A cyber attack on a South Korean bank came from an internet address in China, South Korean officials say.
The South's telecom regulator said hackers used a Chinese address to plant malicious code that shut down Nonghyup bank's network on Wednesday.
Another bank and three TV stations were also targeted on the same day.
Initial reports suggested the attack could have come from North Korea, which has been blamed for similar attacks in 2009 and 2011.
Leaders in Beijing are expected to name Xi Jinping president at the annual parliament session, completing China's 10-yearly transition of power.
Mr Xi, appointed to the Communist Party's top post in November, replaces Hu Jintao, who is stepping down.
Some 3,000 deputies to the National People's Congress will take part in the vote at the Great Hall of the People.
The new premier - widely expected to be Li Keqiang - is scheduled to be named on Friday, replacing Wen Jiabao.
While votes are held for the posts, they are largely ceremonial and the results rarely a surprise.
Mr Xi was named secretary-general of the Communist Party on 8 November and also given the leadership of the top military body, the Central Military Commission.
This vote, handing him the role of head of state, is the final stage in the transition of power to him and his team, the slimmed-down, seven-member Standing Committee.
Austerity presidentThe 59-year-old Mr Xi is the son of a revolutionary veteran - and as such, seen as a "princeling", an official who owes at least some of his success to family connections.
He held top party roles in Zhejiang and Shanghai, before being appointed to the Standing Committee - China's top decision-making body - in 2007.
Since his elevation to the top of the party in November, Mr Xi has been feted in Chinese media as a man of the people who shuns the usual trappings of his position.
He has also been quoted emphasising the need to stamp out corruption at all levels, warning of civil unrest if party privilege is not tackled.
The largely symbolic vice-president position will also be decided on Thursday.
On Friday Premier Wen Jiabao's successor will be named, with the party's number two leader, former Liaoning party chief Li Keqiang, set to take over.
The NPC closes on Sunday.
1 of 5. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe participates in a media conference at a Washington hotel, February 22, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Americans on Friday "I am back and so is Japan" and vowed to get the world's third biggest economy growing again and to do more to bolster security and the rule of law in an Asia roiled by territorial disputes.
Abe had firm words for China in a policy speech to a top Washington think-tank, but also tempered his remarks by saying he had no desire to escalate a row over islets in the East China Sea that Tokyo controls and Beijing claims.
"No nation should make any miscalculation about firmness of our resolve. No one should ever doubt the robustness of the Japan-U.S. alliance," he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"At the same time, I have absolutely no intention to climb up the escalation ladder," Abe said in a speech in English.
After meeting U.S. President Barack Obama on his first trip to Washington since taking office in December in a rare comeback to Japan's top job, he said he told Obama that Tokyo would handle the islands issue "in a calm manner."
"We will continue to do so and we have always done so," he said through a translator, while sitting next to Obama in the White House Oval Office.
Tension surged in 2012, raising fears of an unintended military incident near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Washington says the islets fall under a U.S.-Japan security pact, but it is eager to avoid a clash in the region.
Abe said he and Obama "agreed that we have to work together to maintain the freedom of the seas and also that we would have to create a region which is governed based not on force but based on an international law."
Abe, whose troubled first term ended after just one year when he abruptly quit in 2007, has vowed to revive Japan's economy with a mix of hyper-easy monetary policy, big spending, and structural reform. The hawkish leader is also boosting Japan's defense spending for the first time in 11 years.
"Japan is not, and will never be, a tier-two country," Abe said in his speech. "So today ... I make a pledge. I will bring back a strong Japan, strong enough to do even more good for the betterment of the world."
'ABENOMICS' TO BOOST TRADE
The Japanese leader stressed that his "Abenomics" recipe would be good for the United States, China and other trading partners.
"Soon, Japan will export more, but it will import more as well," Abe said in the speech. "The U.S. will be the first to benefit, followed by China, India, Indonesia and so on."
The United States and Japan agreed language during Abe's visit that could set the stage for Tokyo to join negotiations soon on a U.S.-led regional free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
In a carefully worded statement following the meeting between Obama and Abe, the two countries reaffirmed that "all goods would be subject to negotiations if Japan joins the talks with the United States and 10 other countries.
At the same time, the statement envisions a possible outcome where the United States could maintain tariffs on Japanese automobiles and Japan could still protect its rice sector.
"Recognizing that both countries have bilateral trade sensitivities, such as certain agricultural products for Japan and certain manufactured products for the United States, the two governments confirm that, as the final outcome will be determined during the negotiations, it is not required to make a prior commitment to unilaterally eliminate all tariffs upon joining the TPP negotiations," the statement said.
Abe repeated that Japan would not provide any aid for North Korea unless it abandoned its nuclear and missile programs and released Japanese citizens abducted decades ago to help train spies.
Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s. Five have been sent home, but Japan wants better information about eight who Pyongyang says are dead and others Tokyo believes were also kidnapped.
Abe also said he hoped to have a meeting with new Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who takes over as president next month, and would dispatch Finance Minister Taro Aso to attend the inauguration of incoming South Korean President Park Geun-hye next week.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Doug Palmer; Editing by David Brunnstrom and Paul Simao)
