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May 4—Lawyers warn on China's monopoly regime
Financial Times (Sundeep Tucker in Hong Kong and Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai) — China's revamped anti-monopoly regime has quickly become among the most muscular in the world and companies engaged in global deals ignore it at their peril, competition lawyers have warned.
The country's ministry of commerce (Mofcom) has made three landmark decisions involving foreign companies since new laws were introduced last August, two of which related to global deals with limited connection to China.
The latest ruling, issued last week, approved the $1.6bn acquisition by Japan's Mitsubishi Rayon of Lucite International of the UK but with several stringent terms.
"Global and cross-border deals involving a China business are now faced with a major new hurdle that cannot be ignored," said Ted Henneberry, a partner at Orrick, a Washington-based law firm. "The recent rulings show that companies affected will have to anticipate and address potential anti-trust issues that Mofcom might raise."
Lawyers Freshfields said that China's merger control jurisdiction "must be taken seriously" and its procedures "need to be carefully considered at the outset of multinational transactions". …
May 5—Yuan May Account for 50% of Hong Kong-China Trade (Update3)
Bloomberg (Bob Chen) — About 50 percent of Hong Kong’s trade with China may be settled in yuan as exporters reduce their exposure to a weakening dollar, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (Asia) Ltd. said.
May 5—Profit Letdown In Store For China Investors
China's growth recovery won't deliver the profits shareholders seek.
Forbes (Tina Wang) — Stock market elation over mounting signs of a Chinese recovery is unwarranted, some analysts warn. An economic growth pickup driven by Beijing's stimulus measures won't deliver corporate earnings the way shareholders hope.
Profits for Chinese-listed companies plunged 25.8% in the first quarter, compared with the same time last year, according to J.P. Morgan data posted Tuesday. Earnings for state-owned enterprises managed by the central government plummeted 41.8%.
May 5—China Stocks ‘Bubble’ Ready to Burst, Galaxy Says (Update2)
Bloomberg (Chua Kong Ho) — China is at risk of a stock market “bubble” that may burst as investor confidence in the nation’s economic recovery weakens and bank lending slows, according to China Galaxy Securities Co., the nation’s largest brokerage.
The Shanghai Composite Index has surged 50 percent since last year’s low on Nov. 4 amid signs the government’s stimulus measures are reviving the world’s third-largest economy. The gains have driven valuations on the index to 27.2 times earnings, the highest in a year and Asia’s third most expensive. These levels are “signs of a bubble,” Galaxy Securities strategists led by Teng Tai wrote in a report. …
May 4—US, Japan press China on computer rules
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Top US and Japanese trade negotiators pressed China on Monday to scrap rules on foreign computers and appealed against protectionism amid the global slowdown.
Toshihiro Nikai, Japan's trade minister, and US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said after a meeting in Washington that China should drop its plans to require certification of IT products to be used by the government. …
China says its inspectors will have to examine and certify 13 types of IT products, including anti-hacking software, before foreign firms can sell them to the government.
The United States, Japan and other major IT manufacturers fear that China will use the process to learn trade secrets. …
May 5—China's Chips to Power Blade Servers This Year
PC World / IDG News Service (Owen Fletcher) — Blade servers based on microprocessors designed in China will power a supercomputer prototype to be revealed by a government-backed Chinese firm in September, the company said Tuesday.
The blade servers, the first running on China's Godson chips, will later power the country's first petaflop-class supercomputer slated for completion late next year, said a spokesman for the firm, Dawning. A petaflop computer is capable of performing one million billion "flops," or floating point operations per second.
The computer unveiled this year will be suited for use in scientific research and arms development, the spokesman said. Dawning will design Godson servers for other markets if it sees demand for them, he said. …
May 4—China military build-up seems U.S.-focused: Mullen
WASHINGTON (Reuters, Karen Jacobs) — China's build-up of sea and air military power funded by a strong economy appears aimed at the United States, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Monday.
Admiral Michael Mullen said China had the right to meet its security needs, but the build-up would require the United States to work with its Pacific allies to respond to increasing Chinese military capabilities.
"They are developing capabilities that are very maritime focused, maritime and air focused, and in many ways, very much focused on us," he told a conference of the Navy League, a nonprofit seamen's support group, in Washington.
"They seem very focused on the United States Navy and our bases that are in that part of the world." …
May 5—China rebuffs Australian worries over military
BEIJING (Reuters, Ben Blanchard) — China Tuesday sought to rebuff Australian concerns about Beijing's military build-up, saying it was committed to peaceful development. Canberra's Defence White Paper said China must be more open about its military expansion or risk alarming neighbours, warning security jitters caused by a more capable China would extend far beyond Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own. …
But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said China was only interested in peace, repeating the government's standard line when other nations tell of their concern about the growing Chinese defence budget.
"China is going along the path of peaceful development. We pursue a defensive defence policy. China is a positive force for maintaining regional stability and world peace," Ma said. "China's military modernisation will not threaten any country. I think related countries ought to look at this more objectively and without prejudice," he told a news briefing.
But a report this week in the Global Times, a popular Chinese tabloid that often takes a hawkish slant on foreign policy issues, slammed the white paper for exaggerating the "China threat." …
May 5—China to stage 50, 000-troop military drill: report
BEIJING (Reuters, Chris Buckley) — China's People's Liberation Army will hold a big training drill later this year to hone the modernizing force's skills in complex, high-tech warfare, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.
The exercise will involve 50,000 troops from four divisions across four of China's seven military command regions, Xinhua reported, citing the PLA General Staff Headquarters. It will include infantry forces as well as paratroopers and aircraft.
The drill will mark another step in China's efforts to remake its military as a modern force, capable of complex and far-reaching missions, Xinhua said. …
May 5—New sea incident between China, US: Pentagon
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Chinese fishing boats engaged in "dangerous" maneuvers near a US Navy ship in international waters off China, the Pentagon said Tuesday, in the latest provocative encounter with American surveillance vessels.
Spokesman Bryan Whitman said a pair of Chinese vessels last Friday approached the USNS Victorious, which he said was engaged in "routine operations," and forced the US vessel into defensive measures.
"It is unsafe and dangerous behavior and it needs to be addressed" diplomatically, Whitman said.
The US crew, he said, "requested assistance of a nearby Chinese military vessel" prompting the fishing boats to steam away.
"This was clearly well into the international waters, 70 miles (113 kilometers) off the coast of China." …
May 4—China moves to resolve naval rows
BBC News (Shirong Chen) — China sets up a new department to deal with border and maritime issues, in a move to resolve disputes with its neighbours.
China has fixed its land boundaries with a dozen neighbouring countries -- only the Sino-Indian border remains to be settled.
But maritime boundaries have proved to be a new source of friction.
China and Japan both claim sovereignty over an island, called Diaoyutai in China and Senkaku in Japan.
China's claim over the South China Sea has also been challenged -- by Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.
The Chinese navy has fought two battles with the Vietnamese in the past three decades.
Recently the Philippine government submitted its claim over part of the Spratly Islands to a United Nations body …
May 5—China gives $10 mln to Zimbabwe
LUSAKA (AFP) — China has given 10 million dollars (7.5 million euros) to Zimbabwe, half of it directly into the state coffers, to help boost the country's troubled economy, a Chinese government official said on Tuesday.
May 5—Spanish judge to quiz China officials over Tibet
MADRID (AFP) — A Spanish judge said on Tuesday he intended to question eight Chinese leaders as official suspects in a case of genocide in connection with a crackdown on unrest that erupted in Tibet in March 2008.
National Court judge Santiago Pedraz sent a letter to Chinese authorities formally requesting permission to travel to China to question the eight, including Defence Minister Liang Guanglie and Minister for State Security Geng Huichang.
"Given the cordial relations between our two respective countries, I hope that you will respond favourably to my request," he wrote referring to a bilateral justice cooperation agreement signed in 2005, according to a court document obtained by AFP.
The suit was filed against the Chinese leaders in July 2008 by a Tibetan rights groups, the Tibet Support Committee, and accepted by the court the following month just days before the opening of the Beijing Olympics. …
Other Chinese officials named in the suit were Communist Party Secretary in Tibet Zhang Qingli, Politburo member Wang Lequan, Ethnic Affairs Commission head Li Dezhu, People's Liberation Army Commander in Lhasa General Tong Guishan, Public Security Minister Meg Jianzhu and Zhang Guihua, political commissar in the Chengdu military command.
The suit against the eight is an extension to another complaint filed by the Tibet Support Committee in 2006.
That suit accuses Chinese leaders, including former president Jiang Zemin and former prime minister Li Peng, of torture and crimes against humanity as well as genocide allegedly carried out in Tibet during the 1980s. …
Beijing has condemned the accusations of genocide in Tibet as slander …
May 4—China and the Falun Gong
NY Times (Letter to the Editor) -- RE ”After 10 Years and 2,000 Deaths, China Still Presses Its Crusade Against Falun Gong” (news article, April 28)
At a meeting of the World Psychiatric Association in 2004, the Chinese Psychiatric Society agreed to allow an independent review committee to investigate reports of involuntary psychiatric “treatment” of non-mentally ill Falun Gong practitioners.
In short order, however, the Chinese government forbade such interference in its internal affairs.
In subsequent years, many American and other foreign psychiatrists have visited China, but no inspection of any of the maximum-security psychiatric institutions has taken place. Reports of misuse of psychiatry in China persist.
Abraham L. Halpern, Palm Beach, Fla.,
The writer is emeritus professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College.
May 4—Chinese Scholar Renounces Communist Party
WASHINGTON (Earthtimes / Foundation to Support Chinese to Quit the Chinese Communist Party, Press Release) — Dr. Yanjun Sun, a visiting professor of Psychology of Religion at the University of Hawaii who just recently left China, has publicly severed all his ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Now, on a trip to Washington, DC, he is reaching out to policy-makers and the media to explain the importance of this growing movement to renounce communism and to detail his knowledge of the persecution of religious groups in China.
"The sciences, including psychology, are destined to serve the advancement of humankind. However, under a dictatorship, science becomes the accomplice of tyrannical ruling. This is the deepest shame of scientific professionals. A scientist can apply professional knowledge in doing good things as well as in doing evil things, and because of this, a scientist has to be responsible for his or her conduct to make sure that what he or she is doing is beneficial to human society," states Dr. Sun.
"I cannot accept that the Chinese government has mobilized the entire state-run machinery to persecute peaceful religious groups like the Falun Gong in their efforts to control the population. The Chinese communist regime has brutally persecuted those Falun Gong adherents who persist in their faith of Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance [the founding principles of the Falun Gong spiritual practice]. Over the past ten years, the Chinese communist regime has employed multiple defamatory and slanderous campaigns against Falun Gong, and they have committed the crime of genocide against adherents of this peaceful practice."
Professor Sun decided to take action after reading Nine Commentaries on Chinese Communist Party, an editorial series published by a US-based Chinese newspaper that details the atrocities committed by the Chinese Communist Party in history as well as today, highlighting issues like the oppression of Falun Gong. He has now openly renounced his membership in the Chinese Communist Party and all of its related organizations. To date 53 million Chinese people have made similar statements through both formal and informal means. …
May 4—Petitioners fling handbills from Beijing hotel
BEIJING (AP) — Protesters seeking redress for a litany of grievances strung banners from a Beijing hotel and flung handbills off its roof Monday in hopes of winning media attention.
Petitioners — mostly from China's vast, impoverished countryside — routinely flock to Beijing by the thousands to air complaints after their local governments ignore them. …
Complaints on banners displayed Monday ranged from allegations of corruption to the use of fake medication in hospitals. …
May 4—Beijing lashes back at US jab on media freedoms
BEIJING (AP) — China's Foreign Ministry on Monday rejected accusations by President Barack Obama that China is among nations that regularly harass and detain journalists.
In his May 1 statement marking World Press Freedom Day, Obama cited the imprisonment of reporter Shi Tao and human rights blogger Hu Jia as "emblematic examples" on how China and other nations restrict press freedoms. …
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has listed China as the world's leading jailer of journalists for 10 consecutive years, with 28 held as of Dec. 1, 2008.
May 5—China reject latest US report on religious freedom
BEIJING (AP) — Beijing on Tuesday said a U.S. report criticizing the state of China's religious freedom was biased and groundless.
China sharply restricts religious practices and controls activities of churches and mosques, the report from the congressionally backed U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said.
"Religious activities are tightly controlled and some religious adherents were detained, imprisoned, fined, beaten and harassed," said the commission's 2009 annual report, which was released last week. …
May 4—China quake survivors face intimidation, detention-Amnesty
BEIJING (Reuters, Chris Buckley) — Survivors of China's devastating earthquake last year face detention and harassment if they protest over collapsed schools, corruption claims and other grievances, Amnesty International said.
While Beijing is pouring billions of dollars into rebuilding towns in southwestern Sichuan province flattened by the May 12 quake, the government also has waged a less public campaign against citizens who blame more than natural destruction for the many schools that collapsed, killing thousands of children, the human rights advocacy group said. …
An official in the Sichuan government propaganda office said she had not seen the Amnesty report but rejected its claims. "This group has no right to criticise us," said the official, who refused to give her name. "China has made many achievements in reconstruction, so why do they exaggerate and distort problems?"
May 4—Manhattan -- Dalai Lama in NY urges Americans to visit Tibet
MANHATTAN (Reuters, Mark Egan) — Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, on Sunday urged Americans to visit his homeland to disprove China’s assertion that people are happy there.
May 5—Building Safer Homes Before The Next China Quake
NPR (Melissa Block ) — Last May, an earthquake devastated southwest China, toppling buildings. The culprit, says earthquake engineer Elizabeth Hausler, was precast concrete slabs. Hausler is now on a mission in Sichuan to help people build homes that can withstand future earthquakes.
In the countryside of China's Sichuan province, Elizabeth Hausler is trying to spread a vital message: Earthquakes don't kill people, bad buildings do.
Hausler, 40, an earthquake engineer from Illinois, is working to make sure that when people rebuild their houses, they make them stronger and safer than the structures that collapsed in the powerful earthquake that tore through southwest China a year ago. …
It didn't take long to figure out one main culprit: precast concrete slabs, 8 or 9 feet long, used for roofs and floors. That's a deadly practice, Hausler says. …
May 4—No butts: China orders officials to smoke
BEIJING (AFP) — Officials in a county in central China have been told to smoke nearly a quarter million packs of locally made cigarettes annually or risk being fined, state media reported.
The Gong'an county government in Hubei province has ordered its staff to puff their way through 230,000 packs of Hubei-produced cigarette brands a year, the Global Times said.
Departments that fail to meet their targets will be fined, according to the report. …
May 5—China cigarette order goes up in smoke
BEIJING (Reuters Life!) — A county government in central China has rescinded an order which was intended to make officials smoke more to help the local economy, local authorities said on Tuesday.
… the government has now backtracked after an uproar in the local press criticizing the policy as being harmful to health and a waste of public money.
"We decided to remove this edict," said a statement placed on the county government's website, saying it violated regulations about the issuing of notices. …
May 5—'Women only' carriages on Beijing subway mulled: state media
BEIJING (AFP) — A Beijing politician has suggested setting up "women only" subway carriages on the city's crowded public transport system to curb sexual harassment and alleviate overcrowding, state press said Tuesday.
"Beijing's subway is so crowded during rush hour, and women are at a disadvantage in both strength and stature to fight for the limited space," the China Daily quoted Wang Zhuo, a member of an advisory assembly, as saying. …
May 4—China denies singling out Mexicans for quarantine
BEIJING (Associated Press, Christopher Bodeen) — China on Monday denied discriminating against Mexicans in its fight against swine flu after the Latin American country complained that more than 70 Mexican travelers have been quarantined even though some are apparently not at risk for the virus. …
Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa has called the quarantines in Beijing and elsewhere discriminatory and urged Mexicans not to travel to China until the situation is resolved.
May 4—China bans pork imports from Alberta: govt
BEIJING (AFP) — China has banned hog and pork product imports from the Canadian province of Alberta after pigs from a herd there tested positive for the H1N1 swine flu virus, the Chinese government said. …
China, the world's largest consumer of pork, has so far not reported any confirmed or even probable cases of H1N1. …
May 5—Mexico to fly China quarantine citizens home
BEIJING (AFP) — Mexico prepared Tuesday to fly home dozens of nationals quarantined in China under controversial swine flu measures, even as Beijing faced renewed criticism over the isolation of 22 Canadians.
May 5—China changes visa rules for US citizens
BEIJING (Associated Press, Tini Tran) — China has tightened visa rules for citizens from the United States, which has reported the second highest number of swine flu cases in the world.
A notice dated May 3 on the Web site for the Chinese Embassy and its consulates in the U.S. said that all visa applications would now require six business days to process, with express and rush services for visa applications suspended until further notice. …
Last week, government spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the reports of changes to visa regulations were "groundless."
