REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

The Real Deng

Fang Lizhi

When a scientific experiment uncovers a new phenomenon, a scientist is pleased. When an experiment fails to reveal something that the scientist originally expected, that, too, counts as a result worth analyzing. A sense of the “nonappearance of the expected” was my first impression of Ezra Vogel’s Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. The term “human rights” does not appear in its index, and it turns out that this omission was not an oversight of the indexer. Systematic nonconsideration of human rights is one of the book’s features.

Mao Zedong died in September 1976. From 1979 until the years just before Deng Xiaoping’s own death in 1997, Deng was, in fact if not always in title, the top leader of the Communist Party of China, of the People’s Liberation Army, and of the Chinese government. He is known outside China, especially in the West, mainly for his decision in 1989 to send field armies with tanks into the heart of Beijing to carry out what came to be known as the “Tiananmen Massacre”: a bloody suppression of unarmed students and other citizens who were demonstrating peacefully in and around Tiananmen Square. Not everyone in the world has looked unfavorably on Deng’s decision. On February 22, 2011, at the height of the “Arab Spring,” Libya’s dictator Muammar Qaddafi had this to say about it:

People in front of tanks were crushed. The unity of China was more important than those people on Tiananmen Square…. When Tiananmen Square happened, tanks were sent in to deal with them. It’s not a joke. I will do whatever it takes to make sure part of the country isn’t taken away.

Deng’s example of the utility of massacre had not been lost on Qaddafi.

Vogel, an emeritus professor of social sciences at Harvard, retells the story of the massacre in a chapter he calls “The Tiananmen Tragedy,” which ends with a meticulous—and, it seems, angst-ridden—review of all the ways one might evaluate the “tragedy.” In the end Vogel comes down to the following:

What we do know is that in the two decades after Tiananmen, China enjoyed relative stability and rapid—even spectacular—economic growth…. Today hundreds of millions of Chinese are living far more comfortable lives than they were living in 1989, and they enjoy far greater access to information and ideas around the world than at any time in Chinese history. Both educational level and longevity have continued to rise rapidly. For these reasons and others, Chinese people take far greater pride in their nation’s achievements than they did in the previous century.

With these words Vogel indicates that he basically accepts an argument that the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department has been making for the past twenty years: that “stability” and economic growth show that the repression at Tiananmen was justified in the long run. When foreign dignitaries or journalists have asked about the massacre, the response of Party leaders has been consistent: if Deng Xiaoping had not taken “resolute” (i.e., murderous) measures, China could not have had the stable society or flourishing economy that it enjoyed in the ensuing years.

Other aspects of government rhetoric, however, suggest that even the sources of such statements do not quite believe them. If it were really true that Deng’s “resolute action” led to economic growth, and that this causal connection is plain for Chinese people to see, one would expect Party propaganda to be highlighting “the suppression at Tiananmen.” But they do the opposite. Over the years, the official description of the massacre events has steadily shrunk from “counterrevolutionary riot” to “turmoil” to “incident” to “flap.” The leaders are well aware that what happened is an extremely ugly mark on their historical record, and they have been eager to have the world forget it as soon as possible.

Read more at  The New York Review of Books

China to step up social media censorship

Communist party responds to growing boldness of microblog users with threat to 'punish dissemination of harmful information'

• Tania Branigan in Beijing, and Reuters
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 October 2011 06.16 EDT
• Article history
• 
  Chinese censors have struggled to keep up with the flow of information on popular microblogs. Photograph: Jason Lee/Reuters

China has vowed to intensify controls on social media and instant messaging tools, in the highest-level official response to the extraordinary surge in microblogging in the country.

The communique from the Communist party central committee follows growing boldness among users, who have discussed sensitive topics, highlighted scandals and attacked official abuses or inefficiency.

This summer's high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou led to an outpouring of fury on microblogs about the handling of the disaster. That spilled over into mainstream media.

China already has the most extensive and sophisticated internet control system in the world. But censors have struggled to keep up with the flow of information on popular microblogs. The number of registered users on domestic services reached 195 million by the end of June, triple the figure of six months earlier, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre.

"This [communique] is what we have been waiting for; there have been signs for weeks now," said David Bandurski, of Hong Kong University's China Media Project. "It is important, but it does not tell us exactly what's going to happen. It sends the signal: 'Everyone watch out'.

"Usually [these kind of directives] are followed by some more concrete actions, but it's often very difficult to draw a line between a government policy flare like this and a particular action because control is a constant in China."

Read more at The Guardian.

Where an Internet Joke Is Not Just a Joke

Wen Yunchao at his apartment in Hong Kong.                       By BROOK LARMER

Published: October 26, 2011

The cellphone vibrated softly, insistently, echoing off the whitewashed walls of the artist’s studio. It was a Sunday morning in early April, and Wang Bo — an Internet animator better known to his legions of online fans by his nickname, Pi San — ignored the call at first. He wanted no intrusions. A compact 40-year-old with short-cropped hair and arched eyebrows that give him a look of permanent bemusement, Pi San is most famous for creating a mischievous cartoon character named Kuang Kuang, but he earns money by making animations for corporations, and he was on a deadline. Pi San had bicycled to his studio in a defunct factory building on the outskirts of Beijing that morning, hoping to finish up some work in peace. But the buzzing of the phone didn’t stop.

The moment Pi San picked up, the caller blurted out the news: State security agents had just detained Ai Weiwei, China’s most famous contemporary artist and a government critic. Pi San spat out a profanity. Over the previous six weeks, hundreds of bloggers — lawyers, activists, journalists — had vanished into police custody in one of the harshest assaults on social activism in decades. Now they had Ai — fat, brilliant, bombastic and internationally renowned. If Ai could be arrested, was any independent thinker in China safe?

Pi San had reason to be scared. He and Ai were friends. A few weeks earlier, over lunch, the two artists talked about collaborating on a satirical Internet animation. Though a bit wary of Ai’s Web activism, Pi San admired his daring solo exhibitions in New York, Berlin and London. The most recent show had consisted of 100 million sunflower seeds made of porcelain, laid out across the floor of the Tate Modern, which visitors were invited to walk upon. Some considered the seeds to be symbols of the downtrodden Chinese people.

Despite his fear, Pi San quickly posted the news about Ai’s detention on Sina Weibo, China’s closely monitored equivalent of Twitter and the fastest-growing Internet platform in the world. An invisible censor deleted the message in seconds. He then tried posting, without comment, a cartoon drawing of Ai, the better to evade China’s word-sensitive filtering software. But the image disappeared, too — a sign that a human being, not computer software, had deleted the drawing. Pi San told his Weibo followers: “Again I was ‘harmonized.’ It’s just a picture!”

Read more at The New York Times

The activists shining light on China’s dark corners

China’s 'netizens’ skip censorship and brave beatings to expose the torment of a blind lawyer, Chen Guangcheng.

Chinese activist Wang Xuezhen buying stationery for Kesi the daughter of blind lawyer activist Chen Guangcheng using donation collected from concerned online users Photo: Peter Foster

By Peter Foster, Dongshigu

The policeman’s hand slapped the woman’s face with an audible crack. Standing only five feet tall in her trainers, barely the height of her assailant’s epaulettes, she took the blow without a cry.

This scene was witnessed by The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday in a small police station near a village in Shandong province, north-east China, that has become a magnet for activists of all stripes protesting against a dark corner of the Chinese state that operates beyond the law.

The woman who took the slap, 30-year-old Wang Xuezhen, is one of a stream of people who have marshalled themselves over the internet and travelled to Dongshigu village to support a man they believe is being persecuted, a blind lawyer named Chen Guangcheng.

Stumbling out of the police station and holding her stinging face, Miss Wang bitterly observed a truth about contemporary China: the country’s lawlessness begins with the law itself.

Then she turned on her mobile phone and asked a friend to post a message on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, relaying the news of the assault to the world.

Almost immediately, her supporters began passing on the message and posting their own messages of support. By the evening the slap had been picked up by an Asian television channel.

“These animals, they lack all humanity, I hate them so much. I wish I could go and join your fight!” wrote one of her followers.

The power and speed of China’s social networks has alarmed the government, which announced plans on Wednesday to police the buzz of messages more tightly, in the name of maintaining what it calls “social stability”.

In the two years since it was launched, the Weibo platform has attracted more than 200 million Chinese, creating a chorus of commentary on the failings of an authoritarian state that often questions and contradicts the output of the tightly-controlled state media.

Even though the Weibo microblogs are carefully policed, with censors blocking and deleting content deemed seditious, the controls are often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of outpourings by the so-called “netizens” – a “Chinglish” coinage for online activists and contributors.

“Operation Free Chen Guangcheng” is perhaps one of the clearest examples of what frightens the Communist Party. It began earlier this year when activists began suggesting online that people should go as “tourists” to visit the 39-year-old blind lawyer, who has been kept under illegal house arrest for more than a year.

Read more at The Telegraph

China boosts security after self-immolations in Sichuan

Ananth Krishnan

China has boosted security deployment and restricted communication in towns in the western Sichuan province after the tenth case of self-immolation protest by Tibetans in recent weeks.

A monk in the predominantly-Tibetan town of Garze in Sichuan set himself on fire outside a monastery on Tuesday, several overseas Tibetan groups reported.

Most of the nine other self-immolation attempts occurred in the nearby prefecture of Aba, home to the Tibetan Buddhist monastery of Kirti. Among them was a nun, Tenzin Wangmo. At least five of them have died because of their injuries, according to reports in the Chinese media.

Since the immolations, China has boosted deployment of military and paramilitary forces in Aba and nearby towns, according to several Tibetans from Sichuan who are now living in Beijing.

Speaking to The Hindu on condition of anonymity, they said restrictions had been placed on telephone communication and access to the Internet in Aba. Many residents in Aba, they said, had been unable to make telephone calls in recent weeks.

They said security had been boosted in Aba and nearby towns, with additional deployments of People's Armed Police Force (PAPF) battalions, increased street-level security checks, more regular patrolling and restrictions on people travelling in and out of the region.

Read more at The Hindu

Book review: ‘Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China,’ by Ezra F. Vogel

By John Pomfret, Published: September 9

Twenty-six years ago, an American vice president went to the western Chinese city of Chengdu with a message for China: America is here to help. In a speech to students from Sichuan University, George H.W. Bush said the United States would allow China access to a far greater range of American technologies — some with military applications — than other communist countries were granted. American firms, he said, were eager to invest in China. American consumers, he predicted, would soon hanker after Chinese goods. “We are interested in helping China,” Bush told his audience. “Very, very interested.”

An American vice president wouldn’t visit China again until last month, when Joe Biden addressed a similar audience of students from the same university, in the same city. Only this time, the message was different. Instead of promising markets, investment and technology, Biden pledged that the U.S. Treasury would make good on the trillion bucks it owes Beijing. It raises the question: Do the schedulers at the White House lack imagination, or are they just trying to help a scribbler draw a parallel?

The Bush and Biden trips to Sichuan bookend one of the world’s greatest stories: the rise of China and its emergence as a global juggernaut. How China got to this point — last year it surpassed Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy and Germany as the nation with the most exports — is the story that Ezra F. Vogeltells in “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China,” a masterful new history of China’s reform era. It pieces together from interviews and memoirs perhaps the clearest account so far of the revolution that turned China from a totalitarian backwater led by one of the monsters of the 20th century into the power it has become today.

Vogel, a Harvard professor who has bounced between interests in China and Japan for all of his professional life, picked one man on whom to center his tale: Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997), the communist leader who left the Sichuan countryside for France when he was 16. While Deng might have been tiny (he stood 4-foot-11), this book is massive, Yao Ming-big — the text alone runs to 714 pages.

But Vogel has a monumental story to tell. His main argument is that Deng deserves a central place in the pantheon of 20th-century leaders. For he not only launched China’s market-oriented economic reforms but also accomplished something that had eluded Chinese leaders for almost two centuries: the transformation of the world’s oldest civilization into a modern nation.

“Did any other leader in the twentieth century do more to improve the lives of so many?” Vogel asks. “Did any other twentieth century leader have such a large and lasting influence on world history?” He clearly believes that Deng — known in the West mostly for engineering the slaughter of protesters in the streets near Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 — has been wronged by history. His tome is an attempt to redress the balance.

Read more at The Washington Post

Analysis: China's gold frenzy triggers birth of small bourses

(Reuters) - Twenty-four-year-old Xin Wenting stays up until one o'clock on most days, looking after her gold investment during the ebb and flow of global trade.

Many small investors in China have turned to gold as high inflation threatens to erode wealth in the world's second-largest economy, leading to small gold exchanges springing up all over the country.

The influx of retail investors promises to not only boost Chinese gold demand, but also increase its volatility.

"I wanted to invest my savings, because otherwise the money would just be idling around. Some friends were doing gold, and the stock market wasn't looking promising, so I jumped on the bandwagon," Xin said.

Investment choices for small players are limited, and the new exchanges are filling this niche.

"Many existing institutions target their investment products to the rich," said Lu Mingde, who is in charge of the marketing department of the Zhejiang Gold and Silver Products Market.

"If you are a small investor, you could only put your money in the stock market. But we are happy to serve these clients."

Read more at REUTERS

China to limit 'vulgar' reality television shows

Satellite television channels are hugely popular in China, but often fall foul of authorities

China is to clamp down on the number of entertainment shows broadcast on satellite television channels in a bid to boost public morality.

Authorities are concerned at the "vulgar tendencies" of light entertainment shows, particularly reality TV, dating and talk shows.

From next year, satellite channels will each be permitted to screen only two programmes of this type a week.

Networks will be required to promote "socialist core values" instead.

The directive, from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, follows a Communist Party meeting last week which asserted the need to strengthen social morality.

The crackdown is intended to improve social cohesion in the face of rising materialism, and wrest back Communist Party control over cultural industries that are promoting alternative viewpoints.

It coincides with a bout of national hand-wringing over a perceived decline in public morality, highlighted by the recent death of a toddler left for dead by passers by after being hit by a vehicle.

'Overly entertaining'

Read more at BBC

Shifting Nature

"I've had anonymous, threatening phone calls, saying, 'This isn't any of your business, so keep out of it. Don't stick your nose into matters that don't concern you.' That's one thing. But it's not all. I have been beaten up."
    --  Huo Daishan, environmental campaigner

China is trying to feed 20 percent of the world's population on 7 percent of the world's arable land. A third of the world uses water from China's rivers. But rapid industrialization and climate change have led to bad air, polluted rivers and drought. Environmental activists, Party officials, academics and scientists are in a daily struggle over the damage to nature in China.

Environmental campaigner Huo Daishan has been trying to save the heavily polluted Huai River, which provides water for 150 million people. Research took him to its main tributary, the Shaying, into which over a million tons of raw human sewage and untreated waste water are dumped daily. Rather than clamping down on polluters, local government protects local industries.

Read more at PBS

Women Of The Country

 

 

 

There have been radical changes for women in China in just a century. Here we profile some extraordinary women working to improve human rights, the environment and AIDS education. You may also nominate your own candidates to be added to our gallery.

  MORE AT PBS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The following is a synopsis of the impact of international agreements on the legal status of Taiwan:

1. Article 2 of the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895) ceded Formosa, her dependencies, and the Pescadores from China to Japan in "perpetuity and full sovereignty." Japan's sovereignty over the islands would not be disputed by China or any other state for the next 50 years.

2. In paragraph 3 of the Cairo Declaration (1943), the United States, Great Britain, and China declared that "it is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the First World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China." This and the following two declarations were unilateral statements of intent, not legally binding on the declarants, much less so Japan, the title-holder to Formosa. The Cairo Declaration, intended only as a press release, was issued without signatures. From their language, it is clear that the conference statements are not of the variety of declarations that possess legal force. Indeed, some of the provisions of at least one of the declarations were repudiated by one of the declarants, the United States of America, in her ratification of the Treaty of Peace with Japan.  Moreover, the term "restored" was used in reference to the Republic of China without specifying, though assuming, the Republic of China as the successor to the "Ta Ching Empire," the legal person that had ceded Formosa to Japan. The Republic of China never held possession of Formosa, nor did she claim rights to her until the onset of war with Japan. 

3. The Agreement Regarding Japan contained in the Yalta Declaration (1945) is silent on the disposition of Formosa.

4. Section 3-b(8) of Annex II of the Potsdam Declaration (1945) makes reference to the Cairo Declaration stating "The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine."

5. Under the Instrument of Surrender signed in September 1945 by Japan and the Allies, Japan explicitly accepted the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration, and thus implicitly accepted the provision of the Cairo Declaration "that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China." The Instrument of Surrender gave legal effect to the Allied Conference Declarations hitherto absent. However, the Instrument was a record only of provisional arrangements, a modus vivendi, that anticipated replacement by a more permanent and detailed settlement. The Instrument required no ratification and does not have the legal force of a treaty.

Read more at Taiwan Documents

Immigration Nation Ep.1: White Australia Policy

 

View sections 2, 3, & 4 at THE DIRECTOR'S CHAIR, sidebar, this blog. 

At 105, Chinese Linguist Now A Government Critic

 

Zhou Youguang, founder of the Pinyin system of romanizing the Chinese language, has published 10 books since turning 100, some reflecting his critical views of the Chinese government. Shown here in his book-lined study, the outspoken Zhou has witnessed a century of change in China.

 

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Zhou Youguang, founder of the Pinyin system of romanizing the Chinese language, has published 10 books since turning 100, some reflecting his critical views of the Chinese government. Shown here in his book-lined study, the outspoken Zhou has witnessed a century of change in China.

Zhou Youguang should be a Chinese hero after making what some call the world's most important linguistic innovation: He invented Pinyin, a system of romanizing Chinese characters using the Western alphabet.

But instead, this 105-year-old has become a thorn in the government's side. Zhou has published an amazing 10 books since he turned 100, some of which have been banned in China. These, along with outspoken views on the Communist Party and the need for democracy in China, have made him a "sensitive person" — a euphemism for a political dissident.

Courtesy Zhou Youguang

Zhou (shown here in New York in 1947) worked on Wall Street as a banker but returned to China in 1949 after the Communist Revolution.

When Zhou was born in 1906, Chinese men still wore their hair in a long pigtail, the Qing dynasty still ruled China, and Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House. That someone from that era is alive — and blogging as the "Centenarian Scholar" — seems unbelievable.

Pinyin, The 'Open Sesame' Of Chinese

But despite his age, Zhou still lives in a modest third-floor walk-up. He's frail but chipper, as he receives guests in his book-lined study. He laughs cheerfully as he reminisces, despite his complaints that "after 100, the memory starts to fail a bit."

Zhou was educated at China's first Western-style university, St. John's in Shanghai, studying economics with a minor in linguistics. As a young man, he moved to the United States and worked as a Wall Street banker — during which time he even befriended Albert Einstein, although Zhou says their conversations are now lost in the mists of time.

Zhou decided to return to China after the 1949 revolution to build the country. Originally, he intended to teach economics in Shanghai, but he was called to head a committee to reform the Chinese language.

Read more at NPR

Ai Weiwei is named ArtReview's 'most powerful artist'

The artist has spoken out against human rights abuses in China

Continue reading the main story

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been named the most powerful person in the art world, according to a poll compiled by ArtReview magazine.

But Mr Ai, who was released in June after being detained for more than 80 days by Chinese authorities, told the BBC he does "not feel powerful at all".

The magazine said he was chosen by the panel because of his political activism, as much as his artwork.

China criticised the selection saying it was based on "political bias".

In a statement, ArtReview magazine said: "[His] activities have allowed artists to move away from the idea that they work within a privileged zone limited by the walls of a gallery or museum."

"It's expanding the possibilities of what you can do with art, and as an artist how you can use your voice," it added.

Read more at BBC

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China

Announcements

Statement of CECC Chairman Christopher Smith and Cochairman Sherrod Brown on the Release of the 2011 Annual Report The bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China released its 2011 Annual Report on human rights and rule of law developments in China this week. More... Statement of CECC Chairman Christopher Smith and Cochairman Sherrod Brown on Uyghurs Forcibly Returned to China The chairman and cochairman of a US bipartisan, bicameral commission charged with monitoring human rights in China today called on Chinese authorities to reveal the whereabouts and status of 11 Uyghur men who were forcibly deported from Malaysia to the People's Republic of China on August 18, in violation of international law. More... Statement of CECC Chairman Christopher Smith and Cochairman Sherrod Brown on Human Rights Lawyer Gao Zhisheng CECC Chairman Christopher Smith and Cochairman Sherrod Brown call on Chinese authorities to immediately account for and free China's most famous human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng. More...

More Analysis... Commission Analysis

Xinjiang Authorities Implement Ramadan Curbs Amid Renewed Pledges for Tight Controls Over Religion Authorities in Xinjiang have continued to exert tight controls over the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which occurred this year in August. During the month-long period of daily fasting, local government authorities prohibited students, teachers, and government workers from observing the fast, ordered restaurants to stay open, and increased oversight of mosques and religious personnel. Xinjiang officials have enforced similar restrictions in previous years. The curbs in 2011 also came amid a renewed pledge by Xinjiang authorities to crack down on "illegal religious activities." More . . .

After Monk's Suicide: Coerced Removal and "Education" for Monks; Possible Murder Charges Tibetan Buddhist monks at Kirti Monastery whom officials suspect of assisting or sheltering a monk who committed self-immolation on March 16, 2011, could face criminal charges, possibly for "premeditated murder." China's state-run media characterized the suicide as a "plot" to "incite other monks to create disturbances," but did not acknowledge monastic resentment against increasing government and Party control over Tibetan Buddhist affairs. On April 21, security officials allegedly beat to death two elderly Tibetans and injured others who tried and failed to block People's Armed Police from removing at least 300 Kirti monks from the monastery. Official media reported the next day that the local government would begin immediately "mass legal education" of Kirti monks to maintain what officials described as "normal religious order." The use of enforced confinement (de facto detention) and coerced participation in a program under the pretext of "education" appears to disregard Article 37 of China's Constitution which prohibits "[u]nlawful deprivation or restriction of citizens' freedom of the person by detention or other means." On June 9, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson dismissed a United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances request for information on the monks and asserted that "there was no question of forced disappearances." Kirti Monastery is located near the seat of Aba (Ngaba) county, Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province. More . . .

UN Group Calls for Immediate Release of Liu Xiaobo and Wife Liu Xia In May 2011, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued two opinions declaring that the Chinese government's imprisonment of prominent intellectual Liu Xiaobo and house arrest of his wife Liu Xia contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The opinions call on Chinese officials to immediately release Liu Xiaobo, immediately end Liu Xia's house arrest, and provide reparations to both persons. Freedom Now, a US-based non-profit organization that filed a petition for the opinions with the Working Group, released the opinions to the public in August 2011. More . . .

Top Official Directs Media To Promote July Anniversary of Party's Founding A top Communist Party official has directed Chinese media to promote the 90th anniversary of China's Communist Party, founded on July 1, 1921, saying it is their "common responsibility" to do so. The call, which came on April 22, 2011, was directed not only at media organizations closely aligned with the Party but also more commercially oriented newspapers and online media more generally. The call echoes the official policy of the Chinese government and Party that the domestic media serve as an instrument of the Party. More . . .

Authorities Release Prominent Rights Advocate Hu Jia Upon Completion of His Sentence On June 26, 2011, authorities released Hu Jia from prison upon completion of his three-and-a-half year sentence. Hu has been an active advocate on issues including environmental protection, HIV/AIDS, and freedom of expression and movement. He has also expressed public support for rights defenders, including Chen Guangcheng and Guo Feixiong. He was sentenced in 2008 for "inciting subversion of state power." During his time in prison, authorities refused multiple requests for his medical parole. Hu is now home with his wife, Zeng Jinyan, in Beijing and reportedly remains under tight official surveillance. More . . .

Official Repression of Religion Continues in Xinjiang Official repression of religion in Xinjiang remains severe. Authorities continue to claim that "illegal religious activities" and "religious extremism" constitute threats to the region's security. Officials have singled out Islamic practices in a number of cases and have maintained a range of curbs over Muslims' religious activities. Recent reports describe continuing campaigns against head scarves, measures to monitor Friday sermons at mosques, and reported imprisonment of a religious leader who refused to abide by government demands regarding a local mosque. More . . .

Beijing Authorities Harass and Detain Shouwang Church Members Beginning on April 9, 2011, public security officials in Beijing frequently harassed, detained, and restricted the freedom of movement of some members and leaders of the unregistered Beijing Shouwang Church in response to the church's efforts to organize outdoor services every Sunday in Beijing's Haidian district. Shouwang began organizing the services after authorities reportedly pressured its landlords to deny the church access to indoor sites of worship where it had previously met or planned to meet. In one instance, according to overseas reports, uniformed and plainclothes police took into custody over 160 Shouwang members, including clergy. Between April 10 and May 15, authorities reportedly placed a total of approximately 500 members and church leaders under "soft detention" (ruanjin), a form of unlawful home confinement. As of June 5, authorities had taken Shouwang members into custody in connection with nine outdoor services. The incidents of harassment and detention occurred during a time when authorities' sensitivities to members of unregistered Protestant congregations who assemble into large groups or across congregations appeared to have increased, as well as during a broader crackdown against rights defenders, petitioners, artists, Internet bloggers, and others that began in mid-February 2011. More . . .

Government Interferes With Activities of House Church Networks in Late 2010 and 2011 Since late 2010, officials across China have harassed and in some cases detained members of some unregistered Protestant church ("house church") congregations that assemble across multiple congregations in an effort to pressure them to stop meeting. Authorities have harassed and detained members of house church congregations in previous years, but statements from state-controlled media and government sources—coinciding with a broader crackdown against rights defenders, reform advocates, lawyers, petitioners, writers, artists, and Internet bloggers—suggest that authorities' sensitivities to Protestants who worship outside of state-approved parameters have intensified during this period. More . . .

Mongols Protest in Inner Mongolia After Clashes Over Grasslands Use, Mining Operations Protests occurred in Inner Mongolia between May 23 and May 31, 2011, following two separate confrontations between workers from mining operations (some reportedly Han Chinese) and herders and residents near the mining operations (reportedly including Mongols and at least one Manchu), during which workers reportedly killed a herder and resident. Protesters called on authorities to prosecute the alleged murderers and also called for protecting herders' rights and Mongol culture. Authorities reportedly clashed with protesters in one case and have taken some protesters into detention. Authorities addressed some of the protesters' grievances but did not acknowledge a connection between the protests and official restrictions on Mongol culture. In the aftermath of the protests, security reportedly remains tight. More . . .

Ministry of Health Issues Draft Ban on the Use of BPA in Infant Food Containers (Update) On April 20, 2011, the Ministry of Health posted on its Web site a draft document that would ban the import or manufacture of containers for infants' food, including baby bottles, which contain BPA, starting June 1, 2011, and that would ban the sale in China of such products as of September 1, 2011. In January, the Ministry of Health had issued a letter soliciting comments on draft lists of additives and resins used in food packaging materials, which included a ban on BPA in packaging for infant foods. China's proposed ban follows similar bans in the European Union and Canada. More . . .

Authorities Intensify Harassment of Activists Around 22nd Anniversary of the Chinese Government's Violent Suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Democracy Movement In the lead-up to the 22nd anniversary of the Chinese government's violent suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy movement, authorities in China have stepped up monitoring and intimidation of rights activists, and prevented others from holding a memorial event. These latest developments occur against the backdrop of a broad crackdown against rights defenders, lawyers, artists, and bloggers in what international observers have described as one of the harshest crackdowns in years. More . . .

Ethnic Minority Population Planning Program Expands to More Areas in Xinjiang Authorities in the far western region of Xinjiang have expanded a program that rewards ethnic minority couples for having fewer children than permitted under the region's regulation on population planning, now making the program applicable to all counties and cities in Xinjiang where rural ethnic minorities comprise 50 percent or more of the population. The region's regulation on population planning permits rural ethnic minority couples to have up to three children, and the reward program awards couples that forego this maximum number of permitted births. The expansion of the program builds on similar reward systems present throughout China, while intensifying a regional focus on ethnic minority households. In addition to rewarding families that have fewer births, authorities in the XUAR and elsewhere in China also continue to enforce penalties against people who have more children than permitted under population planning requirements. More . . .

Ganzi Regulations on "Tibetan Buddhist Affairs" Moving Toward Approval Regulatory measures for "Tibetan Buddhist Affairs" in Ganzi (Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan province, are moving through the legislative process toward approval. According to information available in the Commission's Political Prisoner Database (PPD), more than half of monastic political detentions in TAPs outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) during the period since March 2008—when Tibetan protests (and some rioting) spread across the Tibetan plateau—have been in Ganzi TAP. A March 2011 report by this Commission demonstrated a correlation between the number of detentions in each TAP on or after March 10, 2008, and the extensiveness of regulatory measures' provisions on punishment. The Commission has not yet located text of the Ganzi regulatory measures online. However, if the correlation found for other TAP regulations remains valid in Ganzi TAP, then Ganzi monks and nuns could face further increases in the repressive application of administrative and criminal punishments. New regulatory measures on "Tibetan Buddhist affairs" already in effect in 7 of the 10 TAPs outside the TAR substantially increase state infringement of "freedom of religious belief" in Article 36 of China's Constitution by subordinating "Tibetan Buddhist affairs" to government regulations that enforce Communist Party policy. More . . .

Authorities Crack Down on Rights Defenders, Lawyers, Artists, Bloggers Chinese authorities have launched a broad crackdown against rights defenders, reform advocates, lawyers, petitioners, writers, artists, and Internet bloggers in what international observers have described as one of the harshest crackdowns in years. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has expressed "serious concern" at the enforced disappearances of numerous Chinese citizens, some of whom remain missing after more than two months with no information regarding the charges against them or their whereabouts, as detailed below. The impetus for the current crackdown is unclear. The timing follows protests in the Middle East and North Africa, the appearance in mid-February of an anonymous online call for "Jasmine Revolution" protests in China, major annual meetings of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in March, and recent official statements stressing the need to maintain social stability. More . . .

Xinjiang Authorities Accelerate Promotion of Mandarin-Focused Bilingual Education The Xinjiang government has accelerated steps to promote "bilingual education," a program that stresses class instruction using Mandarin Chinese, while diminishing or eliminating instruction using "minority" languages, spoken by groups the Chinese government designates as ethnic minorities. At the same time, the government has publicized measures that preserve a degree of instruction using minority languages in the process of implementing "bilingual education." The future role of ethnic minority languages in Xinjiang schools remains uncertain, however, amid a government target to implement Mandarin-focused "bilingual education" in 75 percent of Xinjiang schools by 2015 and achieve a student body proficient in Mandarin by 2020. China's law on regional ethnic autonomy stipulates that "[s]chools (classes) and other educational organizations recruiting mostly ethnic minority students should, whenever possible, use textbooks in their own languages and use these languages as the media of instruction." More . . .

Chinese Authorities Detain Prominent Human Rights Lawyers Within a span of one week in February 2011, authorities in Beijing municipality and Guangzhou, Guangdong province, detained five prominent human rights lawyers, and, in late February or early March 2011, detained another human rights lawyer in Shanghai, as well. The lawyers remain incommunicado and their current whereabouts are unclear. Their detentions come amid a broader crackdown on scores of advocates, bloggers, and writers that began in February in a campaign that appears related to official sensitivity over recent protests in the Middle East and North Africa and to an anonymous online call for so-called "Jasmine Revolution" protests within China. The underlying reasons for the detention of the lawyers are not clear. More . . .

State Administration for Religious Affairs Outlines Restrictive Religious Policies for 2011 In January 2011, China's State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) issued a document outlining the main points for SARA's work in 2011. The document calls for the continuation of measures that would maintain extensive government supervision and control over religious communities. Examples include calling for authorities to "guide" unregistered Protestants to worship in state-sanctioned churches, continuing policies to deny Catholics in China the freedom to accept the authority of the Holy See to make bishop appointments, and bolstering rules that require Muslims who wish to make overseas pilgrimages to do so as part of official groups that impose political requirements on participants. More . . .

Chinese Police Officials Detain Beijing Artist and Rights Advocate Ai Weiwei In early April 2011, Chinese authorities detained prominent Beijing-based artist and rights advocate Ai Weiwei as he tried to board a plane to Hong Kong. Based on available reporting, Chinese authorities have not released details on his detention. Ai's detention comes amid a broader crackdown on hundreds of activists, bloggers, and writers in February and March 2011, in a campaign which appears related to official sensitivity over recent protests in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as an anonymous online call for "Jasmine Revolution" protests within China. More . . .

Court Sentences Labor Lawyer and Advocate to Three Years' Imprisonment A court in Xi'an city, Shaanxi province sentenced labor lawyer and advocate Zhao Dongmin to three years' imprisonment in October 2010 for "gathering a crowd to disrupt social order." Zhao had been detained since August 2009 prior to his sentencing. Authorities initially detained Zhao for his work in organizing and attempting to establish a labor organization that reportedly would monitor the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, seek to expose corruption, and advocate for fair compensation for workers. More . . .

Recent Developments in Judicial Reform The Supreme People's Court has issued several documents seeking to regulate the judiciary in recent months. These include two documents that set forth judicial code of ethics, two regulations that attempt to limit undue influence on the courts, and one opinion that concerns the relationship between higher and lower level courts in conducting trial work. More . . .

Courts Hear China's First HIV/AIDS Employment Discrimination Cases In October 2010, an Anhui province court began the trial in China's first reported case involving alleged HIV-based employment discrimination. The university graduate who filed the lawsuit challenged the Anqing Municipal Bureau of Education's refusal to hire him after he tested positive for HIV. The court ruled against the plaintiff in the first trial and his appeal is pending. In October, a court in Sichuan province reportedly agreed to hear another case of alleged HIV/AIDS-related employment discrimination. The two cases are making their way through China's courts amid increasing calls by domestic and international organizations for greater legal protections for those living with HIV/AIDS in China. More . . .

Hukou Reform in Chengdu Municipality The government of Chengdu municipality, Sichuan province initiated household registration (hukou) reform in November 2010 that seeks to eliminate the rural-urban hukou divide. China's hukou system classifies Chinese citizens as either rural or urban hukou holders, and local governments may restrict access to some social services based on the hukou classification. Rural hukou holders who live in urban areas are most affected by the classification. The Chengdu reform aims to unify all residents who currently hold a local hukou under a single identification system based on residents' actual place of residence. If successfully implemented, the reform could allow greater access to social services for some current rural hukou holders. The Chengdu hukou reforms also appear to be intended in part to make more rural land available for development. More . . .

Job Discrimination Against Ethnic Minorities Continues in Xinjiang Hiring practices that discriminate against Uyghurs and other groups by reserving positions exclusively for Han Chinese have continued in Xinjiang in the past year. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China found recent job recruiting announcements that reserved some or all positions for Han, in contravention of provisions in Chinese law. The jobs include both civil service positions and industry jobs advertised on government Web sites. A new training program reportedly provides jobs for non-Han college graduates who participate in training classes elsewhere in China, but the program does not address barriers to employment due to discriminatory job hiring practices. Uyghurs and other non-Han groups in Xinjiang—all of whom the Chinese government designates as "ethnic minorities"—comprise roughly 60 percent of Xinjiang's population. More . . .   Read more at The Congressional-Executive Commission on China

Bull? Bear? Bring It On!

By BEN LEVISOHN And JOE LIGHT

What is part bull, part bear and so ornery that even the hardiest souls are afraid to get too close?

If you guessed the financial markets, you're right.

After tumbling 17.9% during the three months ended Oct. 3, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, a broad proxy for the overall market, jumped 11.4% between Oct. 4 and Friday's close.

Normally, such a surge would be cause for jubilation. Underneath the rally, however, signs of distress remain, from the European banking situation to uncertainty in China. As a result, "it's difficult to know how [the turbulence] will play out," says Benjamin Bowler, head of global equity derivatives research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Fortunately, you can take some simple steps to minimize the damage to your portfolio if the markets tank again—and still capitalize on a sustainable rally. Among them: use a "barbell" portfolio for stocks, buy bonds of emerging-market nations and hold more cash.

Get the recipe right, and you could ride out the current volatility with your portfolio largely intact—and even capture some gains.

"You have to realize that risk is a fact of life," says Richard Peterson, a psychiatrist and director at research firm MarketPsych Data. "But if you stick to the fundamental principal of investing to buy cheap and growing companies, it will work out in the long term."

That's easier said than done, of course. Despite the latest upswing, investors are no closer to knowing how three big economic uncertainties will play out.

The European mess remains most worrisome. Even if Europe manages to avoid a disorderly default by Greece, the economic damage might already be done. On Oct. 3, the euro zone's manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index for September came in at a two-year low of 48.5; readings under 50 suggest economic contraction.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

China's Population Control Continues

Nation’s economic clout grows in the face of its 1-child policy and persistent religious persecution.     by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND 10/14/2011 

 

Catholics pray at the Cross Hill at Paowo Village in 2007 in Meixian County of Shaanxi Province, China. Cross Hill is a holy place first built by missionary Liu Jialu as a simulation of Calvary.

– China Photos/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Religious persecution and forced abortions persist in China, even as the nation exerts increasingly global influence.

Experts predicted that China’s rapid economic expansion and integration into global financial markets would soon foster improvements in human rights. But the 2011 “Congressional-Executive Annual Report on Human Rights in China,” released this week, signaled that the nation’s rapid economic growth has not been matched by equally dramatic improvements in the Communist Party’s approach to civil rights.

“Tragically, in the years since [Congress granted] permanent normal trade relations, China has continued to abuse the fundamental human rights of its citizens while failing to establish a fair and transparent legal system,” asserted Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a bipartisan body established to address human-rights concerns raised during the debate fueled by the initial legislation.

“[A]s we meet here today, a Nobel Laureate, Liu Xiaobo, languishes in a Chinese prison for promoting peaceful democratic reforms, but he is just one of 1.3 billion Chinese who live under the Chinese state’s repression,” said Smith at a Oct. 12 press conference announcing the key findings of the annual report.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/chinas-population-control-continues/#ixzz1anSxtdPW

Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

Review by Chris Patten

Ezra Vogel produces a massive biography of the leader who brought markets to China but denied it democracy

An image of leader Deng Xiaoping looms over a street in the city of Shenzhen in 1992

When Chinese historians are able one day to ply their subversive trade without control or censorship, their judgment will surely be that their country should revere Deng Xiaoping way above his predecessor Mao Zedong. Mao led the Communist party to victory over the Kuomintang and the Japanese, and united China in the 1950s. He then plunged his country into the famine and bloody mayhem of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Deng carefully put the pieces of the smashed nation back together again and launched China on its recovery to become assuredly once again the world’s largest economy.

Ezra Vogel’s massive biography assembles the case for Deng (1904-97) with narrative skill and prodigious scholarship. Vogel, for many years a Harvard professor, published the bestselling Japan as Number One in 1979. His principal academic interest then turned to China and he spent some time in the late 1980s studying economic reform in Guangdong. The sources and acknowledgements he cites in this book indicate the breadth of his contacts and study, though when required to stray outside the world of conventional western Sinology he is less sure-footed. His knowledge of British and Hong Kong politics, for example, is pretty sketchy.

Read more at FT

US urges China to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama

By Tendar Tsering

DHARAMSHALA, October 14: Amidst a fiery episode of self-immolations inside Tibet and growing protests by Tibetans in exile, a group of US Senators, Members of House of Representatives and senior officials appointed by President Obama has called on the Chinese government to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama.

The Congressional Executive Commission on China in its annual report released on Wednesday said "the Dalai Lama’s withdrawal from exiled Tibetan administrative affairs has the potential to alter dialogue dynamics by eliminating the basis for the government and Party to characterise him as a ‘political’ figure."

The US report urged the Chinese government to engage in substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives on protecting Tibetan culture, language, religion and heritage.

Referring to the sequence of self-immolation cases inside Tibet, the 2011 report pointed out that dialogue can result in a durable and mutually beneficial outcome for the Chinese government and Tibetans, and improve the outlook for local and regional security in coming decades.

Read more at Phayul

As Interest From the Next Generation Wanes, A Family's Tofu Legacy Totters

By Stephen Nessen

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  Barrels of tofu at the Fong Inn Too factory in Chinatown. (Stephen Nessen/WNYC)

On a recent afternoon, David Eng conducted an orchestra of tofu makers, peering into vats of bean curd in various states of coagulation.

A fog from the steam-spewing, high-pressure pumps fills the air at his family’s Chinatown factory, which is next to a Buddhist temple under the Manhattan Bridge.

Tofu has been Eng’s family business for 78 years, since his grandfather, an immigrant from Guangdong, China, set up shop in on Mott Street in Chinatown in 1933.

“All Asians like to claim ancient ancestry,” said William Shurtleff, author of “The Book of Tofu.” But Fong Inn Too, is, “certainly one of the oldest, if not the oldest, continuously family-run tofu shop in the U.S.”

But after Eng, a 56-year-old banker-turned-farmer who returned to his family business in the 90s, there is no clear fourth generation leader to take over the tofu-making venture. He said he fears he may be the last of his family to run Fong Inn Too.

“Business is slow, terribly slow, especially this past year,” Eng said recently.

Eng starts his day at 5:30 a.m. and is rarely done before 6 p.m. The factory processes about 2,400 pounds of soybeans a day, yielding about 10,000 squares of tofu.

(David Eng at the factory on Division Street. Stephen Nessen/WNYC)

Much of the tofu is destined for local Chinese restaurants. Fong Inn Too, a major wholesaler, has a network of 80 distributors, each of which supplies tofu to an average of 16 restaurants in the city.

“If you come to Chinatown from eight to nine in the morning, it’s bumper to bumper on Mott,” said Jan Lee, the owner of the antiques shop, Sinotique, a few doors down from Fong Inn Too. “Vans from restaurants come religiously every week to pick up supplies. It’s a part of Chinese commerce that the layperson doesn’t see.”

The shop on Mott Street has bags of sugar stacked in one corner, and white take-out boxes for tofu spilling off the shelf.

Read more at WNYC News Blog

Thanks for the tweet:

kattebelletje Alice de Jong | 雍莉

RT @stirfrygrace: My fave tofu RT @rodhuntress: After 78 years family tofu biz in NY Chinatown faces uncertain future: ow.ly/6TOj4

Jewel in the crown

Francesco Trapani, chief executive of Bulgari. Source: Supplied

LUXURY conglomerate LVMH is seen as a rapacious lion in the fashion jungle, regularly devouring vulnerable family-owned labels. When its chairman and chief executive, Bernard Arnault, expressed interest in the 174-year-old Hermes, the maker of Birkin bags and silk scarfs raced to the French courts to block the potential takeover. Italian jeweller Bulgari took a very different path, offering itself to the lion king -- for a price.

In March LVMH acquired Bulgari in a share deal that valued the supplier of sparkle to stars such as Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and Elizabeth Taylor at E3.7 billion ($5bn).

"They are now the controlling shareholder of the company," says Francesco Trapani, chief executive of Bulgari and head of LVMH's watch and jewellery division. "At the same time this family is the second largest shareholder of LVMH because we have exchanged shares and we have bought additional shares."

As the great-grandson of Sotirio Bulgari, the Greek silversmith who fled his homeland and in 1884 opened a jewellery store in Rome, Trapani is entitled to speak for the family. Having controlled Bulgari since 1984 when aged just 27, he is also the broker of the new deal.

"It is a quite interesting new relationship and I see only positive signs up until now," he says. "The company remains independent. LVMH wants to have a portfolio of very strong brands with a strong character so they need to have in power a team of people that are in charge of these brands. They give a lot of freedom to these people.

"The people in charge of different brands are shown more opportunities to grow and make the company and the brand more solid and more competitive."

Potential growth was the fuel for LVMH's appetite for Bulgari and this is what makes Trapani's eyes gleam. He has already pushed his family business into watches, beauty and handbags as well as working with the Marriott hotel group on resorts and hotels in Milan and Bali.

"In the next three years the strategic plan calls for solid growth in all product categories and in most geographical areas, of course greater China being the largest opportunity for growth," he says.

For the first half of 2011 turnover in China increased by almost 60 per cent, contributing to an overall turnover of E548 million.

Read more at The Australian

 

Almost half of £1 million Chinese auction bids unpaid six months after they were lodged

Almost half of all £1 million-plus bids placed in China's auction houses remained unpaid six months after they were lodged, it has emerged.

The findings by the Chinese Association for Auctioneers give a rare official glimpse beneath the surface of what one Western art-dealer has described as the "shark infested waters" of China's art world.

The 18th century Qianlong-dynasty porcelain vase

International auction houses have enjoyed a series of record-breaking sales since 2009 as 'hot' Chinese money flooded the market in search of investment opportunities following a massive surge in cheap credit following the 2008 financial crisis.

But the problems of the weak regulation in the Chinese art market could be seen last year when a Chinese bidder 'paid' a record-breaking £53m for a Qing Dynasty vase found in the house of a Middlesex widow.

The 'sale' initially attracted celebratory headlines but these were quickly tempered by reports that both the owner and the auctioneer had been forced to travel to China in pursuit of payment. The parties will still not confirm if the payment has been received.

The survey of last year's autumn sales from 250 Chinese auction houses found that two fifths of sales above 10m yuan (approximately £1m) had not been fully paid by April this year, according to Ou Shuying, the Association's deputy general-secretary.

Read more at The Telegraph

The Buck Stops Where?

A staff member counts money at a branch of the Bank of China on Aug. 10, 2011 in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province of China.

October 11, 2011

Irwin M. Stelzer is a senior fellow and director of Hudson Institute's economic policy studies group.

Better to war-war than to jaw-jaw, to stand Winston Churchill's remark on its head. The United States Senate and the trade unions are not alone in believing that we have been jaw-jawing with China for too many years, while it continues to take jobs from America by manipulating its currency, stealing our intellectual property, and subsidizing exports of solar panels and other bits of green technology so as to strangle the U.S. green industry in its cradle.

The Democratic controlled senate, with 12 Republicans joining 50 Democrats, passed by a vote of 62 to 38 what it calls the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act to impose tariffs on Chinese goods unless the regime allows the yuan to appreciate faster, perhaps by somewhere between 15 percent and 40 percent. U.S. companies that have been competitively disadvantaged by China's currency manipulation can treat "misaligned" currencies as a form of subsidy, and apply for tariff protection. This bill, in the unlikely event that it passes the House—Speaker John Boehner calls it "dangerous"—would result in a flood of complaints by China to the World Trade Organization. American companies would almost certainly lose, and animosity towards the WTO and by extension other international organizations would rise. But those supporters of the bill who keep their dog-eared copies of The Wealth of Nations handy can at least claim to be acting in the great tradition of Adam Smith, who wrote that "when some foreign nation restrains ... the importation of some of our manufactures ... Revenge ... naturally dictates retaliation, and that we should impose the like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all of their manufactures into ours."

Read more at NPR

China rural migrants young, restless and online

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's young migrant workers believe manufacturers can afford bigger pay rises and they are increasingly willing to strike to win them, according to a report that documents the spread of labour unrest across the country's export zones.

The Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, which advocates stronger rights for workers, also said in the report on Tuesday the tens of millions of young migrants from the Chinese countryside are increasingly adept at using the Internet to mobilise.

"Workers now understand that many enterprises are profitable enough to accommodate wage increases, and the workers are now more determined and able to push for those increases," the non-governmental organisation said.

"Whereas in the past, workers tended to wait for their rights to be violated before taking action, they are now becoming more proactive."

The study is the latest to examine China's "new generation" of increasingly assertive workers from the countryside, who have no desire to return to farms and want to win a foothold in urban society, despite discrimination and high costs.

"They're not going to go back to the village and add an extra storey to the family farmhouse. They want to build a life for themselves in the city, and to do that they need money," Geoffrey Crothall, a spokesman for China Labour Bulletin, told Reuters TV.

"And that is why you're seeing a lot more strikes and protests in China now because the demands of workers are getting higher and they're more willing to stand up for themselves."

Read more at  CMBC

China calls on Syria's Assad to speed up reforms

China has urged Syria to speed up reforms, in a sign that it may be losing patience with the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said China did not "want to see more bloodshed, conflict and casualties".

Russia has made a similar plea, telling Mr Assad to implement reforms or go.

Both Russia and China infuriated the West last week after vetoing a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria for the crackdown on protesters.

The European-drafted proposal had already been watered down to try to avoid the vetoes, with a direct reference to sanctions against Damascus dropped.

But Moscow and Beijing said the draft contained no provision against outside military intervention in Syria.

Read more at the  BBC