Earlier this year, Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, called for a religious work conference, which lasted from April 22 to April 23. The country’s highest ranking leaders attended. [1]
At the work conference, Xi proposed to unite religious followers and to resolve religious issues via guidance and with law-based means. His speech was considered a correction to a policy framework of “maintaining stability” and suppression during the years when Jiang Zemin was in power.
On September 23, BBC Chinese reported that a non-profit organization known as the “Speech NPO” conducted a survey of residents of Japan. The survey done in 2016 showed that 90 percent of the Japanese respondents had a poor impression of China which was compared to the results from the previous year.
The organization has published reports on such public opinion surveys between China and Japan for the past 12 years.
On the Japanese side, the survey company sent out questionnaires to 2,000 business operators, academicians, media workers and civil servants. The results from 477 respondents were analyzed. On the Chinese side, the results were based on telephone interviews of 612 people.
Among the Japanese respondents, 91.6 percent of those respondents surveyed had a poor perception of China, a slight increase from 88.8 percent the previous year; 76.7 percent of the Chinese respondents did not feel good about Japan, which was down slightly from 78.3 percent the previous year.
The main reason for the poor perception from both sides is the territorial dispute.
Source: BBC Chinese, September 23, 2016
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/world/2016/09/160923_japan_china_survey
Several incidents of fraud in which college students have been victimized have occurred in mainland China. Some students have committed suicide because they were the victims of fraud. China.org, for example, reported on the apprehension of 28 suspects in three high-profile telecom fraud cases that resulted in three student deaths. Two had heart attacks and one committed suicide when they learned they had lost their tuition to telecom fraudsters. Yangtze Evening News reported that due to the rampant fraud, students don’t trust the subsidies (scholarships) that some colleges and universities have set up for the freshmen from poor families in. Animal Science and Technology College of Yangzhou University’s “dream Scholarship” was established for freshmen this year. The recipients have faced a lot of embarrassment.
The report said this scholarship was designed to help families with financial difficulties. In order to investigate the family situation, the counselor contacted the parents of the perspective students individually. Such an investigation has frequently been mistaken for [an investigation into] fraud. Many freshmen or their parents even claimed they would forgo the scholarship.
To resolve the issue, the liaisons working on the scholarships had to video chatting tools to show their true identity.
Source: Central News Agency, September 2, 2016
http://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201609020344-1.aspx China.org.cn, September 9, 2016 http://www.china.org.cn/china/2016-09/09/content_39274234.htm
In the early morning (at around 4:00 am) on September 13, 2016, a large number of Chinese riot police forcibly stormed into Wukan Village in Lufeng, Guangdong Province. They broke into homes and arrested the leaders of the ongoing protests over Lin Zuluan, their elected village chief who was jailed for “accepting bribes,” which the villagers did not believe. The police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at villagers while villagers threw rocks at the police. Many villagers were injured; the villagers said that one elderly woman was shot to death. The Lufeng Police announced that they had arrested 13 villagers. However, the villagers revealed that at least 70 people were arrested.
[Editor Note: In 2011, Wukan villagers won their protests over land seizures. They successfully expelled government officials and the police from their village. Eventually, the Communist authorities had to allow them to hold a true village election. They elected the protest leader, Lin Zuluan, as the village chief. Recently, because Lin was going to lead a new protest over land seizures, the Chinese authorities arrested and jailed him for taking bribes. The Wukan villagers have protested for more than 80 days since Lin was detained because they believe their chief is innocent.]
Source: Hong Kong Oriental Online, September 13, 2016
http://hk.on.cc/cn/bkn/cnt/news/20160913/bkncn-20160913080435524-0913_05011_001.html?eventsection=cn_news&eventid=4028828d54eb1036015561a1501556b5
Xinhua News Agency reported on September 13, 2016, that the Lufeng City Police in Guangdong Province arrested 13 Wukan Villagers as criminal suspects for gathering and disturbing the public and the traffic order.
The Lufeng City Public Security Bureau announced in the early morning of September 13, 2016, that those 13 Wukan villagers had been making and spreading rumors. They incited, planned, blackmailed and coerced some other villagers to gather illegally in order to disturb the public, traffic, and the school and business order. “To safeguard the interests of the masses, restore normal production and life, the local police took action according to the law and arrested them for a trial.”
Souce: Xinhua News Agency, September 13, 2016
http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2016-09/13/c_1119558191.htm
Xinhua published an article about a recent study of the children in rural areas who have been left behind. According to a notice from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Education and Public Security, from March through July, 2016, a nationwide study was conducted on the left-behind children in rural areas. The data is being consolidated and will be published soon. The definition of left-behind children in rural areas refers to children living in rural areas who are less than 16 years old and who have been left behind when either or both parents left to work in urban areas or when one of the parents left but the other one is incapable of caring for the child. Based just on the data from Jiangsu, Fujian and Hubei provinces, the population of left-behind children was 242,000, 105,176 and 11,000 respectively in those provinces. Some of them were reported to be living alone by themselves. The article stated that each year close to 50,000 children die in accidents. Most of these are left-behind children. In recent years the media has reported cases of sexual assault, drug overdose, and suicide. At least 24 provinces and cities have published policies to protect these children and to require that children below the age of 16 years cannot live alone.
Source: Xinhua, August 28, 2016
http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2016-08/28/c_129258642.htm