Demonstrations, dissent and unrest in China

[waltky]

Granny says China keepin' dem po' Tibetan folks down...

UN Rights Official Faults China on Tibetan Suppression
November 2, 2012 — The top human rights official of the United Nations took China to task on Friday over the suppression of Tibetans’ rights that she said had driven them to “desperate forms of protest,” referring to about 60 self-immolations by Tibetans protesting Chinese rule that have been reported since March 2011, including seven since mid-October.

The official, Navi Pillay, the high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement that she was disturbed by reports of detentions, disappearances and the excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators, as well as curbs on Tibetans’ cultural rights. Ms. Pillay said “serious concerns” had been raised over the claims of torture and ill-treatment of detainees and about the standards of their trials. Ms. Pillay said she had had “several exchanges” with the Chinese government on the issue, and her rare public criticism of China’s conduct on human rights appeared to reflect a measure of frustration. “We felt the time had come to talk publicly about that,” a spokesman for Ms. Pillay, Rupert Colville, said Friday in Geneva. Self-immolations are evidence of how serious the situation in Tibet has become, Mr. Colville said, and “we don’t see any visible signs of progress.”

In the statement, Ms. Pillay said, “More needs to be done to protect human rights and prevent violations,” urging China to release Tibetans who had been detained merely for exercising fundamental rights like freedom of expression, association and religion. “Social stability in Tibet will never be achieved through heavy security measures and suppression of human rights,” she said. As examples of that suppression, Ms. Pillay cited the case of a 17-year-old girl who was reported to have been severely beaten and sentenced to three years in prison for distributing fliers that called for freedom for Tibet and the return of the Dalai Lama. She said others had been sentenced to jail terms of four to seven years for writing essays, making films or circulating outside China photographs of events in Tibet.

Ms. Pillay said she recognized the “intense sense of frustration and despair” that had driven Tibetans to such extreme actions, but she appealed to them to seek other ways of expressing their feelings and urged China to allow them to express their feelings “without fear of retribution.” She said that China had pledged to step up cooperation with the United Nations on human rights, but she said there were 12 outstanding requests to visit China by United Nations special investigators on various human rights-related issues and called on China to facilitate access.

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[editec]

The Chinese people are NOT thrilled with their COMMUNIST PARTY controlled government.


Those that have money are moving their money out of China as fast as they can find ways to get it out.

Capital outflows: The flight of the renminbi | The Economist

 

[waltky]

New Chinese leadership gonna have to offer up some reforms...

China’s New Leaders Facing Pressures to Reform
November 05, 2012 — China begins a once-in-decade leadership transition this week when officials meet Thursday for the 18th Communist Party Congress. The stakes are higher than previous transitions because of growing public concerns about corruption and the party’s lack of transparency. Just how the new leaders will respond to the challenges remains a mystery.

As China gears up for its biggest political party in 10 years, its leaders are trying to keep the public focus on the party’s accomplishments and the country’s bright future. The congress is the closest thing the communist country has to the excitement of political campaigns in democratic nations, where policies are discussed and debated ahead of time, said David Kelly of China Policy, a research group that monitors Chinese views on the economy, reform and other topics. “Even though we foresee at the moment without final confirmation that there will be a fairly conservative team, they are not facing routine questions, they are facing some momentous questions,” said Kelly.

China has seen growing tensions with its neighbors in recent months, in particular Japan, about disputed islands in the East China Sea. Its massive economy - the second largest in the world - also is facing uncertainties. Kelly said that has helped strengthen the case for reform. “Reform in China is not a mild issue, it's going to hurt some people and benefit others. And the balance of these two is going to be decided by the people who now step up into politburo's standing committee and the other important parts of the party,” he said.

How much China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping is willing to make a break with the past is unclear. Xi’s father was politically prominent and that makes him what the Chinese call a "princeling." Many people in China tend to view princelings as elitist. Chinese economist Hu Xingdou said princelings tend to be more reform-minded, though, than other party factions, which are cautious and afraid of losing power. “The princelings are different, since they were kids they thought that this country was theirs, because it was their parents that laid the foundation for this world. For them the ownership is clear, this country is theirs,” said Hu Xingdou.

But some princelings, such as Bo Xilai, have taken that sense of entitlement to an extreme, and because of his case and countless others, there is growing public discontent in China about wealth inequality and corruption. Bo was once a rising political star in China, who now faces a wide range of accusations from corruption and other wrongdoing. On Sunday, he was formally expelled from the Communist Party and is expected to soon face criminal charges. Although most analysts say they do not expect to see any dramatic reforms from China’s new leaders right away, they do hope for more transparency.

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[waltky]

Granny says dey's just a buncha godless commonists...

China's Great Political Leap Backward
November 13, 2012, An increasingly out of touch Communist leadership vows to "resolutely not follow Western political models."

After years of parsing China's political jargon, I wasn't expecting anything dramatic from the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which opened in Beijing last week. It was foolish, I knew, to look for bold statements on the issue most critical to China's future: political reform. Standing in the Great Hall of the People and delivering the political report that would set the tone for the country's next generation of leaders, President Hu Jintao wouldn't call for bold change with words like "constitutionalism" or "separation of powers."

But it was possible he might signal a renewed push for political reform by including some of the party's more liberal language. Phrases like "power is given by the people," used in 2010 by China's leader in waiting, Xi Jinping. Or "checking power and protecting rights," featured prominently this year in the party's mouthpiece, People's Daily. Instead, this year's political report showed little or no momentum on this crucial issue. The course set by Mr. Hu's report suggests we can expect no real action on political reform. China now stands at a political crossroads, but the Communist Party isn't budging.

Twenty-five years ago at the 13th National Congress, discussion of political reform focused on the over-concentration of power, a phenomenon that was criticized by reformist leader Deng Xiaoping himself. How was reform to be accomplished? Ahead of the 1987 congress, General-Secretary Zhao Ziyang said political reform was fundamentally about "separating the party and the government." "If the problem of the substitution of the party for the government is not dealt with," he said, "there is no way to begin the process of political reform."

The 13th National Congress was the high-water mark for dealing with core issues of political reform, including reform of the party's leadership system. And it was only on that basis that related issues—such as restructuring government administration and turning the National People's Congress into a real legislature—were to be tackled. Unfortunately, the reforms that were to have started after 1987 came to an abrupt end with the events of June 4, 1989, in Tiananmen Square.

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China’s Next Leaders Inherit Economy at Critical Crossroad
November 13, 2012 — China's leaders have renewed pledges to boost the economy over the next 10 years during meetings this week in Beijing. But the economic challenges China's incoming leaders face are much more difficult than the challenges their predecessors faced a decade ago.

China’s aspirations for its economy over the next decade have come up repeatedly at the National Party Congress, in discussions on the sidelines of the meeting and in state media’s coverage of the event. It also figured prominently in the opening speech of outgoing President Hu Jintao. In his address, Hu mentioned the economy 104 times in a wide range of contexts. Economic development was mentioned more than a dozen times, as was former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s catchphrase "gaige kaifang," or, "reform and opening up."

And while the risks China’s economy is facing were not mentioned as much, they were not ignored. Hu’s most direct comment on the challenges the country faces came when he said the opportunities and risks China face are not like anything before. This year China’s economy is slowing to its slowest growth rate in more than a decade. And although the projected year-on-year growth rate of around 7.5 percent remains enviable to many countries, that is nearly half of what it was just five years ago.

Zhang Ping, head of China’s National Development and Reform Commission voiced confidence that the economy was improving, despite the slowdown. But he acknowledged there are still contradictions that need to be addressed. Zhang says that China still lacks a balanced, coordinated and sustainable development, and its growth model is very crude. He says that along with the weakening overseas demand, China still has excessive production capacity in several sectors.

"We still lack a balanced, coordinated and sustainable development, and our growth model is still very crude. And along with the weakening overseas market demand, we still have an excessive production capacity in several sectors," he said. "There are also structural problems that need to be adjusted. It will take some time to solve these problems. These contradictions are having some impact on the development of domestic economy."

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[American_Jihad]

Locked up by Mao, U.S. ex-revolutionary places hopes on Xi​

By Sui-Lee Wee and Jane Lanhee Lee

BEIJING | Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:15am EST

(Reuters) - Incoming Chinese president Xi Jinping has a "democratic style" that will allow him to lay the groundwork for much-needed political and economic reforms, one of only a handful of Americans to join the Chinese Communist Party said on Monday.

Sidney Rittenberg came to China in 1945 as an idealistic young U.S. soldier and got swept up in the Communist revolution, eventually becoming a translator for the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong.

As such, Rittenberg, 91, has had a uniquely close-up view of many of China's most dramatic events.

He told Reuters he believed Xi would find it hard to push through significant changes due to embedded vested interests.

Rittenberg, who now lives in the United States, tells of going into the Chinese countryside with Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, to meet the rural poor when Rittenberg was a mid-level party cadre.

"His father back in the Yan'an days was one of my closest friends," Rittenberg said in an interview in a teahouse in Beijing, referring to the Communists' northern stronghold in Shaanxi province. "And in seeing him, I hope some of the father rubbed off on him.

"I think there's some reason that it did from some interviews he's given," he said, adding that Xi Zhongxun was the "most democratic-minded of the old party leadership".

Xi Jinping, 59, is expected to formally take over as party leader on Thursday, when President Hu Jintao transfers power at the end of a week-long congress in Beijing.

Xi will inherit a slowing economy and demands from inside and outside the party to tackle problems that reformists see as threats to both growth and social stability - such as a yawning wealth gap, limited political freedom and corruption.

---
Locked up by Mao, U.S. ex-revolutionary places hopes on Xi | Reuters

 

[PoliticalChic]

Dey's riotin' in China...

Wave of Unrest Rocks China
JUNE 14, 2011 - Threats to Social Order Increasingly Hit Cities, Bringing Iron-Fist Response

A wave of violent unrest in urban areas of China over the past three weeks is testing the Communist Party's efforts to maintain control over an increasingly complex and fractious society, forcing it to repeatedly deploy its massive security forces to contain public anger over economic and political grievances. The simultaneous challenge to social order in several cities from the industrial north to the export-oriented south represents a new threat for China's leaders in the politically sensitive run-up to a once-a-decade leadership change next year, even though for now the violence doesn't appear to be coordinated.

In the latest disturbance, armed police were struggling to restore order in a manufacturing town in southern China Monday after deploying tear gas and armored vehicles against hundreds of migrant workers who overturned police cars, smashed windows and torched government buildings there the night before. The protests, which began Friday night in Zengcheng, in the southern province of Guangdong, followed serious rioting in another city in central China last week, plus bomb attacks on government facilities in two other cities in the past three weeks, and ethnic unrest in the northern region of Inner Mongolia last month.

Antigovernment protests have become increasingly common in China in recent years, according to the government's own figures, but they have been mainly confined to rural areas, often where farmers have been thrown off their land by property developers and local officials. The latest unrest, by contrast, involves violent protests from individuals and large crowds in China's cities, where public anger is growing over issues including corruption and police abuses.

There is no evidence to suggest the recent violence is part of a coordinated movement—the party's greatest fear—nor do the events threaten its grip on power given the strength of China's security apparatus, and its booming economy, analysts say. They are nonetheless troubling for China's government which, unnerved by unrest in the Arab world, has detained dozens of dissidents since appeals for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China began circulating online in February. The Mideast uprisings so far haven't inspired similar mass protests in China.

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The unrest is due to those really hard bamboo mats....

 

[waltky]

Granny says dey better move it outta the way or some big ol' truck'll come along an' smash it to smithereens...

Home in Middle of Chinese Highway a Symbol of Resistance
November 23, 2012 — In the middle of an eastern Chinese city's new main road, rising incongruously from a huge circle in the freshly laid pavement, is a five-story row house with ragged edges. This is the home of the duck farmer who said "no."

Luo Baogen and his wife are the lone holdouts from a neighborhood that was demolished to make way for the main thoroughfare heading to a newly built railway station on the outskirts of the city of Wenling in Zhejiang province. Dramatic images of Luo's home have circulated widely online in China this week, becoming the latest symbol of resistance in the frequent standoffs between Chinese homeowners and local officials accused of offering too little compensation to vacate neighborhoods for major redevelopment projects. There's even a name for the buildings that remain standing as their owners resist development. They are called "nail houses" because the homeowners refuse to be hammered down.

Nail house families occasionally have resorted to violence. Some homeowners have even set themselves on fire in protests. Often, they keep 24-hour vigils because developers will shy away from bulldozing homes when people are inside. Xiayangzhang village chief Chen Xuecai said in a telephone interview Friday that city planners decided that Luo's village of 1,600 had to be moved for a new business district anchored by the train station. Chen said most families agreed to government-offered compensation in 2007. Luo, 67, and a handful of neighbors in other parts of the new district are holding out for more. "We want a new house on a two-unit lot with simple interior decoration," Luo told local reporters Thursday in video footage forwarded to The Associated Press.

Luo had just completed his house at a cost of about 600,000 yuan ($95,000) when the government first approached him with their standard offer of 220,000 ($35,000) to move out — which he refused, Chen said. The offer has since gone up to 260,000 yuan ($41,000). "The Luo family is not rich," Chen said, acknowledging that they can ill afford such a big loss on their home. "But the policy is what it is." The new road to the railroad station was completed in recent weeks, and has not yet been opened for traffic.

What is unusual in Luo's case is that his house has been allowed to stand for so long. It is common for local authorities in China to take extreme measures, such as cutting off utilities or moving in to demolish when residents are out for the day. Luo told local reporters his electricity and water are still flowing, and that he and his wife sleep in separate parts of the home to deter any partial demolition. Deputy village chief Luo Xuehua — a cousin to the duck farmer — said he didn't expect the dispute to go on much longer. He said he expects Luo Baogen to reach an agreement with the government soon, though he said the homeowner's demands are unrealistic. "We cannot just give whatever he demands," Luo Xuehua said. "That's impossible."

Source

See also:

New Chinese Passports Rile Asian Neighbors
November 23, 2012 - Whenever a country issues new passports, someone almost always complains about the new design. But China's latest edition of travel logs is drawing formal criticism from countries across Asia.

The passports feature a map of China that includes areas of the South China Sea claimed by other countries, as well as territory claimed by India. Taiwan's government objected to the passports Friday, following similar protests by the Philippines and Vietnam. Officials at the Indian Embassy in Beijing are protesting in their own way, stamping Chinese visas with a map showing the disputed territory belonging to India, according to The Press Trust of India. John Blaxland, with the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at Australian National University, called China's move "pretty clever." "It basically forces everyone who's a claimant of South China Sea elements to acknowledge it by stamping it," he said.

As China's military and economic influence has grown throughout the world, Beijing has become more brazen in its claim to territories believed to be rich with oil and natural gas across the Asia-Pacific. China’s Foreign Ministry said the “nine-dash” map of the sea printed in the new passports wasn’t targeted at any specific countries. Blaxland described China’s move as part of a "long game" being played by a new generation of leaders who will steer the country for the next 10 years. "We've just seen a major transition in China … They can act deliberately and slowly, and slowly get their way. There's really not very much anyone is seriously prepared to do about it," he said.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations discussed the territorial disputes at a summit in Cambodia earlier this week but failed to achieve a united stand on how the 10 member countries should respond to China. Carl Thayer, a professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales, said the map in China’s new passports may partly be in response to Vietnam’s passage earlier this year of a Law of the Sea. The law asserts Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel islands, which are claimed by both Hanoi and Beijing. “It's just finding one more way of turning the screw that China has jurisdiction,” Thayer said.

Although Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines have been most vocal in their opposition to China’s moves, Brunei and Malaysia also have rival claims in the South China Sea, and Japan is embroiled in its own dispute over islands in the East China Sea. All the territorial spats have raised concerns about a potential maritime conflict, prompting the United States to wade into the controversy. The Obama administration says it is not taking sides but is pushing for the countries to adopt a code of conduct, which China opposes. Blaxley said the United States wants to secure its freedom of navigation in the region.

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[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - there's more n' one way to skin a Chinaman...

Vietnam Avoids Stamping Controversial Chinese Passports
November 26, 2012 — A new passport design issued by China is causing a stir in Asia. The passport features a map that includes territory claimed by other countries. It includes the South China Sea, which is also claimed by Vietnam. Officials are finding their own way around the problem.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea, but Vietnam and four other governments have claims in the region, including the Spratly Islands, which are believed to sit atop mineral deposits. The passports have caused a stir in the region, prompting protests from several countries, including Vietnam. Colonel Luong Van Son, deputy director of Lao Cai provincial border police says new passport holders are allowed to enter the country, but officials issue visas on separate pieces of paper.

Luong says this was a “light” approach to the problem agreed upon by government ministries and, so far, China had not reacted. He added the passport design is a “serious violation” of Vietnamese sovereignty and is not recognized by the international community. Last week, a spokesman for Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Luong Thanh Nghi, protested the new passport design.

He says the ministry had sent a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi objecting to the move and asked China to cancel the passport. The Philippines and Taiwan also objected. In Manila Monday, Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez says authorities there are still accepting the passports for visa applications, for now. "What we can say is we are considering different options as far as follow-up action. I don't know what are those options," he said.

The passport also includes territory claimed by India. In response, officials at the Indian Embassy in Beijing stamped Chinese visas with a map embossed with New Delhi’s own map. Observers say the move is part of an ongoing trend of China asserting territorial claims in the area. China’s Foreign Ministry says the map of the sea printed in the new passports is not targeted at any specific countries.

Source

 

[gazpatmore]

Granny says China keepin' dem po' Tibetan folks down...

UN Rights Official Faults China on Tibetan Suppression
November 2, 2012 — The top human rights official of the United Nations took China to task on Friday over the suppression of Tibetans’ rights that she said had driven them to “desperate forms of protest,” referring to about 60 self-immolations by Tibetans protesting Chinese rule that have been reported since March 2011, including seven since mid-October.

I think its more like 80 self-immolations now... gotta love the Chinese. But no use shouting about human rights to them. The Chinese really dont give a toss about that stuff, it doesnt feature in their vocabulary.

Ask your average Chinaman, and he will tell you the government is God, King and country... and they REALLY believe it. Last I was there and spoke to them, I was told that no matter how bad things look on a short-term basis, they believe ultimately the government is there to help them.

Thats why these news stories make it so big...because its one of a billion in China.

 

[Unkotare]

Ask your average Chinaman, and he will tell you the government is God, King and country... and they REALLY believe it...

You're an ignorant fool with a pretty obvious agenda.


"Chinaman," really? Update your attempts at offense.

 

[waltky]

Chinese tune into V for Vendetta...

‘V for Vendetta’ airing stuns Chinese
Fri, Dec 21, 2012 - Television audiences across China watched an anarchist antihero rebel against a totalitarian government and persuade the people to rule themselves. Soon the Internet was crackling with quotes of V for Vendetta’s famous line: “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

The airing of the movie on Friday night on China Central Television (CCTV) stunned viewers and raised hopes that China is loosening censorship. V for Vendetta never appeared in Chinese theaters, but it is unclear whether it was ever banned. An article on the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily Web site says it was previously prohibited from broadcast, but the spokesman for the agency that approves movies said he was not aware of any ban. Some commentators and bloggers think the broadcast could be CCTV producers pushing the envelope of censorship, or another sign that the Chinese Communist Party’s newly installed leader, Xi Jinping (習近&#24179, is serious about reform.

REACTION

“Oh God, CCTV unexpectedly put out V for Vendetta. I had always believed that film was banned in China!” media commentator Shen Chen wrote on the popular Sina Weibo service, where he has more than 350,000 followers. Zhang Ming, a supervisor at a real-estate company, asked on Sina Weibo: “For the first time CCTV-6 aired V for Vendetta, what to think, is the reform being deepened?” The 2005 movie, based on a comic book, is set in an imagined future Britain with a fascist government.

The protagonist wears a mask of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century English rebel who tried to blow up parliament. The mask has become a revolutionary symbol for young protesters in mostly Western countries, and it also has a cult-like status in China as pirated DVDs are widely available. Some people have used the image of the mask as their profile pictures on Chinese social media sites.

Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia wrote on Twitter, which is not accessible to most Chinese because of government Internet controls: “This great film couldn’t be any more appropriate for our current situation. Dictators, prisons, secret police, media control, riots, getting rid of ‘heretics’ ... fear, evasion, challenging lies, overcoming fear, resistance, overthrowing tyranny ... China’s dictators and its citizens also have this relationship.” China’s government strictly controls print media, television and radio. Censors also monitor social media sites including Sina Weibo.

More ?V for Vendetta? airing stuns Chinese - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

Academic call for democratic reform yanked from internet by Chinese censors...

Academics warn of ‘violent revolution’ without reform
Tue, Jan 01, 2013 - WAKE-UP CALL: A group of 73 Chinese academics began to circulate the letter last month on the Internet, but now all references to it in media reports have been removed

A prominent group of Chinese academics has warned in a bold open letter that the country risks “violent revolution” if the government does not respond to public pressure and allow long-stalled political reforms. The 73 academics, including well-known current and retired legal experts at top universities and lawyers, said political reform had not matched the quick pace of economic expansion. “If reforms to the system urgently needed by Chinese society keep being frustrated and stagnate without progress, then official corruption and dissatisfaction in society will boil up to a crisis point and China will once again miss the opportunity for peaceful reform, and slip into the turbulence and chaos of violent revolution,” they wrote.

The letter began being circulated on the Internet last month, but online references to it in Chinese media reports have now been removed. The government needed to push democracy and independence of the judiciary as well as deepen market reforms, the letter said. He Weifang, a law professor at Peking University and one of the signatories, said he believed the demands were rather moderate, but that now was the time to make them as Chinese President Hu Jintao prepared to hand over the reins of state power to Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who was made Chinese Communist Party chief in November. “We have come to that period again when the leadership is changing. People expect continuing advances when it comes to reform of the political system,” he said. “The Chinese people, including intellectuals, have been talking about this for a while, but little has happened. So I think we have the opportunity now to push it again,” he said.

Other signatories include Zhang Sizhi, defense lawyer for Mao Zedong’s widow, Jiang Qing, leader of the “Gang of Four” that wielded supreme power during the 1966 to 1976 Cultural Revolution. She was given a suspended death sentence in 1981 for the deaths of tens of thousands during that period of chaos. About 65 Chinese academics, lawyers and human rights activists have signed a similar letter demanding top party members reveal their financial assets, saying it is the most fundamental way to end corruption. Analysts have been searching for signs that China’s new leaders might steer a path of political reform, whether by allowing freer expression on the Internet, greater experimentation with grassroots democracy or releasing jailed dissidents. However, the party, which values stability above all else, has so far shown little sign of wanting to go down this path, despite Xi trying to project a softer and more open image than his predecessor.

However, Xi himself warned shortly after becoming party boss that if corruption were allowed to run wild, the party risked major unrest and the collapse of its rule. The letter said democracy, rule of law and respect of human rights were “a global trend that could not be stopped.” “China’s 100 years of bloody and violent history — especially the painful and tragic lesson of the decade-long Cultural Revolution — show that once we go against the tide of democracy, human rights, rule of law and constitutional government, the people will suffer disaster and social and political stability will be impossible,” the letter said.

Academics warn of ?violent revolution? without reform - Taipei Times

See also:

Most Chinese say country not ‘world power’ yet: poll
Tue, Jan 01, 2013 - More than 80 percent of Chinese say they do not yet see their country as a “world power,” a newspaper poll published yesterday showed.

The survey, in the Global Times daily, also said that more than half of respondents expressed a “positive view” of Beijing’s relations with Washington, though most were pessimistic about ties with Tokyo. A total of 82.3 percent of people surveyed said that China had yet to obtain world power status. The statistic made the front-page headline of the paper’s English-language edition — but in the Chinese-language version the story was relegated to a low mention on an inside page.

The Global Times, which has links to the Chinese Communist Party, said the poll was released by its Global Poll Center. The survey, carried out via telephone and the Internet, collected responses from 1,404 residents above the age of 15 in seven cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Public opinion polls are rare in China, where the government decries notions of what it calls “Western-style” democracy. When asked what “the most significant event that helped elevate China’s international standing” last year was, 44.6 percent of respondents cited the Chinese navy taking delivery of the country’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. A former Soviet vessel, it went into service in September in a symbolic milestone for China’s growing military muscle.

However, the paper quoted Zhu Feng, a professor at Peking University’s School of International Studies, as saying: “Being a world power is not about how many aircraft carriers it has. It’s more about demonstrating a humble, elegant, confident image on a global platform.” In the survey, 54 percent of respondents said China was on the verge of becoming a world power, while 53 percent felt positive about Sino-US relations. About 57 percent named China as their favorite country, with the US coming in second place. “It’s good to see a growing patriotism and recognition among Chinese for their motherland, but we cannot deny that the US does have an appeal to some,” Zhu said. “For example, it does a better job at democracy and law enforcement.”

Most survey respondents had a dim view of the outlook for relations with Japan, with which China is embroiled in a territorial dispute. Less than 24 percent felt that relations with Tokyo would improve, with 33 percent seeing them worsening and 38 percent thinking they would stay the same. The survey found that nearly 70 percent cited Japan’s nationalization of three of the Diaoyutai Islands, which Tokyo calls the Senkakus and are also claimed by China and Taiwan, as “the most significant global event in 2012.”

Most Chinese say country not ?world power? yet: poll - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

But wouldn't it be a conservative website if it asks leaders to follow the constitution...

China closes liberal Web site after call for political change
Sat, Jan 05, 2013 - A liberal Chinese journal had its Web site shut down yesterday, it said, after it urged the country’s Communist leaders — who regularly promise reform — to follow the constitution.

The Web site of Annals of the Yellow Emperor, a prominent Beijing-based publication, was closed days after it published an article arguing that China’s constitution lays out a roadmap for political change. Attempts to access the Web site yesterday led to a page with a cartoon policeman holding up a badge and the message: “The Web site you are visiting has been closed because it has not been filed on record.” The move follows a similar call in a key liberal newspaper being censored by the authorities.

Chinese liberals argue that rights enshrined in the constitution, including freedom of speech, press and assembly, are not being respected by the Chinese Communist Party. “At around nine am today, the Web site was closed,” said a post on the Annals of the Yellow Emperor’s official Web page on Sina Weibo, a microblogging site. The journal’s editors received a message from Internet regulator the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last month stating that the Web site had been “canceled,” the post said. The ministry did not immediately respond to faxed questions sent by Agence France-Presse yesterday.

The Web site closure came a day after censors blocked an article from popular liberal newspaper Southern Weekly that called for the realization of a “dream of constitutionalism in China” so that citizens’ rights could be protected. A propaganda official in Guangdong Province, where the newspaper is based, removed the article and replaced it with a weaker message, several current and former journalists at the newspaper said.

The official, Tuo Zhen, “directed that many alterations and replacements be made to the New Year’s special edition. This resulted in numerous errors and accidents”, a former Southern Weekly journalists said in an open letter posted online. All Chinese media organizations are subject to orders from government propaganda departments, which often suppress news seen as “negative” by the Chinese Communist Party, although some publications take a more critical stance.

China closes liberal Web site after call for political change - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

A step in the right direction?...

China Says It Will Overhaul Sprawling System of Re-education Through Labor
January 7, 2013 — China will start overhauling its draconian system of re-education through labor in the coming year, according to the state news media, signaling the incoming leadership’s determination to alter one of the government’s more widely despised cudgels for punishing petty criminals, religious dissidents, petitioners and other perceived social irritants.

The brief announcement on Monday, by the official Xinhua news agency, lacked details, but legal advocates said they were hopeful that the five-decade-old system for locking up offenders without trial would be significantly modified, if not abolished altogether. “If true, this would be an important advance,” said Zhang Qianfan, a law professor at Peking University who has long pushed for the system’s demise. “It’s a tool that is widely abused.”

Established by Mao Zedong in the 1950s to swiftly neutralize political opponents, re-education through labor has evolved into a sprawling extralegal system of 350 camps where more than 100,000 people toil in prison factories and on farms for up to four years. Sentences are meted out by local public security officials, and defendants have no access to lawyers and little chance for appeal. Since the 1980s, legal scholars and human rights advocates have been urging an end to the system and urging that the prosecution of minor offenses be shifted to criminal courts. The campaign has been re-energized in recent months by several cases, widely promoted in the news media, in which people were consigned to the camps for criticizing or simply annoying local party officials.

Among the more notable cases was that of Ren Jianyu, a college graduate turned village official in southwestern China who was sent to a work camp for “subversion” after investigators found in his closet a T-shirt that declared “Freedom or death.” In November, local officials, apparently cowed by a welter of condemnation in newspapers and on the Internet, cut short his two-year sentence. A similar backlash also persuaded officials in Hunan Province last summer to free a woman, Tang Hui, who was given an 18-month sentence after she repeatedly protested that the seven men who had raped and forced her 11-year-old daughter into prostitution had been treated too leniently.

But any jubilation that the system might be on its way out was tempered by the manner in which the news emerged. Details of a conference held by top judicial and legal officials were reported online on Monday by a number of news media outlets — including word that the party would “stop using the system” within a year. Those accounts, however, were later deleted, leaving only the brief Xinhua account. Chen Dongsheng, a bureau chief for the official Legal Daily who listened to a closed-circuit telecast of the meeting, told The Associated Press that Meng Jianzhu, chief of the Communist Party’s politics and law committee, had pledged to end the system, saying it had “played a useful role in the past, but conditions had now changed.” But Mr. Chen’s microblog postings on the subject promptly disappeared, and he could not be reached for comment.

MORE

 

[gazpatmore]

They're gonna try and pull the same thing they did with the Panchen Lama.

Agenda? Please enlighten me, you seem to know me better than I know myself. What else would you call someone from China? Oh well, perhaps I shouldve said "Chinese person", that wouldve been more proper but it didnt occur to me at the time.

And by the way, the Chinese already did pull the same thing with the Panchen Lama. They just went ahead and picked their own Karmapa...but then the Tibetans stepped in and muddled up the whole thing.

Yeah the Chinese need to stop oppressing the Tibetans and the Uighurs and the Mongolians, and the Africans they bribe with foreign aid to vote in their favour at the United Nations. No doubt about that.

But if the Tibetans get their freedom back, will they be able to run their own country? After 50 years in exile, their exiled government is still a mess. Even East Timor didnt take that long.

 

[Unkotare]

And by the way, the Chinese already did pull the same thing with the Panchen Lama.

That's what I said.

 

[gazpatmore]

Sorry mate, your right, you did say that. What I meant was, "And by the way, the Chinese already did pull the same thing with the Karmapas. They just went ahead and picked their own Karmapa...but then the Tibetans stepped in and muddled up the whole thing."

The Chinese exhibited a great deal of hypocrisy when they were Communist, and then stepped in to interfere in religious matters like the Panchen Lama. But people are people, and we live in a cycle. Today, the Chinese are doing a terrible job with their human rights. Tomorrow, itll be someone else.

 

[waltky]

Chinese hold woman in detention in mortuary for three years...

China detains woman at disused mortuary for three years
25 January 2013 - A Chinese woman who petitioned the authorities over the treatment of her husband at a labour camp has been detained at a disused mortuary for the past three years, state media report.

Chen Qingxia had already served 18 months at a re-education camp for her campaign, but continued to fight and so was confined to the mortuary. Reports of her ordeal in the province of Heilongjiang have triggered an outcry on social media. Ms Chen is said to be in poor health.

But correspondents say that it looks likely that restrictions on her will be relaxed soon - a committee has been formed in the city of Yichun to re-examine her case. There has also been some speculation in recent weeks that the Chinese authorities might reform or rethink its system of re-education through labour. Ms Chen's ordeal began in 2003 when her husband was imprisoned for attempting to breach a quarantine during a Sars epidemic, according to the Global Times newspaper.

After he was freed, media reports say, his body was bruised and his mental health had deteriorated so much that Ms Chen decided to travel to the capital, Beijing, to complain to the central authorities about the treatment he had received. The move led to her being put through a re-education camp for 18 months. After finishing the sentence, she was kept in the mortuary because she was still determined to continue her campaign.

A China National Radio report says that Mrs Chen has been allowed minimal contact with relatives. Her husband was eventually admitted to hospital for treatment for his mental-health problems, the Global Times said. The Communist Party's district chief has been quoted by local television as saying local officials should bear responsibility for Mrs Chen's treatment.

BBC News - China detains woman at disused mortuary for three years

 

[waltky]

Water pollution protestors plead guilty to fomenting a riot...

China says 14 guilty of pollution protest violence
Jan 31,`13 -- Fourteen people pleaded guilty to encouraging a riot in eastern China last year in which the local Communist Party chief was stripped half-naked in a mass protest that ultimately forced the local government to scrap a wastewater treatment project.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the defendants were prosecuted Wednesday on charges of encouraging mass violence against government buildings and intentionally damaging property in the city of Qidong in Jiangsu province north of Shanghai. Scores of police were hurt in the melee. The sentences will be announced later, Xinhua said. The case has prompted accusations that authorities are retaliating against the protesters after initially conceding to their demands by canceling the project. "We admit that radical acts were committed, but that was because mere protesting would not have forced the government to change," said Zhang Peihong, a Shanghai-based lawyer who represents defendant Zhu Baosheng. Zhu is accused of smashing a clock in the lobby of the municipal government's office building, pouring looted liquor from the roof of a car and forcing a city official to wear a shirt emblazoned with pro-environmental slogans.

Zhang said he argued in court that the case failed to take into account negligence on the part of local officials. "We see no sincerity on behalf of the state," the lawyer said. Government actions leading up to such protests need to be examined and wrongdoing exposed, said Liu Shanying, a political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "You must investigate both sides, but in this case, we haven't seen any scrutiny directed at the officials involved," Liu said. Despite that, unlawful acts such as assault and destruction of property must be punished, he added. "You should defend your rights within the law." Pollution has become a major cause of unrest in China, where the growing middle class have become more outspoken in their opposition to environmentally risky projects.

Last year, the Chinese also staged large-scale protests against a proposed copper plant in the southwestern province of Sichuan and a planned expansion of a petrochemical factory in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Like the Qidong project, the other two were eventually scrapped. In Qidong, thousands of people upset with the wastewater treatment project stormed the Qidong municipal government compound and turned at least one police car on its side at the protest on July 28. Citing court documents, the state-run Southern Metropolis Daily from southern China said the defendants forcibly broke through the police cordon to attack and to smash government buildings, injuring at least 90 police officers, damaging several cars and causing property loss of more than 230,000 yuan ($37,000).

It also said the city's party chief was stripped half-naked after he refused to wear a T-shirt boycotting the project while the mayor was forced to wear such a T-shirt. The protesters were worried that the wastewater from the Japanese company Oji Paper in upstream Nantong city would not be cleaned enough before being discharged into the sea near Qidong, although Oji had assured the wastewater would be properly treated. The grass-roots protests reflect the balancing act Chinese leaders are performing between maintaining public stability and pushing economic growth, and between local officials who want to attract industry and a public who do not want it in their neighborhoods.

Source

 

[waltky]

Mebbe dey could petition England to take `em back as a colony again?...

Colonial flags fly again as anger grows in Hong Kong over erosion of freedom
Sun, Feb 03, 2013 - CONTROVERSIAL SYMBOL: Protesters said use of the UK flag did not indicate a desire to restore colonial rule, but is aimed at China’s authoritarian rule of Hong Kong

Sixteen years after Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule, public discontent with Beijing is swelling and protesters have been rallying around an unexpected symbol — the British colonial flag. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets in recent months in marches against Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振&#33521, who took over from Donald Tsang last July after being elected by a 1,200-strong pro-Beijing committee. On several occasions the old blue flag, which incorporates the Union Jack, has been flown by protesters on the streets of what is becoming an increasingly divided Hong Kong, both embarrassing and infuriating Beijing. While Leung’s supporters say he is tackling social issues such as affordable housing and the strain on public services, his critics see him as a stooge for Beijing and are angry over a widening poverty gap.

In September last year, he backed down from a plan to introduce Chinese patriotism classes in schools, which had incited mass protests and was viewed as an attempt to brainwash children into accepting doctrines taught in mainland China. The founder of a group mobilizing Hong Kongers to fly colonial flags said it did so because the city was worse off after 16 years of “encroachment” by Beijing, stressing it was not because of any desire to see Britain rule again. “Our freedom and everything else has gone downhill since [the handover]” said 26-year-old Danny Chan from the “We’re Hong Kongese, not Chinese” Facebook group, which has been “liked” by nearly 30,000 people. Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous status enshrines civil liberties not seen in mainland China, including the right to protest, until 2047 under the “one country, two systems” handover agreement.

Chan cited housing prices that stubbornly remained among the world’s highest and the widening income gap between the rich and the poor as factors driving the increasingly frequent protests in the city. Many Hong Kongers blame increased immigration from mainland China for high house prices and overcrowding in local hospitals. Chan said that the flags symbolized anger and the perceived erosion of the rule of law in Hong Kong since 1997. “Hong Kong’s core values and the rule of law have been gradually destroyed until there is almost nothing left,” argued the computer engineer, who waved the flag at a mass rally on Jan. 1 to demand that Leung step down. Dixon Sing, a political analyst at Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technology, said the protesters “believe the Chinese Communist Party has been undermining those core values and reneging on the promise of giving Hong Kong ‘two systems.’”

The increased visibility of the old emblem has sparked tensions at a time when China is ushering in a new batch of leaders who yearn for order and stability in the Asian financial hub. The British Council, which promotes cultural and educational ties overseas, unwittingly became embroiled in the controversy recently when advertisements for an education fair bearing the Union Jack became the center of attention. Comments such as “Great Britain built Great Hong Kong!” were posted on the British consulate’s Facebook page and linked to the posters. The advertisements were hastily removed due to the possibility of “misinterpretation,” a British Council spokeswoman said. The waving of the old flag has drawn criticism from Chen Zuoer, the former No. 2 mainland Chinese official in Hong Kong, who reportedly said last year that it “should be sent to history museums.”

More Colonial flags fly again as anger grows in Hong Kong over erosion of freedom - Taipei Times