Thursday, November 20, 2008
More details are emerging about the riot in Longnan, Gansu earlier this week. The Washington Post writes about it and a taxi strike Wednesday in Chongqing, and puts both incidents in a larger economic context: In both provinces, officials attributed the unrest to local disagreements or land disputes rather than to the economic slowdown. But leaders [...] Read more »
China has requested that the U.S. lift its ban on Chinese-produced milk products, stating that the Chinese government has been successful on cracking down on melamine contamination: “We feel deep regret that the US insists on unilaterally taking these steps,” [Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang] told a regular news briefing. “We hope the US can pay [...] Read more »
Oiwan Lam at GlobalVoices has posted translations of the results of a search of Chinese cyberspace for information on the Longnan riots. The violent clash between protesters and police was reportedly triggered by municipal government plans to demolish and relocate Longnan’s city center. Many if not all of these translated posts have vanished from the [...] Read more »
The following are dispatches from bloggers who attended the recently concluded Chinese Bloggers Conference in Guangzhou. Attendees at the conference included a broad range of bloggers who write on technology, business, culture, and a variety of other topics. CN Reviews blogged the conference and the presentations by many of the participants. Most of the discussions [...] Read more »
From China Beat blog: This morning the Los Angeles Times reported on a riot in Gansu that was touched off over disagreements on city planning issues. The report comes on the heels of an uptick in news in the last week on local protests in China. It is unclear if this increased coverage represents an actual [...] Read more »
Despite the acknowledged slowdown to single-digit GDP growth, some economic indicators suggest that the domestic Chinese economy is faring moderately well amidst the global financial turmoil, including the latest released figures on consumer spending, FDI and inflation. From the AP: China’s retail sales remained robust in October, a positive sign for Chinese leaders who want to boost [...] Read more »
Officials have targeted the magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu for its positive reporting on the late party secretary Zhao Ziyang, who is usually not permitted to be mentioned in the Chinese media. From The Age: An official from the Culture Ministry visited the editor-in-chief of Yanhuang Chunqiu magazine at his home on Friday, seeking his resignation. The official told [...] Read more »
John Leighton Stuart was an American born in China to missionary parents, and was the last U.S. ambassador to the country before ties were cut off in 1949. Forty-six years after his death, his wish to be buried in China has finally been fulfilled. From the New York Times: Mr. Stuart died in Washington in 1962. [...] Read more »
From Reuters: China will impose a long-awaited fuel tax “very soon,” the head of National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) Energy Research Institute said in comments reported on Tuesday by the China Daily. “The announcement will come very soon, and actually specific plans have already been suggested to the government long ago,” Han Wenke, director general of [...] Read more »
From Christian Science Monitor: Woeser’s fans have plenty of reasons to worry that she’ll be thrown in jail soon. The famed Tibetan writer has sued the Chinese government. She’s investigating the March uprising in Tibet. She articulates the repression that many Tibetans feel, flouting the official line that they like Chinese rule – all from a [...] Read more »
From Washington Post: In February, the Fuan textile factory became one of the first major casualties of China’s anti-pollution campaign when the multimillion-dollar company was shut down for dumping waste from dyes into a neighboring river and turning it red. But as the country’s economy began to cool this fall and job losses mounted, the company [...] Read more »
From AP: Two police officers have been arrested over the beating death of a college student in a nightclub in northeastern China — a move apparently aimed at quelling increasing public anger at a force often accused of corruption and abuse of power. Recent weeks have seen a series of riots and attacks against government offices and [...] Read more »
From AFP: Tibetan exiles worked Tuesday to hammer out a new strategy for their fight against Chinese rule, as Beijing warned that embracing a pro-independence policy was “doomed” to failure. More than 500 prominent Tibetans have gathered at the government in exile’s base in northern India to debate whether to ditch the Dalai Lama’s push for “meaningful [...] Read more »
From RFA: Writers in China said they feared a long hard road before real freedom of expression emerges in China, as authorities in the eastern province of Jiangsu formally arrested a prominent blogger who called for democratic change. Paris-based media freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the arrest of blogger Guo Quan at his home in [...] Read more »
From Wall Street Journal: AIDS, which has long thrived quietly on the fringes of Chinese society among drug addicts and recipients of tainted blood donations, is on the verge of going mainstream here. One major cause is prostitution, a booming industry in China that has helped make sex the most common form of AIDS transmission in China. China’s [...] Read more »
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