ZGBriefs April 7, 2011
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FEATURED ARTICLE
The Shouwang Church, with about 1,000 members, is one of the biggest Protestant congregations in Beijing that has expanded beyond the confines of churches registered and overseen by the ruling Communist Party's religious affairs authorities. But the Party is wary about any potential unrest, and this gathering of neat middle-class and student Christians has been told by its landlord that it can no longer worship at the "Old Story Restaurant," with its walls lined with pictures of Chinese Party leaders shaking hands with former U.S. presidents. Church leaders warned that unless the church can find a new home, its members may be forced to worship outdoors, a risky step in this nation where big gatherings often attract official scrutiny and can be broken up by police. |
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WEBINAR
Back by Popular Demand
The Emerging Urban Church in China: A New Movement to Impact the World for Christ April 10, 6:30 pm PDT April 11, 9:30 AM BST
Since the opening up of China in the early 1980's, the story of the growth of China's economy is surpassed only by the spectacular growth of the church. Rapidly spreading across the countryside, the church in China has now entered all the major urban centers. Join us as we hear about this newly emerging urban church and how it will not only impact China with the Gospel, but will have an important role in missions to impact the world for Christ.
Recent events suggest the relationship between the emerging urban church and Chinese society and government is rapidly evolving. This webinar will provide an insider's perspective on the current situation from someone who been intimately involved in urban church life for the past several years.
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GOVERNMENT / POLITICS / FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Departing U.S. Envoy Criticizes China on Human Rights (April 6, 2011, The New York Times) The departing American ambassador, Jon M. Huntsman Jr., criticized China's human rights record on Wednesday in some of the sharpest public comments here yet by a United States official since the Chinese government began a crackdown on dissent this year. Using a high-profile annual lecture on Chinese-American relations to make his final public address as ambassador, Mr. Huntsman said bluntly that prominent Chinese activists had been unfairly detained or jailed, naming Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for "subversion," and Ai Weiwei, the Beijing artist who was taken into custody on Sunday.
Chinese artist-activist Ai "suspected" of economic crimes (April 7, 2011, Reuters) The Chinese government said on Thursday detained artist and activist Ai Weiwei was being investigated for "suspected economic crimes," while his family said he was the innocent victim of a political witchhunt. The confirmation from the Foreign Ministry that Ai faces a police investigation for alleged business-related crimes is unlikely to end the international uproar about his secretive detention, and the departing U.S. ambassador to Beijing, Jon Huntsman, added his voice to the condemnations.
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HEALTH
Nearly half of China's dairy producers fail to get new licenses (April 2, 2011, Xinhua) Nearly half of Chinese existing 1,176 dairy producers have failed to obtain new production licenses amid the government's efforts to shore up the scandal-tainted milk industry, China's top quality supervisor said Saturday. Only 643 dairy producing companies, or about 55 percent of the country's total 1,176 milk enterprises, were granted licenses to continue production by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), Li Yuanping, a spokesman for AQSIQ, told Xinhua. Li said quality supervision departments are canceling the production licenses of 553 dairy companies and have ordered the companies to halt production immediately.
Low levels of radioactive iodine detected in almost all Chinese provinces (April 3, 2011, Xinhua) "Extremely low levels" of radioactive iodine have been detected in the air over China's all provincial-level regions except northwest Qinghai Province, but the material poses no threat to public health or to the environment, said an official statement issued on Saturday. According to a daily statement issued by China's National Nuclear Emergency Coordination Committee, low levels of radioactive isotope iodine-131 have also been detected in the air above the East China Sea and the northern region of the South China Sea. The statement added that the amount of radiation given off by the material is below one hundred-thousandth of the average annual exposure level, as radiation is naturally present in rocks, soil and food. In addition, food and drinking water have been tested for contamination and found to be safe, according to the statement.
Tainted lamb fears surface after tests (April 6, 2011, Xinhua) Consumers who were sent into a panic recently after a banned and hazardous additive was found in pork are facing up to the fact that the same substance may also be tainting lamb. The latest food safety scare flared when clenbuterol was allegedly detected in live sheep that had been sold in North China. The substance had previously been fed to pigs by farmers because it promoted muscle and reduced fat, bringing a higher price for pigs, even though it risked the health of consumers. In the latest scandal, 198 sheep awaiting slaughter and processing in Hebei province were suspected of having been fed the banned additive, the food inspection authority in Hebei said on Sunday. The sheep had previously been bought from Qingyun county in Shandong province.
Chinese ministry, WHO warn of antibiotic overuse (April 7, 2011, AP) Drug-resistant forms of diseases such as tuberculosis are on the rise in China because of the overuse of antibiotics and urgent action is needed to reverse the problem, the Health Ministry and the World Health Organization warned Thursday. Vice Health Minister Ma Xiaowei said at a ceremony to mark World Health Day that he hoped hospitals would push for antibiotics to be used in "scientific and rational" ways. About 6.8 percent of tuberculosis cases in China are multiple-drug resistant, far higher than the 2 percent rate in most developed countries, said Dr. Michael O'Leary, the WHO's representative in China.
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EDUCATION / CULTURE
Just music, no chat as Dylan hits Beijing (April 7, 2011, China Daily) With his 1979 song Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, American folk and rock musician Bob Dylan opened his first concert on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday night at Beijing Workers' Gymnasium. Hours before the concert, the square outside the venue had already taken on a festival atmosphere, with vendors selling CDs, T-shirts and postcards of Dylan. Nearby a busker sang in Dylan's early style - just a guitar and harmonica. "Dylan is the most influential musician to me, from his form of performance to his freewheeling spirit. I'm excited that he's here today," said the busker, Xiao Di. Many Chinese pop and rock musicians were seen in yesterday's audience, including Cui Jian, Wang Feng, Ai Jing and Lin Yilun. |
SOCIETY / LIFE
Chinese police rescue 36,000 women, children in trafficking crackdown (April 1, 2011, Xinhua) Chinese police have rescued more than 36,000 women and children abducted and trafficked over the past two years during a nationwide crackdown on human trafficking. According to figures released on Friday from the Ministry of Public Security, 23,085 women and 13,284 children have been saved since the crackdown began on April 9, 2009. Police have eradicated 4,535 gangs involved in human trafficking and detained 30,967 suspects thus far. In addition, 5,051 suspects who had fled were arrested, according to the figures.
100 million in poverty by new standard (April 2, 2011, China Daily) The number of Chinese living in poverty is expected to reach 100 million if the country decides to consider people who earn up to 1,500 yuan ($229) a year as being poor, a senior poverty alleviation official has said. To now be deemed impoverished, a person must make less than 1,196 yuan a year. China is expected to place an even greater emphasis on fighting poverty in 2011, said Lin Jialai, executive vice-president of the China Association of Poverty Alleviation and Development.
Stranded climbers rescued by police copter in Beijing (April 4, 2011, Xinhua) This was the first time that a helicopter was used in a rescue work in China's capital. The two climbers were among 39 students from the Beijing Institute of Technology, who got lost during a spring outing activity organized by the school's climbing club to hike Mount Mao'er in Fangshan District, western Beijing, on Monday. Beijing Bureau of Public Security sent some 300 policemen combing the mountain to search for the missing climbers, upon receiving a hotline call Sunday evening. Rescuers found 37 of the stranded students before dawn.
10,000 pay homage to legendary ancestor of Chinese (April 5, 2011, Xinhua) Over 10,000 Chinese from home and abroad gathered for the traditional Qingming Festival on Tuesday to pay homage to the Huangdi, or the Yellow Emperor, a figure in Chinese mythology who is considered to be the ancestor of all Chinese people. The festival, also called Tomb Sweeping Day, is a 2,500-year-old tradition observed in China to mourn the deaths of ancestors and loved ones. It fell on Tuesday this year. Yan Junqi, vice-chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), and Wu Poh-hsiung, honorary chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) Party in Taiwan, took part in the ceremony. Wu and his wife presented a funeral wreath and bowed three times in their first homage before the Yellow Emperor's tomb in Huangling County in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
High cost of burial (April 6, 2011, Xinhua) Though some believe all are equal before God, this may not be so when buying a grave in China, netizens complained recently. On sina.com.cn, a major information portal, netizens listed the top 10 luxury cemeteries in China, priced from 1 million yuan ($153,000) to 8 million yuan. The reportedly most expensive cemetery, in Xiamen of coastal Fujian province, is surrounded by walls with a relief sculptural fence and a 3-meter-high pavilion. "Are the buyers mourning for their ancestors or simply flaunting their own wealth with luxurious graves?" said a netizen. Some expensive graveyards were advertised as "underground Central Business District".
Shanghai seeks more migrant workers (April 7, 2011, China Daily) This Chinese business hub is doing more to attract young migrant workers to replenish a labor pool that has become smaller as the local population gets older and the birth rate remains low, a senior population official has said. "Shanghai is faced with a serious aging problem, and the birth rate is still at a very low level," said Xie Lingli, director of the Shanghai Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission, at a population meeting on Wednesday. "In this regard, the city's future prosperity will have to depend largely on the migrant population."
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BUSINESS / ECONOMICS / TRADE
China clarifies rules on Internet distribution of publications (April 1, 2011, Xinhua) Agencies or individuals in China are required to have a license to distribute publications through information networks including the Internet, according to a latest regulation issued by China's press and publication watchdog. Also, publication distributors who already have a permit for publishing, should report to publication authorities within 15 days if they have a newly started Internet-based publications business, said the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP).
Chinese manufacturing rebounds in March (April 1, 2011, AFP) Manufacturing activity in China rebounded in March after a fall the previous month, official and independent data showed Friday, giving Beijing more leeway to take new measures to rein in inflation. The purchasing managers index (PMI) rose to 53.4 in March from 52.2 in February, after three consecutive months of slowdowns, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) said in a statement. The agency compiled the index on behalf of the National Bureau of Statistics.
China to drive world oil demand (April 5, 2011, AP) China trails only the U.S. in oil consumption and is expected to drive world demand in coming years. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, China's growing energy appetites will account for about 40 percent of increased world demand this year. China will boost oil consumption this year by another 600,000 barrels per day. The U.S. will increase consumption by 130,000 barrels per day.
China increases fuel prices as crude costs hit refiners (April 6, 2011, BBC News) China has increased the retail price of gasoline and diesel to record highs, after a rise in global crude costs. The increase will be 5-5.5%, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. The move is aimed at easing pressure on state refiners who are struggling with international oil prices at two and a half year highs. But analysts say inflation worries have kept the government from increasing prices too much.
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LINKS TO DETAILED ARTICLES AND ANALYSIS
Xie is afflicted by autism, a pervasive neurological developmental disorder that affects social and communication skills as well as motor and language abilities. He is not fluent in speech and slow to react. Yet, he is the best student at Anhua School, the only public rehabilitation school for the mentally challenged in Chaoyang District, Beijing.
The traditional Chinese belief that, as Xinran puts it, "you do not count as a human being unless you have a son" to carry on the family line has been severely intensified by the Communist government's one-child policy, promulgated in 1979 in an effort to control the country's population growth. Since having more than one child became illegal in many areas, families choose to get rid of girl after girl until the desired male child is born.
Over the nearly four decades since President Richard M. Nixon established diplomatic ties with Red China, American politicians have clung to the idea that the growing ranks of Chinese entrepreneurs and college-educated strivers would one day find electoral democracy irresistible. But a stroll through one of the capital's upscale malls quickly demolishes such idealistic notions - and instead makes you wonder whether China's autocrats have struck on a flexible model of long-lasting rule.
China spent more than a decade and nearly $400 million to remake the National Museum into a leading showcase of history and culture, a monument to its rising power no less grand - it is designed to be the world's largest museum under one roof - and more enduring than the Olympic Games it hosted in 2008. But one tradition has remained firmly in place: China will not confront its own history.
As China presses on with its harshest crackdown in years, one of its most famous artists has been blocked from leaving the country. Artist Ai Weiwei is best-known for helping design Beijing's Olympic stadium, known as the Birds Nest.
It is not just Western societies that are going grey. Developing countries are ageing even faster than developed societies, says a United Nations study. Taking care of the elderly is becoming a global problem.)
Behind the often raucous chatter on the Chinese Internet, a steady drumbeat of anti-Japanese sentiment has long provided insight into one of the strongest currents of local public opinion. Now, that has changed. In the wake of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear emergency that struck Japan on March 11, the public mood here has shifted dramatically. If that lasts, say some observers, it could boost chances for a deeper rapprochement between the traditional rivals.
Sina Weibo (microblog) editors have been busy deleting posts relating to Ai Weiwei since yesterday. One user reported that she reposted a message about Ai Weiwei over 200 times and it was deleted each time. However, some netizens have come up with a phrase, "Love the Future," (爱未来) which looks and sounds very similar to Ai Weiwei's name (艾未未). Many netizens have immediately adopted this new coded phrase to post on Sina Weibo as a form of protest; many of those "love the future" messages have also been quickly deleted.
The 22-year-old computer science student is part of a group behind appeals that started popping up anonymously on the Internet seven weeks ago, calling on Chinese to stage peaceful protests to get the ruling Communist Party to move toward democracy.
It is reckless collision against China's basic political framework and ignorance of China's judicial sovereignty to exaggerate a specific case in China and attack China with fierce comments before finding out the truth. The West's behavior aims at disrupting the attention of Chinese society and attempts to modify the value system of the Chinese people.
Days after arrest of dissident artist Ai Weiwei, singer who became synonymous with protest movement plays Beijing.
Ms. Wang's reasoning underscores an argument voiced with growing insistency by demographers who want China to abandon its one-child restrictions: like the couple in Yicheng, they argue, most Chinese want only one child anyway. Perhaps more important, economists contend that China's low birthrate, once an economic advantage, is now destined to clip the nation's economic growth.
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LINKS TO BLOGS
Over the past 5-6 weeks we've seen China twirl into a mighty and very public tailspin, though the actual trajectory of the plunge has been much longer than that.
In the October 2010 newsletter of Asia Harvest, Paul and Joy Hattaway published a statistical summary of how many Christians live in each province of China. They spent ten years collecting information about believers from published sources, contacts within house church networks, and from other missionaries. The Hattaways are not the first to attempt to enumerate the number of Christians in China. In fact, as Paul Hattaway discusses in his companion essay, they are a part of a quest that has been taking place for centuries, since the Roman Catholics began to keep track of adherents in the 17th century.
Chinese authorities may be willing to crack heads when it comes to petitioners and dissidents, but they seem to regard smoking as one of life's little pleasures that it's best not to mess with.
In light of the blatant arbitrariness with which Chinese law has been applied to the activists who have been arrested or detained, public endorsements of law reform by a Chinese leader expose a contradiction between the rhetoric and the reality of Chinese law - a contradiction that is not likely to go away any time soon.
Carolyn Drake could probably stop now. Her project on the Uighurs, a group of Turkic-speaking Muslims in western China, started in 2007 on her first trip to Xinjiang Province. Her most recent visit was in February. The images she has captured are vibrant, poetic and incredibly varied in scope.
The crackdown was reportedly ordered by top Chinese Communist Party leaders at a secret meeting at a Beijing university on February 19. But according to Renee Xia at Foreign Policy, the growing number of detentions may also have to do with China's increasing security budget, which has encouraged more aggressive behavior by local police.
I've lived in Guangzhou for a over three years now, and certainly the biggest challenge to learning Mandarin here is listening. Most people around me can speak Mandarin but usually prefer to speak Cantonese (called báihuà 白话 here rather than the more specific yuèyǔ粤语). Since Cantonese is most people's first language (or Kèjiāhuà 客家话 or something else), their Mandarin accent is heavily influenced by their own fāngyán 方言. Here are some typical pronunciation differences between "standard" Mandarin and the "southern" accents that I've been exposed to (including those in Jiangxi, and Yunnan).
To many, the Chinese Communist Party seems to operate under a veil of secrecy with very few Westerners or even Chinese understanding the full scope of its power. Richard McGregor, the Financial Times' current Washington Bureau Chief, seeks to provide readers with a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the CCP in his book, The Party. After McGregor spoke at Frontier Strategy Group's headquarters a few weeks ago, he was kind enough to agree to this interview during our dinner. He answered my questions about the CCP, its influence on contemporary Chinese society, and much more.
The detention of Ai Weiwei is part of a broader strategy, says Kelley Currie. With international criticism muted, expect more of the same.
Every culture has rules for pregnant women. And some are more universal: no drinking, no serving as the stunt double in action movies, etc. But Chinese women have some special rules to follow. Here are the top ten.
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LINKS FOR RESEARCHERS
China's National Defense in 2010 continues the tradition of offering additional bits of incremental information each year, but still refrains from delving into the concrete discussion of China's military capabilities that foreign defense analysts hope for.
Chu Haozhan (Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity)
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