China Press Digest: Tuesday, December 5

     BEIJING (MNI) - The following are highlights from the China press for

Tuesday, December 5:

     It's time for the United States to end its activist trade protectionism,

which will inflict damage on itself as well as other countries and could even

hurt the global trade system, the official People's Daily said Tuesday, citing

analysts and the Ministry of Commerce. European Union countries and the U.S. are

"played dirty" by disobeying the World Trade Organization rule to abandon the

"surrogate country approach," which allows them to engage in broader

anti-dumping trade actions, the newspaper argued. This time the U.S. action is

"too much," as it is politicizing trade issues, Zhang Jianping, head of Regional

Economic Operation Research Center under the Ministry of Commerce, told the

newspaper. He stressed American politicians repeatedly bring up the bilateral

trade imbalance to exert pressure on China, instead of viewing the two nations'

trade conflicts fairly. The U.S. actions continue to lack sincerity, which is

harmful to the advancement of bilateral trade cooperation, Zhang said. The key

element of the China-U.S. relationship is cooperation, which coexists with

competition, he said. (People's Daily)

     The Shanghai-London Stock Connect is getting increased attention recently

from experts and officials, as they seek to advance the program that is expected

to benefit both China and the U.K., the Securities Daily reported Tuesday. The

Connect program would enable Chinese investors to trade U.K. companies during

Chinese trading hours while allowing U.K. investors to trade Chinese companies

during U.K. trading time. In the last several weeks, four Chinese officials have

made clear that one of their main tasks is to verify the feasibility of the

Shanghai-London Stock Connect program and advance it. They are: Li Chao, vice

chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission; Zhang Shenfeng, assistant

chairman of the CSRC; Zhang Bin, the head of the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Hong

Kong Office; and Zhou Ming, chief executive officer of China Securities

Depository and Clearing Corporation, Ltd, the newspaper said. The initiative

would speed up the internationalization of China's capital market, attract more

investors to the domestic capital market, and help Chinese investors diversify

their global investment portfolios. (Securities Daily)

     Some banks and financial companies are still making illegal consumer loans

for home purchasers or lack procedures to make sure consumer loans aren't being

used to buy property, the Securities Daily reported Tuesday. Over the past three

months, Chinese regulators have been tightening policies to prevent consumer

loans that enable home purchasers to pay their mortgages or down payments. The

newspaper also reported that banks, under pressure to reach their credit quotas

at the end of the year, have been willing to accept some "group purchases" of

loans, under which financing companies buy a series of loans at a lower interest

rate. These financing companies then sell the loans directly to consumers. The

newspaper's investigation quoted one bank saying it doesn't require invoices

showing what the loans are used for and one finance company saying "it's hard

for banks to monitor where the loans go." (Securities Daily)

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 (10) 8532-5998; email: iris.ouyang@marketnews.com

--MNI BEIJING Bureau; +1 202-371-2121; email: john.carter@mni-news.com

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