China seriously concerned over EU's investigation of China-made modems: Ministry of Commerce

BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- China is expressing its concern about the European Union's investigations into Chinese-made wireless wide area networking (WWAN) modems, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Thursday.

Yao Jian, the spokesman, made the remarks after the EU said it was conducting an anti-subsidy investigation into the devices.

The EU launched investigations of anti-dumping and supporting measures on the WWAN modems from China on June 30, 2010. It is the first time the EU has made simultaneous triple investigations on a China-made product, Yao said.

The move is unheard of for World Trade Organization members when dealing with trade remedy cases in practice, Yao said. The Chinese public and people working in the industry showed strong dissatisfaction towards the EU's practice.

The WWAN modems are high-tech products that are constantly updated. These Chinese-made modems promote the advances of the technology and created new market fields which benefited the EU consumers, Yao said.

The EU's investigations will disrupt normal trade and hurt the interests of EU consumers, he said.

Yao further stated that the EU's move is also running counter to the deepening China-EU friendship.

He said he hoped the EU could take actions based upon relevant laws and the facts and keep their promise on being opposed to trade protectionism, lest it damages China-EU economic and trade relations and also the EU economy.

China will take corresponding measures within the rules of the World Trade organization in due time, he added.

The investigation is the largest trade remedy investigation case against China, involving a total value of 4.1 billion U.S. dollars in exports.

Wireless modems send or receive data as a radio signal.

The 27-member EU is China's biggest trade partner. China is the EU's second-biggest trade partner and is its biggest source of imports.

China's main exports to Europe are machinery and domestic goods, including clothes and shoes. While the EU's main exports to China include industrial machinery, transport equipment, chemicals and high-end consumer goods.

Concerning the request for consultations from the United States about China's alleged anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on U.S.steel exports and China's policies on the electronic payment market, China has received the request and will resolve the issue based upon WTO rules, said MOC officials.

U.S. trade representative Ron Kirk filed a statement with the WTO Wednesday, claiming China imposes duties on U.S. steel exports and discriminates against suppliers of electronic payment services from the U.S.

China's policies on electronic payment services are consistent with the country's commitment to the WTO and the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on U.S.-made steel are also in line with WTO rules, according to the MOC.

U.S. is China's second largest trade partner.

Chinese courts seeking uniform standards for prosecution after controversial penalties

BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- After several similar criminal cases led to greatly varying punishments triggering public concerns, Chinese courts are adopting a series of measures to ensure uniform standards for sentencing criminals.

On Oct. 1, two documents that instruct judges on uniform procedures for sentence measurements will be put into use in all Chinese courts, which is said to be a "major reform" for the country's legal system regarding criminal prosecution.

According to the new procedures, courts should first set up a penalty baseline for a criminal case based upon basic criminal facts. Then additional punishments will be added according to the amount of money involved, the frequency of the defendants' violations, the consequences and other factors. At last, courts will adjust the results considering the case's overall nature and issue a final sentence.

The move came after a series of similar drunk driving cases that led to greatly varying punishments.

In July 2009, the Intermediate People's Court of Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan Province sentenced a drunk driver named Sun Weiming to death following an auto accident in which he was driving without a license and killed four people. In the second trial, the verdict was changed to life imprisonment.

Sun's case was deemed as a crime against public security.

However, one month later another drunk driver in central China's Henan Province only received a jail term of six years and six months for killing six and injuring seven people.

That case was ruled to be a traffic accident crime.

"(The reform) is of significant importance for regulating judicial actions, providing uniform standards for law applications, promoting righteous and uncorrupted justice and boosting the authority and credibility of the country's courts," said Wang Shengjun, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), at a Thursday meeting.

"The Criminal Law only lays down a very wide range of sentences for certain types of crimes, and thus it is very difficult for prosecutors to give a specific sentence based on that," said SPC vice president Xiong Xuanguo in an exclusive interview with Xinhua Thursday.

Xiong noted that different judges, given their different knowledge, manners and experience, will also have varied views on the same case.

According to the documents, another major change is to introduce advice on sentence measurements from procuratorate organs, including the types and scopes of punishments and how to implement them.

Also, courts are allowed to organize public prosecutors, parties involved, their defenders and legal representatives to offer their own advice on sentencing measurements.

With the introduction of sentencing measurement advice from defenders, legal representatives and other parties involved, the new rules were expected to balance judges' considerable powers of discretion, said Professor Chen Weidong with the Renmin University of China.

According to the SPC, since June last year more than 120 pilot Chinese courts have already been following the new procedures when prosecuting 45,000 criminal cases in 15 regular categories, including traffic accidents, robbery, theft, and drugs, among others.

The trial practice has seen positive results as sentences among cases of similar natures and those in different regions were not as varied as before.

The rate of appeals and change of sentences in second trials also dropped in these courts, according to Xiong.

Meanwhile, Xiong sought to assure those concerned that the new rules would not excessively limit judges' powers as "the standards for sentence measurements, themselves, were made based on all prosecutors' discretion." < "If the measurement results are not appropriate, judges will still have the right to make certain adjustments," Xiong said, adding that local courts will also set down detailed sentence measures according to the characteristics of their regions.

"The reform is an inevitable process for China's criminal prosecution to transform from rough estimation to precise, scientific and canonical," Professor Chen said.

China to upgrade exports by boosting low-carbon sector: ministry official

TAIYUAN, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- China will flex its muscles to boost the low-carbon economy and green industry, in a bid to help upgrade the development mode of exports, said a senior government official Thursday.

Gao Hucheng, Vice Minister of Commerce, said at an energy forum in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi Province, that China has risen to become one of the world's largest exporters, though it is not a strong exporter yet, remaining at the low end of the global value chain.

China's exports leaped in recent decades, mainly dependent upon low labor costs and sales of energy and resources.

Further, China needs to put more efforts into producing high-end products and improving their quality through low-carbon and green technologies to expand the share of green products in exports, he said.

The global financial crisis hurt the world economy and promoted nations to look to green industry for new growth, he said, and adding strategic new industries could be "a new growth point" for China's foreign trade.

China would encourage major products, technologies and services in new energy and energy-saving sectors to tap the global market and support enterprises to invest abroad, Gao said, without giving details.

Further, he said there was "no land boundary" in terms of low-carbon and green technology and expected international cooperation in this field.

China was opposed to protectionist measures in any form, he added.