China Reform Monitor: No. 757

April 9:

Over the next three years China Mobile will invest RMB 70 billion ($10.24 billion) in telecom construction in rural areas and expand its sales outlets to a total of 430,000 Chinese villages, state media Chinanews.com.cn has reported. Li Zhengmao, vice president of China Mobile, said telecom coverage will be extended to at least 10,000 more villages. In the past five years, China Mobile invested RMB 19.5 billion ($2.85 billion) in the construction of rural telecom infrastructure.

Taiwan’s Central News Agency has reported that the third round of talks between top negotiators from both sides of the Taiwan Strait will be held next month in Nanjing. MAC Vice Chairman Liu Te-shun said the two sides have both expressed hope that the talks will take place in a city other than the Chinese capital of Beijing. MAC Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan said the proposed cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement is the primary topic under consideration at the next meeting.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is visiting China, the official Xinhua News Agency reports. Chavez addressed about 100 officials at the Central Party School. He said: “Venezuela and China have carried out hundreds of projects that will boost social, economic, and science and technological development of Venezuela.” Chavez said he anticipated expanded cooperation in petroleum, investment, political party cadre exchange, among other areas. Both China’s President Hu Jintao and Vice-President Xi Jinping met with Chavez at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse where he “vigorously push forward the China-Venezuela strategic partnership in key areas as energy, agriculture, infrastructure, and high technology.” Xi had visited with Chavez in Venezuela in February.

April 10:

China has 32 million more young men than young women and the imbalance is expected to worsen over the next two decades and could trigger social problems, said a report published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The study said China's 2005 census data extrapolated that males under age 20 exceeded their female counterparts by 32 million. The study found that China has 119 male births for every 100 girls and that the biggest gaps are in the 1 to 4-year-old group. China’s will grapple with the effects of this imbalance when those children reach reproductive age in 15 to 20 years. Ethnic minorities are exempt from birth limits, and researchers found normal sex ratios in the minority regions of Tibet and largely Muslim Xinjiang. A likely cause of the problem has been the prevalence of sonograms resulting in a rise in abortions based on sex. Abortion is legal and widely available, China bans tests to determine the fetus' gender for non-medical reasons, but they are still available through underground private clinics.

[Editor’s Note: There is evidence that some families hide the births of daughters, never registering them with authorities, so they can legally try for a son, making it harder to measure the problem.]

April 17:

China’s Central Military Commission has approved a “Political Theory Training” plan conducted by the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) General Political Department. The 20-day training course will be held at the National Defense University in Beijing and is intended to instill “the troops with the theoretic system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The PLA Daily reports that 49 top PLA leaders will participate and also address topics such as “how to [boost] development in the course of national defense and army building” and “how to intensify the construction of democratic centralism in the PLA.”