Social Stability - 90. page

In July, Chinese vaccine maker Changsheng Biotechnology was found to have fabricated records and arbitrarily changed the process parameters and equipment during its production of freeze-dried human rabies vaccines. Substandard diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT) vaccines that Changsheng produced were administered to 215,184 Chinese children. Another company, Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, produced substandard DPT vaccines and sold 400,520 of them to the public. China’s drug regulator launched an investigation and arrested 15 people from Changsheng Biotechnology, including the chairman.

About a month after the outbreak of the scandal, the Chinese government offered to re-administer the vaccine without charge to people who had been previously vaccinated with Changsheng’s rabies vaccine. However, according to Radio Free Asia, few people have gone to get vaccinated and some no longer trust domestic vaccine manufacturers.

On August 10, a nurse at a hospital in Shenzhen that provides free re-administration of vaccines told the reporter that the hospital uses the vaccine of the Liaoning Chengda Company, a vaccine manufacturer not struck by the scandal. Individuals did go there to get vaccinated, but not many.

A gentleman, Mr. Zhang from Guangdong, had his child vaccinated with Changsheng’s vaccine. He said in an interview that he no longer has confidence in domestically made vaccines. If a company has not been exposed, that does not mean that it has no problem. He would rather choose to use imported vaccine.

“In my situation, I will not dare to get vaccinated again. It is useless. I really worry about domestic vaccinations. I will try as much as possible to get imported vaccines; otherwise there is no guarantee. Companies that have not been exposed may still have a problem. In the case of Changsheng, one employee exposed the problem, right? If he hadn’t done it, we would never have known it. As a matter of fact, they had detected the problem before, but they chose not to publicize it. We don’t have the right to information. So if domestic things are not exposed, it does not mean that they have no problem.”

Some netizens expressed ridicule: Is the vaccine used this time not fake? Will we still have to get vaccinated once again?

Source: Radio Free Asia, August 10, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/huanjing/yf2-08102018100530.html

RFA reported that the Guangdong Lawyer’s Association issued an “Internet Code of Conduct for Lawyers in Guangdong Province.” The regulation specifies that the lawyers should “abide by the Constitution, must not deny China’s fundamental political system and basic principles, and must not endanger national security. The specific contents include the following things that lawyers can’t do: publish anything on the Internet that denies the leadership of the Communist Party of China; incite dissatisfaction with or opposition to the Chinese Communist Party and the government; initiate, support, or mobilize participation in organizations that endanger national security; publish political statements or articles that are unconstitutional; use the Internet to influence administrative, supervisory, judicial, and procuratorial organs on certain legal cases; disclose state secrets, trade secrets, and information pertaining to non-public trials; and they cannot use the Internet to publish false or distorted facts that will create social conflicts and affect social stability. The RFA article quoted comments that several dissidents living in China made. They stated that the Lawyer’s Association only serves the interests of the government and has been suppressing the freedom of the lawyers for a long time.

Source: Radio Free Asia, August 3, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/yf2-08032018100520.html

In the past two months, a large number of P2P (Peer to Peer Lending) companies have closed in China. One report showed that 60 to 70 P2P companies closed just in one day. Tens and millions of investors are affected, including some seniors who have lost their entire retirement savings. On August 6, the P2P victims around the country planned a group petition in front of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) in Beijing but the officials planned ahead of time to block these petitioners. The Epoch Times article showed photos of the shuttle buses lined up outside of the CBIRC building that were ready to take the petitioners away. The screen shot of a notice from the Public Security Bureau of Wenzhou City showed that the top leader of the local authorities in each region was told to take responsibility for stopping the P2P petitioners from going to Beijing. Otherwise they would face serious consequences. The notice also ordered all levels of the security forces to be ready to carry out the task of monitoring the petitioners. One document from an unidentified province advised that the authorities were aware that there were 8,370 people from 32 cities and provinces who all had plans to go to Beijing; it put them all under close surveillance. One notice from a Public Security Bureau of a railway station ordered that the local security bureau must take action to prevent the petitioners from boarding the train to Beijing. The embedded videos showed police stopping the petitioners from leaving their homes or taking them off of trains or out of hotel rooms. One petitioner told a police officer that they should be clear what kind of government they are serving: “Wake up! One day what we face today will be the same thing you face tomorrow.” Another victim said, “They locked us up without even giving us a reason. The government is so dark.” Members of the police force have become the dogs of the corrupt officials. Where did tens and billions of P2P funding go? Has it become a tool for officials to launder money?

Source: Epoch Times, August 6, 2018
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/8/6/n10617970.htm

Epoch Times reported that, on July 24, a group of veterans from Yantai City of Shandong Province decided to go to Beijing to petition for their pay and medical benefits but they were blocked from entering the train station. The posted videos showed that the group first went to the Yantai Municipal government building but no one from the municipal government came out to meet with them. The group then walked to the Yantai Train station to take the train to Beijing. The staff at the ticket booth in front of the train station refused to sell them train tickets while the police force from Yantai formed a human wall in order to block the veterans from entering the train station. One representative told Epoch Times, “We are legal citizens. The Communist Party oversees the train station yet they wouldn’t even sell train tickets to us. What are their grounds? What are they afraid of? . . . All of the officials are afraid that they might be investigated for corruption. All they are concerned about is to maintain stability.” Epoch Times reported that, on the same day, a group of veterans from Zhengzhou City of Henan Province also went to the Zhengzhou Municipal government to appeal for their rights. In June, several thousand veterans from Zhenjiang City in Jiangsu Province went to the local municipal building to appeal but the police force violently beat them up. There are nine videos embedded within the Epoch Times article. They contain live footage of how the veterans were treated. For example, the one that is 22 seconds shows the human wall that the police created.

Source: Epoch Times, July 24, 2018
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/7/24/n10587165.htm

A recent Legal Daily article gave some details about the business of ghostwriting graduation theses in China.

“Due to the large demand, producing graduation theses has become an industry and many services are provided. They include ghostwriting, plagiarism checking, and plagiarism prevention.”

In March 2018, Zhang Feng (a pseudonym), a state-owned enterprise employee, became involved in the ghostwriting business to earn some extra money.

Zhang told the reporter, “Somehow I was connected to a social media account, which is like an intermediary or agent. The account would receive an order for writing a thesis, and then broadcast it to look for people who would like to fill the order. Then the order taker directly contacted the buyer to negotiate a price.”

“The buyer’s needs are varied. For example, someone placed an order for everything to be done, from designing all the way to programming. Some buyers already have a draft design and only need to have the thesis written. Some have already finished writing the thesis, but need to check for plagiarism and make any adjustments needed to avoid plagiarism. There are also some people who want to modify the paper’s format and come up a power point presentation.”

“Most of the students who have such a need are junior college students and undergraduate students. As far as graduate students, according to Zhang, most of those hiring ghostwriters are part-time MS/MA students who also have a job.”

Source: Legal Daily, July 12, 2018
http://www.legaldaily.com.cn/index/content/2018-07/12/content_7591993.htm?node=20908