isis has taken swaths of Iraqi territory since June. The US has led the air strikes on the Islamist group’s positions in Iraq and parts of Syria over the past four months. Pentagon claims that Iran launched separate air strikes last month have not been confirmed.

China’s defence ministry declined to comment on Mr Jafari’s remarks. Hong Lei, a foreign ministry spokesman, would not comment on whether China was supplying air support or missiles. In their meeting, Mr Wang had told Mr Jafari China backed Iraq’s efforts to strengthen its anti-terror capacity, including intelligence exchange and personnel training, Mr Hong said.

“China has been fighting terrorism and has been providing support and assistance to Iraq, including the Kurdish region, in our own way, and we will continue to do so within the best of our capabilities,” Mr Hong said.

China is the largest foreign investor in Iraq’s oil sector and stands to lose the billions its state-owned groups have ploughed into the country if the fields are lost to the insurgents. Sinopec operates in Kurdistan, while China National Petroleum Corp has interests in the Rumaila field near Basra and in Maysan province near the Iranian border. CNPC has already in effect abandoned oilfields it operated in Syria.

Global Times, the Chinese newspaper, reported this week that Isis crews were dismantling equipment at a small refinery west of Baiji in which a Chinese company has invested for use at refineries the group controls in Mosul, Iraq’s second-biggest city.

Hong Kong Needs the Mainland More Than the Other Way Around

The Occupy Central protestors put on a brave face declaring “we’ll be back” as the Hong Kong police cleared them out of the Admiralty area which they illegally blocked for over 10 weeks.  I would underscore and amplify the summary below by Market Realist: those beleaguered students face some stark realities about Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland.  As mentioned in a previous post, when Hong Kong reverted back to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the port city represented about 18% of the mainland’s GDP; now it’s down to a mere 3% and within a decade, it will be just 1%.  The anxieties of the protestors behind the façade of electoral reform largely reflect this inexorable trend.

For the sake of ‘one country, two systems’, Beijing has maintained Hong Kong’s basic freedoms and rule of law and bestowed upon it an array of privileges that helps it prosper in the face of global downturns.  This is not even to mention the simple fact that most of the SAR’s electricity and water is supplied by the mainland along with the best produce and meats for their daily sustenance.   And, in a reversal of what the piece says is the mainland’s main dependency on Hong Kong, the mainland is increasingly becoming a major source of financial and human capital for the enclave.

Despite their rhetoric, the Occupiers won’t be able to reassemble because first, the police will be on the lookout for any such stirrings; and second, even if they’re able to muster some kind of mischief, given the rapid growth of the mainland and the heft it now carries, the central government will simply provide more preferential policies to other regions like the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, the rest of the Yangtze River Delta region, the greater Pearl River Delta area, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei greater area, among others.  Central planners are even mulling to make these areas full-fledged FTAs.  Then, there is central and western China that are yearning for more incentives.   All of which makes Hong Kong less and less imperative for China’s growth needs.

So, suck it up Occupiers and salvage what you have left.

 

China is crucial to Hong Kong

Hong Kong still relies a lot on China for its income and growth. In the past decade, China has been Hong Kong’s largest destination of re-exports and supplier of imports. In 2005, China replaced the US to become the largest destination of Hong Kong’s domestic exports.

  •  China accounts for about 47% of Hong Kong’s exports and 50% of its imports
  • 1/5th of bank assets in Hong Kong represent loans to Chinese customers
  •  Tourism and retail spending from China accounts for 10% of Hong Kong’s GDP

The interdependence between Hong Kong and China

While Hong Kong’s dependencies on China remain central to any China-Hong Kong debate, China too has been and is dependent on Hong Kong in more than one area.

Over the years, China has been able to receive foreign capital (financial and human) through Hong Kong’s more developed and mature legal system and capital market, which has served as an important platform for it. The platform has also aided China in absorbing technological and management expertise from the world.

With such cross-dependencies, it only makes sense for China and Hong Kong to resolve their political conflicts before the repercussions start impacting investment flow into the area.

Market Realist

Fidel Castro Awarded China’s Confucius Prize and President Xi Named ‘Person of the Year 2014’ by Russia

About time some institution honoured him, if only for surviving the more than 600 assassination attempts by the CIA.  Not to mention standing up to the Americans for over half a century and his people bearing the brunt of crippling trade sanctions.  The US should suspend the sanctions immediately as the UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly for (for the nth time) and start the process to normalize relations.  But, alas, that’s not going to happen any time soon given the ferocity of the fiercely anti-communist Cuban-American lobby in Florida.

 

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro is this year’s winner of the Confucius Peace Prize, China’s alternative to the Nobel Prize. The committee that sponsors the prize praised 88-year-old Castro for peacefully resolving international conflicts. The Confucius prize was launched in 2010 as an alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize, Prior recipients include former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

AP

Chinese President Xi Jinping was named as “Person of the Year 2014” by the Russian Biographical Institute for the “strengthening of economic and political ties with the Russia”, which reflects the rising influence of China and its leader. It is the first time the institute has given the award to a leader of a country that doesn’t belong to the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Russian Biographical Institute, founded in 1992, is a nongovernmental and noncommercial organization based in Moscow. Its Person of the Year award acknowledges the recipients involved as being guided by the principles of social, spiritual and moral responsibility. In all, the institute handed out awards to 42 individuals, companies and institutions in areas including culture, science, charity, medicine and health, and national defense.

China Daily

Alibaba Infographic

Although Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, along with payment option Alipay, counterpart to Paypal, and its online marketplace Tmall, aren’t yet household words in North America like eBay or Amazon, its impact around the world will be epochal not only in terms of exponential growth in e-commerce but potentially even more important, further ground-breaking  innovation in online marketing and sales.

Here’s an infographic on Alibaba released by Issa Asad, CEO of QLink Wireless and best-selling author, on the importance of Alibaba and dynamic e-commerce growth in China.  On Singles Day November 11, otherwise known as ‘double 11’), China’s consumers day, the shopping frenzy netted for Alibaba over US$9 billion in transactions.

Recall meeting founder Jack Ma in 2000 when his company was starting out and thinking it’s just another .com start-up and it will be a big slug for them going forward.  Well, look at it now!   Had I known what a phenomenon it would become, would have bought as much Alibaba stock as I could.

Alibaba infographic

Founded by Jack Ma in 1999, Alibaba is the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace and provides C2C, B2C and B2B sales services. The company also owns Tmall, which is similar to US Amazon.  With 70,000 brands and 180 million buyers, Alibaba is larger than both Amazon and eBay. It is still growing thanks to China’s high-speed e-commerce market, which is currently outpacing other emerging markets like Brazil and India.

In September 2014, Alibaba made its first significant appearance in American headlines when its IPO shattered world records and raised more than $25 billion.

E-commerce spending in China is expected to reach $400 billion in 2014. By 2020, China’s e-commerce market is expected to be twice as large as the UK, the United States, Japan, Germany and France combined, with $1,847 billion in total revenue.

PRNewswire

 

China’s Advanced Weapons Race with America

During the Cold War, the US bankrupted the Soviet Union in a no-holds-barred arms race that inevitably ended in the latter’s demise. America’s then reigned supreme for the next two decades, confident in maintaining one to two or more generation technological advantage over rivals in advanced weaponry.

Following the Gulf War and magnified by the decimation of Saddam Hussein’s Soviet-equipped forces in 2003, two decades of concerted effort have transformed China’s formerly obsolete equipment. The campaign is now bearing fruit in the form of advanced surface ships, submarines, tanks, missiles, radars, 5th-generation stealth fighters, and the list goes on.

Before his resignation, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced, in spite of a shrinking R & D budget, the US is launching a major drive to develop the next generation of high-tech weapons in order to keep ‘adversaries’ like China and Russia at a safe distance. Last month’s release of a major report on China’s growing military might by a congressionally-funded commission heavily plowed on the anti-China rhetoric stating the country’s armaments modernization gives it an “increasing number of opportunities to provoke incidents at sea and in the air that could lead to a crisis or conflict.”

Despite such inflammatory and alarmist words, Chinese military experts readily admit while there has been a “blowout” (expansion) of new weaponry introduced over the past few years, a trend that should continue well into the next decade, a huge gap remains between the capabilities of the US versus China, not to mention the “blank areas” in certain major weapons systems. But, it also needs to mentioned that China’s 2014 defense budget of 808 billion RMB (US$132 billion) is a fraction (21%) of the Pentagon’s $630 billion. (The US budget is almost 4% of GDP and China’s around 2%.)

Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping likewise called on the People’s Liberation Army to step up its weapons R & D. “Advanced weaponry is the embodiment of a modern army…Equipment systems are now in a period of strategic opportunities and at a key point for rapid development…The equipment must be innovative, practical and forward-looking to meet the demands of actual combat and fill in the weak spots of China’s existing equipment”, he said, quoted by the Xinhua News Agency.

So what has Pentagon analysts (and the US media) in such a tizzy?

Without going into the plethora of conventional and strategic nuclear weapons currently in various stages of development and deployment such as J-20 and J-31 stealth aircraft and the multitude of cruise and ICBM missiles, this post focuses on next generation weapons the Chinese are currently working on that are not far behind the US. They include hypersonic weapons, laser cannons, and 6th generation fighters, among others along with notable ‘blank areas’ such as the US Navy’s electromagnetic rail gun.

Hypersonic weapons: Tested for the first time last January and again in August, the Chinese hypersonic strike vehicle, the HGV (also dubbed the WU-14 by foreign military enthusiasts) reportedly can travel at Mach 10 or 12,359 km/hr. At that speed, HGV can easily evade US anti-ballistic missile countermeasures. The US’s test of a similar vehicle three weeks later was aborted and intentionally exploded shortly after takeoff. Weapons experts indicate China and the US are developing a similar range of weapons, including boost-glide, hypersonic glide, and eventually air-breathing scram jet vehicles. The US is farther along in R & D but the Chinese program may be better funded with greater inputs of resources, they say.

Anti-drone lasers: Early last month, the China Academy of Engineering Physics announced its laser defense system had shot down more than 30 small low-flying drones within a two-kilometer radius, a perfect record, it touted. The laser will either be installed on or transported in vehicles to help with security at major urban events and the Academy is developing systems with greater power and range, reported Xinhua. Meanwhile, over the summer, the US supposedly deployed its first prototype defense laser in the Persian Gulf for testing under real conditions.

6th generation fighters: They will be super-stealth, manned or unmanned, hypersonic, equipped with highly-sensitive avionics, and carrying various types of directed energy weapons such as lasers. A new drone developed by the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) is set to debut in 2020 and Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) is also busy designing drones and planes. Taken together, China’s 6th generation fighters will be a big family consisting of heavy fighters, medium range fighters and unmanned drones like “Dark Sword”. In this area, needless to say, the US maintains a huge edge.

Electromagnetic rail gun: As far as this author is aware, the Chinese are only in the preliminary stages of R &D and the US is way ahead with two single-shot prototypes funded by the Navy. The gun has already undergone extensive tests on land and for sea trials, it will be mounted on the USNS Millinocket, a high speed vessel, in 2016. However, the gun’s power wears out barrels quickly and only three vessels, DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers, can generate sufficient electricity to power them consistently.

Commenting on China’s development of super high-tech weapons, Igor Korotchenko, Director of the Center for the Analysis of World Arms Trade, said: “The Chinese military’s development plans…are taking place in the context of its rivalry with the US. Therefore, the negative commentary which may be found in the American media is a reflection of the fact that the US is coming to realize the extent of the growth in China’s military capabilities, and is alarmed by it.” (quoted by Sputnik of spacewar.com)

Thus, slowly but surely, China (and Russia) is chipping away at US weapons predominance with the days of multi-generational gaps in technology long gone. By their own assessment, Chinese military experts admit they are still about 20-25 years behind. However, by the 2040s, the playing field will have evened out much more.

China is Dominating in Patents: Thomson Reuters Study

The long-chanted mantra among Western skeptics, naysayers and Sinophobes is: “China can copy and produce but cannot innovate”.  Well, according to Thomson Reuters’ intellectual property (IP)  analysis division, Western dominance in that area is quickly coming to an end and China’s has a grand strategy in place to become a dominant player in many fields by the end of the decade.

Recall a book a couple years back argued that contrary to Western perceptions, China is getting good at ‘small’ (minor) innovations but still has a ways to go in terms of ‘game-changing’ innovations/inventions like Apple’s iPhone.  That’s currently quite true in the hyper-competitive Chinese marketplace where Chinese companies battle it out to satisfy changing consumer tastes and in setting trends.  Within a few years, the kinks in China’s IP development will be steadily hammered out and we’ll be seeing grand Chinese innovations that will surely transform consumer tastes around the world.

Key points outlined in the analysis include:

  • China Is Undisputed Patent Leader: China continues to overshadow other countries in published patent applications, publishing 629,612 patents in 2013, over 200,000 more than the U.S. This push is driven by a five-year plan in which the country has set out to reach two million applications for patents for inventions, utility models and designs by 2015.
  • Pharma Driving Patenting Boom, But Quality of IP is Suspect: China has nearly 80 percent of world share in patents for alkaloid/plant extracts, and around 60 percent of global share of pharmaceutical activity, general patents. However, these filings are held by thousands of individual inventors with a handful of patents each, rather than portfolios maintained by universities or corporate entities that would be seen stateside. As a result, the quality of the IP is likely to be unstable.
  • Domestic Innovation on the Rise, Foreign Filing Fails to Keep Up: Overall, 80 percent of China’s patents were filed domestically in 2013, leaving China’s foreign growth flat. The number of inventions filed abroad from China has grown from 13,005 in 2008 to 33,222 in 2013, however overall patenting has grown from 239,663 in 2008 to 629,612 in 2013, therefore the proportion has remained the same at 5.3 percent.
  • Burgeoning Chinese Multinationals: While China as a whole is doing substantially less international patent filing than other regions of the world, a few leaders have emerged in the global patent landscape, including Huawei, ZTE Corp, Shenzhen Huaxing Optoelectronic, Alibaba Group, BOE Technology Group, Lenovo, Tencent, BYD, SMIC and Sany. Huawei was named to the Thomson Reuters 2014 Top 100 Global Innovators list last month.
  • Planning the Next Five Years: The Chinese National Patent Development Strategy highlights the country’s plans through 2020, including seven strategic industries positioned for growth: biotechnology, alternative energy, clean energy vehicles, energy conservation, high-end equipment manufacturing, broadband infrastructure, and high-end semiconductors.

“Over the past decade, China has asserted itself as one of the preeminent players in intellectual property activity,” said Bob Stembridge, senior patent analyst, Thomson Reuters IP & Science. “By developing an IP strategy that accounts for China’s continued foray into the innovation landscape, firms can glean an advantage in this emerging market.”

The new Thomson Reuters study Chinese Corporate Trends and Globalization for IP can be downloaded from:  http://ip.thomsonreuters.com/sites/default/files/chinas-innovation-quotient.pdf

Chinese Built Electric Buses a Hit in Edmonton and Eastern Canada

Good to see Changsha made Stealth electric buses making inroads among public transit authorities across Canada.  Win-win for both sides.  If the trend continues, most probable given the positive reviews, perhaps a further step would be to assemble them in Canada and create solid jobs going forward.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Edmonton+should+plan+electric+buses+report+recommends/10416549/story.html