April 1st 2010

The Lion Awakes 

News at a Glance

今天的中国新闻

A compilation of Headlines + Brief Summary from Chinese & International Publications relating to China.

Just 5 Minutes each day to be up-to-date on the News of China

Combined with Kaixin’s boutique SITE SEARCH ENGINE, it is a unique source of knowledge about China"

China News Archive

From 2008

China Daily

Improving China-Russian ties

Editor's note: Strategic partnership between China and Russia goes well despite global recession, except for some minor controversial issues about frontier trade.

Although bilateral relations have not changed dramatically, mechanisms are needed to address specific trade issues.

Vice-President Xi Jinping's visit to Russia last Saturday is a prelude of high-level visits to come between the two nations this year.

The visit is noteworthy after some hiccups on trade last year. Many Western academics and diplomats have bad-mouthed the relations between China and Russia, while concern has risen from both nations for the future of their relationship.

But how are China-Russia relations now and what lies in their future?

PBOC reiterates its monetary policy

BEIJING - The monetary policy committee of People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, reaffirmed Wednesday that China would maintain its moderately loose monetary policy and enhance financial support to back the sustainability of economic development.

The central bank would maintain continuity and stability in monetary policy while constantly making it better targeted and more flexible as circumstances and conditions changed, the committee said in a statement after a quarterly meeting.

The central bank vowed to maintain moderate credit growth, but said it was still a challenging task, according to the statement.

Local custom, lack of regulation behind baby dumping

JINAN - Experts said the dumping of 21 baby bodies and fetuses in a river in east China's Shandong Province was due to old local custom and a lack of regulation.

In some parts of China, especially in poor rural areas, parents are reluctant to take baby bodies home for a funeral. They would rather dump the body in a corner of the hospital or pay someone to bury it, said Ma Guanghai, deputy dean at Shandong University's School of Philosophy and Social Development.

If bodies are recovered from hospital corners, the hospital should register the identification of the dead baby, report it to the public security bureau, and hand them over for cremation.

Abandonment of the dead body was an outdated practice related to high death rate of babies in the past. A modern society that respects life cannot allow this type of abandonment anymore, Ma added.

Experts said regulation must be introduced as soon as possible to determine the legal status of infant bodies. Regulation that clarifies the procedures for dealing with the bodies in a respectful manner is needed, they added.

'Green wall' helps curb desertification

Yanchi, Ningxia - Lines of "green wall" are built along the desert district in Yanchi county, Ningxia Hui autonomous region to defend against desertification, on March 31, 2010. The "green wall" environmentally-friendly project has effectively prevented further expansion of desert, and in combination with manual measures including irrigation, cultivation, etc, the green-plant coverage in Gaosha town area has exceeded 3 million square acres, turning the previous 1.2 million-acre desert area into a green one.

Photo courtesy of China Daily

The Wall Street Journal      China RealTime Report

An Environmentalist’s View on China’s Drought

As China’s worst drought in a century wreaks havoc across southwestern China, one of Beijing’s leading environmentalists arrived in Hong Kong to push for stronger rules forcing listed companies to be more transparent about industrial emissions and their environmental track records.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based domestic non-governmental organization focused on water pollution, said the drought was the starkest reminder yet that China is pushing its resources to the limit — with major repercussions for China’s environment and economy.

Below are edited excerpts from an interview Wednesday:

Stanley Lubman: Rio Tinto Trial Shines Harsh Spotlight on Chinese Criminal Justice

Stanley Lubman, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and is the author of “Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao,” (Stanford University Press, 1999).

While the facts of the alleged conduct of four employees of the British-Australian company Rio Tinto Ltd. who were on trial this week for taking bribes and infringing trade secrets are obscure, the trial starkly exhibits some key characteristics of Chinese criminal justice. It demonstrates the usual limits on the ability of defense lawyers to fully represent their clients, a disturbing lack of transparency, and the impact of political influences on the proceedings and the outcome. Criminal justice has moved only partially and irregularly toward a level of legality that it lacked under Mao, and is an object of concern to Chinese law reformers as well as to foreign observers. This particular case also raises serious concerns about China’s interpretation of its international obligations given its disregard for the Sino-Australian consular agreement.

The Australian

Stern Hu put bribes in the family safe

STERN Hu brought two bribes of 1 million yuan and $US300,000 from private Chinese steel mills back to his Shanghai home and put the money in the family safe, his wife, Zhu Xiaoli, told police in evidence presented at the trial of the Australian Rio Tinto executive, now jailed for 10 years.

A 70-page written verdict from the court, a copy of which has been obtained by The Australian, raises questions about the extent of corruption in Rio's Shanghai office.

China Daily

West must reflect on Rio aftermath

Western countries have tried to meddle with the judicial system of developing countries, including China, whenever they have passed a verdict against Western nationals or companies. They do so because of three reasons. First, Western powers still consider themselves as superior than the rest of the world, and hence think they occupy the moral high ground.

Second, Western political institutions allow interest groups to hijack the policies of non-Western countries in order to distort the investments of political, economic, diplomatic and even military resources.

And third, since Western countries still control the economic and the political fields as well as the global media, their interventions are usually quite effective. But the fact is the temporary "success" they achieve prevents them from seeing the greater price they have to pay in the future

The New York Times

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
Soothing China-U.S. Tensions

Despite the rising rhetoric, the current discord is not about a fundamental clash of national interest. Rather, it is the product of domestic pressures on both sides that are cornering their governments into a counterproductive game of tit for tat. There is a win-win way out, but American and Chinese politicians both need to see through the haze of mutual recrimination to recognize it.

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
The Fault Lines of Democracy

Counterintuitive as it may sound to the Western ear, China may be more open to fundamental political reform than the United States. Since the rule of law in America is based upon the notion that the state itself is constrained by a body of pre-existing law that is sovereign, any thought of rewriting the Constitution is anathema.

In China, however, some intellectuals point out that Communist Party theory posits that the current system is the “primary stage of socialism,” meaning that it is a transitional phase to a higher and more superior form of socialism. The economic foundation will change with broader prosperity, and thus the legal and political superstructure must also change.

Paradoxically, while Chinese intellectuals seek to expand democratic accountability as the poor become more educated and prosperous, the U.S. has the opposite problem: Too much short-term focus by the citizens of the prosperous consumer democracies is undermining long-term sustainability.

Kaixin – A must read article, which gives an insight into how democracy with Chinese Characteristics may evolve.

Asia Times Online

West provokes China's 'hardened' stance
By Jian Junbo

SHANGHAI - Outsiders believe that China is hardening its foreign policy, citing a number of recent events. But from China's viewpoint, the United States and Europe have provoked it into taking a tougher position.

Looking at China's rejection of US demands at the Copenhagen climate change summit, the Google incident and Beijing's strong opposition to US President Barack Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama, Western observers say China is clearly hardening its stance.

The intensifying conflict between China and the West over foreign policy is partly due to a geographical widening of China's core interests as well as a strengthening of its will to protect these interests.

SINOGRAPH
From Hollywood to Chollywood
By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING - In the next five to 10 years, the Chinese film market could well become the largest in the world.

The calculations are simple: the market grew by almost 44% last year, and about 30% in 2008. Last year, it was worth US$908 million - about a tenth of the $9.79 billion of US revenues in the previous year. At the current rate, the Chinese film market will outgrow the American market in five to 10 years.

Yet the story is not simply one of economics; above all, it's about culture.