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Chinese Language Rises Amid Financial Crisis

The fourth annual Confucius Institute will be held in Beijing December 11 to 13. As a press conference for the event, Xu Lin, the Director of the state agency Hanban, and The Chinese Language Council International under Ministry of Education, commented that the impact on Confucius Institutes and overseas Chinese language promotion is counter-cyclical. 

Xu, also the Executive Director of the Headquarters of the Confucius Institute, explained that as China has not been hit hard by the financial crisis, and many foreigners wanted to learn how Chinese deal with the crisis, the demand for Chinese language learning has been increasing. 
According to the data provided by Hanban, by the end of 2008, 249 Confucius Institutes have been established in 78 countries. Within the crisis year of 2009, 33 more Confucius Institutes and 10 more countries were added. The theme of this year’s annual conference is “Confucius Institutes and Community Service.” 
Source: Huanqiu, December 4, 2009
http://world.huanqiu.com/roll/2009-12/651395.html

Another Human Rights Lawyer Illegally Sentenced to Prison

According to a December 28, 2009, NTDTV news report, On October 27, 2009, the Shahekou District Court, Dalian City sentenced a human rights lawyer, Wang Yonghang, to seven years in prison, because of allegations that he published articles on foreign websites. His lawyers have not been allowed to meet with him.

In 2008, Wang published an open letter to the Chinese Communist Party President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao on an overseas website, saying that it is illegal to persecute Falun Gong. In July 2009, officers from the Dalian Domestic Security Division kidnapped and tortured him, leaving him with a fractured ankle. Authorities have also harassed his wife, Yu Xiaoyan, and the two lawyers who are trying to represent him.

Source: NTDTV, November 28, 2009
http://www.ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2009/11/28/a380498.html 

Made in China Experiencing Three Tribulations Overseas

According to a Xinhua’s International Herald Leader’s article on December 3, 2009, Chinese products have been experiencing three tribulations overseas: exposure of the tainted products, becoming anti-dumping targets, and being misinterpreted by those wearing “tinted glasses.”

Toxic toothpaste, tainted toys, poisonous dumplings and milk … have led Chinese products into a “poisonous” crisis. Meanwhile, Chinese products are becoming “anti-dumping” targets due to the cheap price supported by cheap labor. In addition, westerners view Chinese goods with tinted glasses, labeling “Made in China” as a “China’s foreign economic expansion tool” and blaming Chinese businessmen because they never consider social values such as human rights, environment and safety issues.

Source: Xinhua’s International Herald Leader, December 3, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2009-12/03/content_12580393.htm

H1N1 Influenza Outbreaks in People’s Liberation Army

China News Net reported that the outbreaks of H1N1 influenza have significantly increased since the autumn season started, according to the Department of Defense web site. Zhang Yan-ling, the Health Minister of the PLA General Logistics Department reported that up to now, 51 outbreaks have occurred in the PLA. Recently, some army divisions have had at least one hundred or even hundreds of individuals simultaneously sick with H1N1 influenza. The prevention and control of the disease is very difficult.

Source: China News Service, December 4, 2009
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/news/2009/12-04/1999546.shtml

International Herald Leader: Western Countries Lecturing China on Democracy Should Stop

Westerner’s "Democracy Lectures" to China Should Stop
Zhu Xiangchun, the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs

(International Herald Leader, September 12) During the seminar entitled “China and the World – Perception and Truth,” the German organizers, disregarding China’s resolute opposition, insisted on welcoming “dissidents” to join, although the Chinese participants did not welcome them. The Chinese representatives angrily withdrew in protest. Once the organizers apologized on the spot, they came back. However, a number of German parliamentarians and the German media made a big deal about this and even slandered (the Chinese representatives) as “dictator’s representatives.” These actions from the German side not only cast a shadow on the Frankfurt Book Fair, where China would be the country that was guest of honor in the coming October, but also once again exposed the Westerner’s old-fashioned thinking and psychology of condescension toward China and lecturing China on “democracy.” 

Although the cold war ended many years ago, the Western’s perception of China is still full of ambivalence. Even for an ordinary thing involving China, Western society’s imagination can run wild, and even distort the facts and spread rumors. This seminar was originally for creating a good atmosphere for the Frankfurt Book Fair, but Western society obstinately linked it with China’s “democracy” and “human rights” and eventually formed a wave of criticizing and slandering China. This move implied that they had deeply-rooted misconceptions and prejudice toward China. It showed that the Western countries advertised themselves as “listening to different voices,” objective, and democratic, but they secretly looked at us through a pair of “colored glasses.”

Since the industrial revolution, Western society has always possessed a sense of superiority – they are the best among various cultures and system arrangements in human society. That should be a universal truth. The Soviet Union’s collapse marked the so-called “end of history” for a number of Westerners and the Western democratic system would be the “final form” of human society’s evolution. This has been the most arrogant voice from the Western communities about its democratic system. Even today, they have not completely changed that mentality and psychology. With three decades of reform and opening, China’s rapid development has caught the world’s attention, and its economic scale has leapt to third in the world. This makes many Western countries feel uncomfortable, if not fearful.

Western society is used to making trouble in the name of “democracy,” but it is not really a simple matter of being considerate of others. They call themselves “moral guardians” in the international community and dominate the international voices to serve their economic interests and political plots. Because of the long-term negative propaganda in Western society during the Cold War, the Western public not only has limited understanding of China but their minds are full of prejudice. Digging out China’s “dark side” has also become a way for some Western media and politicians to seize political capital and constantly please the public. This has even gone to the level of, “Whoever hates China the most ruthlessly is the most likable.”

The Western’s democratic system slogan seems very appealing, but history has relentlessly proven that the results of imposing Western democracy are often frustrating, and even catastrophic. Until now, none of the developing countries have realized their modernization through “grafting” on Western democracy.

Today, not only is China’s development visible, but also it bears the international responsibility as a super power. If the Western communities turn a blind eye [to China] and keep making trouble, they will eventually lose their credibility with the Chinese public.

We advise those so-called “democracy fighters” that the “democracy lectures” to China must stop! This is just like what Mei Zhaorong, the former president of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and the former Chinese Ambassador, who attended the seminar, said, “We are here for exchanging views, not for democracy classes, which are already outdated."

Endnotes:
[1] International Herald Leader, Sept 21, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2009-09/21/content_12087947.htm
[2] For a description of the Book Fair event, see also:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009111story_1-11-2009_pg3_4
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KJ27Ad02.html
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/16672
[3] The Frankfurt Book Fair, which featured China as “guest of honor,” began on October 14. In September, two Chinese writers, journalist Dai Qing and poet Bei Ling, had their invitations revoked after China complained. Their books about the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement and the Three Gorges Dam are banned in China. The German PEN club of independent writers, however, invited them anyway. Envoys of the Dalai Lama and Uyghur pro-independence advocate Rebiya Kadeer, were also present. Fair organizers had invited Liao Yiwu, who wrote a book on China’s underprivileged, The Corpse Walker, as well as essays about the survivors and victims of last year’s earthquake in Sichuan, but Beijing refused to lift his travel ban.
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This article is in response to media outside of China. The above Canada Free Press article stated, for example, “The Chinese government’s effort to prevent dissident authors from taking part in the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair, an international showcase for freedom of expression, has offered Germany a close-up view of China’s intolerance of dissent.”

Eight-Episode TV Documentary Series: Preparing for Danger in Times of Safety, Episode Seven

{Editor’s Note: In June 2006, Beijing released an eight-episode TV documentary series: Preparing For Danger In Times Of Safety – Historic Lessons Learned from the Demise of Soviet Communism. It was a research project conducted by the government think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Science. Afterwards, the Chinese Communist Party instructed party members across the nation to watch the series and launch serious discussions. The script of the prelude of the documentary quotes Hu Jintao’s words, “There are multiple factors contributing to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a very important one being Khrushchev throwing away Stalin’s knife and Gorbachev’s open betrayal of Marxism-Leninism.” The full text of the narratives has been translated. What follows is the seventh episode.}

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China’s National Defense to Protect its Intellectual Property

China will implement an intellectual property strategy in national defense, stated a Chinese military official at a military IP strategy meeting. “A Defense Intellectual Property Strategy Implementation Plan will be carried out across the board in the areas of national defense, IT, and munitions building. The plan has set clear short-term goals for 2015 and long-term goals for 2020, with 19 specific tasks.” The short-term goal is that more than 10,000 patent applications will be filed by 2015. By 2020 China will own a group of independent intellectual property rights in the key technical fields of weapons and equipment and in the field of integration of military and civilian high-tech.

Source: Xinhua, December 2, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-12/02/content_12575240.htm