Friday, May 9, 2008
A handicapped man standing, watching people passing by, via fengniao.com.
From China Media Project: It was just over a week ago that China’s long-awaited national ordinance on openness of information took effect, mandating “active disclosure” by local governments of a whole range of policy-related information. While some observers have suggested the ordinance could be a historic step forward in bringing about greater government transparency in China, [...] Read more »
Rowan Callick reports in the Australian: Business people in China, especially in Beijing where about 250,000 foreigners live, are facing ever tightening controls as the Olympic Games approach on August 8. The protests surrounding the international torch relay, and the responding nationalist surge in China, have contributed to a more challenging environment for working and living there. This [...] Read more »
Women between the ages of 18-25 often comprise the vast majority of the developing world’s workers who make products for export to the developed world. In Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province, hundreds of female migrant workers earn their living in hundreds of factories. As they eat breakfast in the streets, they seem caught between [...] Read more »
In the Far Eastern Economic Review, Tibet scholar Tsering Shakya counters arguments made in recent articles that the recent unrest in Tibetan areas was instigated by groups funded by the U.S. government, and discusses the gaps between Tibetans in Tibet and those living abroad: The arguments made by Mr. Engdahl and repeated by Mr. Ching are [...] Read more »
From The Christian Science Monitor: Some Olympiads are born controversial, some achieve controversy, and some have controversy thrust upon them. Though few editions of the modern Olympic Games have been as bitterly contested as the Beijing summer Games that open in August, these are scarcely the only ones to have sparked dispute. Indeed, those disputes – [...] Read more »
Austin Ramzy writes in Time Magazine: The Hash House Harriers is a social group of runners that meets in cities all over the world to go for a jog followed by a few beers. It calls itself “a drinking club with a running problem.” But in Beijing two weeks ago, the Hash House Harriers ran into [...] Read more »
From Xinhua.net: The Beijing Olympic torch is making its way through Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province. This is the flame’s second provincial leg on the Chinese mainland, after its tour of Hainan Island. At the Baiyun International Convention Center, Secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee, Wang Yang, along with BOCOG officials and other government [...] Read more »
Sightings of the controversial Chinese ship transporting weapons bound for Zimbabwe, which last month was reportedly heading home, have been reported all over Africa. First, Radio Africa (via China Rises) reported that the An Yue Jiang’s cargo had finally made it to Zimbabwe after all: Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga on Sunday claimed that the controversial [...] Read more »
The BBC introduces a program airing this weekend called Wild China, which introduces the country’s diverse natural landscape and the threats it faces: The Chinese are proud of their natural riches, and many notable plants and animals are officially protected in national parks and wildlife reserves. But official protection is no guarantee of safety. In recent decades conservation [...] Read more »
Writer Zhou Yuanzhi was arrested last Saturday, and this Monday, Chang Ping (whose real name is Zhang Ping), deputy editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Weekly was removed from his post. From The Wall Street Journal: The arrest of a Chinese writer on subversion charges and the demotion of a prominent newspaper editor come amid increased scrutiny of [...] Read more »
Tom Scocca writes in the Plenty Magazine: At this summer’s Beijing Olympics, China puts a 50-year experiment to the test: Officials are betting weather modification can keep the sun shining on the Games. Despite shaky science, the government is confident (not for the first time) that man can best nature. Whatever their chances, there’s plenty at [...] Read more »
Jayshree Bajoria interviewed Mitt Romney on the Council for Foreign Relations website: While China wanted to use the 2008 Beijing Olympics as its coming-out party, so far the event has been used by activists to protest China’s poor record over issues ranging from human rights to the environment. Republican Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, [...] Read more »
Howard W. French writes on the International Herald Tribune: In a meeting with the Japanese foreign minister, Masahiko Komakura, Yang countered with a warning over Tibet. “If you say anything further on this matter, it will consist of an infringement on our domestic affairs,” The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported. To this, Komakura replied, “I am annoyed [...] Read more »
Monks are continuing to display images of the Dalai Lama after Chinese authorities remove them, reports an RFA journalist who went under cover with a video camera in April to visit the Kardze monasteries. From Radio Free Asia: Video shot secretly in the Kardze [in Chinese, Ganzi] Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture shows Buddhist monks at home in [...] Read more »
Here is an assessment of the Tibet situation by Zhang Boshu (张博树) of the CASS Philosophy Institute in Beijing, translated for CDT by a reader who wishes to remain anonymous: Zhang was born in Beijing in 1955. He received an MA in economics from Zhongguo Renmin Daxue in 1982 and in 1985 passed the entrance [...] Read more »
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