Chinese Ambassador Cui dismisses concern that China is a threat to the US

Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai dismissed concern that a rising China will pose a threat to the US.

Noting that a lack of understanding and misunderstanding between the two nations may prompt some to suspect China's strategic intention, Cui said China's grand strategy is open and transparent.

"It is to achieve the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and to build a strong, democratic, civilized and harmonious country,"he said. "It is not to seek global dominance, let alone challenge or replace any other nation.”

Cui's remarks were made on Wednesday evening at a reception at the US Congress to mark the 35th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the People's Republic of China and the US. Organized by the US-Asia Institute, and the US-China working groups of US Senate and House of Representatives, the event drew 150 guests, including many lawmakers, Congressional staff, think-tank pundits and business leaders.

Cui said that strategy used in the Cold War era cannot solve today's problems.

"Any attempt to establish confrontational military alliance will result in lose-lose outcome,"he said, adding that a strategy of betting on both sides won't be helpful either.

China has been wary of the US attempt to strengthen its alliance and military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, in particular with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, which have maritime territorial disputes with China.

Cui also warned against the possibility of a self-fulfilled prophecy caused by suspicion and fear.

He said statesmen in China and the US started the journey to build a new type of relationship three and four decades ago, by promoting the common interests of the two nations while constructively dealing with their differences.

"History shows that they made the right choice and laid a solid foundation for the bilateral relationship,"Cui said. "If they could understand the historic trend at the height of the Cold War, yet today's generation cannot see the reality of the 21st century and miss the historic opportunity, it will be truly regrettable,”

Cui, a former vice-foreign minister, described as "remarkable'' the progress made in the bilateral relationship in the more than 40 years since President Richard Nixon's first trip to China in 1972. He credited it to efforts by Chinese leaders and eight US presidents from both the Democratic and Republic parties.

While bilateral trade hit $500 billion in 2013, the relationship has expanded in every dimension. Exchanges between the two countries have increased dramatically, with close to 10,000 people traveling between them every day. And Chinese students in US colleges and universities numbered 230,000 a year ago, the largest group among international students.

Cui said that China and the US have maintained close cooperation on regional and global issues. Chinese military vessels are en route to participate for the first time in the Rim of Pacific naval exercise off Hawaii.

The two countries will also kick off the 6th session of the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Beijing next month to discuss a wide range of cooperation and differences.

Cui said China's development and China-US cooperation have not only brought tangible benefits to the peoples of the two countries, but also contributed greatly to the peace and prosperity to the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

"Today, China-US relations have again entered a critical juncture. The Chinese government has made a decision for comprehensive and deepened reform. Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama made a decision to make concerted efforts in building a new type of major country relationship.

"This isn't coincidence. It is because leaders of both nations have realized that the challenges in the 21st century are global and cannot be addressed by any one nation alone,"Cui said.

He said that he believes China and the US, as the largest developing nation and the largest developed nation, share huge common interests and shoulder great common responsibility for the world.

"(They) could first set up a partnership based on mutual respect and win-win cooperation,"Cui said.

China-US relations have suffered a setback in the last few months over issues of cyber security and the maritime territorial disputes in the South and East China seas.

Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center based in Beijing, said that despite the differences and tensions between China and the US, it's important for both leaders to put as much energy as possible into figuring out how to move forward on a positive agenda.

Source: ChinaDaily USA

Zhaopin IPO raises $76m on NYSE

Zhaopin Ltd, China's most popular online jobs site, went public Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $75.7 million and adding to the trend of Chinese companies offering IPOs in the United States.

Zhaopin CEO Evan Guo said the listing is a "very important event"for both the company's internal and external operations.

"Zhaopin is a very popular brand in China,"Guo said Thursday in an interview with China Daily. "The listing internally will bring us more rigid accounting policies, but I think the branding is quite critical."

"Externally, this will help us better establish a brand with job seekers,"he said. "And it fuels the credibility attached to the listing."

Zhaopin, founded in 1994, is a leading online-based employment recruitment platform in China. Operating out of its Beijing headquarters, the company offers services to more than 75 million registered users in China.

The company controls the most popular online jobs portal in China, as measured by unique daily visitors, per data from iResearch, a China-based Internet consulting group. And Guo said Zhaopin is also the second largest job recruitment provider based on revenue, second only to China-based 51job Inc.

SEEK International, Australia's largest online job site, is the majority owner of Zhaopin, with close to an 80-percent stake in the company, per data from company officials.

For the nine-month period that ended March 31, more than 11 million job postings were placed online with Zhaopin, a year-on-year increase of 56 percent according to company data.

Employers featured on Zhaopin's site include multinational corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and state-owned entities (SOEs).

Managers of Zhaopin's offering sold 5.61 million American depositary shares (ADS) at $13.50, the midpoint of the marketed range of $12.50 to $14.50 apiece. Trading under the symbol "ZPIN", shares opened at $13.50 and hit a high of $16.20 in the early afternoon before eventually closing at $14.65, up $1.15, or 8.5 percent.

Managing the deal for Zhaopin were Credit Suisse Securities and UBS Securities Investment Bank.

Zhaopin has also secured a concurrent private placement deal with Apax Partners, a New York-based equity-management group, that in conjunction with stock options for underwriters, could bring the total raised through Zhaopin's offering to more than $100 million.

Zhaopin is the latest Chinese company to go public in the US this year, a list that now includes the better part of 20 companies, according to Bloomberg News.

Three weeks ago, e-commerce giant JD.com raised $1.78 billion in the biggest IPO in the US by a Chinese company to date; it also gave the firm a foothold in the US market ahead of its much larger rival Alibaba Holdings Group Ltd, China's No 1 e-commerce firm. Alibaba's IPO, expected to be held later this year, could exceed $20 billion, according to some estimates.

"[Zhaopin] wants to concentrate on the domestic market because that's where their stronghold is,"said Josef Schuster, founder of Ipox Schuster LLC, a Chicago-based independent financial-services firm specializing in global IPOs. "They seem to be valued in line, but it always depends on whether they meet the fundamentals of earnings and revenue growth.”

Schuster also said Zhaopin is part of "another huge wave of Chinese IPO activity"taking advantage of the "window of opportunity"for Chinese IPOs ahead of Alibaba.

The other successful Chinese IPOs in the US this year may give investors confidence about Zhaopin's prospects, but at the end of the day Guo said US investors are looking for solid growth, "not just in revenue, but also for profits”.

"We're very proud not only because we have commercial value, but also social value,"Guo said. "We're not only helping people find a job, we're helping them develop a career.”

 Source: CHinaDaily USA

China's Natural response to US' encirclement. Military modernization to protect itself against military encirclement.

The Western media is again full of articles claiming a "China threat". This time the articles uncritically cite a Pentagon report that says China is engaged in "unprecedented" military development and is under-reporting the size of its military budget.

Chinas' military budget is about one-third the reported military budget of the United States. But what is virtually never mentioned is that US military and security-related costs may themselves be grossly under-reported. The US War Resistors League estimates that when other related costs are added, military costs jump up from the officially claimed 25 percent of annual Federal expenditures to 49 percent.

What's more, China's military spending must be seen against the backdrop of US foreign policy - policy which seeks to gain military, political, and economic control of the Eurasian land mass, on which China and Russia occupy central positions.

Two doctrines embodied in US foreign policy attest to this policy.

The first is the so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine, which argues that the US must never allow another superpower to emerge.

Former US under secretary of defense for policy Paul Wolfowitz stated in the initial version of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994-99 fiscal years: "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power."

The document containing this statement and similar notions was changed for public consumption after the original provoked an outcry when it was leaked to the press.

The second doctrine is that US dominance depends on control of the Eurasian landmass. This doctrine has been heavily promoted by former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who wrote in The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives: "For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the worlds' three most advanced and economically productive regions. Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played."

To that end, the US military is being expanded in an attempt to encircle both China and Russia. The US-led NATO military alliance has progressively squeezed Russia's' strategic space by enlisting one former Russian aligned state in Eastern Europe after another. Now, with a US-supported coup-imposed government in power in Ukraine , there is open talk of it being incorporated in NATO, a country right on Russia's border.

The US military has also been encircling China. Military bases and the transfer of billions of dollars in military equipment have been positioned around China for years in areas such as South Korea and Japan.

With the Obama administration's so-called "pivot to Asia," the US is employing a more ambitious program called the Air-Sea Battle Plan, which involves the deployment of large amounts of very expensive hi-tech military systems and equipment in the Pacific region aimed at China.

At the same time, new US military bases are being opened across the Pacific arena, from the Philippines to Australia, with no other conceivable target but China.

In conjunction with this Pacific military build-up, the US is attempting to use previously minor disputes over the ownership of maritime resources as a means of turning a number of smaller Asian nations into its proxies to help it destabilize China. These nations include Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines. By offering its support, and in some cases promises of military assistance in any maritime conflict with China, the US has stoked the ambitions and aggressive nationalist tendencies of these nations vis-a-vis China.

These nations should be warned that they are in fact being used as proxies. There is no guarantee that the US won't turn against them, as it did against its previous Islamic allies in Afghanistan and its previous alliance with Sadam Hussein's Iraq when it suited itself.

To put all these actions against China in perspective, we need to consider who is really the aggressive actor in Asia.

The US has several hundred military bases in other countries, including Asia, while China has none. The US is impinging militarily and politically in China's Asian backyard, but China is not interfering in the US' relations or military activities in the US' backyards of North and South America.

The US has a doctrine of global supremacy; China has no such notion and its foreign policy doctrine is "non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations" and "peaceful co-existence"; China basically wishes to be left alone to develop economically and to engage in economic trade with other nations.

China is no doubt engaged in military modernization. But protecting itself against menacing military encirclement, rather than alleged aggressive tendencies, is the key reason for this.

Source: ChinaDailyUSA

China to further simplify administrative approval procedures for investments and businesses

China's top economic planning body, the National Development and Development Reform Commission says it will delegate more powers and further simplify administrative approval procedures.

In a press conference on Thursday, the NDRC says China will continue to deepen reform of its administrative system. The Commission said that administration will be streamlined and more power will be delegated to lower-level governments. This year, China will cancel or delegate to lower-level governments an additional 200 plus items which earlier required State Council review and approval.

Meanwhile, it says China will deepen reform of the investment approval system, abolish or simplify preliminary review and approval procedures, give businesses full power over their investment decisions, and make it easy to make investments and start businesses.

Source: Xinhua

China plans to relax rules for permanent residence to welcome foreign talent.

With China becoming an increasingly attractive destination for global talent, the government  is considering revising rules to its permanent residency. The government is considering implementing more flexible and pragmatic standards for applications.

The green card system was introduced in China a decade ago. By 2012, only about 5,000 foreigners had obtained permanent residence— a very small number compared to 600,000 living in China at the time. About 1,300 of them were granted green cards through a foreign scientist recruitment plan.

South Korea, the Philippines and Brazil are the top three countries whose citizens settle down in China.

Having lived in Shanghai for the past ten years, Dai Liang has totally adapted to the city. Working as an independent artist, most of time in singing, Dai has enjoyed his life here, and six months ago he started to prepare his application for a green card.

"If you get a green card that is great so that you can have long-term plan, and also it feels like recognition of your achievements in the country," Dai said.

Dai’s old passport is a collection of all kinds of visa he required to stay in China, from student visa to business visa and his current work visa.

Working as an independent artist, he finds difficulties in finding specific documents required for the green card, so he can only try hard to collect recommendation letters by his own means. But the question is: where should he hand in these files?

Dai first went to the exit and entry bureau of the district in which he lives, but he was told only the municipal bureau has the right to deal with his case. He headed to the main bureau, and came out 45 minutes later.

"It is very difficult to get green card. First, the information is very hard to get, as to people like me who work for themselves, such as freelancer, the situation will be even more difficult, but at least I got the answer how to do it, already better than six months ago," Dai said.

China has not set up a complete migration system to cope with the global competition for human resources. The upcoming policy of lowering the threshold of green card could be step forward to welcome more talented people from around the world.

Source: Xinhua

China to relax control over Qulalified Domestic & Foreign Institutional Investors

 China has signaled it will relax control over Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors (QDII) and Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) in a showcase of its determination to speed up the yuan's convertibility under the capital account.

The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said Wednesday in its 2013 annual report that it will further expand the group of institutional investors under the QDII and QFII schemes and raise their investment quotas.

"When the situation becomes ripe, the country will cancel the approval on qualifications and quotas to let all legitimate institutions at home and abroad enjoy investment opportunities," the report said.

China launched the QFII scheme in 2002 to allow licensed foreign investors to use offshore yuan to invest in China's capital market. Currently, 229 institutions are included in the program with a combined investment quota of 150 billion U.S. dollars.

The QDII scheme was launched in 2006 to allow domestic institutions to invest abroad. More than 100 institutions are qualified at present with a combined quota of 76.79 billion U.S. dollars.

Guo Tianyong, a professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said the central bank's decision to gradually cancel the approval signaled its determination to make the yuan convertible under the capital account.

"It shows that the process of making the yuan convertible will be accelerated in the future," Guo said.

The central bank did not give a timetable for any changes in the QDII and QFII programs.

Source: Xinhua

WSJ: Alibaba to Detail Internet Business in New IPO Document

      The WSJ reports,"Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., responding to concerns from investors that it has been too tight-lipped, plans to give out more details about its Internet empire as it readies its potential $20 billion initial public offering, said people familiar with the matter.

The Chinese e-commerce company, which plans to go public in the next few months, is preparing a new regulatory filing that will give metrics on some of its individual businesses, the people said. It will also disclose the names of the 28 partners with the power to nominate the company's board, the people said. The new filing could arrive as soon as Friday, but next week is more likely".

"Alibaba and its banks are responding to some complaints from investors that the company's initial IPO filing was too vague and didn't give them enough information to size up the company.

While companies are typically eager to keep investors happy, the stakes in this case are higher because the company's IPO could be the biggest ever. The sheer number of shares up for sale means bankers need to ensure there is deep enough demand from the largest investors.

Bankers have received some general feedback from investors, the people said, though the formal pricing and sales process isn't expected to begin until later in the summer.

Some big investment firms are expected to consider buying as much as $1 billion worth of stock, a slug that would make Alibaba one of the biggest holdings at some firms.

Alibaba's bankers hope to have demand from big fund firms for at least four or five times the amount the company is selling, people familiar with their thinking said, to help ensure there is ample demand once the company's stock trades publicly to buoy the price. In a typical IPO, bankers might seek orders from the biggest investors for just two or three times as much as they are selling.

That means if Alibaba wants to raise $20 billion, the underwriters will need to identify and generate demand for potentially more than $100 billion worth of shares to meet that goal.

Companies often revise IPO documents after the initial filing. Alibaba is in the process of fielding questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which must approve the document before shares can be priced and sold.

Before that approval comes, and before the company sets an expected price range on the stock, the company cannot speak to investors. Its bankers, however, can talk to investors generally about the company, though they cannot solicit from investors whether they would invest, or at what price they would buy in, according to U.S. rules.

The listing, in New York, is currently being planned for the first half of August, though the timing isn't set in stone, the people said. The company expects to shop the deal to investors globally, with large meetings in hubs possibly including Hong Kong, New York and London, they added".

WSJ: Iraq Conflict Weighs on Asian Shares

"Asian stocks moved lower on Friday, as concerns over growing instability in Iraq hit sentiment ahead of a flurry of Chinese economic data.

The Nikkei Share Average was down 0.6%, with the market weighed by a yen that strengthened as news reports showed Iraq edging toward all-out sectarian conflict. The dollar lost 0.4% against the safe haven currency in the previous session, its third consecutive decline, though it picked up a touch in Asian trade. It was last at ¥101.80, compared with ¥101.71 late Thursday in New York.

"Risk-off sentiment and the threat of renewed U.S. military involvement in Iraq, which looks like it might be headed for civil war, will keep investors in sell more—or sidelined," said Norihiro Fujito, a senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

The unrest in Iraq also pushed the price of oil 0.8% higher in Asian trade, with the July Nymex crude futures contract trading at $107.33 per barrel, adding to a 2% jump on Thursday.

Furthermore, Asia got a negative lead from U.S. stocks, with Wall Street ending lower after retail sales numbers missed expectations.

South Korea's Kospi lost 1%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.8%, and Singapore's Straits Times Index lost 0.1%.

The higher cost of oil boosted shares in energy companies, while hurting firms dependent on fuel, such as airlines. In Australia, Woodside Petroleum added 1.9% and Qantas Airways  lost 2.4%.

Also in Australia, miners took another hit after the price of iron ore fell to a 21-month low. Fortescue Metals Group  and Atlas Iron were down 4.4% and 3.3% respectively.

The main economic highlight for Asia will come from China, with the world's second largest economy releasing industrial output numbers and well as retail sales data. The trend for data this month has suggested stabilization in the Chinese economy, following upbeat export and manufacturing data.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was mostly steady ahead of the data, up 0.1%, and the Shanghai Composite Index was flat"".

UCWeb founder and CEO Yu Yongfu : all the dirt on Alibaba’s acquisition of UCWeb

Yesterday, Alibaba and UCWeb jointly announced the former’s full acquisition of the latter, publicly calling it the biggest merger in the history of Chinese internet companies. Today, UCWeb founder and CEO Yu Yongfu gave an interview to foreign media to discuss his company’s role within Alibaba moving forward. While he remained vague about some of the details, here’s everything we’ve learned so far: Really bigger than Baidu’s $1.9 billion acquisition of 91 Wireless? Many were skeptical of this claim when it was put forward in the Chinese press release, and Yu avoided stating the exact sum of money involved in the merger. However, we do know that claim is based on UCWeb’s entire valuation, not just the remaining one-third of the shares that Alibaba didn’t already own. Yu said that because the majority of the transaction was paid for in Alibaba stock instead of cash, the final price will be dependent on Alibaba’s valuation, which analysts estimate around US$168 billion. In fact, Yu even boasted that UCWeb could drive Alibaba’s stock value. We can say with some confidence that UCWeb’s valuation lies somewhere south of US$3.4 billion. That’s because Alibaba is required to publicly report any acquisitions worth more than 20 percent of its assets, which now stand at around US$17 billion according to its SEC prospectus. We’ll know for sure how much Alibaba paid when it updates the prospectus. Where does UCWeb stand now? UCWeb will maintain all of its branding for UC products like its mobile browser as well as the two companies’ joint project, Shenma. Mobile search engine Shenma is aiming for 200 million users by the end of this year. “In our internal deliberations, mobile search will be an important sector for innovation,” Yu said. The company’s flagship mobile browser was last reported to have 500 million quarterly active users globally. UCWeb’s mobile ad revenues will generate an estimated US$200 million, which are shared roughly 50-50 between the company and its partners. That number is expected to exceed US$500 million next year. The company’s gaming arm will also pull in more than US$100 million this year, and is projected to surpass US$250 million in 2015. Yu says in three to five years, he plans to cross the one billion user mark across all the company’s products. Once UCWeb is fully integrated into Alibaba, it will become the ‘Ali UC mobile business group,’ which will jointly lead development for browsers, mobile search, mobile gaming, mobile reading, and location-based services. It will also control PP Assistant, which UCWeb acquired in December, and will work with Alibaba’s other portfolio companies like Youku and Weibo. Why Alibaba? Yu has famously said before that UCWeb is “not for sale,” but the CEO said today the offer came directly from Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma two months ago, and he hadn’t even considered an acquisition prior to that. Ma and Yu first met in December 2008, and shortly thereafter Alibaba invested in UCWeb. The two companies have been close ever since, and Yu says he trusts Ma. “We share the same vision and the same dream together,” Yu says.

Alibaba pumped an additional round into UCWeb last year, which brought Alibaba’s stake to 66 percent. So why wholly acquire UCWeb if Alibaba already owned a majority stake? Yu explained that the majority of UCWeb’s voting board members were from his own company, so Alibaba didn’t really have control. Also, being a separate company made it difficult to consolidate and share finances. Yu says he’s confident in Alibaba’s impending IPO. As for helping Alibaba spread to international markets where UCWeb has proven popular – India, Southeast Asia, Russia – Yu said the two companies “will help each other,” but didn’t give any specifics.

Source: TECHINASIA

WSJ: Iraq Scrambles to Defend Baghdad

      The WSJ reports, "Iraq's government girded to protect the capital from advancing insurgents, as Iranian security officials said their forces had joined the battle on Baghdad's side and the U.S. weighed military assistance, including airstrikes.

Iraq edged closer to all-out sectarian conflict as Kurdish forces took control of a provincial capital in the oil-rich north on Thursday and Sunni militants threatened to march on two cities revered by Shiite Muslims and the capital.

"What we have seen over the last couple of days indicates the degree to which Iraq is going to need more help—more help from us and more help from the international community," President Barack Obama said from the Oval Office. "My team is working around the clock to identify how we can provide the most effective assistance to them," he added. "I don't rule out anything."

The deteriorating situation in Iraq—a key global oil supplier—reverberated through financial markets Thursday, sending oil prices sharply higher, pushing U.S. stocks lower and igniting the latest rally in safe-haven bonds.

Faced with the threat of Sunni extremists eclipsing the power of Iraq's Shiite-dominated rulers, Shiite Iran sprang into action to aid its besieged Arab ally. It deployed Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, Iranian security sources said. At least three battalions of the Quds Forces, the overseas branch of the Guards, were dispatched, the security sources said.

Some U.S. military officials cast doubt on the report that battalions of Iranian Quds Forces had deployed to Iraq, saying only militias controlled by or allied with Iran have been mobilized to fight alongside Iraqi forces.

One Revolutionary Guards unit that was already in Iraq fought alongside the Iraqi army against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an offshoot of al Qaeda rapidly gaining territory across Iraq, the security sources said.

They offered guerrilla-warfare advice and tactics and helped to reclaim most of the city of Tikrit on Thursday, the security sources said. Two units, dispatched from Iran's western border provinces on Wednesday, were tasked with protecting Baghdad and the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, they said.

Gen. Qasem Sulaimani, the commander of the Quds Forces and one of the region's most powerful military figures, traveled to Baghdad this week to help manage the swelling crisis, said a member of the Revolutionary Guards.

With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government proving incapable of containing the widening strife, Iraq's mosaic of ethnic and religious groups has become combustible, as each is forced to take steps to defend its security. The prime minister's office hasn't responded to repeated requests for comment.

Iraqi officials have signaled they would allow U.S. airstrikes on militants, senior U.S. officials said. Iraqi officials have asked the U.S. to speed delivery of promised military support, particularly Apache helicopters, F-16 fighters and surveillance equipment, to help push back ISIS fighters. The U.S. said it has been expediting shipments of military hardware to the Iraqis all year.

ISIS is capitalizing on a wave of Sunni discontent with the Shiite-dominated governments that have ruled Iraq since Hussein's ouster in 2003.

The group aims to set up a state in a continuous stretch of territory from Sunni-dominated Anbar province in Iraq to Raqqa province in northeast Syria. Since capturing Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, on Tuesday it has advanced south along the Tigris River toward Baghdad.

In another indication of the increasingly sectarian contours of Iraq's turmoil, ISIS on Thursday issued a threat against Baghdad as well as Karbala and Najaf. The latter two cities, along with Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, are considered sacred to Shiites, who make up 60% of Iraq's population.

The threat by ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani came a day after the powerful Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr urged his followers to form military units to defend the two cities.

Before he suspended its operations in 2008, Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army, a militia once estimated to have nearly 60,000 members, played a major role in the country's Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict. That clash was fueled by the political emergence of Shiites, who had been marginalized and persecuted at the hands of Sunnis during Hussein's nearly 25-year rule".

The Guardian: Trail of jihadist victories in Iraq could force renewed military action from US

Barack Obama looking to help government after Isis seizes Mosul and Tikrit and closes on Baghdad while Kurds take Kirkuk

"We do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria, for that matter," Obama said, adding that there were "short-term, immediate things that will need to be done militarily – and our national security team is looking at all the options". US troops withdrew from Iraq in late 2011 after an eight-year occupation of the country that began with the 2003 invasion. On Thursday the US began airlifting planeloads of its citizens from Iraq.

Kurdish fighters poured into the disputed northern city of Kirkuk to head off the militants from Isis, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, whose fighters have surged through the north in recent days, encountering little or no resistance from Iraqi army troops who have deserted in their thousands. Isis took the town of Dhuluiyah and was within 60 miles of the capital, local people said. Hundreds of thousands of people have been uprooted by the militant advance. The UN security council was meeting to discuss the sudden crisis.

The Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, offered no reaction as the cities of Mosul and Tikrit fell from his control in the space of three days. He failed to achieve a quorum in parliament needed to impose a state of emergency, and also failed to win the numbers to ask the UN for air strikes and drone attacks against Isis.

The streets of Baghdad were eerie and empty as Isis members took to social media taunting residents that they were advancing towards the capital. Local people have been stockpiling food, fearing that a much talked about enemy is almost at the city's gates.

"They are only 40 miles away," said Fadhil Muthanar, a trader in east Baghdad. "They are hiding in the reeds, in the ruins, waiting to come to the capital. And the Iraqi army can do nothing. Perhaps it will defend the Green Zone [seat of power]. But nothing more. God help us all."

Iraqi officials estimate the total number of Isis forces in Iraq at around 6,000, spread between Mosul, Ramadi, Falluja, Tikrit and the surrounding countryside.

Isis has been handing out flyers in the towns it has seized assuring residents who have remained that it is there to protect their interests. The campaign for hearts and minds is gaining some traction, with some residents railing against perceived injustices at the hands of the Shia majority government. But on Thursday it said it would introduce sharia law in Mosul and other towns, warning women to stay indoors and threatening to cut off the hands of thieves. "People, you have tried secular regimes ... This is now the era of the Islamic State," it proclaimed.

Among those who took control of Tikrit were large numbers of former Ba'ath party members. Ba'athists were the cornerstone of Saddam Hussein's regime and have been persecuted ever since. Residents of Tikrit said some insurgents were wearing the drab green military fatigues worn by Saddam's army. "There are no Isis flags in town," said one local woman. "They are playing Saddam and Ba'ath party songs."

The Kurdish regional government, which has made much of its autonomy since Saddam was toppled, dismissed the prospect of Isis fighters advancing into its seat of power. A Kurdish minister, Sheikh Jaafar Mustafa, said: "This will not happen because we will defend Kirkuk to the last drop of our blood, and I am sure the youth will voluntarily defend that part of Kurdistan."

Kurdish commanders and officials could barely hide their euphoria after being handed a reason to seize Kirkuk – an ethnically contested enclave at the heart of tensions between Baghdad and Erbil since well before 2003. In scenes reminiscent of the fall of Baghdad 11 years ago, Kurdish troops, known as peshmerga, stood by as Kurds and local people looted Iraqi security bases in Kirkuk, carrying away weapons and office furniture, and driving off with armoured humvees. Some peshmurga appeared to join in the looting.

In open defiance of Baghdad, to which the KRG is notionally subservient, Mustafa said the peshmerga felt free to travel anywhere in the country. "Sending peshmerga to any part of Iraq has to be according to plan and on the formal orders of the Kurdish president, who is the commander of Kurdistan's armed forces," he said. "Then the peshmerga will be ready to go anywhere."

While happy to celebrate the symbolism implicit in controlling Kirkuk, Kurdish leaders were reluctant to frame the move as a leap towards a claim for statehood. But with central governance collapsing, Baghdad fears that the Kurds will, at the very least, consolidate control of Kirkuk.

Peshmerga forces mocked the Iraqi army on Thursday, holding up uniforms and weapon clips that troops had discarded as they fled. Most Kurds were driven out of Kirkuk during the Saddam years and only limited numbers have been able to return since the fall of the ousted dictator and the turbulent years that have followed. A mooted referendum on the province has long been delayed. Large oilfields near the city remain targets of the insurgents who aim to cause as much disruption as possible to state utilities.

In nearby Samara, where insurgents have been negotiating with Iraqi army officials, car dealer Taher Hassan said militants had turned up on Sunday and quickly taken control of most of the city.

He said: "All the local police forces have pulled out of their bases in the city. The fighters are negotiating with the tribes who are in charge of the two shrines so they can try to convince army forces near the shrine to hand themselves over without a fight.Everyone in Samara is happy with the fighters' management of the city. They have proved to be professional and competent. The fighters themselves did not harm or kill anyone as they swept forward. Any man who hands over his arm is safe, whatever his background. This attitude is giving a huge comfort to people here. We have lived enough years of injustice, revenge and tyranny and we can't stand any more."

Zhaopin Fully Acquires Chinese Business of Jobs DB for $15.72mn

Zhaopin, a leading Chinese career platform that has filed for an U.S. IPO this May, has entered into a share purchase agreement with Jobs DB Inc. to acquire a 100% stake in Jobs DB China Investments Ltd., a subsidiary for the former, for US$15.72 million, according to the amended prospectus of the company. The cash consideration for the transaction has been paid to Jobs DB Inc., the company added.

According to Zhaopin, the acquisition was made mainly to buyback the stakes in CJOL, a privately held recruitment service in southern China that Zhaopin has sold its indirectly held stakes to Jobs DB in 2011. At the time of the disposition, Jobs DB Inc. was 55% owned by SEEK, a major shareholder of Zhaopin. After this transaction, Jobs DB Inc. was an entity controlled by SEEK.

According to the company, stake in CJOL was sold in 2011 to reposition resources in accordance with business strategies at the time and it is purchased now to improve Zhaopin’s competitive position in southern China as they are expanding into those regions. Through its 100% consolidated affiliate in China, Jobs DB China indirectly controls approximately 75.6% equity interest in CJOL.

Launched in 1998, the Hong Kong-headquartered recruiting service Jobs DB is now offering services in 12 countries and regions, including Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Singapore, the U.S., etc.

Source: TechNode

Chinese Smart TV Maker LeTV Now Sells Android TV at $160

Source: TechNode

LeTV, the Chinese Android TV maker, recently launched updated editions of two models and sharply lowered prices. LeTV claims the prices can merely cover bills of materials and won’t expect to make profits from hardware any longer.

It’s unknown whether it has something to do with the rumor that Qihoo 360, one of the largest Chinese Internet companies, has invested in LeTV, for Zhou Hongyi, CEO of the company, always touts his building-user-base-through-free-services-and-then-monetizing-it-in-other-ways strategy and once said smart hardware makers should follow this strategy too.

With updated specs, the new S40, named S40 Air, is priced 999 yuan (about $160), 50% lower than the original one that was launched a little more than one year ago. The price point must remind many of the movement in China since sometime around 2011 that Android smartphone makers worked hard to make smartphones sold at around or lower 1000 yuan so that most Chinese would afford a one. The LeTV move seems to show that the cost for an average spec Android TV can be low enough that 1000-yuan smart TV movement is around the corner.

The prices for the updated 50-inch S50, with the first model launched last October, were lowered 20% for the 2D edition and 16% for the 3D edition, respectively. The two now are priced the same as the launch prices for the latest Xiaomi Android smartphones.

Although it claims there’ll be no profit in the two models, LeTV still charges an annual content subscription fee, RMB499 (about $80) — including the 999 yuan S40 Air. It’s actually the only smart TV maker in China that does so. Or it’s because it’s the only one that owns an online video site and a plenty of content rights.

Consumers should pay for two-year subscriptions when buying any LeTV . Since the very first LeTV model has been around for a little more than one year, it’s unknown whether consumers would like to pay for more years or buy a new one with higher specs or priced even lower considering the fast tech advancement. To make long-term money, LeTV has to either lower the annual fee or keep users buy new smart TVs from LeTV.

Of course LeTV has many other ways to make money as it also owns the online video site, video rights bought in the past years, movie/video production company, among others.

Both S40 Air and S50 Air launched a celebrity edition that charges several hundred yuan higher. The S40 Air one offers contents from a Chinese best-selling writer and movie director and the S50 Air one includes contents related to soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. See, many more ways to make money.

With new partnership, Tesla set to build 40 Supercharger stations across China

Tesla  has just three Supercharger stations in China right now where its electric cars can juice up. But Tesla has confirmed today that it’s all set to build 40 Superchargers in China thanks to a new partnership with two of China’s biggest retail and real estate companies. The tie-up with InTime Retail  and SOHO  will see the charging stations installed at malls owned by the two Chinese firms. While Tesla’s current Superchargers are limited to Beijing and Shanghai, the new deal will bring stations to new cities, such as Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu.

Tesla started shipping vehicles to Chinese customers in April, but only for those in Beijing and Shanghai, where the company had charger stations ready. This new deal will allow Tesla to start shipping its vehicles to customers in other cities. Once Tesla has 40 dedicated charging points in China, the nation will be better covered than Europe, which has 20 stations at present, according to Tesla’s homepage. There are 96 across the US.

Source: TECHINASIA

China Won't Sink Copper. No reason to panic for recent price slump.

     The WSJ reports,"copper spot prices have slumped 4% since reports that Chinese authorities are cracking down on traders who use metals such as copper as collateral for loans. The case is complicated by evidence that a trader may have used metal stored at the northeastern port of Qingdao as collateral for multiple loans, possibly defrauding several Western banks, including Standard Chartered and Citigroup.

There is a legitimate fear that traders might dump copper onto the market to pay back suddenly scrutinized loans. It also raises the worry that other assets across China, say, office buildings, also have been used to secure multiple loans, without lenders knowing they all hold liens on the same collateral".

"But unlike China's systemically important property sector, copper is unlikely to produce dire consequences.

"While transparency is sorely lacking in China's metal markets, analysts estimate that between 600,000 and 890,000 tons sit in bonded warehouses inside customs zones. That is at maximum equal to 4% of global supply this year, according to Macquarie's Vivienne Lloyd. If traders sell it all, there is no doubt copper prices would take the hit.

Yet it is hard to believe all these mounds of metal will get dumped. Ms. Lloyd estimates that 600,000 tons are held by parties who have endured credit squeezes before, or by importers who will actually use the metal instead of speculating with it.

That leaves 290,000 tons that could flow out of Chinese warehouses. At 1.3% of supply, that will have a more modest effect on copper prices. A crackdown on Chinese commodity financing in March, along with jitters about industrial growth, sent copper down 10% before it recovered. It is possible the latest selloff will prove fleeting as the raw copper finds a home in better-regulated warehouses in Singapore and Malaysia"".

"Unlike iron-ore prices, which are flailing under weaker Chinese infrastructure spending, copper is still needed by Chinese consumers for electrical goods and autos. Copper is globally oversupplied now, but demand will edge higher by 2017", says Deutsche Bank. 

"Qingdao might be the tip of China's shadow-lending iceberg, and a reminder to investors to stay skeptical of China's financial system. But as for copper, it will likely gain back at least some of its luster".

Chinese Job-Seeking Website's IPO : Zhaopin Shares Rise in Trading Debut

Shares of Chinese online job-seeking website Zhaopin.,  com rose sharply above the IPO price of $13.50 in their debut in New York on Thursday.

Zhaopin Ltd. was trading at $15.67 near midday, up 16%. The stock opened at $14.51, a penny above the upper end of the IPO price range the company had set earlier in its process of going public.

The company said its IPO of 5.6 million shares was valued at $75.7 million, without assuming the underwriters would exercise their overallotment option.

Zhaopin's performance is seen as a barometer of investor appetite for China's technology sector in advance of the much anticipated float later this year of shares of online shopping and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Alibaba's IPO could raise $20 billion, which would make it one of the largest IPOs in U.S. history.

"A lot of talent view an IPO, particularly in the U.S., as a landmark for a Chinese company, that you've become a more professional company."

The company said it plans to use the proceeds from the sale of American depository shares—which allow foreign-based companies to trade on U.S. exchanges—to spur growth, expand into new markets, improve its website and acquire other companies. The IPO was underwritten by Credit Suisse Group AG  and UBS AG 's investment bank.

Zhaopin has an unusual way of deciding whether to enter new markets: It looks for coffee shops. If a small Chinese city has a Starbucks,  Pacific Coffee or a similar coffee seller, Mr. Guo said, the city likely has a significant number of job seekers looking for office positions, Zhaopin's target market.

"Coffee culture is an indication that people are becoming white collar," Mr. Guo said.

Among the hot industries in China these days include finance, software and engineers, the company said. Zhaopin, which means "recruit" in Chinese, sells annual memberships to some 250,000 companies that advertise for employees on Zhaopin's website.

Most annual memberships cost between 3,000 and 5,000 yuan, or between $482 and $803, Mr. Guo said. Job seekers aren't charged.

The Beijing company is majority owned by Seek International, Australia's largest online job site.

For the nine-month period ended March 31, Zhaopin posted a profit of 130.1 million yuan, up 10% from a year earlier. Its net revenue for the period was 739.7 million yuan, up 18%.

The company said it had 74 million registered users in 2013, citing iResearch Public Data, an Internet research firm, and is the second-largest online recruitment site in China by revenue after 51Job.com.

Rapid growth in the online job-search industry is driven by Chinese economic expansion, the migration of millions of Chinese from rural areas to cities and the shift in China's economic focus from exports and investment to services, high tech and consumer-led industries, the company said.

Also benefiting online recruitment is a tighter labor market that has pushed up wages and left more employers eager to find well-qualified employees.

Analysts estimate there are some 140 million people seeking professional jobs in China.