The banner reads “Tibetans and Han are One Family”. Shanghaiist’s Kenneth Tan points out a satirically photoshopped image of an identical vehicle outside Hong Kong’s Sogo department store in, supposedly, 2015, its banner reading “China and Hong Kong are One Family”.

If a declaration of fraternity hanging from the side of an armoured vehicle isn’t ironic enough, the blog Mountain Phoenix over Tibet notes (in a different context) the historical background of the name “Kangding” 康定. It replaced “Dajianlu” 打箭炉 (based on the Tibetan “Dartsedo”) in the early twentieth century, and is widely held to refer to the stabilisation or pacification of Kham (eastern Tibet).

A friend, who hails from Kardze town, tells me the name is a contraction of the Tibetan karpo (“white”) and dzebo (“graceful”) – actually a rather unlikely and funny name for a macho Khampa place. It sounds more like a name for a Tibetan cosmetics line: “Fair & Lovely”!

The town Kardze, however, is not the capital of the Prefecture Kardze. That privilege goes to Dartse(m)do, a formerly important trading-town on the old Sino-Tibetan border. But in present-day Tibet, folks who hail from Dartsedo would tell you they are from Kangding.

How Dartsedowas can be so brainless and voluntarily use that dreadful Chinese name is a mystery only they are able to penetrate. Doesn’t it mean “subjugation of Kham”? Arrog Khampa, what happened to your famous pride? Linguistics is a political battlefield, if you still haven’t noticed. Why do you shoot yourself in the foot?

The BBC’s Michael Bristow describes the extensive security operation currently in place in the area, following a series of self-immolations:

A BBC team was stopped and held at the roadblock [on the way to Kangding]. “Foreigners are not allowed into Tibetan areas,” said one security man.

We were then escorted back into Ya’an, where we were questioned at government offices by an official, surnamed Ma, who veered from friendly to threatening.

“You need to make a confession and sign a statement saying you will not go back into Tibetan areas,” he barked at one point ….

Robert Barnett, of New York’s Columbia University, said this region of western Sichuan, historically known to Tibetans as Kham, was relatively peaceful until a few years ago.

“We are talking about an area where China had a working relationship with Tibetans,” said Mr Barnett.

But he said trust started to disappear just over a decade ago when the central government began introducing hardline policies that were already in place in Tibet proper.

Kristin Jones at the Committee to Protect Journalists suggests that the policy of denying media access may be counterproductive:

Placing travel restrictions on journalists may have one unintended effect. It means that when it comes to unofficial news from China, activists and advocacy groups play a vital role in collecting and disseminating information.

Chinese authorities are hard on activists–even harder than they are on journalists. But by preventing reporters from doing their jobs, Chinese officials all but guarantee that activists are the ones reporting the news.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: history, language, media conditions, Robert Barnett, Sichuan, Tibet coverage
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The Hong Kong administration announced last month it is to limit the number of the so-called birth tourists, setting a quota of 3,400 births for non-local women per year, down from 10,000 last year.

But mainlanders are flouting the rules by arriving at emergency wards in the late stages of labour.

As well as better medical treatment, newborns receive automatic residency and are entitled to 12 years free education.

The unwanted baby boom is putting a strain on resources as well as causing public anger.

Read more about the flaring tensions between mainlanders and Hong Kongers, which reached a boiling point recently with the release of an anti-mainlander Locust Song. See also an Al Jazeera report (via CDT) about the phenomenon of mainland women traveling to Hong Kong to give birth.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: birth tourism, childbirth, Hong Kong relations
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Among their most critical findings is that the relationship between prosecutors and judges tends to be so close that there is “little space for lawyers to work within.” More basically, a judge is quoted as saying, “the police, the judge and the prosecutor are in one family ….”

The interviews found that some participants in the system would prefer a higher level of legality. Ultimately, however, criminal justice is “a process within a system, a Party-centered system which demands certainty of outcome (conviction).”

The authors write that despite “traces of due process,” the value system allows exceptions that violate the law. Violations of the law have become “systematic and entrenched… they have also become internalized… the rules to be followed are quite different from the rules in the formal rules” of the Criminal Procedure Law and merely changing legal rules would not improve rights and increase the reliability of the system. It would be necessary for the Party-state to “discard existing prejudices and adopt new and liberal values… ‘system reform’ not ‘law reform.’”

See also two previous posts by Lubman, via CDT: Laws on Paper vs. Law in Practice and A Glimpse into Chinese Law-Making.

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Post tags: criminal law, criminal procedure law, judiciary, legal reform, legal system
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“The nationwide survey, which will provide basic data for China’s Gini coefficient calculation, will cover about 140,000 urban and rural households, and the gathering and use of data will conform to international standards,” Xie Hongguang, deputy chief of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said.

The integrated urban-rural income data is scheduled to be published in 2013 to pave the way for the publication of a national Gini coefficient that can measure income inequality, Xie said ….

Yi Xianrong, a researcher with the Institute of Finance and Banking under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, suggested that the government introduce regulations to ensure the transparency of income information.

“The public have a right to know the Gini coefficient,” Yi said.

Last year’s NBS figures put China’s rural Gini coefficient at 0.39, just short of the 0.4 mark widely held to show potentially destabilising inequality. But the article also cites the World Bank’s 2009 estimate of 0.47 for the country as a whole. See explanations of the Gini coefficient from the World Bank and Wikipedia, and the latter’s global comparison, from Sweden and Norway in the 0.20s to Namibia at over 0.7.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: economic inequality, income inequality, inequality, National Bureau of Statistics, urban rural divide, World Bank
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The Chinese, he said, want lively, louder environments where they can shop for Louis Vuitton and Gucci bags and eat in large groups, while European visitors prefer a more tranquil, quiet, back-to-nature kind of experience. “When too many Chinese, Indians, and Russians come and we cater to them by opening shopping centers or set up large group tables, we see a clash with what the Europeans want. The Europeans leave and look for other quieter hotels, or different locations altogether. For instance, we have seen more Europeans leaving Phuket and going to Khao Lak and Krabi and other more peaceful areas.”

In other words, he was worried that he would lose his original core customer base by expanding it because the wants and expectations of Chinese are so different from other groups. Sharp differences in consumer wants and needs is a dilemma that everyone in the travel and leisure sector will have to handle – Chinese, Indians, and Russians are becoming the high-spenders, but how will that affect your current customer base?

Will wealthy European women want to buy Louis Vuitton handbags if they see so many middle class Chinese tourists carrying them? Can a hotel be both lively and peaceful? Can you cater to all groups and, and if so how, or is it better to focus on one group? The complexity of managing such an environment will be taxing.

As Rein points out, hospitality giant Intercontinental Group has managed the different needs of its European and Chinese customers by announcing plans last October to roll out a new China brand of mainland hotels.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chinese tourists, Intercontinental Hotels, luxury goods, tourism
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Zhang, speaking with McCain on a panel at the high-level Munich security conference, dismissed his comments about a looming Chinese Arab Spring as “no more than fantasy” and condemned foreign interference in Chinese internal affairs.

McCain, who ran for president against Barack Obama in 2008, told Zhang in front of an audience of ministers, diplomats and security officials: “It is a matter of concern when Tibetans are burning themselves to death because of the continued repression of the Tibetan people in your country.”

“I have said on many occasion and I will say again the Arab Spring is coming to China as well.”

Zhang responded by calling McCain’s claim “more than a fantasy,” and expressed China’s resentment of any lecturing on how to govern within its borders. While the two reportedly shook hands at the end of the panel, reports in China’s state media painted a less rosy picture of the exchange. From Shanghaiist:

The two apparently shook hands at the end of the meeting as McCain told Zhang, “I hope you didn’t interpret my remarks as anything other than the advocacy that I and others hold for every nation in the world, including yours.”

Back home, a report by People’s Daily described the confrontation as being “full of gunpowder smell”, and McCain as “aggressive”, notes the South China Morning Post.

“China has implemented different policies from those implemented in the West Asian and North African nations. China is different from those nations because the policies and governance of the country have the overwhelming support of the people,” the paper quoted Zhang as saying.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Arab Spring, John McCain, Munich, Tibetan protests
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Most intellectuals in China today are not the same as those radicals in 1989 who clamored for the adoption of a Western style political system, but instead fully recognize there is no prospect for China to copy a Western path. A “Jasmine revolution” could only drive China into chaos.

Most Chinese intellectuals and the majority of Chinese society don’t expect a Western style government at the current stage of development, but want stronger supervision on power through political reform.

China’s development needs a new authoritarianism. The government has a firm foundation, and the new authoritarian politics should be strongly adapted to the times and have greater flexibility. They must better respond to social demands and institutional changes.

In the past 10 years, some have become rather frustrated by the stagnant process of reform. Some are calling for a second “southern tour” with the purpose to urge China to seek the direction of future reform, political reform in particular.

I entirely understand the public demand for this, but I am more hopeful to see institutional innovation created by the forthcoming 18th CPC National Congress, which will enhance the new authoritarianism and provide a stronger driving force for a democratic construction.

A Caixin editorial painted a less optimistic picture, declaring Deng’s reform movement “dead” and attempting to reposition the aim of reform in today’s China:

Reform’s objectives, targets, approaches and pathways have changed over the past 20 years. And today we have a fresh impetus for change: Reform is needed to prevent powerful interest groups from taking advantage and prospering by means of market distortion.

We can no longer expect a lone hero to ride to the rescue. A single tour by a dynamic leader cannot be expected to forge a new consensus by one of even several city tours. Rather, a consensus for action must come from party leaders that’s based on sound political judgment, genuine concern for society, and an accurate reading of the people’s will.

China is at a crossroads. Party leaders are being tested, and all of us are being challenged. There is broad agreement in society about the many problems China faces. There is also renewed determination to push for more reform, and supporters of this initiative are gathering strength.

But the urge for ongoing reform is running way ahead of action. We need the opposite. Like Deng on his tour, an exceptional leader must take a stand with a vision that’s ahead of the times, not behind, and lead China’s forward.

See also recent CDT coverage of Deng Xiaoping’s legacy.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: authoritarianism, democracy, Deng Xiaoping, political reform, southern tour
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Transplanting football to China has never been as easy as the transplanters hoped. Mao was a basketball buff, which is one reason why you’ll find a hoop in just about every village from Tibet to the Yellow Sea. In football, by contrast, the pads and balls and rhythms are idiosyncratic, and, for a while, the league put its hopes on trying to cultivate a Yao Ming for football, a Chinese national who might be able to cut it in the N.F.L., and bear on his (presumably ample) shoulders the hopes and merchandising money of the motherland. At one point, the league even helped train some big-boned Chinese soccer players to make the switch to field-goal kickers. But none of them reached the N.F.L. (I encountered one of the aspiring kickers a few years ago, after he’d played his first minutes of actual football, and he told me that he’d rapidly discovered that the “opponent will try to disturb you when you try to kick a goal.”)

The N.F.L. is no longer looking to groom its Yao Ming. Richard Young, the managing director of N.F.L. China, told me that he now compares his sport’s future to that of coffee. “Years ago, I took a Chinese friend to try a cup of coffee, and he choked down this black liquid and said, at the end of it, ‘Richard, Chinese people will never love coffee.’ And you know what? To this day, they still don’t have the big barista machines at home. But they’ll gladly go to Starbucks, and Starbucks is all over China. So coffee is not going to replace tea, and we’re not going to overtake soccer, but it doesn’t mean we can’t build a good business.”

The Wall Street Journal reported in November on the NFL’s latest attempt to bring American football to China through an interactive marketing event in Shanghai.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing, football, foreign sports, NFL, sports, Super Bowl
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The spill, which affected 200 miles of the Longjiang River in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, was caused by two companies that accidentally released tons of cadmium into the river last month. The contamination was not reported for at least two weeks, during which people continued to use the water for drinking and cooking.

According to the official Xinhua news agency, among those fired from their jobs was the head of environmental protection in the city of Hechi, which failed to report the spill and then botched the attempted cleanup. Several other officials, including the city’s deputy mayor, were reportedly disciplined. The police have also arrested six people at the Hongquan Lithopone Factory and the Jinhe Mining Company, which are blamed for the spill. Four other managers at the companies have fled, Xinhua reported.

During a news conference in Hechi on Friday, officials said that 90,000 pounds of fish and more than a million fry had been killed and that several hundred villagers downstream had consumed river water for five days before they were notified about the dangers.

Authorities claim that it will take approximately one month to clean up the cadmium spill, but officials have said that the tap water in the region is safe to drink. The Times of India adds:

Efforts to cleanup industrial effluents from a major river in south China will take a month, authorities said on Friday.

Cadmium concentration in Liujiang river is expected to drop below the official limit Feb 28, China Daily quoted Xu Zhencheng, head of the emergency panel, as saying.

Cleanup efforts have brought down cadmium levels from 80 times to 20 times the official limit of 0.005 milligrams per litre Thursday, said professor Zhang Xiaojian of Tsinghua University.

The contamination was first detected Jan 15. A plant belonging to Jinhe Mining Co. Ltd. is suspected to be the source of the spill. A 300-km section of the river is affected.

© melissa chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cadmium Poisoning, Guangxi, industrial pollution, water pollution
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The Chinese premier, who retires later this year, said he understood why villagers were often angry about land losses, and vowed to give real bite to protections that in theory give farmers a collective say in land development.

What is the widespread problem now? It’s the arbitrary seizure of farmers’ fields, and the farmers have complaints about this, and it’s even sparking mass incidents,” Wen said in Guangdong on Saturday, according to the Xinhua report.

“The root of the problem is that the land is the property of the farmers, but this right has not been protected in the way it should be,” said Wen.

Wen, who has cast himself as a defender of the struggling farmer, also vowed to make village committee elections — seen by many residents as an empty formality under the thumb of officials — into an authentic channel for public opinion.

Wen’s comments did not change the policy regarding land rights, but his statements seemed to be in support of Wang Yang, Guangdong’s provincial party secretary. The Wall Street Journal adds:

The comments, reported on Sunday, appeared to be a signal of support for Guangdong’s provincial party secretary, Wang Yang. Mr. Wang, who is widely viewed as among the most liberal of China’s top leadership, has embarked on a risky campaign to reduce official rural corruption by making significant concessions to protesting villagers, and allowing former protest leaders in Wukan to take up key posts in the village government.

Mr. Wang is vying for a spot on China’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee in a leadership transition later this year. Some analysts say Mr. Wang’s political fate is tied in some degree to the success of grass-roots democracy in Wukan. The case has galvanized national attention, and has been widely debated on China’s popular social networking sites in recent weeks.

Analysts say Mr. Wang’s model in Wukan likely faces resistance elsewhere in China among local leaders who fear unhappy residents across China will be emboldened by the apparent victory of Wukan’s villagers.

Protests in Wukan began in September, and centered on alleged land grabs by local officials. They escalated dramatically in December after a protest leader, Xue Jinbo, died while in police custody. The protests only subsided after Mr. Wang sent one of his top lieutenants to the village to make concessions to protest leaders.

Read much more about Wukan via CDT.

© melissa chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Guangdong, land rights, Wen Jiabao, Wukan
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