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Bang! Bang! Shots in Shanghai

Gun violence is on the rise in Shanghai in spite of China’s total ban on guns. James T. Areddy blogs for the Wall Street Journal in China Journal:

At midday Friday in Shanghai, a quarrel among five youths sitting at an outdoor café turned rough, according to local reports. Shots rang out and two people were left wounded, one of them falling in a pool of blood and the other clutching his neck as he fled in a getaway car with out-of-town plates.

[...The] shooting was also a loud reminder for many in this giant city that suggests guns are increasingly prevalent in China’s fast-changing society. It’s not a trend as obvious as the rise of other cultural changes, like coffee-sipping in French cafés such as the one where the crime occurred. While guns don’t circulate in China anywhere near as much as in places like the U.S. and Mexico, there are holes in the government’s blanket ban. (See a story on the subject here.)

In the official version, by Xinhua News Agency, one man had a handgun and fired twice after an argument. But a local media report, complete with photos of a bloodstained sidewalk in front of the Lohas Cafe, quoted a witness who suggested an actual gunfight took place, with more of the five men firing shots. (in Chinese here).

The crime scene in front of the outdoor cafe where the shooting occurred. (Photo from xinmin.cn)

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- May 23, 2009 3:17 PM
Uighur Children’s ‘Identities Changed’

Uighur children at an orphanage in Urumqi, Xinjiang Province, are renamed with Han
Chinese names and disciplined for adhering to a Muslim diet. Radio Free Asia reports:

Children belonging to the ethnic Uyghur minority at an orphanage in northwestern China routinely undergo changes of identity in which they assume Chinese names, according to current and former employees.

[...]Children were also frequently transferred to foster homes in the rest of China, where they lived in a Han Chinese environment, and were fed pork and dog meat as part of their diet, she said. Both meats are forbidden to Muslims.

Those who protested were severely punished, Amangul [a former teacher at the Urumchi Welfare Institution for Abandoned Childre] added, who said Arzigul, 10, was disciplined for refusing to eat the food served to her.

“After she came back she was criticized, not allowed to talk to the other Uyghur children or Uyghur teachers, forced her to use her Chinese name Li Li, punished without food, and put in solitary confinement for two days,” Amangul said.
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- May 23, 2009 2:58 PM
China’s Students Put Jobs over Democracy

Faced with graduating into an impossible job market, some of today’s Chinese university students view the 1989 Tiananmen protests as both misguided and politically immature. Kathrin Hille reports for the Financial Times:

Zhang Hao first heard about China’s 1989 student democracy movement when he was in high school. But now that he is a university student himself he is eager to declare that his views are worlds apart from the generation who gathered in Tiananmen Square to demand democracy.

[...]“We are not like them,” Mr Zhang declares of the students who grabbed the world’s attention in 1989. “I can understand that they wanted to pursue freedom and democracy, but I think they were partly misled. They knew nothing.”

[...]The only job Mr Zhang can look for with his martial arts degree is teaching, but he says selection in the education system is plagued by corruption. He might have a better chance of finding work in his home province of Anhui, but is terrified of going back to the poverty of the farming village he came from. “Sometimes I worry so much that my stomach hurts all the time. I’m so depressed,” he says.
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- May 23, 2009 2:45 PM
Above the Law? China’s Bully Law-Enforcement Officers

Time Magazine looks at recent cases of violence perpetuated by “urban management” (chengguan 城管）officers:

In recent weeks chengguan officers have been accused of many violations. In the city of Nanjing, officers reportedly scuffled with university students who were hawking goods on a street, sparking a protest by hundreds of their classmates from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The demonstration was held just days before the sensitive 20th anniversary of the crackdown on student-led protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Local residents say they beat to death a farmer in southeastern Jiangxi province who was trying to stop a land-reclamation project. His killing sparked a riot, with angry residents overturning chengguan cars on a local highway. In the southern city of Changsha, city management officers allegedly beat a Chinese reporter who was visiting from Beijing to cover a demolition and relocation project. And in the central city of Xian, chengguan who were shutting down a breakfast stall kicked a wok and burned a vendor with scalding oil. In late April a law enforcement officer posted on the Internet parts of a chengguan manual that instructed officers in how to beat suspects without leaving marks, sparking harsh criticism from bloggers and the domestic press. The word “chengguan” has even taken on an alternate meaning in Chinese. “Don’t be too chengguan” means to not bully or terrorize. In other words, chengguan has literally become synonymous with violence.
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- May 22, 2009 9:44 PM
Kaixin001 v. Kaixin: Social Networking Goes to Court

Social networking site Kaixin001 has brought a lawsuit against Kaixin, a different social networking site that was created after Kaixin001. Kaixin001 is asking Kaixin to cease using the ‘Kaixin’ name and for compensation of lost advertising revenue.

From the Wall Street Journal China Journal:

The operator of one of China’s most popular social networking services, Kaixin001.com, has filed an unfair competition lawsuit against Beijing-based online entertainment company Oak Pacific Interactive, which started a competing service in October under the very similar name of Kaixin.com.

[...] The plaintiff’s site, Kaixin001.com, was launched in March 2008 and had recorded 20 million registered accounts and 700 million page views by April 2009, according to Chinese-language media. It is best known for its addictive online games, including some that are similar to Facebook’s “Parking War” and “Friends for Sale.” To monetize its traffic, in December Kaixin001.com began placing in-game advertisements in its Web game apps.

But the rapid growth of Kaixin001.com posed a direct challenge to Xiaonei.com, currently the biggest and most influential social networking Web site in China, which also happens to be owned by Oak Pacific Interactive. Created in 2005, Xiaonei.com, like Facebook before it, started out by focusing on college students (its name, in Chinese, means “on campus”). It was acquired by Oak Pacific Interactive in 2006 and currently has around 70 million registered users, half of whom use the site at least once a month.

See another look at the case, from People’s Daily Online:

“A domain name is just the door of a social networking site. People keep revisiting our website because it has a good reputation for games,” Xu Chaojun, vice-president of Qianxiang company, told China Daily yesterday.

“Kaixin.com is not a copycat! We will fight for our right and reputation in court,” he said.

For a comprehensive background of Kaixin001, please read the coverage at littleredbook.cn.
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- May 22, 2009 6:39 PM
Hangzhou Street Racing Victim Compensated 1.13 Million

The family of Tan Zhuo, the young man who was accidentally hit by street-racer Hu Bin, was compensated 1.13 million RMB for Tan’s death. chinaSMACK shares netizen views:

新浪河南网友手机用户:

I refuse to accept this! Without an agreement I will not believe it! The compensation was too quick, even before the courts have issued a sentence? Here, someone hits and kills 4 people and only paid 200,000! Everyone break up ["there is nothing to see here"]! Be careful when crossing the street, your father definitely does not have such good luck like old Tan [Tan Zhuo's father]!

新浪山东烟台网友:

Street-racing in busy city areas, this is not a simple traffic violation, it is a public safety endangerment crime. If this kind of crime is not punished severely, there will be even more cars racing on the streets and there will be even more people hit by street-racing cars. Are you willing to be hit? Are you willing to use 1 million to exchange your life? Perhaps 1 million is not a small amount of money for many people, but this probably cannot even pay for the car that was used to kill you. If a society sinks into using money to buy peace, giving money to make peace, then there are plenty of rich people, plenty of millionaires, plenty of billionaires, who can drive however they want and hit/kill however many people they want because they have plenty of money!!! If the perpetrator is not severely punished, then let’s wait for even more souls dying under the wheels of these street-racer groups.

TOM广东省惠州网友:

To speak my conscience, it is this society. If the media exposes it, and the leadership attaches importance to it, then the matter will go much more smoothly. [However] in most situations, the law stands on the side of those who have power because they have money!! This will be “dealt with leniently”!! This is the inevitable law of history!! Those with money will always be the boss, and those without money will forever be bullied by others! Poor people and rich people who have committed the same crime face different punishments. But if exposed, and everyone knows it, the leadership class, because of their goal of long-term development, will still however painfully impartially handle things!
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- May 22, 2009 6:11 PM
Sexual Harrassment Defined for the First Time in Beijing

Danwei translates a report from The Beijing News on amendments to the Law on Protection of Women’s Rights, which would define sexual harassment for the first time:

Using a mobile phone to send “yellow [pornographic] material” can possibly constitute as sexual harassment now. Yesterday morning, in Beijing new additions were made to the law for the Protection of Women’s Rights; now language, letters, pictures, electronic information, and physical conduct can all be cause for sexual harassment towards women. This is the first time that Beijing has defined the situations in which sexual harassment can happen in Beijing.

It is understood that “electronic information” basically means text messaging. The specific dividing line [of what is considered sexual harassment] will be decided during real situations. The director of the Law Department in Beijing Zhou Jidong (周继东) said that these actions were taken so that women will have a better idea of self-protection.

Also added into the draft was the responsibility of the work place in preventing sexual harassment.
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- May 22, 2009 12:26 PM
China Arrests 10 In New Brick Kiln Slave Case (Updated)

From Reuters:

Chinese police have arrested 10 people in an eastern province suspected of beating mentally handicapped people forced to work in brick kilns and treating them like slaves, state media said on Friday.

The case in Jieshou, a city in the underdeveloped province of Anhui, echoes a major scandal involving more than 1,000 people forced to work in brutal conditions at brick kilns in Shanxi province in 2007.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said police raided two kilns late last month and rescued 32 forced labourers.

Update:

China Daily looks at how the laborers arrived at the brick kilns:

Zhang [the brick kiln owner], 38, a native of Jieshou, allegedly bought some of the “workers” for about 300 yuan ($44) each from a taxi driver in the neighboring Shandong province, Zhao [Liang, a Jieshou public security bureau officer] said.

[...] Police are trying to find more clues to uncover a possible racket run by criminals to traffic mentally challenged people.

See Xinhua for more details on the story, including the challenges of returning the laborers home:

“All of them are mentally handicapped people aged between 25 and 45. Few of them can tell where they were from,” said Gao.

He said the police helped 19 of them find their homes, and the remaining 13 had been temporarily sheltered in a welfare house in Jieshou, waiting for the families to pick them up.

“We have put their photographs on the bureau’s website. Maybe their relatives are looking for them, and they may find the information on the Internet,” said Gao.

See also a report from the New York Times.
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- May 22, 2009 5:13 AM
Cui Weiping: Why Do We Need to Talk About June 4th?

During Mother’s Day weekend on May 10th, a number of intellectuals in Beijing organized a seminar discussing 20 years of the democracy movement in China. The seminar started with a moment of silence, paying tribute to the Tiananmen Mothers.

Cui Weiping (崔卫平), professor at the Beijing Film Academy presented the following text at the seminar, from China in Perspective, translated by Linjun Fan:

为什么要谈“六•四”？——“2009•北京•六四民主运动研讨会”论文
作者：崔卫平

Why do we need to talk about June 4th? A paper for 2009 Beijing June 4th Democratic Movement Seminar

Cui Weiping

下面是我十年前写给朋友的信。我与对方在交换意见——这么长时间，我们对于“六•四”集体保持沉默，实际上是参与了隐瞒这桩罪行。如此做法已经使得我们每个人，对于这件事情有了一定的责任。

Below is a letter I wrote to a friend ten years ago. I was trying to communicate my point to him: We have kept silent about June 4th collectively for such a long time that we are actually participating in concealing this crime. Such a practice has made each one of us somewhat responsible for the problem.

这种沉默带来的后果是无法计算的。我们在这件事情上绕着走，意味着在其他事情上，也同样采取了绕着走的态度。因此，如何来估量我们的工作、我们的言说和各项成果呢？我们如何向他人说明——我们的头脑是忠直的、我们的语言是忠诚的，因而是值得信任的？

The consequences of this kind of silence are incalculable. The fact that we skirted around the issue implies that we have adopted a similar attitude towards other issues. Therefore, how could we evaluate our work, our words, and various achievements we’ve made? How could we testify to others that our mind is honest and our words are truthful and reliable?

在“六•四”二十周年之际，我愿意公布这封信，向周围所有朋友提出这样的问题：二十年来的沉默和隐瞒，给我们社会带来的负面影响是什么？给我们民族的精神和道德带来怎样的损害？而我们自己在工作、生活中所受的损失又是什么？我们还打算继续沉默吗？

On the 20th anniversary of June 4th, 1989, I’d like to publicize the letter, and raise this question to all my friends: What kind of negative impact has it had on our society for us to keep silent and to conceal the event for two decades? How has it harmed the spirit and morality of this nation? What kind of losses have we suffered in our own work and life? Are we still intending to continue this silence?

如果再过十年，情况还是这样，那么“六•四”就不是少数人作恶，而是我们所有人都参与的一桩恶行，变成我们所有人的羞愧和耻辱。尤其是我们民族各行各业的精英们，对这件事情应该首先负起责任。让良知发出声音，才是我们民族道德重建、社会重建的起点。（2009年5月9日）

If the situation remains the same for another ten years, June 4th will no longer be a crime that was committed by a small group of people, but one that we all participated in. It will become a shame on all of us. We, especially the elites from all walks of life in this nation, should take primary responsibility for the problem. Let our conscience speak. It’s the beginning point for us to rebuild the morality of our nation and to rebuild our society.
May 9, 2009
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- May 21, 2009 11:09 PM
Video: Sala

The following video, produced by Sexy Beijing and posted on Danwei, is part of Abigail Washburn’s Afterquake project, in which she creates music with children from the earthquake-affected areas of Sichuan:

Afterquake: “Sala” Video from Sexy Beijing TV on Vimeo.

One year after the May 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in China, the Afterquake music project has created music with quake survivors to raise money and awareness for the ongoing reconstruction.

This song is a traditional Qiang minority song called “Sala”, but all the kids in Wenchuan seem to know it whether they are Han, Qiang or from another ethnic group. They also all seem to know the dance. The kids called it a guo zhuang (锅庄) song which means that you dance around a fire while singing it.

The vocals are by the girl in the video named Luo Shuang (罗霜), a 14 year old first year middle school student from Wenchuan County. She is Han ethnicity. Her mother appears at the end of the video, on the site where they are rebuilding their house, which was destroyed in the earthquake. The accompanying music was produced by Abigail Washburn and Dave Liang, of the Shanghai Restoration Project. The video was shot and edited by Luke Mines.
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- May 21, 2009 9:59 PM
Tiananmen Now Seems Distant to China’s Students (Updated)

A look at Peking University students 20 years after the Tiananmen Incident, from New York Times:

On April 30, the cellphones of the 32,630 students at Peking University, a genteel institution widely regarded as one of China’s top universities, buzzed with a text message from the school administration. It warned students to “pay attention to your speech and behavior” on Youth Day because of a “particularly complex” situation.

Few students had to puzzle over the meaning. Youth Day, on May 4, commemorates a 1919 student protest against foreign imperialism and China’s weakness in resisting it. Seventy years later, in 1989, students from Peking University were again massing in the center of Beijing, demanding democracy. The student movement shook the ruling Communist Party to its core and ended with a military crackdown and hundreds of deaths.

And if a student today proposed a pro-democracy protest?

“People would think he was insane,” said one Peking University history major in a recent interview. “You know where the line is drawn. You can think, maybe talk, think about the events of 1989. You just cannot do something that will have any public influence. Everybody knows that.”

Update: Read also a similarly-themed article from the Los Angeles Times.
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- May 21, 2009 7:44 PM
Mao Portrait Protesters Get Asylum

The human fallout continues 20 years after the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Yu Dongyue and Yu Zhijian, jailed for vandalizing Mao Zedong’s portrait during the Tiananment protests, have been granted political asylum in the U.S. From Radio Free Asia:

Two protesters who helped splatter Mao Zedong’s portrait with red paint during the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement 20 years ago have been granted political asylum in the United States, informed sources said.

Former journalist and art critic Yu Dongyue was the last of three protesters jailed by Chinese authorities for defacing Mao’s portrait to be freed. He was released in February 2006 after serving 17 years behind bars.

His family says he still suffers from severe mental impairment following repeated beatings in Chishan Prison, Yuanjiang city, in the central province of Hunan.

See also from CDT: China Releases Last Tiananmen ‘Hooligan’
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- May 21, 2009 1:00 PM
Nanjing Students Protest after Reported Clash between Police and Student Vendors

One day after an alleged violent confrontation between security guards and Nanjing students sparked by police brutality, reports of thousands of students protesting in the streets of Nanjing are appearing on the Chinese Internet. From The Australian:

Thousands of students are reported to have protested in the streets of Nanjing, in central eastern China - one of the centres of protests in 1989 - following an incident on Monday night in which government security guards enforcing restrictions on peddlers allegedly attacked classmates who had set up footpath stalls.

A bloody clash between thousands of students and riot police reportedly ensued, continuing into Tuesday morning. At least 30 students were injured, and a police car was smashed.

The incident this week went unreported in national media, although accounts of it, accompanied by photos, were posted on websites and blogs.

[...]Signs carried by students carried slogans in English and Chinese, including “non-violence and noncooperation” and “help vulnerable social groups and co-construct a harmonious society,” using a favourite phrase of communist propaganda.

The South China Morning Post (subscription required) has details of the Monday night violence. From the China Economic Review:

According to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, five student vendors with the Nanjing University of Aeronautics were beaten by officers as they tried to remove them from the campus on Monday evening. Students demonstrators then marched from the campus, blocking main roads at the university’s north entrance. Protestors clashed with riot police and smashed a police car after three students were arrested by police.

Chinese officials deny any clash between students and police on Monday night. They also deny that the thousand or so people in the streets on Tuesday were protesting students. From Xinhua:

A senior official at an east China university Thursday denied foreign media reports that students clashed with local police on Monday night.

Chen Xiachu, deputy Communist Party chief of the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), told Xinhua the conflict involved city management personnel and sidewalk peddlers near the campus.

“Up to 1,000 people were watching, including about 100 of our students,” he said. “The street was then blocked and traffic was at standstill.”
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- May 21, 2009 12:45 PM
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Halts Construction of Power Plant on Nu River

Premier Wen Jiabao has again suspended construction on the Liuku power station on the Nu River until after a thorough study of the hydroelectric dam’s potential environmental impact. Work on damming the Nu River has proceeded in fits and starts since 2004 in a tug of war between environmental activists and the power industry. Jane Macartney reports for the Times Online:

The Prime Minister of China has ordered a halt to construction of a hydroelectric plant on one of the country’s most remote and beautiful rivers. He has demanded an in-depth study of the likely impact on the local ecology and communities.

The decision, which will enrage power companies as well as local vested interests, was welcomed by China’s increasingly vocal environmental campaigners.

[...]One campaigner said that the importance of the Premier’s decision should not be underestimated. “The Nu River is one of only two rivers in China that have not yet been dammed. There has been no research on the biodiversity of the river where there may be many valuable and endangered animals and plants. If they are overwhelmed the losses can never be reversed,” she said.
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- May 21, 2009 12:04 PM
Have You Left No Sense of Decency? How China’s Latest Internet Hero Will Test the Rule of Law

From the Chinaelections.org:

In the seemingly never-ending struggle of the common people vs. the corrupt officials, every once in awhile, there is a case that attracts nationwide attention. In 2003, there was the Sun Zhigang case, while last year protests in Weng’an, Guizhou surrounding the suspicious death of a high school girl attracted widespread attention online, and Yang Jia became famous for killing six police officers in Shanghai.

This year’s unlikely heroine is Deng Yujiao, a 21 year old waitress at an entertainment club in Badong County, Hubei. On Sunday May 10, she became the perpetrator in the stabbing murder of Deng Guida, a township level official, and she also injured his companion and colleague Huang Dezhi. The popular telling of the event starts with the officials Deng and Huang finding Deng Yujiao washing clothes in a service room right next to their leisure room and asking her to provide “special services,” a not so subtle euphemism for sexual services. The three got into an argument when she refused, saying she did not work for the hydrotherapy area. During the argument, Mr. Deng took out a pile of money and hit her with it, questioning, “are you afraid I don’t have enough money?” and pushed her down on to a sofa twice, which is when she took out a pedicure knife and stabbed him repeatedly, also stabbing Huang Dezhi when he moved towards her. However, reports from the official media have been slightly different, as they claim that the knife used in the stabbing was a fruit knife, not a pedicure knife, implying that it is possible that the murder was premeditated, because why would she be carrying a fruit knife? They also don’t mention that Deng Guida hit the young girl with his money. When the police arrested her the next day, they found depression medication in her bag and are currently keeping her in a mental institution[zh].

Also read: Legality Issue in Deng Yujiao’s Case from the Seagull Reference blog:

Twenty one years old Deng Yujiao is a staff in a small town resort in remote eastern Sichuan, until the evening of May 10, 2009. Three local officials, after dined with a local business (treated by the business because they helped to suppress a labor uprising), arrived the place and found Deng washing her clothing in the laundry room. The officials asked Deng to perform ‘Special’ service (sex). Deng refused. Then Deng ran to employee lounge to hide. The officials followed Deng to the lounge. One of the officials used a big stack of money bill to slap Deng Yujiao’s face, and firmly demanded special service as a self-claimed ‘wealthy customer’. Deng tried to run away, but was blocked by the other two officials. The first official lost his patience, and pressed Deng Yujiao to the bed. Deng managed to get away. The first official again pressed Deng Yujiao to the bed. While the second and the third officials pressing Deng Yujiao to the bed, the first official raped Deng. After the first official got off from Deng, Deng managed to grab a pedicure knife she used at work and struck the first official four times. Deng Yujiao called police while fencing the officials with her pedicure knife. After police arrived, the first official fell, and died later.

Shen Zhen Red Song Club, a left-wing Maoist group will dedicate its weekly gathering on May 24 to ‘Heroine Deng Yujiao’. This is one of few moment when left and right in China’s political composition agrees and recognizes a common ground. Outside the political turmoil, people are outraged. The entire online presence of Chinese language are covered with petition to honor Deng Yujiao as a hero.

And China Daily’s Report: Official stabbed to death for ’special service’ request.

Also read “Sympathy for Waitress who Stabbed Official” from CDT.
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- May 21, 2009 7:16 AM