Chinese Government Officials Research Articles

A Guide to China's Tax and Business Laws , and: Commercial Laws in the People's Republic of China: Regulation and Reform Affecting the Market (review)

134 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1997 Howard Gensler and Jiliang Yang. A Guide to China's Tax and Business Laws. Hong Kong: FT Law and Tax Asia Pacific, 1995. xv, 379 pp. Paperback , isbn 962-661-001-8. Bryan S. Bachner and H. L. Fu. Commercial Laws in the People's Republic ofChina: Regulation and Reform Affecting theMarket. Singapore: Butterworths Asia, 1995. xix, 247 pp. Paperback, isbn 0-409-99796-x. Perhaps no area of China's legal system is developing faster than the field ofcommercial law. Encompassing corporate governance, taxation, and the regulation of access to the domestic and international capital markets, the importance of commercial law has grown in tandem with the development and "opening up" of China's economy. Not coincidentally, it is also the area ofChinese law which most involves foreign lawyers. Sadly, many American lawyers assigned to projects in China or Hong Kong lack the language skills or the background needed to understand the role oflaw, as well as the specific provisions ofthe individual laws, in commercial transactions in China. Two recent publications attempt to meet, in very different ways, the needs of foreign lawyers servicing clients in China. A Guide to China's Tax and Business Laws is a bilingual presentation ofprimary sources oflaw (statutes and regulations ) prefaced by explanatory notes. In contrast, Commercial Laws in the People's Republic ofChina contains a collection ofpapers, written by a diverse group of Chinese government officials and legislators, which summarizes the present state ofcommercial law in the PRC and offers suggestions for future legislative efforts. The authoritative Chinese codification oflaws and regulations, the Huibian, is often difficult to use and often out ofdate. As a result, lawyers and academics are commonly reduced to scanning newspaper articles in order to find the text of a recently promulgated law, and obtaining complete versions of Chinese tax laws is an especially difficult endeavor. A Guide to China's Tax and Business Laws addresses this situation quite well. The Guide collects the major pieces of tax, accounting , and corporate governance legislation, and presents them side-by-side with an (unofficial) English translation. This is exacdy the kind ofinformation that the practicing lawyer needs, and the dual-column approach allows the foreign lawyer to locate quickly fhe relevant provision in the English column, and then switch to Chinese for purposes ofparsing the statute or regulation. It is un-© 1997 by University clear, however, why the authors chose to publish a single, softcover volume. The ofHawai'iPressmore common approach in this situation would be a loose-leafservice, where new material is periodically added to the original set ofmaterials, and amended or repealed laws are updated or discarded. Reviews 135 The Guideis full ofrather precise translations ofthe text ofthe laws, but its real contribution is its treatment of the numeric calculations that appear in the tax laws. These formulas, used in computing certain categories ofincome, are more prose than symbolic representation in the Chinese original. The Guide's translators transform them into purely mathematical representations, through the use ofclearly defined variables and standard notation. This representation ofincome calculations in the translation column is so much clearer than the original text that it may even prove valuable to native speakers of Chinese. Each law in the Guide is prefaced by a short legislative history. Often, knowing why a law was promulgated or amended is more valuable than the text ofthe current draft, especially if a particular issue predates the present incarnation of the statute or regulation. Here the editors deserve criticism, though not because these prefaces are not useful; the situation is quite the opposite. In fact, these histories are worth reading in their own right, and the editors should have encouraged the translators to include longer and more detailed prefaces. Commercial Laws in the People's Republic ofChina is a different kind ofbook. It is a compilation ofpapers, in both the original Chinese and English translation, presented by mainland legal scholars and government officials at a 1994 conference on "China's Company, Securities and Arbitration Law," held in Beijing under the auspices of the Center for Chinese and Comparative Law of the City University of Hong Kong. The book...

Population and Development Planning in China.

This volume offers insights into the demographic planning process in the world's most populous country. The population of China is well over 1.1 billion and it could reach 1.7 billion by the year 2025 unless the birth rate is further reduced. Chinese scholars and government officials have long recognized the serious economic, ecological and social problems caused by rapid rates of population growth. The book offers the perspectives of Chinese officials and scholars of the State Planning Commission (SPC) and foreign scholars who collaborated with the SPC in carrying out a project on population and development planning. Their contributions describe some of the pressures building up in the Chinese economy and government prior to the events of 1989, and offer some clues as to the likely course population policy will take in the People's Republic of China.

Defining Their Own Patriotism: British Volunteer Training Corps in the First World War

In 1976, Drew Middleton, military correspondent of the New York Times, was given an official Chinese government tour of militia posts in the provinces closest to Soviet Russia. In one village, a local militiaman led him through a series of tunnels to the main defence post, overlooking the village pig-pen. The visitor was told knowingly that when the Russians came for the pigs they would be shot down easily.' What Middleton saw in this Chinese village was a highly localized expression of patriotism; all previous invaders had come for the village's pigs and the local militia would defend their homes and wealth as they had always done. That the pig-pen defence post was part of the official tour also said much about the central defence policies of the Chinese army. More realistic tactical planning for invasion would obviously eschew any fixed positions let alone a pig-pen and concentrate on withdrawal for guerrilla action. But here, local militia eccentricity was being encouraged since, at the very least, the villagers were preparing to defend their village, their enemies were identified, and their preparations fit very well into the ideology of a Maoist 'people's army'. In short, the local and central definitions of patriotism had come to a certain, if unstrategic, accommodation. In Britain in late 1914 there was as vital a call upon patriotism. The results of the national response to the outbreak of 'the war to end all wars' are well known. Without the spur of the complex and comprehensive national military service systems common on the continent, hundreds of thousands of Britons considered it their duty to enlist in the non-conscript, new 'Kitchener armies', while hosts of others took it upon themselves to train as nurses, collect funds for war relief, bestow on men slow to enlist the sign of the white feather, refuse to be served by a foreign-sounding waiter, and give up alcohol

Chinese Documents in the United States National Archives

During the last 150 years numerous Chinese documents were sent from Chinese government officials to American ministers and consuls in China; the latter, in turn, shipped many of them to the secretaries of state in Washington. The frequency of shipment varied according to the degree of importance of the documents, i.e., whether they related to political, economic, social, or cultural matters. They were shipped either (1) as enclosures with diplomatic dispatches and consular reports, or (2) sent separately, segregated as to category, and packed in paper boxes or bound separately in volumes.

FACULTY OF OPHTHALMOLOGISTS

<h3>Abstract</h3> <h3>Background</h3> China’s COVID-19 statistics fall outside of recognized and accepted medical norms. Here we estimated the incidence, death and starting time of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan and China based on cremation related information. <h3>Methods</h3> Data sources included literature on COVID-19 in China, official Chinese government figures, state-run and non state-run media reports. Our estimates are based on investigative media reports of crematory operations in Wuhan, which is considered as a common data end point to life. A range of estimates is presented by an exponential growth rate model from lockdown (Jan 23,2020) until the intervention started to show effects, which was estimated 14.5 days after lockdown. <h3>Results</h3> For the cumulative infections and total deaths, under different assumptions of case fatality rates (from 2.5% to 10%) and doubling time 6.4 days, the estimates projected on February 7, 2020 in Wuhan range from 305,000 to 1,272,000 for infections and from 6,811 to 7,223 for deaths - on the order of at least 10 times the official figures (13,603 and 545). The implied starting time of the outbreak is October 2019. The estimates of cumulative deaths, based on both funeral urns distribution and continuous full capacity operation of cremation services up to March 23, 2020, give results around 36,000, more than 10 times of the official death toll of 2,524. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Our study indicates a significant under-reporting in Chinese official data on the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan in early February, the critical time for response to the COVID-19 pandemic.