China Science & Technology Digest:
June 1-15, 2004

ATIP

This digest summarizes S&T-related articles that appeared in the media ATIP monitored in the first half of June 2004. Some articles reference a relevant website to assist readers in obtaining further information. For questions or to request additional information, please send email to ChinaST@atip.or.jp. The exchange rate used for this issue is RMB8.287 against the U.S. dollar.

China's Top Science Think Tank Helping Influence Country's Future
The China Academy of Science (CAS), China's top science think tank, recently held its 12th conference of academicians in Beijing. Major research over the past two years has been carried out on the Western drought zone, the loess plateau, karst topography areas, the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, population aging, e-commerce, basic sciences, AIDS intervention, as well as coastal zone pollution and biodiversity in Hainan province.
Source: Xinhuanews Agency 06/02/2004

National IP Strategy Should Stimulate Innovation
Experts at an intellectual property symposium have urged the government to play a more active role in negotiating with other countries for the drafting of international treaties on intellectual property. Jiang Zhipei, a chief justice in intellectual property of the Supreme People's Court, said that the strategy could be considered a great success if it helps bring about a few Chinese brand names and some key patents of advanced technologies.
Source: People's Daily 06/06/2004

China Signs MOU with Boeing to Provide Parts for Boeing 7E7
China Aviation Industry Corporation I (AVIC I) and China Aviation Industry Corporation II (AVIC II) signed separately a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Boeing in order to provide parts and assemblies for Boeing 7E7 airplanes. Rudders will be built by the Chengdu Aircraft Industrial Company, an AVIC I affiliated company, and metallic and composite parts will be built and assembled by Hafei Aviation Industry Co., Ltd (Hafei), an AVIC II affiliated company. To date, Boeing has procured more than $500 million of aviation hardware from China, supplying equipment for more than one-third of Boeing's entire fleet.
Source: China Daily 06/11/2004

China & France Sign Airbus and Satellite Deals
China and France signed billions of dollars worth of trade contracts during a visit to Paris by Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan. Airbus announced a two-billion-dollar deal to supply 20 A330-300 planes to the airline company China Eastern. Alcatel sold a television satellite to the company ChinaSat for an estimated 120 million dollars. Seven contracts involving technical cooperation in the construction of nuclear energy plants, helicopters, planes, and trains were also signed.
Source: Xinhuanews Agency 06/13/2004

PalmSource in License Talks with China's Bird
PalmSource Inc is talking with Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Ningbo Bird about licensing its Palm operating software for handheld devices. Ningbo Bird is China's largest homegrown maker of cellphones. Lenovo Group and Founder Group, China's top two computer makers, have already signed up as PalmSource licensees.
Source: People's Daily 06/03/2004

Sino-US Joint Research Finds Microbes 2000 Meters Underground
Chinese and US scientists have found microorganisms some 2000 meters under the surface of the Earth, which feed on iron ion and methane. Chinese and US scientists made the finding through repeated biological experiments and studies over drilling core samples obtained from the ongoing continental scientific drilling program.
Source: Xinhuanews Agency 06/05/2004

China to Establish Joint Technology Park in Austria
A Chinese delegation to Austria, headed by the country's Vice-Minister of Science and Technology Ma Songde, has signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a joint technology park in Austria. The project aims at building a platform for Chinese high-tech companies to enter European and international markets.
Source: People's Daily 06/03/2004

The 5th Annual 3G Mobile International Summit Held in Beijing
The 5th Annual 3G Mobile International Summit opened on June 1st in Beijing. Communication and technological departments of the Chinese government, company executives from China Telecom and China Unicom, as well as executives from world mobile giants including Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson participated in the two-day summit on new generation mobile phones. The two-day event also hosted an exhibition of advanced 3G products from Nokia, Siemens, and Nortel Networks. This is the first time an exhibition of this kind has been included in the summit.
Source: Xinhuanews Agency 06/01/2004

HK to Host Telecom World 2006
Hong Kong is to host the next International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom World event in December 2006. This is the first time Telecom World will be held outside Geneva since its inception in 1971. It is estimated that the event may attract some 100,000 overseas visitors, generating about 1.2 billion Hong Kong dollars (approx. US$153.8 million). ITU is the largest and most influential telecom organization in the world. Telecom World is the most prominent global telecom event, held every three to four years. The event comprises the Exhibition and the Forum. Hong Kong previously hosted two of the union's regional events -Telecom Asia 2000 and Telecom Asia 2002.
Source: People's Daily 06/03/2004

Qualcomm Set on Promoting 3G
In April, Qualcomm announced its participation in a US$14 million round of venture capital financing in Techfaith Wireless Communication Technology Ltd to design handsets based on CDMA2000 technology for the Chinese domestic market. Qualcomm believes that BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) technology will continue its explosive growth. The BREW platform is part of a complete, end-to-end solution for wireless applications development, device configuration, application distribution, as well as billing and payment. Launched in July last year by China Unicom, there are more than 400 BREW applications offered by 200 developers in China.
Source: Xinhuanews Agency 06/09/2004

Lenovo Adds AMD in Chip Provider List & Denies Breaking Up with Intel
The Lenovo Group, China's largest computer manufacturer, announced that two new personal computers in the V8000 and V6000 will use AMD's Athlon 64 microprocessors while Lenovo's commercial PC computers will continue to use Intel chips. Slow market growth has forced the computer giant to turn to AMD chips to reduce costs.
Source: People's Daily 06/11/2004

High-Density Oxygen Generator to Help Ease Oxygen Deficiency Symptoms
A new type of oxygen generator, developed by Tibet Shannan Oasis Electronics Sci-Tech Development Company, based in Shannan Prefecture of Tibet, has been recently put on the market to help ease oxygen deficiency symptom for tourists and migrant workers on the Tibetan Plateau, Southwestern China.
The oxygen generator is capable of separating oxygen from nitrogen under normal atmospheric temperatures and thus emitting oxygen with a density as high as 95 percent.
Source: People's Daily 06/05/2004

Program to Contain Snail Fever Under Way
A national program designed by the Snail Fever Control and Prevention Office of the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission based in Wuhan in Central China is being drafted to contain the rapid expansion of snail fever within four or five years. Efforts will be made to strengthen research into medical treatments and prevention methods, including vaccines and improvements of surveillance of the epidemic.
More than 843,000 Chinese were infected with snail fever last year, up from 810,000 in 2002. Snail fever was effectively controlled before the 1980s in China. However, the ignorance surrounding the prevention of the infectious disease and a laggard public health system in the past 20 years have caused a resurgence of the fever.
Source: People's Daily 06/14/2004

SARS Virus Detector Approved for Commercialization
A reagent kit to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus antigen has been approved to be produced and sold by the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA). The reagent is able to find the SARS virus in the blood of a patient who has become ill one to ten days before. There are three ways to detect the SARS virus: by detecting the antibody, the nucleic acid, and the antigen of the virus. So far, reagents to detect the antibody and nucleic acid of SARS virus have been sold in China.
Source: People's Daily 06/12/2004

Multi-Organ Transplant Successful
Doctors at a Guangzhou hospital successfully performed a multi-organ transplant in late May. It is said to be the first case of this kind in Asia. Doctors at the First Affiliated Hospital to Zhongshan University removed nine organs, including liver, gall, spleen, stomach, pancreas, duodenum, and the small intestine, and transplanted three new organs: a liver, pancreas, and duodenum into a 28-year-old woman who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Source: People's Daily 06/07/2004

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