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Highlights of Wen's government work report

China Daily

Cabinet officials to face inquiries

Legislature seeks to increase oversight of government

Beijing: China's top legislature will demand State Council officials to attend its regular legislative sessions to face inquiries and interrogations from legislators, a move to improve supervision of the central government.

"Inquiries and interrogations are legal means by which people's congresses oversee governments, courts and procuratorates," Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said on Tuesday during his work report.

"This year, we will select some widely concerned issues and hear reports on those issues from relative State Council departments. Main leaders from those departments will be required to listen to suggestions and respond to inquiries and interrogations," he said.

Highlights of work report of top procurator

BEIJING - China's Procurator-General Cao Jianming delivered a report on the work of the Supreme People's Procuratorate Thursday afternoon at the Third Session of the 11th National People's Congress.
The following are the highlights of Cao's report.

Strict measures to curb land hoarding

Ministry proposes strict measures to cool off overheated housing market

BEIJING: The Ministry of Land and Resources has unveiled strict measures to crack down on land hoarding in a bid to rein in soaring real estate prices.

Developers must make a 50 percent down payment on all land put up for auction within one month of signing a contract or face the prospect of losing the land along with their deposit, according to a directive issued by the ministry on Thursday.

China ranks No 2 on Forbes billionaires list

A total of 64 people from the Chinese mainland made the Forbes magazine list of the world's richest billionaires, moving up to take second place for the first time.

The US led the list, released Wednesday, with 403 billionaires. China was followed by Russia with 62 billionaires. Of the world's 97 new billionaires, 62 were from Asia.

Among the super-rich from the Chinese mainland, 27 made the list for the first time.

Kaixin – As I have said before. The ‘west’ should not be complaining about how much wealth China has, it should be working out ways to sell things to China to relieve them of some of it.

Strong indicators trigger yuan float rumors

BEIJING - The stronger-than-expected 46 percent year-on-year growth in exports during February this year has sparked speculation that the nation may start revaluing the yuan later this month.

But some analysts have cautioned that not too much should be read into the strong numbers as the comparable base in 2008 was much lower. Political pressures are much more compelling reasons for the revaluation than market pressures, they said.

Google denies 'exit China' rumor

Search giant says operations in the country are running as usual

Beijing - Google on Thursday denied it was planning to shut down its business in China by the end of the month, dispelling rumors that it had informed its Chinese advertising agents to cease their business operations in the country.

Google's spokeswoman Marsha Wang told China Daily on Thursday that the company had not ordered its domestic advertising agents to stop doing business.

"That's not possible. Our China operations are still at normal," Wang said.

The Wall Street Journal     China RealTime Report

Gold Has Less Luster in China

The International Monetary Fund last year announced it would sell 403.3 metric tons of gold to raise money for poor countries. This immediately sparked speculation that China would be a major purchaser–and the rumor spread through the market like wild fire.

Chinese SOEs: We Get No Respect

Committee meetings of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference are normally quite dry affairs, with industry leaders and other civic figures offering bland praise for whatever the central leadership is doing. But at a meeting of the 37th economic committee on Wednesday, the leaders of some of China’s most prominent state-owned enterprises vented their anger at how the state sector has lately been treated in the court of public opinion.

Video: Coping With China’s Housing Boom

While China’s red-hot housing market is showing signs of cooling, property prices are still going up: They were 10.7% higher than a year earlier in February, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday. WSJ’s Josh Chin reports from Beijing, where even doctors can have a hard time affording a decent house.

China’s Top Daoist Goes to the CPPCC

Sometimes, the Way takes you to the strangest places.

For China’s top Daoist, Ren Farong, it means a seat on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress, a national body that advises the government on how to run the country. Made up of entrepreneurs, celebrities and people from (as the ubiquitous phrase goes) “all walks of life,” it’s a giant session for everyone to offer recommendations.

China’s First Twitter Novel

While Twitter remains generally blocked in China, that hasn’t stopped tech-savvy Chinese from putting the microblog platform to creative uses.

This week, influential blogger Lian Yue started publishing a novel on Twitter, believed to be the first time a Chinese-language novel is released on the popular service.

The New York Times

Bank of China Plans New Share Offering

BEIJING — Bank of China said Thursday it wants to issue more shares in Hong Kong soon, an offering that could strengthen its balance sheet by some $7.7 billion.

Asia Times Online

China lassoes its neighbors
By Walden Bello

With the Doha Round of negotiations of the World Trade Organization in limbo, the heavy hitters of international trade have been engaged in a race to sew up trade agreements with smaller partners. China has been among the most aggressive in this game, a fact underlined on January 1, when the China-ASEAN Free-Trade Area (CAFTA) went into effect.

China-US ties strained like never before
By Benjamin A Shobert

WASHINGTON - In hindsight, Wednesday's United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing over "The Google Predicament" may well prove to be one of the many grains of sand which are slowly eroding the conventional logic that has kept America and China engaged for most of the past several decades.

Kaixin – A worrying article as it shows clearly that America neither understands or respects China. America is looking for someone to blame for its economic predicament. It need look no further than a mirror, but steadfastly refuses to do so, preferring to cast around the world for a scapegoat.

        For a detailed OpEd by Kaixin (Graeme Mills)

The New York Times

Educated and Fearing the Future in China

As China’s economy recovers, employers are competing to hire low-skilled workers, but many of China’s best and brightest, its college graduates, are facing a long stretch of unemployment.

What might be done to correct the mismatch between expectations and reality? How is this problem altering Chinese attitudes about upward mobility? If college graduates are not reaping economic rewards, how will the next generation view the value of education?

· C. Cindy Fan, associate dean of social sciences, U.C.L.A.
· Yasheng Huang, professor of political economy, M.I.T.
· Daniel A. Bell, professor of political philosophy, Tsinghua University
· Albert Park, economist, University of Oxford
· Loren Brandt, economist, University of Toronto

China Daily

CBRC to ensure lending enters the real economy

China's banking regulator will work to ensure "every cent" lent out by the nation's financial institutions this year enters the real economy to help guard against inflation while maintaining growth, Chairman Liu Mingkang said.

This year "will be extremely complex and full of uncertainties," Liu said in an interview with Xinhua news agency published late yesterday. "Faced with inflation expectations, we will have to deal with the problems of ample liquidity while at the same time maintaining continuity and stability in our policies."

"The government has the experience, awareness and tools to release a lot of signals at the right moment to adjust inflation expectations," Liu said. "China's consumer and producer price indexes may rise slightly, but the chance of higher-than- moderate inflation is very small."

China's foreign trade up 45.2% in Feb

BEIJING - China's foreign trade posted a 45.2 percent year-on-year growth in February, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) announced Wednesday.

Exports in February stood at $94.52 billion, up 45.7 percent, in a new indication of a rebound in global demand, while imports rose 44.7 percent to $86.91 billion.

Exports grew 8.2 percent compared with the same month in 2008 before the global financial crisis, while imports increased 9.8 percent.

Cabinet officials to face inquiries

Legislature seeks to increase oversight of government

Beijing: China's top legislature will demand State Council officials to attend its regular legislative sessions to face inquiries and interrogations from legislators, a move to improve supervision of the central government.

"Inquiries and interrogations are legal means by which people's congresses oversee governments, courts and procuratorates," Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said on Tuesday during his work report.

Stimulus policy set to continue

BEIJING: It is too early for the government to withdraw its economic stimulus policy, a senior financial official has said while calling on other countries to coordinate their exit strategy to strengthen the fledgling recovery.

Zhu Guangyao, assistant minister of finance, also told China Daily that the government is not ready to exit from its proactive fiscal policy, which spared the country the worst of the global economic slump.

The global economic situation is too unpredictable at present to make such a move, Zhu said, echoing Premier Wen Jiabao's remarks at the opening session of the National People's Congress (NPC) on Friday.

"This year, we will continue to implement the economic stimulus package," he said.

China mulls legislation of officials' personal asset declaration

BEIJING - A senior Chinese lawmaker said on Wednesday that legislation requiring public officials to declare their personal assets is under consideration and seen as a move to prevent corruption and improve government transparency.

China's auto sales top 2.9m units in first two months

China's auto sales maintained steady growth in the first two months of 2010, buoyed by the nation's car purchase incentives and strong demand brought by the week-long Spring Festival holidays.

The combined auto sales in January and February surged 84 percent from a year earlier to 2.9 million units, with February's figures alone reaching 1.2 million units, up 46 percent year-on-year, according to the China Association of Auto Manufactures (CAAM) Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal     China RealTime Report

Shell, PetroChina Arrow In On Closer Ties

Beijing loves to paint cooperation with overseas companies as a “win-win” arrangement. The problem, foreign executives say, is that it frequently means two wins for China.

So has the $2.96 billion offer made by Royal Dutch Shell PLC and PetroChina Co. for Australian coal seam gas producer Arrow Energy Ltd. provided a template for future takeover bids? It’s possible, though much will depend on whether the deal finally goes through.

Behind a Power Plant’s Efficiency Drive

He’s not exactly Al Gore, but Feng Weizhong may represent China’s best effort to limit emissions from the world’s fastest-expanding power sector.

China is regarded as the world’s biggest polluter largely because it is adding electrical power production capacity so quickly, most of it based on coal-fired plants.

Google CEO Sees Conclusion to China Talks Soon

Google Inc.'s chief executive said Wednesday he expects the company will soon reach a conclusion to negotiations with the Chinese government regarding the fate of its China business.

"We are in active negotiations with the Chinese government," Eric Schmidt told reporters at a media summit in Abu Dhabi. Google has decided not to publicize the status of the negotiations, he said, but "something will happen so

China's Housing Sales Slow Down

BEIJING—China's red-hot housing market shows signs of cooling, according to government data, news that is likely to encourage Chinese leaders who face mounting political pressure from urban residents unable to afford new homes.

SINOGRAPH
Different takes on coping with change
By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING - In recent weeks on Chinese movie screens there has been a confrontation: Oscar-winning Avatar from the United States pitched against the home-grown Confucius. Both have single-word titles and huge productions in common but - independent of their artistic evaluation - the films are entirely different and offer telling projections of different societies.

Beijing seeks a shift in geopolitics
By Willy Lam

China's ongoing tussles with the United States over issues including Taiwan, Tibet and trade are in a sense nothing new. For more than two decades, Sino-US relations have periodically gone through rough patches over these and related causes of disagreement. What is new is China's much-enhanced global clout in the wake of the world financial crisis, which is coupled with a marked decline in America's hard and soft power.

China has a Congo copper headache
By Peter Lee

An agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and China in 2008 to swap 10 million tonnes of copper ore for US$9 billion worth of mine and civic infrastructure looked like a genuine win-win.

But ever since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) demanded renegotiation of the deal in May 2009, China and the DRC have been on a roller-coaster ride of risk. Today, Beijing anxiously eyes a growing list of major dysfunctional problems - and a $100 million adverse judgment in a Hong Kong court - that could derail the "deal of the century".

The deal, as originally conceived, cannily addressed three major issues.

China assesses its gold strategy
By Russell Hsiao

Chinese leaders convening in Beijing for the annual plenary session of the National People's Congress (NPC) - China's ceremonial legislature - this week will, among other things, hammer out a blueprint for the ascendancy of the country's currency, the yuan (or renminbi).

China's 2010 economic blueprint, which was officially unveiled at the plenary's opening, set the country's target growth rate at the proverbial 8%, which is the rate Chinese economists deem sufficient to generate enough domestic demand to make up for dwindling exports to regions such as the United States and Europe.
 
 
 

        For a detailed OpEd by Kaixin (Graeme Mills)