Eternal Vigilance

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - China may be considering a move to diversify its foreign-currency reserves away from the U.S. dollar, according to a report published Friday.

China hinted at the shift in a statement posted on the Web site of the state agency charged with regulating foreign exchange, the Wall Street Journal reported.

China wants “perfect management of our foreign-currency reserves, and to actively explore more efficient use of our reserve assets, to improve the currency structure and asset structure of our reserves, and to continue to expand the investment areas,” the newspaper quoted Hu Xiaolian, the director of State Administration of Foreign Exchange, as saying in the statement.

The statement is a clear sign Beijing is interested in moving into other currencies, the Journal said, citing a research note by Stephen Green, senior economist for Standard Chartered Bank. “We believe this is a serious U.S.-dollar negative,” Green wrote.

China is the second-largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, after Japan. According to the newspaper, China held $247.6 billion of Treasuries at the end of October, compared to Japan’s $681.6 billion.

China’s massive foreign-currency holdings measured $769 billion at the end of September, the report said.

Be it Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker directly giving loans to Hitler, or the common day citizen who shops at wal-mart….

Two Chinese-American brothers and their wives were arrested in southern California on October 28 for conspiring to steal sensitive information about U.S. Navy warships and smuggle it to China. On November 15, a federal grand jury indicted both of the men and one of the wives for the relatively minor crime of failing to register as Chinese agents.

The indictment alleges that Chi Mak, 65, a naturalized U.S. citizen; his brother, Tai Wang Mak, 56, a Chinese national; and Chi Mak’s wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, 62; are agents of the People’s Republic of China. Failing to register as a foreign agent carries a maximum possible penalty of 10 years in federal prison. Tai Wang Mak’s wife was not indicted.

US Treasury Secretary Snow tours China as PR agent for banks. Urges Chinese to take lessons from US on how to spend more, borrow more, and save less. New York Times 2005 Oct 14

Snow Urges Consumerism on China Trip - New York Times

BN:  You know, America is the greatest nation on god’s green earth.  It didn’t happen overnight thought.  Once upon a time, we were the world’s leading PRODUCER.  MANUFACTURING was Americas mission;  creating, producing, entrepreneuring.  Snow is trying to hold China, the new world’s leading creator, producer (I won’t include entrepreneuring) back.  Will they buy it???

Keep your enemies closer…here’s a taste

The hackers he was stalking, part of a cyberespionage ring that federal investigators code-named Titan Rain, first caught Carpenter´s eye a year earlier when he helped investigate a network break-in at Lockheed Martin in September 2003. A strikingly similar attack hit Sandia several months later, but it wasn´t until Carpenter compared notes with a counterpart in Army cyberintelligence that he suspected the scope of the threat. Methodical and voracious, these hackers wanted all the files they could find, and they were getting them by penetrating secure computer networks at the country´s most sensitive military bases, defense contractors and aerospace companies…….
Godlike Productions — News

Beijing - A Chinese firm has won a joint contract from the state oil companies of China, the Philippines and Vietnam to search for oil in a disputed area of the South China

The hot spot warms up and if left unattended explodes. Such an explosion is taking form here. China does not have legal rights to what is in fact its real undersea target. You can rest assured they will take it. Japan will panic and call for US assistance. Russia will back China’s interests, having already made a private deal on the spoils.

China’s Global Search For Oil Reserves 

China is on a critical mission - to secure sources of energy from around the world to quench the country’s seemingly unending thirst.

With millions of Chinese discarding their bicycles and climbing into cars, crude oil consumption, currently at 6.68 million barrels per day (bpd), is estimated to roughly double to 13 million bpd within the next two decades.

Monday’s announcement of China’s victorious bid to acquire PetroKazakhstan for $4 billion is part of an ongoing strategy to tap into new oil reserves - primarily in Russia, the Middle East, North Africa and South America.