Tree Planting in the Desert: Wisdom or Folly? (New York Times)

April 11, 2004 “According to government statistics, 42 billion trees have been planted since 1982. Last year alone, the effort involved more than 560 million people. In the latest phase of the effort, announced two years ago, China plans to plant trees in an area of 170,000 square miles ” just over the size of […]

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Online gaming is proving to be a lucrative business in China (Aljazeera)

“Eyes glued to the screen, 15-year-old Wang Li is mesmerised as his assembled army masses for what will prove to be the final attack. Playing Starcraft, a popular sci-fi strategy game, Wang Li is quite literally joining millions of other fans for an afternoon of internet gaming. Last year boasting 13.8 million gamers (non-official figures […]

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Freedom’s Ring Around China (CSM)

This is a Christian Science Monitor commentary on April 8. “Beijing’s leaders were rattled last July when a half-million people took to the streets in Hong Kong. The protests forced officials to shelve a proposed security law for the territory. It was the biggest challenge to Communist rule in China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square […]

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China lets foreign media in – just a bit

Dow Jones reported on April 9: “Foreign media and publishing groups, including News Corp and Germany’s Bertelsmann, are in talks with Chinese media companies on a range of cooperation deals made possible by a loosening of government control over the industry. By quietly allowing dozens of state-owned broadcasting, newspaper and other media groups to experiment […]

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Legal experts challenge corruption charges against journalists

Several high profile legal experts, lawyers, and journalists are mounting public criticism of the corruption charges used against journalists with the Southern Metropolis News (Nanfang Dushi Bao). These critics argue that the corruption charges violate new constitutional guarantees protecting private property. Several of their appeals (in Chinese) are posted online by the Open Constitution Initiative. […]

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Shanghai ranks second in Internet penetration (Xinhua)

This is from Xinhua’s website: www.chinaview.cn. “Shanghai Internet penetration rate ranked the second in China’s mainland, next only to Beijing, said a report released yesterday.     Shanghai’s net users increased to 4.32 million last year, a 2 percent increase compared to the previous year. The penetration rate was up to 26.6 percent, second only to Beijing […]

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A Democratic China? Not So Fast, Beijing Leaders Say (NYT)

By JOSEPH KAHN Published: April 8, 2004 BEIJING, April 7 – When asked why China, with its surging economy and rising power, has not yet begun to democratize, its leaders recite a standard line. The country is too big, too poor, too uneducated and too unstable to give political power to the people, they say. […]

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Internet Dissident Appeals Three Year Sentence (Epoch Times)

April 7, 2004 “On Oct. 14, 2003, well-known Internet dissident Luo Yongzhong was sentenced to three years in prison by the Changchun Intermediate Court for publishing an article on the Internet, commenting and criticizing on China, and placing blame on the Chinese government. Luo was formally charged with and convicted of “instigating rebellion against the […]

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Jailing of tabloid managers a slap in Hu’s face (SCMP)

According to today’s South China Morning Post: “A group of mainland legal and economic experts has called for a retrial of two managers of a popular Guangzhou tabloid who were jailed last month for corruption. They said the convictions by the Dongshan court were ‘a slap in the face’ for the central government’s pledge to […]

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Lucent fires four senior staff in China (Financial Times)

By Paul Taylor in New York Published: April 6 2004 17:04 | Last Updated: April 7 2004 0:28 “Lucent Technologies, the leading US telecommunications equipment manufacturer, has fired four senior employees in China after discovering potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which bans the payment of bribes overseas. Lucent said it fired the […]

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Profiting From Benchmarks: Reasons Behind China’s Rush To Develop Standards (Part One) (ChinaTechNews)

April 7, 2004 “Why all the concentration on standards now? China’s leaders realize that if they are ever to turn the corner from being a “developing” manufacturing base for the world’s low-end products, to taking their place among the world’s developed economies, then it will be crucial to control the “business” of new technology development.” […]

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China Stamps Its Authority on Hong Kong (Washington Post)

Reuters Tuesday, April 6, 2004; 4:10 AM By Alison Leung and Carrie Lee Click here for full article. “The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) passed an interpretation of Hong Kong’s Basic Law giving Beijing full control over the territory’s political reform. The leaders of China’s parliament interpreted two clauses in Hong Kong’s […]

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China Is Paying a Price of Modernization: More Beggars (New York Times)

April 7, 2004 “For many years, beggars were rarely seen in the showcase cities of this country that still calls itself a socialist state. Image-conscious city officials ordered the police to arrest panhandlers and other homeless people, many of whom had traveled illegally from the destitute countryside. But in the past six months, the number […]

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