Blogs » Politics » The Plight of a Young Chinese Volunteer, by Xu Zhiyong
Blogs » Politics » The Plight of a Young Chinese Volunteer, by Xu Zhiyong |
- The Plight of a Young Chinese Volunteer, by Xu Zhiyong
- Beijing citizens show love and bravery facing deadly downpour
- When women earn the bread
- Death toll from Beijing downpours rises to 37
- Photo: Yueqing, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, by Jan Christian Teller
- Reports of Forced Abortions Fuel Push to End Law
- Torrential Rain in Beijing Brings Out Best and Worst in China’s Capital
- ASEAN Consensus Elusive on South China Sea Pact
- Wenzhou Train Burying Continues
- Beijing Au Jus: A Brief Note on Yesterday’s Flood
| The Plight of a Young Chinese Volunteer, by Xu Zhiyong Posted: 22 Jul 2012 09:41 PM PDT Today and tomorrow, we bring to you two articles about the case of a young man called Song Ze. He was a volunteer at Dr. Xu Zhiyong's Open Constitution Initiative, an NGO dedicated to providing legal aid to disempowered people in China. We at SRIC are in no position to fully report the many cases such as Song Ze's, but what we can do, and are trying to do here, is to illustrate a case well enough so that it sheds light and provides insight. On China's black jails, you may also want to watch Melissa Chan's report that allegedly got her expelled from China. Hannah is the translator of the following piece by Dr. Xu. –Yaxue Around noon on May 4th, 2012, Song Ze (宋泽) received a phone call in which the caller said someone who had been put in a "black jail" [an illegal prison used mostly to detain petitioners, disempowered citizens who went to Beijing to file a complaint about his/her local government] hoped for help, and asked Song Ze to meet him in the lobby of Beijing South Railway Station at 2 o'clock. Same as ever, Song Ze did not hesitate to respond. As Song Ze waited at the bottom of the designated escalator, an unexpected thing happened — his phone suddenly lost its signal. But he waited patiently anyway. After ten minutes or so, the signal returned, and with it suddenly appeared several men, who forcibly carried him off. A day later, he was spotted by a petitioner in the basement of the You Anmen (右安门) police station. More than ten days after Song Ze had gone missing, lawyer Liang Xiaojun (梁小军) finally managed to meet him in Fengtai District's Detention Center. At that point Song Ze had already been detained as a criminal suspect, charged with "provoking disturbances." What had Song Ze done? Song Ze's original name is Song Guangqiang (宋光强), born in 1985 in a mountain village in Xiangyang (襄阳), Hubei Province. He graduated from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in 2010, majoring in international politics, and also minoring in finance. He received a dual-degree in law and economics. After graduating from college he worked at a foreign-capital enterprise, but he could not give up the ideals in his heart. In October 2011, he wrote a long letter to me, relating his own experience and dreams growing up, hoping to join the team of the Open Constitution Initiative (公盟). The first impression Song Ze gives people is that he is reticent and shy, but deep down he is a passionate idealist. He does not care how much money he makes, how hard he has to work; all he cares about is how his own actions would affect society. As it turned out, the Petitioners' Rescue Program was lacking in manpower, and so Song Ze's responsibility was to contact the volunteer rescuers, to purchase new, or pick up donated, clothes and blankets, to distribute clothing and give sick people emergency aid. All winter long, Song Ze more or less had no Sundays and no holidays, keeping busy with volunteers at Beijing South Railway Station's nearby ghetto, in the underground tunnel and other places where poor petitioners gathered. For many cold, cruel windy nights, he checked the bridge tunnels one by one to make sure new petitioners had cotton-padded blankets. In China, even if it is just pure aid for the needy, humanitarian efforts face huge pressure because of the special identity of rescuees on the one hand and the social ideals of the rescuers on the other. On the night of the Lantern Festival (lunar January 15th), volunteers who were distributing rice dumplings to petitioners were blocked forcibly by police. Volunteer Yuan Wenhua was taken away, so was Song Ze when he asked the policemen to show their IDs. The rest of us waited outside the police station until they were released. As winter passed and there was no need to worry about people freezing to death, Song Ze turned to providing emergency medical aid and to watch "black prisons." Black prisons are places where local governments illegally detain petitioners. If the petitioners try to go to the Prime Minister's house or foreign embassies near Dongjiaominxiang (东交民巷), Wangfujing Street (王府井大街) or other places where they are not supposed to petition, they could be taken away by police. During the so-called sensitive time of Two Meetings each year, they could be apprehended just passing through Chang'an Street (长安街) and being found carrying petitioning materials. All these are labeled "irregular petitioning" and the petitioners who have been rounded up are sent to Jiu Jing Zhuang (久敬庄), the detention and deportation center run by the State Bureau of Letters and Calls. Jiu Jing Zhuang would order local governments' Beijing offices to take away petitioners from their jurisdictions on the same day they arrive in Jiu Jing Zhuang. However, most petitioners cannot be dispatched back to their homes that same day. They must wait to be sent home, perhaps needing a few days or a few weeks, and this turns into a profiteering opportunity for some people. People running the black prisons are those who have connections with officials in the State Bureau of Letters and Calls or local governments' Beijing offices. They rent hotel basements, hire thugs, forcibly take the petitioners from Jiu Jing Zhuang, illegally detain them, and then order the local governments to come to get the petitioners and pay a fee for the latters' stay. They fetch 80 to 200 RMB per petitioner per day. Each year the black prison atrocities reach their height during the Two Meetings (National People's Congress and National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference). On the eve of the Two Meetings this year, Song Ze verified 49 black prison locations and sent out a map of Beijing's black prisons. On March 5, 80-year-old petitioner Hu Yufu (胡玉甫) was put in a black prison. On the 7th he fell ill, begging to get treatment. To this, the secretary of the Committee of Politics and Law said, "Petitioners cannot be indulged! If he is sick, let him figure out what to do." Hu was finally sent to the emergency room on the 12th, and died on the morning of 13th. Song Ze helped his son sue the Party secretary, mayor and other officials of Xinxiang municipality (in Henan province) for illegally detaining his father. Starting from September of 2008, our organization's volunteers visited and watched black prisons, exposing this crime to the public, and rescuing the petitioners. Over the last few years, conditions in black prisons have had improved, and police have taken more action to investigate them upon receiving reports. But black prisons still exist in large numbers. To visit black prisons and to try to rescue prisoners there exemplifies a citizen's willingness and courage to right a wrong, but in this upside-down country, Song Ze was thrown in jail for this very reason.
Why was Song Ze detained? On January 11 of this year, Zhao Zhenjia (赵振甲) , Song Ze and others received an urgent text message from Hunan petitioner Yu Hong seeking help. They braved the severe cold of Beijing searching for four hours, and finally found the exact position of Chenzhou's (of Hunan province) black prison. Afterwards they got in contact with over ten reporters and volunteers, and together they went on a rescue mission. On the morning of January 13, Zhao Zhenjia, Peng Zhonglin, Guan Weishuang, Song Ze, and others, ten people in total, came to the black prison. While videotaping the process, they broke into the room and rescued three elderly people who had sought help. They were 73-year-old Yu Hong, 57-year-old Chen Bixiang and 82-year-old Long Jiangbao. One of them had been detained for over 40 days already. The living conditions there were awful with no heat, and each person had only a thin blanket. They were not given enough food either, often just one pack of ramen noodles per person per day. There were only a few guards on duty then, and before they realized what was going on, the petitioners had already been rescued. But soon the police came. Instead of punishing the real criminals, they tried to take away these courageous citizen volunteers. While arguing with the police, they managed to take the three petitioners onto a bus, even though some guards followed them onto the bus. That day, when I hurried over to the scene, the rescuers had already gotten onto the bus and left. I told Song Ze (over the phone) that I would be waiting for them near OCI's office on the East Third Ring Road. They got off the bus, with four guards from the black prison in tow. I stopped a taxi, Song Ze and three petitioners got in promptly, and I blocked the door to fend off the guards. The taxi made a loop and took Song Ze and the three petitioners to the office of OCI. He bought meal for them, and send them to the nearby long-distance bus station with enough money for them to go home. This rescue mission became the very reason for Song Ze's arrest, the charge being "provoking disturbance" and the reason for the charge being "disrupting the public order." Before Song Ze, 60-year-old Zhao Zhenjia (赵振甲) had already been given a year and a half of reform-through-labor, a form of imprisonment, for his participation in the same event. Of course, Song Ze could have been retaliated against for another reason. Several days before his arrest in early May, he did something that irked the authorities: he took a cab to Shandong, picked up the wife of Chen Kegui (nephew of the blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng), took her to Beijing and hid her. I regret to have sent him to do this—he risked too much. But I had never imagined Song Ze would end up in prison. Citizen Song Ze Song Ze's case was one directly handled by Beijing Public Security Bureau. Lawyer Liang Xiaojun (梁小军) made several trips to the detention center before finally being granted a meeting with Song Ze. Apart from the rescue on January 13, he was interrogated about how he met me and what he had done at OCI. When the 37 days that he was sentenced were up, Song Ze was not freed. It is now such a preposterous case that the charges against Song Ze are too ridiculous to show to the world. The prosecution has not issued approval for an arrest, but the PSB does not want to let him go. Now they put Song Ze under residential surveillance. In reality, residential surveillance is more formidable than imprisonment. According to the new Criminal Procedure Law, the authority may designate the place for residential surveillance, but it shall notify their relatives. But China being China, Song Ze's family has not received any notification. He can still meet with his lawyer when detained in the detention center, but it's been more than 40 days since he was put under residential surveillance, no one has been able to see Song Ze; and the PSB has refused to answer any questions on his whereabouts. In our time, Song Ze is hard-to-find idealist. As he wrote in his letter to me, "I tried to force myself to just live my own life, but I discovered that this is quite difficult to do. If I see someone on the roadside in need of help but give no hand, I would be pained afterward. If I see something unfair around me but do nothing about it, I feel ashamed. When I see others who are able to give lot of help to the needy, I would blame myself for being useless, wishing I could do more……" We are all very concerned about Song Ze, and worried about what he is being putting through. Xu Zhiyong (许志永), July 12, 2012 |
| Beijing citizens show love and bravery facing deadly downpour Posted: 22 Jul 2012 01:32 PM PDT
Sina Weibo plays a vital role to Beijing residents in self rescuing, when the heaviest downpour hit Chinese capital in 61 years, which has claimed the lives of 37 people as of Saturday. Through China's twitter-like Weibo, Chinese netizens organized voluntarily to offer help to the stranded people by the flood. Many who have received the help tweeted that they were picked up by private cars for free. From the pictures spread on Weibo, the volunteers who gave free rides spontaneously turned on the hazard lights on the roads, forming a spectacular image in the disaster! Besides, many local residents have openly posted their home addresses and phone numbers on their Weibo accounts, too, to share their apartments and foods to people in need, in the risk of inviting troubles from those having evil intentions. Beijing citizens' love and bravery have moved Chinese people across China. But, in the same time, the CCP's incompetence and lag behind when reacting to the disaster once again angered the public. A Weibo user @奇新闻 said, "In the heavy rainfall yesterday night, Beijing citizens voluntarily organized to give free rides to stranded passengers in the airport, while the toll gate of the airport was still meticulous in collecting the toll fees. Foot massage places offered food and lodgings for free, while all the public centers in Beijing were closed. Sina Weibo kept updating information of the disaster, while news agencies were forbidden to give reports of hazards caused. Private cars picked up trapped strangers on the roads, while local traffic cops gave packing tickets to cars broken down on the roads due to the flood for parking violations. It was what happened yesterday night." China's poor drainage system and corrupt political system became the target on the Internet as well. No officials would pay their attention to the projects such as the drainage system which would not show their achievements (which are important for their future promotions). And they would eat up the allocated funds from higher authorities when constructing such projects. A netizen lashed, it's not a natural disaster but a man-made one, and none of officials would ever be held accountable. Facing the harsh criticisms among the public, what the CCP did however was to start censoring online posts that they deem to be harmful, including one from popular blogger and critic Li Chengpeng (@李程鹏). |
| Posted: 22 Jul 2012 08:03 PM PDT
CONFIDENT, high-earning Chinese women are shaking up traditional gender roles in marriage, sometimes leading to divorce in a society where men financially supported by women are usually despised. Nie Xin reports. Mu Liming, an ambitious 32-year-old communications manager for an international company, recently divorced her husband of five years because her income far outstripped his and they no longer had much in common. "Family life is getting too boring!" Mu tells Shanghai Daily in an interview. "We have less and less in common to talk about. He is always complaining that I don't have time to take care of the family, cook for him and keep him company." Discussing reasons for the divorce, Mu says it's mainly because of the conjugal income gap – She earns around 30,000 yuan a month (US$4,706), far more than her husband Li Hua who is an IT worker in a small local company. Mu has steadily advanced and job-hopped, while her husband has remained in basically the same position. "I tried to encourage him to be more ambitious, but I feel so disappointed that there was almost no change in so many years," Mu says. The couple have a three-year-old daughter and they haven't decided who will take the custody. Mu and quite a few women like her are earning more than their husbands and boyfriends in an unsettling of tradition and gender roles. This can cause conflict, estrangement, divorce, and end an engagement – or in some cases, a new balance in which both parties make it work. As always, there's an old Chinese saying that applies: nan zhu wai, nu zhu nei (?D?÷ía???÷?ú), which means the man or husband is responsible for earning money to support the family, while woman or wife is responsible for doing housework. In Confucian tradition, a woman doesn't need to earn money but she must take care of the home and children. 'Eat soft rice' Though many women work outside the home today, there is still a strong and widespread belief that the husband should earn more than the wife. For a man to earn less is unmanly and humiliating, a loss of face. For a woman to earn more is unfeminine and unseemly; people will think she married the wrong man and she may think so as well. If a man relies on a woman for support, he is said, contemptuously, to chi ruan fan (3?èí·1), or eat soft rice. But quite a few women are earning more than their spouses. Women's improved career job opportunities, earning power and social status mean they have more financial independence and opportunities to attain their objectives in life. Money makes it happen and women are more confident and self-reliant. It leads some to divorce and hopes they will eventually marry a richer and more interesting man. "This old concept that men must earn more than women must be broken since today men and women are supposed to have equal social status and work opportunities," says sociology professor Gu Jun at Shanghai University. "No matter who shoulders most financial responsibility for the family, there is no right or wrong." Some Chinese women are making it big financially. According to a Hurun wealth report (a widely acknowledged report on tracking China's entrepreneurs) released in 2011, among 28 female billionaires in the world, two-thirds of them, including four of the top five, are from the Chinese mainland. "According to recent research about China, in all the divorce cases today, when women sue, 80 percent are due to financial problems," Rupert Hoogewerf, founder of the Huron Report, says. "Now you can see how important money is to women and to marriage." For Mu, who recently got divorced, money is a symbol of other values. "Divorcing over financial problems doesn't simply mean that I earn more than my husband," she says. "It's about the gap in our concepts about the values of a career and what's worth pursuing in life." Mu's ex-husband echoed Mu's view. |
| Death toll from Beijing downpours rises to 37 Posted: 22 Jul 2012 06:25 PM PDT
Rescuers and residents stand next to a stranded car which is being pulled up from a flooded street under the Guangqumen overpass amid heavy rainfall in Beijing, July 21, 2012. [Photo/Agencies] Nearly 60,000 people evacuated from their homes, Hu Yongqi and Cui Jia report in Beijing. The 20-hour storm that hit Beijing on Saturday claimed the lives of 37 people — 25 of the deaths were caused by drowning. Millions of people across the capital were hit by the deluge and thousands were evacuated from their homes. The flooding caused losses of at least 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), according to the Beijing municipal government. The southwestern district of Fangshan was the hardest hit. Of the 56,933 people evacuated in the city, 20,990 came from Fangshan. There were two landslides in the district. The rainfall reached 460 millimeters in the district, the highest ever recorded, according to the government. In the rest of Beijing, the average was 170 mm, the highest since 1951. The Juma River, which runs across Fangshan, flooded and its maximum volume reached 2,500 cubic meters per second, a flow rate "rarely recorded", according to the Beijing government. Few Fangshan residents were prepared for the downpour, which occurred almost without warning. Guo Yanwei, a 25-year-old who works at the Changkuang coal mine in Fangshan, was holding a party for eight people at her home. At 5:30 pm, she became aware that the water had reached her doorstep. Just 10 minutes later, the floodwaters had reached a depth of 1.3 meters. "I noticed the weather forecast on Friday, but we did not know the rain would be so overwhelming and flood my home so quickly," she said. Guo's sister carried her son to the second floor of an adjacent building. Guo and her friends climbed onto the roof of her house. She shouted warnings to her neighbors to help them escape the water, which rose remorselessly. Soon, all 50 residents of Guo's village had scrambled onto their roofs in search of temporary safety. Two people shared one umbrella in the forlorn hope of avoiding the unstoppable rain. Some residents tried to climb over the wall that surrounds the neighborhood, but the floodwater was so powerful that some parts of the wall looked as if they were about to collapse and could not support them. The residents stayed on the roofs. Most of the residents work at the coal mine. They called the mine administrators for help and at around 10 pm a rescue team was sent to the neighborhood to provide help for the women and children. Located at the foot of a mountain and built on a river embankment, the neighborhood had been vulnerable to flooding for many years. Every summer, the residents complain about the rainfall that could easily deluge their houses. "We left the neighborhood barefooted, because the flood brought so much mud that our shoes got stuck," said Guo Yanwei. Electrical items such as computers, refrigerators and air conditioners were destroyed by the flood. "I only managed to grab an expensive camera that I bought recently. Fortunately, no one was injured or died in the startling flood. The most important thing was to be safe," said Guo. The neighborhood was still a mess on Sunday morning, according to Guo. Five cars floated in the waters, and most of the residents were given shelter in a meeting hall at the mine. As life in downtown Beijing returned to something approaching normality on Sunday, residents of the suburbs and outlying areas, such as the districts of Fangshan, Mentougou and Shijingshan, were still battling the effects of the storm. At Qinglonghu Youth Military Training Camp in Fangshan district, about 350 students trapped by the deluge were rescued on Sunday morning. "At around 6 pm, water flooded the cafeteria while we were having dinner. We had been learning how to escape floods earlier in the afternoon. The tutor told us to stand on the table, but the water soon reached my knees," said Sun Shengbo, 10, from Shandong province. "We broke a window and let some of the water out, otherwise we would have drowned," said the tutor Li Zhengwang. The children built a bridge with tables and moved to higher land nearby. "Then firefighters rushed to us and we were saved," said Li. There was also plenty of damage at Beixin'an Elementary School in Shijingshan district. A cafeteria, a warehouse and a library were among the most-affected buildings More than 5,000 of the 23,000 books donated by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education were submerged, according to Gao Ying, director of general services at the school. "Apart from the books, we have also had losses totaling about 150,000 yuan ($24,000) as air conditioners, audio devices and other electrical items were damaged," said Gao. Every summer vacation, the school erects 20-centimeter-high panels against all doors to avoid being inundated by floodwater. The panels did the job in 2004, 2009 and 2011, when Beijing was hit by downpours, but this year they were unable to protect the buildings as the water reached a height of 1.4 meters, he said. The damage has been reported to the local education bureau and the school authorities are now waiting for funding to repair the facilities. In Mentougou district, Xiao Feng, 33, was devastated. His house was "too horrible to look at", he said. The family computer was a write-off, the house is full of evil-smelling sludge and the family has had to accept temporary accommodation from a neighbor. The 33-year-old said he is praying for sunny days to dry out rain-sodden clothing and other day-to-day items. A flood discharge trench near his house had provided a run-off for excess water for decades. It never failed, no matter how much rain fell, according to Xiao. However, earlier this year, the local government blocked the trench as it built a new road as part of a plan to relocate Xiao and his neighbors. On Saturday, digging machines were standing by to restore the trench, but they were still idle when Xiao's house was flooded. Xiao's friend Wang Tiejun was downcast to see his new car bobbing in the floodwaters. Thousands of cars were submerged in the deep pools caused by the downpour and on Sunday, the Beijing office of Ping An Insurance Group received more than 4,100 reports of damaged cars. "Underprivileged people like us are always at great risk when faced with natural disasters," said Guo Yanwei. "So we need more help from the government." Meanwhile, Li Minying and her family, also in Fangshan district, were lucky. The flood smashed the water pipes, but on Sunday morning the district government began providing drinking water for the 50 households in Xixinfang neighborhood. At least clean drinking water is no longer a concern for the families. The local government confirmed that water will be provided on Monday too and the supply will be restored on Tuesday. Li was worried that her solar panel will burn out if it's left dry, but she is grateful for small mercies. "Other things are running well for my family, thanks to the help of the government, and I hope every one will be able to overcome this awful deluge," she said. Contact the writers at huyongqi@chinadaily.com.cn and cuijia@chinadaily.com.cn He Na and Tang Yue contributed to this story.
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| Photo: Yueqing, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, by Jan Christian Teller Posted: 22 Jul 2012 06:51 PM PDT  Yueqing, Wenzhou, Zhejiang © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Reports of Forced Abortions Fuel Push to End Law Posted: 22 Jul 2012 06:30 PM PDT Following the gory case of Feng Jianmei, whose fetus was forcibly aborted at seven months, scholars and netizens are publicly questioning China's family planning policies. The New York Times reports:
See more about forced abortion and the one-child policy in China. Read also about Chen Guangcheng, the legal activist who worked to oppose forced abortions in his hometown of Linyi, Shandong before fleeing house arrest and traveling to the U.S., where he is now a visiting scholar at New York University. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Torrential Rain in Beijing Brings Out Best and Worst in China’s Capital Posted: 22 Jul 2012 02:18 PM PDT  A Beijing car pulled from the flood. Its driver drowned On the night of July 21, Beijing encountered the heaviest rain ever since meteorological records were available. Ninety five sections of the Chinese capital's roads became flooded, caused traffic jams all over the city, and stranded tens of thousands. Thousands of vehicles were stuck on the roads and, as seen in many pictures posted on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, some were even submerged. Ten deaths were reported over the night, including one police officer who died in the line of duty. In the face of disaster, Beijing citizens showed an exceptional capability for self-rescue and mutual support. Many passengers stuck on the streets reported that they were picked up by private cars for free. @江湖酒吧69 recounted on Sina Weibo: "Around 11 pm, I waited for a taxi in desperation for nearly an hour, until a private car picked me up. The driver drove me for free and also picked up a couple of disabled foreigners and another couple along the way. He told me he had already picked up 27 people, and would continue till 2 am." More than 30 residents in the Wangjing community, near Beijing's airport, voluntarily teamed up to give free rides to and from the airport, according to @网络新闻联播. "The driver's report from the front lines: A team of more than 30 vehicles has picked up stranded passengers. Many thanks! The number of passengers stuck at the airport has gone down, so there is no need for other netizens keeping coming. All the volunteers, you showed the love of Beijing!" Of course, Weibo also became an important frontier for information sharing. Over the course of the evening, Weibo was flooded with tweets asking and giving help. Netizens tweeted weather forecasts, traffic updates and safety tips. Some even offered their apartments to those who could not get home. @书盟 is one of them. "I have a car and an apartment that can accommodate five people. I can provide food, drinks, Internet access and a change of clothes all for free." He also tweeted his address and cell phone number. Many said that they were moved by and proud of the love and bravery shown by citizens. Xu Xin (@徐昕), a legal scholar,comments: "I'm sleepless tonight thinking about the heavy rain, the lives lost, the injured people and the police's rescue efforts; I'm also thinking about so many asking for help on Weibo, and so many offering their help. The spirit of Beijing is not reflected by grand, meaningless words but by the pictures of Beijing tonight. The carrier of the spirit is Weibo, on which energy of kindness is being paid forward. "  Beijing citizens chip in to pull a car to safety Columnist Zhao Chu (@赵楚) believes that such mutual support forms the basis of a civil, democratic society. "When you see people voluntarily show love for others and extend a helping hand, you have a civil, modern society," he wrote. However, the story also had a dark side. Irresponsible and inhumane actions were also in evidence during the disaster. It was reported that some taxi drivers refused to take passengers or charged sky-high prices. Some cars that broke down because of the rain were given traffic tickets by the police for parking violations. After the disaster, netizens started to think about the lessons learned . Columnist Lian Peng (@连鹏) tweets: "I'm most afraid that a happy ending would be artificially added to the tragedy–the government would convene meetings to praise the police and firemen for being timely and responsible and the people for helping each other. And then? Nothing. No officials would be held accountable, no lesson would be learned, and no improvement made. And after that? The tragedy will be repeated again and again." A great number of netizens questioned the lag in government reaction and the lack of experience shown in the face of such natural disaster, urging that a comprehensive emergency response system should be established. The Shengda Literature CEO Hou Xiaoqiang (@侯小强)'s comment is representative: "The government could look into the weakness of the emergency response system and find solutions. 1. how to publicize information about the disaster effectively; 2. how to give self-rescue training; 3. how to handle the traffic during disasters; 4. how to open public facilities to accommodate stranded crowds; 5. how to prevent blockage in the drainage system; 6. how to respond to victims' need on and offline."  "This," one netizen wrote, "is true public service." The drainage system was the target of harsh critics, one of which is from Duan Xingyan (@段郎说事), a police officer in Jiangxi province. "Just because the drainage system is not an image project, mayors pay little attention to it, so that the city is submerged every time there is heavy rain. It's not a natural disaster but a man-made one!" From some netizens' perspective, the disaster is a microcosm of the problems generated by the speedy urbanization in today's China, where the development of infrastructure, ancillary facilities, government management and social welfare cannot catch up the fast growing of scales of cities. Poet and scholar Ye Kuangzheng (@叶匡政)'s provides this insight: "Beijing represents the half-urbanization phenomenon in China. The life in cities is incomplete both in terms of underdeveloped political, econimic and cultural benefits and the disparity of resources distribution within a city. The lack of public facilities, a fragile social welfare system, backward management, environmental pollution and segregation based on residential permits are obvious in Beijing." Please see below for more amazing images, captured from Weibo.
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| ASEAN Consensus Elusive on South China Sea Pact Posted: 22 Jul 2012 12:43 PM PDT As ASEAN officials seek agreement on the dispute over the South China Sea, they are now urging a pact, but a consensus has not yet been reached. This comes amid tensions in the region as a Chinese Navy warship was sprung from a shoal in the disputed region. Reuters reports:
Despite the ASEAN summit's lack of a resolution for the South China Sea dispute, Xinhua has reported that China has pledged to work with ASEAN:
The US has previously expressed support for the Philippines in the dispute. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the United States sees a risk of war in the South China Sea:
While China moves to take control of the disputed region, Vietnamese protests continue against 'Chinese aggression,' from The Guardian:
Another Reuters article reports that China has approved of a formal military garrison of the area:
Read previous coverage about tensions in the South China Sea, via CDT. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Wenzhou Train Burying Continues Posted: 22 Jul 2012 08:56 AM PDT A year has passed since the fatal high-speed train crash in Wenzhou. The Wall Street Journal reports that officials have forbidden journalists and other media from visiting the site of the crash:
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has also commented on Chinese government censorship, from Scoop:
While media outlets have been banned from reporting on the anniversary of the accident, the Global Times has reported on stories of what has happened since the accident:
Despite the outrage from citizens over the accident, China is planning a railway spending boost, according to Bloomberg:
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Beijing Au Jus: A Brief Note on Yesterday’s Flood Posted: 22 Jul 2012 07:20 AM PDT
But yesterday, Beijing got biblical on our asses. Some are saying it was the biggest rainstorm in 50 years or more. Some people were able to enjoy it, including some expats who were swimming around and posing for photos that are now being passed around online (Note to expats: swimming in municipal effluence is disgusting and unhealthy. Get thee to an infectious disease and/or poison control expert forthwith.) Unfortunately, the rest of the news was bad. More than ten people died, some from being trapped in cars as the water rose unexpectedly, and many more were injured. There are pics all over the Internet, including a nice collection over at Beijing Cream. Some of the worst flooding apparently took place right here in Shuangjing/Guangqumen, headquarters of China Hearsay, where I hunkered down with my cats. But that's not the reason I bothered with this post. I usually don't comment on the weather or natural disasters, since I can't really add much value to that discussion. No, there's another aspect of the whole flooding story, one that takes place almost every time there's a natural disaster: profiteering. According to purely anecdotal reports my wife and I have seen via BBS and microblogs, taxi drivers were charging huge fares for even short rides. One person noted that at the airport (the airport highway was apparently a parking lot there for a while), taxis were charging hundreds of RMB to drive folks to nearby Wangjing — if you know your Beijing geography, we're talking a fairly short distance. We even read about some microbloggers who organized a Dunkirkesque rescue mission to the airport with private cars. Other reports talk about hotels in some parts of the city, such as Sanyuanqiao, hiking rates multiple times because people were stranded and didn't have any other options. Same thing happens when there's an earthquake or other calamity, so I shouldn't be surprised. However, this kind of behavior is clearly illegal in China under various legal provisions, including the price law. I know it's not reasonable or feasible for the government to investigate and punish all these taxi drivers and small business hotels. Too bad. Love to see some of those mercenary pricks be made an example of. But for now, it's more important to clean up, dry out, and mourn our losses. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us |
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