China engine order eases Rolls-Royce woes

British engine maker Rolls-Royce Plc won a $1.8 billion order from Air China, offering some respite to the company which had been hit by safety fears over another of its engines.


The world's second-largest maker of aircraft engines said on Monday it had received an order from Air China to provide Trent XWB engines for 10 Airbus A350 XWB aircraft and Trent 700 engines for 10 Airbus A330 planes.


Those are different engines to the Trent 900, one of which failed on a Qantas Airbus A380 flight this month, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing.


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Soros: China has better functioning government than U.S.

 If nothing else, Glenn Beck probably has his top story set for tonight's show:

"There is a really remarkable, rapid shift of power and influence from the United States to China," Mr. Soros said, likening the U.S.'s decline to that of the U.K. after the Second World War.

Because global economic power is shifting, Mr. Soros said China needs to change its focus. "China has risen very rapidly by looking out for its own interests," he said. "They have now got to accept responsibility for world order and the interests of other people as well."

Mr. Soros even went so far as to say that at times China wields more power than the U.S. because of the political gridlock in Washington. "Today China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States," he said, a hard statement for him to make because he spent much of his life donating to anti-communist groups in Eastern Europe.

Soros's statement is similar to the frequent "China-for-a-day" musings of columnist Tom Friedman. 
On a related subject,  Kay King of the Council on Foreign Relations has a new report out on the U.S. congress's impact on national security. King's critiques of congressional procedure, in particular the filibuster, won't be news to anyone who's read recent critiques of congressional dysfunction, but she makes a compelling case that because of limited public interest, congress is effectively abandoning its oversight role on national security affairs. Issues like energy, trade, and immigration are typically treated as purely domestic issues by congress, while membership on foreign affairs committees appeal only to members positioning themselves for higher office or those dependent on ethnic or business special interests.
King writes: 

When Congress fails to perform, national security suffers thanks to ill-considered policies, delayed or inadequate resources, and insufficient personnel. Without congressional guidance, allies and adversaries alike devalue U.S. policies because they lack the support of the American peopel that is provided through their representatives in Congress.

King provides a number of ideas for reform which will hopefully be a bit more palatable to U.S. sensibilities than taking cues on good governance from Beijing.


source:http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/16/soros_china_has_better_functioning_government_than_us

Chinas's Super Computer

China overtook the united states at the head on the world of supercomputing on Sunday each time a survey ranked one regarding its machines the fastest on this planet.

Tianhe-1, meaning Milky manner, achieved a computing pace of 2, 570 trillion data per second, earning it the cell number one spot in the superior 500 (www. top500. org) study of supercomputers.

The Jaguar computer for a US government facility within Tennessee, which had held the most notable spot, was ranked second that has a speed of 1, 750 trillion calculations per second.

Tianhe-1 does its warp-speed "thinking" along at the National Centre for Supercomputing within the northern port city of Tianjin -- using generally chips designed by ALL OF US companies.

Another Chinese system, the Nebulae machine at the National Supercomputing Centre while in the southern city of Shenzhen, came up in third.

The u . s . still dominates, with more than half of the entries from the Top 500 list, but China now boasts 42 systems while in the rankings, putting it before Japan, France, Germany plus Britain.

It is not at first chance that the United claims has had its electronic digital crown stolen by the Asian upstart. In 2002, Japan made a equipment with more power versus top 20 American computers put together.

The supercomputers on the most notable 500 list, which is produced twice a year, are rated based upon speed of performance inside a benchmark test by industry experts from Germany and the nation.

Rapid Hotel Building in China

Is it save? build for only 6 days???

Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days

As the United States and China battle over the finer points of currency manipulation at the G-20 summit, American negotiators may want to take note of this startling testimonial to the productivity of Chinese workers: A construction crew in the south-central Chinese city of Changsha has completed a 15-story hotel in just six days. If nothing else, this remarkable achievement will stoke further complaints from American economic pundits that China's economy is far more accomplished than ours in tending to such basics as construction.


Meanwhile, it's easy to imagine the disorientation of Changsha residents who'd gone away, or who just hadn't recently ventured into the downtown neighborhood of the new Ark Hotel: "Honey, I don't remember a hotel there, do you?"


The work crew erected the hotel -- a soundproofed, thermal-insulated structure reportedly built to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake -- with all prefabricated materials. In other words, a crew of off-site factory workers built the sections, and their on-site counterparts arranged them on the foundation for the Ark project.


source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101112/bs_yblog_upshot/chinese-workers-build-15-story-hotel-in-just-six-days

General Motor IPO Issue

Seems look like china want to dominate automotive market in US and world, just my opinion.

China to play role in General Motors IPO

By SHARON SILKE CARTY, AP Auto Writer Sharon Silke Carty, Ap Auto Writer – Sat Nov 13, 3:39 pm ET

DETROIT – Among the banks helping General Motors with its initial public stock offering next week are two identified by initials only: ICBC and CICC.


Americans uncomfortable with U.S. government ownership of General Motors may want to hear more: One of those banks is the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of China's four big central government banks. The other, China International Capital Corp., is a joint venture run primarily by Central Huijin Investment Ltd., an arm of the state, and Morgan Stanley.
This is the first time Chinese government banks have participated in a major U.S.-issued IPO, according to IPO tracking firm Dealogic. The banks are listed as co-managers in the offering, meaning they will sell a portion of the new shares.


Chinese automaker SAIC, GM's partner in China, is finalizing plans to buy a roughly 1 percent stake, worth about $500 million, in GM's IPO, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. SAIC is owned by the Shanghai city government.


Other foreign investors that are interested include several sovereign wealth funds located in the Middle East and Asia. The Journal says those funds, which manage the finances of royal families and some nations, could invest $1 billion in GM's IPO.


There could be political backlash for President Barack Obama, who has spent the past week in Asia addressing economic issues, like currency exchange differences between the U.S. and China. Obama has argued that China artificially deflates its currency, the yuan, in an attempt to make its exports cheaper.


Many Americans were unhappy when the U.S. bailed out GM, calling the company "Government Motors."


GM 's Nov. 18 stock offering will reduce the U.S. Treasury's stake in the company from 61 percent to 43 percent, and will help payback the more than $50 billion that taxpayers invested in GM to keep it from collapsing. More stock offerings will happen in the next year or so, letting the government fully divest from the automaker.


"It's a very political topic, but what Americans need to remember is that General Motors is an international company," says Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Automotive. "If we want to get our money back, we need to understand that they have to do business on a global basis."
The U.S. Treasury has been clear that international investors are welcome to invest in GM, and many outside the U.S. are considering taking stakes in the company.


"We expect that a large and diverse group of institutional investors will be offered an opportunity to participate, with no single investor or group of investors receiving a disproportionate share or unusual treatment," the Treasury said in a recent statement.


The U.S. has become a popular haven for Chinese investors, second only to Australia in attracting Chinese stock investments, says Derek Scissors, a research fellow at conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation. The first half of 2010 was a record year for China, Scissors says. China has sunk $45 billion into investments and engineering projects worldwide. About $1.6 billion of those investments came to the U.S.


In China, businesses operate with the funding and blessing of the government, says Tim Dunne, director of global automotive operations for J.D. Power and Associates. The government behaves like an interested shareholder, ensuring companies have competent management and ensuring the companies boost economic growth in their regions.


Many Chinese automakers are looking for a way into the U.S. market, he says. China is the largest car market in the world, but the U.S. is the most profitable, he says.


"The amount of money changing hands here is much greater," he says. The average selling price of a car in the U.S. is $27,500, compared with about $17,000 in China. "Multiply that over millions of vehicles, and it's quite a difference."


SAIC and GM already have a long-standing partnership in China -- GM could not sell cars in China without partnering with a local business -- and it's unclear what size stake SAIC may take in GM. The deal would need Chinese government approval.


Chris Theodore, president of consulting firm Theodore & Associates, says SAIC's investment in GM is likely an attempt to strengthen its ties with the automaker. Theodore, who was part of a group that tried to take over Volvo before it was sold to China's Geely group, says SAIC isn't the kind of company that can branch out into U.S. sales. Most of its models use GM technology and are essentially GM cars.


"They rely on GM for a lot of their profitability," Theodore says.
Michael Maduell, president of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, a California-based group that watches sovereign wealth fund investments, says global investors are looking at the U.S. because they believe the overall market is undervalued. Other potential investors in GM include Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and Singapore's Temasek, which are both known for actively investing in companies, Maduell says.


Investors are "looking at emerging markets, like China and India, but all those assets are overvalued," Maduell says. "America still has a lot of fantastic investment opportunities in real estate and small- to mid-cap stocks."


source:http://news.yahoo.com