Extracts. China Faces High Employment Pressure It's learned from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security that the present sustained growth of the national economy will be conducive to enlarging employment. However, when we take the intensified economic restructuring into consideration, we estimate that in 2001 the number of workers laid off from State-owned enterprises will remain at a fairly high level, and China's urban and rural areas will still face fairly heavy employment pressure brought about by the newly grown-up labor force, and the marked increase in the number of laid-off workers directly entering the market. It's anticipated that the newly-added labor force will reach about 8 million persons in 2001 in Chinese cities and towns, plus the 14 million laid-off workers carried over from the end of the "Ninth Five-year Plan" period and the jobless workers, all these have resulted in very sharp contradiction characterized by the supply of manpower outdoing the demand for them. It is reckoned that the number of SOE laid-off workers will remain at a high level in 2002, with the average monthly number standing at above 6.5 million people, at the same time, the three-year contract for laid-off workers will expire this year, their number is estimated to stand at around 3 million, all these factors have aggravated the difficulty in the re-employment of laid-off workers. Besides, the surplus agricultural labor force has exceeded 150 million people, the scale of redundant rural labor force entering cities and carrying out trans-regional flow will be enlarged due to difficulties in increasing farmers' income. Zhang Zuoji, Minister of Labor and Social Security, points out that China seizes the excellent opportunity offered by the sustained growth of the national economy to actively expand employment, trying to raise the reemployment rate of laid-off workers to over 40 percent and limit the registered urban unemployment rate to around 3.5 percent. **** Chinese Ambassador: New Century Needs New Security Concept The 21st century needs a new security concept and the old security concept, based on military alliance at the expense of other countries' interests, should be discarded, Chinese Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs Hu Xiaodi said Thursday in Geneva. "Facing the new century, we firmly believe that, only through mutual understanding, accommodation, respect, coordination and cooperation, can all countries in the world join hands to maintain peace and security and achieve development and prosperity," Hu told the plenary of the Conference on Disarmament. "The Chinese government has all along pursued an independent foreign policy of peace. It attaches importance to and actively participated in the ongoing efforts of the international community to promote just and rational arms control and disarmament," he said. In the new century, the Chinese ambassador stated that China would stick to its set of principles, positions and proposals, such as preserving strategic security and stability, promoting nuclear disarmament and preventing the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space. He said that preserving the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and checking the trend of weaponization of outer space are the most urgent and imperative tasks of the day. Ambassador Hu said the ABM Treaty is the cornerstone of preserving global strategic stability, therefore it should be strictly observed. Any attempt to undermine its integrity and effectiveness, by whatever excuses, will bring far-reaching negative consequences to international peace and security. At the same time, Hu said, the missile defence systems currently under development poses a serious danger of outer space weaponization, which might trigger off a new arms race. "It has become a top priority task for the international community to take effective measures to prevent the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space," said the Chinese ambassador. "The conference should immediately re-establish an Ad Hoc Committee to negotiate and conclude an international legal instrument or instruments preventing the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space." He said that the international community is deeply worried that the very country conducting space war exercises and weaponizing outer space has single-handedly obstructed the negotiations on prevention of an arms race in outer space in the conference by denying the risk of the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space. "Undoubtedly, international arms control and disarmament efforts are currently at a crossroads," he said. "The most outstanding menace comes from the attempts to overthrow the ABM Treaty and weaponize outer space." Under such circumstances, the Chinese ambassador said, to formulate a comprehensive and balance program of work and start negotiations on such issues as prevention of an arms race in outer space, nuclear disarmament, a fissile material cut-off treaty and negative security assurances is not only the obligation of the Conference on Disarmament, but also the only possible way to break the current stalemate and achieve progress. **** (Chinese press web-sites again mostly down) **** _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
