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A Great Performance Born in a Great Era

[Editor’s Note: Wang Yifeng, a correspondent with Secret China, interviewed Dr. Tang Boqiao, Chairman of the China Peace and Democracy League after he watched the Divine Performing Arts Chinese New Year Spectacular performance at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on February 9, 2008 . The following article reports on that interview.]
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The Current Situation of Human Rights in China

In June 2008, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders published its 2007 World Human Rights Report. A collaborative project between the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR) and the Geneva-based World Organization Against Torture, the Report is one of the most important human rights reports in the world. The 2007 report enumerated how the Chinese government further repressed dissidents and arrested protesters before the Olympics. Mr. Wei Jingsheng wrote the preface for the China section of the 2007 International Human Rights Report. [1] The following is the translation of the preface.

The Current Situation of Human Rights in China

The Power of Death Penalty Review Taken Back by the Supreme Court

In the most recent two to three years, China’s human rights made a great leap backward with minor improvements in certain aspects. The minor improvements manifested in the return of the authority to review the death penalty to the Supreme Court. Starting from Deng Xiaoping’s era, the authority to approve the death penalty, as stipulated in Criminal Law, was given to the provincial level, and even the local level. As a result, there was a plethora of executions. A great number of local officials applied the death penalty to a wide range of criminals, for political motives or personal vengeance; moreover, they even created false or unjust charges to achieve private goals. The executions in China have therefore constituted more than three fourths of those for the entire world.

Under international and domestic pressure, and especially harsh criticism from human rights organizations in other countries, the Chinese government was forced to do something on this issue. From last year, the authority to review the death penalty was finally returned to the Supreme Court, in accordance with the Criminal Law. Judicial organizations privately estimated that the number of death penalties will drop dramatically over the next several years. It will be much more difficult for local officials to unjustly frame people or create false cases. This is a great achievement of international human rights effort.

However, other than that, China’s human rights situation took a great leap backward. The two major regressions lie in two aspects.

Freedom of Speech Regressed Dramatically

The Chinese Communist authorities impose censorship and punishment on all media. They force media professionals to edit the news according to the requirements of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Freedom of the press has dropped to the lowest level in the whole world. Opinion articles have greatly decreased; those left from censorship have had to closely follow the party line. Especially for electronic (Internet) media, in addition to imposing self-censorship on these online media, the authorities have applied the most powerful Internet censorship and blockage in the world. All statements not in accordance with the CCP’s propaganda requirements cannot even reach Internet users in China.
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Those who have attempted to break through the censorship, including journalists, editors and freelance writers, have often encountered ruthless repression: their jobs taken away, they themselves personally assaulted by the mafia, or sent to prison. It is especially noteworthy that when the CCP’s special agents search for those dissident media professionals and impose Internet censorship, some western enterprises have given them a helping hand, causing many innocent people jailed.

Human Rights Defendants Are Brutally Persecuted

The Chinese people’s movement to defend their basic rights has been growing rapidly. During this period, the number and scale of such movements has multiplied every year, producing many human rights lawyers and group leaders. With their leadership and advice, the human rights defending movements have become more effective. It is a unique phenomenon in today’s China: the government does not take responsibility to protect its people, and more and more officials have become accomplices of the evil force. The Chinese people are forced to become organized, defend their rights, and come up with their own leaders.

To repress the human rights defending movement, the CCP went from its traditional, random suppression, to well-planned, systematic suppression with a clear agenda. On the one hand, additional 200,000 troops of People’s Armed Police are equipped with the most modern weapons, collaborating with local military police force to construct a powerful state machinery to suppress people’s rights movement. On the other hand, the regime tried to exterminate all group leaders and human rights defenders. The human rights defendants were routinely physically tortured and mentally devastated; many political prisoners lost the ability to take care of their own daily lives.

Especially in the past year, in order to make sure all voices suppressed during the Olympics, the government escalated its persecution, and expanded its target to include western athletes, media and tourists. In a handful of western countries, western politicians even collaborated with such suppression. For example, Belgium, Great Britain and New Zealand attempted to stop their athletes from voicing their political views during the Olympic Games.

We have sound reason to believe that the victims of this suppression are not just the Chinese people; the suppression has extended to every corner around the globe.

Endnote:
[1] Beijing Spring, September 2008
http://beijingspring.com/bj2/2008/140/200882831658.htm
Beijing Spring is a Chinese-language monthly magazine dedicated to the promotion of human rights, democracy and social justice in China. Founded in June 1993, it is published in New York and distributed throughout the world.

China’s National Strategy: The Soft Spread of Chinese Language and Culture

The following excerpts are from a Confucius Institute article published in the May 5, 2008, edition of Outlook Weekly Magazine. [1] It describes the global strategy for promoting Chinese is made evident. The director of the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (NOTCFL), Xu Lin, expresssed the belief that the global promotion of Chinese culture is a national strategy that should join the various ministries of the government and even the entire society. Only when the country organizes its resources and forces can it be a truly great enterprise. She emphasized that the pressing matter now is to upgrade China’s ability to export Chinese culture. [2]

A Magazine Journalist Interviews NOTCFL Director Xu Lin

The “Soft Promotion” of Chinese Culture

The process promoting a culture is also the process of exchange, confrontation, the mingling of different cultures, and the process of expanding cooperation.

Three years ago, the Minister of Education, Zhou Ji, named  Xu Lin as the director of NOTCFL. Xu Lin declined vigorously, saying that the post was ill-suited for her, and that her previous work “had nothing to do at all with the promotion of Chinese abroad.”

With an A B.S. in chemistry and as an economics student in graduate school, Xu Lin had been a college instructor, an administrative cadre, a mayor’s assistant, and had worked on the Ministry of Education’s planning and budgeting. [She] later served for five years as an education counselor in a Chinese Embassy abroad. “You must go! [You] must do this well!” The minister’s words were resolute, so she agreed to [her] superior’s arrangement.

When she first took up the post, the first Confucius Institute just opened up in Seoul, Korea. By the beginning of 2008, over 210 Confucius Institutes have been established in succession in more than sixty countries. At this time, only three years had past since the five-year goal of opening up 100 Confucius Institutes worldwide had been set. The Confucius Institute has already become a fundamental ingredient to enable the various countries to learn Chinese and Chinese culture, a major platform to understand modern China, and even an important component of China’s “big diplomacy” and “big propaganda abroad.”

Join the Forces of the Entire Society to Promote Chinese Culture

NOTCFL was established in 1987. [It] is a daily affairs organization of China’s teaching Chinese abroad leadership group organized by the leaders of 11 ministries under the State Council. Its function is to coordinate the various ministries and committees to promote Chinese [abroad] as a national and ethnical enterprise, going abroad in a “smooth, fine, and silent” fashion. The Confucius Institute headquarters established thereafter and China’s NOTCFL are one group of people wearing two different hats.

According to Xu Lin, as a brand new platform, the Confucius Institute is playing a new, important role in the aspect of cultural exchange abroad. For example, the Ministry of Culture’s Paris Culture Center [and] Egypt’s Culture Center had cooperated with the Confucius Institute. The NOTCFL has dispatched Chinese teachers, [and] these centers had started to recruit Chinese language students. The result is gradually showing. As another example, China International Radio’s broadcast abroad has 43 languages. The trend of shrinking audiences appeared in more than a few language [broadcasts]. In recent years, broadcasting Chinese culture and Chinese language instruction at set times not only kept a large group of old listeners, but also attracted an increasing number of new listeners.

The Confucius Institute is not only an important avenue of foreign cultural exchange to China, but it also expanded the stage of China’s diplomacy. Statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that cumulatively, there have been close to one hundred ambassadors and consul generals who have participated in the Confucius Institute’s activities one or more times. Because Confucius Institutes are all [established] in post-secondary institutions, and post-secondary institutions are important sources of thinking in society, [it] is very advantageous to promote understanding and mutual communication. Many consulate officials abroad all believe that the Confucius Institute is a very good foreign diplomacy platform. In some countries, prime ministers and state legislators have all supported and even personally attended Confucius Institutes’ Chinese language promotion activities.

The Chinese language as a powerful carrier of culture—[we] should use the opportunity of global Chinese fever to change this situation. Xu Lin believes, “The global spread of Chinese culture is a great enterprise, is a national strategy, [and] should be joined by the government and even the entire society. Only by taking advantage of the socialist policy, focusing energy to do big things, having the country organize all resources and strengths, can [we] truly hold up this great enterprise.”

Projecting Chinese Culture’s Charm

By and large, China’s foreign Chinese language education has undergone two stages: From the 1950s to the 1980s, teaching the Chinese language abroad was considered as an important part of foreign affairs, therefore, foreign exchange students basically came from socialist countries or third-world countries. Since the 1980s, accompanying China’s reforms, opening up, and economic take-off, China’s economic trade with various countries of the world became ever more and ever closer, [and] learning Chinese gradually became popular. Especially starting from the end of the 1990s, global “Chinese fever” has been on the rise. The scale and scope of Chinese language education abroad increased unceasingly. There have been profound changes from content to form.

Xu Lin believes that the main differences between teaching Chinese language abroad and the global spread of Chinese then and now are manifested in at least the following aspects:

1. Content-wise, global spread of the Chinese language is not only pure language teaching, there is also a responsibility of spreading of Chinese culture. … In the process of learning a language, [one] is actually learning a culture, [therefore] teaching language is also spreading culture. In the past, teaching Chinese abroad overemphasized language drills, especially pronunciation drills. … Many foreign youngsters have an interest in Chinese marshal arts. When [they] come to China for summer camp, [they] would first choose to go to the Shaolin Temple in Henan [Province]. [3]

2. In terms of pedagogy, some people in the past taught students in a perfectionist mode. … Reality proved the “perfectionist mode” to be unworkable. First teaching foreigners the way Chinese people are taught proved to be ineffective. Secondly, there has been too small of a number of “perfectionists,” [which] mismatches China’s major power image as well as the urgent need to upgrade soft strength. Therefore, to promote Chinese abroad, popularization and applicability should come first, [thus] having people intimately want to know Chinese.

3. [I]n the beginning the primary purpose of teaching Chinese abroad was to break through barriers, and the main object of spread was the third world. Later, stressing economic utility, many people learned Chinese out of their career considerations. But to depend on the international spread of Chinese solely on language utility is obviously lacking. Therefore, the purpose of establishing the Confucius Institute is to upgrade official cultural exchange, folk cultural interactions, teacher investment and training, application of new culture, etc. to a regulated modernized level, so as to make Chinese a charismatic international language, and then fundamentally change the “soft influence” of Chinese culture against the backdrop of globalization.

Using the Vision of Globalization to Forge Strength

Xu Lin believes that either through non-governmental or governmental paths, [in order to spread Chinese internationally] it’s necessary to liberate one’s thoughts, develop and create, and forge the strength of exporting Chinese culture. In fact, Confucius Institute’s headquarters … has been stepping into the direction of globalization. There have already been ten foreigners sitting on the board of directors of the Confucius Institute, most of whom are chancellors from the world’s top 200 universities, such as Scotland’s Edinburgh University and Japanese’s Waseda University.

Xu Lin disclosed that in order to strengthen the guidance and service to each country’s Confucius Institute, headquarters has decided to establish several special committees. For instance: Teaching Guidance Committee, Cultural and Economic Development Committee, Financial Supervisory and Guidance Committee, Quality Appraisal Committee, Legal Consultation Committee, and so on. These committees are responsible to submit appraisals, opinions, and suggestions regarding teaching qualities to the headquarters, which include teachers’ training [and] teaching material development. These committees comprise both Chinese and foreign parties. Xu Lin said that these measures are all based on long-term development considerations.
 

It appears to Xu Lin that the greatest questions currently are firstly that the so-called “soft strength” is difficult to quantify. Either the Confucius Institute or cultural export—what are the contributions to China’s “hard strength?” What’s the relationship between “soft strength” and “hard strength?” Due to lack of statistics, formulas, and models, it’s not easy to answer this question. Secondly, the capability to export a team to spread Chinese globally must be further upgraded. Originally, it is required that Chinese language teachers must have had studied overseas or have had work experience, but now it seems that it still can’t fully satisfy foreign requirements. Many people only studied abroad to obtain a diploma and didn’t enter the mainstream society. Maladjustment is unavoidable now that [they] suddenly appear as a host teacher. Especially lacking are [in the area of] public relations and market development.

Xu Lin proposed that in the long run, a special troop be established to spread Chinese globally. This troop is a “folk ambassador troop.” “The process of promoting culture is also the process of exchange, struggle, and blending of different cultures, and the process of expanding cooperation. The most pressing thing to spread Chinese globally is to learn and upgrade the ability of exportation,” said Xu Lin.

Endnotes:
[1] Outlook Weekly, May 5, 2008
http://news.sohu.com/20080505/n256668069.shtml
Outlook Weekly is a Xinhua publication.
[2] In the Outlook Weekly excerpts, “Chinese culture” or “culture” refers to the current Chinese culture as opposed to genuine, traditional culture. Such is a result of former culture destruction and later culture re-reaction and its product has been taught throughout China and in Tibet.
[3] While China has a rich history and culture, since 1949, various aspects of traditional culture have undergone a transformation process that generally followed the outline of criticism, denunciation, ban and destruction, replacement, and exploitation. Traditional martial arts, for instance, sprung from Taoist and Buddhist origins and carry such traditional Chinese cultural values as character cultivation, health maintenance, violence curbing, and justice promotion. After 1949, traditional martial arts has been replaced with modernized martial arts, which kept the dazzling forms but became devoid of traditional culture content. Other aspects of Chinese culture have been similarly transformed.

PLA General Resolutely Resists: the Nationalization of the Armed Forces, the Wrong Political View

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has always been in absolute control of its Army. In recent years in Mainland China, even inside of the Army, there has already presented the viewpoint of “The Nationalization of the Army.”  In 2007, General Zhao Keming, of the PLA, in the following article reflected the concerns of the high-level officials whether the Army is loyal to the Party …” [1]
Beijing  (Zhongxin Net)—On April 17, 2008, General Zhao Keming, the Political Commissar, the National Defense University, published an article in Qiu Shi, analyzing the issues on how the PLA provides a strong safety control for building up a harmonious Socialist Society. In the Article, General Zhao emphasized the awareness of the army spirit be reinforce constantly; support a series of the basic essential systems that the Party absolutely is in command of the Army; make unremitting preparations for the military battles; do well in each preparation task; and prepare to complete the sacred missions given by the Party and the people to safeguard the unity of the homeland at all times.

The General pointed out in the Article that the high stability and the centralized unity of the Army are important cornerstones for structuring a harmonious Socialist Society; uphold the Party is totally in command of the Army; is the fundamental premise for the PLA to keep the nature and objectives of the people’s army; maintaining the quality and objectives of the PLA is the primary guarantee to achieve the goal of the magnificent modernization of the Army; also is a basic requirement for winning the regional wars under the future Internet Era; continuously reinforcing the awareness of the military spirit of the officers and solders of the entire army; support a series of fundamental systems the Party is in total control of the Army, and firmly resist the influence of the wrong-political viewpoints, “The Non-Party, the Non-Politicized and the Nationalized Army,” are the most important issues of the framework of the PLA; the long-term stability of the country and the fate of the socialism of China cannot be changed at any time.

In the article, the General emphasized:  Further making sure the principle of the Party is absolutely in control of the Army; to support a series of essential systems that the Party is unconditionally in controls of the Army; to intensify the making of the Party in the Army vigorously; constantly improving the overall quality, ability and level of the organization in every level of the Party; rally around the flag, support the central government; intensify the nurturing and selections of the young cadres, pay special attention to the administration of education for the high- and medium-levels of cadres, pay special attention to the team developments in each level of the leaders; guarantee the firearms are always in the hands of those who are loyal to the Party, guarantee the paths, strategies, and the implemented policies in the Army of the Party and guarantee the actions of all officers and soldiers of the entire Armed Forces must be answerable to the Central Party Committee and the Control Military Committee.

General Zhao emphasized in the Article that the reinforcement of the consciousness of the mission and the apprehension of dangers; pay close attention to the environment of the national securities and the changing situations of Taiwan and the Overseas; to be highly on the alert for the infiltration, destruction and subversive activities of the domestic and foreign hostile forces; insist on the preparations for the military battles with sustained efforts; do well in all the preparation jobs; and prepare to fulfill the sacred-missions given by the Party and the people to safeguard the reunification of the homeland at all times. Enhance the research on the important reality issues:  pay special attention to the issues of restricting the buildups and developments of our Army from the system mechanisms and policy systems. Truly enhance the combat effectiveness as the developing tasks and make use of the focal point of the resources; let all jobs and the resources of the Army have true effect on promoting the battle capability, and construct future military battles’ commanding point with the overall increase of the battle capability.

The General pointed out in the Article: to strengthen the regular combat readiness, adjust and perfect the system mechanisms of the national defense mobilization, expand the foreign military communications, actively participate in the international cooperation of peace-keeping, anti-terrorism, anti-nuclear proliferation. Launch joint maneuvers as to bring about an active role in promoting a peaceful-, harmonious-world development of China. Actively cooperate with the related national departments to strictly guard and firmly attack the racial segregation forces, the violent terrorist groups and the infiltration sabotage activities of the religious extremist groups. Actively cooperate with local governments to strengthen the community safety control tasks, deal with the urgent crises, strengthen the emergency system development, reinforce the capability of maintaining the social stability, the frontier security and stability, and the handling of the urgent crises.

In the Article the General pointed out: the innovative theory of the Party should be constantly used to unite the hearts and minds of the soldiers; molding firmly the minds of the soldiers to cultivate their fighting spirit; do well in all kinds of the preparations for military battles; guide the Army officers and soldiers to have a positive understandings of the developmental changes of today’s world; with a positive understanding of the socialisms with Chinese characteristics made the enormous achievement and the development directions; with a positive understanding and the view of the interest relation adjustment in the deepened reform; constantly reinforce the faith and confidence in the Party’s leaderships, the socialist system, the reform and the open policy movements and the comprehensively building up the goal of an affluent society; the officers and soldiers must be guided to fully understand the great missions that they shoulder; inspiring them fear not the sacrifice and nor the indomitable heroic spirit; firm their will to fight for the unification of their homeland; fighting to safeguard the sovereignty and the territorial integrity; fighting for the nation’s dignity, the will to take up arms is for the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation; strengthen their thoughts for the readiness to go to a war; strengthen their confidence in winning the war; develop the officers and solders firm fighting will, the tenacious fighting attitude, the perfect psychological quality at an approximately actual combat’s environment and in the difficult and strict training.

The General also emphasized in the Article:  insisted on abiding by the military law and order in administering the Army; training the troops strictly; realistically raise up the Army’s combat capabilities;
the improvement of the quality and ability to command the Armed Forces of the leading cadres and leading authorities in accordance with the military law and order must be focused; establishing and perfecting the surveillance and restraint mechanisms for monitoring the actions of the leading cadres and leading authorities of the law enforcement; the leading cadres and leading establishments must set an examples of taking the initiatives in strengthening, developing the unity, friendship, harmony, and purity of the internal relationships in the Army; form a fine internal environment beneficial for the overall development for officers and soldier in the Army; constantly enhance the internal attraction and cohesion of the Army; unceasingly reinforce the ability of the PLA in coping with crises.

Endnote:
[1] sina.net, April 18, 2007
http://mil.news.sina.com.cn/2007-04-18/1642440407.html

Flushing NY Residents Form Committee to Remove Pro-Communist Lawmakers

Early July local Flushing NY residents launched a campaign to remove two lawmakers from office for conduct unbecoming lawmakers.  Since mid May, pro-Communist thugs repeatedly assaulted Falun Gong on the streets of Flushing, NY.  Ms. Ellen Young, a New York State Assemblywoman, and Mr. John Liu, a New York City Council Member, both American Chinese, offered through pro-Communist Chinese language newspapers and in person assistance to the pro-Communist thugs involved in the violence.  The two had previously rejecting meeting requests from their constituents who are victims of the violence, including a mother who has two sons currently serving in Iraq.
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China’s Economy Has Again Arrived at a Most Dangerous Time! (Part I)

The following article has been posted on many Chinese websites under different titles. The extensive posting on China’s heavily censored websites and blogs indicates a widespread public acceptance of the article; it also indicates that the ruling regime feels a real sense of political crisis. In this scholarly article, both nationalism and the anti-western sentiment found in traditional propaganda have been blended together. China is portrayed as a grief-stricken victim, not of its own regime, or of the breakdown of morality in China, but of lustful western exploitation that has expended all its natural and human resources to contribute to the welfare of the West and of the rest of the world. The West is cited as a scapegoat for all the current problems that China faces: the prevalence of tainted food, slave-labor wages, the prevalence of crime and prostitution, the outrageous environmental degradations, wanton corruption, the lack of occupational safety, the heavy losses in the financial sector, and even why China’s wealthy transfer their assets abroad. Below is an unabridged translation of the Chinese original. Chinascope has not been able to verify the authorship. [1]

Author: Professor Zhang Hongliang of Central University of Nationalities

Currently the Chinese people, taking establishing a harmonious society as a symbol, are returning to the struggle of the Garden of Eden. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, politically the big Western powers carved China up. At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, China’s economy is, again, being carved up by the big Western powers. What’s different now is that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, big Western powers used various treaties to carve us up. Now the big Western powers are using various regulations to carve us up. The main sign that China has been carved up is that China is becoming a heedlessly milked "cow" of the Western developed countries. International capital monopolies have inserted wealth-sucking straws fully throughout China’s body, which sustains destructive developments that cut off our offspring’s resources. The result is that gigantic wealth is flowing to the developed Western countries like a big river. China has upgraded the standard of life in developed Western countries and has led the economic growth of the entire world, but in doing so has solely sacrificed the benefits of the Chinese people—not only the benefits of the people of this generation, but even more scarily, it has exhausted the foundation of our offspring’s resources.

It can be said that sacrificing the foundation of our offspring’s resources in exchange for a generation’s riches is already a type of crime, much less that this generation of Chinese people has not even enjoyed the benefits. They have been completely consumed by this generation of westerners. This is why, while in thirty years of development, Japan’s wages caught up with the U.S.’s, but China’s wages are only 3% of the American wage. This is why (according to the latest statistics) the top 0.02% who control 70% of China’s wealth go all out to transfer their assets and their relatives abroad. This is why in the process of rapid economic growth, the Chinese people have again sunk under the oppression of the "three mountains."[2] Furthermore, international capitalist monopolies have already developed a plan to kill the cow after milking it dry. This is done through the use of hedge control of the stock market and the money market to roll up all the last capital remnants.
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1. Looking at it from the whole economic volume, the world economic engine that is China has contributed its resources, its environment and its citizens’ health to the astonishing growth of western countries’ wealth, so that three of the nine fortune forums were held in China. For the fourth consecutive year, China has driven the world’s 15% economic growth with only 4% of the world’s GDP. The four-year total contribution China has made to the world’s GDP is approximately 1.5 trillion USD, which is equivalent to 12 trillion Chinese Yuan. According to last year’s national wage standard, it is equivalent to more than six years of total wages of city and town workers in the entire country. China’s huge contribution to the world’s economy is most obviously seen in the frantic increase of international energy prices. China’s imports in recent years have resulted in a 70% average annual increase in the price of the world’s mining products. The cost of international sea transportation has increased even more, averaging a frantic 170% growth per year. The frantic rise in prices of goods imported into China and the frantic drop of China export prices has become one of the most inconceivable anomalies in the history of world economic development.

China’s contribution to Asia is even more astounding. One hundred percent of Asia’s export growth has come from China. It was China that pushed Asia out of its 1998 financial crisis. This is especially so with the major Asian economic power of Japan, which has kept its annual export growth to China at double digits ever since the turn of the 21st century. Exports to China have accounted for approximately 70% of Japan’s export growth. Japan admitted itself that "trade with China sustained Japan’s export-led economic rebound," and is an important reason for Japan’s freeing itself from the quagmire and for its recovery toward a prosperous economy.

But economic development has a price. In this world, there isn’t such a thing as a free lunch. The price for its huge contribution to the world, and Asia, including Japan, is the catastrophic destruction of China’s resources and environment. 80% of rivers and lakes have dried up; two-thirds of China’s grassland has been desertified; an overwhelming majority of China’s forests have disappeared; almost 100% of China’s soil has hardened and become impervious. According to statistics from Japan’s customs, for ten-plus years, China’s annual chopstick export to Japan required the cutting down of more than two million trees. The total number of chopsticks China exported to Japan in a decade was approximately 224.3 billion pairs. According to China forestry’s expert calculations, the amount of mountain forests destroyed to produce these chopsticks accounted more than 20% of China’s land.

At the same time that resources are being depleted, China’s ecological system is facing more and more threats. One-third of China’s soil has been polluted by acid rain; two-fifths of China’s major river systems have already become the five categories of bad water. More than 300 million farmers have no safe water to drink. More than 400 million city dwellers have been breathing in heavily polluted air. Fifteen million people have developed bronchitis and respiratory tract cancer as a result. The World Bank reported that China has sixteen of the twenty most seriously polluted cities in the world. Two-thirds of the 668 cities in China are surrounded by trash. This trash not only occupies ever more farming land, but threatens the basic living environment. Under the circumstance of not being able to treat the accumulating domestic trash, China is still wantonly importing trash from the developed Western countries. China has become the Western developed countries’ dump yard for emptying trash. One of three major U.S. exports to China is trash. It is also the one export with the largest growth rate. In some southern regions where trash has been imported, animals have become fully extinct; plants have been seriously mutated; and people’s health is deteriorating daily. In some regions, for many years there hasn’t been a single military enlistee who passed [his or her] physical examine.
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Looking at only the economic accounts, the losses are also quite astounding. In 2003 alone, the economic losses brought about by China’s environmental pollution and ecological destruction accounted for 15% of the year’s GDP. At the same time that we contributed to 15% of the world economic growth, we have deducted 15% from ourselves each year.

Not only has China’s natural environment worsened; so has its social environment. From 1979 to 2003, the crime rate rose six fold from 0.55 per thousand to 3.41 per thousand. Its annual growth rate is 7%. If we take into consideration the ever lowering standards for placing a file for investigation and prosecution, there is an even greater disparity. The societal death rate has increased from 44 per million in 1979 to 106 per million. The annual growth rate is 3.5%. In 2003, the rate of contagious disease outbreak announced by the Public Health Department increased 6.7% over the previous year; the death rate increased 37%. The Chinese people went from not knowing what an anti-burglary door and window were to installing anti-burglary doors and windows up to and above the 7th floor. Because ruffians are everywhere and are impossible to defend against effectively, industries nationwide have long stopped arranging night shifts for female workers. Poisonous food has already covered 100% of all industries. Only heaven knows what people are swallowing down their throats every day. Sexual promiscuity has spread to preschool-aged children. One can only imagine the future of their bodies and their lifespans.

Approximately 20 million young girls have been forced into prostitution. Their income accounts for 6% of the GDP, which is equivalent to over one trillion Yuan. This phenomenon is unique in world history. The average height of Chinese people is 2.5 cm shorter than Japanese people. Little Japan has really become "great Japan." According to GotoRead, there is one industrial accident related death for every 100 million Yuan GDP. In 2003, 136,000 people died from industrial injuries. At this rate, this year’s industrial deaths will reach 200,000. It is in reality as well as in name "a bloody GDP." Actually, this number is only the tip of the iceberg: a death figure from published statistics, which only includes state-owned industries and major accidents that involve a relatively large number of deaths. In private and foreign industries, ordinary deaths involving several people never make it to the statistics bureau at all. But the number of workers employed in private and foreign industries far surpasses the number in state-owned industries. When this factor is taken into consideration, the number of deaths each year is at least equivalent to a Nanking Massacre.

2. Looking solely from foreign trade, China’s astounding transfusion of wealth to developed Western countries has already made China sink into the saddest condition of colonialism. China’s export prices are so low that they’re almost free. Historically, other than the white people going to Africa to capture blacks for free, there has not been a single colony that has plundered in trade to such an extent. Referencing [prices] in foreign trade and prices in developed countries, one will find that foreign businessmen take over 95% of the profits of foreign trade. Last year, our country exported 17.7 billion articles of clothing. On the average, each garment costs only 3.51 USD, and each pair of shoes costs less than 2.50 USD. The price for a popular Barbie doll on the U.S. market is 10 USD. China’s industry in Suzhou only received 35 cents. Logitech sends to the U.S. 20 million "made-in-China" mice every year. The selling price for these mice is approximately 40 USD. China only receives 3 USD for each mouse. Workers’ wages, the costs of energy, transportation, and other regular costs are all included in this 3 USD.
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It is with this less-than-five-percent profit that we accumulated the one trillion USD foreign exchange reserve, which implies that we have, at the same time, contributed twenty trillion USD in capital to international monopolies. On the fifth anniversary of China joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), China Central TV repeatedly broadcasted that in the five years since China joined the WTO, it saved American families one-fifth of their living expenses. A survey by Morgan Stanley also indicated that American consumers have saved 100 billion dollars by buying China’s cheap products. The Japanese throw away Chinese chopsticks because buying is cheaper than washing. Also because it’s too cheap, Japan, which has long stopped burning coal; it has imported more than 20 million tons of coal to fill the sea and turn it into a man-made coal energy reserve. What the flood of China’s cheap disposable products into Western countries has destroyed is China’s resources. Even some people of conscience in the Western countries have been shocked, calling in succession for a change in disposable consumption, and sincerely advising China to protect its resources.

Foreign businessmen have taken an overwhelming majority of profits. Foreign industries operating in China have sucked the lifeblood of workers by lowering costs. After the Foxconn incident, America’s Apple Computer and UK’s Financial Times came to China in succession. Their reports indicated that Foxconn’s 150,000 female workers worked over 15 hours a day and earned less than 50 USD a month, which is less than two hours of wages compared to their American counterparts. The timeliness of receiving even such meager wages is a variable. Such low wages have turned workers in current society completely into slaves in a slave society. The reason that the overwhelming majority of young women and young men can work for next to nothing for a sustained period of time is because they dream of becoming a city dweller (i.e. a registered city resident) one day. To them, working for next to nothing is not scary. What’s scary is industrial injuries and disabilities. With 95% of the profits taken by foreign businessmen, proprietors can’t pay for labor protection at all. Injuries and disabilities have thus become a worker’s most fearful nightmare.

Endnotes:
[1] Boxun, June 9, 2008
http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2008/06/200806092153.shtml
[2] The "three mountains" refers to the difficulties in seeing a doctor, in getting an education, and in securing a dwelling.

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