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All posts by LLD - 163. page

Beijing Fires Back at U.S. Pressure Over Currency

“The appreciation of the renminbi can’t solve the trade deficit with China,” said China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on September 16, at a press briefing, referring to the current U.S. pressure over China’s currency. “Pressure cannot solve the issue. Rather, it may have the opposite effect.”

The push-back was related to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s criticism of Beijing’s currency controls. Chinese authorities warned Thursday that continued pressure might worsen the situation. At the same time, the official Xinhua news agency published a range of articles with quotes from Chinese and Western scholars to defend its currency practice.

Source: Xinhua, September 16, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2010-09/16/c_12577551.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Qiushi Criticizes Western Style Democracy

On September 16, Qiushi, the core publication of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, printed the following article: “Systematic advantages and basic characteristics of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics – Draw a clear line between socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics and Western capitalist democracy.” The article touted “walking our own path” instead of “copying the Western capitalist democracy model,” “real people’s democracy” instead of “dollar democracy in essence,” “a unicameral People’s Congress” instead of “a bicameral system with separation of powers,” and “CCP-led multi-party cooperation” instead of “Multi-party rule in turn.”

The article emphasized the importance of ideological work, which is of “important and far-reaching significance for improving the party’s political sensitivity and discernment, leading cadres and the masses consciously to adhere to socialism with Chinese characteristics, clarifying wrong viewpoints on the political direction of the buildup of democracy, and resisting the hostile forces’ attempts at Westernization.”

Source: Qiushi, September 16, 2010
http://www.qstheory.cn/zxdk/2010/201018/201009/t20100911_46966.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Exim Bank: Support Chinese Enterprises to Land in Latin American

At the second Latin America-China Investors Forum (LA-CIF) held in Beijing on September 15 and 16, Vice Governor of China’s Export-Import Bank Zhu Xinqiang spoke about actively supporting Chinese enterprises to open up businesses in Latin America. The Exim Bank will “fully make use of its good relations with Latin American countries and bountiful information about local policies, laws, and business protocols to provide consulting services for the enterprises and help Chinese enterprises with project evaluation and risk assessment. At the same time, it will provide financial products and services to support China-Latin America business and trade cooperation.”

The Exim Bank, with total assets of over 1 trillion Yuan (0.15 trillion $US), is offering financial support for Chinese enterprises in more than 150 countries and regions; its Latin American outstanding loans are as high as 40 billion Yuan (US$6 billion).

Source: Xinhua, September 15, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2010-09/15/c_12573296.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

CCP’s Organization Department Trains Officials Again

A third training session was launched by the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee’s
Organization Department, the party’s function of appointing cadres, in Jinggangshan on September 5. [1] The trainees are 112 Party or government officials at the bureau level (equivalent to assistant secretary in the U.S.) from across the country.
According to an official at the Central Party School, this session is part of the Organization Department’s large scale trainings for nationwide communist Party officials. The focus is “party spirit” and the “relationship between the Party and the people.”
Source: Beijing News, September 6, 2010
http://epaper.bjnews.com.cn/html/2010-09/06/content_144657.htm?div=-1
[1] Jinggangshan, a mountain located in Jiangxi Province, is known as the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army (the People’s Liberation Army of China) and the "cradle of the Chinese revolution." After the Kuomintang (KMT) turned against the Communist Party in 1927, the Communists either went underground or fled to the countryside. Following the unsuccessful Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha, Mao Zedong led his 1000 remaining men to Jinggangshan, where he set up his first peasant soviet.
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Beijing Rebuts Deterioration of the Investment Environment in China

Beijing has made high profile efforts to defuse concerns about the deterioration of the investment environment in China. In July, when meeting with German Chancellor Merkel in Xi’an, Premier Wen Jiaobao said, “There is a view that China’s investment environment has been worse. I think this is not true.” On July 26, Commerce Minister Chen Deming wrote in an opinion piece in Financial Times that “In fact, China will open wider in the future.”
A report issued by the World Bank in July, "Investing Across Borders 2010," states that China is one of the regions that has the most constraint on foreign direct investment. As many as 18 procedures and a time span of 99 days are needed in order to launch a foreign business in Shanghai, slower than both the regional average for East Asia and the Pacific and the global average.
Sources:
World Bank, 
http://iab.worldbank.org/Data/Explore%20Economies/China#/Starting-a-foreign-business
China News Service, September 5, 2010
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2010/09-05/2512860.shtml
Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/18dae5d2-981c-11df-b218-00144feab49a.html
Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Xinhua Defends the Government’s Real ID Registration for Cell Phones

In defense of China’s recent practice of requiring real IDs for cell phone numbers, Xinhua News Agency published an article titled “How the U.S. Implements Real Name Registration for Cell Phones.” The article explains that U.S. cell phone users need to provide their social security number, name, address, and credit card information at the time of purchase, thus showing that the newly implemented rule is not unlike the rules in many developed nations. However, the article obscured the fact that the major cell phone companies in China — China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom — are all government-controlled, while telecommunication companies in the U.S. are private.
Source: Xinhua, September 9, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2010-09/09/c_12534295.htm
Briefings | | |   Information/Technology