« July 2009 | Main | September 2009 »

August 31, 2009

The third case of the lead poisoning affair

AP reports on the two hundred children with lead poisoning in Kunming:

Two hundred children are suffering from lead poisoning in southwest China, the country's third such case of mass sickening in the past month, an official newspaper said Monday.

Parents in Tongdu, a township in Yunnan province's capital of Kunming, blamed the poisoning on a nearby industrial park, the China Daily reported.

Earlier this month, more than 1,300 children in central Hunan province and at least 615 children in northern Shaanxi province tested positive for lead poisoning, which can damage the nervous and reproductive systems and cause high blood pressure and memory loss.

China's space pioneer under the microscope

Peter Brown writes for the Asia Times about Tsien Hsue-shen (钱学森, Qian Xuesen), the Chinese rocket scientist who was the subject of Iris Chang's biography Thread of the Silkworm and a new paper on the development of China's space program:

Although not everything that Qian endorsed was a winner, Qian possessed the ability to successfully delegate and this, among other things, enabled the Chinese program to move forward. And while Kulacki and Lewis are right to label Qian as an excellent cheerleader - "After the successful launch of East is Red 1 and an enthusiastic speech by Qian Xuesen, the assembled experts boldly proposed a plan to put a Chinese astronaut in space by the end of 1973." (pg 20) - and while his ability to inspire and motivate his trusted associates and fans deserves attention, this was not his primary role.

China may buy over 3 million iPhones in 2010

Following the official announcement of Apple's collaboration with China Unicom on Friday, Bloomberg reports on the expected sales:

“China was the last missing piece to the iPhone international story,” said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis. He recommends buying Cupertino, California-based Apple’s shares, which he doesn’t own.

The agreement allows Apple, which has sold more than 26 million iPhones in over 80 markets, to enter a country with more wireless subscribers than the combined populations of the U.S., Japan and Germany. China has room to grow because almost half of Chinese people have no mobile phones and companies are beginning to roll out third-generation services...

Some analysts aren’t as optimist as Piper Jaffray’s Munster about iPhone sales in China. Apple may sell 2 million iPhones in China next year, with each million translating into 18 cents to 20 cents a share of profit, said Jeffrey Fidacaro, a New York- based analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group.

Here's to you Chris Lee

cfensi writes an appreciation of Li Yuchun (aka Chris Lee), the Super Girl winner who has shown a remarkable amount of staying power despite the mockery and criticism she has received:

Throughout the changes that have occurred over the years in China’s music industry, and China’s entertainment scene, there exists one constant, and that constant is the reigning queen of mainland Cpop no matter whose talk show Jane Zhang goes on. She is Chris Lee, or Li Yuchun, a bizarre inexplicable pop culture figure to anyone who didn’t fall into her “fensi” category. This fact has perplexed us here too at Cfensi, and frustrated us from the beginning. Not only does Li Yuchun not have the Miss Universe looks that one hopes to represent a country, but she also sadly lacked in the amount of singing talent that would explain away those looks. All she had was her unbelievable solid presence, an assurance that most people could only covet from afar, an assurance that distanced her from the majority.

August 30, 2009

Lu Xun in textbooks and on the net

ChinaGeeks translates an essay by Chang Ping on Lu Xun's place in the secondary school curriculum.

At the same time, because the textbooks provide prescribed responses for Lu Xun’s essays, students feel Lu Xun is dull, dry, and even begin to oppose him. Because these standardized responses have been politicized for some time now, [students] see Lu Xun as a spokesperson for [CCP] ideology and negate the time in which he lived.

Also on the same site, a survey about Lu Xun from Anti-CNN.

Yunnan media bans boilerplate about social disturbances

ESWN translates a Southern Metropolis Daily article on a decision by the Yunnan propaganda authorities banning terms like "a small handful", "evil elements," and "troublemakers" from being used in reports about social disturbances.

August 29, 2009

Chain-tweeting over the GFW

John Pasden at Sinosplice explains how to connect a Zuosa account to its blocked Twitter counterpart by hopping through a Taiwan-based microblog service.

Keso discusses microblogging and his Twitter suspension

At CNReviews, Elliot Ng talks to tech blogger Keso, whose account on Twitter (currently blocked in China) was suspended by the operators, about microblogging in China:

Sina has successfully invited China’s celebrity bloggers to set up on their blog platform, and I expect that Sina Micro-Blog will adopt the same operating strategy, focused on the development of the relationship between celebrities and fans. I was invited to try the product by Sina. As long as my Twitter account restored, I will still use Twitter, because Twitter is an important channel for me to access more information.

August 28, 2009

Role of the Paramilitary defined in legislation

Reuters and the New York Times report on the legislation announced yesterday concerning Paramilitary Armed Police (PAP) and their role in quelling unrests. From Chris Buckley at Reuters:

Chinese lawmakers on Thursday passed legislation bolstering central control of paramilitary police and spelling out their role in quelling riots and protests, less then two months after deadly unrest in Xinjiang.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, approved a law governing the People's Armed Police (PAP), the security force used to quell domestic unrest, as well as guarding officials and key installations, the China News Service said.

Thousands pour into Yunnan from Myanmar

A clash in the Kokang region of Myanmar has resulted in thousands of refugees crossing the border, according to the China Daily. Bloomberg reports today on the clash:

Myanmar’s army seized control of a rebel-held town on its border with China, raising concern a 20- year ceasefire accord could collapse, threatening planned oil and gas projects in the region.

Rebels attacked Myanmar police patrolling a border gate in the Kokang-controlled area of northeastern Shan state, killing at least one, the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma said in a statement late yesterday. Businesses are closed and more than 10,000 Kokang refugees have fled across the border into China on concern fighting will break out, the group said.

Guangdong political advisor Chen Shaoji dismissed

Xinhua, via the People's Daily Communist Party news portal, reports that former Guangdong CPPCC chair Chen Shaoji has been dismissed from the party and from public office. "Chen lived a corrupt life," the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said. Chen had previously been placed under party discipline.

August 27, 2009

Netizen detained for "spreading rumor"

At Global Voices Advocacy, Oiwan Lam describes how Xiong Zhongjun has been detained by Hebei police for suggesting that Hu Bin, a wealthy young man whose reckless driving ended up killing another man, had found an impersonator to take his place in court and serve his three-year sentence.

Taiwan may allow Dalai Lama visit

Reports the New York Times, in order to help earthquake victims find relief, and apparently to embarrass President Ma Ying-jeou

The invitation to the Dalai Lama was extended by several government leaders in the south and was seen by analysts in Taiwan as a political maneuver aimed to embarrass President Ma Ying-jeou. His approval ratings have plummeted over what is widely seen as a slow response to the devastating typhoon.

Burmese refugees flee Myanmar army, flood into China

Reuters:

Tension between Myanmar government troops and an armed ethnic group has sparked an exodus of thousands of people into China from northeastern Myanmar, activists and witnesses said on Wednesday.

Large groups crossed the border on Tuesday from Kokang in Myanmar's Shan State, said a Reuters witness in Nansan, a town in China's southern Yunnan province. About 10,000 people have fled Kokang since August 8, China's Chongqing Evening News reported.

Four and a half years for ProState stabber

The Black and White Cat summarizes the sentencing of ProState In Flames' stabber:

This news is now three weeks old, but I only just noticed it and no one else seems to have mentioned it in English. The man who stabbed the blogger ProState in Flames (journalist and writer Xu Lai) at a book signing on Valentines Day was sentenced to four and a half years in prison early this month.

The attacker, Yang Chun, was arrested in Suzhou less than a week after the stabbing and a court in Beijing accepted the case in June.

More on editor sacked for Net addiction camp death

The China Daily has run a story about the Liu Yan, the editor of a Nanning newspaper who was sacked because of a story about a teenager who died as a result of abuses at an Internet addiction boot camp that ends with this quote:

"The media's supervision of government has met many difficulties because the government that oversees them still has many institutional problems," said Chi Fulin, a political advisor and president of the China Institute for Reform and Development.

"There's still a long way to go to improve the government's disclosure of information and social supervision," he said.

New fat data cable between India and China

From Telceomasia.net

Reliance Communications and China Telecom have opened the first direct terrestrial optical cable between China and India.

The new cable, initially lit at 20Gbps, runs through the mountainous terrain of the Nathula Pass between Yadong, Tibet, and Siliguri in northeast India.

The new cable will support enterprise connectivity and also extend broadband services to more rural regions in China and India, Reliance said in a statement.

Yadong is the bit of Tibet bordering Bhutan and Sikkim.

August 26, 2009

The Story of the Stone translator David Hawkes dies

For The Guardian, John Gittings writes an appreciation of Sinologist and translator David Hawkes:

Returning to Oxford in 1945, Hawkes switched from classics to Chinese and was, for a time, the only student in a department with only one teacher, the ex-missionary ER Hughes.

It was Hughes who persuaded the university to offer an honours degree in Chinese, but according to Hawkes he had "to make Chinese look as much as possible like Latin and Greek", with the syllabus limited to the study of Confucius and other classical texts.

Returning again to Oxford from China in 1951, Hawkes joined a small but growing department under the new professor – also ex-missionary – Homer Dubs. The syllabus edged forward with relatively more modern texts taught by Hawkes and by a new Chinese colleague, the talented Wu Shichang.

By the end of the 1950s, the set texts for undergraduates included popular fiction from the Ming dynasty and short stories by the famous 20th-century writer Lu Xun (though the study of Chinese history stopped firmly at 1911, at the end of the last imperial dynasty).

...Encouraged by Wu, who became a lifelong friend, Hawkes was always conscious of the greater challenge of the Dream.

via Bruce Humes.

The death of the Internet addict

ESWN summarizes and translates reports about the death in the Internet addiction training camp, including one report that got its editor fired:

A deputy editor of a Guangxi newspaper was dismissed by provincial propaganda authorities after the paper had published a series of stories about a teenage boy who was beaten to death at an internet addiction camp. Liu Yuan, the deputy editor of the Nanning -based Nanguo Morning Post and the chief editor of its website, was stood down on Monday and would be sacked soon, Guangxi and Guangdong journalists familiar with the issue confirmed yesterday.

Getting to shake hands with a giant walking Haibao

Micah Sittig writes about appearing on a variety talent show on SMG:

Mediocre TV show directors, like mediocre reporters, will tell the story that they want and not the one that reflects reality. I think that a good TV show director would work with the guests to bring out their strong points and tell the special stories that everyone has to tell. In our case though the director was stuck on telling the story of a foreigner who came to China fated to marry the spicy Hunanese girl, and who tries ineptly to burrow into the local culture; I was willing to go along with a little of it (ask me in person why much of that story is fiction), but they were lucky they didn't ask me to dress in a Tang jacket or sing Beijing opera. I might have gone off at them.

City of swifts, no longer

swifts_beijing.jpg

Why are swifts (apus apus), the little migratory birds that summer in Beijing before flying as far as South Africa when winter sets in, disappearing from the capital?

August 25, 2009

No trial set for Urumqi rioters

The Global Times reports that suspects arrested in connection with the July rioting in Urumqi will not go to trial this week, contrary to an article that ran in yesterday's China Daily. The English-language upstart gets in a dig at its established rival:

A story in a State-owned English-language newspaper, published yesterday and citing an unnamed Urumqi procuratorate official, gave the new number of arrests and the trial time, adding that the charges include vandalizing public property, robbery, murder, arson and organizing crowds to disrupt public order and traffic.

However, Hou Hanmin, the spokeswoman for the Xinjiang Uygur Autonmous Region, denied any truth in the report, saying there will be no trial starting this week, and that the figure of more than 200 arrested is inaccurate.

Berlin Wall art project goes unreported

DPA via Monsters and Critics reports that an event organized to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall ran afoul of press censors:

The 'wall bricks' of the event in Beijing are four of 1,000 polystyrene reproductions of Berlin Wall segments; 970 of these were distributed to artists in Germany for them to decorate.... Wang Guangyi, Zhang Xiaogang, Xu Bing and Huang Rui recently revealed their artistically enhanced segments to about a dozen Chinese journalists in the garden of the German ambassador's residence.

...But then censorship officials apparently intervened. Editorial departments immediately received a notice barring them from reporting on this unusual example of Chinese-German cooperation.

The [Beijing News] article was swiftly deleted from the newspaper's website.

The article appears on the page image (2009.08.12, C10), but the text version is nowhere to be found on the website. However, it has been preserved in copies republished on a number of other websites. (via Free More News.)

Stories from Jiabiangou

For the New York Times, Howard French reviews Woman From Shanghai, an English translation of Yang Xianhui's stories of starvation in a rightist camp:

Mr. Yang’s stories, which he painstakingly collected over a three-year period a decade ago, are those of people branded by the Chinese state as “rightists” in the late 1950s and sent to Jiabiangou, a notorious camp for “re-education through labor” in the northwestern desert wastelands of Gansu Province. In his introduction the translator, Wen Huang, explains that the camp, which was originally built to hold 40 or 50 criminals, came to hold roughly 3,000 political prisoners between 1957 and 1961. All but 500 of them would perish there, mostly of starvation.

August 24, 2009

Lead poisoning haunts smelter communities

From Reuters via the New York Times:

The problem dogs heavy metals bases in Hunan, Henan, Yunnan and Guangdong provinces. Closing polluting plants has pushed the industry to poorer areas where any investment is welcome.

After contaminated drinking water led Hunan province to shut dozens of metals plants in the cities of Zhuzhou and Xiangtan in 2006, the industry moved to the south and west of the province.

One of the new frontiers was Wugang, where authorities detained two manganese smelter executives this month after 1,350 children were found to have excessive levels of lead in their blood. The general manager is still on the run.

Pulling back from outsourcing

The Wall Street Journal profiles Farouk Systems, a US-based company that has moved manufacturing from China to America:

"I think you're starting to see more manufacturers rethinking outsourcing," says Daniel Meckstroth, an economist at the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, a public policy and research group based in Arlington, Va., calling a June speech by General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt, where he said that overseas outsourcing had gone too far and that U.S. companies needed to expand domestic production, a "bellwether of what's happening in manufacturing."

Chinese business in the Telegraph

This week The Telegraph has a feature on doing business in China, starting with an article by Michael Pettis and interviews with leading businesswoman Dong Mingzhu and the head of China Construction Bank Zhang Jianguo.

New US ambassador: Obama to visit in November

From Bloomberg:

President Barack Obama will make his first official visit to China in November, seeking to foster collaboration on the environment, renewable energy and regional security, the new U.S. ambassador to China said.

“If we can tackle all of these, we will be able to take U.S.-China relations to new heights,” Jon Huntsman said today in Beijing at his first press meeting since arriving in the Chinese capital yesterday.

Billionaires of Beijing and Shanghai

From The China Daily:

The latest Hurun Report on China's wealthiest people highlights how the super-rich of Beijing want to live their lives.

Beijing has the largest number of wealthy people in China, according to the report.

It said there are 143,000 multimillionaires and 8,800 billionaires in Beijing.

There are 116,000 multimillionaires and 7,000 billionaires in Shanghai.

John Smith, Beijinger

Sibuxiang, a blingual American blogger who has been doing business in China since the 1970s writes about doing business in China before name cards were de rigeur, and a Beijinger named "John Smith".

RELEASED:
Activist lawyer Xu Zhiyong,
Uighur webmaster Ilham Tohti

From The New York Times:

Chinese authorities unexpectedly released three political activists from detention on Sunday, including one whose case had drawn global attention...

...The government did not say whether it had also suspended criminal tax-evasion charges made last week against the most prominent of the freed men, Xu Zhiyong, a public-interest lawyer...

...In a separate case, Beijing authorities also released Ilham Tohti, an economist, Internet activist and ethnic Uighur detained after deadly riots erupted in the western Xinjiang region in early July.

Sky Canaves at the Wall Street Journal interviews Xu Zhiyong's lawyer Li Fangping and blogger Wen Yunchao (North Wind) for an article on Xu's release.

August 23, 2009

Activist lawyer Xu Zhiyong released

From the Associated Press:

An activist Chinese lawyer who was detained in a possible crackdown on dissent ahead of October's 60th anniversary of Communist rule was released Sunday, but he said authorities were investigating possible tax charges against him.

Xu Zhiyong co-founded a Beijing legal aid group that has tackled some of China's most politically sensitive cases, most recently representing parents of children sickened last year by chemical-tainted milk. Xu was detained July 29 and formally arrested Aug. 12 on charges of evading taxes.

Xu has been at the forefront of legal reform and public interest law in China, and has been a visiting scholar at Yale Law School in the United States several times.

"I think animation should be simple and fun"

NeochaEDGE interviews Sun Haipeng, the CG animator who created the popular Super Baozi short.

The mysterious village surveillance cameras

ESWN translates a report from the Southern Metropolis Daily on a village in Shandong that has five security cameras, two of which are pointed at the door to the home of one petitioner.

August 22, 2009

Hello! Comrade! Gay China

Designer Xander Zhou guest edits the new issue of iLook magazine, "Gay China" (中国真高兴). ChinaHush presents a brief overview of the issue.

August 21, 2009

Lead-affected children have lower IQs

The story of Hunan children with too much lead in their blood has consumed the media lately. Bloomberg reports:

Children exposed to lead at five times the normal limit from a smelter in China may become less intelligent than healthy peers, doctors specializing in the effects of poisons said.

They may also have impaired kidney function and anemia, said Michael Moore, who advised the Australian government as a former director at Australia’s National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology. The extent of damage depends on how long they have been breathing in lead-contaminated air, he said.

Can China have a global voice?

Global Times interviews the dean of the School of Journalism at Tsinghua University, associate professor of the School of Journalism at Fudan University and other media professionals.

China's "beat and compress" mode

At the Telegraph blog, Malcolm Moore lists the activists, bloggers, lawyers, authors etc that have been arrested in recent times:

Yesterday, it emerged that yet another leading intellectual, Mo Zhixu, has been put under house arrest. Mo is an author and the recently elected head of China’s PEN centre, a charity that defends the right to free speech. He is also one of the founders of Bullog.cn, one of China’s most influential websites.

Mo joins a host of prominent Chinese thinkers, charity workers and lawyers who have been rounded up this year and locked away. We’ve put together a list to record them all.

Rem Koolhaas and CCTV architecture porn

JDM090821content.jpg

Chinese netizens are buzzing about a five-year-old book containing graphic images which suggest that the new CCTV headquarters was designed to place enormous genitalia in Beijing. (Update: Koolhaas responds.)

Finding good in Sodom

Leung Man-tao (梁文道), a social commentator and TV critic who has published books as well as written numerous newspaper articles and blog posts, penned a blog post on August 13 inspired by Xu Zhiyong's disappearance and the rape of a petitioner at the Juyuan Hotel in Beijing this month.

Shi Dongbing's fabricated inside information

The children of a number of high-level national leaders, including Hu Yaobang, Ye Jianying, Wang Dongxing, Ji Dengkui, and Hua Guofeng, blasted Shi for "distorting historical fact" and "fabricating history."

How can speech threaten state security?

China Digital Times translates a defense plea entered by lawyers for Tan Zuoren, an activist now on trial in Chengdu in connection with an investigation into schools that collapsed in the earthquake, as well as activities for the 20th anniversary of June 4:

The matters described above are sufficient to prove that none of the accusations of the prosecution about the speech and actions of Tan Zuoren constitute the crime described in Article 151 in the PRC Criminal Code of “incitement to overthrow state power”. The accusation that Mr. Tan Zuoren committed this crime fails for lack of evidence.

Sichuan since ancient times has been a place where cultured people gather. Many heroes have arisen throughout the history of Chengdu. We are confident that Sichuan has sufficient political wisdom to handle the Tan Zuoren case.

August 20, 2009

More parents protest over lead poisoning

Reuters sums up State media reports about children with lead contaminated blood:

The number of Chinese children found with excess lead in their blood near a metal plant in central China has reached 1,354, state media said on Thursday, with new clashes between police and parents over pollution.

The rise in initial diagnoses of poisoning around the Wugang Manganese Smelting Plant in Hunan province adds to a recent rash of such cases, which have exposed growing tensions between local governments and residents over pollution, often by poorly regulated plants and factories with ties to local government.

Internet blocks make China a dead zone for online business

On the China Solved blog:

The few big sites that have been blocked and hobbled in China are powering thousands of small businesses and driving the future of online commerce. China has become a dead-zone for any business planning on building an international online business.

Local justice to steer petitioners away from Beijing

The AP, expanding on a Xinhua report, says that Chinese authorities have instructed local officials to improve their handling of petitioners' cases with the help of legal experts who will be dispatched throughout the country:

The official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday that the inability of the current system to address the petitioners' cases has marred the public's perception of justice.

To rectify this, the Communist Party will send legal officials to visit provinces and other areas with a high number of petitioners who come to Beijing and will hear cases on the spot, Xinhua reported.

Important officials from local politics and law committees in every province, city and county have been told to set aside one day a month to meet with petitioners, it said. Government Web sites should also receive petitions online and they should be solved within 60 days, Xinhua said.

The BBC reports the news under the headline "China bans petitioners in Beijing."

"Fight, look cool, show your muscles"

The New York Times profiles Donnie Yen:

“Donnie is the ‘it’ action person right now,” said the producer and director Peter Ho-Sun Chan, who cast Mr. Yen, 46, in “Bodyguards & Assassins,” a big-budget period action film directed by Teddy Chen that is set for release in Asia in December, and about six months later in Europe and North America. “He has built himself into a bona fide leading man, who happens to be an action star.”

Earlier on Danwei: Donnie Yen meditates on violence (from Esquire)

August 19, 2009

Beijing's intimidation tactics

Andrew Shearer, Director of Studies at Lowy Institute for International Studies, has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about Australia's need to hold its own ground in face of China's challenges, as well as what's going on behind the arrests:

But the more fundamental reason for Beijing's pique probably lies elsewhere. China relies on Australia for imports of iron ore, the price negotiations for which are increasingly acrimonious. China's political leaders see guaranteed access to low-cost raw materials as vital to sustaining growth and therefore to political legitimacy and their own survival. That makes minerals and energy a vital strategic interest. They are determined to exploit China's buying muscle to avoid paying the going market price. And they clearly aren't beyond a bit of intimidation. Smaller Asian countries such as Singapore and larger European powers like France have paid a price for incurring Beijing's wrath.

The great paradox of China: green energy and black skies

Christina Larson at Yale Environment 360 reports on China's unhealthy clime compared to its "green-tech revolution." Via Reuters:

From the outside, China is seen as passing spectacular new renewable energy goals, building massive wind farms and hydropower stations overnight and perhaps one day even giving American and European companies a run for their money in the global green-tech market. But from the inside, what emerges is a more muddled picture. The daily experience is that the air and water quality is bad, in some places getting marginally better or staying the same, in some cases getting worse.

Wolf Totem to come to the big screen (finally)

The AFP reports that Jean-Jacques Annaud will direct the film adaptation of the mega-bestseller Wolf Totem, with shooting to start in 2011:

"It's a difficult script to write, I'll need at least six months," he said.

The French filmmaker said he was looking forward to working in China, and said the criticism he received from authorities over "Seven Years in Tibet", which offered a sympathetic portrayal of the Dalai Lama, was in the past.

"I told them right away that I had done that film, but they told me that the situation had changed, that mentalities had evolved, that it was in the past," he said.

Practically since the book's initial publication, a film version has been rumored to be in the works. The AFP does not say whether New Zealand effects house WETA is involved. (According to this erroneous report, the Wolf Totem movie was supposed to premiere before the Beijing Olympics...)

Beijing October 1 security to be tighter than Olympics

From The China Daily:

More street-level checkpoints and extensive searches of individuals - especially those who have been residents of Beijing for a short time - are among security initiatives police in the capital will take as they look to "nip threats in the bud" during National Day celebrations.

With a little more than a month to go before the Oct 1 festivities in Beijing that will mark the nation's 60th birthday, police have been told to beef up their anti-terror efforts, likely to a higher level than was seen during the 2008 Olympic Games...

...Beijing will also have 800,000 volunteers on patrol before and during the National Day celebrations.

$41 billion dollars of Australian natural gas for China

The China Daily's top headline is Australian moves sour relations, referring to the political kerfuffle around Rebiya Kadeer's visit down under, but just underneath the headline is a link to this story:

China, Australia ink $41B gas deal, biggest ever

Australia and China struck their biggest trade deal ever on Tuesday as the world's two most valuable listed oil companies, Exxon Mobil and PetroChina, agreed a $41 billion liquefied natural gas deal.

August 18, 2009

Xu Zhiyong formally arrested

Reuters via Financial Times reports:

A pioneering Chinese legal rights advocate has been formally arrested for tax evasion almost three weeks after he was detained, one of his lawyers said on Tuesday, in the latest blow to the China’s activist community.

Xu Zhiyong, co-founder of the Open Constitution Initiative, or Gongmeng, had been out of contact since he was seized from his home by security officials at dawn on July 29.

单位网《中国新闻周刊》问答: 维族年轻人充满着理解和隐约地兴奋

2009年8月

王刚

单位网: 在您(们)为这次事件刚到达新疆的时候,您的感觉如何?
王刚: 我是7月6日下午到的乌鲁木齐,当地大约下午四点,乌鲁木齐地窝堡机场不见有暴力的迹象,机场的安保没有明显增多,一切看似正常。只是原本的两个出入口,减少到了一个,不许迎接的人进去机场大厅。机场进出的游客明显少了很多。

在从机场到市区的一路上车辆少得可怜,更不见行人,这个城市里的人感觉像是集体去度假了。市面萧条,所有的商场和铺面都已歇业。

当地政府已经在这一天的早上通知全城各单位放假三日。大多数的人显然都躲在家里,但很多人觉得这不是一个好事,有事做显然比无所事事的活在恐惧中,更让人心安。

进入市区,我们率先驱车去了昨晚发生暴力流血的几个主点地区。比如大巴扎、二道桥,没有见到烧毁的汽车残骸,只是沿街的店铺和马路上有些燃烧过的痕迹。

然后不出所料地我们见到了大队的武装警察。说实话,这让人有了不少安全感。但第一天,武装警察没有我想像中那么多。

我们所在的宾馆位于二道桥附近,是暴力事件的重点发生地。当天晚上,武警采取了交通管制,大街上汽车少得可怜,在每个十字路口武警都设置了路障。

和中国其他城市一样,这个城市的中心,有一所平时属于市民的大广场——人民广场。如今,这里已经被武警占据,成了临时的武警指挥部,市民禁止入内。

晚上我们搬进了附近的一家宾馆,从楼上望去,广场里是黑压压的武警。


单位网: 您(们)以前去过新疆吗? 这此去了之后有感觉到关系的不同吗?
王刚: 我小时候在新疆生活过一段时间。那时候我的父亲在北疆当兵,我和母亲随军。当时我们在石河子,一个除了军队就是大戈壁的小城镇,如今这里听说已经成了新疆最花园的城市。当年的印象已然无多,但在我感觉里那时候,维族是很哈霭可亲的,维汉关系远没有如今这么紧张。

而这一次,在乌鲁木齐维汉关系的不协调处去无处不在。在大街上,作为一个汉族,我很容易就能收获到来自维族不友善的目光。这种不友善就像在大城市,人们对于维族人普遍的不放心一样。在上海、北京和广州,稍微有些生活经验的人,都会在看见维族人的时候试图离得远些。因为很多时候,这些人与小偷小摸联系在了一起。

这种不放心的心态,在内地城市已经存在了将近十年。因此在新疆,维族人聚居的地方,一个汉族被维族人当做猴子来看,也是见怪不怪的。

我想说的是,作为一个理智的人,如果说维族排斥汉族,那么也是汉族首先让维族感觉到疏离感的。

单位网: 您觉的中国读者是怎样看《中国新闻周刊》对新疆“打,砸,烧” 7.5 的报道的?
王刚: 在普遍不了解新疆局势的中国读者眼里,对于7.5事件充满着惊愕和不理解。毕竟“56个民族是一家”的概念已经在人们心目中根深蒂固。但说实话,很多人也明白7.5事件并非偶然的一小撮人为之。事实上每个人心里都存在一个疑问,如果是一小撮人之间的误解和煽动,事态总会消弭于无形。但最终酿成了如此惨剧,每个人心中都会有自己的答案。但遗憾的是,我接触到的很多读者,都认为中国的民族政策过于软弱了,对于维族人过于迁就了。这种对立的心态一度让我很苦恼。


单位网: 《中国新闻周刊》对这种突发事件有什么样的准备——您们的报道形势和过程是怎样的?
王刚: 《中国新闻周刊》有一套成熟的应对突发事件的程序。我们在第一时间监测到事件发生时,就会派出记者赴时间发生第一线,组织采访和报道。这一次,我们预判7.5事件将会是今年一起重大的新闻事件后,编辑部决定派两名记者赴前线采访。我们到的那天已经是星期一了,本刊每周的截稿日在周二,因此我们第一组封面报道只有一天的采访时间,只能将最初的所见所闻照实全录。

在第一组封面报道里,我们见证了7月7日,汉族人集体上街游行的全过程,并且在稿件里充分客观的表现了这些。这是国内第一家周刊,对汉族人上街游行进行全程报道的。因为在当地,7.5事件已经造成了汉维之间仇恨和误解的加深。

完成了第一个封面后,编辑部决定加派人手,在第二期做一个有足够深度和广度的封面。于是,我们在前线的记者增加到了三个。

第二组我们重点将力度放在了汉维关系的深度观察上,我们试图通过一些汉维混居的地区,汉维混血的人物,敏感的大学校园入手,从这些地方去考察汉维关系的细枝末节。

我们了解到整个暴力事件的实施者是一大批失意的维族年轻人,因此我们也把观察的重点放在了他们身上,我们希望了解他们心灵深处的失落感来自于哪里,而造成这些失落感的根本原因又是什么。好在我们最终大致找到了答案。7.5事件只不过是一系列社会矛盾的一个极端集体爆发,参与其中的暴力实施者的诉求事实上是各不一样的,他们有些是因为失业;有些是因为走不出去,在内地受排挤;有些是因为贫穷。总之,这些社会问题的爆发点最终却发生在汉维关系这个最脆弱、敏感的地方。

单位网: 讲外国驻华的新闻媒体,您觉的他们自由的在新疆报道都有什么好处?有什么坏处?
王刚: 事实上,这一次外国驻华的新闻媒体在采访自由度上并没有让我感觉有更宽的尺度和自由。因为一些客观原因,外国驻华的新闻媒体更多采访到的是一些底层的人物,这些我们同样也能做到,而我们约见的一些核心人物,他们却不具备这个便利。因此,外国驻华的新闻媒体更多的把目光放在维族底层群体的三言两语上,说实话这些言论都是很破碎且不足够全面客观的。

因为关于汉维关系,100个人有100个人的说法,这无法让记者得到一个足够清晰明了的线索。因此,外国驻华的新闻媒体此次的报道在我看来是琐碎, 不完整的。

单位网: 您是否会认为这次国外媒体又次的跟去年“藏独”事件一样带着偏见性的报道?为什么这么说?
王刚: 没有所谓的偏见。发生此类暴力流血事件,作为每一个记者都是带着人文关怀的心态且宽容的去看待问题的。只不过局限于角度和眼界,每个记者看到的只是事件的不同面而已。

事实上,在我看来,将任何事件还原为简单的新闻报道都是愚蠢的,新闻报道是展现事件背后的复杂性和丰富面,如果只是一味地简单到“一小撮”或者“民族压迫”的控诉。

那不是一个记者的偏见,而是愚蠢。

当年,在孟菲斯黑人大罢工,最终造成了马丁·路德金的中弹身亡的惨案,也不是简单的“一小撮”和“种族政策”的问题。

单位网: 事情过去快两个星期了。您们的报道在两刊的杂志也发了。过了这段时光,您对7.5事件的看法有何改变呢?
王刚: 我的看法从未改变。一,事件不是一小撮暴力分子为之。二,7.5事件是一系列社会矛盾的一个极端集体爆发,其中有强烈的民族矛盾,但并非全部。三,新疆的民族问题由来已久,也不是一天两天突然爆发的,新疆五六十年代出现的民族大团结也是在当时那个特殊的历史环境中形成的,在如今当下的社会环境里已经行不通了。因此,中国的民族政策的确到了转变思路的时候。四,内地对于新疆的排斥、汉族人对于维族人的误解,事实上,早于新疆对于内地的排斥,维族人对于汉族人的敌意。所以说,是这个社会首先让维族人感受到了明显失落感。这是无法逃避的事实。

单位网: 有博客说,中国的新闻读者和外国的新闻读者对类似这次新疆事件(民族事件)有着不可兼容的观点,各国的媒体文章也是。您是否阅读国外的文章,喜欢哪些媒体,不喜欢哪些?
王刚: 看新闻我只看事实,很少看观点。而且做了这么多年新闻,我一般比较排斥那些意气用事的报道文字。我经常阅读很多国外媒体的文章,在一些国际问题的报道上,国外媒体时常显得目光很独到。比如纽约时报、纽约客、TIME、经济学人等等,好了要是列举,这一页纸的空白都将填满的。

我承认在一些问题上,中国的新闻读者和外国的新闻读者有着不可兼容的观点。就像很多时候我跟很多我的被采访者的观点也无法兼容一样。

单位网: 有其余的想法,请写在这里:
王刚: 在对一些当地维族年轻人重点采访后,一批维族精英青年对7.5事件的看法,让我对这个世界充满了失望。在我采访的几个年轻人,他们对于7.5事件的暴力流血场面,充满着理解和隐约地兴奋。在他们看来,正是这么一次极端暴力的流血事件,让全世界都关注到了维族人的生活状况以及他们面临的社会问题。

说实话,他们的率真让我震惊。此后的几个夜里我都为此夜不能寐。这些年轻人大多是受过良好教育的维族青年,但他们身上对于社会问题的感知也更深,比如失业、贫富差别等等,因此来自外部的失落感也更强,他们的激进让每一个外部观察者为之震惊。在采访后,我不得不承认,他们是整个7.5事件的暴力之源。

而另一面,来自南疆的、受教育较低的一些年轻人,他们却相对的温和许多。他们对于生活的诉求不高,对于社会问题的感知也是零星的一点半点,他们失落感不是很强,他们只是7.5事件中的胁从者。

在整个乌鲁木齐,任何人都觉得此次事件的影响将持久和深远。它将肯定是这个地区,长久以来的一个伤疤。但人们都不愿将他简单对立到汉维关系上,因为那将是这个城市两个民族之间的深渊。

因此,这个城市的人表现的很矛盾且小心翼翼,他们既不忘暴力的隐痛,又不敢直面最深层次的那些问题。

单位网: 您们觉得中国媒体现在的开放度会在年底或者国庆后放开吗,明年会不会更紧?
王刚: 对于这个问题,我从未乐观过。因此更不好预计。

单位网: 您认为这个收缩性的新闻开放度有没有影响到您们自己多年的报道?
王刚: 说实话,已经这么多年了,面对这种有限的新闻开放,一个记者怎么也都该习惯了。我说的习惯不是适应了,而是对于不可改变的无能为力。

有限的新闻环境对于我们的报道肯定有影响,很多时候我写的文章都会被主管宣传的领导改得面目全非,最终变得词不达意,欲言又止。但至少每一次,我都认真客观的把自己的想说的写出来,欣喜的是,有时候主管宣传的领导也时常大意,让一些敏感的真相不知不觉的刊发出来。

而事实上,这个社会对于新闻自由的宽松度已经越来越大。这是谁也遮不住得。


王婧

单位网: 在您(们)刚到达新疆的时候,您的感觉如何?
王婧: 我们是7月6日晚上6点左右到的乌鲁木齐。坐在从机场开往市区的车上,唯一的感觉是冷清。两边的店铺均已关门,几乎看不到行人,宽阔的马路上,车很少。司机说,平时这个时间点上,这条路总堵车。这是晚上6点多,太阳还没有落。这个安静得极其诡异的城市,让我无法想象一天以前的“暴乱”究竟是怎样的。唯一让我感受到那么一点点“暴乱”气氛的,是街上随处可见的武警​。他们甚至在街头现场演练。

从医院采访结束回到新闻大厦,已经是晚上8点多。因为急着上网看新闻,才猛地意识到,这个暴乱过后的城市,已经成为了信息孤岛——全疆断网。

紧接着是晚上9点,全城再次戒严——这意味着,我们无车可坐,寸步难行,只能呆在新闻大厦,甚至,我们没有地方可以吃饭,因为新闻大厦周围的小饭馆,早已停止营业。

身为记者,虽然已经到了最核心的地方,但我对这场“暴乱”的了解,几乎为零

我想下楼去了解一些情况,分社的记者说,“这里只有汉人和维人,没有旁观者的角色,下去实在是太危险。”新闻大厦的对面,就是维族聚居地。

最终还是下楼了。叫上保安一起前往一家被砸的小便利店时,保安说,确实不安全,因为你永远不知道,是不是从哪个黑暗的旮旯里会钻出一伙手持棍棒的暴徒。我们距离武警还有5​0米时,就被呵斥“不许动!”

虽然如此,我仍然固执地认为,这个城市,是安静的、平和的。

单位网: 您(们)以前去过新疆吗?这此去了之后跟以前来比又有什么样的不同?
王婧: 我是第一次到新疆。说实话,乌鲁木齐给我的感觉是非常好的,因为在采访的过程中能够感觉到,不管是汉人还是维人,他们都是非常友好的,而且很好客。

单位网: 您觉的中国读者是怎样看《中国新闻周刊》对新疆"打,砸,烧" 7.5 的报道的?
王婧: 应该还不错吧……听说杂志卖得很好,但很遗憾,我在新疆当地没有买到杂志。

单位网: 《中国新闻周刊》对这种突发事件有什么样的准备----您们的报道形势和过程是怎样的?
王婧: 第一时间赶往现场,永远是没有错的。后方提供了一定程度上的资讯支持,但是由于新疆全疆断网,成为一个信息孤岛,所以前后方的联系并不像以前处理突发事件那样,前后方有一个密切的资讯上的配合。

单位网: 对于外国驻华的新闻媒体来讲,您觉的他们自由的在新疆报道都有什么好处?有什么坏处?
王婧: 其实我们好像也比较自由的吧。我的感觉是,如果采访所谓的“三股势力”,外媒应该比我们有优势。坏处是,其实绝大多数的新疆人,经历过314事件之后,对外媒还是持有一定的看法,所以很多普通人不愿意接受外媒的采访。

单位网: 您是否会认为这次国外媒体又次的跟去年"藏独"事件一样带着偏见性的报道?为什么这么说?
王婧: 我觉得会好一些。这次官方密集地召开新闻发布会,使得偏见很难在事实层面上存在。

单位网: 事情过去一个多星期了。您们的报道也发了。过了这段时光,您对7.5事件的看法有何改变呢?
王婧: 阴影可能还会在一个很长的事件内存在并影响着新疆人的生活。

单位网: 有博客说,中国的新闻读者和外国的新闻读者对类似这次新疆事件(民族事件)有着不可兼容的观点,各国的媒体文章也是。您是否阅读国外的文章,喜欢哪些媒体,不喜欢哪些?
王婧: 暂时还没有读。

单位网: 有其余的想法,请写在这里:
王婧: 作为一名新记者,入职后第一次出差报道就是75事件。在新疆,有同行和我说,我很幸运,很多记者可能一辈子都没有这样的机会。所以我很珍惜。

China needs to do some growing up

The Financial Times Dragonbeat blog decides after the Rio Tinto arrests. Arthur Kroeber writes:

So should we cheer? Not really. If the best that China can say about itself is that it is not as bad as Russia, it has a ways to go before it is entitled to be taken seriously as a “responsible stakeholder” in the international economic order, let alone the global leader that some of its more enthusiastic publicists would claim it already is.

August 17, 2009

Peter Hessler and laowai nuzi

Gina Anne Russo writes about stereotypes about foreign woman in China, and the cultural expectations surrounding Chinese women:

What I would instead like to talk about is my third frustration with this book, which is by no means Hessler's fault: his lack of discussion of not only the racial awareness but also the gender awareness that comes with being a foreigner in China. He talks briefly of women in China, and specifically about relationships between men and women in China (and how this overlaps with racial differences). One thing I've learned this year is that racial identity and gender identity are inextricably linked, and I'd like to take this post to talk about my personal experiences with the struggles associated with being a laowai nuzi, or a foreigner woman, in China.

via The China Beat.

Rape and beatings in a Beijing "black jail" hotel

A petitioner from Anhui who came to Beijing was detained in a "petitioners' hotel" and raped. Her attacker, a guard, has since been arrested. Black and White Cat translates the Southern Weekly article that first exposed the incident in the national press.

Prostitutes vs. government officials: questioning the survey results

ESWN points out a few facts about the recent credibility poll that put prostitutes far ahead of government officials. First, it was an online poll, and second, the tabulation methods used were completely different from previous years, resulting in a survey that is "a waste of time at best, and misleading at worst."

Henan steel mill sale halted after protests

Keith Bradsher in the New York Times reports that the privatization of a state-owned steel mill in Anyang, Henan Province, has been suspended following large-scale protests last week:

The newspaper China Daily reported on Saturday that the police had tried to break through the ranks of workers on Friday in the latest incident, at the Linzhou Iron and Steel Company in the city of Anyang.

China Daily did not say whether the police had been successful. Government agencies at all levels have been reluctant to use overwhelming force against protesting workers.

The New York Times article contextualizes and expands on the original Xinhua report, which is fairly in-depth itself.

August 15, 2009

The loneliest grave on earth

Michael Rank in Asia Times:

There can be no lonelier grave anywhere on Earth. Amid fields close to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, lie the remains of Flight Lieutenant Desmond Hinton, a British fighter pilot who flew for the United States Air Force as a member of United Nations forces in the Korean War.

August 14, 2009

China Newsweek reporting from Urumqi

An interview with China Newsweek journalists Wang Gang and Wang Jing about the magazine's reporting on the Urumqi riots.

Chinese media on the Rio Tinto case

JDM090814riotinto.png

Iacob Koch-Weser rounds up some Chinese media reactions to the arrests of four Rio Tinto employees for industrial espionage. Does Australia have it in for the PRC?

Naked Yunnan girl looks for mother

ESWN translates from Southern Weekly the plight of a girl trying to get noticed by posting some nude pictures of herself:

Peng Chunping liked to start her memory from the year 2003, when her aunt received a call from her mother Zhumadian in Henan to ask for help after being kidnapped. It was that year that she left her sister and the village behind in order to locate her mother. Her sole motivation in life became petitioning.

Nobody can clearly describe the shock and impact of this petition journey for this strong but helpless girl. She has not talked about the details either. Two years later, Peng Chunping returned to the village to obtain her identification card. She found to her surprise that her household registration, her land and even part of her house had been taken away. This would turn her to turn the entire village into her enemies.

The village party secretary explained; "Who is going to allow a plot of land to remain fallow?" But Peng Chunping thinks that the village cadres and residents were bullying the widow and her two orphans. If she did not fight back, she would be living in a permanent state of oppression.

Green Dam "absolutely not" compulsory

By Aaron Beck in The Wall Street Journal:

China's industry and technology minister said the government will "absolutely not" force the mass installation of Internet-filtering software on personal computers, in Beijing's clearest climb-down to date on the software, which has aroused concerns over Internet users' freedom in China.

Xinhua has also reported the story.

Culinary nostalgia in Shanghai

At MCLC, Jin Feng reviews Mark Swislocki's Culinary Nostalgia: Regional Food Culture and the Urban Experience in Shanghai:

Part of Swislocki's discursive analysis distinguishes between two discourses on regional food culture in Shanghai: "one centered on local specialty foodstuffs, and a second on regional restaurants," and examines a variety of written sources such as local gazetteers (fangzhi), guidebooks, directories, journal articles, and literary representations (12). Arranging his discussion chronologically through five chapters, he then delineates the embodiment and enactment of "culinary nostalgia" in Shanghai at several crucial junctures of the city's history.

Examining the WTO decision

Stan Abrams at China Hearsay unpacks the WTO decision on China's book, film, and music imports in a three-part series of posts:

Will China appeal? I have no idea, but if it was me, I wouldn’t bother for most of the issues. China basically shot its legal wad with respect to several of these issues with the “public morals” defense, and they lost. The restrictions against foreign companies are obviously there, and if they have no excuse as to why they need those policies, then that is discriminatory.

One statement that came out today from the Chinese government simply said that the market for foreign products in this area is unimpeded by restrictions. Weak.

That’s not the point. The central issues here related to the ability of foreign companies to access the market directly. Sure, a movie studio can sell here via China Film Group, so technically they can access the market. But that isn’t going to cut it anymore.

See also: Part I, Part II (Content Review Provisions).

InMusic Festival review

China Music Radar reviews a music festival staged in Zhangbei recently by InMusic magazine:

Overall, we must commend the organizers for pulling it off in a decent, if far from perfect, fashion. They should certainly be a bit more humble post-event than the accolades of amazingness that they are currently giving themselves on their Sina microsite (there were not 100,000 people there; maybe 5-6000 per day) And sure, the critics are right in that the restroom facilities were miles away, the food selection was minimal (the pizza quite tasty though) and the site a dirty dustbowl rather than a romantic grassland but hey, this is a first festival effort on their part and they got a lot of it right. Despite the complaints we hear coming from the bands about how they were treated – the music was the highlight. It shone, the bands shone and that it the reason for a music festival in the first place.

August 13, 2009

Petitioner rapist turns himself in

China Daily reports on the rape by a "guard" that occurred at the Juyuan hotel:

A receptionist from the Juyuan Hotel told China Daily yesterday that Xu Jian, the rape suspect, checked out of the hotel about a week ago after staying there for more than three months.

She added that she was not sure if Xu is a "guard," but "guards" were often stationed at the hotel to control the movements of the people who came to Beijing to petition.

The hotel manager, surnamed Liu, told China Daily yesterday that all petitioners left the hotel after the rape incident, but he didn't deny that the hotel often housed petitioners.

India will not build road connecting Assam State with Yunnan

From GoKunming.com:

The decision follows a continuing impasse regarding the long-disputed border shared by China and India. Recent talks between the two countries ended with no resolution of border issues and a promise to talk more in the future.

The Stilwell Road is a former World War II supply route built in 1944 under the supervision of US General 'Vinegar' Joe Stilwell. The 1,700-kilometer (1,000-mile) road once connected Kunming with the city of Ledo in Assam state, with most of the road passing through northern Myanmar's Kachin state.

WTO rules against import restrictions on books and other media

The Washington Post reports on a WTO ruling in response to a US complaint that China was unfairly restricting the import of books, movies, and recordings:

The WTO ruling said China's regulations, which largely channel distribution of foreign audio-visual material through state-owned companies, were inconsistent with its pledges on entering the WTO in 2001 and with the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. It said the WTO should therefore order China "to bring the relevant measures into conformity with its obligations under those agreements."
...
China or the United States could appeal the ruling. If China does not comply with the distribution ruling, the United States would have to go back to the WTO before it could retaliate, a process that can take years.

Both the Post and a similar article in the New York Times note that Chinese consumers may not see much of an actual difference because widespread piracy already allows them to access many of the products whose legal import is restricted.

No 'Grandpa Ma' for Taiwan president

The New York Times reports from Taiwan on the aftermath of typhoon Morakot:

If President Ma Ying-jeou thought he might be treated presidentially on Wednesday as he toured a center for survivors of last weekend’s typhoon he was mistaken.


The moment he stepped onto a soccer field that had been doubling as a landing pad for rescue helicopters, Mr. Ma was besieged by angry villagers who accused his administration of moving too slowly to help those still trapped in the mountains near here. As they hurled accusations at him, the skies opened and Mr. Ma quickly became drenched to the skin, all of it captured live on television.

August 12, 2009

11 detained in Chengdu

The Guardian's Tania Branigan reports on the detainment of Ai Weiwei and others in Chengdu, during the trial of an activist campaigning of behalf of dead students:

i, who has led a group of volunteers attempting to list the names of all the students who died, said Tan's lawyer had asked him to give evidence about the deaths and poor building work. When the court barred him from appearing as a witness, he decided to watch the trial anyway, along with 10 volunteers.

Speaking from his hotel, he said: "I wanted to show my support for Mr Tan. I feel nowadays less and less people stand up for truth and justice [and] it is hurting the truth and dignity of the law.

Financial crisis complacency in China

Arthur Kroeber pours cold water on the 'China beat the financial crisis' crowd in The Financial Times:

“China’s spirit”, opined the People’s Daily in a recent editorial, is a “Great Wall” built to ward off global crisis.

In purple prose heralding China’s recent heroic successes, the editorial extols the Communist Party for leading China back from the global economic abyss after the country recorded 7.9 per cent growth in the second quarter of this year...

...The nauseating tone of the editorial reminds us of a famous quotation by the Roman historian Livy, explaining why the Carthaginian commander Hannibal failed to destroy the Roman Empire.

Heavy metal warfare

Caijing magazine reports on heavy metal pollution in Hunan's Xiang River:

Between 2002 and 2007, Sanshiliuwan district of Linwu County in northern Chenzhou, saw an illegal mining boom. On a patch of hilly land of about 10 square kilometers, several hundred mines and more than 60 scouring plants opened business, often under the sponsorship of corrupt officials. They poured waste and sewage heavily contaminated by heavy metals into the river.

Qingshuitang, another heavy polluter on the upper fork of the Xiang River, is 30 km from the source of drinking water for the city of Xiangtan, and 100 km above Changsha further downstream.

Some 108,440 cubic meters of heavy-metal-tainted tailings and mud are now estimated to lie in the waterbed of the Sanshiliuwan section, including 95 tons of cadmium, 297 tons of lead, two tons of mercury and 160 tons of arsenic.

Floods of Yanks?

Danwei received email from two old China hand journalists yesterday regarding the New York Times story linked here:

Wise Hack A:

Here's one of those great stories that the ever lazy hack pack recycle every so often - floods of Yanks coming to China for jobs.

No evidence whatsoever for this but it gets churned out again every couple of years I note.

Wise Hack B:

Please please mention the NYT "no Mandarin required" article and what
an absolute crock of shit it is. Thanks.

Stan Abrams at China Hearsay concurs:

Sorry, that is some real skewed bullshit writing there.

Rio Tinto executive and employees formally charged

Xinhua announced the formal arrest of an Australian citizen and three Chinese citizens over trade secrets infringement and bribery:

Prosecutors have approved the arrest of four employees of the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd. on charges of trade secrets infringement and bribery, according to a statement of China's Supreme People's Procuratorate late Tuesday.

Preliminary investigations have showed that the four employees, Stern Hu, Liu Caikui, Ge Minqiang and Wang Yong, had obtained commercial secrets of China's steel and iron industry through improper means, which had violated the country's Criminal Law, according to the statement.

The New York Times, Forbes and Bloomberg have followed to report on this.

Anti-Chinese sentiment in the DPRK

Adam Cathcart examines the anti-Chinese sentiment in Kim Il-Sung's Works:

Yet there is an intensive strain of anti-Chinese thought running through Kim’s Works, and indeed in North Korean culture. We see it in everything from Kim’s instructions on historical research of the Koguryo period to his recollections of wicked Chinese landlords/warlords of the colonial period. And he recalls obliquely how the Chinese Communist Party readily sold him and his comrades out in the early 1930s with the sanguine traumas of the Minsaengdan incident. Ergo, the fact that North Korea desperately needs Chinese aid today and remains in mutually supportive treaty arrangements with the PRC does not preclude the growth of anti-Chinese sentiment in the DPRK. And the existing criticisms of China in the DPRK’s canonical documents ranging from Kim’s Works to the novels of Han Sorya to children’s books published in Pyongyang could easily be augmented: Chinese as greedy capitalist landlords, and (though this last is much more subtle and implied) the perfidy of the Chinese Communist Party.

August 11, 2009

What the Amoiist did in jail

Peter Guo, who blogs at the Amoiist, describes the circumstances surrounding his detention for making posts alleging police involvement in a rape-murder scandal. He explains how he was able to use his Internet-capable phone (police thought it was a basic MP4 player), and the role that Twitter played in getting the word out:

It was about 5:00am of July 16 and they had interrogated for several hours, so the police were quite tired. The police sitting opposite me felt asleep and the other one sitting behind me played games on computer so engrossed that he was unable to pay attention on me. I quickly and quietly took my phone and sent messages announcing that I had been arrested by Mawei police to Twitter in English via a twitter's mobile web interface. The messages were quickly translated back to Chinese and crazily retweeted by users, and this drive also attracted international attention. With a certain popularity in Chinese blogger sphere and Twitter, the news that I was detained was quickly spread to everywhere on the Internet. Interestingly, I also had enough time to read paragraphs of an e-book with my phone until a police realized that the phone was in my hands. He grabbed the phone from my hands, but it was useless, too late.

Dueling Uighur documentaries at a
New Zealand TV station

The Chinese embassy in New Zealand has submitted a film about the Urumqi riots to Maori TV, the New Zealand Herald reports:

Maori TV is to screen 10 Conditions of Love, an Australian film about the struggle of Muslim Uighur people in Xinjiang, the scene of recent ethnic riots, and their figurehead, Rebiya Kadeer.

Beijing, however, has produced its own documentary, Xinjiang Urumqi July 5 Riot: Truth and has asked Maori TV to screen it instead.

In the Chinese-produced film, Kadeer is branded a terrorist and accused of instigating and orchestrating the ethnic riots in the northwestern Xinjiang region last month that left at least 197 people dead.

In an amusing report on the festival screening in Australia, Xinhua gave a thumbs-down rating to the Rebiya Kadeer documentary, calling it "dull" and quoting audience members who called it "poorly-shot." And there's this bit of objective reporting from the Q&A session afterward:

A man from the audience who called himself David challenged Kadeer's assertion that she is an advocate of non-violence.

"I have stayed in China for three years... Personally I think China's ethnic policies do create opportunities for the people of all ethnic minorities in China," David said, adding that Kadeer was herself one of the beneficiaries.

He noted that the casualties of Han Chinese in the July 5 riot were much higher than those of Uygurs. How come the Chinese government suppressed ethnic minorities?

The question left Kadeer and the director speechless with embarrassment. After all, lies will collapse of themselves.

August 10, 2009

Another mysterious Kunming death

Chris at Gokunming.com reports:

A man being held in detention in Kunming died in a hospital on Saturday with no clear cause of death, according to a Xinhua report.

According to a police spokesperson speaking to reporters on Sunday, 43-year-old Wang Shukun (王树坤) had been held in the Guandu District Detention Center since July 19 before being checked into a hospital by police on August 6. After undergoing emergency procedures to save his life, Wang died early Saturday, the spokesperson said.

A million in China evacuate ahead of Typhoon

From the New York Times:

Typhoon Morakot slammed into the east coast of China on Sunday, packing winds up to 111 miles an hour, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing one million people to flee.

A 4-year-old child was reported dead in Wenzhou, a city of nearly 1.4 million in Zhejiang Province, where officials said the storm had leveled more than 300 homes. The child was among five people buried when the winds collapsed five adjacent houses.

Out of the shadows

For RealTime Dan Edwards visits photographers Rong Rong and Inri at their Three Shadows Gallery and ponders about photographic art in China.

Gulou hutong histories 2009

Movingcities.org has put up a blog series on the demolishing of hutongs around the Gulou area to make way for the new Subway lines:

During the past month a large area (approximately 250 by 250 meter) south of the Gulou Dajie subway station has been gradually demolished. Right around the corner from where we live, the city is disappearing. Reason for the destruction is the extension of Line8 subway line, known as the Olympic Branch Line, in Southern direction.

The online market flourishes in China

New York Times runs a piece about China's online commerce portals, Taobao and Alibaba. David Barboza reports.

Internet analysts say this booming marketplace — reminiscent of the early days of eBay, when Americans started emptying their attics for online auctions — has turned Taobao into China’s newest Internet darling.

Though just six years old, Taobao (Chinese for “to search for treasure”) already has 120 million registered users and 300 million product listings. Its merchants produced nearly $15 billion in sales last year.

China diverts 'bomb threat' plane

A plane heading from Kabul to Urumqi was refused landing yesterday. Later on Sunday evening the plane landed in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, en route to returning to Kabul. Al Jazeera reports:

An aeroplane bound for the capital of China's western Xinjiang province has been diverted back to Afghanistan following a reported bomb threat on board the aircraft.

China's official Xinhua news agency on Sunday reported that the aircraft had received a bomb threat, but later reports said the aeroplane had been diverted simply because it lacked the necessary documents.

August 7, 2009

China shoves U.S. in scramble for Africa

From Reuters:

A presidential visit followed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's African tour cannot conceal a stark reality: China has overtaken the United States as Africa's top trading partner.

Brace for typhoon Morakot

Xinhua reports on the current typhoon sweeping across costal China:

In Zhejiang province 2,076 ships had returned to harbor by 3 p.m. while passenger liner services in Wenzhou and Taizhou cities were suspended.

More than 900 Chinese and foreign tourists have been evacuated from the resort Nanji Island, and measures taken in scenic areas near the coast to assist tourists.
...
Morakot, which strengthened into typhoon Wednesday afternoon, is also expected to whip up gales in Shanghai from Saturday to Monday. Meteorological stations in the city have cautioned relevant departments to brace for emergencies.

Dark days for China's liberals

Rebecca MacKinnon describes recent setbacks for activists and pro-bono lawyers:

Cohen and some other legal experts are concerned that a much more deep-seated reversal is underway: it may be that the Chinese government intends to discourage the use of courts and China's legal system by the nation's many aggrieved citizens - steering them to other avenues for appeal and dispute-resolution. If this is the case, it represents a reversal of the government's repeatedly stated goal of "strengthening rule of law" that has been an emphasis over the past three decades, and on which China's civil rights lawyers and activists have staked their right to exist.

China National Nuclear Corporation head investigated

The New York Times, citing Caijing and China Business News Daily, reports that CNNC general manager Kang Rixin is being investigate for "grave violations of discipline":

[The publications] quoted unidentified sources as saying the inquiry centered on about $263 million in company funds that apparently were invested and lost in the stock market.

The publications also stated that investigators were looking into suspected bidding irregularities in nuclear power plant contracts.

Feidu unbanned

Jia Pingwa's famously controversial banned novel quietly appeared on shelves this month, seventeen years after its initial publication.

Justice denied and then delayed

JDM090807tomb.jpg

After a coerced confession, Hugejiltu was executed in 1996 for a murder most likely committed by Zhao Zhihong, who was caught in 2005 for other murders. But the Hohhot court has declined to revisit the Hugejiltu case.

August 6, 2009

Filthy fiction: The writings of Zhu Wen

At The China Beat, Julia Lovell, who has translated a collection of Zhu Wen's stories, writes about his shocking content:

In 1996, a 28-year-old thermal engineer-turned-avant-garde novelist called Zhu Wen produced a novella, around 150 pages long, entitled Didi de yanzou. Translating the title alone makes me blush, though I will do my best to gloss its subtleties. An unimaginatively literal rendering would make it “My Little Brother’s Performance”, but in Chinese “little brother” (didi) happens also to be one of the language’s many slang usages for penis. If I were then to add that it’s set in a university (in east-coast Nanjing) and features a cast of late adolescent, sex-starved male undergraduates, you might reasonably infer that the story is a Chinese first-cousin to the Western teen-sex comedy -- American Pie and its many sequels and spin-offs. It certainly enjoys a good share of the genre’s gross-out crassness.

Changing perceptions of China in the Islamic world

An article from the Jamestown Foundation about Muslim reactions to recent events in Xinjiang: mostly silence aside from a few Iranian clerics, the Turkish government and Al Qaeda in North Africa.

Villagers want new leader to recoup money

The China Daily reports on villagers who are offering a cash reward for a "moral" village leader.

August 5, 2009

Xenophobia against Chinese people rising in Africa

Afrik.com reports:

Since the killing of nine Chinese oil workers by rebels in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region in April 2007, China’s attention on safety and security while in Africa has become imminent. After stories of anti-Chinese unrest in Zambia, it is Algeria’s turn to nurse anti-Chinese sentiments. According to locals, firms have shown a marked preference for Chinese laborers, who they claim are often more qualified that local Algerians, and more willing to accept lower wages - to staff the construction sector.

718 arrests in July riots questioned

From The New York Times:

The new report, released by the state-run Xinhua news agency, left it unclear whether the 718 detainees represented the total of suspects captured since the July 5 unrest, or were in addition to previous arrests and detentions. The government had previously said that more than 1,500 people had been detained after the riots.

"I hope to be remembered as a writer who speaks the truth"

Three Percent features an article by Wen Huang, who has translated YANG Xianhui's account of rightist camps in Gansu:

The Gansu-born writer Xianhui Yang first heard of Jiabiangou in 1965 when he worked at a military-style collective farm near the Gobi Desert. In the 1990s, emboldened by the relaxed political climate in China, he decided to investigate the tragedy at Jiabiangou. He journeyed back to China’s far flung northwest and spent three years interviewing over 100 survivors. He turned those interviews into a series of short stories. In 2000, Shanghai Literature, an influential literary monthly, carried his first story “The Woman from Shanghai,” which shocked the nation. Spurred on by the strong interest from the public, Shanghai Literature published more stories later that year.

August 4, 2009

Xiaonei and Renren

Renren.com, an early Chinese online social network that flourished around 1999-2000 before collapsing, has returned: Xiaonei, the wildly popular Facebook clone, is rebranding itself as Renren, techblog86 reports.

Jia Junpeng unmasked

An Internet promoter has claimed responsibility for the recent Internet meme, "Jia Junpeng, your mother is telling you to come home for dinner."

A Chinese soccer player's journey toward American football

At China Sports Review, Zachary Franklin profiles Steve Yue Wang, a Chinese soccer player from Tianjin who is now attending Cumberland University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Hong Kong's cosplay kids

Alex Hofford visits Ani-Com, the anime and gaming convention currently underway in Hong Kong.

August 3, 2009

Local coverage in Xinjiang

With Internet connections still blocked to the rest of the country, Xinjiang media continues to serve a local audience. The This is Xinjiang blog presents some screenshots of a Tianshan Online feature on the riots promoting ethnic unity and blaming outside splittists.

Plague hits northwest China

Bloomberg and other major media outlets are reporting about a plague that seems to have hit a Tibetan region in Ziketan, Qinghai province. From Bloomberg:

The World Health Organization is monitoring the town because of the potential for human-to-human spread of one of the most deadly infectious diseases. Pneumonic plague is the most serious of three forms of plague and occurs when so-called Yersinia pestis bacteria infect the lungs and cause pneumonia.

One World, One Dream one year later

Mike Meyer writes about Beijing after the Olympics, for Sports Illustrated:

China remains a developing country, and the Olympics were one of a series of events intended to galvanize economic, social and environmental reforms: Hong Kong's and Macau's returns to "the motherland" in 1997 and 1999, respectively; China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001; and the 2008 Games. Residents experienced these events with the resigned relief one feels after planning a festive meal, when at last everyone is seated and enjoying themselves—though far more than the host, who has little chance to savor the food. In Beijing the clock facing Tiananmen Square that once ticked down to the opening ceremonies has been reset, showing the days that remain before the start of Shanghai's World Expo, in May 2010.

Changes in Karamay, Xinjiang

Josh at Far West China details some of the changes that have been put in place in the small city of Karamay following the riots in Urumqi last month:

On Tuesday, July 7th, a massive company of military vehicles and soldiers occupied Karamay, our city, on rumor that some of the Urumqi rioters had moved north.
That same Tuesday every office and store was closed as police constantly patrolled the streets due to the rumor mentioned above. Unaware of this lockdown, I innocently rode my motorcycle into a desolate downtown area to find a unit of over 150 police patrolling both major mosques.
All auxiliary entrances to our neighborhood have been padlocked, allowing passage only through a single guarded gate. Such is the case in every community in our city.

Creativity in a box

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the rise of creative development zones intended to replicate the commercial success of Beijing's 798:

Spurred by the unlikely success of a factory-turned-art-space in Beijing called 798 and a desire to diversify the economy, cities across China are converting dozens of abandoned factories into art galleries, industrial-chic office space, and entertainment destinations. Many that aren't yet repurposing old industrial sites are drawing up plans – motivated by hope of profits or fear of criticism from higher-ups for failing to follow the latest trends in city development.

August 1, 2009

Joe Wong, stand up comedian

joe_wong.jpg

Transcript of a recent interview by David Moser with Joe Wong (黄西), a Chinese-born stand up comedian who recently performed on David Letterman's show.

DNS hijacking

Having problems reaching blocked sites even through your VPN? Micah Sittig explains how DNS hijacks may be the culprit.

Xu Zhiyong detained by police

Tania Branigan at The Guardian reports on the rights lawyer's disappearance:

The Beijing public security bureau refused to answer questions over the telephone and did not immediately respond to a faxed list of questions.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said it was "gravely concerned" about Xu.

"That concern is due to the Chinese government's increasingly punitive approach to individuals such as Xu who are in the vanguard of China's domestic human rights movement," its Asia researcher, Phelim Kine, said in a statement.

Update: Evan Osnos at the New Yorker explains how Xu's detention is different from the disappearance of other cowboys and dissidents.