December 15, 2009 Newsletter

The biggest battle--against climate change--which is affecting the whole world, is taking place this week, in Copenhagen. China has been striving to contribute more to the global fight against climate change. China maintains that developed countries should bear major responsibilities for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as they have emitted most of the gases. Participants in the climate summit hope some concrete decisions will emerge from the talks.

Meanwhile, China repeated on Thursday, that it opposes the U.S. selling arms to Taiwan. The U.S. media reported that Washington will agree to grant a part of a Taiwanese weapons request that includes F-16 fighter jets, Patriot missiles and diesel submarines.

Incidentally, Peru's military is close to sealing a deal with China to buy tanks. The Peruvian Defense Minister, Rafael Rey, said the army is testing MBT-2000 tanks brought from China, but wants a better-equipped model of the tank. Though he did not specify how many tanks Peru would buy, the Peruvian media reported that the country plans to buy 80 to 120 tanks and has evaluated Chinese, German, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish models. Rey said that Peru is also planning to look at navy and air force purchases sometime in the future. Read more about China's economy, politics and other current events in the Daily Updates section of our website.

In our most recent multimedia article called "Defense Budgets of Asia", we take a look at how big a business military spending is, in Asia. Our interactive map highlights total military expenditures throughout East and Central Asia. Read this and other articles at our website.

Please forward this to friends, colleagues, and anyone else who might be interested. To receive this newsletter, go to uschina.usc.edu and subscribe to our "US-China Today Weekly Update." 

Please consider supporting US-China Today at http://www.usc.edu/giving/.