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China Petroleum Plans Massive Layoff

State-own China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is estimated to be cutting up to 10,000 employees in the Beijing area alone by the end of October, reported Xinhua.   This year is considered the most difficult year for both CNPC and Sinopec.  CNPC’s August 28 interim report shows a 39% decline in pre-tax income from the previous reporting period.  On July 25, CNPC indicated that company-wide layoffs would reach 80,000 in the next three years.  The move was viewed as one to control cost and loosen financial pressure.  The company’s Tianjin and Hebei subsidiaries have already started layoffs, with Beijing to follow in October and Shanghai next year.  Northeastern China will be the last since it is CNPC’s major base.  To prevent employee complaints, a group of senior officials close to retirement has been tasked with implementing the downsizing.

Source: Xinhua, September 4, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2008-09/04/content_976933.htm

Study Times Calls for Innovative Thinking in the Military

The publication of the Party School of the Communist Party, Study Times, published an article on September 1 entitled “Take Ideology into the Military Transformation.” The article states, “The key to carrying out and promoting military transformation is innovation. Ideology leads action.  People are the main body of the innovation.”  The article cited U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, Admiral William Owens and Admiral Arthur K Cebrowski as examples of such innovation.

Source:  Study Times, September 1, 2008
http://www.studytimes.com.cn/WebPage/ny1.aspx?act=1&id=2096&nid=7517&bid=7&page=1

China’s Military General: No Country is Ready to Fight Against China

An article circulating on the Internet, has quoted claims made by Peng Guangqian, Military General of the Chinese Academy of Military Science: there are few countries that are able to fight a war against China; no country is ready to do that. Peng said that China’s military defense power has made major progress in the past decades. “Even if there are few countries that are able to fight against us, little is assured that those countries will survive even when they defeat China.”

Peng also pointed out that China’s military strategy is gradually shifting its focus from protecting the nation’s interest to surviving during a war. He said the adjustment is moving towards protecting the interest in the development of the country.

Source: Qiang Guo Forum, People’s Daily, September, 3, 2008
http://www.chnqiang.com/article/2008/0903/article_36580.shtml

Li Peng, the Former Prime Minister, is Seriously Ill

Li Peng, the former prime minister, was not present at the funeral service held for Hua Guofeng two days ago. Unverified sources disclosed that Li has been seriously ill after he suffered a stroke earlier this year. It was said that the Propaganda Department has started to draft Li’s death annoucement and was carefully picking out the words for fear of heightened response with the 20th anniversary of the June 4th student movement in 2009.

Source: Boxun, September 1,2008
http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/china/2008/09/200809011525.shtml

Beijing Kicks Off ‘People’s War’ Against Terrorism

For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), terrorists are not really scary, but instead all the kinds of social conflicts piled up in China and their great threats against the authorities are. Olympic security gives the CCP a pompous reason to suppress different kinds of groups against them. Starting the “People’s War” actually establishes a “one-on-one” surveillance system at the grassroots level around the nation. If any unstable factor occurs at its early stage, it could be suppressed right away. Below is the translation of the article on the “people’s war” against terrorism published on Xinhua News Net. [1]

Beijing Kicks Off ‘People’s War’ Against Terrorism

By Intern Reporter Deng Yuan and Reporter Xiao Deng of International Pioneer Newspaper from Beijing

Silver high-voltage wires are standing crowdedly along the road and you can spot a security guard post every ten meters [33 feet] apart. The armed army police patrol, march, or stand in soldier poses, watching alertly at the vehicles passing by.

That was the scene that Chen Mei saw at the Beijing Capital Airport Highway on her way from Beijing to Xi’an on July 16, 2008. “Very shocking!” she said. “With this kind of scale of security force, the international athletes should feel secure and worry-free in Beijing.”

Not only the army police are at action. On July 17, 2008, the Chinese Public Safety Department Anti-Terrorism Bureau printed and distributed “Citizens on Prevention of Terrorism Attack Pamphlet” which guides the citizens on how to discover terrorists and prevent the dangers of terrorist attacks. “Stimulate the whole society to participate in anti-terrorism activities, you may say this is a people’s war against terrorism,” famous anti-terrorism expert and the director of the China Modern International Relationship Research Academy Safety and Strategy Research Institute, Li Wei, told the International Pioneer Newspaper.

Citizen Anti-Terrorism Pamphlet Out Before Olympics

The Public Safety Department Anti-Terrorism Bureau organized dedicated professionals to write and edit the “Citizens on Prevention of Terrorism Attack Pamphlet.” It focuses on how citizen could discover, distinguish, and react to terrorists and their activities. It designs a total of 39 scenarios, such as how to react when encountering explosions; arson; gun shots; kidnappings; chemical, biological and radiation attacks; how to save oneself and save each other in emergencies; how to distinguish suspicious explosive materials; etc.  
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The pamphlet also reminds the citizens of seven “No”s when encountering arson so to reduce the damage by the largest scale. The seven “No”s include “Don’t panic,” “Don’t cry blindly,” “Don’t be attached to money or belongings,” “Don’t open the door or window randomly,” “Don’t ride on the elevator,” “Don’t run randomly,” and “Don’t jump out of buildings easily.” The contents relate closely with ordinary citizens. It describes details of emergency situations easily happening in daily life and the citizens’ reaction strategies.

It was reported by Xinhua News Agency that the pamphlet reminds how to distinguish the suspicious explosive materials: under the condition of not touching the suspicious materials, first see, second listen, and third smell. If you smell the smell of the rotten eggs, it could be black power; if you smell the smell of ammonia, it could be ammonia dynamite.

“The knowledge in the pamphlet is very close to daily life and it very easy to operate,” some media commented. But from Li Wei’s point of view, the introduction of this pamphlet is right on time, since the Public Safety Department Anti-Terrorism Bureau put it on its agenda when it was founded. “How to utilize the public for anti-terrorism is a long-term question in the mind of related departments,” Li Wei said, pushing this pamphlet to the public before the Olympic games with no question of the benefits of utilizing the whole society’s power to eliminate terrorism at its early stages.

Whole Society in Action on Anti-Terrorism

In fact, before this professional pamphlet was published, the whole society’s atmosphere on anti-terrorism in Beijing had started to grow and move out.

Xu Rui is a pulmonary internal medicine doctor from the Beijing Fengtai Hospital living in Shijinghshang District in Beijing. From the middle of June 2008, she went to work half an hour earlier than her regular schedule, since she had an extra task in the mornings at her hospital: study the “Medical Guide on How to Deal with Nuclear Terror.”

At the beginning of July 2007, Xu Rui and her colleagues, along with other medical workers from other hospitals, all participated in the test on anti-nuclear terror knowledge for the Olympics and Paralympics organized by the Beijing Hygiene Bureau. Talking about the half-month study, Xu Rui said, “Getting to know a lot about how to deal with the nuclear terror attack, most of the emergency methods could be quickly reacted. Even if I encountered an emergency situation now, I would not be panicked.”

Besides the medical workers, every Olympic volunteer also has a copy of “Medical Knowledge and Emergency Rescue.”
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Liao Nan, an Olympic volunteer from Renmin University of China, was in training for the second time. She got up at 7 a.m. sharp every morning and returned to her dormitory at
6 p.m. She was reciting the stadium “Emergency Exiting Routine” for the last two days. “Although we are not going to participate in the anti-terrorism drill, we still have to recite the emergency exiting routine,” she said. “This way, when danger occurs, we volunteers would be able to stay calm and strictly follow the routine.”
 
At every subway station in Beijing, all kinds of safety routines are set. “Fellow student, please put your bag in the screening machine,” a staff member politely reminded Yu Min when she was carrying a bag of print materials going into a subway station. “I heard two beeps, a fruit knife was found in a person’s bag,” Yu Min said. “That person was allowed to enter the subway after giving up that [knife].”

On July 20, 2008, the first day that Beijing started to implement the odd-even car plate rules, the cars on the street were much fewer than usual. Staff with red arm bands were much more. I trotted on the street for a while. On West Xuanwumen Road, one elderly man was happily talking to his coworkers about his “patrol work.”

Early this year, Zhang Yue, the former deputy director of the Beijing Police Department, was transferred to be the director of the Hebei Province Police Department. Experts interpreted this change as “a very important arrangement for the reinforcement of the Beijing-Hebei alliance for the safety of the Olympics.” Now, the barricades were set up on the roads at most villages in Hebei Province. Strange vehicles were not allowed to enter the villages. Some new safety equipment was set up on the main roads going through Beijing.

The whole society’s consciousness and atmosphere on anti-terrorism is quietly spreading from the center, Beijing.

Government Leads Whole Society on Anti-Terrorism

When talking about the stronger and stronger whole-society’s atmosphere on anti-terrorism, Li Wei, on his business trip in Luo Yang, felt really happy.

Since 2001, the Chinese government set up anti-terrorism agencies at different levels, one after another. The Foreign Minister also set up a section responsible for overall overseas security matters. The anti-terrorism system keeps getting better and better. “But these are still far from enough,” Li Wei said. According to international anti-terrorism experience, anti-terrorism is not only the government’s responsibility, but also closely related to the public, since “the targets of terrorist attacks would first be everyday people.”
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Li Wei pointed out that anti-terrorism has two aspects, one is the elimination of the existing terrorists and terrorist organizations, and another is the elimination of the source that nurtures the terrorism. For the first one, it mainly depends on government agencies, including intelligence, police, public safety, army police, and even army to attack them. But no matter how strong these anti-terrorism agencies are, they all have their limits. “These special professionals could not expand without limits, neither could they reach every aspect in society.”

On the other hand, if the public improve their consciousness, it would suppress terrorist groups’ purpose to panic the public. “Government leads, the public participates, the combination of two would eliminate the source of terrorists,” Li Wei said.

So, what can everyday people do? Li Wei believes that the power of people would be shown on powerful monitoring and prevention, “such as, people could discover suspicious persons, things, or incidents around them and report to the anti-terrorist security agencies, that would be a very efficient way of public anti-terrorism.”

[1] Endnote: Xinhua, July 22, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2008-07/22/content_8743975.htm

Death Toll from Sichuan Earthquake Reaches 38

As of September 2, 2008, the death toll from a 6.1-magnitude earthquake in Penzhihua, Sichuan Province on August 30 rose to 38, with 589 injured. The official Xinhua news agency reported that 941,000 of the population were affected, 181,2000 were evacuated and 392,000 homes were destroyed. A 7.9- magnitude earthquake hit the southwestern province on May 12, killing 69,226 people and leaving 15 million homeless.

Source: Xinhua, September 2, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-08/31/content_9743676.htm

Thirteen Falun Gong Videos Made the Top 100 Most-Viewed during Olympics

Alleyinsider reports that according to TubeMogul , which tracks video views across 20 sites, including YouTube, Revver, Dailymotion and Metacafe, 13 videos from Falun Gong sources were among the top 100 most-viewed during the first week of the Beijing Olympics, netting 3.5 million views. And it had four videos among the top 100 the following week, netting 1 million views. It’s the first time Falun Gong has had any video in the top 100 since TubeMogul started keeping track in 2006. Until the opening day of the Olympics Falun Gong videos had netted a mere 95,000 views.

Source: Alleyinsider.com, August 25, 2008 http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/another-olympics-gold-medalist-banned-chinese-sect-falun-gong

China’s State Media Attacks German Media following Suspension of Chinese Reporter by Deutsche Welle

After a Chinese reporter Zhang Danhong in Deutsche Welle (Voice of Germany) was suspended due to her pro-communist comments a week ago, China’s state media Xinhua reacted strongly, emphasizing the incident. Xinhua has published a series of articles to defend her comments and attack Western media’s “press freedom.” Xinhua says that Ms. Zhang was suspended because of her “pro-China” comments; (she) incurred danger due to telling the “truth.” Xinhua makes its point by quoting a Chinese person’s reaction: “Germany’s media can not even allow such an (objective and just) person, we can see how horrible this country’s media (freedom) environment has become.”

Source: Xinhua, September 2, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2008-09/02/content_9753429.htm