Posts tagged ‘China Daily’

05/09/2014

China warns again of dark side of the mooncakes | Reuters

China’s crackdown on corruption, a scourge Communist Party leaders fear threatens their hold on power, is likely to last at least another five years, an official said, warning also against the mid-autumn tradition of handing out mooncakes as gifts.

Freshly-baked mooncakes pass along a conveyor belt at a mooncakes factory in Shanghai September 12, 2013.  REUTERS/Aly Song

Wang Qishan, secretary of China’s anti-corruption watchdog, was quoted as saying the government’s “campaign against extravagance and corruption” would continue for at least five years, the official China Daily said.

Wang’s comments, also reported on television on Thursday, were made in August at a meeting in Beijing.

President Xi Jinping has promised to go after “tigers and flies” in rooting out rampant graft, a campaign that has brought down politicians and company executives in industries including oil, cars and healthcare.

The campaign has also dragged down sales of high-end products from the fiery sorghum-based liquor, baijiu, to mooncakes, both traditional popular gifts for smoothing business and official ties.

Wang criticized the tradition of giving mooncakes as presents around the Mid-Autumn Festival, adding that the practice created opportunities for graft, the China Daily said.

Mooncake sales have taken a steep hit ahead of this month’s festival. In key production regions, sales were half the level of last year, the China Daily said, citing the Wuchuan Association of Mooncakes.

via China warns again of dark side of the mooncakes | Reuters.

13/08/2014

China Names U.S. as the Top Destination for ‘Economic Fugitives’ – Businessweek

China’s wealthy elite is fleeing the country for a better quality of life—better education, better air, and greater personal security. China’s Ministry of Public Security has just added a further potential reason: fleeing the police.

“The U.S. has become the top destination for Chinese [economic] fugitives,” Liao Jinrong, a ministry official told state-run China Daily on Monday. According to the English-language newspaper, “More than 150 economic fugitives from China, most of whom are corrupt officials or face allegations of corruption, remain at large in the United States.”

While this is a rather incredible admission, the intent of the article—no doubt placed by China’s propaganda authorities—seems to be to make the case for an extradition treaty between the U.S. and China. “We face practical difficulties in getting fugitives who fled to the US back to face trial due to the lack of an extradition treaty and the complex and lengthy legal procedures,” Liao told the paper.

via China Names U.S. as the Top Destination for ‘Economic Fugitives’ – Businessweek.

12/02/2014

Old palace columns coming home[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn

A Norwegian museum will return seven marble columns, taken about 150 years ago from western Beijing’s Imperial Yuanmingyuan Garden, or the Old Summer Palace.

Old palace columns coming home

The deal was reached under a trilateral agreement made by the museum, Chinese tycoon Huang Nubo and Peking University. The columns will return to China in September and be publicly exhibited at Peking University after maintenance and restoration work.

Huang, chairman of Beijing Zhongkun Investment Group, will donate 10 million Norwegian kroner ($1.63 million) to the museum.

Huang told China Daily that the museum donation is not a trade or “throwing away money”, but “a very meaningful action that shows patriotism, as well as a way of repaying back the mother country, which made me rich”.

Karin Hindsbo, director of the Kode Art Museum in Bergen, told China Daily that “the donation shall be used on academic research and the general care of our collections of Chinese art“.

“A donation like this makes a world of difference for Kode,” Hindsbo said.

Huang said he was invited to visit the art museum in Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city, by then-director Erlend G. Hoyersten when Huang was at a Sino-Scandinavian poets’ exchange event in Norway last year.

“The moment I saw the columns, my eyes teared up. After all, the lost relics from Yuanmingyuan represent an indelible history for all Chinese,” Huang said. “I told the museum staff the relics should not be on show, and they were sympathetic to my feelings.”

During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), British and French expeditionary forces invaded the garden in 1860, removing its precious imperial collections and burning the rest.

Norwegian cavalry officer Johan W.N. Munthe got some of them from unknown sources and donated 2,500 Chinese artifacts to the Kode museum in the early 20th century.

via Old palace columns coming home[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn.

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14/06/2012

* Chinese State Council improves food safety

China Daily: “The State Council laid out measures to improve food safety on Wednesday, including tighter supervision and harsher punishment for violators.

“It is an onerous task for the government to ensure food safety,” as China’s food industry is still suffering from nonstandard management and many hidden safety risks, according to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao.

Police officers examine decayed beans at an illegal food processing plant in Cangshan county, East China’s Shandong province, on June 1. The plant has been shut down. Initial investigation found its products, fried beans and peanuts, were mainly sold to rural market. [Zhu Wutao / For China Daily]

The government should enhance supervision by setting up an efficient mechanism that covers all links in the food industry and a rigid food recall system for destroying defective products, the statement said.

The State Council has vowed a “vigous crackdown” on those who endanger food safety.

Meanwhile, policies, laws and regulations should be revised to increase costs for violators, according to the statement.

The country will intensify a series of food safety supervisions, including strengthening enterprises’ accountability for their food products and streamlining current food quality testing standards .

The country will establish credit profiles for food enterprises, releasing quality information to the public in time, the statement said.

Also, the country will give prizes to people who expose substandard food products, it said.

China is facing increasing risks on food safety as some food enterprises have put too much emphasis on profits, negatively affecting sales, Pu Changcheng, deputy director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said at a news conference on Monday.”

via State Council improves food safety |Politics |chinadaily.com.cn.

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