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• Photo: Xinghai Square, by SnoShuu
• Fans “Cheated” by Liu’s Scripted Olympic Tragedy
• Pentagon Plans New Missile Defence in Asia
• China Sends Kachin Refugees Back to Myanmar
• After 80 Days, a Censored Voice Reemerges
• The Daily Twit – 8/24/12: More Missiles, Psychiatric Misdeeds, and the Chinese Invade Toledo
• Just in Time for the U.S. Election: More China Bashing from the Left
• Photo: Waiting for the S2 train – Beijing North Station, by

Photo: Xinghai Square, by SnoShuu Posted: 24 Aug 2012 06:24 PM PDT Xinghai Square © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Fans “Cheated” by Liu’s Scripted Olympic Tragedy Posted: 24 Aug 2012 06:21 PM PDT Liu Xiang's one-legged finish after falling at the first hurdle in London seemed to offer a dramatic counterpoint to China's "gold or nothing" approach to the games. CCTV presenter Yang Jian choked up as he praised Liu in heroic terms: "He is like a soldier without a gun in his hand … All he can do is charge at the enemy's fortress with his own body. Goodbye, Liu Xiang." A directive issued to Chinese media ordered them to "strongly affirm Liu's indomitable fighting spirit against all odds", but the prompt was hardly necessary. According to Nanjing's Oriental Guardian newspaper on Thursday, however, "Liu Xiang knew, CCTV knew and leaders knew" that he was unlikely to finish. "Only spectators foolishly waited to witness moment of miracle," the headline continued. The news has revived earlier suspicions that Liu was a victim of combined political and commercial pressures. From Steven Jiang at CNN: Local media reported that, in a largely self-congratulatory meeting Wednesday reviewing its Olympics coverage, CCTV officials revealed they were aware of Liu's "serious injury" before the race and approved four scripts for the anchors — including the so-called "choked up" option apparently used on air. The story was widely reported by news outlets across China and featured prominently on major web portals through most of Thursday. […] Chinese sports officials have vehemently denied the claim that their vested interest in Liu's commercial success — the sports authority is entitled to a considerable cut from an athlete's endorsements income — played a role in his decision to compete at the Olympics despite his injury. "Our priority is to protect athletes, if we could have predicted he would be injured, no one would have let Liu run," Feng Shuyong, China's athletics team leader at the London Games, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency when the controversy first erupted. Liu has insisted that he felt fit before the race, but the story quickly attracted over 38 million posts on Sina Weibo alone, with angry users complaining of feeling cheated by CCTV's cover-up. China Real Time Report's Lilian Lin suggested that the outrage was inflated by a pervasive sense of mistrust, visible also in the conspiracy theories swirling around other recent news stories. In the case of Gu Kailai, who was recently convicted of the murder of a British businessman, conspiracy theorists have insisted (based on a comparison of video stills and earlier photos) that the woman who appeared in court for the trial and sentencing was not Ms. Gu at all, but rather a body double. In Zhou's case, skeptics have cast doubt on whether Chongqing police actually shot him, with some saying they shot an undercover copy from out of town and others insisting Mr. Zhou shot himself. In both cases, the doubts appeared to be fed less by concrete evidence and more by an underlying mistrust of China's state media – a theme touched on by a message posted to Sina Weibo on Thursday by writer Zhang Yihe. "Was Liu Xiang's appearance at the Olympics all just a performance? …Was that really Gu Kailai in the courtroom? Was it really Zhou Kehua who was shot to death? And on and on," read the post, which was deleted by censors but recovered by researchers at Hong Kong University. "This makes one think of the ancient story of the boy who cried wolf … China's propaganda machine has cranked out lies for 60 years. Now it has come to the point that anything they say is met with doubt." Mengyu Dong contributed to this post. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: CCTV, gu kailai, Liu Xiang, Olympic athletes, Olympics, Zhou Kehua Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Pentagon Plans New Missile Defence in Asia Posted: 24 Aug 2012 12:07 PM PDT As tensions loom in the South China Sea and disputes over the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Island continue, Voice of America reports American plans to expand missile defense in Asia. The news follows China and North Korea's vow to develop economic ties: U.S. defense officials say the United States is planning to expand its missile defenses in Asia, in response to threats from North Korea and aggressive moves by China.A spokeswoman for the State Department, Victoria Nuland, said Thursday that the United States is taking a phased approach to missile defense in Asia, as it is in Europe and in the Middle East. She emphasized that those are defense systems and will not be used unless "missiles have been fired." But she did not comment on any specific plans. China did not comment on the reports directly, but its defense ministry issued a statement Thursday saying that "China has always believed that anti-missile issues should be handled with great discretion, from the perspective of protecting global strategic stability and promoting strategic mutual trust among all countries." China has angered its neighbors with aggressive moves in a maritime area claimed by several governments, including Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan and others. China also has been boosting its military strength in recent years. Want China Times, meanwhile, reports that the People's Liberation Army has tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile: An anonymous US official says a Chinese DF-41 ICBM with the range to strike any city in the United States was test-fired by the PLA's Second Artillery Corps for the first time on Jul. 24, according to Jane's Defence Weekly. With many American observers believing the missile can carry multiple independently targetable warheads, the DF-41 is considered a serious threat to US national security. An analyst told Jane's Defence Weekly that the ICBM can carry around 10 nuclear warheads to strike at multiple targets in the continental United States. The United States is currently unable to intercept missiles which employ a MIRV system. "The DF-41′s multiple warheads are expected to include special simulated warheads called 'penetration aids' that are designed to counter US missile defense sensors," said Larry Wortzel, a member of the congressional US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. "The Chinese military's Second Artillery Corps, which is in charge of both strategic and non-nuclear missiles, is working to integrate the DF-41 into its operational inventory," said Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute. "The system appears to incorporate a new, larger solid rocket motor than that used on the DF-31 series of delivery vehicles. Ground tests on the motor have been underway for a couple of years." Aside from the ICBM, the Pentagon is worried about the development of an anti-carrier ship missile, The Telegraph adds: The Pentagon is also concerned about China's development of a new "carrier-killer" anti-ship missile that can strike at the US Pacific fleet. These missiles, which have a range of 930 miles, are designed to prevent US ships from approaching the South China Sea, a key sphere of Chinese influence. Amid tensions between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, CRIENGLISH reports the US is in discussions with Japan about expanding the missile shield in the region: The United States is in discussion with Japan about expanding its missile shield in the Asia-Pacific region, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said Thursday. In a Pentagon press briefing with visiting Japanese Self Defense Forces Chief of the Joint Staff Shigeru Iwasaki, Dempsey said he discussed with Iwasaki about deploying another early-warning radar to Japan to bolster missile shield in Asia. "On the issue of Missile Defense in general, we are very closely partnered with the Japanese partners," said Dempsey, noting the U.S. side already has one X-band radar in northern Japan According to the Wall Street Journal, this move is not only to contain North Korea, but also to counter the Chinese military: It is part of the Obama administration's new defense strategy to shift resources to an Asian-Pacific region critical to the U.S. economy after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. "The focus of our rhetoric is North Korea," said Steven Hildreth, a missile-defense expert with the Congressional Research Service, an advisory arm of Congress. "The reality is that we're also looking longer term at the elephant in the room, which is China." In a separate statement, China's Foreign Ministry said it hopes the U.S. "will carefully handle this problem out of concern for maintaining the global and regional strategic balance and stability, and promoting the strategic mutual trust among all countries." The beefed-up U.S. presence will likely raise tensions with the Chinese, who have been sharp critics of U.S. ballistic missile defenses in the past. Beijing fears such a system, similar to one the U.S. is deploying in the Middle East and Europe to counter Iran, could diminish China's strategic deterrent. Beijing objected to the U.S.'s first X-Band deployment in Japan in 2006. Moscow has voiced similar concerns about the system in Europe and the Middle East. Despite reports that the expansion is to counter China's military, the US State Department claimed the prospective plan is not directed towards China, from NPR: The State Department, however, said the missile defense system is not directed against China. Dempsey said no decisions have been reached on expanding the radar."But it's certainly a topic of conversation because missile defense is important to both of our nations," Dempsey told reporters at the start of a meeting with his visiting Japanese counterpart, Gen. Shigeru Iwasaki, at the Pentagon. "These are defensive systems. They don't engage unless missiles have been fired," department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a news conference. "In the case of Asian systems, they are designed against a missile threat from North Korea. They are not directed at China." © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: ballistic missile, missile technology, missiles, North Korea, pentagon, People's Liberation Army, PLA, United States Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China Sends Kachin Refugees Back to Myanmar Posted: 24 Aug 2012 11:41 AM PDT Despite human rights groups urging China to protect them, the New York Times reports that Kachin refugees are forcibly being sent back to Myanmar. Thousands have fled to escape violence between the Myanmar government and the Kachin Independence Army: The authorities in southwestern China are forcibly evicting thousands of encamped ethnic Kachin refugees who fled a renewed civil war in neighboring Myanmar, pushing them back into the conflict zone in Kachin State in northern Myanmar, according to foreign human rights researchers and some residents in Kachin State. "All the refugees in China now are being pushed back," said one resident of Laiza, the capital of the rebel-held part of Kachin State. "Many of them are back already."Officials in Yunnan and Beijing had been tolerating the presence of the Kachin refugees for more than a year, although Yunnan officials had been threatening to evict them. It is not clear why the refugees are being expelled now. An employee at the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the ministry had no immediate comment after it was sent a list of questions on Thursday. Calls to the Yunnan propaganda office went unanswered, as did calls to the propaganda office of Dehong Autonomous Prefecture, the location of the camps. China has not taken an official position on the Kachin conflict. Kachin State is rich in jade, timber, mineral wealth and water resources, all coveted by the Chinese. Several large Chinese dam projects are in the region, including the Myitsone dam, which aroused local protests. China is also a major patron of the Burmese government, though many Myanmar citizens are wary of or hostile toward growing Chinese influence. According to the Global Times, authorities in Yunnan Province have denied forcing the refugees to leave: Authorities in Southwest China's Yunnan Province and the Consulate General of Myanmar in Kunming Wednesday both denied that China had pressured the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), a political organization in Myanmar's Kachin State, to bring 4,000 people who fled conflict in Myanmar back to the country. Officials from the Yunnan government and the government of Ruili, a town bordering Myanmar, told the Global Times that they hadn't received any orders to pressure the Myanmar people who had fled to the province to leave. "The Chinese government does not need to ask them to leave because it's very common for Kachin people to come to Yunnan to visit relatives and friends as they share the same ancestors," Zhu Zhenming, director of the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.According to the expert, Kachin people belong to the same ethnic group as Jingpo, a Chinese ethnic group who mostly live in the Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture of Dehong, which administers Ruili. Human Rights Watch has stated China should stop forced returns due to the violence and lack of aid in Northern Myanmar: "China is flouting its international legal obligations by forcibly returning Kachin refugees to an active conflict zone rife with Burmese army abuses," saidBill Frelick, Refugee Program director. "China should urgently change course and provide temporary protection for the refugees in Yunnan Province." The Kachin refugees repatriated the week of August 19 were not allowed to remain in the more than a dozen makeshift camps in China in which they had lived since June 2011. In July 2012, authorities in Yunnan Province, along Burma's northern border, visited Kachin refugees and informed them they were no longer welcome in China and had to return to Burma. A local Kachin aid worker who has communicated directly with the Yunnan authorities told Human Rights Watch, "I went to the camps when the [Chinese] authorities came to give a speech to talk about this to the refugees. They said, 'We cannot accept you living here. We allowed you to stay here for over one year but it is no longer possible for you to stay here. You must go back.'" While the Chinese government has provided sanctuary to an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Kachin who fled conflict-related abuses in Burma and sought safety in Yunnan Province, the authorities have failed to provide them temporary protection or aid. The Chinese government has denied United Nations and international humanitarian agencies much-needed access to these refugees. Those returned to Burma will be relegated to living in camps for internally displaced people that lack adequate aid and are currently isolated from UN agencies because the Burmese government has blocked humanitarian access to the area. See also State Media Mixed About Myanmar Press Freedom and Burmese Parliament to Look Closely at China Relations, via CDT. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Burma, kachin, Myanmar, refugees Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

After 80 Days, a Censored Voice Reemerges Posted: 24 Aug 2012 11:27 AM PDT Weibo user Zuoyeben was banished from the service after posting a picture of the candlelit June 4th vigil in Hong Kong's Victoria Park. Eighty days later, he reappeared, addressing his more than three million followers with an essay that has been reposted over 161,000 times, commented on more than 92,000 times, and translated by Liz Carter at Tea Leaf Nation: It wasn't until the morning of June 5 that I discovered I had disappeared. […] It really wasn't a big deal, because the summer has passed already. In this hot, anxious season, everything has finally passed…three years ago maybe I wouldn't have made any "iffy" posts, but time not only ages us, it also forces us to grow up. Maybe saying you have a "sense of purpose" sounds too high and mighty, or describing a "burning urgency" sounds like building yourself up, but you can't always be a person who pretends to be "fun." You have to speak your own mind a little. It doesn't matter if it's stupid, or fake, you have to pay the price. If you only play the part of a fun or funny person all day long, your life is really meaningless, frittered away in idiocy. Even if people say you're stupid or fake, that you are just rehashing old tropes, what does it matter? Your life is long. Why would you care about people pointing their fingers at you from the sidelines? On the road to being awesome, the streets are not lined with thorny bushes, but with idiots. It doesn't matter–keep going 'til you reach the finish line. See also "Do Not Hype Gourmet Food or Luxury Clothing!" on CDT, featuring Zuoyeben's message to representatives at this year's NPC and CPPCC meetings. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: CPPCC, microbloggers, NPC, sina weibo, Tiananmen, weibo Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The Daily Twit – 8/24/12: More Missiles, Psychiatric Misdeeds, and the Chinese Invade Toledo Posted: 24 Aug 2012 06:04 AM PDT No big picture items today or grand unifying themes in China news. I'm afraid we're going to have to slide into the weekend with a hodge podge of news stories to keep us busy. Wall Street Journal: China's Ballistic Missiles: A Force to be Reckoned With — I mentioned yesterday about the U.S. plans for an Asian missile defense shield. Here's the WSJ with some related info. New York Times: China Pressed to Prevent Abuse of Psychiatric Confinement — An update on a long-term problem here in China. Great article, which starts off with a true story that really sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie. Didi Kirsten Tatlow, who wrote this piece, has been in the zone lately. Reuters: U.S. trade gap with China cost 2.7 million jobs: study — New report by a pro-labor think tank. This made me a bit cranky, and I responded with: Just in Time for the U.S. Election: More China Bashing from the Left. Forbes: Why China Will Stop U.S. Energy Independence — I found this rather riveting as it focuses on the way that energy markets operate and the strategic reasons for overseas M&A activity. Quite different than the usual analysis. Marbridge: Baidu Examines Legality of Qihoo 360 Search Aggregator — Baidu has had a tough time recently because of the Qihoo challenge on the search front. If there is really a legal dispute, I definitely want to keep my eye on it. I have a feeling that the issue of how/to what extent search results are protected under Chinese law is a new one for the courts here. China Daily: Policemen sentenced for forced confession — You may have heard of this story about an innocent man who was sitting in jail for 10 years. He confessed, but claimed that he was coerced. The good news is that he's out, was compensated, and the cops are going to jail (for a short time). Financial Times: Africa: new frontier for the renminbi — Another aspect of China's big push into Africa. Economist: America and China, Working partners — Chinese investment in . . . Toledo, Ohio. Yeah, didn't see that coming either. New York Times: China Besieged by Glut of Unsold Goods — I guess this is what happens when the workshop to the world is in a slump. Stanley Lubman: Fraud, Culture and the Law: Can China Change? — Title says it all. Central question concerning effects of culture, political and legal system, and economic status on the level of fakes, frauds and corruption in a society is an important one. Sinica Podcast: The Raid of the Scorned Mongol Woman — Just listened to this. Jeremy Goldkorn interviews David Spindler about the Great Wall. If you're into history and/or the Wall, have at it. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags:

Just in Time for the U.S. Election: More China Bashing from the Left Posted: 24 Aug 2012 02:48 AM PDT The Economic Policy Institute, an American pro-labor think tank, has a new report out on US-China trade and manufacturing job losses. If you're a politician looking to bolster your populist, China bashing stump speech going into the fall campaign season, here you go, including actual statistics you can use to make yourself sound intelligent. This will sound quite familiar, from the EPI's summary of the report: Since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, the extraordinary growth of trade between China and the United States has had a dramatic effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy, though in neither case has this effect been beneficial. The United States is piling up foreign debt and losing export capacity, and the growing trade deficit with China has been a prime contributor to the crisis in U.S. manufacturing employment. Between 2001 and 2011, the trade deficit with China eliminated or displaced more than 2.7 million U.S. jobs, over 2.1 million of which (76.9 percent) were in manufacturing. These lost manufacturing jobs account for more than half of all U.S. manufacturing jobs lost or displaced between 2001 and 2011. You've heard me complain about this kind of lobbying for years now, so I won't rehash everything here. These kinds of studies are often well researched and detailed, yet ultimately their arguments are simplistic, they purposely ignore material facts, and their ultimate end (protectionist policies) wouldn't even solve the problems they highlight. Has the U.S. lost jobs to China? Of course. Is this partially a result of the trade deficit? Definitely. But that's about as far as I'll go. The EPI folks say some crazy things that should be dismissed out of hand. For example, they assert that US-China trade has been bad for the domestic economy. Seriously? OK, thought experiment. Let's go back to, I don't know, the early 90s, make China an autarky, and then fast forward. What does the US look like today? More manufacturing jobs? Perhaps, although I suspect a large number of those that were "stolen" by China would have taken up residence in places like Mexico, Bangladesh, Indonesia or even Eastern Europe. And I bet everything would cost more, so all Americans, not just manufacturing workers, would have that going for them, which is nice. The EPI ignores the recent revaluation of the RMB, which has not erased the trade deficit. They ignore the complexity of the entire issue, the relationship between the exchange rate regime in China and the trade deficit, and its forex reserves. Of course the EPI doesn't mention (or understand) Chinese domestic politics and the role played by the unemployment rate, not to mention what a huge one-off revaluation, or tariff counterpart, would do to the stability of the government. They certainly don't seem to care what protectionism would mean for domestic prices or the negative effects for U.S. companies doing business in China. Needless to say, they could care less what punitive measures would mean to the US-China relationship and the rest of the world. Here's my problem with American labor and trade: it's turned into such a professional, narrow-focused lobbying organization that it doesn't have room to appreciate the big picture anymore. Moreover, it spends most of its time hearkening back to the "Good Old Days" instead of coming to terms with reality. As we grownups know, the good old days weren't all that good, and tomorrow isn't as bad as it seems. It would certainly be better if Americans had a higher minimum wage, single-payer health care, and worker retraining, just to name a few policy items that labor, I assume, supports. I'd love to see strong, powerful unions in America once again. But labor won't get there by trying to recreate the 1950s through protectionist trade policies and mindless China bashing. The economy is global, and sticking your head in the sand just won't work anymore, if it ever did. That sort of strategy based on nostalgia is just as sad as when the Republican Party attacks social insurance by waxing nostalgic about the days when the Catholic Church doled out bread to the poor and ran sick houses for folks who contracted the Black Death. Both political parties in the U.S. need to grow the fuck up. One last point here. If anyone thinks that the EPI is some insulated, academically inclined think tank that is just engaged in fact finding (and should therefore be left alone), consider the following language: The growing trade deficit with China has cost jobs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as in each congressional district. The report breaks these numbers down in great detail, by the way. Want to know how many jobs were lost to China from California's 15th Congressional District? No worries, the EPI has you covered. I trust you understand what that's all about. Why should we care whether there were job losses in each Congressional district? Well, we might not give a shit, but lobbyists certainly do. That's their way of making this personal, of giving individual members of Congress the motivation and, perhaps, the political cover to support the protectionist policies that are being pushed by labor, the EPI and certain members of both political parties. This ammunition for politicians who wish to do some gratuitous China bashing out on the stump over the next few months. This is a political document, meant to be used by lobbyists and politicians — maybe even Mitt Romney, you never know. Workers in America are hating life right now and need all the help they can get. They certainly need strong unions to look out for their interests. Why labor spends its time perfecting its imitation of King Cnute, trying to stop or even turn back globalization, when it has so many other problems, is a mystery to me. Of course, China bashing must be really good for fundraising. So there is that. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Economic Policy Institute, labor

Photo: Waiting for the S2 train – Beijing North Station, by Posted: 24 Aug 2012 02:14 AM PDT © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

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