Hong Kong Airport Needs a New Name – Sun Yat-Sen International Airport!
I think Hong Kong has one of the best airports in the world. It has everything a great airport needs. It is huge, but connected to public transportation. It clean and beauftiful with great views of the runways. Most important, it has the hallmark of civilized society free wifi.
Indeed, I think you can judge a lot about a city by the existence of free wifi at the airport. I'll check off the recent airports I've been to in the last few months. You decide the better cities. 
Free Wifi: Seattle, Portland, Montreal, Denver
Paid Wifi: Newark, Los Angeles, Dallas, Cleveland
But back to Hong Kong, every time I fly into Hong Kong there are two questions I've wondered about:
1. Why is it on the other side of the island from the city?
2. What is up with the funny name? Chek Lap Kok Airport
It turns out that the answer to the first question is a result of history and bigger aircraft. The current airport is not the first airport in Hong Kong. Originally, the international airport was located right in the middle of the city - Kai Tak Airport.
It prime location in the city lead to some amazing approaches and landings into the airport. Once famous "checkerboard" approach skimmed over the local apartments to touch down on the airport's one runway. Imagine having a 747 fly at eye level past your apartment every few minutes. Pretty intense stuff.
Here is an amazing video of that approach: http://youtu.be/3PCOcyt7BPI
A victim of its one runway and limited length the local government decided to relocate the airport out to an area that would allow for smooth approaches and more runaways. This new location on Chek Lap Kok island and the sight of the current Hong Kong Airport.
2. So why couldn't they come up with a better name than the unpronoucable Chek Lap Kok?
It turns out I'm not the only person who has thought this was poor choice for such an awesome airport. Recently, there have been rumblings to rename the airport to something that touches on both China, Aviation, and relative Freedom that is Hong Kong - Sun Yat Sen.
The city’s aviation gateway is also known as Chek Lap Kok, named after an island flattened and extended to make way for the current airport to be built in the ’90s.
“Not just the father of the nation, you could say he [Sun] was also the father of aviation in China,” said Gordon Andreassand, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Historical Aviation Society.
Mr Andreassand’s speech at the inauguration of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology‘s aeronautic-interest group sparked interest among student population that a petition to rename Hong Kong International Airport after the revolutionary leader.
With Sun Yat-sen’s experience in the aviation industry – he was credited as the first person to build an aeroplane in China in 1923 – he deserved to have an airport named after him more than many others. Hong Kong is an appropriate location, advocates say, noting that his mother was buried in the city and in 1923 he credits the University of Hong Kong as his intellectual birthplace.
But this airport name change request could face a number of obstacles. For one, it’s notable in mainland China that no big airports are named after famous people in history. Thus, Beijing, which has sovereignty over Hong Kong, might object to the name-change plan.
If an airport has a pretty good record in service or facilities, then it brings even more honor to the figure it’s named after. But what about Charles de Gaulle in Paris and Manila’s Ninoy Aquino airport, named after the father of the current Philippine president, get bad reputation as among the worst airports in the world? For Hong Kong, it’s on the other side of the yardstick, receiving awards and recognitions for years. The risk of potential PR nightmare is not that high.
But for Airport Authority, which says it has no plan to change Chek Lap Kok name at the moment, even the centenary of a historical event may not be enough to persuade it to rename the airport.
Source: http://asiancorrespondent.com/70636/renaming-hong-kong-airport/
Personally, I'm behind this 100%. Unfortunately, I doubt it'll ever happen. Sun Yat Sen connected to an era of freedom and revolution with which the Communist Government retains a strange relationship. In this 100th anniversary year of the Republic of China, one can hope.
First Chinese Pilot to Join the Aero Club of Hong Kong
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Chinese Aviation Execs Violate US Arms Embargo
Last September, two Chinese nationals were arrested in Hungary and transferred to US custody in April. They were charged with conspiring to violate the Arms Export Control Act and to smuggle goods from the U.S., and the attempted export of munitions in violation of the act.
Hong Wei Xian, 32, and Li Li, 33, both from the PRC, were charged in a two-count indictment accusing them of conspiring to violate the Arms Export Control Act and to smuggle goods from the United States and the attempted export of U.S. Munitions List items in violation of the Arms Export Control Act.
According to the indictment, Xian is the president of Beijing Starcreates Space Science and Technology Development Company Limited, and Li is the company’s vice president. Among other things, Beijing Starcreates engages in the business of importing and selling programmable read-only memory microchips to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, which is controlled by the PRC government and plays a substantial role in the research, design, development and production of strategic and tactical missile systems and launch vehicles for the PRC.
Since 1990, the U.S. government has maintained an arms embargo against the PRC that prohibits the export, re-export, or re-transfer of any defense article to the PRC. Prohibited defense articles are placed on the U.S. Munitions List, which includes spacecraft systems and associated equipment. A programmable read-only memory microchip (PROM) serves to store the initial start-up program for a computer system and is built to withstand the conditions present in outer space.
According to the indictment, neither Xian nor Li applied for nor received a license from the United States to export defense articles of any description; however, from April 2009 to Sept. 1, 2010, the two are charged with contacting a company in the Eastern District of Virginia and seeking to export thousands of radiation-hardened PROMs from that company.
The indictment states that Xian and Li knew a license was required, but did not seek to obtain one because it was difficult, time-consuming, and would require them to identify the end user and describe the end use. They are accused of conspiring to break up orders into multiple shipments and designate countries outside of the PRC for delivery to avoid drawing attention to the orders.
On Sept. 1, 2010, the defendants were arrested in Hungary pursuant to a U.S. provisional arrest warrant and were transferred into the custody of U.S. Marshals on April 1, 2011, after they waived extradition. They arrived in the Eastern District of Virginia late April 1, 2011.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/April/11-nsd-422.html
Analysis and Source Documents after the Break.
The Chinese Reaction to the Sendai Earthquake
On March 11, 2011, a record-breaking earthquake struck Japan. While damage from the earthquake itself was relatively minor, the north coast of the country was devastated a tsunami that was triggered by the earthquake. Initial estimates peg the damage from the earthquake to be in the thousands of lives and the billions of dollars.
Immediately after the quake, the international community responded by flying relief workers and aid into the country. While most of the international response has been positive, some have used the tragedy to dredge up previous wrongs committed by the Japanese government. Americans on social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, have expressed comments that the earthquake was karmic payback for Pearl Harbor. However, the most complex, vocal and negative reactions to the quake have come from the Chinese community.
Immediately after the earthquake, the Chinese web-boards lit up with commentary on the disaster. Predictably, there were two themes of commentary on the quake. One group of commentators expressed sympathy for the victims of the earthquake. Another group expressed a negative and celebratory tone about the Japanese earthquake with comments like, “[w]armly welcome the Japanese earthquake.”
Chinese government censors have worked overtime to present the earthquake in the best light to the people. First, when the negative comments were picked up by western blogs in China, these blogs immediately hit with DDOS attacks from within the country. Second, certain positive comments that contrast the resilience and quick response of the Japanese government have been censored. As one comment, which was quickly removed wrote, “[t]he casualties from an 8.9 event in China would be hundreds of times higher than in Japan." Chinese government censors have had a similar schizophrenic response in the wake other recent nation and international tragedies – media coverage of the Chilean miners’ success was downplayed and the Chinese media very quickly buried news of the Yichuan air crash.
Finally, the Chinese government has been slow to offer aid to Japan. During the Wen Jiabao’s annual news conference, 4 days after the quake, he did not comment on the Japanese disaster until 2 ½ hours into his presentation. The Chinese have pledged $167,000 in aid and sent a 15 member search and rescue team to Japan. This number has been overshadowed by a $3.3 million pledge by the Taiwanese government and it less than the donations of surrounding countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Korea and Mongolia.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_to_the_2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami
Given the sorted history between the two countries, it is not surprising to see this response from the populace. Those who grew up in China have poignant memories of stories about the Japanese occupation, which are reinforced by annual visits by Japanese Prime Minister to the Yasukuni Shrine war shrine. Additionally, the Japan is in no hurry to accept help from its former enemy as one commentator and Japanese lawyer put it, “we welcome the assistance of the United States but not China.”
Source: http://shanghaiscrap.com/?p=6468
Source: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/11/schadenfreude_and_sympathy_in_shanghai
Source:http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/03/chinas_reaction_to_japans_earthquake.html
China’s Shrinking Rice Bowl – Agricultural Degradation, Land Use Policy, and Administrative Enforcement in China
****This is the second draft of my Seattle Journal for Environmental Law article. I would REALLY like to have some comments on it. As it is a draft, and I am law student, I would recommend you go do your own research before you use my work.****
China's Shrinking Rice Bowl 1
Casey DuBose, Seattle Journal of Environmental Law, Draft 2, 3 Mar. 2011
“Solving the problem of feeding around one billion people must be continually designated as a high priority in running the country well and maintaining peace.” State Council, 2009.
In 2007, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) capped 30 years of economic liberalization with a revolutionary land law. 2 This law, the Property Law of the People’s Republic of China, granted the private acquisition of land-use to both foreign and domestic private parties. 3 Starting in 2008, agricultural collectives, which traditionally had limited ability to transfer land use from agricultural to urban or industrial, began to contract with non-agricultural developers, under a similarly revolutionary policy statement - Decision on Certain Issues Concerning the Advancement of Rural Reform and Development. 4 5 These laws had the aim to help flatten the economic disparity between the increasing rich urban population and the increasingly marginalized peasant agricultural class. Their goal was to spur the development of modern agriculture and promote the construction of a “new socialist countryside.”6
Unfortunately, the last 30 years of economic growth has taken a hard environmental and social toll on that countryside. Spurred by a great flood of cheap, migratory labor leaving the agricultural areas, and years of industrial development, agricultural land has been converted to residential, commercial, and industrial land at an unprecedented rate.
This conversion, which has been accomplished through both legal and illegal means, has also affected China's grain security, contributed to increased agricultural pollution, and created large groups of landless migratory workers. Existing laws have provided a framework to limit the conversion of agricultural land, but their language and enforcement is inadequate. Indeed, changes such as the 2008 Decision have inadvertently exacerbated a growing problem of agricultural land destruction. With available arable land at an all-time low and an ever-increased rate of conversion, the Chinese government must make the conservation and regulation of agricultural land a high priority.
FULL TEXT AFTER THE JUMP
China evacuates oppressed Egyptian Chinese – 国航派包机赴开罗执行紧急撤侨任务
There are over 500 Chinese stuck in the Cairo airport. In response, the Chinese Government has sent an Air China A320 to rescue some of them.
The A320 which holds 265 people is staffed by a crew of 6 pilots, 10 stewardesses, and a compliment of security and maintenance crews.
This begs the question: Is it really a rescue mission if you are evacuated to a country where the populace has fewer rights?
Regardless, it is an unprecedented move by the Chinese government. Air China does not fly to Cairo. They have had to arrange new airspace agreements and fly into an unknown airport all in a short period of time.
Source: http://mil.news.sina.com.cn/s/2011-01-31/1029630874.html
Full Text in Chinese after the break.
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