March 2007 Archives
By AFP | via (uncensored) yahoo!news
March 28, 2007
Countries such as China will not be able to develop higher-tech economies until adequate protections are in place for intellectual property, a top US copyright official warned Wednesday.
"A nation that does not give the highest protections for intellectual property... will consistently be a source of only second-class technology. No one will want to bring their technology to a nation that doesn't protect it," said Jon Dudas, director of the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Dudas was reacting to a suggestion by a Chinese Cabinet member a day earlier that developed countries must be patient with intellectual property rights (IPR) violations in countries like China since developed countries hold most key technology patents.
Dudas, who is also undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property, is in Beijing for a global IPR forum and separate discussions with Chinese officials on strengthening protections.
Rampant IPR violations are a major source of friction in bilateral trade ties and Washington has pressured China to do more to combat them.
Dudas praised what he called China's growing recognition of the problem and its "broader, deeper" recent cooperation with the United States on the issue.
But he said Beijing needs to do more, such as lowering punishment thresholds as part of a push to create a stronger system of deterrents.
Despite increased efforts by China, 81 percent of the counterfeit products seized at US borders originate in China, Dudas said.
By Richard W. Garnett | USA Today
March 25, 2007
Although its government likes to claim otherwise, and apparently hopes people won't notice, meaningful religious freedom does not exist in China. Quite the contrary: As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom stated in its report last year, "The Chinese government continues to engage in systematic and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief."
And so, it was probably more disappointing than surprising when the government-controlled puppet church, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, late last year purported to ordain a new bishop for Roman Catholics in the Xuzhou Diocese, about 400 miles south of Beijing, over the objections of the Holy See.
Why should we care? True, we might sympathize with the millions of Chinese believers whose freedom of conscience is systematically violated, and we might harbor a general unease about China's increasing power, ambition and influence. But putting that aside, is there any reason, really, why Americans should worry much about which of these two bureaucratic adversaries — the Holy See or the People's Republic — picks Chinese bishops?
Yes, there is. First, the Catholic Church's resistance to China's efforts to control the flock by picking the shepherds is a reminder that free and independent non-state institutions — for example, political parties, labor unions, social clubs and churches — are essential to the development and survival of civil society and political freedom. It might not be easy to appreciate, given how we've become used to thinking of "the Vatican" as hide-bound and authoritarian, but the Holy See is waging a crucial fight for freedom. What's more, China's heavy-handed hostility to independent institutions highlights the importance, and real meaning, of the "separation of church and state."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
21 March 2007
A rights group appealed Wednesday for the release of a Chinese activist sentenced to six years in prison after he was accused of posting subversive articles on the Internet.
State media reported on Monday that Zhang Jianhong, the former editor in chief of a Chinese Web site called ''Aiqinhai,'' or ''Aegean Sea,'' had written articles that defamed the Chinese government and amounted to agitation aimed at toppling the government.
''It is outrageous that China continues to sentence its own citizens for their critical reporting and commentary, even as it gears up to host the Olympic Games in 2008,'' Committee to Protect Journalists director Joel Simon said in a statement.
''We call for this sentence to be overturned and for Zhang Jianhong to be released immediately,'' Simon said.
The official Xinhua News Agency said Zhang's sentence was handed down by the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court in China's eastern Zhejiang province, and cited a court statement saying Zhang had slandered the government and China's social system in more than 60 articles published on overseas Web sites.
Xinhua did not give any specific examples of Zhang's writings, but the CPJ said Zhang had called for political reform in China and had written about allegations that the government had illegally obtained organs from living prisoners for transplant.
Zhang was mentioned in the U.S. State Department's annual report on human rights, which was released earlier this month.
Zhang's sentence comes amid a government campaign to tighten control over China's media and the Internet. Dozens of people have been detained in recent months after posting political essays online.
By The Epoch Times
March 17, 2007
Minghui.net announced that since March 5, 2007, Minghui (which means "clear wisdom" in English) Radio Station has been broadcasting programs 24 hours a day to inform people about the persecution of Falun Gong and dispel the state propaganda attacking the practice to Asia. These broadcasts are being directed primarily towards China and Taiwan via the Eutelsat W5 satellite.
Broadcast 24 Hours a Day Via Eutelsat W5 Satellite
According to Kevin (whose last name is withheld for his safety), one of the program producers for Minghui Radio, the station was founded in November 2005. Like Minghui.net, Minghui Radio provides information about Falun Gong, especially concerning the persecution against the meditation practice happening in China. Currently there are dozens of programs in its lineup. It was originally broadcast to China via short wave radio, but now, along with New Tang Dynasty TV, Sound of Hope, Voice of America, and Free Asia Radio Stations, Minghui Radio uses the Eutelsat W5 satellite to broadcast throughout Asia, including mainland China.
Kevin went on to say that the Minghui website's reader base is broken down into three primary groups: Falun Gong practitioners, the general public, and those who have participated in the persecution of Falun Gong. Minghui Radio takes all three groups into consideration when preparing programs so as to appeal to all of them.
Program Content
Kevin explained that since 1999, the Chinese communist regime has persecuted Falun Gong. Because of this persecution, a large number of Falun Gong practitioners in mainland China lost their free environment of group study, group practice, and experience sharing. In response to this, Minghui Radio developed programs such as "Group Practice Time," "Minghui Briefs," and "Cultivation World" so that Falun Gong practitioners can obtain current information regarding the situation concerning expanding awareness of the persecution and experience sharing via the Internet and/or radio.
By REUTERS | The Epoch Times
March 15, 2007
The 87-year-old Chinese author of a new book on Zhao Ziyang, ousted as Communist Party chief in 1989 for opposing the Tiananmen massacre, is believed to be under house arrest, the writer's Hong Kong publisher said this week.
The whereabouts of Zong Fengming, author of Zhao Ziyang: Captive Conversations, has been unknown since he was transferred to a military hospital on Feb. 24, one day after he was admitted to another Beijing hospital with minor heart problems, Zong's publisher Jin Zhong said by telephone.
"Zong Fengming's health condition has stabilized but he has been placed under house arrest over the book ," Jin told Reuters, quoting a source close to Zong.
Zhao was toppled as party chief for opposing a decision by then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to send in troops to crush student-led demonstrations for democracy centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
Zhao died on January 17, 2005, after more than 15 years under house arrest. He was replaced by Jiang Zemin, who stepped down in 2002 and was succeeded as party chief by Hu Jintao. Zong met Zhao more than 100 times when Zhao was under house arrest, the publisher said.
"The book is very sensitive," Jin said. "It details Zhao's comments about June 4, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao."
The book went on sale in Hong Kong in February, but is banned in China.
The Communist Party remains nervous about Zhao's residual influence and has tried to erase him from public memory, blanking out his role in economic reforms that turned China from an economic backwater to a powerhouse.
The party has rejected calls for a reassessment of the Tiananmen protests, labeled subversive, saying Zhao had tried to split the party and made "serious mistakes." Chinese authorities had tried to talk Zong into scrapping the book 's publication, Jin said, adding that Zong's manuscripts were smuggled out of China.
"They warned him that publishing his conversations with Zhao would be anti-party and counter-revolutionary," Jin said, referring to Communist jargon for subversion. "But Zong was determined to publish the book and would rather go to jail," Jin quoted Zong as saying before his disappearance.
Zong's friendship with Zhao dates back to the days when they joined the Red Army and fought against the invading Japanese in their home province, Henan, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Zong's family and the Chinese government could not immediately be reached for comment.
By Radio Free Asia
March 14, 2007
The Chinese authorities, divided over private property rights, have effectively pulled a top magazine article covering implications of a draft Property Law to be tabled at the annual parliamentary session in Beijing.
The article, in the popular business magazine Finance, was to have been the cover story on this week’s edition of the publication, but editor Yang Daming said it couldn't go to press.
“The article was in the process of being approved, but that approval still hadn’t been completed by the time we reached the deadline, so we made some changes,” Yang told RFA’s Cantonese service.
“As I’m sure you know, the issue of the property rights law is quite a big one. Given the circumstances of our news industry at the moment, that’s what they wanted us to do,” he told reporter Grace Kei Lai-see.
Partially replaced pages
Regular Finance reader Zan Aizong said: “When I got to the newsstands I saw that saw that the holes made by the staples were larger, which makes me think that they didn’t reprint the whole thing...Rather, they just replaced a section of it.”
Asked which department refused to give the final go-ahead for the story, Yang said: "It's very hard for me to tell you. Let's just say it's orders from higher up."
By Craig Simons | Cox News Service | twincities.com
March 11, 2007
It's a Chinese form of "truthiness" that might make Stephen Colbert proud.
China's Southern Metropolis Weekly magazine recently reported this shocking news: The central government created universal health care for the country's 1.3 billion people, wiped out bribery and reduced the country's wide income gap.
Migrant workers in the southern city of Guangzhou, notorious for its sweatshops, were "happy" and "respected," the magazine reported in its print and Web editions.
Of course, it was political parody and all untrue.
Virtually unheard of several years ago, such blatant satire is part of a radical shift sweeping Chinese culture as Internet use spreads and citizens increasingly evade censorship by couching criticism in sarcastic humor.
China has become so awash in a new wave of sarcastic — and often subversive — media that the trend has spawned a name: egao, literally, "evil work."
The word describes "a subculture that is characterized by humor, revelry, subversion, grass-root spontaneity, defiance of authority, mass participation and multi-media high tech," said a recent editorial in the government-run China Daily.
While the government tightly controls traditional media channels including television, radio and print, "the Internet has given people the chance to express themselves," said Guo Xinghua, a sociologist at People's University in Beijing.
"Egao is a term for how average people are seizing back the discourse," he said.
Last year, the Chinese government issued a list of "Eight Honors and Eight Shames" as part of a campaign to promote morality within the Communist Party. The list included such instructions as "Love the country; do it no harm."
Chinese Web users quickly posted their own lists on the Internet.
One parody included the couplet, "Love your Mercedes and BMW; do not ride a bicycle," which some readers considered an attack on rampant official corruption.
Despite government attempts to limit access to many Web sites, the number of Chinese Internet users has quadrupled since 2001 and reached 137 million last December, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.
By The Associated Press | The New York Times
March 10, 2007
HONG KONG (AP) -- China on Saturday apparently blacked out parts of a CNN interview with Hong Kong's leader when he began discussing moves toward democratic reform in the territory.
During CNN's ''Talk Asia'' program, Donald Tsang was talking about his plans to consult the Hong Kong public on how to bring universal suffrage to the territory, which is ruled by China but has a wide degree of autonomy. He said he was eager to address the democracy issue if he wins a second term as chief executive of Hong Kong later this month.
The show then abruptly went to commercials, after which the screen blacked out momentarily. When the show resumed, Tsang was speaking about his relationship with Beijing state leaders.
A CNN spokeswoman in Hong Kong said she was not aware that parts of Tsang's interview were blocked but the station was looking into it. The spokeswoman did not give her name, per company policy.
The show will be broadcast again as scheduled over the weekend, she added.
China restricts foreign television channels such as CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp.'s BBC World to hotels and apartment buildings where foreigners live. Officials monitor the signals and routinely black out broadcasts on sensitive topics.
By Nora Boustany | Washington Post Foreign Service
March 07, 2007
China is at the top of a list of countries blocking Internet access, and Russia and Venezuela have shown serious regression in several areas, mainly in centralizing power in the executive branch, according to State Department officials who released the department's annual human rights report yesterday.
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He put China at the top of the list of countries putting restrictions on the Internet. Human rights in China have "deteriorated on a number of areas," with no action on promised legal reforms or changes in courtroom proceedings, and a continued "system of reeducation through labor." Thousands of demonstrations in the countryside showed that people were seeking redress and that accountability was still lacking, he added.
By Agence France Presse | The New York Times
March 07, 2007
China barred any more cybercafes from opening this year, the latest move to restrict the rising influence of the Internet. The authorities will not approve any Internet cafe licenses in 2007, according to a notice posted on the Culture Ministry’s Web site. There are about 113,000 registered Internet bars in China, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing government figures.
By Cao Changqing - Observe China Magazine | The Epoch Times
March 04, 2007
Western commentators are wondering what China's new foreign policy is, in light of communist leader Hu Jintao's recent visits to eight African countries.
Willy Lam, currently a CNN commentator on Chinese issues said that Hu's visit to Africa is an indication that he had abandoned Deng Xiaoping's attitude to "bide our time and focus on building ourselves." Instead he intends to be the leader of a rising superpower. In Lin's opinion, the destruction of a satellite last month by the People's Liberation Army was also a sign of Hu's change in foreign policy.
Recently the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has adopted a very aggressive policy towards African countries. Hu visited Africa twice within a year. Just three months ago, China invited 48 African leaders to attend a forum on China-Africa relations in Beijing and generously wrote off 33 African countries' debts with China in a bid to win them over.
Before Hu's visit to Africa, at a press conference, the CCP's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that the main purpose of Hu's visit was to encourage the peaceful development of Africa. At that time, the U.S. media had high hopes that Hu's trip might be able to stop the genocide in Sudan. New York Times reporter Howard French published an article from Shanghai titled "Chinese Leader to Visit Sudan For Talks on Darfur Conflict."
However, Hu actually went to Sudan to reward the Sudanese president who advocates genocide and promised to help him build a presidential palace. Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby wrote a column on Feb. 5 titled "A Palace for Sudan—China's No-Strings Aid Undermines the West." In this article, Mallaby considered that it wasn't coincidental that Hu agreed to finance a palace for the Sudanese president since, in recent years, China had never agreed to build a presidential palace for any country. Hence the decision to choose Sudan was a deliberate act against the Western world.
In recent years, the Sudanese government has received much criticism from Western society for its suppression of the independent movement in the Darfur region. According to human rights organizations, in the past four years, more than 200,000 were killed in this genocide. Western countries including the U.S. have discontinued aid to Sudan and requested the U.N. to impose economic sanctions. Beijing opposed this decision and even threatened to veto it. On Hu's visit to Sudan, not only did he not censure the government for carrying out genocide, instead he agreed to give the brutal dictator 140 million yuan (US$18 million) in aid to build a presidential palace, condoning and rewarding the Sudanese dictator.
China even plans to double its aid to African countries in the next three years, offering them $3 billion in low-interest loans and $2 billion in export credits. Western critics say China is throwing its silver dollars into Africa with total disregard of the fact that 600 million people in China continue to earn less than $2 a day and 5 percent of the Chinese population (60 million) still live below the U.N.'s poverty line. Hence the CCP's African policy is an inhuman policy. It overlooks the 200,000 deaths in the genocide in Sudan and does not care whether its Chinese citizens live or die. It only cares for ideology not human lives.
By David Barboza | The New York Times
March 04, 2007
WHEN Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue hit the newsstands last week in China for the first time, with the sexy singer Beyoncé on the cover, the competition was fierce.
Readers here had already seen the February issue of For Him Magazine, which features a Chinese singer named A Duo on its cover wearing a white V-neck leotard that reveals every other inch of her rather substantial figure.
Inside, A Duo poses like a dominatrix, clutching her breasts, wrapping her naked body in celluloid and bending, sweat-drenched, over a submissive man.
The racy For Him Magazine also offers tips on “how to do it in five minutes” (because a “sex break is the same as a coffee break”) and features stories with titles like “The Dangerous Sex Journey of QiQi.”
The images and text would hardly be shocking to American or European readers. And the magazine’s photographs are tame compared with what appears in magazines in Japan and other parts of Asia.
But in China, where sex is still a taboo subject and pornography is outlawed by the ruling Communist Party, the images are not only highly provocative but perhaps the latest sign that sex and sexuality are infiltrating the mainstream media.
And this powerful burst of sexual energy seems both a symbol of how rapidly China’s transformation is unfolding and, to some, a harbinger of the troubles ahead for a nation that will inevitably struggle to absorb its newfound freedoms. “There is a fine line between the open mind and sexual indulgence,” said Xie Xialing, a professor of sociology at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Even five years ago, Chinese books and magazines were censored or banned from showing pictures of scantily clad models or publishing content that was deemed offensive or morally corrupt. The only sexual content to be found was in sex education pamphlets or books of nude Chinese women sold as “art works” at big city airports.
Today, however, with China’s economy booming and the government loosening its hold on the personal lives of everyday citizens, magazines are beginning to publish soft-core pornographic photographs, sexual fantasies, even clues about where to pick up call girls.
Popular Chinese Web sites are going further, posting erotic videos and creating forums for women eager to market their sex appeal and post their photographs on the Internet: images of traveling with friends, undressing at home, even striking erotic poses.
“This is a kind of grass-roots sexual revolution,” said Annie Wang, author of “The People’s Republic of Desire,” a satirical novel about the country’s mad race to modernization.
The government announces periodic crackdowns on pornography and often censors sexual content in magazines and on the Web. But since about 2000, the censors have started to look the other way. Political activism is still a no-no in New China. Entertainment is a different matter. Even the Web site of Xinhua, the state-run news agency, offers slide shows of the “10 Hottest Babes of 2006” and “Rarely Seen Photos of Sexy Men.”
By Agence France Presse | via (uncensored) yahoo!news
March 03, 2007
China demanded Friday the United States scrap a planned sale of hundreds of missiles to Taiwan, warning the deal would harm regional stability and bilateral ties.
"We solemnly demand the leader of the United States... immediately cancel this weapons sale (and) avoid harming the peace and stability of the Taiwan Straits and Sino-US relations," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.
"The Chinese side expresses its strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to this. We have raised solemn representations with the US side."
The US Department of Defence this week notified Congress that it planned to sell Taiwan 421 million US dollars worth of missiles, which would help boost the island's defences against rival China.
"The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region," the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency said.
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The proposed sale comes after US Vice President Dick Cheney last week expressed concerns over China's growing military might and as top US intelligence officials said Beijing was trying to achieve parity with the US in military affairs.
"China's continued fast-paced military build-up are... not consistent with China's stated goal of a 'peaceful rise,'" Cheney said while on a trip to Australia.
By Amnesty International
March 01, 2007
Internal migrant workers in China are paying the cost of the country’s economic "miracle". Most find themselves denied their rights -- shut out of the healthcare system and state education, living in appalling, overcrowded conditions and routinely exploited by their employers.
An estimated 150-200 million Chinese rural workers are currently living and working in cities and that number is expected to continue to grow. While they make up the majority of the population in some cities, they are treated as an urban underclass discriminated against under the hukou (household registration) system, which requires them to register with local authorities as temporary residents.
"[T]he lives of migrant workers are miserable. They have to live in makeshift shelters, eat the cheapest bean curd and cabbage. They have no insurance and their wages are often delayed. And most of all, they are discriminated against by urban people,” says one of the lucky internal migrants to became a successful businessman -- Wang Yuancheng of China’s National People’s Congress.
Those who manage to complete the often laborious hukou process face discrimination in housing, education, healthcare and employment on the basis of their temporary status. The many who are unable to complete the process are left with no legal status, making them vulnerable to further exploitation by police, landlords, local residents and employers.
According to an International Labour Organization report, a random check on 134 companies by the Labour Department of Suizhou City in Hubei revealed that not a single one had issued any labour contracts.
Ms. Zhang, a 21-year-old internal migrant worker who worked in nine different factories within the space of four years, recalls her experience working 7 days a week in a garment factory in Shenzhen: “We worked overtime every day and the earliest we would get off of work would be around 11 p.m. Sometimes we would work until two or three in the morning and we would have to work the next day as usual. We started at 7:30 a.m. until 12 noon.
"They said that we had half an hour for lunch and a rest, but, in fact, as soon as we finished eating, we would go back to work. There was no rest break. The best day was Sunday when we only had to work overtime until 9:30pm. Really, we were exhausted. Some even fainted, because they were so tired.”
Employers take advantage of internal migrants' vulnerable status by withholding the equivalent of billions of US dollars in unpaid wages. Internal migrants are typically owed 2-3 months back pay. In practice, this means that an internal migrant worker who quits his or her job loses a minimum of 2-3 months of wages. Because the vast majority of internal migrant workers do not have a labour contract, they do not have recourse to legal action to claim their unpaid wages.
Housing conditions are poor to appalling. One 21-year-old man described sharing a room with more than 30 people sleeping in bunk beds in an unfinished underground storehouse without a window, showers or air ventilation. He said that they were only allowed to take a shower or bath at a nearby building once a week.
Not only are internal migrant workers unable to obtain health insurance and typically unable to pay the cost of healthcare, they are also frequently prevented from even accessing medical facilities by their bosses. According to a 26-year-old male worker,
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