Recently in Made in (The People's Republic of) China Category

By Radio Free Asia
September 14, 2009

Chinese authorities detain parents observing the anniversary of a far-reaching milk scandal that sickened their children.

Three parents of children sickened in China's 2008 tainted-milk scandal were detained after observing the one-year anniversary of the milk scandal, and another who planned to join them has been taken to an unofficial "black prison," victims' parents say.

Guo Caihong and Zhou Jinzhong from central Henan province and Xiang Qingyu from southern Jiangsu province met last Friday at a restaurant in suburban Beijing's Daxing county, parents said. But authorities then detained and questioned them.

Milk powder contaminated with an industrial chemical killed at least six babies and sickened nearly 300,000 others with painful kidney stones last year. Friday marked one year since Sept. 11, 2008, when a Chinese dairy recalled hundreds of tons of baby formula and the government vowed "serious punishment" for those responsible.

Chinese authorities are jittery and eager to crack down on dissent ahead of the 60th anniversary of Chinese Communist Party on Oct. 1. Police have arrested or detained leading dissidents and are harassing lawyers who defend them.

Zhao Lianhai, a representative of victims' parents, said a local official from Henan contacted Guo Caihong on Friday and promised to take her home from Beijing.

"But on Saturday afternoon, a volunteer told me that the three parents had been taken by their respective local officials to an unknown place instead of home. When they were led away, local police were there as well," Mr. Zhao said.

Zhou Jinzhong, one of the three parents, described what has happened.

"On Saturday, I was taken away by staff members from the Henan Province Office in Beijing, and then they questioned me. Now I am with local officials from our township and our village. I will be heading home tomorrow," Zhou said in an interview Monday.

He said the two other parents received similar treatment.

Another parent of a tainted-milk victim, Liu Hai from Siyang city, had planned to attend anniversary activities in Beijing but was sent to a "law study group," an unofficial detention center also known as a "black prison."

"My husband has been taken away by an office of the local government," Liu's wife said.

"This is the news his uncle managed to get through his connections. For me this is the end of the world."

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 Sarah Jackson-Han.

>> Original source

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
10 September 2009

Chinese police have tried to prevent parents of children sickened by tainted milk powder from traveling to Beijing to mark the anniversary of last year's scandal, an activist said Thursday.

Milk powder contaminated with an industrial chemical killed at least six babies and sickened nearly 300,000 others with painful kidney stones -- making it one of China's worst food safety scandals.

Zhao Lianhai, the father of a sickened child who has rallied other families through a Web site he created, said 11 parents had planned to hold a small commemoration in Beijing on Friday with a dinner, lighting of candles and prayers for the children.

''The scandal has affected a whole generation of China's future,'' Zhao said in a phone interview. ''This day is a humiliation for all Chinese. It is a national disaster. We should have the courage to remember this day.''

Friday marks one year since Sept. 11, 2008, when a Chinese dairy recalled hundreds of tons of baby formula and the government vowed ''serious punishment'' for those responsible for the contamination, days after the scandal was first reported in Chinese media.

The commemoration also comes amid efforts by Chinese authorities to curb dissent in the lead-up to the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party's rule. Police have arrested or detained leading dissidents and are harassing lawyers who defend them. The Oct. 1 celebration will be marked by a military parade.

Liu Hai, a father whose two children developed kidney stones after taking tainted milk powder, said he was detained by police Wednesday in Kunshan city of Jiangsu province while waiting for a train. The police told him they had to stop him because he was headed to an ''illegal gathering,'' Liu said by phone while being taken in a county government car to his hometown of Siyang.

An official at the Kunshan police propaganda department who refused to give his name said he has no information about Liu's case.

Zhao said in the days running up to the anniversary, several parents have reported being warned by police that their group was an illegal organization. However, Beijing's public security bureau on Thursday issued him a letter saying the anniversary event had been approved. The discrepancy in official positions on the commemoration could not immediately be explained.

>> Original source

By Keith Bradsher | The New York Times
01 September 2009

China is set to tighten its hammerlock on the market for some of the world's most obscure but valuable minerals.

China currently accounts for 93 percent of production of so-called rare earth elements -- and more than 99 percent of the output for two of these elements, vital for a wide range of green energy technologies and military applications like missiles.

Deng Xiaoping once observed that the Mideast had oil, but China had rare earth elements. As the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has done with oil, China is now starting to flex its muscle.

Even tighter limits on production and exports, part of a plan from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, would ensure China has the supply for its own technological and economic needs, and force more manufacturers to make their wares here in order to have access to the minerals.

In each of the last three years, China has reduced the amount of rare earths that can be exported. This year's export quotas are on track to be the smallest yet. But what is really starting to alarm Western governments and multinationals alike is the possibility that exports will be further restricted.

Chinese officials will almost certainly be pressed to address the issue at a conference Thursday in Beijing. What they say could influence whether Australian regulators next week approve a deal by a Chinese company to acquire a majority stake in Australia's main rare-earth mine.

The detention of executives from the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has already increased tensions.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has drafted a six-year plan for rare earth production and submitted it to the State Council, the equivalent of the cabinet, according to four mining industry officials who have discussed the plan with Chinese officials. A few, often contradictory, details of the plan have leaked out, but it appears to suggest tighter restrictions on exports, and strict curbs on environmentally damaging mines.

Beijing officials are forcing global manufacturers to move factories to China by limiting the availability of rare earths outside China. "Rare earth usage in China will be increasingly greater than exports," said Zhang Peichen, the deputy director of the government-linked Baotou Rare Earth Research Institute.

Some of the minerals crucial to green technologies are extracted in China using methods that inflict serious damage on the local environment. China dominates global rare earth production partly because of its willingness until now to tolerate highly polluting, low-cost mining.

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By Francois Bougon | Agence France Presse AFP | via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
August 23, 2009

HENGJIANG, China (AFP) - The landscape near Hengjiang village offers a picture-postcard view of China, with rice paddies, water buffaloes and rolling green hills. It seems an unlikely spot to find industrial pollution.

But more than 1,300 children in this rural part of central Hunan province have tested positive for suspected lead poisoning, caused by a nearby manganese smelting plant, and parents are worried, confused and scared about the future.

"In late July, the children here started feeling unwell -- they had headaches, they couldn't sleep and were generally quite weak," said one 40-year-old man whose 13-year-old daughter has been affected.

The man, who refused to give his name for fear of trouble with the local authorities, said a group of parents complained to officials at the Wugang Manganese Smelting Plant in Wenping town, but they were ignored.

Now, the factory has been shut down, two plant executives have been detained, one is on the run, and two officials from the local environmental protection bureau are under investigation for dereliction of duty.

Another smelting plant in northern Shaanxi province was ordered to close its doors this month after more than 850 children were found to have lead poisoning, according to official reports.

The twin incidents highlight how China's rapid industrialisation over the last 30 years has led to widespread environmental damage, resulting in some of the world's worst water and air pollution.

Many poverty-stricken regions in China's rural interior have allowed the establishment of high-polluting industries without the necessary environmental standards in a desperate bid to boost economic growth, state media has said.

The manganese plant in Wenping -- which residents say has been spewing black smoke and dust since it opened more than a year ago -- was unlicensed, state media reported.

It is located within 500 metres (yards) of a primary school, a middle school and a nursery, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

In both Hunan and Shaanxi, angry villagers protested, demanding answers.

So far, they don't have any, and they fear for their children's future.

The father of the 13-year-old girl in Hengjiang says the lead level in her blood was 120 milligrams per litre -- surpassing the normal reading of between zero and 100 milligrams. His nine-year-old son so far is healthy.

"Most of the cases so far have not been that serious, but we really don't know what is going on. It's the unknown that scares us," he said.

Another villager, who also asked not to be named, approached, clutching requests sent to four local children to undergo secondary exams at a hospital in the provincial capital Changsha.

"They gave us initial results, and now they want to do new tests -- what does that mean?" he said.

In preliminary tests, 1,354 children -- 70 percent of those under the age of 14 in four villages near the plant including Hengjiang -- were found to have elevated lead levels in their blood.

A reading of more than 200 milligrams is considered hazardous. Children are more vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can harm the nervous system and impair motor skills.

The lead poisoning scare comes less than a year after China was rocked by a massive contaminated milk scandal. Six infants died and 300,000 fell ill after consuming products tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical.

"The reason why children are often victims here is specific to China," Zhao Lianhai, who leads an activist group for parents whose children consumed bad milk, told AFP.

"There is a lack of responsibility, and of willingness to investigate to the end to find out who is responsible. Officials protect each other, and there is a laissez-faire attitude towards their corruption."

Near the Wugang plant, one villager lambasted a local Communist Party boss who criticised the factory's failure to abide by environmental standards in the local press.

"On the day the plant opened its doors, he was there," the man said with visible disdain.

>> Original source

By RADIO FREE ASIA
August 13, 2009

Chinese writer Tan Zuoren goes on trial, and supporters say his plan to issue an independent report on last year's deadly earthquake is the reason.

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have detained dozens of relatives of schoolchildren killed in a devastating 2008 earthquake after they tried to attend the high-profile trial of writer Tan Zuoren.

Sang Jun, whose child died when the Mianzhu Fuxin No. 2 Elementary School collapsed in the May 12 quake, said several hundred parents had tried to enter the public gallery of the Chengdu Municipal Intermediate People's Court on Wednesday.

"There were several parents detained who were representing each school [in the earthquake region]," Sang said.

"A lot of people were taken to the Huangzhong police station, and they haven't yet been released."

"We went there to find them, and the police made us wait outside. There [were] about 400-500 people outside the police station waiting," he added.

Parents from Shifang city, Beichuan county, and Dujiangyan township in the areas worst-hit by the quake had all traveled to the provincial capital to try to attend the trial, which was adjourned without a verdict Wednesday, Sang's lawyer said.

Defamation charge

Tan Zuoren is formally accused of defaming the Communist Party in e-mailed comments about 1989's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators around Tiananmen Square.

But activists say he was detained because he planned to issue an independent report on the collapse of school buildings during the Sichuan earthquake, in which more than 80,000 people died.

Official figures show that 5,335 children died in the quake, although unofficial sources say the number could be as high as 10,000.

Top Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was also outside the courthouse, where he said he was beaten by police.

"I took issue with the legality of their actions, so they turned on me and started beating me," said Ai, who is also a blogger and social commentator and the designer of Beijing's emblematic "Bird's Nest" stadium, which formed the centerpiece of the 2008 Olympics.

>> Complete report