| India, China to speed up border dispute
talks
2005-12-16 Xinhua News
India and China have agreed to speed up the process of resolving
their long-standing border dispute, a report quoted Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh as saying. "I had very good discussions
with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao," Singh told reporters
travelling with him from an East Asia summit in the Malayasian
capital Kuala Lumpur. ( ) In another development, Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular news conference in
Beijing that the two countries will hold friendly discussions
so as to find an appropriate solution to the border issue. China
and India account for more than 1/3 of the world's total population,
Qin pointed out, saying that Sino-Indian friendship not only
conforms to the interests of the two neighbours, but also benefits
the peace and stability of Asia and the world. ( ) The special
envoys -- India's National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan and
China's Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo -- held talks in Beijing
in September but without any apparent progress on the dispute.
Singh said another round of talks is scheduled to take place
in New Delhi next month. "Another meeting is planned in
January. Both of us (Wen and Singh) agreed that these negotiations
should be expedited and both of us expressed our commitment
to find a mutually satisfactory solution to the border issue,"
he said.
AP: China leader still displeased with Japan
2005-12-15 China Daily
Given the frosty relations between China and Japan, their leaders
can't really be pen pals. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made clear
his continuing displeasure with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi when he ignored Koizumi's request to borrow his pen
during a signing ceremony Wednesday at a regional summit in
Malaysia.Wen had already refused to formally meet one-on-one
with Koizumi at the summit amid a feud over the Japanese leader's
visits to a shrine honoring war dead, including 14 Class A WWII
war criminals. As leaders of the newly inaugurated East Asia
Summit were signing a declaration on the group's establishment,
Koizumi leaned over and asked to borrow his pen. Wen ignored
him for several seconds until Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi, smiling broadly, intervened to repeat the request.
Wen then passed the pen to Koizumi with a smile, but the snub
was widely noted in an otherwise uneventful ceremony. Wen on
Monday blamed Koizumi for the chilly relationship between their
countries because his five visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine
had "deeply hurt the feeling of the Chinese people."
( )
Kazakhstan set to open pipeline to China
2005-12-15 China Daily
Kazakhstan is due to open the valves Thursday on a major pipeline
carrying oil to China. For the vast Central Asian nation, which
is expected to become one of the world's largest oil exporters,
the 625-mile pipeline opens a huge market. It is designed to
carry 140 million barrels of oil annually to China. For China,
the new route is a key achievement in its efforts to secure
energy supplies for its booming economy. The pipeline is a 50-50
joint venture between state companies China National Petroleum
Corp. and KazMunaiGaz. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev
is expected to push a button at KazMunaiGaz headquarters in
the capital, Astana, to open the flow from the pipeline that
starts in the central town of Atasu, 174 miles to the south.
( ) Earlier this year, China National Petroleum Corp. bought
Kazakhstan's third-biggest oil producer, Canada-based PetroKazakhstan,
whose energy assets are all in Kazakhstan and include one of
the country's three oil refineries. China also signed gas exploration
contracts in Uzbekistan, and it is expected to sign a major
natural gas supply deal with Turkmenistan in January. The Kazakh-Chinese
pipeline will initially carry oil from the Kumkol field in central
Kazakhstan, which used to be operated by PetroKazakhstan. By
2011, when it reaches full capacity, the pipeline is expected
to be used to ship oil from Russia's western Siberia.
Russia to provide China with 240 jet engines in next 5 years
2005-12-15 People's Daily
In the coming few years the total demand from southeast countries
for Il-76 combat-support cargo aircraft and Il-78 air refueling
tanker will surpass 50, a spokesman of Russian air company Ilyushin
said at the 8th Pulau Langkawi air show held in Malaysia. Russia
is talking with several southeast Asian countries over the selling
of Il-76. Experts estimate demand of 12 sets from Malaysia and
Indonesia respectively. Besides, Vietnam and Thailand showed
strong interest in Il-76MF, a heavy cargo aircraft equipped
with PS-90A engine. Persian Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia
and the UAE also expressed their intention to purchase Il-76.
Ilyushin leaders also expect an order from Jordan. Russia inked
a deal with China in last September to provide 38 Il-76MD military
cargo aircraft and Il-78MK air refueling tanker (equipped with
D-30KP-2 engine). According to the contract, Russia will also
provide China will 240 sets of engines from 2006 to 2010, their
total value exceeding 300 million US dollars. The whole contract
is worth about 1 billion dollars. All these planes will be assembled
by Tashkent Aircraft Production Corporation, Uzbekistan.
Japan motive for huge military expense questioned
2005-12-14 Xinhua News
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang delivered a stern rebuke
to Japan yesterday, refuting claims that China poses a threat
to neighbouring countries. Qin said accusing remarks by Democratic
Party of Japan President Seiji Maehara, who said China is a
practical threat and urged Beijing to increase military transparency,
is groundless. "We are always seeking development along
a peaceful path." He noted that China hopes Japanese Government
and public figures to make contribution to improve a bilateral
friendship. ( )
China denounces US criticism on human rights
2005-12-11 Xinhua News
China strongly opposes to the assault of the US government on
the pretext of human rights issue, Foreign Ministry spokesman
Qin Gang said here Sunday. Qin made the remarks in response
to the US State Department spokesman's statement on Saturday's
International Human Rights Day, in which the US side criticized
China's human rights situation. Qin said China has scored remarkable
achievements in the field of human rights protection. The Chinese
people fully enjoy human rights and freedom according to law.
( ) The United States itself has severe problems of violating
human rights, and it is being strictly criticized by the international
society as it refused the investigation of a special rapporteur
of the UN Human Rights Commission, said Qin. ( ) |
| China reports 6th human case of bird flu
2005-12-15 China Daily
A new human case of bird flu was reported in Suichuan County,
east China's Jiangxi Province, according to a Ministry of Health
announcement Thursday evening. It said the patient, a 35-year-old
man, is a private vendor. He developed signs symptoms of high
fever on December 4 and was admitted into a local hospital,
a Xinhua dispatch says. The ministry experts confirmed the human
case of bird flu, and the ministry has reported it to the World
Health Organization and noticed Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan
regions, as well as some countries. He is the sixth human case
of bird flu reported in China. ( )
New rich challenge family planning policy
2005-12-14 Xinhua News
China's 'nouveaux riches' are not only competing with each to
buy grandiose mansions and fast, expensive cars, their latest
status symbol is a brood of children. Quite a few of China's
wealthy people are skirting China's one-child family policy
by simply paying to have two or more children. The one-child
family policy was enacted in the 1970's to curb a huge population
explosion. In 2002 the law was amended to allow ethnic minorities
to have more than one child and peasants to have a second child
if their first is a girl. The changes were never designed to
allow city residents of have multiple babies. The recent amendments
imposed fines as a means to prevent families from giving birth
to more than one child. However, affluent people are now simply
paying the 'social maintenance fee' for a second and subsequent
child. A Beijing newspaper says it's a throw back to old attitudes
that equates large families with wealth, status and happiness.
Business tycoons and show biz celebrities are finding a number
of ways of getting around the one-child family policy. Many
simply pay the fine which can be as high as 150,000 yuan or
about $20,000 US dollars for urban dwellers or as low as 7,000
yuan or almost 900 US dollars for rural residents. Some wealthy
people are even emigrating abroad for the sole purpose of having
a second or third child whom they bring back to raise in China.
( )
Deadline set for wage payment to migrants
2005-12-13 Xinhua News
Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan Tuesday ordered the operators of State-invested
projects to deliver their delayed payment of the wages of migrant
workers within a period of less than two months. Addressing
a national teleconference on delayed payment of the wages of
migrant construction workers, the vice-premier called on governments
at all levels to ensure contractors of non-State-invested projects
pay the wages of migrant construction workers that are long
overdue. All localities should ensure migrants farmers-turned
construction workers get their wages on time and in full before
they return home for the Chinese Lunar New Year, one of the
major festivals in China that falls late January 2006. It used
to be common for contractors of construction projects to delay
payment of the wages of migrant workers for up to one or more
years, and as a result many migrant workers had to return home
almost empty-handed. ( )
Program to exam impact of Songhua river pollution
2005-12-13 Xinhua News
China has initiated a program to evaluate the ecological impact
of the Songhua River water pollution in northeast China and
put forward countermeasures, said a senior environmental official
said here Tuesday. The evaluation program is "an urgent
and arduous job" that needs the joint efforts of related
departments, said Zhu Guangyao, deputy director general of the
State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). ( ) The
program, initiated by the SEPA, is composed of 14 task forces
that have been ordered to prepare plans to deal with issues
such as the moving and transformation of pollutants, the absorption
of pollutants after freezing, the stagnation of the pollutants,
and their impact on the environment, drinking water and fishery
security, said Liu Zhengtao, chief researcher of the CAES. (
)
China to shut down 4,000 mines by Dec. 31
2005-12-13 Xinhua News
In the wake of a series of recent fatal colliery accidents,
China's work safety authorities vowed yesterday to adopt a package
of "iron-handed" measures to improve the problematic
workplace safety situation. The State Council will dispatch
several overhaul panels into eight major coal-producing provinces,
including Shanxi, Hebei, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Liaoning
and Shaanxi in the upcoming fortnight, said Li Yizhong, head
of the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), during a
televised conference. Supervision efforts on colliery work safety
will focus on a number of aspects, according to Li. To conduct
a thorough safety check-up on possible dangers and enhance supervision
on collieries that were asked to stop production for improvements;
To shut down at least 4,000 coal mines that could not meet work
safety standards even after improvements by December 31. ( )
Patrols to ensure Olympic safety
2005-12-13 China Daily
To ensure a safe Olympic Games in Beijing, more patrol police
will be deployed in the city's five suburban districts, including
Tongzhou, Daxing, Changping, by 2008. The Beijing Municipal
Public Security Bureau announced yesterday that the increased
patrol police force would be equipped with advanced devices,
more police dogs, patrol cars and even motorcycles. Although
Beijing is regarded as one of the safest cities in China, suburban
regions where migrants are located account for about 70 per
cent of all crime in the city. He said over the next two years,
more than 400 police dogs would be deployed to strengthen patrol
forces, providing crime-fighting canines for every patrol car.
Today, the city has 490 patrol cars but only about 70 police
dogs. ( )
Frequent mishaps test nation's emergency response
2005-12-12 Xinhua News
A spate of mishaps, including the Songhua River pollution, the
rampant virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu, and frequently visited
strong typhoons, render 2005 a memorable position in China's
disaster chronology. No doubt, this has forward a harsh challenge
to Chinese government. In this July, the State Council, the
Chinese cabinet, decided in a regular meeting to set up a general
emergency response plan, including 25 sub-plans for specific
emergencies and 80 ministerial ones. ( ) "A powerful anti-public
incident ability could help to polish a confident and mature
government image," he said. Up to November, 1,855 lives
were taken by natural disasters, incurring 199 billion yuan
(25 billion US dollars) direct economic losses, and ranking
the most serious in recent years, according to the Ministry
of Civil Affairs (MCA). In response, China has launched national
natural disaster response plans for 29 times since the start
of this year, evacuating 15.15 million victims, MCA said. (
) "After this major water pollution incident, the State
Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has failed to
pay due attention to the incident and has underestimated its
possible serious impact," said a circular issued by the
Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council.
The director of SEPA Xie Zhenhua resigned for the environmental
incident, and he is another ministerial officials being disposed
after the then Health Minister Zhang Wenkang and Beijing Mayor
Meng Xuenong, who were removed from their posts for failing
to response properly 2003's SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome)
crisis. ( )
Trade union members surpass 150 mln
2005-12-12 Xinhua News
The total number of China's trade union members has surpassed
150 million in 2005, up 9.7 percent year on year, the Workers'
Daily reported here Monday. The number of trade union organizations
at various levels has reached 1.174 million, up 15.1 percent
over the previous year, sources with All-China Federation of
Trade Unions was quoted by the paper as saying. Meanwhile, the
trade union aid network has been set up in this year, the paper
reported, saying that 310 aid centers for needy workers have
been established and 1 billion yuan (about 125 million US dollars)
has been distributed to needy workers by the end of last September.
Direct train to connect Beijing-Lhasa
2005-12-11 Xinhua News
It will take travelers only 48 hours by direct train trip from
Beijing to Lhasa, capital of west China's Tibet Autonomous Region
as of July 1 next year, a railway official said. Travelers can
enjoy the world-class tourist sites along the newly-built line
during the 48-hour direct railway trip, including the Qinghai
Lake," said Zhang Shuguang, director of the Transportation
Bureau with China's Ministry of Railways. The new railway line
will be operational at the Beijing's West Railway Station from
July 1, 2006, the official said, adding that key parts of the
line, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, had been completed on Oct.
12 this year. Qinghai-Tibet section of the railway is the world's
highest railway, the official said, adding that some 960 kilometers
of the tracks were laid at 4,000 meters above sea level, with
the highest parts reaching 5,072 meters. The railway is still
the world's longest plateau railroad which extends 1,956 kilometers
from Qinghai's provincial capital Xining to Lhasa in Tibet.
The Golmud-Lhasa section, completed on Oct. 12 this year, zigzags
1,142 kilometers across the Kunlun and Tanggula mountain ranges.
( )
Village shooting 'no Tiananmen'
2005-12-14 SCMP
Beijing yesterday rejected any attempt at associating the police
shooting of villagers in Guangdong last week with the 1989 Tiananmen
Square crackdown on pro-democracy students. The rejection came
as activists, intellectuals and the international media drew
parallels between the use of force to quell the riot, triggered
by land seizures in the village of Dongzhou, Shanwei , and the
violent suppression of pro-democracy protesters 16 years ago
in central Beijing. The local government has put the death toll
from last week's riot at three, but villagers fear the real
figure could be as high as 20 because many villagers are still
missing. If the latter figure is confirmed, the Dongzhou riot
would be the deadliest assault by mainland security forces on
civilians since the 1989 crackdown, in which hundreds or thousands
are believed to have been killed. In a regular briefing in Beijing
yesterday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the two
incidents were not comparable as no conclusion had been reached
about the Dongzhou violence. "Conclusions have been reached
on the 1989 incidents, but no conclusion has been drawn on this
event. How can we know if they are the same type of incident?"
he asked. The Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao yesterday reported
that Guangdong party secretary Zhang Dejiang had visited Dongzhou
last Wednesday - a day after the shooting - to "give important
instructions on the investigation and handling of the incident".
The newspaper also identified the commanding officer who gave
the order to open fire as Wu Sheng , a vice-director of the
Shanwei Public Security Bureau. Guangdong newspapers reported
on Sunday that he had been detained by prosecutors for allegedly
mishandling the riot. Despite villagers' calls for central government
intervention, Xu Youyu, a political theorist at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, said Beijing was likely to adopt
the same approach in handling the Dongzhou incident as it had
with the Tiananmen Square crackdown. "A denouncement of
the local government's handling is not likely, especially when
this time security forces were used. When a crisis involving
political sensitivity occurs at the local level, the central
government tends to handle the issue in the traditional manner,
namely to cover it up and suppress the media and those who speak
up," Professor Xu said. He said the central government
should come up with a new approach to assuaging social discontent
before people lost their faith in all levels of government.
"People have long lost their faith in local governments.
When bad things happen, they think they're the local governments'
fault. And they believe the central government can help them.
But now, more and more people have lost their faith in Beijing.
This is a serious problem," he said. "The central
government should be happy that there still are people visiting
the petition offices in Beijing - that means there are still
people who trust them." But Professor Xu said it was not
likely that Beijing would properly address the problem because
it needed to maintain a relationship with the local officials.
"The local governments have been doing things that embarrass
the central government. But they know that even if Beijing is
aware of their wrongdoings, that wouldn't do them any harm as
Beijing would have to rely on them to carry out policies and
to keep local administrations in order," he said. "Beijing
has to weigh between maintaining the stability of the governments
and a governance crisis as it tries to avoid upsetting local
officials."
|
