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China news tagged with: Fujian (22)

• Chinese Tests Reveal Lead In Children Near a Plant

  

  Another case of lead poisoning of children has been confirmed in Fujian, the New York Times reports:

  Officials in southeastern China acknowledged on Saturday that 121 children living near a battery plant had excessive lead in their bloodstreams, according to the state news media.

  Xinhua, the official news agency, said that nearly half the children who were tested last week in Longyan City in Fujian Province showed abnormally high levels of lead, which can cause developmental problems in children as well as a host of other ailments, including anemia, stomach pain and brain damage.

  Last month, health officials in Hunan Province revealed that more than 1,300 children living near a manganese processing plant had lead poisoning. The disclosure came a few days after 850 children in rural Shaanxi Province were found to have been contaminated by lead levels so high that 174 of them had to be hospitalized.

  The authorities in Shaanxi, in north-central China, blamed a zinc and lead smelting facility, which has since been closed, for the poisonings. Last week officials announced a $29 million relocation project to move 1,400 families who lived near the smelter to an entirely new community farther away.

  » Read more
  • September 27, 2009 8:49 PM

• Storm Topples Six China Buildings (Updated)

  

  [Originally posted August 9; updates below] AP reports:

  A typhoon pummeled China’s eastern coast Sunday, toppling houses, flooding villages and forcing nearly a million people to flee to safety. Officials rode bicycles to distribute food to residents trapped by rising waters.

  Typhoon Morakot struck after triggering the worst flooding in Taiwan 50 years, leaving dozens missing and feared dead and toppling a six-story hotel. It earlier lashed the Philippines, killing at least 21 people.

  Morakot, which means “emerald” in Thai, made landfall in China’s eastern Fujian province, carrying heavy rain and winds of 74 miles (119 kilometers) per hour, according the China Meteorological Administration. At least one child died after a house collapsed on him in Zhejiang province.

  Watch CBS News raw footage of the storm:
  

  Update (August 10): See the Wall Street Journal, “Typhoon-Driven Landslide Topples Apartment Buildings In China.”

  From Al Jazeera:

  In China, the storm triggered a massive landslide in eastern Zhejiang province that toppled six apartment buildings and buried an unknown number of residents late on Monday.

  The official Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday that the landslide in Pengxi town destroyed the six four-storey buildings at the foot of a mountain.

  Six survivors were pulled out – one in critical condition – but rescuers did not yet know how many people were buried under the rubble and search operations were hampered by the amount of mud and rock.

  The storm also sparked the evacuation of about 1.4 million people from Zhejiang and neighbouring coastal province Fujian, Chinese authorities said.

  And from AP:
  

  » Read more
  • August 10, 2009 5:41 PM

• RFA: Fujian City Warned Over Unrest

  

  This is an exclusive report from the Radio Free Asia:

  Authorities in the southeastern Chinese city of Fuzhou have warned local officials to take measures to prevent “mass incidents” over a land dispute, as the global economic crisis sparks government fears over growing social unrest.

  In a document issued by the Chinese Communist Party propaganda department of Fuzhou city and obtained by RFA, the government warned officials in Fuqing city, lower down the chain of command, to beware of fallout.

  “We recommend that the relevant departments take this very seriously and take immediate steps to ensure that no mass incidents take place,” the document, titled “Special Report on Web Opinion” and signed by the “Web news management division,” said.

  Dated Jan. 21 and seen Thursday, the communique was sparked by a Jan. 20 report by RFA’s Mandarin service, which covered a dispute between villagers around Haikou township, near Fuqing, and local officials, over compensation for farmland lost to development.

  The communique said China’s state security police were unable to block the RFA Web site “for technical reasons.”

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  • February 12, 2009 7:32 PM

• China Birthday Party Blaze Kills 15 In Bar: Media

  

  From Reuters:

  Fifteen people suffocated when a fire sparked by birthday fireworks swept through a bar and restaurant in eastern China, state media said on Sunday, in an accident similar to one last September which killed 44.

  Seventeen people were injured in the blaze in Fujian province on Saturday night, Xinhua news agency said.

  The Latin-style bar and restaurant in Changle was set ablaze just before midnight, when about 10 young men and women celebrating a birthday set off fireworks at their table, Xinhua said.

  “The festive explosive set the ceiling on fire and the entire place was soon engulfed in flames,” it quoted a local government spokesman as saying.

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  • January 31, 2009 8:22 PM

• China Investigates Anaesthesia-Related Deaths

  

  Chinese health authorities are investigating the deaths of patients at a Fujiang hospital reportedly linked to the use of anaesthetics. Xinhua reports:

  Chinese health authoritiesare investigating four anaesthesia-related deaths at a Sanming City hospital in the eastern Fujian Province.

  The patients had operations for different diseases and died at the No. 2 Hospital of Sanming between Sept. 3 and Oct. 11. Media reports said the victims, three males and a female, had all undergone surgical anaesthesia.

  The three males were identified as 26-year-old Feng Guangle, three-year-old Zou Zhengtao and 29-year-old Jiang Chenfeng. The woman was Zhang Chunmei, 44, a hospital spokesman told Xinhua on Tuesday.

  South China Morning Post also reports:

  The Ministry of Health is conducting wide-ranging investigations into the deaths of at least seven patients from contaminated drugs and possible medical blunders.The news has prompted fresh concerns about the standard of medical services on the mainland.

  Four patients have died at the Sanming No2 Hospital in Fujian province since September 3, Xinhua reported yesterday.

  » Read more
  • October 14, 2008 9:01 PM

• A Living Heritage: The Earthen Homes of Yongding County

  

  The New York Times reports on the unique cylindrical, earthen homes of the Hakka people in Fujian Province:

  The Hakka communal homes-cum-fortresses have lured foreign architects and anthropologists for the last 20 years and, more recently, a trickle of tourists seeking obscure corners of China and overseas Hakka seeking their roots. Noting this interest, China, more often known for demolishing historic structures than protecting them, has begun restoring the earthen houses and last year nominated them for World Heritage Site status. Unesco will consider the nomination this summer.

  In the meantime, many Hakka residents are upgrading to modern housing and to jobs in the cities. They are less interested in the cultural value of their dwellings, which adds to the sense of urgency among those wishing to preserve, or see, remnants of China’s past.

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  • April 30, 2008 1:59 PM

• China’s Great Migration

  

  From Slate Magazine, a three-part series that looks at the Fujianese who emigrate in mass to the U.S., and where they come from:

  The Fujianese are known for their work ethic and entrepreneurial zeal, and the new arrivals fanned across the United States and started businesses. That generic Chinese restaurant in the strip mall near your house? Almost certainly run by Fujianese. Those no-frills “Chinatown buses” that initially linked Eastern seaboard cities and now rival Greyhound, crisscrossing the continent? A Fujianese innovation.

  The Fujianese in America work so hard, in fact, that when they have babies—babies who, by virtue of being born on American soil, are U.S. citizens—they don’t have time to raise them. So, they send the babies home, back to the very villages the parents left, to be raised by their grandparents. The babies sitting around me—who begin screaming in unison as the plane nears Fuzhou and begins its descent—are packing something that many of their chaperones lack: U.S. passports.

  » Read more
  • April 14, 2008 9:04 PM

• Models, Delegates, And The Latest Spin On PX

  

  Jonathan Ansfield’s most recent Biganzi dispatch:

  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 (新丝路), 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.

  » Read more
  • March 14, 2008 10:47 PM

• Slideshow: Behind the Dried Bamboo Curtain

  

  Dried bamboo shoots (笋干) are a popular specialty food product manufactured by hand in Yong’an (永安), Fujian in a back-breaking process few Chinese consumers of the snack appreciate. One photographer recently went to a bamboo mountain in Fujian last spring to document how the snack is made, via fengniao.com:

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  • March 2, 2008 2:44 PM

• Work Starts on Nuclear Power Plant

  

  China Daily reports that construction of a nuclear power station began on Monday in Fujian province. The plant is estimated to cost $7.1 billion for four nuclear reactors. They expect the first nuclear reactor to be put into commercial use by the end of 2012.

  As the world’s second-largest energy consumer, China is looking more to nuclear power for a balanced energy mix. According to official figures, nuclear power is now the third largest power source in the country.

  The 11 nuclear reactors currently in operation have a combined capacity of about 8,000 MW, and last year generated 62.86 billion kWh, up more than 14 percent on 2006, the Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense said.

  However, nuclear power still accounts for less than 2 percent of the country’s total output. The NDRC said it wants to boost this figure to 4 percent by 2020.

  » Read more
  • February 19, 2008 2:10 PM

• More than Ten Thousand Chinese Named After Pigs and Rats

  

  From Xinhua, translated by CDT:

  “Pig” year is gone and the “Rat” year comes. Have you ever thought that there are Chinese named after pigs and rats? It is true.

  According to the Ministry of Public Security’s citizen ID service center, more than 7,000 Chinese names include “Pig” and more than 4,000 people have “rat” in their names.

  Twenty percent of the people with “pig” in their names were born in the year of the pig, while 54% of people with “mouse” in their names were born in the year of the mouse.

  “Little Pig” “Old Pig” and “ Golden Pig” are the most commonly selected names. Guangdong province ranks first in China for more than 2,000 people with “Pig” in their names. This is followed by Fujian and Shanxi provinces. Both have more than 900 people named after pigs.

  “Rat” is a common name, but “Old Rat”, “Golden Rat”, “Jade Rat” are popular, too. Gansu and Shanxi both have more than 1,000 people named after rats. Beijing, Shandong, Hainan, Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang have less than 10 people with “Rat” in their names.

  » Read more
  • February 7, 2008 9:44 AM

• Anxi, Fujian: Levying “Xiaojie Tax” With No Fault – Legal Daily

  

  A story about a hidden rules of the game in China. Translated by CDT from Legal Daily:

  A 5,000-word article, “serving the people, Anxi (安溪)’s tax bureau breaks down Singaporean firm,” popped up on Internet forums after the October week-long holiday last year. Wang Quancheng (王泉成), the Singaporean Chinese and leading character in the article, offended his local tax authorities due to his lack of understanding of the rules of the game, or the “under-the-table rules.” Opening up Anxi County’s first four-star hotel Mingyuan (明园大酒店), Wang returned to his hometown to establish his business. But he is not a fan of “taking care of” tax officials and often refused to treat the cadres with free, fancy meals (霸王餐).

  The hotel alleges the county tax bureau owed 18,000 yuan in meals and hotel stays but couldn’t collect the receivables after numerous attempts. When one day a hotel employee went up to the tax bureau for the payment, he was slammed for “not understanding who’s the boss (不识相).” Soon, the tax bureau and the city tax inspection bureau made an allegedly retaliatory raid on the hotel and left a few tickets, totaling 1.87 million yuan fines in “urban property taxes” and “xiaojie taxes (小姐税).” (Xiaojie, literally “miss,” also is a euphemism for “prostitutes” and such.)

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  • January 8, 2008 8:14 PM

• It Don’t Look Like A Red Envelope – Jonathan Ansfield

  

  The latest Biganzi post from Jonathan Ansfield:

  

  “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!”

  » Read more
  • November 25, 2007 7:55 AM

• The Great Firewall: China’s Misguided ” and Futile ” Attempt to Control What Happens Online – Oliver August

  

  From The Wired Magazine:

  I didn’t know I was a surveillance target until the day I walked into a hotel in China’s Fujian province. I was pushing past half a dozen workmen changing lightbulbs in the glum but busy lobby when a uniformed man stepped in front of me. Blue jacket, creased trousers, braided epaulets, peaked cap: government security officer. Politely, he asked whether I would mind answering a few questions. He stood erect, with the manicured swagger of a corporate CEO. Next to him, a gangly plainclothes colleague gave me a so-you-thought-we-wouldn’t-catch-you look.

  » Read more
  • October 22, 2007 5:17 PM

• China Reels After Typhoon Krosa – BBC News

  

  From BBC News:

  Some five million people have been affected by a powerful storm that hit China’s south-east coast, destroying houses and causing widespread flooding.

  More than 1.4 million people were evacuated ahead of Typhoon Krosa , which struck Zhejiang and Fujian provinces on Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported. No deaths were reported and it was later downgraded to a tropical storm. [Full Text]
  
  

  [Image: Zhejiang province was among the areas worst hit in China, from AP.]

  » Read more
  • October 9, 2007 11:18 AM

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