CHINA – POLITICS

Chen Guangcheng

1. 4/23: Chen Guangcheng arrived in Beijing protected by network of five supporters (according to Hu Jia, dissident and AIDS activist). His escape plan was months in the making: continuously stayed in bed to convince guards that he was too weak to move about. Scaled a wall, crossed ditches and river (fell “at least 200 times”), picked up by He Peirong at predetermined spot and driven to Beijing, where he stayed at different apartments until he sought refuge at the US embassy. He Peirong said that Chen hid in Shandong for 17 hours and was helped by many villagers. Others suggested that Chen was aided by a sympathetic guard.
2. 4/26 night: Police entered home of Chen’s brother Chen Guangfu. Chen Guangfu taken away, his son Chen Kegui chased after by police by attacking police. Lawyer Liu Weiguo reported to VOA about conversation with Chen Kegui on 4/29 saying that he was followed and was in danger.
3. 4/27: Chen’s wife Yuan Weijing taken away. He Peirong taken away. Guo Yushan, Beijing scholar, also missing from the same day.
4. 4/28: Hu Jia taken away, released 4/29. His wife also followed and told not to leave home.
5. 4/29: Kurt Campell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs arrived in China ahead of schedule.
6. 5/2 afternoon: Chen left the embassy for hospital check-up. Lawyer Li Jinsong: Chen was “very happy and wants to hug all his friends”, he now had “true freedom” and was a “free citizen”. Xinhua News Agency (3.30pm): 山東省沂南縣人陳光誠於4月下旬進入美國駐華使館停留6天後自行離開
7. 5/2 evening: Chen admitted he had been threatened and wanted to leave the country (離開中國「休息一下」).
8. 5/2: Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin: “What the US side has done has interfered in the domestic affairs of China”
9. 5/3: Chen addressed the Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) chaired by Chris Smith. “I want to come to the US to rest. I have not had a rest in 10 years. I’m concerned most right now with the safety of my mother and brothers.” Bob Fu, founder of nonprofit ChinaAid and an evangelical group, who himself escaped from China to the US, made contact with Chen and acted as translator for Chen during the phone conversation.
10. 5/3: Phone interview with CNN: Q: What prompted your change of heart? A: The embassy kept lobbying me to leave and promised to have people stay with me in the hospital. But this afternoon as soon as I checked into the hospital room, I noticed they were all gone. Q: Has the U.S. disappointed you? A: I’m very disappointed at the U.S. government. Q: Do you feel you were lied to by the embassy? A: I feel a little like that.
11. 5/3: Opening of US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue
    1. Hu Jintao: 打破历史上大国对抗冲突的传统逻辑
    2. Dai Binguo: 中美不搞“两国集团”，不搞中美主宰世界，也不搞中美冲突对抗，但可以搞“两国协调”
12. 5/4: Foreign Ministry announced that Chen was free to apply to study overseas. US Department of State announced that Chen “has been offered a fellowship from an American university, where he can be accompanied by his wife and two children” and that it expects the Chinese government to “expeditiously process his applications” for travel documents.
    1. Cohen, NYU professor: An “exciting, low-key, dignified” solution for both governments
13. 5/7: Chen said in an interview that there was little progress in implementing the deal and he still lacked a passport. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman called on US to adopt new measures to prevent Chinese citizens from going to US diplomatic missions for refuge.

How the deal came about:

Jerome Cohen: “Chen’s silent partner: Luck”

A combination of contingencies made Chen changed his mind to leave for the US:

1. If Chen had been allowed to talk to his Chinese friends, or Chris Smith when he was at the US embassy, he would have been persuaded to stay at the embassy.
2. If American diplomats had not been exhausted from “six days of round-the-clock negotiations”, they might have left someone to accompany Chen at the hospital, strengthening Chen’s resolve to stay in China.
3. If Chinese officials did not allow Chen outside contact when he was at hospital, he might still have stuck with his plan to stay. After he was persuaded to leave for the US, “he would not have been able to immediately tell the world that he had changed his mind before American officials awakened from their much-needed sleep and had a chance to dissuade him.”
4. “[A]s of Wednesday afternoon, Communist Party leaders were nowhere near ready to allow Chen’s family to leave the country. By Friday afternoon, however, thanks to an unexpected concatenation of events, things had changed. […] Chen’s family was granted an opportunity that had previously been off the table.”

Teng Biao: urged Chen to leave in phone call

“Guangcheng, even if you told the embassy you won’t ever go back, there’s still time for you to change your mind, and it would be totally understandable. Please reconsider this whole thing. You know — Kegui, Chen Hua and everyone at home is in a very dangerous situation. Pearl’s been taken away. Even if you’re not considering this for yourself, then at least for your family and for those that tried to help you, you should try to get back to the embassy and make your way to the US. If this thing hangs in the balance, it’s going to be very dangerous for everyone. We understand that you don’t want to leave that you want to stay behind and try to do something. But you need to understand that if you stay behind, there’ll be nothing you can do. Even if you don’t work on any sensitive case, life will be bad enough if you’re trying to do your own thing, you’ll meet obstacles everywhere.”

CHINA – MEDIA

Chinese media

1. Xinhua editorial on 5/1: “Don’t make ourselves the laughing stock” (不要让自己成为笑料):
   1. “在境外，却有一些人、一些媒体或别有用心、或出于本能对这一决定说三道四，甚至不惜捕风捉影制造谣言，传播传闻，有些造谣让人感到可笑。” “对中共按照党的纪律依照正常程序处理党员说三道四，散布‘政治斗争’，‘权力斗争’的谣言”
   2. “境外敌对势力总是不甘心中国的稳定发展，少数西方媒体总是不甘心中国太平无事，它们总是躲在阴暗角落里造谣生事，企图扰乱、捣乱中国。”
2. Global Times:
   1. 5/2: “The US embassy would have no interest in turning itself into a petition office receiving Chinese complaints. It is easier just preaching universal values to the Chinese public, and occasionally, helping a few exemplary cases that best illustrate US intentions. It is never willing to involve itself in too many detailed disputes in Chinese society.”
   2. 5/3: “Reports of Western media on Chen are simple and monotonous, mostly centering on how he was beaten, imprisoned, and silenced. Chen’s case has been hyped as a dark reflection of China.” “Chen became a political pawn and was used as a tool to work against China’s political system by some Western forces.”
   3. 5/4: “Nation’s human rights progress has no shortcut”
3. Global Times article on 5/2: critized Chen for betraying his country by seeking help from foreigners. Taken down from website, allegedly by order of central government.

On power struggles within China

1. IHT News Analysis: Chen’s escape “comes at an excruciatingly awkward time for the Chinese leadership as it struggles to preserve a cohesive front after the spectacular dismissal of Bo Xilai”
   1. A blow to security and legal affairs officials, but can also strengthen hardliners: Chief Zhou Yongkang would be able to use Chen’s escape as a “told you so” example tp push back against pro-western camp. Zhou could argue that Chen plotted to embarrass the leadership with the cooperation of the Americans. “Mr Chen is likely to become a pawn between the major ideological camps”.
   2. Supporters of Bo could demand Chen to be handed back to China: “The system always tilts to hardline left in moments of stress”, no one wants to be seen as weak on the US.
   3. The situation more complicated than 1989 Fang Lizhi case: China now more nationalistic in outlook, more self-esteem.

On China’s course of action

1. SCMP Wang Xiangwei: Instead of venting anger as hostile western forces, Chinese leaders should “focus their wrath on the corrupt and brainless local officials in Shandong”. The ineffectiveness and incompetence of the security apparatus is “laughable”, but what is even sadder is the powerlessness of the central government in preventing local officials from “committing such sins”. Example of Gao Yaojie.
2. Ming Pao:
   1. Easy to relieve officials responsible for Chen’s treatment of their duties, but if the same will be sorted for every human rights activist the stability maintenance system will unravel. Hence Chen’s change of mind really the result of intense lobbying from both the Chinese and US governments – abiding by China’s need to maintain a stable environment for the 18^th National Congress.
      最省事；去美国有那么多人，人们都忘记。低调处理，制造便利让陈出国。
   2. Leaders of Shandong will go free: provincial party secretary Jiang Yikang (姜异康) previously worked under Wen; provincial head Jiang Daming (姜大明) worked for the Communist Youth League.
3. VOA: According to Chen, the expenditure of putting him under house arrest cost 60 million yuan last year and involved over 100 local police and cadres. This is good money for the local government, and it is unwilling to let Chen go even if just to keep the money coming. 维稳已成经济圈和产业链： “维稳”已不单纯是出于政治目的，它还给地方官员带来巨大的经济利益

On US response and US-China relations 

1. Apple Daily, Zhang Hua: Chen was made to “voluntarily” (被自愿) leave the embassy. Beijing and Washington worked together to make Chen leave, then hand the job of threatening Chen over to China, in order not to forestall the Dialogue. “兩個「泱泱大國」，竟如此合謀對付一個失明人士，拿他妻兒來要脅他，好讓他們順利上演那場「戰略與經濟對話」的政治騷。真是無恥至極！”
2. The Economist:
   1. “Did America’s best diplomats let a brave man down?”: “If they were duped by their Chinese counterparts, or too ready to accept their assurances, they will be taken as fools. If they struck a deal in haste, calculating that currencies and tariffs should eclipse the rights of an inconvenient blind man, they will be taken as knaves.”
   2. Implications on US-China relations: If Chen is punished and Obama humiliated, “a troubling shift” in superpower relations, “set the stage for dysfunction at best and conflict at worst”.

On censorship and media reporting

1. HKEJ commentator Lam Tin-ng: Important news receiving only secondary attention: only Ming Pao and SCMP made this their front page. Hong Kong media giving up their own rights to seek justice and speeding up the emergence of “One Country, One System”. “Voluntary castration”.
2. Ming Pao reported that Sing Pao took out commentary on Chen titled “This is a Humanitarian Issue”. Chief editor: “I do not know the truth”.
3. Ming Pao on Taiwan’s silence:
   1. “只是，这件全球矚目的人权事件似乎并未引起马英九总统的重视。在北京的’大局’观下，喜欢參加各种人权仪式的他选择沉默，谨小慎微的表现，令台湾人觉得非常丢脸。”
   2. “马英九一向高度自诩其人权政策，极喜愛在与人权有关的紀念会、揭碑仪式等場合发表推动人权的演說，但在面对现实的人权议题上，却又是另一套作风。面对台湾民众对大陆维权人士的热情支持，他却表现得像个乖巧学生，从去年的艾未未台北个展，到这次陈光诚事件都显得怯懦畏缩。”

Chongqing development

News updates

1. 4/26: Taiwan Lianhebao: Bo’s arrest planned by Hu and Wen, executed by Zhou Yongkang. “事後證明，從頭到尾，周永康是中央指定的重慶重案中央領導小組組長，轄下是國安部歸他指揮。他所有行動，都來自中共中央胡、習的授意。”
2. 4/27: Bo involved in wiretapping operation whose chief architect was Wang Lijun. SCMP cited one analyst that Bo “had tried to tap the phones of virtually all high-ranking leaders who visited Chongqing in recent years, including Zhou Yongkang”. The eavesdropping operations began several years ago as part of state-financed surveillance build-up. Discovered when Hu was speaking to an anti-corruption official visiting Chongqing, seen as “direct challenge to central authorities”. BBC cited Zhang Wei, researcher, wiretapping highest level is like putting one’s head on the chopping board (要掉脑袋).
   1. Updated 5/7: Li Yang, former head of Chongqing criminal police team, sent to detention facility built to detain officers busted in anti-triad campaigns. Li was a specialist in phone tapping, might be involved in the wiretapping of senior leaders.
3. 4/30: Former lawyer Li Zhuang (himself jailed for over a year for representing “triad boss”) said Chongqing authorities had rounded up dozens of law enforcers from the police, prosecution department and courts who were linked to the use of torture to extract confessions in Bo’s crackdown campaigns.
4. 4/30: New York Times interviewed Bo Guagua and others, cleared up rumors of his extravagant lifestyle: He did not drive a red Ferrari and was not wearing a tuxedo when picking up ambassador Jon Huntsman’s daughter for a dinner date.
5. 5/5: NYT reported how Chongqing rushed to expunge all traces of Bo and his “political fingerprints” from the city.
6. 5/6: Hong Kong magazine Xinwei (New Way) reported that Bo plotted three ways to kill Wang Lijun: blame killing on local mafia, portray his death as suicide to escape punishment for corruption, portray death as suicide due to depression. Jiang Weiping told The Sunday Telegraph that the details of the plot were confirmed by sources in Chongqing.

New commentaries

1. SCMP: “Party rethinks twin-role postings”
   1. All three Politburo members ousted since 1989 were regional leaders (Chen Xitong, Chen Liangyu, Bo Xilai). This might be due to the “unchecked powers” given to those Politburo members who were also appointed regional party chiefs or ministers. They have so much power that they seem to “run their turfs as personal empires”.
   2. Former Tianjin party boss Zhang Lichang: Left Politburo at 17^th congress, but believed to be spare only because of his illness – he died in 2008.
   3. Former Xinjiang party boss Wang Lequan: Moved to Beijing in 2010 after Urumqi riots, after 15 years as “the King of Xinjiang”.
2. NYT: “In Rise and Fall of China’s Bo Xilai, an Arc of Ruthlessness”
   1. “For all his success, the seeds of Mr. Bo’s destruction were evident long ago to many of those who knew him. […] That penchant for power and glory earned him powerful enemies at virtually every step of his ascendance.”
   2. His moving to Chongqing in 2007 was in fact “devised to move him out of Beijing and away from the seat of power”: The role played by Wu Yi, who “had come to dislike Mr. Bo’s abrasiveness and self-promotion” after Bo’s “grandstanding at a 2005 Washington session of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue” and his hand in opening a police investigation into the Commerce Ministry’s international affairs office, where Wu had close ties: “[S]he sided with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and others in shunting him to a job in the hinterlands.”

CHINA – SOCIETY

Food safety

1. Outrage over toxic gelatin capsules with excessive levels of chromium, produced from waste leather processed to become industrial gelatin. Century Weekly report: Xinchang county in Zhejiang province produces one-third of the nation’s capsules. 33 of 99 batches of capsules tested in the county were found to be dangerous.
   1. 上得了廳堂，下得了廚房，爬得了高山，涉得了水塘，製得出酸奶，壓得出膠囊。二○一二，皮鞋很忙。
   2. Public security has already shut down 80 illegal production lines and confiscated over 77 million toxic capsules. New regulations announced on May 1 by State Food and Drug Administration requiring all materials used in production and products to go through tighter control.
   3. China Youth Daily: Nine of the pharmaceutical enterprises responsible for their production remains scot-free (安然无恙). The law currently covering medicine safety, 《药品管理法》, comes with unreasonably light punitive measures: only requires production and distribution to be stopped, nothing more than “paper tigers”. The stronger punitive measures in the law regulating product quality, 《产品质量法》, do not apply. The regulatory bodies are also accused for inaction (不作为).
   4. Oriental Daily editorial on influx of toxic capsules in Hong Kong and the inaction of Food and Health Bureau.
2. Another gutter oil operation exposed
3. Controversy over provision of nutritious meals (营养餐) for school children in Babu town, Guizhou province reveals lack of local resources to implement central directives. Also demonstrates potential problems of reliance on social organization’s non-profit contribution.

Copyright Law

1. National Copyright Administration (NCA) published amendments to Copyright Law on March 31. Maximum level of compensation for copyright infringement increased from 500,000 yuan to 1 million.
2. Article 46: Works will automatically enter public domain three months after creation, no need to obtain consent from music copyright holder (existing law maintains that “no such work may be used where the copyright owner declares that use is not permitted” – this clause is removed in new draft). Usage fee to be paid to Music Copyright Society (MCS).
   1. MCS: international common practice to break monopoly of record companies
   2. Record Working Committee: the law helps build up the monopoly of MCS, allowing it to “abuse its position by collecting shares of an artist’s earnings”.
3. Article 60: Collective rights management; enabling copyright collective management organizations (著作权集体管理组织)(aside from MCS, four such giants in China) to manage the corresponding rights of even non-members. In effect artists are robbed of the choice not to have its rights managed or protected by these management organizations (自行维权).
   Article 70: Copyright user pays fee to management organizations. In case of dispute, user not held liable for damages but need to pay fee set by management organizations.
   1. Caixin: copyright owners will be held hostage by “copyright managers with Chinese characteristics”, monopolies created not by market but by government decree.
   2. Century Weekly: 被代表，对著作权人财产的一种掠夺
   3. Copyrights made public rather than private: “[T]he government has made copyright management a collectively owned right which belongs to certain organizations. But in fact, a copyright is an intellectual property right, which is part of an individual’s private right. So, the protection of a private right should highlight songwriters’ interests and the personal deals reached between the original artists and the users.”
4. Caixin: “The amendment will in effect empower the National Copyright Administration at the expense of copyright owners, enabling it to work even more closely with the various collective copyright management organizations. There’s reason to worry about collusion and potential rent-seeking.” “Instead of protecting rights, the amendment seeks to protect might.”

Similar contestation over copyright amendment bill in Hong Kong, the so-called “Article 23 of the internet” (网络23条): Passage of bill delayed after 1,300 amendments were tabled and legislators refused to turn up at meeting (拉布戰術). Yazhou Zhoukan: tentative victory of society.

1. Did not consult arts community
2. Ambiguity over legality of derivative works 二次創作、 再創作
   1. Amendment extends the application of criminal offense to any type of electronic dissemination methods, raising suspicion of using copyrights to censor online sub-culture: 以版權之名打壓網上的惡搞文化
   2. SCMP: “The law is a particular concern to activists engaging in political parodies and mash-up works against the rich and powerful, an increasingly popular genre on the internet and social media. […] Although officials have assured that the bill does not target these so-called derivative works, it does, inevitably, have a chilling effect on people’s creativity and the freedom of expression.”

Social governance and civil society

Reforming China’s government management of civil society

1. Existing system of double registration (双重登记，双重管理)
   1. Groups must find a government-backed umbrella before registering with Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA). Colloquial reference: “need to find a grandmother”
   2. Arduous and lengthy process: MOCA manages nearly 460,000 legally certified non-profits, but estimates total number to be 1 million.
2. Innovation of unified registration (统一登记，一元管理): Guangzhou relaxes rules for non-profit civic organizations since January 2012: Ended requirement, can now register directly. This policy has been under experimentation in Shenzhen since 2004. Province-wide policy change will be installed in July 1, 2012.
   1. Deputy director of Guangdong’s civil affairs bureau: The aim of reform is to lower entry barrier, simplify registration procedure, cultivate civil society: 向社会还权，政府的归政府，社会的归社会
   2. Century Weekly: Signifies the government’s “release of bonds” (松绑) over social organizations; gradualist approach.
3. Other central directives on grass-roots governance:
   1. Reforming urban neighborhood committees (居委会): According to incomplete estimates, direction election has been achieved in 30% of urban residents committee. Goal to raise percentage to 80% by end of 12^th Five Year Program.
   2. Reforming village committees (村委会): Village Committee Organization Law revised in October 2010.
4. Official discourse:
   1. Encouraging self governance (自治): 为民做主到由民做主
   2. Better integrate loose forces in the society (整合各方面闲散力量)
   3. Coordinate relationships and distribution of interests in society
   4. Detect latent tensions within society and sound warning bells, thereby eliminating unharmonious factors (不和谐因素) and strengthening social stability
   5. Fill in gaps left by government and market

Issues facing social governance

1. Inadequate funding for NGOs:
   1. In the past 20 years NGOs have received approximately USD116 billion from international groups. However overseas funding is drying up: 4 main causes
   2. Within China:
      1. Lack of government input
      2. Lack of legal identity prevents NGOs from finding financial support.
      3. Only 10 out of 2,510 foundations back NGOs without official backgrounds: 资源基本上只在体制内远行.
      4. 运作型vs.资助型
      5. Mismatch of demand and supply between urban and rural areas.

2. Attention to new media
   1. Setting up message boards, public opinion guidance, etc: 媒体问政、新闻执政
   2. Li Changchun: 善待媒体、 善用媒体、 善管媒体
3. New thinking needed on social governance
   1. Thinking “traps”: equating social governance with crisis management; equating social governance with political control (把XXX管起来)
   2. Leaders used to using strong handed and coercive approach, and as a result intensifying conflict, rather than letting market and social mechanisms run autonomously

HONG KONG – POLITICS

1. Restructuring government administration
   1. Deputy chiefs for administration and finance
   2. New culture bureau: Bureau needs to foster creative freedom and not become a propaganda organ. Business model for entertainment operations must be avoided; more government input needed: investment in arts and culture falling behind the mainland, Singapore and Taiwan.