Macy’s Joins China E-Commerce Craze

Posted: 23 May 2012 09:02 PM PDT

Another major U.S. retailer is testing China's crowded e-commerce market as domestic players start feeling the heat.

Beijing to speed up approval for infrastructure projects

Posted: 24 May 2012 04:52 AM PDT

Chinese government agencies been ordered to submit all their proposed investment projects for this year before the end of June. The government in return will accelerate the approval of projects and th...

Tycoon Mo Feng and wife face insider trading probe in Hong Kong

Posted: 24 May 2012 04:48 AM PDT

Chinese business tycoon Mo Feng and his wife Sun Min are to be probed in Hong Kong for insider trading, reports the 21st Century Business Herald in Guangzhou. The newspaper said Hong Kong's financial...

New industry rises out of China's tricked-out phones

Posted: 24 May 2012 04:44 AM PDT

The rapid rise of smartphones has fueled the phone accessory business in China. Signs for mobile phone decorations have become ubiquitous in urban areas. In the neighborhood of Zhongguancun of Beiji...

Sexy women 'kill' illegally parked cars to increase awareness

Posted: 24 May 2012 04:40 AM PDT

Women from several universities in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province, "killed" illegally parked vehicles in front of a hospital Tuesday to remind them not to violate the rules next time, a...

Credit Suisse cuts target price for Hon Hai

Posted: 24 May 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Hon Hai Precision Industry, the main manufacturer for Apple, will have to wait for new sales catalysts in the second half of 2012 before its margins can improve, Credit Suisse said Wednesday in loweri...

Fears over Greek exit from eurozone batter Taiwan exchange

Posted: 24 May 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Escalating fears over Greece's possible exit from the eurozone triggered heavy selling in Taiwan's bourse Wednesday, pushing the index below the 7,200-point mark at the end of the session, dealers sai...

China to become world's largest market for business travel by 2015

Posted: 24 May 2012 04:00 AM PDT

China will surpass the United States as the world's top market for business travel by 2015, according to a study by the Global Business Travel Association, an international organization that manages b...

China: Mysterious Inquiry About a Blood Sample

Posted: 22 May 2012 09:00 PM PDT

A prominent American forensic scientist, Henry C. Lee, said a police detective from the city of Chongqing contacted him about analyzing a blood sample from someone who had died after drinking.

Law of the Sea Treaty Is Found on Capitol Hill, Again

Posted: 22 May 2012 09:00 PM PDT

The United Nations treaty that governs the world's oceans is undergoing one of its periodic resurrections in Congress.

China: General’s Trip to Japan Is Canceled

Posted: 22 May 2012 09:00 PM PDT

One of the top generals in China, Guo Boxiong, has canceled a high-level trip to Japan scheduled for this week after a rise in political tensions between the two nations.

Paying Belize official's medical bills fosters ties: Taiwan official

Posted: 24 May 2012 03:24 AM PDT

The Taiwanese government's decision to pay medical bills for Belize Governor-General Colville N. Young promotes medical diplomacy and can help strengthen ties with its Central American diplomatic ally...

Villagers Rallying to Defense of Friend Are Persecuted by Party

Posted: 23 May 2012 06:34 PM PDT

More than 300 families of Fuzhenzhou village, Botou City, have signed a petition requesting the release of Wang Xiaodon, a Falun Gong practitioner. This is the first page of the petition. (Web Image)

It was an unusually brave and selfless act for modern China: around 300 villagers signed their names to a petition, and stamped them with red wax, calling for the release of a fellow resident who had been persecuted for his beliefs by communist China's security forces. The villagers were then themselves targeted, in what appeared to be an order coming down from Party Central to retaliate fiercely against anyone who dared to defend Falun Gong.

Wang Xiaodong, a teacher and practitioner of Falun Gong who resides in Zhoutun Village, Hebei Province, was the object of his fellow villager's sympathy. He was arrested from his home on Feb. 25 when 40 policemen ransacked his house, confiscated 20,000 yuan in cash and took him away.

After several fruitless attempt to rescue her brother, Wang's sister, Wang Xiaomei, and others in the family invited villagers to sign a letter calling for Wang's release. They quickly found 300 willing to do so, and had village cadres certify the document as genuine with an official stamp.

On April 10 and April 14, family members visited the local Public Security Bureau, but vice chief of the National Security team Gao Guiqi said the letter could not be accepted. The family then began passing out copies of the letter and flyers with Wang's story on the streets.

Central Party security forces swung into action. The Political and Legislative Affairs Committee (PLAC), the powerful organ that oversees all law enforcement and the persecution of dissidents in China, has been persecuting Falun Gong through its "610 Office," an extralegal agency, since 1999, under the orders of then-regime head Jiang Zemin. The PLAC had its branch in Hebei Province put pressure on villagers; the petition had likely become an embarrassment for the PLAC by demonstrating the failure of the campaign against the spiritual practice, which has come at considerable social and economic cost.

On April 23, close to a dozen Domestic Security officials visited the village Party Secretary in an attempt to find out who signed the petition and obtain the original copy. They arrested Wang Xiaomei; her child was subsequently forced to leave kindergarten.

The following day on April 24, domestic security chief Wang Wen and the village Party secretary Zhou Yinzhong summoned a dozen villagers who had signed the petition to a restaurant. They were asked to recant their previous stance while being video and audio-recorded; this process was meant to intimidate them, according to other villagers. They were also asked to sign forms rejecting their previous statements, and those who agreed were treated to a banquet at the restaurant.

Officials from Fuzhen Town, Botou City, near the village, then joined in the harassment by forming four teams to find the other villagers who had signed the petition and make them recant.

An image of Wang Xiaodong, supplied by family, before his arrest. (The Epoch Times)

By May 18 most of the work had been done, with the majority of the villagers who had signed the petition being asked to sign a piece of paper saying that their previous petition was only for sympathizing with Wang's elderly mother and seven-year old child, not for anything related to Falun Gong. Additionally, they had to sign a card denouncing Falun Gong, an apparent attempt to destroy the villager's sympathy with persecuted adherents of the practice.

The chief of the PLAC, Zhou Yongkang, has a personal interest in maintaining the campaign against the practice. He has been sued overseas by Falun Gong practitioners, and was promoted to his current position by former Party chief Jiang Zemin, who first vowed to "eliminate" the practice in China. Since the persecution started in 1999, Zhou rose from head of Ministry of Land and Resources to head of public security, and then to the position of Party Secretary of the secretive and powerful PLAC, all within three years. The PLAC gained extraordinary powers under Jiang and Zhou, forming what political analysts describe as a "second center of power" within the Party.

Zhou's status is now in question because of his association with Jiang and Bo Xilai, the former Politburo member who was recently purged and disgraced. Reports in the foreign press emerged recently saying that Zhou has been relieved of his security powers. Zhou is also the official ultimately responsible for the violent treatment of Chen Guangcheng, the blind human rights lawyer who recently arrived in the U.S. after a dramatic escape to the American embassy from extralegal house arrest in his hometown.

Click www.ept.ms/ccp-crisis to read about the most recent developments in the ongoing crisis within the Chinese communist regime. In this special topic, we provide readers with the necessary context to understand the situation. Get the RSS feed. Get the new interactive Timeline of Events. Who are the Major Players?

Advocates for Falun Gong are regularly treated with brutality, according to the accounts of human rights lawyers and others. The most prominent case is probably that of Gao Zhisheng, who attempted to defend Falun Gong practitioners in court and subsequently wrote a series of open letters to the Party leadership denouncing the persecution and demanding that it stop. He has been in and out of detention since 2006 and is currently in jail. Communist Party security forces beat him for days, shocked him with electricity, and inserted toothpicks into his genitals as a form of torture.

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance; it involves slow-motion physical exercises and meditation.

Petition From 300 Chinese Villagers Circulated in Politburo

After Wang Xiaodong's younger sister Wang Xiaomei was released from custody, on May 13 she wrote a letter calling for help from the international community: "I hope you can call on the Chinese government to arrange a meeting with me, the Chinese government, and international human rights organizations, so that the conditions I tried to explain to the authorities can be verified," she wrote. "As a woman from rural China, I get on my knees to beg for your help!"

When Chongqing's former top cop, Wang Lijun, fled for his life to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he set in motion a political storm that has not subsided. The battle behind the scenes turns on what stance officials take toward the persecution of Falun Gong. The faction with bloody hands—the officials former CCP head Jiang Zemin promoted in order to carry out the persecution—is seeking to avoid accountability for their crimes and to continue the campaign. Other officials are refusing any longer to participate in the persecution. Events present a clear choice to the officials and citizens of China, as well as people around the world: either support or oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. History will record the choice each person makes.

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Chinese Official Position Sold for 300,000 Yuan

Posted: 23 May 2012 06:18 PM PDT

Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the of Communist Party. (Liu Jin/AFP/Getty Images)

Following the recent ousting and disgrace of Chinese official Bo Xilai, public and media attention quickly shifted to his high-level political patron, Zhou Yongkang. Now there are reports that official titles under Zhou's control are bought and sold for hundreds of thousands of yuan.

Zhou Yongkang is the chief of the Political and Legistlative Affairs Committee (PLAC), a Communist Party organ that oversees the security forces. According to an insider, 300,000 yuan (approximately US$47,000) buys a deputy director position in the Tianjin Public Security Bureau. During the past six months nearly 1,000 positions in public security bureaus around the country have been bought and sold, according to the insider, who could not identify himself for fear of retribution. Officials who leak state secrets may be executed.

Official appointments largely depend upon the connections that subordinates have to their supervisors, as cadres build up empires of influence within the bureaucracy to later call on for help.

The insider gave the example of an official in Tianjin, surnamed Gao, who recently bought a deputy director post in the public security bureau. Gao promoted only those who he felt were loyal to him, and forbade communication between departments for fear of news about his activities—he was involved in using the security forces for corrupt purposes and to enrich himself, the insider said—from spreading.

In China, Removing the Bloody-Hands Faction Is Only the Beginning

"What kind of situation is this?" the insider said in exasperation.

Read the original Chinese article.

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Top China Stories from WSJ: Lenovo’s Gains, Sea Tensions, Macy’s Makes a Move

Posted: 23 May 2012 06:02 PM PDT

Macy's is acquiring a minority stake in a Chinese online retailer; Lenovo bucked the tough times in the personal-computer business; Manila expressed "grave concern" to Beijing over action in the South China Sea.

Sichuan destroys new school built with HK donor dollars