China

• 12th Plan stresses hydropower from Yarlung Zangbo(Brahmaputra).

• China has, so far, only begun construction on one major hydropower dam on the main stream of the middle reaches of the Brahmaputra or Yarlung Zangbo as it is known in China – a 510 MW project in Zangmu in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)
• A 640 MW dam will be built in Dagu, which lies 18 km upstream of Zangmu. Another 320 MW dam will be built at Jiacha, also on the middle reaches of the
  Brahmaputura downstream of Zangmu. A third dam will be built at Jiexu, 11 km upstream of Zangmu.
• Chinese Culture : Peking Opera and ballet
• Chinese maritime surveillance vessels have repeatedly entered Japanese-claimed waters around the islands since last September, when Japan’s government nationalised some of the islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. The purchase triggered violent protests across China.
• Anti-pollution, austerity drives mark China’s Year of the Snake.
• Chinese are now constructing that port on Pakistan’s request.Gwadar port is situated at a strategic location of the Arabian Sea and the mouth of the Persian Gulf. It is only about 400 kilometres away from the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil supply route.
• China’s primary concern is ensuring stability and the safety of its sizeable investments in mines and oil fields following the 2014 withdrawal in Afghanistan.
• A secondary worry is the spread of terrorism and instability to China’s far-western Xinjiang region, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
• China largest exporter of rare earth metals.
• The Hambantota port is a deep-water port in the southern tip of Sri Lanka which is developed by China. India is apprehensive that the port is part of Chinese ‘string of pearls’ with an objective to surround India.
• The String of Pearls refers to the Chinese sea lines of communication which extend from the Chinese mainland to Port Sudan. The sea lines run through several major choke points such as the Strait of Mandeb, the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz and the Lombok Strait, as well as other strategic maritime centers in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Somalia
• China unveiled service on the world’s longest high-speed railway with trains scheduled to run 2,298 kilometres between Beijing and Guangzhou in about 8 hours. Bullet trains running on the route will travel at an average speed of 300km/hr and would save more than 20 hours of travel-time by conventional trains.
• China's Tianhe 2 - worlds fastest computer.Speed : 33.86 petaflops (1000 trillion calculations) per second on a benchmarking test.Second being in US : TITAN having speed of 17.59 petaflops per second.


• New Chinese law says children must visit parents.It does not have any punishment criteria for non fulfillment .

Achievements : 

• China shows that delivering the fundamental goods of food, water, and education to the most disadvantaged citizens makes a massive difference across the whole of society. China now provides basic medical care to 95 percent of its citizens. Literacy is almost universal among men and women. Basic education is delivered even in the most isolated areas.


• China has immense inequalities, but it has largely eradicated the kind of dehumanizing poverty seen too often in India


• The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has launched a deep ultraviolet (DUV) solid-state laser device, making the country first-ever in the world to possess such technology

International TIES : 

• Russia-China 

TIBET

• Snow Lion : A celestial animal of Tibet.
• One of the Four Dignities of Shambhala Buddhism  – tiger (Tib. tak), lion (Tib. seng), garuda (Tib. kyung) and dragon (Tib. druk)
• During the period 1909-59 snow lion was used as national emblem of Tibet on the coins, poststamps, banknotes and the national flag of Tibet.
•  ‘Snow Lion flag’ or ‘Free Tibet flag’ or ‘Tibetan flag’, was a flag of the military of Tibet introduced in 1912 by the 13th Dalai Lama and was then used until 1959.
• The flag was designed symbolizes motif of Japanese military’s Rising Sun Flag.
• Since the 1960s, the flag symbolizes of the Tibetan independence movement.
• Following the 1959 Tibetan Rebellion, the 14th Dalai Lama left his position as governor of Tibet, denouncing the 17-point accord with the PRC, and instituted the exile Central Tibetan Administration in India.
• In order to infuse pan-Tibetan nationalism in Tibetan people the 14th Dalai Lama standardized and assumed symbolizations as nationalist symbols, such as the Lhasa dialect of Tibetan, a Tibetan national anthem, and the flag.

India and China Relations :

India China Rail Comparison

• Training school of Bharatanatyam in Beijing.(Cultural Links).
• The Ministry of Railways (MOR) China holds complete control of both planning and executing projects, as well as building trains and running the system. As in India and unlike in the West, there are no private companies that ply on the state-built system.
• The Beijing Institute of Technology, a government-run research university known for its work on China’s space programme, on Wednesday signed a first of its kind Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Karnataka-based Manipal University paving the way for closer collaboration on joint research projects.