China This Week: Trade Pact But No US Arms Sales to Taiwan, Manoeuvres on North Korea, Google Accepts Chinese Law

China-Taiwan Trade Pact: Beijing and Taipei signed anEconomic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) on Tuesday, seeking to boost economic ties and ease political tensions that have haunted cross-Straits ties for most of the past six decades.

The deal, focusing on easier access to markets, will remove tariffs within two years on 539 Taiwan export items worth $13.84 billion and 267 mainland export items to Taiwan valued at $2.86 billion. Taiwan firms will be granted access to 11 service sectors on the mainland, including banking, accounting, insurance, and hospitals. Follow-up consultations will try to remove the obstacles for economic and trade activities.

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The pact will also boost bilateral trade already totaling about $110 billion a year, made up of some $80 billion in goods flowing to the mainland and $30 billion to Taiwan.
Analysts from the Peterson Institute for International Economics project that the deal could help Taiwan increase its GDP by up to 5.3 % by 2020, compared to 0.8% without the ECFA.

US arms sales to Taiwan on hold: According to the US-based Defense News, Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the US-Taiwan Business Council, has said arms sales are on hold until at least spring 2011.

While there is no confirmation of the report by official US sources, the Pentagon-backed Defense News has at times released US military decisions in advance.

Earlier this month, China called off a planned visit by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates after Beijing told the Pentagon the timing was "inconvenient". despite an earlier invitation for Gates to visit. This was an apparent snub over a $6.4-billion arms package unveiled in January for Taiwan, including helicopters, Patriot missiles, and mine-hunting ships.

China rebuffs US criticism over North Korea: China has rejected opposition to its stance over the Korean peninsula, saying it would never "pour oil on the fire" at a time when calm and restraint were needed.

Chinese media reports said President Obama had criticised China's "willful blindness" to the actions of North Korea the sinking of a South Korean warship.

"China borders on the Korean Peninsula, and we have our own feeling on the issue, different from that of the countries tens of thousands miles away. We have more direct and intense concerns", said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

Qin said that for long-term development and stability, there must be abolition of nuclear weapons: "We are willing to make joint efforts with parties concerned to realize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through pushing forward the six-party talks".

Google Abides by Chinese Law to Renew License: Guxiang Information Technology Co. Ltd, the operator of Google.cn, has pledged to "abide by the Chinese law" in a letter of application to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to renew its permit to run websites in China.

The application was made "almost at the same time" that Google's chief legal officer David Drummond wrote a blog post saying Google is committed "not to self-censor", according to the official.

Guxiang said it will "ensure the company will provide no law-breaking contents as stated in the 57th statement in China's regulations concerning telecommunications”.