Prostrating at Jokhang Temple, Lhasa

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

PLAYBOY:As China has opened to the West, what’s the impact of a nondemocratic system in which the Communist Party selects its leaders from within?

AI: The way to survive in this party is to hide yourself or to become a person who obeys orders from above. These are not people with new ideas who are bold. One generation chooses the next, and one is worse than the former. It’s like inbreeding. After so many generations, it becomes weaker and weaker. You can see in the first generation— Chairman Mao’s generation, Castro’s generation—the first revolutionaries are strong characters, maybe crazy but a bit romantic. Idealistic. Now you see nothing. They cannot even remember what
64 their ancestors said.

PLAYBOY:Along with your Twitter messages, is your art largely a result of frustration with the current political system?

AI: I’m a person who likes to make an argument rather than just give emotion or expression a form and shape in art. I became an artist only because I was oppressed by society. I was born into a very political society. When I was a child, my father told me, as a joke, “You can be a politician.” I was 10 years old. I didn’t understand it, because I already knew that politicians were the enemy, the ones who crushed him. I didn’t understand what he was talking about. But now I understand. I can be political. I can say something even though we grew up without true education, memorizing Chairman Mao’s slogans. I memorized hundreds of them. I can still sing his songs, recite his poetry. Every morning at school we stood in front of his image, memorizing one of his sentences telling what we should do today to make ourselves a better person.

[Source]

Ai also discusses his venture into the medium of rock and roll, calling heavy metal music “poetry within a storm.” This morning, he posted a new heavy metal music video to his website in which he recreates scenes of his 2011 detention:

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Source]

Ai told The New York Times that he made the video and related music album because he “wanted to do something impossible:”

“It’s about the whole condition,” he said in an interview at his studio last week after showing final cuts of the video to a reporter and a photographer. “It’s not really about me. I think it’s about how the power of the state tries to manage and maintain this kind of control.”

Mr. Ai wrote the lyrics in one morning. He asked a friend, the rocker and contemporary artist Zuoxiao Zuzhou, to handle the music. Six songs are expected to be released together in an album called “The Divine Comedy” on June 22, the second anniversary of Mr. Ai’s exit from detention. The video was shot by the cinematographer Christopher Doyle, an Australian resident of Hong Kong who is best known for his work with Wong Kar-wai, a director of highly stylized films, and Zhang Yimou, who has in recent years been a favorite of the Communist Party.

Near his studio Mr. Ai has created a full-scale model of the austere room in which he was kept for much of his time in detention. He said the actual prison was in western Beijing and was used to house prominent detainees.

[Source]

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei detention, Beijing, detention, dissidents, music
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi will meet on June 7 and 8 at Sunnylands, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg estate in Southern California, the White House said. Mr. Obama already had travel scheduled on the West Coast at that time, officials said, so they decided that Sunnylands, a less formal setting, would provide a better environment for the two men to get to know each other. To prepare for the meeting, Thomas E. Donilon, the president’s national security adviser, will travel to Beijing from May 26 to 28.

“The U.S.-China agenda is big and complex, and we have a lot of issues to discuss and work though,” said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House. “As we have said before, the relationship has elements of cooperation and elements of competition. We have no illusions about this. Our approach to China seeks to expand the areas of cooperation in managing regional and global challenges, and we seek to manage our differences in a way that prevents disruptive and unhealthy competition from undermining our interests and those of our allies in Asia.”

[Source]

The two leaders will attempt to “establish common ground after an awkward three-year period which has demonstrated many of their competing interests,” write Geoff Dyer and Victor Mallet of The Financial Times. The agenda will likely include North Korea, cyber security, the ongoing dispute in the South and East China Seas, as well as a range of economic issues, according to The Los Angeles Times.

In Beijing, Reuters reports that a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said China is willing to put its best foot forward to bolster ties with the United States:

“Of course, some differences exist between China and the United States, which require proper and active management by both sides,” Hong said. “This year, Sino-U.S. relations have got off to a good start and are facing an important opportunity for development.”

Hong said the two leaders would have “comprehensive and in-depth discussions” on a range of issues.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ', Barack Obama, cybersecurity, east china sea, North Korea, South China Sea, U.S. relations, Xi Jinping
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

In a grainy, black-and-white video of her final performance, Zhu Ling sweeps across the stage in a black skirt and white blouse before taking a seat behind a guqin, the six-stringed Chinese zither. She’s been feeling sick recently, and you can tell she’s a little nervous. But her fingers are precise. They pluck out a cautious melody.

Zhu has no idea she’s been poisoned.

A heavy metal is coursing through her body, brutalizing her neurological system. By the time the rare element is finally diagnosed and purged, Zhu will be physically ruined, her brilliant mind permanently damaged, her mental capacities reduced to that of a 6-year-old. She will forever be trapped in 1995, believing she’s a student at China’s most prestigious technical university.

She will miss everything that happens next.

Zhu’s story has straddled and defined two ends of the Internet revolution, connecting two decades, two continents, and two generations. She was probably the first person whose life was saved thanks to crowdsourced medical advice.

Nearly two decades later, her case has become the subject of what may be the largest amateur online manhunt in history, as millions of strangers in two countries unite on message boards and social media to scour the world for the only suspect in her poisoning, a woman barely seen or heard from since 1995—her college roommate.

It all began with an SOS made of ones and zeroes.[...]

[Source]

Click through to read Kevin Morris’ captivating narration of the Zhu Ling story in its entirety.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: human flesh search engines, Internet, weibo, Zhu Ling
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The public have questioned contradictory figures released for Lushan earthquake donations by the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) and the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The ministry released figures for the amount of donations which were lower than those of the Red Cross.

[...]The ministry announced Friday that as of May 10, the RCSC reported cash and material donations of 134.51 million yuan ($21.9 million), and the Red Cross Foundation, a separate entity administered by RCSC had received 24.3 million yuan. These figures contradicted the one posted on the RCSC’s Sina Weibo account on May 10, which said 159.27 million yuan had been collected.

The RCSC Saturday clarified the discrepancy by saying that the ministry’s release did not include the donations received by the foundation, while the RCSC’s figures did.

[Source]

The South China Morning Post reports that, despite a Ministry of Civil Affairs statement explaining the inconsistency, this may have further damaged the already tarnished public image of the Red Cross Society of China:

But the damage may already be done. “You can believe what they say or not, I certainly don’t,” a commenter posted online. “You can donate or not, I certainly won’t.”

The questions raised had hit a nerve as the charity is still reeling from a damaged reputation after the Guo Meimei scandal in 2011, in which a young woman who claimed to work for the Red Cross flaunted her extraordinary wealth.

Ever since, the Chinese Red Cross has struggled to collect donations. The ministry’s data shows that other charities have managed to collect several times as much as the country’s flagship charity.

[Source]

Also see one Chinese web-user’s Red Cross-inspired poem, translated by CDT.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2013 Sichuan earthquake, charity, disaster relief, donations, guo meimei, NGOs, Red Cross, scandals
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Tibet has been off-limits to journalists since the Chinese government brutally suppressed riots in the region five years ago. France 24′s regional correspondent Cyril Payen managed to get a seven-day visa to enter the region. What he saw lends weight to the complaints of the Dalai Lama and human rights organisations, who say Tibetan culture is being erased.
[Source]

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: lhasa, Tibet, Tibet development, tibet politics, Tibetan culture
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The move by the Guangzhou Food and Drug Administration came after public demand for the information. Of 18 batches of rice tested during random quarterly checks, eight were found to contain excessive amounts of the heavy metal. The metal is known as a strong carcinogen, and can cause pathological changes in the kidneys and other organs.

The names of the producers of the eight substandard batches were released late Saturday. Six are in Hunan Province, while two others are in Dongguan.

However, an administration press officer told China National Radio on Saturday that the range of tested products was narrow, so the results do not represent the overall situation in Guangzhou.

[Source]

Initially, food safety authorities withheld the brand names and locations where the tainted rice was produced. After a barrage of netizen pressure, that information was made public, along with information as to what establishments were found to have the toxic product. From the South China Morning Post:

These [restaurants and cafeterias] included the Guangzhou Taiyang Seafood Restaurant in Liwan district, the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, the Yannanfei Restaurant in Haizhu district and the Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering.

[...]The incident, the latest in a seemingly endless series of food scandals, prompted a nationwide outcry over food safety and the perceived lack of transparency of the government’s handling of the issue on Friday.

[...]More than 100,000 internet users posted comments on major internet portals such as Sina and Soho on Friday urging the government to name the brands involved.

[Source]

In a blogpost deeming “cadmium rice” China’s latest food scandal, the New York Times’ Didi Kirsten Tatlow reports further on netizen reactions to initial state-media reports on this recent cadmium scare, and on the health effects of cadmium exposure:

Xinhua offered this practical, if short-term, advice, as did People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece: “Experts recommend that people should not consume food and drink from one particular region for long, instead they should diversify to lower the risk.”

That prompted some hilarity online, with netizens marveling that the party newspaper would offer such advice. “That’ll ensure that everyone gets their share of cadmium,” remarked someone called Ning Fushen, in a post on Sina Weibo.

[...]Cadmium, a known carcinogen, builds up in the body and damages the kidneys and lungs and can cause bone disease. Ingestion via food is the main source for nonsmokers, while smokers’ intake may be twice that of nonsmokers, according to the Web site www.cadmium.org.

[Source]

Amid this food safety probe and the bruised confidence of Chinese consumers, Bloomberg reports that sales of Hunan-produced rice are plummeting as many increasingly look to imports:

Rice traders in Hunan reported sales dropping by more than half from a year ago since media reports of the pollutant in began appearing, Cngrain.com said on its website. The researcher, which is owned by China Grain Reserves Corp., a custodian of government food reserves, didn’t provide figures for the drop in sales.

The Nanfang Daily first reported in February that rice from Hunan sold in southern Guangdong province contained excessive levels of toxic metal and the Guangzhou Food and Drug Administration reignited concerns with reports on its website last week. It is a blow to farmers in the region because sales of indica rice, a long-grain variety consumed in southern China and used for milling and brewing, were already being hurt by low-cost imports, Zhang Zhixian, analyst of Cngrain.com, said by phone from Zhengzhou in central China.

Consumers in some areas may become more willing to buy imported rice, said Li Qiang, chairman at Shanghai JC Intelligence Co. China’s quota system for imports will limit any increase, he said.

[Source]

Contaminated rice is not a new problem in China, and is one of many food products to be the at the center of safety scandals. The Chinese government, often criticized for lacking or laxly enforcing public health regulations, has recently launched a crackdown on “meat-related crimes.” In the private sector, moves are being made to consolidate quality control in the dairy industry, a field long riddled by food safety scandals.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agriculture, Cadmium Poisoning, food safety, food scandal, public health, soil contamination
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Prof Zhang […] argued that the Soviet Union provided a "tragic lesson of what happens when a party grows too large with no strong mechanism for members to quit."

Party leaders needed to find a way to jettison corrupt and opportunistic members who had "damaged the party spirit", joining the party "not because they believed in Marxism-Leninism, but because they yearned for wealth and fortune."

"Only if the Communist Party keeps improving the quality and ability of its members can it ensure lasting rule," he argued. [Source]

Minnie Chan provided more details on Zhang’s diet plan at South China Morning Post:

Zhang suggested the party’s Central Committee classify members into three categories: honorary, probationary and formal members, with the honorary group being where most of the cuts should be made, because it was largely composed of "older, sick and retired members who are unable to toe the party line".

He estimated "honorary members" could make up 20 per cent of the members, and many of them "are forced to stay in the party in order to save face, or for other political reasons". He also suggested the party extend the probation period of some "unqualified members" who failed to pass internal assessments.

To prevent party cadres from using the "exit mechanism" to kick out political enemies, Zhang said the human rights of all party members should not be "violated", and members should not be "discriminated" against, after deciding to leave the party. He stressed that the party’s constitution allows members to "join and withdraw" freely. [Source]

The Party is already one man lighter: the expulsion of former Agricultural Bank of China vice president Yang Kun was announced on Monday.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CCP, Communist members, corruption, marxism, party discipline, Soviet Union
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Many of these inaugural trips involve China’s neighbors: Russia, Southeast Asia, Mongolia, India and Pakistan. Beijing has always considered the nations that surround it as the starting point for its diplomacy, and repeatedly refers to a policy in pursuit of an “amicable, secure and prosperous neighborhood”. With China engaged in territorial disputes with several Southeast Asian countries and with India, these first visits can help not only to attenuate doubts and confusion, but also reflect China’s continued emphasis on peaceful coexistence. Meanwhile, relations with Russia, Pakistan and Mongolia are already relatively sound, and visits to these countries simply seek to strengthen traditional friendships.

Africa and South America are rapidly joining Asia as the “new engines” of international politics and economics. The fact that these regions have been top destinations for the Chinese leaderships shows that Beijing is looking to combine neighborhood stability with outreach to its fellow emerging nations.

If the media is right, and Li Keqiang’s first trip includes Switzerland and Germany, then this inaugural round of Chinese diplomacy can be considered balanced and comprehensive. In other words, focus on the emerging world without ignoring relations with developed countries.

[Source]

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: foreign policy, India, Li Keqiang, mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Xi Jinping
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The vessel’s owner, Yu Xuejun, called the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on May 10 to seek help, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a brief statement issued through Sina Weibo, the country’s Twitter-like microblog service. Mr. Yu was not on the boat when it was seized.

“The embassy immediately made representations to the consular affairs bureau of the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking that North Korea release the vessel and the crew as soon as possible, and ensure the safety of the lives and property of the detained crew, as well as their legitimate rights,” the Chinese ministry statement said.

…

The Chinese media reports said the boat was seized on May 5, with 16 men onboard, and North Korean authorities demanded payment of 600,000 renminbi, equal to about $98,000, to release them and the vessel, apparently on the grounds that it was fishing in waters claimed by North Korea. The deadline for payment was Sunday, The Beijing Times newspaper said.

[Source]

China’s state-run Global Times reported on Monday that those responsible were “highly likely from the North Korean army,” with one expert speculating that North Korea may be retaliating for sanctions imposed by the United Nations in March after the rogue state’s third nuclear test. But the Guardian’s Tania Branigan speculates that local North Korean forces took on the heist to make money. The boat’s owner received a call from North Korea claiming that his boat had entered North Korean waters, she reports, though he insists the boat had not left Chinese territory:

“This is not the first time it has happened and it won’t be the last,” said Cheng Xiaohe, an expert on Sino-North Korean relations at Renmin University.

North Korean forces and Chinese fishermen often played a cat-and-mouse game, with incursions over the line by both sides, he said. Other cases had not become public because boat owners simply paid up but this time the ransom appeared to be much higher than usual.

“This issue will complicate an already troubled relationship between the two countries but I don’t think the impact will be significant or lasting. I think with the Chinese government intervention it will be settled quickly,” Cheng said.

But he added: “The Chinese side needs to rein in fishermen to make sure they stay in Chinese waters and the DPRK also needs to impose discipline on local military forces.”

[Source]

For Foreign Policy, Isaac Stone Fish doubts that the kidnappers acted with the full backing of the North Korean military command:

But if the “pirates” were actually members of the North Korean military acting in concert with Pyongyang, why the laughably small ransom? Yu told a Chinese journalist that he can’t pay the “sky-high price” of $100,000 — that may be true, but the sticker price for international incidents is usually higher than that of a luxury car. (By comparison, in 2010, the average ransom demand from Somali pirates was $5.4 million.)

It’s not the first time this has happened. A year ago almost to the day, North Koreans abducted 29 Chinese fishermen; the identity of the North Koreans, or whether they were authorities or autonomous kidnappers, remains unknown. The fishermen were returned and relieved of all their possessions, in some cases even including their clothes and the pencils in their pocket. Is the North Korean army so starved of resources that it would steal writing utensils from Chinese fishermen?

[Source]

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: fishing, kidnapping, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, North Korea, North Korea relations
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Click for full view. (Song Song/People’s Daily)

Some netizens complain that the survey does not match up with reality, glossing over many people’s diminishing sense of security, rising real estate prices, and the woes of an unfree, unjust political system. Happy people must be “stupidly happy” (愚蠢的幸福), they conclude. Others point out that happiness is subjective. They are not ready to rule out that some people have happy “Chinese dreams.”

A few Weibo responses to the survey:

朱大可: China has been reduced to the world’s happiest country.

中国沦为全世界最幸福国家。

王宝子: No house, no car, no bride; no money for the mortgage, no oil money to burn, couldn’t afford to raise my wife’s children… What a happy state of affairs indeed. We’re all so happy we could cry.

没房没车没媳妇，不用还房贷，不用烧油钱，不用养老婆孩子，这是多么的幸福的事情啊。我们都幸福的哭了。

侯宁: I don’t know who their survey respondents were. But one thing is certain: it’s easy for journalists and IT professionals to be unhappy.

不知调查的样本如何。但有一点是确定的：记者和IT族容易不幸福。

Scenes of “happy” Chinese people. (@朱大可)

望海在云端: All I hear is grumbling, but all I see from this survey is satisfaction. The hypocrisy, I’m afraid, isn’t just in the happiness itself, it’s also in the minds of those who deceive themselves and others. If you were woken up from your “dream” to take a survey, would you dare to be unhappy?

听到的都是抱怨，调查出来的都是满足；虚伪的恐怕不只是幸福，还有被绑架的自欺欺人的心。一纸问卷惊醒“梦”中人，你还敢不幸福吗？

小乐1102735184: It depends on who we compare ourselves to. North Korea, they’re definitely happier than us. The U.S., not so much.

你要看和谁比，和朝鲜比，那就是比较幸福，和美国比，那就是不幸福。

弐古: Were all of the respondents from the families of officials?!

采访的是公务员家庭吧？！

持之以恒: Just as long as I can watch CCTV every day, I’m happy.

只要每天能收看CCTV我就觉得很幸福了。

雾 满拦江: I’m going to nitpick: according to the news, the agency’s report shows that more than ⅓ of China’s families feel “extremely happy.” The Renmin and Tsinghua University survey looked at the people in 16 major cities. So the survey results should be read to mean that ⅓ of city residents are exceedingly happy. But the total urban population [of China] is only 50%, so the total happy population can only be ⅙. China has close to 100 million left-behind children.

给新闻挑错：新闻说，机构报告显示目前我国1/3以上家庭感到非常幸福，报告是人大和清华，针对于16座城市居民进行的调查。所以报告的结果，应该是城市居 民有三分之一超幸福。就算城镇居民占总人口50%，幸福人口比例应该是六分之一才对。而目前中国留守流动儿童总规模接近1亿人。

天盛贵金属企划部: 98.5% of Chinese families drink poison milk, eat gutter oil, breathe record-breaking levels of PM2.5, and have PX factories at their doorsteps. Housing and commodity prices basically never go down, while wages and stocks basically never go up. If an old man or old lady falls in the street, no one dares to help them up. Children can schedule a date to be taken to a hotel room by their school headmasters. Workers have to watch out for back-stabbing leaders and colleagues, and students have to make sure their roommates don’t poison them. Truly, we are so very happy.

98.5% 的中国家庭每天喝着毒牛奶，吃着地沟油，呼吸着PM2.5爆表的空气，家门口没多远就是PX化工项目，房价物价基本没有降过，工资股票基本没有涨过，老头 老太走在马路上摔倒了没人敢扶，小孩子指定哪天就被校长带去开房了，上班要防着领导同事背后下黑脚，上学要防着室友偷偷给你下毒，真是太幸福了。

Via CDT Chinese. Translation by Josh Rudolph.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chinese Dream, happiness, happiness index, Netizen Voices
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Yang Kun, former vice president of the Agricultural Bank of China, was expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) and removed from public office, a statement said Monday.

Yang has been investigated for serious discipline violations by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), said a statement from CCDI.

The investigation shows that he exploited his position to seek benefits for other people in return for huge bribes, the statement said.

[Source]

Yang’s party career is the latest to come to an end under president Xi Jinping’s ongoing campaign against official corruption. The New York Times’ coverage of Yang’s indictment mentions the likelihood of his conviction, and other recent developments in the anti-corruption campaign:

In China, senior officials accused of wrongdoing usually first face the party discipline commission, which decides whether to authorize a legal inquiry that can bring a criminal indictment. With that inquiry now under way, Mr. Yang is likely to face trial and conviction; China’s party-run courts rarely find defendants innocent.

[...]Since coming to power in November, China’s top party leader, Xi Jinping, has repeatedly vowed to end official corruption and extravagance, a major source of public disenchantment with the government. Last week, Wang Qishan, the party leader in charge of investigating official misconduct, said teams of inspectors would be sent across the country to help “stanch the spread of corruption.”

This month, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said it was investigating Liu Tienan, a senior economic policy maker, whom a Chinese journalist last year accused of engaging in tainted business dealings and threatening to kill a mistress who exposed those dealings.

[Source]

As arrests continually reiterate Xi’s goal to eradicate official corruption in all levels of the party, his administration is engaged in a contradictory crackdown on anti-corruption activists.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Agricultural Bank of China, anti-corruption, anti-graft, corrupt officials, corruption, official corruption, party discipline, Xi Jinping
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Nathu La, Chinese side of the Indo-China border

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

In his meeting with Singh, Premier Li said China and India are important neighbors and partners by nature.

He noted that remarkable advancement has been made in bilateral ties, political mutual trust deepened, fruitful results made in the cooperation of every field, and people-to-people exchanges constantly expanded.p China and India have made satisfactory coordination and cooperation on major regional and international affairs, and achieved positive progress on border negotiations, Li added.

[...]Li said choosing India as the first leg of his maiden overseas tour as Chinese premier demonstrated the sincerity of China’s new leadership and the great importance that it attaches to developing ties with India.

China is willing to join efforts with India to seize the opportunities to deepen cooperation and let the two peoples benefit from the development of the China-India ties, Li said.

[Source]

After their talks, the two leaders signed numerous agreements on trade and resources. The Times of India reports:

To enhance trade, both the sides decided to set up three working groups under the Joint Economic Group. The three groups are Services Trade Promotion Working Group, Economic And Trade Planning Cooperation Group and Trade Statistical Analysis Group.

[...]In 2012, bilateral trade between the two countries was $66 billion, a decline from over the $74 billion mark in 2011. The two countries have set a target of $100 billion by 2015 for bilateral trade.

[...]Another pact was signed between the two sides under which China will provide information of water level, discharge and rainfall twice a day from June 1st to October 15th each year in respect of three hydrological stations on the mainstream Brahmaputra river.

[...]An agreement was also signed between Export Inspection Council of India (EIC) and AQSIQ on trade and safety of feed and feed ingredients.

[Source]

Last month, the long disputed and heavily militarized border between Tibet and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh came into attention as Chinese soldiers set up camp in northern India, hundreds of miles from the disputed region. During today’s talks, the border dispute was identified as an impediment to a healthy and productive bilateral relationship. From Reuters:

The number two in the Chinese leadership offered New Delhi a “handshake across the Himalayas” and said the world’s most populous nations could become a new engine for the global economy if they could avoid friction on the militarized border.

“Both sides believe that we need to improve the various border-related mechanisms that we have put into place and make them more efficient. We need to appropriately manage and resolve our differences,” Li said at a joint news conference with India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

[...]Among the measures being looked at to reduce the risk of confrontation is allowing higher level meetings between regional military commanders, an Indian official said.

[Source]

Despite Li’s extension of a pan-Himalayan “handshake,” the New York Times reports on Indian concerns that China may have gained more from the talks, and mentions unease over China’s damming plans for the Brahmaputra River:

[...]Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said that India had so far gotten little of value out of the visit, including no reassurance about the border.

“My assessment is that China has gained more from these meetings than India,” he said. “The Chinese side conceded nothing.”

[...]The two sides discussed India’s growing alarm over China’s plans to build a series of dams on the Brahmaputra River, which flows into India’s northeast provinces.

India has repeatedly asked China to provide more information about its plans and the effects they will have on India, but China has so far resisted. In a statement, Mr. Li said China was willing to “strengthen communication” with India over its dam developments.

[Source]

Meanwhile, Australian think-tank the Lowy Institue for International Policy recently released a study surveying the Indian public on their global outlook. China and Pakistan — whose longtime strategic partnership has been warming over recent years — were both identified as security threats by large portions of respondents. The Hindu reports:

Not surprisingly, Indians see Pakistan and China as the biggest foreign threats to their nation. Only nine per cent of Indians believe China does not pose a threat, while 84 per cent believe it does, with 60 per cent identifying it as a major threat. Seventy per cent of the respondents agreed that China’s aim is to dominate Asia. The responses were roughly equal, however, between those who believed that India should join with other countries to limit China’s influence (65 per cent), and those who believed India should cooperate with China to play a leading role in the world together (64 per cent). In fact, some Indians clearly hold both views at once, an interesting sign of the tensions or indeed duality within Indian foreign policy expectations.

From all those who had identified China as a threat, over 80 per cent agreed that threat was for the following reasons: China possesses nuclear weapons, it was competing with India for resources in other countries, it was strengthening its relations with other countries in the Indian Ocean Region, and it was claiming sovereignty on parts of India’s territory. Only a slightly smaller number believed that the threat was because of China’s stronger military, its bigger economy, its military assistance to Pakistan, and because it does not “show respect” to India.

[Source]

The Wall Street Journal’s look at the Lowy report shows the same anxieties, but also mentions a public desire for India to increase cooperation with China:

The survey revealed that – like its government – Indians are perhaps unclear about how to respond to China’s growing power. About two-thirds of respondents said India should ally with other nations to limit China’s influence.

A similar portion of those interviewed also said India should cooperate with China to play a leading role in the world. Two-thirds of respondents said they would like relations with China to strengthen.

And there was some admiration for the way China does things. Just under half of those surveyed thought that India could learn from the way the Chinese government functions.

[Source]

Another point of contention in the Sino-Indian relationship deals with the Tibet question. India has provided refuge for the exiled Central Tibetan Administration since the Dalai Lama fled Chinese-controlled Tibet in 1959. While Tibet protests were suppressed in the lead-up to the New Delhi talks, The Hindu reports on the bilaterally strategic decision to leave the “T-word” out of the joint Li-Singh statement:

India’s decision to once again avoid reaffirming its commitment to a ‘One China policy’ has raised eyebrows in Beijing but Indian officials are playing down the omission of “Tibet” from the joint statement issued after talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

[...]The first time India dropped the reference to ‘One China policy’ was during Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit in 2010. India made the point then that Kashmir was as much a core concern of India’s as Tibet was to China, and that China’s policies of issuing stapled visas and carrying out projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir violated this core concern.

This is the point that Indian officials sought to make again. “If they had insisted on Tibet, then [we] would have asked for something else [Kashmir] to be included,” an official said, pointing out that there were enough indirect references in the joint statement to make good the exclusion of the T-word.

[Source]

China is currently India’s largest trading partner. Premier Li is set to depart India for Pakistan on Wednesday, followed by visits to Switzerland and Germany.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Arunachal Pradesh, bilateral ties, bilateral trade, border disputes, diplomacy, India, India border, India relations, Li Keqiang, Manmohan Singh, natural resources, one-China policy, Tibet
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

An insider from the magazine, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the legal section had been suspended due to “some pressure” that required the magazine to focus more on economic reports rather than legal affairs.

[...] The names of six reporters for the missing section were still printed in the latest issue, but two law-related reports – one about issues related to competition in the internet industry, and a small piece about a legal dispute between software company Qihoo 360 and internet giant Tencent – appeared in the economy section. A report about a lawsuit over chromium waste, brought by two environmental protection NGOs against a chemical firm in Yunnan , was put in the environment and technology section.

Liu Jing , a public relations officer for Caixin Media Group, told the South China Morning Post that the section had not been “cut” but that the magazine was simply making “normal adjustments” to the pages.

But some mainland journalists questioned whether the section’s absence may have been the result of a report on the deputy party secretary of Jilin province, Zhu Yanfeng. [Source]

See also Caixin’s English-language website and  past coverage of Caixin on CDT.

© cindyliuwenxin for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, media censorship, press freedom, South China Morning Post, Zhu Yanfeng
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall