Government/Politics - 335. page

Former Prime Minister Li Peng made his first public appearance on September 25 and 26 since his last appearance in October 2007. Li was riding in a China made high speed train from Beijing to Tianjin. Li was said to be healthy and energetic. There have been rumors and speculations about Li’s health condition. Li’s last public appearance was at the opening ceremony of Chinese Communist Party’s 17th Congress in October 2007. He has been missing from political events this year including the Political Consultative Conference, 11th National People’s Conference, opening ceremony of the Olympic game as well as memorial service for Hua Guofeng, the Former President of China.

Source:
Chinese News, September 28,2008
http://news.china.com/zh_cn/domestic/945/20080928/15114260.html
The Epoch Times, September 29,2008
http://epochtimes.com/gb/8/9/29/n2279599.htm

China released a revised list of items subject to export controls, effective November 1, 2008. The list released on September 25, 2008 covers 85 categories including agriculture, coal mining and washing, textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, telecommunication equipment, computers and other electronics, heath products and others. The list contains 150 kinds of technology. 33 of them are totally banned from export while 117 are subject to export restrictions. National security and public interest have been cited as the guiding principle in formulating the list. The September 25 list is a revision of the December 2001 list.

Source:
Xinhua, September 25, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-09/25/content_10110694.htm
Ministry of Commerce, September 26, 2008
http://xxhs.mofcom.gov.cn/aarticle/c/d/200809/20080905802352.html

In his greeting letter to the annual conference of Internet Society of China, Zhang Dejiang, the Vice-premier, gave party’s political guidance to the members of the Internet Society. He hope that the internet industry shall “hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics; Strengthening the ideological and moral construction under the guidance of theories by Den Xiaoping and the ‘three representatives’”.

Source: Xinhua, September 23, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/internet/2008-09/23/content_10096848.htm

The root cause of high administration expenditure lies in the Chinese system and a deep-down system reform is the only way to resolve the problem, said the People’s Daily website. Major administrative and functional coordination is implemented by government or quasi-government entities that extend their control throughout the country via various layers of government entities. Centralized system brings weak local governments that are derivative of the central government. Too many layers of government also contribute to the high administrative cost of the government.

Source: People’s Daily website, September 10, 2008
http://theory.people.com.cn/GB/49150/49152/7911327.html

September 9 marked the 32nd anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong, the former Chairman and idol of China. Chinese state media had little coverage and remained low key on the anniversary of Mao’s death. Mao’s name has apparently been one of the sensitive names about which the government discourages the open discussion. One posting on the issue was found on house.focus.cn titled: “Chinese people will never forget Mao Zedong”. But when the posting was opened, a message jumped out: “this posting has been deleted after inspection.”

Source: Voice of America, September 9, 2008
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/w2008-09-09-voa47.cfm

Hong Kong Phoenix TV commentator He Liangliang published an article in Xinhua’s newspaper International Herald Tribune under the title “Using Lawsuits to Attack the Foreign Media Making Fake News, Threaten the Media Defaming China.” He believes no matter whether (China) wins or loses the lawsuit, it will be sufficient to threaten and shock the Western media who think they will pay no price to defaming China. He says that China should organize a specialized talent team, prepare fully, and that China now already has such a capability. He believes such action can make the target media lose their reputation, audience, and advertisement market.

Source: Xinhua, September 9, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2008-09/09/content_9866940.htm

Li Peng, the former prime minister, was not present at the funeral service held for Hua Guofeng two days ago. Unverified sources disclosed that Li has been seriously ill after he suffered a stroke earlier this year. It was said that the Propaganda Department has started to draft Li’s death annoucement and was carefully picking out the words for fear of heightened response with the 20th anniversary of the June 4th student movement in 2009.

Source: Boxun, September 1,2008
http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/china/2008/09/200809011525.shtml

Alleyinsider reports that according to TubeMogul , which tracks video views across 20 sites, including YouTube, Revver, Dailymotion and Metacafe, 13 videos from Falun Gong sources were among the top 100 most-viewed during the first week of the Beijing Olympics, netting 3.5 million views. And it had four videos among the top 100 the following week, netting 1 million views. It’s the first time Falun Gong has had any video in the top 100 since TubeMogul started keeping track in 2006. Until the opening day of the Olympics Falun Gong videos had netted a mere 95,000 views.

Source: Alleyinsider.com, August 25, 2008 http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/another-olympics-gold-medalist-banned-chinese-sect-falun-gong