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News Review Jie
SHEN 1. Education According to a report by Hua Xia Wen Zhai (HXWZ), China will have a record number of graduating college students this year. The 1.1 million college graduates will further increase the pressure on the labor market that is already strained. It is reported that there were around 200,000 jobless college graduates last year. Such a situation seems not to justify the decision by the Ministry of Education and many universities to increase college admissions this year (www.netease.com). 2. Health HXWZ reported that China has about seventy million people suffering from over-weight and obesity, including many children. According to official statistics, while in 1986 only about 5.2% of the Chinese young people were obese, the number rose to 18% in 1996. Health surveys and scientific studies have long linked obesity with many diseases, including cardiovascular disease and arthritis. The trend towards increasing obesity has significant implications for China's health care industry in the future. 3. Internet According to a report cited by HXWZ on May 13, there are two hundred and seventy-three Chinese newspapers listed on the Internet, including fifty-six nationally distributed ones that constitute one fourth thereof. According to a report on April 30, two Chinese information technology firms are planning to launch a service that supports Internet domain names in Chinese. In the future, instead of typing an English URL, China's Internet users will be able to type a meaningful website in their native tongue. Such a service will greatly improve the availability of the Internet to the Chinese-speaking people. 4. Taiwan In his "inaugural speech" on May 20, Chen Shui-Bien failed to pronounce an acceptance of the "One China Principle" upon which Beijing has been insisting since the very beginning of cross-strait talks. Instead, Chen, raising "five NOs" as the guiding cross-strait principles in his speech, reiterated his campaign slogans. Beijing has since expressed strong dissatisfaction with Chen's evasive attitude. 5. WTO The U.S. House of Representatives passed the China Trade Bill on May 24. Two hundred and thirty-seven congressmen voted for the bill to grant China the Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) while one hundred and ninety-seven voted against it. The trade bill is currently awaiting approval from the U.S. Senate, the passage from which is expected. On May 19, China and the European Union clinched a bilateral trade deal, clearing Beijing's biggest hurdle to joining the WTO after its deal with the United States. According to CNN, as of May 23, China had further closed a bilateral accord with Costa Rica, and moved towards a final deal with the Switzerland. Other agreements remain to be completed with Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. Many expect China to enter the trade organization by the end of this year. 6. Diplomacy June 25 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Korean War. CNN reported that almost 900,000 Chinese people were killed or wounded in the war that spanned from 1950 to 1953. Amid the ice-breaking meeting between leaders from North and South Korea, the two nations celebrated the anniversary with low-key events. It is reported that Kim Jong Il paid a secret state visit to China before his summit meeting with Kim Dae-jung, President of South Korea. 7. Disasters On June 19, fifty-eight Chinese immigrants were found suffocated to death in a container truck while being smuggled into the United Kingdom. British customs officials discovered the bodies of fifty-four men and four women in Dover, England. On June 22, a Chinese passenger plane crashed in Wuhan, killing forty-two people. On June 22, a boat sank on the Yangtzi River in Sichuan. As of June 26, one hundred and fourteen people were still missing and not expected to have survived. 8. Legal A Swedish home furnishing maker, IKEA, won a court dispute over registration of Internet domain names in China. IKEA pled to the Beijing Second Intermediary People's Court that the International Network of Information Co. (CINET) registered the domain name www.ikea.com.cn on Nov. 19, 1997, before IKEA opened its business in China, effectively stealing the Scandinavian company's domain name and infringing upon its trademark. In the milestone decision, the Beijing court ordered CINET to stop using the domain name and apply to revoke its registration. (Jie SHEN is a J.D. Candidate at the New York University Law School.) |