China's New Gesture for Opening
At the lunch meeting of 11th. Industrial annual session of US-Asia. Association held on May 11, 2000, Shi Guangsheng, Chinese Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation, said in his keynote speech that facing the 21st century and the new situation that China would soon be part of WTO, China would adopt more forceful measures to open itself to the outside world in a new manner so as to develop an opening pattern in all directions and at all levels with extended areas. This new initiative will bring new opportunities to the foreign businesses engaged in economic trade and technical cooperation.
Shi added that at present , China's bilateral and multi-lateral negotiations on its entry into WTO have moved into the concluding phase and China would soon become a member of WTO. Being a responsible large country, together with other members of WTO, China will play a constructive role in promoting the economic and trade cooperation between members, formulating multi-lateral trade regulations and promoting the establishment of new international economic orders.
He said it was predicted that by 2010 China's GNP would be doubled on the current basis, which calls for more foreign capital, advanced technologies and management experiences flowing into the country and the vigorous development of foreigneconomic and trade cooperation while continuously opening Chinese markets and increasing its participation in the economic globalization.
Now China is implementing its strategies for the extensive development of its west sections by accelerating the infrastructure constructions such as transportation, telecommunication and energy, intensifying the environmental protection and control, developing S&T education on a priority basis, nurturing talented people, improving labor's quality while providing necessary policy support. Shi expressed that these would create a favorable enviroment for the foreign investment in China's middle and west sections.
In the meanwhile, China is forcefully promoting the strategic restructuring of its economy which creates a huge market demand for advanced technologies and equipment. China hopes that developed countries including US would loosen their restrictions on technology export to China so as to spur the greater development of bilateral technology trade. China extends its welcome for foreign investors to establish their research and technology development centers in China or invest in high tech industries and R&D projects.
Referring to the opening of China's service sectors to the outside world, Shi said that on the basis of China's national economic development and its promise to WTO, China will open such areas as banking, insurance, telecommunication, foreign trade, commerce, tourism, accounting firms and law firms step by step , allowing foreign investors to create joint ventures, cooperation ventures or independent foreign businesses in these sectors according to China's relevant laws and regulations. More areas will be opened up with increasing quantity and expanded business scopes.
Shi concluded that China encouraged foreign investors to be involved in the transformation of its state owned enterprises in different forms. China is willing,under the precondition of mutual benefits, to discuss with foreign investors on the appropriate approaches such as shareholding, leasing, selling and cooperation so as to promote the transformation of China's state owned enterprises.
China's International Environmental Protection Cooperation
An official of State Bureau of Environmental Protection (SBEP) expressed recently that this year would see China's intensified efforts for international cooperations in the field of environmental protection.
Wang Zhijia, Director of Dept. of International Cooperation, SBEP, said that under the guiding principle of the parallel development of both ecological protection and control of industrial pollution, China has recently achieved new progress in the introduction of foreign capital in the ecological field such as the cooperation with the Canadian Government on the ecological conservation in Inner Mongolia and preliminary cooperation with Japanese and German Governments on protecting the ecological environment of the Yellow River's origin sources.
As shown by the statistics, the budget of USD 4 billion for phase I project of China's trans-century greening program has been basically in the place.
Wang Zhijia added that China was striving for more environment related bilateralagreements or Memos with the countries in Southern America and Africa. In the field of multi-lateral cooperation, China will pursue the policy of active participation, improvement of domestic policies, fulfilling its obligations defined by Rio de Janeiro Declaration, enhancing the involvement and responsibility of environmental protection agencies at different levels and active participation in the activities organized by regional international organizations on environmental protection.
Referring to the international cooperation on environment related technologies and trade, Wang said SBEP were making efforts to introduce capital and technologies, develop its cooperation ties with international banking organizations and government of developed countries and tap up more non-governmental fund raising channels so as to achieve greater progress in the fields of pollution control, environmental infrastructure construction and ecological protection.
Recent years have witnessed China's remarkable progress in the field of its international environmental cooperation. By the end of 1999, China has signed over 30 bilateral agreements or MEMO on environmental protection with 27 countries and cooperation agreements on nuclear safety with ten countries.
The cooperation fields have applauded for new breakthroughs in priority screening. China has paid great attention to its international cooperation in the fieldsof water area pollution control, sulfur dioxide control, fail gas emission control for urban auto vehicles and environmental information system development and achieved concrete results in collaboration with other countries and international organizations in the introduction of capitals and technologies. For example,Sino-US Agreement on Urban Air Quality Monitoring was signed on April 17, 2000,which is the largest cooperation project of its kind so far secured between the two countries. China-Norway agreement on acid rain studies will also land the signature soon.
Progress for China's Nuclear Power Technologies
Eight key components for the nuclear reactors of Guandong Ling'ao Nuclear Power Station, China's first nuclear power station at 1 million Kw level, have seen the completion of their manufacturing by Sichuan Dongfang Boiler (Group) Co. Ltd. with both the quality and delivering deadline meeting the contract requirements of the French contractor. Experts believed that the said development is a major breakthrough that the key components manufacturing for 1 million Kw nuclear power stations can be made in China.
Thanks to their 4-year efforts, of the said key equipments manufactured fully in line with internationally advanced standards, a boron injection box, three ammonium injection boxes and a pressure stabilizer have been delivered to Ling'ao Nuclear Power Station. And three 350-ton steam generators will be soon completed of their construction and delivered to the power station for installation at mid-May, 2000.
It is briefed that the operational performance of these heavy-duty components have all met the internationally advanced standards with strict management and quality control system. The high technical requirements for the said equipment and manufacturing techniques constituted new challenges to other domestic manufacturers.
China's Cloned White Rabbits
By breeding the embryos in the gray rabbit's uterus, Chinese scientists have successfully cloned out two white rabbits without carrying on any genetic traces of the gray rabbit.
The experiment titled “Studies of Domestic Ani- mal's Original Reproduction Cell Separation and Associated Cloning” jointly undertaken by Hebei Agriculture University and Research Center of Biological Technology of Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences is a major biological project listed in China's “863” high tech program. Up to date, two white rabbits named “Luxing” and “Luyue” are both growing well.
It is briefed that the real mother of the two white rabbits is a New Zealand white rabbit. After mating with the male of the same species for 65-70 hours, scientists extracted the embryo that was in the process of the fourth split from the uterus and made them into individual egg balls under the digestion effect of enzyme from which nucleus were separated to be the carrier of DNA. In the meanwhile, scientists extracted egg cells from another New Zealand white rabbit and removed their nucleus. The egg cells from two source white rabbits were processed to be a new combination in the lab and then was transplanted into the uterus of agray rabbit. The gray rabbit gave the birth to the two lovely white rabbits after a month pregnancy.
Scientists said that the experiment was only an embryo cloning and has not reached the technical level of cloning “Dolly”. However, it has laid a foundation for the advance of China's cloning techniques. In the meanwhile, it has provided an effective approach for mass animal breeding of optimized genetic combination.
China's Full Knowledge of CDMA Technologies
Datang Telecommunication S&T Industrial Group announced recently that it has fully grasped the core technologies of CDMA and independently developed its own IS-95 CDMA mobile telecommunication system, the first of its kind in the country.
CDMA system is developed on the basis of the second generation mobile telecommunication technologies with advanced features such as large system volume, efficient channel utilization, fine voice quality and confidentiality, small transmission power, long battery life and low construction cost. To develop the said mobile telecommunication product, one has to master its key technologies such as automatic temperature control, address code selection, correlation reception, soft buffer zone switching, phonetic coding and multiple diversity. The state has listed the studies and development of IS-95CDMA mobile telecommunication base system and associated prototype mobile phones in the National “863” High Tech Development Program. Started from December 1998, Datang Group joined its efforts with the National Key Lab on Mobile Telecommunication of Southeast University to work on the development of prototype base and handphones, through which Datang has successively developed gradually mastered all the technologies relating to air-based IS-95CDMA interface in one year. The technologies developed by Datang passed the approval check organized by “863” Program at the beginning of last year.
To commercialize its research results as soon as possible, Datang Group and National Key Lab on Mobile Telecommunication of Southeast University jointly established a joint development center and eventually worked out the complete CDMA mobile telecommunication system after one year of efforts.
As briefed, IS-95CDMA system is composed of three major components: BTS, MSC and PSTN. The development of base system is made with China's own efforts without the application of foreign made chips. Technically FPGA is used to realize base band modulation-demodulation and DSP channel decoding and voice coding.
China's New Cotton Species
Recently Yu Shuxun, research fellow of Cotton Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and his colleagues have successfully developed new cotton species “Zhongmiansuo 20” through advanced hybrid breeding techniques. The new species is of the merits such as high yield, low phenol and early ripe desirable for China's wheat-cotton rotation farming system.
On the basis of fine medium materials developed by Cotton Institute, Yu Shuxun, research fellow, and others of the Institute enrich cotton's genetic content with disease resistant species and fine foreign species through sophisticated hybrid breeding techniques. They stabilized genetic low phenol properties by combining the two hidden genes controlling low phenol properties and making them of the properties of cleistogamy and earlier pollen production and successfully turned out new cotton species of high yield, low phenol and early maturity desirable for China's wheat-cotton rotation farming. The new species will not only meet the
practical needs in China and greatly improve economic benefits of cotton industry but also accelerate the emergence of a new industry and new materials.
It is reported that Zhongmiansuo-20 contains only 0.0025% phenol for 98% of its cotton plants (0.04% is the edible standard defined by WHO) with a growth period of only 113 days, blooming rate before frost of 87%, seeds protein content of 38.4% and fat content of 36.1% .
Beijing International Week for Hi-tech Industries
The Third China Beijing International Week for High Tech Industries opened in Beijing on May 8, 2000.
With the approval of the State Council, the International Week, an international gathering for high tech exchanges and cooperation at national level, was co-sponsored by Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economy, Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Beijing Municipal Government. Under the advantages of high caliber, high S&T content and extensive in ternational participation, the week was attended by international organizations such as the United Nations and European Union and 61 government or business delegations from 50 and more countries and regions. More than a thousand foreign guests were in presence with hundreds of them being internationally renowned politicians, scientists, entrepreneurs and bankers. Domestically, 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions sent out their exhibition delegations and the mayors from eight major cities such as from Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing made their keynote speeches. Over the exhibition hall of 20,000 and more square meters, 900 and odd exhibition counters have displayed the latest domestic and international S&T results covering seven major high tech fields. 190 and more figures of ministerial ranking, world renowned experts, scholars and entrepreneurs from different countries addressed at 55 high level forums on 16 topics. Eleven rounds of trade talks were arranged. All these have provided cooperative opportunities for the participants both from home and abroad. During the week, 20 high tech related large international and national exchange activities were organized and 11 high tech tourism trip routes initiated.
Shanghai Super Computer Center
Shanghai Super Computer Center, a major project in Shanghai's information gateway framework recently celebrated its earth breaking at Zhangjiang High Tech Park in Pudong.
The Center will be equipped with Chinese made supercomputers of internationally advanced level with a floating computation speed over 300 billion time per second.
At present, the infrastructures, mainframe manufacturing, applications and development are under the full fledged development. The Construction of the Center is scheduled to be completed at the end of the year. The system will be open to public.
The Center focuses on the computations for major national projects, meteorological and climatic researches, designing of computer products, airplanes and new drugs, biogenetics, ship engineering, geological survey, marine engineering, nuclear technologies, seismological prediction, new materials and urban construction.
Comments or inquiries on editorial matters or Newsletter content should be directed to:Mr. Dong Jianlong, Department of International Cooperation, MOST 15B, Fuxing Road Beijing 100862, PR China Tel: (8610)68512650 Fax: (8610) 68512594, or Mr. Wang Jianping, Editor,NEWSLETTER, 15 Fuxing Road Beijing 100038, PR China, Tel:(8610) 68515544 Ext. 2921
http://www.most.gov.cn
E-mail:baiyr@istic.ac.cn
