Social Stability - 99. page

Hundreds of Chinese veterans broke through the government’s containment at all levels on Wednesday and held demonstrations in front of the Beijing Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. They demanded a better solution to their resettlement problems. How can these soldiers be able to organize protest demonstrations of considerable size at the sensitive time before the 19th Congress when Chinese society is so tightly controlled? Will the difficulties that these Chinese veterans have weaken the army’s loyalty to the regime? What will be the impact on the turbulent Chinese society? To answer these questions, VOA invited a group of Chinese scholars to participate in a live discussion.

Yang Jianli, founder of the Human rights organization “Citizen Power” said that for veterans to safeguard their rights is not a new phenomenon. Over the past 20 years, veterans have gone to Beijing to petition three times a year on average. Petitions in the provinces and cities are countless. The Chinese Communist Party at the highest level has always taken military stability as the last guarantee of power. To this end, Xi Jinping has taken great efforts to clean up military corruption. Even so, the army is not necessarily stable.

Gao Wenqian, author of the book The Chronicle of Zhou Enlai, said that many veterans can successfully go to Beijing to petition. In China’s extremely tight stability-maintenance system, it is impossible not to keep the petition plan a secret without leakage. One cannot rule out the possibility that someone will deliberately leak the information and bring the veterans “troubles” to Beijing (in order to) vent their dissatisfaction with the military reform.

Famous political commentator and writer Chen PuoKong said that there is a possibility that, behind the scenes, Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption, military reform, and the disarmament of 300,000 military personnel caused dissatisfaction among the entire military. One cannot rule out that Xi Jinping’s enemies within the Party and the military intended to attack him by encouraging veterans to make trouble, to create difficulties for Xi, and to cause problems for this year’s Two Conferences or the 19th Congress.

Source: VOA, February 24, 2017
http://www.voachinese.com/a/ProandCon-20170224-Chinese-military-veterans-stage-protests-in-Beijing-over-pensions/3738523.html

In doing research for his new book, Consideration of (Post-Communist) China’s Constitution, Chinese lawyer Gao Zhisheng reported a conversation that enlightened him about how government cadres are not subject to the law. A retired vice president from the Xinjiang High Court told him, “In our country, once the leader reaches a position at a certain level, he no longer needs the law. His power can solve all problems. Only those who are helpless would take the route of a lawsuit.” Continue reading →

Radio Free Asia (RFA) and the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily each reported recently that the Chinese environmental protection agency asked the owner of the mobile app “Air Matters” to “fix” the app so that it will not display the air pollution index numbers once they reach a certain level. The app displays air pollution index values based on officially released government data. However, the app did make it significantly easier for average citizens to obtain pollution level information. The app uses Chinese standard measures to display the data and it is also capable of interpreting the data using other standards such as the U.S., the British, and even the Indian standards. The Chinese authorities have been saying that it is “obviously unreasonable” to use a foreign standard to measure Chinese data. The event triggered a massive discussion online among Chinese netizens. Most posted comments such as, “The government is unable to fix the smog pollution over a long period of time; however, it can fix the app writer’s <ability> to show the pollution level very swiftly.” The government has subsequently also blocked any comments on this news.

Sources:
Radio Free Asia, January 9, 2017
http://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/app-01092017091756.html
Apple Daily, January 8, 2017
http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/20170108/1030719/

Well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that, according to both Chinese criminal and civil courts, the Chinese branch of the famous German dyestuff and chemical manufacturer DyStar committed a crime when it released 2,698 tons of waste acid into a river without using the proper cleansing process. In 2010, China’s Zhejiang Longsheng Group acquired the DyStar Group. A Chinese management team then managed its Chinese Nanjing branch. In 2010, the branch stopped processing the waste acid. Instead, it subcontracted a third-party company to handle the waste; that company did not perform the job. The third-party company owner bribed the Chinese management team of DyStar Nanjing, who admitted participating in the destruction of physical evidence. After the courts ruled, the ultimate parent company, the Longsheng Group, hired a dedicated manager from outside China to upgrade the administration of pollution control.

Source: Sina, January 5, 2017
http://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/gsnews/2017-01-05/doc-ifxzkfuh5324320.shtml

Xinhua recently reported that heavy smog covered the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region starting on December 16. The situation worsened on the 19th. Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei Province, suffered a record high pollution level of over 1000 for both PM2.5 and PM10 indexes. Some monitoring stations even recorded 1015 for PM2.5 and 1132 for PM10. Ten cities in Hebei Province declared Code Red emergency status. Hebei is the province that surrounds Beijing. Its capital city Shijiazhuang is only 163 miles away from Beijing.

PM2.5 particles are air pollutants with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, small enough to invade even the smallest airways. These particles generally come from activities that burn fossil fuels, such as traffic, smelting, and metal processing. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers a PM2.5 number below 25 to be safe. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing recorded a PM2.5 of 522 on December 4, 2011. Not long after that, China started monitoring the level of PM2.5. New York’s PM2.5 peak level was 68 on October 5, 2013. <Editor’s note: DW reported that, according to a scientific paper published by the independent research group Berkeley Earth, bad air contributes to 1.6 million deaths a year or roughly 17 percent of all deaths in China; a study reported in the New York Times indicated that, in 2013, 916,000 deaths were related to PM2.5 exposure.>

Source: Xinhua, December 19, 2016
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2016-12/19/c_1120144849.htm
DW, August 17, 2015
http://www.dw.com/en/how-smog-is-killing-thousands-daily-in-china/a-18653814
New York Times, August 17, 2016

On October 30, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Ministry of Supervision website published the results of the anti-corruption initiative regarding the international pursuit of stolen goods. Since the office for the international pursuit of stolen goods was set up under the Central Anti-Corruption Coordination Group in 2014, China has launched the special actions of “Skynet 2015” and “Skynet 2016.” As of September 2016, more than 2210 fugitives, including 363 government staff members, had been captured and returned to China from 70 countries and regions. The amount recovered was 7.994 billion yuan (US$1.18 billion). Among the Interpol issued red arrest warrants for 100 suspected criminals who were government workers, 35 have been arrested. A total of 19 were returned from Western developed countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The 100 red warrant suspects came from 23 provinces and cities. Most of them were from Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and other coastal provinces in the southeast.

Source: People’s Daily, October 31, 2016
http://legal.people.com.cn/n1/2016/1031/c42510-28819554.html