Territory - South China Sea

Taiwan

Taiwan began to install a solar power system on the Taipei Islet, the largest of the Spratly Islands, as a way of upholding Taiwan's claim over the Spratlys.

Law of the Sea - South China Sea

A Chinese warship confronted an Indian navy vessel shortly after it left Vietnamese waters in the South China Sea, asking it to identify itself and explain its presence in the waters. “Any navy in the world has full freedom to transit through these waters or high seas", an Indian official complained.

Non-intervention

United Nations

China came dangerously close to committing what she always condemned as the cardinal sin in international relations -- interference in another country's internal affairs by selling weapons to a party in a civil war as a Canadian newspaper reported that three state-owned Chinese companies offered to sell weapons and ammunition worth over US$200m to the Gaddafi regime through a third country, apparently in breach of the Security Council resolution 1970. A Chinese FM spokeswoman emphasised that the Chinese companies did not sign any contract or deliver any weapons to the Libyan government. Without bothering to explain the obvious contradictions, she said that China exercises strict management over all military export, but that the Chinese Government was not aware of Libya's contacts with the companies controlled by the Chinese Government. This merely adds to China's less than stellar record of compliance with UN sanctions.

Recognition

The head of Libya's National Transitional Council said China is obstructing Libya's frozen assets because China is bargaining hard to protect her interests in Libya.A Chinese FM spokeswoman later said China has no problem with releasing the frozen assets "in principle", but wants to be more clear on the use and oversight of the funds "in the spirit of being responsible to the Libyan people", an ironic remark made at the time when she struggled to explain China's reported offer of weapons to the Gaddafi regime.

Investment

Jurisdiction

China has slowed down energy investment in Iran in an effort to appease Washington and for fear that the US may invoke sanctions on Chinese firms with operations in the US. Chinese energy executives reportedly told the US, "We can't say it publicly, but you will notice that we're not proceeding with these new contracts."

State Immunity

Hong Kong

Declaring in an explanatory note that the question of state immunity "directly impacts on a country's relations with foreign countries", the NPC Standing Committee adopted, by a unanimous vote, an interpretation of Articles 13 and 19 of the Hong Kong Basic Law in the fist case in which Hong Kong's top court sought such an interpretation from Beijing. The interpretation applied the absolute immunity doctrine to Hong Kong and underscores that "[s]ince state immunity falls in the domain of a country's foreign affairs, it is up to the central government to make decisions about the policy, which should be applied universally within the territory of the People's Republic of China," Later, Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal finalised its judgment in the case on the basis of the interpretation.