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June 30, 2007

Shanxi slave case and the new labor law

Did the Chinese government amend the draft labor law and approve it with special speed because of the Shanxi slave case? Or are the press — foreign and Chinese — just victims of spin?

Shanxi slave case: why China's political structure is responsible

A translation of a Zhu Dake blog post :

The kiln slave incident demonstrates that without constitutional oversight from free citizens, an independent media, and democratic organizations apart from the party, this structure cannot prevent corruption in itself or renew politics. Nor can it maintain 'advanced' political ideals...

Liu Changle: Chinese media hides truth

From the AP:

Chinese media has little international influence, in part because it doesn't tell the whole truth, the head of Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television was quoted on Friday as saying.

Wide-ranging debate about political reform

The Economist examines 'a surprisingly wide-ranging debate about political reform' ahead of the Party's 17th congress in the fall of this year, when the political tone of the next five years will be set.

Fines for news media: a contrarian view

The deletion of clauses that stipulated large fines for media organizations that made 'unauthorized' reports on emergency situations from draft legislation was hailed as a victory for press freedom by local and foreign media. Here is a contrarian view from the Southern Weekly.

June 29, 2007

Not a Party member: China's new minister of health

Xinhua reports:

China welcomed its second non-communist minister in just two months, a move highlighting that outstanding people without Communist identity are having more say in politics.

Chen Zhu, former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was appointed the minister of health by China's top legislature on Friday, after the cabinet nomination of non-Communist Wan Gang as the minister of science and technology in April.

VT labor organizer countering capitalist trends in China

From Seven Days:

Over the past few years, veteran Vermont activists Ellen David-Friedman and Stuart Friedman have been teaching community organizing to university students in southern China while also quietly working with labor groups not sanctioned by the communist government. Now the East Montpelier partners are leaving their respective Green Mountain jobs...in order to focus more intensively on their work in the People's Republic. Their ambitious aim is to help mitigate the negative effects of the global market economy model espoused by Gov. James Douglas and the Vermont business leaders who recently concluded a joint prospecting trip to China.

World of Warcraft has been harmonized

Skeletons get skin in the Chinese version of World of Warcraft, and corpses are replaced by tombstones. (SMD via ESWN). See also the treatment of Magic the Gathering.

Citizens complain online about govt. extravagance

From Josie Liu's blog (blocked in China):

In a post titled 'You are a citizen, but also a journalist,' the popular online public forum tianya.cn asks visitors to contribute photos of extravagant government buildings around them. The post says the China Central Television is calling for these photos to prepare for a program revealing how local governments waste tax dollars for lavish structures.

June 28, 2007

The real meaning of the social movement of 1989

Chaohua Wang looks back at 1989 in the London Review of Books:

The historical significance of the upheaval of 1989 in Beijing does not lie in one paradigm or another, espoused by this or that spokesman or leader. It lies in the space the movement opened up for creative imagination and the opportunities it offered for experiment. The focus was always on the right of citizens to participate in the public life of the country, and the channels that would enable them to do so.

Zha Jianying interviews 1980s mainland Chinese kulturati

Cindy Carter at Paper Republic translates selections of an interview Zha Jianying did with the poet Bei Dao. (Excerpted from 八十年代访谈录).

A Day on the Farm

Michael D. Manning at The Opposite End of China presents a few photos from "army farms" in Xinjiang.

As many of you know, my business here in Xinjiang involves frequently cooperating with various arms of the bingtuan (兵团), aka Xinjiang Production & Construction Corps (XPCC), aka the "army farm" system. (I think "XPCC" works best - its vagueness as a term mirrors the imperfect clarity with which the system can be described - but I still find myself using "bingtuan".)

June 27, 2007

Responses to the revised emergency response law

David Bandurski at CMP presents several reactions in the Chinese media to the recent revision to the draft law on handling disasters. The new draft removes the controversial requirement that any media coverage of disasters would need to be vetted by the government.

Xinhua on drugs

Beijing Newspeak takes you behind the scenes at Xinhua as the state-owned news agency responds to 'International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking' on June 26.

Facebook elitism for China?

Frank Yu looks at Facebook's elitist appeal in the U.S., compared to MySpace's crass teenage image, and suggests that a more exclusive social networking website would work better in China.

China English Blog Awards 2007

A new incarnation of the China Blog Awards, hosted by Chinalyst.

Blue-green algae outbreak in Yunnan lake

GoKunming sums up the story about the blue-green algae outbreak in Dianchi, a large freshwater lake near Kunming. Water pollution is a big factor in such algae outbreaks.

Typepad blocked? Impossible

The Positive Solutions blog points out that while Typepad may appear to be blocked in China, such a thing is in fact impossible.

Hu Jintao's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Imagethief looks at a huge art work that was painted to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the handover, and compares it to Mao era propaganda and Beatles' cover art.

China launches $1 billion Africa fund

The AP's Joe McDonald reports:

China launched a $1 billion fund Tuesday to finance trade and investment by Chinese companies in Africa ... The new fund is to be financed by the government's China Development Bank, which said the fund eventually will expand to $5 billion.

June 26, 2007

Free speech, privacy, and corporate responsibility: an update

Rebecca MacKinnon revisits the behavior of multinational IT companies in regard to government rules about information and censorship:

Rather, the process is about helping companies find a way to do business in all major markets, including China, while doing all they can to protect their users' interests against government encroachment globally. It's as much about protecting Internet users from an over-reaching Bush administration as it is about protecting them from the Chinese public security bureau.

Murdoch’s Dealings in China

The New York Times has published a long article by Joseph Kahn that recounts the history of Rupert Murdoch's involvement with China.

Interfax interviews Zuola

Interfax has published an interview with Zhou Shuguang, better known as the self-identified citizen journalist Zuola.

June 25, 2007

The Tengzhou City Government office building

ESWN posts a whole bunch of pictures of a mammoth Tengzhou government complex and translates two reports: "A netizen posted photographs of the luxurious government office building in Tengzhou and was arrested. Or it may be a completely different story altogether."

Microsoft caches secret surveillance programs on China?

From digital industry expert Jiang Qiping in China Business News, conspiracy theories about the recent mis-diagnosis of Windows XP system files as "back door" Trojan horses by Norton Anti-virus:

...the attitude of anti-virus software firms is really intriguing: they only recognize that they misreported the program as a virus, but did not acknowledge misreporting it as a security problem. In other words, this suggests that there might be someone (either in the United States government or Microsoft) deliberately designing unsafe programs for users that are not viruses, but still fall into the category of a security issue....are the two reported 'back door' programs targeted at the mainland of China or even the Chinese government?

Iraq revives Saddam deal with China

From The Financial Times:

China National Petroleum Corporation, the country’s largest oil company and the parent of listed group Petrochina, signed a deal with Iraq in 1997 to develop the al-Ahdab oil field. The field is one of the first to be offered to foreign investors since the 2003 US-led invasion....

...'The contract with the previous administration is still valid – it was signed and we will honour it' [said the Iraqi Oil Minister]

June 24, 2007

Nailhouse 2: Residents fight back

John Kennedy at GVO translates a BBS thread about a 90-year-old woman resisting eviction in Zhejiang.

Nobody said media-whoring would be easy

Imagethief has some advice for Zuola, the blogger turned citizen journalist who, after success on the Nail House case and in Xiamen, was met with a storm of criticism when he took his video camera to Google.