Free Republic

As consumers around the world curb spending amid the downturn, China's appetite for luxury items is growing, according to retailers of upmarket products. China's super-rich are sparing little expense this Christmas, which is seen as a warm-up to Lunar New Year celebrations in February. Everything from Western beer, to Dior bags costing 3,000 yuan (HK$2,800) and 700,000 yuan BMW cars, is selling fast. "An increasingly large part of the population don't mind spending if they find the right product. We find that price will not be an issue," said Michel Grunberg, senior vice-president with Estee Lauder's Asia-Pacific operations. "China is ...

A new official study has discarded Mao Zedong's class struggle theory and concluded that China now has a social structure with 10 classes. The three-year study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found that far-reaching social changes have accompanied the mainland's transformation into a market economy. At the peak of the social stratum is a class comprising 2.1 per cent of the population - senior party and government officials and the heads of state firms. At the bottom are the urban jobless and casual labourers, many living in poverty. They account for 3.1 per cent of the population and ...

There's little sense of celebration this holiday season at lawyer Zhou Litai's crowded house in Shenzhen. He's too busy looking after workers who lost hands, legs or feet in factory accidents while churning out Christmas gifts for the world. Some of Mr Zhou's clients come to him straight from the hospital. Others, on crutches or with bandaged stumps, trek from around China to his home in Shenzhen hoping that he will take up their fight for compensation for work-related accidents. The gifts labelled "Made in China" that millions will receive this season may well have come from factories in Longgang ...

China has hailed the arrest of the man they say murdered a Chinese couple based in the US as "a model for Sino-American police co-operation". Husband and wife Yang Jianqing and Chen Yuyun were murdered in their Arizona home on November 2 and top Chinese officials publicly urged police to ensure the killer was brought to justice. Both victims were Chinese nationals working on their doctorates at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Not knowing if there was a motive behind the killings or if the couple had been racially targeted, the US Government urged universities to tighten security to ...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the mainland should reach US$45 billion this year, regaining the highs of three years ago, according to the country's top trade official. In the first 11 months of the year, actual FDI was US$41.9 billion, representing year-on-year growth of 15.61 per cent. "It is estimated that FDI will probably reach US$45 billion this year, a high increase from last year's US$40.7 billion," the People's Daily yesterday quoted Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng as saying. The mainland's actual FDI reached US$45.25 billion in 1997 and US$45.46 billion in 1998 before falling to US$40.3 billion the following ...

Southeast Asia's growing reputation for violence and lawlessness is scaring foreign investors away, and towards China, even though most of the region is profitable and peaceful, according to analysts. Kidnappings in the Philippines, ethnic unrest in Indonesia and attacks on a foreign supermarket chain in Thailand are giving the region a bad name that even orderly Singapore and Malaysia are finding hard to shake. China's entry into the World Trade Organisation opens more attractive trade and investment opportunities. Analysts said the rule of law was seen as stronger in China, even if the long-term future of the political system might ...

Star Television chairman James Murdoch yesterday announced the launch of a new 24-hour Putonghua channel for Guangdong province, the first time Beijing has approved a foreign channel sight unseen. Star, China Central Television (CCTV), China International Television Corp and Guangdong Cable-TV Network yesterday signed an agreement under which Star will distribute the general entertainment channel to cable systems in Guangdong. The channel will begin airing in the first half of next year. In exchange, CCTV-9, CCTV's English-language news and current affairs channel, will be broadcast in the United States by Fox Cable Networks, Star's sister company in the US. Before ...

Beijing will introduce a new law next year to protect China's ethnic minorities and traditional culture. The legislation will provide funds for the protection of China's ethnic minority cultural heritage such as customs, folk literature, songs and dances, traditional operas and handicrafts, China Daily reported yesterday. Protection of ethnic folk culture has been one of the main topics at a three-day symposium co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, the Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee of the National People's Congress and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Beijing is worried that ethnic minority customs and culture will fall victim to ...

President Jiang Zemin gave his verdict on Tung Chee-hwa's first term in office yesterday, praising him for admitting there had been shortcomings during his rule. "I noted that he has made some self-criticism [in last week's speech] . . . No one is perfect. We found Mr Tung is good on the whole," said Mr Jiang while giving his backing for him to stand for re-election as chief executive. When Mr Tung announced last Thursday that he would seek a second five-year term in March he said he had constantly reflected on how the administration could have done better and ...

The Taiwan Government would examine potential security threats posed by the formation of Chinese Communist Party units in Taiwan-owned factories on the mainland, the country's Economic Affairs Minister Lin Hsin-yi said yesterday. Mr Lin said at a legislative session that Taiwan should face the problem posed by CCP efforts to open units in Taiwan-owned enterprises, a development he described as "not a good phenomenon". He added that the establishment of CCP units by a minority of people working at Taiwan-owned factories would probably not affect a company's overall operations. The economic policy chief was grilled on the issue after media ...

Set against the impressive display of American might in Afghanistan right on China's Western borders, Beijing's expressions of indignation over the US decision to drop the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty have been muted. ''I expected much fiercer opposition,'' said Dr Jean-Pierre Cabestan, director of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China. Both Chinese and US analysts seem convinced no fresh crisis in Sino-American relations is brewing, even after the People's Daily described the treaty as a ''bedrock'' of global security. China is not a signatory to the agreement, which was designed to stop the Soviet Union and America ...

China says it is now the world's largest exporter of Christmas products. The state-run news agency says seven-out-of-10 artificial Christmas trees bought by Americans are made in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. The agency says the city earns $100m annually from artificial Christmas trees alone. The city has 20 factories specialising in the trees and about 300 dedicated to Christmas products. The agency quotes an unnamed Chinese official as saying that the White House in Washington has used Christmas trees from one particular Shenzhen plant for years. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

<p>YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar's military government has freed more than 200 Chinese prisoners to mark the arrival of China's President Jiang Zemin.</p> <p>The prisoners, mostly held on immigration charges, were released on December 10 and 11 as a sign of goodwill, a government statement said.</p>

Fewer than one in six people want Tung Chee-hwa to run for a second term as chief executive, according to a poll ahead of his expected decision today to declare his candidacy. The survey, by Baptist University's Hong Kong Transition Project, also revealed that public satisfaction with Mr Tung has dropped to its lowest level in four years. Mr Tung is expected to announce his decision to run for office again at a reception today hosted by his supporters at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai. Only 16 per cent of respondents said they wanted Mr Tung to ...

The US should apologise to and compensate the families of victims of Japanese World War II medical atrocities for its role in a subsequent cover-up, a visiting scholar said. Victims of the "forgotten medical atrocities" were mainly Chinese and included people from Hong Kong, said Dr Nie Jing-bao, a lecturer from the University of Otago's Bioethics Centre in New Zealand. The US had been involved in covering up Japanese human experimentation similar to that of Nazi Germany, said Dr Nie, who is visiting Baptist University. He said none of the Japanese doctors involved had been prosecuted and had instead gone ...

<p>HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Anti-Beijing "terrorist" forces in Xinjiang have killed more than 40 people and injured 330 since the early 1990s, according to officials in the autonomous region.</p> <p>Xinjiang, in the west of China, has been a base of Uighur separatism and pro-Islamic religious groups.</p>

The Government of India's southern state of Karnataka has summoned senior officials of leading Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies to clarify reports that it built equipment for the Taleban. "We have told company officials to be present before the Ministry of Information Technology by Thursday," said Karnataka's secretary of information technology, Vivek Kulkarni, amid reports that the firm helped the Taleban upgrade its telecommunications network. Two Indian national dailies reported yesterday that India's security cabinet was likely to deport 185 engineers of the firm. Huawei opened its development centre in state capital Bangalore in February and has invested US$15 million ...

A Taiwanese teenager who won a gold medal at a computer game tournament created a stir when he offended Chinese participants by waving the island's flag. The incident at the event in Seoul on Sunday was the latest example of how seemingly simple gestures can enflame political sensitivities between Taiwan and China. It made the front pages of many of Taiwan's leading papers yesterday. In a strongly worded letter on the tournament's Web site, World Cyber Games organisers rebuked 17-year-old Tseng Jeng-cheng for his behaviour after receiving the medal. Tseng shouted in English "Taiwan No 1" and waved the red, ...

The wife of Beijing's second-in-command, Li Peng, has given a rare interview to deny rumours that she had run a company, owned stocks or bonds or had a personal beautician. The Legal Daily published the story - an excerpt from the magazine Elite of China - about Zhu Lin on Saturday. Ms Zhu appears often at official functions and meetings with her husband, who was premier for 10 years until 1998 and is now chairman of the National People's Congress. He ranks second in the Communist Party to President Jiang Zemin. Like wives of other leaders, Ms Zhu rarely speaks ...

The head of the institute that governs the Nobel Peace Prize has warned that the organisation will soon use its prestige to express opposition to the Chinese Government. "Sooner or later we will have to address the Chinese question," Geir Lundestad, of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, said on Saturday to nearly 30 Nobel Peace Prize laureates at the end of a three-day symposium in Oslo to mark the 100th anniversary of the award. The Nobel Committee, which selects prizewinners, would continue to promote democracy and respect for human rights, and although the award had never gone to a Chinese dissident, ...