United Nations

With the so-called G4 countries making a self-serving call for UN reform by the next General Assembly, China insisted on reaching "a consensus on major issues in the reform of the UN Security Council" and balked at giving support to any of the four bidders for Security Council permanent membership.

Treatment of Aliens

After Philippine President Benigno Aquino said he would ask President Hu Jintao to commute the death sentences and after the Philippines' vice-president flew to Beijing in a last-minute bid to seek clemency, China postponed the execution date for three Filipinos convicted of drug trafficking.

Extradition

The de facto haven fro Chinese criminals might just have come to some sense after all, as Canada turned over to China Zeng Hanlin, a fugitive alleged to have been involved in a 35 million yuan stock fraud case who had lived in exile in Canada for 10 years. His Canadian lawyer said Zeng would face an unfair trial or even the death penalty after being deported to China, but the Canadian judge refused to be fooled again this time, saying "The applicant's arguments are speculative as there is no evidence that the death penalty or torture can reasonably be anticipated in this case."

Investment

After the US Committee on Foreign Investment refused to give national security clearance to a $2m acquisition of patents from 3 Leaf, a US company, by Huawei, a MOFCOM spokesman said, "We hope the US security examination laws and regulations can treat a Chinese company fairly, regardless of whether it is publicly traded, state-owned or private, and can carry out a transparent, predictable review.” Later, Huawei, which had often been suspected to have close links with the Chinese military or government. dropped its application to acquire the patents.

Territory

A fisheries company in Dalian reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding with a Russian company to form a joint venture to farm sea cucumbers off Kunashir, one of the four Kuril Islands to the north of Japan under dispute between Japan and Russia. This was the first time a third state is involved in the economic activities on the islands and Japan expressed concerns over the report.

Trade

The US asked the WTO panel to look into its allegations that China is breaking WTO rules in restricting foreign credit card companies’ access to its payments system and imposing illegal emergency import subsidies against US steel.

Territory - Diaoyu Islands

Japanese coastguard sent a $170,000 bill to the captain of a Chinese trawler who was arrested near the Diaoyu Islands in September 2010 The bill includes $150,000 for repairs to "two Coast Guard patrol vessels and the remainder for other costs including money spent to dispatch officials for the repairs." The Chinese Foreign Ministry dismissed the claim.

Taiwan

Jurisdiction

Extradition

After arresting 14 Taiwanese and 10 mainland Chinese suspects in a raid on an international fraud syndicate in Manila that had allegedly swindled 140m yuan from mainland victims, the Philippine government decided to deport all the suspects to mainland China and rejected Taiwan's call for the Taiwanese suspects to be returned to Taiwan on the grounds that the suspects did not face criminal charges in Taiwan and had not produced their travel documents anyway. "The evidence is in China, the crime was committed in China, so it was in our best national interest to deport them to China," a Philippine government spokesman said. In response, the Taiwanese government angrily imposed a four-month freeze on work applications from Filipinos. The Philippine justice secretary suggested that Taiwan and Beijing should settle the row between themselves according to the 2009 cross-straits agreement on crime fighting and mutual judicial assistance.

Finance

The US Treasury Department reported to Congress that, while China’s currency remained “substantially undervalued” compared with the dollar, China had not met the standard for currency manipulation, because of commitments made by Chinese leaders to promote “exchange rate reform” and allow greater “exchange rate flexibility.”