Analyses - 9. page

On July 5, 2009, bloody violence broke out in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China’s far west. Per Chinese official reports, around 8 p.m., thousands of rioters suddenly began to attack civilians. They “were beating innocent people, smashing cars and buses, and burning police cars … in a southern area of the city.” [1]

The official announcement reported 197 deaths, including 134 Han Chinese. Scores of Uyghurs were presumably killed by police gunfire, but local sources indicate a much higher number. A Uyghur man who claimed to have saved some Han people told a reporter, “I think more than 500 people died, Han and Uyghur together.” [2] [3]

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Formed in 2006, the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIF) is an alliance of several leading organizations that are developing and deploying anti-censorship technologies for Internet users living under oppressive regimes. The Consortium partners have contributed significantly to the advancement of information freedom in China, Iran and other “censorship” countries. Two of GIF’s most popular anti-censorship software tools, FreeGate and UltraSurf, have played a critical role in enabling Iranians in the recent election aftermath to connect and communicate over the Internet when their government blocked most overseas news and social networking websites overseas. It is estimated that, on June 20, 2009, alone, over 1 million Iranians used GIF to visit previously censored websites.

In addition,GIF itself has constantly been fending off cyber attacks launched against it.

On October 22, 2009, the U.S. Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, held a hearing on the ways in which new media and Internet communication technologies affect the balance of power between human rights activists and authoritarian governments. Zhou Shiyu, Deputy Director of GIF provided testimony at the hearing. Zhou estimated that over 90% if anti-censorship traffic comes through GIF servers. GIF has the current capacity to support 1.5 million people per day. It is working on expanding its capacity to meet the rapidly growing demand.

Chinascope recently interviewed Dr. Peter Li, GIF’s Chief Technology Officer.

Chinascope:  Recently President Obama launched the cyber security plan. Are cyberattacks a real threat to U.S. national security? Continue reading →

On July 20, 1999, the then leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Jiang Zemin, banned the Falun Gong spiritual practice. At the beginning of the suppression, Jiang intended to eradicate Falun Gong in “three months.” Intelligence agents locked onto Falun Gong practitioners whom they thought to be “leaders,” and its propaganda machinery prepared potent fabrications to vilify Falun Gong and turn the public against it. In so many previous persecutions, these two steps alone were enough to break the backbone and spirit of any victim group.

After failing to eradicate Falun Gong in a quick way, CCP has largely remained quiet about Falun Gong in its state-run media over the last several years, making the impression that Falun Gong is no longer in existence in China. So, did Jiang and the CCP achieve their goal? Where are the practitioners in China? What do they do these days? With these questions in mind, Chinascope interviewed the editor of the Chinese website, minghui.org. Minghui, whose English counterpart is clearwisdom.net, is the primary website for Falun Gong practitioners to obtain Falun Gong related information, report their activities, and share their experiences with each other.

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Ten years ago, on July 20, 1999, the State’s Ministry of Civil Affairs declared Falun Gong and the Falun Dafa Research Society to be illegal, thus starting the persecution that has continued unabated to the present time. In spite of the State’s high-pressure tactics, a growing number of rights lawyers in China have stepped forward to provide a not-guilty defense in court.

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Recent news reports revealed that the Chinese government has mandated that every PC sold in China must include a censorship program called Green Dam beginning July 1. Several computer experts from the Computer Science and Engineering Division at The University of Michigan conducted an investigation of the software and published their research Analysis of the Green Dam Censorware System on the Internet (http://www.cse.umich.edu/~jhalderm/pub/gd/).

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Chinese media observers were caught by surprise recently when a Hong Kong-based TV station aired a program blasting Falun Gong, a meditation practice subject to relentless persecution by the Chinese Communist regime. This article digs into the details of the connection between Beijing and Phoenix TV.
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Voices within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have gathered repeatedly to call for the armed forces to be loyal to the nation or to the state, and to denounce allegiance to the Communist Party. On July 22, 2007, for example, Xinhua published a PLA Daily editorial regarding this issue. “The so-called ‘nationalization of the armed forces’ makes absolute the military’s subordination to the state. The crucial issues are: one, it removes the right of the Party to lead the armed forces; and two, it denies the ‘socialist’ nature of the state. Therefore, we must resolutely resist it.” [1] The Party finds that it must continually assert its control over the military.

According to the Xinhua news agency, at an important military meeting on December 30, 2008, Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee, Chairman of PRC & Chairman of the Central Military Commission, again addressed this issue. Hu stated that of the five ideological core values for current revolutionary army personnel, the first is “Loyalty to the Party.” [2] Starting in January 2009, China’s state-run and military media published a series of articles elaborating the significance, meaning, and reasons for, as well as the actual applications of the army’s “Loyalty to the Party.” The purpose is: resisting the influence of the “non-partisan and apolitical army” and “army nationalization” ideology that Western countries advocate. An army-wide “Loyalty to the Party” education movement has just started in China. Below are excerpts from nine recent articles the state-run media and the army-run media have published on the army’s loyalty to the Party.
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On Sunday March 8, 2009, five Chinese civilian ships confronted the U.S. naval surveillance vessel Impeccable in international open waters 75 miles south of China’s Hainan Island, home of China’s most advanced submarine base. The article dissects the incident from historic background to explore possible implications on U.S.-China relationship.

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