Friday, August 20, 2010

Status of Chinese People

Status of Chinese People (中国人状况)

News, reports about China and Chinese people's living condition (新闻, 专题等)

Explosion attack of police kills 7, in Xijiang, Northwest China

Posted by chinaview on August 19, 2010
By Keith B. Richburg, Washington Post Foreign Service, Thursday, August 19, 2010 -

BEIJING — An attacker riding a three-wheeled vehicle attacked a contingent of security volunteers Thursday in Aksu city, in China’s restive western region of Xinjiang, killing seven people and wounding 14 others in the first such incident since bloody ethnic rioting shook the area a year ago.
A statement posted late Thursday on the Web site of the autonomous Xinjiang regional government said the volunteers were on patrol and standing in a line when the attacker struck. The statement said five security force members died at the scene, and two others died later in a local hospital.
The attack occurred in Yoganqi township, on the outskirts of Aksu city, on the highway linking Urumqi, the Xinjiang capital, to Kashgar in the west, the statement said. ……(more details from The Washington Post)
Posted in Bombing, China, Incident, NW China, News, People, Police, Social, World, Xinjiang | Leave a Comment »

‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ tiptoes through China’s forgotten history

Posted by chinaview on August 19, 2010
By Maria Puente, USA TODAY, Aug. 19, 2010 -
Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to remind Americans how good they have it. Australian-born filmmaker Bruce Beresford and a Chinese-born former ballet dancer named Li Cunxin are happy to oblige.
On Friday, Beresford’s latest film, Mao’s Last Dancer, based on Cunxin’s best-selling 2003 autobiography, arrives in U.S. theaters, following a successful opening last year in Australia and a fistful of nominations and awards. Besides spectacular dancing and music, the film packs an emotional wallop about the power of art and love to transcend borders and America’s continuing allure to freedom-seekers.
“It may be the only pro-America film done in 25 years,” says Beresford (Breaker Morant, Driving Miss Daisy), exaggerating just a little. “I was aware when I was making the film that a lot of people, at least in the Australian press, think life in China under Mao was better than life in America under Bush (either one).
“I’d like to tell them they’re wrong,” he adds. “This film shows someone’s amazing dedication to his art and the value of the freedom to practice it, which is what he had in America.”
But with U.S. movie audiences dazed by Inception, breathless from Salt, or chuckling over Dinner for Schmucks, can a small biopic about a forgotten era and a little-known dancer get any traction? After all, it’s likely most Americans know more about Dancing With the Starsthan they do about classical ballet.
Besides, in a youth-skewed moviegoing audience, how many remember the era of defectors, 30 to 40 years ago, when scores of artists from behind the Iron Curtain (the what?) escaped to the West to pursue their art? Nowadays, with the Soviet Union in the dustbin of history and communist China a rising capitalist world power, most artists come and go as they please, and almost no one defects anymore except Cuban baseball players and Iranian nuclear scientists.
A difficult choice
“I was the first and the last, the first person from the cultural field ever allowed out of China to come to America,” says Cunxin, now 49. “After that, China began to open up.”
But not in 1981, when Cunxin, then a 20-year-old Chinese exchange student at the Houston Ballet, stood up to the madness of China’s Cultural Revolution and refused to return to China as ordered. Legally, he did not defect: He had fallen for and married an American dancer and sought to remain under immigration law.
But like the famous and acclaimed Soviet dancer-defectors before him —Mikhail Baryshnikov (in 1974) and Rudolf Nureyev (in 1961) — Cunxin chose his heart and his art, while fearing for the safety of his family still living in China.
“I thought I’d never see them again. I had lots of nightmares,” says Cunxin, who is retired from dancing and lives in Australia, where he is a stockbroker and motivational speaker. “That guilt, that pain, the emotional uncertainty really haunted me.”
At the time, Chinese officials did not react well. As international headlines blared, Cunxin was held in a Chinese consulate in Houston for 21 hours while Chinese and American officials dickered. Meanwhile, Charles Foster (Kyle MacLachlan), Cunxin’s politically connected lawyer, gets on the phone to then-vice president George H.W. Bush, a patron of the Houston Ballet.
Mao’s Last Dancer tells what happened to Cunxin (played by Chi Cao, a young Chinese-British dancer and the son of two of Cunxin’s former teachers), and also how he got to that point, itself an “incredible journey,” MacLachlan says.
Compelling true story
It’s the story of how Madame Mao’s party minions plucked him at age 11 from his family in rural China and sent him to the Beijing Dance Academy, whether he liked it or not. How he hated the training at first, and how an inspiring teacher helped him, despite the risks. How he became passionate about dance after watching a smuggled video of Baryshnikov given to him by his teacher. And how at the age of 18, he was discovered during a visit to China by the artistic director of the Houston Ballet, Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood).
“It’s a story of tremendous risk and fortitude … and a reminder that the freedom we enjoy is precious and fragile,” says Greenwood, who took dance lessons to play the British-born ballet master. “It’s a very human story, incredibly touching. When it premiered in Houston, there was a lot of sniffling.”……(USA Today)
Posted in Artists, China, Culture, Dance, Life, News, People, Politics, Social, USA, World | Leave a Comment »

Canada Calls on Chinese Embassy to Give Back Journalist’s Passport

Posted by chinaview on August 18, 2010
By Matthew Little & Jason Loftus, Epoch Times Staff, Aug. 18, 2010 -
TORONTO— The office of Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has called on the Chinese embassy in Ottawa to return a Canadian journalist’s passport, which he said was withheld when he refused to provide details about his personal life in Canada.
Zhang Zhaopei applied for a visa to visit China from the Chinese consulate in Toronto on Friday, submitting his Canadian passport as part of the process. But when he went to pick up his visa, he was given a blank sheet of paper and told to list extensive personal information about his work, family, and personal history.
Mr. Zhang refused, saying he would abandon his visa application. But Zhang says he was told he still wouldn’t get his Canadian passport back if he didn’t provide the requested details.
“I never thought they can do this thing,” said Zhang, a reporter for New Tang Dynasty Television and a Falun Gong practitioner.
On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Minister Cannon said Canada had asked for the passport to be returned.
“We are aware that the individual in question had requested a visa on Friday to travel to China and that his passport has not been returned,” spokesperson Melissa Lantsman told The Epoch Times.
“A Canadian passport is the property of the government of Canada. We have made a formal request to the Chinese embassy that the passport be returned into our possession.”
Ms. Lantsman said her office had read Mr. Zhang’s story earlier this week in The Epoch Times and that the coverage had brought “much needed attention” to his case.
Zhang was attempting to return to China to visit his family who he has been unable to see in nine years.
Zhang had tried to return to China from Singapore in 2002 and 2004, only to be sent packing once he landed in Beijing and Shanghai, respectively. At that time, he was told it was because he practiced Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese meditation practice that became the target of persecution in China in 1999 and has since put up a spirited defence of human rights.
Mr. Zhang immigrated to Canada in 2005 and is now a citizen. He said he wasn’t surprised he was denied a visa this time around, though having his passport withheld did come as a shock.
New Tang Dynasty Television has encountered interference from the Chinese authorities in the past. The regime previously pressured a European satellite carrier to drop the station’s signal into China and has also attempted to exclude NTDTV from a press event inside Canada’s Parliament Hill earlier this year.
NTDTV and The Epoch Times made headlines in the lead-up to the G-20 this June when a press conference with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Chinese leader Hu Jintao failed to take place due to the regime’s insistence that both media outlets be prohibited from attending, a request the Parliamentary Press Gallery refused to accommodate.
Zhang said the information the consulate requested would have made it easier for the consulate to interfere and monitor his daily activities—something he didn’t want to facilitate.
“I think they just want to control everything of myself, including my work and everything … They want to control everything,” he said.
Zhang told the consulate worker handling his case that if they didn’t return his passport, he would contact the police. A supervisor there told him to go ahead, he said.
Zhang did contact police, but both the Toronto Police and RCMP told The Epoch Times they were at a loss for how to handle the situation.
“This is an unusual practice; this is not something that we have heard of,” said RCMP Const. Dave Banham, a media relations officer.
Banham surmised that the situation was due to a misunderstanding but could not offer any specific reason the police would not get involved, instead referring the matter to Passport Canada.
Passport Canada said Monday the document should be returned to the Canadian government.
“The Government of Canada remains the owner of all passports and if it has been seized it should be handed over to Passport Canada,” said Veronique Robitaille, spokesperson for Passport Canada.
Joel Chipkar, a spokersperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, said the case was an example of the Chinese regime’s interference in Canada.
“The Chinese regime needs to understand that it is not the government of Chinese Canadians, and the Canadian government should make this point clear once and for all.”
Ms. Lantsman said the Canadian government has now provided Mr. Zhang a limited validity passport, which would allow him to travel “until the matter is resolved.”
The Chinese consulate did not answer repeated calls for comment.
Posted in China, Human Rights, Journalist, News, People, Politics, Social, Speech, World | Leave a Comment »

International Investigation Organization Releases First Batch of China Torture Victims’ Personal Account Video- Case 1

Posted by chinaview on August 18, 2010
World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) -

WOIPFG recently released partial video recordings documenting the tortures suffered by Falun Gong practitioners in China. Some of the videos give personal account of the torture suffered by individual Falun Gong practitioners, some of them could no longer speak. Some of them died shortly after video taping was done due to severe injury. Most of these video recordings were done after 2007, with the latest ones done on August 2008.. Many of the incidents of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in these videos have been reported on the Clearwisdom.net. Upon release of this report we will provide all related web links for reference.
The personal account of the victims reflects just how savage and brutal the torture has been over the past 10 years and is still going on today. By releasing this evidence, WOIPFG hopes to gather world wide attention and to jointly work to stop this crime against humanity. WOIPFG will continue collecting evidence as before, tracking down those who initiate, instigate, promote and carry out this persecution, and to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.
This batch of videos covers the accounts of seven Falun Gong practitioners.

Case 1

Name: Yu Fengchun
Gender: Female
Status: deceased
Location: Shuangyashan city, Heilongjiang province, P.R.China


Details:
Yu Fengchun was a Falun Gong practitioner living in Shuangyashan city, Heilongjiang province. Previously she had fluids in her abdomen. After cultivating in Falun Gong, she benefited both mentally and physically, and her health fully recovered. She had been abducted and detained 5 times since July 1999. On August 31, 2007, Police Chief and four of his men from Shuangyashan Public Security Bureau broke into her home, ransacked the hose, and seized all personal belongings. They threatened and intimidated her. Prolonged mental and physical persecution caused her condition to deteriorate, and she was persecuted to death on December 27, 2007. Video recording was her personal account before her death.

Full story of this case:
English: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2008/1/4/92916.html
Chinese(中文): http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/1/2/169453.html
…….(more details from The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong)
Posted in China, Falun Gong, Human Rights, Law, News, People, Religion, Religious, Social, Torture, Video, World | Leave a Comment »

Massive dogs killed “cleanly” in southwest China by Authorities for fear of rabies

Posted by chinaview on August 17, 2010
Radio Free asia, Aug. 17, 2010 -
HONG KONG—Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan have ordered the mass extermination of dogs following a wave of recent bites and amid growing fears of rabies, official media and residents said.
Animal activists have slammed the move as unnecessarily cruel, as it sanctions the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of animals without any tests to determine if they are infected with the virus.
Figures from the Jiangchuan county center for disease control and prevention show that there have been 1,600 cases of dogs biting humans so far this year, with 77 people bitten in the space of just two weeks earlier this month.
“Are the dogs that are biting these people in fact infected with rabies?” said Lu Di, founder of the nongovernment Small Animal Protection Society.
“Have they been tested? If not, then it’s very doubtful.”
She said authorities in Yunnan are no stranger to the mass slaughter of dogs, citing a similar cull of 50,000 dogs in Mouding in 2006, and a smaller one in Miluo county last year.
“Now they have started doing it in Jiangchuan,” Lu said.

Official guidelines
The government said that three out of six dogs killed recently and tested for the rabies virus were shown to be infected.
Calls to the Jiangchuan county government went unanswered Monday, while an official who answered the phone at the local center for disease control and prevention declined to comment.
“We have to get approval from the health department before we can accept telephone interviews,” he said.
Jiangchuan county is home to an estimated 20,000 dogs, and local media reports said around 3,000 had already been killed.
Official guidelines ban the killing of dogs using knives or cudgels, and dogs are to be killed “cleanly,” without bloodshed, local news reports said.
Photographs on news websites showed dogs being hanged from trees, dragged along behind motorcycles, and being chased by officials with nets and clubs.
People who had been bitten by stray dogs are eligible for a set amount of compensation in order to help with medical costs, the reports said.
A Jiangchuan resident said many people were happy to carry out the slaughter.
“Of course if one of your family has been bitten, people are going to want to kill the dog that did it,” the resident said. “But not all dogs are likely to bite people.”
“Some people support [the cull], but others are against it.”
One anonymous guest on a Yunnan news website identified as writing from Beijing commented wryly on the story: “So if you find one corrupt government official, does that mean you are going to shoot all the officials?”……(more details from Radio Free Asia)
Posted in China, Health, Life, News, SW China, Social, World, Yunnan, animal | Leave a Comment »

Chinese meditation technique boosts brain function: study

Posted by chinaview on August 17, 2010
AFP, Aug. 16, 2010 -
WASHINGTON — A Chinese-influenced meditation technique appears to help the brain regulate behavior after as little as 11 hours of practice, according to a study released Monday.
Researchers at the University of Oregon and Dalian University of Technology charted the effects of integrative body-mind training (IBMT), a technique adapted in the 1990s from traditional Chinese medicine and practiced by thousands in China.
The research to be published in the upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences involved 45 test subjects, about half of whom received IBMT, while a control group received relaxation training.
Imaging tests showed a greater number of connections in the anterior cingulate — the part of the brain which regulates emotion and behavior — among those who practiced meditation compared to subjects in the control group.
“The importance of our findings relates to the ability to make structural changes in a brain network related to self-regulation,” said The University of Oregon’s Michael Posner, a lead author on the study.
“The pathway that has the largest change due to IBMT is one that previously was shown to relate to individual differences in the person’s ability to regulate conflict,” he said.
Deficits in activation of the anterior cingulate cortex also have been associated with attention deficit disorder, dementia, depression, schizophrenia and many other disorders.
And researchers said the experimental group also showed lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue than students in the control group.
“We believe this new finding is of interest to the fields of education, health and neuroscience, as well as for the general public,” said Dalian University’s Yi-Yuan Tang, who led the team of Chinese researchers…….(more details from AFP)
Posted in China, Culture, Education, Health, Heritage, Life, News, World, tradition | Leave a Comment »

Event Vancouver: Nobel Nominee David Matas to address to International Conference of the Abuse of Organ Transplantation in China

Posted by chinaview on August 17, 2010
- From “Between Heaven and Earth“:
Nobel Nominee David Matas will be part of a long list of presenters who will speak at the XXIII International Congress of the Transplantation Society to be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre from 15-19 August. This congress will be one of the largest international gatherings of clinicians and scientists in the transplantation field and it is estimated that 4000 people will attend.
Mr. Matas is scheduled to speak at this Conference on Tuesday August 17 from 3.30 to 5 p.m. as part of a panel on Ethics, Public Policy and Economics. His topic will be “Ending abuse of organ transplantation in China”; session is numbered 036. The link to the full program is here.
Canada’s medical profession is the first in the world to develop an official policy statement on organ trafficking which will be discussed at the Congress. Buying and selling livers, hearts, kidneys and other body parts is illegal in Canada and most countries, but the enterprise continues in many developing countries. From 2000 to 2008 in B.C. alone, 93 Canadians, 90 per cent of them ethnic minorities from countries such as China, India and Pakistan, bought kidneys overseas.
“In fact my research on this matter led me to conclude that prisoners of the spiritual movement Falun Gong were the subject of having their organs taken without their consent and sometimes at the cost of their lives,” said Matas. “I’m involved in this as an activist who speaks up for human rights issues. It is the doctors and hospitals in China conducting these organ harvestings, noting that the government is not innocent in the matter. In China, without government sanctioning, nothing can happen. The solution is for this to stop. People must campaign against it publicly and speak on the issue, then getting extra territorial legislation on organ transplanting.”
Amnesty International is taking the opportunity of this Congress to call on pharmaceutical companies to exercise due diligence to ensure that they are not directly or indirectly implicated in the taking or use of organs from executed prisoners. Amnesty International believes that the practice of taking organs from executed prisoners in China must be stopped and, in establishing alternatives, much more must be done to develop and implement effective regulatory mechanisms.
As well Doctors against forced organ harvesting (DAFOH) adds in its appeal to research and pharmaceutical companies to refrain from performing clinical trials in transplant medicine in the People’s Republic of China.
David Matas is a senior legal counsel for B’nai Brith Canada and a member of the Order of Canada. Mr. Matas was nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for his intensive investigation over a four-year period into the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China. His work had culminated into a book called “Bloody Harvest: The killing of Falun Gong for their organs”, which was published in late 2009. Matas had won the prestigious 2009 Human Rights Award from the International Society for Human Rights for this work.
- Source: Between Heaven and Earth
Posted in Canada, China, David Matas, Event, Health, Human Rights, Law, News, Organ transplant, People, Social, World | Leave a Comment »

China’s Rich Have $1.1 Trillion in Hidden Income, Study Finds

Posted by chinaview on August 16, 2010
By Bloomberg News – Aug 11, 2010 -
China’s households hide as much as 9.3 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) of income that is not reported in official figures, with 80 percent accrued by the wealthiest people, a study showed.
The money, much of it likely “illegal or quasi-illegal,” equates to about 30 percent of China’s gross domestic product, the study, conducted for Credit Suisse AG and published last week by the China Reform Foundation, found. The average urban disposable household income in China is 32,154 yuan, or 90 percent more than official figures, according to the report.
Most of that extra cash is going to the wealthiest families. The top 10 percent of China’s households take in 139,000 yuan a year, more than triple the official figures, according to the Credit Suisse report. In contrast, the bottom 10 percent earns 5,350 yuan, or 13 percent more. The top 20 percent of households account for 81.3 percent of total hidden income, according to the study, written by Wang Xiaolu of the Beijing-based foundation.
The findings indicate China’s wealth gap between rich and poor, already one of the world’s highest, is even wider than official figures show. Reducing income disparities is a top goal of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, who want to stave off riots, strikes and other social unrest that might threaten the six-decade rule of the Communist Party.
The “grey income” comes from many sources, including gifts to officials at weddings, profits from land transfers, kickbacks from construction projects, and payoffs from state monopolies such as the tobacco industry, the study said.

‘Crony Capitalism’
“Once government power is united with capital, the free competition of the market economy begins to be replaced by a monopoly of crony capitalism, leading to disparity in income and property distribution, lower economic efficiency and acute social conflicts,” Wang wrote in his report’s conclusion.
The study, compiled in 2009, is based on interviews with families in more than 4,000 urban households in 64 cities and 19 provinces, and uses 2008 data. …...(more details from The Bloomberg)
Posted in China, Economy, GDP, Law, Life, News, Official, People, Social, World, corruption, income | Leave a Comment »

China Exports prison labor on overseas projects in the developing world

Posted by chinaview on August 16, 2010
By Brahma Chellaney, from New Delhi — Globe and Mail Update -
hina has devised a novel strategy to relieve pressure on its overcrowded prisons: Use convicts as labourers on overseas projects in the developing world. The practice has exposed another facet of China’s egregious human-rights record, which, when it comes to the overseas operations of Chinese companies, includes the government’s failure to enforce its own regulations.
Not only is China the world’s leading executioner – it puts to death three times as many people every year as the rest of the world combined – it also has one of the largest prison populations: 1.57 million inmates in 2009, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College, London.
The forced dispatch of prisoners to work on overseas infrastructure projects raises new issues regarding China’s human-rights record. It also adds a new element – the dumping of convicts – to its trade and investment policy, which has been much criticized for dumping goods.
Thousands of Chinese convicts, for example, have been pressed into service on projects undertaken by state-run Chinese companies in Sri Lanka, a strategically important country for Beijing as it seeks to enhance its regional position in the Indian Ocean. After providing Sri Lanka’s government with weapons systems that helped end the country’s decades-long civil war, China has been rewarded with port-building, railroad and other infrastructure projects.
Chinese convicts also have been sent to the Maldives, where the Chinese government is building 4,000 houses on several different islands as a government-to-government “gift” to win influence. So far, however, China has failed to persuade the country’s President to lease it one of the 700 uninhabited Maldivian islands for use as a small base for the Chinese navy.
Chinese companies’ operating practice for overseas projects is to keep the number of local workers to a bare minimum and to bring in much of the work force from China, including convicts “freed” on parole for project-related overseas work. Convict labourers, like the rest of the Chinese work force on such projects, are housed near the project site. That way, if any convict worker escaped, he would be easy to find in an alien setting.
In theory, such practices run counter to regulations promulgated by the Chinese commerce ministry in August of 2006, in response to a backlash against Chinese businesses in Zambia after the death of 51 Zambian workers in an explosion at a Chinese-owned copper mine. These regulations called for “localization,” including hiring local workers, respecting local customs and adhering to safety norms. In October of 2006, the State Council – China’s cabinet – issued nine directives ordering that Chinese overseas businesses “pay attention to environmental protection,” “support local community and people’s livelihood cause” and “preserve China’s good image and its good corporate reputation.”
But Chinese regulations are sometimes promulgated simply to blunt external criticism, and thus are seldom enforced (except when a case attracts international attention). In 2003, for example, China enacted a law on environmental-impact assessments that was followed in 2008 by “provisional measures” to permit public participation in such assessments. Yet, Chinese leaders remain more zealous about promoting exports and economic growth than in protecting the country’s air and water…….(more details from The Globe and Mail: Exporting convicts stains China’s reputation)
Posted in Africa, Asia, Business, China, Economy, News, People, Politics, Social, World | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Awarded Lawyer Gao Zhisheng Important for China’s Future, Says Vice-President of the European Parliament

Posted by chinaview on August 14, 2010
By James Burke/Epoch Times Staff, Aug. 13, 2010 -
A Vice-President of the European Parliament has said that missing Chinese human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng must play a role in the future of a free China.
“Gao Zhisheng must be part of the future of a reformed and democratic China,” said Edward McMillan-Scott, a Vice-President of the European Parliament and Founder of the EU’s democracy and human rights initiative.
“[Mr. Gao’s] devotion to the cause of justice and a fair legal system brought him into national prominence as a lawyer,” said Mr. McMillan-Scott after learning that the respected Chinese lawyer had been honoured with the International Human Rights Lawyer Award from the American Bar Association on Friday August 6.
The annual award is given to lawyers well-known for taking on human rights cases and who have in turn, suffered persecution because of their efforts.
“This award is one of many which make Gao indispensable for China’s future,” said Mr. McMillan-Scott.
Since April this year there has been no word of Mr. Gao’s whereabouts or his wellbeing, and it is believed he is being secretly held by the Chinese police.
A dedicated Christian, Mr. Gao was self-educated and would go on to be described by Chinese officials as one of China’s ten best lawyers. He was well known for his work in assisting China’s poor and marginalized, but he met the wrath of Chinese state security once he began defending the rights of persecuted Falun Gong practitioners.
In December 2004, Mr. Gao sent the first of three open letters to Chinese Communist Party leaders — President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao — which described his investigation into the state’s persecution of Falun Gong. His next two letters would include descriptions of extreme methods of torture used by Chinese police during their attempts to force practitioners to denounce their faith.
“His criticism of the repellent and corrupt Beijing regime in his open letters gave him a wider audience as a statesman,” said Mr. McMillan-Scott.
“His examination of the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and his trenchant criticisms of the regime which set them in train mark him out as a true prophet,” he said.
“His captors should learn from recent European and world history: democracy and human rights will triumph.”
For his letters, the Chinese state shut down Mr. Gao’s law firm and took away his license to practice. Mr. Gao and his family also faced continued harassment and intimidation from security agents. In August 2006, he was taken by secret police and later convicted of “subversion.” A subsequent jail sentence was suspended and he was placed under house arrest and monitored.
In the lead up to the 2008 Olympics he wrote an open letter to the US Congress stating that China’s human rights situation was worsening. Subsequently he was taken into police custody for several months and tortured to the point where he considered suicide. After being released he revealed via a statement what he had experienced in custody, despite being warned by police that if he did so he would be killed. His family fled China in January 2009 and a month after this, Mr. Gao was again abducted by police and went missing for more than a year.
In April this year, Mr. Gao resurfaced and gave several restricted media interviews and it was believed he was being closely monitored by police. At the end of that month he was reported missing again, he is now thought to be in police custody.
In 2007 the English translation of Mr. Gao’s memoir “A China More Just” was published. In 2007, 2008, and 2010, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mr. McMillan-Scott has been a long time campaigner for reform and democracy in China and was in contact with Mr. Gao before he disappeared. According to his website, in May 2006, Mr. McMillan-Scott visited Beijing on a fact finding mission and all the Chinese with whom he had contact with were arrested, imprisoned and in some cases tortured.
- The Epochtimes
Posted in China, Edward McMillan-Scott, Europe, Freedom of Speech, Gao Zhisheng, Human Rights, Law, Lawyer, News, People, Politics, Social, World | Leave a Comment »

China jails Tibetan property tycoon for life time

Posted by chinaview on August 14, 2010
Jane Macartney, The Times, Via The australian, August 13, 2010 -
CHINA has sentenced to life imprisonment a property tycoon believed to be the country’s richest Tibetan businessman.
Once hailed by authorities as one of Tibet’s top ten outstanding young people, Dorje Tashi, 37, was sentenced on June 26 by the Lhasa Municipality Intermediate People’s Court, Tibetan sources told The Times.
Dorje Tseten, his elder brother, was jailed for six years.
Details of the charges were not available, but if they were political then such secrecy is not unusual in Tibet – where officials are anxious to avoid further unrest.
Many in the deeply Buddhist population resent Beijing’s rule and yearn for the return of the exiled Dalai Lama.
The absence of any reports in China’s state media underscored the possibility that the arrests may have been related to activities deemed political.
However, court sources said that the conviction was based on “illegal business operations” involving Mr Dorje’s Yak Hotel, the best-known and oldest in Lhasa – the capital of the region.
The court confiscated Mr Dorje’spersonal property, estimated to be 4.3 billion yuan ($707 million). He was arrested in March 2008, shortly after an anti-Chinese riot rocked Lhasa, even though he had been praised at the time for supporting the government crackdown and providing supplies to security forces.
Mr Dorje was well known in Lhasa after he founded the popular hotel.
He operated many other enterprises, from property to trading companies, and had close links with Chinese authorities. Shortly after his arrest, however, there were reports that he had made donations to monasteries, or even the Dalai Lama – donations which would have enraged Beijing.
- The Australian
Posted in Business, Businessman, China, Company, Human Rights, Law, News, People, Politics, SW China, Social, Tibet, World | Leave a Comment »

China plans to create a government-controlled online search engine– would compete with Baidu.com

Posted by chinaview on August 14, 2010
By DAVID BARBOZA, The New York Times, August 13, 2010 -
SHANGHAI — In an apparent bid to extend its control over the Internet and cash in on the rapid growth of mobile devices, China plans to create a government-controlled search engine.
The new venture would compete with Baidu.com, a private company that runs China’s dominant search engine. Baidu’s market has grown since Google retreated from the mainland earlier this year.
The state-owned China Mobile — the world’s biggest cellphone carrier — and Xinhua, China’s official state-run news agency, signed an agreement on Thursday to create a joint venture called the Search Engine New Media International Communications Company.
China already has the world’s largest number of Internet users, more than 420 million, and also the largest number of mobile phone subscribers, with more than 800 million.
Private start-up companies play a big role on the Web in China, but the government maintains tight control over Internet companies and censors content that it deems dangerous or sensitive.
Now, though, analysts say that Beijing is pushing state-run companies to take a more active role online. China Central Television, the nation’s dominant broadcaster, is trying to develop an online video site. Xinhua News Agency is trying to build a global platform of news providers using television and the Internet.
At the announcement of the joint venture in Beijing on Thursday, Zhou Xisheng, vice president of Xinhua, said the new company would build a leading search engine platform. But he also said the move was “part of the country’s broader efforts to safeguard its information security and push forward the robust, healthy and orderly development of China’s new media industry.”
Representatives of Baidu could not be reached for comment. …...(more details from New York Times)
Posted in China, Internet, News, Politics, Social, Technology, World, search engine | Leave a Comment »

Harvard tops Chinese university rankings for eighth year

Posted by chinaview on August 14, 2010
AFP, Aug. 13, 2010 -

SHANGHAI — Harvard topped a ranking of world universities published Friday by a Shanghai college for the eighth year running — a list dominated by US institutions and sharply criticised in Europe.
The University of California at Berkeley was second, followed by Stanford, according to the list of 500 institutions compiled by Jiaotong University’s Centre for World-Class Universities, available at www.arwu.org.
The rankings are focused almost entirely on a university’s achievements in scientific research, and do not cover the humanities — prompting concerns that they do not accurately reflect an institution’s overall performance.
Jiaotong uses criteria such as the number of Nobel prizes and Fields medals won by staff and alumni, the number of highly cited researchers on staff, and the number of articles by faculty published in Nature and Science magazines.
The rankings have come in for sharp criticism, notably in Europe, where officials say the criteria are biased against European schools.
The list was the first global ranking of universities when it made its debut in 2003. It was intended to benchmark the performance of Chinese universities, amid efforts by Beijing to create a set of world-class research institutions.
The highest-ranked non-US institutions this year were Britain’s Cambridge and Oxford universities, in fifth and 10th places respectively…….(More details from AFP)
Posted in China, Education, Europe, News, Social, USA, World | Leave a Comment »

Biggest relocation in China since Three Gorges, 440,000 Affected

Posted by chinaview on August 13, 2010
By Clifford Coonan in Beijing, The Independent, UK, Friday, 13 August 2010 -
China’s growing thirst for water is driving one of the world’s biggest mass relocations, with 440,000 people leaving their homes to make way for a huge man-made canal project to channel water to drought-prone Beijing.
An advance party of 499 villagers were moved yesterday from their homes near Wuhan in Hubei province, China’s heartland, in preparation for one of the biggest irrigation schemes in history.
By the end of September, 60,000 people will have left the area. The remainder will be relocated by 2014, giving up their homes to make way for the South-North Water Diversion Project (SNWD) which will divert water from China’s largest river, the Yangtze.
“I am surprised nobody cried when the coaches left our village. Last night, we felt sorrow when the whole village gathered to have our last dinner in our home town together,” a villager named Wang told Xinhua news agency, leaving their town in Danjiankou, which by 2014 will be under 560ft of water.
The project is designed to take water from a section of the Yangtze, to satisfy demand in northern China’s drought-prone mega-cities, including the capital Beijing and the busy port of Tianjin. North China has only 20 per cent of the country’s water but 64 per cent of all arable land.
At least 440,000 residents will be relocated to make way for the first stage of the project’s eastern and central routes, with 330,000 of them living in Henan and Hubei provinces.
The last time China moved so many people was when it was building the £15bn Three Gorges Dam project, the world’s largest hydroelectric project, on the Yangtze in the late 1990s. Back then 1.4 million people were forced to move as their villages were submerged beneath a reservoir 410 miles long. The project was completed in 2006.
Environmentalists have criticised both projects and say that the dam scheme has caused ecological problems. The banks of the Yangtze are being eroded by the weight of the water behind the dam, hazardous landslides blight the area as water levels fluctuate wildly and huge waves crash against riverbanks. Construction of the dam flooded 116 towns and hundreds of ancient historical sites, but it remains a potent symbol of China’s technological prowess. However, the Three Gorges Dam project has given the Chinese valuable experience in moving large numbers of people…….(more details from The Independent)
Posted in Central China, China, Environment, Hubei, Life, News, People, Social, World, Wuhan, housing | Leave a Comment »

China: Sexual prematurity in babies- Dairy Companies Face New Questions

Posted by chinaview on August 12, 2010
By BRIAN SPEGELE, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 12, 2010 -
BEIJING— Mounting questions about abnormal hormone levels in several Chinese infants who demonstrated early signs of puberty have again put a Chinese milk supplier and New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. on the defensive about their products.
The latest issue comes two years after the 2008 milk scandal, in which at least six children died and 300,000 were sickened from milk that contained dangerous levels of melamine, an industrial chemical.
The Chinese company at the center of the latest questions, Nasdaq-listed Synutra International  Inc., insists it isn’t to blame for symptoms of sexual prematurity in babies, including breast growth. On Synutra’s website, it says the company has never added illegal hormones to its milk products, and questions links between its product and the babies’ signs of puberty.
“These claims are highly irresponsible and based on speculation instead of scientific evidence,” said the company’s chairman and chief executive, Liang Zhang. “As a well-known and trusted provider of infant formula in China, we are completely confident that our products are safe and our quality levels are industry leading.”
Earlier this month, parents and doctors in central China’s Hubei province began voicing concern that milk powder from Synutra had caused at least three infant girls to exhibit signs of puberty, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. This week, Ministry of Health officials said they were launching an investigation into the milk powder.
At a news conference on Tuesday, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Health said multiple factors could cause sexual prematurity, and experts couldn’t yet determine whether food was a factor, Xinhua reported.
In 2008, Fonterra, one of New Zealand’s largest companies, faced a wave of criticism in the aftermath of the milk scandal. Fonterra owned a large stake in one of the companies at the center of the scandal, the now-defunct Sanlu Group, but has flourished in China following Sanlu’s closing. Synutra recalled some of its products during the melamine scare…….(more details from Wall Stret Journal)
Posted in Business, Children, China, Company, Economy, Incident, Life, Made in China, News, People, Social, Tainted Products, World, products, scandals | Leave a Comment »

China: Forced Mass Workplace Exercise – Move back to the Cultural Revolution

Posted by chinaview on August 12, 2010
Radio Free Asia, 2010-08-12 -
HONG KONG— Labor officials in the Chinese capital are launching a campaign this week to promote collective workplace exercise sessions in tandem with Beijing’s state-run radio station, which will broadcast the music for the program, officials said.
An employee who answered the phone at the Beijing Model Workers’ Association confirmed the move. “Yes, that’s correct,” the employee said.
But he declined to speculate on the motivation behind it. “I’m not sure why they decided this,” he said.
Calls to the Beijing General Workers’ Union went unanswered during office hours Monday.
But a directive issued by the union and reported in local media said that the union wants 60 percent of the city’s workforce, and 100 percent of the workers in state-owned industrial plants, to be taking part in collective exercise programs by the end of next year.
Targets for civil servants had been set at 70 percent of the workforce, and would be added to assessment criteria for leadership performance in government departments.
“Starting from Aug. 9, all workers of state-owned enterprises and at least 70 percent of employees of government offices and public institutions are now required to complete physical exercises at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. with exercise music from Beijing Radio Station on 102.5 FM,” the People’s Daily Online reported.
The move was part of the “Healthy Beijinger—National 10-Year Plan” campaign, which mandates the promotion of physical exercises and requires every employee in the capital to do 20-minute exercises at least once a day, the paper said.
Motivation questioned
Critics have already lashed out at the plan as a backward step for a China they see moving away from regimented, socialist patterns, and questioned the political motivation for the move.
“This is all connected to the singing of revolutionary anthems and the campaign against vulgarity,” wrote a user identified as Kevin Wu in an online forum. “It totally shows that history is moving backwards.”
Beijing-based artist Yang Licai said he expects China to move back towards the political campaigns of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
“I have been hurriedly reading up on Cultural Revolution history, because I think that we’re about to arrive back in that era,” Yang said in an interview. “The Cultural Revolution is the reference point for all these movements.”
“I need to study in order to learn how to survive in that sort of time,” he said.
Collective morning exercises have been a feature of China under communist rule since 1951, with new initiatives being promoted by the government every five to 10 years, up to the present day.
The new exercise broadcast will be the eighth edition of the morning music broadcast, which was briefly resumed in celebration of Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games.
Amid a recent growth in the popularity of revolutionary songs from the Mao era, and a campaign against “low, vulgar, and pandering” elements in society and culture, netizens are now commenting on whether China is in the middle of a return to its Maoist roots.
“There have only been three countries in the world that go in for this sort of thing,” wrote user Pu Fei on the microblogging service Twitter. “One was the former East Germany, another was North Korea, and the third was China.”
“This sort of collective mass exercise by the whole population to a radio broadcast is characteristic of authoritarian regimes. Our government’s thinking is typical of an authoritarian regime,” Pu wrote.
- The Radio Free Asia
Posted in Campaigns, China, Life, News, People, Politics, Social, World | Leave a Comment »

Leading Chinese artist Ai Weiwei claims police attacked him

Posted by chinaview on August 10, 2010
Tania Branigan in Beijing , Guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 August 2010 -
Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist commissioned to create an installation for the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, says that plain-clothes police assaulted him and his assistant today as he attempted to file a complaint about a previous attack.
The artist who designed the Beijing national stadium, known as the Bird Nest, said that he was kicked and shoved outside a police station in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in south-west China.
“Some undercover police tore our shirts and tried to grab our cameras. There were maybe 10 of them. They pushed and kicked us,” he said in a telephone interview. “Now we are being attacked because we complained about last time. It is so ironic.”
Ai and several other activists were detained in Chengdu last year to prevent them attending the trial of a campaigner investigating schoolchildren’s deaths in the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. The subject has become highly sensitive because of allegations that shoddy construction, linked to corruption, was to blame for the high death toll in schools.
Ai said a policeman punched him in the head in that incident, leaving him with painful headaches, and he underwent surgery in Germany weeks later after doctors spotted internal bleeding.
Today he went to Chengdu’s city police department, but says it refused to take his complaint and referred him to the police station at Jinniu.
He said that as he arrived at that building he was surrounded by men who assaulted him and his assistant, and told him: “If you want justice, go back to the US.”
Ai lived in America for several years but is still a Chinese citizen…….(More details from The Guardian)
Posted in Activist, Artists, Chengdu, China, Human Rights, Law, News, People, SW China, Sichuan, Social, World | 1 Comment »

China zoos in ‘barbaric’ animal abuse: report

Posted by chinaview on August 10, 2010
AFP, Aug. 10, 2010 -
HONG KONG — Chinese zoos and safari parks treat their animals “barbarically,” including abusing them to perform tricks and depriving them of proper food and shelter, an animal welfare group said.
Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation said its investigation of 13 Chinese zoos and safari parks between September 2009 and August 2010 uncovered evidence of animals being beaten with sticks and metal hooks as well as tigers and lions with their teeth and claws removed, causing chronic pain.
The group’s 28-page report documents “the barbaric treatment of animals and the poor living conditions they are forced to endure.”
“A large number of captive animal establishments in China provide animal performances as a form of entertainment for visitors. The techniques used to force such animals to perform tricks are cruel and abusive,” said the report released Monday.
“Showmen frequently engage in negative reinforcement, whipping and striking the animals repeatedly, forcing them to carry out tricks that go against their natural behaviour.”
The group said its probe also uncovered evidence of animals housed in “small, barren, concrete enclosures often in darkened rooms at the back of the performance areas away from the visitors.”
“The living conditions for performing animals fail to meet their basic welfare needs. Many of the animals have no visible access to water,” it said.
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