Blogs » Politics » CCTV Pre-Execution Spectacle Polarizes Viewers

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• CCTV Pre-Execution Spectacle Polarizes Viewers
• Drawing the News: Threats Abroad and at Home
• Second Round of “Super Ministries” Reform Ahead
• What to Expect at the 12th National People’s Congress
• Photo: Bama Rains, by Michael Steverson
• Social Change and its Impact on the Role of Law
• Veteran Muckraker Wang Keqin Forced to Leave Paper
• Here Come China’s Drones
• Classical Music with Chinese Characteristics
• Truth Bent, Credibility Broken – a scathing review of Ping Fu’s book & her actions
• The Absurdity of a Live Broadcast Execution
• China Considers Pollution Data a State Secret
• China Gives PM 2.5 a Chinese Name
• Chinese Scholars Caught at Odds with US Laws
• Internet Post Deletion Business in China
• Photo: Temple Roof Tiles, by Hindrim

CCTV Pre-Execution Spectacle Polarizes Viewers Posted: 01 Mar 2013 05:50 PM PST Drug lord Naw Kham and three other foreigners were executed in Kunming on Friday for the 2011 killings of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River. State broadcaster CCTV aired the prisoners' final hours, together with segments on their crimes and the ensuing manhunt, as a showcase of tough justice, but some saw instead a sinister and possibly illegal echo of the Mao era. From Jonathan Kaiman at The Guardian: Naw Kham's wry smile belied his macabre circumstances. "I haven't been able to sleep for two days. I have been thinking too much. I miss my mum. I don't want my children to be like me," the 44-year-old Burmese druglord, chained to a chair, told a Chinese TV interviewer. On Friday – two days after the interview – the Burmese freshwater pirate was executed for allegedly murdering a crew of Chinese sailors on the Mekong river in October, 2011. His last moments were aired on state television. In the two-hour live broadcast, black-clad police officers hauled Naw Kham from a detention centre in southern China, bound him with ropes and chains, and bundled him on to a bus bound for the execution site. Three of his alleged henchmen followed in similar fashion. They were each killed – off camera – by lethal injection. Though a rumored live broadcast of the actual executions failed to materialize, the TV coverage attracted heavy criticism. "It's hard to see how that spectacle doesn't violate [the] prohibition on parading condemned in the streets," tweeted human rights researcher Joshua Rosenzweig, referring to a 1984 ban introduced to avoid unfavorable foreign media coverage. Human Rights Watch's Nicholas Bequelin commented that China had "just wiped away any perception that it was making progress on the death penalty issue." Within China, reactions to the broadcast were deeply polarized. From Andrew Jacobs at The New York Times: "Rather than showcasing rule of law, the program displayed state control over human life in a manner designed to attract gawkers," Han Youyi, a criminal law professor, wrote via microblog. "State-administered violence is no loftier than criminal violence." […] In one segment, Liu Yuejin, director general of the central government's Narcotics Control Bureau, cast the executions as a pivotal moment for a newly confident China and for ethnic Chinese across the globe. "In the past, overseas Chinese dared not say they were of Chinese origin," said Mr. Liu, who led the task force that spent six months hunting the culprits. "Now they can hold their heads high and be themselves." Supporters of the program were many, and enthusiastic. One blogger suggested that death by lethal injection was too lenient, adding "These beasts should be pulled apart by vehicles." Some critics said the broadcast, and the subsequent public gloating, displayed an ugly side of China and would hurt its image abroad. To Murong Xuecun, a well-known Chinese author, the program revealed a national psyche, fed by decades of Communist Party propaganda, that craves vengeance for the years of humiliation by foreigners. "It proves that hatred-education still has a market in China," he said in an interview. At Bloomberg World View, Adam Minter described the spectacle as a "graphic extension" of a broader political strategy: […] Over the last two years the Chinese government has found itself embroiled in increasingly dangerous sovereignty disputes with its Southeast Asian and Japanese neighbors. So far, diplomacy has been the preferred course of action. Yet on China's decidedly nationalistic and highly influential microblogging platforms, diplomacy — especially on sovereignty issues — is unpopular and viewed as a sign of weakness. In response, the Chinese government and its official media tribunals have carefully ratcheted up the aggressive rhetoric, especially toward Japan, since the fall of 2012, reminding Chinese that they will not be bullied by outside forces. Rather, if there will be any bullying, China will be doing it. A 2012 Reuters investigation into the Mekong murders described the web of trafficking in drugs, humans and endangered animals in Southeast Asia's "Golden Triangle", and Naw Kham's legendary or perhaps mythical place in it. The report also highlighted the possible involvement of an elite Thai anti-drugs unit in the killings. China's Global Times recently revealed that authorities had considered killing Naw Kham with a drone strike instead of capturing him. See more on China's drone programs, and more on the death penalty in China, via CDT. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: CCTV, death penalty, diplomacy, drug trafficking, execution, Golden Triangle, human rights watch, Japan, legal system, Mao era, Mekong river, murders, Murong Xuecun, Myanmar, Southeast Asia, territorial disputes, thailand Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Drawing the News: Threats Abroad and at Home Posted: 01 Mar 2013 05:45 PM PST Unruly neighbors, polluted air, and politics as usual have China hemmed in and on the defensive. (Ah Ping/iSun Affairs) Since North Korea's February 12 nuclear test, many Chinese citizens have soured on the pariah state. Even the Chinese government is losing patience, although domestically it downplayed the risk of radiation from its neighbor. Food aid isn't isn't enough to placate Kim Jong-un–he claims there will be two more weapons tests this year. (Dashix) Radiation fears aside, one of the biggest threats facing ordinary Chinese citizens is home-grown. Beijing was smothered by dust and smog this week, once again raising the specter of PM2.5–particulate matter under 2.5 micrometers in diameter, small enough to penetrate into the lungs. As the country discusses and dissects the public health implications of PM2.5, a few people are bailing for clearer skies. For the masses who stay behind, the government has decided to address the issue of the term "PM2.5," plucked directly from the English. Netizens had some tongue-in-cheek suggestions for the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies, which is now in the process of creating a suitable Chinese word for PM2.5. Cartoonist Little Spear muses on the front runner in the name race, "fine particulate matter" (细颗粒物): (Little Spear)     When I found out the bricksperts were renaming PM2.5 "fine particulate matter"…     …it hit me!           In a flash, I saw it…     "particulates" This suggests to the public that PM2.5 is… Safe! Thin! Comfortable! And also edible… When I realized this, the well-intentioned diligence of the bricksperts…       …moved me to tears! (Badiucao) The Year of the Snake is in full swing, school has started again, and the "Two Sessions" are about to begin. In overseas artist Badiucao's imagination, the red scarf of the Young Pioneer offers no protection from the perils that lay ahead: the Communist Party has not upheld the human rights it has committed to on paper. On Tuesday, 100 people signed an open letter to the National People's Congress calling for ratification of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. China is a signatory, but that hasn't done much to protect freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and other basic rights enumerated in the document. Once again, the real menaces to ordinary Chinese citizens are within the country's borders. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: air pollution, Drawing the News, North Korea, North Korea nuclear, North Korean relations, PM2.5, political cartoons, political humor, pollution Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Second Round of “Super Ministries” Reform Ahead Posted: 01 Mar 2013 05:44 PM PST Caijing reports on a draft plan to merge the Ministry of Railways into a larger "super-ministry": Caijing learned in late February that the draft plan for a new round of "super ministries" reform will be discussed during the upcoming second plenary meeting of the 18th CPC Central Committee, putting "super ministries" on China's reform agenda once again after five years of exploration and debate. Super ministries reform features consolidating government agencies with similar functions to reduce administrative overlapping and promote efficiency. [...]Under the plan, the Railways Ministry will be merged with the Ministry of Transport, in a move which has won popular support. In addition, food and drug safety authorities will be integrated into a regulator dedicated to market supervision; and the powers of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the State Oceanic Administration will be expanded. However, consolidation of government agencies in the energy, cultural, and financial sectors, as well as the formation of a national organization which coordinates reforms in different sectors, though widely anticipated, have not been included in the plan. The draft plan, though basically completed, may be subject to changes before being put on the table of the central leadership, said an expert who participated in drawing up the plan. The version that comes out after the second plenary meeting of the 18th CPC Central Committee is expected to be final, said the expert. Recently, a far-reaching web of corruption was discovered in the Ministry of Railways. In the beginnings of China's "reform and opening up" era, attempts to streamline bureaucracy by merging public ministries were taken in effort to increase government efficiency. AP covers the recent closed-door meeting where new rounds of bureaucratic mergers were discussed, provides an overview of the first round three decades ago, and touches on the controversial nature of this practice: In 1982, the number of Cabinet-level ministries and commissions was slashed from 100 to 61. In the 1990s, museum pieces such as the Ministry of Machine Building that were no longer needed to set prices and tell companies what to produce were eliminated. In 1998, then-Premier Zhu Rongji shrank the number of ministries further from 40 to 29. At the same time, Beijing created Western-style regulators for banks and securities. A Ministry of Commerce was formed in 2003 to bring together trade and planning agencies, simplifying some trade regulation to make it easier for private sector traders to function. Such change can provoke furious opposition. In the last round of proposed reforms in 2008, the only thing leaders finally agreed on was to make the environmental regulator a full-fledged ministry in response to an avalanche of pollution scandals. Creating fewer, bigger ministries would fit with party pledges to make the economy more productive and keep incomes growing. Xi has called for a "renewal of the Chinese nation," raising hopes a new leader whose attitude toward reform is still unclear might throw his political weight behind remaking the government.[...] Also see "Government Reform: Super-Size Me," via CDT. © josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: ministries reorganization, Ministry of Railways, super-ministries Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

What to Expect at the 12th National People’s Congress Posted: 01 Mar 2013 04:59 PM PST The annual meeting of China's National People's Congress – the rubber-stamp legislature that is, in theory at least, the head of the Chinese state – is set to commence on March 5 at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. At this year's meeting, we will see the ongoing decennial leadership transition come to its completion with the official "election" of China's head of state (President) and head of government (Premier of the State Council). As has been tradition since 1993, newly appointed party positions have already determined that CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping will take over the presidency, while the premiership will go to the second ranked member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, Li Keqiang. The upcoming NPC meeting will give the newly empowered Xi-Li duo a chance to reveal their objectives and new administration. Since being granted their power at the 18th Party Congress in November of last year, pledges have been made to crackdown on corruption and limit extravagance in the party, curb the nation's massive pollution problem through green energy policies, and deepen economic reform. A piece from Bloomberg Businessweek comprehensively outlines what is to be expected at the NPC, noting that the nation Xi and Li inherit is much different than it was when Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao convened the 10th NPC as new leaders a decade ago: As they try to deliver on [their] promises, Xi and Li face an unprecedented level of public scrutiny, with China's online community expanding more than eight-fold since their predecessors took power 10 years ago. At stake is their ability to maintain the ruling Communist Party's legitimacy as it adjusts to slower economic growth after an average of 10.5 percent expansion over the past decade. "Xi and Li take over a nation characterized by far more large-scale corruption, inequality of wealth and environmental degradation than was the case a decade ago," said Kenneth Lieberthal, director of the Brookings Institution's John L. Thornton China Center. "The population is now demanding that the government treat it with greater respect." [...]China's citizens have used the Internet to increasingly express discontent over issues from pollution to graft to income disparities. China added 51 million web users last year to bring the total to 564 million, underscoring the challenge faced by Xi and Li in ensuring the government's message remains dominant. As the party holds supreme power in the PRC, real policy decisions are usually made at plenary meetings of the CCP's central committee, while the NPC (with help from the mass media) has acted more as a mechanism to guide public opinion. However, Brookings scholar Cheng Li thinks that the upcoming NPC will have more policy implications than in the past. Wall Street Journal reports: First, there is a sense of urgency on the part of Mr. Xi to lift public confidence by initiating major policy changes, especially to please the middle class and to do so now rather than waiting another seven months. Second, Mr. Xi is now in his "honeymoon period," and he should cash in his political capital to carry out new policies promptly. Third, in contrast to the previous 10 years when there was often policy deadlock resulting from the factional infighting of the top leadership, Mr. Xi now has a six-to-one concentration of power in the Politburo Standing Committee — a great advantage that should allow him to do substantive things . And fourth, Li Keqiang is under tremendous pressure to demonstrate his leadership ability. Evidence seems to suggest Messrs. Xi and Li understand very well their need to support each other. Their different policy preferences can also complement each other, resonating well in different sectors and with different classes throughout the country. In the lead-up to the NPC, there have been attempts to urge leaders into addressing sensitive topics at the NPC. Deutsche-Welle reports on an open letter calling for China to ratify a UN human rights treaty; and Channel News Asia notes that, after much public discussion and media coverage, the controversial re-education through labor system may be discussed. For more on the soon-to-be-complete leadership transition, see Patrick Chovanec's perpetually helpful primer, which includes an overview of the separation of powers in China. © josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: leadership transition, Li Keqiang, National People's Congress, NPC, NPC 2013, two sessions, Xi Jinping Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Photo: Bama Rains, by Michael Steverson Posted: 01 Mar 2013 02:23 PM PST Bama Rains © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Michael Steverson Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Social Change and its Impact on the Role of Law Posted: 01 Mar 2013 01:37 PM PST Incoming president Xi Jinping has pledged to uphold the constitution and rule of law in China. But, as Stanley Lubman points out in a post on the Wall Street Journal's China Real Time, this is a complicated prospect given China's current social and political situation. He describes new regulations implemented in Chinese cities that govern the behavior of pet owners and mandate that grown children visit their parents "often": These and other recent legal developments – including a pair of domestic violence cases with wildly different outcomes – illustrate how unprecedented social changes in China are provoking new questions about the role of law in society, and creating problems for law-makers, citizens and courts alike. [...] Litigation sometimes reflects pressures to meet social change, as shown by two recent cases involving violence against women that challenges a long-standing acceptance of domestic abuse. In one case, Kim Lee, the American wife of a well-known Chinese English teacher, was granted a divorce by a Chinese court on the grounds of domestic violence. The court also issued a three-month restraining order against the husband that was described in Chinese media as "unprecedented." Ms. Lee brought the case to court despite police attempts to discourage her. As one commentary published on the website of The Atlantic noted, "[F]or many in China, especially in rural areas, physical violence in the home is an accepted part of a marital relationship." Ms. Lee posted photos of her injuries on the Internet and succeeded in her divorce suit. The case provoked a nation-wide debate about domestic violence. By the time it was decided, it had generated more than three million comments on Sina Weibo. Another example of social problems intersecting with law is the even more serious case of Li Yan, a woman in southwestern China's Sichuan province who killed her husband after suffering years of abuse and violence. Despite a large amount of evidence documenting her ordeals, the court ruled that she had not adequately proven domestic violence and sentenced her to death. The case has gone to the Supreme People's Court, which has not yet ruled on whether her execution should be carried out. All of the cases discussed here are examples of shifts in social values that demonstrate the complex interactions between law and social change. The Shenzhen law suggests limits on the influence of legal rules on citizens' behavior. The new legal provisions imposing a duty, however vague, on adult children to care for their elderly parents illustrate a legislative intent to influence intergenerational attitudes whose traditional content have been eroded by economic change. And the issue of domestic violence reflects social pressures for new laws to protect wives from violent husbands, while also raising doubt about the extent to which such laws would actually protect them. Lubman concludes that these new efforts to legislate behavior demonstrate that "Chinese society is racing headlong into a new era and grasping for new rules as it goes." © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: legal reform, legislation, rule of law, social reform Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Veteran Muckraker Wang Keqin Forced to Leave Paper Posted: 01 Mar 2013 10:45 AM PST Celebrated investigative journalist Wang Keqin has been forced to leave the Economic Observer, apparently in connection with its unrestrained coverage of flooding which killed at least 77 people in Beijing last summer and other investigative reports. From David Bandurski at China Media Project: A former CMP fellow, Wang is China's best-known investigative reporter. Over the past decade he has tackled scores of sensitive stories, from systematic corruption in China's taxi industry to the spread of HIV-AIDS through careless and unnecessary blood transfusions. He was forced out of his previous newspaper, the China Economic Times, in 2011 after a spate of hard-hitting reports, including a 2010 expose about the mishandling of tainted vaccines in Shanxi province. […] In a post made to Sina Weibo yesterday, Wang Keqin shared details with his more than 400,000 followers about the clearing out of his desk at the Economic Observer the day before: Yesterday I cleared out of the @EconomicObserver. These are the petitioning materials I received over a period of ten years at the China Economic Times, two tons of them. For other people these might just be waste paper; for me, they represent the trust and hope the people place in me. The things stacked here are misery, blood and tears, but I've always seen them as treasures. They go with me wherever I go. I can throw away my furniture, but these cannot be discarded! Click through for Wang's photos of the treasured documents. McClatchy's Tom Lasseter reported last October on the current wintry climate for China's investigative reporters. Wang himself wrote in 2011 that the fortunes of Chinese investigative journalism had "shown the wave-like pattern of the 'camel's hump'", but expressed some optimism for its long-term prospects. See also a 2010 Guardian profile and more on Wang, including his 2011 departure from the China Economic Times, via CDT. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: economic observer, investigative journalism, journalism, journalists, press freedom, Wang Keqin Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Here Come China’s Drones Posted: 01 Mar 2013 10:45 AM PST Although Mekong River murderer and drug lord Naw Kham died by lethal injection yesterday, rather than by the drone strike once proposed, the military and civilian roles of China's unmanned aerial vehicles are set to expand considerably. At The Diplomat, Trefor Moss examines the state of China's drone capabilities, and the prospect of relatively cheap Chinese UAVs proliferating in the developing world. Unmanned systems have become the legal and ethical problem child of the global defense industry and the governments they supply, rewriting the rules of military engagement in ways that many find disturbing. And this sense of unease about where we're headed is hardly unfamiliar. Much like the emergence of drone technology, the rise of China and its reshaping of the geopolitical landscape has stirred up a sometimes understandable, sometimes irrational, fear of the unknown. It's safe to say, then, that Chinese drones conjure up a particularly intense sense of alarm that the media has begun to embrace as a license to panic. China is indeed developing a range of unmanned aerial vehicles/systems (UAVs/UASs) at a time when relations with Japan are tense, and when those with the U.S. are delicate. But that hardly justifies claims that "drones have taken center stage in an escalating arms race between China and Japan," or that the "China drone threat highlights [a] new global arms race," as some observers would have it. This hyperbole was perhaps fed by a 2012 U.S. Department of Defense report which described China's development of UAVs as "alarming." That's quite unreasonable. All of the world's advanced militaries are adopting drones, not just the PLA. That isn't an arms race, or a reason to fear China, it's just the direction in which defense technology is naturally progressing. Secondly, while China may be demonstrating impressive advances, Israel and the U.S. retain a substantial lead in the UAV field, with China—alongside Europe, India and Russia— still in the second tier. And thirdly, China is modernizing in all areas of military technology – unmanned systems being no exception. Nonetheless, China has started to show its hand in terms of the roles that it expects its growing fleet of UAVs to fulfill. […] © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: drones, military modernization, military technology Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Classical Music with Chinese Characteristics Posted: 01 Mar 2013 10:44 AM PST While John Garnaut focuses on Xi Jinping's former study group of "Second Generation Reds", Sheila Melvin at ChinaFile looks at another gathering of China's political elite: the short-lived Three Highs orchestra and choir, whose members included Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in the chorus and a former astronaut on trombone. The article recounts the history of Western classical music and its instruments in China, and describes traditional connections between music and leadership. The Three Highs—San Gao, in Chinese, or "3H" in colloquial English promotional materials—is an amateur ensemble named not for any notes its performers might reach in concert, but for the status they must possess simply to be members. Indeed, "three highs" refers to the bureaucratic ranking of the ninety-seven musicians and the accompanying 141-member chorus, all of whom are high-ranking members of China's Communist Party, intelligentsia, or military. They include Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi, who sang in the chorus (along with dozens of other ministry officials); Shanghai Communist Party Secretary Han Zheng and chairman of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Bate'er, both of whom played accordion; Shenzhen Party Secretary Wang Rong, who served as concertmaster; and retired astronaut Jing Haipeng, who played trombone. […] It is near impossible to imagine any other nation on earth that would have the will, the wherewithal, or even the desire to create an ensemble like this—not to mention the moxy to call it the "Three Highs." And, indeed, there was some tongue-wagging, as on the widely circulated post on the Twitter-like Weibo that joked "three highs" was actually a reference to the high blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol of the orchestra's mostly retired members. But, while the Three Highs is many things, it is most certainly no joke. On the contrary, it is yet another signifier of the seriousness with which the PRC government takes its mission—formally announced at the 2011 plenum of the Communist Party's Central Committee—to promote the "great development and great flourishing" of Chinese culture. It is also evidence of the enduring belief that a good leader should be cultivated and cultured, and of the leadership's willingness to put its money—and time and energy—where its mouth is. The article includes video of a Shanghai Noon report on the orchestra. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: classical music, music, ruling elites, Yang Jiechi Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Truth Bent, Credibility Broken – a scathing review of Ping Fu’s book & her actions Posted: 01 Mar 2013 07:27 AM PST The following is a re-posted review (find the original on Amazon.com) of the book "Bend, not Break" by Ping Fu. For those who don't know the context, this book is an "autobiography" detailing the horrors Ping Fu supposedly faced during the Cultural Revolution (a summary of her side of the story is on Wikipedia). When Chinese netizens started to investigate and voice skepticism about the accuracy of her stories, Ping Fu and her defenders in academia and media labeled these actions "online terrorism". This is not surprising, given that anyone – especially someone believed to be ethnic Chinese – who supports the Chinese government and the PRC, or simply voices skepticism about western political/ideological dogmas, is immediately labeled as part of the "fifty-cent party" or a "brainwashed fool". Well, here at Hidden Harmonies, we have some of the most infamous "brainwashed online terrorists" around, so we could hardly let this one go without giving it some proper attention. Enjoy the book review, everyone (for those who do not wish to read such a lengthy review, I've bolded some parts of the text to draw attention to the key issues). Customer Review 157 of 166 people found the following review helpful We're Helping Ping Fu to Vindicate Herself out of Human Conscience, February 13, 2013 By MOB This review is from: Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds (Hardcover) We have been helping Ping Fu ALL THE WAY by pointing out the inconsistencies in her memoir, her interviews and her articles, to make her story truly accurate, truthful and inspiring, by asking her to embrace and respond to criticism instead of launching a hate campaign against her critics, and by demanding her to stop abetting her friends and supporters to defend her falsehoods in order to save their credentials, reputations and integrity. ALL WE HAVE BEEN DOING is out of love for the world and of human conscience. In contrast, what her "damaging friends" have been doing is to encourage her to produce more falsehoods in defense against criticism, by giving her the hallucination of support and by continuing bullying and harassing her critics. We wish every sick to be cured, every insane to come to sanity, every soul to be saved. We wish Ping Fu and her defenders to embrace truthfulness and renounce falsehood. We wish them well if they do; and we wish them success if they don't. Ping Fu's best policy is honesty, and her best defense is evidence. Although she claims that many of the episodes told in the memoir and a slew of interviews and reports are "personal experience" or "private matter," that does not prevent her from providing supporting evidence to her claims. Regarding the gang-rape episode, Ping Fu owned up in her "Clarifying the Facts in Bend, Not Break" article published February 1, 2013 in Huffingtonpost: You claim you were brutally gang-raped. Gang rape doesn't happen in China. A: Rape is a very private matter and this definitely happened. I know this was not a hallucination. I have scars. My body was broken. According to her book, the scars are the result of "more than forty stitches to close the wounds;" it shouldn't be difficult for Ping Fu to provide the evidence. X-ray pictures of tailbone, likewise, will also be able to proffer scientific evidence to her claim. Rather than wait for the Chinese government to make archives accessible to the general public, the evidence Ping Fu mentioned on her body is more telling, relevant, and straightforward. We are serious in helping Ping Fu to vindicate herself, to restore her credibility, self-respect, dignity, and integrity, and to rebuild public confidence in a successful entrepreneur. Those who come to defend Ping Fu without calling on her to produce supporting and convincing evidence to substantiate her story are pushing Ping Fu toward self-destruction: what they are doing is morally evil. Ping Fu's Desperate Effort to Silence Criticism Ping Fu now calls her criticism "Internet terrorism." It is yet another about-face of the prominent entrepreneur and "chief strategist" of a high-tech company who, on February 13, 2013, told The Guardian that "she had been wrong to call the criticism a smear campaign." On February 1, 2013, Ping Fu labeled the criticism a "smear campaign" against her "personally" and her memoir, the now tanked "Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds." Ping Fu's chopping and changing may be indicative of her flair and dexterity of manipulation. There's no doubt about the chief strategist's capability and ingenuity of generating delightful surprises, either by volunteering new versions of her "memory," "experience," and "story," or by disclosing "a first marriage" that was not even mentioned in the memoir, for the protection of "her first husband, an American," (Does she mean her second husband is not an American so that he is disqualified for her protection?) or by exhibiting capriciousness when confronted with questioning about the veracity and truthfulness of the memoir. This time, however, Ping Fu's charge is serious. By denouncing as enemies like terrorists of "Al-Qaeda" and Bin Laden her critics who demanded her provision of evidence to corroborate many different versions of her story and reconcile appalling inconsistencies both in her "emotional memory" memoir and in various interviews, Ping Fu seems pursuing a relentless hate campaign to stir up the indignation and hatred of the American people whose memories of the "911 terrorist attack" remain fresh. In all conscience, Ping Fu appears correct in naming the hate war she and her followers have been waging against her critics: Internet terrorism. They first denounced her critics "Chinese nationalists" (as did, e.g., Princeton Ph.D. Prof. Erica Brindley), then condemned them as "a mob" (as did, e.g., Sir Harold Evans), and now branded them "Internet terrorism," all in a concerted and continued effort to threaten, intimidate, suppress and silence dissenting voices. Take "Lin," a reviewer on Amazon, as an example. When the mother of two first posted her 1-star review on Amazon questioning the truthfulness of Ping Fu's memoir on January 22, 2013, Ping Fu called the feedback "constructive" and sought "a direct dialog" with Lin. After this solicitation for private communication was rightly rejected by Lin, who nevertheless urged Ping Fu to respond publicly, and pointed out her fault in attempting to use China's 2007 rape data to support her 1968 gang-rape story, Lin was called "(m)ale, female, or hermaphrodite" by Sir Harold Evans, an accomplished journalist and staunch defender of Ping Fu. Faced with an undeterred and unyielding Lin and a growing number of challengers, Ping Fu orchestrated the hate campaign in many news media outlets and instigated her followers to report "abuse" to Amazon to have Lin silenced. Ping Fu, with her power, influence, and manipulative audacity as an "entrepreneur of the year" who is on the president's National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, did achieve a temporary success – Lin's series of reviews was removed from Amazon on February 16, 2013. Admittedly, Ping Fu is a brilliant "chief strategist". On the one side, she, and her followers, have been relentless and ruthless in terrorizing and silencing her challengers like Lin; on the other, she plays victim of "Internet terrorism" when confronted with more and more questions about her memoir and interviews riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, and logical absurdities. It was not until February 21 that Amazon rectified its decision and re-instituted Lin's series of reviews, no matter whether it is out of conscience, or business interest, or professionalism. "If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way," — what Emile Zola wrote a century ago still rings true. Branding the critics "Internet terrorism" appears to be a smart but desperate move by "chief strategist" Ping Fu. However ingenious your strategies may be, nevertheless, honesty is always the best policy, not only for a "chief strategist" entrepreneur, but also for any human being. By resiliently bending the truth, you are doomed to break your own, and your defenders', credibility and destroy your own, and your defenders', life. Ping Fu Is Destroying Ms MeiMei Fox In her latest move, Ping Fu is not only betraying co-author, Ms. MeiMei Fox, but also destroying her reputation as a truthful and trustworthy ghost writer, of the so-called memoir "Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds." Ms. Fox "wrote it wrong," she was quoted as saying by Didi Kirsten Tatlow of the International Herald Tribune, "I corrected it three times but it didn't get correct." Apparently, in Ping Fu's eyes Ms. Fox is the one to blame for many of "the result of exaggeration." When it comes to the first author of the book, Ping Fu herself, she is an innocent target, and thus a victim, of a "smear campaign" launched by "Chinese nationalists" for "reasons she doesn't really understand." A little more than two months ago, Ms. Fox, in her promotion piece "An Inspirational True Story of Resilience and the American Dream," was boasting her "working with Ping… has been the best experience of my entire publishing career" and Ping Fu is "a living embodiment of my mantra, "Fear Less, Love More." Too bad that it's Ms. Fox that "wrote it wrong" in the first place and then stuck to what was wrong despite Ping Fu's correction "three times." How come the "best experience of my entire publishing career" turns into incriminating Ping Fu through inaccuracies and even falsehoods in a memoir , which otherwise would be full of authentic, true stories of Ping Fu's life and "emotional memory"? And why did Ms. Fox do this to Ping Fu? Out of jealousy? Not likely, since Ms. Fox admits that "(a)bove all, Ping Fu is one of the most generous, compassionate, and wise people I've ever had the honor to know". Non-professionalism? Probably, since, according to Ping Fu, Ms. Fox may have "just made some searches on the Internet that maybe weren't correct." Ignorance? Definitely, since, according to Ping Fu again, Ms. Fox "doesn't know China's geography." To be fair, in spite of being pinpointed by Ping Fu as the ONLY culprit of the inaccuracies and falsehoods in their joint venture, Ms. Fox is not without merits when she describes Ping Fu as an incarnate of "fear less." Indeed, Ping Fu is "FEARLESS" in volunteering different versions of her "true" stories, in different interviews, different locations, and different times. Her latest version of "period police" is that it was not the university authorities' finger that invaded girl students' body, but "their own finger." Well, how many versions are still in store for us, the "mob" as condemned by His Honorable Sir Harold Evans, we never know. But as long as you look to Ping Fu for delightful surprises, it seems you will never get disappointed. Indeed, His Honorable Sir Harold Evans made a valid observation in his masterpiece "The Persecution of Ping Fu": "The campaign has morphed into a vindictive effort to destroy her life, to have her honors and awards withdrawn, the pending sale of Geomagic disrupted" – the campaign, the hate campaign kicked off and orchestrated by Ping Fu, against legitimate challengers to the truthfulness of her "autobiography", appears to be moving in this direction, thanks to Ping Fu and her like. His Honorable Sir Harold Evans, without doubt, is an outstanding contributor to, and active promoter of, this effort. What His Honorable Sir Harold Evans may fail to observe is that Ping Fu is not only destroying herself, with more and new versions of her "true" story, but also pulling down her collaborators, friends, supporters, and defenders with her. Take His Honorable Sir Harold Evans as an example. How much hate does it take a person with basic human decency to call "Lin", a mother of two who was among the first to come out to question Ping Fu's story, "male, female, or hermaphrodite"? After all, as you sow so shall you reap. It's fair enough, isn't it? Truth Bent, Credibility Broken We finally see some serious journalism by Western media: The Guardian published a balanced investigative story on Wednesday with the title "Ping Fu's childhood tales of China's Cultural Revolution spark controversy," quoting experts in various fields to challenge the truthfulness and validity of Ping Fu's stories in "Bend, Not Break." [...] Admittedly, most of the issues The Guardian raised to Ping Fu were not new – they were exactly the same questions brought forward by Chinese readers and reviewers on the Internet (mostly Chinese living in North America), or the "mob," to use Sir Harold Evens' parlance. Although the evidence unfolded at present is inconclusive, people are at least able to arrive at their own judgments by reading a well balanced, fact-seeking piece of serious journalism that had not been seen since the controversy over Ping Fu's memoir broke out weeks ago. Once again we saw Ping Fu abused the trust of, and betrayed, her friends, believers, supporters and defenders. This time, she admitted to The Guardian that "she had been wrong to call the criticism a smear campaign…" an allegation she put forward on Feb. 1. We still have vivid memory of her putting blames on her ghost writer, interviewers, and reporters for "inaccuracies" in the reports and the autobiography. It appears what Ping Fu, and her friends, supporters and defenders, have been doing are not honest and sincere moves in "crisis management" or "damage control," but more lies, libels, accusations and threats. There's no one else who wants to destroy Ping Fu's life; it's Ping Fu herself that is destroying her life, by lies, more lies, and repeated lies. She claimed that she was "sad, but not broken," but it's for sure that she will eventually harvest broken credibility and bankrupt integrity if she continues the path of sowing the seeds of falsehood. It's just a matter of time. This may also mark the beginning of a nightmare for her vehement supporters and defenders who had put their reputation, credentials, and integrity on the line to vouch for the authenticity of Ping Fu's story, like "Princeton Ph.D." Prof. Erica Brindley; to brand truth-seeking Chinese challengers as "Chinese nationalists" or simply "a mob", like "Princeton Ph.D." Prof. Erica Brindley and His Honorable Sir Harold Evans; or to threaten, harass and intimidate, like Van Harris at Amazon, to name just a few. Hopefully your acts will not be counter-productive and you will never have to taste the bitterness of betrayal by your beloved friend — Ping Fu.

The Absurdity of a Live Broadcast Execution Posted: 01 Mar 2013 02:16 AM PST Today around noon I saw Twitter light up over a report that CCTV would live broadcast the execution of a Burmese drug smuggler and three members of his gang convicted of killing 13 Chinese on the Mekong River. At first glance I assumed the uproar was because CCTV would devote so much attention to the execution of foreign criminals; attention like Timothy McVeigh and Ted Bundy received when crowds gathered outside their prisons and cameras were rolling to capture the signal that they were dead. That angle made sense. China devoted no such attention to the executions of its own serial killers like Yang Xinhai and Zhang Yongmin. It seemed to be yet another Opium War allusion to give the impression: "Vigilant CCP shows no mercy to foreign aggressors who attack China's sovereignty and humiliate its people (especially through the drug trade)." I soon realized though that that wasn't what the uproar was about. People thought that "live broadcasting the execution" meant CCTV would literally bring cameras into the chamber and air the lethal injections. For those familiar with the version of China gossiped about by grannies in Florida getting their hair done, that might seem conceivable. But for those familiar with the actual China, that proposition should sound completely absurd. Contrary to popular belief, The People's Republic of China has rarely put their executions out on display (vigilante Cultural Revolution killings aside). Sure, it frequently paraded condemned criminals around town and had execution rallies in stadiums right up through the 1990s. There was even a TV show until last year that interviewed death row inmates, sometimes just minutes before execution. But when it's time to do the deed itself, criminals have almost always been taken to a secluded location away from public eyes. In 2004, Boxun did a report on the death penalty in China featuring interviews with law enforcement who'd been involved with executions (Boxun is by no means reliable, but in this case there were very gruesome photos that seem to back up the interviews). One man who'd been involved in "half a dozen" executions up until 1995 using the traditional bullet to the head method said, "There are no spectators at the scene of the execution.  We maintain three rings of security.  Outsiders are kept far away, such that they cannot even hear the gunshot sounds.  On our way back, nobody says anything because we are overwhelmed by the feeling that life can be so cheap." As satisfying as it may be for some to see a foreign aggressor get what's coming to him, why would authorities regress below something considered too socially risky even by 1995 standards? Chinese censors routinely cut fictional violence from movies and TV – even to the point of disallowing the use of a knife to threaten someone – lest any fragile minds be influenced and disrupt social harmony. So why on Earth would the most viewed channel on the most viewed medium in China show a real person being killed live for millions of children to see? It wouldn't. Period. All this uproar began with a piece in South China Morning Post titled "CCTV 'to broadcast live execution of Mekong River massacre drug smugglers.'" John Kennedy, who wrote the piece, later said on Twitter: "CCTV said, unambiguously and in plain Chinese, it's going to live broadcast the execution. I'm not going to put words in its mouth. If it turns out CCTV is deliberately misleading the public to boost viewership (and in a way or two I hope it is), that's a story in itself." Indeed. In the end, just about everything leading up to the executions was shown – from prepping the prisoners to transporting them – but cameras stopped short of entering the chamber. Doing so would have been socially risky, and therefore impossible; not to mention gratuitously vile on a level that even the Ministry of Public Security wouldn't stoop to. Were the bits that were shown morbid, exploitative and inhumane? Sure. Was it all shamelessly done as a political statement with unsettling xenophobic undertones? Absolutely. Was it warranted in order to deter such brutal criminal acts in the future? I'm sure a lot of people will make that argument. And I'm sure you'll be reading elsewhere about all these things in the coming days, but all I can say is nobody took the enormous leap of showing the execution – something a lot of people who should have known better seemed to think was a real possibility. [Correction: This previously referred to the Boxun report as being from 1994. It was actually from 2004.]

China Considers Pollution Data a State Secret Posted: 28 Feb 2013 11:50 PM PST China's Ministry of Environmental Protection has rejected a Chinese lawyer's request for the details of a national survey on soil protection after deeming the information a state secret. The public and media are now pressing the Ministry to reverse its decision. China experts at Chinafile are holding a discussion: How Long Can China Keep Pollution Data a State Secret? Written by Abby · comments (0) Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

China Gives PM 2.5 a Chinese Name Posted: 28 Feb 2013 11:40 PM PST As Beijing continues to suffer from smog and sandstorms, a new initiative to choose a Chinese name for PM2.5 (sub-2.5 micrometer) pollutant particles has become a hot topic on Weibo. China Digital Times has translated some netizens' comments. Written by Abby · comments (0) Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Chinese Scholars Caught at Odds with US Laws Posted: 28 Feb 2013 08:32 PM PST Two Chinese scholars in US were arrested in the month of February, 2013. Dr. Peng Wu of Cornell University was arrested (13-05216) by police on trespassing after a failed attempt to break in a woman's room on Valentine's Day. According to journals posted to the Internet (Google Cache) by the woman, a Chinese female graduate student, from her Renren (a Chinese knock off of Facebook) account, Wu took down the screen windows from outside, but made a sound when he tried to remove the glasses in the middle of night (around 2:00am) Tuesday. She called 911, and W was brought to the her by the cop. Wu quickly admitted guilt when the cop mentioned there could be fingerprints on the window. Male stalking female is usually not considered a crime unless other laws are broken. As a matter of fact, some Chinese woman see being stalked a proof of the man's devotion to love. On the other hand, Dr. Wu has little excuse, as a father and a husband. According to the female student, he also tried to friend her on Facebook and Renren. Mr. Zhaozhao Shen of Florida State University was arrested (Leon County news release) on Tuesday Feb 26 by a joint task force on Internet porn. He was charged with possession with intent to distribute. After investigation and interviews, police found fewer than 100 images of nature of child pronography, mostly young boys, on his computer. Viewing any pornography is a criminal offense in China by book. However, by law there is no distinction between child porn and adult porn. Downloading pronography material is usually not prosecuted in China. As Shen was sharing an apartment with two other students. It is most likely they were sharing an access point (thus one external IP address). Had Shen not confessed to investigators, there was little police could do. It is unimaginable that any court would allow a search on all computers equipments found in that apartment. Both cases reflected a lack of understanding of culture and law, disrespect of ethics, and absence of value.

Internet Post Deletion Business in China Posted: 28 Feb 2013 11:29 PM PST Caixin Magazine[zh] reported about the Internet post deletion business in China: "It costs thousands to delete a negative news article, hundreds of thousands in professional fees to get a key word blocked.'' feichengdao has translated some excerpts from the report into English. Written by Abby · comments (0) Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Photo: Temple Roof Tiles, by Hindrim Posted: 28 Feb 2013 11:00 PM PST © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

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