China sounded the alarm about the state of the global economy on Saturday and urged countries gathering at an Asia-Pacific summit to protect themselves by forging deeper regional economic ties. Sasha Mordovets | Getty ImagesChinese President Hu Jintao attends the APEC Summit at Russky Island in Vladivostok, Russia. Chinese President Hu Jintao said his country would play a role in helping deepen cooperation between the 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) by rebalancing its economy to improve the chances of a global economic recovery. Russian President Vladimir Putin had also expressed concern about the world economy on Friday, and particularly about Europe's debt crisis, as he prepared to host the annual APEC summit in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok. "The world economy today is recovering slowly, and there are still some destabilising factors and uncertainties. The underlying impact of the international financial crisis is far from over," Hu told businessmen in a speech before the summit. "We will work to maintain the balance between keeping steady and robust growth, adjusting the economic structure and managing inflation expectations. We will boost domestic demand and maintain steady and robust growth as well as basic price stability," he said. Hu said China was addressing problems such as creating jobs since its economic growth slowed. But China's economy remains dominant in Asia and it is key to Russia's decision to look eastwards as it seeks to develop its own economy. Hu also announced a $157 billion government spending drive to boost infrastructure in agriculture, energy, railways and roads as well as pledging his country's support for greater trade liberalization. "We should improve and explore new mechanisms for infrastructure investment and financing, and encourage participation in infrastructure development by various actors," he said. Hu steps down as China's top leader in the autumn after a Communist Party congress, but he promised continuity and stability for the economy. Putin, who has just begun a new six-year term as president, said for his part on Friday that Russia would be a stable energy supplier and a gateway to Europe for Asian countries, and also pledged to develop his country's transport network.
"Hu also announced a $157 billion government spending drive to boost infrastructure in agriculture, energy, railways and roads as well as pledging his country's support for greater trade liberalization." Hmmm...... you'd think seeing the Secret Chimp in the Whitehouse do the same and failing miserably would have taught him a lesson.
I have repaired their ships. I found them poorly designed, poorly assembled and pure junk was used for most all installed parts. To compare them to other ships I'll use an example of the oldest ship I have ever worked on. I'll say that I once was part of a team that took a Spanish ship out of a 17 year mothball fleet. The Spanish ship's hull was riveted, if that gives you an idea of its age, the bilge had a number of concrete encased pipes (very common to do for emeregency repair) and all the switches worked in reverse of the standard ship (up was off). Any way working with some very good US pipe fitters and a crew with air hammers to remove the concrete, all piping was repaired or replaced and passed Coast Guard inspection. My part was electrical and after I found a set of prints, in spanish, I was able to rebuild a 60 year old fuse panel and put the engine room back on line in three days, this was a 220V DC ship, one in which one side of the hull was part of the circuit. The Chinese ship was all but pure rust, brass was not used and the paint was one coat with no primer. What first looked to be rigid conduit would not even equal our EMT and it was not galvanized on the inside and did not have water tight seals on the entry or exit of the cables. Touch it and it crumbled. We worked on it for 2 weeks, red tagged a slew of circuits that were still grounded as it escaped from a US Shipyard and a US Port. Still I would have gone to sea on the Spaniard but never on the 5 year old Chinker. Junk is a well used term for Chinese floating (sometimes) caskets.
