03/23/2010 Source: Xinhua

Twenty-one people implicated in a deadly fire that burned a section of the newly built China Central Television (CCTV) headquarters last year stood trial at a court in Beijing on Tuesday.

But the first-instance court hearing held in the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court Tuesday morning was closed to media.

The No. 2 branch of Beijing Municipal People’s Procuratorate has confirmed that all of the defendants including Xu Wei, former head of the broadcaster’s construction office, were charged with causing an accident with dangerous goods, apart from other crimes.

An illegal fireworks display caused the blaze on Feb. 9, 2009 in the 30-story building in Beijing’s Central Business District, which left one firemen dead and eight others injured, including six firemen and two construction workers. It caused direct economic losses of more than 160 million yuan (23.44 million U.S. dollars).

In February, a statement from the State Council said its probe found 71 people responsible for the fire. Forty-four of them would face criminal charges while 27 others would suffer Party and administrative disciplinary actions.

03/18/2010 Source: Xinhua

China respected the universality of human rights and believed all human rights were “universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated,” He Yafei, China’s new ambassador to the UN Office in Geneva, said on Wednesday.

“The principle of universality has been included in the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments,” He told Xinhua in an interview.

“China has ratified more than 20 international human rights instruments, including seven of the eight core human rights instruments. This demonstrates clearly China’s affirmation of the universality of human rights,” said the ambassador, who was China’s vice foreign minister before taking his new position in Geneva earlier this month.

While acknowledging the universality of human rights, He also stressed that countries might have different understandings about human rights and different ways and means of promoting and protecting human rights because of the “diversity of culture, history, religion and the difference of social systems and development levels.”

“The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action (VDPA) adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 has confirmed that the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind when promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms by states,” he said.

According to the Chinese ambassador, the UN Human Rights Council, which is based in Geneva and comprises 47 member states, is an agency aimed at promoting and protecting human rights through dialogue and cooperation.

Nearly four years after its creation, the Council “has basically accomplished its work and is on the right track,” he said.

He noted the Council had been able to review all the items on the agenda and provided timely responses to the substantive human rights issues.

In addition, the Council had reviewed human rights situations in 112 UN member states, including China, through its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism, which was a “worth mentioning” result.

He admitted the Council was not a “perfect” agency and still suffered from problems such as double standards and politicization.

The functioning of the Council needed to be reviewed so that its work could be improved and better aligned to the letters and spirit of the UN resolutions, he said.

However, the ambassador expressed opposition to any attempts to “rebuild” the agency or to “renegotiate what has been agreed upon.”

“It is not the time to reform it or rebuild it when it is only four years old… What we should do at the present stage is to find the gaps and fill them in a pragmatic and forward-looking way,” he said.

The Human Rights Council replaced the former widely discredited and highly politicized UN Human Rights Commission, created in 1946.

One of the Council’s major duties is to conduct a Universal Periodic Review of all 192 UN member states to scrutinize their human rights records at home, regardless of their size, wealth, military or political importance.

Besides its three regular meetings each year, the Council can also hold special sessions to discuss crisis situations.

While the Council’s Universal Periodic Review mechanism has been widely praised, some nongovernmental organizations still criticize the agency for not working effectively to tackle human rights problems around the world.

A review of the Council’s working methods is expected to take place in 2011, in accordance with a UN General Assembly resolution.

In the interview, He also highlighted China’s increasing contribution to the United Nations and its deeper integration into the international system.

“From the start of this year, China becomes the 8th largest contributor to the UN regular budget, just following the seven industrialized countries,” He said.

He added China was by far the largest troop-contributing country among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Currently more than 2,100 Chinese soldiers are participating in some 10 UN peacekeeping missions.

The ambassador stressed China would never shirk from international roles, and that it would continue to meet its global obligations.

03/18/2010 Source: People’s Daily

Four members of mineral trader Rio Tinto’s staff, namely Stern Hu, Wang Yong, Ge Minqiang, Liu Caikui, detained last year for stealing commercial secrets and taking bribes, will face trial next Monday, according to documents released by Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court yesterday.

Zhai Jian, Ge Minqiang’s counsel, confirmed that he and Ge have received the notice of trial.

If found guilty, the four will face a maximum penalty of seven years’ jail and a fine for stealing commercial secrets and more than five years’ jail for bribery, said a lawyer.

Tom Albanese, the CEO and board member of the Rio Tinto Group, will visit Beijing, and attend this year’s China Development Forum, which will be held March 20.

Albanese’s China tour may focus on the company’s relationship with China, said an analyst.

“I believe this case will result in a lawful and just outcome,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a press conference in February.

03/15/2010 Source: Global Times

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has invested billions of dollars in several hedge funds and investment management companies in the US, the 21st Century Business Herald reported Saturday.

The report said fund companies the SAFE invested in include Pacific Investment Manage-ment, BlackRock Inc., BLK and Bridgewater Associates.

03/15/2010 Source: People’s Daily

The just-concluded Third Session of China’s National People’s Congress, the top legislature, overwhelmingly approved a key amendment to the Electoral Law, by legally binding equal voting rights between urban and rural balloters. The new law marks a milestone that lifts the political and social status of China’s rural population, and is sure to bring about profound changes to farmers’ lives in the coming years.

Many domestic and Western observers have hailed the law re-making as a huge progress by the most populous country to have overcome classic “class discrimination”, some even claiming a period of “apartheid-like” division that demarcates the rural poor from the urban privileged is finally coming to an end.

Following the last revision 15 years ago done by the same NPC, the Electoral Law stipulated each rural deputy represented a population four times that of an urban deputy. And before that amendment in 1995, the difference was glaringly eight times. The fact that China’s farmers had much less of the suffrage of their urban counterparts casts light to official diminishing of the agrarian and generally impoverished class by the power holders for too long a time.

Gleefully, the current leadership headed by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao saw a job overdue and made a daring and watershed decision to overhaul the system. Bravo for this central government! The revered late leader Mr. Deng Xiaoping once stated that only reforms could do away with systematic roadblocks and deliver continuous progress to China.

It is never easy to change the static, as the vested interests will be hurt and they often stand up in protest. In the U.S. Senate, President Obama’s landmark medical care reform bill, aiming to extend coverage to 46 million uninsured and generally poor people, is facing fierce opposition from both the Republicans and some Democrats. Nevertheless, China’s new electoral law, approved by 2,747 yes votes from 2,919 NPC deputies at the closing meeting on March 14, tells a fact that although dissent retained after a 10-day deliberation, law-makers would look to the vast public consensus outside the Great Hall of the People for guidance.

That is: putting public interests first and foremost, always.

China has been on a rapid rise since Mr. Deng kicked off the charismatic crusade of reform in 1978. Urbanization has gained pace since 1992 when Deng urged for remarkably bigger efforts to speed up construction in Shenzhen, a modern city near Hong Kong built from a fisher’s village.

The proportion of urban population increased from 13 percent in 1950 to 46.6 percent at the end of 2009. As the well being of urbanities was drastically improved, the livelihood of rural folks has lagged far behind, be it state-funded medical care, the nest eggs for the retirees, or a say in national affairs. Though much of urban construction job is now done by the migrant rural workers, this huge group of people, at approximately 300 million, hardly enjoys the rights and benefits of the urbanities. The status quo is barely fair or just.

Premier Wen Jiabao has told the NPC that the government will try to promote fairness and justice among Chinese nationals, vowing to “letting all in China live a dignified life”. He told the nation in a live telecasted news conference on March 14 that he will exert his utmost efforts to address the problem during the last three years of his tenure, because “fairness and justice shines much brighter than the sun”. Wen also inspired the country’s “future leaders” to continue to tackle the issue.

The revision of the electoral law will prove to be an inspirational move that will ushers in an age of fundamental change in the country’s vast rural landscape. As rural deputies get a larger and weighty voice in the decision-making procedure, we are looking forward to elimination of more discriminative polices against the farmers and migrant workers, and the rural regions will have more access to the national fiscal budget.

03/11/2010 Source: Agencies

China’s phone giant, China Mobile, said Wednesday it will pay US$5.8 billion for a 20 percent stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank as part of its bid to enter the wireless banking market.

Hong Kong-listed China Mobile, the largest phone operator by value, said it will work with the Shanghai bank on products that would let customers pay bills or transfer money via mobile phones.

“Mobile handsets have transformed from a simple tool for communications to a valuable device for communications, entertainment and online shopping,” China Mobile said in a statement.

“Mobile e-Commerce will become one of the major means that people make their spending in the coming time,” it says.

China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou told a news conference in Hong Kong on Wednesday that the deal is an “extension of our core telecom business. We see big growth potential in the profitability of the mobile financial business,” said an AFP report Wednesday.

Telecom operators in Japan and South Korea have already struck agreements with banks to offer payment services via cell-phones as a way to generate additional revenue.

Wednesday’s deal would see Shanghai Pudong issue 2.2 billion new shares.

03/11/2010 Source: Xinhua

Chinese lawmakers lashed out at an annual speech delivered by the Dalai Lama Wednesday, saying no matter what new wording he used, his ultimate political attempt of sabotaging ethnic solidarity and splitting China has never changed.

“He simply wants to continue to delude the whole world by inviting us Tibetan officials to visit their communities (in India’s Dharamsala),” Padma Choling, the newly-elected chairman of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Regional Government, told Xinhua while attending the ongoing annual session of the country’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), in Beijing.

“There is no ‘serious problem’ in Tibet, as claimed by the Dalai Lama. Tibet has achieved remarkable progress in various fields over the past years,” Padma Choling said.

“Currently, the most important task for us is to build and develop Tibet better, and do everything possible to improve the people’s livelihoods,” he said.

In addition, he noted that there does not exist a so-called “issue of Tibet” claimed by the Dalai Lama.

“Tibet is an inalienable part of Chinese territory, and there is absolutely no problem with that,” he said.

Lawmakers were also angered by the Dalai Lama’s claims that Chinese authorities were working to “deliberately annihilate Buddhism” by “putting the monks and nuns in prison-like conditions” and “depriving them the opportunity to study and practice in peace.”

“Monks and nuns can be seen everywhere in Lhasa,” said NPC deputy Dorje Tsedrup, mayor of the Tibet autonomous regional capital Lhasa.

“I do not know how the Dalai Lama drew such a ‘prison-like’ conclusion as he has never come back to Tibet since 1959. It is totally nonsense,” he said.

Currently, Tibet has more than 1,700 religious venues and 46,000 monks and nuns, whose religious beliefs are well protected by law, Padma Choling said.

“Monks and nuns are also citizens of the country, and the government has built roads, provided electricity and water for monasteries,” he said.

“We have also included the monks and nuns above 60 years old into the government’s social security system,” he said.
By referring to northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as “East Turkestan” in his speech, the Dalai Lama also, for the first time, voiced explicit support for the terrorist group “East Turkestan” that seeks independence of Xinjiang.

To Padma Choling, such an expression completely exposed the Dalai Lama’s real intention of undermining ethnic unity.

“‘East Turkestan’ is a force engaged in fomenting national separatism and violent, terrorist activities. What is the motive of the Dalai Lama for supporting such a group?” he said.

NPC deputy Jume Tahir, vice president of the Xinjiang Islamic Association, strongly condemned the Dalai Lama’s comments on Xinjiang.

“The ‘East Turkestan’ he referred to does not stand for the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. His support for ‘East Turkestan’ group means nothing but to separate Xinjiang from the motherland,” said Jume Tahir, also Imam of the Id Kah Mosque, the largest of its kind in China, in the border city of Kashgar.

He said “East Turkestan” has been recognized as a terrorist group by international communities, but the Dalai Lama still expressed support for it.

“His purpose is very clear: to destroy the stability in Tibet and Xinjiang and split China under the cover of resolving the so-called ‘Tibet issue’ and ‘Xinjiang issue,’” he said.

“I, on behalf of the religious people in Xinjiang, express our opposition to him, the Dalai Lama,” he said.

Jume Tahir, in his 70s, said he has lived in Xinjiang for so many years and witnessed earth-shaking changes in the region after the peaceful liberation in 1949.

“The people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are enjoying more and more rights and interests economically or politically,” he said.

“The Dalai Lama has never come to Xinjiang, and he is not qualified for saying this or saying that on Xinjiang things,” he added.