Earlier this month, people in Panhe marched to protest what they said was the theft by local leaders of communal lands. The complaints were met by a crackdown. Police and plainclothes security men hauled away at least 30 people. Villagers said the roundup targeted the protest organizers they’d selected to negotiate with the government.

“The officials took away all of the young people who were getting on the Internet,” said one farmer, a 50-year-old man who like many interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of arrest.

Panhe has become another in a long list of Chinese villages where locals say corrupt officials and well-connected businessmen conspired to steal land or otherwise rob the poor.

When residents stage demonstrations in hopes of gaining justice, the main leaders are often whisked away in police cars. After the government makes perfunctory promises, all goes back to the way it was before.

Panhe has seemed the most likely location for “Wukan 2.0″ after villagers claimed earlier this month that they had modeled their tactics after Wukan. The Diplomat’s Ai-Shan Lu, however, echoes Lasseter’s claims that Guangdong party secretary Wang Yang’s handling of the situation in Wukan appears to be the exception rather than the rule thus far:

In sharp contrast with Wang’s handling of the dispute, local government officials in Shanwei and Lufeng first labeled the incident as a “riot incited by foreign subversives.” In line with this thinking, the Financial Times quoted an unnamed senior Chinese leader stating: “it would be better for a clear directive from the central authorities to over-react rather than to fall short.” According to a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, other provincial officials complained that Wang set a terrible precedent since other people in protests could demand a similar response. 

…

During a visit to a village in Guangzhou on February 4, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao proclaimed that “farmers’ rights must be protected,” and in response to widespread dissatisfaction with local officials Wen emphasized the importance of “maintaining direct elections at the village-level.”

Wen’s statements were widely seen as an indication of high-level support for Wang’s practice in Wukan. So, does the government’s handling of the Wukan incident indicate that the CCP’s leadership is becoming more open-minded toward democracy? Although protests against village officials occurred in several rural villages following the Wukan incident, none successfully appealed for direct elections to replace incumbent village chiefs (as in Wukan). So Wukan appears to be more of an exception rather than the rule thus far. In fact, most uprisings were suppressed by local governments, except for any provincial intervention.

 See also CDT coverage of foreign journalists attacked by plainclothes henchmen while investigating the land grab protests in Panhe earlier this month.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: crackdown, Guangdong, land grabsm, Panhe, police violence, protests, Wang Yang, Wukan, Zhejiang
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If confirmed, the latest cases would bring the total self-immolations over the past year to 19, an unprecedented wave of self-inflicted violence among the tiny ethnic minority in China, according to scholars. They were also apparently the first by lay people, rather than current or former members of the clergy, suggesting that self-immolation may be gaining popularity as a form of dissent.

The incidents took place Friday in a remote village in Seda County, once a center of Buddhist teaching, but reports did not surface until the weekend because the government has cut Internet and telephone connections to the area, said Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan poet in Beijing.

She said that one of the three men had died and that the other two, believed to be about 30 and 60 years old, were severely injured.

The local party secretary for Seda County disputed the latest reports in a Global Times article published Monday:

“Everything is all right here, although we still have no Internet access,” said Wang, who said there had been rumors saying some Tibetans were going to set themselves on fire, but “it has not happened.”

Zhang Yang, from the publicity department of the Party committee of Sichuan Province, told the Global Times that he has not heard of any self-immolation incidents over this weekend.

Despite claims in official state media that recent unrest between Tibetans and local authorities in Sichuan is no cause for concern, Beijing has put officials on alert ahead of this month’s Tibetan New Year festival. From The Telegraph:

“Officials must put all their efforts into maintaining a stable, unified social situation in our region. They must have a clear head and fully recognise the extreme importance and urgency of the job of maintaining stability,” a Communist Party notice said in the state-run Tibet Daily newspaper.

“Government departments must unstintingly carry out all measures designed to maintain stability, ” the notice ordered.

The diktat did not detail what measures should be deployed to quell any further unrest.

But with the fifth anniversary of the large-scale March 2008 Tibet uprising also looming, the message to strike hard and stamp out any signs of mass revolt was clear.

Meanwhile, the elected leader of Tibet’s government in exile told the Financial Times on Monday that he is worried about a forceful crackdown by the Chinese government:

“The military build-up is increasing rapidly. We have seen pictures of hundreds of convoys filled with paramilitary forces with automatic machine guns moving towards various parts of Tibetan areas,” Lobsang Sangay, the prime minister of the Tibetan government in exile, told the Financial Times on Monday, referring to images sent by sources in the Tibetan region.

“We are really worried that with such a military security build-up and so many guns in the hands of Chinese police and military personnel, we fear the Chinese government is preparing for something very drastic and unforeseen and tragic.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: crackdown, self-immolation, Sichuan, Tibet protests
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I don’t disagree that the recent sentences are heavy. I’m less convinced, however, that the sentences themselves are clear evidence of a crackdown on dissent in China. This is because the length of the sentences in each of these cases can be attributed in large part to mandated penalty-intensification under Chinese law ….

Note that I’m not saying that there is no crackdown underway or that the punishments that were handed down are justified. I believe that China’s use of criminal sanctions against “inciting subversion” is a clear violation of international human rights law protecting free expression.

What I am saying is simply that Liu Xianbin, Chen Wei, and Chen Xi were given heavy punishments not simply because of any ongoing crackdown but more because of their persistent and long-standing political activism, for which each of them has spent a considerable amount of the past two decades behind bars. I think it gives us a better understanding of how the government cracks down on dissent to recognize that it’s precisely these kinds of veteran activists whom the authorities want “off the grid” and that the legal system is designed to enable them to do so.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chen xi, crackdown, legal system, Liu Xianbin, prisoners, subversion
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A national office will be established to facilitate China’s efforts to crack down on infringement of intellectual property rights (IPR) and counterfeit products, the State Council, or the Cabinet, said Wednesday.

China faces an arduous task in fighting IPR infringement as well as the production and sale of fake products, therefore, greater administrative and law enforcement efforts are needed, according to a statement issued after a State Council executive meeting.

Presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao, the meeting highlighted demand for stricter supervision over manufacturers and inspection over the market of food, medicine, cosmetics, agricultural materials, construction materials, machinery and electronics, and auto parts.

An article from Reuters outlines the progress that has been made since a major campaign against counterfeit goods and IPR infringement began last year:

The government in July pointed to statistics that showed it had made considerable progress in its crackdown on pirated goods, but such products remain widely available, both on street stalls and in brick-and-mortar stores.

Also on Wednesday, the Copyright Protection Center of China said it had deleted more than 400,000 Internet links to illegally copied audio and video content since June 2010.

From October 2010, when a major crackdown began, and June this year, Chinese authorities seized more than 13 million illegal audio, video and print items, Xinhua quoted the General Administration of Press and Publication as saying.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: counterfeit goods, crackdown, IPR, State Council
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“Look around. They could never find me here,” Sheng, 27, says of parents so anxious about their only child’s turn to Tibetan Buddhism that they have threatened to kidnap her.

[...]In Ganzi, many people welcome the growing number of Chinese students but complain their own freedoms will be restricted as long as the Dalai Lama remains in India, his home since 1959.

“I am proud so many Han Chinese come to Serthar to study, as it will help relations between the Han and Tibetan peoples,” says Tashi Dengzhu, a yak and sheep herder who lives south of Serthar.

The article goes on to explain that the mysterious nature of Tibetan Buddhism and the remote physical location of the Tibetan cultural realm makes this breed of Buddhism more attractive than varieties more widely practiced in rapidly developing lowland China:

Chinese visitors frequently describe Tibetan Buddhism, and its environment, as purer than the Buddhism sporadically practiced by more than 100 million Chinese in cities and towns teeming with temptation. Just how many Han Chinese have converted to Tibetan Buddhism is a sensitive and unanswered question in China.

[...]“Tibetan Buddhism is more attractive than other religions because many Chinese think it’s mysterious,” suggests Xu Jun, an analyst at Sichuan University’s Center for Tibetan Studies. Eight other Chinese Tibetan scholars declined interview requests on this topic.

One reason: The faith offers psychological comfort amid China’s rapid social and economic changes, Xu says.

The parents of young urban Buddhist converts aren’t the only ones anxious about what’s happening in Tibetan regions of China. In response to the wave of protests by Buddhist monks in Tibet, the central government is cracking down. McClatchy reports:

The chain of self-immolations — comprising six monks, three former monks and a nun — is unprecedented in modern Tibetan history. The most recent occurred Oct. 25.

The response so far by the Chinese Communist Party has been to knuckle down even more. Towns surrounding Aba are stacked with police. Internet access is shut off in many spots. Those suspected of sympathizing closely with activist monks are said to have disappeared.

A McClatchy reporter was detained for two hours Saturday when he was pulled over at a police checkpoint 15 miles from Hongyuan on the winding road toward Aba. He was released only after photos were deleted from his camera and he agreed not to stop again in Hongyuan on the way out, a condition emphasized by threats to his driver and the multiple vehicles that followed him.

Read reporter Tom Lasseter’s accounts of his visit to Aba via his Twitter stream.

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Post tags: Buddhism, crackdown, tibetan buddhism, unrest crackdown
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Marking the end of a nine-month campaign against intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement with cases worth 3.43 billion yuan ($530 million), Vice Minister of Commerce Jiang Zengwei said the situation had taken a turn for the better.

“You could say that there still exists some problems with China’s IPR, but I don’t endorse the idea that it is extremely serious,” Jiang told reporters at a press conference.

Jiang said police had shutdown 12,854 illegal plants making pirated and counterfeit goods and arrested 9,031 suspects since the crackdown began in late October ….

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office in May listed China as a country with one of the worst records for preventing copyright theft for the seventh year.

Chinese piracy and counterfeiting of U.S. software and a wide range of other intellectual property cost American businesses alone an estimated $48 billion and 2.1 million jobs in 2009, the U.S. International Trade Commission said in May.

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Post tags: counterfeiting, crackdown, intellectual property, piracy, software, software piracy
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Clarke argued that the perception of the authorities’ recent actions as an abandonment of the rule of law was fundamentally misguided:

Since late February, there has been a wave of detentions and disappearances of lawyers, activists and others in China. Especially alarming to many is the government’s apparent disdain for even the modest requirements of its own laws. While some have been detained or arrested in accordance with procedures required under Chinese law, others have simply been picked up by security officials and disappeared. These detentions reflect a deep truth about the system that observers are often tempted to overlook: that China’s legal system has never been about the rule of law. It has been and remains about making government function more effectively.

After enumerating the laws broken in the execution of the current crackdown, Lynch cites Li and other such lawyers in response:

Prof. Clarke presents a government that doesn’t want to give people like Li Tiantian any space; but Li Tiantian has no plans to give up that easily. True that since many of the lawyers’ release, most have kept out of the spotlight, but will they continue to do so? And how can the Chinese government expect them to?

Prof. Clarke is right to contend that the Chinese Communist Party is not interested in a “rule of law” if it means that it will contain the Party. But after 30 years of constantly reiterating – both domestically and abroad – the idea of a rule of law, sending lawyers, judges, and academics abroad to study Western countries’ legal systems, and inviting various foreign legal NGOs to establish offices in China and work with Chinese layers, some belief in a rule of law must have permeated society, especially for academics and rights-defending lawyers, the beneficiaries of much of China’s rule of law programs.

Prof. Clarke compares the Chinese government to a well organized army: sure there are lots of bureaucratic rules that must be followed, but those rules are not intended to be followed by the commander. For Prof. Clarke, an army, with all the rules that help it function, is in no way a rule of law society.

But running a society is different from running an army; unquestionable allegiance to hierarchy is not naturally found in society like it is among foot soldiers in an army. Ultimately, Prof. Clarke’s essay raises another question: while the Chinese government has little interest in rule of law, will these rights-defending lawyers succumb and just disappear? Li Tiantian’s essay upon her release heavily implies that the answer is no and that among some in China, there is a true commitment to a greater rule of law, even if not found within the ruling party.

See also: Li’s later accounts of her detention and interrogation, via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: crackdown, detention, jasmine revolution, rule by law, rule of law
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On May 24th, I came out of hospital. Thanks, everyone, for your concern; I’m very sorry that it’s taken me two days to get online and contact you all. I’m touched to see everyone’s concern. I learned of [Ai] Weiwei’s situation while I was inside, and was very sorry to hear about it. I hope he soon gets out safely.

Li also put up a short blog post, translated by Siweiluozi, which sheds more light on her experience:

It’s been a while since I’ve been in touch. First, let me tell you a story.

One day, a hornet worried unreasonably that a little bird would stir up its nest. (As it happened, some distant hornet nests had recently been stirred up.) The hornet grabbed the little bird and began stinging it frenziedly. Unable to bear the hornet’s stings and thinking there was no point to suffering this ordeal, the bird realized that no one would gain anything and that there was no way to change the hornet’s ways. So, the bird kneeled down to the hornet and kowtowed in order to extricate itself. The hornet, knowing that the force of justice was on the increase in the animal world, didn’t dare do anything rash to the bird and came up with a plan that would satisfy everyone. It agreed to release the little bird, but only if the bird promised: (1) not to speak of the past few months; (2) not to damage the hornet’s reputation; and (3) not to urge other animals to stir up the hornet’s nest. Finally the bird was free.

By the way, as for me, I’ve been in hospital for the past few months recovering from slightly elevated blood pressure. I went in on February 19 and was discharged on May 24. During this period I haven’t gone online, and the doctors have asked me not to go online so much in the future. In order to preserve my health and live a few extra years, I will go online less in the future. I’m sure everyone’s been worried about me — thank you, you can rest easy now. I’ll bet that there will be others in the future who, like me, will become increasingly mute, and I now know why many online friends from before have vanished from the Internet. After all, living is the most important thing. Under the present circumstances, there’s nothing wrong with being a tortoise hiding its head — at least they live to an old age. Maybe everyone should learn from me and be a tortoise hiding its head, for it’s because I’ve done this that not a single hair on my body has been harmed. Of course, perhaps there’s been a huge earthquake inside my heart.

See also: reports of Australian writer Yang Hengjun’s “hospital visit” in March, via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: crackdown, detention, human rights activists, jasmine revolution, Shanghai, Twitter
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Around 5 pm local time on April 29, Beijing-based human rights lawyer Li Fangping (李方平) was kidnapped by unidentified individuals outside the offices of the health rights NGO Beijing Yirenping Center, of which he is a legal advisor. Li was able to speak briefly with his wife, telling her, “I may be gone for a period of time… can’t talk more.” Further efforts to contact him have been unsuccessful, and his whereabouts are unknown.

The news of Li Fangping’s abduction comes on the heels of reports that prominent human rights lawyer Teng Biao (滕彪) was released earlier that afternoon after 70 days of enforced disappearance . Teng Biao’s wife, who confirmed his return, said she could not comment on his health or any other details of his disappearance. While the timing of Teng’s release initially seemed to signal a positive response by the Chinese government to this week’s U.S.-China human rights dialogue, the disappearance of Li shortly thereafter quickly dampened any hope that pressure on human rights activists in China might be easing. These actions raise renewed questions about the limits of international pressure on the Chinese government, as well as the effectiveness of human rights dialogues.

“In recent months, and especially during this crackdown, we have seen that torture to enforce silence is becoming a frighteningly common experience for those disappeared or detained,” said Renee Xia, CHRD’s International Director. “The Chinese authorities, in the meantime, are resorting to an old trick, the revolving-door approach—one in, one out—to create the impression that things are improving.”

Li Fangping is a prominent Beijing-based human rights lawyer who in recent years has represented a number of high-profile victims of political and religious persecution, including, among others, Chen Guangcheng, Yang Chunlin (杨春林), Hu Jia (胡佳), and Zhao Lianhai (赵连海). He has faced frequent harassment from officials, and, on December 27, 2006, was severely beaten and suffered head injuries after he and another lawyer were assaulted en route to visit Chen Guangcheng in a Shandong Prison.

See also CDT posts on Li’s involvement in issues such as Green Dam Internet filtering and tainted milk.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chen Guangcheng, crackdown, detention, Hu Jia, lawyers, Li Fangping, Teng Biao, Yang Chunlin, yirenping, Zhao Lianhai
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Teng Biao returned home on Friday afternoon but was not able to speak to the media, his wife, Wang Ling, said. She declined to comment on his physical or mental well-being.

Other lawyers and activists released after similar detentions have also declined to speak to the media, possibly as a condition of their release.

China Human Rights Defenders, a Hong Kong rights advocacy group, said earlier Teng disappeared on 19 February and officers searched his home, seizing two computers, a printer, articles, books, DVDs and photos of another rights lawyer, Chen Guangcheng.

Teng, a law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, was among dozens of lawyers and activists across China who have vanished, been interrogated or detained for subversion as the Chinese government, apparently unnerved by events in the Middle East and North Africa, moved to prevent dissent.

Meanwhile, an expert on China’s role in the Korean war, who was jailed for more than a decade for spying, will be released in June after his sentence was reduced further, a human rights group said.

The intermediate court in Guangzhou cut the sentence of scholar Xu Zerong by a third, slicing five more months from his 13-year term, said the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco.

These developments do not appear to mark the start of an easing-up in the ongoing crackdown, however. The Chinese Human Rights Defenders network dryly noted on Twitter that the authorities seem to be operating on a “one out, one in” basis:

Human rights lawyer Li Fangping abducted in Beijing around 5pm local time by unidentified men in front of the office of Yirenping, an NGO.

See also: more on Li Fangping’s disappearance, via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chen Guangcheng, crackdown, detention, lawyers, Li Fangping, Teng Biao
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