CHINA – POLITICS
Google threatens to withdraw from china
On January 12th, Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, attracted international attention when he wrote on blog that Google recently faces cyber attacks originating from China , Google is “no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn”, “we recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China”. Rumours have been spread that Google shut down its China office already and all staff received half-year salary as competition. On Jan 18, Google said in a statement that “Google China employees are now back at work and it’s business as usual.” On Jan 21, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged China to investigate a wave of cyber attacks against Google and other companies in a speech on Internet freedom and security. “In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all,” she said.
Chinese netizens “have been seizing in animated fashion on what one called ‘the last crazy days of Google.cn’”. Tsinghua students joked that they’d better download all internet information they wanted now just in case Google left China. Some are saying, “How am I going to live without Google?” But netizen Jiang Bojing accused Google of being “hypocritical”. “Google is not naive, or else it won’t have today’s success. Google is just ‘playing the woman’.”
The White House backs Google’s decision to discontinue censorship of search results on google.cn and calls the cyber attacks “troubling”. A spokesperson said “The president has strong beliefs about the universal rights of men and women throughout the globe. Those aren’t carved out for certain countries.”.
While China has “so far publicly fended off Google’s complaints and not openly flagged any talks” with it. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu even pressed the company a little more on Jan 19 in comments that suggested there was little room for giving way to Google’s demands. “Foreign firms in China should respect China’s laws and regulations, and respect China’s public customs and traditions, and assume the corresponding social responsibilities, and of course Google is no exception”. China believes “any decision by Google to withdraw from China will not affect Sino-U.S. trade relations.”
On Jan 13, Xinhua quoted Guo Ke, professor of mass communication at Shanghai International Studies University. He said it was “almost impossible” for Google to quit China and also impossible for the Chinese government to give up its management right over the Internet. “It will not make any difference to the government if Google quits China, however Google will suffer a huge economic loss from leaving the Chinese market,” Guo said.
On Jan 18, China Daily commented, “whatever the real cause for Google’s possible move, this case is purely business in nature and it should have nothing to do with political ideology.” Another opinion article on the same day called Google’s exit threat “a business tactic”. According to a Wall Street Journal blog article, the two China Daily comments “seem to mark a shift in Chinese commentary on the matter, a sign China is seeking to propagate its own narrative of what is happening.”
The Financial Times says, some diplomats in Beijing suspect some of China’s recent rhetorical toughness could be preparing the ground domestically for policy shifts, on the currency, for instance, or on Iran sanction. Wang Dong, an expert on US-Sino relations at Peking University, says leadership is chafing at demands being placed on what it still sees as a developing country. “There is a perception gap between China and US and there is always a huge difference between their expectation and the reality.”
Do people have rights to send 黄段子(dirty jokes) by mobile phone?
Cell phone users in Beijing and Shanghai will not be able to send text messages if they are found to have sent “illegal or unhealthy” content. China Mobile said on its website that the automatic rating is based on “key words” provided by police. And the standard for determining whether a message is unhealthy or not is based on 13 criteria handed down by nine central government departments. When a suspected unhealthy message is detected, China Mobile will temporarily suspend the message function of the user and wait for the evaluation from police authorities, it said. If the police confirm the message contains unhealthy content, the user’s phone number will be temporarily banned from sending messages.
This plan triggered heated bebates online. “Why do citizens not have rights to tell dirty jokes?” a netizen posted his thoughts on tianya.cn and attracted more than 2000 replies. “Speech crime.” “It’s legal for officials to have mistresses and spend government money to sleep with prostitutes, but illegal for the people to tell dirty jokes?” “I bet the next is to tap people’s mobile conversations. What else? I’m expecting.”
Bloggers are mocking and teasing this government decision. Writer Han Han said in his blog article, “I spent a long time to think why on earth those decision-makers are noble. Seems it’s vulgar to spend 100 kuai to sleep with a prostitute, but it’s noble to spend a million to sleep with a celebrity; It’s vulgar to look at “yellow” (黄色, pornographic) pictures, but noble to read red-head documents.” This blog article was read more than 210,000 times, got near 5000 comments.
The Southern Metropolis’s opinion article suggests giving the moral jurisdiction back to people, because it’s hard to judge the “goodwill” of government departments.
The New York Times says the increased surveillance of text messages is the latest in a series of government efforts to severely tighten control of the Internet and other forms of communication. Since late last year, China as closed hundreds of Web sites, including popular file-sharing sites, and limited its citizens’ ability to set up personal Web sites. “It really is quite a program to seize control of all the new forms of media, one by one,” said Jeremy Goldkorn, editor and publisher of Danwei.org, an English-language Web site about the Chinese media and Internet that is currently blocked in China. “It has been a bad half year for censorship.” Chinese authorities say the new restrictions are necessary to root out pornography, piracy and other law-breaking activity on the Internet and in electronic communications. Some analysts suggest that ministries are competing to fulfill the government’s demands for stricter controls.
Liu Xiaobo sentenced to 11 years in jail
Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in jail on Dec 25 for for campaigning for political freedoms, the verdict focuses on his role in organizing Charter 08, says he has the goal of inciting subversion of state power (煽动颠覆国家政权罪).
Diplomats from 15 countries’ embassies in China went to the court but were stopped outside. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement that the verdict cast “an ominous shadow” over China’s commitments to protect human rights. “The conviction and extremely harsh sentencing of Liu Xiaobo mark a further severe restriction on the scope of freedom of expression in China,” she said.
Chinese media in mainland China didn’t report this verdict. Related search results are also blocked, only 2 results on Google.cn (one is on the message board of Guangming Daily calling Liu a traitor; the other appeared in Foreign Ministry Jiang Yu’s briefing comment), 0 result on Baidu. But word swiftly spread on Twitter, which is still blocked in China. The unblockable Chinese twitterers started a “yellow ribbon campaign” to show their support to Liu Xiaobo, by putting a yellow ribbon on their profile image. On the court date, thousands of Chinese netizens kept searching for relative information, which made Chinese key words “Liu Xiaobo”, “Free Liu Xiaobo” and “Liu Xiaobo case” the most searched for a short period. At the same time, more than 10 active twitterers formed “Tweeter Tourist Group” to report the case voluntarily.
HK Ming Pao’s editorial on Dec 26 was titled “Liu Xiaobo can be jailed, people’s pursue of democracy and freedom can’t.” It says China’s economic status actually set a great background for political reform, Chinese government should follow the historical trend of democratization, because high-pressure dictatorship can’t help them to keep their power.
Artist Ai Weiwei tweeted, “Although this is a sentence on Liu Xiaobo alone, it is also a slap on the face for everyone in China.”
VOA Chinese quoted Chinese writer Sha Yexin saying “Liu Xiaobo didn’t subvert the country, the country subverted him.”
In Brief: Mr. Gay China pageant shut down by police
Chinese police shut down the country’s first gay pageant on Jan 15, just an hour before the event due to begin. Organizers were told by the police that the event was not properly licensed.
In Brief: Baidu taken offline by Iranian hackers
Baidu, China’s search engine, became unavailable on Jan 12 after apparently being attacked by Iranian hackers. Internet users attempting to open the site were greeted with a graphic stating that the site had been attacked by the Iranian Cyber Army. According to a report on the People’s Daily website, hackers changed Baidu’s DNS records, redirecting traffic to another site. Baidu on Jan 20 said it filed a suit against Register.com seeking damages, claiming the U.S. Internet service provider was responsible for an interruption at its Web site last week. On Jan 21, Register.com Inc. said the lawsuit is “completely without merit”.
“ How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room”
“Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.” – The Guardian
CHINA – ECONOMY
China raised reserve ratio by 0.5%
China’s central bank moved to tighten monetary policy Tuesday, raising the bank reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage points and slightly increasing the interest rate on its one-year bill by 8 basis points to 1.84 percent. The credit-tightening moves reflect concerns over a possible rise in inflation this year as China’s economy continues to rebound from the global financial crisis, says China Daily.
But the move isn’t a signal of tightening monetary policy, the Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Zhang Jianhua, research head of the People’s Bank of China. It’s normal for the central bank to “appropriately” adjust policy after excessive liquidity was created last year as the government used a moderately loose monetary policy and proactive fiscal policy to tackle the financial crisis. The reserve ratio increase targeted “extra” money instead of liquidity in the real economy, and is a “neutral” tool, Zhang said, according to Xinhua.
People.com.cn says the yuan is likely to appreciate against the United States dollar this week after China raised the bank reserve ratio in an effort to curb liquidity and shift from an overly easy monetary policy. Goldman Sachs said that exchange rates will play a more vital role in policy adjustment, citing a rebound in external demand and a growth in bank loans in the first quarter of this year that may trigger inflation risks.
The decision has drawn worldwide attention and fluctuations in global markets. Majority of Asia-pacific stock market went down on Jan 13.
China’s GDP grows 8.7% in 2009, CPI down 0.7%
China’s economic growth accelerated to 8.7 percent year-on-year in 2009, achieving the full-year growth target of 8 percent and totaling 33.54 trillion yuan ($4.91 trillion), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Jan 21. China’s consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, down 0.7 percent year-on-year in 2009.
CHINA – CULTURE
Book: The Ant Tribe《蚁族》
The Ant Tribe (蚁族) published in Sep 2009 created a hugely popular expression “蚁族” and lots of debates in the past few months. The book focuses on the living condition of Beijing’s 100,000 low-income college graduates, it’s based on two years’ of interviews with about 600 low-income college graduates. The book’s chief editor Lian Si, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing explains the reason why his team named this group “ant tribe”: they are smart, weak and living in groups.
Some statistics from The Ant Tribe:
Age: 95.3% “ants” are post-80s.
Average salary: RMB1956 (EUR203)
Average monthly rent: RMB377 (EUR39)
(Beijing’s average monthly rent is RMB2080)
Social insurance coverage: 36.4% interviewees don’t have any social insurance, 32.3% interviewees haven’t signed contract with their companies.
Life satisfaction: 84% are not satisfied with their current status.
Where their employment pressure is from:
61.9% – pressure of making a living
49.3% – parents’ expectation
30.4% – friends found good jobs
Why they choose to stay in Beijing:
Most of the ‘Ant Tribe” in Beijing are single twenty-somethings from the provinces, with degrees from minor universities but ambitions in the major leagues. “The big gap between the cities and the countryside means that talent and resources all go to the big cities,” Lian explains. “The graduates do not want to go back; they prefer a single bed in Beijing to a house in their hometown.” “But if their dreams collapse and they cannot find a good explanation for their failure it could be dangerous,” he predicts. “They were taught that knowledge could change their fate, but they find that is not true. If they can’t even find a job, they may oppose society.” Lian Si told the Christian Science Monitor.
The book came out about a month ahead of an announcement from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security that 74% of the 6.11 million new graduates from China’s universities and colleges had been employed by Sept 1, 2009.
Cultural discussion site Douban.com shows 1946 people have read the book, 1012 are reading it, while 9605 people are looking forward to reading it. More than 78.1% readers voted 4 stars out of 5 to it, 1735 people commented.
Cinema: Confucius VS. Avatar
Avatar has smashed the all-time Chinese box-office record with a haul of $73.2m after just two weeks of screenings. Chinese people fell in love with it is not because of the special effects and love story in the movie, as netizens and some famous bloggers say, to Chinese people, Avatar tells an anti-violent demolition story.
But from Jan 23, Chinese cinemas will stop showing the 2D version of this film, according to SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and TV). Though the 3D and IMAX versions can continue their run into Feb, the ban of 2D version still created “rumours” that this decision is to make way to Chinese film Confucius that is going to release on Jan 22, which is also the last day of Avatar’s 2D version in Chinese theatres.
Confucius, starring Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat, directed by Hu Mei who is famous for her history-themed big works, tells the story of Saint Confucius’s last 22 years.
Zhejiang newspaper Modern Golden Times (launched by Zhejiang bureau of Xinhua) reported all the cinemas in Ningbo city have received oral notice that Avatar needs to be withdrawn to make way to Confucius. Source said one of the investors of Confucius China Film Group Corporation is the manipulator behind. Netizens say this shows Confucius is no good, that’s why it needs special protection, but the way the government protects it is too backward. “Lucky there’s no 3D version of Confucius, so the 3D version of Avatar can stay!” SARFT officials denied the ban, said it’s just the 2D version is not as popular as the other two versions. But according Modern Golden Times, Ningbo cinema managers said 2D version of Avatar contributes 1/3 or even 60% to the box-office.
Hu Shuli’s new Century Weekly
Hu Shuli, China’s “most formidable editor,” in charge of Caijing until late last year, took over New Century Weekly (新世纪周刊) and published her first issue under the banner Caixin Media (财新传媒) on January 4, 2009. The magazine, as previously, is published by Hainan Reform and Development Research Institution (海南发改研究院) joint with TeamWork (北京天意华鼎元广告公司), an advertising company, but the masthead in the new magazine reflects Hu Shuli’s Caijing team, down to the journalists and the managing editors.
Century Weekly is now published online in English: http://english.caing.com
HONG KONG – POLITICS
HK – China rail link project budget approved
The Legislative Council Finance Committee approved $66.9 billion ($8.6 billion) in funding for the controversial express rail link to Guangzhou on Jan 16. The funding was approved by 31 votes to 21. The Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Rail Link will form part of China’s national high-speed rail network and allow people to travel from Hong Kong to Guangzhou in 48 minutes, just under half the amount of current journey time. The project is expected to be finished by 2015.
A survey on Ming Pao’s website shows 65.48% voters think HK$66.9 billion budget for the express is too much, 31.68% think it’s not, 2.84% remain neutral.
During the vote on the rail link proceeding, Police said there were up to 1700 protesters surrounding the Legislative Council building. The government sent 1200 policemen to maintain order. 4 policemen and 1 policewoman were injured during conflicts. Some protesters tried to break into the building of Legislative Council and talk to Eva Cheng, Secretary for Transport and Housing. Eva Cheng had to stay in the building for 6 hours till midnight to avoid meeting protesters and then left by MTR under protection of more than 100 policemen. Ming Pao quoted a protester saying, “The rail link project came from underground, passed at underground, so now those who voted for it could only leave through underground.”
Ming Pao published comment by Lo Chi-kin, says the wide-ranged debates and conflicts on rail link project are no longer simply about this single project, but have deep social background. This time citizens especially post-80s were so actively involved is because they are not happy with the society and government’s governance. Lo pointed out Hong Kong’s three main social contradictions. First, enlarging rich-poor gap. Second, values and development models contradiction. More and more people are challenging the “development first” model. Third, demand of participating politics vs. limited democracy.
On Jan 18, HK’s chief executive Donald Tsang condemned protesters in a press briefing, saying the protesters’ “irresponsible behavior infringed on the core values of the Hong Kong society, the spirit of the law, and our collective interests”, it also deprived people of the chance to express their views in a peaceful and sensible manner.
Wen Wei Po’s pro-Tsang editorial on Jan 19 called the protesters’ behaviour “political violence”, said HK citizens wouldn’t allow HK to be “Taiwan-ized” and become a place for mob politics. While Apple Daily said Tsang’s words cause new anger among the people, said the words meant to send to Beijing leaders rather than HK people.
China denounces HK legislator resignations
The Chinese government ruled in 2007 that Hong Kong can’t elect its own leader until 2017 and the entire legislature until 2020. Two Hong Kong opposition political parties announced recently five of their legislators _ one from each of Hong Kong’s five major electoral districts _ will resign on Jan 27. The parties will then field candidates in the subsequent special elections, the idea being the territory-wide by-elections will serve as a de facto referendum on democracy.
The Chinese government said in a statement on Jan 15 that Hong Kong doesn’t have a referendum law, and as part of China, Hong Kong doesn’t have the authority to launch a referendum without Beijing’s approval. “When some people promote the so-called ‘five-district referendum movement,’ challenging the Hong Kong constitution and the decision on democratic reform by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, it will only cause dispute,” the Chinese government’s Hong Kong and Macau affairs office said in the statement. “We express our serious concern,” it said.
Ming Pao’s editorial on Jan 16 quoted a HKU scholar and a commentator, said the statement has no legal basis, the central government’s tough attitude shows it worries HK may go out of control if Beijing doesn’t stop it as soon as possible. But the editorial said the tough statement may help the pro-democracy camp to gain more votes.
At the same time, HK media reported a few mainland companies’ HK offices asked their staff to sign “voluntarily” to support the 2017 direct election proposal. Bank of China HK asked more than 200 local staff to fill a “Political reform go forwards” form sent by the HK Chinese Enterprises Association. Staff were told their opinions won’t affect their annual bonus but were told they weren’t allowed to “gossip” about this on internet, or else the company will be sure to find the person out. According to a staff’s mobile phone recording, a BOC manager said at the meeting that the signing was not compulsory, but he personally doesn’t think direct election is going to happen in 2012, if debates will continue from then, it might be even harder for HK to do direct election in 2017. So he said it was wiser to simply vote for the 2017 proposal now. Staff of China COSCO HK also told media that they were “forced” to sign the same form by the company.
TAIWAN – POLITICS
In Brief: MOU on financial supervision between mainland, Taiwan takes effect
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by the financial regulatory authorities of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan took effect on Jan 16, paving the way for financial cooperation across the Taiwan Strait. The MOU focuses on supervisory cooperation in fields of banking, securities, futures and insurance. It provides for thresholds and preferential policies for both sides to enter each other’s market. The MOU is expected to bring about new bank branches, stake subscription and acquisition chances for the two sides’ investors in each other’s market.
