China Data Supplement December 2006

58 December 2006
The state atomic energy authority, together with COSTIND, the
Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the General
Administration of Customs, and other relevant departments, may
adjust the "Control List" in light of the actual circumstances and
release it to the public.
Article 22
In the event certain provisions of an international treaty to which
the People's Republic of China is a signatory or to which it has
acceded differ from those in these regulations, the provisions of the
international treaty shall apply; however, clauses over which the
People's Republic of China has expressed its reservations are
excepted.
Article 23
The provisions of these regulations shall apply to exports of items
listed on the "Control List" and related technologies from areas
subject to special customs supervision and control, such as bonded
warehouses, bonded zones, and export processing zones, as well
as other bonded venues.
The transit, transshipment, and through-shipping of items listed
on the "Control List" and related technologies shall be handled with
reference to the provisions of these regulations.
Article 24
These regulations shall take effect on the date of their
promulgation.
(Xinhua, 1 Dec 06 , in BBC PF, 3 Dec 06; RMRB, 2 Dec 06)
Regulations on the Organization and Management of Public
Security Organs, adopted at the 154th executive meeting of the
State Council on 1 November 2006. These regulations will take
effect as of 1 January 2007. (Decree No.479 of the PRC State
Council, signed by Wen Jiabao, Premier of the State Council, on 13
November 2006) (Full text of the rules: RMRB, 25 Nov 06) The
regulations consist of seven chapters with 42 articles.
China has revised its regulations on medical service advertisements
in an attempt to put a stop to false and misleading advertising. The
new regulations, which will take effect on 1 January, 2007, will
eliminate exaggeration of the effects of certain medical treatments
by banning the mention of any disease names, the Beijing News
reported. An advertisement can reveal no more than the following
information: name of the medical institution, its address and phone
number, specialty and qualification, type of ownership, number of
beds and opening hours. Medical advertisements will continue to be
approved by provincial health authorities, but more emphasis will be
placed on vetting the text used in the adverts to market the
products. "No change can be made to the approved
advertisements. Not even a comma can be changed," Zhou Jun, a
senior official from the Ministry of Health, was quoted as saying. The
new regulations also increased the penalty for violating the law. In
serious cases, medical institutions can be suspended or even have
their licences revoked. Statistics show that the medical industry was
the sixth largest spender on advertising in 2005, spending 7.6bn
yuan (96m US dollars). Illegal and false medical advertisements
have been on rise. In the first nine months of the year, 4,644 cases
were dealt with by the authorities. The new regulations are expected
to have an adverse impact on China's burgeoning private hospitals.
"If the new regulations are enforced, medical advertisements will be
mere announcements," the China Business News quoted an
unidentified source with a Shanghai-based private hospital as
saying. Private hospitals are usually not designated hospitals for
government workers or clients of medical insurance, hence they
need advertising more than their state-owned counterparts, the
source said. (XNA, 28 Nov 06)
China's highest criminal prosecution body has issued new
regulations detailing procedures for recording and videotaping
interrogations of people suspected of white-collar crime in a bid to
stamp out confessions extracted by torture. According to the
newly-released regulations by the Supreme People's Procuratorate
(SPP), interrogations should be recorded and filmed live and in
whole. The recording should begin when the suspect enters the
room for questioning, and end after the suspect has checked the
confession transcript, signed his or her name and put a thumbprint
on the document, the regulations read.The regulations specify that
at fixed interrogation venues, technicians must videotape the scene
in Picture-in-Picture (PIP) mode. The suspect should be seen front
on and occupy the centre of the main video picture so that his or her
posture and expression can be seen, as well as the time of
recording, while the sub video picture should present a panorama of
the site. In temporary questioning sites where PIP equipment is not
available, the video picture should mainly cover the suspect but the
recording time and the panorama should be shown from time to
time. The internal temperature and humidity and prosecutors at the
scene should be shown at the beginning, the regulations read. Raw
videotape materials must be put into a sealed bag after the
technicians, prosecutors and suspect have all put their thumbprint to
it. The regulations also lay down the specific procedure for the
storage, copying, transfer and reception of recording and videotape
materials. According to Chinese laws, it is the function of people's
procuratorates to investigate crimes at work such as corruption,
bribery and dereliction of duty. The Supreme People's Procuratorate
has embarked on a campaign to clean up illegal interrogations. It
decreed in March this year that synchronous video and audio
recordings shall be adopted during interrogations in major cases,