Date: April 22, 2008
Source: China Daily News

Former Shanghai Communist Party Chief Chen Liangyu has chosen not to file an appeal to overturn his conviction for bribery and abuse of power.

The deadline for an appeal was Monday, and Chen did not raise a plea for retrial. It indicates the original sentence of 18 years, handed down on April 11, will be imposed.
His initial trial was held at the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court.

The court also confiscated 300,000 yuan (about $42,860) of Chen’s personal assets. The 61-year-old was a former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and an ex-mayor of Shanghai.

Experts said bringing Chen to justice demonstrated the resolve of the CPC Central Committee to build a clean party, promote transparent governance and fight corruption.

Under the ruling, Chen received 14 years and a 300,000 yuan fine for taking bribes and seven years for abuse of power. He was given 18 years in jail and fined 300,000 yuan as the combined punishment for the two crimes.

According to court documents, from 1988 to 2006, Chen took advantage of his positions as head of the Huangpu district government, vice-mayor and mayor of the Shanghai Municipal Government, as well as deputy secretary and secretary of the Shanghai CPC Municipal Committee, to seek profits for Shanghai New Huangpu Group Company (SNHGC) and Shanghai Shenhua Football Club.

Chen extorted money from or accepted bribes of more than 2.39 million yuan from organizations and individuals, the court heard. Chen urged his relatives to return all these funds after his case was uncovered.

During 2002, when Chen held the posts of acting mayor and mayor of the Shanghai Municipal Government, he made a decision in violation of the established procedures to transfer a stake in the Shanghai Road and Bridge Development Corp., which was held by Shanghai Chengtou Corp. a state-owned company, to the private-sector Shanghai Fuxi Investment Holdings.

The stake was not assessed according to procedure, which resulted in it being undervalued and transferred at a below-market price, causing an economic loss of 320 million yuan to the state.

From 2002 to 2003, while acting as the mayor of the Shanghai Municipal Government and secretary of the Shanghai CPC Municipal committee, Chen used his position to seek benefits for his brother, Chen Liangjun.

The court heard that, although he clearly knew that his brother did not meet the qualifications to develop the land, he agreed with a related department to acquire land for Chen Liangjun against the rules.

As a result, 537 mu (35.8 hectares) was acquired, including 183 mu of arable land.

Chen Liangjun ultimately acquired usage rights for 354 mu of land, which caused economic losses of 344.1 million yuan to the state. Later, the court heard, Chen Liangjun resold the land use rights and illegally earned 118 million yuan.

In 2004, Chen — then the Party Chief of Shanghai — defied regulations to help an unidentified company obtain financing from the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Labor and Social Security, putting 1 billion yuan of the social security fund at huge risk.

The Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court ruled that Chen had taken a huge amount of bribes and abused his official powers to cause great losses involving public assets, as well as to the interests of the nation and the people. It termed his crimes “hideous.”

However, since he showed remorse over his bribe-taking and returned all the illicit gains, the court had shown him leniency and rendered a verdict in accordance with the law.

The court started the trial on March 25.

Date: April 21, 2008
Source: China Daily News

French President Nicholas Sarkozy on Monday invited disabled Chinese torchbearer Jin Jing – who has become a national celebrity for defending the Olympic torch from Tibet secessionists during the Paris leg of its relay – to visit France again “to make up for the pain you have suffered”.

Sarkozy’s invitation was delivered in a letter presented to Jin by French Senate President Christian Poncelet soon after he arrived in Shanghai for a week-long visit to China.

“I would like to express to you my shock at the way you were attacked in Paris on April 7 when you were holding the Olympic flame. You showed outstanding courage, which honors you, and your country,” Sarkozy was quoted as saying in the letter.

“To make up for the pain you have suffered, I sincerely invite you to France in the near future as my friend and a friend of the French people.”

Jin has been dubbed the “Smiling Angel in a Wheelchair” after protecting the torch while a Tibetan separatist tried to wrest it from her during the relay in the French capital.

Sarkozy said he once again expresses “strong condemnation of such despicable action”.

“What happened in Paris has engendered a feeling of bitterness in your country. I want to assure you that the incidents that were brought about by a few people on that sad day don’t reflect the feelings of my fellow countrymen for the Chinese people,” the letter says.

The message came at a time when anti-France sentiment is running high among the Chinese after the torch’s travails in Paris.

Some have called for a boycott of retail giant Carrefour in response to media reports that it supports the Dalai group.

In an interview published in Journal du Dimanche, Carrefour Chief Executive Jose Luis Duran denied the allegation and said his company was “taking the situation very seriously”.

Sarkozy’s letter to Jin suggests France is returning to rationality, Chinese analysts said.

“Sarkozy needs to weigh the stability of the strategic partnership between the two countries,” said Professor Zhao Junjie at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, adding Chinese people’s resentment appeared to have found resonance with the French leader.

He also called on the Chinese to be rational when expressing anger toward France.

“They should bear in mind that jeopardizing relations with France is not in our national interest,” Zhao said.

More French officials will seek to soothe Chinese sentiment soon.

Former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin will arrive tomorrow to meet Premier Wen Jiabao, and Sarkozy’s diplomatic adviser Jean-David Levitte will come to China at the end of the week.

Source: China Daily News
Date: April 18, 2008  BEIJING — The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour started construction on Friday.
The 1,318-km line, upon its completion in five years, would reduce the trip between the two metropolitans to five hours and lift the one-way transport capacity to 80 million passengers and more than 100 million tons of cargo annually, said the Ministry of Railway.
Attending a ceremony here, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced the formal start of the construction.
With an investment of 220.9 billion yuan (US$31.6 billion), the railway was the most expensive construction project China had started since 1949.
Trains would run at speeds of 350 km per hour. Last Friday, the country’s first domestically produced train, able to reach 350 kilometers per hour, rolled off the production line.
According to the ministry, all the technological equipments for the self-designed line was produced by domestic companies.
About 50 percent of the investment was from the state-owned Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Co Ltd. The rest would be raised through share offerings, bank loans and foreign investment, said a source with the ministry, without elaborating on specific proportions.

Source: China Daily News
Date: April 17, 2008
Talks with Taipei could happen once the island’s “leader-elect”, Ma Ying-jeou, takes office next month, a spokesman for the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office said Wednesday.

When asked at a regular press conference whether conditions would be right after May 20 – when Ma takes office – for talks, Li Weiyi said: “Everyone can make their own judgment about that.”

Last weekend, President Hu Jintao held a meeting with the Taiwan-based Cross-Straits Common Market Foundation chairman and Ma’s deputy Vincent Siew on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia, at which both sides said they wanted to start talks as soon as possible.

Hu told Siew that economic and trade exchanges and cooperation between the mainland and Taiwan were facing a historic opportunity and needed a joint effort.

Siew said on Monday that the two had agreed to restart official dialogue.

Beijing and Taipei started semi-official negotiations in April 1993, but the talks broke down in July 1999, when former Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui put forward the so-called “two states theory” that defined cross-Straits ties as a state-to-state relationship.

Efforts to restart the talks stalled as the pro-independence ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which came to power in 2000, rejected the one-China principle as a precondition.

Ma said he also wants to open regular direct flights to the mainland, loosen controls on mainland tourists visiting Taiwan and open the island to mainland investment.

Li expressed optimism on these points.

“I believe under the new conditions, cross-Straits charter flights and direct flights will certainly happen as early as possible,” he said.

He said the mainland is glad to see Taiwan athletes and cheering teams come to the Olympics in Beijing on chartered flights and provides necessary assistance.

“We really hope mainland companies can invest in Taiwan,” he added.

The Ministry of Justice also announced at the news conference that Taiwan residents can now sit for the judicial exam of the mainland.

Ding Lu, director of the national judicial examination center under the ministry, said all Taiwan residents who meet the conditions will be allowed to sit the exam, and if they pass will receive a certificate.

The details are currently being discussed, he said.

The judicial exam was launched in 2002 and is held annually in September. On the mainland, online registration usually starts in early June.

Source: China Daily News
Date: April 10, 2008BEIJING – The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday released an upward revision of 2007 gross domestic product  (GDP) that showed growth of 11.9 percent, or 0.5 point more than the initial estimate.

A statement from the agency said that last year’s GDP was 291.1 billion yuan (US$41.63 billion) larger than originally estimated, which meant that GDP was 24.953 trillion yuan last year.

The revision followed the routine preliminary verification of the available statistical data, it said.

This is the second step in the agency’s annual GDP reporting process. Under regulations issued in 2003, there are three stages: preliminary accounting, preliminary verification and finalization.

The NBS also released its final figures for 2006 GDP, based on annual statistical reports and financial statements. The agency put the figure at 21.1923 trillion yuan, up 105.2 billion yuan. That would equate to a GDP rise of 11.6 percent from 2005, or 0.5 point more than earlier figures.

Source: China Daily News
Date: April 9, 2008

Some 156 Chinese cultural relics smuggled to Denmark two years ago are expected to return to Beijing tomorrow following a local court ruling in February to that effect.

The relics include pottery figurines of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) as well as some rare items dating back to the Xia (2100-1600 BC), Shang (1600-1100 BC), Yuan (1271-1368) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties, said Song Xinchao, director of the museum department of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) at a reception Tuesday hosted by the Chinese embassy to Denmark.

“The recovery of these items demonstrates the Chinese government’s resolve to seek the return of relics illegally taken overseas,” he said.

Song led a group of SACH experts to help pack the relics and bring them back home. The relics will be on display after their return.

Danish police seized a batch of smuggled Chinese cultural relics along with items from other countries in Copenhagen in February 2006, and immediately notified the Chinese embassy. From the pictures provided by Danish police, Chinese experts recognized them as cultural relics.

In accordance with a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) convention in 1970 that bans illegal trade in cultural relics, the Chinese government, through its legal representatives, filed an appeal in a local court in Denmark last August asking the local police to hand over the relics to the Chinese government.

An expert group from SACH was also dispatched to Denmark to help in the proceedings.

Back in China, the Ministry of Public Security and cultural relics protection departments located the sites of the stolen relics, providing the necessary legal evidence to the Danish court.

The court ruled in late February that the relics should be returned to China. The two countries completed the formalities for the handover earlier this month.

China has intensified efforts to recover its lost relics in recent years. One case involving Sino-US cooperation in the field began in March 2000, when a statue looted from a Chinese tomb in the Five Dynasties period (AD907-960) appeared in an advertisement for an auction in the US. The statue was seized by US Customs officials prior to the auction and after year-long legal and diplomatic talks, it finally returned home.

Shan Jixiang, director of the SACH, told China Daily in February that he would like to invite directors of major museums to the sites from which cultural artifacts have been looted.

“They should come and see how invaluable murals were cut into pieces and taken away and how ancient tombs were raided,” he said, adding that China wants to sign with the US an MOU on cooperation in preventing theft of relics, illegal excavation and illicit trade of cultural property.

Source: China Daily News Service
Date: April 7, 2008

China and New Zealand signed a sweeping free trade agreement Monday, the rising economic giant’s first such pact with a developed country.

The deal, signed by Commerce Minister Chen Deming and his New Zealand counterpart Phil Goff at Beijing‘s Great Hall of the People, will give New Zealand improved access to one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

It was signed in front of Premier Wen Jiabao and Prime Minister Helen Clark.

“This is an historic day for China-New Zealand relations,” said Wen in remarks ahead of the signing. “The agreement not only means we met goals we set two years ago for our negotiations, but it also makes New Zealand the first developed country to reach a free trade agreement with China.”

Wen said he believes the deal will bring “our friendly relationship even closer and deliver tangible benefits to both our countries.”

Clark called the pact between the country with the largest population in the world, with 1.3 billion people, and a country with just 4.1 million people “a very significant achievement for New Zealand.”

“It opens up new opportunities for businesses looking to engage with, or grow their existing links with, China,” she said in a statement.

The deal came after 15 rounds of negotiations over three years, Clark said. China and New Zealand formally launched the free trade negotiations in December 2004.

The FTA agreement with China is the largest for New Zealand since the Closer Economic Agreement with Australia was signed in 1983.

China is New Zealand‘s third largest trading partner and fifth most profitable export market, according to the New Zealand Trade Minister Phil Goff.

Two-way trade between China and New Zealand currently is worth more than US$6.1 billion (euro3.9 billion) a year, with Chinese exports making up about 75 percent, according to Statistics New Zealand.

When the deal goes into effect October 1, New Zealand exports to China that now face tariffs of 5 percent or less will be cut to zero.

There will be a staggered timeframe for cuts on New Zealand exports that face larger tariffs, with 31 percent of New Zealand‘s exports to China tariff free by 2013.

Tariffs on dairy products, a primary New Zealand export, will be phased out over a longer time frame, taking until 2019 when almost all of the country’s current exports to China will be tariff free.

“The FTA provides for elimination over time of tariffs on 96 percent of New Zealand‘s current exports to China,” a New Zealand government statement said.

Beyond trade in goods, the agreement covers the services sector, from insurance and banking to education and labor supply.

The agreement also calls for up to 1,800 Chinese to enter New Zealand each year to work in areas such as traditional Chinese medicine, language teaching and food service.

New Zealand said it hopes the agreement will make it a long-term trade partner with China.

“The upfront commitments on goods, services and investment and the mechanisms which provide for further development of the agreement over time should help keep New Zealand at the fore front of the evolution of trade and investment relationships with China,” the government statement said.

The pact still has to be formally ratified by New Zealand‘s Parliament.