| Visiting the Morecambe Bay Victims’ Families Posted: 23 Oct 2012 11:07 PM PDT Hsiao-Hung Pai recounts her visits to family members of the 23 Chinese migrants who drowned in Morecambe Bay in 2004. As well as their grief, many were left with heavy debts incurred to pay "snakeheads" for their relatives' passage to Britain. From The Guardian: In the Jiangkou township of Putian, I found Liying, the sister of Xu Yuhua, who drowned in Morecambe Bay with his wife Liu Qinying. Liying looked frail and worn out, but was strong in spirit, as she had been in her letters and phone calls. She had supported her orphaned nephew, Xu Bin, with the income from her job as an assistant to an overseas Chinese businessman. In fact, the whole family's livelihood – her father, sister, daughter and unemployed husband – depended on her. Xu Bin had studied hard and passed the university extrance exam. He wanted to fulfill his parents' ambition for him, and was planning to go to Britain to further his studies before building a career back home. Liying and I went to visit a woman named Jinyun in her village near Fuqing. The winding lanes led to a semi-furnished two-storey house where she lived with her entire family. We talked on an old couch set against the concrete walls. I had been exchanging letters with Jinyun and her two sons, who were in high school when their father, Lin Guo Guang, drowned in Morecambe Bay. "Guo Guang's first job in England was on a building site where he got paid £40 a day," Jinyun said. "That was why he resorted to cockling." Jinyun has brought up her sons on her own, working as a nanny and earning £60 a month. By summer 2009, she had managed to pay off half the debt of 200,000 yuan (£20,000) left by her husband (the remainder was paid by donations from the UK). "I pretend he's still working in England and just hasn't sent money home," she said. "It's much easier than thinking he's gone forever."
For details of the tragedy, see The Guardian's 2004 report.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chinese migrants, Fujian, labor conditions, snakeheads, UK, United Kingdom
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| Photo: Villager at rest, on the site of the Eastern Qing Tombs, Hebei Province, by stevenjballa Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:55 PM PDT |
| As CPC Approaches, Is Mao’s Influence at Risk? Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:28 PM PDT Reuters reports that the legacy of Mao Zedong, long thought untouchable among the pillars of Communist Party orthodoxy, may wane as the next generation of Chinese leaders looks towards reform: Which is why the dropping of the words "Mao Zedong thought" from two recent statements by the party's elite Politburo ahead of a landmark congress, at which a new generation of leaders will take the top party posts, has attracted so much attention. Also absent were normally standard references to Marxism-Leninism. The omission in the latest such statement by the powerful decision-making body, a Monday announcement that the congress next month would discuss amending the party's constitution, has seen by some as sending a signal about its intent on reform. One of the constitution's key platforms is Mao thought. "It's very significant," Zheng Yongnian, the director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said of the removal of a reference to Mao Zedong Thought and the implications of that for the direction leaders were taking.
The South China Morning Post has more on Monday's gathering of the Politburo, a meeting attended by current president Hu Jintao, and explores the extent to which the CCP may play down Mao's philosophy in the 18th Party Congress: "Bo's red campaign and his popularity for the endeavour might have triggered fear among some reform-minded leaders that Maoism might still be popular among those left in the cold in Deng Xiaoping's capitalistic economic reform," said Zhang Ming, a political scientist at Renmin University. The details about the party congress report comes on the heels of a commentary last week by the party's main policy journal, Seeking Truth, calling for economic, political, cultural and social reform. But Hong Kong-based political commentator Johnny Lau Yui-siu said party leaders would not jettison Mao's philosophy. "The Communist Party stresses much on inheritance of traditions," Lau said. "If it is allowed to take out Mao's thoughts just because there are some doubts, then one day, people may call for taking out the ideas of Deng and Jiang."
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, communist party, Hu Jintao, leadership transition, Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong Thought, party ideology, Politburo
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| Tibetan Man Dies in Third Self-Immolation in Four Days Posted: 23 Oct 2012 03:37 PM PDT Another Tibetan man has died in the third self-immolation in four days, Voice of America reports. Fifty-seven year-old Dorjee Rinchen set himself on fire near the Labrang Monastery in Gansu. A day earlier, a 61-year-old farmer, Dhondup, also self-immolated near the monastery. On Saturday, another man set himself on fire elsewhere in Gansu. These deaths bring the total of self-immolations since 2009 to 58, according to exiled Tibetan groups, though the exact number differs by source. From the VOA report: Witnesses say 57-year-old Dorjee Rinchen set himself on fire Tuesday outside of the military headquarters in Labrang, not far from highly respected Labrang Monastery. They say onlookers shielded Rinchen's burning body from Chinese authorities to make sure it could be returned to his family. Activists say Rinchen was well-respected and had been the appointed leader of the village of Sayue. He leaves behind a wife, a son and a daughter. [...] The monastery is located in China's northwestern Gansu province and was the scene of deadly protests against Chinese rule in 2008.
Free Tibet and International Campaign for Tibet have both compiled lists of 58 self-immolators since February 2009. Read more about these cases via CDT.
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Labrang Monastery, self-immolation, Tibet, tibet politics
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| Villagers Clash With Police Over Coal Plant Posted: 23 Oct 2012 11:36 AM PDT As work resumes at a paper plant in Jiangsu after violent protests, residents in southern China have protested the building of a coal power plant, from the Associated Press: Residents of a town in southern China said Monday that demonstrators protesting the building of a coal-fired power plant had thrown bricks at police officers who fired volleys of tear gas and detained dozens of people in the latest unrest over an environmental dispute. At least 1,000 people in the town, Yinggehai, on Hainan Island, began protesting last week after construction resumed on the plant, which had been halted by earlier demonstrations. […]
Environmental issues have been a source of tension in recent years. According to the Washington Post, the protest turned into a violent nine day clash between villagers and police: Fearing that such a plant could devastate the environment, residents, who mostly depend on fishing as their livelihood, began to protest the project Oct. 13. On that first day, it was mostly older women demonstrating in front of the local government's fishery department, according to one witness, who owns a fishing business and like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of an ongoing crackdown by authorities. Town officials did not return calls seeking comment. The women decided to confiscate as evidence of local officials' lies and ill intent a sign for the harbor project that referred to it as a "fishing harbor" rather than a "coal-shipping harbor," said the business owner. When armed police tried to snatch back the sign, one of the women was hurt, which touched off widespread anger among the village's men. That night, men turned out by the thousands and began throwing stones and bricks at police, who, in return, fired tear gas. For days afterward, the protest followed a pattern of women protesting by day in front of the armed police and men clashing with authorities at night, when it is more difficult to photograph and identify violent protesters.
Radio Free Asia reports more than 25 people remain in custody following the clashes despite local officials denials of arrests: "Right now there are police guarding all of the main streets, and they are stopping any vehicles from driving in the direction of the township government buildings," said a township resident surnamed Liu. He added: "The police are detaining people on the streets. None of the local people dares to come out, or to speak out." Meanwhile, an official at the Ledong county government denied that any Yinggehai protesters had been detained. "This never happened," the official said. "The final location of the coal-fired power plant hasn't been decided yet, so how could there be protests and detentions as you are describing?"
Read more about environmental protests in China, via CDT.
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: coal, coal industry, environment, environmental activism, environmental protests, Hainan
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| China Bans Foreign Vessels from Waterways Posted: 23 Oct 2012 11:32 AM PDT Bloomberg reports China is banning foreign vessels from sailing on its domestic waterways, which are among the busiest in the world. Amid the economic slowdown, the shipping industry was hit by a contraction in trade: Overseas investors will also be barred from engaging in river shipping, including through the use of Chinese vessels, according to a statement posted on the government's website yesterday. The ban, which comes into effect Jan. 1, doesn't apply to vessels registered in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. The new rules are designed to help promote a "healthy" domestic shipping sector and to ensure safety standards, according to the statement. The government also this month announced tax and financial support for local shipping companies after China Cosco Holdings Co. (1919) and China Shipping Container Lines Co., the nation's largest listed operators, both posted wider first-half losses. Shippers will be able to seek exemptions from the transport ministry for using foreign ships if there is a capacity shortage, according to the statement. Otherwise, companies found to be using overseas vessels on rivers will face penalties including fines of as much as 1 million yuan($160,000), it said. About 1.5 billion tons of cargo were shipped along the Yangtze in 2010, China Daily said in May 2011, citing the Changjiang (Yangtze River) Administration of Navigational Affairs. That's more than three times the amount carried on the Mississippi River, it said. The river runs 6,300 kilometers (3,915 miles) to Shanghai from Tibet.
As China prohibits overseas investors from sailing the domestic rivers, the ban also includes Chinese companies use of foreign ships, from Reuters: China is to prohibit domestic companies from operating foreign-made ships on domestic waterways and will block foreign shipping service firms from selling services in China, according to regulations issued by China's State Council. Foreign shipping service enterprises are also banned from hiring Chinese ships or shipping space, "or using other means to covertly operate waterway transport services". Chinese operators are also restricted from using foreign boats, unless there is a shortage of Chinese ships and the company gets permission from the State Council.
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: economic slowdown, global economic slowdown, shipping, trade, waterways, Yangtze River
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