May 2011 Archives
By BBC World News
May 30, 2011
Chinese authorities have tightened security across the province of Inner Mongolia after days of unrest, rights groups and residents say.
Hundreds of riot police armed with batons have been posted at the main square in provincial capital Hohhot.
Access to the internet has been blocked in some areas, and universities and schools are under close watch.
The unrest erupted last week after two ethnic Mongolians were killed in separate incidents.
The demonstrations are thought to be the region's largest in 20 years, involving hundreds of ethnic Mongolians.
The New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre said more demonstrations had been planned for Monday.
The centre described the situation in many parts of Inner Mongolia as martial law.
Residents of the city of Chifeng told the Associated Press that police were out in force, and the internet had been cut off.
"There's no point in going to the internet cafes since they have suspended business because the internet is down there too," said a waitress at a Chifeng restaurant.
A university worker in Hohhot told Reuters that three entrances to the institution had been sealed off by police.
Deep-seated concerns
The BBC's Michael Bristow in Beijing says references to the demonstrations are being wiped from the internet.
But he says the authorities are also trying to ease the anger of the ethnic Mongolians by sending senior Communist Party officials to the city of Xilinhot, where the trouble started.
Ethnic Mongolians were infuriated by the death of a farmer on 10 May. He was trying to protect his land when he was run down and killed, apparently by an ethnically Han Chinese driver.
Five days later, another ethnic Mongolian was killed during a protest at a mine.
Analysts say the deaths have tapped into deeper concerns among ethnic Mongolians that their traditional nomadic way of life is being overridden by mining projects.
The government confirmed last week that two Han Chinese had been arrested for murder, but gave no further details of the cases.
On Monday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported that a man had been put on trial for the murder of Yan Wenlong, the ethnic Mongolian killed during the mine protest.
Some analysts believe the other man who was arrested is a suspect in the killing of the farmer on 10 May.
On Friday, provincial Communist Party chief Hu Chunhua met students and teachers and promised that anyone found to have committed a crime would be brought to justice, according to the state-run Inner Mongolian Daily.
"Please rest assured that the suspects will be punished severely and quickly," Mr Hu said, without specifying which cases he was talking about.
Less than 20% of Inner Mongolia's estimated 25 million residents are ethnic Mongolians. About 80% are Han Chinese.
By Peter Lee | Asia Times online
May 28, 2011
The occasion of Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani's official visit to China was an opportunity for both parties to stake a claim to a post-United States future as the closest of allies, with a shared commitment to a stabilized Afghanistan and recovering Pakistan.
Chinese state media gave spectacular coverage to the visit as a sign of its geopolitical significance. The Chinese government contributed to the sense of occasion with the kind of gesture the Pakistani military - smarting from the humiliation of the killing of Osama bin Laden by American Special Forces inside Pakistan - appreciates the most: a promise to expedite delivery of 50 Chinese fighter jets.
Then Pakistan's Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar put his hoof in it:
"The Chinese government has acceded to Pakistan's request to take over operations at Gwadar port [in Balochistan province] as soon as the terms of agreement with the Singapore Port Authority (SPA) expire," Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) quoted Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar as saying in a statement.
According to APP, Mukhtar said Pakistan appreciated that the Chinese government agrees to run the port, but would be more grateful "if a naval base is constructed at the site of Gwadar for Pakistan." [1]
His remarks set off alarm bells around the world, as pundits dusted off the "string of pearls" analogy describing China's alleged efforts to create a network of military-ready ports, and raised the specter of the Chinese dragon bathing his vermilion claws in the milk-warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
By Edward Wong | The New York Times
May 26, 2011
President Hu Jintao of China praised North Korea and its ailing leader, Kim Jong-il, for giving "top priority to improving people's lives," according to a report on Thursday night by Xinhua, the state news agency. Mr. Hu made his remarks during a six-day tour of China by Mr. Kim, and they reflected China's hopes that North Korea would move toward major economic reforms.
The same Xinhua report commented on Mr. Kim's reaction to the economic prosperity he saw throughout China, where he traveled in a private armored train: "He said the Chinese people are now engaged in economic and social development and he marveled at the amazing changes he saw during the visit."
China is North Korea's closest ally, and Mr. Kim's visit, his third since May 2010, comes at a critical time. North Korea is facing a severe food shortage and is casting about for aid. A team of officials from Washington is in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, to assess the extent of the crisis.
Mr. Kim is also seeking to shore up Beijing's support for his heir apparent, Kim Jong-un, his third and youngest son. The trip also gives Mr. Kim an opportunity to talk to Chinese officials about moving his nation's command economy more toward market reforms, but it is unclear how sincere Mr. Kim is about pushing such changes.
In his frequent trips to China, Mr. Kim has often toured prosperous coastal areas. But he has not put in place fundamental changes to the North Korean economy, and some analysts believe his interest in China stems primarily from his desire for cheap, reliable supplies of food and energy and diplomatic protection from the United States, Japan and South Korea, which are seeking to roll back North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
By Radio FREE Asia
May 25, 2011
Ethnic Mongolian students march on Chinese government buildings demanding equal treatment.
Thousands of ethnic Mongolians took to the streets of northern China on Wednesday, calling for better rights protections for nomadic herding families following the death of a herder named Murgen who was run over by a truck.
Nearly 2,000 students in the northwestern city of Xilinhot, in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, gathered outside government buildings, calling on the authorities to respect the rights of Mongolian herding communities, overseas rights groups and exile sources said.
"The body of Murgen was cremated secretly, but this should have been carried out with due process," said Nahubisgalat, an ethnic Mongolian Chinese national currently living in Japan.
He said local anger had been sparked in particular by the detention of a number of herdsmen following protests at the weekend.
"These protests are the result of incorrect behavior on the part of the government, and they will continue," he added.
New Zealand-based rights activist Wang Ning said he had been following the situation closely since the death of Murgen (in Chinese, Morigen) following a standoff between herders and truck drivers two weeks ago.
"Last night the Xiwu banner [county] authorities said they would have to cremate the body by night, and they promised [Murgen's family] an apartment [in compensation]," Wang said.
"The authorities also promised they will hand down the death penalty to the driver who killed him ... That's when Murgen's wife and mother agreed to the funeral arrangements."
Ongoing protests
Herding communities in Murgen's home banner have been protesting since his death on May 10 after being run over by a coal-truck driver.
Officials have now promised to resolve Murgen's killing in a "just manner," according to the U.S.-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC).
"In order to calm the enraged local Mongolian herders and students, high-ranking officials from the League [prefecture] Government visited the demonstration site to meet with protesters," the group said in a statement on its website.
The League Government would also address the case of detained herders from Abag banner [county] following clashes at the weekend, it said.
"In order to respect the Mongolian herders' rights in the future, officials promised to have the government-run local media report on the cases," the statement said.
Students had agreed to return to class following the government's promises, and wait to see if they were fulfilled before planning their next move, it added.
Truck incident
Police detained a truck driver after his vehicle plowed into a group of protesters from Haoletu and Xiwu townships in Xilin Gol league near the border with Mongolia, local residents said in posts on the Internet last week.
After midnight on May 10, a group of truck drivers being blocked by protesters cried "Charge!" and drove directly into the group blocking their path, the posts said.
Photos of the scene showed trucks halted on the grassland in low light.
The herdsmen had blocked the road after complaining of loud and reckless driving through their pastures by trucks belonging to a local mining company, according to a report on the Xiwu township government official website.
It said police had detained two truck drivers, Li Lindong and Lu Xiangdong, following the death of Murgen, 35.
A resident of Haoletu Gol township said the mining trucks had caused a lot of tension among local herders, some of whom depend on grazing animals for their livelihood.
Local reports said Murgen had left behind an elderly mother, wife, and two children, the youngest of whom is three years old.
The Chinese government has begun relocating more than 250,000 nomads from Inner Mongolia's grasslands in recent years, saying the move is necessary to protect the fragile ecosystem of the region.
The policy has been seen among ethnic Mongolians as further marginalization for Mongolian nomadic herders, who are already vastly outnumbered by Chinese peasants.
Currently, ethnic Mongols represent a tiny 17 percent of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region's 23 million people, the overwhelming majority of whom are Han Chinese.
Reported by Fang Yuan for RFA's Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
By Ian Johnson | The New York Times
May 25, 2011
A day after denying that any of its citizens had been involved, China confirmed Tuesday that Chinese technicians were taken hostage during a militant attack on a Pakistani naval base.
A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said "technical staff of a certain enterprise" had been on the naval base in Karachi and were taken hostage in the 16-hour siege, which began late Sunday and left at least 10 Pakistani security officers dead.
Speaking at a regularly scheduled news briefing, Ms. Jiang said she had no report that any Chinese had been injured. She did not say how many had been taken hostage.
The presence of Chinese technical staff members at the naval base, in Karachi, is another sign of China's growing involvement in Pakistan. Last week, Pakistan's defense minister, Ahmad Mukhtar, said that China would take over management of the port of Gwadar, a Pakistani city, and that he would welcome having China build a naval port there.
Mr. Mukhtar made the statement after visiting Beijing with the Pakistani prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani. Pakistani officials said Beijing had agreed to speed up delivery of jointly developed fighters.
China has been walking a careful line with Pakistan. It does not want to antagonize India, but it is eager to present itself to Pakistan as a more reliable and understanding ally than the United States, which in recent years has been stepping up criticism of Pakistan for harboring Islamist militants.
On Tuesday, for example, the government-run Xinhua news agency issued an analysis of the attack on the Karachi base. The article largely blamed the United States for the attack, saying Pakistan was paying the price for the recent American raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
By Brendan I. Koerner | WIRED Magazine
March 2011
In early 2010, somewhere high above the northern hemisphere, Mark Krywko decided he'd had enough. The CEO of Sleek Audio, a purveyor of high-end earphones, Krywko was flying home to Florida after yet another frustrating visit to Dongguan, China, where a contract factory assembled the majority of his company's products. He and his son, Jason, Sleek Audio's cofounder, made the long trip every few months to troubleshoot quality flaws. Every time the Krywkos visited Dongguan, their Chinese partners assured them everything was under control. Those promises almost always proved empty.
As he whiled away the airborne hours, Krywko made a mental list of all the manufacturing glitches that had nearly wrecked his company. There was the entire shipment of 10,000 earphones that Sleek Audio had to discard because they were improperly welded, a mistake that cost the company millions. Then there were the delivery delays caused by the factory's lackadaisical approach to deadlines, which forced the Krywkos to spend a fortune air-freighting products to the US. Even when orders were produced on schedule, Krywko wasn't too pleased with the situation: The company always had precious cash tied up in inventory that took months to arrive after the prototypes had been approved.
The headaches had finally become too exasperating to bear. And so, on that flight, he turned to Jason and said that he was done with Dongguan. "I can't do it anymore," he said. "Let's bring it home."
Jason had been thinking the same thing.
When the Krywkos returned to the US, they searched for a manufacturing partner with the tools and expertise to produce their earphones. They found one just a few miles away from their Palmetto, Florida, headquarters: Dynamic Innovations, a maker of ruggedized computers and other equipment. Sleek Audio quickly signed up.
Today, a year since Krywko's decision to go against the offshoring tide, Sleek Audio has a full-scale manufacturing operation that can be reached via a 15-minute car ride rather than a 24-hour flight. Each earphone costs roughly 50 percent more to produce in Florida than in China. But Krywko is more than happy to pay the premium to know that botched orders and shipping delays won't ruin his company. And so far, the gambit appears to be paying off: Based on enthusiastic customer response, Sleek Audio is now projecting 2011 to be its most profitable year ever.
For US firms, the decision to manufacture overseas has long seemed a no-brainer. Labor costs in China and other developing nations have been so cheap that as recently as two or three years ago, anyone who refused to offshore was viewed as a dinosaur, certain to go extinct as bolder companies built the future in Asia. But stamping out products in Guangdong Province is no longer the bargain it once was, and US manufacturing is no longer as expensive. As the labor equation has balanced out, companies--particularly the small to medium-size businesses that make up the innovative guts of America's technology industry--are taking a long, hard look at the downsides of extending their supply chains to the other side of the planet.
"Companies are looking to base their decisions on more than just costs," says Simon Ellis, head of supply-chain strategies practice at IDC Manufacturing Insights, a market research firm. "They're looking to shorten lead times, to reduce the inventory they have to carry." When accounting giant KPMG International recently asked 196 senior executives to list their top concerns for 2011 and 2012, labor costs ranked below product quality and fluctuations in shipping rates and currency values. And 19 percent of the companies that responded to an October survey by MFG.com, an online sourcing marketplace, said they had recently brought all or part of their manufacturing back to North America from overseas, up from 12 percent in the first quarter of 2010. This is one reason US factories managed to add 136,000 jobs last year--the first increase in manufacturing employment since 1997.
The US certainly isn't on the verge of recapturing its past industrial glory, nor can every business benefit by fleeing China. But those that actually build tangible goods should no longer assume that "Made in the USA" is an unaffordable luxury. Unless a company is hell-bent on selling the cheapest goods possible, manufacturing at home makes more sense than it has in a generation.
China's big manufacturing advantage has been cheap labor, but wages--while still low compared with those in the US--have risen sharply in recent years.
By BBC World News Service
May 19, 2011
Police in China say they are seeking a man who allegedly threw an egg and shoes at the designer of the country's Great Firewall of web controls.
Fang Binxing was lecturing at Wuhan University, Hubei province, when the alleged protest took place.
Reports of the attack spread quickly on Twitter after a user named Hanunyi posted his account of the incident.
Mr Fang is reviled by many Chinese web users for overseeing development of China's system of internet censorship.
The computer scientist, who is Principal of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, has been dubbed the Father of the Great Firewall.
'The egg missed'
An officer at Luojiashan Public Security Bureau confirmed police were investigating the alleged attack, AP news agency reported.
Hanunyi posted a live account of the alleged shoe-throw on his profile page, including a picture of a hand clutching an egg.
"The egg missed the target. The first shoe hit the target. The second shoe was blocked by a man and a woman," he tweeted.
The Great Firewall, also known as the Golden Shield Project, blocks thousands of websites, including those linked to the Dalai Lama and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
It also filters keyword searches for sensitive topics such as Tibet or Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel prize-winning dissident.
According to some Twitter users, searches for "hanunyi" have also been blocked since the alleged attack on Mr Fang took place.
China's government has invested heavily in controlling the internet, recently setting up a body to monitor censorship: the State Internet Information Office.
By Sophia Fang | The Epoch Times
May 15, 2011
After a series of recent food scares in China--bright green buns on supermarket shelves, bean sprouts tainted with banned food additives--were brought to light in editorials and news articles in the Chinese press, one newspaper went a step further.
A May 5 report by Southern Weekly titled "Low-key Farming" exposed the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) decades-long practice of operating private farms, guaranteeing that high-level officials are flush with safe vegetables and healthy meat while the public's food supply remains hopelessly compromised.
Every step in growing the fruits and vegetables for these Party leaders is closely scrutinized to ensure they are clear of pollutants and safe to eat.
Food safety scares in recent years have worried many in China about the food they consume. Scandals involving tainted-milk powder, lean meat powder, and tainted buns have become a daily concern for Chinese people.
Located in Wangjiachang of Liqiao township in Beijing's Shunyi District, "Beijing Customs Vegetable Farm and Country Club" provides vegetables exclusively to Beijing Customs District's officials. The farm is on 200 mu (33 acres) of land and is surrounded by a two meter high fence and guarded by five guards.
Only organic fertilizers and biological pesticides are used. The workers at this farm are known to eat freshly picked cucumbers without first washing them.
A state-owned training and test center in Guangdong Province is a forerunner in operating these private food supply farms; they started hiring local villagers to plant vegetables and raise pigs, fish, chickens, and ducks in the center since a decade ago, the report said.
A Beijing resident told New Tang Dynasty TV about a similar farm in Hebei for Beijing's Education Department. "They have everything there, fish, vegetables, all cared for by their own people. The department's officials share the produce, and that's what they eat."
A Southern Weekly reporter called the 103 'green product' suppliers for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and found many still maintain a close relationship with government agencies.
Such private food supply farms are all over China. High-quality foods are sold in bulk to provincial governments, food bureaus, agriculture bureaus, and other departments. Average consumers don't enjoy the quality of food in this private supply chain, Southern Weekly's report said.
Nearly 90 percent of food sold in China contains additives, of which there are 2,000 types. An average adult consumes 80 to 90 different types of additives per day, a May 9 People's Daily report said.
The food safety scandal reported by the Chinese media and Internet is only the tip of the iceberg, says Zhou Qing, a Chinese writer living in Germany.
In 2004 Zhou authored a book on the topic, What Kind of God: A Survey of the Current Safety of China's Food. In a Radio Free Asia article he said Chinese do not trust any food manufacturers because the regime deliberately hides the truth and suppresses media from reporting negative news.
Despite recent food safety scandals, the Chinese regime's head of food safety Zhang Yong claimed last Friday that the overall situation of food safety was good.
Zhang's claim that food in China is safe has been under attack by Chinese netizens. Many Chinese are also indignant about the "private food supply farms" reported by Southern Weekly.
The State Council might ban reports on tainted food in the wake of the 90 year anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, Southern Metropolitan reported on May 7. The article about "low-key farming" on Southern Weekly has already been taken down, although it can still be found in the web cache.
"Everything we eat contains toxic substances. A neighbor told me that his daycare-age daughter is developing breasts! They do not even know which food caused it," a Shanghai resident told Sound of Hope Radio, "You can hardly prevent it. Vegetables are simply loaded with chemical fertilizer and pesticide."
By Dan Bilefsky | The New York Times
May 14, 2011
China has tried to suppress a report at the United Nations suggesting that North Korea and Iran have been routinely sharing ballistic missile technology, United Nations diplomats said Saturday, expressing concern that Beijing was again working to shield the North.
The report, by a United Nations panel of experts, said prohibited "ballistic missile-related items" were suspected of being transferred between North Korea and Iran in breach of United Nations sanctions against North Korea. It said the transfers were believed to be taking place on regular scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air, using air cargo hubs that had less stringent security than passenger terminals.
The panel's findings, first reported by Reuters, said that the technology transfers had "trans-shipment through a neighboring third country." The report did not specify which, but several United Nations diplomats identified that country as China, North Korea's neighbor and most important ally.
The report was submitted to Security Council members over the weekend, but had been delayed for days before that after the Chinese expert on the panel refused to sign off on the report.
"The Chinese expert refused to sign the report, under pressure from Beijing, and this raises serious issues about a panel of experts that is supposed to be free from political interference," said a senior United Nations diplomat, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue.
The panel is charged with monitoring the North's compliance with United Nations sanctions, including a ban on trading nuclear and missile technology, an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of several North Korean individuals. Sanctions were imposed on North Korea after it conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and in 2009. North Korea has also conducted a battery of missile tests that have yielded mixed results, and it has come under scrutiny for selling its nuclear and missile technology.
China has in the past tried to block reports on North Korea and Sudan, and earlier this week Russia moved to suppress a deeply critical expert panel report on Iran. Both Russia and China, which are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, typically cleave to the view that the world body should not impinge upon the sovereignty of member countries.
By Keith Bradsher | The New York Times
May 09, 2011
In the latest sign of China's continuing crackdown on domestic critics, a prominent Chinese writer has been barred from leaving China to attend a literary festival next week in Australia, the writer and festival officials said Monday.
The writer, Liao Yiwu, is a poet, author and musician who went to prison for four years after the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989 for composing a strongly worded eulogy for the fallen. Some of his more recent writings on people at the margins of life in China, including a professional funeral mourner and a grave robber, have been compiled in a translated book, "The Corpse Walker."
Mr. Liao said in a telephone interview that security officials had invited him to a teahouse in his hometown of Chengdu and informed him that he had not been granted permission to leave the country to attend the Sydney Writers' Festival. The officials did not provide a reason, Mr. Liao said, adding, "I was politely treated."
The travel ban on Mr. Liao is a reminder that China restricts free speech beyond the more widely reported detentions and disappearances of bloggers, writers and lawyers this spring, the biggest such crackdown in years.
Mr. Liao was also denied permission last month to attend the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature in New York, where he had been scheduled to speak on April 25. The chairman of that festival, Salman Rushdie, criticized the travel prohibition as "an extremely unfortunate statement on the part of Chinese authorities about its willingness to engage in free and open cultural exchange."
Editorial | The New York Times
May 06, 2011
China's harassment of human rights activists and the lawyers who defend them is well known. But Beijing's contempt for the law doesn't stop there. It is increasingly harassing and jailing lawyers who represent criminal defendants. As a result, many have become too fearful to collect evidence or provide their clients a robust defense.
Li Zhuang went on trial last month for allegedly fabricating evidence in support of one of his clients. As Ian Johnson reported in The Times, many in China believe the lawyer was framed for pushing back against corruption. Three days later, prosecutors dropped the charges, likely because the case had drawn so much attention at home and abroad. But Mr. Li remains in prison for a previous conviction on a similar made-up charge and Caixin, a Chinese news Web site, reported that a law firm where Mr. Li worked remains "under criminal investigation."
Criminal lawyers in China have long spoken of "Three Difficulties": how hard it is for them to meet with clients, collect evidence about their cases and review the evidence gathered by the prosecution. Now, the phrase is used to describe how risky it is to do the work -- period.
They point in particular to article 306 of China's Criminal Law -- "Big Stick 306" -- that they say gives prosecutors unlimited power to intimidate lawyers and derail defenses. Any defense lawyer accused of fabricating evidence or inducing a witness to change his testimony, as Mr. Li was, can be immediately detained, arrested and prosecuted for perjury. Although the majority of lawyers prosecuted have been acquitted, the long, demeaning process of investigation is severe punishment.
Sida Liu and Terence Halliday, who study the Chinese legal system, estimate hundreds of defense lawyers have been prosecuted under "Big Stick 306." They say it is why "the vast majority of Chinese lawyers do not collect their own evidence in criminal cases."
If lawyers don't gather evidence to defend clients, they lack a critical tool for making sure the state applies its power fairly. China can make no claim to seriousness about the rule of law until it guarantees the rights of lawyers to do their job.
By Michael Wines | The New York Times
04 May 2011
A powerful arm of China's government said Wednesday that it had created a new central agency to regulate every corner of the nation's vast Internet community, a move that appeared to complement a continuing crackdown on political dissidents and other social critics.
But the vaguely worded announcement left unclear whether the new agency, the State Internet Information Office, would in fact supersede a welter of ministries and other government offices that already claim jurisdiction over parts of cyberspace.
China's State Council Information Office said it was transferring its own staff of Internet regulators to the new agency, which would operate under its jurisdiction. Among many other duties, the agency will direct "online content management;" supervise online gaming, video and publications; promote major news Web sites; and oversee online government propaganda. The agency will also have authority to investigate and punish violators of online content rules, and it will oversee the huge telecommunications companies that provide access for Internet users and content providers alike.
The State Council is a cabinetlike agency that effectively manages the government's day-to-day operations. Two former officials at its Information Office will run the new agency, and executives from two central ministries -- public security and information technology -- will also serve in senior positions, the announcement stated.
The mushrooming growth of China's Internet business has spawned a sort of land rush for regulatory turf by government agencies that see in it a chance to gain more authority or more money, or both. At least 14 government units, from the culture and information technology ministries to offices that oversee films and books, have some hand in what appears on China's Internet. Others have interests in Internet-related ventures like the sale of censorship software that could prove to be lucrative sources of income.
Wednesday's announcement indicated that the new office would work with other government units that regulate parts of the Internet, which could dilute internal opposition. But the sweeping nature of the announcement left some experts unconvinced.
"My guess is that it's going to be quite a fight for these existing regulators to give up power, because it's such a big and lucrative endeavor," Bill Bishop, a Beijing-based independent analyst of the Internet industry, said an interview. "It's not clear from this announcement, either in English or Chinese, whether the new agency is going to oversee them or coordinate with them."
By Tania Branigan | The Guardian (UK)
April 28, 2011
Senior US envoy Michael Posner puts pressure on Beijing over detained and missing dissidents during diplomatic talks
China has experienced a "serious backsliding" in human rights, according to the US official handling bilateral talks on the issue on a visit to Beijing.
Assistant secretary of state Michael Posner said the Obama administration was deeply concerned about the deterioration, as he concluded two days of discussions in the Chinese capital.
Dozens of dissidents, activists and lawyers have been detained, arrested or have vanished in the last two months. Both the US and China had made unusually strong comments on the issue in the runup to the talks.
"There is no question that the atmosphere [this time] was different, because the facts are different," Posner told a press conference at the US embassy in Beijing on Thursday. He added: "It was not a discussion where voices were raised, but it was was very much based on the facts and the facts are not good."
Posner said he had raised the high-profile case of detained artist Ai Weiwei, adding: "We certainly did not get an answer that satisfies."
But he expressed particular concern about rights lawyers including Teng Biao, who has been missing for two months, and Chen Guangcheng , who has been unable to leave his home since his release from prison last year.
"[Teng] is exactly the sort of person society wants and needs to be available to represent clients who are on the margin," he said.
He also voiced concern for Gao Zhsisheng, a lawyer who has not been seen for a year, and Liu Xia. Friends have been almost entirely unable to contact the poet since early October, shortly after her husband, jailed writer Liu Xiaobo, won the Nobel peace prize.
"That isn't to say there are not concerns about people going through the legal process. But the most unsettling and disturbing thing is when people simply disappear," added Posner, who leads on democracy, human rights and labour issues.
He said the US had also raised concerns about religious issues, the treatment of journalists and bloggers, and the situation for Tibetans and Uighurs.
While critics have expressed concerns that the dialogue allows human rights to be marginalised, Posner said it was only part of the bilateral discussions on the issue and that human rights would also be on the agenda at the strategic and economic dialogue in the US next month.
China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the dialogue had consisted of "frank and thorough exchanges on issues of mutual concern".
He added: "At the same time we oppose the United States using human rights to interfere in China's internal affairs."
Earlier, the state-run Global Times wrote in an editorial that most Chinese people "were disgusted" by outside pressure on human rights.
"As China is a sovereign nation, there is zero possibility of it allowing the US to dictate its political development," it added.
Police have released Zuoxiao Zuzhou, a rock star who is close friends with Ai Weiwei, according to friends. The musician was detained on Wednesday.
The Associated Press said Zuoxiao and a sports writer he was travelling with, Zhang Xiaodan, were released after questioning.
Several more friends and colleagues of the 53-year-old artist are still missing. Ai was detained at Beijing airport on 3 April. Officials say he is under investigation on suspicion of economic crimes, but police have not informed his family that they are detaining him and relatives say the case is retaliation for his social and political activism.
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