Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (4th R Front) attends the celebration conference marking the 60th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet, in Lhasa, capital of southwest China\’s Tibet Autonomous Region, July 19, 2011. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)
A grand ceremony was held Tuesday in Lhasa, capital city of Tibet Autonomous Region, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet.

On May 23, 1951, the Agreement of the Central People\’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, also known as "17-Article Agreement," was signed in Beijing, marking the peaceful liberation of Tibet.
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The China Disabled Persons\’ Federation (CDPF) published its 2011 budget for government-funded overseas trips, vehicles and receptions on Wednesday.

In a statement posted on its website, the federation said its budget for government-funded overseas trips, vehicles and receptions this year totals about 8.27 million yuan (1.28 million U.S. dollars), an 8.25-percent decrease compared to 2010\’s budget.

The 2011 budget includes 4.73 million yuan for overseas trips, 2.28 million yuan for vehicle purchases and maintenance and 1.27 million yuan for receptions.

The statement also said that as a member of various international organizations, the CDPF mainly spends public money on participating in international conferences and receiving UN agencies, international organizations and their counterparts in other countries.

At least a quarter of the central government\’s 98 departments have disclosed their expenses for overseas trips, receptions and the purchase and maintenance of official vehicles so far this year.

The Chinese public believes that expenses on the three items are "sources of corruption and waste" and have demanded more transparency in the budgets of central government departments.

The State Council, or China\’s cabinet, has repeatedly asked its ministries to publish their budgets and provide greater detail regarding how they spend public funds.

According to the statement, the CDPF spent 3.2 million yuan on overseas trips, 2.64 million on vehicle maintenance and 0.92 million yuan on receptions last year, with total expenditures for the three items adding up to 6.76 million yuan.

Source: Xinhua

The Chinese public is getting its first glimpse into what central government departments spend on official receptions, vehicles and overseas trips – the subject of most suspicions concerning misuses of public money.

Sixty ministries and institutions affiliated with the State Council, China\’s Cabinet, have so far posted data showing what they spent in 2010 on purchasing and fueling up vehicles, receiving guests and arranging overseas trips for officials, according to research by China Daily.

The statistics showed the 60 ministries and institutions spent more than 3 billion yuan ($467 million) on those three items. The biggest spenders were the General Administration of Customs and its branches, which spent 503 million yuan.

At the other end was the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, which spent 1.45 million yuan.

The spending figures reflected numbers in official budgets and did not necessarily show what was spent through other means.

Meanwhile, about 40 percent of the central government\’s ministries and institutions have not released numbers showing what they spent in 2010 on official receptions, vehicles and overseas trips.

Early this month, the Ministry of Finance disclosed that central government departments spent nearly 9.5 billion yuan on the three items this past year.

In July, central government departments also released their 2011 budgets showing how much they plan to spend on official visits, receptions and vehicles. One department said it would lower its total expenditures on the three items by 31 percent below 2010 levels, the largest reduction promised.

The government began releasing expenditure data early this month in response to allegations that public money is often misspent on vehicles, official receptions and overseas travel.

Many experts who have seen the reports have confessed to being overwhelmed by the detail they contain and have raised doubts over how the statistics were produced. That threatens to detract from the figures\’ credibility.

"There is not a universal standard for producing these numbers," said Liu Shangxi, deputy head of the Research Institute of Fiscal Science, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Finance.

Liu said some government departments, for instance, might think that trips taken overseas for training purposes should be reported while others might not.

To ensure there is consistency in the presentation of the data, government departments should make sure they are all using the same means of gathering spending figures, Ye Qing, a member of the National People\’s Congress, said in an opinion piece in the Beijing News on Thursday.

Otherwise, the release of such numbers will leave the public more confused than ever, Ye said.

Liu said government departments should also strive to release more details about spending.

"The (general) numbers themselves are meaningless," Liu said.

Beijing, for its part, announced on Thursday that it spent 1.1 billion yuan on the three items in 2010, making it the first among province-level regions in China to release such data.

Of that total, 130 million yuan was spent on overseas trips taken by Beijing government officials and employees. Ninety million yuan went to official receptions and the rest, about 900 million yuan, on vehicle purchases, fuel and related costs.

Source: China Daily

(2) Women\’s rights

Women\’s right to participate on an equal footing with men in the management of state and social affairs is guaranteed. Women representatives account for 21.3 percent of all representatives in the 11th NPC, and female members account for 17.7 percent in the 11th CPPCC. The proportion of females in the leadership of governments at all levels is increasing, as is the level of participation of rural women in grassroots democratic management. In 2009 females made up 21.5 percent and 49.7 percent of the members of village committees and neighborhood committees, respectively, nationwide.

Women\’s right to employment and equal access to economic resources is guaranteed. By the end of October 2010 the state had provided 16.605 billion yuan in small loans to aid 410,500 women across the country to start businesses. Women\’s federations in all parts of the country created jobs for more than four million women by launching projects including processing with customers\’ materials and knitting. The SYB (Start Your Business) project provides training to 50,000 women every year. By September 2010 there were 1.589 million organizations for female employees in 77.61 percent of all the trade unions established in China. A total of 713,600 collective contracts for female employees were signed, covering 1.2439 million enterprises and public institutions, and 54.2446 million women workers.

The state brings population management, family planning and reproductive health into its national development strategy. Centers providing information, consultation and technical services for population management and family planning have been set up in all the counties and 95 percent of townships. High-quality services concerning reproductive health and family planning have been made available in over 80 percent of the counties. In 2010, 6.49 million and 870,000 rural women had tests for cervical cancer and breast cancer, respectively, 8.847 million pregnant rural women received hospital delivery subsidies, and the rate of women giving birth in hospitals reached 96.7 percent in the countryside. Over the past two years a total of 1.16 billion yuan has been allocated from the central budget to support the construction of family planning centers in counties and townships in central and western China, and 300 million yuan has been allocated from the central budget to buy 1,822 mobile service vehicles to provide better reproductive health services for women of childbearing age.

The state has intensified efforts to combat domestic violence against women. Already, 27 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government have formulated special rules and regulations on the prevention of domestic violence. Public security organs at many places include service of reporting domestic violence in their "110" emergency police service networks. Many local courts have set up collegial panels for safeguarding the rights and interests of women and anti-domestic-violence collegial panels, and some have launched a trial of habeas corpus for victims of domestic violence.

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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday urged the Ministry of Railways (MOR) to give an "honest answer" to the people on the way it had handled the aftermath of a fatal train crash.

Wen was speaking to reporters at the site of the weekend crash of two high-speed trains near Wenzhou of eastern China\’s Zhejiang Province that killed 39 people and injured 192 others.

"I called the minister of railways soon after the crash happened, and what I said to him was just two words — \’save people\’," said Wen after mourning victims and expressing condolences to the relatives of the dead.

"I believe the top principle in handling accidents is to save the victims by all means," said Wen.

"The Ministry of Railways should give an honest answer to the people as to whether it has conformed with this principle in dealing with the collision," said Wen.

Source: Xinhua

People take part in a grand celebration parade marking the 60th anniversary of Tibet\’s peaceful liberation in Lhasa, capital of southwest China\’s Tibet Autonomous Region, on July 19, 2011. (Xinhua/Chogo)

Tibet\’s peaceful liberation was marked by the signing of the Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, also known as the 17-Article Agreement, between the central government and the former local government of Tibet on March 23, 1951.

Xi told the crowd that the liberation was "a turning point of epoch-making significance" in the history of Tibet. It crushed the attempt of external forces to separate Tibet from China, upheld national sovereignty and territorial integrity, safeguarded national unification and ethnic unity and opened the path for one million serfs in Tibet to stand up and become masters of their own fates and ushered in a bright prospect of prosperity and progress for Tibet.

Amidst applause, the vice president continued to say that fundamental changes have taken place in the ancient, miraculous land of Tibet over the past 60 years.

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A military brass band arrives at the celebration conference marking the 60th anniversary of Tibet\’s peaceful liberation, in Lhasa, capital of southwest China\’s Tibet Autonomous Region, July 19, 2011. (Xinhua/Yuan Man)

Pupils sing the Chinese natioanal anthem and salute the national flag at the start of the celebration conference marking the 60th anniversary of Tibet\’s peaceful liberation, in Lhasa, capital of southwest China\’s Tibet Autonomous Region, July 19, 2011. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

People of the Tibetan ethnic group arrive at the venue of the celebration conference marking the 60th anniversary of Tibet\’s peaceful liberation, in Lhasa, capital of southwest China\’s Tibet Autonomous Region, on July 19, 2011. (Xinhua/Purbu Zhaxi)
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Source: Xinhua

STABILITY BRINGS CONFIDENCE

A holy city in the eyes of Tibetan Buddhists, Lhasa now resembles a modern city in many ways.

Streams of cars run on wide concrete roads that weave through the city\’s urban areas. Billboards showing Chinese and international brands line the roads, while stereos in streetside shops blare English pop songs. High-end shopping malls and residential complexes are under construction.

However, the city still retains its strong religious flavor. Devout Buddhists prostrate in front of the Jokhang Temple at the heart of the well-preserved old city. Lhasa residents, some with prayer wheels in hand, walk around the Jokhang Temple and the Potala Palace as part of their daily worship rituals.

Business is brisk on nearby Barkhor Street, as tourists flock to vendors selling Tibetan handicrafts.

Today, there is little sign that the holy city was bruised by deadly riots only three years ago. "Lhasa is safe. I have no worries at all," said a cabdriver surnamed Liu.

"Stability is something that common people want the most," said Tubdain.

Tourism is sometimes used as a barometer of public confidence in stability. Government statistics show that Tibet attracted more than 5.5 million tourists in 2009 and 6.8 million in 2010, compared with only 2.2 million in 2008.

The government aims to attract 15 million visitors each year by 2015, with annual tourism revenues expected to hit 15 billion yuan in the next five years, said Yu Yungui, Party chief of the tourism bureau of Tibet.

The St. Regis Lhasa Resort, Tibet\’s first luxury hotel, recently opened its doors to high-end travelers. Construction on the Shangri-La Hotel and the Intercontinental Hotel will begin in Lhasa this year, Tibet tourism officials said.

"There is strong demand for luxury accommodation and we see a lot of potential," said Jean-Michel Kok, director of rooms at the St. Regis Lhasa.

However, officials, experts and local people have agreed that Tibet still faces some problems in its development.

Although Tibet\’s rural and urban per capita net income in 2010 surged by 99.2 percent and 78.1 percent, respectively, from 2005, it still has half a million people living in poverty, with each of them earning less than 1,700 yuan a year.

Life expectancies in Tibet, 67, almost doubled over the past 60 years. However, in comparison to the average life expectancy of 82 years in Shanghai, Tibet still has a long way to go in this regard.

Like many parts of China, Tibet is caught in the dilemma of trying to balance modernization with the preservation of traditional culture.

However, the country\’s leaders believe that the region has the capability to solve these dilemmas as it marches toward revitalization.

"The current of history moves on," Vice President Xi Jinping said. "The grand rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is irresistible."

"The future of Tibet will be even brighter," he said. Enditem

(One U.S. dollars equals roughly 6.47 yuan.)

(Xinhua correspondents Wang Aihua, Qiang Lijing, and Penpa Tsering also contributed to this story.)

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Source: Xinhua

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (C), also president of the top Party school of the Communist Party of China (CPC), attends a graduation ceremony of the school\’s 2011 spring semester in Beijing, capital of China, July 15, 2011. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

Vice President Xi Jinping on Friday attended a ceremony at the end of this year\’s spring semester for the Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

Xi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and also president of the school, awarded diplomas to participants having just completed their studies.

The ceremony marked the graduation of 840 students from the top Party school, and more than 3,400 from the school\’s branches for departments under the CPC Central Committee, central government departments, the military and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

Following the ceremony, Xi attended an exhibition of archives marking the 90th anniversary of the CPC\’s founding, jointly sponsored by the Central Archives and the Party School.

Addressing the graduation ceremony, Li Jingtian, vice president of the Party School, urged students to understand and implement well the speech that Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, delivered on July 1 to mark the CPC\’s 90th anniversary.

In addition, Li called on the students to contribute more to Party building and the great cause of the socialism with Chinese characteristics.

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Source: Xinhua

People take part in a grand celebration parade marking the 60th anniversary of Tibet\’s peaceful liberation in Lhasa, capital of southwest China\’s Tibet Autonomous Region, on July 19, 2011. (Xinhua/Chogo)

Zhang Qingli, chief of Tibet\’s Communist Party Committee, said Tibet stands at a new beginning of history, calling on cadres and people in Tibet to seize the opportunity, carry on the spirit of dedication and perseverance, and efficiently use the assistance from across the country to boost Tibet\’s development and stability.

The speeches were followed by a colorful parade that capped Tuesday\’s ceremony. Soldiers, workers, farmers, herders, monks, and native residents from across Tibet in varied attire paraded past the square with songs and dances.

On Tuesday night, a fireworks party was held at the Potala Palace Square. Xi and members of the central government delegation joined thousands of people at the party.

During the party, Xi and delegation members descended the rostrum to join the crowd in their group dancing.

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