News » Society » China media: Flooding in Beijing
News » Society » China media: Flooding in Beijing |
- China media: Flooding in Beijing
- Police hunts for man squirting glue on women's hair
- China approves troops for islands
- Beijing's heaviest rain in 60 years leaves 37 dead
- Residents, workers quick to offer help
- Counterfeit millions
- 15 suspects held in cloned cards scheme
- Mildew found in infant formula
- Railway to 'sea of death' to haul mineral lifeblood
- 5.23m yuan public toilets at tourism site criticized
- Modernization leaving out old-time porters
- China’s ‘unwanted’ single women feel the pressure
- Foreign Films Dominate China Box Office
- China’s Communist Elders Take Backroom Intrigue Beachside
- China to formally garrison disputed South China Sea
- Have You Heard…
- Bird flu `epidemic' sparks chicken cull
- Editors get walking papers
- Editors at two outspoken newspapers have been removed from their posts months before a politically sensitive handover of power in the country.
| China media: Flooding in Beijing Posted: 22 Jul 2012 09:01 PM PDT Morning newspaper round-up: Questions asked about Beijing drainage systems after deadly floods. |
| Police hunts for man squirting glue on women's hair Posted: 22 Jul 2012 08:54 PM PDT POLICE in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, are investigating several cases in which a man has squirted super glue on long-haired women. More than 10 women in Chengdu complained on the Internet that a man had put the powerful glue into their hair while they were waiting at bus stations, Chengdu Business Daily reported today. The man was described to be in his 30s, with a skinny build, often dressed in a white t-shirt and sometimes wearing glasses. As the glue is very strong, some women have had to cut their hair or have the liquid removed by professionals in salons. The police have called for more victims to come forward and provide evidence. |
| China approves troops for islands Posted: 22 Jul 2012 08:15 PM PDT China has approved the formal establishment of a military garrison in Sansha city, formed to govern disputed South China Sea islands, state media reports. |
| Beijing's heaviest rain in 60 years leaves 37 dead Posted: 22 Jul 2012 10:19 AM PDT Beijing's heaviest rainstorm in six decades killed at least 37 people, flooded streets and stranded 80,000 people at the main airport. The storm, which began on Saturday afternoon and continued late into the night, flooded major roads and sent torrents of water tumbling down steps into underpasses. The Beijing city government said last night that of the people who died, 25 drowned, six were crushed when their homes collapsed, five were electrocuted and one was struck by lightning. Twenty-two of the bodies have been identified, it said. More than 500 flights were cancelled at Beijing's Capital International Airport, The Beijing News said. The subway system was largely unaffected by the floods but was swamped with people desperate to get home and unable to use cars, buses or taxis. The city received about 170 millimeters of rain on average, but one township in Fangshan District to Beijing's west was hit by 460mm, officials said. About 1.9 million people were affected by the downpour which also incurred nearly 10 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) in economic losses, according to Pan Anjun, deputy chief of the Beijing flood control headquarters. Multiple damage As of last night, about 66,000 residents had been relocated, including 20,990 in Fangshan alone, Pan said. The rains caused multiple damage to roads and bridges, including 31 road cave-ins. More than 1,200 houses or buildings had seen leakages and 736 houses were flooded, Pan said. The Beijing city government said it was working to get the metropolis back on its feet, but warned people to prepare for further bad weather. Many residents post dramatic pictures of the storm online. Some said the city should have been better prepared, especially as the government had issued a severe storm warning the day before. The clouds had at least one silver lining. The official pollution index, which rated unhealthy before the storm hit, registered "excellent" yesterday. On Saturday night, the rain knocked down trees in the capital and trapped cars and buses in waist-deep water. Train services between Beijing and Guangzhou were suspended because of the deluge, the flood control headquarters said. More than 12,000 people worked to drain 1 million cubic meters of water from the streets and most was cleared by 6am yesterday. A flash flood in Fangshan stranded 104 primary school students and nine teachers at a military training site. They were all evacuated yesterday. Elsewhere, landslides triggered by heavy rain on Friday and Saturday killed eight people in the southwestern Sichuan Province. Another 17 people were missing in Shaanxi Province, where 131mm of rainfall was reported from Friday night to Saturday afternoon. The government yesterday warned of more storms over the following 24 hours for China's northeast, the port city of Tianjin east of Beijing, Inner Mongolia in the north, Sichuan and neighboring Yunnan Province, and Guangdong and Hainan provinces in the southeast. An orange rainstorm alert, the second highest, was issued. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Residents, workers quick to offer help Posted: 22 Jul 2012 10:16 AM PDT BEIJING residents got together to help each other during the massive rainstorms that turned many parts of the city into swimming pools on Saturday. The rainfall was so overwhelming that a number of motor vehicles could be seen floating in the streets and many people rushed to help neighbors and even strangers who found themselves besieged by the floods. Residents helped drag vehicles out of flooded areas and made sure the people inside got home safely. With at least 80,000 travelers stranded at the Capital International Airport due to the cancellation of outbound flights, hundreds of taxi drivers and motorists in the nearby Wangjing neighborhood drove to the airport to offer rides to strangers. The city's sanitation workers also performed above and beyond the call of duty to clean up the mess caused by the flooding. One sanitation worker was spotted submerging himself almost completely to clear a blocked sewage drain in Haidian District. Other workers were seen acting as "human road signs" near the Beitaiping Bridge, standing in deep pools and guiding vehicles to avoid manholes, as the water had washed away a number of covers. Li Fanghong, a police inspector in suburban Fangshan District, died while trying to rescue villagers trapped by floodwaters. Li was electrocuted by a live wire that had fallen into the water. Colleagues said that he had rescued 50 people in Fenghuangting Village before he was killed. While many cheered the acts of bravery during the storm, there was anger at police who were ticketing stranded cars yet to be reclaimed by their owners. Toll staff were also criticized for continuing to collect fees at toll gates on the airport expressway, despite vehicles, in long queues, being mired in knee-high water. Xia Xueluan, a Peking University sociologist, said city authorities should take a more "humane" approach when handling such emergencies. "More flexible measures should be adopted in those cases," Xia said. The urban drainage system also came under fierce criticism, once again, as heavy rains and snow have often disrupted traffic in the capital in recent years. |
| Posted: 22 Jul 2012 09:38 AM PDT CHINESE police have caught 463 suspects and seized 118 million yuan (US$18.5 million) worth of counterfeit money in 374 cases since the launch of a campaign in March. In one case, police in Guangdong Province caught four people in a counterfeit money-making den where 80 million yuan worth of counterfeit money had been half completed. Since 2010, police have seized 946 million yuan in counterfeit money. |
| 15 suspects held in cloned cards scheme Posted: 22 Jul 2012 09:30 AM PDT POLICE have apprehended 15 people in China and Myanmar, including one in Shanghai, suspected of involvement in a scheme where cloned bank cards were used to steal nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million) from victims' accounts. Special card readers were installed at ATM machines at banks on the border between China and Myanmar to read cards inserted into the machines, police told Xinhua news agency yesterday. At the same time, tiny cameras installed on the machines filmed the victims as they typed in their passwords, police said. The information was then sent to China's Jiangxi Province where other members of the gang used the information to clone the cards. The group in Jiangxi then checked the account balances and whenever they found a large amount of money being deposited, instructed other members to withdraw the money from ATM machines or use the cards to buy gold in Guangdong Province, police said. The scam was uncovered in April, when a Beijing company which manufactures card reading machines noticed during checks that on two days in January, there were more than 5,000 account balance checks on 359 bank cards on 14 machines. The unusual activity prompted them to call the police. Police contacted the card holders and some said money had been stolen from their accounts. Shanghai police then worked with counterparts in Jiangxi, Guangdong and Yunnan provinces to investigate. Police said the two leaders of the gang, a couple from Yugan County of Jiangxi Province, had divided the gang into two groups. A 28-year-old man surnamed Xiong and his wife surnamed Tang were in charge of the group who went to banks on the border between China and Myanmar to collect card details, while another group led by Xiong's brother were based in Jiangxi. Police said seven of the suspects were caught in Jiangxi, three in Guangdong, one in Shanghai and the other four in Myanmar. |
| Mildew found in infant formula Posted: 22 Jul 2012 09:25 AM PDT AUTHORITIES in Guangzhou said they discovered mildew contamination in some infant formula products. Excessive amounts of aflatoxin were detected in five formula products produced between July and December last year in central China's Hunan Province. Four of the products were produced by Ava Dairy Co Ltd based in Hunan's capital of Changsha, while the fifth was produced by its parent company - Hunan Ava Dairy Holdings Co Ltd, authorities said. High levels of aflatoxin have led to cancer in animal tests. |
| Railway to 'sea of death' to haul mineral lifeblood Posted: 22 Jul 2012 09:00 AM PDT CHINA yesterday finished construction on a railway to Lop Nur, a dried lake in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region that is known as the "sea of death" for its high salt content. The construction on the railway, which stretches from Hami Prefecture on the China-Mongolia border to Lop Nur near China's largest desert, the Taklamakan, started two years ago with an investment of 3 billion yuan (US$476 million). The railway was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Railways, the regional government of Xinjiang and a branch of the State Development and Investment Corp, a state-owned investment giant that has a potassium fertilizer base in Lop Nur. Trains will stop at nine stations before reaching Lop Nur, an area that has some 500 million tons of potassium salt. At the end of the railway, a cluster of buildings have been built by an SDIC subsidiary for the purpose of tapping local resources. The company already has a salt mining project that turns out 1.2 million tons of salt annually and works on an even larger project. China consumes more than 10 million tons of potassium salt each year, 70 percent of which is imported. China's reserves total about 457 million tons, less than 3 percent of the world's total. The "sea of death" also has large reserves of non-ferrous metals, including nickel, gold and copper, local authorities said. The railway can haul 30 million tons a year and lower costs by 80 yuan per ton, the Urumqi Railway Bureau said. |
| 5.23m yuan public toilets at tourism site criticized Posted: 22 Jul 2012 09:00 AM PDT A POPULAR tourism attraction in southwest China's Sichuan Province will spend heavily to renovate four public restrooms despite widespread complaints. One of four public restrooms at the Du Fu Thatched Cottage, also known as the former residence of prominent Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) poet Du Fu, in the provincial capital of Chengdu will receive renovations in compliance with "five-star" standards, while another three will be upgraded to "star-rated" status, a spokesman from the Du Fu museum said. The total investment required for the project is estimated to be 5.23 million yuan (US$821,600), with 1.5 million yuan contributed by the city government and the rest raised by the museum, the city's development and reform commission said. A preliminary design shows that the "five-star" bathroom will be designed to resemble an ancient courtyard, with more toilets for the disabled and elderly, a room for nursing mothers and a lounge equipped with chairs, a tea table, a TV set, a fish tank and Wi-Fi access. The "five-star" public toilet will have two full-time maintenance workers. The spokesman said the "five-star" restroom can be used free of charge and the entrance fee for the tourism attraction will not be raised. A poll on Weibo showed 90 percent of over 700 respondents oppose the renovations, seeing them as a waste of money, while 8 percent said the project will improve the urban environment and the public image of scenic areas. "Being clean and bright is not enough for a toilet? A toilet is just a toilet," a netizen named "beicui" wrote. |
| Modernization leaving out old-time porters Posted: 22 Jul 2012 09:00 AM PDT FOR more than two decades, Zhang Guangzhong worked as a self-employed porter in southwest China's city of Chongqing, carrying luggage, furniture and shopping bags up the city's steep hills in exchange for tips. He searched for work at docks, train stations and department stores, carrying bags for tourists and locals on Chongqing's zigzagging roads and up the stairs of old apartment buildings with no elevators. The job required no training or qualifications to speak of. Zhang's only limitation was how much he could carry on his shoulder using a wooden pole. In his younger days, Zhang said groups of porters were often seen on downtown Chongqing streets, competing to offer their services to tourists and shoppers laden with goods. "I often waited for business at community markets, helping old people carry loads of groceries through the narrow lanes," he said. "There were at least 30 others and we used to compete for potential customers." The laborers were so popular in Chongqing that they became an icon of the city itself in the 1990s. A TV series about the porters' lives, produced around 1997 - the year Chongqing, formerly a part of Sichuan province, was named China's fourth self-governing municipality after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin - was a hit among Chinese viewers and made the workers famous nationwide. But at the age of 57, Zhang is in danger of losing his livelihood. Few people demand the services of local porters. "They all take taxis or drive their own cars," he said. "New apartment buildings are taller than before and are almost always equipped with elevators, so people don't need me to carry their bags." For several years, Zhang was the only porter on the old streets of downtown Yuzhong District. "My former colleagues are either too old to keep working or have left for other jobs," Zhang said. Twenty years ago, taxis were not yet popular. Chongqing's streets were just narrow lanes. Today, however, the city has a comprehensive transportation system consisting of highways, subways and light railways. Porters have apparently been left out of the city's urbanization drive. Zhang has turned to construction sites. "Apparently this job has no future, but I'm proud that I once belonged to a group that was the city's icon," he said. |
| China’s ‘unwanted’ single women feel the pressure Posted: 22 Jul 2012 10:00 AM PDT  Source: By Virginie Mangin AFP Xu, a pretty woman in her 30s, warily walked into a Beijing singles club in a bid to shed her status as one of China's "Unwanted". "I hope to find a husband," she said, as she sat in front of a Mahjong table and awaited her date for the evening, who had been hand-picked for her by the club based on their profiles. "I just want someone with whom I share things in common, but who is also in a better financial situation than me." Xu, who did not want to be identified, is one of China's so-called "Sheng Nu". The term, which translates to the "Unwanted", is derived from a phenomenon in Chinese society which affects hundreds of thousands of women, particularly the urban, educated and financially independent. The term, which is unique to China and which only applies to women, appears in China's official dictionary and refers to "all single woman above the age of 27″. Twenty-six-year-old Summer was at the Garden of Joy for the first time, desperate to meet a man before she hit the dreaded cut-off age. "Nothing in the world will allow me to become a Sheng Nu," she said, lamenting that for many men in China youthful looks count for a lot. "Men don't want a woman over 30. It's important for them that she's still pretty." A widely publicised survey in 2010 by the government-backed All China Women's Federation proved the new social phenomenon beyond doubt. The survey showed that there were 180 million single men and women in China — out of a population of 1.3 billion people — and that 92 percent of men questioned believed that a woman should be married before the age of 27. Since then, books and films on the subject have flourished and women's magazines have sought to decipher why so many are single. "On one hand young people today work very hard and have few places to meet outside of their work, which wasn't the case earlier," Wu Di, a sociologist who has just published a book on the subject, told AFP. "On the other hand, traditionally the Chinese say one should 'make do' when marrying. Marriage has never been synonymous with happiness. "The new generation of women don't want to 'make do'. Many live quite well alone and don't see the point in lowering their standard or life in order to marry." Still, the pressure on women is huge. Part of this is due to China's one-child population control policy, which adds to the desperation of parents for their only offspring to marry and produce a grandson or granddaughter. "The real reason for coming to this club is that I don't want to disappoint my parents. I want to make them happy," admitted Xu. The Garden of Joy's own slogan plays on this emotion in order to attract members. "Are you single? Think about the feelings of your father/mother. Don't cause them more worry," read a sign on the entrance. And business is booming. The club, which opened in 2003, has two premises in Beijing and more than 12,000 members. But, after using fear to lure the women in, the Garden of Joy offers a friendly atmosphere in the basement of a high-end business centre where women can meet prospective husbands with more than 80 different activities. These include table tennis, billiards, board games, movies and speed dating, or outdoor ventures such as organised hiking trips. There are also small booths where couples can sit down in a more private setting to get to know each other. Shelly, 34, a highly educated public relations consultant who had just returned from living in the United States, was among the new members. Since her return to China, she had avoided her relatives and even some of her close friends because of their insistence in trying to arrange dates for her. "I'm under pressure from all sides. I feel my mother is disappointed and sad when she sees the grandchildren of her friends," she said. But with no potential partner on the horizon, Shelly is preparing to return to the United States to do a second Masters degree — a decision partly motivated by her desire to escape her colleagues, parents and friends. "I think I will return to China when I am 40. I want right now to be so old, so broken that they will leave me in peace," she said.   |
| Foreign Films Dominate China Box Office Posted: 22 Jul 2012 10:04 AM PDT  Source: Wall Street Journal By Laurie Burkitt BEIJING—China's box-office revenue in the first half of this year surged 42% from a year earlier, to 8.07 billion yuan ($1.28 billion), on the strength of foreign films like the re-release of 1997′s "Titanic." China's leaders appear aware of Hollywood's threat. China is currently in the midst of a monthlong period in which no U.S. films have permission to be distributed. And while other years have featured a similar hiatus, this year's is taking place during the summer season—prime time for U.S. action films. It is scheduled to end next week, with the release of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1″ on July 25. The government-controlled China Film Group, which distributes most films in the country, has also arranged the release schedule so that several 3-D Hollywood movies will be pitted against one another. "Ice Age: Continental Drift," from 20th Century Fox, and Universal Pictures' "The Lorax" will both premiere on July 27 in China. Warner Bros.' latest Batman chapter, "The Dark Knight Rises," and Sony Pictures' "The Amazing Spider-Man" are both scheduled to open Aug. 30, one month after the U.S. premiere. The move will create competition for Chinese audiences. News Corp., which owns 20th Century Fox, also owns The Wall Street Journal. Hollywood sees big opportunity in the world's most-populous country, where revenue last year reached $2.1 billion, up 29% from 2010. In February, after Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping's visit to Los Angeles, Chinese leaders agreed to allow 34 movies a year to be shown in China, up from 20, on the condition the additional 14 be shown in 3-D or in jumbo-sized IMAX format. U.S. film-industry lobbyists had been pressuring China to resolve a standoff dating back to 2009, when the World Trade Organization ruled that China's policy of limiting foreign films to 20 a year violated international trade rules. Critics of China's film industry say the country's filmmakers are burdened by censorship and that more freedom of expression would help elevate the nation's films, putting them on equal footing with U.S. productions. Some of China's filmmakers say they don't believe the country's regulators need to restrict the entry of foreign films so tightly. "We don't need to be scared or screaming like crazy, saying the wolf is here," said Chen Kaige, director of such Chinese films as "Farewell My Concubine." Still, Mr. Chen, who spoke in a recent interview, added that he feels increasingly pressured to make films designed to take on the U.S.-produced competition—and is even considering directing an action film to rival some of Hollywood's. Investment in the Chinese film market is too recent to have borne much fruit yet, said Dan Mintz, chief executive of Chinese film company DMG Entertainment. "Everything from setting up the infrastructure and dealing with regulations to learning the creative side just takes a lot of time in film," he explained, adding that Chinese films may grow more dominant at home in the future. To be sure, there are already marks of success emerging in China. "Painted Skin: The Resurrection," a film from Huayi Brothers Media Corp., is on track to become the highest-grossing domestic film ever, with box-office revenue at 628 million yuan and counting, according to data from Beijing-based film-research firm EntGroup. But "Titanic" has brought in more than 934 million yuan this year. Notes Mr. Mintz, "In 1998, there were hardly any theatres in China, so this was actually the first time many got the real experience." |
| China’s Communist Elders Take Backroom Intrigue Beachside Posted: 22 Jul 2012 10:09 AM PDT  Source: New York Times By Edward Wong BEIDAIHE, China — Clutching a wooden cane and aided by an entourage of young people, the old man in a black silk shirt and matching shorts hobbled up the stairs to Kiessling, a decades-old Austrian restaurant not far from the teeming beaches of this seaside resort. He sat on the balcony and ordered ice cream. It was the best in town, he told his companions. At least it had been in his youth. In any other city, even Beijing, it would be unusual to casually run into a relative of Mr. Zhou. But it is midsummer in Beidaihe, which means one thing: Communist Party elders and their families are congregating here, about 180 miles east of Beijing, to swim and dine and gossip — and to shape the future of the world's most populous nation. It is palace intrigue by the sea. In their guarded villas, current and past leaders will negotiate to try to place allies in the 25-member Politburo and its elite Standing Committee, at the top of the party hierarchy. The selections will be announced at the 18th Party Congress this fall in Beijing, heralding what is expected to be only the second orderly leadership transition in more than 60 years of Communist rule. "This is where the factional struggles are settled and the decisions are made," said one resident, surnamed Li, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of Chinese politics. "At the meetings in the fall, everyone just raises their hands." Beidaihe is a Chinese combination of the Jersey Shore and Martha's Vineyard, with a pinch of red fervor: the hilly streets and public beaches are packed with shirtless Russians and Chinese families, while the party elites remain hidden in their villas and on their private patches of sand. A clock tower near Kiessling chimes "The East is Red," a classic Mao anthem. The security presence has surged in recent weeks. Police officers in light blue uniforms patrol on Suzuki motorcycles and stand on street corners watching for jaywalkers. They have set up a checkpoint on the main road leading into town. The informal talks are expected to start late this month and run into August, continuing a tradition that went into partial eclipse after China's top leader, President Hu Jintao, took over from Jiang Zemin in 2002, and ordered party and government offices to stop more formal operations from the seaside during the summer palaver. But Mr. Jiang reportedly chafed at that and continued hobnobbing here with his allies. There was a notable conclave here in 2007 that Mr. Hu attended, to pave the way for the 17th Party Congress, according to scholars and a State Department cable disclosed by WikiLeaks. In any case, politicking is inevitable when party elders show up to escape the stifling heat and pollution of Beijing. Westerners began building up Beidaihe as a summer retreat in the late 19th century, as the Qing dynasty waned. When the People's Liberation Army entered in 1948, the resort had 719 villas, according to China Daily, a state-run English-language newspaper. Communist leaders began vacationing here. Mao was an avid swimmer and dove eagerly into the waters of the Bohai Sea. He convened formal conclaves here. His successor, Deng Xiaoping, made the meetings into annual events (he also took swims, supposedly to counter rumors of his ailing health). The most infamous event at Beidaihe involved Lin Biao, a Communist marshal whom Mao accused of plotting a coup. On Sept. 13, 1971, after the coup attempt was supposedly discovered, Mr. Lin fled his villa here with his wife and a son and boarded a plane at the local airport. Their destination was the Soviet Union, but the plane crashed in Mongolia, killing everyone on board. There are plots and counterplots this year, too. Negotiations here will be complicated by the continuing scandal over Bo Xilai, the deposed Politburo member who was most recently party chief of Chongqing. Some political observers had expected that by now the party would have concluded the investigation into Mr. Bo and his wife, who is suspected of killing a British businessman. Several people with high-level party ties say that Mr. Bo, who is being held in secret and without charges, is fighting back against interrogators, and that party leaders are having a difficult time deciding how to resolve his case. During the negotiations, each current Standing Committee member should, at least in theory, have considerable say in determining the successor to his particular post. But party elders behind the scenes sometimes wield more authority. Mr. Jiang, though retired and ailing last year, may carry the greatest weight next to that of Mr. Hu. The heir apparent, Vice President Xi Jinping, also plays a role. "Consensus among these three — the former, current and incoming leaders — is extremely important," said Zhang Xiaojin, a political scientist at Tsinghua University in Beijing. A flurry of activity in recent months has laid the groundwork. In May, more than 300 senior cadres were asked at a meeting to list the officials they thought should make the Politburo Standing Committee, where all the seats are in play except for the top two. Those are expected to go to Mr. Xi and Li Keqiang, who is slated to take over as prime minister. Polling of senior party members was also done before the 2007 congress. Such surveys are intended as reference points only, though they have become increasingly important. Talk is swirling in Beijing over the results of the May polling. One member of the party elite said several people associated with Mr. Hu's political base did not do well. Two insiders said one person who ranked high was Wang Qishan, a vice prime minister who oversees the financial sector. Party leaders are considering reducing the number of Standing Committee seats to seven from nine, as was the case as recently as 2002, many insiders say. Mr. Hu is believed to support the change, which is in part aimed at curbing the entrenchment of interest groups at the top. That could mean taking two portfolios — probably propaganda and one dubbed "politics and law" that encompasses domestic security — and either adding them to the duties of other leaders or downgrading them to the Politburo level. "With fewer people, they can concentrate power and increase their efficiency," said one official at a state news media organization. But there are other possible motives. The rapid expansion of security powers under Zhou Yongkang, the current Standing Committee member who heads the politics and law committee and supported Mr. Bo, has alarmed some party leaders, political analysts say. Since assuming the post in 2007, Mr. Zhou has capitalized on Mr. Hu's focus on stability to build up the security apparatus, whose budget this year is officially $111 billion, $5 billion more than the military budget. "The politics and law apparatus has grown too powerful," an intelligence official said. "A lot of us feel this way." A contraction of the Standing Committee could also hurt those vying for seats who are not among the very top candidates, most notably Wang Yang, the party chief of Guangdong Province, who cultivates a progressive image. The size and structure of the leadership have been a matter of continuing discussion. One analyst with ties to officials involved in party planning said that at the May meeting, cadres were also asked to submit their views on changing the composition of the party's upper echelons, in a glimpse of what may be called intraparty democracy. Though few changes were expected anytime soon, "a lot of people had very different ideas," he said. Those debates are remote from the lives of most people in Beidaihe. Yet talk of politics flows loosely here. At a beach reserved for local officials, next to an almost-deserted patch of sand blocked off for party leaders, a retired official in swim trunks pointed to the villas across the road. He said the children of party leaders had made off with too much money through corrupt practices in state industries. Emblematic of the distance between officials and those they rule, he said, is the fact that the party leaders vacationing here nowadays refuse to go into the sea, which is brown from runoff. Ordinary people swim in those waters, but the leaders take dips in swimming pools, including one built recently that is filled with filtered seawater. "What are they good for?" the retired official asked. "What did they inherit from their fathers? They should have inherited the solidarity of the revolution." |
| China to formally garrison disputed South China Sea Posted: 22 Jul 2012 10:12 AM PDT  Source: Reuters (Reuters) – China's powerful Central Military Commission has approved the formal establishment of a military garrison for the disputed South China Sea, state media said on Sunday, in a move which could further boost tensions in already fractious region. The official Xinhua news agency said the Sansha garrison would be responsible for "national defense mobilization … guarding the city and supporting local emergency rescue and disaster relief" and "carrying out military missions". It provided no further details. Sansha city is based on what is known in English as Woody Island, part of the Paracel Islands also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. China took full control of the Paracels in 1974 after a naval showdown with Vietnam. Though Sansha's permanent population is no more than a few thousand, mostly fishermen, its administrative responsibility covers China's vast claims in the South China Sea and its myriad mostly uninhabited atolls and reefs. The state-run Vietnam News Agency said Vietnam had protested against the Chinese decision. It cited a month-old statement by a senior official that the designation of "the so-called Sansha city" was illegal and overlapped with districts Vietnam identified as its own. Earlier this month, hundreds of Vietnamese demonstrated in Hanoi against China's establishment of Sansha city and its invitation to oil firms to bid for blocks in offshore areas that Vietnam claims as its territory. The South China Sea has become Asia's biggest potential military flashpoint as Beijing's sovereignty claim over the huge area has set it against Vietnam and the Philippines as the three countries race to tap possibly huge oil reserves Southeast Asian states sought to save face on Friday with a call for restraint and dialogue over the South China Sea, but made no progress in healing a deep divide about how to respond to China's growing assertiveness in the disputed waters. |
| Posted: 22 Jul 2012 10:13 AM PDT Have You Heard…   |
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