China will implode if it doesn’t change its authoritarian ways

Will Hutton, The Observer -

‘If nobody can be safe, do we want this speed? Can we live in apartments that do not fall down? Can the roads we drive on in our cities not collapse? Can we travel in safe trains? And if there is a major accident can we not be in a hurry to bury the trains? Can we afford the people a basic sense of security?”

When a news anchor on China’s state TV feels he can say that on a broadcaster which has become the world gold standard for censorship and propaganda, you know that something profound is afoot. But it is not just the crash last weekend outside Wenzhou, involving two high speed trains that cost 39 lives and some 190 injured, that has appalled the country. It has been the Communist party’s attempt once again to try to close down the whole affair that has aroused passionate protest.

Chinese Premier’s ‘Sick’ Claim at Train Crash Press Conference Questioned

On the sixth day following the Wenzhou train crash, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended a press conference near the crash site. After it concluded, careful citizens were able to find several glaring inconsistencies in the official reports.

In the past few years, Chinese media has described Wen as the first of China’s high-ranking leaders to arrive in person at the site of any tragedy or accident in its attempt to promote an image of Wen as a leader who loves the people.

Concerning his delayed visit this time, Wen explained at the conference: “I have been sick recently and confined to my bed for 11 days. Not until today was I released from the hospital. This is why I could not show up at the crash site until the sixth day. I am willing to answer any of your questions.”

China’s Government Struggles With Outcry Over Train Wreck

The Internet and Chinese state media continue to ask a steady stream of questions about last Saturday’s deadly high-speed rail accident. The persistent calls for answers come despite government assurances of a thorough investigation.

And the questioners are challenging the government and its ability to control public opinion.

Caught on microblog

For the past week, the Chinese microblog, China’s version of Twitter, Sina Weibo has been a steady source of information, assistance and nonstop criticism of the government’s handling of the rail crash.

Chinese Lawyer Zhu Yubiao Imprisoned for Defending Falun Gong

On July 13, the Chinese regime sentenced a Guangzhou based lawyer, Zhu Yubiao, to two years in prison for defending members of Falun Gong—a spiritual practice the regime has been persecuting since 1999. He was charged with so-called “sabotaging law enforcement.”

Zhu was arrested last August. Authorities ransacked his home and allegedly found Falun Gong books and CD-ROMs. He was formally charged in September and secretly put on trial in May this year.

This isn’t the first time Zhu has found himself on the wrong side of the Chinese regime for defending Falun Gong.

China is on the fast train to disaster

(The Guardian)- China’s high-speed rail network seemed to symbolise the nation’s unstoppable rise: since the first line opened in 2007, it has built more than 6,000 miles of track and seemed poised to spread the magic into overseas markets, bidding aggressively against established international players. Yet this week, families were mourning the 39 dead and tending the 200 injured in Saturday’s crash, the latest and worst episode in the high-speed rail fiasco. A project said to show China was poised for leadership in advanced technologies is collapsing in death, anger and embarrassment.

How it went so badly wrong carries some dark lessons for China. It’s a story of corruption and corner-cutting and of responsibility passed around an opaque and untouchable bureaucracy. It is also a lesson in a nationalistic habit of “digesting” foreign technology, as one railway official put it, then changing it, so as to claim the result as a Chinese invention.

Riot in south China after officials beat to death a disabled fruit vendor

(Reuters) – Angry residents in a southern Chinese city went on the rampage after officials apparently beat to death a disabled fruit vendor, a state media said on Wednesday, in the latest incident of social unrest in the world’s second-largest economy.

The China Daily said that thousands of people gathered on the streets of Anshun in Guizhou province on Tuesday afternoon, throwing stones at police and overturning a government vehicle.

The riot was sparked after urban management officers — a quasi-police force that enforces laws against begging and other petty offences — were suspected of beating the vendor to death, the newspaper said.

China Steps Up Web Monitoring, Driving Many Wi-Fi Users Away- Costly Web monitoring software required installed

BEIJING — New regulations that require bars, restaurants, hotels and bookstores to install costly Web monitoring software are prompting many businesses to cut Internet access and sending a chill through the capital’s game-playing, Web-grazing literati who have come to expect free Wi-Fi with their lattes and green tea.

The software, which costs businesses about $3,100, provides public security officials the identities of those logging on to the wireless service of a restaurant, cafe or private school and monitors their Web activity. Those who ignore the regulation and provide unfettered access face a $2,300 fine and the possible revocation of their business license.

“From the point of view of the common people, this policy is unfair,” said Wang Bo, the owner of L’Infusion, a cafe that features crepes, waffles and the companionship of several dozing cats. “It’s just an effort to control the flow of information.”

China bars HK activist priest as Vatican tension escalates

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China blocked a Hong Kong Catholic priest and rights activist from entering the mainland last week in what he said may have been a show of unhappiness with the Vatican for excommunicating two bishops recently ordained by Beijing.

In a sign of escalating tension between the Roman Catholic Church and Beijing, China said on Monday the Vatican’s recent excommunication of the Chinese bishops who were ordained without papal approval was “unreasonable” and “rude.

Father Franco Mella, who recently took part in protests in Hong Kong against China’s unilateral ordination of priests, said Chinese immigration officials did not give him any explanation for cancelling his Chinese visa when he presented himself at a checkpoint in China’s southern city of Shenzhen on July 19.

Anger mounts as China is accused of a cover-up over high-speed train disaster

BEIJING: Chinese authorities face growing public fury over the high-speed train crash that killed at least 38 people and injured 192, with the disposal of wreckage and attempts to control coverage of the incident prompting allegations of a cover-up.

The railway ministry has apologised for the collision in eastern Zhejiang province and announced an inquiry. Spokesman Wang Yongping said: ”China’s high-speed rail technology is up to date and up to standard, and we still have faith in it.”

Web users attacked the government’s response to the disaster after authorities muzzled media coverage and urged reporters to focus on rescue efforts. ”We have the right to know the truth!” wrote one microblogger ”kangfu xiaodingdang”. ”That’s our basic right!”

China accounts for 85% of fake goods seized in EU

BRUSSELS — European customs intercepted one billion euros worth of counterfeit goods last year, with 85 percent of the fakes originating from China, the European Commission said Thursday.

The figures highlighted the rise of Chinese counterfeit goods, which had accounted for 64 percent of the fake articles seized in the 27-nation European Union in 2009.

China is by far the biggest exporter of such goods in a list that includes India, the source of counterfeit drugs, and Hong Kong, which supplies counterfeit memory cards, as well as Turkey and Thailand.

China: Architect of Falun Gong Persecution Rumored Dead

NEW YORK – If rumors of former Chinese Communist Party head Jiang Zemin’s death prove true, in the coming days, the world’s media will debate his legacy. For hundreds of millions, Jiang will mostly be remembered as the architect of the most systematic, deadly, and protracted assault on Chinese citizens in decades: the persecution of Falun Gong.

With the man who unleashed a campaign of violence, lies, and mass arrests having left this world, his victims and many Chinese with a sense of justice are breathing a sigh of relief. Although his henchmen continue the atrocities, at least Jiang can no longer harm them. There is one less bit of evil in the world.

Week 13: China arrests 19 more Christians in Beijing

BEIJING (BP)–Despite restrictions due to the Chinese Communist Party’s 90th anniversary, members of Shouwang Church in Beijing continued to meet outdoors July 3, leading to at least 19 arrests.

Church members defied the Chinese government for the 13th consecutive week with the outdoor service. The illegal church, which was evicted from its leased meeting space in April, reported in a translated statement on ChinaAid.org that police were waiting outside the church’s designated worship site, an open-air plaza in northwest Beijing, and “only a few dozen people” were able to meet because, “many believers were under stricter detainment at home. Some individuals were taken to be detained in hotels nearby.”

Jiang Zemin death rumours spark online crackdown in China

Even for China’s rigorous internet censors, it has proved an unusually busy day. References to rivers and laundry are among the apparently innocuous items vanishing from postings and search results amid rumours that Jiang Zemin, who led the country before president Hu Jintao took over in 2002, is dead or seriously ill.

Similar tales have circulated several times in the past. This time they seem to have been prompted by the 84-year-old’s absence from celebrations for the 90th anniversary of the Communist party on Friday. He is normally a staple of such events and other former leaders were shown at the gathering.

Former CCP Leader Jiang Zemin Hospitalized, Near Death, Internet Rumors Say

Jiang Zemin, former supreme leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is said to be hospitalized and approaching death, according to a flurry of recent microblog comments and online rumors.

Jiang failed to show up at the recent 90th anniversary of the founding of the CCP, and Internet users are saying it’s because he was in hospital, dying.

A series of articles and statements have alluded to the case but all remain unconfirmed. Users commenting on it on Sina Weibo, the Chinese censored version of Twitter, report having their posts deleted.

Boxun, a dissident website and clearing house for unconfirmed news, lead the reports.

Hong Kong Journalists’ Association Says Bad year of 2011: “The one-country element is increasingly overriding two systems”

Freedom of expression in Hong Kong, once home to a freewheeling and independent media, has deteriorated in the past year, a journalists’ group has said.

The Hong Kong Journalists’ Association said the year ending June 2011 had been a bad one for press freedom in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under an agreement aimed at protecting existing freedoms.

“The one-country element is increasingly overriding two systems in the way that Hong Kong is governed,” the HKJA said in a statement, referring to the “One Country, Two Systems” concept which underpinned the change of sovereignty.

No Jiang Zemin on 90th CCP Anniversary

(NTD)- On July 1, the major 90th anniversary celebration of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) founding, current and former leaders of CCP were all present except for former General Secretary Jiang Zemin. Hong Kong media reports news of Jiang』s dying, and that his personnel influence has declined due to arrangements of the eighteenth congress. Hu Jintao』s July 1st speech recognized Cultural Revolution』 and leftist』 errors, which is interpreted as a denial of Bo』s “Red Song Movement” and the Maoists.

In recent years, Jiang Zemin attended all CCP』s high-profile events including the Beijing Olympics and the 60th anniversary parade of China』s regime. Since last year however, Jiang had not attended official activities or showed up in domestic media.

Commentary: Why the Chinese Communist Party Has Still Survived

By Cao Changqing, political commentator-

An entire generation in China has grown up since the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. While a democratic upsurge is shaking the Middle East and North Africa today, China remains frozen under the iron grip of a totalitarian rule.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has not only failed to make any political changes, but it is now repressing dissidents more severely. Under these circumstances, whether a revolution to overthrow the oppressive authoritarian regime is possible in the near future in China is not clear.

Organ harvesting Conference calling on Taiwanese to pay more attention to human rights issues in China

(Taipei Times)- Despite economic growth, the condition of human rights in China is still very bad — especially when it comes to the persecution of religious and minority groups by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — participants at a conference on human rights in China said yesterday, calling on Taiwanese to pay more attention to human rights issues in China.

“Taiwanese are not paying enough attention to issues related to human rights and democracy in China, and I think the first thing we can do to help China democratize is show more concern,” said Maysing Yang (楊黃美幸), deputy executive director of Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, a sponsor of the conference organized by the Association for Free Communication.

Taiwan satellite carrier agrees to renew independent TV station’s contract

Without fuss or ceremony representatives of New Tang Dynasty Asia Pacific and Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) inked a new contract on June 27, assuring that NTD AP will continue broadcasting via satellite to Asia, including mainland China. Backers of the station say the new deal closes one chapter on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ongoing attempts to cut off NTD AP’s influence on the Chinese people.

The contract signing ended a controversy that began in early April when CHT abruptly informed NTD AP it would not renew the station’s contract to broadcast on CHT’s satellite—a refusal that NTD AP characterized as illegal under Taiwan telecommunications law. NTD, the global network to which NTD AP belongs, is a media partner of The Epoch Times.

Chinese Version of ‘Bloody Harvest’ Released in Taiwan

The two authors of the book Bloody Harvest, who were also 2010 Nobel Peace Prize nominees, attended the launch for the Chinese translation of Bloody Harvest, held at the Legislative Yuan (the national legislature) in Taiwan on June 28.

Each of the two authors, David Kilgour, who was the former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific), and David Matas, the award-winning international human rights lawyer, spoke.

David Kilgour said that since 2006 he and David Matas had traveled to four continents and more than 40 countries, breaking through various obstacles to collect evidence, and arrived at the conclusion that large-scale live organ harvesting from Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) practitioners did happen and continues even today.

RSF: Communist Party celebrates longevity, but Chinese activist says it has gone deaf

As China’s Communist Party celebrates the 90th anniversary of its founding today, beginning with a flag-raising ceremony in Tiananmen Square attended by 30,000 people, Reporters Without Borders insists that the toll from the crackdown of the past 90 days outweighs all the achievements of the past 90 years that the party has been proclaiming.

“The party’s efforts to present a festive image of national cohesion are designed to hide a disturbing deterioration in freedom of expression and information, especially during the last five months,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The ceremonies and political speeches must not be allowed to eclipse the wave of arrests of dissidents and human rights lawyers, and the censorship in Inner Mongolia.

Amnesty: Dark times for Chinese lawyers as repression intensifies

The Chinese government has unleashed an uncompromising series of measures intended to rein in the legal profession and suppress lawyers pursuing human rights cases, Amnesty International said today.

Against the Law – Crackdown on China’s Human Rights Lawyers Deepens details how state efforts to control lawyers have intensified over the last two years – and particularly in recent months.

“Human rights lawyers are subject to escalating silencing tactics – from suspension or revoking of licences, to harassment, enforced disappearance or even torture,” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific Deputy Director.