08/03/2009 Source: Xinhua

China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Monday it hoped the U.S. government would listen to its own industries and not impose protective measures on tires.

The comment came after the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a statement on June 29 recommending falling tariffs of 55 percent, 45 percent and 35 percent over the next three years on motor vehicle and light truck tires from China.

The U.S. Tire Industry Association, the American Coalition for Free Trade in Tires, the American Automotive Trade Policy Council, and the Retail Industry Leaders Association have all expressed strong opposition to the planned moves.

The commission’s protectionism ploy lacked legitimacy and objective foundation, and China strongly opposed the U.S. government’s implementation of discriminatory measures against tires from China, the ministry said.

U.S. President Barack Obama will make a final decision on the issue before September 17, following an August 7 hearing.

Imposing protectionist measures against Chinese tires would not only harm the interests of China’s tire industry and Sino-U.S. bilateral trade, but also jeopardize the overall interests of U.S. economy, the ministry said.

08/03/2009 source: www.chinaview.cn

The Court of Final Appeal of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) has confirmed the ballot result of the SAR’s third chief executive (CE) election, in which sole candidate Chui Sai On was elected as the new CE, according to the announcement Monday published on the SAR’s Official Gazette.

A total of 296 votes were cast by the 297 present members of the 300-strong CE Election Committee, within which Macao’s new CE was elected on July 26. Chui won 282 valid votes, or 95.27 percent, of all the effective ballots cast.

The Court said in the announcement that it received no appeal during the judicial appeal period after the ballot results were released, as a result of which, Chui was officially declared the winner of the CE election.

In spite of the confirmation of the Court, Chui still needs the appointment by China’s central government to become the new CE of the Macao SAR, according to the Basic Law, the SAR’s mini-constitution.

The term of the incumbent CE Ho Hau Wah will end in Dec. 19 this year.

07/24/2009 Source: People’s Daily

China and the US will discuss bilateral relations, international and regional issues, and global issues at the first strategic and economic dialogue between the two countries, said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei.

“China hopes the strategic dialogue will help the two countries expand consensus, narrow down differences, deepen mutual trust and boost cooperation,” said He.

He added that thanks to both sides’ efforts, China-US relationship has kept its upward trend since the US President Barack Obama took office. The two countries cooperated smoothly in tackling with the global financial crisis. New achievements are made in various fields including trade, anti-terrorism, law enforcement, science, education, culture and health. China and US have worked together on regional issues such as Korean Peninsula nuclear crisis, South Asia situation and Iran nuclear issue. They have also had effective cooperation in global issues such as energy safety and climate change.

The first China-US strategic and economic dialogue is held under a background of on-going financial crisis and an unclear world economic outlook, said Zhu Guangyao, assistant Finance Minister. The theme for this dialogue is “Gather confidence for economic recovery and promote China-US economic cooperation.”

Topics to be discussed at the economic dialogue include Sino-U.S. cooperation on major economic issues, how to weather the financial crisis and achieve economic recovery, sustainable economic growth and balanced growth, building a strong financial system and, trade and investment.

He expects that this dialogue will improve the macro economic policies communication and coordination between China and the US, promote a sustainable and balanced economic growth, deepen bilateral trade and investment cooperation, strengthen cooperation in financial regulation and the reform of global financial system and create win-win economic ties between the two countries, Zhu said.

07/24/2009 Source: Xinhua

The Taipei court is to deliver a verdict on former Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian’s corruption cases at around 4 p.m. Sept. 11 this year, sources with the court said Friday.

Chen was first indicted on Dec. 12 for money laundering and bribery. He and his wife were charged with embezzling 104 million New Taiwan dollars (3.15 million U.S. dollars) in public funds and accepting bribes of at least 9 million U.S. dollars in a land purchase deal.

07/17/2009 Source: www.chinavew.cn

China’s top lawmaker Wu Bangguo met with President Jorge Pizzaro of the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino) here on Friday, vowing to further step up China’s parliamentary exchanges with Latin America.

Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, said China and Latin American countries had carried out remarkable cooperation in trade, culture, education and environmental protection.

As developing countries, China and nations of Latin America shared increasing interests in the development of economic globalization and multi-literalism, he said.
“China always deals with its relations with Latin America from a strategic height,” said Wu.

China was ready to cooperate closely with Latin America to explore cooperation, jointly face up to challenges, and strengthen cooperation.

Calling the Parlatino the most important and representative inter-parliamentary organ in the Latin American and Caribbean region, Wu said China’s NPC valued relations with the Parlatino, and was willing to expand exchanges and cooperation.

Pizzaro said China played an increasingly important role in the world, and the Parlatino hoped to expand friendly exchanges with the Chinese NPC and contribute to closer relations between Latin America and China.

07/17/2009 Source: Xinhua

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu pledged Thursday to boost clean energy cooperation with China.

“We are going to develop ideas (with China), such as how to build energy-efficient buildings, how to build cleaner power plants, especially the use of cleaner coal,” Chu told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

He cited the technology of carbon capture and sequestration that would help to cut emissions of carbon dioxide generated in coal-fueled power plants.

“If we developed those ideas, then China can use these ideas in China and we could use these ideas in America” which would eliminate the need to pay the tariff because they could produce all the energy-saving products in domestic factories, Chu said.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the China-U.S. agreement on scientific and technology cooperation. Chu’s three-day China tour would focus on research on environment-friendly “clean” energy, he said.

Chu defended a U.S. congress bill to levy the so-called carbon tariff on imports from countries that have no statutory restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill last month, which contained tough provisions to impose carbon tariffs in a bid to ensure that U.S. companies would not lose competitive advantage.

The bill was not designed to establish trade barriers, but to encourage green economies in other states, Chu said.

China, along with other countries, has voiced objections to the carbon tax, saying it was a new kind of trade protectionism under the guise of preventing climate change.

The construction of trade barriers “isn’t really good to many many things and isn’t good for the overall prosperity of all the countries involved,” he said.

Chu, a Chinese American, urged China to step up its efforts in cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.

“The United States and China are two great countries and we are emitting together 42 percent of the carbon dioxide of the world,” he said.

The stances of China, the largest developing country, and the United States, the biggest industrialized state, on the decrease of greenhouse gas emissions were crucial for the United Nations’ climate change conference, which was slated for December in Denmark’s capital Copenhagen.

A new agreement on climate change is expected to be ironed out at the conference to replace the Kyoto Protocol that set a limit for developed countries’ greenhouse gas emissions, but will expire this year.

The principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, a stance held by most developing countries on the reducing of greenhouse gas emissions, was “a sound one”, Chu said.

The developing countries, with much lower per capita carbon emissions than the industrialized states, were urging developed nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide technology and assistance to jointly cope with climate change.

“Should we respect those developing countries whose standard of living was much poorer?… Should they have a right to do that? Absolutely correct,” Chu said.

“But I think it is possible for even a developing country to gain prosperity and to have a better living standard and wealth for its people and still decrease their carbon emissions,” he said.

Along with Chu, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke was also here to meet Chinese trade and energy officials, as well as Chinese leaders to discuss cooperation on energy and climate change.

“We are both Cabinet officials in President Obama’s administration and we are both Chinese Americans as well. Our roots are in China,” Chu said.

“I’m a friend of Secretary Locke so we said we should go together (to Beijing)…This visit shows the world how important the U.S.-China relationship really is,” he said.

Chu and Locke Thursday together visited the U.S. Future House, a pioneer energy-efficient building in a model park funded by the Chinese government and foreign embassies in northern Beijing.

Chu applauded the green-energy projects in the Future House, including a solar panel that generates electricity for the two-floor American-style wooden house, and the energy-saving heating and water recycling systems.
In the 400-square-meter home, Chu pointed at an LED lamp and said he was looking for such products in the United States.

“He asked me whether the lighting system in the house was made or designed in the United States, but I told him, no, it’s all made in China and we hold the intellectual property rights. He was a little bit surprised and nodded,” said Chai Guosheng, president of the Cnlight Co. Ltd, China’s largest producer of energy-efficient lights and a contractor of the house.

“It set a new standard of construction, will benefit not only China and the United States, but also every other country,” Locke said on his one-hour tour.

Locke also visited a Wal-Mart store that had energy-saving systems in downtown Beijing’s Wangjing District.

Chu and Locke arrived in Beijing on Tuesday afternoon for discussions with China on climate change and clean energy.

07/13/2009 Source: Xinhua

China’s ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) made public Sunday three regulations to promote Party officials’ accountability and state-owned enterprise leaders’ honesty, as well as strengthen inspection work inside the Party, aiming to curb corruption and improve government competence.

According to the regulation on officials’ accountability, officials with the following misconduct should be removed from their posts:

– Making a wrong decision that leads to great losses or has serious negative impact;

– Serious or a spate of accidents or cases occurred in the official’s jurisdiction or working unit due to his or her dereliction of duties;

– Serious or a spate of accidents or cases occurred in the official’s scope of duty due to lax management or supervision by government;

– Power abuse, malfeasance, or ordering or encouraging others to commit illegal administrative activities, which lead to group protest or other serious incidents;

– Incorrect handling of group protests or accidents, which exacerbates the situation or has serious negative impact;

– Violating official selection or appointment regulations, which leads to mistakes in appointing officials and have serious negative impact;

– Other conduct that harms national interests, results in great losses to people’s lives, personal or public property, or has serious negative impact.
A spate of corrupt misconducts in recent years triggered nationwide investigations into officials’ accountability. In one of the latest cases, 14 officials were dismissed in Chaohu City in east Anhui Province for running a jobs-for-money network.

Zhou Guangquan, the former Communist Party secretary of Chaohu city, was accused of accepting bribes worth 5 million yuan (about 735,000 U.S dollars) on June 3.

Prosecutors then discovered that among the 36 people who bribed Zhou when he was secretary of the Communist Party of China Chaohu City Committee from 2000 to 2004, 19 were government officials who were promoted after giving Zhou bribes.

According to the fresh regulation, officials will be given even more severe punishment if they interfere with the investigation of their misconduct, forge and hide evidences or take revenge on whistleblowers.

Officials with serious misconduct will be transferred to judicial departments for further investigation and punishment if their misconduct is deemed criminal.

Officials have the right to testify for themselves before a accountability decision is made, and “reasonable opinions” will be taken into account, said the regulation.

Also, a decision must be brought to leading officials for group discussion before it becomes final.

Chinese disciplinary organs have punished 2,386 officials at or above prefectural level for their misconduct from July 2003 to December 2008, according to the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).

Another 29,905 officials at county level were also punished during the same period, the CCDI said.

According to the regulation on state-owned enterprise leaders’ honesty, company leaders are not allowed violate company principles and procedures to make major policies on production management, appointment and removal for key positions or management of huge money.

They should not adjust the salaries, bonuses and other benefits of company leaders without the approval of personnel departments.

The regulation also specifies various kinds of company leaders’ spendings in disguise of work duty, including traveling aboard, buying cars and luxurious office decorations among others.

Party committee secretary, board chairman and general manager are the main principals to supervise company leaders in accordance with the regulation. Violators will be given punishment ranging from warning, demotion to removal from post.

The third regulation on Party’s inspection work specifies that the missions for an inspection team include hearing reports, attending regular meetings of local organizations, talking with officials and residents and reporting issues to party organizations at higher levels among others.

Also, the team has the right to further investigate problems concerning local organizations or officials on the premise of not interfering with their current work.

Members of an inspection team will be given punishment ranging from name-and-shame, demotion to removal from posts if they seek personal benefits during inspection work, reveal classified information or fabricate evidences.