Italian Company Pushes Bid to Buy U.S. Shoe Corp.
(APW_ENG_19950309.0267)
1) Luxottica Group S.p.A., an Italian maker of eyeglass frames and sunglasses, on Thursday tried to advance its uninvited bid to buy United States Shoe Corp. for dlrs 1.1 billion.
2) Luxottica demanded that U.S. Shoe schedule a special meeting of shareholders to consider the offer. If the meeting is called, Luxottica said it will ask shareholders to remove U.S. Shoe's board of directors and elect Luxottica's nominees as the new directors.
3) U.S. Shoe spokesman Robert Burton declined comment Thursday.
4) Luxottica, of Milan, Italy, made its dlrs 24-per-share offer Friday. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange promptly sent U.S. Shoe's stock up dlrs 6 to more than the dlrs 24 per share price Luxottica offered. U.S. Shoe's stock closed Wednesday at dlrs 24.87.
5) Luxottica makes and sells eyeglass frames and sunglasses in four Italian plants and sells those products worldwide. The company has said it wants U.S. Shoe's LensCrafters optical stores division and will sell off U.S. Shoe's footwear and women's apparel divisions.
6) U.S. Shoe said Friday that its board of directors is considering Luxottica's offer and will advise shareholders on or before March 16 whether to accept or reject it.
7) Luxottica said its offer is good until midnight March 30.
8) Last month, U.S. Shoe called off talks with Nine West Group Inc., saying that Nine West would not follow through on its offer to buy U.S. Shoe's footwear division for dlrs 600 million. Nine West, based in Stamford, Conn., makes and sells women's shoes.
9) U.S. Shoe said last month that it hired an investment banker to consider selling off some of the company's businesses. Some U.S. Shoe shareholders have urged the company to consider breaking up its businesses, arguing that doing so would increase value for the shareholders.
10) The Cincinnati-based company's stores and products include LensCrafters; Sight and Save; Casual Corner; Petite Sophisticate; August Max Woman; Pappagallo, Capezio; Easy Spirit; Bandolino; Selby, Amalfi and Texas Boot.


Hungarian shoemaker claims to have made world's largest shoe With AP Photo
(APW_ENG_20020319.0543)
1) For Hungarian shoemaker Jozsef Kovacs, no foot's too big. The 56-year-old craftsman recently completed what he claims is the world's biggest shoe, a European size 217 men's model.
2) The giant shoe has an inside measurement of 145 centimeters (57 inches), 15 centimeters longer than the current Guinness world record holder, Kovacs said.
3) It was not clear what the U.S. shoe size would be since no charts show such large numbers. A European size 48 corresponds to a U.S. men's size 13.
4) Kovacs worked for 345 hours over 43 days to craft the leather shoe which he hopes will inspire young people to give his profession a try.
5) ``One of the main reasons I made the shoe was because I was bitter,'' Kovacs said Tuesday in a phone interview from his shop in Debrecen, a city 230 kilometers (145 miles) east of Budapest near the Romanian border. ``Young people are only willing to try their hand at more lucrative professions and the shoemaker's craft is dying out.''
6) The shoe weighs 65 kilograms (143 pounds), and includes 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of glue, 247 copper nails and 87 meters (285 feet) of thread. Kovacs said it cost 500,000 forints (dlrs 1,800) to make it.
7) During a career spanning five decades, Kovacs has made shoes for all ages and sizes, but he specializes in orthopedic models. He said his shoes have won top prizes in European competitions.
8) He learned the trade from his father and has passed his knowledge on to the oldest of his three sons, who also makes orthopedic shoes.
9) Currently on display in his hometown, the shoe's fate is uncertain. Kovacs said he plans to take the giant shoe to a shoemakers' competition in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 2004, but is not sure where it will be stored in the meantime.
10) ``I just hope the shoe will draw people's attention to the craft of shoemaking,'' Kovacs said.


Mild-mannered geologist, adept politician becomes China's premier
(APW_ENG_20030315.0593)
1) While his superiors fell, he kept rising. Even in a nation where survival skills are a must for politicians, Wen Jiabao stands out _ always smiling, crunching numbers, seeking consensus in the fierce arena of Chinese communism.
2) The mild-mannered geologist appointed China's premier Sunday has managed to remain unscathed in face of political imbroglios that have scuttled the careers of his patrons. Unlike so many Chinese leaders, it's hard to find anyone with a bad word about him.
3) ``He's a man of few words, but he's very articulate, very precise and direct,'' said Bo Xilai, governor of northeastern China's Liaoning province and the son of a communist revolutionary.
4) ``When he visited the impoverished coal mines in our province, he sat cross-legged ... with our miners and talked to them for a long time,'' Bo said Sunday. ``Those of us in the city can't manage to hold that position as long as he did.''
5) Wen replaces the retiring Zhu Rongji. Born in the eastern city of Tianjin, the 60-year-old Wen is married with a son and daughter. He studied geology and joined the Communist Party in 1965. Three years later, he was assigned to the arid northwestern province of Gansu. There he remained until 1982, when he was transferred to the Ministry of Geology.
6) Wen's career path remained smooth despite an eight-year tenure in the party's Central Office during which two of the three men he worked for fell from grace.
7) Wen's first boss, reformer Hu Yaobang, was dismissed as Communist Party chief in 1987 for being too liberal, a purge Wen survived by being self-critical and avoiding bad-mouthing Hu at party meetings.
8) When Zhao Ziyang took over from Hu as general secretary, Wen joined a coterie of young, talented technocrats whom Zhao employed to shake up party and government bureaucracies.
9) Wen stood at Zhao's side on May 19, 1989, when the defeated liberal reformer tearfully told democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square he could do no more to help them. It was the last time Zhao was seen in public: He has lived under house arrest ever since for refusing to back a crackdown.
10) Zhao's successor Jiang Zemin, who retires as China's president this weekend, was impressed by Wen's knowledge and loyalty, so he was allowed to keep his job.
11) In 1998, nine years after the Tiananmen protests were crushed, Wen was appointed vice premier and charged with boosting rural income, rescuing the crumbling banking sector, overseeing agriculture and responding to natural disasters.
12) The bespectacled Wen has since kept a low profile, rarely appearing in public except during flood disasters.
13) ``He represents himself as a leader who is deeply concerned about ordinary people,'' said Cheng Li, a professor of government at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and the author of ``China's Leaders: The New Generation.''
14) ``He spent the last spring with miners. Could you imagine Jiang would spend the Spring Festival in a mine?'' Li said, referring to the biggest holiday in China.
15) One of the first signs Wen was being groomed for premier was his appearance last March at a provincial meeting during the National People's Congress under the watchful gaze of foreign television cameras. Hong Kong newspapers, close watchers of the machinations of Chinese power, dubbed him ``the new political star.''
16) In November, Wen stood right next to Hu Jintao, the party's newly appointed general secretary _ a telling position in Chinese politics where the order in which leaders are presented is painstakingly coordinated. Hu was appointed president on Saturday.
17) In recent months, Wen has also been part of official meetings with visiting dignitaries, smiling serenely in photographs and in appearances on television. He is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the Communist Party's inner circle.
18) ``He's fearless as a bureaucrat but not as abrasive as a leader as Zhu was,'' said Bruce Gilley, co-author of ``China's New Rulers.'' He added: ``That's pretty attractive to a country that needs people to crack heads but without causing too much noise in the process.''


Wen? Now: China's Wen Jiabao inherits giant nation's premiership, convulsive economy
(APW_ENG_20030316.0592)
1) China's new premier takes office with a reputation for caring about the countryside and a challenge to prove it, inheriting the Herculean job of reducing the yawning gap between urban rich and rural poor while keeping Asia's most dynamic economy growing.
2) Hours after Wen Jiabao was chosen Sunday to run the government and oversee its finances, the state propaganda machine swung into action to reinforce the narrative of his new generation of leaders: They care about poverty and the Chinese people living through it.
3) On state television, broadcast to China's every corner, there was Wen, sleeves rolled up and eyes squinting in the sun, clasping the hands of the rural poor. There was Wen under an umbrella, shouting encouraging words to flood victims through a bullhorn. There was Wen inspecting wheat and talking with Mongolian peasants.
4) ``He's been concerned about rural issues for a long time, and we think he'll take care of them,'' said Pan Yunhe, a legislative delegate and a computer science professor from Zhejiang, a prosperous eastern province.
5) The elevation of the 60-year-old former geologist, completed in a vote Sunday by a legislature believed to rubber-stamp Communist Party wishes, sent Zhu Rongji into retirement and capped a leadership change years in the making. Yet it also left former president Jiang Zemin with considerable influence.
6) Jiang turned over the presidency to his former deputy, Hu Jintao, on Saturday. Like Wen, Hu has spent much of his career as an administrator in some of China's most backward regions and is keen to improve the lives of millions of farmers whose incomes have lagged behind growth in eastern coastal cities.
7) Hu took over from Jiang as head of the all-powerful Communist Party in November; Wen ranks third on the party's decision-making Politburo Standing Committee. Wu Bangguo, installed to head the National People's Congress, is ranked second, completing the troika of leaders who will guide China for the next five years.
8) The 76-year-old Jiang remains chairman of the powerful committee overseeing the 2.5 million-man People's Liberation Army. His investor-friendly, American-focused orientation is expected to continue influencing military matters and foreign policy.
9) Wen inherits from Zhu an economy that has soared during two decades of reform but generated staggering problems, too: rising unemployment, sluggish agriculture and a politically explosive gap between the rich and growing ranks of the poor.
10) He will head a Cabinet of better educated, younger technocrats committed to further opening the economy while maintaining the party's monopoly on political power.
11) Although Wen served as a top aide to two liberal premiers during the 1980s, he has shown no sign of pushing political liberalization. While his former bosses were driven from power by conservative rivals, Wen avoided their fate by following orders and criticizing past action.
12) An affable technocrat, Wen is expected to be a marked contrast to Zhu, a brilliant but fiery economic manager who helped orchestrate China's entry into the World Trade Organization.
13) ``Like all things in Chinese politics, you won't see sudden and dramatic change. You will see him emerge over the next couple of years,'' said Laurence Brahm, a Beijing-based consultant and Zhu's biographer. ``As you see him face different challenges, you will see his personality emerge as well.''
14) As expected, the National People's Congress approved Wen's appointment overwhelmingly _ the vote was 2,906 for and three against, with 16 abstentions. He was the only candidate.
15) The self-effacing Wen grinned, rose and shook hands with Zhu as legislators in the Great Hall of the People applauded. On Monday, the congress is due to install vice premiers, Cabinet ministers and a central bank governor.
16) Since November's watershed party congress, Hu and Wen have made a series of carefully scripted and publicized visits to poor areas, a sharp contrast to Jiang's preference for events highlighting foreign visitors and glitzy urban projects.
17) Wen, born in the eastern city of Tianjin, studied geology and joined the Communist Party in 1965. He made a splash earlier this year by spending the nationwide Spring Festival holiday in a freezing coal shaft 720 meters (2,360 feet) underground sharing dumplings with miners.
18) ``Comrade Wen Jiabao has shown great concern for our poor areas,'' said Bo Xilai, governor of Liaoning province, in northeastern China's rust belt. ``When he visited the impoverished coal mines in our province, he sat cross-legged ... with our miners and talked to them for a long time. Those of us in the city can't manage to hold that position as long as he did.''
19) Beyond the economy, Wen is second only to Hu as the face of China's government abroad _ yet another element of his narrative that the state-run China Central Television's evening newscast showcased Sunday night.
20) After an assortment of images of the polo-shirted, serve-the-people Wen, he appeared in suit and tie, looking every inch the statesman in footage that showed him shaking hands with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan _ and, in a nod to China's old-time communists, Cuban leader Fidel Castro too.


URGENT China's new premier says reform must continue, promises to help farmers and unemployed
(APW_ENG_20030317.0993)
1) Promoting China's future and his own, new premier Wen Jiabao promised principled, committed leadership Tuesday and said his country must continue its path of reform and elevate rural living standards to keep the future bright.
2) ``Governing China is a project that is extremely demanding. Only by reform, opening up and implementing socialism with Chinese characteristics can we build a more modern, prosperous China,'' Wen said at his debut news conference in the Great Hall of the People.
3) Wen, 61, was appointed Sunday and took office immediately, taking charge of an economy that is jerking forward in fits and starts after two decades of economic restructuring started by the late Deng Xiaoping.
4) He turned to specifics quickly.
5) He said urban and rural development in China were a ``priority among priorities.'' The development of China's poor, arid west ``must press ahead,'' Wen said, and subsidies and benefits to farmers must be increased. Industrial bases in the country's northeast, plagued by unemployment and factory shutdowns, must be tended to as well.
6) Unhappiness among farmers and factory workers could pose real problems for China's communist leadership in its efforts to keep hold of power as it opens its economy to capitalist-style reforms.
7) Wen also sought to reassure foreign investors by saying private and public companies would receive identical treatment by the government.
8) ``The government has set a firm policy to develop the nonpublic sectors,'' Wen said.
9) Wen's appointment Sunday came as part of a generational leadership change that installed the Communist Party's general secretary, Hu Jintao, as president. Outgoing President Jiang Zemin retained the chair of a powerful military commission _ and probable continuing influence for years.
10) Wen replaced Zhu Rongji, a crusty reformer who helped China extricate its economy from the 1997 Asian financial crisis. While Zhu was considered formidable, Wen comes across as mellow and deferential _ something he said was a bit misleading.
11) ``It is generally believed that I'm quite mild-tempered,'' he said. ``But I am also someone with principle, with determination, with the confidence and courage to take up responsibility.''
12) The state-controlled media have emphasized Wen's connection with ordinary people, showing him communing with wheat farmers, coal miners and rural flood victims.
13) Wen himself, in his first remarks, invoked that theme and underscored his focus on China's less fortunate.
14) ``I spent much of my early career in a very difficult place. That experience let me know keenly how hard life could be,'' said Wen, who worked as a geologist in China's hardscrabble Gansu province.
15) ``But that experience filled me with confidence,'' he said. ``Be it one man, one nationality, one country, so long as they bear hardships, they will eventually reach the summit.''
16) He praised Zhu and Jiang for their roles in China's recent reform and economic progress.
17) ``Our predecessors have laid a good foundation for us,'' Wen said. ``Yet we still face numerous difficulties and problems ahead, which require innovation and creativity as we press on.''


Premier: SARS in China `remains grave'; seven foreigners in Shanghai cleared of infection
(APW_ENG_20030414.0002)
1) After assuring China's public for weeks that a deadly disease outbreak is under control, state media on Monday quoted Premier Wen Jiabao as saying the ``overall situation remains grave'' and calling for more official efforts to combat severe acute respiratory syndrome.
2) Wen warned that China's economy, international image and social stability might feel the impact of the disease, newspapers and the Xinhua News Agency said.
3) ``Much progress has been made in combating the disease ... but the overall situation remains grave,'' Xinhua quoted Wen as saying at a national meeting Sunday on fighting the disease, also known as SARS.
4) Wen's comments were a striking change from recent assurances by the government and were the highest-level admission that SARS is a threat to China, whose official death toll from the mysterious illness hit 60 over the weekend.
5) China has reported more than 1,300 cases of infection, most of them in the southern province of Guangdong, which has reported 45 deaths.
6) At the meeting Sunday, Wen called for stepped up scrutiny of planes, boats and trains, and for passengers believed to infected to be quarantined ``without hesitation,'' Xinhua said.
7) Wen demanded ``effective and powerful measures to prevent the spread of the virus ... and immediate treatment to ensure people's health,'' the China Daily newspaper said.
8) The communist government has been criticized abroad and by ordinary Chinese for its slow release of information on the spread of SARS and how its people can protect themselves.


China's Wen promises to focus on economic growth but proposes no new reforms
(APW_ENG_20030930.0153)
1) Declaring that China had emerged from SARS stronger and more vibrant, Premier Wen Jiabao promised Tuesday to make raising incomes his government's ``central task'' but proposed no new economic or political reforms.
2) Speaking on the eve of China's National Day, Wen invoked the Communist Party's pledge to build a ``well-off society in an all-around manner'' _ the motto for its campaign to spread prosperity to the rural poor and others left out of China's two-decade-old economic boom.
3) Such an effort ``is an enormous undertaking that promises tangible benefits to more than 1 billion Chinese people,'' Wen said in the speech at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing. His audience included party and government officials and foreign diplomats.
4) Wen said the communist government had achieved a ``significant victory'' against severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed 349 people on China's mainland before subsiding in June.
5) Beijing emphasized economic growth while also fighting SARS, pushing ahead with ``sound growth momentum in our economy, an orderly proceeding of various reforms and greater openness to the outside world,'' he said in his first major public address since the end of the epidemic.
6) Wen _ the No. 3 leader in both the party and government, behind President Hu Jintao and Wu Bangguo, head of China's legislature _ is the top official in charge of the economy.
7) ``We must firmly grasp and make full use of the strategic period of promising opportunities, always taking economic development as our central task,'' he said.
8) In a speech heavy on upbeat slogans, Wen made no mention of the individual challenges facing China _ a banking industry mired in bad loans, rural poverty, massive layoffs by state industry and a decrepit public health system.
9) Though Wen said ``democracy and rule of law'' were gaining strength in China, he made no mention of growing demands for the ruling party to share power.
10) The speech seemed likely to add to Wen's image as a cautious technocrat. After eight months in office, he has yet to make any mark on policy to set himself apart from Zhu Rongji, his strong-willed predecessor and former boss.
11) The speech Tuesday reflected a fundamental shift under way in party policy. After two decades of reforms that have enriched the booming, export-oriented cities of the east, communist authorities are turning development efforts to the vast, poor countryside, home to some 800 million Chinese.
12) Wen promised to press ahead with closer integration into the global trading system, pushing for a ``new leap forward in our economic and social development.''
13) Wen also pledged to safeguard the autonomy promised to Hong Kong and Macau when those former European colonies returned to Chinese rule in the 1990s.
14) National Day marks the anniversary of communist leader Mao Zedong's Oct. 1, 1949, declaration of the founding of the People's Republic of China following a civil war that ended with the rival Nationalists fleeing to Taiwan.
15) Wen affirmed Beijing's determination to unify with Taiwan peacefully. But he said China would ``stand firmly opposed to any splittist activities'' _ a phrase that refers to Taiwanese who want formal independence.
16) ``The grand cause of China's national reunification will be realized,'' he said.
17) Internationally, Wen said China would pursue more cooperation with other governments and would be a ``staunch force dedicated to regional and world peace.''
18) He tried to reassure other nations about China's growing economy and military, saying its higher international profile should not be seen as a threat.
19) ``A strong and prosperous China can only bring benefits to the world,'' he said.


Chinese premier to visit United States in December
(APW_ENG_20031125.0147)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will discuss Taiwan with U.S. President George W. Bush during a visit to the United States in December, China's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
2) Wen will travel to Washington, New York and Boston during the Dec. 7-10 trip, said ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. It will be Wen's first visit to the United States since taking office in March.
3) Wen will discuss Taiwan, a ``very core and sensitive issue between the two countries,'' Liu said at a regular news briefing.
4) Though Wen is Beijing's top economic official, Liu didn't say whether he would bring up tensions with Washington over China's rising trade surplus.
5) U.S. officials have demanded that China move fast in meeting its market-opening commitments to the World Trade Organization, saying that failure to act could jeopardize Beijing's access to U.S. markets.
6) Wen has tried to mollify American anger, telling The Washington Post in an interview published Sunday that his government does not want ``excessive and long-term'' surpluses.
7) The premier's visit also comes amid Chinese complaints that Taiwan's president is taking steps toward a formal declaration of independence for the island, which has been ruled separately since 1949.
8) Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its territory, insists that it accept eventual unification and has threatened to attack the island if it declares independence.
9) ``China stands ready and is resolutely opposed to any actions that will challenge the one-China principle,'' Liu said.
10) The United States is Taiwan's main ally. It has no official ties with the island, but is Taiwan's biggest arms supplier and has implicitly promised to help the island defend itself.
11) Chinese officials have complained about Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's push for a new constitution and a law on referendums, which they say are steps toward a declaration of independence.
12) In his comments to the Washington Post, Wen said Washington must recognize the danger of Chen's ``separatist agenda'' and oppose any effort toward formal independence.
13) ``The U.S. side must be crystal clear in opposing the use of a referendum or writing a constitution or all other tactics used ... to pursue his separatist agenda,'' Wen was quoted as saying.
14) The premier also complained about recent U.S. import quotas imposed on Chinese textiles.
15) ``I'm not just surprised, I'm shocked. And the Chinese people are shocked,'' Wen said.


Chinese premier says it's too soon for elections
(APW_ENG_20031210.0690)
1) China's new premier said Wednesday that while his country's leaders want democracy, the conditions are not yet right for contested elections for senior officials.
2) ``There's no question that to develop democracy is the objective of our endeavor,'' Wen Jiabao said in a talk at Harvard Business School. ``All our efforts will be aimed at building China into a prosperous democratic, modern civilized country.''
3) Direct elections are held for village-level officials in 680,000 villages throughout China, Wen said, but ``conditions are not right yet for direct election of senior officials.''
4) ``China is such a big country and our economic development is so uneven. To start with, I think the education level of the population is not high enough,'' Wen said through a translator.
5) ``We should let the people supervise the work of the government and be critical of the performance of the government,'' Wen said.
6) The Chinese premier began a four-day visit to the United States on Sunday, traveling to New York and then on to Washington, where he met with President George W. Bush.
7) It was the first visit by a member of the new group of Chinese leaders who took power in the past year, and comes amid tensions about the U.S. trade deficit with China _ projected at $120 billion for this year _ which would be the largest ever with any country.
8) Wen said the answer to the U.S. trade deficit with China was for the United States to export more goods to China, rather than for Chinese imports to be reduced.
9) The premier said he told Bush during a meeting Tuesday that ``we should not turn economic and trade issues into political ones.''
10) Wen's other stops in Massachusetts were to include a luncheon with business and political leaders in Boston and a visit to a dairy farm in the small town of Middleton, north of Boston.
11) His upbeat 90 minute appearance at Harvard Business School was greeted warmly by about 800 students and faculty. His remarks were briefly interrupted, however, by a woman who stood up to call for Tibetan independence.
12) Wen interrupted his speech, saying: ``I will not be disrupted because I am deeply convinced that the 300 million American people do have friendly feelings'' towards China. The crowd erupted in applause and the protester was led away without further incident.
13) Wen said it would be a ``time-consuming process to develop China's democracy perfectly.''
14) ``So we need to work to improve the living standards of 1.3 billion Chinese people,'' he said. ``This is a big challenge ahead.''
15) Wen said China's human rights situation was not ``impeccable,'' but the country was making progress, adding that the country's development was interlinked with progress on human rights.
16) ``China's reform and opening-up aims at promoting human rights,'' he said. ``The two are mutally dependent and reinforcing. Reform and opening-up creates conditions for the advancement of human rights and the latter invigorates the former.''
17) Boston members of Falun Gong, whose spiritual movement was banned by China several years ago, issued a statement calling for ``a peaceful resolution to this persecution.''


Chinese premier defends 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown With BC-AS-GEN--China-Politics
(APW_ENG_20040314.0573)
1) China's premier has defended the government's deadly 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, calling the student-led demonstrations a ``very serious political disturbance'' that had to be put down.
2) In a rare, nationally televised news conference, Wen Jiabao cited China's economic advances since then as evidence the government made the right choice.
3) He did not directly answer a question from The Associated Press about a military surgeon's petition calling on the government to admit it made mistakes in crushing the student-led protests 15 years ago. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were killed.
4) ``What hung in the balance was the future of our party and our country,'' Wen said. ``We successfully stabilized the situation of reform and opening up and the path of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.''
5) He noted China's ``tremendous achievements'' since the crackdown.
6) ``At the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, China faced a very serious political disturbance,'' Wen said at the news conference Sunday.
7) The military surgeon, Dr. Jiang Yanyong, has called on the government to reappraise the demonstrations as a ``patriotic movement.'' In a letter sent to the annual session of the National People's Congress, he said ordinary Chinese will be ``increasingly disappointed and angry'' if the party does not revise its judgment on the incident.
8) Wen became premier last year in a generational leadership change that saw the retirement of many officials personally involved in the 1989 crackdown. His response Sunday echoed the Chinese government's consistent reluctance to face the issue head-on.
9) Instead, Wen used the news conference to hammer home themes he outlined at the beginning of the 10-day legislative session _ such as expanding development to the impoverished countryside instead of just to China's booming cities.
10) ``The Chinese economy is at a critical juncture,'' Wen said. ``Deep-seated problems and imbalances in the economy over the years have not been fundamentally resolved.''
11) He promised to prevent the country's experiment in capitalism from spinning out of control, and he vowed to rein in the corruption endemic in China today.
12) He cited shortages in energy and raw materials and a decrease in grain output, called rising prices a problem and said economic controls _ while difficult _ must be enforced in the name of stability.
13) ``All these problems must be addressed appropriately. This presents an important challenge to the government,'' Wen said. ``If we fail to manage the situation well, setbacks to the economy will be inevitable.''
14) Wen also reiterated his government's stance that self-ruling Taiwan is a part of China _ just days before Taiwan's citizens elect a president and vote on a referendum gauging public opinion on Chinese missiles pointed at the island. Beijing has threatened to take Taiwan by force if the island refuses to unify.
15) ``Some people in the Taiwan authorities have been trying to push for a referendum on Taiwan independence based on the pretense of democracy,'' Wen said. ``They have undermined this universally recognized principle of one China and threatened stability in the Taiwan Strait.''
16) China's rise should not be seen as a threat, and the Beijing leadership has no desire to dominate the region at the expense of smaller nations, Wen said.
17) ``China has 5,000 years of history. We had a glorious past, but we also suffered humiliation and subjugation,'' Wen said. ``The rise of China and its rejuvenation are the dreams of many Chinese people of many generations.''


China vows to block Taiwan independence as it prepares to enact anti-secession law
(APW_ENG_20050305.0113)
1) Premier Wen Jiabao vowed Saturday never to permit formal independence for Taiwan as he opened a session of China's figurehead parliament that is to enact an anti-secession law aimed at the self-ruled island.
2) Wen gave no details of the planned law, which Taiwanese leaders say could set the stage for a military attack. The communist mainland claims Taiwan, which split from China in 1949, as part of its territory.
3) In a nationally televised speech to lawmakers in the cavernous Great Hall of the People, Wen said the law reflects the "strong determination of the Chinese people to ... never allow secessionist forces working for `Taiwan independence' to separate Taiwan from China."
4) Wen also promised to spend heavily on easing politically volatile poverty in China's vast countryside, where low incomes and heavy taxes have sparked violent protests.
5) Communist leaders regard rural anger as their most pressing domestic issue, though poverty and social issues were overshadowed by controversy over the planned anti-secession law in advance of the National People's Congress session. A final vote on the law is scheduled for March 14, the last day of the congress.
6) Wen said all farm taxes will be eliminated next year and promised that by 2007 every Chinese child can receive nine years of schooling _ an extraordinary commitment in a country where incomes per person average just US$1,000 (euro700) a year. Children from poor families will be exempt from most fees and receive free textbooks, the premier said, although he didn't make clear whether they will still have to pay tuition.
7) "Solving the problems facing agriculture, rural areas and farmers remains a top priority of our work," Wen said, with President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders arrayed behind him on stage.
8) The 2,985-member NPC approves legislation already decided by the ruling Communist Party. But the body also serves as a tool to keep communist leaders in touch with a fast-changing, increasingly capitalist society and provides a high-profile stage for announcing national policy and initiatives such as the anti-secession law.
9) As its session opened, hundreds of police and plainclothes security agents stood guard outside the Great Hall and on adjacent Tiananmen Square to prevent demonstrations.
10) In past years, guards have hauled away protesting farmers, unemployed workers and members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group, but there was no immediate sign Saturday morning of arrests.
11) The legislature coincides with reports that Beijing plans to dismiss unpopular Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.
12) Tung was to meet with Hu on Saturday afternoon and return to Hong Kong on Sunday, according to an official who asked not to be identified. The official said the meeting's agenda wasn't known yet and he declined to provide other details.
13) Turning to the economy, Wen promised to push ahead with reforms that have turned China's eastern cities into export-driven powerhouses and drastically lifted incomes.
14) He forecast a robust growth rate of 8 percent for 2005 _ well below last year's rate of 9.5 percent amid efforts to slow down an expansion that Chinese leaders worry could ignite inflation and damage the country's frail banks. He promised to create 9 million new jobs while holding consumer inflation to 4 percent.
15) Wen's two-hour speech, interrupted repeatedly by applause, focused on domestic concerns. In a passing reference to foreign affairs, Wen sounded standard themes, saying China would oppose terrorism and hegemony _ Beijing's term for sweeping U.S. global power.
16) Wen vowed to push forward with the costly modernization of the huge but antiquated People's Liberation Army, whose 2.5 million members make up the world's biggest fighting force.
17) On Friday, the government announced a 12.6 percent increase in military spending _ its fourth double-digit increase in five years as it tries to back up threats to attack Taiwan.
18) The government says it plans to spend 247.7 billion yuan (US$29.9 billion; euro23 billion) on its military this year, though analysts say China's true spending is as much as several times the reported figure.
19) China has spent billions of dollars on Russian-made supersonic fighter jets, submarines and other high-tech weapons to extend the reach of the PLA.
20) Wen said military modernization was key to "safeguarding national security and reunification" _ a reference to Taiwan.
21) "We will intensify scientific and technical training for soldiers to turn out a new type of highly competent military personnel," the premier said.
22) Wen also promised to promote environmental protection and more energy-efficient, less polluting technologies _ a key issue in a country that is a leading oil importer and source of pollution.


Chinese premier arrives in Pakistan to cement ties
(APW_ENG_20050405.0697)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao began a three-day visit to Pakistan on Tuesday to attend an Asian cooperation meeting and hold talks with Pakistani leaders on strengthening relations, officials said.
2) Wen held talks with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz shortly after he arrived in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, the Foreign Ministry said.
3) Officials from the two countries signed 20 agreements, including pacts on enhancing existing cooperation in defense, trade and fighting terrorism.
4) Wen and Aziz were to speak jointly at a news conference after their negotiations.
5) The Chinese Embassy said Wen would meet with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday. He was also expected to meet with other senior officials during his three-day visit.
6) China is Pakistan's neighbor in the northern Himalayan region and one of its main suppliers of military and economic aid. Their long-standing cooperation includes Chinese assistance in building a nuclear power plant, as well as tanks and fighter planes for Pakistan's military.
7) Wen's visit comes a day after defense officials from the two countries signed a deal under which Pakistan will buy four warships from China.
8) Wen also is to deliver a keynote address Wednesday at a meeting of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue, a 26-member forum promoting economic cooperation in the region.
9) Wen's visit will "further enhance the all-weather and time-tested friendship and strategic partnership between Pakistan and China," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said Monday.


Chinese premier says India, China infotech collaboration can herald
(APW_ENG_20050410.0215)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sunday that China and India should work together to lead the world in information technology, jointly heralding a new "Asian century."
2) On a visit to India's southern technology hub of Bangalore, Wen said the two nations should put aside their historic rivalry and instead pool their resources.
3) "I strongly believe that if we join hands together, we will certainly be able to set a new trail in the IT business world. When the particular day comes, it will signify the coming of the Asian century of the IT industry," Wen said in an address to information technology professionals in Bangalore.
4) India has gained global repute as a hub of software professionals while China is strong on computer hardware. Wen suggested they should collaborate, not compete.
5) "Cooperation is just like two pagodas (temples), one hardware and one software," Wen said. "Combined, we can take the leadership position in the world," he said. Wen appealed to Indian software companies to set up operations in China to tap the Chinese and global markets.
6) He later met scientists and visited the research facilities at the headquarters of the Indian Space Research Organization in Bangalore, and the Indian Institute of Science, or IIS.
7) While he was inside the building, a Tibetan youth climbed up a tower and remained perched above Wen's car, throwing flyers, waving the Tibetan flag and shouting "Free Tibet! Wen Jiabao, you cannot suppress the truth!" Five officers climbed up and arrested him.
8) During the tour, Wen is expected to raise the issue of Tibet and the role of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India, Chinese officials have said.
9) On Saturday, police prevented Tibetan activists, who oppose Beijing's rule in the Himalayan territory, from demonstrating against Wen's visit. Police detained two Tibetan leaders to prevent them from organizing demonstrations and prevented 50 Tibetan students from leaving their college hostels to protest, a police officer said.
10) Also Sunday, India's National Security Advisor M K Narayanan held talks with Chinese Executive Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo over boundary disputes unresolved since their 1962 war.
11) The two countries have been improving ties despite decades of frosty relations and rivalry. China is also a longtime ally and the main supplier of military hardware to Pakistan _ India's archrival.
12) "I hope and believe that my visit will inject fresh vigor and vitality into relations," Wen said in a statement distributed to reporters after his arrival.
13) During talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, the two countries are expected to sign nearly 30 agreements to promote political, economic and cultural ties.
14) China is keen to develop a free trade area between the two countries. Their combined populations total 2 billion, which would make it the largest free trade area in the world.
15) India-China trade reached US$13.6 billion (euro10.6 billion) in 2004, with India recording a trade surplus of US$1.75 billion (euro1.4 billion), Indian Commerce Ministry statistics show.
16) "As the world's two major developing countries, China and India will exert positive influence on peace and development in Asia and the world at large when we live in peace, deepen mutual trust and expand cooperation," Wen's statement said.
17) Wen and Singh are expected to discuss the more than 50-year-old border dispute over their 1,030-kilometer (650-mile) border, parts of which are not demarcated. A consensus on how to settle the issue is expected to be reached during Wen's four-day visit.
18) Later Sunday, Wen will visit the offices of China's largest telecommunication network technology provider, Huawei Technologies, in Bangalore.


China says economy to grow 8 percent in 2006, below analysts' expectations
(APW_ENG_20060305.0042)
1) China's economic growth is expected to slow slightly to 8 percent this year, Premier Wen Jiabao said Sunday, below economists' projections.
2) Wen delivered his forecast in a report to China's parliament on government plans for 2006.
3) The World Bank and other analysts have projected economic growth at above 9 percent this year. Wen didn't say why the government's projection was lower.


Egyptian president, Chinese premier discuss boosting economic relations
(APW_ENG_20060618.0333)
1) Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and visiting Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on Sunday discussed ways for the two countries to boost economic and trade relations.
2) The meeting came a day after Wen and his Egyptian counterpart, Ahmed Nazif, signed 10 agreements on oil and natural gas, telecommunications and the resumption of Egyptian citrus exports.
3) China also agreed to give Egypt a US$50 million (euro 39.5 million) loan and a US$10 million (euro 7.9 million) grant to build an investment headquarters in an industrial area northwest of the Gulf of Suez.
4) In Sunday's meeting, Wen told Mubarak China was ready to increase investment in Egypt _ especially in oil, natural gas and telecommunications industries, said presidential spokesman Suleiman Awwad.
5) Trade between Egypt and China topped US$2 billion (euro 1.58 billion) in 2005 _ an increase of 36 percent over the previous year. China has 186 projects in Egypt, with a total investment of US$220 million (euro 174 million).
6) Mubarak assured Wen of Egypt's policy of recognizing one China, referring to Taiwan's moves toward seeking independence and international recognition, Awwad said. The two also discussed Middle East politics and the situation on the Korean Peninsula, he said.
7) After meeting Mubarak, Wen told reporters at a news conference that the Israeli-Arab conflict was the most pressing issue in the Middle East.
8) "We think that the key solution is to implement the United Nations resolutions and the road map peace plan and to encourage both sides to pursue a peaceful settlement on the basis of `peace for land,'" he said.
9) Asked about China's ties with Israel, Wen said his country's relations with the Jewish state were "good and normal and important to both peoples as well as for the Arab World, because these relations help China to work with both parties to achieve peace."
10) On Iran's nuclear program, Wen said China "stands against any nuclear proliferation but also believes in Iran's right to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and that the issue should be solved peacefully."
11) Wen and Nazif attended celebrations Saturday night at the Great Pyramids to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
12) In 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser recognized China _ making Egypt the first Arab or African nation to do so, in defiance of U.S. efforts to discourage other countries from dealing with the communist state. The United States established diplomatic ties with China after 29 years on January 1, 1979.
13) After Wen's two-day visit to Egypt, he left Sunday for Ghana, on an African tour that would also take him to Angola, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
14) Wen said China's relations with Africa were long-standing, and that his country has offered Africa more than US$44 billion (euro 348 billion) in aid over the past 50 years, to finance 900 infrastructure projects.
15) He said China would encourage companies to invest more in Africa, and that Beijing would offer more financial aid and training opportunities at the Afro-Chinese forum, to be held in Beijing in November.
16) Wen denied that China wanted to improve relations with Africa to control energy resources, saying oil deals with African nations were open and transparent.
17) China, the world's fastest growing economy and most populous nation, has lavished attention on resource-rich Africa for decades, routinely sending the foreign minister and members of the leadership on visits there every year. Wen's trip came less than two months after President Hu Jintao visited Nigeria, Morocco and Kenya.


China ' s premier promises to improve financial markets
(APW_ENG_20070301.0617)
1) China's premier promised to improve its turbulent financial markets but announced no new initiatives in a speech published Thursday but written before this week's stock plunge.
2) "The foundations for stable operation of the stock market are not firm. There are still many problems that must be resolved," Premier Wen Jiabao said in the speech published in the Communist Party magazine Seeking Truth. It said Wen made the remarks Jan. 19 at a conference on the government's financial work.
3) Building modern stock and bond markets to finance China's economic development "is the major task facing us," Wen said.
4) China's main stock index fell nearly 9 percent on Tuesday, the biggest one-day drop in a decade, triggering a selloff in markets abroad. Prices rebounded on Wednesday, rising nearly 4 percent, before falling again on Thursday by 2.9 percent.
5) Wen's speech repeated government pledges to clean up China's stock markets. But it included no new initiatives and gave no indication whether Beijing might speed up the easing of currency controls or other reforms.
6) China's stock markets suffer from poor regulation, lack of reliable information from companies, insider trading and other handicaps.
7) "We need to improve the quality of companies, to establish a system of information release, to improve transparency and to improve investor confidence," Wen was quoted as saying.
8) He promised to build a "fair, open market mechanism" and protect the interests of small investors.
9) Wen also cautioned that China faces mounting problems from its swollen trade surplus, growing foreign currency reserves and excess liquidity, which Chinese leaders worry could ignite inflation.
10) "We must see clearly that solving the problems of international imbalances is a problem that we are going to face in the long term," he said.
11) Wen repeated Beijing's promise to allow a more flexible exchange rate for its currency, the yuan, but gave no timetable. The United States and other trading partners say the yuan is kept undervalued, giving Chinese exporters a price advantage and hurting foreign competitors.
12) Wen said China will explore more profitable ways to use its US$1 trillion-plus in foreign reserves, which now are invested mostly in U.S. Treasury bills and other safe but low-yielding instruments.


China ' s Wen reaches out to interest groups with pledges on social spending, military
(APW_ENG_20070305.0686)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reached out to key interest groups in a speech to the legislature Monday, pledging to boost rural incomes, raise spending on social programs and fund high-tech programs for the influential military.
2) The spending binge follows commitments by Wen and Chinese President Hu Jintao to spread wealth more evenly, but also comes ahead of a major year-end Communist Party congress at which the pair are expected to entrench their five-year rule by appointing allies to top posts.
3) "We must put people first ... and ensure that all of the people share in the fruits of reform and development," Wen said in an address to the 2,890 members of the legislature, formally known as the National People's Congress.
4) Along with the national budget, delegates at this year's 12-day session are expected to approve property rights and corporate tax bills. The various meetings on the congress' sidelines also allow crucial face-time between delegates and leaders, permitting Hu and Wen to communicate their priorities directly.
5) While the two face no electoral tests, China's authoritarian communist system is based on obtaining broad consensus and Hu and Wen want to project the image that they enjoy wide-ranging support in the months ahead of the party congress, said Steve Tsang, an expert on Chinese politics at Britain's Oxford University.
6) "They're not electioneering in the normal sense, but they do want to carry the support of the constituencies," Tsang said.
7) In 2007 budget plans unveiled to the legislature, Wen called for spending increases of 42 percent in education, 87 percent for medical care, 15 percent for rural areas and 14 percent for social security.
8) Tuition and other fees for all rural students will be eliminated, easing financial burdens on 150 million rural households, the premier said. The expanded spending on education and rural health insurance would complete in two years projects originally scheduled to be phased in over five years.
9) Wen announced an economic growth target of 8 percent, well below last year's rate of 10.7 percent, the fourth straight year of double-digit growth.
10) In the countryside, where most Chinese live, spending on agriculture, schools, medical clinics and other programs will rise 15 percent to 391.7 billion yuan (US$51 billion; euro39 billion), Wen announced.
11) Another 201.9 billion yuan (US$27 billion; euro21 billion) is earmarked for a "social safety net" to protect China's elderly and migrant workers. That will include old-age pensions, experimental pension accounts and basic medical and other social insurance.
12) Wen's speech dwelt at length on China's fouled rivers and polluted air, calling on banks to limit lending to energy-guzzling and highly polluting industries and pledging to shut small coal-burning plants and "backward iron foundries and steel mills."
13) Wen also said the government would speed up the transformation of China's 2.3 million armed forces into a high-tech fighting force.
14) On Sunday, China announced it will boost military spending by 17.8 percent in 2007 to 350.92 billion yuan (US$44.94 billion; euro34.14 billion), the biggest jump in more than a decade.
15) Yet military officers, more than 200 of whom are members of the legislature, said the increase was only incremental and would mainly be spent on boosting salaries.
16) "I really don't think it's much compared to other countries. We have a real need to improve living conditions and raise out technological level," Maj. Gen. Yuan Jiaxin said following Wen's speech.
17) Wen drew his biggest applause when renewing Beijing's pledge not to tolerate moves by self-governing Taiwan toward formal independence in defiance of China's claims over the island.
18) "We firmly believe that with the efforts of all Chinese people, including our Taiwan compatriots, complete reunification of China will definitely be realized," Wen said near the end of his 2 hour, 15 minute speech in the cavernous Great Hall of the People.


Premier says strong Chinese economic interests will not undermine dollar
(APW_ENG_20070316.0537)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao promised Friday that China's expanding economic interests abroad would not undermine the U.S. dollar and pledged to make the country's authoritarian political system more accountable to the people.
2) In a two-hour news conference, Wen also sought to allay concerns by the U.S. and others about China's rising military power, saying sharply higher defense spending was still lower than most developed countries and that a recent test of an anti-satellite weapon test did not target any other nation. He also pledged to foster nascent detente with regional rival Japan.
3) On the domestic front, Wen noted that despite four years of double-digit growth, the economy was overly dependent on investment and exports, not consumption. That imbalance has left China flush with money but also the potential for careless investing. Investing foreign exchange reserves that now total US$1 trillion "is a major problem," Wen said.
4) An agency being set up to invest a portion of the reserves, mostly held in secure U.S. dollar-denominated assets, will be looking to preserve and increase their value, Wen said.
5) "I can assure you that by instituting such a foreign exchange company, it will not have an adverse impact on U.S. dollar-denominated assets," Wen told reporters.
6) The premier's news conference is an annual rite, the only one he gives all year, coming at the close of the national legislature's session.
7) Making his fifth such appearance, Wen gave a vintage performance, reciting poetry and the sayings of Chinese statesman from 2,500 years ago. Several times he pledged to raise living standards for poor farmers and workers -- what he called the "vulnerable" -- who have not shared in China's stunning economic boom.
8) "The speed of the fleet is not determined by the vessel with the fastest speed but by the vessel traveling the slowest," Wen said. "The well-being of the whole society cannot be improved unless the lives of the most vulnerable groups are improved," he said.
9) Wen acknowledged that the political system needs an injection of public accountability, especially to deal with endemic corruption by officials that has fed public anger that he said was growing "more and more severe." He called for greater transparency in decision-making.
10) "It is particularly important that we need to make justice the most important value of the socialist system," he said.
11) The sentiments are a hallmark of the government Wen and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao have headed for five years. They have shifted spending to help the poor and try to address a yawning rich-poor divide gap, and they have tried to improve governance to make it more responsive, if not democratic.
12) This year's two-week session of the party-controlled National People's Congress ended Friday with the 2,889 delegates giving near unanimous approval to a budget that raises spending on health, education and social security programs for the poor and to passing a hotly debated law to safeguard private property.
13) Wen and Hu are seeking a renewed mandate at a key party congress later this year. Given the stakes and China's penchant for carefully scripted public events, the news conference lacked spontaneity. Wen did not deviate from the party line and most questions, both by foreign and Chinese reporters, were submitted days in advance.
14) In one unscripted moment, a French reporter asked if Wen had read a book recently published in Hong Kong in which Zhao Ziyang, the party chief purged for not backing the quelling of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement, calls for democratic change.
15) "I have not read the book," Wen said flatly.
16) Before the retort, Wen tried to persuade the audience that democracy was not alien to China and that Chinese society was becoming more democratic, though the process would be different than in other countries and would take decades to reach maturity.
17) "In my view, democracy, the rule of law, freedom, human rights, equality, and fraternity are not something peculiar to capitalism," Wen said. "These are also the common values that we as human beings all pursue."
18) Turning to foreign affairs, Wen said that the anti-satellite weapons test conducted in January -- in which a ground-launched missile shot down an orbiting Chinese weather satellite -- did not undermine China's opposition to an arms race in space. He repeated Beijing's call for an international convention banning weapons in outer space.
19) Wen also stuck to a current initiative to improve relations with Japan, roiled in recent years by territorial and historic issues that are a veiled struggle for regional supremacy. He called a visit to Beijing last October by newly installed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "an ice-breaker" and hoped his upcoming April trip to Japan would be "an ice-thawer."


Chinese premier calls for close relations with Japan -- without forgetting past aggression
(APW_ENG_20070412.0535)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged Japan's parliament on Thursday not to forget Tokyo's wartime aggression even as the two Asian powers mend their strained ties and bolster thriving business relations.
2) Wen -- the first Chinese leader to address the parliament in 22 years -- was on a three-day "ice-melting" trip to Japan as the two countries worked to reverse a deterioration in ties caused in part by disagreements about the past.
3) The Chinese premier, who spent part of Thursday urging Japanese business leaders to invest in China, also struck a conciliatory note, acknowledging Japanese apologies and blaming a clique of militarists for Tokyo's invasions of China.
4) "To reflect on history is not to dwell on hard feelings but to remember and learn from the past in order to open a better future," he said, adding, however, that he hoped Japan's apologies would be "turned into actions."
5) The two countries have been at odds in recent years over Japan's invasions and occupation of China in the 1930s and '40s. China has accused Japan of not fully atoning for its aggression, while some Japanese feel accounts of their wrongdoings have been exaggerated.
6) The Wen trip was aimed at building on an improvement in ties begun when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe traveled to China in October. Ties had plunged to postwar lows during the 2001-2006 term of his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi.
7) Japanese officials said they were satisfied so far with the visit, which was to end Friday.
8) "Premier Wen Jiabao's speech was very positive, and I thought it was very good that forward-looking remarks were made on broad-ranging issues," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said.
9) On Wednesday, Wen and Abe declared their firm intentions to move forward on rebuilding relations, signed agreements on energy and the environment, and issued a joint statement that laid out a series of issues for the countries to cooperate on.
10) Wen also strove to put a human face on the Chinese government, coming out early Thursday for a jog at a Tokyo park -- wearing sportswear with a Beijing 2008 Olympics logo -- and even joining a group doing tai chi. On Friday, he was to play baseball with college students in western Japan.
11) Much of Wen's activities on Thursday and Friday were aimed at business relations. China, including Hong Kong, is Japan's No. 1 trading partner, and Beijing is eager to increase Japanese technology transfers and investment in its booming economy.
12) After the parliament speech, Wen lunched with members of Japan's leading business federation, declaring that "winter has past, and spring has come in China-Japan relations."
13) He urged Japanese companies to invest in China, vowing to address vast imbalances in the Chinese economy, improve the natural environment, protect intellectual property rights, continue tax breaks for high-tech companies and proceed with currency reform.
14) "China must build a society that conserves its resources and protects its environment," Wen said.
15) Wen and Abe also launched a series of high-level economic dialogues aimed at boosting ties between Asia's two biggest economies.
16) "Our economies have become indispensable to each other ... and our relationship is also crucial to the world economy," Abe said.
17) But a statement in an annual report by China's No. 1 oil producer that it is producing oil and gas from a disputed area in the East China Sea threatened to disturb the cordial mood of Wen's visit.
18) Japan has asked Chinese officials to confirm the report by CNOOC Ltd., which said the company was producing 42 barrels of oil and 4 million cubic feet of gas per day from the disputed Tianwaitian oil field, according to a Foreign Ministry official who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
19) The two countries have not demarcated their exclusive economic zones in the area, and Japan has objected to Chinese exploitation of the deposits, saying some of the gas belongs to Japan. Joint talks so far have achieved little.
20) Still, Wen made a number of statements on issues close to Japanese hearts.
21) On Wednesday, he expressed understanding for Japan's drive to win a resolution of North Korea's past kidnappings of Japanese citizens. On Thursday, he alluded to Tokyo's long-standing campaign to win a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council -- a campaign China has blocked in the past.
22) "China understands Japan's hope to play a bigger role in international society, and we are ready to strengthen our mutual understanding over the United Nations' reforms," he said.
23) Wen, however, also warned the Japanese not to meddle in Beijing's relations with Taiwan, which it considers part of China. The premier said China hoped for peaceful reunification, but that it could not tolerate Taiwanese independence.


China ' s premier calls for opposing Taiwan independence in annual National Day speech
(APW_ENG_20070930.0348)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called on Taiwan to resist moving toward formal independence from the mainland, speaking Sunday in an annual National Day address traditionally used to appeal for unity between the rivals.
2) Wen said China stood ready work with Taiwanese for unification and stressed that Beijing wanted to accomplish that peacefully.
3) "We will continue to work with all the Taiwan compatriots to oppose and repulse separatist activities for 'Taiwan independence' and advance the great cause of China's peaceful reunification," Wen said in the speech, delivered with Communist Party leaders seated nearby, and addressed an audience of Chinese political elite and foreign diplomats in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.
4) Wen's remarks contrast with Beijing's recent alarmist rhetoric against Taiwan.
5) China and Taiwan split amid civil war 58 years ago. Though a chilly peace has characterized their rivalry in recent years, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has pushed for a more formal, legal independence -- a red line for Beijing which, if crossed, China has vowed to meet with military force.
6) In his remarks, Wen also looked ahead to an upcoming congress of China's Communist Party elite, held once every five years to set major policy directions. Wen said that the congress will affirm Chinese President Hu Jintao's program for more sustainable development, which goes by the rubric of "scientific thinking on development."
7) The party congress "will be soon convened, a congress of great importance to be held at a time when China's reform and development have entered a crucial stage," Wen said.


State media cite Chinese premier pegging nation ' s economic growth for year at 11.5 percent
(APW_ENG_20071120.0730)
1) China's economy will likely grow at a rate of 11.5 percent for the year in 2007, state media quoted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao as saying on Tuesday.
2) The Web site of the China Daily newspaper cited Wen as telling Chinese embassy staff, businessmen and foreign students in Singapore that the economy would stay on track as long as inflation and economic overheating were kept under control.
3) "A particular feature of the economy this year is that it has maintained steady, relatively fast growth," Wen said.
4) It is estimated that the economy will grow for the year at a rate of 11.5 percent, the report cited Wen as saying.


China targets economic growth at 8 percent and wants inflation held to 4.8 percent
(APW_ENG_20080305.0157)
1) China's premier called Wednesday for "powerful measures" to rein in the persisting inflation battering ordinary Chinese, saying the government will use further price controls and curb soaring investment to hold prices to a 4.8 percent rise.
2) In an annual policy speech to the national legislature, Premier Wen Jiabao said restraining the inflation that has accompanied surging economic growth was a leading priority for the government this year.
3) "To fulfill this task, we must take powerful measures to increase effective supply while curbing excessive demand," Wen told the National People's Congress, according to a draft of his speech.
4) The 4.8 percent target Wen set for consumer price increases this year is significantly higher than in recent years, showing the difficulties the government faces in controlling inflation. With the economy galloping in double-digit growth, consumer and business demand is pushing up prices for food, land and other inputs.
5) Consumer prices began shooting up in mid-2007, reaching 7.1 percent in January -- the highest rate in 11 years -- led by surging food prices and higher costs for housing. If left unchecked, the trend could erode rising standards of living and especially harm China's large numbers of rural and urban poor -- groups Wen and President Hu Jintao have vowed to help.
6) Overall, Wen said that the government was sticking to its normal planning target for economic growth of 8 percent -- an almost unrealistic goal given the economy's strength. But Wen said that moderating growth and the investment in land, factories and other assets was necessary to prevent the economy from overheating.
7) "The primary task for macro-economic regulation this year is to prevent fast economic growth from becoming overheated growth and keep structural price increases from turning into significant inflation," Wen said.
8) To tamp down price rises, Wen ordered up a series of measures, from increasing subsidies to encourage farmers to grow more grain and produce more vegetable oil to imposing further controls on prices for scarce goods and government services.
9) For the poor, Wen said subsidies would be raised "to ensure that their basic living standards do not drop because of basic price increases."
10) Wen also vowed to redouble efforts to help southern and central China -- key agricultural areas -- recover from snowstorms this winter that clogged transportation and added to inflationary pressures. He said the government would focus on repairing damaged power grids and ensuring supplies of coal and petrol to the disaster areas.
11) The storms "caused significant losses to china's economy and made life very difficult for disaster victims," Wen said. "We will learn from this large-scale natural disaster."


Enough already! Uncomfortable topics broached at Chinese premier ' s news conference
(APW_ENG_20080318.0740)
1) The questions were pointed, prompting strained smiles from the Chinese premier and long pauses between answers. When they came, his responses seemed stiff, with hackneyed phrase following tortured wording.
2) Wen Jiabao had a rough time of it Tuesday at his annual news conference, normally a chance to field softball questions, recite poetry, and wax philosophical about running the vast nation of 1.3 billion people.
3) With Tibetans demonstrating, inflation soaring, and rights groups threatening to tarnish the Beijing Olympics, the popular premier was repeatedly forced into uncomfortable territory, often falling back onto the words of other officials.
4) Wen denounced supporters of the Dalai Lama as separatists and instigators of anti-Chinese riots in Tibet's capital, echoing earlier government statements without offering evidence or new details.
5) Despite international pleas for dialogue, he appeared to rule out direct contact with the exiled Buddhist leader, denouncing his calls for talks as "nothing but lies."
6) Wen said the Tibetan protesters were intent on undermining the Olympics and were "politicizing" the games, an accusation he extended to other critics of Chinese curbs on religious and speech freedoms. That too replicated earlier official statements almost to the word.
7) Wen, a mild-mannered former engineer, isn't known to be a fan of confrontation. More often, he plays the role of conciliator-in-chief, flying around the country to soothe crises and console disaster victims. With Tibet dominating the proceedings Tuesday, he had little opportunity to display that softer side at his only regularly scheduled news conference on the final day of the ceremonial legislature's annual two-week session.
8) Wen also sidestepped a question about detained AIDS and environmental activist Hu Jia, insisting "China is a country ruled by law." Hu's case has become a lightening rod for rights criticisms, but Wen -- apparently unprepared for the question -- passed on the opportunity to clarify the accusations against him.
9) Wen also denied authorities were rounding up dissidents ahead of the Olympics, but refused to say if China would ratify a key U.N. treaty on civil and political rights.
10) Wen even managed to sound equivocal when discussing the economy, his main area of expertise. While conceding the government would likely miss a target of holding inflation to 4.8 percent this year, Wen announced no new initiatives, offering that "if we take the right measures, we are confident we can control inflation."
11) Tuesday's news conference was likely Wen's toughest since his first as premier in 2003, when an AP reporter asked about the fate of his former boss, disgraced ex-Premier Zhao Ziyang, who was then living under house arrest after supporting student-led pro-democracy protests in 1989.
12) Since then, the news has been largely positive, with Chinese society basically stable, and Beijing's international clout rising alongside the rapidly expanding economy.
13) Wen and other Communist leaders have easily parried criticisms of their human rights, trade, and copyright protection policies, while Washington, formerly among the regime's biggest critics, has been too distracted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to apply much pressure.
14) Wen, who has made poetry recitation a staple of his news conferences, got his chance late in the two-hour event in response to a question about relations with Taiwan, the self-governing island China claims as its own territory.
15) Wen began with a recitation of China's standard line that independence for the island was "doomed to fail."
16) He then tried to entice Taiwan with appeals for brotherhood and business ties.
17) "We have always longed to see a reunified China," Wen said, and recited lines from a 700-year-old poem: "We remain brothers after all the vicissitudes, let's forgo our own begrudges, smiling we will meet again."


China ' s Wen says quake death toll passes 60,000, could rise to 80,000 or more
(APW_ENG_20080524.0114)
1) Premier Wen Jiabao says China's earthquake death toll has passed 60,000 and could rise to 80,000 or more.
2) Wen's estimate Saturday was a sharp increase over the 55,000 deaths reported earlier by the government.
3) Wen made the comment as he and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Yingxiu, a town near the epicenter of the May 12 quake.
4) Wen said fatalities "may further climb to a level of 70,000, 80,000 or more."


Man throws shoes at Bush in Iraq
(APW_ENG_20081214.0537)
1) A man threw his shoes at President George W. Bush and was dragged away by security officials during the president's farewell trip to Iraq.
2) The incident occurred as Bush was appearing Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
3) Bush ducked and wasn't hit by either shoe. Bush joked, saying that all he can report was that it was a size 10 shoe. then calmly took questions.


China ' s Wen to discuss global slowdown in Europe
(APW_ENG_20090122.0577)
1) Premier Wen Jiabao, China's top economic official, hopes to reach agreement with European leaders on measures to combat the global slowdown when he visits Europe next week, a senior official said Thursday.
2) Wen is to travel to Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Britain and European Union headquarters in Brussels on the Jan. 27-Feb. 2 trip.
3) China and the European governments are working on policies to strengthen financial and economic cooperation that they hope to finalize during Wen's visit, Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Hongbo told reporters at a briefing on the trip.
4) "The financial crisis is a common challenge to the international community," Wu said. "It also brings new opportunity for cooperation and new areas of cooperation among countries."
5) Wu said Wen will likely discuss the G-20 summit due to be held April 2 in London and put forward the position that developing countries should have greater influence in international financial bodies. It will be the second gathering of global leaders to discuss the crisis, following a Washington gathering Nov. 14-15.
6) "As a vulnerable group or one at a disadvantaged position, in future arrangements of financial system reform, developing countries and newly emerging markets need to have more say," he said.
7) Wen will also attend the World Economic Forum of 2,500 government and business leaders, which starts Jan. 27 in Davos, Switzerland.
8) Wen's itinerary does not include France, which prompted questions about whether Paris was excluded due to Chinese anger over French President Nicolas Sarkozy's meeting with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, last month in Poland.
9) Wu blamed Wen's tight schedule but said only France can resolve "difficulties" in their relations.
10) "China is not to blame for the current difficulty," Wu said. "As a Chinese saying goes, the one who tied the knot should be the one who unties the knot."
11) Beijing issued strong complaints and canceled a major China-EU summit planned for December in protest. France held the rotating chairmanship of the European Union at the time.
12) Wu said the current setback in relations with France would not hinder cooperation between China and Europe.
13) Wen's delegation will include Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, top economic planner Zhang Ping of the Cabinet's National Development and Reform Commission and Commerce Minister Chen Deming, according to Wu.
14) Wen will be in Switzerland Jan. 27-28; Germany Jan. 28-29; the EU headquarters Jan. 29-30; Spain Jan. 30-31; and the United Kingdom Jan. 31-Feb. 2.


Chinese Premier Wen arrives in Britain for talks
(APW_ENG_20090131.0507)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has arrived in London for three days of talks with British political and business leaders.
2) Wen is expected to meet with Prime Minister Gordon Brown as part of a European tour dealing with the global economic crisis and other matters.
3) The Chinese is promoting British investment in his country, and aims to reassure leaders about China's economic strength. He made the same points earlier this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
4) Wen arrived Saturday after a short stop in Spain where he met with King Juan Carlos.
5) Wen is traveling with a delegation of Chinese businessmen.


Protester hurls shoe at Chinese PM during UK visit
(APW_ENG_20090203.0117)
1) A protester hurled abuse and then a shoe at China's premier Monday while he delivered a speech on the global economy at Cambridge University at the end of his trip to Britain.
2) The protester leapt up from his seat near the back of a crowded auditorium, blew a whistle and yelled that Premier Wen Jiabao was a "dictator" before throwing the shoe toward the stage.
3) "How can this university prostitute itself with this dictator here, how can you listen ... to him unchallenged," the man shouted.
4) Like the now-famous incident when an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush in December, the gray athletic shoe missed its intended target.
5) Unlike Bush, Wen, who was standing on a stage behind a podium, did not need to duck. He merely paused for a few seconds before he continued with his speech. One of his aides quietly stepped on to the stage, picked up the shoe and took it away.
6) Security staff escorted the protester out of the auditorium. He was arrested and taken to a police station for questioning on suspicion of committing a public order offense, said police spokeswoman Shelly Spratt.
7) "The university is a place for discussion, debate and considered argument, not for shoe throwing," said Tim Holt, a university spokesman.
8) The shoe-throwing incident came at the end of a three-day visit dogged by demonstrations over human rights and Chinese policy in Tibet. Security was tight at the university and police kept a group of about 20 demonstrators away from the premier when he arrived for his speech.
9) Shoe throwing has become a globally recognized form of protest since the case involving Bush. Iraqi reporter Muntadhar al-Zeidi was scheduled to face trial in December on a charge of assaulting a foreign leader, but the court date was postponed after his attorney filed a motion to reduce the charges. He remains in custody in Baghdad.


What shoe? Chinese media silent on shoe toss
(APW_ENG_20090203.0179)
1) China's media, quick to report when a shoe was thrown at former President George W. Bush last year, sidestepped any direct mention or images Tuesday of a protester hurling his shoe at the Chinese premier during a speech in Britain.
2) Unlike the now-famous incident when an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at Bush in December, covered widely not only in China but around the world, state-run newspapers and Web sites in China carried stories on Wen's speech but had no reference to the shoe-throwing. Content mentioning it on Internet forums also appears to have been deleted.
3) The official Xinhua News Agency issued a story saying that Britain apologized for an incident and that China had "expressed its strong feelings against the occurrence of the incident." However, it did not say what the incident was.
4) China's state-run CCTV network reported Foreign Ministry comments, which acknowledged a "disturbance" during the speech, but made no mention a shoe had been thrown at Wen.
5) In the live broadcast of the speech on CCTV's Web site, the camera remains fixed on Wen, not showing the shoe or the protester, although his remarks and the sound of the shoe hitting the stage can be heard. Wen pauses, glances sideways as the shoe hits the stage, and then continues his speech.
6) "Teachers and students, this kind of dirty trick cannot stop the friendship between the Chinese and the British people," Wen said, followed by applause.
7) Newspapers like the staid People's Daily and the commercial tabloid Beijing News carried reports of Wen's Cambridge speech but made no mention of the shoe-throwing.
8) China keeps a tight grip over the Internet, blocking any content deemed as a challenge or insulting to the ruling Communist Party or the country's leaders.
9) The shoe-throwing incident came at the end of a three-day visit to Britain by Wen, which was dogged by demonstrations over human rights and Chinese policy in Tibet.
10) The protester leapt from his seat near the back of a crowded auditorium at Cambridge University, blew a whistle and yelled that Wen was a "dictator" before throwing a shoe toward the stage.
11) "How can this university prostitute itself with this dictator here, how can you listen ... to him unchallenged," the man shouted.
12) Security staff escorted the young man, who was not Chinese and had dark hair, a short beard and glasses, from the auditorium.
13) The shoe missed its target, and one of Wen's aides quietly stepped on stage, picked up the shoe and took it away.
14) "Facts have shown that the despicable behavior of the perpetrator is extremely unpopular and can in no way stem the tide of the growing friendly relations and cooperation between China and Britain," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement on the ministry Web site.
15) In the past, Chinese leaders have demanded that foreign governments keep any protesters out of the way and even out of view during visits. In Switzerland last week, police sealed off streets in Bern to keep Tibetan protesters away from Wen and to avoid a repeat of an incident during then President Jiang Zemin's visit 10 years ago. After protesters got too close to Jiang, he angrily told the Swiss president: "You have lost a good friend."
16) A Google search showed a query had been posted asking what happened at the end of Wen's speech on Tianya, one of China's most popular Internet forums, but the content had been deleted from the forum when the link was clicked.
17) Baidu, China's most popular search engine, contained no news about the shoe throwing.
18) The Iraqi reporter who threw the shoe at Bush, Muntadhar al-Zeidi, was supposed to face trial in December on a charge of assaulting a foreign leader but the court date was postponed after his attorney filed a motion to reduce the charges. He remains in custody in Baghdad.


With unusual candor, China reports shoe throwing
(APW_ENG_20090203.1016)
1) It hesitated for hours over the sensitive footage of a British protester shouting "dictator" and throwing a shoe at Premier Wen Jiabao. But finally, China's carefully controlled state broadcaster ran it Tuesday.
2) The move was a remarkable display of openness -- but the footage already was leaking into China via satellite television and the Internet. Critics said it showed the increasing power of such media to erode strict information controls.
3) "It is impossible for a country to shut out a piece of news," said Shao Peiren, head of Zhejiang University's communications research institute in eastern China.
4) But the broadcast might also help the government by appealing to Chinese patriotism. Wen is the leadership's most popular figure, and he emerged as the popular hero after last year's devastating earthquake, calling himself "Grandpa Wen." The nickname was embraced by some enthusiastic Chinese.
5) Still, incidents that could be seen as unflattering or insulting to the Chinese leadership have long been treated with the greatest sensitivity. The first Chinese reports on the protest during Wen's visit to Britain's Cambridge University left out key details, including that a shoe had been thrown.
6) But the China Central Television broadcast had it all. The camera was fixed on Wen, but later cut to the whistle-blowing protester being removed from the hall, while the audience shouted "Get out."
7) "How can this university prostitute itself with this dictator here? How can you listen ... to him unchallenged?" the man -- who has yet to be identified -- could be heard shouting.
8) The sound of the shoe hitting the stage, away from Wen, could be heard as well.
9) Wen paused for about one minute and then continued his speech.
10) "Teachers and students, this kind of dirty trick cannot stop the friendship between the Chinese and the British people," Wen said, followed by applause.
11) The incident echoed the news conference in December in which an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush -- covered widely not only in China but around the world.
12) Bush joked off his shoe attack, saying "it was a size 10," but China's response was far sterner.
13) Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu called the disruption "despicable" but said it would not "stem the tide of friendly relations between China and Britain."
14) Internet chat rooms were filled with patriotic messages denouncing the protester, who did not appear to be ethnic Han Chinese.
15) "The uncompromising Iraqi people threw a shoe at Bush which is a brave act by a suppressed nation," said one comment on the Tiexue.net bulletin board. "But the ugly Englishman threw a shoe at Wen, which was only a barbaric trick."
16) In an apparent move to show national dignity had been maintained, reports by CCTV and the official Xinhua News Agency included prominent references to Britain apologizing.
17) The BBC reported the 27-year-old protester would appear before magistrates on Feb. 10 in Cambridge on charges of committing a public order offense.
18) China's online activity -- with 298 million Web users -- makes it increasingly tough for censors to keep sensitive news, like the shoe throwing, offline. Media watchers say that may be prompting official media to report on other news it would have suppressed before, such as riots and protests.
19) But the expanded coverage may also reflect a recognition by propaganda authorities that showing such events can work to the government's advantage.
20) Two incidents last year were given wide state media coverage: Attacks on the Olympic torch overseas before its journey to Beijing, and the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province.
21) The torch attacks sparked an outpouring of angry nationalism among Chinese at home and abroad. The second brought a wave of compassion and assistance for the quake victims.


Israeli ambassador targeted in Swedish shoe attack
(APW_ENG_20090205.0792)
1) Organizers of a university seminar say someone hurled a shoe at the Israeli ambassador to Sweden during a discussion about Israel's upcoming elections.
2) It was not immediately clear if Ambassador Benjamin Dagan was hit in the attack at Stockholm University.
3) Organizers said Thursday a person in the crowd threw a shoe at Dagan at the seminar Wednesday night. Swedish radio reported a second person threw a book at the ambassador and that both attackers were detained by police.
4) Stockholm police could not immediately confirm the report and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment.
5) The incident echoed similar shoe-throwing attacks against former President George W. Bush in December and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday.


Israeli ambassador targeted in Swedish shoe attack
(APW_ENG_20090205.1076)
1) Swedish police arrested two protesters after they hurled a shoe and books at Israel's ambassador while he gave a speech at a university seminar, a police official said Thursday.
2) Ambassador Benjamin Dagan was not injured in Wednesday night's attack at Stockholm University, police spokeswoman Petra Sjolander said.
3) "The shoe only brushed his leg, and the books didn't hit him," she said.
4) Dagan was participating in a seminar on Israel's upcoming elections and the situation in the Middle East, when a man and a woman in the audience started throwing objects at him.
5) Grainy video of the incident posted on YouTube showed how a group of protesters in the audience started shouting while books were tossed toward the front of the room.
6) Sjolander said both suspects, who were not identified, were released after questioning. She said a prosecutor had launched an investigation and that the two were suspected of attempted assault and disturbing public order.
7) An Israeli Embassy spokesman declined to comment on the attack.
8) The incident echoed similar attacks in recent weeks. An Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a news conference in December and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was attacked by a shoe-throwing protester in Britain on Monday.


China premier asks Cambridge to pardon shoe-tosser
(APW_ENG_20090209.0329)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is asking Britain's Cambridge University to pardon a student who threw a shoe at him during his speech there earlier this month.
2) The Feb. 2 incident prompted an outraged response from the Chinese government and stirred indignation among many ordinary Chinese, who saw it as an affront to national pride.
3) "It is hoped that the university will give the student an opportunity to continue his studies at the university," Wen was quoted as saying by China's ambassador in London, Fu Ying, in a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry's Web site.
4) "It is hoped that this student will see his mistake and seek to understand a real and developing China," Wen added, according to the statement posted over the weekend and reported in Chinese newspapers Monday.
5) The student was arrested by Cambridge police following the incident and questioned on suspicion of committing a public order offense. The official China Daily newspaper identified him as Martin Jahnke, a 27-year-old pathology student originally from Germany.
6) Like the now-famous incident when an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush in December, the gray athletic shoe missed its intended target.
7) Jahnke's motivations were not immediately clear, although he punctuated his throw by shouting: "How can this university prostitute itself with this dictator here, how can you listen ... to him unchallenged?"
8) A calm and collected Wen continued with his comments after the protester was removed, calling the shoe throwing a "dirty trick" but saying it would have no effect on China-Britain relations.
9) Such acts of protest are virtually unknown in China, where the leadership rules from behind high walls in a central Beijing compound and all public appearances are carefully planned and tightly scripted. China's authoritarian communist system tolerates little dissent and routinely metes out long prison sentences to people merely for writing critical essays on the Internet.
10) After hesitating for hours, Chinese state television ran a full report on the incident, widely seen as a sign of greater openness. Potential embarrassments to the Communist leadership are usually ignored by state media, but the Internet and satellite television have made it increasingly difficult to suppress bad news for long.
11) The broadcast and accompanying reports also appear to be a successful appeal to Chinese patriotism.
12) Fu said Jahnke had apologized in writing for the incident and said the university was dealing with it "in all seriousness," according to the statement on the Foreign Ministry site.


China ' s premier vows to save economy, defend Tibet
(APW_ENG_20090313.0289)
1) China's premier defended his government's policies in Tibet and its handling of the economic crisis Friday, promising more stimulus measures if needed to boost growth and maintain public confidence.
2) In his sole news conference of the year, Premier Wen Jiabao stressed that a half-trillion-dollar stimulus program would revive the buoyant growth dragged down by the global downturn and create jobs and provide social welfare to cope with worsening unemployment. He pointedly called on Washington to protect the value of Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasuries and other debt, estimated to be worth about U$1 trillion.
3) More than painstakingly explaining policies, the precise, scholarly Wen tried to convey the message that Beijing was confident it could withstand the turmoil. He used the word confidence five times in as many minutes at the start of the nationally televised news conference.
4) "Confidence is more important than gold and money," Wen told reporters in the Great Hall of the People. "First and foremost, we have to have very strong confidence. Only when we have strong confidence can we have more courage and strength and only when we have courage and strength can we overcome the difficulties."
5) Wen is the most popular figure in the usually remote communist leadership. Sometimes referred to as "grandpa Wen," he is frequently shown on state television touring the country, talking with farmers in the countryside. As such, his popularity is a boon for an authoritarian government that in part relies on its popularity to impress sometimes recalcitrant local officials to carry out Beijing's policies.
6) Though largely focused on the domestic economy, Wen also twice defended its record in Tibet, including ramped-up security intended to prevent a repeat of the massive anti-government uprising that swept Tibetan communities in western China a year ago.
7) "Tibet's peace and stability and Tibet's continuous progress have proven the policies we have adopted are right," said Wen. He said Beijing has hugely increased subsidies to Tibet in recent years to spur growth and raise incomes in a chronically poor region.
8) The news conference, an annual fixture, was the first for Wen since he began confronting the collective leadership's first economic crisis. Since coming to power six years ago, Wen, President Hu Jintao and other leaders have mostly faced the opposite situation, trying to slow breakneck economic growth.
9) The turnaround for the economy has been swift. Growth has halved in a year. Exports have cratered. Jobs are disappearing by the tens of millions, raising the prospects of heightened unrest in a society that has gotten used to steadily rising standards of living.
10) The centerpiece of the government's effort is the 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus plan to be spent on infrastructure projects and social programs. Before Wen's news conference, deputies to the Communist Party-dominated national legislature overwhelmingly approved the stimulus and the rest of a budget that will increase spending nearly 25 percent from last year's level to cope with the downturn.
11) Wen said the government stood ready to unveil additional stimulus measures should the current ones prove insufficient to raising growth to about 8 percent.
12) "We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times, and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," he said. "At any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."
13) Unlike previous years, Wen struck a businesslike tone and shied away from revealing personal details or quoting poetry -- displays that have made him popular but are unusual for Chinese leaders. One exception: He voiced his desire to visit Taiwan, Beijing's long-standing rival in a half-century civil war but with whom ties are warming.
14) "Taiwan is China's treasured island," Wen said. If allowed, he would visit the popular scenic spots of Mount Ali and Sun Moon Lake. "Although I am 67 years old, if there's a chance for me to go to Taiwan, even if I can no longer walk, I will crawl to the island."


China ' s premier says economy better than expected
(APW_ENG_20090418.0181)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Saturday the country's stimulus package is working and the economy is "better than expected," but he cautioned that complete recovery will take much more time because the global financial crisis continues to spread.
2) Wen, also China's top economic official, pledged to pull the country out of its slump by expanding domestic demand, building major infrastructure projects, finding jobs for college students and improving the social safety net.
3) Wen spoke at the Boao Forum, an annual gathering of government and business leaders on the tropical southern island province of Hainan. The theme of this year's conference, which organizers said drew 800 executives, was "Asia: Managing Beyond the Crisis."
4) The premier, the country's No. 3 ranking leader, said he was confident China could overcome the crisis but warned that global economic recovery will be a "long and torturous process."
5) "We should not lose sight of the fact that the international financial crisis is still spreading, the basic trend of world economic recession is not reversed," he said, adding that problems in the world's financial system were still unsolved.
6) But Wen said China was in relatively good shape because the country has sufficient capital, a solid banking industry, rich labor resources that will help it overcome the crisis.
7) The country's industrial output has gradually stabilized and there is "sufficient liquidity in the banking industry," he said. Investment growth is gaining speed, and consumption is growing "fairly fast," he said.
8) Wen's comments came just days after China announced its economy expanded at its slowest pace -- 6.1 percent -- in at least a decade in the first quarter.
9) But Wen said the sluggish growth figure was paired with numbers that show the economy is bouncing back from the slump. Industrial output, consumer spending and investment in factories were on the rise, he said.
10) "China's package plan is already paying off and positive changes have taken place in the economy," Wen said. "The situation is better than expected."
11) Some economists said the possible rebound was a sign that the government's 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) in stimulus spending was beginning to kick in. But others are skeptical that a recovery has begun and say that sustained growth is impossible until consumer demand in the United States and other Western markets rebounds.
12) In recent months, Wen has taken aim at U.S. financial policy and Western financial institutions.
13) At January's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said the financial crisis was partly caused by a "blind pursuit of profit" and "an unsustainable model" of low savings and high consumption. He also accused banks of "a lack of self-discipline" and said regulators failed to keep up with new financial instruments.
14) Last month, Wen publicly appealed to Washington to avoid any response to the crisis that might weaken the dollar and the value of Beijing's estimated $1 trillion in Treasuries and other U.S. government debt.
15) China has recently begun calling for a new global currency to replace the dominant dollar. This has been seen as a growing Chinese assertiveness on revamping the world economy. It also further signals that China is uneasy about its vast holdings of U.S. government bonds.
16) On Saturday, Wen wasn't overtly critical of America. However, late in his speech, he repeated his belief that the world needed "a more diversified monetary system." He also urged business leaders to be responsible and "properly manage risks."
17) Organizers said this year's Boao forum attracted more than 800 people, including former U.S. President George W. Bush, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen.
18) Wen ended his speech by urging leaders to be confident and hopeful.
19) "Confidence is more important than currency or gold," he said. "Today, I want to say that hope is also important. It's like a beacon."


Man tried in UK for tossing shoe at Chinese leader
(APW_ENG_20090601.0673)
1) A German student at Britain's Cambridge University is standing trial for allegedly throwing a shoe at Chinese Premier Minister Wen Jiabao.
2) Martin Jahnke has pleaded not guilty to the charge of committing a public order offense.
3) Prosecutor Caroline Allison says 27-year-old Jahnke had justified his actions to police as a legitimate protest against the Chinese leader.
4) She told a district judge Monday that Jahnke's shouting and blowing a whistle during Wen's speech "may have started off as a lawful protest" but that he committed "an act of aggression" by throwing his shoe at the Chinese premier.
5) Wen was not hit by the shoe during the February speaking engagement, which was part of an official visit to Britain.


Protester throws shoe at IMF director
(APW_ENG_20091001.0414)
1) A protester has thrown a shoe at the IMF director during a conference at a university in Istanbul.
2) The shoe fell short of hitting Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund.
3) The man who threw the shoe was quickly overpowered and removed from the conference hall at Istanbul's Bilgi University on Thursday.
4) Strauss-Kahn is in Istanbul for the fund's annual meeting.


China expects 8 percent economic growth this year
(APW_ENG_20100305.0150)
1) China said Friday it will target economic growth of 8 percent this year, increase spending on social programs and direct more development money at ethnic areas.
2) Although in recent years China has always set a goal of 8 percent growth and usually exceeded it, the target shows Beijing aims to avoid any slip after rebounding strongly last year from the world economic crisis.
3) In a speech that is China's equivalent of the State of the Union address, Premier Wen Jiabao opened the annual meeting of the National People's Congress by saying the development environment is better than in 2009, although China still faces "a complicated situation."
4) The growth target keeps China on course to replace Japan sometime this year as the world's second-largest economy after the U.S.
5) Beijing has been moving to revamp its economy toward domestic consumption and away from a binge on easy credit and state investment that warded off the global recession.
6) Wen said there are worries about the strength of the recovery in the rest of the world, as well as currency and trade protection issues.
7) Other countries accuse China of keeping its currency artificially low to boost exports, but Wen said the government will maintain a "basically stable" yuan exchange rate this year and keep the currency at an "appropriate and balanced" level.
8) The Chinese economy bounced back from the economic crisis with growth accelerating to 10.7 percent in the final quarter of 2009, according to government figures, and driving the full-year expansion to 8.7 percent. But concerns of a property bubble also picked up, driven by a jump in food costs amid a flood of stimulus spending of $1.4 trillion in bank lending and government stimulus.
9) Wen said the "government will resolutely curb the precipitous rise of housing prices in some cities" while trying to meet the public's needs for housing.
10) The country's rapid economic growth in recent years has exposed a yawning wealth gap, and Wen said the government will work to ensure the poorer parts of society also benefit from China's transformation.
11) Government spending will be boosted by 11.4 percent this year -- half the rate of last year's stimulus-driven budget -- and Wen said the government will continue efforts to expand consumer demand, including extending a subsidy program for home appliance sales in rural areas, and lowering taxes to push sales of smaller cars.
12) Infrastructure subsidies will also be boosted for rural areas, where incomes are about one-third the national average.
13) There will be more money for better pensions in the countryside, a chronic problem where people have no safety net for their retirements, and tax breaks for job creation and more funds for low-income housing, Wen said.
14) "Everything we do, we do to ensure that the people live a happier life with more dignity and to make our society fairer and more harmonious," Wen said.
15) Wen said China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, will cooperate internationally to fight against climate change.
16) He said a special focus will made to further improve living standards of China's ethnic minorities. The country has been rocked over the last two years by riots in Tibet and far west Xinjiang region, where clashes between minority Turkic-speaking Uighurs and majority Han residents in Urumqi left nearly 200 people dead last summer.
17) "The Chinese nation's life, strength and hopes lie in promoting solidarity and achieving common progress of our ethnic groups," Wen said.
18) "We need to take a clear-cut stand against attempts to split the nation, safeguard national unity, and get ethnic minorities and the people of all ethnic groups who live in ethnic minority areas to feel the warmth of the motherland as one large family," he said.
19) Wen's speech comes a day after the government announced it will propose its smallest increase in defense spending in two decades.
20) A spokesman for the national legislature said Thursday that the Cabinet plans to raise spending on its increasingly formidable military 7.5 percent to $77.9 billion (532.1 billion yuan). Though experts say China's true military budget is higher, the rate of increase is the lowest since the 1980s, and analysts said that was directly tied to the new fiscal priorities.
21) "China has not fully recovered from the sluggish foreign trade and employment, and to some extent the government has financial difficulties," said Ni Lexiong of Shanghai University of Politics and Law. "The situation requires that the defense budget not have a big rise."
22) Wen said China will concentrate on making the army better able to win "informationized local wars," as well as enhancing its ability to respond to multiple security threats.
23) The annual session of the national legislature is the most public political event that the ruling Communist Party holds, and Wen's speech was delivered in the Great Hall of the People on the edge of Tiananmen Square.
24) The square was under heavy security to prevent things from going awry. Police searched bags and blocked off the massive square with security tape, barring petitioners who come to Beijing during the legislative meetings in a desperate bid to seek help on various grievances. At least a dozen would-be petitioners were bundled into a police bus and driven away.


China ' s economic promises focus on creating jobs
(APW_ENG_20100305.1173)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged Friday to redouble the country's stimulus program to focus on job creation, signaling that Beijing's main worry is keeping its factories humming and its restive workers making money from strong exports to the world.
2) Although the Chinese action is helping to keep the world's economy afloat, its priority on domestic jobs could spur frustration among U.S. and other world leaders who want China to use its stimulus package to create more demand for products made outside China.
3) Wen made his announcement in the government's annual report to China's legislature, pledging that stimulus will continue because the basis of the global recovery remains weak. He set an 8 percent economic growth target for what he called a "crucial year" and warned of continuing economic turbulence from the global financial crisis.
4) "We still face a very complex situation," Wen said in a nationally televised two-hour speech to nearly 3,000 deputies gathered in the Great Hall of the People for the opening of the National People's Congress. "Many destabilizing factors and uncertainties remain in our external environment."
5) Wen said China needed to cool inflation, cope with banking risks and boost consumer spending to ease the world's third-largest economy's reliance on exports and investment to drive growth.
6) Much of his address, however, dealt with problems stirring unease among China's 1.3 billion people that could potentially threaten social stability -- the communist leadership's overwhelming concern. Wen pledged to narrow a yawning wealth gap, increase the stock of affordable housing, boost the moribund rural economy and fight rampant corruption.
7) "Everything we do, we do to ensure that the people live a happier life with more dignity and to make our society fairer and more harmonious," Wen said.
8) Washington is worried about its trade deficit with China, which totaled $226.83 billion in 2009. That's the largest U.S. imbalance with any nation but down 15.4 percent from the record of $268.04 billion set in 2008.
9) The deficit with China is expected to resume rising in 2010 as the U.S. economy recovers and triggers more orders for Chinese manufacturers of shoes, toys and other low-cost items in high demand by American consumers.
10) Derek Scissors, a specialist on Asian economies at The Heritage Foundation think tank, said there's no reason for American manufacturers to think that more of their products will be getting into China because of Wen's speech. He said China is still committed to investment in its own companies so that strong sales to foreign countries continue.
11) Wen's focus on jobs, Scissors said, is "a sign that we're going to get quick Chinese growth of the same kind that we've seen before, which doesn't reduce the trade imbalance and doesn't provide any spark to the American economy."
12) Michael Green, former President George W. Bush's top Asia adviser, said this will create disappointment and frustration among world leaders that China is not doing enough to encourage local demand for other countries' products.
13) Few initiatives in Wen's speech were new. The cautious government prefers incremental policymaking to bold shifts. Wen and President Hu Jintao began boosting social spending earlier this decade, recognizing the threat that unrest poses to Communist Party rule. Now in the last three years of an expected 10-year term, they have less incentive and political support to strike out in new directions.
14) The annual session -- the most public event the authoritarian government holds -- is shrouded in heavy security to prevent disruptions. More than two dozen people who hoped to petition officials for redress of grievances or who raised suspicion were bundled into a police bus and driven away.
15) Away from the meetings, police have warned and detained political activists, even forcing the cancellation of a seminar hosted by an AIDS awareness group.
16) The measures reflect leaders' fears of rising dissent and independent voices that could challenge their grip on power.
17) Across China, protests -- some violent -- have grown common among farmers and workers angered by land seizures, unpaid wages and other acts of unfairness. In recent years, even members of the urban middle class have taken to the streets in opposition to some policies, while concern is rising over the future of millions of jobless college graduates.
18) The government has avoided more serious discontent by focusing on economic growth, and the country escaped the worst of the global downturn by way of a flood of $1.4 trillion in bank lending and government stimulus.
19) China is now the world's largest auto market, its Internet users outnumber the U.S. population and its economy is on track to replace Japan as the globe's second largest. Many Chinese take pride in the country's prosperity and global respect.
20) However, Wen said the increase in government spending would fall to 11.4 percent this year, half of what it was in 2009. A leaner budget has forced down the increase in defense spending to 7.5 percent, the lowest level in more than 20 years.
21) Wen promised hefty outlays for pensions, education, health care and subsidies for farmers to buy small cars and household appliances -- all to spread prosperity more fairly.
22) He said the government would invest 43.3 billion yuan to stimulate employment, and extend for another year a program that exempts employers from making required social security contributions on behalf of their workers. He said the program aimed to create jobs for more than 9 million people entering the urban work force and keep unemployment below 4.6 percent. The official rate is currently 4.2 percent, although that only includes registered urban job losses and the actual figure is estimated at up to double that.


Oldest leather shoe steps out after 5,500 years
(APW_ENG_20100609.1440)
1) About 5,500 years ago someone in the mountains of Armenia put his best foot forward in what is now the oldest leather shoe ever found.
2) It'll never be confused with a penny loafer or a track shoe, but the well-preserved footwear was made of a single piece of leather, laced up the front and back, researchers reported Wednesday in PLoS One, a journal of the Public Library of Science.
3) Worn and shaped by the wearer's right foot, the shoe was found in a cave along with other evidence of human occupation. The shoe had been stuffed with grass, which dated to the same time as the leather of the shoe -- between 5,637 and 5,387 years ago.
4) "This is great luck," enthused archaeologist Ron Pinhasi of University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, who led the research team.
5) "We normally only find broken pots, but we have very little information about the day-to-day activity" of these ancient people. "What did they eat? What did they do? What did they wear? This is a chance to see this ... it gives us a real glimpse into society," he said in a telephone interview.
6) Previously the oldest leather shoe discovered in Europe or Asia was on the famous Otzi, the "Iceman" found frozen in the Alps a few years ago and now preserved in Italy. Otzi has been dated to 5,375 and 5,128 years ago, a few hundred years more recent than the Armenian shoe.
7) Otzi's shoes were made of deer and bear leather held together by a leather strap. The Armenian shoe appears to be made of cowhide, Pinhasi said.
8) Older sandals have been found in a cave in Missouri, but those were made of fiber rather than leather.
9) The shoe found in what is now Armenia was found in a pit, along with a broken pot and some wild goat horns.
10) But Pinhasi doesn't think it was thrown away. There was discarded material that had been tossed outside the cave, while this pit was inside in the living area. And while the shoe had been worn, it wasn't worn out.
11) It's not clear if the grass that filled the shoe was intended as a lining or insulation, or to maintain the shape of the shoe when it was stored, according to the researchers.
12) The Armenian shoe was small by current standards -- European size 37 or U.S. women's size 7 -- but might have fit a man of that era, according to Pinhasi.
13) He described the shoe as a single piece of leather cut to fit the foot. The back of the shoe was closed by a lace passing through four sets of eyelets. In the front, 15 pairs of eyelets were used to lace from toe to top.
14) There was no reinforcement in the sole, just the one layer of soft leather. "I don't know how long it would last in rocky terrain," Pinhasi said.
15) He noted that the shoe is similar to a type of footwear common in the Aran Islands, west of Ireland, up until the 1950s. The Irish version, known as "pampooties" reportedly didn't last long, he said.
16) "In fact, enormous similarities exist between the manufacturing technique and style of this (Armenian) shoe and those found across Europe at later periods, suggesting that this type of shoe was worn for thousands of years across a large and environmentally diverse region," Pinhasi said.
17) While the Armenian shoe was soft when unearthed, the leather has begun to harden now that it is exposed to air, Pinhasi said.
18) Oh, and unlike a lot of very old shoes, it didn't smell.
19) Pinhasi said the shoe is currently at the Institute of Archaeology in Yerevan, but he hopes it will be sent to laboratories in either Switzerland or Germany where it can be treated for preservation and then returned to Armenia for display in a museum.
20) Pinhasi, meanwhile, is heading back to Armenia this week, hoping the other shoe will drop.
21) The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, the Chitjian Foundation, the Gfoeller Foundation, the Steinmetz Family Foundation, the Boochever Foundation and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA.


A shoe flies, a leader ducks ... a trend is born?
(APW_ENG_20100823.0215)
1) For a few days, he was famous the world over -- an Iraqi TV journalist who became an instant hero for millions when he hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush's head and called him a dog.
2) Little has been heard out of Muntadhar al-Zeidi since he left Iraq and started a charity in Switzerland last year. But his odd moment in the spotlight has, to the chagrin of world leaders and their bodyguards, left behind an enduring legacy.
3) Throwing shoes at the mighty has become a global phenomenon that shows no sign of fading away.
4) Since that infamous Baghdad press conference on Dec. 14, 2008, shoes have flown at the prime ministers of China and Turkey, the chief justice of Israel's Supreme Court, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, a Ukrainian politician who favored joining NATO, and a string of Indian politicians.
5) Just this month, shoes flew at Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and the top elected official in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
6) Bits of video and pictures pop up daily by the dozens on the web, spread like lightning and fizzle out in hours. A few leap from the screen and into reality, mostly as drinking games or goofy poses to imitate for the camera and post online.
7) Rare are the memes -- the bits of viral behavior -- that truly take root in the real world. Throwing shoes at world leaders has joined the club. But what makes shoe-throwing more lasting than, say, the Old Spice Guy?
8) Throwing a shoe is pure slapstick -- aggression and humor blended, violence in which no one really gets hurt. It's stronger than a sign, or shouted slogan, but short of actually harming a leader.
9) It breaks the wall between the audience and those on stage, disrupting reality with an exciting shock (at least for the viewer) -- a little like those TV shows that secretly film pranks on unsuspecting people.
10) Al-Zeidi's shoes weren't the first to be thrown; the sole, unclean, represents a potent insult in much of the Arab and Muslim world. But al-Zeidi put a unique new stamp on shoe-throwing, a meaning that echoes whenever and wherever a piece of footwear is launched at someone important.
11) First, the flying shoe draws an instant parallel between its target and Bush, who remains deeply reviled in many countries.
12) Al-Zeidi himself is key, too. If he'd been Swedish he would have looked nutty. The fact that he was an Iraqi turning the tables on a man he blamed for destroying his country made his act political, a bit poetic -- and contagious.
13) "My brother's act was a spontaneous act," al-Zeidi's brother Durgham told The Associated Press in Baghdad. "He never thought it would be imitated, but he supports it as long as it is directed against tyrants only."
14) In some cases, the imitation gets a little ridiculous.
15) The first al-Zeidi copycat was probably Stephen Millies, a New York City man grabbed by police when he tried to pull his shoe off and toss it at the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Three days after al-Zeidi threw his footwear at Bush, Millies was protesting MTA budget cuts and a proposed subway fare hike, from $2 to $2.25.
16) "Because of the courageous act of the Iraqi patriot, I wanted to take advantage of that but also have a link to that," Millies, 56, told The Associated Press on Sunday.
17) The most recent shoe thrower to grab headlines was Abdul Ahad Jan, an off-duty police officer who hurled the footwear and a black flag at Indian Kashmir's Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in a high-security gallery during an Indian independence day ceremony on Aug. 15. The predominantly Muslim region has been rocked by unrest aimed at Indian rule since June, and dozens of deaths from police shootings.
18) How to prevent shoe-throwing? Security officials can X-ray shoes to make sure they contain no bombs, but stripping people of their footwear before a rally or press conference still seems hard to imagine. That makes shoes virtually impossible to stop.
19) Just ask Muntadhar al-Zeidi himself. He held a press conference in Paris last year to discuss his experiences, which include being imprisoned for nine months and, he says, abused in retaliation.
20) As he spoke, al-Zeidi was targeted with a shoe by a man who appeared to be a fellow Iraqi. Al-Zeidi ducked, and the shoe hit the wall behind him.
21) "He stole my technique," al-Zeidi joked.
22) Al-Zeidi's brother, Maithan, chased the attacker and, as he left the room, hit him with a shoe.


China seeks to play down differences with US
(APW_ENG_20100923.0069)
1) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed optimism Wednesday that the United States and China would resolve major trade frictions, even as he rejected U.S. claims that Beijing's currency policies cost American jobs.
2) Despite sometimes tough words, Wen used much of a speech on the sidelines of a United Nations global summit to try to ease U.S. anger against China ahead of a Thursday meeting with President Barack Obama.
3) Relations between the powers have suffered recently, but Wen sought to play down economic, military and diplomatic tensions. The United States and China, Wen told business leaders gathered at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, are "not rivals in competition but partners in cooperation."
4) Wen, however, pushed back against U.S. claims that Beijing's tightly regulated, undervalued currency -- the yuan -- gives China's exporters an artificial advantage over U.S. manufacturers. Ahead of U.S. congressional elections in November and at a time of high American unemployment, China's economic and trade policies are a major friction in ties with Washington.
5) Wen warned that China's currency must not be turned into a political issue between the countries. He saw no link between the yuan's value and China's trade advantage over the United States. The politically sensitive U.S. trade deficit with China jumped to $26.2 billion in June, the largest one-month gap since October 2008.
6) "We do not seek a trade surplus," Wen said through an interpreter. Many Chinese companies, he said, would go bankrupt and workers would suffer if the Chinese currency rose drastically.
7) The Obama administration must balance pressure on Beijing's economic policies with its desire for Chinese help in settling nuclear standoffs with North Korea and Iran and on other global initiatives. China is a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council and recently passed Japan as the world's second-biggest economy.
8) Speaking ahead of Wen, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke pushed for a change in China's currency policy and called for a fair business environment that allows Americans to compete with Chinese companies and invest without hindrance.
9) Locke said a "worldwide rebalancing, in which America buys a little less and sells a little more to China and the rest of the world, will create a more prosperous future for everyone." He said "strong and lasting global growth cannot be built on the backs of debt-ridden U.S. consumers."
10) Some U.S. lawmakers are pushing for a bill that would punish China if it doesn't do more to let the yuan rise.
11) Obama, speaking Monday in Washington, said China's currency "is valued lower than market conditions would say it should be."
12) "So it gives them an advantage in trade," Obama said. "We are going to continue to insist that on this issue, and on all trade issues between us and China, that it's a two-way street."
13) Currency is not the only point of tension between the countries.
14) Thursday's Obama-Wen meeting also comes as China lashes out at the United States for what Beijing says is interference in its territorial disputes in the South China Sea. China is also angry over U.S. arms sales to Beijing rival Taiwan and Obama's meeting earlier this year with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader China calls a separatist.
15) Still, Wen was consistently optimistic in his speech, saying the countries' common interests far outweigh differences.
16) "We don't have any reason to let our relationship back-peddle," Wen said, and "tens of thousands of reasons" to move forward in strengthening ties.


China ' s Wen inspiring debate with calls for reform
(APW_ENG_20101014.0386)
1) The calls for reform of China's political system have come repeatedly in the past few months from an unexpected source -- the country's premier -- and his surprising remarks are stirring consternation and debate in the Communist Party as it prepares for a new generation of leaders.
2) For a leadership that has tried to present a unified front as it manages a fast-changing society, Premier Wen Jiabao's comments on the need for rule of law and political reforms to undergird economic success seem out of step.
3) "Without political reform, China may lose what it has already achieved through economic restructuring," Wen was quoted as saying in August.
4) His call is not expected to be formally discussed by the 200-plus leading members of the party when they gather Friday for a four-day annual policy meeting, but the remarks are forming the backdrop.
5) "Wen's calls are clearly making some people nervous," said Ding Xueliang, a China expert at Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology.
6) While Central Committee meetings are closed-door affairs, this year's gathering is expected to approve an economic blueprint for 2011-2015 that will promote policies to close the growing gap between rich and poor and encourage consumer spending.
7) Yet the party is also beginning the delicate process of preparing for the succession of a new generation of leaders in 2012. Analysts of Chinese politics say few of the positions have been settled, opening the party to intense lobbying, if not outright infighting.
8) Wen's comments potentially add to those divisions, inviting party members to take sides and adding pressure on the leadership. Already his calls have inspired liberals and enraged hard-liners, sparking talk of rifts within the party fueled by censorship of some of his comments in state media.
9) Speculation about a brewing debate on political reform gained pace when a newspaper published Wen's remembrance of a liberal mentor in April, and since then his remarks have become more pointed. In an interview with CNN this month, Wen suggested that the party, with its unbridled authority, needed to adhere to the constitution and laws.
10) "The people's wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible," he said.
11) Wen's comments were echoed in a remarkable appeal for free speech issued this week by an elite group of retired Communist officials, who cited media censorship of Wen's reform calls as an indictment of the party's overall controls over expression.
12) Wen's most outspoken comments have either been kept out of or played down by state media -- a sign of the limits of the premier's power. In the midst of Wen's calls, the Politburo member with the law and order portfolio called on officials to resist Western political doctrines.
13) "Some people have come under the influence of erroneous Western political and legal concepts and now and then make expressions that don't conform to Marxist legal theory," Zhou Yongkang, a leading conservative figure, warned in August.
14) Wen's statements have not been accompanied by any concrete proposals, and analysts see little chance of them sparking any quick changes from an authoritarian party overwhelmingly concerned with maintaining economic growth and quieting social unrest to preserve its own power.
15) Yet, political watchers say Wen's remarks are exposing differences in how to meet those challenges as well as revealing the premier's own ambitions.
16) "The differences here are real and significant but not ideological," said Oxford University China expert Steve Tsang. Even if Wen's appeals were to win wide acceptance, the political system would not change significantly in the foreseeable future, Tsang said.
17) Amid the disagreements, holding the 78 million-member party together is likely to be the overriding concern at a time when China's system is under stress at home and abroad.
18) Chinese are dissatisfied with rising inflation, high housing prices, employment woes among college graduates, the yawning wealth gap and corruption, while Tibetan and Muslim regions of western China are held in check by a smothering security presence. Abroad, China is facing criticism from the U.S. for its currency and trade practices and its support for North Korea and ties with Iran.
19) This month's awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo highlighted China's uneasiness with the West, as the award drew praise from Western governments while provoking an angry defensive response from Beijing.
20) "Right now we're seeing an interesting confluence of circumstances putting China's ruling party under greater pressure, domestic and international, to reassess its political future," said David Bandurski, a China watcher at the University of Hong Kong.
21) Those pressures will likely affect personnel decisions for the new generation of leaders, compelling the hopefuls to focus on immediate concerns rather than long-term reforms, said Li Datong, a veteran state newspaper journalist who was forced from a top editing job for reporting on sensitive subjects.
22) Wen's boss, president and party chief Hu Jintao, has not clearly weighed in, focusing his public comments on the need for more balanced economic development and strengthened government institutions. Hu's main concern, analysts say, is ensuring he has a major say in the leadership transition, the better to preserve his influence.
23) Hu, Wen and many others on the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, the inner sanctum of power, are expected to step down in 2012 in keeping with past precedent. The expected successor to Hu is current Vice President Xi Jinping, though party officials and Chinese political watchers say he is not Hu's pick. Xi may get promoted to the party's Central Military Commission, which oversees military affairs, at the upcoming policy meeting -- a sign that the succession is proceeding.
24) Wen's call for political reform, some say, reflects his desire to leave a political legacy when he retires. On his rise to power, Wen was associated with two liberal reformers of the 1980s, party leaders Hu Yaobang, whose death sparked the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations of 1989, and Zhao Ziyang, who was purged for refusing to suppress the protests.
25) "There's no possibility of real change, so calling for political reform is a low-risk way of building Wen's legacy," said Li.