BRISBANE, Australia, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang said here Saturday that China and Australia can lift their bilateral relationship to a new level through a strengthened dialogue and increased cooperation between the two trading partners. Li spoke during a meeting with Anna Bligh, the premier of Australia's state of Queensland. The vice premier said that during his visit to Australia a consensus was reached to enhance the Chinese-Australian friendship, to deepen mutual beneficial cooperation, and to respect and care for each other's core interests and important concerns. He also said the two sides released a joint declaration and signed a number of cooperation agreements. Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with Premier of Australia's State of Queensland Anna Bligh in Brisbane Oct. 31, 2009 Meanwhile, China has attached great importance to friendly cooperation with the state of Queensland, said Li, adding that exchanges and cooperation between the two sides have developed rapidly in recent years. China, Li said, is willing to work with Queensland to push bilateral exchanges and cooperation to a higher level in a variety of sectors, including investments, agriculture, mining, clean energy, environmental protection and technology. Meanwhile, Bligh said Queensland has established a long-term and fruitful relationship with China and noted that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the state's sister-city relations with China's Shanghai City. All circles in Queensland support development of the Australia-China friendly and cooperative relationship, Bligh said. Queensland, she said, stands ready to promote cooperation with China in such fields as trade, technology, education, science and research, culture and tourism. Bligh also said she will head a state delegation that will attend the Shanghai Expo in 2010 and expects the event to be a great success.
BEIJING, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Xiao Wu, now a student at Oxford University, recalls her life in Britain started off with "depression" six years ago in a renowned board school. Fresh from China, the reality of the new country failed to meet her expectations. "I was disappointed to find many of my British classmates just spent plenty of time on parties, instead of study," Xiao Wu says, a straight-A student in China, who struck her teachers and peers as "extraordinarily diligent." It has taken her long to come to terms with the fact that British students just could be academically excellent as well without "excess hardworking" that was often held dear by their Chinese peers, she says. "It seems that they could better balance school work and entertainment than most of us," she says. But for younger Chinese, such culture shock is much less likely as they increasingly share a common international culture and make friends abroad. Ding Kaiyan, 15, recalls making friends with Ayumi Saito during the latter's school excursion in China in August, 2008. "We are both veteran players of Popcart (a popular racing game designed in South Korea), fans of NEWS (a Japanese boy band), and lovers of literature," she says. "Although I had not fully mastered Japanese, we hit it off at our first meeting." One year later, Ding called on Ayumi Saito in Japan's Toyama Prefecture. Before her trip, Ding had glimpsed Japanese pop culture and customs through her Japanese teacher, Matsushita Hiroshi, and on the Internet. Ding is one of dozens of students at the Northeast Yucai School, in the northeastern Liaoning Province, who have traveled to Japan to meet children their own age over the past six years. "Globalization is a buzzword for scholars, but for children it just means how they live their lives," said Professor Shi Jinghuan, executive dean of the Institute of Education of the Tsinghua University. Their favorite foods, clothes and pop stars and cartoon characters can come from any corner of the world, and many of them start to speak English at kindergarten, she says. "That may explain how they develop familiarity. "The media, especially the Internet, have presented children all over the world with a colorful global village, and brought them closer," she says. "As long as you want to know, the information is at your fingertips." Shi Junhao, 10, a fifth-grader at Beijing Fangcaodi International School, has just finished a six-week school trip to the U.K. with eight other students. He made friends with Oliver after establishing that they shared a lot in common. "We were partners on the basketball court, and we both like U.S. President Obama," he says. In the past four years, about 400 students from Fangcaodi International School have traveled abroad and more than 3,000 others had contact with foreign peers, says Yang Yuan, a teacher at the school. "Our children have shown strong interest in knowing more about the rest of the world." "For toddlers, smiles and eye contact are enough to initiate friendship," says Cindy Li, a teacher at the SMIC School and Kindergarten in Shanghai, which has 1,800 students from 22 countries and regions, and about 100 foreign teachers. Respect for other cultures and smashing stereotypes are crucial steps for nurturing open minds in children, says Professor Shi Jinghuan. Understanding, respect and tolerance can cement friendships between children from all ethnic groups, says Shi. "Children should know that being different isn't bad."
ZHENGZHOU, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao has urged to establish and improve the mechanism of democratic self-governance of villages that can both secure the Communist Party's leadership and safeguard villagers' rights. In a recent written instruction, Hu called on local officials to make efforts to improve the grassroot governance mechanism in rural areas in line with the basic conditions of the country. Other leaders including Vice President Xi Jinping have also made similar instructions. In a meeting on Tuesday in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, Li Yuanchao, head of the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, urged officials to study the leaders' instructions. The building of grassroot governance organizations in rural areas must be strengthened, and the village-level democracy and self-government mechanism must be further improved, Li said.
JINAN, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- China's Yanzhou Coal Mining Co. Ltd. has got an official approval to take over Australian coal mining company Felix Resources, according to the company's bulletin on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday. The deal involving 3.3 billion Australian dollars (3 billion U.S. dollars) in a contractual agreement reached by the two companies in August would be the largest of its kind between Chinese and Australian firms. Yanzhou Coal said in the bulletin that the National Commission of Development and Reform has approved the company's bid to take over 100 percent of the stake in Felix. The company said that after the takeover of Felix, it would obtain an approved coal reserve of 1.5 billion tons in Australia. Its annual coal output in Australia is expected to exceed 10 million tons, accounting for one third of the company's production in China. Yanzhou Coal, headquartered in east China's Shandong Province, is listed on stock exchanges in Hong Kong, New York and Shanghai. It owns Austar Coal Mine in Australia, and mines in north China's Shanxi Province and Shandong Province, according to information on the company's website.
BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Jia Qinglin on Friday attended a gathering marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).Photo taken on Nov. 13, 2009 shows a conference to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is held in BeijingThe municipal committee was the first local CPPCC committee in the country. It has made great contributions to the capital's economic development and modernization drive in the past 60 years.
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BEIJING, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- China and the United States on Tuesday called on Iran to "engage constructively" with the P5+1 and to "cooperate fully" with the IAEA to facilitate a satisfactory outcome. The call was made in a joint statement issued here after talks between Chinese President Hu Jintao and visiting U.S. President Barack Obama. The two sides reaffirmed their strong support for a comprehensive and long-term solution to the Iranian nuclear issue through negotiations. "The two sides agreed that Iran has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and it should fulfill its due international obligations under that treaty," said the statement. The two sides welcomed the talks in Geneva on Oct. 1 between the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) and Iran as "a promising start" towards addressing international concerns about Iran's nuclear program, and expressed their readiness to continue that engagement as soon as possible. They emphasized in the joint statement that all efforts should be made to take confidence building steps and to call on Iran to respond positively to the proposal of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
BEIJING, Dec. 26 -- The weight of private enterprises in the overall economy is on the rise and that of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) on the decline, Ma Jiantang, minister of the National Bureau of Statistics, said on Friday. The number of private firms rose by 81.4 percent from 2004 to 2008 to reach 3.6 million and SOEs dropped by 20 percent to 143,000, Ma said at a press conference where China's second economic census results were released. China has made great efforts over the past 30 years to restructure its economy. It has gradually raised the proportion of private enterprises after the market-oriented reform began in the early 1980s. As a result, the private sector has contributed an ever-growing value to the country's GDP and provided most of the jobs. But in recent years, some major acquisitions have seen SOEs buying into private companies, sparking concern that the State may be strengthening its control over the private sector. Ma said the census figures do not suggest SOEs are buying into private enterprises. In terms of asset value, SOEs saw their proportion in the nation's total drop by 8.1 percentage points from 2004 to 2008 to 23 percent. In contrast, private enterprises' assets rose by 3.3 percentage points to 12.3 percent.
BEIJING, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The output value of China's energy saving and environmental protection industry would hit 2.8 trillion yuan (412 billion U.S. dollars) by 2012, said Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission on Sunday. Those sectors have become a new economic growth point and have bright prospects in China, Xie said at the fourth China-Japan Energy-saving and Environment Protection Forum which began Sunday. He said the government will beef up investment in the construction of resource recycling projects, which will directly boost the industry development. He noted the government will further reform the pricing system of the resource products. Enterprises should also enhance innovation to break technological bottleneck notably in the development of clean coal transfer technology and pollutants treatment facilities. China has been pushing for a national energy saving campaign to address the worsening conflicts between economic growth and environmental deterioration.
BEIJING, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- China has a total number of 2,971 company groups by the end of 2008 and their combined assets rose 19.7 percent from the previous year to more than 40 trillion yuan (5.86 trillion U.S. dollars), the China Industrial Information Issuing Center said Saturday. Corporate management of these company groups is improving, according to the center. Affected by the global financial crisis and economic slowdown, profit of these company groups decreased by 22.5 percent in 2008 year on year, the first annual drop since 1997, said the center without giving specific figures.