Earthquake
An 8.0 earthquake
rocked the southwestern province of Sichuan on
May 12, resulting in more
than 69,000 deaths, according to Xinhua News Agency.
The PRC government's
speedy disaster response,
which was better coordinated and more open than the
Myanmar government's
response to a cyclone that
struck that country a week
earlier, earned praise from
the international media.
China is now occupied with
rebuilding devastated villages and cities and dealing
with the aftereffects of the
quake, including catastrophic flooding.
The extent of the devastation
sparked an extraordinary
domestic and international
relief effort that attracted
thousands of volunteers and
many generous donations of
money and emergency
equipment. In an unprecedented surge of volunteerism in China, thousands
of private individuals
packed their cars with supplies and drove to hard hit
areas to help survivors. For
their part, US-China
Business Council (USCBC)
member companies had
donated at least $85 million
in cash and in-kind donations as of early June. For
more information on how
to help, see
www.uschina.org.
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Legal Issues
China on May 6 released
for comment the long-awaited draft Implementing
Regulations for the Labor
Contract Law. (The law was
passed in July 2007 and took
effect in January 2008.)
Some key issues covered in
the implementing regulations include payment
requirements during employees' probationary periods,
the grounds for dissolution
and termination of labor
contracts, and penalties for
employers that do not sign
written contracts with
employees.
USCBC has collected members' comments on three sets
of draft regulations and submitted them to the PRC
State Council Legislative
Affairs Office: the Labor
Contract Law draft implementing regulations; draft
regulations on commercial
outlets; and draft revisions to
the Patent Law. The USCBC
comments are publicly available at www.uschina.org.
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Telecom
China began restructuring
its telecom industry in
late May after a notice jointly issued by the PRC
Ministry of Industry and
Information, National
Development and Reform
Commission, and Ministry
of Finance encouraged
domestic telecom companies
to merge into three large
groups. The goal of the
restructuring is to increase competition in the telecom
sector.
The notice did not give a
timetable for completion,
but the telecom companies
have already begun talks and
mergers. Post-restructuring
third-generation licensing
may lead to foreign investment opportunities in the
historically restricted sector.
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SED
The fourth Strategic
Economic Dialogue
(SED), held on June 17-18
at the US Naval Academy in
Annapolis, Maryland,
brought together high-level
US and PRC officials to discuss energy and the environment, financial services, bilateral investment, product
quality and food safety, transparency, transportation, and
other topics. The meetings
ended with several agreements, including the launch
of bilateral investment treaty
negotiations. The fifth round
of SED meetings is scheduled
to take place in December in
Beijing.
Energy and the environment
took center stage, with the
agreement of a framework to
put establish the Ten-Year
Plan on Energy and the
Environment signed at the
last SED in Beijing in
December 2007.
The two sides selected five
broad areas for which each
side will draft action plans
detailing specific areas of
cooperation. The areas are
clean and efficient electricity production, clean and
efficient transportation,
clean water, clean air, and
conservation of forests and
wetlands ecosystems.
Earlier, US officials had
hoped they would be able to
present action plans at
these SED meetings, but
these plans will now be formulated over the next few
months and presented at the
next SED.
USCBC, the US Chamber
of Commerce, and the
National Committee on
US-China Relations on June
18 co-hosted a dinner and
reception for PRC Vice
Premier Wang Qishan and
other PRC SED-delegation
officials in Washington,
DC. More than 600 guests
from industry, government,
and think-tank communities attended the event,
which was sold out.
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