Skip to content

All posts by JBY - 2. page

Security Heightens In Beijing As The 60th Anniversary Approaches

Beijing has ruled since 1949 and is nervous about its upcoming 60th anniversary. The city is requiring that secured be tighten up, and will take every measure necessary to prevent anything that the party doesn’t like from happening, including handling those giving petitions for their cases to designated agencies.

Source: China News, April 28, 2009
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/news/2009/04-28/1667131.shtml

Media Industry Grows Even in a Bad Economy

Although it has been affected by the global economic crisis, nonetheless, China’s media industry has grown to a record high in recent years, with expenditures exceeding 420 billion yuan in 2008, double the number in 2004.  Despite the decline in the economy that has resulted in obvious difficulties in the media industry, China still expects a gradual increase, possibly reaching 530 billion yuan in 2010.

Source: China News, April 27, 2009
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/kong/news/2009/04-27/1666331.shtml

Foreign Investment Withdrawals Become A Steady Trend In China

Mr. Xi Xiaoming, a senior official of the Chinese Supreme Court, recently said there has been a steady increase in withdrawal of foreign investments. Domestic private enterprises also face challenges due to the global financial crisis. 

A statement by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce indicates that the total foreign investment in January was $7.5 billion, a decrease of 32.6% compared to the same period last year.

Source: EpochTimes, April 18, 2009
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/9/4/18/n2499031.htm

Author of “Losing the New China” Denied Visa for Exposing CCP’s Brutality

During an interview, the author of the book "Losing the New China," Ethan Gutmann,  shared his view on Falun Gong’s "protest" outside of the Chinese central government compound, Zhongnanhai, 10 years ago.  Gutmann said that after an in-depth investigation and many personal interviews,  he had concluded that the "4/25 incident" was a setup by the Communist Chinese leader at the time, involving the intentional misrepresentation of Falun Gong practitioners’ actions to present grievances legally and openly at the Court of Appeals (near Zhongnanhai). He affirmed that the 4/25 incident was "just an excuse" on the part of the Chinese Communist Party leader at the time, and that the Falun Gong practitioners had fallen into a trap orchestrated by the Party used to justify a persecution that was already in the making. Subsequent investigation by Gutmann revealed that over the years, many Falun Gong practitioners have been killed as a result of the persecution as well as killed for their organs.  He believes that the death toll has very possibly reached beyond 100,000, of which about 10,000 have been used for organ transplants. 

Gutmann has been recently denied a visa into China.

Source: Epoch Times, April 17, 2009
http://epochtimes.com/gb/9/4/17/n2497771.htm

China Flexes Military Muscles

In recent years, as China has strengthened its military, China has compared its armed forces with the world’s most technologically advanced militaries. Compared to the U.S. and other developed countries, China still lags in terms of weapons of information technology. Nevertheless, China has advanced armed vehicles and tank capabilities, as well as conventional weaponry.

Since the beginning of the open door policy, the Chinese government has invested a huge amount of resources to modernize its armed forces. China’s military spending in 2009 will rise 14.9% to 480.7 billion yuan.

Source: BBC Chinese.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_7990000/newsid_7996300/7996336.stm

China’s High Ranking Officials Have Visited Taiwan Frequently in Recent Months

Since the end of February, China has sent numerous officials on more than half dozen trips to Taiwan for various purposes including tourism, cultural exploration, trade, sports, energy, agriculture, information technology, religion, and politics. These represent the largest number of high level visits made across the straight.

Source: Apolo, April 2, 2009
http://www.aboluowang.com/news/data/2009/0402/article_72951.html

People Ask Officials to Disclose Their Personal Property Holdings

One of the few interesting topics during the CPPCC sessions at the National People’s Congress was an open discussion about disclosing officials’ personal property.

The public strongly supported the idea. However, most officials stood firmly against it. One official was quoted as saying, "Why not have the people disclose their property first?"

Some serious issues that China currently faces have also been raised as a consequence of the discussion.  Disclosing officials’ property holdings involves the fundamentals of a free society such as freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly, which the government isn’t ready or willing to allow.

Source: BBC Chinese, March 30, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_7970000/newsid_7971800/7971849.stm