U.S. Lawmakers Urge China to Release Scholar Yang
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Members of U.S. Congress have urged  Chinese President Hu Jintao to parole a U.S.-based scholar  jailed for entering China illegally and accused of spying.
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CHINA&#39;S legislature on Saturday began deliberating a proposed âanti-secession lawâ aimed at preventing Taiwan from declaring formal independence, the Xinhua news agency said.
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(InfoWorld) - U.S. Congressman Chris Smith said that top American technology companies are failing to prevent censorship and other human rights abuses in China, writing Saturday in a letter to The Wall Street Journal. "There is enormous profit potential, but entering the Chinese market means challenging a repressive regime on basic human rights tenets. Sadly, some of America's largest tech firms are currently failing this new test of corporate responsibility," wrote Smith, a Republican from New Jersey and a member of the Foreign Services Committee. Smith said that representatives from Yahoo, Google, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft appeared at an April, 2006 Congressional hearing he convened and "they all acknowledged that their companies have enabled dictatorships to censor democracy and human rights promotion on the Internet." He also said that "Yahoo and Cisco have evenÂ helped the Chinese government incarcerate Internet usersÂ for pro-democracy activity." Court documents and evidence from human rights groups have shown that Yahoo's Hong Kong subsidiary, Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong), cooperated with Chinese police in cases against journalist Shi Tao and political activist Li Zhi, and that material provided by the company may have led to their conviction. Shi was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, Li to eight years. In January, Smith re-introduced "The Global Online Freedom Bill of 2007," would give individuals like Shi and Li the right to seek redress in U.S. courts, if they believe their freedom of expression was compromised by a U.S. company. Internet companies would be required to inform the Office of Global Internet Freedom -- to be created if the bill is signed into law -- of keywords and search parameters they are filtering. They must also notify the Office of any restrictions on Internet information access with which they must comply in order to do business in a foreign country. Companies can be fined up to $2 million for violation of these principles, with individuals liable for up to $100,000. The bill provides for $50 million to establish the Office of Global Internet Freedom. The bill cited nine countries, including China, Iran, and North Korea, for blocking, restricting, and monitoring the Internet and its citizens' use of it, according to a January 8 statement from Smith's office. Later in January, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Vodafone Group agreed to develop aÂ code of conductÂ with a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote freedom of expression and privacy rights. The parties involved said that they would develop a framework that would hold signatories accountable for their actions in the areas of freedom of expression and privacy rights. Eighteen NGOs are participating in the guidelines' development, including: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; Business for Social Responsibility; Electronic Frontier Foundation; Human Rights Watch; and Reporters Without Borders. One observer felt the tech firms were now between a rock and a hard place. "Technology companies now have the unenviable position of moving into the media realm, which is tightly controlled in China," said Danny Levinson, publisher of BDL Media's ChinaCSR.com and the China CSR monthly magazine. "When dealing with corporate social responsibility in China, foreign technology companies are easier targets than firms in other sectors because they are much more high profile than, say, the mining companies providing poor labor oversight and textile companies polluting the environment," Levinson said.
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The State Department is seeking clarification from China about the status of Zhao Yan, a New York Times researcher who reportedly was arrested in Shanghai on charges of passing state secrets to foreigners.
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The U.S. Senate is unlikely to vote  on a controversial bill threatening China with steep tariffs on  its exports to the United States, a key U.S. senator said on  Thursday.
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WASHINGTON : The White House on Thursday demanded that Myanmar military authorities &quot;immediately and unconditionally&quot; release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and condemned her extended house arrest.
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Chinese authorities detained a prominent, U.S.-based Buddhist leader in connection with his plans to reopen an ancient temple complex in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia last week and have forced dozens of his American followers to leave the region, local officials said Wednesday.
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Three House committee chairmen urged a secretive government panel Wednesday to investigate national security implications of IBM's proposed &#36;1.75 billion sale of its personal computer division to a China-based company.
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BEIJING -- Chinese authorities have detained a prominent, US-based Buddhist leader in connection with his plans to reopen an ancient temple complex in the province of Inner Mongolia last week and have forced dozens of his American followers to leave the region, local officials said yesterday.
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Six Republican lawmakers asked a government watchdog on Tuesday to investigate whether U.S. efforts to help North Korea get back about $25 million would violate money laundering and counterfeiting laws.
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The House of Representatives urged  China on Wednesday to open its market to more U.S. banks,  insurance companies and other financial services, and demanded  the White House push Beijing harder on the issue.
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A top Democratic senator on  Wednesday said lawmakers were concerned about a slide in the  value of the dollar and urged the Bush administration to step  up pressure on China to move to a more flexible exchange rate.
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The case, along with the detention of a Chinese researcher for The New York Times, has prompted international concern about ChinaÂs crackdown on press freedom.
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A lawmaker said Tuesday he will press the government for the release of a black teenager held in the Louisiana "Jena 6" case
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urged China on Thursday to work toward a freely floating exchange rate to help disarm critics of Beijing's trade and currency policies.
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Chicago Tribune - Chinese authorities have arrested a New York Times news assistant on charges of leaking state secrets, and the newspaper has appealed to the "highest levels" of the U.S. government to help secure his release, a senior editor at the paper said Thursday.
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BEIJING, Jan. 8 -- Government officials from a county in northeastern China's Liaoning province were not pleased by a magazine story criticizing their local Communist Party leader. So they traveled nearly 500 miles to Beijing seeking to arrest the author.