DATE=9/27/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-JIANG (L)
NUMBER=2-254371
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=SHANGHAI
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Hundreds of top business leaders from around the
world have converged on Shanghai to discuss China's future
and the possibility of investing in what is potentially the
world's biggest market. But VOA correspondent Roger
Wilkison reports Chinese president Jiang Zemin -in a
keynote address to the gathering - failed to offer any
incentives to foreign investors and instead reiterated
Beijing's long-standing positions on human rights, Taiwan
and its insistence that no one should interfere in China's
internal affairs.
TEXT: Business leaders from Europe, Japan and North
America have arrived in China's financial center over the
past two days to find out where China's economy is going
and how much of its market Beijing is willing to share with
outside investors. The corporate extravaganza - sponsored
by the American business magazine Fortune - has drawn 300
top-flight foreign executives and 200 more from Chinese
companies.
At a time when China's economy is struggling to maintain
seven per cent economic growth - down from last year and
the year earlier - there are doubts within the
international business community about Beijing's commitment
to continue the pace of the wide-ranging economic reforms
it began 20 years ago and its willingness to open China's
markets further to foreign goods and services.
Despite a Communist Party decision published Sunday to
continue the state's dominant role in the economy,
President Jiang said Beijing is committed to continue the
free-market reforms that have improved the living standards
of many Chinese. He said he hopes China's modernization
will have been completed by the middle of the next century.
But instead of reassuring most of his audience - which is
normally supportive of Beijing - that he is also intent on
relaxing import restrictions on the products their firms
make, Mr. Jiang launched into a reiteration of Communist
party doctrine on issues that divide it from the West.
Speaking through an interpreter, he says human rights must
take a backseat to China's efforts to develop economically
and insure that its people are adequately fed, clothed and
housed.
/// JIANG INTERPRETER ACTUALITY ///
We must first and foremost safeguard the people's
rights to survival and development. Otherwise we
cannot even begin to talk about other rights. The
fact that China has assured the rights to survival
and development of over one-point-two billion people
is a major contribution to the cause of the progress
of human rights across the world.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Jiang repeated China's position that it will allow no
interference in how it conducts its own affairs. And he
emphasized that China is both determined and able to
reunify Taiwan with the mainland. But despite these
signals that Beijing maintains its stand on these issues,
he said that should not hinder trade and technology
transfers with the world's`leading industrial powers.
Foreign investment in China has dropped 10 per cent since
last year. Investors are wary of an increasingly sluggish
economy and of frequent policy shifts by Beijing. Just
recently, the government said it would not permit foreign
investment in Internet content providers. It also outlawed
some telecommunications joint ventures. But that did not
prevent Mr. Jiang from urging the businessmen to invest
their money in China anyway. (Signed)
NEB/RW/LTD/KL
27-Sep-1999 13:06 PM EDT (27-Sep-1999 1706 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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