Doing business in China: July 2009 Archives

By John Grobler - Mail&Guardian (South Africa)
July 27, 2009

In yet another example of sharp Chinese diplomatic elbows in African business it has emerged that the China National Machinery & Equipment Import & Export Company (CMEC) tried to charge Namibia nearly four times the going rate for the installation of a rail link to the Angolan border town of Oshikango.

On Wednesday the chief of the Namibian Defence Force, General Martin Shalli, was suspended by President Hifikepunye Pohamba in connection with an alleged $250 000 (R1,9-million) kickback from a Chinese company.

Shalli is suspected of taking the bribe while serving as Namibia's high commissioner to Zambia, in return for facilitating an arms deal.

Documents obtained by the Mail & Guardian show that CMEC offered to complete the 60km link between Ondongwa and Oshikango for a whopping R1,063-billion.

Since 2005 it has cost about R900-million to complete the first 250km from Tsumeb to Ondangwa.

The new section was to be financed under a special $100-million "concessional loan" facility, offered by Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, during his visit to Namibia early last year. The same facility was to be used for a controversial industrial X-ray equipment deal that is now threatening to engulf Hu's son, Haifeng, as well.

In a memorandum to his seniors on April 19, Robert Kalomho, the acting railway director, pointed out that the Chinese offer was more than four times as much as a bid from a local company, partnering with Italian industrial giant Lucchini.

The Chinese wanted R290-million for the rails and R773-million for the installation, documents showed. By comparison, the competitors had offered to do the same job for a total of R250-million, Kalomho noted.

>> Complete report

By Brian Womack - Bloomberg.com
21 July 2009

The Chinese government restricted access to more social-networking sites in the past few days, escalating a clampdown that started about six months ago, said Xia Qiang, director of the Berkeley China Internet Project.

The sites that are inaccessible or aren't working properly include Fanfou, Digu, Zuosa and Jiwai, said Qiang, who is an adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley in California. Those sites work like Twitter, allowing users to post information quickly before editors can review their submissions, Qiang said.

"It turns out one of the very interesting functions of those sites is the news and opinions is getting circulated very quickly," Qiang said. That makes it much harder for authorities to keep control, he said.

Internet users in China had difficulty logging on to Facebook and other social-networking sites earlier this month following ethnic clashes in western China that left more than 150 people dead. Access to Google Inc.'s YouTube, a video- sharing site, and the Twitter messaging service also has been limited.

When accessed from San Francisco, the Digu and Zuosa Web sites said they were closed for maintenance today, according to postings on their home pages. Fanfou wasn't available as of 11 a.m. San Francisco time. The Web site of Jiwai appeared to be working.

Bing, Twitter

Twitter and Microsoft Corp.'s new Bing.com search engine were inaccessible in Beijing in June, around the time of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Facebook, the most visited social-networking site, continues to receive reports of users having problems accessing the site in China, Debbie Frost, a spokeswoman for Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, said today.

>> Original report

By RADIO FREE ASIA
17 July 2009

Chinese authorities in Beijing have closed a legal research center and revoked the licenses of more than 50 attorneys in a bid to exert greater control over activists.

Some 20 officials from Beijing's Civil Affairs Bureau arrived early Friday at the Open Constitution Initiative [in Chinese, Gongmeng] rights organization's legal research center.

The officials questioned employees about their work and confiscated computers from the center's offices.

The legal center researches public welfare and withoffers legal aid, including recently representing the parents of children sickened by milk tainted by the industrial chemical melamine.

The center was shut down two days after Beijing's Tax Bureau fined the Open Constitution Initiative 1.4 million yuan (U.S. $200,000), claiming the group had not paid taxes, which the group denies.

Lawyers have arranged a hearing with the bureau and say that the full amount of taxes has been paid.

Tian Qizhuang, chief executive officer of the Open Constitution Initiative, said the group neither provided the tax bureau with fake bookkeeping nor intended to evade taxes.

"Their accusations suggest that there were funds that were not recorded and reported as income. The fact of the matter is the fund they were referring to just arrived, and we didn't even have time to do the bookkeeping."

"We never intended to hide any income records," Tian said.

Both the State Administration of Taxation and the Beijing Local Taxation Bureau refused to comment.

Lu Jun, a lawyer from another Beijing-based NGO, said authorities were making an example of the Open Constitution Initiative.

"We have discovered as we have been doing our job that the authorities neither trust nor like the NGOs, especially those that are independently operated," Lu said.

"The closure of the Open Constitution Initiative is purely a crackdown and retaliation with political motives. This is meant to send a warning message to similar independently run NGOs," he said.

Revoked licenses

The Beijing Justice Bureau also posted a list of 53 local lawyers on its Web site last week, saying it had revoked their licenses for failing assessments by their firms or failing to register with the bureau.

One of the listed lawyers, Jiang Tianyong, said in an interview that he was never notified about the cancellation in person and learned about it only through the bureau's public announcement.

"Since authorities have said that this was only the first group, there might be a second and a third group. Of course by releasing the names of the first group, the authorities might just want to issue a warning to other lawyers," Jiang said.

He recently defended a Tibetan charged with concealing weapons in an area of China where anti-government protests occurred.

"Also, this is the first time that authorities have made such a highprofile announcement of this kind," he said.

Another listed lawyer, Li Heping, said he was frustrated by the license revocation because the disbarred attorneys had been working hard to "safeguard the rule of law."

"They truly embraced the rule of law, and they truly had a belief in the rule of law," Li said.

"If these lawyers are sacked, the message from authorities could be interpreted only as saying that our legal system is bogus: 'Don't ever trust us, or this kind of outcome could be your destiny,'" he said.

An employee at the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau Law Enforcement Unit, reached for comment, said he wasn't authorized to comment.

Outcry raised

Amnesty International issued a statement condemning the crackdown.

"There are only a tiny group of lawyers left in China who are brave enough to take the risk of representing victims of human rights violations," said Roseann Rife, the group's Asia-Pacific deputy director.

"A further crackdown against human rights lawyers is a major blow not only to these legal professionals but to the human rights defense movement in China."

Human Rights Watch called the closure of the Open Constitution Initiative and the disbarment of the 53 Beijing lawyers "a sharp intensification of official efforts to silence China's human rights defenders."

"The attack on OCI marks a new low in the Chinese government's campaign against human rights defenders," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

"This is precisely the kind of organization whose work the government should value, as it helps ease grievances and minimize unrest."

Original reporting by Xin Yu for RFA's Mandarin service and by Ji Lisi and Li Ruoqing for RFA's Cantonese service. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Translation by Xiaoming Feng. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

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