Of Quackery, Rhinos and Tigers
Last week’s Economist noted an almost thirty-fold increase in the poaching of South African rhinos between 2008 and 2011. As with the ongoing surge in elephant poaching, much of the blame has fallen on Chinese demand.Last year 438 rhinos, nearly all of them of the white (meaning wide-lipped) species, were known to have been illegally killed in South Africa, their horns often hacked off while they were still alive. That compares with an annual average of just 15 before 2008. This year more than 200 have already been poached, an average of 50 a month, with the year’s final tally expected to top 600. If that trend continues, more rhinos will be being poached than born by 2016, sending the world’s population into a decline that could be irreversible. Around 20,000 of the surviving white rhinos on earth live in South Africa …. Long prized in South-East Asia for its supposed medicinal and aphrodisiac vim, rhino horn is now being peddled as a cure for cancer too. With growing wealth in China and Vietnam unaccompanied by growing wisdom, demand seems insatiable. The horn, which is merely agglutinated hair, the same stuff as finger nails, has no pharmacological value. Yet… Read more
Photo: Gulou, by Mark Hobbs
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Is China Squandering its Soft Power Investments?
Following a series of damaging stories this year, notably the ousting of Bo Xilai and escape of Chen Guangcheng, The Atlantic’s Damien Ma argues that “for all the financial muscle thrown behind shaping its global image, Beijing may have squandered more soft power in the last few months than it has accrued in years“:… The collective global attention paid to the world’s number-two economy has increased drastically in the media and within policy circles. Call it the “post-Olympics effect.” The triumphalism of the 2008 Beijing Games and the ensuing collapse of the global economy dramatically altered the extent and scope to which the world focused on China. Just a little over three years later, a “China story” is bound to splash across the front page of major U.S. papers week after week. The breadth and detail of coverage have increased significantly too. Many more Americans now likely know that there’s a gargantuan Chinese city called Chongqing and that its leader is in serious trouble. And many more will have heard of Vice President Xi Jinping. In 2002, how many people knew who Hu Jintao was or what a politburo standing committee was? It is a given that this level… Read more
Beijing to “Clean Up” Illegal Foreigners
Beijing authorities have announced the start of a 100-day campaign to “clean up” foreigners who fall into the “3 Have-Not” categories: no valid visa, no valid residence permit, or (where applicable) no valid work permit. From China Daily, with CDT’s emphasis:Popular Beijing spots for foreigners, such as Sanlitun and university areas, will be targeted by police in a fresh drive against visitors who commit crimes, outstay their visas or gain illegal employment, authorities said on Monday …. Foreigners must carry passports and accommodation registration documents at all times in line with Chinese regulations. “We will enforce the rule and make sure that every foreigner knows that,” Lin told China Daily …. The capital has reported 13,000 cases of illegal entry, overstaying and illegal employment concerning foreigners from more than one hundred countries since 2008, according to exit-entry statistics.Citizens have been invited to help by tipping off police at a special phone hotline, with a dramatic “striking fist” graphic urging them on. Proper enforcement of immigration rules in itself is uncontroversial and perhaps, as Bill Bishop wrote at Sinocism, “long overdue”. But the vehemence of online approval has startled some observers. While Danwei’s Jeremy Goldkorn told The Wall Street… Read more
Journalist Expelled from China Reflects
At The Los Angeles Times, Rosanna Xia interviews Melissa Chan, former Beijing correspondent for Al Jazeera English, who last week became the first accredited journalist since 1998 to be expelled from China.“A lot of journalists have done black jail stories,” she said, but hers “was probably the first” to get coverage on TV [Chan refers here to a 2009 report, not, as the story implies, one from March this year]. “It’s also the first time that we got a government official to respond to a question about the existence of black jails.” The official denied the black jails existed, “but it was on the record, Chan said, “so that was useful for human rights groups. And that could be one reason why there’s the perception that I’m a go-getter ….” But Chan said she doesn’t consider herself the most hard-hitting reporter in China. She admires the many journalists who covered last year’s pro-democracy protests in China, and those who sneaked across the border when Tibetans set themselves ablaze in resistance — both stories she did not pursue. For all of April, she was stuck in Hong Kong, unable to report on the breaking story of blind dissident Chen Guangcheng… Read more
“Jesus Loves China, Too”
Since news broke of activist Chen Guangcheng’s escape from house arrest late last month, Chinese-born and Texas-based Pastor Bob Fu and his organisation ChinaAid have often featured prominently. Fu was a major conduit of early information on Chen’s situation, and acted as his interpreter when he addressed a session of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China by telephone. At The New York Times, Andrew Jacobs describes Fu’s work, history and growing political influence:If the drama over Mr. Chen’s fate has placed a harsh spotlight on China’s capacity for repression and created a diplomatic migraine for the White House, it has also been something of a boon to Mr. Fu, 44. His organization, ChinaAid, is at the crossroads of a growing movement among American Christians agitating for religious freedom in China and the wider dissident network inside the United States, as well as members of the underground church in China trying to practice their faith in a hostile environment …. But some critics say that Mr. Fu’s high-profile role as an advocate for religious freedom is a double-edged sword. It has raised awareness of human rights abuses. But his close association with Republicans and evangelical Christians, the critics say, risks stoking… Read more
Chen Guangcheng’s Supporters Face Reprisals
While Chen Guangcheng remains under guard in Beijing’s Chaoyang Hospital, awaiting permission to travel with his family to the United States, a broad range of reprisals have been visited upon his family and supporters elsewhere. Chinese Human Rights Defenders has catalogued detentions, house arrests, violence, denial of medical treatment, cancellation of passports, threats and warnings; other reports include the threatened or actual revocation of lawyers’ licenses and the suspension of microblog accounts. Perhaps the most immediately urgent situation is that of Chen’s nephew. Chen Kegui is now being held on charges of attempted murder after he took a kitchen cleaver to guards breaking into his father’s house in the middle of the night.Chen [Guangcheng], who is now receiving treatment in a Beijing hospital and preparing to go to the United States to study, said his nephew was a scapegoat of officials angered by Chen’s audacious escape and demands that they be investigated. Asked why police in his home province of Shandong in east China would arrest his nephew, Chen said, “Revenge.” “I think this is revenge gone wild, and it’s their final battle,” he told Reuters by telephone from the Beijing hospital where he is being kept …. “They… Read more
Writer’s Family Fights Looted Manuscript Sale
The grandson of writer and translator Zhou Zuoren (1885-1967) is fighting to stop the auction of an one of his manuscripts in Hong Kong, according to the South China Morning Post. The document is expected to fetch upwards of $100,000, but Zhou Jiyi claims that its sale is illegal, as it was looted from the family home during the Cultural Revolution.“I’ve demanded the auction house return the manuscript because it’s an item I couldn’t be more familiar with,” he said. “I’m so happy that we can still see it after more than 40 years, though I’d never expected it to surface this way ….” The auction house said yesterday that the family had been unable to provide it with “a list of looted items” or a document proving its ownership, both requested by its lawyers. “Based on that, we believe that what they’ve said is not enough for us to withdraw the item from auction,” it said …. Tsinghua University sociologist Li Dun said it was absurd to ask the family to provide a list and the ownership of the manuscript was obvious, given the Cultural Revolution context. He said the legal battle would involve uncertainty because there were… Read more
Melissa Chan: “Goodbye to China”
From Melissa Chan at Al Jazeera English:Earlier this week, I left China after five years as an Al Jazeera English correspondent following the decision by the government to revoke my press credentials. At a subsequent Foreign Ministry press briefing, spokesman Hong Lei did not provide a public explanation, only saying that “foreign journalists should abide by Chinese laws and regulations”. But I have not broken any laws. And I believe I have tried to cover China as honestly and equitably as one can. As I say goodbye to China, I think back to some of the issues and people we’ve covered …. China is a country of contradictions. One minute you marvel at the speedy transformation, the new wealth, the great hope of many. Another minute, and in this case powerfully felt because it can all happen in one day, you’re disgusted by the corruption, the systemic problems of a one-party authoritarian state, and the trampling of individual human rights and dignity.Read it all, and see previous posts on CDT for more on Chan’s expulsion, its context and possible explanations.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add… Read more
Al Jazeera Expulsion Still Unexplained
A Foreign Ministry spokesman’s non-answers about the expulsion of Al Jazeera English correspondent Melissa Chan this week have prompted widespread mockery. When the official transcript of the press conference appeared, it included only four questions: one each on visits to China by the chairman of the Syrian National Council and the secretary-general of the Arab League, and two on mounting tensions with the Philippines in the South China Sea. Fourteen questions on Chan’s expulsion had been expunged. Nevertheless, while the exact nature of her transgression against relevant laws and regulations remained a mystery, Global Times was confident that Chan must have done something wrong:China didn’t give a specific reason for expelling the reporter. This ambiguity cannot be criticized. According to foreign journalist sources here in Beijing, Melissa Chan holds an aggressive political stance. According to foreign reports, she has a tense relationship with the management authorities of foreign correspondents. She has produced some programs which are intolerable for China. Interfering with foreign media’s reporting is a retrograde act, and it is simply impossible to do. However, foreign journalists in China must abide by journalistic ethics. They have their values and reporting angles, but the bottom line is that they… Read more
Murong Xuecun: “No Roads Are Straight Here”
Tea Leaf Nation recently reported that an Iowa county attorney had dropped witness tampering charges against two Chinese parents, citing “cultural differences”. The pair had flown to the US after their son was charged with sexual assault while studying there, and had allegedly tried to buy off his accuser. The implication that bribery is an integral part of China’s culture was “like a hard slap on Chinese people’s faces” according to Sina Weibo user @Y如墨, quoted by TLN. At The New York Times, Murong Xuecun explains his own view of corruption’s place in Chinese society, recalling an encounter with an entrepreneurial road builder in Sichuan some fifteen years ago. “Like most Chinese people,” he writes, “he was harmed by corruption yet he dearly wanted in.”I will never forget something Mr. Zhao said to me: There’s not a single straight road in China; they were all built with kickbacks …. If corruption is inevitable, then people inevitably force themselves to get used to it, and even defend its legitimacy. Most of us Chinese go from being shocked to being numb …. The leadership in Beijing needs corruption and actually encourages it. Corruption is the system’s natural lubricant, without which everything… Read more
Little Explanation for Correspondent’s Expulsion
Yes my press credentials have been revoked and I will no longer report f/ China. More from @AlJazeeraPR: see.sc/Fksv69 — Melissa Chan (@melissakchan) May 8, 2012The expulsion this week of Al Jazeera English’s Beijing correspondent Melissa Chan is the first such punishment China has meted out since the end of the 1990s, an unusually harsh measure even against a backdrop of tightening and capricious media controls. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei offered little explanation for the move beyond dogged citation of “relevant laws and regulations”, and even insisted that Al Jazeera English was “still functioning normally” in China. From Voice of America:Q: Chinese laws and regulations are written down, so even if we don’t know which ones Melissa is accused of violating we know what they say. No where as I know is the Chinese government’s conception of journalistic ethics written down. How can we judge whether our behavior is consistent with Chinese conception of journalist ethics, and can you offer us guidance as to what that conception looks like? Hong Lei: “I think our policies and laws regarding foreign journalists is very clear. In your work and exchanges with us we have briefed you on relevant… Read more
China “Ready to Work” with New French President
China’s Foreign Ministry has said it is “ready to work” with France’s new Socialist president, François Hollande, but Beijing is viewing his election with some wariness. From AFP:Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China’s President Hu Jintao had sent a message of congratulation to Hollande, who has vowed to slow the pace of Sarkozy’s public spending cuts …. Asian markets and the euro slumped on Monday amid concerns that victories for Hollande in France and for opposition parties in Greece marked a backlash against austerity measures designed to contain the eurozone crisis. Both Japan and China hold huge amounts of euro-denominated debt and Tokyo has said it will monitor Hollande’s economic policies closely. Europe is China’s top export market, and the current eurozone crisis — which has seen a wave of credit-rating downgrades and brought Greece to the brink of default — has caused major concern in Beijing.Accordingly, instead of celebrating the first election of a Socialist French president in 24 years, Global Times saw the result as a sign of Western democracies’ lack of direction. Democratic systems, it said, were creating an increasing number of problems, with politicians pandering to public whims and indulging in “celebrity-style performances”…. Read more
Photo: Melon Me, by Michael Steverson
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.usPost tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall
Al Jazeera English Closes China Bureau
Al Jazeera English has been forced to close its operations in China after authorities refused to renew the journalist visa of its Beijing correspondent, Melissa Chan. From The New York Times: She declined to be quoted about her departure, and the government’s motive was not explicitly stated. But among other broadcasts, officials were said by some to have been angered by an English-language documentary on Chinese re-education through labor camps that Al Jazeera produced outside China and broadcast on its network in November …. Jazeera English officials expressed regret at the closing of their China operations, and said in a statement they had sought additional visas for journalists to expand their coverage here without success …. Ms. Chan is believed to be the first accredited foreign correspondent to be denied reporting privileges since the October 1998 expulsion of Yukihisa Nakatsu, a journalist with Japan’s largest daily newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun. Mr. Nakatsu was accused of obtaining state secrets, apparently stemming from his contacts with a Chinese economic journalist arrested earlier by state security officers.Al Jazeera has announced its determination to resume reporting from China: Melissa Chan has been Al Jazeera English’s China correspondent since 2007. Chan has filed nearly 400… Read more
Photo: Golden Lion, by Michael Steverson
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Cautious Optimism for Chen Guangcheng US Visit
At The New York Times, Philip Pan describes Chen Guangcheng’s story so far:My friendship with Mr. Chen began in the summer of 2005, when a New York University professor, Jerome A. Cohen, arranged for us to meet at a teahouse in Beijing. Mr. Chen had traveled to the capital from his home in rural Shandong Province, and he told me about his plans to sue local officials for breaking the law by using forced abortion and sterilization to enforce the one-child policy. Within days, I found myself touring the Shandong countryside with him as he collected evidence of the abuses. Mothers who had been pregnant with a third child, some more than eight months along, described being forced to have abortions, and relatives of couples who had gone into hiding told of torture and captivity in makeshift jails. Holding a digital recorder, Mr. Chen listened quietly; the villagers treated him like a hero. We discussed the risks that a newspaper article might bring him. More than once, Mr. Chen wondered aloud whether the authorities would arrest him after my story was published in The Washington Post, where I worked at the time, but he always concluded that they wouldn’t… Read more
Chen Guangcheng “Can Apply to Study Abroad”
Chinese authorities announced on Friday that Chen Guangcheng would be allowed to apply to study abroad, suggesting a possible accommodation of his new wish to spend time in the US. He remains isolated in Beijing’s Chaoyang Hospital, however, and told reporters by telephone that he felt his situation was “very dangerous”. From the Associated Press:“Chen Guangcheng is currently being treated in hospital. As a Chinese citizen, if he wants to study abroad he can go through the normal channels to the relevant departments and complete the formalities in accordance with the law like other Chinese citizens,” the Foreign Ministry said …. Chen sounded anxious as he spoke by telephone from his hospital bed Friday, saying he was very worried about his safety. “I can only tell you one thing. My situation right now is very dangerous,” Chen said. “For two days, American officials who have wanted to come and see me have not been allowed in.” Chen said he spoke to American officials by phone on Friday, twice, “but the calls keep getting cut off after two sentences.” A senior U.S. official said U.S. Embassy personnel also met Chen’s wife in person.On PBS Newshour, Susan Shirk of the… Read more
Chen Guangcheng Ready to Leave China
Chen Guangcheng’s story has continued to gain momentum, with the activist’s face and iconic dark glasses gracing the cover of this week’s Economist magazine (although Bo Xilai beat him onto the cover of TIME). Chen unexpectedly addressed an emergency session of the Congressional Executive Committee on China by phone on Thursday, expressing his new hope of being able to leave China, temporarily, for the US. From Foreign Policy: Chen’s call came into the iPhone of friend and fellow activist Bob Fu during the middle of the hearing of the Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC), chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). Fu and Smith ran out of the hearing room to take the call and returned minutes later to put Chen on speakerphone so that he could address the audience. “I want to make the request to have my freedom of travel guaranteed,” Chen said in Chinese, with Fu translating. Chen said he wants to come to the United States for a period of rest because he has not had any rest in 10 years. “I want to meet with Secretary Clinton,” Chen said. “I also want to thank her face to face.”According to the terms of his departure… Read more
Photo: Waiting I, by Expatriate Games
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Chen Guangcheng Leaves US Embassy (Updated)
The Washington Post’s Keith Richburg reports that Chen Guangcheng has left the US embassy in Beijing in the company of American officials and is now in hospital where, according to other reports, he has been reunited with his immediate family. Blind activist Chen Guangcheng on Wednesday afternoon was in a car with U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke, being taken to a Beijing hospital. It was the first time Chen has emerged since he escaped from house arrest in his village, Dongshigu, in Shandong province, and spent a week hiding in Beijing before making a videotaped appeal to China’s prime minister and then seeking the protection of American diplomats. Locke called The Washington Post from his car at about 3:30 p.m. to say he was with Chen. A Post correspondent spoke briefly to Chen on the phone, who said he was fine and on the way to the hospital.“All indications,” wrote Human Rights Watch’s Nicholas Bequelin on Twitter, “are Chen Guangcheng and immediate family are heading into exile in the US.” Xinhua acknowledged Chen’s escape for the first time, and reported the Foreign Ministry’s indignation at the US for sheltering him. China demands the U.S to apologize for a Chinese citizen’s… Read more
Chen Guangcheng: “Free Citizen”, Uncertain Future
Hu Jia, an activist who was detained for over 24 hours after meeting with the escaped Chen Guangcheng last week, has said that police admitted during his questioning that Chen and his supporters had done nothing wrong in the course of his flight to Beijing. From Gillian Wong at the Associated Press:“They are all free citizens,” Hu quoted the police officers as saying. “For them to come to Beijing and so on, there is nothing illegal about it. They are free to do so. They did not do anything wrong, they have no legal trouble. We just want to understand the situation and verify it ….” The police acknowledgment is an indication that Chen’s troubles with the authorities have primarily been about revenge by local leaders, who had seemed especially bitter and personal in their mistreatment of Chen …. But the central government has never shown much inclination to stop the authorities in Shandong province’s Linyi city, which oversees Chen’s village of Dongshigu. The Chinese government has a long history of ignoring its own laws.Guo Yushan, another activist involved in Chen’s escape, told The Wall Street Journal that “they asked every question they could about Chen Guangcheng and… Read more
China’s Looming Conflict Between Energy and Water
China’s growing thirst for energy is driving increased exploitation of inland resources. At Yale Environment 360, Christina Larson examines the environmental implications of China’s ‘West-to-East Coal-Power Diversion’ plan, and explains why “energy and water must be planned for together.”The country’s top leaders have made provisions for both increasing overall coal production and easing the coal-transportation bottleneck. The most recent Five-Year Plan, the central government’s primary planning document, calls for significantly increasing coal production, which will be achieved by developing and expanding 14 large “coal-industry bases” across western China; these bases will include facilities for coal mining, petrochemical processing, and coal-fired power plants …. Yet, in expanding coal-industry bases in west China, one crucial challenge has so far received far less attention than it deserves: Coal-based industries are massively water-intensive (in fact, coal mining, coal-based power generation, and petrochemical processing together account for more than one-fifth of China’s total water usage). And much of western China is already short on water — think Gobi desert and camels, as opposed to Pearl River Delta rice paddies. “The west of China is an environmentally fragile area,” says Professor Wang Xiujun, who conducts research on climate and precipitation jointly for the Xinjiang Institute… Read more
Shanxi Authorities Order Coca-Cola Chlorine Closure
A Shanxi Coca-Cola factory has been ordered to cease production by the Provincial Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, after a whistleblower reported chlorine contamination from maintenance work in early February. From The Wall Street Journal:The food-safety regulator in Shanxi province said Saturday that during an April inspection it found that a batch of drinks produced by Coca-Cola (Shanxi) Beverage Ltd. was made with water containing chlorine. The statement, from the Shanxi Provincial Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, refers to the suspension as a penalty for the chlorine levels. The statement didn’t detail the findings and didn’t say when the plant will resume production. A Coca-Cola spokeswoman said the Atlanta-based company found only trace levels of chlorine in a batch made between Feb. 4 and Feb. 8. The levels were just below the national standard of purified water in China of 0.005 milligrams per liter, the spokeswoman said, adding that the chlorine level was below World Health Organization limits for drinking water.Xinhua, on the other hand, reported that the Shanxi subsidiary had admitted to and apologised for the contamination, and that other, unspecified problems had been found on the plant’s production lines. But the agency had previously… Read more
Photo: No Entry (Nanning, Guangxi), by Suri Sun
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