Social Stability - 156. page

China finally admitted that the H1N1 flu has been spreading throughout China. According to the Beijing Evening, the Director of Beijing City Health Bureau said that in Beijing approximately 400,000 people were infected with the H1N1 flu. Earlier Beijing admitted only to numbers in the lower thousands.

The Guangzhou Daily published an interview with Zhong Nanshan, an Academic at the China Engineering Academy. In 2003, he broke China’s news blockade and told western media that SARS had spread widely in China. Zhong said, “as for the number of H1N1 infected cases reported in China, I don’t believe it at all!”

Experts predicted that the H1N1 flu will infect 130-260 million people in China at its peak and will have an effect on China’s GDP in the range of about 0.5 percent.

Sources:
[1] Beijing Evening, November 25, 2009
http://yljk.beijing.cn/yqtb/crbyf/n214091861.shtml
[2] Guangzhou Daily, November 19, 2009
http://gzdaily.dayoo.com/html/2009-11/19/content_769512.htm

Xinhua reported on November 25, 2009, that Guangdong Province submitted the “Guangdong Province Implementation Plan (Draft) on ‘The P.R. China’s Strategies in Response to Unexpected Crises’” on November 24, 2009, proposing that any governments at the county level or above should employ news journalists as grass-roots information collectors for unexpected crises. The Draft also proposes that all the cities in the Pearl River Delta area must report any unexpected crises to their relevant municipal governments within one hour.

Source: Xinhua, November 25, 2009
http://forum.home.news.cn/detailsearch.jsp?id=71931521&ui=l88x66

According to China News Service, 340 police station chiefs from 13 cities and districts in Heilongjiang Province gathered on November 10, 2009, at the Heilongjiang Province Public Security Police Vocational College to attend a police station chief training class. The training content included the development of public security information technology, the implementation of standardized law enforcement, and the building of a harmonious relationship between the police and the people, as well as improvement of police quality and ability.

The Heilongjiang Provincial Public Security Department will train more than 1600 police station chiefs across the province by holding four closed-door trainings, each of which will take about 10 days. It will also rotationally train county-level public security bureau heads. The number receiving training will exceed 2400 people, accounting for 4% of the police force in the province.

Source: China News Service, November 11, 2009　
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/news/2009/11-11/1958575.shtml

Radio Free Asia reported that a Zhengzhou city newspaper in Henan province published an investigative report which has given rise to Chinese Internet user’s newest tongue-in-cheek catchphrase: “Are you a Party member?” According to the article, entitled “Dog Management Office Manages Nothing But Only Collects Money,” a reporter asked Wang Ping, the Director of Zhengzhou City Dog Management Office, the whereabouts of 12 million yuan in management fees and also hoped that he could release the relevant financial accounts to the public. Wang let the journalist directly question the Financial Bureau. However, a person in charge at the Financial Bureau inexplicably responded to the reporter, “Are you a Party member?” The implication — that the reporter has no right to ask the Financial Bureau officer the whereabouts of the 12 million yuan if he is not a Party member – is now the target of biting criticism from Internet users.

Source: Radio Free Asia, November 7, 2009
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/wang-11062009214733.html

After mobilizing 1,200 tax drivers to participate in public security, the authority of Changsha, the capital city of Hunan Province, decided on October 30 to expand the network by “assimilating 5,300 public transportation employees, environment workers, and postmen into the troops of ‘Volunteers for Safety,’ assisting the police to combat criminal activities.”

The decision was reportedly based on the nature of the three professions, which require close and constant contact with the population at the street and neighborhood level. The city government will coordinate with the employers of the participants for their pay and an offer extra bonus for their “outstanding contributions.”

Source: Xinhua, November 1, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2009-11/01/content_12368980.htm

Professor Chen Hongtai, expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. suggested that corruption is not today’s biggest problem in China’s universities. Excessive academic administration, bureaucratization and profit-chasing are the main threats. Chen called for safeguarding the domain of higher education as a “pure land,” where professors should take responsibility for exercising their conscience with regard to society’s future generations.

Source: Global Times, October 15, 2009.
http://china.huanqiu.com/roll/2009-10/604130.html 

By 1999, Chinese society had entered an aging era when people older than 60 years old made up 10% of the entire population. Ten years later, this figure increased to 12.79 % of the populion, which represents 169 million people.The Ministry of Civil Affairs stated a belief that “China is rushing into an aging society at a speed that is exceeding our imagination.” It was suggested that over the next 25 years, China should be getting ready to develop a strategy to deal with this issue. Development plans, laws and regulations, social and economic policy adjustments – all need to be prepared.

Source: Xinhua, October 26, 2009.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-10/26/content_12328694.htm

According to Xinhua, Shanxi Province has made the decision that any unexpected incidents must be reported to the Provincial Party Committee within two hours. If it is a big incident, the reporting time must not exceed one hour.

At the same time, Taiyuan Municipality has made a clear requirement that the heads of on-duty departments at all levels must have their telephones on 24 hours a day so as to prevent any incident caused by an illegal organization, a cult organization, or by ethnic and religious sensitive issues.

Source: Xinhua, September 22, 2009
http://www.sx.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2009-09/22/content_17765689.htm