IN BRIEF (Page 2)

Policy

Xi to oversee reform implementation

Top leader Xi Jinping will head a group to steer economic, social and Party reforms, underscoring the country's determination to push through change amid resistance from vested interests.

China's top ruling body, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, decided to set up the group to lead overall reforms and appointed Xi as its leader at its meeting on Dec 30.

The group, which is expected to carry out the country's boldest reforms in more than three decades, is being positioned at the highest level, showing the leadership's resolve to smash the shackles of vested interests, analysts said.

But speculation has swirled around how these reforms many of which touch on the country's most complicated issues, such as the family planning policy, separating grassroots courts from local governments and improving Party anti-graft measures would be carried out in the face of resistance from local governments.

Diplomacy

Japan's leader not welcome

Beijing has declared Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "not welcome" by the Chinese people and said Chinese leaders will not meet him.

It is China's toughest stance since tensions flared last year between the Asian powerhouses over China's Diaoyu Islands.

Analysts said Abe must apologize for his visit to a shrine honoring war criminals and promise not to visit it again if he really wants to mend ties with Japan's neighbors.

"It is Abe who has shut the door on talks with Chinese leaders," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a news briefing on Dec 30. He was referring to Abe's Dec 26 visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 Class-A World War II criminals.

"Since assuming office, Abe has miscalculated China-Japan ties and made one mistake after another," said Qin, who called the war criminals "fascists and the Nazis of Asia".

IGAD mediation in S Sudan appreciated

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Dec 31 expressed China's appreciation and support for the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in South Sudan.

Hua Chunying voiced the appreciation at a daily press briefing, when asked to comment on the IGAD summit which ended recently.

After the summit in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, the bloc issued a communique condemning the violence in South Sudan, the world's youngest country, which only gained independence in 2011 after breaking away from Sudan.

Hua said China has been actively engaged in promoting peace talks since the outbreak of the conflict, including working with relevant parties in South Sudan and providing humanitarian aid.

China's special representative on African Affairs Zhong Jianhua made contact with all parties on the sidelines of the summit, and will push ahead his efforts in the area, she said.

China continues fighting pirates

China will continue to send naval fleets on escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia, described by a Chinese naval officer as the nation's international obligation.

The pirates in the area have become more violent and are brazen in using weapons. Reinforcing escort forces is a real need and a long-term mission, said Ding Yiping, deputy commander in the Chinese Navy, the fifth anniversary of China's first such escort mission.

In the past five years, China has sent 16 fleets composed of 42 warships to the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia, escorting 5,465 vessels and rescuing 42 ships attacked by the pirates, said Ding.

A total of 13,214 marines have participated in the escort missions.

The navy will expand its escort area and strengthen cooperation with international forces to ensure regional and world peace, he said.

Ding said that China has no plan to send its aircraft carrier to the area as it is still in sea trials and is not yet combat-ready.

Transport

7 high-speed railways begin operations

China Railway Corp put seven high-speed lines into service in southern, central and western China on Dec 28. The national high-speed railway network, consisting of eight major lines - "four horizontal and four vertical" - has taken shape with the seven new lines.

China's high-speed railway now exceeds 10,000 kilometers - nearly half of the global total - and is expected to hit 18,000 km by 2020.

Shaanxi province's Xi'an-Baoji line runs at 250 km per hour. The other six are 200 kph. They are slower because they traverse trickier topography.

Travel time from Beijing to Guilin, a picturesque city in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, has been shortened from about 26 hours to 10.5 hours. It now takes 3.5 hours to go from Guangdong province's Shenzhen to Fujian province's Xiamen by bullet train - eight hours fewer than before. And travel time from Shanghai to Shenzhen has been cut from 18 hours to fewer than 12.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/03/2014 page2)