BEIJING: China’s Commerce Ministry on Thursday criticized a US decision to launch a trade probe of Beijing’s technology policy as an attack on the global trading system and said it will “resolutely defend” Chinese companies.
Trade groups welcomed President Donald Trump’s Aug. 14 order to look into whether Beijing improperly requires companies to hand over technology as a condition of market access. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced a formal investigation this week.
The action improperly applies US law instead of international rules and is “the destruction of the existing international trade system,” said a ministry spokesman, Gao Feng, at a news briefing.
“We are strongly dissatisfied with this unilateral and protectionist practice and will take all necessary measures to resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese side and Chinese enterprises,” said Gao.
Beijing requires automakers and other foreign companies in China to work through joint ventures, usually with state-owned partners. They often are required to give technology to partners that might become competitors.
More than 20 percent of 100 American companies that responded to a survey by the US-China Business Council, an industry group, said they were asked to transfer technology within the past three years as a condition of market access.
Foreign business groups complain companies are being squeezed out of promising Chinese markets or pressured to hand over technology for electric cars and other emerging industries.
Trump said in April he was setting aside trade disputes while Washington and Beijing worked together to persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons development. But American officials have resumed criticizing Chinese policy in recent weeks.
China criticizes US trade probe as protectionism
China criticizes US trade probe as protectionism
UK child killer Ian Huntley dies after prison attack: police
- Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002
- He suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26
LONDON: One of Britain’s most notorious child killers, Ian Huntley, died on Saturday following an attack in prison where he was serving a life sentence, police said.
Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002, in a case that horrified the country.
Fifty-two-year-old Huntley suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26.
He “died in hospital this morning,” a spokesperson for the local police force said in a statement emailed to AFP.
A spokesperson for the government’s justice ministry said the double murder of Holly and Jessica “remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with their families.”
Huntley killed the two best friends after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in the village of Soham, Cambridgeshire, on Aug. 4 2002.
Their disappearance sparked a massive search involving hundreds of police officers and appeals for help.
A photograph of the two girls wearing matching Manchester United football tops became instantly recognizable to many Britons.
Their bodies were found almost two weeks later, dumped in a ditch several miles away.
Huntley, then a 28-year-old school caretaker, aroused the suspicion of police after he gave media interviews claiming to be concerned for the girls’ welfare.
He denied murdering them but was convicted at trial in 2003.
His girlfriend at the time, Maxine Carr a teaching assistant at the girls’ school, gave Huntley a false alibi and was jailed for perverting the course of justice. She now lives under a new identity.
Revelations that Huntley had been the subject of prior rape and sexual assault complaints led to the establishment of criminal checks for anyone working with children.
He had been attacked before in prison, most seriously in 2005 and 2010.
“A police investigation into the circumstances of the incident is ongoing,” the spokesperson said, adding that prosecutors would consider bringing charges against his assailant.
