By Joshua Philipp & Gary Feuerberg, Epoch Times Staff, Jun 8, 2010 -
Seemingly wherever Shen Yun, a show of classical Chinese dance and music touring the world, appears, officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) seek to block it from performing. Nonetheless, nearly all of the hundreds of performances have taken place on schedule.
Cancellations have occurred in countries that were part of the former Soviet Union—Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, and Romania—or where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has strong leverage, such as in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore.
Two performances of the New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts in Greece on June 4 and 5 nearly didn’t happen. The details are unique to Athens, but the story is similar to other venues.
On May 21, exactly two weeks before the first scheduled performance, the Falun Dafa Association of Greece, the sponsor of the show, discovered that the ticket sales for Shen Yun were disrupted. The Athens Music Hall did not inform them about stopping ticket sales, but the sponsor became suspicious when they were no longer getting daily updates.
Soon thereafter, the sponsor received a faxed message from the Athens Music Hall, saying that the shows had to be “postponed” due to technical problems at the venue, which could only be fixed between June 1 and 7—a period that included the days of the scheduled Shen Yun performances.
At first, the theater would not specify the “technical problem.” Later, they disclosed it as a ventilation problem. No explanation was provided as to why the alleged ventilation problem could not be fixed prior to the Shen Yun shows, as the theater’s calendar indicated several days with no scheduled performances beforehand.
It is not hard to surmise where the pressure to “postpone,” which would have meant canceling the shows, came from. Greece has been in an economic crisis with a $300 billion debt. On the day the sponsor of Shen Yun learned that their shows would be “postponed,” Reuters reported that China Ocean Shipping Group (COSCO) would go ahead with investments to modernize Piraeus Port as part of a 3.4 billion euro concession deal with Greece.
According to Greek media reports, the spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Greece said that COSCO’s president and senior managers met with Greek politicians at the theater on the same day, May 31.
In the end, the theater backed down, and the performances went on at the scheduled times. One of the dancers wrote to The Epoch Times that Shen Yun performers held a long meeting with the theater’s management, explaining in depth the role played by the CCP. After that meeting, the theater allowed them to proceed with the shows and indicated that they absolutely did not want to get involved in political matters. …… (more details from The Epochtimes)
VOA News, 08 June 2010 -
The Chinese government has defended its policy of censoring the Internet and cautions other nations to respect how it polices the world’s largest online population. Some in the international community fear China’s high-technology methods for controlling information are gaining popularity with oppressive governments around the world.
There were no surprises in the Chinese government’s new white paper, as it reiterated its determination to heavily censor Internet access in the world’s most populous nation.
It calls for other countries to respect its Internet laws, which it says are a matter of national sovereignty.
China’s communist leaders seem more than ever determined to control content for the country’s estimated 400 million Internet users.
The white paper issued Tuesday says censorship is “an indispensable requirement for protecting state security and the public interest.”
The country spends hundreds of millions of dollars to control the Internet. Its restrictive measures, known by some critics as the Great Firewall, are continually reviewed and upgraded.
The controls bring strong criticism from many countries, including the United States, and the United Nations.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Beijing Susan Stevenson says Washington opposes China’s Internet policy.
“As President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have stressed on many occasions, the U.S. government is strongly committed to Internet and press freedoms and we are opposed to censorship,” Stevenson said.
Lucie Morillon, with the media freedom pressure group Reporters Without Borders, says concern is growing that other governments, such as Iran and Burma, are copying China’s policies.
“China has been playing a leading role in defining Internet control with a lot of technical means and resources behind it, plus a lot of intimidation against net citizens,” Morillon said. “And this is a model that is being exported to different countries, which are following the Chinese model.”…… (more details from VOA News)
(Reuters) – A Chinese farmer has declared war on property developers who want his land, building a canon out of a wheelbarrow and pipes and firing rockets at would-be eviction teams, state media said on Tuesday.
Yang Youde, who lives on the outskirts of bustling Wuhan city, in central Hubei province, says he has fended off two eviction attempts with his improvised weapon, which uses ammunition made from locally sold fireworks.
“I shot only over their heads to frighten them,” the China Daily quoted him saying of his attacks on demolition workers sent to move him off his land. “I didn’t want to cause any injuries.”
The rockets can travel over 100 metres, and exploded with a deafening bang, the official paper added. It did not say if anyone had been injured.
His approach is more aggressive than most, but Yang’s problem is a common one.
Anger over property confiscation is one of the leading causes of unrest in China, with many people forced to give up homes and land to make way for anything from roads to luxury villas.
Yang says the local government has offered him 130,000 yuan ($19,030) for his fields, on which they want to erect “department buildings”. He is asking for five times that amount.
Construction ditches have already been dug across the land of less obstinate neighbours.
A first eviction team attacked him in February after his rockets ran out, but local police came to his rescue. In May he held off 100 people by firing from a makeshift watchtower.
The government is planning to reform property confiscation rules, but rights groups say the changes do not go far enough to address the potentially destabilising issue.
HONG KONG— While the official history of the deadly crackdown on student-led demonstrations in Beijing 21 years ago remains unwritten, smaller crackdowns on smaller protests are increasing, according to a former top Communist Party aide who was jailed in 1989.
“The central government’s strategy that it employed on June 4, 1989 continues today, and that is to use the army, to use armed force, to suppress different voices,” Bao Tong, former aide to ousted late premier Zhao Ziyang, said in an interview to mark the anniversary of the crackdown.
“What is being suppressed is a force which is in favor of democracy and against corruption. What is being protected is a growing chasm between rich and poor,” said Bao, who has remained under house arrest at his Beijing home since his release from a seven-year jail term after Zhao’s fall.
Bao said that the large-scale military force in which the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drove thousands of protesters from the heart of Beijing with tanks and machine guns, killing an unknown number, opened the door to the use of force to quash smaller protests across the country.
“Social conflicts are becoming more and more acute, deeper, and more widespread,” said Bao, who has argued for democratic reforms ever since his release from jail in essays published overseas but unseen by most Chinese.
“The sensitivity of the students [in 1989] to these issues wasn’t resolved as part of normal life, but through oppression through military force, which wiped out their voices,” Bao said.
‘Shocking and appalling’
“That was a rare event in the history of mankind, the suppression by a government of the wishes of the people in order to preserve its corrupt rule,” he said.
“This was carried out by a Marxist proletariat, by a party that represents the workers. I think that it was a shocking and appalling event—a tragedy.”
“Some people say that this tragedy is already in the past now. But the truth has yet to be published,” he said.
“Even if we never get another ‘big Tiananmen,’ we are seeing an innumerable procession of ‘small Tiananmens.’ By ‘small Tiananmens,’ I mean mass incidents that involve anti-corruption demands from the people, or demands for democracy. These aren’t just taking place in the capital, but continually at the provincial, county, township, and village levels.”
Bao cited official government statistics with the number of 87,000 mass incidents in 2004, but he went on to cite an academic speaking at a U.S. seminar as saying that the number had risen to 227,000 in 2008.
“You get corrupt officials not just in central government but in provincial, county, town, and village governments,” he said.
“And when they become corrupt, they refuse to allow ordinary people to express an opinion. This is a shocking and appalling thing. This is definitely not a measure aimed at preserving social stability.”
“I believe that it is a regression in the development of human feeling. It takes an inhuman view of problems, and it truly constitutes a naked challenge to civilized values,” Bao added.
Unforgotten
Bao said the 21st anniversary of the crackdown was “the same as any other day” because the memories have remained with him during his years under house arrest.
He said the events of 1989 in Beijing are unlikely to be forgotten by Chinese.
“The voices that opposed corruption have disappeared, and the voices that called out for democracy have faded away,” Bao said.
“This disappearance can only be for a limited time, can only be temporary.”
Twelve workers from Foxconn’s southern China plant have committed suicide this year. The plant manufactures the iPhone, among other products. Steve Jobs addressed the issue last week during a talk at the D8 conference in California, calling it “troubling,” but he added that the plant “is not a sweatshop.”
Last week, the company announced that it will raise pay rates 30 percent across the board, in light of the spate of suicides. This week, Foxconn announced it will issue a 66 percent performance-based raise for employees who get good marks on a three-month evaluation.
“This wage increase has been instituted to safeguard the dignity of workers, accelerate economic transformation, support Foxconn’s long-term objective of continued evolution from a manufacturing leader to a technology leader, and to rally and sustain the best of our workforce,” Foxconn’s founder Terry Gou said in a statement.
For a period of time, universities started campaigns of constructing “university campus culture.” However, culture, spiritual activities, activities to create a cultural atmosphere through song composition and creation; seminars on different cultures, thoughts and science as well as some good ways to construct “campus culture” were all considered “spiritual pollution” by the Party committee propaganda department and “bourgeois liberalization,” and they were forcefully canceled. Instead, the league committee takes over and put all these under the wing of “Party culture.”
University education in today’s China was developed to protect and strengthen the CCP’s regime. The regime calls this education system the “national industry to produce talented people.” However, its true purpose is to support the regime.
Who benefits in today’s China? Take a look at the upper echelons of the Party. All the people in that group have graduated from universities. Phony Ph.D.s are rampant in today’s China. The CCP has changed its tactics.
In the past, if senior cadres were criticized for not doing the work of running the country, they would say that they had created the state, so why do they need to work? In today’s China the rulers are still exploiting the wealth of the nation while failing to fulfill their duties. They continue to produce a class of degenerate intellectuals who are more cunning and also more ruthless than their predecessors. The university system is being used to educate the regime’s political, economic, and cultural elites as well as other levels of lackeys to flatter the CCP and perform as executioners for the CCP.
The above are just some of the base tactics the CCP uses to cause students to lose their souls. It clearly shows that these tactics have seriously poisoned university students with “Party culture.” (END)
For a period of time, some key universities all had the task of “recruiting talent for the Party.” The so-called “Party cadre,” “the second echelon,” and “the third echelon” came into play. Many university students became “echelon candidates” two years after they entered universities. Students themselves all know they are “successors for different levels of leaders in the Party and its organs.” During their time at school, “the second echelon” often has “private lessons.” It can be said that what they receive is an education and training in authentic, traditional Party culture.
Every university and college in mainland China is requested by the Central Propaganda Department and the Committee for College/University to operate an “Amateur Party School.” It organizes students to study “Fundamental Knowledge of the Party,” “Party Constitution,” and “Marxism and Leninism.” At the same time, it also selectively recruits students to become Party members. Nowadays, they will accept anyone who wishes to become a Party member.
Since the CCP established its rule, universities started to open brainwashing classes in political education. Until today, various universities offer a complex range of political classes. For example: Basic Principles of Marxism, Marxist Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, Political Economy, Philosophy, Scientific Socialism, History of Communist Party Campaigns, Mao Zedong Thought Study, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Three Represents [the contribution to Chinese Communist Party doctrine made by Jiang Zemin], Scientific Development and Communist Morality, Human’s Manners, Legal Education,” etc. Such offerings fill up the class schedules of different grades in universities.
I still remember that within more than 2,300 course credits, these kinds of political courses took up 300 to 400 credits, far exceeding the major core courses and major subject courses.
For so many years, university students have been trying their best to ensure their rights and establish their own independent student associations. After decades of effort, they’ve achieved very little and have instead encountered countless failures. In the end, student associations all have to be affiliated with a “league committee”or “Party committee propaganda” system. The student organizations need to register under a “league committee” and get permission from the “Party committee propaganda department.”
There is one must-do monthly task in almost all universities, i.e., the “thoughts analysis meeting.” The meeting is held by “party committee chairman (vice chairman).” Party cadres like “coordinators of the Party” and “chairman of the league committee” attend. The “lower level” reports to the “higher level” and analyzes the thoughts and minds of different students, youth teachers, and other staff.
The examination of thoughts includes an analysis of the current political situation, views on “important issues to the parties and the country” and views on some school events and policies. Key problematic personnel are identified and subjected to a “transformation” process. The meeting is often the place where a concerted decision is made to enforce emotional and spiritual control and the suppression of students and young teachers. (to be cont’d)
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ruled China for more than 60 years, relying on violence and lies to remain in power. Through manipulation of the educational system—in particular through “political education”—the Party seeks to control the souls and spirits of students.
The harm this has caused extends back a few generations; therefore, sweeping out the effects and poisons of the “party culture” is not only a very difficult project, but must be a very systematic and urgent one as well.
I have been teaching in mainland China for 35 years. I am a teacher by profession, and my specialty is youth psychology research. I have worked in elementary schools, middle schools, and universities. I have experienced serious emotional and spiritual persecution in different periods of time under the CCP’s rule. Therefore, I consider myself to be in a position to tell young people just how “Party culture” affects them and in what aspects.
The tactics used by the CCP to force students to devour their souls are many, varied, and insidious. From kindergarten to the university, the tactics and purposes of the CCP-instilled “Party culture” are all the same. First of all, the CCP designates all young people as the “heirs of communism.” Consequently, 300 million youth must take the CCP’s guiding principle of “fighting for communism throughout their life” as their goal and guiding principle. It clearly aims to control their hearts and souls, spirits and wills. Without exemption, 300 million young people must join the regime’s related political organizations. Children over seven years old must join the “Communist Young Pioneers” (CYP). They must raise their fists to pledge to “always be prepared to fight for Communism!” They also become the next level up in the reserve force of the “Communist Youth League” (CYL) .
Especially today, the CYL forcefully recruits youths of suitable age to join the league. The CYL then becomes the reserve force for the CCP. It can be said that “Party culture” is systematically feeding doctrine to these young people throughout the CYL’s activities. Its members must sincerely pledge to receive its influence.
Universities and colleges in mainland China have all systemically established “league committees” (Full name: “Chinese Communist Party Youth League Committee of such-and-such). These claim to be the “Party’s powerful assistants.” However, in actuality they are the Party’s powerful thugs.
The party committee’s control over university students is mainly operated through the League Committee. Today, League Committees in universities cooperate with the University’s Party Committee to execute its plans to recruit new Party members. It uses different kinds of political benefits to attract and force students to join the Party to increase Party membership. At the same time, it cooperates with the “propaganda department” and “political counselors” in different classes to influence students’ political views and perceptions.
Every student is given a political evaluation. The implementation of the two tasks of recruiting news members and influencing students thoughts makes today’s university students completely lose the true purpose and meaning of being at a university—to receive a higher education. Instead, they almost become tools of the CCP. (to be cont’d)
JOHN GARNAUT, Sydney Morning Herald CORRESPONDENT, June 4, 2010 -
BEIJING: In May 1989 the talented commander of the legendary 38th Army, Lieutenant General Xu Qinxian, defied an order from the paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, to lead his troops to Beijing.
General Xu took no part in the subsequent killing of hundreds of protesters around Tiananmen Square, which is now quietly referred to in China simply as ”June 4” and remains the worst incident of direct military violence against Chinese people in the People’s Republic’s 60-year history. The bloodshed split the People’s Liberation Army as it did the Communist Party and the country. ”The case of General Xu is representative of the dissenting voice within the military,” said Warren Sun, an authority at Monash University on the Communist Party’s internal history . ”Deng held a real fear of a possible military coup,” he said.
The killings around Tiananmen continue to taint the legacies of the party elders who ordered them, led by Deng, and it weighs on the generation of mainly conservative leaders whose careers advanced because their more moderate colleagues were purged or sidelined at the time.
Those internal wounds are still raw, as demonstrated by the effort that the party and PLA have exerted to ensure today’s 21st anniversary will pass without any public mention within China.
But acts of courageous defiance are kept alive by military and party veterans in private conversations and overseas Chinese language publications, in the belief or hope that those who refused to spill blood in 1989 will one day be acknowledged as heroes.
Around May 20, 1989, General Zhou Yibing, commander of the Beijing Military District, had couriered the marching orders to General Xu’s barracks in Baoding, south of Beijing. ”When he was ordered to march into the square, Xu asked a series of questions,” said a serving general in the People’s Liberation Army, answering queries from the Herald which were relayed via a close associate.
”He asked if there was an order from … Zhao Ziyang,” said the serving PLA general, referring to the Communist Party boss who had already been sidelined because of his opposition to the use of force. The answer was no and ”Xu then refused to march.”
General Xu is the best known conscientious objector but not the only one.
On some accounts, General Xu’s mentor, Qin Jiwei, who was then defence minister and a member of the politburo, attempted to forge an alliance with Zhao to oppose martial law. Zhao was purged and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
“He was ordered to implement martial law [after a meeting at Deng's home on May 17] but he refused, saying he needed party authority,” said a prominent scholar, whose father had served under Qin. “Qin called Zhao’s office and waited for four hours until 2.30 in the morning to receive Zhao’s return phone call overruling Deng Xiaoping … but the call never came.”
There has been no public corroboration of this account by Zhao or those close to him.
The serving PLA general who responded to the Herald’s questions about General Xu also pointed to the case of He Yanran, commander of the 28th Army.
”[General] He was also court-martialled because his armoured personnel carriers and trucks were burned down by angry onlookers and he refused to disperse them,” said the serving general, through the mutual acquaintance.
General Xu was jailed for five years and is believed to be living a quiet life in occasional contact with reform-minded friends. General Qin later maintained a strong public show of support for the crackdown but was nevertheless deprived of his former power until his death in 1997. General He was demoted.
By Peter Foster in Beijing, The Telegraph, UK, 04 Jun 2010 -
The phrase, attributed to China’s then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, appears in a previously suppressed diary which publishers say will lift the veil of secrecy over how the decision was made to send in the tanks on the night of June 3-4.
Leaked extracts of the diary said to be by Li Peng, the hardline former head of China’s government in 1989 who is most deeply associated with the bloody crackdown, appeared yesterday as dissidents commemorated the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square.
“The measures for martial law must be steady-handed, and we must minimise harm, but we must prepare to spill some blood,” Deng told officials on May 19 1989, according to a copy of the manuscript.
Mr Li, now 81 and reportedly in frail health, is said to have written his diary to justify his own role in the killings and to counter long-standing beliefs in China that it he pressured Deng Xiaoping into ordering the use of lethal force.
“From the beginning of the turmoil, I have prepared for the worst,” Mr Li is quoted as saying.
“I would rather sacrifice my own life and that of my family to prevent China from going through a tragedy like the Cultural Revolution,” he added, referring to a period of bitter political in-fighting in China from 1966-76.
The memoirs come a year after the publication of the secret memoirs of Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party general secretary, who Premier Li helped push from office for seeking to negotiate with the protestors…..(more details from telegraph.co.uk)
By Tom Mitchell and Gideon Rachman in Hong Kong, The Financial Times, June 5 2010 -
The founder of Hong Kong’s largest pro-Beijing political party has spoken out against the Chinese government in a rare criticism of the brutal military crackdown that squashed demonstrations in 1989.
Tsang Yok-sing is usually one of the Chinese communist party’s staunchest defenders in Hong Kong , and his Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong – known as DAB – provides an important block of loyalist support in the territory’s legislature.
But in unprecedented remarks, Mr Tsang occasionally struggled to contain his emotions as he recalled the bloody events in China’s capital 21 years ago. “Everyone was shocked. If anything, being pro-Beijing we thought we understood the [Chinese] government so well,” he told the Financial Times. “We never believed a government we so trusted would turn its troops against the people.”
Mr Tsang, who also serves as president of the territory’s legislature, was speaking hours before more than 150,000 people gathered to mark the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre at an annual candlelight vigil.
Governed as a largely autonomous special administrative region where civil freedoms are still protected, Hong Kong is the only place in the People’s Republic of China where the victims of Tiananmen are openly mourned . Last year the memoirs of Zhao Ziyang , the former party general secretary who opposed the bloody crackdown on student protesters in 1989, were published posthumously in Hong Kong.
Bao Pu, who edited Zhao’s memoirs, said yesterday that he had obtained a rival account of Tiananmen penned by Li Peng, Mr Zhao’s hard-line adversary. In his account, Mr Li stands by the government’s decision to crush the mass protests by ordering the People’s Liberation Army to launch a violent assault.
Mr Tsang was the principal at a “patriotic” school in Hong Kong as the Tiananmen Square protests gathered pace in the spring of 1989. The massacre shocked the schools’ teachers and students who, Mr Tsang remembered, wept at the news. “It is difficult, it is difficult,” he said. “If you asked me has time changed these emotions we had right after the event, I would say no.”
“Long long ago I told myself the best way to commemorate June 4 – and make sure those who sacrificed their lives did not do so in vain – is to do what I can to help my country, within Hong Kong, to become more liberal-democratic,” Mr Tsang added……. (more details from The Financial Times)
Reporters Without Borders, Jun 3, 2010 -
On the eve of the 21st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate release of the journalists and netizens who have been jailed for referring to this dark page in China’s history. It also calls for an end to the censorship of both traditional and online media that want to tackle this subject and challenge the official version.
Shi Tao of the daily Dangdai Shang Bao (Contemporary Business News) is one of the journalists who are being held. He was convicted of “illegally divulging state secrets abroad” on 30 April 2005 and was sentenced 10 years in prison. The details of the verdict showed that Yahoo!’s Hong Kong subsidiary provided the Chinese police with information that helped get him convicted.
According to the authorities, Shi’s crime was to have forwarded a government directive about the 15th Tiananmen Square anniversary to a friend based abroad. The note, which was sent to the newspaper, warned journalists of the dangers of social destabilisation and the risks that could result from the return of certain dissidents.
Chinese state security officials insisted during the trial that the directive was “Jue Mi” (top secret). Shi admitted to passing it on to someone else by email but disputed that it was a secret document. The conditions in which he is being held are very harsh.
Sun Fuquan, a journalist from Shenyang (in the province of Liaoning), is serving a sentence of 21 months of forced labour for posting information about the events of 1989 online. He was convicted of “inciting subversion of state authority” and “dividing the country.”
Zhang Huaiyang, a cyber-dissident from the same city, was sentenced to 18 months of forced labour last year for asking on the Internet whether activists intended to gather in Tiananmen Square to mark the anniversary of the massacre. The authorities said he was guilty of “inciting unrest and endangering national security.”
In a report released in June 2009, on the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, Reporters Without Borders detailed the methods used by the authorities to maintain a veil of silence over the massacre. The policy has not changed. It is still impossible for the Chinese press and Internet users to refer freely to this subject. Between 400 and 500 keywords linked to the events of 4 June 1989 are censored online.
A cartoon apparently alluding to 4 June 1989 was published two days ago in the newspaper Nanfang Dushi Bao (Southern Metropolitan Daily) and was posted on its website. But it was soon withdrawn from the site, along with the comments it had prompted. It showed a child drawing tanks and a figure resembling a soldier on a blackboard. The censoring of the cartoon shows that the authorities tolerate absolutely no reference to 4 June 1989, no matter how indirect.
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the government’s treatment of Liu Xiaobo, a prominent dissident and intellectual who took part in the 1989 demonstrations. Sentenced to 11 years in prison last December for helping to draft Charter 08, an appeal for more freedom in China (http://en.rsf.org/china-court-upholds-11-year-prison-10-02-2010,35507.html), Liu was transferred on 24 May from Beijing detention centre No. 1 to Jinzhou prison in the northeastern province of Liaoning, more than 800 km from the capital, where his family lives.
Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, was not told of the transfer until 30 May. She finally obtained permission to visit him but the journey will take her 12 hours each way.
Captured by Western photographers watching nearby, this confrontation on June 5, 1989 (in Beijing, China) became an icon for the fight for freedom around the world.
By Madeline Earp / CPJ Asia Research Associate, June 3, 2010 -
Tank Cartoon published on Southern Metropolis Daily
Twenty-one years after the Tiananmen Square crackdown, China’s censors are still working to purge public discourse about the tragic events of June 4, 1989. But some Chinese Web users clearly have a healthy appetite for such a debate and are willing to circumvent the government censors.
A cartoon that alludes to Friday’s anniversary of the crackdown on student-led protests around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square has been circulating on overseas Web sites after it was deleted from the Chinese Internet, according to international news reports.
The Guangzhou-based Nanfang Dushi Bao (Southern Metropolis Daily)— a state-owned but assertive news outlet—published the image of a boy drawing a soldier and a row of tanks on a blackboard as one of a series of cartoons marking International Children’s Day on June 1. It appeared in print as well as online, according to the BBC, but was later removed from the news outlet’s Web site.
The BBC’s Chinese-language service highlights why the cartoon drew the
Tank Man
censors’ attention, reproducing it alongside the memorable “tank man” photograph from the crackdown in which a protester confronts government troops. A torch— like the one held by the Goddess of Democracy statue that protesters erected in Tiananmen Square—appears alongside the tanks on the child’s blackboard. The blackboard has the headline, “School Newspaper.”
Some details about the cartoon remain obscure, such as the date on the blackboard, May 1985. But the cartoon, credited to Xiang Ma, appears to be a clear reference to Tiananmen, an event so taboo that journalist Shi Tao is serving a 10-year prison term simply for e-mailing to overseas sources the government’s propaganda department instructions on coverage of the anniversary. After Shi sent the directive to overseas Web sites in 2004, the government classified the propaganda instructions a state secret.
A Chinese spokeswoman is defending the Chinese government’s bloody 1989 crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and says China has taken the correct development path in the 21 years since then.
On June 4, 21 years ago, Chinese government troops moved in to crush a student-led demonstration that had been growing on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were killed — most of them protesters and other bystanders.
At a regular briefing Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu stressed that the Chinese government has already made what she describes as a “clear conclusion” about the 1989 crackdown.
Jiang says the past few decades have shown that China chose a development path that is, in her words, “suitable for China’s national conditions and in the fundamental interest of the Chinese people.”
Beijing’s official verdict is that the 1989 demonstrations were a part of a counter-revolutionary rebellion. The protesters had been demonstrating for weeks. They were calling for more political openness and decrying corruption.
Bao Tong is the highest-ranking person to have spent time in jail for supporting those in the government who, at the time, wanted to talk to the students, not shoot them. He is 77 years old.
Bao, who spent seven years in prison, says he sees no new developments in the Chinese government that would indicate a change of verdict.
Bao says he is old and does not have the strength to make appeals. But, he says he is happy to see the development of the Internet and calls the advances in information transmission “China’s hope.”
Wang Dan, who was a prominent student activist in 1989, now lives in exile. From California, he sent out notices for netizens around the world to join in a virtual commemoration ceremony, via Twitter, to grieve for the dead and condemn what he described as “the government murderers.”
Twitter is among the websites that are blocked by the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, another group, called Tiananmen Mothers, issued what has become an annual open letter to call for a more open accounting of the government’s 1989 crackdown. The group is made up of families of the victims.
BRISBANE, Australia— Shen Yun Performing Arts’ tour of Australia has finally come to a close with their last show at the Lyric Theatre on Wednesday night, June 3. The New York-based company is continuing on to Hawaii as it completes its 2010 world tour, bringing joy to people from all walks of life in its divine vision of cultural renewal.
The performance showcases stories from 5000 years of Chinese culture through classical dance and music. This year, for the first time, the tour is accompanied by the Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company Orchestra—more than 40 professional musicians creating a wonderful union of Chinese and Western traditions.
Keith Sykes originally comes from England and runs his own business as a training consultant in engineering workplace health and safety. He attended Shen Yun with his wife who is a retired dancer. The couple will soon be travelling to China on holiday so had decided to come and see Shen Yun to get a taste of Chinese culture before their trip. They have already spent a lot of time in Asia, mainly in Vietnam and Taiwan.
Mr. Sykes exclaimed, “I’m just blown out of my mind! The costumes were great! Lovely, lovely dancers, and I love the atmosphere. I thought the audience were all switched on, it was magic. I hope the second half is as good as the first, it’s just great.”
He felt that he had learned a lot about Chinese culture and classical dance, commenting, “It’s very gentle, very soft and very precise and lots of clean movements, and you can tell as I know a bit about ballet, about the way they are dancing. You can tell what they are saying—very expressive.”
Mr. Sykes had felt an underlying message in the show about the current situation in China where the spiritual discipline of Falun Gong is being persecuted. One of the dances portrays a mother and her daughter being arrested for practising Falun Gong. He said, “Yes, I got a bit teary on the one about the beings coming down and the little girl being taken away. Yes, and them all going back up, I thought that was great.”
He continued with his overall impression of the performance, saying, “A lovely big strong belief because they are a different culture to us, and I like that spiritual side of things. So for me, I’ll give it an 11 out of 10. It was just great—a new experience.”
Mr. Sykes will be telling his friends that they must come and see Shen Yen, adding, “To see it is to believe it, because there are not many people that know much about it. Well worth seeing, worth every penny. It can reach anybody and everybody. It was really just great, I can’t say anything else. Yes, I have no faults at all.”
Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company will now travel to Hawaii to perform four shows at Concert Hall, Neal Blaisdell Center, Honolulu, from June 4-6. For more information visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
Hong Kong – The creator of a statue made to commemorate this week’s anniversary of the deadly 1989 government crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing has been deported from Hong Kong, a legislator said Wednesday.
New Zealand national Chen Weiming flew to Hong Kong Tuesday to inspect his Goddess of Democracy statue, one of two statues seized by police during weekend demonstrations in the former British colony.
However, Democratic Party legislator James To, who went to meet Chen at Hong Kong’s airport, said US resident Chen was held overnight by immigration officials and then deported.
To accused the Hong Kong government and police of trying to “suppress the June 4 remembrance activities.”
Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee refused to comment on Chen’s case but told the government-run radio station RTHK that immigration authorities “comply fully with the law” when barring entry.
He dismissed complaints of political persecution against activists commemorating the June 4, 1989, crackdown, pointing out police had returned the two statues.
Police triggered a storm of protest by confiscating the two replicas of the Goddess of Democracy, a statue erected by students in Beijing during the 1989 protests at Tiananmen Square.
The Danish sculptor of another statue commemorating the protests has twice been refused entry to Hong Kong before previous anniversaries.
Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 and has political freedoms denied to people elsewhere in China, is the only place in China where the June 4 anniversary is commemorated.
By Lin Yi & Tan Hohua, Epoch Times staff, May 31, 2010-
Police forcefully take away Alliance Deputy Chair Richard Choi Yiu-cheong. (Pan Zaishu/Epoch Times Staff)
Hong Kong—As preparations mount for commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre in Hong Kong, police confiscated two replicas of the iconic “Goddess of Democracy” statue and detained over a dozen activists over the weekend. The moves have raised concerns over infringements of free expression in the territory.
Hong Kong police detained 13 prodemocracy activists and confiscated a replica of the statue on Saturday May, 29. According to The Standard, when two activists sought to place a second replica of the statue at the same location on Sunday, they were again detained and the figurine confiscated.
Richard Tsoi, vice chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, told The Epoch Times that police arrested him and 12 other activists Saturday, but had not filed any charges.
“There is an increasing level of political censorship on the commemoration of the June 4 [killings],” said Tsoi. “The Alliance will never compromise. We will have the candlelight vigil at Victoria Park on time at 8 p.m. on June 4.”…… (more details from The Epochtimes)
While Shenzhen was set up as China’s first Special Economic Zone thirty years ago, media reports describe Foxconn’s operations there as operating something like an independent kingdom with officialdom rarely regulating it. Given that the company reportedly provides more than 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) in taxes annually to the city’s coffers, it’s understandable if there is a hands-off approach.
Arguably Foxconn symbolizes wider structural problems in China’s economy: It’s unbalanced and overly focused on exports and investment spending, and lacks domestic-led consumption.
At the root of weak consumption is low wages. According to a survey released by the All China Federation of Trade Unionists (ACFTU) last week, almost one-quarter of Chinese employees had not seen a salary rise in the past five years. The workers at Foxconn got a base monthly salary of 950 yuan, which is in line with the minimum wage set by Guangdong government — although a 20% pay rise was announced on Friday.
The low level of wages is also borne out by looking at the make-up of China’s gross domestic product, where the share of company profits is rising and wages shrinking.
According to the ACFTU the proportion of China’s GDP that goes towards wages and salaries has continued to shrink since 1983, having dropped from 65.5% in 1983 to 36.7% in 2005. Meanwhile the proportion of returns on capital in GDP had risen by 20% in the 27 years through 2005.
This may be good news for equity investors in the short run, but it hardly looks like a sustainable model of development.
The Foxconn controversy also came in a week when workers in Honda’s (HMC 30.40, +0.36, +1.21%) (JP:7267 2,764, -6.00, -0.22%) four mainland factories were shut after parts makers went on strike seeking a pay rise, paralyzing the Japanese auto maker’s production.
The risk is that Foxconn is just the tip of the iceberg, and China could be entering a new phase of industrial unrest. Other imbalances in China’s economy, such as feel-bad rising prices of food and housing, are exacerbating tensions.
We should acknowledge not all factories are bad stories. Huawei, China’s largest telecom equipment vendor, is also based in Shenzhen, and is held up as model operator with its impressive, campus-like facilities. Making modern telecom equipment is more sophisticated than assembling mobile phones, of course.
The mainland authorities, manufacturing companies and international brands face a difficult challenge to quell labor unrest and better share the spoils of China’s growth.
Dealing with the cause — better pay and conditions — looks to be a better start than simply asking workers not to jump. (END)
By Craig Stephen, The Market Watch, May 31, 2010 -
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — When employees are asked to sign a pledge not to kill themselves (later retracted) and safety nets outside dormitories are erected to prevent suicide jumpers, something is badly wrong.
And this is not a Second World War concentration camp we’re talking about — rather, it’s a factory making some of the coolest brand-name gadgets in the twenty-first century.
The spate of suicides at Foxconn’s (HK:2038 5.77, -0.08, -1.37%) mammoth industrial complex in Shenzhen, China has everyone looking to attribute blame, from the Taiwanese owner Hon Hai Precision Industry (HNHPF 8.39, -0.11, -1.26%) to the global brands such as Dell (DELL 13.11, +0.02, +0.15%) , Apple (AAPL 261.80, +0.97, +0.37%) and Nokia (NOK 10.10, +0.08, +0.80%) , which outsource their assembly there.
There is plenty of shame to go round. All have gone along with China’s economic model proscribed by the one-party state and the apparent productivity miracle. Economists generally like to describe the unbalanced growth or structural imbalances in China’s economy. Could it be much worse, and is the world’s factory workshop rotten at its core?
When I first visited Shenzhen a good sixteen years ago it was grey and drab with a few cars on the streets. Begging children clamped themselves to my legs to stop me walking.
Today, its population has soared to 17 million and its downtown roads are packed with cars and sport utility vehicles, while its hotels and shopping malls can match anything in Hong Kong.
But if you are a migrant factory worker living in a cramped dormitory, you are likely to have missed this progress. Migrants are locked out from enjoying health, education and housing benefits available to Shenzhen residents.
Foxconn stands out as the largest factory complex, with over 300,000 living and working in a city within a city. I doubt Mercer ranked this destination on its global quality of life index.
China’s wider problems
The dozen worker suicides this year have become a public relations nightmare not just for Foxconn and its clients, but also for the mainland government which sets the rules. Beijing would much rather see the spectacle of its glitzy Shanghai expo in the headlines instead of the international media focusing on the ugly underbelly of its economy.
When former Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping opened up socialist China to capitalism, he tried to juggle the contradictions with a new path, famously saying, “Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.” He also added: “Let some people get rich first.”
Eighteen years after Deng’s famous South China inspection tour, if he were alive today, he would surely recognize something has gone wrong. (to be cont’d)
By David Gelles and Richard Waters in San Francisco, The Financial Times, May 31 2010 -
Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns, according to several Google employees.
The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google, which employs more than 10,000 workers internationally.
“We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.
“Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.
New hires are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. “Linux is open source and we feel good about it,” said one employee. “Microsoft we don’t feel so good about.”
In early January, some new hires were still being allowed to install Windows on their laptops, but it was not an option for their desktop computers. Google would not comment on its current policy.
Windows is known for being more vulnerable to attacks by hackers and more susceptible to computer viruses than other operating systems. The greater number of attacks on Windows has much to do with its prevalence, which has made it a bigger target for attackers.
Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from “quite senior levels”, one employee said. “Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,” said another employee.
In addition to being a semi-formal policy, employees themselves have grown more concerned about security since the China attacks. “Particularly since the China scare, a lot of people here are using Macs for security,” said one employee……. (mor details from The Financial Times)
BEIJING — A bank guard angry over a legal ruling in his divorce opened fire in a China court building Tuesday, shooting three judges dead and wounding three others before killing himself, the local government said.
Zhu Jun, a 46-year-old guard for Postal Savings Bank of China, walked into the offices of a courthouse in the city of Yongzhou with a machine gun and two pistols, a report on the city government website said.
He then opened fire on the judges as they met to discuss a case, it said.
Zhu was said to have been deeply angered by another court’s ruling in his divorce three years ago, which awarded him 20,000 yuan (2,900 dollars) of the assets he held jointly with his wife.
The courthouse where he carried out the shooting was not where his divorce case was heard, it said.
The announcement said Zhu also was depressed after being off work for two months due to an “incurable disease”.
The state-run Procuratorate Daily said Zhu, who had only returned to work three days prior to the attack, had just delivered a sum of cash to a bank branch before going to the courthouse with his weapons.
Calls to the courthouse and to the city government went unanswered.
Deadly shootings are extremely rare in China, where private gun ownership is banned. However, some bank security personnel in charge of transporting cash are armed with guns.
The incident followed a spate of bloody attacks on young schoolchildren around China since late March that have left 17 people dead, including 15 students, and scores injured.
Experts say the senseless assaults reveal a China struggling to come to grips with rapid social change following decades of booming economic growth.
2. Large wave of resignation from the Chinese Communist Party is happening
More than 100 million Chinese have quit the CCP till Oct. 2011, people are continue quitting at a rate of 50,000 to 70,000 per day.
- The Tuidang Movement Milestone: 100 Million Chinese Hearts Changed
10.Videos: Tiananmen Square Massacre - June. 4, 1989
Thousands of students shot to death by tanks and soldiers on Tiananmen square in capital city Beijing in 1989
Reporters Without Borders said in it’s 2005 special report titled “Xinhua: the world’s biggest propaganda agency”, that “Xinhua remains the voice of the sole party”, “particularly during the SARS epidemic, Xinhua has for last few months been putting out news reports embarrassing to the government, but they are designed to fool the international community, since they are not published in Chinese.”
Foxconn symbolizes China economy’s wider structural problems and industrial unrest (2)
June 2, 2010
chinaview Business, China, Commentary, Company, Economy, GDP, Investment, News, Opinion, Politics, products, Social, Trade, World 1 Comment
By Craig Stephen, The Market Watch, May 31, 2010 -
<< Previous
(China’s wider problems)
While Shenzhen was set up as China’s first Special Economic Zone thirty years ago, media reports describe Foxconn’s operations there as operating something like an independent kingdom with officialdom rarely regulating it. Given that the company reportedly provides more than 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) in taxes annually to the city’s coffers, it’s understandable if there is a hands-off approach.
Arguably Foxconn symbolizes wider structural problems in China’s economy: It’s unbalanced and overly focused on exports and investment spending, and lacks domestic-led consumption.
At the root of weak consumption is low wages. According to a survey released by the All China Federation of Trade Unionists (ACFTU) last week, almost one-quarter of Chinese employees had not seen a salary rise in the past five years. The workers at Foxconn got a base monthly salary of 950 yuan, which is in line with the minimum wage set by Guangdong government — although a 20% pay rise was announced on Friday.
The low level of wages is also borne out by looking at the make-up of China’s gross domestic product, where the share of company profits is rising and wages shrinking.
According to the ACFTU the proportion of China’s GDP that goes towards wages and salaries has continued to shrink since 1983, having dropped from 65.5% in 1983 to 36.7% in 2005. Meanwhile the proportion of returns on capital in GDP had risen by 20% in the 27 years through 2005.
This may be good news for equity investors in the short run, but it hardly looks like a sustainable model of development.
The Foxconn controversy also came in a week when workers in Honda’s (HMC 30.40, +0.36, +1.21%) (JP:7267 2,764, -6.00, -0.22%) four mainland factories were shut after parts makers went on strike seeking a pay rise, paralyzing the Japanese auto maker’s production.
The risk is that Foxconn is just the tip of the iceberg, and China could be entering a new phase of industrial unrest. Other imbalances in China’s economy, such as feel-bad rising prices of food and housing, are exacerbating tensions.
We should acknowledge not all factories are bad stories. Huawei, China’s largest telecom equipment vendor, is also based in Shenzhen, and is held up as model operator with its impressive, campus-like facilities. Making modern telecom equipment is more sophisticated than assembling mobile phones, of course.
The mainland authorities, manufacturing companies and international brands face a difficult challenge to quell labor unrest and better share the spoils of China’s growth.
Dealing with the cause — better pay and conditions — looks to be a better start than simply asking workers not to jump. (END)
- The Market Watch
Related:
- Foxconn symbolizes China economy’s wider structural problems and industrial unrest (1)
Share this: