China Digital Times

SECTION: Politics

• In Beijing, Author Treads Fine Line As She Tells Tibet’s Story

  

  From Christian Science Monitor:

  Woeser’s fans have plenty of reasons to worry that she’ll be thrown in jail soon.

  The famed Tibetan writer has sued the Chinese government. She’s investigating the March uprising in Tibet. She articulates the repression that many Tibetans feel, flouting the official line that they like Chinese rule – all from a modest, high-rise apartment in Beijing.

  The government here bans her work. But from Tennessee to Tibet, her fans hang on every unauthorized poem, essay, and blog. To them, she risks her life to tell the “real” Tibetan story – a narrative that unites the Tibetan community even as it diverges over politics, a hot topic this week at a rare summit in Dharamsala, India, called by the Dalai Lama.

  “She brings a unique combination of experience and ability at the moment, [and] she’s willing to stand up,” says Elliot Sperling, a Tibet expert at Indiana University in Bloomington. Her writings “contribute significantly to the general perception of what’s going on in Tibet.”

  » Read more
  • November 19, 2008 4:08 AM

• China Arrests Police Over Deadly Nightclub Fight

  

  From AP:

  Two police officers have been arrested over the beating death of a college student in a nightclub in northeastern China — a move apparently aimed at quelling increasing public anger at a force often accused of corruption and abuse of power.

  Recent weeks have seen a series of riots and attacks against government offices and police, sparked by alleged assaults on citizens and more general complaints over corruption and opaque decision-making. The arrests in the industrial center of Harbin come as the government has expressed concern that a souring economy could further stoke the unrest.

  Harbin police on Tuesday called a news conference to announce the arrests of Liu Linan and Qixin over the beating death of Lin Songling, a 22-year-old student at the provincial university of physical education. Both were identified as officers with the city police’s railway division.

  » Read more
  • November 19, 2008 3:45 AM

• Tibetan Exiles Review Tactics Against Chinese Rule

  

  From AFP:

  Tibetan exiles worked Tuesday to hammer out a new strategy for their fight against Chinese rule, as Beijing warned that embracing a pro-independence policy was “doomed” to failure.

  More than 500 prominent Tibetans have gathered at the government in exile’s base in northern India to debate whether to ditch the Dalai Lama’s push for “meaningful autonomy” in favour of a demand for full independence.

  B. Tsering, a delegate and president of the Tibetan Women’s Association, said the week of discussions could re-define the movement.

  “Everyone feels the big responsibility entrusted to us,” she said after the first sessions of debate. “And there is concern that we are trying to come up with a solid strategic plan in just a few days.

  Read also China stance on Tibet clouds exile talks in India from AP.

  » Read more
  • November 19, 2008 3:34 AM

• Fears for China’s Web Freedom

  

  From RFA:

  Writers in China said they feared a long hard road before real freedom of expression emerges in China, as authorities in the eastern province of Jiangsu formally arrested a prominent blogger who called for democratic change.

  Paris-based media freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the arrest of blogger Guo Quan at his home in the eastern city of Nanjing.

  Guo, who is currently being held in a Nanjing police station on a charge of “subversion of state power,” also had his home searched and his computer confiscated.

  » Read more
  • November 19, 2008 3:21 AM

• China, Costa Rica to Launch Trade Talks

  

  From the Associated Press:

  During President Hu Jintao’s first visit to a Central American country, it was announced that trade talks between China and Costa Rica will commence in January, with a deal hoped for in 2010.  In addition, the two nations signed 11 cooperation agreements, including an agreement for a joint venture between China’s National Petroleum Corporation and Costa Rica’s state-owned oil refinery.

  China’s trade with Latin America has jumped from $10 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year and it is now Costa Rica’s second most important trade partner.

  Hu’s trip to Costa Rica is part of a larger mission that includes a trip to Cuba, as noted in this CDT article.

  » Read more
  • November 18, 2008 4:27 PM

• China Substitutes `Spin’ for Suppression as Web Weakens Control

  

  Dune Lawrence reports in Bloomberg News:

  While the government has encouraged the rapid adoption of technology to enhance China’s global competitiveness, the increasing access also represents a growing challenge to a single-party state’s monopoly on power as the avenues for public expression multiply.

  … In a June speech during a visit to the Communist Party newspaper, People’s Daily, President Hu Jintao urged that the party and government “perfect our system of news release” and “actively set the agenda” for unfolding events, disseminating “authoritative information at the earliest moment” and “grasping the initiative in news propaganda.”

  Online Discussion

  Officials at all levels are following Hu’s advice, some by hiring people to nip negative online discussions in the bud. An Internet search turns up announcements like this one from Chongqing that explains their duties:

  “In order to further purify the Internet environment, Wanzhou District Internet Propaganda Leading Group has started setting up a Web commentator team,” the Feb. 21 notice says. “Commentators’ work includes online comment on articles, news threads, blogs, etc.” along with “relaxing” public emotion and “refuting rumors.”

  All this doesn’t mean the central government has abandoned its traditional techniques to tame the flow of information: It still blocks many Web sites focused on topics such as Tibetan independence and employs censors to track down and delete content it disagrees with. Cyber cafes, where many Chinese access the Web, must install filtering software, monitor users’ activities and record their identities under Chinese law.

  » Read more
  • November 17, 2008 10:55 PM

• China Hints at Aircraft Carrier Project

  

  The Financial Times reports that China may have plans to build an aircraft carrier:

  The comments from Major General Qian Lihua, director of the ministry’s Foreign Affairs Office, come amid heated speculation within China and abroad that the increasingly potent naval arm of the People’s Liberation Army has decided to develop and deploy its first aircraft carrier. Traditionally, a carrier would accompany and protect a battle group of smaller ships.

  The Pentagon said this year that China was actively engaged in aircraft carrier research and would be able to start building one by the end of this decade, while Jane’s Defence Weekly reported last month that the PLA was training 50 students to become naval pilots capable of operating fixed-wing aircraft from such a ship.

  Maj Gen Qian declined to comment directly on whether China had decided to build a carrier, but in the defence ministry’s most forthright statement yet on the issue he made clear that China had every right to do so.

  “The navy of any great power . . . has the dream to have one or more aircraft carriers,” he said in the interview, which aides said was the first arranged by the defence ministry on its own premises. “The question is not whether you have an aircraft carrier, but what you do with your aircraft carrier.”

  » Read more
  • November 17, 2008 9:53 PM

• Tibetans Plot Future After Dalai Lama Admits Failure

  

  From AFP:

  Leading Tibetan exiles began a week-long meeting Monday in northern India that could usher in a more radical approach to their long struggle against Chinese rule in Tibet.

  The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, called the gathering after admitting that his attempts to secure greater autonomy for the region through negotiation with the Chinese government had failed.

  Before the talks began, he urged the 500 participants to consider all aspects of policy regarding China — ensuring that the thorny issue of whether to push for full independence would be tackled.

  The meeting should air “the real opinions and views of the Tibetan people through free and frank discussions,” said the Dalai Lama, who has expressed uncharacteristic frustration over failing to win concessions from Beijing.

  » Read more
  • November 16, 2008 10:42 PM

• China Jails Rioters, Criticises Officials

  

  Six rioters in the June mass incident over a teenage girl’s death in Guizhou have been jailed by state officials. Many others are still detained and are waiting for their sentences.

  In addition, the local government has been criticized for their response to “long-standing disregard of rampant crime in the county and incompetence in maintaining public security.” More, from Reuters:

  China handed sentences of up to 16 years in jail to six people for rioting after the suspicious death of a teenage girl, but also criticised the local government for incompetence, state media said on Friday.

  Thousands of locals mobbed government offices in Weng’an county, Guizhou in late June. The local police headquarters was torched and police vehicles wrecked after claims spread that authorities had covered up a teenage girl’s death.

  … Police had said the teenage girl had killed herself by jumping in a river, but residents said the girl had been raped and murdered by a relative of a senior government official.

  » Read more
  • November 14, 2008 7:11 PM

• China Democracy Activist Detained for Subversion

  

  Guo Quan, founder of the China New Democracy Party, has been arrested on charges of subversion of state power. From the Associated Press:

  Guo Quan, who started the China New Democracy Party last year, was arrested in the city of Nanjing after he sent his son to school, his wife Li Jing said by phone.

  China has been governed by authoritarian one-party Communist rule since 1949. While other political parties exist, they are not allowed to wield any power.

  Guo has been detained several times — but only for several days at a time — since founding the party. But this time he could be held much longer, Li said.

  “I was told it was quite different this time. The police told me to prepare myself psychologically,” she said.

  Guo was also arrested in May for his critcism of the government’s handling of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

  » Read more
  • November 14, 2008 7:05 PM

• China Slams Upcoming Sarkozy-Dalai Lama Meeting

  

  China has once again criticized plans by French President Sarkozy to meet with the Dalai Lama. Sarkozy canceled plans to meet with His Holiness during the Beijing Olympics. From AP:

  Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang reaffirmed Beijing’s opposition to any form of contact between Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader and foreign heads of government.

  “At present, China’s relations with both France and the EU are improving and developing. This hard-earned situation should be cherished,” Qin said in a statement posted on the ministry’s Web site.

  “We urge the French side to proceed from the overall interest of bilateral relations,” Qin said. France should “take China’s major concern seriously and properly handle relevant issues so as to contribute to the stable development of China-France and China-EU relations,” he said.

  Sarkozy said Thursday he would hold the long-awaited meeting with the Dalai Lama on Dec. 6 during a visit to Gdansk, Poland.

  » Read more
  • November 14, 2008 11:15 AM

• Yang Jia: Stranger than Fiction

  

  Time China blog looks at a bizarre twist in the case of Yang Jia, who became an Internet hero after being sentenced to death for killing six police officers in Shanghai:

  Liu Xiaoyuan, a Beijing lawyer who has been closely following the case, reported on Monday that the cop killer’s mother, Wang Jingmei, has finally emerged in public after disappearing for four months. According to Liu’s blog, Wang was secretly kept in a psychiatric hospital run by the Beijing Police Bureau throughout the prosecution of her son. A female officer who answered the phone at Beijing’s Office of Compulsory Treatment –which is responsible for cases like Wang’s–refused to comment or give her name when contacted Wednesday.

  Wang’s disappearance, which came after her visit to a police station to help in the investigation of her son, has heightened skepticism about the case and raised questions about Liu’s allegation that the police might have kidnapped her to prevent her testifying in her son’s case. (For example, artist and blogger Ai Weiwei argued here that Wang might be the only person who knows the details of how her son was beaten by the Shanghai cops in 2007 and the ensuing negotiation process between the police and Yang over that beating, all of which took place before the murders.) In Wang’s absence, the court overrode accusations of police misconduct and put Yang on death row.

  » Read more
  • November 13, 2008 1:41 PM

• Sanya Cabbies Continue Strike

  

  The strikes by taxi drivers in Chongqing seem to be contagious, as similar strikes have broken out this week in Yongdeng, Gansu and Sanya, Hainan Island, China Daily reports:

  In Sanya, local police detained 21 people who allegedly became violent during the Monday strike. They reportedly attacked taxi drivers who would not join them in the strike and smashed 15 cabs, a police spokesman told the Xinhua News Agency.

  More than 100 cabbies gathered for a second day in front of the city government building, repeating their demands for intervention in issues such as high monthly rental fees and unlicensed cabs, Xinhua said.

  [...] In Yongdeng of Gansu province, about 160 taxi drivers agreed to end their strike Tuesday after the county government promised to present a plan within a week to get rid of unlicensed cabs.

  The drivers’ representative said there are about 700 illegal cabs, compared with 280 licensed taxis, in the county.

  Read also a report in the Economist:

  Both in Chongqing and in Sanya, taxi-drivers attacked cars that refused to join the strike. The official press said drivers in Chongqing damaged at least 20 vehicles, including three police cars. In Sanya it reported that 15 cars were attacked, resulting in the arrests of more than 20 people. Since the strike began in Sanya taxi-drivers have been gathering outside the city-government headquarters. By November 11th their numbers had swollen to about 300, according to the state-owned news agency Xinhua. “The government is completely corrupt,” says one of the protesters.

  For more on the official media coverage of the taxi strikes and the government’s efforts to use the media to set the agenda of public opinion, see this post from China Media Project.

  Show on map

  » Read more
  • November 13, 2008 1:24 PM

• Taxi Strikes in China Highlight Changing Press Controls

  

  On China Media Project, David Bandurski writes about domestic media coverage of the recent taxi strike in Chongqing as an example of the new governmental approach to media control, which aims to “actively set the agenda”:

  When the taxi strike occurred in Chongqing last week, news coverage unfolded as a virtual textbook case in Hu Jintao’s new, more active approach to “guidance of public opinion,” what one top Chinese editor aptly called on a recent visit to Hong Kong, “Control 2.0.”

  As we wrote in our analysis of Hu Jintao’s June 2008 media policy speech, the March unrest in Tibet and the May 12 Sichuan earthquake offered party leaders very different lessons about information control.

  In the case of Tibet, China sealed off the region, creating a vacuum in which international media took the lead in the agenda setting process. Many leaders felt that these actions had meant that China completely lost control of the agenda.

  By contrast, coverage of the Sichuan quake was relatively open, particularly during the early stages, and this enabled China to set the agenda and project a favorable international image.

  Show on map

  » Read more
  • November 12, 2008 10:43 PM

• The Day After: Obama and China (Updated)

  

  On Dissent’s website, Daniel Bell, a professor at Tsinghua University, writes about a lack of enthusiasm for Obama’s election that he has seen among his students:

  So why aren’t Chinese students and intellectuals gripped by Obama-mania to the same extent as their counterparts abroad? One key factor is that relations between China and the U.S. have been good since the terrorist attacks of September 11, when the Bush administration turned its attention away from China and toward other perceived threats. Hence, there is less passion for an alternative approach to U.S. policy in China. What Obama said about China policy during his campaign—more protectionism, attacks on the Chinese government for “manipulating” its currency—could make things worse for China, and his views regarding North Korea and Taiwan do not point to any substantial improvements over current American foreign policy.

  Nor does Obama’s Hollywood-like story of the historically oppressed minority group member who makes it to the top via talent and luck resonate much in China. What would be the equivalent? A Tibetan who rises to the top of the Chinese Communist Party? It doesn’t sound very inspiring.

  Update: For more views about the recent election, see Caijing’s poll of readers, in both English and Chinese, about their views of Obama and his incoming administration:

  It appears that the result of Tuesday’s election was of no surprise to the respondents, as almost 90 percent of both groups were expecting Obama’s victory. However, while over 60 percent of the Chinese readers believed that loss of faith in the incumbent administration was the primary factor in Obama’s win, many of those who took the English survey gave credit to the Obama’s policy promises. Neither group thought that race or the candidates’ character had a significant influence on voters.

  » Read more
  • November 11, 2008 10:09 PM