Category Archives: China
Terror camps in Pakistan behind violence, attacks in Xinjiang: China
Beijing: China on Monday blamed ‘extremists’ trained in terror camps in Pakistan for orchestrating attacks on civilians in the troubled Xinjiang province, where 25 people, including alleged militants, were killed in violent incidents over two days.
While nine people were killed in a violent attack on Saturday, another 11, including five suspected militants, were killed in another attack last night.
A statement by the Kashgar municipal government said militants trained by the ‘East Turkistan Islamic Movement’ in Pakistan were responsible for the recent flare up in violence.
“A group of religious extremists led by culprits trained in overseas terrorist camps were behind the weekend attack on civilians in China’s far-western Xinjiang,” state run Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.
“Initial probe has shown that the heads of the group had learned skills of making explosives and firearms in overseas camps of the terrorist group East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in Pakistan before entering Xinjiang to organise terrorist activities,” it said.
The Xinjiang region witnessed massive riots in 2009, when almost 200 people were killed in its capital Urumqi, following which China launched a major crackdown against Uyghur Muslim separatists.
On July 18 this year, 14 “rioters” were killed when they reportedly attacked a police station and killed four people in the province’s Hotan city.
This is perhaps the first time that China has pointed fingers at its close ally Pakistan while referring to ETIM camps there. Xinjiang shares its borders with Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and a lot of trade between China and Pakistan is routed through Kashghar as it is located close to the border.
There was panic in Kashgar city after militants attacked a restaurant last evening before setting it on fire.
The incident left six civilians and five militants dead. The attack came after nine people were killed in another incident on Saturday.
While five ‘suspects’ were shot dead by police last night, four others were caught. Fifteen persons, including three policemen, were injured in the attack, Xinhua reported.
The regional publicity department said in a statement that a “group of armed terrorists” broke into a restaurant in the city centre in Kashghar about 4 pm yesterday and killed the restaurant owner and a waiter besides setting fire it.
“They then ran out and hacked civilians indiscriminately, leaving four dead and 12 injured, while police and fire fighters were striving to put out the fire,” it said.
Terming it a “premeditated terrorist attack”, it said police opened fire and killed four suspects at the scene, while another suspect died later in hospital.
The area was cordoned off and traffic restrictions were imposed on major roads and squares.
Many people were seen fleeing in horror from the downtown area as police cars, fire engines and ambulances whizzed by to tackle the second violent incident within a day.
The attacks resembled the 2009 riots and following up incidents in which Uyghurs had attacked Chinese Han settlers in Urumqi in what police called “a severely violent terrorism case” organised and premeditated by terrorist groups.
A crackdown ensued by security forces on ETIM, which China accuses of fomenting trouble in the region, besides Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who lives in US in exile.
Yesterday’s attacks were also reportedly directed against Han settlers, and the attacks left the mainland Chinese scared to do business in the province.
One more Navrathna moving to China ?? – BHEL bets on Chinese inputs to beat cost squeeze
BHEL bets on Chinese inputs to beat cost squeeze
Company looking at sourcing castings, forgings and specialised products
Industrial
equipment major Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) is looking to
actively increase its vendor base in China in order to competitively
source specialised inputs needed for its Indian units, a top company
official told Business Line during a recent interaction.
Amid
a sharp increase in the commodity cycle, this is one of the key
strategies the engineering major hopes to deploy extensively to check
rising material costs, BHEL’s Chairman and Managing Director, Mr B.P.
Rao, said.
“There are some clear advantages in
sourcing products from China, provided the quality aspects are strictly
adhered to. We are looking to increase our source base there,
especially for materials such as castings and forgings, as well as
specialised products such as P91 and P92 steels,” Mr Rao said.
‘P91′
and ‘P92′ steels find use in pipelines and power unit components that
are part of conventional boilers on account of their high strength at
elevated temperatures.
BHEL has deputed marketing
and sourcing personnel at its newly established China office who would
facilitate the procurement of raw materials. The options in the long
term include enabling the company to order power generating parts when
they see potential for procuring for another project.
“The
idea is to explore and establish a vendor base to procure inputs in the
long run,” Mr Rao said. According to analysts, despite rising labour
costs and a widespread power crunch, Chinese intermediate goods
suppliers continue to be ahead of European and Japanese companies due to
the massive capacity additions that China has made during the last 10
years.
The Chinese still score over suppliers from
other parts of the world in terms of shorter delivery lead times, apart
from savings on costs.
Material costs down
Sourcing
from China, along with a bevy of other cost-cutting measures, has
enabled BHEL to keep material costs in 2010-11 at the previous financial
year’s range of around 59-60 per cent. This, despite a sharp uptick in
material costs over the last few months.
“We have
been focussing extra hard on material cost reductions. Integrated
operation improvement initiatives like design-to-costs and lean
manufacturing have also been initiated,” he said. Besides, higher
expenses by the company on research and development, specifically on
indigenisation of products that were being imported earlier, is further
helping the company prune overall project costs.
Mr Rao said he was confident of pegging input costs this fiscal in the same range as was achieved in 2010-11.
“Commodity
prices are increasing. So there will definitely be pressure on our
costs… But imported technologies are going to be more localised during
this year than last year. Combined with all the other measures, we
should be able to keep costs in check.”
