The following are the events in descending order of significance:

1. The 5th Plenary Session of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held during October 9-10 mapped the blueprint for the country’s development in the 2001-05 period.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin pointed out at the plenary session that in the new century China will build a well-to-do society in an all-around way.

2. A State Council meeting on developing China’s western regions was held from January 19-22. The meeting urged all localities to take every opportunity to accelerate economic development in China’s western regions. The meeting also initiated the developing-the-west movement all around the country.

3. The China-Africa Cooperation Forum -- Ministerial Conference Beijing 2000 was held from October 10-12 and was attended by nearly 80 ministers from African countries and leaders of about 20 international and African regional organizations.

The documents adopted at the forum mapped out the development course for the long-term, stable and mutually-beneficial Sino-African partnership in the 21st century. The forum provided a good opportunity for China and African countries to coordinate their positions on the challenges of globalization, promoting world peace and development, and protecting the interests of developing countries.

4. China wrapped up its amazing Olympic run on October 1 in Sydney with 59 medals, including 28 golds, 16 silvers and 15 bronzes, finishing third behind the United States and Russia.

5. Cheng Kejie was executed on September 14 by the No.1 Intermediate People’s Court of Beijing after the confirmation and approval by China’s Supreme People’s Court.

Cheng, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, was found guilty of accepting huge sums of bribes, in collaboration with his mistress Li Ping.

6. Twenty-five separate cases of multi-billion-dollar smuggling scams in the east China port city of Xiamen were openly handled on November 8. Fourteen people involved in the cases were sentenced to death.

Investigations found that the Lai Changxing smuggling group and others had smuggled refined oil, vegetable oil, cars and cigarettes worth 53 billion yuan (US$6.4 billion) and evaded customs duties of up to 30 billion yuan (US$3.61 billion) since 1996.

7. China has basically reached its three-year object of turning its large and medium-sized state-own enterprises (SOE) from losing money into profit-making ones, thanks to the government’s “pro-active fiscal policy” and various reform measures, declared Sheng Huaren, minister in charge of the State Economic and Trade Commission, on December 11.

SOEs are expected to see a yearly profit of 230 billion yuan (US$28 billion) in 2000; most of the 14 industries such as textiles, petrochemical, machinery, electronic, pharmaceutical, metallurgy, and construction material industries all started to make profits; and over 80 percent of the large and medium-sized SOEs have set up a modern enterprise system.

8. The election of Taiwan’s new leader ended on March 18. The Taiwan Affairs Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council released a statement reiterating the “One China” principle.

9. Dust, wind and sandstorms hit the most part of northern China during March and April. The most serious case on April 6 swept through five provinces of northwest China and 2 provinces in the northeast and southern provinces of Jiangsu and Anhui.

Frequent bad weather aroused people’s awareness of the need to curb desertification. The country initiated a project to tackle the problem.

10. China’s first hominine robot, which has a human-like appearance and is able to walk and talk like a human, made its debut on December 29.

The robot named “Pioneer”, which was independently developed by Chinese scientists, signifying China’s accession into the advanced international levels of robot technology.

This is the thirteenth for the Domestic News for Overseas Service Department of Xinhua News Agency to sponsor the annual selection of the top 10 domestic news events.

Editor-in-chiefs and deputy editor-in-chiefs from Xinhua News Agency, the People’s Daily, China Daily, Guangming Daily, Xinhua Daily Telegraph, Economic Daily, Economic Information Daily, People’s Liberation Army Daily, China News Service, China Youth Daily, Science and Technology Daily, Peasants Daily, Legal Daily, China Central People’s Broadcasting Station and China Radio International participated in the voting for this year’s top 10 news events.

(Xinhua 12/18/2000)