What's news

Stronger coordination in global affairs

Beijing called on April 15 for a "good environment" to resolve conflicts in Ukraine ahead of four-way crisis talks in Geneva, as tension escalated between Kiev and pro-Russian protesters.

China welcomes Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine establishing a dialogue process, but its success depends on guaranteeing the legitimate interests and concerns of all parties, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said after meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Beijing.

President Xi Jinping, speaking after the two ministers met, called for stronger coordination on global and regional affairs between Beijing and Moscow.

Xi told Lavrov that Sino-Russian ties, which have never been stronger, are important at a bilateral level and are playing an irreplaceable role in global peace and stability.

Lavrov's one-day visit to Beijing came shortly before the scheduled talks in Geneva on April 17 among Russia, the US, the EU and Ukraine.

Xi urges combining space and air roles

President Xi Jinping has urged the air force to speed up its transformation into a strong power with integrated air and space capabilities.

During an inspection visit to the People's Liberation Army air force headquarters in Beijing on April 14, Xi, also chairman of the Central Military Commission, said the air force plays a decisive role in national security as well as military strategy, and he urged it to have balanced strength in defensive and offensive operations, PLA Daily reported on its website.

He talked with commanders and officers about the PLA air force's development and preparations for military operations, saying they must focus on training that boosts combat capability.

Hopes high for improved ties

Premier Li Keqiang said on April 14 that he hopes China and Germany can push forward cooperation in manufacturing and emerging industries such as new energy when he met visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Beijing.

Li also said he is looking forward to visiting Germany later this year and meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Steinmeier told Li that the two countries have shared interests in many aspects and have broad prospects for cooperation.

Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Wang Yi also held talks with Steinmeier.

Wang told Steinmeier that China hopes Germany would seize the business opportunities brought by China's economic transition.

"China would like to learn advanced experience and technologies from foreign countries, including Germany. Countries that can seize the opportunity will take the initiative in cooperation with China," Wang told Steinmeier.

Anti-graft enforcement

Disciplinary authorities have identified 220 recent violations of the Party's frugality rules, the country's top anti-graft agency announced on April 14.

A total of 313 Party and government officials have received punishments, from serious warnings to removal from public office, with all names and misbehavior publicized on the website of the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Among them, 42 cases were related to the misuse of government vehicles. Seventeen involved sightseeing tours at public expense, and 10 were lavish banquets paid for with public funds.

Change aimed at boosting agriculture

China will reduce the amount of cash that village commercial banks keep at the central bank to increase financial support for the agricultural sector, the State Council decided at a Cabinet meeting on April 16.

The reserve requirement ratio will be reduced for qualified rural commercial banks and cooperative banks in counties, as part of the packaged policies that Premier Li Keqiang endorsed at the meeting.

Li did not state when and by how much the reserve requirement ratio would be lowered for lenders, saying only that an appropriate reduction would be made for qualifying banks.

Billions of yuan will be released into the market, said Huang Yanxin, deputy director of the economic management department under the Ministry of Agriculture, as these grassroots banks will be able to take back their deposits from the central bank.

China to establish new Antarctic station

A groundbreaking ceremony for China's fifth station in the Antarctic is expected to take place during the next South Pole expedition planned for November.

"It will take at least three years to build the fifth Antarctic research station because of the short annual construction period and our limited transport capacity in Antarctica," Qu Tanzhou, director of the State Oceanic Administration's Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration, told China Daily on April 13.

Summer at the South Pole lasts from November to February with temperatures struggling to get above -20 C, according to the research center British Antarctic Survey.

China's icebreaker, Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, returned to Shanghai on April 15, finishing the 30th Antarctic expedition.

(See graphics on page 31)

Tightening leash on animal testing

Revised regulations on animal testing that are expected to come out in China later this year will improve the treatment and welfare of animals in laboratories, said Yue Bingfei, deputy director of the experimental animal division of the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control.

"An independent section on laboratory-animal welfare and ethics will be added to beef up the regulations," he said.

About 12 million animals - mostly mice - are used for scientific purposes every year in China, say statistics provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Other animals used include rabbits, guinea pigs, dogs and monkeys.

Groups conducting research on live animals need to have a permit from the authorities, Yue said, but so far "no facilities have been punished for animal welfare and ethics violations".

In the latest amendment, an ethics review by a special committee of four experts in lab animal science and one layman is required before starting studies involving animal tests, he said.

Zoo lifts panda's spirits with new swing

A TV and a swing are among the facilities that have been set up in a giant panda's enclosure at a zoo in Yunnan province in efforts to cheer her up after her last pal returned to her hometown last month.

Sijia, a panda living at the Yunnan Wildlife Park in Kunming, started to feel low after her friend Meiqian returned to Ya'an, Sichuan province, on March 31. In the first several days after Meiqian's departure, Sijia ignored the keepers and was not interested in her food.

In May 2008, the pandas were displaced from their homes in Sichuan after a magnitude-8 earthquake struck the province, affecting the animals' habitats and threatening their safety.

Three pandas - Sijia, Meiqian and Qianqian - were then brought to the Kunming wildlife park's panda house.

In 2012, when the pandas were scheduled to return to Sichuan, Kunming residents petitioned to let the animals stay. But still Qianqian left for home that year, followed by Meiqian in March, leaving Sijia alone.

The keepers also placed a fake panda, which is the same size as Meiqian, in Sijia's enclosure in attempt to ease the 8-year-old panda's loneliness.

Foreign investment law to be revised

Officials are seeking ideas to create a level-playing field for domestic and overseas businesses in China.

"China should combine foreign investment law with company law, which will give national treatment to overseas companies on the Chinese mainland and pave the way for the country's progress in corporate governance," said Wang Zhile, a senior researcher on foreign investment at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, a think tank under the Ministry of Commerce.

The National People's Congress Standing Committee has said it will "speed up" research on a new corporate legal framework and will propose a draft when "conditions are ripe".

Qiu Guangling, director of the Department of Foreign Investment Administration at the Ministry of Commerce, said recently, "The revision this time aims to unify domestic laws on foreign investments and will focus on the equal treatment of foreign and domestic investments, strengthening security review and advancing the reforms of foreign investment regulation."

In a recent statement, the US-China Business Council called for China's policymakers to consider eliminating terminology such as "foreign-invested enterprises".

Judiciary looks beyond jails

Non-custodial penalties such as community service and correction programs will be increasingly considered as part of a major effort to protect human rights, Minister of Justice Wu Aiying said.

"Compared with imprisonment, community programs will allow offenders to serve a more productive sentence," Wu told China Daily.

During the sentence, offenders convicted of minor crimes will live with their families and be monitored in the community.

According to the Ministry of Justice, there are 697,000 offenders participating in community correction programs, an increase from 204,569 in 2009.

Since the beginning of the program, communities have accepted 1.8 million offenders into correctional programs.

In November, China abolished the "re-education through labor" system - commonly known as laojiao.

Wu said there was no link between abolishing this system and the community programs.

"To further protect human rights and carry forward China's non-custodial system, we will continue to improve community corrections," she said.

Economic integration to spur development

Asia's distinctive cultural resources can propel the development of the continent's businesses, and the region's cultural diversity can provide new ideas and opportunities for Asian economic integration.

This was the consensus of participants in a panel discussion hosted by Beijing Foreign Studies University on April 10 at the Boao Forum for Asia in China's Hainan province.

"This year, Asia has become the most active region in the world in terms of economic development," the university's president Peng Long said.

"But there is still a lot of room for economic integration as the GDP per capita in Asia is only one-fifth of that in the European Union and one-eighth of that in North America. Many countries are thinking about how to find a new driving force to stimulate social and enterprise development by exploring Asian cultures."

The panelists agreed that Asian economic integration must be in step with cultural values and based on mutual understanding and respect.

China Daily-Xinhua

(China Daily European Weekly 04/18/2014 page2)