03-04-08

中国将就新闻管制争议与WTO合作 (China To Cooperate With WTO Over News Controls)

中国表示，将遵循世界贸易组织的规则来处理与欧盟和美国就其限制外国金融信息提供商的争议。

中国商务部星期二在网站上发表的一项声明说，中国政府尊重世贸组织成员的选择。欧洲和美国敦促中国放松有关规定，这些规定给予新华社批准和分发由彭博新闻社、道琼斯公司和路透社等外国新闻媒体制作的金融新闻的权力。这些规定禁止任何外国金融新闻机构直接与中国客户打交道。

中国表示会努力考虑美国和欧盟提出的要求，并依照世贸组织程序处理这项争议。

China says it will follow World Trade Organization rules in settling a dispute with the European Union and the United States over restrictions on foreign suppliers of financial information.

China's Commerce Ministry said in a statement posted on its website Tuesday that Beijing respects the choices of WTO members. Europe and the U.S. are urging China to ease rules giving its Xinhua news agency the right to license and distribute financial news from overseas media organizations like Bloomberg, Dow Jones and Reuters. The rules forbid any foreign financial news company from dealing directly with Chinese clients.

China says it will strongly consider the request and deal with the dispute according to WTO procedures.

中国宣布增加国防开支 (China Announces Increase in Military Spending)

中国官员宣布，今年国防开支将增加17%以上。中国全国人大发言人姜恩柱星期二在新闻发布会上说，2008年的军事开支将超过570亿美元，比去年增长17.6%。

中国去年的国防开支增长了近18%。其他国家说，中国大幅缩小军事开支的数目，真正的数字有可能是公开宣布数字的3倍。

美国国防部星期一发表报告，对中国军力扩充表示关注，称中国的军力扩充对亚洲安全构成威胁。

中国外交部发言人秦刚说，这项报告严重扭曲事实，而且干涉别国内政。

Chinese officials have announced an increase in defense spending of more than 17 percent this year. Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for China's National People's Congress, or parliament, told a news conference Tuesday that military spending in 2008 will exceed 57 billion dollars, up 17-point-six percent from last year.

China's defense spending last year rose nearly 18 percent. Other countries say China vastly underreports how much it spends on its military and the real figure could be three times as much as the publicly-released number.

The U.S. Defense Department issued a report Monday, expressing concern about China's expanding military power, saying it poses a risk to security in Asia.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang says the report is a serious distortion of facts, and it interfered in the country's internal affairs.