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
.