"Enhancing the protection of intellectual property rights is a matter of overall strategic significance."

PREMIER LI KEQIANG, on Nov 22 at a State Council executive meeting. China will step up protection of property rights to provide sustained impetus for economic development.

"Chinese key electronic components and computer chips went from nearly unusable 10 years ago to being key parts of China's major defense and science projects, from space programs to deep-sea submersibles."

DIAO SHIJING, director of information technology at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, saying that over the past decade, the technological gap between China and traditional electronic powerhouses like the United States has shortened from 15 years to five.

"We offer a short-term internship program to local governments and a number of vocational schools in China. And interns represent a very small percentage of the workforce."

FOXCONN TECHNOLOGY GROUP, Apple's main supplier in Asia, released a statement on Nov 21 in response to a Financial Times report that said the company had been illegally employing students, having them work overtime to help assemble the iPhone X.

(China Daily European Weekly 11/24/2017 page2)