China State Contacts

410 Fuchengmen Neidajie, Xicheng District, Beijing 100034, PR China Tel +86 10 6601 6688 Fax +86 10 6601 8871 Contact Ma Yongwei, Chairman Web www.circ.gov.cn 

The CIRC is an institution directly under the State Council. It is responsible for formulating and enforcing insurance-related laws and regulations overseeing insurance business operations protecting the interests of policy holders setting up a risk evaluation and advance warning system to minimize insurance risk. 

China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) 

South 4th Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District, Beijing 100080, PR China Tel +86 10 6261 9750 Fax +86 10 6255 9892 Contact Mao Wei, Director 

Plastics China Technologies, Markets and Growth Strategies to 2008 1 29 

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Chapter 4 contains profiles of major Chinese plastics companies followed by a comprehensive listing of information sources on China s plastics industry - covering state contacts, plastics trade associations, trade shows, databases, trade publications and top international companies operating in China - in the form of a directory. A similar listing pertaining to the international plastics industry is included in the Appendices. 

M. tuberculosis is transmitted from person to person by coughing or sneezing. Close contacts of TB patients are most likely to become infected. Fifty-four percent of TB patients in the United States are foreign born, most often from Mexico, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, and China. In the United States, TB disproportionately affects ethnic minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians). 

A chapter on Chinese political identity in Southeast Asia may seem anomalous. Insofar as nationalism was Chinese in Southeast Asia it was fixated on the fate of the Chinese state rather than a local identity. Yet Chinese, like the less numerous but more aggressive Europeans, carried to Southeast Asia a stronger sense of state-centred identity than was common in Southeast Asia, and developed particularly robust forms of supra-local community in market towns all over the region. Once a more balanced gender ratio and regular contact with China enabled them to reproduce that community in Southeast Asia, from the seventeenth century, they became essential outsiders (Chirot and Reid 1997), creating commercial and information networks essential to the birth of many nationalisms. The Chinese relationship to Southeast Asian nationalisms was crucial. 

The designation of the Director for External Relations as the focal point for universality within the Secretariat and an invitation to States Parties to designate voluntary and informal points of contact (POCs) in all regions and sub-regions relevant for the effective promotion of universality were of particular importance for the implementation of the Action Plan, which was well under way by early 2004. Several POCs have been nominated, by Bulgaria, Chile, China, Iran, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Oman, Palau, Poland, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, the Slovak Republic, South Africa, Tajikistan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the State Party holding the presidency of the European Union. The Secretariat continues to work with these POCs and other interested States Parties to promote universahty of the CWC. 

By 1964, nearly all official contact between the Chinese and the Soviets had been severed, their quarrel had degenerated into crude abuse, and it became clear that there was virtually no chance of reconciliation between the two. American officials began to identify a separate Asian Communism arising from this dispersion of authority within the communist movement. A 1963 CIA report warned about the emergence of an Asian Communist Bloc under the leadership of China. which, because of Beijing s militant and intense anti-Western line, would have grave implications for U.S. security interests in East Asia. in order to deal with this separate branch of the communist movement, an Office of Asian Communist Affairs was formed within the Far East Bureau of the State Department in November 1963. ... 

The Chinese nuclear test also galvanized a change in American public opinion toward China. While polls still showed that Americans believed by three-to-one margins that China would turn out to be a greater threat to the U.S. than the Soviet Union, they also revealed that the public was now more favorably disposed toward UN membership for the PRC than ever before. This led the State Department s opinion analyst to note a growing feeling that reality dictated greater Sino-American contacts. 

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an emerging, sometimes fatal, respiratory illness. The first identified cases occurred in China during 2002. Some experts believe that a virus causes SARS however, the specific agent remains unidentified. No laboratory or other test can definitively identify cases. Most suspected SARS cases occurring in the United States involved individuals returning from travel to Asia and healthcare staff members in contact with patients. Casual contact does not appear to cause SARS. Transmission appears to occur primarily through close contact with a symptomatic patient. Signs of illness include a decreased white blood cell count in most patients as well as below-normal blood platelet counts, increased liver enzymes, and electrolyte disturbances in a number of patients. 

The main environmental pathway of occupational exposure to selenium is through the air or, in some cases, by direct dermal contact. Srivastava et al. (1995) reports a worker employed in this type of job for 6 months who presented with alopecia areata, which later deteriorated to alopecia universalis. This patient s blood selenium levels were 0.5 pg/ml. Yang et al. (1983) reported mean blood selenium levels of 3.2 mg/1 in a selenium rich area in China where chronic selenosis was common. Mean normal blood selenium in different states of the U.S. and China range from 0.082 mg/ml to 0.206 mg/1. In spite of much work, knowledge about the health effects of occupational exposure to selenium is far from complete (Srivastava et al. 1995). Since alopecia areata is common in 1.7% of the population studied (Jackow et al. 1998), this report requires follow-up before a cause and effect relationship can be assumed. 

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