REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Law and disorder in China

Yu Hua

A peculiar feature of Chinese society is that a complaint process runs parallel to, but outside, the legal system. Victims of corruption and injustice have no faith in the law, and yet they dream that an upright official will emerge to right their wrongs. Although a complaint mechanism is in place at all levels of Chinese government, petitioners seem to believe that the central authorities are less susceptible to corruption. By some estimates, more than 10 million complaints are filed around the country each year, far more than are heard by the regular courts.

Law in China, at least on paper, is more firmly established than it once was, and some legal experts propose doing away with the grievance system. But the government has retained it. Also — and crucially — it wants to leave the petitioners some slender hope, a fantasy that one day injustice will find redress. If all hope is lost, petitioners may take more extreme action.

Often, the State Bureau for Letters and Visits simply goes through the motions of registering the complaints, then asks the petitioners’ local governments to look into them. But years of failure have sharpened the petitioners’ wits. They know that the only way they can put pressure on their local governments is by persistent visits to Beijing.

Seeing the judiciary as biased and the grievance process as a sham, they treat petitioning as a means of extortion. Here’s an example. In 2007, during the Chinese Communist Party’s 17th Congress, a man from Shandong Province phoned his village chief and told him he was in Tianjin and about to board a train for Beijing to appeal a miscarriage of justice. The village chief was shocked: if the petitioner were to appear in Tiananmen Square at such a prominent moment, not only would the chief lose his job, but his immediate superiors would be disgraced as well. He begged the villager not to go to Beijing. All right, the man said, but there was a price for his acquiescence: 20,000 yuan. The village chief withdrew this sum from public funds and delivered it to the man’s wife.

... contd.  Read more at indian express

 

 

China on route to see its first Good Samaritan law

When it comes to Good Samaritans in China, “to be or not to be” is a constant struggle.

If you are among the many residents who worry about becoming a victim of fraud after helping people in need, we’ve got some good news for you.

China is preparing its very first Good Samaritan law to protect bystanders who choose to rescue a stranger in distress. According to Guangzhou Daily, officials in the southern city of Shenzhen are soliciting public opinions on a draft of a local Good Samaritan regulation designed to encourage altruism.

The draft follows the tragic death of Yue Yue, a two-year-old girl who was ignored by passers-by as she lay dying in a busy street in October. Graphic footage of the toddler’s death triggered widespread discussion of the “prevalent apathy” in Chinese societies. Many called for a new law to tackle the culture of avoidance and eliminate scams to accuse well-intentioned citizens.

Shenzhen became the first to react.

The draft frees 'Good Samaritans' from legal liability for the condition of the person they help, except in the case of gross negligence. The burden of proving any negligence would rest with the rescued party. Click here for more details on the law, including criminal prosecution for fraud and government compensation for rescuers.

Read more at  CNN n/s

The tragedy of Zhao Wei

While the arguable non-story of China’s “Jasmine protests” enjoys excited and widespread coverage internationally, boiling over into a tug-of-war over the very real harassment of foreign journalists in China, there is one potentially great big story missing from everyone’s agenda — the mysterious death of Chinese college student Zhao Wei (赵伟).

And yet, the chilling story of Zhao Wei, who was very possibly murdered by railway authorities on his way home to Inner Mongolia during the Spring Festival rush more than a month ago, goes to the very heart of the issues and anxieties that are of most immediate relevance to all Chinese, and could contribute to demands for change.

How can the government ensure safety of life and property for ordinary Chinese? How can Chinese find justice in a society where special interests can get away — possibly quite literally in this case — with murder?

Given such immediate concerns about justice and fairness in Chinese society, Zhao Wei’s case has the potential — just the potential, mind you — to become what the Sun Zhigang case was for China’s detention and repatriation system back in 2003.

For those of you fishing around for another news hook, let us remember that China’s powerful Railways Ministry, subject right now to one of the biggest corruption probes in memory, is involved in Zhao’s case too. They are, Xinhua reports, now charged with the official investigation, despite the possibility that their own local authorities in Daqing are culpable.

Got your attention?

Zhao Wei’s story drew a firestorm of interest online earlier this week after a link to an open letter written by his desperate parents emerged through Sina’s microblog, or “weibo,” platform [WARNING: this link includes a photo some may find disturbing].

The essentials of Zhao Wei’s story, which receives basic corroboration by an official Xinhua News Agency release today — we’ll come to that in a moment — runs as follows.

Read more at China Media Project

Pluck up corporate courage in China

When Rio Tinto dumped the Australian Stern Hu in March and pushed him out the door with a news release slamming his "deplorable conduct", China-based executives at some foreign companies began asking whether they would also be cut loose if they found themselves in a Chinese jail.

The detention of Matthew Ng, a Chinese-born Australian citizen who founded the $100 million travel company Et-China, has added urgency to that question.

It should go without saying that Australian executives in China should conform with Chinese law and standards that would apply to them at home. 

The dilemma is judging when China's criminal system should be trusted to decide these standards, especially when there is a commercial dispute in the background.

An executive in China asks: "If the legal system is systematically corrupt, rife with economic conflicts of interest, and also subject to political interference, then how can companies know if an employee has broken the law?

"Then again, can a company operating in China realistically take a position that it will not recognise the results of the Chinese legal process? That also seems untenable. Not just politically untenable, but also because the legal system does in fact produce many legitimate results alongside many illegitimate ones."

Read more at  The Sydney Morning Herald

60,000 porn websites shut in China

Beijing: More than 60,000 pornographic websites have been shut in China following a massive crackdown, authorities said.

Nearly 1.785 million websites have been checked since the launch of the campaign in December 2009 and some 2,197 cases of dissemination of online pornography have been dealt with during the crackdown, National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications said.

The office said it has received more than 160,000 porn-related tip-offs from the general public, state-run Xinhua reported.

"Spread of pornography has been effectively curbed and the Internet further purified," the office said.

China has the world's largest online population, with more than 420 million netizens.

IBN LIVE

China to better protect lawyers' rights

BEIJING, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- China will issue new rules to better protect lawyers' rights to meet and correspond with their clients in police custody, Chinese Justice Minister Wu Aiying said at a national lawyers' work conference in Beijing Tuesday.

The new rules will also facilitate lawyers' rights to review relevant documents, conduct necessary investigations and collect evidence, Wu said.

She also said the Ministry of Justice is working with other government departments to implement the rules at an early date.

The relationship between lawyers and judicial staff should be strictly defined, with local judicial agencies and lawyers' associations taking measures to protect lawyers' legitimate rights in accordance with the law, she said.

Moreover, Wu called for more government support of lawyers' work, including by paying for lawyers' services when it is of the public interest to do so.

She also called for more funding for the training of lawyers.

China's criminal defense lawyers sometimes encounter difficulties when consulting with and defending suspects because some police and judicial staff think they will make trouble and prevent criminals from being prosecuted.

XINHUANET

Fighting for justice in China

In China, victims ― whether of natural disasters, of criminals or of government malfeasance ― should always keep one thing in mind: things could get worse, much worse.

If they try to seek justice by going to court, lodging a complaint or talking to the media, they are likely to be treated like criminals themselves.

Thus, parents of the thousands of children who died in poorly constructed schools during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake came under pressure to sign contracts under which they would receive compensation in return for their silence. Those who refused to sign got nothing.

A teacher, Liu Shaokun, who took photos of collapsed school buildings and put them online, was accused of disseminating rumors and destroying social order and sentenced to a year of re-education through labor, an administrative punishment.

An activist, Huang Qi, who criticized the government's response to the earthquake, was sentenced to three years in prison.

Last month, two female students at Hebei University were struck by a car driven by Li Qiming, whose father, Li Gang, is deputy director of the public security bureau.

The younger Li drove away without stopping and, when caught, said simply, “My father is Li Gang.” That was all the protection he needed, a powerful father.

One of the two women, 20-year-old Chen Xiaofeng, died and her father, Chen Guangqian, now lives in fear.

“We don’t have any connections,” he reportedly said in an interview. “We won’t be able to just find anyone we want. It’s also hard for us to find evidence and information.”

The Chen family has come under pressure to accept compensation ― and keep quiet. According to Chen’s lawyer, Zhang Kai, a gag order has been issued and not a single witness who saw the accident has stepped forward.

Read more at The Korea Times

In China, a legal contradiction

IN BEIJING Police prevented two prominent human rights lawyers from leaving China on Tuesday, the latest in a series of recent moves against activists and dissidents that underscores the contradiction between the country's professed commitment to the rule of law and the legal gray area in which its security apparatus sometimes operates.

"This kind of restriction of the freedom of person has absolutely no legal basis," said Mo Shaoping, one of the lawyers who was not permitted to board a flight to attend an International Bar Association conference in London. When asked why, the police could produce no written notice, the lawyers said, but offered only that the two might "threaten national security" if allowed to travel abroad.

Over the past month, since jailed pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a handful of lawyers and dissidents - and Liu's wife, Liu Xia - have been subjected to a form of house arrest, prohibited from leaving their apartments or meeting with journalists. Some, like the two lawyers, have been prevented from traveling, as the government fears Liu Xiaobo's supporters might try to attend the Dec. 10 Nobel ceremony in Oslo. But Mo, who said he had already checked his luggage when police detained him, said he had a return ticket and no intention of going to Norway.

China - increasingly open, modern and economically powerful - wants to be seen as a country that abides by the rule of law, with an independent judiciary.

The official state-run news agency reported Tuesday that China's State Council - the equivalent of the cabinet - had issued new guidelines ordering officials to adhere to the rule of law. It is "important" and "imperative" to build a government ruled by law, the State Council said.

Read more at The Washington Post

Chasing pirates: Inside Microsoft's war room

New York:  As the sun rose over the mountains circling Los Reyes, a town in the Mexican state of Michoacán, one morning in March 2009, a caravan of more than 300 heavily armed law enforcement agents set out on a raid.

All but the lead vehicle turned off their headlights to evade lookouts, called "falcons," who work for La Familia Michoacana, the brutal Mexican cartel that controls the drug trade. This time, the police weren't hunting for a secret stash of drugs, guns or money. Instead, they looked to crack down on La Familia's growing counterfeit software ring.

The police reached the house undetected, barreled in and found rooms crammed with about 50 machines used to copy CDs and make counterfeit versions of software like Microsoft Office and Xbox video games. They arrested three men on the spot, who were later released while the authorities investigate the case. "The entire operation was very complicated and risky," says a person close to the investigation, who demanded anonymity out of fear for his life.
 
The raid added to a body of evidence confirming La Familia's expansion into counterfeit software as a low-risk, high-profit complement to drugs, bribery and kidnapping. The group even stamps the disks it produces with "FMM," which stands for Familia Morelia Michoacana, right alongside the original brand of various software makers.  

The cartel distributes the software through thousands of kiosks, markets and stores in the region and demands that sales workers meet weekly quotas, this person says, describing the operation as a "form of extortion" on locals.
 
The arrival of organized criminal syndicates to the software piracy scene has escalated worries at companies like Microsoft, Symantec and Adobe. Groups in China, South America and Eastern Europe appear to have supply chains and sales networks rivaling those of legitimate businesses, says David Finn, Microsoft's anti-piracy chief. Sometimes they sell exact copies of products, but often peddle tainted software that opens the door to other electronic crime.

"As long as intellectual property is the lifeblood of this company, we have to go protect it," Mr Finn says.
 
Microsoft has adopted a hard-line stance against counterfeiting. It has set up a sophisticated anti-piracy operation that dwarfs those of other software makers; the staff includes dozens of former government intelligence agents from the United States, Europe and Asia, who use a host of "CSI"-like forensic technology tools for finding and convicting criminals.

But the hunt for pirates carries with it a cost to Microsoft's reputation.

Read more at NDTV

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/technology/chasing-pirates-inside-microsofts-war-room-64810?trendingnow&cp

Corona gets award from China's top law school

MANILA, Philippines — Justice Renato C. Corona has been awarded the Honorary Professorship of Law from China’s leading law school.

Corona personally received the award from Dean Da-Yuan of Renmin University of China Law School while attending an international law forum in Beijing last week.

The title was granted in recognition of Corona’s “legal scholarship and expertise in international law.”

Renmin Law School is considered as the No. 1 law school in China. Established in 1950, it is the first regular higher legal education organization created after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

In its 60 years of existence, this is the first time that a foreign dignitary was given such honor.

Corona was in Beijing to attend the 4th Meeting of the Asia Pacific Judicial Reform Forum from October 25 to 28. The forum was attended by several chief justices from other countries, but the award was given only to Corona.

This is the first international recognition received by Corona since he assumed office as the country’s 23rd chief magistrate in May.

Prior to his appointment as Chief Justice, Corona served as Associate Justice since April 2002. He is known as one of the youngest ever to be appointed to the High Court.

The Chief Justice finished his Bachelor of Arts with honors at the Ateneo de Manila University and his Bachelor of Laws at the Ateneo Law School where he ranked fifth in his class. He placed 25th in the 1974 Bar examinations with a grade of 84.6 percent.

After law school, Corona pursued the Master of Business Administration course at the Ateneo Professional Schools. He finished his Master of Laws degree at the Harvard Law School in 1982, concentrating on foreign investment policies and the regulation of corporations and financial institutions.

Manila Bulletin

China executes serial killer for murdering 11 people

BEIJING, China — China has executed a serial killer convicted of murdering 11 people, including three police officers, over the course of nearly a decade.

Cheng Ruilong, 37, was sentenced to death earlier this year by the Foshan Municipal Intermediate People's Court for murder, robbery and rape in China's southern province of Guangdong, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

During Cheng's appeal to the Supreme Court, the court reduced the number of victims from 13 to 11 because the bodies of a mother and daughter allegedly killed by Cheng were not found, the report said.

Cheng smiled when his sentencing was read out at the Supreme Court, according to the state-run Guangzhou Daily.

He was executed by lethal injection Tuesday, state media reported. Calls to the Foshan Municipal Intermediate People's Court rang unanswered Wednesday.

Xinhua said Cheng used various aliases to dodge authorities. Once, he killed three members of a family and then stole more than $10,000 from them.

Mass attacks are rare in China but a spate of vicious assaults this year — including several on schoolchildren — have shocked the country.

Violent crime in China jumped 10 per cent last year, with 5.3 million reported cases of homicide, robbery, and rape. It was the first time since 2001 that violent crime increased, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Google Hosted News

A death in China triggers disgust, derision

BAODING, CHINA—It might have been a fatal traffic accident like so many others that occur in China every day.

But when 20-year-old student Chen Xiaofeng was run down and killed on her college campus this month, it was different — and triggered a firestorm.

Chen was roller-blading with a friend at the University of Hebei, when a car collided with them and pitched them both sprawling and bleeding on to the pavement.

But the driver did not stop.

Instead, he sped on — corralled minutes later by campus security guards and angry students.

Undaunted, the driver drunkenly climbed out of his car, and confronted the crowd shouting, “Go ahead and sue me! My father is Li Gang!”

It was Oct. 16 — and those words have reverberated around China ever since.

Li Gang is a senior police official here in Baoding, about 140 kilometres south of Beijing.

His son’s loud, arrogant and public profession that his father’s power would trump any law enraged students here and, eventually, much of the country.

China’s Internet, home to some 400 million users, lit up with fury.

And many claimed the case is by no means isolated — but typifies the “arrogance” of children of Chinese officials who believe, in the words of one blogger, “that they can get away with any mistake or any crime they commit.”

Two weeks on, that anger is undiminished, and the government is concerned.

The words, “My father is Li Gang,” have become the single, most popular phrase on China’s Internet, one laced with derision about the base way in which China’s government often works, especially at the local level.

Meantime, Chen Xiaofeng is dead from her injuries; her friend is recovering in hospital; and Li Gang’s 22-year-old son, Li Qiming, is in custody awaiting completion of the investigation.

Read more at The Star

ID required for mobile phone users starting Wednesday

Telecommunication authorities are requiring millions of mobile phone users in China to register with their real names when subscribing to services starting Wednesday, in an attempt to increase monitoring and crack down cell phone-based crimes.

But the move has raised concerns over security of personal data, and it is feared the new regulations will complicate the subscription process.

Ji Jinkui, a senior official with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), confirmed to the Global Times Tuesday that all three telecommunication service providers - China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom - are required to start real-name registration for their new users beginning today. A specific plan for existing users is under discussion and is expected to take effect soon, Ji added.

Existing mobile phone users will be asked to register their real names with identity cards before 2013, or their numbers might be suspended, Chen Jinqiao, with the telecommunication economic expert committee at MIIT, told the Global Times Tuesday.

Prepaid SIM card buyers will also be asked to produce identity cards when making a purchase.

Read more at The Global Times

China accused of holding woman in mental hospital for challenging officials

Liao Meizhi one of many wrongly detained in psychiatric institutions for clashing with local bureaucrats, say researchers

 

Yang Chunguang holds the ID card of his wife Liao Meizhi, who is being held in the Yanshi mental hospital, Qianjiang city, Hubei. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian

They snatched Liao Meizhi on her birthday, dragging her off the street and into a dirty blue van as others held back her husband.

It was only two months later, when a stranger knocked on the door, that her family learned where she had been taken. The man said he had just been discharged from a nearby mental hospital – and that Liao was being held there against her will. Her husband insists she has no psychiatric problems.

More than six months after she was seized, her family says she remains incarcerated in the nondescript building with thick steel doors just outside her hometown of Qianjiang, in China's central Hubei province.

Researchers believe she is among a growing number of people wrongly detained in psychiatric institutions after clashing with local officials. One activist has compiled a database of more than 500 such cases.

Some victims have been held for a decade. Those freed describe being forcibly treated – with electro-convulsive therapy and powerful anti-psychotic drugs – for health problems they never had.

"In the last few years you have been seeing more and more cases involving petitioners and whistle blowers – 'the awkward squad' – [often when] the authorities have tried other punishments or sanctions to make them stop and nothing else has worked," said Robin Munro, author of China's Psychiatric Inquisition and a research associate at SOAS law school. "Finally they really try to scare them to hell by putting them in mental hospitals."

Read more at The Guardian

U.S. Turns Down Currency Probes in Two China Cases

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department said on Tuesday it did not have sufficient legal grounds to investigate if China's currency practices effectively subsidize its exports in separate trade cases brought by U.S. aluminum and paper producers.

"In these two cases, the Department has determined not to investigate whether the alleged undervaluation of China's currency, the RMB or yuan, is a countervailable subsidy," deputy assistant secretary for import administration Ronald K. Lorentzen said in a statement.  That is "because the allegations made by domestic producers do not meet the statutory standard for initiating an investigation under the requirement that benefits provided under China's unified foreign exchange regime be specific to the enterprise or industries being investigated," he said.

However, the department did announce it has set preliminary countervailing duties ranging from 6.18 to 137.65 percent on aluminum extrusions from China to offset other subsidies alleged in the case. The United States imported more than $500 million of the goods from China last year

Read more at ABC News

In Rare Move, China Court to Hear H.I.V. Case

BEIJING — In an apparent first for China’s legal system, a court in Anhui Province has agreed to hear a complaint by a prospective schoolteacher that he was illegally denied a job because he is H.I.V. positive, the man’s lawyer said Tuesday.

The unidentified man, said to be in his early 20s, brought the case under a 2006 national regulation that prohibits job discrimination against people with H.I.V., his lawyer, Zheng Jineng, said in a telephone interview from Hefei, the provincial capital.

Mr. Zheng said the case would be heard by a district court in Anqing. The plaintiff contends that he passed a written test and interviews for a teaching job there but that the city education bureau rejected him after a physical examination showed he was infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

“In the past on sensitive cases like this, the court would be very reluctant to accept the case,” Mr. Zheng said. “But this time they accepted it smoothly and quickly. That means the legal system in China is making progress.”

H.I.V.-positive Chinese suffered both official and public discrimination for years after the disease first surfaced there in 1986, as infected students were often forced to leave school and workers were shunted from their jobs.

Read more at The New York Times

Li Yinhe: Should University Student Mistresses be Punished?

By Alex Taggart

Li Yinhe’s latest blog post is about her position on the introduction of rules at Chongqing Normal University and Southwest Normal University that ban students from having one-night stands and being mistresses, an issue that has provoked a debate on sexual freedom, human rights, and the involvement of the authorities in people’s private lives. She argues that whilst from a legal standpoint people’s extra-marital affairs are their own dirty business, Chinese people should use the power of shame to prevent people from having affairs.

Translation

Recently, a certain university learned that a female student was a mistress, and planned to take disciplinary action, provoking much debate.

If a female student becomes someone’s mistress, it is certainly wrong on a moral level. Even if she is not a mistress, and just a normal lover, it’s still morally wrong, because she has ruined someone else’s family and marriage. This is essentially different to her having a relationship with and living with a single person; pre-marital cohabitation may contravene normal societal conventions, but on a moral level, it is not much of a problem.

The question is whether or not the university should take disciplinary action. The issue of how to deal with the violation of marital morality has been a focal point of debate in recent decades. Before Reform and Opening, extra-marital sex was punished quite severely, with administrative demerits and punishments that would [negatively] affect promotions and pay rises. It is said that during the Cultural Revolution there existed the crime of ‘breaking a family’, which specifically punished extra-marital sex. Since Reform and Opening, this crime no longer exists, work units no longer control the private lives of their workers, and the administrative punishment of this sort of immoral behaviour is no longer carried out. In 2000, when marriage law was amended, there were still those who strongly advocated the use of judicial powers to control extra-marital sex, but after the issue was debated in legal and social scientific circles, they ultimately abandoned this attempt. One reason for this was that studies conducted in Western countries showed an extra-marital sex rate of around 40 per cent. The proportion of extra-marital sex in China was a little lower, but it was still at roughly 16 per cent. If the target of a law renders 16 per cent of the population guilty, then even if it does become legislation, it will exist in name only; there is not enough police power to investigate these kinds of cases and to carry out this kind of punishment

Read more at China Geeks

Modern marks for sex offenders

July 29, 2010

These days there are more criminals in our midst than ever. Lest we worry that criminals, once caught, will break out of jail, consider the following. There is a brilliant idea for discouraging jailbreaks: make one sleeve of prison uniforms shorter than the other. The result is that one arm turns darker than the other when exposed to the sun. This makes it easy to identify a prisoner as someone with two differently colored arms, thus preventing jailbreaks.

The idea was from Jeremy Bentham, an 18th-century English jurist and philosopher, as a way to run the Panopticon, a prison designed by Bentham that allows a few wardens to watch a large number of prisoners at once.

Because it seeks to prevent recidivism by changing a part of the prisoner’s body, tanning a prisoner’s arm is similar to facial tattooing, where the name of the crime was written on the face of the offender. In the TV drama “Chuno,” there was a scene in which fugitive slaves were tattooed with the word “nobi,” meaning “slave,” after they were caught.

Tattooing is one of five punishments originating from China. One written record about the Kitan, a northern tribe that was eventually subjugated by China, says that the word “jeok,” meaning “thief,” was tattooed on the wrist of a first-time offender; on the arm of a second-time offender; on the elbow of a third-time offender; and on the shoulder of a fourth-time offender. A fifth-time offender was beheaded. Korea adopted this punishment during the Joseon era, but it was abolished during the reign of King Yeongjo because it was viewed as cruel to the offender.

Read more at JoongAng Daily

Speak of Motivation

People were asking why I had not commented on Wang Hui’s plagiarism scandal.  It’s not that I didn’t care. Truth is, I had selfish reasons for keeping silent.  The two recent open letters that stirred the water, one by Chinese scholars and the other by international scholars, have been dubbed as tit for tat, and I have friends in both camps of signatories.  Is my opinion on this more important than friendship?  For a while I was unsure. That was the main concern.  Another – somewhat petty – motivation was to steer clear of suspicion of personal grudge.

Not that I know Wang Hui personally.  Not really. I was a long-time reader of Du Shu (读书) magazine, and I liked it so much that I even subscribed from the US, which is quite expensive.  In my opinion it was during Wang Hui’s tenure as the editor that the magazine was the most interesting, thought provoking, and richest in content.  (With a different editor now, the magazine has become somewhat boring.)  I had always thought it’d be fun to chat with Wang Hui if there were a chance.

A few months ago, I attended the “Red Legacy in China” forum at Harvard University;   Wang Hui was one of the speakers. This was the first time I saw Wang Hui in person.  After the meeting, I went up to say Hello in the hallway.  I had already heard about his plagiarism scandal then, but I had no intention of mentioning it (and never did).  All I wanted to say was how much I enjoyed Du Shu under his editorship, with a slim hope for an intelligent conversation.

What I got was totally unexpected.  Wang Hui showed nothing but rudeness to me.  So much so that later Bob, who was waiting for me aside at the time, said, “Wow, that guy’s a real asshole. Either that, or he really needed to go to the bathroom.”

 

Read more at inside-out china

China Scraps Export Tax Rebate

China is ending tax rebates on some exports - a move business experts say is aimed at tackling overcapacity and easing trade tensions before the G20 summit.  

China's Ministry of Finance says more than 400 goods, including some steel products, non-ferrous metals, corn starch and chemicals will no longer receive export tax rebates, starting next month.

This is the first time China has removed tax breaks for exports since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in September 2008.

Many business experts say the move, which comes a few days after China ended its currency's peg to the dollar, is part of an effort to reduced overcapacity as exports continue to stabilize.

Read more at VOA News

 

Executions In China Under Growing Scrutiny

June 22, 2010

Protesters from Amnesty International in Hong Kong demonstrate in March 2009 against the death penalty in China. The human-rights group says China executed more than 1,700 people in 2008, roughly three-quarters of the world total.

Mike Clarke/AFP/Getty Images

Protesters from Amnesty International in Hong Kong demonstrate in March 2009 against the death penalty in China. The human-rights group says China executed more than 1,700 people in 2008, roughly three-quarters of the world total.

June 22, 2010

China's government is coming under increasing pressure to reduce its use of the death penalty, slowly shifting the country's legal system away from centuries of authoritarian tradition and toward greater legal protection for individual rights.

Beijing classifies the number of people it puts to death as a state secret, but it's believed to be nearly as much as all other countries combined. The human-rights group Amnesty International says China executed more than 1,700 people in 2008.

Legal experts are watching the case of a man in southern China who was sentenced to death three times — and then spared execution three times — to see whether recent legal reforms will save his life.

In 1983, Beijing wanted to punish criminals faster, so it gave provincial courts the final say over executions. It took back that prerogative three years ago

Read more at NPR

A Study of Sex Selective Abortion in China

In the 2010 Social Blue Paper, published last December by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, there was a very interesting piece hidden among the 330 pages of socio-economic analysis. Under the title “Population problems China should pay attention to between 2011 and 2015″, this article contained some of the newest and most negative data to date about the important problem of gender imbalance [1], published by an official PRC source.

The data was immediately published by the People’s Daily Chinese. A month later, it came out in the English version of the paper, and since then it has been making the rounds of the Western press, with the predictable apocalyptic spin.  Within China, however, the article has failed to spark any significant debate, even though the subject wasn’t censored. It is already positive that the authorities speak openly of this problem, but clearly a different approach is needed to raise awareness and find solutions.

With the help of my sister, pediatrician Dr. Madariaga, I have been comparing data from different primary sources outside and inside China. The CASS data coming from China official statistics turns out to be very consistent with previous outside sources, like the often quoted BMJ study. It is also the most pessimistic of all, and the most politically credible, as the patriotic CASS can hardly be accused of anti-CCP bias.

What follows is my analysis of the existing research from a different perspective. Not to do projections on the future, but to see what these numbers tell us of the Chinese today, and what solutions can be found. The results are shocking, read and judge by yourself:

The Story: A Very Common Occurrence

Today, almost 20% of the pregnancies that happen in China are manipulated using the simple method of ultrasound scan to determine gender, followed by abortion in case it is a female.

Most first time pregnancies are natural, with only a few percent points of manipulations. This makes sense, as the 2nd trimester abortions necessary for sex selection are not without risk for the mother’s reproductive capacity. Most families prefer to assure the first descendant, knowing that if it is a girl they will get a second go anyway.

However, about 50% of the first birth parents (the same 50% who had a girl?) decide to go for a second one. It is here that the gender manipulation happens massively. Around 30% of these families manipulated their pregnancy using the method described, with some provinces like Anhui showing a rate of up to 50% manipulations for second births.

This shows that sex selective abortion is not a minority problem practiced by a few rogue parents. It is a very common occurrence, with large parts of the population and the health sector taking part in it. In spite of the illegalization of ultrasound scans for sex detection in the 90s, it is obvious that a large part of the doctors are colluding with the public to ignore the law. In short, in most parts of China practicing sex selective abortion is extremely easy and extremely common. Practically anyone can do it.

Among these depressing results, here is a positive note: The very fact that the practice is so widespread would mean that government information campaigns can have a very important effect if they are done seriously. On the other hand, supervision and control campaigns are condemned to fail, although some particular measures might be applicable. More on this in “Conclusions” beloC

Read more at Chinayouren

Soccer Gambling Thrives in China

China didn’t make the cut for this year’s World Cup in South Africa, but according to the police, thousands of people have still gotten in on the soccer action by participating in illegal online gambling rings.

Reuters

Chinese players sing the national anthem before a World Cup qualifying match in 2008.

As of Saturday, police have already confiscated $102 million in illegal funds and arrested some 3,600 suspects for illegal gambling in connection with the World Cup, according to a report by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

Illicit gambling in Chinese soccer seems about as common as shin guards, and experts have said it’s also a key reason China hasn’t done well on the international soccer stage. Both performance and credibility has suffered amid accusations of match fixing and rumors that players pay for spots on the national roster.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

Mint posts, then pulls controversial immigration chart

Intuit-owned online financial tool Mint.com posted an item entitled "The Economic Impact of Immigration" to its MintLife blog earlier this week that quickly caught attention for all the wrong reasons.

The story, which featured an "infographic" and has since been taken down by the company, detailed the monetary impact that undocumented immigrants currently have on the U.S. economy, citing such numbers as 43 percent of all food stamps and 41 percent of unemployment benefits going to these individuals.

Besides being controversial, the numbers behind the imagery turned out to be questionably sourced. The Atlantic, which picked up on the story late Thursday, found that the chart had been sourced in part by Vdare, a site that has a history of posting anti-immigration articles, and has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Other figures for the chart were taken from places like Pew Research, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security's Web site.

Mint has had a long history of running infographics, though in the past they have been features on banks, monetary distribution, and taxation, and have usually come from a single source. The one for immigration cited 12.

As David Weigel notes over at The Washington Post, the inclusion of the credible sources into the mix did little to help separate the wheat from the chaff, since the chart was set up in a way that did not show you where each statistic came from. That means Vdare could have very well had its own legitimate source for the information, but without showing which numbers came from where puts the entire chart under scrutiny.

MintLife's editor Lee Sherman has since taken down the graphic and issued an apology, saying that the company went "too far" and that it won't happen again. "It's true that the tone [of the MintLife blog] is often provocative, seeking to engage readers in dialogue around important topics," Sherman said. "But the recent blog post 'The Economic Impact of Immigration' went too far, cited polarized sources, and did not receive the editorial judgment and oversight it deserved." The apology, though, was not good enough for some Mint users, who have removed their accounts from the service, and are posting about it on Twitter.

Read more at CNET

Public Recommendation and Direct Elections in Nanjing to Cover Cities and Countryside, Allow People to Wield Rights

While elections in China exist at the village level, they are rare at the township level and above. Currently, Nanjing is the only city with direct elections of grassroots officials on a large scale. China Newsweek reports on “democracy’s new evolution.” Translated by CDT:

The new century ushered a landmark democratic innovation, “public recommendation and direct election,” into the Chinese Communist Party. The Communist Party’s democracy experiment now nears its tenth year, starting with the initial implementation of “public recommendation and direct election” in Sichuan’s Pingchang County — the first break with the Party’s “appointment system” — and lasting till today.

According to Samuel Huntington, political order and stability depend on the relationship between the level of political institutionalization and the degree of political participation.

In ten years, it was the first such experiment in the country, and its “public recommendation and direct election” would later receive the full affirmation of the 17th National People’s Congress as the Communist Party’s goal for democratic governance. Today, Nanjing alone, already with 806 village party organizations and 363 city community organizations, has implemented public recommendation and direct elections.

In Nanjing, one of the most important cities in the lower reaches of the Yangtze, grassroots party organizations have already received democracy’s “full coverage.” Democracy, in this [provincial] capital of 7.58 million, is on the brink of evolving towards a major trend. Because of a few differences in the Party’s democracy experiments in the past, Nanjing’s experiment will provide China’s evolving democracy with a brand new urban sample. This city’s efforts may advance China’s broader democracy by providing ideas.

China Digital Times