Sinomania!

The Iran-China Chamber of Commerce says that China is Iran's top trading partner over the EU when factoring in transhipments from China via the UAE. Using that calculation Iran-China trade is valued at over $36 billion (US dollars). Officials in Tehran and Islamabad are openly seeking Chinese involvement in the delayed "IPI" gas pipeline project that would deliver Iranian gas from the South Pars fields to Islamabad, Pakistan, and on to New Delhi, India. India has backed off the deal and for nearly 2 years Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf has said why not make it the "IPC" pipeline where the C stands for China. Islamabad is only 400 kilometers or so (less than 250 miles) from Pakistan-China border and it might be possible to link the pipeline with the Karakoram Highway transit corridor currently under expansion by Chinese investment....

In Shanghai today GM announced it will cede control of its 12 year old highly successful (and lucrative) joint venture with Shanghai Automotive group to its Chinese partner SAIC Motor Corp. With a controlling interest of 51% SAIC Motor will be able to run Shanghai GM independent of Detroit. Further, a new joint venture will be formed in Hong Kong called General Motors SAIC Investment Ltd. to expand into India and carve market share in the subcontinent for the Wuling microvan and other products....

The 9th Russia - India - China Trilateral summit is underway in Bangalore led by each nations' foreign minister. According to the People's Daily, mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, the group have already reached "major consensus" on a variety of issues including agreement that the current international situation is experiencing a "deep and all-dimensional change". The group is focusing on business cooperation particulary in energy and nano-technology. The meeting follows high-level encounters between Russia and India in Moscow and a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit between the Prime Ministers of India and China....

Speaking to reporters this week Chief of the Indian Air Force Marshal P.V.Naik confirmed Chinese Ambassador to India Zhang Yan's comments that no incursions of India's airspace have occured by China along the vague "line of control" between the two nations....

Indian war hawks are abuzz over alleged Chinese military incursions across the vast and largely unpatrolled borderlands of Aksai Chin and Kashmir. In a show of force today the Indian Air Force landed one of its Antonov transport planes near Leh in Kashmir where there were reports recently of Chinese helicopters violating the airspace. But locals in the area known as Ladakh are less concerned than the hotheads in India proper that want more military spending on the region to keep up with the new paved roads and shiny speed boats and helicopters on the Chinese side of the border.

Fact is the area has virtually open borders and trade flows freely as it has for decades. On the Indian side the border with Tibet's Ngari Prefecture at gorgeous Pangong Tso (Lake) was opened to tourism a few years ago. As recently as 2008 on the Chinese side Burang County was also open to travelers. Even today with restrictions on Tibet travel it is possible with the right paperwork and connections to obtain permits to travel the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway and visit the area. Without military tension the region is ripe for tourist development.

But the fuss on the Indian side may be due to the discovery a few years back of very high quality uranium deposits in the area around Pangong. Even with access to uranium supplies courtesy the USA-India nuclear deal, New Delhi may want to hold fast to the region lest Beijing attempt an economic absorption. Will the people of Ladakh go along or will the region be plunged into the type of chaos and instability found just a few hundred miles away in Gilgit-Baltistan and Afghanistan?

The 13th China-India meeting on disputed borders drew little interest let alone new borders on the maps of either nation. Despite increasing trade ties and on-going top-level talks at international summits such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Chinese and Indian positions on borderlands with Tibet remain unresolved. Public opinion on both sides is heated even though the borders themselves are a legacy of the British Empire....

India continues its overt protectionism against Chinese imports by re-imposing anti-dumping duties on nylon cord fabric from China. Last year, after Chinese toys accounted for 60% of the market in India, New Delhi banned Chinese toy imports for six months. The global economic decline is putting a strain on the promise of India-China trade and collaboration....

Offshore natural gas fields being developed by a group of international companies led by Daewoo and including India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp., will be delivered to Yunnan Province of China via a new pipeline. The pipeline will traverse much of Burma or Myanmar and allow the country access to the gas along the way.

The USA and India are behind the recent severe instability in Pakistan in order to "contain" China according to an opinion piece in the Pakistani paper The Post.

In India. At this point of the SARS "epidemic" in 2003 world media had already declared a global catastrophe. Perspective...