AmCham-China Daily

US Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is headed to Beijing next week. She’ll be in town meeting with her Chinese counterparts to  strategize ways the two countries might work together toward reducing CO2 emissions while creating business opportunities in the process (Read about her initative in the Seattle Times).

While she’s in town, Senator Cantwell will be the keynote speaker at AmCham’s March 17th symposium on clean energy, which is open to chamber members and non-members alike.  The half-day symposium will bring together China and US experts to examine the issues surrounding energy consumption and will address ways to eliminate these barriers to improve efficiency reduce carbon emissions. 

In the first session panelists will consider whether or not China and the US are actually rivals in the battle over energy resources.  During the second session energy experts will put forth recommendations about how, given the potential for competition, the two nations can translate their good intention to clean up the environment into concrete action.

Presentations will be in both Chinese and English. Simultaneous translation will be available.

After re-evaluating China’s one-child policy, Zhang Weiqing, minister of the State Population and Family Planning Commission, has decided to uphold the regulation for at least another 10 years, until the population’s next birth peak. In an article on People’s Daily Online, Mr. Zhang addresses the rumors of the government eliminating this policy. He is quoted as saying:

Given such a large population base, there would be major fluctuations in population growth if we abandoned the one-child rule now. It would cause serious problems and add extra pressure on social and economic development.

Zhang Weiqing also addresses the growing concerns that the one-child policy has created a population imbalance in both gender and age (with more males than females), and a society aging rapidly. Rather than only focusing on removing the one-child rule, he believes in a better understanding of the family planning policy as a whole:

Zhang stressed that the emerging problems should not be blamed solely on the one-child rule and ‘it will be simplistic’ to try to find a solution with a one-cut approach. He said that the immediate scrapping of the one-child rule at this time would cause more problems than it would solve.

Despite all the changes going on in China in anticipation of this year’s Olympics, they are really sticking to their guns on this issue. It is official: any radical changes regarding the child-limit will just have to wait.

College kids in Beijing can thank (or blame) the Games for a shortened semester. According to an article in the People’s Daily, Beijing municipal education authorities have required all colleges in the capital city to let their students out a month earlier than usual.

Expats working in China who earn more than RMB120,000 (about US$16,200) need to complete and submit an Individual Income Tax Declaration Form to the local tax authority in addition to their regular routine monthly tax filings.

The following is a brief introduction to individual income taxes in China. It is excerpted from the January/February 2008 issue of China Briefing. The complete issue can be found here. (subscription required)

Who is subject to annual self-declaration?
In accordance with The Implementing Rules of the Individual Income Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China and The Self-declaration Rules Concerning Individual Income Tax, taxpayers who meet the following conditions should file self-declarations of individual income taxes.

1) An annual income of more than RMB120,000
2) Income derived from two or more places inside the People’s Republic of China
3) Income derived partly or fully from sources outside the People’s Republic of China
4) Have received taxable income but have not paid tax

With the current changes and efforts toward China’s “improvement” (banning thin plastic bags, controlling spitting, greening the city, and a smoking ban in the works) all before the 2008 Olympics, it isn’t a big surprise that China is also starting to reconsider its one-child policy. The government is considering gradually raising this limit on the number of children a couple can have. Whether or not this is an attempt to soften its human rights image, these gradual changes could potentially lead to sizable consequences…but nothing is official yet. China is still working on possible strategies to change the one-child-per-couple policy, but has yet to declare a solution among decision makers. Jim Yardley of the NY Times wrote an article today on the topic:

“We want incrementally to have this change,” Ms. Zhao said, according to Reuters. “I cannot answer at what time or how, but this has become a big issue among decision makers.”

Originally, this policy was created to contain China’s massive population, but this has also led to an imbalance in both gender and age, with a disproportional population of males, and as the larger earlier generations age, elderly. Yardley writes:

Chinese officials have sought to curb the excesses and abuses and have argued that the one-child restriction has prevented roughly 400 million births and allowed the country to prosper and better live within its resources. But China’s fertility rate is now extremely low, and the population is rapidly aging, especially in urban areas. Experts have warned that China is steadily moving toward a demographic crisis with too many old people in need of expensive services and too few young workers paying taxes to meet those bills.

Since this policy was established, the rules have already started to bend to a degree. Currently, the policy allows urban spouses to have two children if both spouses were from one-child families. In addition, rural parents are allowed a second child if their first was a girl and minorities are allowed two or more children.

Although China is serious about relaxing this child-limit, officials still fear any drastic changes could lead to a major population boom. With a current population of over 1.3 billion people, the last thing China needs is a ‘boom’ in its population.

The new Beijing airport terminal is set to open this week, and it should be very interesting to see what the reviews look like. It is well ahead of schedule and is the latest in a string of pre-Olympics openings that has included the Water Cube, Line 5 subway and the new National Theater.

Here’s what the AP had to say about the terminal:

The huge, airy interior will have 64 Western and Chinese restaurants, 84 retail shops, and a state-of-the-art-baggage handling system. A high-speed commuter train will whisk passengers into the city, while the runway is capable of handling Airbus‘ huge A380 superjumbo…

China’s capital desperately needed a new terminal even without the Olympics, with double-digit economic growth rapidly outpacing infrastructure expansion plans. [Dong Zhiyi, deputy general manager of the Capital Airport Holding Co] said he expects the whole airport to receive 64 million visitors this year. That is up from 50 million last year and 20 million in 2000.

They have 64 restaurants?! Hopefully that doesn’t mean they are preparing for long departure delays…

If you think your business is being strangled in bureaucratic red tape, wait until you hear Erika Helms’ story.
Ms. Helms, executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute China, tells just how difficult it is treading water as an NGO in this Powwow podcast, produced last week by bizCult.com at AmCham-China’s Young Professionals Brown Bag Lunch Series.

 AmCham member Matt Young of Bizcult.com

According to a report in AmCham’s China Wire newsletter, China will extend its ban on the airing of foreign cartoons during prime time by one hour, its latest initiative to “spur the domestic cartoon industry”, said a circular by the country’s TV watchdog. According to the circular issued by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), no foreign cartoons or programs introducing foreign cartoons can be shown from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., the “golden hours”, on all domestic cartoon channels and children’s channels starting May 1. The original ban, imposed by SARFT in Aug. 2006, required airing of foreign cartoons to be only before 5 p.m. or after 8 p.m. The airing of cartoons co-produced by domestic and foreign producers will require approval from SARFT for the 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. time slot starting May 1. Only domestic cartoons approved by SARFT can be aired during “golden hours.”

Zhang Lianlian, a researcher of the Shanxi Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, writes an article about Shanxi’s ecological environment. You can find a link in AmCham’s China Wire.  About 2.48 cubic meter of water will be wasted per ton of coal explored in Shanxi province. By 2005, about 8.77b tons of coal had been explored in Shanxi province. Shanxi’s groundwater level is going down. Coal mining has caused very serious damage to water resources.

Prior to Spring Festival, AmCham-China sent out an e-mail to our members telling them how to join in the effort to help those affected by the brutal storms that rocked southern China this winter. Elizabeth Knup, co-chair of AmCham-China’s CSR Forum, helped put the wheels in motion, and tons of other people helped along the way as well.

Many member companies had already started to respond before the notice went out, and others who had been looking for ways to get involved used the call as an impetus. Among the companies that made contributions to help out Chinese communities in need were Wal-Mart, who donated US$1,000,000 on February 5; O’Melveny & Myers LLP, who held a charity drive to raise funds; BP donated RMB1,000,000 in cash and kind including generously contributed much-needed goods like anti-freeze to help with clean-up efforts; and Caterpillar Foundation, which gave US$150,000 in addition to the heavy-duty equipped that they provided to help clear roads.

AmCham is extremely proud of the efforts that its member companies made, and the examples above are only a small part of the total impact that US businesses had.

If you did something to help out the Chinese community in its time of need AmCham members want to know. Please add your stories in the comments section of this post, and if you are still looking for ways to get involved, we have information here.