News: November 2008 Archives
By Steven Erlanger | INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
November 26, 2008
PARIS: China has postponed an annual summit with the European Union originally scheduled for next Monday, the Europeans said in a statement on Wednesday. The Chinese were evidently angered by a new visit to several European countries by the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
"The European Union, which set ambitious aims for the 11th European Union-China summit, takes note and regrets this decision by China," the statement said. According to the Europeans, the Chinese "said their decision was due to the fact that the Dalai Lama will at the same time undertake a new visit in several countries of the union and will meet on this occasion heads of state and government."
One of those leaders is President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who intends to meet the Dalai Lama in Poland in December at a ceremony honoring Lech Walesa, the anti-Communist leader of Solidarity and later Polish president. France holds the presidency of the European Union until the end of the year, so the Chinese postponement is thought to be aimed at France more than at the other nations of the union.
Two weeks ago, China warned that the planned meeting could hurt relations between France and China, but Sarkozy had already side-stepped a meeting with the Dalai Lama earlier this year in France to avoid offending the Chinese, though he sent his wife, Carla, and his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, to represent France.
Relations were strained before the Beijing Olympics when Sarkozy, pressed by public opinion after the latest Chinese crackdown in Tibet, said that his presence as European Union president at the games would depend on progress in talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama's envoys on the future of Tibet. The progress was considered scant and temporary, but it was sufficient for Sarkozy to attend.
By Andrew Jacobs | THE NEW YORK TIMES
November 25, 2008
The Chinese government reacted angrily on Monday to what it called a slanderous United Nations report that alleges systemic torture of political and criminal detainees. The government said the authors were biased, untruthful and driven by a political agenda.
The report, issued Friday by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, documented what the authors described as widespread abuse in the Chinese legal system, one that often gains convictions through forced confessions.
The report recounts China's use of "secret prisons" and the widespread harassment of lawyers who take on rights cases, and it criticizes the government's extralegal system of punishment, known as re-education through labor, which hands down prison terms to dissidents without judicial review.
"The state party should conduct prompt, impartial and effective investigations into all allegations of torture and ill treatment and should ensure that those responsible are prosecuted," said the report, which was written by a 10-member committee of independent experts.
Qin Gang, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, called the document "untrue and slanderous," and said that China cherished human rights and opposed torture. "To our regret, some biased committee members, in drafting the observations, chose to ignore the substantial materials provided by the Chinese Government," he said in a statement posted Monday on the ministry's Web site, adding that they "even fabricated some unverified information." The ministry did not describe the material it had provided to the United Nations committee.
The report's publication is another embarrassment for the Communist Party, which has been striving to demonstrate its commitment to human rights. Last month, the government was infuriated by the European Union's decision to honor Hu Jia, one of the country's best-known dissidents, who is serving a three-and-a-half year prison term for subversion; last week, China was angered by a United States Congressional report that criticized what it called China's failure to fulfill a pledge to improve human rights leading up to the Olympic Games and during them.
"Illegal detentions and harassment of dissidents and petitioners followed the Chinese government and Communist Party's instructions to officials to ensure a 'harmonious' and dissent-free Olympics," the report said. "Individuals detained for circulating a 'We Want Human Rights, Not Olympics' petition are now serving sentences in prison and 're-education through labor' centers."
Although China's Constitution includes provisions to protect human rights and China has ratified numerous international conventions banning torture, public security officials frequently use coercion to gain signed confessions. "I have yet to see a political case in which the person was not tortured or mistreated," said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher based in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch. Even though torture is technically illegal under Chinese law, he added, there is no explicit prohibition against evidence obtained through coercion.
Human rights advocates say that the government's crackdown on dissenters has not let up since the Games, when petitioners seeking permission to demonstrate in parks officially designated for protests were whisked away by the police.
The most recent cases include that of Guo Quan, an associate professor at Nanjing Normal University, who was detained on Nov. 13 on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power" after he established an independent political party. Earlier, Liu Xueli, a farmer from Henan Province whose land had been confiscated by local officials, sought a protest permit during the Olympics and was sentenced to re-education through labor.
On Friday, a court in Chengdu handed down a three-year sentence to Chen Daojun, a journalist and environmental advocate who was convicted of "inciting to subvert state power." Mr. Chen was detained in May after he published articles on the Tibetan quest for greater autonomy and the spate of anti-Western demonstrations that erupted across China after the Olympic torch relay was disrupted by protesters in Paris, London and San Francisco.
Although prosecutors accused Mr. Chen, 40, of slandering the Communist Party, his lawyer, Zhu Jiuhu, suggested that the authorities might have been especially irked by Mr. Chen's participation in a demonstration this year opposing the construction of a petrochemical plant near Chengdu. Mr. Zhu said he was denied access to his client; the trial, he added, lasted less than an hour. "We tried our hardest," he said.
In an interview on Monday, Mr. Chen's wife, Zeng Qirong, said she had not seen her husband since he was taken into custody. She said he had often written literary criticism or articles about rural life.
The detention, she said, would be particularly onerous for the couple's 10-year-old son and Mr. Chen's sickly parents. "The process was not fair," she said of the trial. "They were only articles. It was his own opinion. He was only describing the way society is."
By Dave Itzkoff | The New York Times
November 24, 2008
It's no secret how the Chinese government feels about democracy. Now it has weighed in on "Chinese Democracy," too. The Associated Press reported that The Global Times, the official tabloid of China's Communist Party, published a withering critique of the new Guns N' Roses album, "Chinese Democracy." Without referring to the group by name, The newspaper headlined its story "American band releases album venomously attacking China" and described the record as part of a larger Western conspiracy to "grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn." After a delay of nearly 17 years, "Chinese Democracy" was released in the United States on Sunday, but with lyrics like "When your Great Wall rocks, blame yourself," it is unlikely to ever reach Chinese stores.
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Agence France Presse - via UNCENSORED Yahoo! TECH News
November 22, 2008
China reacted angrily Saturday to a US congressional report that accused Beijing of developing sophisticated cyber warfare and militarising its space programme.
The annual China report to Congress of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was aimed at misleading the public and impeding bilateral cooperation, foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.
"The commission has all along seen China through dark glasses and has deliberately attacked China with slanderous accusations aimed at misleading public opinion and obstructing the development of Sino-US relations," Qin said.
"The report is unworthy of rebuttal and the aims of the commission are doomed to failure," he said in a statement on his ministry's website.
The report issued in Washington Thursday accused China of developing a sophisticated cyber warfare programme aimed at penetrating US computer networks to extract sensitive information.
"China has an active cyber espionage programme," the report said.
"China is targeting US government and commercial computers."
The panel also criticised Beijing of exercising "heavy-handed government control" over its economy and "continuing arms sales and military support to rogue regimes" such as Sudan, Myanmar and Iran.
The commission also issued a warning about China's space programme. "China continues to make significant progress in developing space capabilities, many of which easily translate to enhanced military capacity," it said.
Qin urged the commission to stop issuing such reports and refrain from interfering in China's internal affairs.
By Edward Wong | The New York Times
November 19, 2008
URUMQI, China -- An exhibit on the first floor of the museum here gives the government's unambiguous take on the history of this border region: "Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China," says one prominent sign.
But walk upstairs to the second floor, and the ancient corpses on display seem to tell a different story.
One called the Loulan Beauty lies on her back with her shoulder-length hair matted down, her lips pursed in death, her high cheekbones and long nose the most obvious signs that she is not what one thinks of as Chinese.
The Loulan Beauty is one of more than 200 remarkably well-preserved mummies discovered in the western deserts here over the last few decades. The ancient bodies have become protagonists in a very contemporary political dispute over who should control the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
The Chinese authorities here face an intermittent separatist movement of nationalist Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people who number nine million in Xinjiang.
At the heart of the matter lie these questions: Who first settled this inhospitable part of western China? And for how long has the oil-rich region been part of the Chinese empire?
Uighur nationalists have gleaned evidence from the mummies, whose corpses span thousands of years, to support historical claims to the region.
Foreign scholars say that at the very least, the Tarim mummies -- named after the vast Tarim Basin where they were found -- show that Xinjiang has always been a melting pot, a place where people from various corners of Eurasia founded societies and where cultures overlapped.
Contact between peoples was particularly frequent in the heyday of the Silk Road, when camel caravans transported goods that flowed from as far away as the Mediterranean. "It's historically been a place where cultures have mixed together," said Yidilisi Abuduresula, 58, a Uighur archaeologist in Xinjiang working on the mummies.
The Tarim mummies seem to indicate that the very first people to settle the area came from the west -- down from the steppes of Central Asia and even farther afield -- and not from the fertile plains and river valleys of the Chinese interior. The oldest, like the Loulan Beauty, date back 3,800 years.
Some Uighurs have latched on to the fact that the oldest mummies are most likely from the west as evidence that Xinjiang has belonged to the Uighurs throughout history. A modern, nationalistic pop song praising the Loulan Beauty has even become popular.
"The people found in Loulan were Uighur people, according to the materials," said a Uighur tour guide in the city of Kashgar who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of running afoul of the Chinese authorities. "The nationalities of Xinjiang are very complicated. There have been many since ancient times."
Scholars generally agree that Uighurs did not migrate to what is now Xinjiang from Central Asia until the 10th century. But, uncomfortably for the Chinese authorities, evidence from the mummies also offers a far more nuanced history of settlement than the official Chinese version.
By that official account, Zhang Qian, a general of the Han dynasty, led a military expedition to Xinjiang in the second century B.C. His presence is often cited by the ethnic Han Chinese when making historical claims to the region.
The mummies show, though, that humans entered the region thousands of years earlier, and almost certainly from the west.
What is indisputable is that the Tarim mummies are among the greatest recent archaeological finds in China, perhaps the world.
Four are in glass display cases in the main museum here in Urumqi, the regional capital. Their skin is parched and blackened from the wear and tear of thousands of years, but their bodies are strikingly intact, preserved by the dry climate of the western desert.
Some foreign scholars say the Chinese government, eager to assert a narrative of longtime Chinese dominance of Xinjiang, is unwilling to face the fact that the mummies provide evidence of heterogeneity throughout the region's history of human settlement.
As a result, they say, the government has been unwilling to give broad access to foreign scientists to conduct genetic tests on the mummies.
"In terms of advanced scientific research on the mummies, it's just not happening," said Victor H. Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania who has been at the forefront of foreign scholarship of the mummies.
Mr. Mair first spotted one of the mummies, a red-haired corpse called the Cherchen Man, in the back room of a museum in Urumqi while leading a tour of Americans there in 1988, the first year the mummies were put on display.
Since then, he says that he has been obsessed with pinpointing the origins of the mummies, intent on proving a theory dear to him: that the movement of peoples throughout history is far more common than previously thought.
Mr. Mair has assembled various groups of scholars to do research on the mummies. In 1993, the Chinese government tried to prevent Mr. Mair from leaving China with 52 tissue samples after having authorized him to go to Xinjiang and to collect them.
But a Chinese researcher managed to slip a half-dozen vials to Mr. Mair. From those samples, an Italian geneticist concluded in 1995 that at least two of the mummies had a European genetic marker.
The Chinese government in recent years has allowed genetic research on the mummies to be conducted only by Chinese scientists.
The Associated Press | Los Angeles Times
November 13, 3008
WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials today ordered dozens of imported foods from China held at the border as possible health risks. Most are ethnic treats, including snacks, drinks and chocolates.
It's unusual for the Food and Drug Administration to put such a broad hold on goods from an entire country, not just a few rogue manufacturers. The order, which covers products made with milk, is a precaution to keep out foods contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, which can cause serious kidney problems.
"We've continued to get information from others in the international community, and reports from China, about (melamine contamination) moving into different commodities," said Steve Solomon, a senior FDA enforcement official. "Most of the products we are talking about are finished products like cookies, cakes and candies. The impact will be for various ethnic communities looking for specific products."
Under the directive, FDA inspectors at U.S. ports of entry will detain foods from China made with milk and certain ingredients derived from milk. Importers must pay to have their products tested by an independent laboratory that meets FDA standards. Only products found to be melamine-free will be allowed into the country.
The order also applies to pet foods and some bulk protein products, the focus of a melamine recall in 2007.
Essentially, the FDA action shifts the burden of proof to Chinese companies, which must now supply evidence that their products are safe. Most consumers should not be affected, since major U.S. food manufacturers get their milk ingredients here.
Unscrupulous companies in China have routinely watered down milk, then added melamine to artificially boost protein readings on quality tests. The practice became known after the Beijing Olympics this summer. It backfired when tens of thousands of Chinese children got sick with kidney problems after drinking contaminated infant formula. Nearly 13,000 children were hospitalized in China, and at least four died.
By RADIO FREE ASIA (credits at end of article)
November 04, 2008
Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in China's formerly booming coastal cities are heading home amid factory closures and labor disputes sparked by the global downturn.
SHENZHEN, China: Worker is detained during a sit-in protest outside a government building, 30 October 2008.
Millions of workers who flooded to China's booming coastal cities to find work during the past decade are now beginning to return home amid a wave of factory closures and unemployment sparked by the global financial crisis.
In a phenomenon more usual around the Lunar New Year holiday in late January, trains and long-distance bus networks are packed full of people heading west and inland, making tickets hard to come by as people head home to cut losses and be reunited with their families.
"A lot of people are workers returning to their family homes," one passenger on a packed train in southwestern China's Yunnan province said.
Factory closures and rising unemployment in the Pearl River Delta and eastern coastal regions are also sparking labor unrest, as workers stage demonstrations to demand their back pay and severance benefits from factories now in administration.
Police in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen detained eight former workers for the now bankrupt Hong Kong-invested watchmaker Yijinli following days of sit-ins and clashes with hundreds of workers who had not yet been paid by the administrators.
"There were about six or seven security personnel detaining one person," a former Yijinli worker surnamed Ou said of clashes that began Friday in the city's Bao'an district.
Workers demand back pay
"They pressed him to the floor and beat him really badly. Then they told us to get in the police vehicles, that there would be a free bus back to the factory. They still hadn't given us a response [to our demands]."
He said the workers had refused to move until their demands were met.
"Soon after that, more than 100 riot police came rushing in and started to drag us away. If anyone refused to get on the bus they would beat them. They said that the workers who had led the protest were disturbing public order. They detained seven people," Ou said.
A relative of one of the detainees, surnamed Yang, said the detention of his relative brought the total to eight.
"On Friday evening they detained one other worker. His name was Yang Daicheng. He had been speaking out quite fiercely around the factory," Yang said.
"That day they detained seven people. Now the total is eight. Four other people were taken in for questioning and held overnight."
Bao'an factories closed
He said most of the workers had left Shenzhen after collecting their back pay and severance benefits.
Government labor officials in the crisis-hit coastal cities have been scrambling to deal with a wave of such disputes, according to official media.
Four workers were injured in a scuffle with security guards when they took to the Shenzhen streets demanding back wages from Taiwan-invested appliance maker Shunyi Appliance Factory, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The factory bosses couldn't be contacted, said Xinhua, which blamed the wave of closures on the rising value of the yuan, spiraling costs, and eroding orders.
The Shenzhen Labor and Social Security Bureau on Tuesday publicized the names of 30 companies that owe a combined 12 million yuan (U.S. $1.75 million) in back pay to workers. The Bureau demanded that executives report to the local labor authorities within 30 days, Xinhua said.
Fear of social unrest
In some places, the government has paid workers out of its own coffers to avoid further social unrest. Xinhua said the township government of Zhangmutou had pledged a payout to workers at the bankrupt Smart Union factory in Dongguan city worth 24 million yuan (U.S.$3.5 million).
Chinese experts say governments at different levels plan to earmark money for contingency reserve funds to help unpaid employees, most of them migrant workers. Plans were also being put forward for a mandatory reserve fund contribution by companies at start-up.
As for the former Yijinli protesters, Yang said the workers who had received government payout seemed to have forgotten about their former colleagues being held by police.
A police officer who answered the phone at the Bao'an district police station confirmed that the detentions had been made during the protest.
"At that time we detained a few people who were making trouble. I can simply tell you that all the people we detained will be dealt with according to law, with all documentation approved by higher levels of leadership," he said.
"However, if there are any dissenting opinions from among the relatives about the way we are handling this, they can launch an appeal at the Shenzhen Municipal People's Court," he added.
China's national police chief has called on police officers to mend relations with ordinary Chinese people, and to be careful of how they use force to settle disputes.
Original reporting in Cantonese by Hai Lan and in Mandarin by Gao Shan. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS | The Washington Times
November 03, 2008
An anti-piracy tactic by Microsoft Corp. that turns some computer users' screens black has set off a wave of indignation among Chinese consumers, posing renewed problems for the software maker in the huge China market.
A pirated copy of Microsoft Windows XP is seen in Huaian city, east Chinas Jiangsu province, 16 October 2008.
Microsoft launched its new strict anti-piracy measures in China on October 20 to fight against pirated Windows XP Professional and Office software. Microsoft China released two new important updates which include the genuine advantage notifications of Windows XP Professional and Office. The two notifications will be automatically downloaded in users computers through the software update. After the software is updated, computers with unauthorized Windows XP Professional will show a black screen when starting the computer and the users have to reset the background to realize normal use, but the black screen will reoccur every 60 minutes. In addition, when logging into the pirated system, there will be a notification at the right corner, saying You May Be A Victim Of Software Piracy. For users of unauthorized Microsoft Office software, they need to shift to a genuine version or the menu bar of their Office programs such as Word and Excel will be marked with an obvious pirated software sign in 30 days.
In the week since Microsoft deployed an updated anti-piracy tool here, some Chinese have fumed about what they see as an invasion of privacy. Users of legitimate software have been turning their own screens black in protest. One authorized user complained to the police.
"It's a crime," said Beijing lawyer Dong Zhengwei, who filed a complaint against Microsoft with the Public Security Ministry. The ministry hasn't responded. "The black-screen plan implies that Microsoft can hack all its users, not just the pirates," Mr. Dong said. "That's not fair."
At issue is Windows Genuine Advantage, a tool Microsoft uses to assess, over the Internet, whether a PC has one of the pirated copies of Windows that flourish in developing countries. The tool was developed after Windows XP was released, but has since been added to updated copies of the operating system. The technology was built into Vista, the latest edition of Windows, from the start.
As the tool scans for pirated copies of Windows, it logs certain information about computers, notifies users if it detects illegal copies or counterfeits - and urges them to get a legitimate copy.
Windows Genuine Advantage has been in use worldwide for several years. The update that started to affect Chinese PC users last week did exactly what it was intended to do: get people's attention.
Now when the tool detects a fake copy of Windows, it turns the PC's desktop black, replacing the user's background image. Although the user can override the blackout, it reappears every 60 minutes.
By Christine Brennan | USA TODAY
October 30, 2008
China's government was so concerned about the possibility of athlete demonstrations in the Beijing Olympics that it created a list of nine U.S. athletes and one assistant coach it thought might cause trouble at the Games, according to an internal U.S. Olympic Committee e-mail obtained by USA TODAY.
The names included softball players Jennie Finch and Jessica Mendoza and soccer player Abby Wambach, who broke her leg and missed the Olympic Games. It also included two Paralympians, one athlete who wasn't a member of the 2008 softball team and a top female collegiate golfer. Golf is not an Olympic sport.
"We viewed these concerns as being entirely unjustified and unwarranted," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said in an e-mail Wednesday. "As such, we rejected the request to address this with our athletes or transmit the letter to them. We saw absolutely no need to burden the athletes with this."
The list was given to USOC officials in a July 8 meeting by Shu Xiao, minister counselor for cultural affairs at the Chinese embassy in Washington, according to the e-mail.
"The subject matter had to do with information the Chinese have received regarding the intention of certain members of the U.S. Olympic team to stage some sort of demonstration at the Games, perhaps displaying banners or wearing apparel or wrist bands bearing political slogans," the e-mail stated. It added that Shu said "many of them" were "apparently associated with Team Darfur," an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness about the crisis in Darfur, Sudan.
"Shu appeared quite concerned over the prospect of such demonstrations and asked what we could do," according to the e-mail.
Seibel said the USOC "communicated to the Embassy in very clear terms that our athletes would have the same right to free speech and free expression, consistent with what is set forth in the Olympic Charter, that they have enjoyed at previous Games. We made certain those rights would in no way be infringed upon or compromised."
The USOC was concerned and alerted its team leaders of those sports in which athletes were named.There were no incidents involving the athletes in China, and after months of conversation about possible athlete protests over Darfur, Tibet or China's treatment of dissidents, none materialized at the Games.
"This may be the biggest compliment of my life," Wambach, a member of Team Darfur, said in a phone interview when informed of the list. "If they're worried about us, maybe we do have more strength as athletes and as people to speak out. This just gives me more empowerment."
"It doesn't surprise me but it makes me laugh," said Mendoza, who also is president-elect of the Women's Sports Foundation. "We're not burning our shirts and ranting and raving. We're just trying to help thousands of people from dying."
Phone calls to the Chinese embassy Wednesday afternoon went unanswered.
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