BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) — China’s State Council, or Cabinet, on Friday said the so-called “five districts referendum” proposed by some social groups in Hong Kong would violate China’s Constitution and the region’s Basic Law.

    A statement released by a spokesman for the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office said the “referendum” had no legal basis in the country’s Constitution and violates the special administrative region’s (SAR) Basic Law.

    The statement said the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, had already made arrangements for the development of Hong Kong’s political system, including the principles and procedures that a universal suffrage of the SAR’s chief executive and legislature should follow.

    The League of Social Democrats and some other organizations in Hong Kong have proposed that five legislators, one from each of Hong Kong’s five electoral districts, resign so their candidates will advocate all Hong Kong citizens can vote for general elections in the consequent by-elections.

    The proposal is regarded as a de facto referendum.

    The NPC Standing Committee had set a timetable that allowed universal suffrage for the SAR’s chief executive no earlier than 2017 and that for all the SAR’s legislators later.

    Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang on Thursday said the SAR’s government would not recognize any form of referendum on the issue.

    The State Council appreciated Tsang’s remarks.

    No matter how different the opinions on the constitutional development of the SAR were, the Basic Law should be obeyed, the statement said.

    All parties and groups should discuss the amendment to the election methods of the region’s chief executive and legislature in 2012 in a rational and pragmatic way in line with the SAR’s Basic Law and the top legislature’s decision, it said.

   BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) — Kang Rixin, former general manager of the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), has been stripped of his post and his membership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) for “serious violations of the law and breaches of discipline,” the Party’s discipline watchdog announced Friday.

    Kang, a member of the CPC Central Committee since October 2007,was also the secretary of the CNNC’s leading Party group.

    He was found to have abused his authority, enabled profits for others, and taken huge bribes, according to the findings of investigations conducted by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).

    Kang had been referred for prosecution, his illegal gains confiscated, said a statement from the CCDI to Xinhua.

    Born in 1953, Kang became CNNC Party chief and general manager in September 2003. On Aug. 5 last year, the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee announced he was being investigated for alleged “grave violations of discipline.”

    The CNNC, a large state-owned enterprise, comprises more than 100 subsidiary companies and institutes.

    As the main investor and the biggest owner of nuclear power plants in China, it carries out research and development as well as construction in fields such as nuclear electricity production, nuclear fuels and nuclear technology application, according to the corporation’s website.

    Kang’s removal is the latest development in China’s new anti-corruption drive.

    On Dec. 31, Zhang Chunjiang, Party chief and vice chairman of China Mobile, was removed from his post for involvement in “serious economic issues.”

    On Jan. 14, former vice president of China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) Huang Songyou went on trial in north China’s Hebei Province, for taking bribes of 3.9 million yuan (574,000 U.S. dollars) from 2005 to 2008, and embezzling 1.2 million yuan in 1997.

    And on Friday, Qiao Hong, former general manager of the Shanghai-listed Kweichow Moutai Co. Ltd, maker of China’s famous Moutai liquor, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve after being convicted on corruption charges.

    Qiao, 56, was charged with taking bribes totaling 13 million yuan from 2000 to 2007, and being unable to account for 8.2 million yuan of his assets.

    According to the CCDI, which concluded a plenary session in Beijing this week, at least 15 ministerial or provincial level officials, including heads of state-owned enterprises, were investigated for corruption in 2009. Nine of them had been referred for prosecution.

    However, despite the arrests of many high-ranking officials, the graft situation did not “show any sign of relaxation,” Prof. Huang Zongliang of Beijing University told Xinhua earlier this week, citing the 2009 corruption index of the Transparency International, a Berlin-based non-government organization.

    Among the annual rankings of 180 countries and regions, China ranked 72nd. Countries and regions towards the end of the list are regarded as more corrupt.

    During the three-day CCDI meeting, Chinese President Hu Jintao also said the Party should “fully recognize the situation of the fight against corruption,” which was “persistent, complicated and arduous.”

    Huang said China’s corruption index ranking was low and there was little progress compared with that of previous years. He said an official asset reporting system would be an effective way to curb corruption.

    The system has been tested in several regions, including eastern Zhejiang, Shanghai, and far western Xinjiang.

    In addition, a communique issued after this week’s CCDI plenary session also said Party organs at all levels should carefully administer the family reporting regulation to prevent officials from abusing power and taking bribes through relatives.

    They should strengthen management of Party and government officials whose spouses and children have emigrated, it said.

    by Xinhua writer Zhou Yan

    LHASA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) — Tibet’s new governor pledged to make social stability and national unity the priority of his administration after the regional parliament unanimously elected him to the post Friday.

    Padma Choling, formerly vice-chairman of the regional government, was elected at the regional parliamentary session of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.

The undated photo shows Padma Choling, newly-elected governor of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. Padma Choling, a native Tibetan and former armyman, was elected governor of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region Friday at the regional parliamentary session. (Xinhua Photo)

    He replaces Qiangba Puncog as head of the regional government, the eighth person to take up the post since the Tibet Autonomous Region was founded in 1965.

    ”It’s a great honor, as well as a heavy responsibility,” he said at a press conference shortly after the election. “I have the determination and confidence to live up to everyone’s expectations.”

    His six-minute speech to the press focused on the regional government’s adherence to the Chinese Communist Party rule, as well as its role in bolstering economic growth, improving people’s welfare, and maintaining social stability.

    ”Stability is of overwhelming importance,” he said. “We will firmly oppose all attempts at secession, safeguard national unification and security, and maintain unity among different ethnic groups in Tibet.”

    Padma Choling, born in 1951, is a native of Dengqen in Qamdo Prefecture. Padma means “lotus” in Tibetan and Choling means “immense beneficence.”

    He served 17 years in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from 1969 to 1986, before he became an official in Tibet’s regional government.

    He was elected vice-chairman of the regional government in 2003.

    Earlier this month, he replaced Legqog as deputy secretary of Tibet’s regional committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

    ”In contrast to his predecessor, the slender, bespectacled and soft-spoken Qiangba Puncog, Padma Choling is firm and strong-willed,” a source close to the two officials said on condition of anonymity. “Many Tibetans admire Qiangba Puncog as a man of wisdom, and Padma Choling, a man of valor.”

    Tsering Norbu, a journalist with a local Tibetan newspaper, sees the new governor as “a man with a twofold personality”.

    ”He looks stern, but if you get closer to him, you’ll find he’s an amiable person. He’s straightforward and always gives explicit answers to questions.”

    Tsering Norbu recalled the two sleepless nights after the most destructive earthquake in recent decades hit Damxung, an outer county of the regional capital Lhasa, in October 2008.

    ”Padma Choling worked those two nights in a tent that served asthe emergency rescue headquarters,” he said. “He, too, didn’t sleep and his eyes were red and swollen. He told me the residents were scared and in desperate need of information, and pressed us to produce good stories.”

The undated photo shows Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Regional People’s Congress of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.(Xinhua Photo)

    Former governor Qiangba Puncog was elected chairman of the Standing Committee of the Regional People’s Congress, replacing former parliament leader Legqog who, at 66, has reached retirement age.

    Qiangba Puncog, born in 1947, served as Tibet’s governor for nearly seven years.

    A mechanics major from Chongqing University in the southwestern Chongqing Municipality, Qiangba Puncog was among the first Tibetans to receive a college education.

        Annual sessions of Tibet’s legislature, advisory body 

Special Report: Focus on Tibet

The undated photo shows Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Regional People’s Congress of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.(Xinhua Photo)

    LHASA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) — Former governor Qiangba Puncog of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region was elected chairman of the Standing Committee of the Regional People’s Congress Friday.

    His election as the regional parliament leader was announced shortly after the annual parliamentary session endorsed his resignation as regional government chairman, a job he held for nearly seven years.

    Qiangba Puncog, a native of Qamdo Prefecture, was born in 1947. He was elected chairman of Tibet’s regional government in May 2003.

    A mechanics major from Chongqing University in the southwestern Chongqing Municipality, Qiangba Puncog is among the first Tibetansto receive college education. The slender, bespectacled and soft-spoken official is widely respected by the Tibetans as a man of wisdom.

    The parliament session also endorsed the resignation of Legqog, former leader of the regional parliament. Legqog, born in 1944, has reached retirement age.

Tibet’s regional parliament session to discuss personnel changes

    LHASA, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) — Tibet Autonomous Regional Government Chairman Qiangba Puncog is to tender his resignation at the ongoing session of the People’s Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region, according to the confirmed agenda of the annual meeting.

    A new chairman will be elected before the session concludes on Friday. Full story

        Annual sessions of Tibet’s legislature, advisory body 

    LHASA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) — The ongoing session of the People’s Congress of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region endorsed Friday the resignations of the regional government chairman Qiangba Puncog and parliament leader Legqog.

    Qiangba Puncog, a native of Qamdo Prefecture, was born in 1947. He took office as chairman of Tibet’s regional government in May 2003.

Photo taken on Jan. 10, 2009, shows Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Government, delivering the “Report on the Work of the Government” at the Third Session of the 9th Tibet Autonomous Regional People’s Congress in Lhasa, capital of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. (Xinhua Photo)

    A mechanics major from Chongqing University in the southwestern Chongqing Municipality, Qiangba Puncog is among the first Tibetans to receive college education.

    Legqog, born in 1944, is a native of Gyangze County in southern Tibet. He took office as chairman of the Standing Committee of Tibet’s Regional People’s Congress in May 2003, after serving for five years as chairman of the regional government.

    Their successors will be elected before the annual parliament session concludes later Friday morning.

Annual sessions of Tibet’s legislature, advisory body 

    By Xinhua writer Miao Xiaojuan

    BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) — China Thursday insisted its stand for an open Internet under proper regulating following Google’s widely-concerned statement of a possible retreat from the country.

   “The Internet is open in China, where the government always encourages its development and has created a favorable environment for its healthy development,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular press conference.

    Responding to a question on Google’s claim to quit China, Jiangsaid China, like other countries, shall regulate the Internet industry in line with the law.

    ”China welcomes international Internet companies to conduct business within the country according to law,” she said.

    Her comment was China’s first official response after Google’s corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, wrote on the company’s official blog site, saying the company was to “review the feasibility of our business operations in China.”

    The post said its disputes with the government and unidentified attacks targeting Google’s services in China forced the company to make the review and possibly to “shut down Google.cn” and potentially its China offices.

    Jiang said China’s law “prohibits hacker attacks in any form.”

    Also on Thursday, Wang Chen, director of China’s State Council Information Office, said China firmly opposed cyber attacks because China itself is a victim of such attacks.

    In an interview with the People’s Daily, the official said every country needs to “effectively” regulate the Internet and to make sure their own problems on the web do not affect other countries.

    ”Internet security has become a significant problem that does not only involve China but also other countries,” Wang said.

    Experts interviewed by Xinhua questioned Google’s real intentions.

    ”It is obvious that any website could be attacked by hackers, either in China or other countries. Cyberattacks can’t be the real reason for Google’s possible retreat,” said Sun Zhe, director of the China-U.S. Relations Center at Tsinghua University.

    Baidu.com, China’s top search engine and Google’s biggest rival in the country, had been temporarily paralyzed for more than three hours Tuesday after being attacked. Its domain name server in the United States had been illegally attacked, the company said in a statement.

    ”Cyberattack is a headache for local and overseas major websites. Google should provide its evidence or clues on these attacks to Chinese authorities, so that both sides work together on this common problem,” Sun said.

    As for its disputes with the government, Google had been blamed for showing too many links to pornographic contents and breaking Chinese laws.

    In a series of national anti-online porn campaigns last year, Google acted quickly in cleaning up pornographic searching results on Google.cn, upon requests from the Chinese authorities.

    The experts argued that Internet regulation was a common practice in most countries.

    Liu Deliang, head of the Beijing-based Asia-Pacific Institute for Cyber-law Studies, said both China and the United States had laws and regulations on Internet but only in different ways.

    ”The U.S. government only wants to keep children away from porn, while the Chinese government wants nobody to have access to porn,” Liu said.

    Google appeared to have followed government rules in its own country. In March 2008, Google reportedly removed the images of U.S. military bases from its mapping service upon orders from the U.S. government.

    ”U.S. authorities also have information classified and filtered via technical methods, and they have regulations on media contents and operation too,” said Yao Huanqing, associate professor from Law School of Renming University of China.

    While many Internet users in China were dismayed by Google’s announcement, some suspected if Google’s latest move was made out of concerns of economic benefits and market share.

    A blogger named Sarah Lacy said in a post on techcrunch.com that Google’s business was not doing well in China, quoting Google China’s former head Kai-fu Lee as saying the company was never going to substantially increase its market share or beat Baidu.

    ”Google has clearly decided doing business in China isn’t worth it, and is turning what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in the rest of the world,” the blogger said.

    Liu Dan, a researcher with a Beijing-based consulting company affiliated to the China Center for Information Industry Development, said Google’s strategy of localizing and marketing was not as good as its technology.

    According to the iResearch Consulting Group, the Chinese search engine market reached nearly seven billion yuan (about one billion U.S. dollars) in 2009, and Google took 32.8 percent in Q3 revenues while China’s Baidu claimed 63.8 percent.

    ”It should be a business decision for a company to quit an overseas market or not, but now the Google case has been overstated,” Sun Zhe said.

    ”As China has a quite relaxed environment now, its principle on Internet security is impossible to change. The choice is only leftto Google,” he said.

    (Xinhua correspondents Niu Qi, Cheng Zhuo, Wang Cong, Yu Xiaojie, Liu Juhua and Ma Shukun in Beijing contributed to the story.)



China says its Web open, welcomes Int’l companies 


    BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) — China’s Internet is open and welcomes international companies, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Thursday, just two days after Google issued a statement saying it might quit China.

    Spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news briefing that China encouraged development of the Internet. Full story

Chinese official says Internet security a global problem

    BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) — A senior Chinese information official said China firmly opposed cyber attacks and called on all countries to work together to ensure Internet security, according to Thursday’s People’s Daily, a leading Chinese newspaper.

    ”China’s Internet is open to the world…. China is a victim of and firmly opposes cyber attacks,” he said, noting the number of overseas cyber attacks on Chinese mainland websites in 2008 had increased by 148 percent over the previous year. Full story

China to connect Internet with telecommunications, broadcasting networks

    BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — The Chinese government plans to connect the telecommunications network, TV and radio network and the Internet in the near future, said a statement issued by the State Council here on Wednesday.

    Connecting the three networks would boost the development of the information and cultural sectors, said the statement issued after a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao. Full story

China seeks clarity on Google’s intentions 

    BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — An official with China’s State Council Information Office Wednesday said Chinese Internet authorities were seeking more information on Google’s statement that it could quit China.

    The high-ranking official, who requested anonymity, made the remarks in a phone interview with Xinhua after Google’s corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, posted a statement on the company’s official blog, saying it was to “review the feasibility of our business operations in China.” Full story


Talks over copyright disputes postponed between Google and China writers 

    BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) — A fresh round of negotiations scheduled for Tuesday afternoon between search engine Google and China writers over online books copyright disputes had to been postponed, both parties said.

    The expected meeting, the fourth one since November, was scheduled between Zhang Hongbo, deputy director general of the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) and Erik Hartmann, Asia-Pacific head of Google Books. Full story