CHINA INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LAW NEWSLETTER
Vol. 4, No. 2 - January 21, 2003
TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
- Chinese Courts' Expanded Functions
- China's Telecom Capacity is Among the World's Largest
- Mainland China's Internet Banking Service
- Guangdong Telecom's New Service
- Linux in the Chinese Government Ministries
- Intel to Assemble Pentium 4 in China
China Litigation and Arbitration
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Chinese Courts' Expanded Functions
According to Mr. Xiao Yang, the president of China's Supreme People's Court, Chinese courts have begun to handle cases such as Internet-related crimes and disputes over intellectual property rights in new technology development over the past five years.
Mr. Xiao said that Chinese courts have been expanding their trial functions to meet the situation brought about by the development of the socialist market economy and China's accession to the World Trade Organization. According to Mr. Xiao, the new types of civil suits and intellectual property disputes are occurring more and more frequently in recent five years.
The new civil suits consist mainly of computer- or Internet- related crimes, competing registrations of domain names, and the use of fraudulent trademarks, while intellectual property disputes occur mainly in the development of software, biotechnology and new plants. There are also cases on anti-dumping and anti-subsidy, and disputes in telecommunications, postal and other fields.
For the last five years, Chinese courts handled 40.5 million cases, an increase of 31.14 percent from the previous five years, along with improvements in their judicial skills, continued Mr. Xiao.
Mr. Xiao urges all courts to continue to mete out justice, improve efficiency, and promote judiciary reform to offer a more favorable social environment.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency )
China's Telecom Capacity is Among the World's Largest
According to the Vice-Minister Zhang Chunjian, a senior official of the Ministry of Information Industry, thanks to investment in high-technology equipment and expansion of the network, China's telecom capacity is expanding very fast, and is among the world largest.
China's fixed and mobile phone networks capacity both ranks second in the world, and will move to the top in five years; and while the number of China's Internet users in the country is also among the highest and continues to rise sharply. "We have built a high-speed, large capacity, secure and reliable telecom network with access to every part of the country and elsewhere in the world," said Mr. Zhang.
China's telecommunications transmission had been almost entirely digitalized, and information exchanges had all been program-controlled, according to Su Jinsheng, director of the telecommunications administration of the Ministry of Information Industry.
By October 2002, China had over two million kilometers of optical fiber cable, including 444,000 kilometers of long-distance cable. Domestic backbone Internet networks had an interchange bandwidth of more than 100 megabytes and the Internet access bandwidth to and from was over 10,000 megabytes, continued Mr. Su.
In the past few years, China's information industry had grown at an over 20% rate each year, or three times the growth rate of the country's gross domestic product in the same period, and it has become a driving force for national economic growth.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency )
Mainland China's Internet Banking Service
According to Dicky Yip, the Chief Executive China Business at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, HSBC has launched its internet banking service in mainland China, which became the first foreign bank to offer online banking services to local citizens and international customers in China.
"The launch of internet banking services in China has opened a new chapter for HSBC's personal financial services in mainland China. HSBC aims to build on the Group's successful internet banking experience in many countries around the world, and provide quality online services to customers in the China market, " said Dicky Yip.
Online personal banking services now offered by HSBC include: account balance and transaction enquiries, transfers to local mainland China and overseas banks, exchange and interest rate enquiries, term deposit account opening and enquiries, supporting services including check book ordering, and statement downloading and personal details updating.
(Source: Asia Pulse Pte Limited)
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Guangdong Telecom's New Service
Guangdong Telecom, a unit of the fixed-line giant China Telecom, recently launched a controversial call-forwarding service in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan. This service allow the mobile subscribers in those cities to have their cellphone calls originating from fixed lines forwarded for free. Mobile operators usually charge for the service.
This move by China Telecom caused a stir in the telecom industry as and accentuating the urgent need for strengthened industry supervision. According to Business Weekly, industry insiders and analysts contend the service violates industry regulations and will eat into mobile operators' incomes.
China Mobile, the country's No 1 mobile operator, usually charges 0.4 yuan (5 US cents) to 0.6 yuan (7 US cents) per minute for incoming calls. China Mobile lowers the fee to 0.2 yuan (2 US cents) per minute if the user forwards the call to another line. However, mobile subscribers in the three cities no longer pay to receive calls originating from fixed lines if they install a special device provided by Guangdong Telecom.
The growth of fixed-line subscribers in China has slowed while the number of mobile subscribers continues to grow rapidly. It is estimated that very soon mobile subscribers will outnumber fixed-line users.
Many are calling the legislators to formulate the law as soon as possible to better regulate the telecoms industry. However, the legislation seems to have hit a snag.
Officials with the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) said they are still drafting the law, and that it is unlikely to be submitted to the National Congress in March.
While acknowledging the MII has played an important role in fostering competition, experts have been urging the ministry to stop meddling in telecoms carriers' business.
Analysts have cast doubts about MII's role in drafting the telecoms law.
"It's unsuitable for the ministry to act as both an athlete and a referee," one analyst said.
Rumours have been swirling that the State Council is considering replacing the MII with an industry association to regulate the telecoms industry.
(Source: Business Weekly)
Linux in the Chinese Government Ministries
It is now government policy in China to use the Linux operating system across all government ministries, Jon "Mad-Dog" Hall, executive director of Linux International, told CNN three years ago.
And for reasons that transcend information technology, China's Linux strategy has important implications for global politics and economics.
Linux is the open-source (free) software operating system, a result of collaboration between software developers worldwide. Unlike commercial software such as Microsoft's, Linux source code (inner workings) is available to anyone for modification as long as they share those enhancements.
The adaptation of Linux says much about the extent to which systems software is becoming a commodity, with the emphasis of information technology migrating from technology to information. Linux is showing the potential to become the standard corporate operating system.
IBM and Hewlett-Packard are driving its adaptation as a means of emphasizing their expertise in systems integration. According to industry analysts International Data Corp., Linux has become the second-most-popular software platform for building large corporate networks behind Microsoft.
According to the report, China has other reasons to choose Linux, of course. It is flexible and adaptable to a variety of purposes. It lends itself to the building of Chinese intellectual capital in systems design and integration and lessens dependence on U.S. software vendors.
(Source: Star Tribune.com-Business Forum)
Intel to Assemble Pentium 4 in China
Chipmaker Intel is set to begin its first CPU assembly in China this year at a newly upgraded plant, even as the company announced plans for a major cut in capital spending in 2003.
According to Intel Asia-Pacific's general manager, Jason Chen, the Shanghai plant where the assembly and testing of Pentium 4 central processing units (CPUs) will take place has undergone a $300 million overhaul in the last few years in preparation for the shift. He said "Our plan is to start test and assembly for Pentium 4 this year.'' "This will be our first time assembling CPUs in China. Our plan is to start later this year, and our progress is on track.''
The brisk investment level in China contrasts with Intel's scaled-back capital expenditure plans for 2003, which were announced Tuesday in the United States when the company reported its fourth-quarter results.
It was reported that Intel plans to cut back its 2003 capital spending by as much as 25% company wide. The company now plans to spend $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion, compared with $4.7 billion in 2002.
The Shanghai plant where Pentium 4 assembly will take place was set up in 1996 with an initial investment of $100 million and originally produced flash memory.
The spokesman for Intel said that Intel later invested another $100 million and upgraded to chipset production. The most recent upgrade will bring Intel's total investment in the facility to US$500 million by the end of this year.
Elsewhere in the region, Intel has similar assembly plants in the Philippines and Malaysia. The upgrade of its Shanghai plant to CPU assembly status reflects Intel's growing relationship with China, where its customer base has expanded rapidly in recent years.
(Source: Reuters)
The China Information Technology Law Newsletter is intended to be used for news purposes only. It should not be taken as comprehensive legal advice, and Lehman, Lee & Xu will not be held responsible for any such reliance on its contents.
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