Results tagged “dissidents”

• China's class ceiling [LA Times] "China is the only ancient civilization in human history to have reemerged as a major force in the world. And Chinese are rightly proud of this. So why rock the boat? It is better to be ruled by boring technocrats like Hu who will keep things nice and steady. This is not the story one might hear from unemployed workers in the rust belts of northeastern China, or from rioting farmers in Guangdong province who have been pushed off the land by greedy developers working in tandem with corrupt party officials. Nor is this view necessarily shared by the brave lawyers willing to take on some of those corrupt officials, or intellectual dissidents who still get arrested for arguing that Chinese should be entitled to basic democratic rights. But it is the common line taken by people who benefit most from the current wave of fun, fashion and prosperity — the new urban elite, some of whom are pampered children of Communist Party bosses."
• What If China Had a Second Political Party Tomorrow? [The New Yorker] "On the prospects for multi-party democracy: If you had a second party alternative in China now, I think it would be an anti-foreign party. What else could you see as a platform to challenge the Communist Party, but to oppose the foreigners who are “buying up Chinese resources”?… There has to be a period of generally unfolding democracy. Not bang, all at once. And I think that will happen. I think it’s happening much too slowly."
• Editorial Dispute Threatens Caijing, a Chinese Magazine [NYTimes] "The owners of the magazine have recently come under pressure from some within the government to tone down or drastically alter Caijing’s aggressive journalism, people at the magazine say. Caijing’s managers have told staff members that they have been fighting to maintain the magazine’s editorial integrity. Caijing’s managers have been seeking to create a more independent publication by changing the magazine’s shareholding structure, seeking outside investors and pressing the owners to allow some employees to own a stake in the magazine. They also want a larger share of the magazine’s profits to be invested in new operations, including an English-language Web site."

• Readings on 1999's "May 8th Tragedy" [The China Beat] The China Beat compiles readings on 1999's "May 8th Tragedy," when NATO missiles were fired into the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three PRC nationals and sparking protests all around the world from angry Chinese citizens. Included are two news accounts from the time - one by the BBC and one by CNN, a Salon.com piece by a Beida foreign student and two later analysis of the situation.
• China eyes regular Olympic show [Financial Times] "Less than a year after China hosted the Olympics, Beijing is planning to put its stunningly choreographed opening ceremony back on as a regular evening show at the “Bird’s Nest”, the main stadium built for the games... Zhang Hengli, vice-president of the National Stadium Company that now runs the Bird’s Nest, said: “We want to put on a regular evening show like the opening ceremony. But that will take longer to realise [than other performances in the works for the stadium] because it requires a huge amount of money. We need to find an investor and deal with potential issues of intellectual property of the International Olympic Committee.”"
• Communists Can’t Outspend Capitalists as China Jobless Increase [Bloomberg] "Demand for work is so high that 5,000 students jostled at a Shanghai employment fair in March for 400 jobs available in the funeral industry. One woman with a management degree applied for a position as a mortician’s assistant to “make up the faces of the dead,” state media reported. The attraction: It paid 4,000 yuan ($585) a month, equal to what she might have earned in an office job two years ago."

• Beijing professor's remarks spark angry protests [AFP] "About 30 protesters tried to force their way into China's elite Peking University on Friday to confront a law professor who said 99 percent of the people petitioning the government with grievances are mentally ill and could be institutionalized."
• Chinese Online Games Market Grew 63% In 2008 [Gamasutra] "New data from analyst group Pearl Research shows that China's online games market grew 63 percent in 2008 to a total $2.8 billion. In its new Games Market in China report, Pearl Research forecasts that the Chinese online market will be worth more than $5.5 billion by 2012."
• The Pavilion Wars [The Atlantic] "The upcoming World's Fair should offer the chance to build a showpiece U.S. pavilion. But thanks to behind-the-scenes maneuverings and State Department incompetence, we may end up with a Chinese-funded pavilion—or no pavilion at all."

• Chavez says world 'center of gravity' now Beijing [AP] "The world's center of gravity has moved to Beijing, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told his Chinese counterpart Wednesday during a visit focused on boosting Chinese oil purchases. The frequent U.S. critic also praised China's response to the global financial meltdown that has sent prices of his South American nation's key export, oil, down sharply."
• Auto Makers Flock to Web to Woo Chinese Buyers [WSJ] "Global auto makers think the Internet is the way into the hearts of a new generation of Chinese car enthusiasts. Both foreign and domestic auto makers here are pouring ad money into online ventures, even as their overall spending remains flat. Market-tracking firm iResearch expects outlays for online auto marketing to reach 1.75 billion yuan, or roughly $256 million, this year, up from 1.38 billion yuan in 2008."
• Professor beaten ahead of Tiananmen anniversary [ABC] "The approaching 20th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown has brought tensions to a head, with a 75-year-old, retired professor brutally beaten for trying to honour the memory of a Chinese leader who supported the students in 1989."

• A shuttlecock fight of epic proportion [theage.com.au] "Emerging superpower China annoyed neighbouring Malaysia this week as an unprecedented Chinese domination of badminton's showpiece event — the All-England Championships — led to heated claims of match-fixing."
• Rumor: Focus Media Executives In China May All Resign [Digital Marketing Inner Circle] "In what is some hot gossip circulating in the digital marketing industry in Beijing is that former Focus Media CEO Tan Zhi will collectively resign with the other Focus Media executives once the executive adjustment plan post the merger of some of its businesses with Sina.com."
• Chinese Officials Prohibit Blizzard's Lich King Expansion [Life from Wired.com] "Chinese World of Warcraft fans will have to wait even longer to enjoy the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, as the Chinese government has twice rejected applications for its release."

It seems like those hoping to protest over perceived wrongs by the government can't even trust "journalists" to help them out these days. Amongst their various tactics to quell unrest, Chinese police are now posing as reporters in order to catch would-be dissidents before they can even get organized, according to the Telegraph:

Photo from arndalarm

He may not have won the Nobel Peace Prize that he was tipped to win, but Chinese dissident Hu Jia has just been awarded the Sakharov Prize, the top human rights award given out by the European Parliament. China had lobbied hard for Hu Jia to be passed over for the award, as it did during the Nobel selection, with Song Zhe, the Chinese ambassador to the EU delivering a stern warning that this "would inevitably hurt the Chinese people once again and bring serious damage to China-EU relations". For all the work he's done, Hu Jia remains relatively unknown in China today, although he is a favourite posterboy for Chinese dissidents among EU lawmakers because he once addressed the European Parliament via webcam while he was under house arrest. Next week's EU-China summit in Beijing will be a fun one to watch.

Human Rights in China says underground pastor and religious dissident Hua Huiqi has escaped from the police after being detained together with his older brother while they were on their way to the Kuanjie Protestant Church in Beijing for a service that President George Bush was scheduled to attend. Both men are said to have been roughed up and "warned that their legs would be broken if they persisted in their efforts to attend church services", but the older Hua was soon released. Subsequently though, while his minders were fast asleep, Hua Huiqi managed to make his escape and is now in hiding. While the Beijing PSB has declined to confirm Hua's detention, the older brother says he has received numerous phone calls from them asking about the pastor's whereabouts. Calls made by the IHT to Hua's brother were disconnected several times due to alleged phone tapping by PSB agents. [Source]

With the upcoming Olympics and the subsequent global attention, the government obviously wants the nation to look its best, which in China sometimes translates to quashing dissent. Two European-based human rights groups working together as the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders recently published a report declaring that the government has stepped up attempts to quiet dissidents, citing four people arrested for Olympic Games protests, including Hu Jia, who was sentenced to three and a half years in jail for criticizing the government’s human rights violations. More from the AFP article:

In a foreword to the report, writer Wei Jingsheng wrote: "In particular, last year the Chinese Government's repression has rapidly upgraded, in an effort to make sure there is no dissident voices from the people during the 2008 Olympics."

Continue reading "A pre-Olympic dissident clampdown?"

Chinese HIV/AIDS and human rights activist Hu Jia (胡佳) has been found guilty of "inciting subversion of state power" and jailed three and a half years (see BBC video report here) in a trial at Beijing's Number One Intermediate People's Court. No reporters and diplomats were allowed into the courtroom.

Ching Cheong, the chief China correspondent of the Singapore-based Straits Times that was jailed in China for supposed espionage but freed recently, has made his first statements after his well-deserved rest. He lost more than 30 pounds (13.6 kilograms) during the more than 1,000 days that he was in prison. Here are Ching Cheong's quotes, compiled from various news sources quoted below:

People who made the news this week

Cyber dissident Wang Dejia was arrested for "subverting state secrets" (what else?), which means penning too many articles critical of the government. Some of those critical essays pertained to the upcoming summer Olympics:

In recent months, Wang also gave an interview to the Epoch Times, a media group backed by the banned sect F@lun G0ng, in which he claimed the Olympics would exacerbate the sufferings of Chinese people and leave them "living like dogs and pigs."

Continue reading "Beijing Olympics News: State secrets and Spielberg"