1. Jiang, Bush Talk on DPRK Issue over Phone
2. Chinese Vice Premier Meets U.S. Delegation
3. China to Help Its Western Regions Narrow Digital Gap
4. U.S. Store Chain Open in S. China Subway Stations
5. Underground Falun Gong Organization Uncovered

Summary

During a phone conversation with U.S. President George W. Bush in the evening of Jan. 9, Chinese President Jiang Zemin said that China disagrees to the withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and China would make joint efforts with various sides to work for an early and peaceful settlement of the issue.

Meeting with a delegation from the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 15, Chinese Vice Premier Wen Jiabao expressed his satisfaction with the fruitful cooperation between the two sides in recent years and hoped that it would play a more positive role in pushing the U.S. Congress and government to handle bilateral ties from a long-term perspective and a strategic height.

Due to slow economic growth and low IT investment, the digital gap between China’s west regions and the rest part of it has been widened in past decades. China has decided to pour a large number of money to narrow the gap.

7-Eleven stores have appeared in the subway stations of Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, since the city’s No. 2 subway line opened to traffic last December. One of the 7-Eleven subsidiary companies has got the permission to open 350 7-Eleven shops in south China.

Chinese police uncovered an underground Falun Gong organization that was associated with separatists in Taiwan.  It conducted Falun Gong activities even after the Chinese Government banned Falun Gong in July 1999.


1. Jiang, Bush Talk on DPRK Issue over Phone

China disagrees to the withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Chinese President Jiang Zemin said in the evening of Jan. 9.

Jiang made the remarks while exchanging views with U.S. President George W. Bush on the DPRK nuclear issue in a telephone conversation initiated by Bush.

While stressing the U.S. side objected the action of the DPRK, Bush said during that the United States was still willing to solve the DPRK nuclear issue through talks.
The action the DPRK had taken was not in its own interest, and would damage regional peace and security, Bush said.

Jiang said China advocated the realization of non-nuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and disagreed to the DPRK’s withdrawal from the NPT.

China held that maintaining an international mechanism of nuclear nonproliferation conformed to the common interests of the international community, Jiang said, describing dialogues as the most effective way to tackle the issue.

Jiang said China would make joint efforts with various sides to work for an early and peaceful settlement of the issue.

2.Chinese Vice Premier Meets U.S. Delegation

Chinese Vice Premier Wen Jiabao met with a delegation from the U.S.-China Inter-parliamentary Exchange of the United States’ House of Representatives on Jan. 15 in Beijing.

Wen expressed his satisfaction with the fruitful cooperation between the two sides and new progress in bilateral relations in recent years.

He said China and the United States were two important countries shouldering the vital tasks of safeguarding world peace and promoting human development.

There was vast potential for bilateral cooperation as China was the world’s biggest developing country while the United States was the biggest developed country, Wen said.

He pointed out that progress in bilateral relations was not only in the interests of both peoples, but also conducive to world peace and development.

He said Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s visit to the United States last year created a significant opportunity for the future development of bilateral ties, and the two sides should further their relations by implementing the consensus reached between the two presidents.

Praising the Exchange’s contributions to bilateral relations, Wen hoped that it would continue to work for mutual trust and understanding and play a more positive role in pushing the U.S. Congress and government to handle bilateral ties from a long-term perspective and a strategic height.

Wen briefed the delegation on China’s position on the Taiwan issue and discussed with them current international hot spots and other issues of common concern.

Congressman Don Manzullo and others in the delegation echoed Wen’s remarks on bilateral relations, saying they were satisfied with progress on ties and were pleased to witness the changes in China.

They said the exchanges between the legislative bodies of the two countries were very important and the delegation had conducted productive talks with China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) during this visit.

Such exchanges would not only boost understanding and trust, but also help bilateral relations develop, they said.

3. China to Help Its Western Regions Narrow Digital Gap

Leaders of 40 top Chinese information industry companies and scientists from 12 western provinces and autonomous regions vowed on Jan. 15 to help narrow the digital gap between east and west China during a recent meeting in Xi’an, capital of China’s northwest Shaanxi Province.

The convention was part of a program called “narrowing the digital gap - west China on the move” aiming to bring more information technologies and products to west China to boost its information industry.

Public information forums, network education, computer-aided agriculture, and digitization of manufacturing are the four major fields being targeted under the move, sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

According to the program, the digital gap between western China and other parts of it will be basically held from widening further within the next ten years.

In past decades, the west has suffered from slow economic growth, low IT investment, and a severe shortage of information exchanges, education and training, which gradually caused a digital gap between it and the rest of China.

“The Science Ministry will pour about US$24.2 million into the program and the 12 western provinces and autonomous regions will input large sums of money as well for this purpose,” said Li Wuqiang, vice director of the ministry’s Department of High and New Technology and Industrialization.

4. U.S. Store Chain Open in S. China Subway Stations

7-Eleven, one of the largest store chains in the world, has appeared in the subway stations of Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, since the city’s No. 2 subway line opened last December.

The U.S.-based 7-Eleven company will open shops at all the 16 stations of the line. The store mainly sells daily-use items such as newspapers, batteries, drinks, milk and hamburgers, but will modify its goods and services according to customers’ needs and the number of passengers.

The Guangdong Sai Yi Convenience Stores Ltd., a subsidiary of 7-Eleven, has got the permission to open 350 7-Eleven shops in south China.

“7-Eleven aims to become the reliable good neighbor of the customers,” said Ma Shihao, general manager of the company.

7-Eleven was set up in America in 1927, with its name deriving from its operating hours of 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Later the shop extended its business time to 24 hours.

The chain has set up 23,000 retail shops in 20 countries and regions, serving nearly 30 million people a day.  

5. Underground Falun Gong Organization Uncovered

Chinese police have uncovered an underground Falun Gong organization associated with separatists in Taiwan.

Police sources say that Yu Xiaoru, a 72-year-old retired employee of the Agricultural Bureau of Fengjie County, southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, has led an underground organization of some 30 Falun Gong activists in conducting Falun Gong activities in the county even after it was banned in July 1999 as an insidious cult organization.

In addition, this underground organization based in Chongqinq has been collaborating with a Falun Gong organization in Taiwan, an organization that had been advocating “Taiwan Independence from China” since May 1999.

The organization had been receiving a steady supply of printed materials advocating Falun Gong from the Taiwan organization until its discovery by police at the end of October 2002. It disseminated the materials among members of the organization and among the residents  in Fengjie County.

As a demonstration of support for the Taiwan separatists, the Fengjie organization supplied them with materials, including false accounts of the persecution of Falun Gong members on the mainland.

On September 28, 2001, a long article attacking the Chinese Government’s ban of Falun Gong, written by the Fengjie organization, was published by the Taiwan separatists on a pro-Falun Gong web site.

Chinese police found 22 bags of Falun Gong material, 12 kilograms of dynamite and machines for the duplication of propaganda materials in the suspects’ homes.

In detention, Yu made a full confession of his guilt, saying, “By collaborating with separatists in Taiwan, I have been working against the motherland and the reunification of the country,” said Yu.

Police sources said they are aware that, among the underground Falun Gong organizations uncovered in recent years, many have had support from anti-China elements in other countries.

“As the world strives for peace, progress and development and China becomes stronger, more confident and united, evil acts perpetrated by Falun Gong activists and Taiwan separatists are doomed to failure,” said a police official.