CSG news update -- 2006-04-17

[China Study Group <chinastudygroup@gmail.com>]

China Study Group news update

In Candor From China, Efforts to Ease Anxiety
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/17/world/asia/17hu.html
New York Times | 2006-04-17
Joseph Kahn
China and the United States have engaged in public disputes about trade, human rights, military spending and energy security, but for just a moment late last year, their leaders put briefing books aside and agreed to talk privately.  With an aura of candor described as unusual for Chinese leaders,...

China to resume share sales
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/17/content_4435483.htm
Xinhua | 2006-04-17
BEIJING, April 17 -- China has unveiled a three-stage plan to gradually resume domestic stock sales to bolster its capital market with more good-quality listings while avoiding a glut of unwanted shares.      Under the arrangement, listed companies will first be permitted to place equities with ex...

Our Opportunity With China
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/16/AR2006041600859.html
Washington Post | 2006-04-17
Elizabeth Economy and Adam Segal
Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington this week offers the Bush administration an opportunity to move beyond the U.S.-China chatfests. While the White House is set to focus on the usual issues of contention -- the exploding bilateral trade deficit, currency manipulation, and China&#3...

China grants US$350 mln to foreign investors
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-04/17/content_569154.htm
Xinhua | 2006-04-17
China's foreign exchange authority has awarded investment quotas totaling US$350 million to three qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII), according to the China Securities Journal.  The three QFIIs are JP Morgan Chase Bank, DBS Bank Ltd and JF Asset Management Limited.  The State A...

China to unify corporate income tax at the beginning of 2007 - report
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/04/16/afx2673169.html
AFX | 2006-04-17
China is expected to unify tax rates for foreign and domestic firms at the beginning of next year, the Shanghai Securities News reported, citing a Ministry of Finance economist.  Speaking at a conference in Beijing on Sunday, Jia Kang, chairman of the ministry's Institute of Fiscal Science sai...

Rural-urban income gap continues to widen
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/17/content_569054.htm
China Daily | 2006-04-17
Qiu Quanlin
Qiu Guihai's monthly salary was about 800 yuan (US$100) in 2002 when he began working in a watch factory in Foshan, in South China's Guangdong Province.  He has changed jobs several times to "pocket more money" over the past four years. But the 28-year-old farmer-turned-labourer's hope...

Beijing urged to ease investment limits
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/6855d18c-cdad-11da-afcd-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2006-04-17
Andrew Yeh
Beijing should further liberalise restrictions on overseas investors buying sizeable stakes in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  Ken Davies, a senior OECD economist leading an effort to lobby China's government to clarify ...

Officials accused on pits
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=22&art_id=16709&sid=7531676&con_type=1&d_str=20060417&sear_year=2006
Reuters | 2006-04-17
Chinese local governments are slackening in their efforts to force officials to give up their investments in coal mines, Xinhua News Agency reported.  To combat corruption and improve safety in China's coal industry - the world's most dangerous - Beijing last year ruled that officials were...

Reining in capitalists
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=15&art_id=16697&sid=7505857&con_type=1
The Standard | 2006-04-17
Wu Zhong
On the north side of the Summer Palace, in a northwestern suburb of Beijing, stands the Central Party School which trains communist cadres - at or above minister-level and those who are tipped for promotion to the senior ranks - in party policy and ideology.  But this top training school for cadre...

Drive to End 'Monopoly Welfare'
http://www.bjreview.com.cn/06-15-e/china-3.htm
Beijing Review | 2006-04-16
Tan Wei
Lin Bin works for a telecommunications company in a coastal city in north China. In the view of many people, he has quite a nice job, because the telecom industry is a monopoly industry in China.  Lin said he makes 3,000 yuan a month, which is fairly high compared with the income of other local pe...

Ill-Intended Mergers?
http://www.bjreview.com.cn/06-15-e/bus-2.htm
Beijing Review | 2006-04-16
Feng Jianhua
Business takeovers by foreign conglomerates in China have attracted significant government attention recently, including concerns that the flurry of business maneuvers is aimed at forming foreign-controlled monopolies in the Chinese market.  In early March, Li Deshui, former Director of the Nation...

Struggle against illegal land acquisitions
http://en.ce.cn/Business/Macro-economic/200604/16/t20060416_6713110.shtml
China Economic Net | 2006-04-16
Chinese law enforcement officers are struggling to stem the tide of illegal land acquisitions, a government official says.  Zhang Xinbao, director of law enforcement supervision under the Ministry of Land and Resources, said Saturday that .  The cases involved five million mu (330,000 hectares),...

US to push for Chinese pledge on reforms
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d70e453a-cd8c-11da-afcd-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2006-04-16
Edward Alden and Christopher Swann
Hu Jintao, the first Chinese president to visit Washington in nearly a decade, arrives in Seattle on Monday to kick off a four-day US tour that will focus heavily on the growing trade imbalances between the US and China.  Senior US officials said that, while the two countries were in agreement ove...

Exports and lending push China's GDP growth to 10%
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0e6b3c02-cd71-11da-afcd-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2006-04-16
Richard McGregor
China's economy grew by more than 10 per cent in the first quarter on the back of accelerating exports and resurgent bank lending based on above-target rises in money supply.  Hu Jintao, China's president, announced the gross domestic product figures on Sunday on the eve of his departure f...