Roundup - 27/01/2010

• Four more people have been sentenced to death for their roles in violent protests in Xinjiang last July. One other person was sentenced to death with a two year reprieve, usually commuted to a life sentence, and eight others received jail terms. The names of the four who received death sentences suggest that they are all ethnic Uighurs. 26 people have now been executed or sentenced to death in connection with the riots. Uighurs began to protest in response to the murder of two Uighur migrant workers in southern China. On July 5^th the protests turned violent and government figures say almost 200 Han Chinese were killed. Two days later gangs of Han Chinese were seen roaming the streets seeking revenge, the Uighur death toll has not been officially counted.
  
  
  
• Five pro-democracy legislators who resigned in an attempt to spark a referendum on democratic reform have been denied the chance to make their final speeches. Pro-Beijing legislators staged a mass walk-out before they were due to speak, forcing an adjournment until next week. The resignations take effect at the end of the week. Beijing has forced Hong Kong to slow its move towards democracy, its says that a fully elected legislature cannot come into place until 2020.
  
  
  
• China's State Council has set up a National Energy Commission to oversee China's energy security. China's energy need have grown enormously alongside its economic rise prompting the PLA to consider it a question of national security. The new commission will be headed by Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice-Premier Li Kaqiao will act as deputy.
  
  
  
• 14 people have been killed in an avalanche in Xinjiang. The avalanche occurred yesterday in Yili, a region mostly inhabited by ethnic Kazakhs. 13 other people have died in Xinjiang after a cold snap led to an increase in snowstorms and avalanches.
  
  
  
• At least five people have been killed in an explosion at an illegal fireworks factory in Inner Mongolia. The factory in Hohhot had been operating without a license, hoping to cash in on the demand for fireworks during the new year holidays which start on February 14^th. 10 more people were injured in the blast.
  

Roundup - 14/01/2010

• China has issued its first official response to Google's warning that it may leave China if it is not allowed to publish uncensored search results. A statement on Thursday by Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Jiang Yu said that China was opposed to any form of internet attack and wanted further details so that it could investigate the matter. Ms Jiang also said that she would 'like to stress that China welcomes international Internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to the law.'
  
  Meanwhile Google chief legal officer and vice-president of corporate development David Drummond said that Google was 'not saying one way or the other whether the attacks are state-sponsored or done with the approval of the state.'
  
  Google users have by and large welcomed Google's decision. Flowers were left at the entrance to Google's offices in Beijing yesterday. One user on said on Twitter that 'it's not Google that's withdrawing from China, it's China that's withdrawing from the world.'
  
  
  
• Chinese police have shot and wounded at least five demonstrators at a land protest in Guangxi. The clashes, which also left 11 policemen injured, occurred in Longyatun village in Guangxi after police tried to arrest 12 villagers for obstructing public works. This charge is often brought against citizens who try to stop construction on government requisitioned land. China News Service reported that police fired in self defence after being attacked by villagers wielding rocks, knives and clubs.
  
  
  
• Hong Kong police have arrested two people on suspicion of carrying out an acid attack on a crowded market. The two men, aged 18 and 23, were arrested in connection with an attack on December 12^th on the Causeway Bay shopping district which injured six people. No comment was made as to whether the pair were suspected of carrying out other similar attacks.
  
  The latest in a series of such attacks came on Saturday when two bottles of acid were dropped on the Temple Street night market injuring at least 30 people.
  
  
  
• A poll by Taiwan's Common Wealth magazine suggests that nine out of ten Taiwanese corporate executives want a trade pact with the mainland. President Ma Yingjiu has placed the pact at the centre of his policy agenda but has received criticism from the opposition who fear that Ma will bring Taiwan too close to China. A previous poll suggested that the majority of Taiwanese voters opposed the pact and local elections, in which the pact was the central issue, delivered a defeat for Ma's Nationalist Party.
  
  Negotiations on the pact will begin next week and President Ma hopes to sign a deal in May.
  
  
  
• China's General Administration of Customs statistics show that China's oil imports continued to rise rapidly, reaching 204 million tons in 2009. China's oil imports now account for 52% of total consumption. Analysts believe that by 2020 nearly 65% of China's oil consumption will be supplied by imports.
  
  China is looking at ways to limit oil consumption by producing more fuel efficient cars and electric cars. However, with the number of vehicles on China's roads increasing so rapidly China's oil consumption is likely to continue to rise.
  

Roundup - 13/01/2010

• Google has said it is no longer willing to collaborate in Chinese censorship and will shut down google.cn if it is not allowed to publish uncensored results. The announcement comes after Google claimed that an attack on its servers, and those of up to twenty other companies, were primarily designed to hack into the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists. According to Google only the inbox and subject line of emails was taken, no actual emails were compromised.
  
  Although Google made no specific allegations as to who is responsible for the attack, it has reacted strongly against the Chinese state. It says that it is willing to negotiate the presence of an uncensored version of google.cn but that if negotiations do not succeed it will simply pull out of China altogether. In an apparent attempt to put pressure on China censored images were recently found to be available on google.cn. For example, an iconic photo of a man standing in front of a column of tanks, taken in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, could be easily found on the search engine.
  
  Human rights activists have universally praised Google's decision. Arvind Ganesan of Human Right Watch said that Google's actions set 'a great example.' foreign internet companies in China have often been criticised for bowing to the Chinese state's wishes. Yahoo, for example, was willing to give private details of bloggers to China in exchange for access to the Chinese market.
  
  While Google's actions have been widely praised outside of China, its motives have been questioned. Google seemed to have no problem with censoring its results until now and has not linked the attacks specifically to the Chinese government. Some have suggested that this move is actually an attempt to head off future criticism. After all, Google's operations in China have managed to make little headway against China's Baidu search engine and China accounts for only US$300 million of Googles US$22 billion of annual revenue. Evgeny Morozov from Georgetown University said that it seemed as if Google was playing the 'innocence card.'
  
  
  
• 8 Chinese peacekeepers have been buried and are feared dead and another 10 are unaccounted for after Tuesday afternoons devastating earthquake in Haiti. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck at 16:53 local time and was Haiti's worst earthquake in two centuries. It is believed that the casualties may number in their thousands.
  
  On Wednesday China sent a rescue team of 50 earthquake experts, 3 dogs and machinery to aid in the crisis. China has 125 peacekeepers in Haiti as part of a several thousand strong UN presence. The UN headquarters is believed to be one of the buildings that was destroyed in the quake.
  
  
  
• China has raised the bank reserve ration by 0.5%. The ratio, the amount of money banks must keep in reserve compared to how much they lend out, has been increased in an effort to curb excess lending which could overheat the economy and lead to asset bubbles. China has already seen inflation begin to growth in recent months. China's stimulus package and lax lending policies led to a doubling in the the amount lent by banks in 2009 compared with 2008. Almost 600 billion RMB (US$87.7 billion) was lent in the first week of January. Many analysts had not expected such a move to come before the second quarter, however, it was expected to come eventually as China tries to rein in growth to sustainable levels. China has also raised the interest on one-year bills to 1.84% after raising that on three-month bills last week.
  
  
  
• China's restive province of Xinjiang is to up its security budget by almost 90% Xinhua reports. The budget proposal, to be decided on this week, suggests that spending on public security should be increased to 2.89 billion RMB (US$423 million) to combat the 'three forces' of terrorism, separatism, and extremism which the government says were behind the riots which left almost 200 dead last July.
  
  Xinjiang's regional government chairman, Nur Bekri, said that security forces should improve their response mechanisms to react quickly to 'mass incidents' and should find ways to prevent the use of new media, such as the internet and mobile phones, to coordinate these events.
  
  China denies that it is subjecting Xinjiang's 8 million Uighurs to religious and cultural oppression.
  
  
  
• In another sign of openness to homosexuality, China Daily's front page today bore a photo of China's first 'married' gay couple. Zeng Anquan and Pan Wenjie held a public ceremony at a gay bar in Chengdu. Although the marriage is not officially recognised by the state and there had been no official government response, Zeng and Pan hope that this is a first step in making same-sex partnerships a possibility. The couple have suffered a significant amount of predjudice since they announced their marriage. No family members attended the ceremony and Zeng's brother froze all the capital in Zeng's company when he heard the news.
  
  Discrimination against homosexuals is still extremely widespread in China. A survey by Zhang Beichuan of Qingdao University suggests that 8.7% of homosexuals are fired after revealing their sexuality, 4.7% feel their salary and chances of promotion are affected and 62% choose to keep their sexuality secret in the work place.
  

Roundup - 02/01/2009

• Thousands of protesters have been marching through Hong Kong demanding full democracy. Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a constitution which guaranteed that Hong Kong's Chief Executive and Legislature should eventually elected democratically. However, in 2007 China postponed the change, the Chief Executive will now be elected from 2017 and the legislature from 2020.
  
  Reports on the size of the demonstrations vary from 4,600 to 9,000. While the protests are a boost to democratic campaigners in Hong Kong, the numbers fall far short of previous protests. In 2003 a national security bill was shelved after 500,000 took to the streets in protest.
  
  Although the democratic movement has been weakened in recent years, it is hoped that the resignation of five pro-democracy legislators later this months will provoke elections which could be interpreted as a referendum on democratic reform.
  
  
  
• The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area has now come into effect. The agreement, initially prompted by the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s, covers a region which contains 1.9 billion people and and combined GDP of almost US$6 trillion. ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan has said that the Free Trade Area will benefit both China and ASEAN and help to lift the global economy out of recession.
  
  
  
• The Shanghai Panda Dairy Company has been shut down and three of its executives arrested for selling milk products contaminated with melamine. Authorities are currently overseeing the recall of its products from other parts of China. In 2008 six children died from drinking milk containing melamine. Several people were jailed and two executed for their role in that scandal. However, cases of melamine contamination continue to be discovered. Last month three people were arrested in Shaanxi for producing milk powder containing melamine.
  
  
  
• Apple has followed Google's lead in self-censorship in China. Applications for the iPhone relating to the Dalai Lama and Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer are not available from the Chinese app store. Apples runs different app stores for each country and has the final say on what applications are available in which stores. Reports suggest that searches on iTunes only find apps relating to the Dalai Lama if the search is in English but not in Chinese.
  
  
  
• Nine people have been killed and another eight injured after an explosion at a fireworks factory in Shaanxi. On Friday afternoon a massive blast destroyed all seven workshops of the Xinping Firecrackers Co. Ltd. Police are looking for Qu Pingxing, the factory boss, who is believed to have fled following the explosion.
  
  
  
• 606,100 tourists from the mainland visited Taiwan last year according to the Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits. Restrictions on mainlanders visiting Taiwan have been relaxed by both sides since commercial flights resumed between the two territories in July 2008. The visitors brought an estimated US$1.13 billion to the Taiwanese economy.
  

Roundup - 17/12/2009

• Chinese negotiators and officials are signaling that they no longer believe that a binding deal is possible at the Copenhagen summit. Reports suggest that China now favours a simple political statement at the end of the summit. It is not known whether this is only a bargaining position or if it is genuinely felt. Some leaders had hoped to agree to an interim arrangement which would have some immediate effect but it seems that China is not cooperating on this. They want a final treaty or none at all.
  
  Negotiations have stalled over who will bear the burden of combating climate change. While most developing countries favour a continuation of the Kyoto treaty, which would place the responsibility for funding on the developed world, richer countries want a new deal which would spread the burden far more widely.
  
  China has vowed that it will make its previously announced cuts of 40-45% in carbon intensity whether or not a deal was signed at the summit. Chinese media has said that 3 trillion RMB will be invested in the environment over 5 years from 2011.
  
  
  
• There are growing signs that rules on demolition may be changed. Call for reform of he rules has grown after details of a number of deaths of people defending their homes from demolition. Yue Xiyou, who died trying to defend his fiance's apartment from being wrecked and Tang Fuzhen, who died of her injuries after setting fire to herself have rallied public opinion and intellectuals to put pressure on the National Peoples Congress and the State Council to reform the rules. Xi Xinzhu is currently in hospital after setting himself on fire in Beijing on Monday in a similar incident.
  
  However, while China's legislature appears to be backing reform of the law, other elements are opposed to it. The NPC recently declared that the regulations should have already been withdrawn due to the 2007 Property Law, however, the State Council Legislative Affairs Office said that the regulations were still valid. Although in theory laws made by the NPC carry more weight than the regulations set by the SCLAO, in the absence of a developed legal system where the issue can be settled in court, the ambiguity is enough for the regulations to remain in place.
  
  
  
• China's crackdown on internet porn is continuing to expand. Thanks to a new hotline for reporting sites 775 sites were closed down in just five days. A total of 15,775 sites had been shut down as of 8pm on December 15^th.
  
  The government has also begun to insist on a business license for any one wishing to register an internet domain name. The move is aimed at reducing the amount of user generated content on the net. The government says this is aimed at tackling pornography and breach of copyright, however, it is also a way of limiting political ad social comment.
  
  
  
• Five miners have been trapped since Wednesday after a mudslide at Manaoshan Mine in Chenzhou, Hunan which produces iron ore. Rescuers have said that they have heard cries for help and believe that the miners are still alive. More than 100 people are working to free the miners.
  

Roundup - 04/12/2009

• US President Obama's plan for Afghanistan is being discussed in China amid reports that the US is seeking a greater role for China in the country. China currently trains Afghan police and landmine-clearing teams as well as investing in the country's mineral deposits. Afghan Minister for Mines, Muhammad Ibrahim Adel, recently claimed that Chinese investment would likely triple Afghan government revenues within five years.
  
  Debate inside China's think-tanks is divided. Qi Huaigao from Fudan University believes that the troop surge will also help to isolate the East Turkestan Islamic Movement in Xinjiang and combat drug smuggling. Li Qingdong from the China Council for National Security Policy Studies on the other hand believes that it may force the Taliban to seek refuge in eastern China, exacerbating China's security problems. He also points out that it may put China's investments in the country at risk.
  
  Ding Xinghao, president of the Shanghai Institute of American Studies, said that, though it was unlikely China would send troops to Afghanistan, it may be willing to send peace-keeping forces under the UN flag.
  
  
  
• A court in Yangjiang, Guandong, has sentenced five people to death for their involvement in criminal gangs. 43 people were sentenced in total after a trial that began in June and produced a verdict that is reported to be 60,000 pages long. The convicts were part of a gang based in Yangjiang, nicknamed the 'knife and scissors capital' because of its cutlery industry. The gang is said to have begun by running a chain of gambling dens and then used the money and muscle to expand into the poultry, cement and trucking industries.
  
  Among the five given the death sentence are 'Spicy Qin' Lin Guoqin, said to be the brains behind the gang, and 'Hammerhead' Xu Jiangqiang who provided the muscle.
  
  
  
• China is mulling the cost of it announced cut in carbon intensity. A report from Renmin University claims that the cuts will cost $30 billion a year. It is likely that much of this cost will be carried by the Chinese consumer in the form of rising petrol and electricity prices. According to the 21^st China China Business Herald this could amount to an additional 440 RMB of expenditure each year for the average Chinese household.
  
  
  
• Chinese media is reporting the the National Human Rights Action Plan of China is progressing according to plan. The reports claim that much progress has been made since its inception in April. While the reports make such claims as 'migrant worker rights and interests were better championed,' no details or evidence has been given.
  
  The reports also admit that 'some local governments have not paid enough attention to the action plan.'
  
  
  
• Two people have been shot dead by police and eight injured during a protest at a Chinese owned copper mine in Peru. The Rio Blanco copper mine in Huancabamba is involved in a running dispute with local residents. They claim that the mine is polluting their land and that after protests in 2005 the mine owners arranged the kidnap and torture of some locals.
  
  
  
• The Austrian company Future Advanced Composite Components and been bought by the Xi'an Aircraft Industry Corporation and Hong Kong ATL. It is the first time a European aviation company has been bought by an Asian aviation company. FACC supplies composite structural components to Boeing, Airbus and Eurocopter among others.
  

Roundup - 03/12/2009

• 85 people have been arrested in Yibin, Sichuan on suspicion of producing methamphetamine. 44 tonnes of chemicals, enough to make 10 tonnes of crystal meth worth around $318 million, were seized by police. The bust included 415 kilograms of ephedrine, a drug used to combat the flu. The State Food and Drug Administration is placing a cap on the usage of compounds containing ephedrine amid concerns that it s being used to produce large quantities of illegal narcotics.
  
  
  
• China Daily reports on a forced demolition in Chengdu which led to suicide. Due to vigorous attacks by China's netizens the local government has been forced to respond. In 2007 the local government decided to demolish a garment processing plant owned by Hu Changming in order to make way for a road. The government claims that the dispute began after Hu asked for an excessive amount of compensation. The dispute came to a head on Nov. 13^th when men with cudgels attempted to clear the way for demolition. Hu's wife, Tang Fuzhen, and several other relative resisted and Tang threatened to immolate herself. The men refused to withdraw and instead set about Tang's relatives. At one point one of then snatched a one-year old baby from her nephew's wife and began kicking her. Eventually Tang carried out her threat, poured petrol over herself and set herself alight. She died of her burns in hospital on Nov. 27^th.
  
  The report quotes a Beijing lawyer who points out that the demolition of the building should have been the responsibility of the local court, not the government officials.
  
  
  
• Five more people have been sentenced to death for crimes committed during unrest in Xinjiang in July. The court in Urumqi also sentenced two others to life imprisonment. Last month China executed nine people for their roles in the violence that officially left almost 200 dead and 1,600 injured. No comment was made as to the ethnicity of the new cases but to date those arrested and executed have been disproportionately ethnic Uighurs.
  
  
  
• The UN's Clean Development Mechanism has suspended approvals for many of China's wind farms. This comes amid suspicions that the government is manipulating state subsidies so that more schemes qualify for UN help. China has been the largest receiver of carbon credits in the program. It has received 153 million credits worth more than $1 billion.
  
  
  
• China's top meteorologist, Zheng Guoguang, has warned that climate change is a major threat to China but that the focus should be on adapting to it rather than slowing it down. In an article in 'Speaking Truth' he states that for a developing country it is less practical to combat climate change than to work with it. China's official line is that both prevention and adaptation are equally important.
  
  
  
• Four Chinese have been detained in Romania amid a dispute over market stores. Romanian tax officials closed 221 stores in Bucharest for lacking documentation on their products. When officials returned to reopen some of the stores some Chinese suspected they were there to close down more stores and attacked the officials.
  
  The incident comes amid a dispute between the store owners and the owners of the market which has been brewing since early November. Store owners bought their shops outright when Niro Market was established. Now Niro Group wants them to move to a neighouring market and buy stores there. However, they are refusing to compensate store owners for the stores they already own.
  
  On Nov 17^th store owners staged a protest and Niro group retaliated by cutting off water and power to the market. Niro Group is a well established company in Romania which focuses on real estate.
  
  
  
• Construction will begin in December on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. The project, a series of bridges, tunnels and new roads, is designed to facilitate traffic between Hong Kong, Macao and the Mainland. It is scheduled to be finished in 2015.
  
  
  
  

Will the Boat Sink the Water - Review

Much is talked about China's peasants in the time of reform but so little is based on actual research. This is particularly true when looking at peasant resistance to taxes and maltreatment by the state. Only a few books such as Ian Johnson's 'Wild Grass' and Kevin O'Brian and Li Lianjiang's 'Rightful Resistance' can truly claim to be based on first hand research. Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao's book 'A Survey of the Chinese Peasants (中国农民调查Zhongguo Nongmin Diaocha), translated into English and published under the title, 'Will the Boat Sink the Water? The Life of China's Peasants,' is a welcome insight into the subject.

The book is based on several years of research in Anhui province and tells the stories of various villages burdened by exploitative, and mostly illegal, taxes. The picture is grim, village after village is bankrupted by officials looking to make money or to increase their profile in the party hierarchy. Dissenters are arrested, tortured, murdered. The stories are simply but evocatively told and it is impossible not to sympathise with the peasants who were told that the revolution was in their name.

By the middle stages of the book little analysis has been provided and the repetition of endless narratives of suffering peasants begins to numb the soul. However at this point the authors begin to question the background of the stories. Why has China's bureaucracy grown so virulently? Is it just individual bad eggs who exploit peasants or is it more systemic? The book eventually heads towards a conclusion when one the heroes of the early stories turns villain and extorts his own exploitative taxes. The fact is that the funding given to townships is not even sufficient to cover the basic (and very modest) salaries of the top officials. In this climate there is no way for the bureacracy to fund itself without the exploitation of peasants. The only honest officials are supported by their families as most of their wages are spent on the administrative costs of running their offices. With the basic question of financing China's local rural government unanswered, the systematic exploitation of peasants cannot be halted.

The book provides a clear analysis of the current situation of China's peasants in a society which claims to have lifted millions from beneath the poverty barrier. It is a timely and important work which anyone interested in the truth about life in China behind the propaganda, both Chinese and Western, must read.