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40 Chinese protest near Japanese embassy (Xinhua) Updated: 2010-09-08 22:30 BEIJING -- More than 40 Chinese Wednesday staged a protest near the Japanese embassy in Beijing over the detention of a Chinese fishing boat. The unofficial China Federation for Defending the Diaoyu Islands organized the half-hour protest on Wednesday noon. Witnesses said the protesters chanted the Chinese national anthem while holding up national flags and banners, two of which read "Japan out of Diaoyu Islands" "Diaoyu Islands are China's and so is the East China Sea." Li Wen, a federation official, blasted Japan's act as aggression and demanded release of the fishing boat and crew members, an apology and compensation from the Japanese government. If the demands were not met, the federation would organize Diaoyu Islands defenders to land on the islands during the National Day holiday, which runs through October 1 to October 7, Li said.
The ministry demanded the Japanese side to release the detained Chinese ship and crew members and guarantee their safety. Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue summoned Japanese ambassador to China Uichiro Niwa Wednesday to lodge the protest, which was the strongest wording so far after the incident. Within 24 hours, the Chinese government summoned the ambassador on this issue for the second time. Two Japanese patrol boats collided with a Chinese fishing boat in waters off the Diaoyu islands Tuesday. No injuries were reported from the collision, but then the fishing boat was intercepted by Japanese patrol boats. On the same day after the incident, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Song Tao summoned Uichiro Niwa and urged Japanese patrol boats to stop their illegal interception of Chinese fishing boats. On Wednesday morning, Japan's Coast Guard arrested the captain of the fishing trawler despite China's requests. The captain was taken to Ishigaki Island in Okinawa Prefecture at around 7 a.m. and the 14 Chinese crew were also taken to Ishigaki in the afternoon but were barred from disembarking, according to media reports.
Tropical storm heading for south China
BEIJING - The 10th tropical storm to hit China this year is expected to land in southern coastal regions between Thursday evening and midday Friday, the country's meteorological authorities warned Wednesday. Investors promised more open, transparent market XIAMEN, Fujian - China is dedicated to creating a "more open and optimized" investment environment for foreign businesses, and will strive to remain the world's most attractive destination for foreign direct investment (FDI), Vice-President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday. Xi made the remarks, which were welcomed by global trade officials, at the opening ceremony of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 2010 World Investment Forum (WIF) in Xiamen, Fujian province. "While China is more open to the world, foreign companies operating in China will find more potential for growth and will enjoy better commercial benefits here," said Xi. And "China will go on committing itself to creating a more open, transparent and stable environment", by improving regulatory laws, widening market access and better protecting intellectual property rights (IPRs), in the years ahead, he added. China would remain a top international investment destination until 2012, UNCTAD said in an investment survey released late Monday. The survey also revealed that international companies expressed more optimism about the business climate and planned to increase investment during that period. During the first seven months of this year, China's FDI witnessed impressive growth of 20.7 percent from a year earlier to $58.35 billion, the highest worldwide. This reversed an FDI decrease of 2.6 percent last year. China is now the second largest FDI destination after the US. Shen Danyang, deputy director of the General Office of the Ministry of Commerce, said last Sunday that China's FDI would keep surging and was expected to pass $100 billion this year. Besides the FDI policies, Xi also emphasized China would "accelerate its overseas investment by all means, providing support to qualified companies to set up international marketing networks and enhance China's infrastructure cooperation abroad". "The efforts on promoting outbound direct investment (ODI) helped speed up China's industrial transformation, thus giving a stimulus to its exports," said Xi. China climbed to fifth largest outbound investor worldwide in 2009, up from 12th in 2008, the ministry said on Sunday. By the end of 2009, China's 13,000 enterprises expanded business overseas with investments worth $245.7 billion. Minister of Commerce Chen Deming predicted on Tuesday that China's ODI would surge to $50-60 billion in 2010. The US Under Secretary for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs, Robert Hormats, said that "China's move to optimize the investment environment is very constructive". But he added that China still needed to create a level playing field for domestic and foreign companies on IPR issues. Mozambican Prime Minister Aires Ali said on Tuesday that new players were emerging in the rising wave of investment in Africa, led especially by China, India and Brazil, and their investment and infrastructure projects had "helped Africa walk out of the crisis". The recent report by UNCTAD showed foreign investment flows began to recover this year, after faltering in 2008, and will gain momentum over the next two years. "China will definitely lead the recovery," said James Zhan, director of division on investment and enterprise under UNCTAD. | ||||||
