Links » Cream » Hexie Farm (蟹农场): Half Mast

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• Hexie Farm (蟹农场): Half Mast
• Chongqing Sex Scandal May Implicate Wang Lijun
• Photo: A village in Guizhou, by Spencer
• China Lands Fighter Jet in Show of Force
• Mining Accident in Guizhou Kills 18

Hexie Farm (蟹农场): Half Mast Posted: 25 Nov 2012 10:39 PM PST For his latest contribution to the Hexie Farm CDT series, cartoonist Crazy Crab pays homage to the recent detention of  Beijing-based fund manager Zhai Xiaobing for posting a political joke on Twitter during the 18th Party Congress, and the sentencing of dissident poet Li Bifeng to twelve years in prison. In the drawing, a flag in the shape of a speech bubble flies at half mast, marking the death of free speech. Half Mast by Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm for CDT Read more about Hexie Farm's CDT series, including a Q&A with the anonymous cartoonist, and see all cartoons so far in the series. [CDT owns the copyright for all cartoons in the Hexie Farm CDT series. Please do not reproduce without receiving prior permission from CDT.] © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: free speech Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Chongqing Sex Scandal May Implicate Wang Lijun Posted: 25 Nov 2012 09:48 PM PST A scandal involving a sex tape made by a local Chongqing official, Lei Zhengfu, and an allegedly 18-year-old woman has been a hot topic on Sina Weibo in recent days. From BBC: Screenshots purporting to be from video of Lei Zhengfu having sex with his mistress, were published on Tuesday. Mr Lei, a party chief in the city of Chongqing, is reported to have said that the video is a fake. The case highlights the growing influence of China's microbloggers in pursuing local officials. Correspondents say that the Communist Party has stepped up its drive against corruption and official impropriety amid rising public anger at abuses of power. After an investigation determined that the tape was authentic, Lei was relieved of his post, according to Xinhua: Investigations by the Chongqing Municipal Committee for Discipline Inspection verified that Lei Zhengfu, secretary of the Beibei District Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), featured in the video, which was filmed in 2007. On Friday, Chongqing Municipal Committee of the CPC decided to remove Lei from his post and begin an investigation into the case. Lei, 54, used to serve as vice mayor of the county-level Jiangjin City, Party chief and head of Dianjiang County, deputy Party chief of Jiulongpo District, Party chief and head of Beibei District, which are all under Chongqing, according to government information. Ji Xuguang, a journalist, released an article on the sex video along with some screengrabs earlier this week. "At the Spring Festival and two days after the festival in 2007, the man, who was deputy Party chief and head of Beibei District at that time, was fooling around with his 18-year-old mistress at a hotel of Chongqing," he said in the article. Now, additional details of the case reveal it to be more than a simple affair and may implicate former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun, who has been sentenced to 15 years in prison on unrelated charges including abuse of power and bribe-taking. The South China Morning Post reports on the account by Chinese "citizen journalist" Zhu Ruifeng: Quoting an unidentified informant within the Chongqing police bureau, Zhu said that the young woman in the video, surnamed Zhao, was one of many who were trained by the head of a construction company to be "given" to officials as bribes. Zhu claimed that "the construction builder 'gave' Zhao to Lei" in early 2007. The builder had Zhao secretly recorded the sex tape and used it to blackmail Lei, prompting Lei to report it to a Chongqing "senior official". This was followed by Wang Lijun's order to detain Zhao for thirty days and jail the builder for a year. Zhu said he could back his claims with police records given to him by the anonymous source. He said he has a record of the police's interrogation of the builder. Zhu also claimed he had sex tapes of six officials, "four of them are incumbent officials". A post on Ministry of Tofu, also based on Chinese media accounts, says disgraced Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai may also be implicated in the case: From 2002 to 2006, Lei Zhengfu, while serving as the party secretary of Dianjiang county under the city of Chongqing, he used his position to give contracts of the county's public works projects to a construction company owned by his younger brother to benefit himself and his family. Other contractors could only get leftover nominal projects. In 2007, in order to win lucrative contracts from him, who had by then been promoted to the vice party secretary of Chongqing's Jiulongpo District, one construction company offered huge bribes to Lei. However, having netted millions of yuan, Lei was not impressed and rejected their offer. The company soon found out about Lei's particular interest in women. So they hired several young women, all under 20, and put them through strict training before sending them to sexually please Lei. At the same time, these young women, who approached Lei with fake identities and proffered to be his mistresses, secretly videotaped the intercourse for the company to have more leverage over Lei. In 2009, the head of the construction company fell out with Lei over business interests and threatened Lei with the sex tape. Lei came cleaned on his 'one-time mistake' to Bo Xilai, then the party boss of Chongqing and a contender for one of China's most powerful political posts. Soon, Wang Lijun, then Chongqing's police chief, headed a special team to investigate the matter. As the result, Zhao Hongxia was detained for 30 days, and the boss of the company was incarcerated for a year for 'carving an official seal without authorization from the government.' © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Bo Xilai, Chongqing, corruption, lei zhengfu, local power, mistresses, sex scandals, Wang Lijun Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Photo: A village in Guizhou, by Spencer Posted: 25 Nov 2012 11:29 AM PST A village in Guizhou © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China Lands Fighter Jet in Show of Force Posted: 25 Nov 2012 09:34 AM PST Chinese state media reports China has successfully conducted a flight landing on its first aircraft carrier. This landing comes amid the China State Shipbuilding Corporation's call to build more aircraft carriers. From Xinhua: A new J-15 fighter jet was used as part of the landing exercise. After its delivery to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy on Sept. 25, the aircraft carrier has undergone a series of sailing and technological tests, including the flight of the carrier-borne J-15. Capabilities of the carrier platform and the J-15 have been tested, meeting all requirements and achieving good compatibility, the PLA Navy said. Since the carrier entered service, the crew have completed more than 100 training and test programs. While the landing exercise involved the J-15 fighter jet, China has also been developing more stealth fighter jets. The Wall Street Journal claims the exercise is a confirmation of China's rise as a global military power: It was the first official confirmation that China has mastered the complex technology and technical skills needed to operate fighters from a carrier at sea—a capability it has been seeking for decades as part of its quest to become a global military power. The Liaoning, which officially entered service in September, is a potent symbol of China's long-term strategic ambition to project air power far from its shores and challenge U.S. military dominance of the Asia Pacific region. China has said the vessel will be used only for training, but many military experts say that it could be deployed in a crisis near Chinese shores, such as a clash over disputed islands in the East China Sea or the South China Sea. Military experts say it will take several more years of training before the vessel, based on a hull bought from Ukraine, is combat ready. China also has to develop all the support vessel and associated technologies before it can use a carrier group the way the U.S. does, to extend its military influence abroad. As China plans to increase the budget for jet engine research, China is boosting its overall military spending this year, according to Reuters: China has advertised its long-term military ambitions with shows of new hardware, including its first test flight of a stealth fighter jet in early 2011, an elite helicopter unit and the launch of the aircraft carrier. China is boosting military spending by 11.2 percent this year, bringing official outlays on the People's Liberation Army to 670.3 billion yuan ($100 billion) for 2012, after a 12.7 percent increase last year and a near-unbroken string of double-digit rises across two decades. Beijing's public budget is widely thought by foreign experts to undercount its real spending on military modernization, which has drawn repeated calls from the United States for China to share more about its intentions. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: aircraft carriers, aviation, military exercise, military expansion, military power, military spending Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Mining Accident in Guizhou Kills 18 Posted: 25 Nov 2012 09:37 AM PST After one of the deadliest mine accidents in almost three years and another mining accident in Gansu resulting in 20 deaths, the Voice of America reports at least 18 people have died and 5 are missing in China's most recent mining accident: The Xinhua news agency reported that there were 28 workers underground Saturday in the state-owned Xiangshi coal mine in southeastern Guizhou province when the coal and gas explosion hit at about 11 a.m. local time ((0300 UTC). Xinhua said five of those were rescued. Nearly 2,000 people died in coal mine accidents last year in China, where lax safety standards make the mines among the world's deadliest. But official statistics show the number of fatalities has been falling, dropping 19 percent between 2010 and 2011. China's coal mines continue to be one of the deadliest in the world, due to lax regulations, corruption, and inefficiency. According to Bloomberg, the State Council is tightening the rules for reopening coal mines after recent accidents: Mines that don't meet the necessary safety requirements shouldn't resume operations under any conditions, the council said in yesterday's statement, citing illegal reopenings as the cause of several deadly accidents recently. China suspended operations at smaller coal mines earlier this month to boost safety ahead of a once-in-a-decade leadership transition, and policy makers are moving to improve standards after spate of accidents. Eighteen people were killed yesterday at a mine in the southwestern province of Guizhou. Small mines with little resources and that don't meet safety standards shouldn't easily receive permits to reopen, the council said. Larger mines without necessary safety technology should consider merging with bigger companies that do, it said. Read more about mine safety in China, via CDT. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: coal mines, Guizhou, mine safety, mining, mining industry Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

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