News » Politics » With Beijing Road, China puts stamp on disputed island

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• With Beijing Road, China puts stamp on disputed island
• GE's healthcare expansion in China extends competition to countryside
• Chinese financial analysts debate future of stock market
• China's oil refineries suffer losses
• The drivers of China's sustained growth move west
• Alibaba Is Said to Be Close to Raising $8 Billion
• U.S. Olympic Team Fails to Earn Medal in Men’s Gymnastics
• [Video] Qidong residents protest against sewage project
• Top China Stories from WSJ: Tokyo Seeks Defense, Olympics, Hong Kong Protests
• China Waste Water Protests May Spread to Other Cities
• What Gu Kailai Means for China’s Power Struggle
• Daley and Waterfield Fare Poorly in Men’s Synchronized Diving Event
• House husband: Yunnan woman hid lover in attic for 24 years
• Inland Chinese cities do well on mid-year economic report card
• Professional housekeepers in high demand in Asia
• Taiwan objects to removal of ROC flag in London
• Gaining ground: Green Land muscles in to Fortune's top 500
• Coal power: Fraud exposed at Shaanxi justice bureau
• Religious Freedom ‘Declines Markedly’ in China
• Beijing Red Cross charges money from flood victim

With Beijing Road, China puts stamp on disputed island Posted: 30 Jul 2012 05:56 PM PDT The Chinese authorities are providing housing to almost all residents of Sansha city in South China Sea, disputed by China, Vietnam and Philippines. Sansha City has 159 people, which makes it possibly the least populated urban area in the world.

GE's healthcare expansion in China extends competition to countryside Posted: 31 Jul 2012 05:00 AM PDT The healthcare division of General Electric Co has significantly increased investments to meet basic medical needs in the rural regions in China, which has been rated as a vital market for the financi...

Chinese financial analysts debate future of stock market Posted: 31 Jul 2012 04:32 AM PDT With China's A-share market has been toiling under bearish forces for over five years, a debate over the direction of market development has surfaced. The debate was triggered by Li Daxiao, director...

China's oil refineries suffer losses Posted: 31 Jul 2012 04:32 AM PDT Oil refining has not been a very lucrative business recently, with even the highly profitable Sinopec Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Branch suffering losses in its refining operations in the first half ...

The drivers of China's sustained growth move west Posted: 31 Jul 2012 03:32 AM PDT The growth rate of western China, which is unprecedently outpacing the eastern coastline as evident from recent GDP figures, will support China's economic growth, economists said. As of July 29, 29 o...

Alibaba Is Said to Be Close to Raising $8 Billion Posted: 29 Jul 2012 10:00 PM PDT Some American Internet companies may be unpopular with investors these days, but a Chinese one is finding plenty of takers.

U.S. Olympic Team Fails to Earn Medal in Men’s Gymnastics Posted: 29 Jul 2012 10:00 PM PDT China's men's team took the gold, and Britain slid from silver to bronze after Japan won an appeal. The United States team finished a distant fifth, 6.045 points back.

[Video] Qidong residents protest against sewage project Posted: 30 Jul 2012 06:06 PM PDT Qidong resident posted a picture online showing the police beating a protester Qidong resident took a picture showing military vehicles entered the city. Jiangsu, China – On July 28, thousands of residents in Qidong, Jiangsu province walked on streets to protest against construction of a sewage plant of Japanese company Oji Paper. The public worried about the paper waste would discharge into the sea and therefore pollute local fish farms and water sources. After repeated petitioning to revoke the decision, Qidong residents called for a protesting parade through internet. Local government in Qidong published notice and warned people not to participate in the protest, referring the protest an activity that "endangers social security". A large number of media, domestic and foreign, entered Qidong City for interviews. The protest on July 28 avoid any clash between protesters and police, although the government compound was occupied and files were scattered from the building. City mayor and chief were caught and put on anti-sewage T-shirts. Qidong police station published statement said the sewage project was permanently revoked. According to Asahi Shimbun, their journalist was injured by the police when taking pictures of police arresting protesters around noon on July 28. His camera was also seized. Although he kept telling them he was a journalist, there are 15 to 20 police pushed him on the ground and kicked him. It is noteworthy that the post online has sharply reduced in the afternoon on July 28. Many messages were sent from web rather than mobile devices. Several reporters complained that their cell phone signals were blocked when in Qidong. On July 29, the city government compound was heavily guarded with police, but main roads are accessible with pedestrians and traffic, according to witness. Qidong police has detained man who spread rumor of people killed in the protest. However, the local government didn't reveal more information on the wounded and captured when tying to disperse the crowds. FMN

Top China Stories from WSJ: Tokyo Seeks Defense, Olympics, Hong Kong Protests Posted: 30 Jul 2012 06:33 PM PDT Tokyo called for beefed up surveillance and defense capabilities around remote islands in contested waters; Chinese men won their second straight Olympic gymnastics title; Hong Kong's government refuses to back down after large protests against "brainwashing."

China Waste Water Protests May Spread to Other Cities Posted: 30 Jul 2012 05:37 PM PDT  Protesters shout slogans and hold placards outside the local government offices in Qidong, China. The protests could gain momentum in coming days if more citizens join in as promised online. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images) A massive protest that recently resulted in the shutdown of a pipeline project in eastern China could gain momentum in coming days if more citizens join in as promised online. Tens of thousands of locals gathered outside the Qidong municipal government building on July 28 to stop the construction of a waste pipeline for a paper manufacturing company. Residents said it would have polluted the estuary used for Qidong's aquaculture. The angry mob at one stage ransacked the government building and ripped the shirt off the city mayor. The protest was ultimately successful after the Qidong police announced that the local government would cancel the project. The company has already discharged waste into the Yangtze River as early as January last year, according to a post by Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbum on Sina Weibo. The post was later deleted after it had been forwarded about 3,500 times.  That information was not widely known before then, according to netizens--and Chinese seem incensed by the matter. A map of the area in question. Runoff waste containing dioxins, which are toxic to humans, comes from the Oji Paper Factory, located in Nantong. The proposed pipeline would have gone from there to the Lüsi Port near Qidong -- though it was cancelled after recent protests. Activists now say the wastewater is flowing from the factory towards the Shanghai Qingcaosha water reservoir, which services millions of people in the city. (Diana Hubert/The Epoch Times) One Internet activist posted a map showing how polluted water travels downstream from Oji Paper Co. in Nantong Economic Development Zone, arriving in the Qingcaosha reservoir, which provides 7.19 million cubic meters of water daily for 40 million residents in Shanghai. Various online comments indicated that a new protest may be in the offing: "Now, it is better than ever. Shanghai, Taicang, Haiman, and Qidong are all included," and "I'm ready to take a walk. Want to go and support?" Protests on both sides of the river were called for, along with closure of the businesses accused of being the polluters. Mr. Yu from Qidong told The Epoch Times that people are awakening as the environmental degradation increases, with more and more anti-pollution protests in recent years. Residents from the Yangtze River Delta region must cooperate and fight for their rights to set off an even bigger protest and protect our living environment, he said. Mr. Wang, a Shanghai resident, told an Epoch Times reporter that the project is simply a transfer of waste from developed countries to a developing country at the cost of local residents' livelihoods and the ecological environment. In exchange, the only benefits are political achievement and self-interest. Not taking any chances, Party authorities in Qidong have brought in a large number of military vehicles from nearby areas, according to photos provided by locals to The Epoch Times. Ms. Huang, a Qidong resident, told The Epoch Times reporter that numerous military vehicles from Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, and other areas have arrived at the Qidong Middle School; she estimated a total of 10,000 military personnel. A local man told an Epoch Times reporter that tensions largely subsided after the project was scrapped. Military personnel were still stationed outside the municipal government building though, he said. The Qidong protest shocked central authorities in Beijing, according to a report from the Taiwan-based United Daily News. The report said that the Party secretaries of Jiangsu Province and Nantong City have both traveled to the capital to brief central leaders on the incident. Although local officials promised to cancel the pipeline project, Oji Paper Co., the Japanese company whose pipeline was at the center of the storm, resumed construction on July 29, according to Kyodo News, a Japanese media.  Statements on the company's website have also recently been altered. Originally the website said that the Nantong government had approved the discharge of purified wastewater that could be treated, into the Yangtze River, and was responsible for the pipeline's construction to the East China Sea. However, the reference to Nantong government was later deleted. Chinese netizens thought it was a deliberate attempt to conceal where the wastewater was going.  According to the company's waste discharge summary chart, most of the waste material are dioxins, a toxic type of industrial waste that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies as likely to be carcinogenic.  Related Articles China Protesters Ransack Government Building, Shut Down Waste Project Read original Chinese article.  chinareports@epochtimes.com The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.   Click www.ept.ms/ccp-crisis to read about the most recent developments in the ongoing crisis within the Chinese communist regime. In this special topic, we provide readers with the necessary context to understand the situation. Get the RSS feed. Get the new interactive Timeline of Events. Who are the Major Players?

What Gu Kailai Means for China’s Power Struggle Posted: 30 Jul 2012 09:31 AM PDT On July 26, Chinese state-run media announced that Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced Chinese Communist Party official Bo Xilai, was formally prosecuted for "intentional homicide" in the case of British businessman Neil Heywood.

Daley and Waterfield Fare Poorly in Men’s Synchronized Diving Event Posted: 29 Jul 2012 10:00 PM PDT Tom Daley, 18, has emerged as a diving prodigy in Britain in recent years, but many are looking for him to deliver in an event long dominated by China.

House husband: Yunnan woman hid lover in attic for 24 years Posted: 31 Jul 2012 01:48 AM PDT "To tell you the truth, I've had a man hidden in my house for a long time," Zhang Ling, a 59-year-old woman from Zhaotong in southwest China's Yunnan province recently told local police. Zhang's s...

Inland Chinese cities do well on mid-year economic report card Posted: 31 Jul 2012 01:48 AM PDT The cities of Chengdu and Wuhan in inland China entered the list of the country's top 10 cities by GDP during the first six months of 2012, thanks to government policy support, Shanghai's First Financ...

Professional housekeepers in high demand in Asia Posted: 31 Jul 2012 01:48 AM PDT Hiring butlets and professional housekeepers is becoming more popular in China as wealth increases. One international housekeeping recruiter has seen the size of its staff increase threefold since 200...

Taiwan objects to removal of ROC flag in London Posted: 31 Jul 2012 01:48 AM PDT The Taiwanese government deeply regrets the removal of its national flag from a London display due to political pressure, the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Sunday. The ...

Gaining ground: Green Land muscles in to Fortune's top 500 Posted: 31 Jul 2012 01:48 AM PDT Twenty years ago, Zhang Yuliang was the director of the residential department of Shanghai's agriculture committee, responsible for constructing and allocating residences for the committee's various u...

Coal power: Fraud exposed at Shaanxi justice bureau Posted: 31 Jul 2012 01:48 AM PDT A case of fraud at the justice bureau in Yulin in northwest China's Shaanxi province has been making local headlines since online news outlets revealed in May that the bureau chief Li Ruihua and deput...

Religious Freedom ‘Declines Markedly’ in China Posted: 30 Jul 2012 04:05 PM PDT China has suffered a sharp decline in religious freedom while Burma has made little progress on the issue despite democratic reforms, the U.S. State Department said in an annual report to American lawmakers. It said that abuse of religious freedom remained a concern in Vietnam, including cases involving arrests, detentions, and convictions of religious practitioners. The State Department's 2011 Religious Freedom Report that reviewed the situation across the globe last year slammed China, saying there was a "marked deterioration" in Beijing's respect for and protection of religious rights in the world's most populous nation. It cited increased restrictions on Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns and clampdowns on religious practices ahead of sensitive anniversaries, as well as "severe" repression of Muslim Uyghurs in the volatile Xinjiang region. Burma, which ushered in a new, nominally civilian government in 2011, "took steps" during the year toward overcoming its legacy of "intense religious oppression," but continued to impose restrictions and monitor meetings by religious organizations, it said. In Vietnam, authorities held religious prisoners, refused to allow churches to register, and harassed believers, the report said, amid calls by rights groups to President Barack Obama's administration to re-designate the country as a "Country of Particular Concern"—a label that the U.S. government gives to countries for ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom. At a briefing on the release of the report, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious freedom Suzan Johnson Cook said that freedom of religion went "hand in hand" with freedoms of expression, speech, and assembly, and that governments in Asia and around the world had "misused" laws to restrict freedom of all three. "Religious freedom is often the bellwether for other human rights," including freedom of expression, speech, and assembly, she said. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the "global picture" for religious freedom, with over a billion people worldwide living under governments that "systematically" repress people's beliefs, was "sobering." "When it comes to this human right, this key feature of stable, secure, peaceful societies, the world is sliding backwards," she said, speaking at the Carnegie Center for International Peace after the report's release. China Chinese authorities' restrictions on religious practices among Tibetans and Uyghurs were "severe," the report said. The State Department placed blame on authorities for stoking tensions that led to the recent wave of Tibetans setting themselves on fire in protest against Chinese rule.   "Official interference in the practice of these religious traditions exacerbated grievances and contributed to at least 12 self-immolations by Tibetans in 2011," the report said. Further self-immolations this year—which brought the current total to 44 since 2009—continue to demonstrate Tibetans' "desperation" under China's rule, Johnson Cook said.   In China's far northwestern Xinjiang region, home to the mostly Muslim Uyghur group, religious restrictions were closely tied to political repression, the report said. The government's concern over "separatism, religious extremism, and terrorism" had contributed to restrictions on Muslims, with authorities "failing to distinguish between peaceful religious practice and criminal or terrorist activities," it said. Outside of Tibet and Xinjiang, Chinese officials restricted the activities of both registered and unregistered groups, including members of underground Christian "house churches" and members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, the report said. Some Falun Gong adherents had reportedly been held in "ankang" psychiatric institutions, while authorities had raided house churches and confiscated Bibles, it said. Individuals had been harassed or detained for assembling for worship, expressing their beliefs in public and private, and publishing religious texts, it added. The U.S. had raised issues concerning house churches, Falun Gong, Uyghur Muslims, and Tibetan Buddhists, during talks at the U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue in Washington last week, Johnson Cook said. "That's a continuing conversation and we will not let up," she said. Burma The report slammed the Burmese government for marginalizing the Muslim Rohingya, a minority which has been at the center of deadly communal violence in western Burma's Rakhine state since June of this year. "The government continued to refuse to recognize the Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority as citizens and imposed restrictions on their movement and marriage," it said. At the same time, it praised Burma for the "limited" steps it took toward greater religious freedom during 2011, when a new government took power in the country after decades of rule under the former military junta.   Burma had eased some restrictions on building churches and had generally permitted followers of registered religious groups to worship as they chose, the report said. But it had also "frequently limited religious freedom" and continued to impose restrictions on certain religious activities.   Some Buddhist monks arrested during the 2007 "Saffron Revolution" protest movement led by monasteries had been released, it said, but noted others remained in prison serving long sentences. Vietnam In Vietnam, government practices and "bureaucratic impediments" had restricted religious freedom in 2011, while reports of rights abuses remained at levels consistent to the year before, the State Department said. Christians had faced particular challenges in the country, the report said, noting an incident of detainees being treated harshly after a protest over the closing of a cemetery in Con Dau parish. Authorities had harassed individuals for their religious beliefs and some religious groups for their political activism, it added. But it praised authorities for allowing new religious groups to register and pursing talks with the Vatican concerning the country's Catholic community. Laos The State Department praised Laos for a "slight trend" toward improvement in protection of religious rights through public education outreach in the provinces. But it slammed local and district-level authorities for being lax in their enforcement of laws and policies protecting religious freedom. Local authorities sometimes demonstrated suspicion of non-Buddhist communities and showed intolerance for minority groups, particularly Protestant Christians, it said. Cambodia Cambodia was one of the few Southeast Asian nations to stand out for relative tolerance of religious rights in 2011, the report said. The State Department said there were no reports of abuses of religious freedom and few reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religion last year. "The constitution and other laws and policies protect religious freedom and, in practice, the government generally respected religious freedom," it said. North Korea Religious freedom "simply does not exist" in isolated North Korea, the report said. "Government policy continued to interfere with individuals' ability to choose and to manifest their religious beliefs," the report said. Though little is known about the isolated country, some reports from refugees and defectors and missionaries indicated that North Koreans who had contact with foreigners or missionaries were subjected to harsh penalties, it said. Reported by Rachel Vandenbrink.

Beijing Red Cross charges money from flood victim Posted: 30 Jul 2012 03:52 PM PDT A screenshot showed the invoice from Beijing Red Cross Beijing, China – Wang Jiansheng, a victim from the recent rainstorm in Beijing, died on his way home when the flood suddenly came. Wang's family finally found his body, but they were charged 620 yuan ($97.20) ambulance fee for delivery the body to crematory. According to the video on ifeng.com, Wang's wife and brother said: "They won't let us take away his body with the car from crematory. We are forced to put the body on the ambulance. Guess how much we paid for the ambulance, around 600. The ambulance fee is around 600 yuan, the car from crematory also costs around 100 yuan." Wang has died for 2 days, his family didn't understand why he should be taken way by a first aid vehicle. The receipt was posted online which showed a total of 620 yuan was collected. The stamp on the invoice reads "Beijing Red Cross emergency rescue center" which the emergency calls are 999, not the regular hospital ER number 120. Beijing Red cross responded on its official Weibo that its delivery procedure was in accordance with government regulations, but still refunded the money back to the victim's family and admitted it was inconsiderate. The response from Beijing Red Cross confirmed their "inappropriate" charges, and many refer the Red Cross to loot money when natural disaster occurs. FMN

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