March 2010 Archives
By Michael Bristow | BBC News
March 29, 2010
Bribery and other forms of corruption are problems often encountered by foreign businesses operating in China.
This can result in companies providing clients with expensive trips abroad, lavish meals and red envelopes stuffed with money.
But not all businesses get drawn into this murky world; some say they abide by the same high standards they observe elsewhere.
And one foreign business advisor said firms that supply good products and services will always do well - even if they refuse to be corrupt.
The use of bribery in the business world in China has come into sharp focus because of the trial involving four executives working for the Anglo-Australian mining firm Rio Tinto.
The four were sentenced in Shanghai to between seven and 14 years in prison for taking bribes and stealing commercial secrets.
But how much of a problem is bribery for foreign firms operating in China?
One British businessman, who did not want to be named, said it was a big problem, particularly in China's smaller cities.
He told the BBC of one occasion when he was trying to set up a joint venture company with a Chinese partner in Shandong province.
"He said all the problems could be overcome - so I asked him how. He said it could be done if I gave him 1m(illion) yuan ($146,000: £98,000)," said the businessman.
Patrik Lockne, an advisor for a Swedish consultancy, said one common problem was a lack of communication between a firm's main office and its China branch.
Foreigners working in China are sometimes tempted to adopt local norms of behaviour in order to get work done, he said.
"Often there is little understanding about China at headquarters and so regional managers hide things," said Mr Lockne, who works for Springtime.
'Moving on'
Something like this appears to have happened at Rio Tinto.
The firm believed in its employees' innocence when they were first detained last July, saying the bribery accusations against them were "wholly without foundation".
At that time Rio Tinto said its workers had acted in accordance with the company's strict code of conduct.
But following the verdicts on Monday the firm said the four had been conducting their own illegal activities "outside our systems". It has now sacked them.
But not all foreign business people operating in China get tempted to do something unethical - and possibly illegal.
"I hear about it and I'm sure it happens, but I think it's the old way of doing business - times have moved on," said Rupert Utteridge, who runs the Australian telecom company Digital Techniques.
"We take people out for meals, but I would do that in Australia or Hong Kong," he added.
And, ultimately, building a successful business in China might simply be down to providing good products and services.
"There is corruption in China - of course there is," said Brian Outlaw, executive director of the China-Britain Business Council, which advises firms wanting to set up here.
"But companies can maintain their ethical codes. They can build in exactly the same way as anywhere else - and still be successful," he said.
By CHRISTOPHER WALKER and SARAH COOK | The New York Times
(Christopher Walker is director of studies and Sarah Cook is an Asia researcher at Freedom House)
March 25, 2010
A growing number of developing countries receive billions of dollars a year in assistance, loans, and investments from China. Already in 2010, Beijing has committed $25 billion to Asean nations. In March, Zambia's president returned from a trip to China with a $1 billion loan in hand.
As Beijing's levels of foreign assistance swell and its relationship deepens with countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, a key question emerges: What impact will investments by an opaque and repressive superpower have on governance standards in the developing world?
Findings from a Freedom House analysis, "Countries at the Crossroads," point to the challenges that many of these recipient countries confront as they struggle to build more transparent and accountable systems. Fighting corruption and safeguarding freedom of expression and assembly are proving especially difficult. The dark side of Beijing's engagement, with its nontransparent aid and implicit conditions, risks tipping the balance in the wrong direction.
To appreciate the "China effect" on developing countries, it is essential to understand the methods Beijing is using to exert influence and warp incentives for accountable governance.
First, as international financial institutions and donor organizations seek to encourage stronger governance norms, aid from China has become an alternate source of funds. Recipient governments use these as a bargaining chip to defer measures that strengthen transparency and rule of law, especially those that could challenge elite power.
Cambodia is a telling example. The government in Phnom Penh, which has received substantial aid from the United States and other democracies, now receives comparable amounts from China. The Cambodian authorities have used this "assistance competition" to their advantage. Rather than combating corruption and implementing sorely needed reforms to the judiciary and media sector, Prime Minister Hun Sen's government has shrunk space for alterative voices and independent institutions. Western donors, fearful of losing influence, have been increasingly hesitant to penalize the regime for its failures.
In October, the Guinean government announced a $7 billion deal with the China International Fund just as the international community was considering sanctions following a massacre of opposition supporters. The case underscores how even investments by a private entity, this one with ties to Beijing, can be manipulated to undermine efforts to support human rights standards.
Second, while "no strings attached" is commonly used to describe China's approach in the developing world, the reality is not quite so benign. A combination of subtle and not-so-subtle conditions typically accompanies this largesse. Included among these is pressure to muzzle voices critical of the Chinese government, often undermining basic freedoms of expression and assembly in these countries. The authorities in Nepal, which have recently received a 50 percent boost in aid from Beijing, have violently suppressed Tibetan demonstrations, including the arrest of thousands of exiles in 2008. In December of last year, Cambodia's government forcibly repatriated 20 Uighurs to China, where they face almost certain imprisonment and torture. Three days later, Beijing announced a package of deals with Cambodia estimated at $1 billion.
Even more democratically developed countries are not immune to such pressures. In March 2009, the South African government barred the Dalai Lama's attendance at a pre-World Cup peace conference.
Third, Chinese aid funds are frequently conditioned on being used to purchase goods from firms selected by Chinese officials without an open bidding process. In Namibia, anti-corruption agencies are investigating suspected kickbacks in a deal involving security scanners purchased by the government from a company until recently headed by President Hu Jintao's son. Beijing's response has been to stonewall investigations and activate its robust Internet censorship apparatus, sanitizing online references to the case Chinese citizens might stumble across.
Observers such as the scholar Larry Diamond have identified countries that are semi-democratic, rather than autocracies, as the most promising ground for expanding the ranks of consolidated democracies globally. The patently negative aspects of the Chinese Communist Party's developing world influence could deal a real blow to this aspiration.
Findings from Freedom House's global analysis of political rights and civil liberties put this phenomenon in perspective. Over the past five years countries with only some features of institutionalized democratic systems have slipped significantly -- 57 countries within the "partly free" category have experienced declines, while only 38 improved.
Beijing's deepening involvement in these cases may generate a number of effects, some perhaps positive for short-term economic development. But the dark underbelly of the Chinese regime's involvement -- the opacity of its aid and the illiberal conditions that underpin it -- means that over the long haul, incentives for strengthening accountable governance and basic human rights are being warped, or even reversed.
By Charles Hutzler | Associated Press | via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
March 25, 2010
A pixie-ish literature professor is the latest person to run afoul of China's government, denied permission to travel to a prominent academic conference in the United States this week.
Cui Weiping had her Chinese passport, U.S. visa and airplane ticket to Philadelphia in hand when, she said, officials at the Beijing Film Academy where she works called her in Sunday and told her to cancel the trip. Though they gave reasons for the denial -- she has classes to teach, her conference panel was not related to her academic discipline -- those were excuses, she said.
The unstated reason, she said: last year's commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy movement and her recent outraged Twitter posts at the jailing of a peaceful political activist. "Really, they want to punish me," Cui said Thursday sitting in an artsy coffee shop in the university district.
"They're afraid, one, of what I might say abroad," she said, "and two, they want to pressure me."
In the uproar over Google's tussle with Chinese Internet censorship, Cui's case is a reminder that the authoritarian government often resorts to more blunt ways to restrict the flow of ideas.
Cui is hardly a firebrand. Small, bookish and 54, she prefers her literary and film criticism, her translations of the works of people like Czech dissident-turned-president Vaclav Havel, rather than political campaigning.
Nor is she the only person to see her freedom of movement curtailed. Travel bans have a rich tradition in China. The emperors prohibited ordinary Chinese off-and-on from leaving for several centuries. More recently, writer and outspoken government critic Liao Yiwu was taken off a plane in the southwestern city of Chengdu last month on his way to Germany for Europe's largest literary festival; it was the 13th time he was blocked.
Ai Xiaoming, a feminist literary critic who has made pointed documentaries on AIDS and one village's attempts to oust corrupt officials, found out she was under a five-year ban when she went to renew her passport in December and couldn't. A police official looked up her name in a database and told her "you've been prohibited from going abroad," she said.
"To use a Chinese phrase, it's very shady. They won't notify you directly, and only when you try to do something do you find you're being punished," said Ai, a professor in the southern city of Guangzhou. "There's no way to seek redress. No process. It's a punishment outside the law."
Cui too has been told not to travel to the U.S. twice before, once in 2006 for a conference on the radical Maoist Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and last year for an event organized by a Chinese emigre who produced a documentary on the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
By Miguel Helft and David Barboza | The New York Times
March 22/23, 2010
Just over two months after threatening to leave China because of censorship and intrusions from hackers, Goolge on Monday closed its Internet search service there and began directing users in that country to its uncensored search engine in Hong Kong.
While the decision to route mainland Chinese users to Hong Kong is an attempt by Google to skirt censorship requirements without running afoul of Chinese laws, it appears to have angered officials in China, setting the stage for a possible escalation of the conflict, which may include blocking the Hong Kong search service in mainland China.
The state-controlled Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed official with the State Council Information Office describing Google's move as "totally wrong."
"Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks," the official said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the government will handle the Google case "according to the law," Reuters reported. The ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said at a regular briefing in Beijing that Google's move was an isolated act by a commercial company, and that it should not affect China-U.S. ties "unless politicized'' by others.
Google declined to comment on its talks with Chinese authorities, but said that it was under the impression that its move would be seen as a viable compromise.
"We got reasonable indications that this was O.K.," Sergey Brin, a Google founder and its president of technology, said. "We can't be completely confident."
Google's retreat from China, for now, is only partial. In a blog post, Google said it would retain much of its existing operations in China, including its research and development team and its local sales force. While the China search engine, google.cn, has stopped working, Google will continue to operate online maps and music services in China.
Google's move represents a powerful rejection of Beijing's censorship but also a risky ploy in which Google, a global technology powerhouse, will essentially turn its back on the world's largest Internet market, with nearly 400 million Web users.
"Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on google.cn has been hard," David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, wrote in the blog post. "The Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a nonnegotiable legal requirement."
Mr. Drummond said that Google's search engine based in Hong Kong would provide mainland users results in the simplified Chinese characters used on the mainland and that he believed it was "entirely legal."
"We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision," Mr. Drummond said, "though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services." Some Western analysts say Chinese regulators could retaliate against Google by blocking its Hong Kong or American search engines entirely, just as it blocks You Tube, Facebook and Twitter.
Google's decision to scale back operations in China ends a nearly four-year bet that Google's search engine in China, even if censored, would help bring more information to Chinese citizens and loosen the government's controls on the Web.
Instead, specialists say, Chinese authorities have tightened their grip on the Internet in recent years. In January, Google said it would no longer cooperate with government censors after hackers based in China stole some of the company's source code and even broke into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights advocates.
"It is certainly a historic moment," said Xiao Qiang of the China Internet project at the University of California, Berkeley. "The Internet was seen as a catalyst for China being more integrated into the world. The fact that Google cannot exist in China clearly indicates that China's path as a rising power is going in a direction different from what the world expected and what many Chinese were hoping for."
While other multinational companies are not expected to follow suit, some Western executives say Google's decision is a symbol of a worsening business climate in China for foreign corporations and perhaps an indication that the Chinese government is favoring home-grown companies. Despite its size and reputation for innovation, Google trails its main Chinese rival, Baidu.com, which was modeled on Google, with 33 percent market share to Baidu's 63 percent.
The decision to shut down google.cn will have a limited financial impact on Google, which is based in Mountain View, Calif. China accounted for a small fraction of Google's $23.6 billion in global revenue last year. Ads that once appeared on google.cn will now appear on Google's Hong Kong site. Still, abandoning a direct presence in the largest Internet search market in the world could have long-term repercussions and thwart Google's global ambitions, analysts say.
Government officials in Beijing have sharpened their attacks on Google in recent weeks. China experts say it may be some time before the confrontation is resolved.
"This has become a war of ideas between the American company moralizing about Internet censorship and the Chinese government having its own views on the matter," said Emily Parker, a senior fellow at the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society.
In China, many students and professionals said they feared they were about to lose access to Google's vast resources.
In January, when Google first threatened to leave China, many young people placed wreaths at the company headquarters in Beijing as a sign of mourning.
The attacks were aimed at Google and more than 30 other American companies. While Google did not say the attacks were sponsored by the government, the company said it had enough information about the attacks to justify its threat to leave China.
People, inside and outside of Google, investigating the attacks have since traced them to two universities in China: Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Lanxiang Vocational School. The schools and the government have denied any involvement.
After serving Chinese users through its search engine based in the United States, Google decided to enter the Chinese market in 2006 with a local search engine under an arrangement with the government that required it to purge search results on banned topics. But since then, Google has struggled to comply with Chinese censorship rules and failed to gain significant market share from Baidu.com.
Google is not the first American Internet company to stumble in China. Nearly every major American brand has arrived with high hopes only to be stymied by government rules or fierce competition from Chinese rivals.
After struggling to compete, Yahoo sold its Chinese operations to Alibaba Group, a local company; eBay and Amazon never gained traction; and Microsoft's MSN instant messaging service badly trails that of Tencent.
Google's departure could present an opportunity for Baidu, whose stock has soared since the confrontation between Google and China began. It could also give a chance to Microsoft, a perennial underdog in Internet search, to make inroads in the Chinese market. Microsoft's search engine, Bing, has a very small share of the market.
Miguel Helft reported from San Francisco, and David Barboza from Shanghai. Steve Lohr contributed reporting from New York.
By Christopher Bodeen - Associated Press | via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
March 22, 2010
A growing number of foreign businesses in China feel shut out under new government policies promoting homegrown technology, according a survey released Monday.
Fully 38 percent of foreign firms questioned by the American Chamber of Commerce say they feel increasingly unwelcome to participate and compete in the Chinese market.
That marks a 12 percentage point rise from the last survey taken just a few months before. Over that period, the government has increasingly steered business toward state-owned companies, ostensibly as part of efforts to boost innovation among Chinese firms.
The chamber said it strongly supports promoting indigenous innovation, but believes current policies give an unfair advantage to domestic companies that enjoy strong government backing and political connections.
"Domestic innovation creates the potential for more partnerships between U.S. and Chinese firms in China and globally. However, limiting market participants and reducing competition does not encourage innovation," AmCham China President Michael Barbalas said.
The chamber's data, gathered earlier this year from 203 companies, portrays a steadily worsening environment for foreign companies in China over the past three years. Only 23 percent said they felt unwelcome in the chamber's 2008 survey.
The disquiet was most pronounced among foreign firms specializing in high-tech and information technology, with 57 percent saying they felt negatively affected by government policies. In that sector, 37 percent of foreign companies said they were losing sales as a result of Chinese government policies.
By Radio Free Asia
March 17, 2010
But one year later, Gao Zhisheng remains missing.
China's foreign minister Yang Jiechi has referred to a "sentencing for subversion" in the case of rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been missing for more than a year, but the minister was still tight-lipped about his exact whereabouts.
"Gao Zhisheng has been sentenced for committing the crime of subverting state power," Yang told reporters at a joint news conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in Beijing. U.S. President Barack Obama has also raised Gao's case.
He didn't say whether the sentencing referred to a suspended sentence handed down at a one-day secret trial in 2006, or to a new charge against Gao--once a top defense lawyer lauded by the ruling Communist Party for his work on behalf of the least privileged in Chinese society.
Gao's wife, Geng He, was granted political asylum in the United States recently, along with the couple's two children. His relatives back in China said Yang's statement wasn't good news.
"We are waiting to see what happens," said Gao's Shaanxi-based older brother, Gao Zhiyi.
Back in prison
"We'll wait until there is some fresh news. If it's true about the sentencing, that wouldn't be a good result."
Gao's nephew said he had heard rumors that Gao has been seen in Beijing in the past three months.
On Wednesday, the BBC quoted Gao Zhiyi as nervously saying he had spoken to his brother on the telephone within the last three weeks and that "I know that he's fine."
"He [Gao Zhisheng] said he's quite well, everything's fine, and told the family not to worry," his brother was quoted as telling a visiting BBC crew. "Please go home soon, don't stay for too long. Because if the local authority finds out, it won't be nice."
Fan Yafeng, a legal scholar at the official China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said the government's handling of enquiries about Gao has been very messy, ever since the lawyer's disappearance .
"I think it's most probably to do with the original conviction in 2006, and they've done a bit more paperwork on that, and put him back in prison again," Fan said.
But in another case, Beijing-based lawyer Li Dunyong is currently under suspended sentence, and any form of further criminal activity would lead to further charges and require a legal process including a trial.
"If they want to cancel the suspended sentence they have to do it through a court," Li said.
"They wouldn't necessarily inform the family. A lot of courts are now passing sentences without informing the person's relatives," he said.
Foreign minister Yang denied allegations that Gao had been tortured, as feared by his family, supporters and fellow activists.
"His relevant rights based on this law have been protected, so the question of torture does not exist," Yang said.
Fears of torture
A torture investigator at the United Nations said last week he was very concerned about Gao's fate, while an international group of lawyers has called on the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to declare Gao's disappearance a violation of international law.
Hong Kong Democratic legislator Albert Ho, who has led a campaign of lawyers calling for Gao's release, signed a petition from a global legal team last week, calling on the United Nations to condemn Gao's detention as a violation of international law.
"At the very least they will look into this matter, because China is a member of the United Nations," Ho said.
"They can't just ignore it, especially as China has already said that Gao Zhisheng is in such-and-such a place."
"This shows that the authorities have him under detention. The Chinese government hasn't been able to shirk responsibility for him since his disappearance on Feb. 4 last year."
A U.N. spokesman on human rights said that a number of human rights departments handle complaints, and that they receive a great many petitions and letters, so any response would take time.
Gao's case has drawn international attention for the unusual length of his disappearance and for his own earlier graphic reports of the torture he said he endured in detention.
Born in poverty, Gao became a member of the Communist Party and was named by the government a decade ago as one of the 10 best lawyers in China.
He then ran afoul of the authorities by taking on cases related to corruption, religious freedom, and how the government has treated the Falun Gong movement--which Beijing has labeled a dangerous cult.
His law license was taken away, and in 2005 he resigned his Party membership.
He was convicted of inciting subversion in a secret trial, given a suspended sentence, and released in 2006. Gao gave a graphic account of torture he said he suffered during another detention in 2007.
Civil rights lawyers and international rights advocates say the entire Chinese legal profession is under increasing strain, with many law firms losing their licenses--or being threatened that they will have their licenses revoked--should they choose to take on sensitive cases.
Original reporting in Cantonese by Hai Nan and in Mandarin by Ding Xiao. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated from the Chinese and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
By Radio Free Asia
March 15, 2010
A suspicious death in detention sparks questions.
A taxi driver in southern China has died while serving a short detention as punishment for a traffic violation, according to the man's wife.
Liu Zhengguo, a driver in the Conghua city suburb of Guangzhou, in south China's Guangdong province, died as the result of a "brain tumor," according to police who had overseen his custody.
But according to Liu's wife, his body was covered with bruises that were inconsistent with the cause of death offered by authorities.
"My husband has never suffered from any illness before. Absolutely not," she said.
"But now his body is full of wounds and black-and-blue marks. His head was swollen. The police are so cruel."
Liu's wife said she became suspicious as a result of an uncharacteristically considerate attitude shown by the police following his death.
"They paid for our food and lodging when we were called to Guangzhou. They prepaid the medical expenses for my husband, saying they had done it out of humanitarian concern," she said.
"Nothing could be further from the truth. There was no earthquake in our home--why should we need their 'humanitarian concern?'"
Liu's wife said she felt certain that her husband had been beaten by his captors.
"The facts are clear. My husband was beaten to near-death by the police, but it took six days for him to die."
Traffic violation
Liu Zhengguo was arrested March 5 after clashing with traffic control personnel over a traffic violation and was subsequently given a 10-day detention as punishment.
Last Thursday, while in police custody, Liu suddenly collapsed from dizziness.
By the time he was rushed to a hospital he was already in critical condition.
Liu died Sunday in the same police-managed hospital that announced his cause of death as the result of a brain tumor.
News of Liu's death in detention prompted several hundred of his friends and colleagues to surround the Traffic Management Office in the Tianhe district of Guangzhou, protesting police violence.
But local authorities refused to answer questions.
An officer contacted by telephone Monday at the Linhe police station, which first detained Liu, referred the call to upper-level management.
At the Traffic Management Committee of Guangzhou, the managing body that oversees city traffic, a female officer who answered the phone declined to provide any details on the case, adding that all inquiries from foreign media had to go through the city's foreign affairs office.
But the officer said local newspapers had already reported the story and that police are now focusing on calming down Liu's family members.
The Information Times, a newspaper in Guangzhou, reported that "there were no wounds or blood extravasations on [Liu's] scalp," citing sources within the hospital where Liu died.
Meanwhile, Liu Zhengguo's death has attracted the attention of netizens all over China, who joke that the official excuse of a "brain tumor" is the newest invention by Chinese authorities hoping to avoid prosecution for police brutality.
Negotiations under way
Liu's uncle, Liu Jianguo, said the family is in negotiations with officials.
"Various government offices are now negotiating with us but they refused to admit any wrongdoing--they are only talking about reconciling the case. If they truly didn't make any mistakes, they wouldn't need to negotiate with us," he said.
Liu's wife said her husband was the family's main source of income and making ends meet would be difficult without his help.
"We have two daughters. One is 16 and the other is seven. My 70-year-old mother-in-law is living with us and she is blind," she said.
"The whole family relied on my husband to survive."
Original reporting by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin service. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated by Ping Chen. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
By Michael Wines | The New York Times
12 March 2010
One of China's top Internet regulators warned bluntly on Friday that any move by Google to stop censoring its Chinese search engine would be "irresponsible" and would draw a response from Beijing.
The statement by Li Yizhong, China's minister of industry and information technology, followed a statement on Wednesday by Google's chief executive officer, Eric Schmidt, that "something will happen soon" in the two-month standoff over Internet censorship between his company and the Chinese government.
But it was no more clear on Friday what that something might be than it was two months ago, when Google executives first threatened to pull out of China unless the government stopped forcing it to censor the results of users' Internet searches.
Chinese journalists outside Google's Beijing offices on Friday said they had heard the company was planning to close its doors here. But a Google spokeswoman denied that in an article on Thursday in the government-run English-language newspaper, China Daily.
Google's China businesses "are still at normal," and rumors that the company had ordered its Chinese advertising agencies to cease work were not true, the spokeswoman, Marsha Wang, told the newspaper. At Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., another spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, declined to comment on the statements from Mr. Li or any other aspect of its dispute with China.
A company spokesperson said Wednesday that Google expected the dispute to be settled "in weeks, not months."
Speaking on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's party-controlled legislature, Mr. Li said that he hoped for an amicable resolution to the standoff. But he gave no indication that the government would ease the censorship rules that are at the heart of Google's ultimatum.
"I hope Google will abide by Chinese laws and regulations," The Associated Press quoted Mr. Li as saying. But "if you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulations, you are unfriendly, you are irresponsible and you will have to bear the consequences."
Whether the company chooses to remain in China, he added, will be up to Google.
Since it opened shop in China four years ago, Google has captured roughly 30 percent of the search market in the world's largest assemblage of Internet users, and it is a favorite among the better-educated and wealthier classes that advertisers covet. But the company has long been uncomfortable with Chinese demands that it censor search results to prevent users from viewing some kinds of content, notably political matters that the government deems unacceptable.
Google's Chinese Web site does censor some of its content, but its restrictions are generally less onerous than elsewhere, and the censored items are clearly identified as having been banned by the authorities.
By Associated Press | via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
March 11, 2010
China will toughen requirements for reporters by launching a new certification system that includes training in Marxist and communist theories of news, a media official said, citing problems with the current crop of mainland journalists.
The South China Morning Post reported Thursday that Li Dongdong, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, said some reporters were giving Chinese journalism a bad name because they hadn't been properly trained. She didn't give any specific examples.
Similar comments by Li were posted on the Web site of the official Xinhua News Agency.
Li told Xinhua on Monday that the new qualification system would ensure all journalists learn socialist and Marxist theories of journalism and media ethics.
"Comrades who are going to be working on journalism's front lines must learn theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics and be taught Marx's view on news, plus media ethics and Communist Party discipline on news and propaganda," Li was quoted as saying.
Communist theories of journalism say media should serve the communist leadership and not undermine its initiatives. Many democracies embrace a model where reporters serve a watchdog role independent of the government.
Chinese media have become more freewheeling since newspapers and broadcasters began relying increasingly on advertising instead of just Communist Party patronage for their survival. There have been problems with reporters demanding payment for positive news coverage or to bury a story, and instances of reporters fabricating news.
Others have run afoul of the government for reporting accurately on stories that officials didn't want publicized. Government censors keep a tight grip on news content and routinely ban reporting on issues deemed too politically sensitive or destabilizing.
A senior editor with the Beijing-based Economic Observer said this week he had been punished for co-authoring an editorial that urged the government to scrap an unpopular household registration system, saying it discriminated against the poor.
By Radio Free Asia
March 08, 2010
China's premier promises a more open society, but his speech to parliament meets with skepticism.
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has called for greater oversight of government by ordinary citizens and media, but analysts and netizens have voiced skepticism that real change is on the way.
During his annual work report to the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on Friday, Wen called on China's leadership to create an environment in which it is possible for people to criticize and supervise the government.
"We must create the conditions under which people are allowed to criticize the government, to supervise the government," Wen told delegates to the country's parliament.
"At the same time, we must bring out the ability of the media to exercise a supervisory role, so that power is exercised in broad daylight."
As he spoke, Beijing police held the capital under a tight security clampdown, ensuring that anyone with a grievance against the government was kept well away from the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square.
Netizens joked online that Wen's promises sounded like the self-development promises made by primary school children in China: "These things are only ever a goal," one quipped.
Wen called on members of the ruling Communist Party to be scrupulous over their use of public money, following a number of high-profile online exposes of the lifestyles of high-ranking officials.
Call for official discipline
"All of the leadership, especially high-ranking officials, must resolutely implement guidelines delivered by central government regarding personal finances and property of the individual," said Wen.
"This includes their income, housing, investments, and the careers taken up by their spouses, sons, and daughters."
Wen also promised to strengthen channels for consultation with Chinese citizens, who should be given the opportunity to oversee the government's activities.
China's army of petitioners say they have repeatedly been stonewalled, detained in "black jails," beaten, and harrassed by the authorities if they try to take a complaint against local government actions to a higher level of government.
"Does central government have any measures to ensure that people who report local officials online aren't hounded and detained, or pursued by local mafia?" wrote one petitioner from the eastern city of Ningbo.
Press freedom lacking
Another wrote from Chengdu that the government should first guarantee the media's right to carry out normal reporting and newsgathering activities.
"Officials involved in a situation have the responsibility to answer questions from journalists. Those who refuse to do so should be subjected to harsh punishment: at the very least a demotion or a pay cut for failing to carry out administrative orders."
But Hong Kong media reports said Chinese media have already been forbidden to report on any negative news from Beijing during the annual parliamentary sessions.
According to the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper, petitions from retired members of the People's Liberation Army, from workers in certain industries, and from evictees in Beijing are forbidden topics.
And the difficulties faced by migrant workers in getting schooling for their children in Beijing were also struck off the list of permissible news items for traditional media and online news providers.
Beijing University economics professor Xia Yeliang said that Wen's promises of greater academic freedom in China's universities have also been heard before, and remain undelivered.
Twitter police
"They have been talking about reforming China's education system for many years now," Xia said.
"Now, they are saying once again that they want to turn the universities into top-flight universities [with no Party presence and academic freedom], but they haven't said when they will achieve this by."
One Beijing-based blogger, known online by the nickname Zhang Shuji, said China's Internet police regularly patrol micro-blogging services like Twitter.
"They won't necessarily take part in the discussion. They just keep a record," he said.
"It's a bit like using [the popular chat service] QQ. The Web police just make a back-up copy of all the chats. Then, if they get a subpoena, they just print it off for evidence that the person concerned was expressing opinions tantamount to incitement."
China had more than 40,000 active Twitter users as of last week, with more than 200,000 people registered on the service. More than half of Twitter's most-followed users are civil rights and pro-democracy activists from China.
Editors cautioned
An official report at the end of last year identified microblogging as one of the most powerful drivers of public opinion in China.
Sina's home-based microblogging service employs a team of more than 300 people, not just to monitor what is being posted, but to set up blocks and filters.
One of the coordinators of the community Internet blog Kenengba, A Chan, wrote: "Sina's microblogging service used to take down my posts without notifying me. Later on, they started watching everything I wrote, but they still didn't notify me."
In recent days, editors from 13 different regional state-run newspapers have been handed official warnings after they published a joint editorial calling for an end to the household registration, or hukou, system, which they said discriminates against rural residents who move to large cities to work.
Wen pledged in his speech to abolish some restrictions on migrant workers in smaller towns and cities, but stopped short of abolishing the hukou system, saying the authorities will take a "step-by-step"
approach.
Beijing University's Xia said the same pledge has already been heard from China's leaders.
"We have heard them say this many times now, over many years, to win a bit of applause in the moment, and nothing has come of it so far," Xia said. "If they really could do what they are saying, there wouldn't be so much discontent among ordinary Chinese people."
"Right now there is a huge gap between what the government says it's going to do, and what it actually does," he said.
Original reporting in Mandarin by Xin Yu and Qiao Long, and in Cantonese by Hai Nan. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
Michael Evans, Giles Whittell | TimesOnLine (United Kingdom)
March 08, 2010
Urgent warnings have been circulated throughout Nato and the European Union for secret intelligence material to be protected from a recent surge in cyberwar attacks originating in China.
The attacks have also hit government and military institutions in the United States, where analysts said that the West had no effective response and that EU systems were especially vulnerable because most cyber security efforts were left to member states.
Nato diplomatic sources told The Times: "Everyone has been made aware that the Chinese have become very active with cyber-attacks and we're now getting regular warnings from the office for internal security." The sources said that the number of attacks had increased significantly over the past 12 months, with China among the most active players.
In the US, an official report released on Friday said the number of attacks on Congress and other government agencies had risen exponentially in the past year to an estimated 1.6 billion every month.
The Chinese cyber-penetration of key offices in both Nato and the EU has led to restrictions in the normal flow of intelligence because there are concerns that secret intelligence reports might be vulnerable.
Sources at the Office for Cyber Security at the Cabinet Office in London, set up last year, said there were two forms of attack: those focusing on disrupting computer systems and others involving "fishing trips" for sensitive information. A special team has been set up at GCHQ, the government communications headquarters in Gloucestershire, to counter the growing cyber-threat affecting intelligence material. The team becomes operational this month.
British and American cyber defences are among the most sophisticated in the world, but "the EU is less competent", James Lewis, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said. "The porousness of the European institutions makes them a good target for penetration. They are of interest to the Chinese on issues from arms sales and nuclear non-proliferation to Tibet and energy."
The lack of routine intelligencesharing between the US and the EU also contributes to the vulnerability of European systems, another analyst said. "Because of Britain's intelligence-sharing relationship with America our systems have to be up to their standards in a way that some of the European systems don't," he explained.
Jonathan Evans, Director-General of MI5, warned in 2007 that several states were actively involved in large-scale cyber-attacks. Although he did not specify which states were involved, security officials have indicated that China now poses the gravest threat. Beijing has denied making such attacks.
Robert Mueller, FBI Director, has warned that, in addition to the danger of foreign states making cyber-attacks, al-Qaeda could in the future pose a similar threat. In a speech to a security conference last week, Mr Mueller said terrorist groups had used the internet to recruit members and to plan attacks, but added: "Terrorists have \ shown a clear interest in pursuing hacking skills and they will either train their own recruits or hire outsiders with an eye towards combining physical attacks with cyber-attacks."
He said that a cyber-attack could have the same impact as a "well-placed bomb". Mr Mueller also accused "nation-state hackers" of seeking out US technology, intelligence, intellectual property and even military weapons and strategies.To help to fight the growing threat, the Office of Cyber Security, set up last year as part of the Government's national security strategy, liaises with America's so-called cyber czar, Howard Schmidt, who was appointed by President Obama to protect sensitive government computers.
British officials said that everyone in sensitive jobs had been warned to be especially cautious about disseminating intelligence and other classified information. Whether British intelligence is involved in retaliatory attacks is never confirmed. However, officials said that there was a significant difference between being part of an information war and indulging in aggressive attacks to disrupt another country's computer systems.
Dr Lewis said that neither the US nor any of its Western allies had formed an effective response to the Chinese threat, which has its origins in a massive boost to Chinese technology ordered by Deng Xiaoping, the late Chinese leader, in 1986. The West's own cyber offensives have so far been directed largely at terrorists rather than nation states, giving China virtually free rein to penetrate Western systems with its own world-class hackers and increasingly popular Chinese-made components. "You almost have to admire them," Dr Lewis said. "They have been very consistent in their goals."
By Michael Wines | The New York Times
March 02, 2010
Chinese security agents in Sichuan Province detained Liao Yiwu, a prominent author and critic of the government, as he prepared to fly Monday to a literary festival in Germany, human rights activists said.
It was the 13th time Mr. Liao had been prevented from leaving the country. The Associated Press reported that he had been placed under house arrest after being questioned by security agents for four hours.
"How can this happen?" The A.P. quoted him as saying. "It's a cultural event, nothing political. Such drama!"
Telephone calls on Tuesday to Mr. Liao's home in rural Chengdu produced a recording saying that the line was temporarily unavailable. Calls to his cellphone went unanswered.
Mr. Liao was removed from a plane at Chengdu's airport as he prepared to fly to Germany to attend lit.Cologne, one of Europe's largest literary festivals, where he was to read from one of his books, "Miss Hello and the Farm Emperor: Chinese Society From the Bottom."
"The reason for inviting Mr. Liao was simple: he's a great writer," Traudle Berger, a spokeswoman at the Cologne Festival, said in an interview on Tuesday. "And China should be proud of such a great writer."
Ms. Berger said Mr. Liao's scheduled reading would still take place, with an actor assuming his role. Proceeds from the ticketed event will be donated to the human rights group Amnesty International, she said.
Last September, Mr. Liao was barred from traveling to Berlin to attend an event affiliated with the Frankfurt Book Fair, at which China was designated the honored guest.
A poet, screenwriter and new-journalism author, Mr. Liao, 51, is one of China's best known and most outspoken writers. Many of his works tell stories of people who have been left behind in the nation's rush to economic and political prominence, characters that include prostitutes, a grave robber, and a lavatory attendant.
His 2008 book "The Corpse Walker," another view of Chinese society's lower rungs, was published to international acclaim. His works are banned in China, but he has gained a large underground following, and pirated versions of his works can be found in some Chinese bookstores.
Mr. Liao was imprisoned for four years in the early 1990s after writing an epic poem, "Massacre," which denounced the Chinese government's suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. In December 2007, when he traveled to Beijing to receive an award from the Independent Chinese PEN Center, a writers' rights organization, he was detained by the police and sent back to Chengdu.
In a text-message exchange last month, Mr. Liao said he had repeatedly met with Chengdu security officials to negotiate for permission to attend the Cologne event, but was told that he had been blacklisted by Beijing officials and forbidden to travel abroad.
In a Monday interview with the German network Deutsche Welle, Mr. Liao said he was seated on the plane at Chengdu's airport on Monday morning when a flight attendant approached and told him that "someone is looking for you."
"I asked who it was, and she said it would be best if I got my luggage," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "I got my bags, and while I was walking to the cabin door, I saw a police officer."
Mr. Liao said the police told him, "You cannot continue doing whatever you want."
"I told them there will be many readers at the festival," he said. "I would like to go and meet them and read some of my own pieces and play the traditional Chinese mouth organ, the xiao. I said it was purely a literature festival and nothing political. They said they understood and were only doing their job following orders from the top."
On Monday, the PEN American Center, which like the Chinese organization is one of 145 affiliates of the International PEN Center, called on China's president, Hu Jintao, to lift restrictions on Mr. Liao and other writers.
"It is hard to figure what the Chinese government hopes to accomplish by preventing one of its most compelling literary voices from meeting with international colleagues and readers," Larry Siems, who directs the American center's Freedom to Write program, said in a written statement.
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