CSG news update -- 2007-06-27

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

China Study Group news update

China launches Olympic education programme in schools
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/284703/1/.html
Channel News Asia | 2007-06-27
BEIJING - School has suddenly got tougher for China's 400 million children who have an extra subject to tackle - the Olympic movement.  The Chinese government has launched an Olympic education programme on a scale that International Olympic Committee (IOC) chairman Jacques Rogge has described ...

24,860 gangsters nabbed in S China before HK's handover anniversary
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-06/27/content_6297506.htm
Xinhua | 2007-06-27
GUANGZHOU, June 27 (Xinhua) -- Police from south China's Guangdong Province, Hong Kong and Macao have jointly broken up 1,400 gangs, cracked 10,942 criminal cases and nabbed 24,860 suspects in a sweeping crackdown on organized crime which ended the week before the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong&#...

Uganda calls for agriculture transformation, expecting technical cooperation with China
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200706/27/eng20070627_387943.html
People's Daily | 2007-06-27
 Uganda needs to transform agriculture from traditional way into business and expected to cooperate with China in technical field, a Ugandan senior official said here on Tuesday.  Uganda is an agriculture-based country with over 70 percent of the population engaging in agriculture as a means of in...

China's industrial-company profits swell in Jan-May
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-06/27/content_903678.htm
Bloomberg | 2007-06-27
China's industrial-company profits swelled 42.1 percent in the first five months from a year earlier, hampering government efforts to cool investment in the world's fastest-growing major economy.  Combined net income increased to 902.6 billion yuan ($119 billion), the National Bureau of St...

china's shoes
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=161168185
Trinidad & Tobago Express | 2007-06-27
Gwynne Dyer
The United States is off the hook: last year China overtook the US to become the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. "The tall tree attracts the wind,'' and from now on China will be the main target of the criticism that used to be directed at the United States for refusing to acc...

22.72 million people nationwide affected by floods
http://english.people.com.cn/200706/27/eng20070627_387867.html
People's Daily | 2007-06-27
According to statistics from the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, as of June 15th, this year's flooding has brought devastation to 1.224 hectares of farmland and 22.72 million people, 128 deaths, and has been the origin of a direct economic loss of 8.92 billion Yuan...

Thousands clash with police in China
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=61847
The News International | 2007-06-27
BEIJING: Thousands of protesters clashed with police in eastern China last week after security teams moved in to forcefully relocate families involved in a housing dispute, a rights group said on Sunday.  Residents refusing to move out of their homes threw gas bombs at the security forces, ignitin...

CDB bond issue lifts China's offshore hopes
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/cd3af690-240a-11dc-8ee2-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2007-06-26
Tom Mitchell
The banks sponsoring Hong Kong's inaugural Chinese currency bond have pledged to establish a secondary market for the issue, creating the first offshore market for a renminbi-denominated financial instruments.  The two-year, Rmb5bn ($656.5m) bond issue by China Development Bank has a 3 per cen...

Beijing's food seizure seen as retaliation
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5396e8e6-2403-11dc-8ee2-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2007-06-26
Geoff Dyer
China has impounded two shipments of food from the US on the grounds that the produce is unsafe and warned that procedures for monitoring American food imports should be tightened.  Government inspectors seized separate shipments of orange pulp and apricots from the US because they contained exces...

Hu pledges reform 'for the people'
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/75d1c85a-23e9-11dc-8ee2-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2007-06-26
Richard McGregor
Hu Jintao, China's president, has promised further economic and political reform ahead of this year's Communist party congress, which will settle his control over the top leadership for the next five years.  But Mr Hu, in a speech that laid down the themes that will dominate the congress, ...

Push for direct elections for Hong Kong
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/6c756c34-23f4-11dc-8ee2-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2007-06-26
Robin Kwong
The Chinese president Hu Jintao will visit Hong Kong this Friday, but he won't be meeting any democrats to discuss their perennial demands for direct elections.  Instead, as Mr Hu celebrates the 10th anniversary of Chinese rule in Hong Kong on Sunday the territory's democrat parties and pr...

China steps up efforts against speculative capital inflows
http://english.people.com.cn/200706/27/eng20070627_387830.html
People's Daily | 2007-06-26
China is intensifying monitoring of short-term capital inflows in a bid to curb speculative money rushing in from abroad, according to a statement on the website of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.  It will also detect and penalize fraudulent export activities, which often disguise sp...

Stocks drop on possibility of rate hike
http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/dailybriefing/info/Stocks_drop_on_possibility_of_rate_hike.html
China Economic Review | 2007-06-26
Mainland stocks had their biggest drop in three weeks after the central bank's governor said interest rates could be raised if inflation keeps rising, state media reported. The CSI 300 Index fell 4.5%, closing at 3877.59. Zhou Xiaochuan, head of the People's Bank of China, said Saturday that...

Property firms embrace smaller Chinese cities
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/26/business/property.php
International Herald Tribune | 2007-06-26
SINGAPORE: Property prices in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou are too high and developers should focus on the smaller Chinese cities as they grow richer, some real estate executives believe.  "First-tier cities are getting too expensive," Justin Chiu, executive director at Cheung Kong, Hong Kong&#...

New economic tigers Brazil, Russia, India and China overtake U.S. in dominating global energy industry, new study says
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/26/business/UN-FIN-UN-Economic-Tigers.php
AP | 2007-06-26
UNITED NATIONS: The main challengers to U.S. economic power — Brazil, Russia, India and China — have overtaken the United States in dominating the global energy industry, according to a new study by Goldman Sachs.  Anthony Ling, managing director of Goldman Sachs International, preview...

China finishes longest sea bridge
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6242454.stm
BBC | 2007-06-26
China has completed the construction of the world's longest sea-crossing bridge, in the east of the country.  The 36km (22.5 mile) road bridge stretches across the mouth of Hangzhou Bay in the East China Sea.  Officials plan to open the structure next year, once feeder roads and toll booths ...

China's leader stresses spreading wealth
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070626/ap_on_re_as/china_politics_4
AP | 2007-06-26
CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
  By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 26, 5:31 AM ET  SHANGHAI, China - China must urgently tackle corruption and spread wealth more fairly among its 1.3 billion people, but political reform will be gradual and only under continued one-party communist rule, President Hu Jintao...

China says new Africa fund meant to boost ties
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070626/wl_asia_afp/chinaafricaeconomy_070626151425
AFP | 2007-06-26
BEIJING (AFP) - China on Tuesday formally launched a fund to encourage Chinese firms to invest in Africa, claiming its aim was not to make profit but to boost a "new type of strategic partnership" with the continent.   "The China-Africa Development Fund will aim mainly at supporting the strategic...

China Tries to Contain Scandal Over Slave Labor With Arrests and Apology
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/world/asia/23china.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
New York Times | 2007-06-23
DAVID LAGUE
BEIJING, June 22 — Chinese authorities moved to contain a widening slave labor scandal with an apology from a provincial governor for abuses that have shocked the country, and the arrest of two labor officials, state news media said Friday.  Yu Youjun, the governor of Shanxi Province in nort...

Fast-Growing China Says Little of Child Slavery's Role
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/world/asia/21china.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
New York Times | 2007-06-21
HOWARD W. FRENCH
SHANGHAI, June 20 — There is a certain ritualistic aspect to stories in China like the one this past week about the hundreds of people, many of them teenagers or even younger, who were forced to work under slavelike conditions in the brick kilns of Shanxi Province. First, Chinese readers are h...