ZGBriefs December 15, 2011
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FEATURED ARTICLE
It is hard to obtain good data in China, but something is wrong when the country's Homelink property website can report that new home prices in Beijing fell 35pc in November from the month before. If this is remotely true, the calibrated soft-landing intended by Chinese authorities has gone badly wrong and risks spinning out of control. |
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GOVERNMENT / POLITICS / FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Nobel winner Tutu urges China to free Liu Xiaobo (December 8, 2011, BBC News) Five Nobel Peace Prize winners have called on China to free fellow laureate Liu Xiaobo, on the eve of this year's award ceremony. The group, which includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu, expressed fears that Mr Liu's family and friends are being silenced in a "wave of intimidation". Mr Liu, who won the prize last year, is serving an 11-year jail term for criticising the Beijing government. China regards him as a criminal and was angered by the decision to honour him. The five Nobel laureates along with other activists have organised a committee to campaign for Mr Liu's release.
US envoy calls on China to improve human rights (December 10, 2011, AP) The U.S. ambassador to China on Saturday urged Beijing to improve its human rights record, pointing to imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo as an example where China falls short. In a statement released on the U.N.'s International Human Rights Day, envoy Gary Locke said protection of human rights in China had not kept up with the country's massive economic gains. Locke said the imprisonment of Liu and restrictions on the freedoms of his wife, the disappearance of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, the unlawful detention of Chinese citizens such as lawyer Chen Guangcheng, and constraints on the religious freedom and practices of Tibetan, Uighur (WEE' gur) and Christian communities "do not bring China closer to achieving its stated goals."
Chinese fishermen 'stab South Korean coast guards' (December 12, 2011, BB News) The captain of a Chinese fishing boat has stabbed two South Korean coast guards, killing one and injuring another, officials say. The clash took place after the boat was stopped for illegal fishing in the Yellow Sea off Korea's Incheon port. Korean officials seized the vessel and detained nine Chinese crewmen. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said Beijing was trying to clarify details and was willing to work closely with the South Koreans. Chinese crews are regularly caught fishing in Korean waters. They are usually released after paying a fine.
China opens annual economy planning conference (December 12, 2011, AP) China's top leaders are thrashing out an economic growth strategy for the coming year in an annual meeting expected to endorse fine-tuning of policies to contain inflation but support growth. As Beijing prepares for a succession to a new generation of Communist Party leaders next year, the focus remains on stability. No major shifts in policy are expected from the closed door economic work conference, which reportedly will end on Wednesday. However, the continued crisis in Europe and weak U.S. recovery, and a slowdown at home, are adding to pressure for China to make faster progress in rebalancing the economy to depend more on consumer demand and less on exports and investment, analysts say.
Microblogs become crucial state tool (December 14, 2011, South China Morning Post) Mainland government agencies and officials have caught microblog fever, with the number of government-related accounts rising threefold since the beginning of this year. The number of government-related weibo accounts on Sina.com, the most popular microblogging service on the mainland, has reached nearly 20,000. This includes more than 10,000 for government departments and about 9,000 for officials from all provinces, according to a report released by People's Daily Online's Public Opinion Monitoring Office at a Beijing forum on Monday. The report said that microblogs had helped government boost its image, make its voice heard and gauge public opinion. There are 485 million internet users on the mainland, with almost half of them maintaining microblogs. About 200 million posts appear every day on more than 50 microblog platforms.
China villagers defy government in standoff over death (December 15, 2011, Reuters) Villagers in southern China on Thursday defied authorities and continued protests over a death in custody and land dispute in the latest outburst of simmering rural discontent that is eroding the ruling Communist Party's grip at the grassroots. Many hundreds of residents in Wukan Village in Guangdong province held an angry march and rally despite moves by authorities to halt a land project at the center of the months-long unrest and detain local officials involved. "The whole village is distraught and enraged. We want the central government to come in and restore justice," said one resident who described the scene. He and another resident, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said villagers remain enraged over last weekend's death in custody of Xue Jinbo, 42, who was detained on suspicion of helping organize protests against land seizures.
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HEALTH
More deaf kids from poor families to get artificial cochlea embedded free (December 13, 2011, Xinhua) Sixteen thousand more deaf children from low-income families are expected to have artificial cochlea embedded free between 2012-2015, under a program funded by China's Central Government, a Ministry of Health source told Xinhua Tuesday. This is the second such government-funded program organized by the China Disabled Persons' Federation. During the period of 2009-2011, the government paid for the embedding of artificial cochlea for 1,500 poor kids with hearing disabilities, and for their follow-up rehabilitative training. Peking Union Medical College Hospital and another 26 hospitals carried out the operations. |
RELIGION
Chinese police detained 11 Christians in Tibet -U.S. Group (December 13, 2011, Reuters) Chinese police detained 11 Christians in the mountainous Tibet region in October, the first recorded case of persecution against the religion in the area, a U.S. advocacy group said on Tuesday. The ChinaAid group said the 11 Christians were taken into custody by police in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, in the days before and after Oct 1. They were later freed, but it was not clear when.
Religious groups set up publicity system (December 13, 2011, China Daily) China's major religious groups have set up their own news publicity system, the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) announced Tuesday. Spokesmen for the religious groups will hold non-scheduled and regular press conferences and briefings, as well as provide press releases and initiate online communication with the press and the public, the administration said in a statement. News of progress and emergencies that occur in religious circles, as well as news pertaining to the major concerns of religious believers and secular people, will also be provided, the statement said. The establishment of the publicity system aims to promote the transparency of religious groups in order to better serve believers, the statement said. |
EDUCATION / CULTURE
Chinese studying overseas may top 350k in '11 (December 14, 2011, China Daily) A total of 350,000 Chinese are expected to go abroad for advanced study this year, according to a survey released by China Education Online in Beijing on Tuesday. The survey indicates that China has seen a boom in the number of people choosing to study overseas since 2008. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, the numbers of people taking courses overseas were 178,900, 229,300 and 284,700, respectively. The average annual increase rate was 24 percent. The number of intermediary agencies arranging overseas study has grown accordingly, according to the survey. By October 26 this year, China has altogether 416 such officially acknowledged intermediary agencies.
Teachers banned from using harsh words (December 14, 2011, China Daily) The Ministry of Education has published a series of professional standards for teachers in kindergartens, primary schools and middle schools, including a ban on harsh language and words that might belittle students. The draft standards also ask teachers to effectively communicate with their students and establish good teacher-student relationships. The standards place special emphasis on teachers' moral performance and ethics, according to a statement on the ministry's website on Tuesday. Under the standards, teachers should always be student-oriented, regard the lives and safety of their students as their top priority and acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to deal with possible emergencies. The standards for primary school teachers require them to protect students' interests and encourage their curiosity. |
SOCIETY / LIFE
Warning on laziness sends Chinese officials to sleep (December 9, 2011, Reuters) Five Chinese officials have been suspended from their jobs after they were observed sleeping or reading newspapers during a video conference on stamping out laziness at work, state media reported on Friday. The officials, all high-level workers at tax bureaux in the northern province of Shanxi, were supposed to be participating in a meeting to push better work discipline, the official Xinhua news agency reported. It did not say for how long they would be suspended. The campaign is to remind officials they cannot leave their posts, play games, or "attend recreational activities" during office hours, Xinhua added.
China farmer gets death penalty for poisoning milk (December 9, 2011, AP) A Chinese dairy farmer has been sentenced to death for lacing her rival's milk supply with industrial salt, causing the deaths of three young children, state media said Friday. A local court in Pingliang city in far western China's Gansu province found Ma Xiuling guilty of deliberately adding nitrite to the milk of a dairy farming couple in revenge for some business disputes, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Earlier reports said a month-old baby and two children younger than 2 died. Xinhua said 36 people were hospitalized.
China detains two men for spreading false information online (December 12, 2011, Xinhua) Two men have been detained in central China's Hunan Province for spreading a rumor about a massive number of police forces guarding a wedding, local police said Monday. The pair, arrested in the city of Changsha Sunday, were accused of spreading a rumor that 5,000 policemen and 100 police vehicles were seen guarding a wedding convoy in the city on Dec. 6, police investigators said. The two men, both in their twenties, posted a video clip online showing crowds of police officers and a wedding convoy on the street. Police investigators said the incident was a coincidence, as the officers were returning from a training drill and happened to be passing the convoy at that particular moment. Local police officials said the rumor spread quickly, with the video clip receiving large numbers of hits. The two men will be detained for a total of five days in accordance with relevant laws, the officials said.
Half-Filled School Bus Crashes in China, Killing 15 Children (December 13, 2011, The New York Times) A half-filled school bus ferrying students home from a primary school in rural China rolled into an irrigation canal, killing 15 children and injuring 8 others, officials said. The accident Monday evening in Jiangsu Province has renewed public indignation over school bus safety and, more broadly, complaints about inadequate government spending on education. The vehicle had a capacity of 52 but had only 29 students on board, according to the state-controlled Xinhua news agency. The driver lost control of the bus after he swerved to avoid a pedicab, and it rolled, landing upside down in a canal with less than two feet of water.
Train crash most discussed on Weibo in 2011 (December 14, 2011, Xinhua) Sina Weibo, the Chinese Twitter-like micro blogging site with over 200 million users, revealed its annual roundup on Wednesday, summing up this year's most heated topics on a website that has arrived on the scene as a major forum for public opinion. Unsurprisingly, first place went to the fatal high-speed train collision in July, which spawned millions of posts railing against the railway authorities, mourning the victims, and calling for thorough investigation of the crash's causes. While Twitter keeps on the rails as a pure social networking site, its Chinese counterpart, Weibo, acts more like China's Hyde Park -- an open space where people feel free to participate in public affairs.
Regular nonstop flight launched between Beijing, Lhasa (December 15, 2011, Xinhua) A new regular nonstop flight was launched between Beijing and Lhasa on Thursday, cutting the previous travel time by nearly two hours. The round-trip flight is operated by Air China every day, and a refitted Airbus A319 is used to carry out the flight. Currently, it is the only nonstop air service between Beijing and Lhasa, the capital city of southwest China's remote Tibet autonomous region.
China doubles allowance to needy people ahead of major festivals (December 15, 2011, Xinhua) The Chinese government will double the allowance to needy people from last year's level for the New Year's Day and Spring Festival, said the Ministry of Civil Affairs here Thursday. An urban resident covered by the minimum living standard program will receive 300 yuan (48 U.S. dollars), while a rural resident in the same program will get 200 yuan, according to a ministry statement. Those receiving state consolation funds and elderly people who joined the Communist Party of China before 1949 but are not covered by pension programs, will get 360 yuan each, the statement said.
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BUSINESS / ECONOMICS / TRADE
China exporters face "very severe" Q1 2012: Commerce Ministry (December 14, 2011, Reuters) China's exporters will face "very severe" conditions in the first quarter of 2012, the Commerce Ministry said on Thursday, with Europe's debt crisis dragging on and dampening demand. "The overall trade environment next year for China will be complicated, partly due to the economic uncertainties in the European countries, and I should say that the export situation in the first quarter of next year will be very severe," Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang told a news conference. Growth in Chinese exports and imports slowed in November, fresh evidence of faltering demand abroad and at home that is pushing Beijing towards a more explicit pro-growth policy stance, according to data published on December 10.
Foreign investment in China falls in November (December 14, 2011, AP) Foreign direct investment in China fell for the first time since 2009 in November, by nearly 10 percent, as weakness in the U.S. and crisis-stricken Europe takes a growing toll on the country's growth. The $8.8 billion in foreign investment in November was down 9.8 percent from a year earlier, the Commerce Ministry reported. Foreign investment in October climbed 8.8 percent from the year before. The number of newly approved foreign ventures in November fell 12.9 percent from a year earlier to 2,718, the ministry said. Foreign direct investment covers spending on physical assets such as factories and excludes financial assets such as stocks.
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ENVIRONMENT / TECHNOLOGY
A few hacker teams do most China-based data theft (December 12, 2011, AP) As few as 12 different Chinese groups, largely backed or directed by the government there, commit the bulk of the China-based cyber-attacks stealing critical data from U.S. companies and government agencies, according to U.S. cyber-security analysts and experts. The aggressive but stealthy attacks, which have stolen billions of dollars in intellectual property and data, often carry distinct signatures allowing U.S. officials to link them to certain hacker teams. Analysts say the U.S. often gives the attackers unique names or numbers, and at times can tell where the hackers are and even who they may be. One of the analysts said investigations show that the dozen or so Chinese teams appear to get "taskings," or orders, to go after specific technologies or companies within a particular industry. At times, two or more of the teams appear to get the same shopping list and compete to be the first to get them or to pull off the greatest haul. Analysts and U.S. officials agree that a majority of the cyber-attacks seeking intellectual property or other sensitive or classified data are done by China-based hackers. Many of the cyberattacks stealing credit card or financial information come from Eastern Europe or Russia.
20 natural lakes disappear each year in China (December 12, 2011, China Daily) China has about 24,000 natural lakes, but they are disappearing at a rate of about 20 every year, according to a declaration released at an environmental forum that ended on Sunday. China's natural lakes cover an area of 83,000 square km and play an important role in maintaining ecological balance, controlling floods and reducing droughts, according to a declaration issued at the First China Forum on Lakes in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu province. However, China's lakes have been confronted with severe challenges due to climate change resulting from human activity, the declaration said. "Every year, about 20 natural lakes dishearteningly disappear," the declaration said, noting that human activity has created serious consequences for the lakes.
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LINKS TO DETAILED ARTICLES AND ANALYSIS
This is the first in a series of blog posts and galleries from Jie-Song documenting hip-hop culture in Beijing and youth culture in China.
The way Americans talk about China can often seem hostile, frustrating, or altogether irreconcilable with the world as a newcomer from China knows it.
Home prices nationwide declined in November for the third straight month, according to an index of values in 100 major cities compiled by the China Index Academy, an independent real estate firm. Average prices in the Shanghai area are down about 40% from their peak in mid-2009, to about $176,000 for a 1,000-square-foot home.
In this piece, we'll examine some of the trends starting to occur in China, and especially those that affect foreign investors in the country.
When the door closes, God opens a window. This sentence has encouraged Wang Hui to lead a courageous life with his hands and perseverance. Wang Hui is a craftsman of stone carving, who lost his legs in an accident at the age of 4. Overcoming despair, he has learned to walk with a chair, completing his primary and middle school education.
There has been a wave of strikes and riots among migrant workers manning production lines in southern China, but can the government keep the "factory of the world" running smoothly?
Tiger Mother Amy Chua, the superstrict Chinese-American disciplinarian, became an overnight sensation in the U.S. this year when she wrote about her tough parenting style. But she looks like a pussy cat next to her mainland Chinese equivalent, "Wolf Dad" Xiao Baiyou. Xiao is the latest media sensation in China - a father who not only beat his son and three daughters, but boasts about how he did it.
The protest that has erupted in a village in China's Guangdong province has grabbed headlines around the world, but the issues at the heart of the dispute are alarmingly commonplace.
Taiwan is bracing itself for combined presidential and legislatives elections to be held on Jan. 14, with many political observers saying the outcome of the poll will not only shape Taipei's relations with Beijing but will also leave their mark on how the US and China will face each other.
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LINKS TO BLOGS
"China is SO big." That's a comment that I hear often when talking to people about China. It's an observation that I have always found a bit odd given the fact that China is roughly the same size (slightly larger) as the US.
Teaching oral English was always interesting. Seemingly innocuous discussion topics would sometimes elicit bizarre responses from students.
The final installment of our online series about Sidney Shapiro, the influential translator who became a Chinese revolutionary
The hottest topic on my blog, apart from air pollution, is always food safety in China. The newspapers are filled almost daily with the latest scandal, or a repeat of old scandals, and it's a legitimate question to wonder just what is safe to eat. I'd like to share my tips both as a doctor and as a 5-year veteran expat in Beijing.
Situated on an area of around 100 acres, and 45 minutes drive from the center of Beijing, are the ruins of 'Wonderland'. Construction stopped more than a decade ago, with developers promoting it as 'the largest amusement park in Asia'. Funds were withdrawn due to disagreements over property prices with the local government and farmers. So what is left are the skeletal remains of a palace, a castle, and the steel beams of what could have been an indoor playground in the middle of a corn field.
The clip only lasts 5 seconds, so you have to watch it a few times to really appreciate what's happening.
But now an alternative for promoting social harmony is being tried in Ningbo, in Zhejiang province. Its approach is far more sophisticated than some might expect: That social discontent might be best managed, not by tightening or loosening the reigns of control, but by cadres going out to talk to people directly about grievances they have filed.
Before we go any further, I want to get this out of the way: no, this is not the first spark in some nationwide rebellion that will see the national government overthrown. In fact, it's not even a rebellion against the central government, as you can tell from the pleas for help from Beijing in Moore's article.
As the year draws to a close, people are beginning the retrospectives and looks back that will soon cover the entire internet like a big, boring blanket. Sina (NASDAQ:SINA) is one of the first players to enter this game, with a big retrospective feature on what happened on Weibo over the past year.
A commercial satellite operator says it has captured a rare image of China's first aircraft carrier as it sailed through the Yellow Sea, after going through an exercise that's the 21st-century equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.
With the US economy in the doldrums and Europe's ongoing debt crisis continuing its downward spiral, analysts are left to wonder if China might be the saviour of the global economy or, rather, whether the country is simply a multitrillion bubble about to burst.
In recent weeks, intensifying in recent days, we have another clear example of just how volatile the situation can be in local areas across the country, where citizen's interests are often threatened by corrupt or unresponsive local leaders not subjected to real checks on their power. And this example also shows us how leaders are trying to grapple with the fallout from this corruption, though not unfortunately the root causes.
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RESOURCES FOR RESEARCHERS
In his new book, Ezra Vogel gives Deng Xiaoping all the credit he rightly deserves for transforming China's economic system and bringing higher living standards to hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese. But he fails to note that Deng could never have succeeded without the willing and generous support from the West, especially from the US.
However, in a country like China, where the government has critical means to shape public opinion but in which the public has relatively limited means to express their political opinions, one must carefully examine the relationship between foreign policy and public opinion to determine the extent to which public opinion influences foreign policy decisions-or whether it is created or at least shaped by the government to advance a political or policy agenda.
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