crisis

business.blogs.cnn.com — Fears that China could soon be facing its own Lehman-style banking meltdown are being fueled by a National Audit Office report which found 531 billion yuan (US$84 billion) worth of irregularities in local government debt.

articles.cnn.com — "China does not want to lose North Korea as a buffer zone vis-a-vis a pro-U.S. country -- South Korea," said Kim Won-ho, dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. "The last thing China wants to see is U.S.-style democracy in North Korea," added congresswoman Song Sun-young, who sits on the South Korean National Assembly's Defense Committee.

www.defensenews.com — Tokyo will send around 100 soldiers to a remote Japanese island in the East China Sea, a report said Thursday, amid growing anxiety over China's naval activities.

The ground troops will be deployed on Yonaguni island, Japan's westernmost point, to carry out coastal patrols and surveillance of Chinese naval vessels, Jiji news agency quoted defense officials as saying.

in.reuters.com — "In China we have a proverb: 'If the city gate catches fire, the disaster even affects the fish in the moat', Wen said, citing a traditional saying meaning innocent bystanders are vulnerable to trouble at their doorstep.
"Only neighbouring countries will have this feeling."

www.businessinsider.com — Here's a curve ball for 2010 -- while everyone was fretting about China's freight train economy derailing, Europe could be the trigger for a reversal of the current global economic rebound.