CSG news update -- 2006-04-18

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

China Study Group news update

Investment fears fail to stir Beijing
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=5&art_id=16748&sid=7538296&con_type=1&d_str=20060418&sear_year=2006
Reuters | 2006-04-18
China will continue to encourage incoming investment despite criticism over excessive foreign influence and concerns large inflows are helping swell foreign exchange reserves, according to a senior official.  Monday's reaffirmation of the long- standing policy by Commerce Ministry foreign inve...

Three Gorges Dam nears completion　
http://en.ce.cn/National/Local/200604/18/t20060418_6733104.shtml
AFP | 2006-04-18
Thirteen years after construction began on the Three Gorges Dam on China's biggest river, work on the project often compared to the Great Wall in its scale is nearly complete. 	 The first pickaxe fell in 1993, when access roads were built to the site on the 6,360-kilometer-long (3,940-mile) Ya...

ANGOLA: China entrenches position in booming economy
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/13eb5edff421e4867d80f2ed0f634014.htm
IRIN | 2006-04-17
LUANDA - The announcement earlier this month that Angola had overtaken Saudi Arabia as China's premier supplier of crude oil underlined the deepening ties between the two red-hot economies.  Angola is sub-Saharan Africa's second largest oil producer, after Nigeria, pumping 1.3 million barr...

What China Really Thinks of the U.S.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1184325,00.html
Time | 2006-04-17
Simon Elegant
If there's any Chinese who feels a warm glow inside when he sees an American flag fluttering in the breeze it's Zhan Bingkui. As foreign-trade manager of the Shanghai Flag and Tent Factory, the chain-smoking 50-year-old sells tens of thousands of flags to America each year. With his liveliho...

China-Japan Economic Ties Glow Amid Political Chill
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-chijapan17apr17,1,5287763.story
LA Times | 2006-04-17
Don Lee
SHANGHAI — A year after about 20,000 anti-Japan protesters jammed the streets here, Japanese and Chinese officials are still wrangling over how to repair a damaged Japanese Consulate building — a reflection of the icy political relations that persist between the two nations.  But it is...

China yuan reforms "agonizingly slow": Zoellick
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2006-04-17T205753Z_01_N17284868_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-ECONOMY-CHINA-ZOELLICK-DC.XML
Reuters | 2006-04-17
Doug Palmer
China's currency reforms have been "agonizingly slow," but the United States should not blame others for its own problems, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said on Monday.  "China seems to be saying the right things. ... The head of the People's Bank talks about this in a way that...

China's homeowners get small taste of democracy
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-04-17-china-homeowners-cover_x.htm
USA Today | 2006-04-17
Calum MacLeod
BEIJING — A seat on the Gold Land Green Town homeowners association offers a chance to weigh in on fees for utilities and garbage pickup, to schedule yoga classes and to set rules for use of the plush clubhouse.  Rarest of all, it offers a chance to be a democrat in China.  The Communist P...

'Sanzi' firms take up 75% of high-tech sector income
http://en.ce.cn/Business/Macro-economic/200604/18/t20060418_6734707.shtml
Shanghai Daily | 2006-04-17
The revenue of overseas- or private-invested firms accounted for three-fourths of the total income in the high-tech manufacturing industry in China last year, and most of them are exported-oriented, the Ministry of Information Industry said yesterday.  The revenue of so called "sanzi" firms (joint...