About 3,080 county public security bureau directors will go through a 10 day intensive training in Beijing in the next 6 months, a first in Chinese history, said China Public Security Ministry official. Starting from Feb 28, these public security officials will be in class in 7 separate groups. The first group has 425 Directors. The instructors at the training sessions in Beijing include Vice Minister of Public Security and other top Party officials. The top public security bureau directors expressed in class discussions that their biggest headache is social unrests. 2009 will be a high season for social unrests, according to Xinhua.

Source:
Xinhua, February 27, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-02/27/content_10906810.htm
Nanfang Daily, February 26, 2009
http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/nfzm/200902260135.asp

On March 2, Monday, at a press conference of China’s Political Consultative Conference, the Communist Party’s showpiece political event, a Voice of America reporter questioned the government response to letters written by Tiananmen Mothers, families of 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre victims.

According to Hong Kong based Mingpao report, it caused a “commotion” among the audience. Zhao Qizheng, the spokesperson replied with “Chinese government has had a clear conclusion on the political disturbance in 1980’s.” While CCTV was live broadcasting the whole press conference, it immediately switched to another program when the Q&A started. In the following Xinhua news, that part was also blacked out.

Source: Voice of America, March 3, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/w2009-03-03-voa39.cfm

An article titled “Hillary Visits China: Economy Ahead of Human Right, Cooperation over Discrepancy” on Xinhua’s website applauds Hillary Clinton’s realism in her China visit. The article says “Human rights issue was out of the focus at the top level meeting between China and U.S. demonstrates that the balance of China and U.S.’s mutual influence has materially changed. Now U.S.’s need of China is increasing. … U.S. can not possibly be as hard-lined as before. At the same time, more and more of the core interest of both countries are overlapped. Many issues require the cooperation of both countries to resolve. As compared to the big countries’ cooperation, human rights issue naturally becomes less important.” The article also quoted the comment by Professor Xiong Zhiyong from China Foreign Affairs University, saying “Hillary Clinton’s statement is realistic, and is the right choice of U.S.’s China policy. It is worth other Western countries to follow.”

Source: Xinhua, Feb. 23, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2009-02/23/content_10875221.htm

As of February 26, over 50.4 million Chinese have renounced their affiliations with Chinese Communist Party at a web site of Epoch Times. Since the November 2004 release of an editorial series Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party by The Epoch Times, Quit the Party has become the biggest push ever for freedom in China. There have been numerous news reports that the Beijing authorities have arrested, tortured and killed people for distributing and possession of the editorial series. According to Epoch Times, these withdrawals run deep into the heart of the Party as its upper echelon including diplomats, general Party secretaries and other high-ranking officials are among those who publicly sever their ties with the Party.

Source: Epoch Times
http://tuidang.epochtimes.com/
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/t/quitting-the-chinese-communist-party/