| China’s Health Aid in Africa: Good Intentions Mixed With Bad Drugs Posted: 24 Dec 2012 04:35 PM PST China Daily's Africa edition, launched last week, is just the latest component of a long-running soft power campaign. China has been sending medical teams to Africa for almost 50 years, and has 42 currently at work around the continent. From Kathleen McLaughlin at the Pulitzer Center: The eight-member Chinese medical team sent to Kampala, Uganda's capital, a year ago by the Chinese government is booked solid, each routinely seeing 20 patients or more every day. They are specialists, led by urologist Cao Guihua, and their mission is more than medical. They are here to build goodwill among Ugandans for China. "We are sent by the government," says Cao. "It's a kind of political mission by the Chinese government to African countries to build political friendship between the countries. Of course it's working." […] Cao and the other doctors are the foot soldiers in China's soft power efforts in Africa. Their medical expertise, often more advanced than what can be found locally, is well-known and sought-after. For the doctors, working in Africa is a chance to see diseases they don't normally deal with, but have only read about. Malaria, for example, has been all but eradicated in China but remains one of the top killers in Uganda. So the doctors make adjustments, hone their treatment skills, and as employees of the Chinese government offer treatment services for free. McLaughlin notes that grey-market pharmaceutical sales from Chinese clinics "add an element to the endeavor that goes beyond goodwill". The report is part of a series on China's health aid in Africa, and this grey-market trade hints at the focus of other current instalments: fake malaria medication, which may account for up to a third of the total in Uganda and Tanzania, and is believed to originate primarily from China and India. Malaria medications are not the only target: one instalment covers the production of fake anti-retrovirals ostensibly intended to combat HIV. Nor is China the only culprit: Tanzanian authorities blamed a local producer for one recent haul of fake HIV drugs, and McLaughlin also points out the role of Western organisations which push drugs at the cost of preventative measures. But with its efforts to counter the counterfeiters currently lagging behind India's, China is the apparent epicentre of much of the fake drug trade. From The Guardian: "Let's not exonerate other countries […," David Nahamya of Uganda's National Drug Authority] added, noting that African factories had also been busted for making fakes. "But of course China is entering into the African market with everything … I think you have seen their strategy in so many of our sectors. To bring in as many of their own products as possible, in every possible level of quality, and take over." Beijing's multibillion-dollar economic foray into Africa has rapidly turned into a double-edged sword, the boon in terms of growth offset by negative perceptions of its motives and actions. "If reports from African regulators are accurate, Chinese companies are responsible for the most egregious medicines frauds and misformulations seen on the continent," said Laurie Garett, senior fellow for global health at the US Council on Foreign Relations. "Nobody has a head count, or a body count, on numbers of Africans that have died as a result. But China's role certainly has been dreadful … Even within China's own official media, you can find reports of dumping, drugs/medicines found substandard or fraudulent, causing harm to Chinese, are relabeled and dumped on Africa," she added.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Africa, Africa aid, counterfeit medicine, counterfeiting, health care, healthcare, medicine
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| Photo: Houhai in the snow, by cesar casellas Posted: 24 Dec 2012 03:28 PM PST |
| China Takes Chilling Look at Security in Its Schools Posted: 24 Dec 2012 02:34 PM PST Initial comparisons between the Newtown and Chenpeng school attacks this month tended to focus on the attackers' weapons. Many noted that the 23 slashed in China all survived, in contrast with the 26 killed in Connecticut. But while the American National Rifle Association's response, including the suggestion that armed guards be stationed in schools, has been assailed as "mendacious, delusional, [and] almost deranged", the subject of school security has also come to the fore in China. From Edward Wong at The New York Times: Perhaps most shocking is what the video of the attack 10 days ago shows about the school's first line of defense: several children waving broomsticks try to block the man's progress. Minutes later, local adults who had rushed into the building, also wielding brooms, chase the man from the school. Such details were not in the immediate coverage of the attack, at the Chenpeng Village Primary School in Guangshan County, Henan Province, and the video was not released until days later. […] But now the Chinese video, circulating here on television and the Internet, has refocused attention on the Chenpeng attack, especially on security measures at the school and on local officials' efforts to squelch coverage. Fury has been building because such rampages have recurred over the last three years, with intruders slashing at schoolchildren with knives and axes, including one who attacked with a hammer and then set himself on fire. Each case set off fear among parents across the country as well as criticism of government officials for not doing enough to protect children; each time, officials guaranteed schools would be secure. The video made blatant the gap between the official promises and reality. "Did the government not say that no strangers can get into schools?" wrote one Internet user, Xia Ling, on a microblog. "Did the government not say that every school has security guards? Liars! You will eventually all face karma someday." While Chinese calls for stricter gun control in the U.S. have received considerable attention, Adam Minter looked last week at others advocating expanded gun rights in China. From Bloomberg View: "Dictatorship has brought disasters much greater than the losses from the shooting," wrote one anonymous Sina Weibo microblogger in the lengthy comment thread. Another, in Guangzhou, wrote of the land seizures that have caused so much despair — and unrest — across China: "If people have guns in their hands, can the government come to your house and demolish it?" These sorts of sentiments weren't confined to the comment thread below Zhang's antigun tweet. They began to appear shortly after news of the shootings broke and have steadily become more prominent on China's microblogs. Mao Anlin, a columnist and reporter with the 21st Century Business Herald, offered a cagey tweet the morning of Dec. 15: "A man with multiple guns is sufficiently armed to protect himself, and thus Americans should adjust their policies on guns. In places where people don't worry about suffering from governmental violence, the need for weapons which represent civil deterrence fades…. While in those places where the government commits violence against the people, the people don't have the ability to protect themselves." Mao doesn't specify the people to whom he refers at the end of his tweet, but it certainly wouldn't go unnoticed by his Chinese followers that they don't have the right to protect themselves with firearms. The availability of guns in China is already more complicated than some commentary has suggested: Minter's column begins in a Shanghai gun range where "drinking and shooting machine guns is not only allowed, it's encouraged". On Twitter, he pointed out a 2008 article by The Wall Street Journal's James T. Areddy on various aspects guns and gun control in China.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: gun control, gun culture, gun violence, Henan, knife attacks, land seizures, school shootings, schools, security
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| Bikes for Bonuses as China’s Wealthy Reminisce Posted: 24 Dec 2012 02:32 PM PST Once one of four symbols of modern living in China, alongside wristwatches, sewing machines and radios, the bicycle's position as a status symbol took a battering with the advent of widespread car ownership. Its fall from grace was illustrated in 2010 by dating show contestant Ma Nuo's infamous words to an unemployed suitor: "I'd rather cry in a BMW than laugh on the back of [your] bicycle." But, as Reuters reports, high-end bikes have become prestigious once again as nostalgia-infused symbols of health and wealth. Yu Yiqun, the creative director at an advertising company in the Chinese capital, cycles to work on his favorite bike – a 100,000 yuan ($16,000) hand-made Alex Moulton. "It might be the only one in Beijing. It's like the Rolls-Royce of bicycles. Very classical, purely hand-made," said the 40-year-old Yu, who has about 35 high-end bikes. "I remember my father used to ride me to the city in the winter – about 40 km and minus 30 degrees centigrade. Back then, it was a means of transport that fulfilled your dream of travelling afar, which was relatively cheap but required brawn." […] "Demand for mainstream luxury items such as premium cars, watches has come to a point of saturation. High-income groups now turn to high-end bikes to show off the uniqueness in taste and healthy lifestyle," said Zhou Jiannong, general manager of Rbike Networks Ltd in China. The phenomenon is not entirely new: Malcolm Moore reported on cycling's fashion resurrection at The Telegraph in 2011.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bicycles, cars, fashion, luxury, watches, wealth
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| Ministry of Truth: Official Take on Mistresses Posted: 24 Dec 2012 09:12 AM PST  Plasticizers in soy sauce? Central Propaganda Department: Do not republish, report, or comment on those specific netizens who sharply criticize what they perceive as the condemnation of Weibo and online speech by CCTV, the People's Daily, and other central media. No media outlet or website may carry any report or opinion which challenges Internet management. (December 22, 2012) 中宣部：对个别网民所谓警惕CCTV和人民日报等中央媒体抹黑微博和网络言论的责难观点，不转载不报道，各媒体及网站不得刊发任何质疑网络管理的报道和言论。
Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those instructions as "Directives from the Ministry of Truth." CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation. Guangdong Propaganda Department: With regards to online rumors that plasticizers in soy sauce, vinegar, and other seasonings are 400% more poisonous than those found in baijiu, strictly follow Xinhua wire copy and statements issued by authoritative bodies. Do not directly quote from online sources of other media. (December 22, 2012) 广东省委宣传部：对网传酱油、醋等调味品塑化剂毒过白酒四百倍，一律按新华社通稿或权威部门发布的内容刊播，不直接转引网上和其他媒体的信息。
Guangdong Propaganda Department: Someone has reported to the authorities that the vice secretary-general of Zhanjiang City has a mistress. Strictly follow Xinhua wire copy and statements issued by authoritative bodies in your coverage. Do not directly quote from online sources of other media. (December 22, 2012) 广东省委宣传部：有人举报湛江市副秘书长包二奶 ，一律按新华社通稿或权威部门发布的内容刊播，不直接转引网上和其他媒体信息。
Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.
© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, food saftey, Internet management, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, sex scandals
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