ZGBriefs July 7, 2011
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FEATURED ARTICLE
Some believe that Christianity could help fill a moral void in an increasingly self-centred, materialistic and corrupt society, as well as helping to meet the demand for social services. |
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GOVERNMENT / POLITICS / FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Multi-party system would bring chaos, China media says (July 2, 2011, AFP) China's state media said a multi-party political system would unleash chaos equal to the turbulent period of the Cultural Revolution, as the country marks the Communist Party's 90th birthday. The state-run Xinhua news agency, in a focus piece published late Friday after the one-party regime celebrated the anniversary, said Western political systems did not suit China's "national conditions." "If China imitates the West's multi-party parliamentary democratic system, it could repeat the chaotic and turbulent history of the 'Cultural Revolution' when factions sprung up everywhere," the report said. It added the current political turmoil, economic difficulties and social disorder in some countries "proved" this.
China's censors scrub rumors of ex-leader dying (July 6, 2011, AP) Rumors that retired Chinese leader Jiang Zemin was dead or dying raced through China's Internet on Wednesday, sending censors into overdrive to excise them and in turn spurring people to craft ever more cryptic and inventive postings. Searches for "Jiang Zemin" in Chinese or simply "Jiang" - which means "river" - drew warnings on Sina Corp's popular Twitter-like service that said the search was illegal. In response posts began appearing about former leader "River" in English. The Internet cat-and-mouse game over the possible death of a former leader underscores how secretive China's Communist Party leadership remains - and the difficulties of maintaining that secrecy in a well-wired society.
China vows to clean up local government debt (July 7, 2011, AFP) China said it is looking into ways to regulate local government borrowing after ratings agency Moody's said the proportion of bad loans could be higher than previously thought. The National Audit Office last week said authorities owed 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.65 trillion) as of the end of 2010, equivalent to about 27 percent of China's 2010 gross domestic product and warned of a risk of some default. But on Monday Moody's said the NAO may have understated the debt burden by as much as $541.6 billion and the ratio of bad loans could be as high as 8-12 percent, compared to its own previous calculations of 5-8 percent. State Council, or cabinet, issued a statement saying it would continue to "clean up local government financing platforms" and look at setting up a mechanism to regulate the way authorities raise money.
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HEALTH
Life in the metropolis faces new health threats (July 6, 2011, China Daily) Cancer has become the leading killer of Beijingers, with the incidence of chronic diseases rising sharply. This is in contrast to the situation nationwide where cerebrovascular disease remains the No 1 cause of death, according to statistics from the Beijing 2010 Health White Paper. The increasing prevalence of cancer is closely associated with changing lifestyles in the nation, Gu said. The incidence of cancer has increased by 80 percent over the past 30 years, official statistics showed. Each year, about 2.6 million people on the mainland develop cancer, which claims 1.8 million lives annually.
Beijing halts sales of tainted bottled water (July 7, 2011, AFP) Authorities in Beijing have halted the sale of 31 brands of bottled water after they failed safety tests, the government reported, in the latest such scare to hit China. Random market inspections found bacteria colonies in the water, the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce said on its website, citing a joint study with the capital's product quality bureau. "In order to prevent these substandard products from entering the distribution chain, the product quality bureau has taken measures to halt sales," the administration said in a statement Wednesday. Tests on one brand of bottled water -- Yiqun -- found that bacteria levels were 9,000 times above safety standards, while those in Tianxing Special Water were 560 times higher, a report in the state-run Beijing Times said. The tests were carried out on large barrels of water and did not include the smaller bottles of water normally bought in supermarkets, the report said. |
RELIGION
Chinese Authorities Expel Shouwang Church Member from Beijing (July 1, 2011, Compass Direct) Chinese authorities detained a member of one of Beijing's largest unregistered churches on Monday and sent him to his hometown in Shandong Province, sources said. Three officers from Beijing's Dongsheng police station detained the Shouwang church member at about 5 p.m. while he was at a market to get a mobile phone fixed, they said. They handed him over to a Shandong office based in the capital, which sent him to his hometown that evening. He was the second member of the church to be expelled from the city since authorities allegedly compelled the owners of the church's rented facility to stop leasing to the congregation in April, forcing them to meet outdoors the past three months. The same Dongsheng police station in Beijing's northwest Haidian district sent the first Shouwang member to be expelled from Beijing to his hometown in Hubei Province on May 8, sources said.
China ordination raises tensions with Vatican (July 4, 2011, AP) Pope Benedict XVI is "deeply saddened" by the ordination of a bishop in China without his approval, the Vatican said Monday, attacking the latest unilateral act by China's state-controlled Catholic church in its standoff with Rome. The toughly worded communique said the ordination of the Rev. Paul Lei Shiyin in the diocese of Leshan on June 29 is considered illegitimate, sows divisions and "unfortunately produces rifts and tensions" in the Catholic community. |
EDUCATION / CULTURE
Chinese to be taught in all Swedish schools: minister (July 1, 2011, AFP) Within a decade, all Swedish primary schools should offer Chinese lessons, Sweden's education minister was quoted as saying Wednesday, insisting the move was needed to improve competitiveness. "I want to see Sweden become the first country in Europe to introduce instruction in Chinese as a foreign language at all primary and secondary schools," said Jan Bjoerklund, who heads the Liberal Party, a junior member of the centre-right ruling coalition. Getting Swedish pupils to learn Chinese was vital to strengthening Swedish competitiveness, the education minister told financial daily Dagens Industri. |
SOCIETY / LIFE
China law to limit home demolitions and evictions (July 1, 2011, BBC News) China has passed a law that politicians say will improve citizens' rights and make it harder for the authorities to carry out forced evictions. The new law, which comes into force next year after 12 years of drafting, rules out violent law enforcement. And the regulations also state that sites should not be cleared during holidays or at night. The local authorities often resort to forced evictions when they want to redevelop tracts of land. These can be unruly, sometimes violent, with police and security guards deployed to make sure residents leave. The new law says that should not happen unless there is an emergency.
Toddler caught by woman after 10th floor fall (July 4, 2011, China Daily) A young mother in Hangzhou of Zhejiang province saved the life of a 2-year-old girl who fell from the 10th floor of a building on Saturday. On Saturday afternoon, while her grandmother went to get some quilts she was drying on the roof, the girl crawled on to the windowsill of the bedroom where her grandmother had left her sleeping. A downstairs neighbor seeing the girl tried to reach her using a ladder, but the attempt failed and the girl finally fell. Wu Juping, 31, who lives in the same neighborhood, ran to the building when she heard someone cry out in alarm and managed to catch the girl before she hit the ground. However, Wu was not able to hold her because of the force of the impact. "The girl's brain, lungs, gastrointestinal tract are all injured because of the height she fell from. She also has difficulties in urination," a doctor with Zhejiang Children's Hospital posted on its micro blog on Sunday. Wu suffered a comminuted fracture in her left arm and will have to undergo surgery. Her recovery is expected to take six months.
Actress draws fire over her denunciation of homosexuals (July 4, 2011, Shanghai Daily) A Chinese movie star was under attack recently for backing a Weibo microblog that described homosexuality as "shameful" and "sinful," China News Service reported today. Lu Liping, who starred in numerous films and TV dramas, recently retweeted a Weibo microblog from a priest who condemned homosexuality as "sinful" and called on her fans to denounce homosexuals. Lu soon found herself the target of criticism from many celebrities and netizens. The famed Taiwanese TV host Kevin Tsai, who admitted he was gay in 2002, reminded Lu that many gays and lesbians had helped her in her career, while another Chinese actress Song Dandan bluntly asked Lu to "shut up."
Businessman quits amid China Red Cross scandal (July 5, 2011, BBC News) A businessman on the board of a company with ties to China's Red Cross Society has resigned amid a charity scandal. Wang Jun quit after his girlfriend was accused of using charity money to fund a lavish lifestyle, state media said. Guo Meimei, 20, claimed on her blog to be the "commerce general manager" of the Red Cross and boasted about her purchases of luxury cars and handbags. The Red Cross has dismissed the claims as "pure fantasy" and said Ms Guo had no connection to the charity. The charity's spokesman Martin Faller said the stories that first circulated online about the possible misuse of donated money had no substance. But he said it was important for the Red Cross to use the current situation "to become even better", the state-run China Daily quoted him as saying.
Migrant workers sentenced to five years for stealing high speed rail cables (July 5, 2011, Shanghaiist) Five migrant workers caught stealing cables from the Shanghai-Beijing high-speed railway have been sentenced to five years in prison each, Shanghai Daily reports. The 580 kilogram cables they took were not very important, thank god, but rather were unused cables from the elevated bridge in Jiading District's Nanxiang area. They are said to have a value of nearly 50,000 yuan (US$7,728).
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BUSINESS / ECONOMICS / TRADE
China's factory production slows (July 1, 2011, The Guardian) China's economic boom shows signs of easing as latest manufacturing data weaker than expected, sending oil prices lower.
Rail linking Europe to open up China's West (July 2, 2011, Xinhua) A cargo train filled with laptops and LCD screens has left Chongqing, a mega-city in China's less-developed western regions, starting its 13-day trip to Duisburg, Germany, which marks the official launch of the new transcontinental rail freight route. The new rail route witnessed its official opening on Thursday night, after three test runs since March last year. Clattering out of the station at about 9 p.m., the cargo train is set to travel 11,179 kilometers across the far western Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, before finally reaching Germany. The route offers a major shortcut to the more traditional sea trade routes from Shanghai and Guangzhou, cutting travel time to Europe from about 36 days by container ship to just 13 days by freight train, said Huang Qifan, mayor of the inland business hub. Huang said that the train is also safer and less expensive than sea transport.
Subway seeks rapid growth in China (July 5, 2011, AFP) Sandwich maker Subway aims to more than double its number of stores in mainland China by 2015, a company executive told state media on Monday. Subway, which has overtaken McDonald's as the fast food chain with the most stores worldwide, is eyeing China for continued growth, the company's Beijing representative, Alexander Moody-Stuart, told the China Daily. "By 2015 there will be 180 stores in Beijing and well over 600 stores in China," Moody-Stuart told the newspaper in an interview. Privately-held Subway, which sells franchises to entrepreneurs, has 220 stores in China -- a third of which are in Beijing, Moody-Stuart said, adding the total number of mainland outlets could rise to 300 by year end. Sales revenue in Beijing rose 40 percent year on year in 2010, Moody-Stuart said without providing specific figures.
WTO rules against China on raw materials (July 5, 2011, AP) The World Trade Organization ruled Tuesday that China was unfairly protecting its domestic manufacturers by limiting the export of nine raw materials that are used widely in steel, aluminum and chemical industries. A WTO panel sided with the United States, European Union and Mexico, which had each filed complaints saying China was driving up the prices they pay for raw materials such as coke, bauxite and zinc by setting export duties and quotas on them. The panel rebuffed China's argument that its export limits were needed to protect its environment, and said those export restrictions should be removed.
Etihad Airways to launch Chengdu route (July 5, 2011, China Daily) Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said Tuesday that it will launch direct flights between Abu Dhabi and Chengdu, capital city of Southwest China's Sichuan province, on December 15.The carrier plans to fly to Chengdu four times a week. Airbus A330-200 aircraft will be used. Chengdu will become the airline's second destination in China after Beijing, and its 69th destination worldwide.
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ENVIRONMENT / TECHNOLOGY
China's record-breaking Jiaozhou bridge 'is safe' (July 7, 2011, BBC News) The chief engineer of the world's longest sea-bridge, in China, has denied claims that its construction was rushed to allow it to open on schedule. Shao Xinpeng told state media that the Jiaozhou bridge, opened last Thursday, was safe and ready for traffic. Chinese media reported finding incomplete crash-barriers, missing lighting and loose nuts on guard-rails. Reports blamed workers' haste to finish the bridge in time for the Communist Party's 90th anniversary. In a report earlier this week, a journalist from the state-run CCTV news channel unscrewed pieces of the guard-rails and showed that the lighting system was not working properly. Construction workers told CCTV that it would take two months before finishing all of the projects related to the bridge.
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LINKS TO DETAILED ARTICLES AND ANALYSIS
But those SOEs that remain are giants: 121 controlled directly by the central government and thousands of others run by lower-level authorities. Chinese students used to aspire to a job with a foreign company. Now they are more likely to want one with an SOE.
Yet if asked, "What does the Communist Party stand for," few Chinese leaders today could give a coherent or honest answer. This much we know: It no longer stands for a utopian ideology. If there is one ideology that the party represents, it is the ideology of power. The sole justification for the party's rule is the imperative to stay in power.
The American Sidney Rittenberg is one of only a handful of foreigners ever to join the Chinese Communist Party. He went to China at the end of World War II with US forces - and stayed for 35 years. He knew Mao Zedong and saw China from the inside.
The party for the Party turned out to be a doctrinaire affair, as President Hu Jintao expounded Friday on the benefits of 90 years of communism with Chinese characteristics while workplaces around the country held red-song singalongs.
As China's Communist Party celebrates its 90th anniversary, President Hu Jintao has warned that its long rule has led to grave corruption. With 80 million members, it's now the world's largest political party. But facing rampant corruption and growing dissatisfaction, can this revolutionary party survive?
The 90th anniversary celebration has some bemoaning the changes time has wrought. Oh, for the days when a man could hang a portrait of Mao above his couch.
The majority of mainstream-media coverage of the July 1-related festivities, has revolved around this hackneyed leitmotif: "Without the CCP, there won't be a new China."
Revolutionary song competitions and concerts were among events held across China to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Communist party.
But as the Communist party celebrated its 90 year anniversary on July 1, it is a very different animal indeed from the secretive, illegal group that 13 Chinese revolutionaries including Mao Zedong founded in Shanghai in 1921 at their first national congress. "The party has the same name as before, but the old party was destroyed," says Sidney Rittenberg, an American who joined Mao's forces in 1946 and remained a party member for 33 years.
Some people fear the scandal and the accompanying increase in suspicions of corruption in charities could deal a major blow to philanthropy here, even as some officials increasingly rely on nonprofit groups to help cope with growing social needs like health care and education.
Trips by the first independent Chinese tourists to Taiwan will likely prove more eye-opening for mainlanders than their hosts, given Beijing's success in fueling cross-strait misperceptions over the years. However, ground-breaking people-to-people exchanges are unlikely to meet optimistic Western predictions that - shocked into action by the democracy and criticism on show - Chinese tourists will return to challenge their own political conditions.
With just over a year before his presidency ends in China, it's time to reflect on the hallmarks of the Hu Jintao era. The economy has soared under him, but that is the legacy of Deng Xiaoping's reforms. What will ultimately define Hu's time at the top is his colossal strides toward unification with Taiwan; steps that are almost impossible to undo.
A cabbage grower's suicide draws attention to the plight of 200 million Chinese farming households, many of which struggle to earn a profit even as global food prices rise.
In contrast to past collaborations, the Chinese leadership's interest in building economic zones with North Korea is unmistakable: China is looking to develop its northeast region near the border and wants to apply leverage to manage North Korean behavior. But grandiose plans don't guarantee success and amid the new chemistry, North Korea has calculations of its own.
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LINKS TO BLOGS
Evangelical Christianity is experiencing phenomenal growth in China, but is it on a collision course with the state?
And there it is, the great joke: these one-time slogans of Chinese communism are now artefacts of Chinese capitalism, pawned off for the highest price by the sons and daughters of red guards, or perhaps even former red guards themselves. That serene half-smile of the great helmsman looks up helplessly as crisp banknotes - also bearing his face - purchase him for foreign students and tourists, who will pin him to their walls and bring him back home as an ironic gift to friends and family.
Two things happened this summer. The CCP celebrated its 90th anniversary and Mad Men decided to take the year off. The truth is, the world's longest running Communist government has a lot in common with an American show celebrating naked capitalism and martinis.
The publication of this translation may help us understand at least one of the factors involved in the recent government crackdown on large house churches in some parts of China, including its response to the decision of Shouwang Church leaders to try to hold Sunday worship meetings outside.
The mainstream view is that China can still go on growing at 8 per cent and above in the next five to ten years. This is increasingly questionable. China's economy is too bubbly and will soon slow down. China's European and American partners should prepare for when China will need to rebalance its economy as it adapts to slower rates of growth.
Nowadays people may admire China's economy, but not Chinese creativity.
Judicial independence is often assumed to be impossible in authoritarian regimes. Yet even the most cursory glance at authoritarian regimes reveals that law plays a much larger role than commonly believed.
For years I have been fighting against those who claim Chinese laws are gray. China's business laws are generally as well written or as clear as any other country's. My contention has always been that those who claim China's laws are grey are usually just saying that to excuse their own failure to abide by them.
Although there is no sign of any national movement taking shape, the central government is haunted by the Mideast revolutions. Local governments have responded to the protests with repression, sometimes violent. If the growing social unrest provokes further repression, might that response then provoke further social unrest? Or can the central government initiate reforms that would quiet discontent? The rise of protests suggests that it may be necessary to choose soon.
Water gushes out from the Xiaolangdi (小浪底) Dam on the Yellow River in Jiyuan, Henan Province, in an operation to clear out sand and silt deposits.
But the Communist Party is acutely aware that the death of current and former Chinese leaders has often been a trigger for political instability in the past - most notably the pro-democracy protests around Tiananmen Square in 1989. |
RESOURCES FOR RESEARCHERS
Yan Huiqing (Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity)
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