Chinascope – Page 1043

Schools Use Students for Profit-making

On July 5, 2011, a Shenzhen local newspaper published a report calling public attention to the fact that some college and graduate students have become tools for making a profit. The article gives a few examples: graduate students call their advisor “boss” and spend a lot of time as cheap labor working on their advisor’s research and projects; in Xi’an, a music college forces poor female students to dance with bankers; the Nanjing Normal University forces female students to dance with government officials. Quite often, the college and university’s administrators use not issuing a diploma to force students into submission.

A Shenzhen Security Services Company pays a monthly stipend of 1,600 yuan to each student intern, who in the end only receives 600 yuan; the Guangxi Institute of Technology, where the students are from, takes the rest. By listing these non-isolated cases, the article concludes that the relationship between the school and student has degenerated into a commercial relationship.

Source: Jing Bao, July 5, 2011
http://jb.sznews.com/html/2011-07/05/content_1645975.htm

Briefings | | July 13, 2011 | Grapevine

Natural Disasters in China in the First Half of 2011

In the first half of 2011, natural disasters in mainland China, such as drought, flooding, snow, earthquakes, and tropical storms, left 449 people dead and 100 missing and caused the evacuation of 2.964 million people from their homes, damage to 1.15 million houses, and the collapse of 274,000 buildings. The disasters affected a total of 25.52 million hectares of crops, among which 1.93 million hectares of crops were completely ruined. The direct economic loss is estimated to be 142 billion yuan ($US21.8 billion). The disasters included frequent earthquakes, multiple disasters in the same region, and recurrent adverse weather conditions.

Source: China News Service, July 9, 2011
http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2011/07-09/3169744.shtml

Briefings | | July 13, 2011 | Economy/Resources

Swedish Student Expelled for Attempting to Organize a Public Rally

On July 9, Chinese authorities deported a Swedish student Sven Englund, who was studying at Fudan University in Shanghai, for attempting to organize a public rally on July 1, 2011, the 90th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party. On his microblogging page, Englund invited Chinese president Hu Jintao to come to the Bund to attend a really that called for freedom. Before the deportation, Fudan University had invited him for a “coffee talk.” Shanghai’s police also followed, monitored, and interrogated him. The authorities charged him with “involvement in jeopardizing social management." The 24-year-old student is now back in Sweden.

Source: Voice of America, July 10, 2011
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/news/20110710-SWEDISH-STUDENT-125286958.html

Briefings | | July 13, 2011 | Government/Politics

Zhou Yongkang Reemphasizes the Party’s Control over Judicial System

In a speech recently delivered by Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and head of the CCP’s Committee of Political And Legislative Affairs, Zhou repeated the importance of Hu Jintao’s speech given at the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party and emphasized that the Party must maintain “absolute control” over the judicial systems, which includes the police, the armed police, the procurator system, and the court system. Zhou called for “political firmness, purity and strong fighting strength.”

Source: Xinhua, July 2, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2011-07/02/c_121614063.htm

Briefings | | July 12, 2011 | Government/Politics

Guangming: Japan’s Cost for Supporting U.S. Bases Higher Than Its Military Budget

On July 3, 2011, Guangming Daily published an article on what it costs Japan to support U.S. military bases in Japan. The article reported that the United States has had military bases in Japan since the end of World War II. Currently there are 41,000 American troops stationed there. According to the treaties Japan has with the U.S., the U.S. is responsible for defending Japan and Japan is responsible for providing land and facilities at no charge. The article further described the items that Japan pays for: (1) handling the issues in areas surrounding the U.S. bases; (2) the rental cost of public and private land; (3) the cost of moving facilities and equipment; and (4) other costs such as compensating fishermen for the inconvenience caused by the military exercises. After 1978, Japan started paying the Japanese citizens who worked on the bases, as well as some repair and maintenance costs. The article calculated the total amount the Japanese government spent on the U.S. bases in 2009 and concluded that it was higher than the U.S. share and higher than Japan’s own military budget.

Source: Guangming Daily, July 3, 2011
http://mil.gmw.cn/2011-07/03/content_2169921.htm

Briefings | | July 12, 2011 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Xinhua: A Regrettable Ruling

Xinhua recently reported that a WTO group of experts issued a “rule violation” conclusion after investigating China’s imposition of restrictions on the export of several raw materials. Xinhua called it a “regrettable ruling,” citing the need for China to protect the environment. In the year 2009, the U.S., the European Union, and Mexico jointly filed the WTO complaint for China’s taking “unfair advantage.” The materials in question are bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon metal, silicon carbide, phosphorus, and zinc. China tried to explain the “export restrictions” as “administrative means.” The report suggested the current mining process used in China results in significant pollution. The new “enhanced management” is designed to improve the sustainability of providing the resources to the world market.

Source: Xinhua, July 6, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2011-07/06/c_121632341.htm

Briefings | | July 12, 2011 | Economy/Resources

Tsinghua Students Called on to Study Socialist Core Values & Political Ideology

On June 30, Li Changchun, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, visited Tsinghua University. Li called on the university to “improve the quality of education and persistently strengthen and renew political ideology education so as to speed up Tsinghua’s progress in advancing toward being a world first class university.”

Li said that universities should launch education programs for students to learn about contemporary history so they can understand "how history and people chose Marxism, the Communist Party, the socialist path, and the open and reform policy. … Therefore, they will be able to form a firm belief in walking the socialist path with Chinese characteristics under the leadership of the Communist Party."

Source: Xinhua, July 1, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2011-07/01/c_121608015.htm

Briefings | | July 11, 2011 | Government/Politics

BBC Chinese: China’s Internet Blocks Rumors of Jiang Zemin’s Death

An article in BBC Chinese reported that, “China’s Internet police have apparently blocked discussions about Jiang Zemin, the formal Party Secretary.” The BBC Chinese said, “On July 1, while many formal top party leaders including the formal Prime Minister Li Peng and Zhu Rongji appeared at the celebration ceremony of the Party’s 90th anniversary, Jiang, who is 84, was not present. This led to the rumor that Jiang was seriously ill or has passed away.”

According to BBC, on July 6, a BBC reporter logged on to the Sina website and typed “Jiang Zemin.” A message came back stating, “According to the related legal rules and policy, your search results cannot be displayed.” A list of Chinese words including “heart attack,” and “Party Secretary” were also blocked. Even the word “Yangtze” and other river related words were blocked because the Chinese characters contains the characters for “Jiang,” the same name as the former Party Secretary. BBC said that several Hong Kong media sources from Beijing disclosed that Jiang suffered a massive heart attack and was hospitalized at the PLA 301 hospital where many top party leaders have paid visits.

Source: BBC Chinese, July 6, 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/chinese_news/2011/07/110706_jiang_censor.shtml

Briefings | | July 11, 2011 | Government/Politics

China’s Reaction to Trump’s Election Win

Xinhua Commentary Series: Spotlight on the U.S. Presidential Election

Wu Guoguang: Xi Jinping’s Reversal of the Course, Will China’s Transition be Peaceful or Marked with Bloodshed?

Cheng Xiaonong: U.S.-China Strategic Relations Have Crystallized