China is to delay the launch of a controversial policy to force manufacturers to install mandatory filtering software on new computers. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s climbdown on the compulsory installation of the ‘Green Dam Youth Escort’ filter comes just a day before the order was due to come into effect.

The state news agency Xinhua, which revealed the decision, did not say why the implementation of the policy had been postponed.

China said the Green Dam software was designed to block material such as pornography or violent images, but the policy aroused opposition among industry groups, human rights organisations and foreign governments due to fears that it could strengthen Beijing’s efforts to censor politically sensitive information.

On Monday, the European Chamber of Commerce urged China to reconsider the move, saying it ‘poses significant questions in relation to security, privacy, system reliability, the free flow of information and user choice’.

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“Before the launch they were not ready to accept a resolution, but now they could do so,” Ambassador Jorge Urbina of Costa Rica said after discussions among governments on the Security Council about North Korea’s weekend firing of a missile. “They are just concerned that the process of the six- party talks is not endangered. They might accept a weak resolution or a strong statement.”

The talks with North Korea, aimed at eliminating its nuclear weapons program, involve China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the U.S.

Ambassador Claude Heller of Mexico, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, confirmed that Chinese envoys have signaled privately that they would be willing to vote for a resolution that merely restates the previous two measures, as a compromise with U.S. and Japanese calls for stronger action.

© Japhet Weeks for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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A group of 29 Chinese dissidents urged Beijing on Saturday to open direct dialogue with Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in the wake of rioting in the region.

Monk-led anti-Chinese protests erupted in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, on March 10 and spilled over into Chinese provinces populated by Tibetans. Some turned violent with Chinese leaders blaming the Dalai Lama for engineering the rioting. “We appeal to the country’s leaders to directly engage in dialogue with the Dalai Lama. We hope to eliminate misunderstanding between Han and Tibetans,” the group said in an open letter e-mailed to reporters, referring to the majority Han Chinese.

The pro-democracy activists, led by writer Wang Lixiong and dissident Liu Xiaobo, urged the government to invite UN investigators to Tibet to change the international community’s distrust of China.

They also suggested allowing credible domestic and foreign journalists to independently report from the predominantly Buddhist region and said those arrested should be given an open and fair trial.

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So great is the Great Hall of the People that there’s always room for a sideshow, even when the national legislature is in session.

Last Friday at 8:50 a.m., a pack of frumpy middle-aged women clambered up the steps toting plastic bags. Any place else they might be pegged for petitioners. Turned out they were support staff for the Chinese modeling agency New Silk Road (???), there for a rehearsal of an annual “Women’s Day” ceremony. “We’re in the show,” boasted one of the older crowd, evidently referring to their younger charges. Soon the jingle-jangle of a made-for-CCTV gala beckoned from the theater above, rebounding through the desolate foyer below. Access was restricted, however; lads in black suits were posted at every elevator and staircase, blocking passage to the second floor. Wu Yi, the models and 1,000 other women from around the world were well-guarded.

Down on the main level the Fujian province delegation was open to the press, and somewhat revealing in its own right. Those reporters who weren’t chasing the upcoming Taiwan presidential elections were checking in on the unbuilt Taiwanese-owned petrochemical project popularly dubbed ‘Xiamen PX’. The name’s fast becoming a misnomer, of course. Since at least December, when citizens balked over an environmental impact assessment of the project’s original ‘hood, Xiamen and Fujian leaders have pushed to jettison the plant from Xiamen down the shore to Gulei peninsula, in the city of Zhangzhou, a strip of fishing villages far less populous and developed. But company bosses along with central government planners administering the project have yet to commit to such a move, which would require a new round of approvals and feasibility studies, construction of new port, power and water facilities, and likely a financial package of fresh concessions and compensation. Any potential move was further complicated by protests the previous weekend one county over from the proposed site, which spiraled into bloody clashes with police.

News of the move Fujian leaders floated in December was first leaked in the Ta Kung Pao, immediately refuted in the Wen Wei Po, only to be picked up in Southern Weekend. It then permeated indirectly in progressive media paeans to Xiameners’ coup. But this was the first time key Fujian figures involved faced the press over it since that time.

Reuters coverage captures the gist of their comments. Interestingly, Xinhua and other Chinese outlets put a rather populist and placatory spin on their comments, in contrast to the shifty, patronizing tone one might have gleaned from the whole exchange, excerpts of which are roughly translated below.

Fujian officials have been caught in a bind: between, on the one hand, continued external pressures to allay public fears and, on the other, sources contend, internal criticism for bungling the blowback there and helping spur a rash of protests over other projects elsewhere. As such they hedged conservatively. They sounded shifty and abrasive. They made it seem only natural and self-evident that while the project was sound, its present location in Xiamen no longer was. They soft-pedaled on the media and popular dissent that forced them to adopt that posture and skipped entirely over the misguided planning in the area that played into the controversy to start. And most ominously, they defended the Gulei site in practically the same passive-aggressive manner they once had Xiamen.

It was right here in Beijing one year ago that the whole to-do over the petrochemical project first caught the glare of Chinese press, when the Taiwan-born Xiamen U. biochemist and CCPPC delegate Zhao Yufen filed an incendiary proposal to uproot the project. Zhao did not land a new term this year.

The PX affair did come up in conversation among the Fujian NPCers last week, according to one Fuzhou-based journalist tagging along with the delegation. But it was not an agenda item, he explained, since there was nothing conclusive to discuss. “It’s leaving Xiamen is for sure, but whether it’s going to Zhangzhou [city] has not been resolved.”

Journalists at the session had the tea to thank for the first trickle of official comment. Among those to succomb to urinary pressures was the mayor of Zhangzhou, Li Jianguo (pictured below). After he relieved himself he was cornered with ease, and quizzed about the protests in his jurisdiction:

“Because right now this PX project is rather sensitive, so we have not said it’s going to land in Zhangzhou. There’s only this intention, an intention is all.

“Now, about this project… It’s a good project. The project itself does not have any problems. That’s the first point. The second point is that for it to come to Zhangzhou, Zhangzhou should be able to accommodate it, because the conditions and environment are all okay, so that if you’re talking about a petrochemical project on Gulei peninsula, it should be acceptable. If it’s not PX, then other petrochemical projects could be accommodated as well.”

Li Jianguo

This correspondent asked him how the protests across the water on Dongshan Island would affect the recommended move.

“The main problem is, because the masses basically do not get what PX is, and are unclear about it, and we’ve had relatively little contact with this sort of thing, so correct guidance is needed on these moves. Because if you look overseas, there are a lot of PX [plants]. Like in Singapore, there is only a little over 600 metres between the plant equipment and [city areas].”

Li was soon rescued from the scrum by a publicity flak.

Later, during the official Q&A, this correspondent asked Fujian Party Secretary Lu Zhangong for an update on the state of the project. He let Xiamen mayor Liu Cigui (pictured below) have the first crack.

Lu Zhangong

Liu Cigui

Liu turned straight to this correspondent. “Have you been to Xiamen?” he asked sharply. (I told him I had.) Liu had been among the more conciliatory official voices as opposition toward the project swelled in May, which is not necessarily saying much. Clearly he had settled back into bureaucrat mode. Liu gave a long-winded sketch of Xiamen’s transformation the past three decades on the back of double-digit growth patterns.

“So Xiamen’s positioning [today] is as a modernized, scenic, tourist port city. This PX project that you just mentioned is a petrochemical project. It should be said that this is a good project – that is for sure. [But] because the period from the time efforts to win the project were initiated to the time construction began was relatively long, we’ve been required to give added consideration to speed and quality as Xiamen developed, and to Xiamen’s function and positioning.”

Space was constricted in Xiamen, noted Liu, because half the land is mountainous and another part national preserve. Tourism and ports were bustling as well. Hence Xiamen was become more of a financial, R&D, logistics and convention center, and the district of Haicang, originally zoned for petrochemicals, had to cater to the development of high-end service industry. He made but passing mention of the environmental re-assessment from an official academy in Beijing.

“Because of this, we’ve recommended this project — because after all it is just a project, right? So the media have hyped this a good deal. Because Xiamen is a sensitive area, so perhaps for a beautiful city like Xiamen the degree of attention everybody pays is relatively high. Naturally it should not have gotten to this extent. Because I’ve come across a lot of media and they all want to ask me about it. So I feel that the degree of attention on Xiamen, as a beautiful city, is relatively high. And we do thank the the media, too — so at the moment…the city government holds that this project, this good project, can go some place in Fujian province that is more suitable, more spacious. Because [in the original location] it has only a scale of 800,000 tonnes [in yearly output] and cannot possibly develop further. So there’s no room for even the project itself to extend and broaden its line. Therefore, in order to build the petrochemical industry stronger and bigger, because the petrochemical industry is still very much in need on the western coast [of the South China Sea] and across our country, we recommend this project not be built in Haicang but somewhere else in the province with more space. So right now we’re negotiating with the owners, and in accordance with procedures, reporting to higher authorities. I think we’re heading in a satisfactory direction to develop. Thank you.”

The aloof account from Liu seemed to amuse Lu, who sniggered. “Heh, heh…This matter was very simple to start with. But then they messed back and forth with it and made it very complicated.”

Who Lu meant by “they” was unclear.

Liu sniggered back. “It was just a project, naturally.”

Now it was Lu’s turn. He was careful to bring up to date what had gone wrong without delving into specifics or assigning blame. He maintained there had been geographical “confusion” (in the media, presumably) between the main island of Xiamen and the greater city area where the plant was to be located. After Xiamen became a Special Economic Zone in the early 1980’s, he noted, Haicang peninsula was formally zoned for Taiwanese investment and petrochemical development (officially in 1990-91, when the intended beneficiary was Formosa Plastics).

“But for various reasons, it never became a significant petrochemical zone.”

Over the years, Lu went on, Xiamen’s “situation changed”. It emerged a shipping and high-tech center, and the application process for the PX project dragged on during this time, Lu said. He did not point out that during this five year lag from 2001 to 2006, the local government rezoned Haicang a second city center to accommodate a commercial real estate boom and approved two dozen property projects within two miles of the proposed plant site. He only reiterated the fact that at this point there was little space to spare.

“For example, this project could be placed there. But to turn this project into a petrochemical district, a petrochemical base, would be difficult. There’s no leftover land to develop further. So Xiamen people were correct to have complaints. At the time, then, the Xiamen people had complaints. That had to do with Xiamen’s function and positioning.”

Lu ran down the tick-tock of how the local government had suspended the project and ordered an independent environmental survey, but did not specifically mention popular protests. He reiterated that there was nothing wrong with the project itself and again cited the example of Singapore. But he came back to the changes in Xiamen.

“So as it happened, based on the relevant objections of the people, and with this shift, whereby Xiamen settled upon adjusting its function, it raised this recommendation [to relocate the PX factory on Gulei peninsula] – right now it can only be said that it’s a recommendation, and nothing else has been carried out – Fujian province wishes to agree with Xiamen’s opinion, because this place Xiamen is too small.”

His point was that the most recent protests flared prematurely.

“Before the move is set, first the national government must agree to you relocating. Two, the company’s choice must be respected. If it chooses Fujian, fine, but it could choose not to be in Fujian. It might want to go somewhere else…Right now we have no idea about any these things, but there are some people [fighting the move] with all they’ve got. So now there basically aren’t any clear problems, but because of various factors, some of the masses are still reacting with accusations. The place where they’re reacting in Zhangzhou, Dongshan — hah, hah — this has even less to do with Dongshan.”

For an instant he was choked up in awkwardly jittery laughter.

“…Now it’s already being dealt with appropriately.”

Lu called on the Zhangzhou mayor, Li Jianguo. Li asserted Zhangzhou’s capability to build a port to support the petrochemical trade on Gulei peninsula:

“My meaning is, if there were a good project like this that could be situated on Gulei peninsula, we would very much welcome it, and could undertake it. Right now, we have this intention, but because this intention has not entered into something substantive, it’s only an intention. But if this intention is for real, we also would very much welcome it.”

Added Li:

“But most recently, there are certain individuals, whether over the Internet or through other means, individual people who are not very welcoming. What’s the main problem here? There’s a kind of misunderstanding. Where’s the misunderstanding? The misunderstanding is that if [the project] moves to Zhangzhou it will have such and such an impact — there’s this misunderstanding here. In addition, there’s a misunderstanding of this project. Is this project alright or not? In truth this project is very good.”

Again he returned to the example of a major petrochemical base in Singapore. “At its nearest it’s only 650 meters away from the metropolitan area. Everywhere in the world has [such sites]….”

Lu cut in. “And America.”

Li: “Right.”

Lu: “That petrochemical base in America, its scale is much bigger still.”

Li: “That petrochemical base in America, what’s that place called? How big is the scale of the refinery? 100 million tonnes [a year], and it’s also very close to the metropolitan area.”

Lu chimed back: “This is just a misunderstanding. Right now the people, their environmental awareness is getting stronger and stronger. This should be fully endorsed. This is a goal of ours, too.”

Li turned to a reporter from Hong Kong’s Singtao Daily. “Just now one of our journalists here, when I stepped out, he asked me something. I want to correct you once more. This journalist here asked me question, saying, ‘Xiamen did not want this PX project.’ I want to correct that. You can’t say Xiamen did not want it. As I just was saying, and Mayor Liu was saying too: This is a good project. Everybody was fighting to win it.”

The chamber fell silent for a few seconds before Lu prompted the next question.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Fujian, Gulei Peninsula, NPC 2008, Xiamen PX
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Anti-PX marches on Dongshan Island two weeks ago were a country cousin to the urbane “strolls” last year in downtown Xiamen. The protest burst into a rumble, as often occurs down in the sticks, only to be smothered just as fast by riot police and a media blackout. Still the resemblance to Xiamen was strong.

The demonstrations in Dongshan sprouted from national press reports – of a shadowy Fujian government proposal to relocate the forsaken Xiamen petrochemical project nearby – and grew from the volley of spitballs in local neighborhoods and chatrooms. Opposition took about as long to gestate into action (two-and-a-half months), drew a comparable number of citizens (as many as ten thousand, as few as two), and relied on ample logistical support from the local business community. And as in Xiamen, where one young protester was bagged for taking it to the streets before everyone else did, there were false starts as well.
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Though the people’s coup over paraxylene (PX) in Xiamen is not official yet, echoes it are being heard in protests from Nanjing to Shanghai to Beijing. The trend, in turn, is said to have made the Xiamen case much trickier for the central government to close. “They don’t want to provide an example that would set off a chain reaction,” notes one official source in Xiamen, adding: “But it seems a chain reaction’s already underway.”(...)
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© Kate Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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The year-end edition of Newsweek, a China cover entitled “China Now”, includes a Fareed Zakaria think piece on the “superpower’s” fragile side, excerpts from The China Diary of George H.W. Bush, and a personal history by Beijing bureau chief Melinda Liu spanning her three decades covering the country. In the international edition, there’s also a short profile positing what (if anything) the liberal legacy of Party elder Xi Zhongxun might or might not say about his son Xi Jinping, now China’s presumptive leader-in-waiting.

Something inside the magazine – it’s not clear what – has offended Beijing. The China National Publications Import & Export Corporation (CNPIEC), which normally distributes the international edition to authorized newsstands catering to foreigners – five-star hotels, Friendship stores – has not released the current issue for sale. Copies of the magazine did reach subscribers. But due to its “sensitive contents” CNPIEC held up the rest on orders from the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), according to what a member of the sales and marketing department at CNPIEC told a program director at CCTV, who tipped off this reporter.

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© Zhaohua Li for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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“There’s no denomination and no real issuer, but it’s money.”

Vouchers from the supermarket chain Trust-Mart (•ΩÂèà§ö) have become a favored currency of petty corruption in Fujian, says a local entrepreneur who carries a stack on him. In the course of a recent interview about unrelated topics, by way of demonstrating how he greases the palms of tax, commerce, customs and other officials, he opened his glove compartment and whipped out the bills. Each was worth 100 yuan. “That right there is 3,000 kuai.”

Evidently, party inspectors in the free-wheeling province can catch on to more glamorous enticements like cash, apartments, junkets and jade mantelpieces. But these gift certificates are conveniently untraceable and unmarked but for the stamp of the company and carry the down-home label tihuodan ÊèêË¥ßÂçï, literally “bills of lading”, evoking tickets people used to trade for commodities like rice and pork in the state-planning days. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll sell you one,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll buy it back!”

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© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Boyish Supergirl Li Yuchun made androgyny a sexy subject in China. Celeb social critics Li Yinhe and Yu Dan, plenty butch in their own right, helped to affirm the trend. Never mind that for women in Mao’s time, gender ambiguity was the rule. Today it’s the rage.

Now a new survey lends evidence to suggest that it’s a growing psychological phenomenon. In a poll of 800 female students from universities around Shanghai, released there last week at an academic forum on women’s issues, 31.5 percent identified themselves as part-male, part-female in temperament, Shanghai’s Wenhui Bao reported. Compared to a similar study of women born in the seventies that was conducted in 1998, about twice as many of the eighties generation (80Âêé) were designated androgynous (shuangxinghuaÂèåÊÄßÂåñ; the formal term is cixiong tongti ÈõåÈõÑÂêå‰Ωì)

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© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Anyone who revels in shaming queue-jumpers in China might take this as a cautionary tale:



According to a report in Zhengzhou’s Dahe Bao, a motorist waiting to gas up at a filling station died on Tuesday at the hands of a trucker who refused to get in line. An eye-witness set the scene for the paper:

He pulled in but didn’t queue up. He pulled straight up to the pumps and asked the attendant to refill his tank. One of the men waiting behind him was infuriated, and tried to persuade him to wait at the back of the line. The guy who jumped the queue wouldn’t go along. The two began to argue, and then it came to blows. During the tussle, the guy who jumped the queue grabbed ahold of the gas dispenser and pounded the heck out of the other guy, and right away his head began to gush blood and he dropped unconscious to the ground.

Wednesday’s initial report didn’t say whether recent shortages at the pumps played any role in the incident, though Reuters made the link and led on it. A day after the run-in, the government announced hikes in the price of gas and diesel, effective Thursday.

Lest one think all Henanites have chips on the shoulder causing them to commit acts of lunacy, deceit, or barbarism – just a stereotype, but one viral enough to make the The Wall Street Journal – Wednesday’s China Youth Daily carries a weightier report of one woman’s decade-long battle simply to prove herself sane.

CYD investigative journalist Liu Wanyong, who exposed a retired mayor’s mafia-style business empire last year and weathered tremendous physical and legal risks in the process, heads down to Kaifeng to take on the case of Jiang Fan.

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© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: domestic violence, fuel shortage, Henan, mental health
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