China defense spending seen rising as territorial rows deepen

A series of territorial disputes with its neighbors will ensure China boosts defense spending when it reveals this year’s military budget ahead of the annual parliamentary sitting next week, security experts say.

After almost three decades of sharply increased military outlays, an increasingly assertive China now has the firepower to challenge rivals claiming strategically important and resource-rich territory in the East China and South China seas.

The Chinese navy, now second in size only to the U.S. fleet in terms of raw numbers, has become a genuine blue-water force and is conducting almost continuous patrols and exercises in these contested waters.

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David Lague and Terril Yue Jones, Reuters via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/9f8JD7ZJKJ0/

China Tightens Mortgage Rules as Home Price Increases Continue

China told its central bank to raise down-payment requirements and interest rates for second-home mortgages in cities with “excessively fast” price gains as authorities step up efforts to cool the property market.

The central banks’ regional branches may implement the measures in accordance with the price-control targets of local governments, the central government said in a statement on its website today. Cities facing “relatively large” pressure from rising housing prices must further tighten home-purchase limits, according to the statement.

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Zhang Dingmin, Bloomberg News via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/m0JRnceGAcg/

China Bank Securitizing U.S. Loans

Add one more item to the list of products “made in China”: debt backed by commercial mortgages.

Bank of China Ltd. is already one of the largest foreign lenders to commercial real estate in the U.S., helping finance prestige properties. Now, it is staking a claim in the red-hot market for bonds backed by packages of commercial-real-estate loans.

In November, Bank of China became the first Chinese lender to participate in the sale of U.S. commercial-mortgage-backed securities, known as CMBS. Bank of China joined a group of banks in a $950 million loan to finance a 43-story building at 1290 Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan that was then packaged into bonds.

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Lingling Wei and Al Yoon, Wall Street Journal via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/_mliTvMwQzA/

China plans unionization push into Big Four accounting firms

China’s state-backed trade union is planning to expand into yet another bastion of capitalism, targeting the Big Four accounting firms and their 40,000 employees in mainland China, according to state media reports and the companies on Friday.

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions made a push into foreign firms operating about four years ago and now has a union presence in most firms with a manufacturing or retail base.

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Lucy Hornby, Reuters via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/o7UXubVh1Kc/

China Accuses Japan of Provoking Tensions

China accused Japan on Thursday of provoking maritime tensions that have dogged their relations by harassing Chinese ships, continuing a succession of tit-for-tat allegations that reflect increasing distrust between the two countries.

A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, Geng Yansheng, made the accusations on the same day that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe likened recent intrusions by Chinese ships into Japanese-controlled waters near contested islands to Argentina’s 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands, which set off a brief war with Britain.

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Chris Buckley, New York Times via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/xPeEBivMgSs/

China says U.S. routinely hacks Defense Ministry websites

Two major Chinese military websites, including that of the Defense Ministry, were subject to about 144,000 hacking attacks a month last year, almost two-thirds of which came from the United States, the ministry said on Thursday.

This month a U.S. computer security company said that a secretive Chinese military unit was likely behind a series of hacking attacks mostly targeting the United States, setting off a war of words between Washington and Beijing.

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Ben Blanchard, Reuters via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/TcFbAYB2vaM/