China’s iron-fisted PR

Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor, The Australian, Australia, March 26, 2009-

KEVIN Rudd’s semi-secret meeting on Saturday with Li Changchun, the Chinese politburo member in charge of propaganda, media and ideology, is one of the most bizarre episodes of his prime ministership. It is almost certainly more stupid than sinister, but it does raise legitimate questions about Chinese influence in Australia. Li is ranked No.5 in China’s nine-member ruling politburo standing committee. Rudd welcomed Li and the accompanying Chinese media to the Lodge in Canberra but didn’t tell the Australian people about it.

Li’s visit was reported on Chinese television, but there is no guarantee that Australia’s small and very busy group of correspondents in China would have picked up the story, and its bizarre lack of visibility in Australia, if this paper’s Cameron Stewart had not reported it.

The day after Li’s visit Rudd went out of his way on TV to call for reform of the global financial system so that China gets more influence. I don’t believe that in any sinister way Rudd is doing the bidding of the Chinese Government, but nothing is more likely to reinforce such an interpretation than the weird behaviour regarding Li’s meeting.

Li’s visit should occasion a serious examination of the exercise of Chinese soft power in Australia. It can benefit from as much transparency and public scrutiny as possible.

Members of Li’s delegation, and presumably Li himself, as well as other Chinese officials, have been involved in an intensive round of lobbying and briefing in recent days. They seem to have three central messages for Australians. We must not support Tibet’s Dalai Lama. We must support the Chinalco bid for a large stake in Australian miner Rio Tinto. And we should know that Chinalco, though wholly owned by the Chinese Government, is an independent commercial entity run at more than arm’s length from the Chinese Government.

If you notice some tension between the second and third propositions, perhaps you are not alone. However, the chutzpah of the Chinese official position is remarkable.

Just as they are telling us Chinalco is not directly related to the Chinese Government, the former president of Chinalco, Xiao Yaqing, has been appointed to the Chinese cabinet. China’s belief that it can simply assert its position, no matter how obviously ridiculous, and Australians will ultimately accept it is disconcerting, to say the least.

The absolute and deafening silence of the Opposition, Barnaby Joyce excepted, on this or on any issue that demands a sense of values or of geo-strategic direction means the debate is not joined in our political process. This whole dynamic should be the subject of vigorous, freewheeling debate and searching media scrutiny.

In the end, the decision on Chinalco, though notionally Wayne Swan’s, will be Rudd’s alone. And it will be a key test of whether our somewhat Sinocentric Prime Minister is capable of saying no to the Chinese on something they really want.

The broader exercise of Chinese power in Australia should be a preoccupation of the media.

Chinalco is just one example, though it is instructive. Chinalco gave $250,000 to the Australia China Business Council to produce reports on the benefits of Chinese investment in Australia. It has signed up as a corporate sponsor of the Lowy Institute for International Policy.

More generally, the Chinese Government has sponsored the creation of four Confucius Institutes at Australian universities. Former Australian consul general in Hong Kong and University of Sydney visiting professor Jocelyn Chey has labelled the institutes as propaganda vehicles for the Chinese Communist Party. She certainly does not regard them as the equivalent of broad-ranging cultural organisations such as Germany’s Goethe Institutes or the Alliance Francaise. She argues that their presence at Australian universities is problematic.

Sponsoring think tanks and university organisations is, of course, perfectly normal. There do seem to be much more ruthless examples of Chinese power in Australia, however.

Last year there were quite serious assaults by pro-Beijing demonstrators against pro-Tibetan demonstrators in several Australian cities when the Olympic torch relay was held. The Chinese embassy helped organise the demonstrations. Would we accept that behaviour from any other embassy inAustralia?

When I asked the office of Foreign Minister Stephen Smith about this, a spokesperson said: “The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade does not agree that the actions of the Chinese embassy in facilitating the attendance of Chinese students at the Olympic torch relay was a breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Prior to the relay taking place, senior officials from DFAT called in the Chinese ambassador to discuss aspects of the relay. The ambassador was told that under no circumstances were the students or Chinese community to have a security role.”

Even that perplexing statement seems to accept that the Chinese ambassador has a legitimate political role in controlling the actions of the Chinese community and Chinese students. No foreign embassy in Australia should have any role agitating among any group within Australia at all.

These incidents have to be seen, too, in the light of the testimony of Chinese defector Chen Yonglin, formerly a Chinese consul in Sydney. When he defected in 2005, Chen alleged that Beijing had 1000 agents in Australia, mostly working on monitoring and controlling Chinese students here. The Chinese Government told us Chen was talking nonsense, but it was the Chinese Government that, by appointing Chen, had previously told us to take him seriously.

Certainly China has greatly increased conventional espionage directed at Australian military, political, commercial and industrial targets in recent years.

Because the Chinese Government runs such an integrated and ruthless global operation in pursuit of power, it is legitimate to consider all these things together, especially when the key doubt about Chinalco is whether it will act in an authentically commercial fashion. Rudd’s strange meeting with Li can only exacerbate those doubts.

- The Australian

Businesswoman Helen Liu has strong links with China army

Rowan Callick and Brad Norington, The Australian, March 31, 2009-

THE wealthy Chinese businesswoman who befriended Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon and showered him with gifts is a leading member of an organisation with strong ties to the Chinese military.

Helen Liu, who was born in the northeastern Chinese province of Shandong and is now an Australian citizen, is a member of the editorial committee of Shandong Ming Jia.

The organisation, which translates as Shandong Celebrities Family, promotes the work of leading people from Shandong.

It has extensive membership within the China’s military, the Peoples Liberation Army, especially its logistics division.

Ms Liu has attracted enormous attention after allegations reported last week that Mr Fitzgibbon had been the subject of a covert spy operation by officials from his own defence department because of his relationship with her.
According to the claims, departmental officials regarded Ms Liu as a possible security risk.

Ms Liu, who has had many property development interests in China and Australia, is among members of the Shandong Celebrities Family network whose activities are regularly covered by its own colour magazine.

Of the past 10 cover photos, three have featured senior army officers – two men and one woman. Calligraphy, which is a strong feature of the organisation’s website, was written by a former commissar of the PLA’s logistics division.

Shandong is famous as a source of senior soldiers in China.

Ms Liu has also become a prominent representative for the People’s Republic in the vast overseas Chinese world – a role that gives her high status back in China.

Mr Fitzgibbon, who describes Ms Liu as a personal friend, met her during a trip to China with his father, former Labor MP Eric Fitzgibbon, in the early 1990s.

Over the years, Mr Fitzgibbon has introduced Ms Liu to Labor MPs at dinners. She paid for two trips Mr Fitzgibbon made to China in 2002 and 2005, which he failed to declare on his parliamentary statement of pecuniary interests until last week.

He rents a townhouse in Canberra owned by her family and last year she gave him a suit, which he subsequently returned.

Ms Liu’s many roles in public life, which also include past meetings with Kevin Rudd and John Howard, indicate she is a loyal, trusted and active leader with extensive contact within the Chinese party establishment.

She is vice-chairwoman of the World Federation of Overseas Chinese Associations, which states on its website she is the daughter of “an ordinary cadre” or Communist Party member.

This organisation is administratively based in Hong Kong, but is linked to the Overseas Affairs office of the United Front Ministry of the State Council, China’s cabinet. Among its goals are to work towards China’s reunification – meaning the assimilation of Taiwan – and to promote Chinese culture. A spokesman said a few years ago it also sought to “expose and criticise” the Falun Gong movement.

News of Ms Liu’s meetings with provincial and municipal leaders is frequently published in the domestic Chinese media.

When she visited the northwestern region of Xinjiang, she was photographed being received by a former vice-chairman of the National People’s Congress.

She has been praised for donating patriotic education material to schools in areas of China with heavy populations of non-Han Chinese people, such as Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. She also meets the top Chinese leaders who visit Australia, where she was photographed in 2002 toasting Li Peng, the former premier widely considered responsible for the brutality of the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989.

A key goal of the association of which she is vice-chairwoman is to represent Chinese interests internationally.

In pursuing this goal, given the growing intensity of Australia’s relationship with China, it was inevitable that she would meet the Prime Minister and Mr Howard.

Ms Liu, whose Chinese name is Haiyan, graduated with a masters degree from one of China’s top universities, Qinghua, in Beijing, before migrating to Australia 25 years ago. She is also a member of the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China, which campaigns for the return of Taiwan to the People’s Republic.

At its anniversary celebrations in Beijing, in 2006, the world federation of which she is vice-chairwoman stressed: “There is only one China in the world.”

The Chinese media have praised her active role in donating money towards less developed regions of China.

Last year, she contributed $6million for victims of the Sichuan earthquake.

Chinese media have reported Ms Liu owns a $140 million property in Hainan Island, and $20 million worth of property, including 55 villas and four office buildings, in Jiujiang city in Jiangxi province.

In Australia, Ms Liu has pursued shopping centre and hotel investments through companies that include Australia China Investments and Diamond Hills Holdings.

In 1997, she fought a Federal Court battle against a fellow company director, Jian Xu, a former boyfriend, who claimed he was entitled to a share of proceeds after property sales.

Ms Liu owns a large residence at exclusive Double Bay, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. She bought the six-bedroom, four bathroom property for $4.7million in 2003.

According to neighbours, she has been away from her Sydney home for the past three months.

- The Australian: Helen Liu has strong links with Chinese army

Eutelsat’s Favors for China Regime Now Include Satellite Technology

By Evan Mantyk, Epoch Times Staff, Mar 30, 2009 -

The Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported last week that European aerospace giant Arianespace expressed “shock” that a Chinese competitor was chosen by European satellite company Eutelsat to launch its latest satellite into space. The deal leaves precious satellite technology wide open to China and other nations that proliferate weapons of mass destruction.

It is the latest instance by Eutelsat putting business before principle in its dealings with the Chinese Communist Party. In June, the company cut the signal of New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV), an independent network that reports on human rights in China.

United States Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (California) highlighted the satellite launch deal, as well as a similar one by another European company. He called on the Obama administration to immediately cease doing business with the companies until they stop aiding the Chinese regime.

“You’d be reasonable in thinking that the European companies who are helping [China] arm for war and stifle free speech would be at odds with the European companies that are helping the United States keep the peace and sow the seeds of democracy,” reads Rep. Rohrabacher’s letter.

“But you’d be outraged to know that the two companies… who are profiting from their work with the People’s Liberation Army [China’s military], are the very same companies that sell goods and services to the United States Government.”

A Pentagon report released on March 25 found that China’s increasing military build up has uncertain intentions, stretching beyond defense of its borders and potentially challenging strategic U.S. positions throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

“Much uncertainty surrounds China’s future course, particularly regarding how its expanding military power might be used,” reads the report, which came out only a few weeks after tensions were raised when an unarmed U.S. Navy vessel was bullied by five Chinese ships in the South China Sea.

Eutelsat’s Questionable Past

For powerful international companies like Eutelsat, dealing with China has meant taking principles off the bargaining table on a regular basis. In his letter, Rep. Rohrabacher addresses Eutelsat’s questionable past dealings with the communist state.

“One of these European companies [Eutelsat] also helps to muzzle Freedom of Conscience in the People’s Republic of China by denying satellite telecommunications services to dissidents within China,” reads the letter, referencing the termination of NTDTV’s signal.

Eutelsat terminated broadcast of NTDTV into China in June, 2008, citing technical reasons. A July 10 investigative report by Reporters Without Borders revealed, however, that the broadcast cut was a premeditated act, owing to influence from the Chinese regime ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

In January, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on Eutelsat to resume broadcast of NTDTV into China.

The resolution urges the European Union’s 27 member states “to take necessary action to help restore NTDTV’s broadcasts to China and to support access to uncensored information for millions of Chinese citizens.”

The resolution also “urges Eutelsat to resume NTDTV transmission to China without delay and to provide reasons for this suspension.”

Despite accusations that they caved to pressure from the Chinese communist regime, Eutelsat turned down at least two invitations to discuss the matter with the European Parliament.

“It’s obvious that [the CEO of Eutelsat is] afraid to come. He’s afraid to come and face the Members of Parliament because there is no explanation for closing the signal [into China] and that is obvious,” said Hanna Foltyn-Kubicka, a Member of European Parliament through a translator, in an interview with The Epoch Times in January.

- The Epochtimes

Helen Liu ‘spy’ storm widens: Australia and China

By Glenn Milne and Sharri Markson, The Sunday Telegraph, Australia, March 29, 2009-

THE Chinese-Australian woman at the centre of a top-level espionage inquiry has met both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and former PM John Howard, it has been revealed.

Mr Rudd is believed to have attended a private dinner in Brisbane in 2004, where he met and talked at length in Mandarin with Helen Liu.

Ms Liu is at the centre of allegations that the nation’s top spy organisation, the highly-secretive Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), tapped into the laptop of Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, without his knowledge.

The DSD allegedly discovered Ms Liu’s bank account details in Mr Fitzgibbon’s computer.

The Minister, who denies any wrongdoing, rents a Canberra flat from Ms Liu, a family friend for more than 16 years.

The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, Mr Ian Carnell, has now launched a formal investigation into claims that DSD spied on the minister and all “related matters”.

It’s now alleged that Mr Rudd attended the 2004 dinner with Ms Liu, at the invitation of another major ALP donor and known Labor supporter, Brisbane property developer Maha Sinnathamby, whose personal fortune is estimated at $571 million.

A spokesman for Mr Sinnathamby confirmed yesterday he had known Mr Rudd for more than 20 years and had dined privately with him on a number of occasions, as well as at numerous larger public functions.

But the spokesman said Mr Sinnathamby could “not recall” the 2004 dinner allegedly attended by both Ms Liu and Mr Rudd.

The spokesman said Mr Sinnathamby knew Mr Rudd personally, but he knew Treasurer, Wayne Swan “much better”.

A spokesman for Mr Rudd refused to deny the claims he had dined with Ms Liu in 2004, saying only: “The Prime Minister attends hundreds of functions and meets thousands of people every year.”

The undated photograph of Mr Howard with Ms Liu appears to have been taken at a public function. Mr Howard is known to have enduring and good relations with the Sydney Chinese business community.

He had a large number of Chinese residents in his former seat of Bennelong. Mr Sinnathamby is a major ALP donor, contributing more than $70,000 to the party over the last decade.

But the Liberal Party has also long accepted donations from Chinese-born business figures.

These have included Dr Chau Chak Wing who gave $1 million to the Coalition and almost $500,000 to the ALP in the last financial year.

Legislation aimed at banning foreign donations was voted down in the Federal Parliament by the Coalition and Independent Senator Steve Fielding only last month.

NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said there is a growing Chinese influence in Australian companies, particularly extractive industries.

“We’ve got no way of stopping a continuation of these wealthy Chinese bankrolling a string of politicians and exerting their influence,” she said.

Dr Chau Chak Wing, a Hong Kong-based property developer, is understood to have been a confidant of Mr Howard, former NSW premier Bob Carr and Mr Rudd.

Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce said last week he was also concerned about large donations from China.

“In the marriage between the Australian people and the wealth of our nation, the Labor Party is having an affair with China and trying to pass it off as they’re just good friends,” he said.

Australian Securities and Investment Corporation documents show Ms Liu’s Australian company, Australia China Investments, is half-owned by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of the four major financial arms of the Chinese Government.

She has been photographed with former Chinese premier Li Peng in Sydney in 2002.

It has also been revealed that defence officials may have alerted the Government to security concerns over Mr Fitzgibbon’s relationship with Ms Liu.

The Prime Minister’s office is refusing to reveal whether defence personnel told government staff there were security concerns over the relationship.

Mr Rudd’s spokeswoman said the matter was not raised with the Prime Minister’s office, but refused to comment when asked whether defence security officials raised concerns with anyone else in the Government.

The Age newspaper reported on Saturday that defence security officials had done just that with Mr Rudd’s office some months ago, but no action was taken.

Labor Party figures have speculated whether the real source of the leaked dirt file on Mr Fitzgibbon was a disgruntled former staffer and not upset Defence Department officials.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland issued a statement Friday, saying ASIO had “no information relating to Ms Helen Liu which would have given rise to any security concern regarding her activities or associations”.

Asked by The Sunday Telegraph whether Ms Liu had been investigated by ASIO and cleared, Mr McClelland declined to comment further.

Mr Fitzgibbon has rented a Canberra house from Ms Liu at a market rate and she paid for his visit to China in 2002 and 2005 – trips he initially did not declare on the parliamentary register of MPs’ pecuniary interests.

Mr Rudd, who is visiting Washington and attending a G20 meeting in London, has reprimanded Mr Fitzgibbon for failing to register the trips, but is sticking by him with the warning that he expects him to “do better”.

Defence Department secretary Nick Warner said on Friday that an initial Defence Security Authority inquiry had found no Defence spying operation targeting Mr Fitzgibbon or Ms Liu.

The Australian Chinese community is divided on Ms Liu. Some say she is highly regarded and generous; others say she is not well-known and has not donated to community charities.

Mr Tanner has said there is nothing sinister about the relationships.

“The fact that she has been photographed with former prime minister John Howard does seem to suggest that we shouldn’t assume that there’s anything particularly sinister about this,” Mr Tanner told Sky News.

“She’s a businesswoman and like many other business people she has had significant contact with public figures over the past.

“All the story illustrates … is the fact that prominent business people do tend to meet with leaders of both sides of politics.”

- www.news.com.au

Think-tank Report: Confucius Institutes at UK universities a tool of China propaganda

Multi-million pound donations from foreign governments have corrupted British universities and threatened academic impartiality, according to a new report.

By Ben Leach, the Telegraph, UK, 28 Mar 2009-

Universities are accused of a lack of transparency, with foreign donors, including regimes accused of human rights abuses, allowed to give money anonymously.

At least 10 universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted donations totalling hundreds of millions of pounds.

The report, to be published by the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC), a think-tank, looks at the funding of Arabic, Islamic and Chinese study centres at academic institutions across the UK.

It alleges that some allow the principal donor “significant oversight” over their running, leading to the censorship of teachers and students.

Examples highlighted in the report include:

* The barring of a painting by a Saudi artist from an exhibition at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), in London, last year.

Abdulnasser Gharem wanted to show a work depicting a cracked bridge with “Al-Siraat” (“the path”) scrawled across it, but the curators chose an alternative work by the artist instead.

SOAS said the decision was taken “to avoid causing unnecessary offence” to Muslims.

* The stifling of a discussion at the Saudi-funded Oxford University Middle East Centre (MEC).

When one academic questioned a Saudi participant about terrorist funding at a conference last year, Dr Eugene Rogan, director of the MEC, asked the academic to restrain his language and to “bear in mind what is appropriate to say in the venue where you might be going beyond what would be comfortable for everyone to hear”.

* The revelation that Chinese study centres, known as Confucius Institutes, hosted at several UK universities have members of the Chinese government sitting on their advisory board.

According to the study, the institutes’ curriculum and teaching standard are set in China with their host universities required to accept “operational guidance” from Beijing.

The report argues that the institutes are a “tool for Chinese propaganda” espousing a one-dimensional view of the country, in particular its relationship with Tibet.

Last year Cambridge and Edinburgh universities were jointly given £16 million to establish an Islamic studies centre. The donor, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, is allowed to pick appointees on the management committees at both centres.

The report also argues that foreign donors are viewing British universitites as diplomatic tools and “cultural arms of their government abroad”.

In 2001, the Oxford University MEC received a £1 million grant from the King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives, based in Saudi Arabia and named after the nation’s founder.

In 1999, SOAS reportedly received £180,000 from the Islamic Centre of England, an organisation with close links to the Iranian government.

SOAS later hosted an event in tribute to the way Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s former leader, “modernised” Islamic thought.

Robin Simcox, a research fellow at CSC and author of the report, said there was “a real problem” in UK universities that needed to be addressed.

He said: “Universities across the UK are taking huge amounts of cash from regimes with appalling records on human rights. This clearly needs to be addressed. The country’s finest universities are in bed with some of the world’s worst human rights abusers.

“The concept of foreign funding itself is not the problem. However, too often the donation is not for impartial academic research, but a public relations exercise aimed at altering perceptions of certain nations and subjects.”

Diana Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, said: “All academic programmes in the UK, including Islamic Studies, are subject to the UK’s rigorous and independent quality assurance procedures, which ensure openness and high standards.”

An Oxford spokesman said: “The University categorically denies any allegations that funders influence or bias the methods, outcomes, or political stances taken in research and teaching at Oxford.”

The spokesman said that in the incident highlighted in the report, Dr Rogan only intervened “to stop one member of the audience directing a personal attack on another member of the audience”.

- The Telegraph (UK): Foreign donors threaten academic freedom at UK universities

China-based network caught in cyber-espionage

AFP, Mar. 28, 2009 -

OTTAWA (AFP) — A shadowy cyber-espionage network based mostly in China has infiltrated government and private computers around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers said Sunday.

The network, known as GhostNet, infected 1,295 computers in 103 countries and penetrated systems containing sensitive information in top political, economic and media offices, the researchers said in a report.

Many of the compromised computers were found in the embassies of Asian countries, such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand and Taiwan.

The embassies of Cyprus, Germany, Malta, Portugal and Romania as well as the foreign ministries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran and Latvia were also targeted, and in most cases staff remained unaware that their systems had been attacked.

“Up to 30 percent of the infected hosts are considered high-value targets and include computers located at ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media and NGOs,” the report said.

The report, by the group Information Warfare Monitor, was commissioned by the Dalai Lama’s office alarmed by possible breaches of security.

The 10-month investigation by specialists based at the University of Toronto found the spying was being done from computers based almost exclusively in China.

But researchers said while its findings were disturbing there was no conclusive evidence the Chinese government was involved, highlighting that China now had the world’s highest number of Internet users.

“We do not know the motivation or the identity of the attackers or how to accurately characterize this network of infections as a whole,” the report said.

“Attributing all Chinese malware to deliberate or intelligence gathering operations by the Chinese state is wrong and misleading,” the report said.

“The sheer number of young digital natives online can more than account for the increase in Chinese malware.”…… (more from AFP)

Former Lawmaker: “Shen Yun’s magnificent performance” Would Be a Blessing for Hong Kong

By Billy Shyu, Epoch Times Staff, Mar 22, 2009-

HSINCHU, Taiwan— The New York-based Shen Yun (Divine) Performing Arts International Company successfully concluded its last show in Hsinchu on the evening of March 22. Mr. Tai Cheuk-Yin, former Member of Hong Kong Legislative Council, flew all the way from Hong Kong to Taiwan to see Shen Yun and said that he was lucky to see the show in Hsinchu.

“Shen Yun’s magnificent performance reminded us of China’s prosperity in the Tang Dynasty and the tribulations people nowadays are suffering in China. What’s more important is that it inspired us to think about our future, and how to pass down the 5,000-year-old Chinese culture.

“In fact, each piece of the program is unique, from the opening act depicting the divinely bestowed culture [The Five Millennia Begin], to the Tibetan folk dance [Dance of the Snow-Capped Mountain] performed later. Every act was embedded with different meanings and implications. Every program was really wonderful, and every dancer’s performance was at an international standard.”

Mr. Tai also mentioned that Shen Yun had broadened his horizons. He added, “I really admire them, and I really benefitted by coming here.”

As an overseas Chinese who values Chinese history very much, Mr. Tai praised Shen Yun highly, saying, “It is indeed very remarkable to interpret the 5,000-year-old traditional culture so well in such a short period of time.

“People in China nowadays and those who have moved overseas should see the show presented by Shen Yun, so they are able to carefully ponder their future. I felt it [the Shen Yun show] conveyed many important messages, which deserve to be considered, so that people can better plan their future.

“If Hong Kong people have the opportunity to see this wonderful show, it would a blessing for them. They would be able to gain enlightenment from it, and their inner world would be more peaceful. I felt that they [Hong Kong people] have many choices,” he continued. In addition, he said that as a resident of Hong Kong, he looked forward to the time when Shen Yun would perform there.

As to his flying thousands of miles from Hong Kong to see this magnificent show, Mr. Tai said, “I have benefited tremendously from it. The entire show conveys strong messages. If more people were able to enjoy this wonderful performance, I think it would be great. As a matter of fact, this is something that needs our concerted efforts. Let’s look forward to it together.”

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Shen Yun Performing Arts 2009 World Tour. For more information please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org

China Tops World Execution List at 72%, Amnesty Says

By Ed Johnson and Dune Lawrence

March 24 (Bloomberg) — China carried out more executions than the rest of the world put together last year, Amnesty International said today as it pushed for nations to abolish capital punishment.

Of 2,390 recorded executions in 25 nations, 72 percent, or at least 1,718, were in China, the London-based human rights group said in a report. Amnesty didn’t give comparable data from previous years.

“The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment,” said Irene Khan, Amnesty’s secretary general. “Beheadings, electrocutions, hangings, lethal injections, shootings and stonings have no place in the 21st century.”

China, along with the U.S., Iran, North Korea and Sudan, objected in November when the United Nations General Assembly voted to support a global moratorium on the death penalty. The government in Beijing said in a policy paper last year that while it retains the death penalty, it has a policy of “killing fewer with caution” and exercises strict controls.

Since Jan. 1, 2007, China has required the Supreme Court to review all death sentences, leading to a drop in the number of executions, according to state-run media reports and human rights organizations such as the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation.

Minimum Estimates

China and some other countries refuse to release public information on the number of executions, Amnesty said. Figures in the report were thus “minimum estimates” based on research, such as information gathered from local media, non- governmental organizations, human rights groups and Amnesty’s own contacts in countries, the group said.

A man surnamed Zao, in the news department of China’s Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, declined to comment on the report, and directed Bloomberg to submit a faxed request for statistics. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang also declined to comment. …… (more from Bloomberg)

Tibetans blame China for S.Africa visa denial

AFP, Mar. 22, 2009-

DHARAMSHALA, India (AFP) — The India-based Tibetan government-in-exile confirmed Monday that South Africa has denied the Dalai Lama a visa, blaming “intense pressure” from China.

A spokesman for the spiritual leader said he was “very disappointed” by the decision.

The Dalai Lama had planned to join other Nobel peace laureates at a conference to discuss ways of using football to fight racism and xenophobia ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

“It is true that South Africa, under intense pressure from the Chinese authorities, have denied a visa to the Dalai Lama,” spokesman Thubten Samphel told AFP.

“Since his holiness says he will not inconvenience any government, we at the Tibetan administration will not issue any strong response. But we are certainly very disappointed,” Samphel said.

South Africa’s Sunday Independent newspaper quoted China’s minister counsellor at the embassy in Pretoria, Dai Bing, as saying that his government had urged South Africa to deny the visit or risk bilateral relations.

Dai told the paper it was an “inopportune time” for the Dalai Lama to visit, coming just after the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising against China’s rule of Tibet, which led to the Dalai Lama’s exile.

According to the paper, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk may now reconsider their participation in the conference.

- AFP

Video Confirms China’s Use of Torture in Tibetan Protests

By Joshua Philipp, Epoch Times Staff, Mar 21, 2009-

The Tibetan Government-in-Exile released new video footage of the protests in Lhasa last year that confirms the use of extreme violence and torture by Chinese authorities. The footage is evidence against the Chinese communist regime’s denial that torture is used in Tibet.

“This extremely rare and shocking footage confirms our worst fears about the horrific pain and suffering Tibetans are experiencing at the hands of the Chinese authorities in the wake of last year’s uprising,” said Lhadon Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet, in a press release.

“The brutality of the Chinese authorities against Tibetans in this footage is not the exception to, but rather the rule of, Beijing’s treatment of the Tibetan people over the past 50 years,” he said.

One segment of the video, recorded on March 14, 2008, shows Chinese police beating Tibetan prisoners with batons, after they were arrested in the protests. The prisoners have their hands tied behind their backs and can only curl in an attempt to resist the beatings.

Another segment of the video shows gruesome images of a young Tibetan by the name of Tendar being tortured by Chinese authorities. He was reportedly fired at, beaten with an electric baton, burned with cigarettes, and his right foot was pierced by a nail.

The video shows him after being brought to the TAR People’s Hospital. His body is covered with rotting wounds from lack of proper treatment. The hospital removed 2.5 kg of decaying flesh.

Tendar died from his injuries on June 19, 2008.

The protests in Tibet began on March 10, 2008, leading up to the Beijing Olympics.

Officials from the Chinese Communist Party have repeatedly denied that torture was used in Tibet. In November 2008 when the U.N. panel released a report on the use of torture on Tibetans by Chinese police, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the reports “untrue and slanderous” and accused the committee members of being “prejudiced” against China.

In the Lhasa protests and the following crackdown by the communist regime, close to 220 Tibetans were killed, more than 1,294 were seriously injured, and more than 1,000 simply disappeared. The Chinese authorities arrested more than 5,600 Tibetans, of which 290 are known to have been sentenced.

The Chinese Communist Party is still holding Tibet under martial law.

The video, which is at times difficult to watch, can be seen at: http://footage.tibetanbridges.com/Torture-in-Tibet.mov

- The Epochtimes

China soldier shot dead outside camp in Chongqing City

By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2009 -

Reporting from Beijing — A soldier on guard duty outside an army camp in central China was shot to death and another soldier wounded in a bold attack that Chinese authorities say is being investigated as a possible act of terrorism.

The shooting Thursday night was especially shocking for Chinese officials because it took place in downtown Chongqing, a city of 5 million. After killing the soldier, identified in the official Chinese press as 18-year-old Han Junliang, the assailants also stole his submachine gun.

Chongqing residents said Friday that the city was under heavy security as police searched for the assailants. Roadblocks were set up around downtown.

“They are searching all over the city. They are inspecting cars, especially taxis. People are in a big panic,” said Chen Jun, a taxi driver interviewed by telephone. He said rumors had been circulating for days before the attack that suicide bombers had infiltrated the city.

Several newspapers reported that the attackers were Tibetan, which if true would be highly unusual. Chinese propaganda frequently depicts Tibetans as terrorists and authorities here are often quick to ascribe political motives to bombings and shootings that human rights advocates say were ordinary criminal acts.

Private ownership of guns in China is illegal, but authorities have acknowledged the increasing problem of heavily armed street gangs.

The last attacks of this type occurred in August before the start of the Beijing Olympics when assailants in far western China rammed a truck and threw grenades into a group of policemen jogging outside their station. That attack was blamed on ethnic Uighur separatists and took place in Xin- jiang province, where such violence is more common.

China has been on high alert in recent weeks because of a series of sensitive anniversaries. This month saw the 50th anniversary of the flight of Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, into exile — as well as the one-year anniversary of violent riots by Tibetans in various parts of China.

This year is also the 60th anniversary of the founding of Communist China and the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on student protests at Tiananmen Square.

The official newspaper of the People’s Armed Police reported Wednesday that a suitcase packed with explosives had been found at the railroad station in Lhasa, the Tibetan provincial capital.

- Los Angeles Times

28 Chinese journalists and lawyers Condemn China Official Media’s Propaganda and Lies

The Epoch Times,  Mar 20, 2009 -

Beijing journalist Ling Cangzhou (courtesy of Ling Cangzhou / from The Epochtimes website)

Twenty-eight Chinese journalists and lawyers issued a joint statement on March 18 condemning the lies and false reports publicized by Chinese official media over the past 60 years.

Journalist Ling Cangzhou and 27 other Chinese professionals initiated the statement entitled, “Fairwell! Propaganda and Lies.” This followed an earlier statement, “Boycott CCTV, Refuse Brainwashing” to further criticize the Chinese mouthpieces such as the People’s Daily, Chinese Central TV Station (CCTV), among others. They propose that the public refuse to listen to, watch, read, or purchase these media services. They also suggest that Chinese protest and expose these official media’s behavior by phone, fax, email, blog, forum, and text messaging. Individually, the 28 participants will no longer report false information, cover news, participate in interviews or serve as audiences for these official media.

Mr. Ling, a long time Beijing reporter indicated that the statement is a peaceful protest by those who are dissatisfied with the current status of freedom of speech in China. He said, “The ruling party has governed China for 60 years. I think there should be at least a review of the freedom of media and speech in China over the past 60 years.”

The statement condemns the People’s Daily and CCTV for “partially reporting, delaying, and ignoring major incidents such as various protest activities, disasters, and other news of a negative image of the ruling party. Furthermore, CCTV even praised the quality of the Sanlu infant formula (melamine contaminated powdered milk) and used propaganda to its best.”

The statement also calls for people to use all possible media means such as the Internet, blogs, emails, and text messages to spread articles exposing facts in line with China law.

Cartoonist Wei Ke said during an interview with Radio Free Asia, “We take an uncooperative attitude to protest. In fact, ignorance is a strong message. If the general public would take this approach, it will help to change the environment in freedom of press and speech.”

From time to time, there are media reports that expose the true nature of the news. However, officials often punish relevant reporters and media. For instance, Chinese Financial Times was allegedly violating the law and was banned from broadcasting for three months after its last fall report on China Agricultural Bank’s irregularities.

As indicated by journalist Jiang Weiping who was imprisoned due to a report on corruption, “It takes courage to expose the wrongdoings of the authorities. However, it is no excuse for Chinese journalists to avoid their responsibilities.”

- The Epochtimes: An Open Statement Condemns Regime’s Official Media

Defected China ‘spy’ urges US to press on rights

AFP, Mar. 19, 2009-

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A man who said he was a Chinese spy has appealed to the United States to stand up to Beijing, charging it was running a vast intelligence operation at home and abroad to suppress dissent.

Li Fengzhi visited the US Congress on Thursday to talk to lawmakers and appeal for asylum. His supporters said it was the first time a Chinese intelligence officer had defected.

A visibly nervous Li told a news conference that he served for years inside China for the Ministry of State Security but had grown “furious” that his job entailed spying on dissidents, spiritual groups and aggrieved poor people.

“China’s government not only uses lies and violence to suppress people seeking basic human rights, but also does all it can to hide the truth from the international community,” he said.

Li said that despite China’s rapid economic growth, “a government that disrespects and suppresses its people cannot be stable.”

“When the West engages with China, if it only focuses on temporary economic and political benefits but keeps silent on human rights issues, it is tantamount to reciting from the book of the communist party’s tyranny,” he said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised a furor among advocacy groups last month when she said that US concerns on human rights would not hold back cooperation with China on other issues such as the global economic crisis

Li, a bespectacled man in his early 40s, gave few details about his own past, saying he feared for family members in China. His supporters said he slept for only one hour the night before his news conference.

China’s Ministry for State Security operated a worldwide network to steal secrets from foreign countries, Li said, adding the agency also keep a close watch on Chinese citizens overseas.

The communist party “uses huge expenditure of funds to suppress ordinary citizens and even extend their dark hands overseas,” he said.

He said that only senior officials in Beijing knew the exact extent of China’s spy network.

One of China’s highest profile defectors — Chen Yonglin, a diplomat in Sydney who sought asylum in 2005 — has said Beijing had more than 1,000 agents in Australia alone who kidnapped some Chinese people and repatriated them for political reasons.

Li said he defected “several” years ago to the United States but did not speak publicly until this month.

He renounced his membership in the communist party as part of a drive led by supporters of the Falun Gong, a movement combining meditation and Buddhist-inspired teachings that China banned as an “evil cult” in 1999.

Li received a welcome in Washington from one of Beijing’s most outspoken critics in the US Congress, Dana Rohrabacher.

The Republican representative said Li should inspire officials in China and elsewhere whose actions violate their conscience.

Li “was a henchman for the dictatorship, the gangsters,” Rohrabacher said.

“No one who is in that position should think they have no alternative. We now have an example before us of someone who knew that yes, there was an alternative — and that is to walk away.”

- AFP: Chinese ‘spy’ urges US to press on rights

Defected China Spy Says mission is to ‘control’

Bill Gertz, Washington Times, USA, Thursday, March 19, 2009 -

EXCLUSIVE:

A veteran Chinese intelligence officer who defected to the United States says that his country’s civilian spy service spends most of its time trying to steal secrets overseas but also works to bolster Beijing’s Communist Party rule by repressing religious and political dissent internally.

“In some sense you can say that intelligence work between two countries is just like war but without the fire,” Li Fengzhi told The Washington Times in an interview aided by an interpreter.

Mr. Li worked for years as an Ministry of State Security intelligence officer inside China before defecting to the United States, where is he awaiting a response to his request for political asylum. He gave a rare, detailed interview to The Times on Sunday regarding the activities of the MSS, China’s Communist-controlled civilian spy agency.

His prior work as a Chinese spy was confirmed to The Times by a Western government source familiar with his defection. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of Mr. Li’s case.

Mr. Li told The Times that the MSS focuses on both counterintelligence – working against foreign intelligence agencies – and the collection of secrets and technology.

The MSS, however, is unique from other nations’ intelligence services in that it is patterned after the former Soviet Union’s KGB political police. Its most important mission is “to control the Chinese people to maintain the rule of the Communist Party,” he added.

Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, did not address Mr. Li’s comments directly but repeated past Chinese government statements regarding its intelligence activities.

“Allegations of China conducting spying activities against the United States are groundless and unwarranted,” he said Wednesday. “China never engages itself in activities that will harm other countries’ national interests.”

Mr. Wang said communist rule in China produced historic economic and social progress and that China has contributed to a more secure world. “This is a fact no one can deny,” Mr. Wang said.

On those who leave the party, Mr. Wang said “there are also a handful of people who betray their faith and leave the party, whose acts as well as some people’s political lies will never shadow the great feats of the party.”

Mr. Li said he left China’s intelligence services to protest the agency’s role in government repression of political dissidents and religious groups that are outside of the ruling communist system.

The MSS, mainly a foreign intelligence service, is “deeply” involved in domestic repression of nonofficial Christian churches and the outlawed Falun Gong religious group, Mr. Li said.

“The Ministry of State Security is actually not doing things for the security of the country, but rather they spend a lot of effort to control the people, the dissidents, the lower-class Chinese people, and make these people suffer and also make their life miserable,” he said. …… (more details from Washington Times)

Former China Spy Officer Quits Communist Party Publicly

By Xin Fei, The Epoch Times Staff,  Mar 12, 20-

Li Fengzhi, former intelligence officer of China’s Ministry of State Security. (Photo provided by Li Fengzhi/ from The Epochtimes)

Motivated by love of China, disgust at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and guilt over the system he had been part of, a former spy has publicly quit the CCP and urged his former colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Li Fengzhi, a former officer of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), announced his withdrawal from the CCP on Wednesday, joining over 50 million other Chinese who have chosen to denounce the CCP.

Li, now living in the United States, said that the CCP has been harassing and threatening him since he decided to quit his job as an intelligence officer of the MSS. But the harassment did not stop him from finally deciding to quit the CCP publicly.

“On top of many other considerations, my conscience is the most important reason why I openly withdraw from the CCP,” Li said. “Withdrawing from the CCP is a truly patriotic deed, and an effort to save China. Standing up against the CCP is the best way to show my loyalty to my country.”

Li’s father, Li Shuchen, a retired engineer, also quit the CCP some time ago and encouraged him to bravely denounce the CCP for the sake of justice and freedom.

“No one with a background like mine has openly denounced the CCP,” Li said. “I am willing and happy to be the first. Someone has to be the first. All I wish for is that what I’m doing now could help, inspire, and encourage other people.”

Li appealed to people within the CCP, including his former colleagues in the state security system, to awaken to the CCP’s evil nature and coming collapse, and to break away from it before it’s too late.

Quitting the CCP

In the statement in which he quit the CCP, Li wrote: “Since its establishment, the CCP has been acting against the universal moral values of human beings. With its dictatorship, the CCP has suppressed human rights and deprived Chinese people of all rights to freedom and democracy.

“The CCP has relentlessly fooled the people with brazen lies, and shamelessly ruined the authentic Chinese culture. It is the source of many of today’s social, economic, and moral crises in China. The persecution of unarmed people who operate at the grassroots level, religious groups, and dissidents is worsening each day.

“The CCP’s dictatorship has long been the true barrier to China’s progress and development. Therefore, I solemnly announce that I withdraw from the CCP and all its affiliated organizations, in support of conscientious organizations and conscientious individuals like my father, as well as all those who have been and still are persecuted and suppressed by the CCP. I wish my determination could awaken more conscientious people.”

Li said he had given up the last illusion he had for the CCP, and had realized that the CCP is rushing to its doom. “I fully agree with the viewpoint of the Nine Commentaries of the Communist Party,” Li said. “A new China can rise only after the removal of the CCP.”

Couldn’t Remain Silent

Li described his decision in this way: “I knew I had to give up a lot of things when I decided to leave the national security system. I just couldn’t remain silent any longer. The suffering those victims are experiencing keeps wringing my heart.

“I should thank my father for helping me to get to know the evil nature of the CCP. I realized that it is the CCP that hinders the development of China. I don’t want to wait any longer to step up, even though it’s a hard decision for me.

“I may put myself in a dangerous situation, but I hope what I do will help others in some way. I think it’s worthwhile. It’s most gratifying if I can be of any help.”

Losing Hope in the CCP

Li needed a very long time to come to understand the nature of the CCP. Going from dissatisfaction to disappointment, to complete despair, and then finally choosing to withdraw from the CCP, Li has had to think through difficult issues.

Li had joined the CCP with pride, enthusiasm, and high aspirations. He put a great deal of effort into his job, hoping that he could contribute to the country, and that the CCP could one day give up doing bad things or some Party members could initiate improvements from inside.

“However, the longer I worked in the CCP, the more information I came to know. And as I had access to more documents and books, as I grew older and more experienced, I would think more deeply and broadly, and I suddenly enlightened. I eventually realized that the CCP is hopeless,” Li recollected.

Li explained: “The CCP starts controlling people from a very young age. They even teach kids how glorious the CCP is when a child first develops the ability to listen to songs. Starting from primary school, the kids would be formed by the CCP’s teachings. The CCP not only crams its stuff into you, it absolutely prevents you from getting to know any other information.

“The kids are just like a piece of white paper. The CCP will paint on it whatever color the Party chooses and that will eventually affect the whole life of the kids. The Party controls the media, distorts the history, and uses any possible means to silence differing voices.

“I’m extremely disappointed at how the CCP has destroyed moral standards and traditional beliefs over the past 60 years. Living modern lives inside high-rise buildings are people who have lost their connection to our five-thousand years of history and culture.

“Lacking good moral guidance, Chinese people nowadays only want to enjoy life today, and don’t care about others or the future. They don’t have a positive attitude towards life. This has a very far-reaching impact on the future of the country.”

In particular, Li mentioned the CCP’s inhuman persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and Christians.

He said: “I believe the CCP will soon realize that it won’t be able to force people to give up their faith and belief. More and more CCP members are dissatisfied with the persecution and even opposed to it.

“However, the CCP’s nature has determined that the Party will not be able to rectify itself from within. The CCP only serves the interest of a handful of top leaders, or even the interest of a single person, just as in the case of Jiang [Jiang Zemin was head of the CCP from 1989 to 2002. In 1999 he began the persecution of Falun Gong.]

“I hope the Party members will understand that the nature of the CCP’s dictatorship determines that it can’t fix its own problem. The CCP would sacrifice the interests of many people to the interests of a small group or even one individual. I can’t bear this any more.”

“My heart is suffering with torment. When you are within the CCP system, in the police system, you are, to some degree, in the privileged class. I couldn’t say anything or do anything to help those victims, no matter how much sympathy I had deep down in my heart. I knew they hated me. I suffered a great deal of pain in my heart. I tried to ease the guilt in my own way, but I realized doing so wouldn’t work and would put me at great risk.” (to be cont’d……)

- The Epohtimes: Former Spy Quits Chinese Communist Party

China bird flu effort in question after new cases

AFP, Mar.14, 2009-

HONG KONG (AFP) — A probe into an outbreak of bird flu at a Hong Kong chicken farm and carcasses popping up in city waters have raised questions over whether the H5N1 virus is going undetected in southern China.

The report released this month said wild birds were the most likely carriers of the virus that broke out in December on a farm close to the territory’s border with the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, prompting the culling of 90,000 chickens.

While the authors could not say for certain where in Asia the wild bird may have contracted H5N1, the report said the specific version of the virus was the same as that “currently circulating among poultry in southern China”.

The report came days after two dead chickens with H5N1 were found floating in the sea off Hong Kong, the latest of more than a dozen chickens, ducks and other birds to wash up along the city’s coastline since the start of year.

“From the various investigations we have done (the washed-up carcasses) are most likely drifting down from the Pearl River,” Hong Kong’s health secretary York Chow said in early February.

Hong Kong sits at the southern tip of a Guangdong’s large Pearl River delta.

Malik Peiris, a virologist at Hong Kong University and one of the world’s leading bird flu researchers, said he agreed with Chow’s assessment.

“It is not really plausible that they came from Hong Kong,” he told AFP.

While Hong Kong has publicly confirmed 15 bird flu cases this year in addition to the December outbreak on the poultry farm, Guangdong has posted no bird flu findings since June 2008.

“Up to now we have no explanation as to why (bird carcasses have appeared), from the mainland authorities. This is a cause for concern,” said Lo Wing-lok, a member of Hong Kong’s government scientific committee on emerging diseases.

Peter Cordingley, the Asia-Pacific spokesman for the World Health Organisation, said the appearance of the dead birds was an issue of concern.

“From a public health point of view we are concerned about South China,” he said, adding that Hong Kong’s surveillance systems for outbreaks in humans and poultry was the “international gold standard”.

A spokesman for China’s health ministry declined to comment.

In early February, a grey heron was found dead in boggy water at the Mai Po nature reserve within sight of the border.

The heron tested positive for H5N1, the first at the reserve since testing began in 2003, shifting the focus onto the role of wild birds in the spread of the disease.

This was reinforced by the poultry outbreak investigation that found wild birds the “most likely” carrier.

But most experts believe wild birds cannot explain the prevalence of the disease in the region.

“The wild birds are more like canaries in a coal mine (for infected poultry),” said Martin Williams, a bird expert and environmental activist.

Peiris said that although the role of wild birds in the spread of the virus needed to be studied, intensive farming should be the main focus.

“Poultry production and the movement of poultry are probably far more important as the route of the maintenance and dissemination of these viruses,” said Peiris.

Scientists are concerned that poultry farms act as an ideal breeding ground for the virus to mutate as so many carriers are in close proximity.

H5N1 has killed more than 250 people worldwide since 2003 — and also led to the culling of millions of chickens — but scientists’ deepest fear is that a pandemic killing millions could be triggered if the virus mutated to become easily transferable between humans.

And so any outbreak must be reported quickly.

“Controlling the poultry outbreak, I would say, is the most important element in the overall control of H5N1,” said Lo.

While no H5N1 reports have come out of Guangdong this year, eight people elsewhere in the mainland are known to have caught the virus, and five of them have died.

Seven of the eight had known close contact with poultry, but despite extensive testing — praised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation — only one poultry outbreak has been found, in the northwestern province of Xinjiang.

“Human cases have become increasingly difficult not to report,” Lo said.

However “we always ask the question, when human cases are reported, where is the source of the infection?”

- AFP

Norway Oil Fund Expels China Firm for selling arms to Burma

By VOA News, 13 March 2009 -

Norway has barred its oil fund from investing in China’s Dongfeng Motor Group because the firm sell arms supplies to military-ruled Burma.

Norway’s finance ministry says the Chinese company sells military trucks to Burma.

Finance Minster Kristin Halvorsen said Friday Norway cannot finance companies that support the military dictatorship in Burma through military sales.

Norway’s oil fund, officially called the Government Pension Fund-Global, invests the country’s oil and gas wealth in foreign stocks and bonds. The fund is meant to save money for the future when Norway’s oil supply runs dry.

The fund is currently worth around $300 billion. Norway is a major exporter of oil and natural gas.

- VOA News: Norway Oil Fund Expels China Firm

China Cyber-dissident released after completing 8-year jail

Reporters Without Borders, Mar. 13, 2009-

Reporters Without Borders hails the release of cyber-dissident Yang Zili, the founder of the “Garden of Ideas” website (www.lib.126.com), from Beijing No. 2 prison yesterday on completing an eight-year sentence on a charge of subverting the state.

“It was symbolic that Yang was freed on Online Free Expression Day and we are very pleased for him,” Reporters Without Borders said. “However China continues to be an enemy of the Internet and one of the world’s biggest prisons for government critics, whether journalists or ordinary Internet users. We call for an investigation into the treatment he received while in detention.”

Yang was a member of a clandestine discussion group called the New Youth Society, which met once a week to discuss political reform. Another member of the group, Zhang Honghai, was also freed yesterday on completing an eight-year sentence. Two other members of the group who were given 10-year sentences, Jin Haike and Xu Wei, are still being held.

All four were arrested in March 2001 and were convicted on the same charge in May 2003. Jin is being held in Beijing No. 2 prison. Xu was transferred to a prison in Yanqing after developing a mental illness while in detention.

After graduating from the prestigious University of Beijing in mechanical engineering, Yang worked as a computer engineer while writing theoretical articles posted on his website advocating political liberalism, criticising repression of the Falungong spiritual movement and deploring the problems faced by the peasantry.

Then aged 30, Yang was arrested as he was leaving his Beijing home on 13 March 2001. His wife was arrested the same day and was released 48 hours later after being forced to agree in writing not to talk about his arrest.

China is the world’s biggest prison for cyber-dissidents. A total of 69 people are currently detained because of their online activity (Download the “Internet Enemies” report in PDF).

- Reporters Without Borders: Cyber-dissident Yang Zili freed on completing eight-year sentence, call for probe into how he was treated while held

China rights leader’s family ‘defects to US’

AFP, Mar. 12, 2009-

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The family of Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been tipped for a Nobel Peace Prize and disappeared weeks ago, has defected to the United States, according to supporters.

The wife and two children of Gao — who said he was tortured after drawing international attention to China’s rights abuses — sneaked out by foot into Thailand and arrived in the United States on Wednesday, rights groups said.

“It was extraordinarily difficult to get us out of China. The friends who helped us escape took enormous pains, some even risking their own lives,” Gao’s wife, Geng He, told Radio Free Asia’s Mandarin service Thursday.

The defection came during a visit to Washington by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who has warned President Barack Obama’s administration to “stop meddling” in Beijing’s affairs over human rights.

Gao, once a prominent lawyer and communist party member, has been an outspoken defender of people seeking redress from the government including coal miners, underground Christians and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.

After he wrote an open letter to the US Congress in 2007, Gao said he was subjected to several weeks of torture including suffering electric shocks to his genitals and having his eyes burned by cigarettes.

In its latest annual human rights report, the US State Department said Gao’s whereabouts were unknown. Gao was considered among the front-runners last year for the Nobel Peace Prize.

New York-based Human Rights in China said Gao was again taken away by state security from his home village in central Shaanxi province on February 4 — about a month after his family fled — and has not been heard from since.

ChinaAid, a US-based group assisting Christians in communist China, said it helped the family fly to Los Angeles and then to Phoenix, where they are now staying.

Geng told Radio Free Asia that her daughter, 15, and son, 5, were under virtual house arrest in Beijing. The girl attempted suicide several times out of desperation as she was unable to attend school, Geng said.

“I had no place to turn. So I fled with my children,” she said. The US-based radio service said the family was seeking asylum.

Geng said Gao could not defect as he was under constant police surveillance. She said the family managed to evade detection by traveling by train and then crossing into Thailand on foot.

“We walked day and night. It was extremely hard,” Geng told Radio Free Asia.

She said that members of the Falun Gong helped her escape.

Her husband wrote a rare open letter in 2005 accusing Chinese authorities of persecution including torture of members of the movement.

Falun Gong, which combines meditation with Buddhist-inspired teachings, was banned in mid-1999 by Beijing as an “evil cult.” China has a long history of folk religious movements challenging the central government’s authority.

Gao, a Christian, resigned his membership in the Chinese Communist Party in 2005 to protest the repression of Falun Gong.

“It was the proudest day of my life,” he once told a Chinese journalist in an interview.

Gao could have enjoyed a more comfortable life. After he opened an office in Beijing in 2000, the justice ministry designated him as one of the country’s top 10 lawyers due to his service to the poor.

But Gao said he was inspired to defend the downtrodden due to his own background.

Born to peasants in Shaanxi, one of China’s poorest provinces, Gao lost his father at age 10, forcing his mother to care by herself for seven children.

“I know how poor people live and that’s why I know what I’m doing,” he said in a 2005 interview with a Chinese journalist.

In his 2007 letter to the US Congress, Gao hit on one of the most sensitive points for China, urging the United States to oppose the Beijing Olympics the following year because of human rights violations.

In the letter, Gao said he had twice read the debates of James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, during the 1787 Philadelphia convention that drafted the constitution.

“(I) admired the freedom and democratic constitution which China has not been able to enjoy,” he wrote.

- AFP: Chinese rights leader’s family ‘defects to US’

China’s SARS hero demands apology for detention

By Emma Graham-Harrison, via Reuters, Mar. 12, 2009 -

BEIJING, March 12 (Reuters) – A military surgeon who blew the whistle on China’s SARS cover-up in 2003 and asked the Communist Party to reassess its 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen protesters has asked the government to apologise for detaining him.

Jiang Yanyong wrote to President Hu Jintao demanding an apology for time he spent confined in an army “guesthouse” and months under house arrest, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters. He also asked Hu to lift a ban on overseas travel.

There are no new revelations in the letter, but it is likely to upset the government by raising the sensitive Tiananmen protests just months before the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, and as officials grapple with economic crisis.

The elderly doctor was hustled away from public view after he riled Communist leaders with an explosive letter in 2004 detailing his experience treating victims of the army assault on central Beijing on June 4, 1989, in which hundreds died.

He accused the army of using “fragmentation bullets” banned by international convention and of duping the soldiers who led the attack into thinking they were suppressing a rebellion.

That letter also detailed the sackings and demotions of colleagues who refused to condemn the students, while the prospects of those who toed the official line brightened.

Jiang asked for the students to be relabelled patriotic. He blamed the events of 1989 on Chen Xitong, who was sacked as Beijing’s Communist Party boss in 1995 for corruption.

In his latest missive, Jiang said that his actions in both 2003 and 2004 were driven only by his responsibility as a doctor to save lives, and leaders would be breaking their promises of change and progress unless they provide him with an apology.

“Only then will they be in compliance with the ideals of Party’s … leadership: ‘rule by law’, ‘the people first’ and ‘harmonious society’,” he wrote.

When contacted by Reuters, Jiang declined to comment because as a Party member he needs permission to speak to foreign media.

PARTY AT RISK

Analysts say a revision of the official verdict that the 1989 student-led protests were “counter-revolutionary” or subversive, is unlikely in the near future.

Such a step could split the Communist Party leadership and trigger a power struggle. Some top leaders involved in, or who benefited from, the killings are still alive and influential.

Jiang’s whistle-blowing on the deadly SARS epidemic saved countless lives and made him a national hero — explaining in part the government’s harsh response when he decided to tackle the sensitive Tiananmen protests.

Jiang said he was kidnapped from his office and held for weeks at an army guesthouse where he was forced to undergo “study sessions”. After seven weeks he was returned home but placed under house arrest.

Once released, he was barred from travelling abroad, and his request to quit the People’s Liberation Army was also refused, apparently to allow the military to continue to rein him in, sources told Reuters at the time. (Additional reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing by Nick Macfie and Sugita Katyal)

- from Reuters

China’s Top Lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s Family Defects

Radio Free Asia, 2009-03-12 -

Gao Zhisheng's wife Geng He and their children, after leaving China. (from Radio Free Asia website, Provided by a family friend)

WASHINGTON— The wife and children of a top civil rights lawyer under close surveillance by the Chinese authorities have arrived in the United States after walking across the border to Thailand, Gao Zhisheng’s wife Geng He said.

Geng said her daughter, 15, and son, 5, had suffered “great hardship” in China from living under virtual house arrest in their Beijing home.

“I left China because my family had been under tight surveillance for a long time. We experienced—in our careers and daily life—great hardship and difficulty,” Geng told RFA’s Mandarin service in her first interview since arriving in the United States on March 11 to seek asylum.

“My daughter was unable to attend school. Because she was unable to attend school, she tried to commit suicide several times,” Geng said. “I had no place to turn. So I fled with my children.”

Geng said she had left a note for Gao, an Army veteran who lost his law license after he criticized the government for its treatment of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Gao began a rolling hunger strike among fellow civil rights activists to protest the ill-treatment of lawyers and rights activists at the hands of police and local government officials.

“I left a note for my husband that I was leaving with the children,” Geng said.

“I said in my note that our daughter is miserable because she couldn’t attend school. I said I was miserable and I had to take the kids and leave,” said Geng, in tears.

Dangerous route through Thailand

Geng and her children left China on Jan. 9 and arrived in Thailand on Jan. 16, leaving for the United States on March 10.

Describing the family’s dramatic escape, Geng said they first left Beijing very quietly, unnoticed by the state security police who usually followed them.

“We could not travel by air. We took a train,” Geng said, adding that Gao was unable to accompany them because he couldn’t throw off the police on his tail.

“Eventually, with the help of friends, we freed ourselves from police surveillance and we walked to another country,” she said.

Geng said friends who helped her leave China were members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.

“We walked day and night. It was extremely hard. I did not even know the names of some of the towns we passed through.”

“It was extraordinarily difficult to get us out of China. The friends who helped us escape took enormous pains, some even risking their own lives,” Geng said.

She said she hadn’t been in touch with Gao since leaving China.

“On Feb. 4, when we had arrived in the second country, I heard from a friend that he had been detained. I am very worried,” said Geng, who has no idea of Gao’s whereabouts.

‘Very fragile state’

Now in the United States, Geng said she has few specific plans.

“The first step is to get here and to give my daughter a chance to heal her mental scars,” she said.

“She is in a very fragile state. When she feels better, I will arrange for her to get an education. It’s important to get an education.”

She said her son asked repeatedly for Gao, and whether his father had been sent to prison again.

Gao’s whereabouts remained unclear for months after he was subjected to a secret trial by the authorities on unspecified subversion charges in 2006.

Lauded by China’s own Justice Ministry as one of China’s Top 10 lawyers in 2001 for his pro bono work in helping poor people sue government officials over corruption and mistreatment, Gao was once a member of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. He resigned from the Party in 2005.

Gao’s fortunes took a sharp downturn after he wrote an open letter to President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao in October 2005 urging them to end the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, detailing a range of abuses they suffer in custody, including torture, beatings, and execution.

Report on abuses

In its most recent report on human rights around the world, the U.S. State Department noted that Gao’s whereabouts remained unknown.

It also noted the authorities had revoked the professional licenses of several prominent lawyers, including Gao and of Teng Biao, who offered to represent Tibetans taken into custody for their role in the March 2008 Tibetan uprising in Lhasa.

“Government-employed lawyers often refused to represent defendants in politically sensitive cases, and defendants frequently found it difficult to find an attorney,” the report said.

“Officials deployed a wide range of tactics to obstruct the work of lawyers representing sensitive clients, including unlawful detentions, disbarment, intimidation, refusal to allow a case to be tried before a court, and physical abuse.”

- from Radio Free Asia

Press release: Family of China’s Missing Rights Defense Lawyer Gao Zhisheng Arrives in U.S.

Press elease, Human Rights in China, March 11, 2009 -

Human Rights in China (HRIC) has received news that rights defense lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s (高智晟) wife and children have safely landed in the United States on March 11, 2009. HRIC warmly welcomes the safe arrival of the Gao family.

Gao is well-known for representing politically sensitive cases and for his outspokenness. In 2005, he wrote a series of open letters to urge President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao to stop the repression of Falun Gong practitioners and dissidents. In December 2006, Gao was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on conviction of “inciting subversion of state power.” Even though the sentence was suspended for five years, the suspension put not only him, but also his family, under heavy surveillance and frequent harassment. In addition, Gao was detained multiple times, including several weeks in September 2007 during which he was savagely tortured, an episode he described in an account that HRIC released on February 8, 2009. On February 4, 2009, Gao was seen forcibly taken from his hometown, Xiaoshibanqiao Village, in Shenquan Township, Jiaxian County, Shaanxi Province, by more than 10 state security policemen. He has not been heard from since.

HRIC calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Gao Zhisheng, who has sacrificed his freedom and suffered torture for defending the rights of others.

Gao Zhisheng’s Background

Voted in 2001 as “one of China’s top ten lawyers” by a publication run by the Chinese Ministry of Justice, Gao is a self-trained legal professional. He represented some of China’s most vulnerable people, including underground Christians and exploited coal miners. His 2007 detention immediately followed an open letter he sent to the U.S. Congress denouncing the human rights situation in China and describing his and his family’s treatment by security forces. In his account that HRIC made public, Gao describes violent beatings, repeated electric shocks to his genitals, and having his eyes burnt by lit cigarettes. After he was released, acquaintances described him as seeming to be “a broken man,” both physically and spiritually.

In June 2007, Gao received the Courageous Advocacy Award of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). His memoirs, A China More Just, were published in English the same year.

- from Human Rights in China

Gao Zhisheng’s Wife and Children escaped from China with help of Global Organizations

Epoch Times Staff,  Mar 11, 2009 -

The wife and two children of famous Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng arrived in the United States on Wednesday having successfully escaped from China.

Two organizations, Friends of Gao Zhisheng and the Global Association for the Rescue of Gao Zhisheng, indicated that Geng He and her children entered Thailand where they filed for asylum with the U.N. Refugee Agency.

They were accepted by the U.S. government and safely arrived in the United States today.

“This family needs a stable life. We are very happy the U.S. government has helped them,” said Sherry Zhang of Friends of Gao Zhisheng.

“This family has suffered greatly, particularly the daughter. She is a 16-year-old child who has suffered physical and mental abuse at the hands of the Chinese regime. The son is five and one-half years old, and has also suffered. He tends to be very emotional,” she said.

Their father, Mr. Gao, is one of China’s most respected lawyers. He is missing, widely believed to have been kidnapped again by Chinese authorities. Known as “the conscience of China,” Mr. Gao is noted for his efforts to defend democracy activists, underground Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners.

Beginning in 2004, Mr. Gao wrote a series of open letters to top ranking officials in the Chinese Communist Party including leader Hu Jintao. In the letters, Mr. Gao interceded for Christians and those who practice Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that was outlawed by the regime in 1999.

Many believe it was his defense of the latter and his call for an end to the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners that brought the full fury of the regime upon him.

Mr. Gao’s law business was shut down in 2005 and he and his wife and children were repeatedly harassed by the authorities. In September 2007, he was kidnapped for the second time and subjected to 50 days of torture, the gruesome details of which were revealed in a recently released letter.

Mr. Gao’s present whereabouts are unknown, but human rights organizations and his supporters fear that he is again being tortured.

“The Chinese regime has been using the family as a hostage. We are sure that their being in the United States is a big comfort to Gao. We don’t know his exact whereabouts but believe he is in the hands of the police,” said Ms. Zhang.

“We also believe he is being brutally tortured right now, and we are now even more concerned about his safety. The Chinese regime may even try torture him even more to try to find out the location of his family.”

Friends of Gao Zhisheng and the Global Association for the Rescue of Gao Zhisheng expressed thanks to those who helped in the rescue, including the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Special thanks were given to the U.S. government which quickly approved Geng He’s application and admitted the family into the United States.

To help Geng He and her family, Friends of Gao Zhisheng and the Global Association established a “Gao Zhisheng’s Family Aid Foundation.” The account information is as follows:

Future China Foundation, a special account for the support of Gao’s family: 781817259
Check title: Future China Foundation
40-46 Main Street, Suite 201, Flushing, NY 11354 USA
Routing No: 021000021
Swift No: Chasus33 (foreign wire)

- The Epochtimes