Blogs » Politics » CNN and Financial Times spin news of China topping U.S. in importing oil as shake up to geopolitics of natural resources
Blogs » Politics » CNN and Financial Times spin news of China topping U.S. in importing oil as shake up to geopolitics of natural resources |
- CNN and Financial Times spin news of China topping U.S. in importing oil as shake up to geopolitics of natural resources
- 45 Arrested in HK For Smuggling Baby Powder
- NPC May Establish Unified Food and Drug Agency
- Photo: 龙口桥 Dragon’s Mouth Bridge, China, 2013, by Chris Aston
- Defining Reform Under Xi Jinping (Updated)
- Chinese NPC Rep: “We Must Allow Chinese to Have a Second Child. We Cannot Wait Another Minute.”
- Ministry of Truth: Ten Points on Two Sessions
- China’s Real Estate Bubble, and Hopes for Democracy
- Choking to Death: Health Consequences of Air Pollution in China
- Shine Has Worn Off Wukan’s Early Triumphs
- How Can a Chinese Woman Born in 1990 Already Be ‘Too Old’ for Marriage?
- Villagers Protest Land Grab, Demand Democracy
- No Privacy Expectation Up In the Cloud
- Village Paper Dares to Challenge the Official Line
Posted: 04 Mar 2013 10:38 PM PST CNN recently repeated an article from Financial Times on the news China has temporarily overtaken the United States as the world's largest net oil importer. In spinning this news, their narrative went as follows:
First of all, China offers a lesson to the world, and especially to the NATO countries. You can become the world's #1 net importer of oil without invading and occupying countries. You simply trade. China just did it. And, the last time I checked, it doesn't appear China is upsetting any geopolitics. Is China kicking out American bases anywhere for oil? Nope. America may withdraw some ships from the region because America is becoming less dependent on Middle East oil, but that is on America's own accord. So, all we have here is CNN and Financial Times agitating fear within the American public; corporate media and military industrial complex on display. |
45 Arrested in HK For Smuggling Baby Powder Posted: 04 Mar 2013 07:10 PM PST Hong Kong customs officials arrested 45 people late last week on charges of smuggling baby milk formula into mainland China, after a new emergency law took effect on March 1st which limits passengers to no more than two cans (1.8 kilograms) of the product. From the Los Angeles Times:
The accused included 26 Hong Kong residents, 18 mainlanders and one person with a foreign passport, according to the South China Morning Post. A number of tainted baby formula scandals have hit China in recent years – thousands of children fell ill with kidney problems in 2008 from milk powder tainted with the industrial chemical melamine – and mainland mothers have since turned to places such as Hong Kong and even Australia for their baby food. More recently, a cancer-causing element was found in samples of a mainland dairy company last year. China's health minister called the smuggling of infant formula a "temporary problem" in Beijing on Monday, according to the Financial Times. Checking in from the sidelines of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on Sunday, the South China Morning Post noted a mixed bag of opinions on the issue among the members of China's top political consultative body:
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
NPC May Establish Unified Food and Drug Agency Posted: 04 Mar 2013 05:43 PM PST Among the most anticipated policy unveilings at the ongoing Two Sessions is the likely consolidation of some of China's 27 ministries and countless lower-level government bodies. The State Administration for Radio, Film and Television and General Administration of Press and Publication, for example, may be absorbed by the Ministry of Culture, while the Ministry of Transport is widely expected to swallow the colossal and scandal-wracked Ministry of Railways. Responsibility for food and possibly drug safety, currently scattered across 13 separate agencies, may also be unified in a single body in order to better combat the country's steady stream of public health scares. From Zhuang Pinghui at the South China Morning Post:
Super-sized ministries may not fulfill their promised efficiency gains, however, as The Economist (via CDT) recently explained. The structure of Chinese food production is also highly fragmented. Here, too, consolidation seems likely, as huge numbers of small-scale suppliers give way to a much smaller number of industrial-scale farms. While big agribusiness can bring its own problems, this trend is expected to greatly simplify food production chains and ease monitoring and enforcement of food safety. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
Photo: 龙口桥 Dragon’s Mouth Bridge, China, 2013, by Chris Aston Posted: 04 Mar 2013 03:20 PM PST © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
Defining Reform Under Xi Jinping (Updated) Posted: 04 Mar 2013 03:01 PM PST With the annual session of the National People's Congress now underway, observers are waiting to see how Xi Jinping, who will be sworn in as president at the end of the session, will deal with a number of issues confronting the country. Global Times gives an overview of the meetings, which include gatherings of both the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the National People's Congress:
Yet the congress itself is widely viewed as a rubber stamp, with any debate or negotiations taking place behind the scenes. For the many journalists who attend the proceedings, it can be difficult to gain access to key players or to inside information about how proposals are introduced and debated. The Wall Street Journal's China Real Time reports:
For domestic media, reporting on the congress is tightly proscribed. CDT recently translated a list of ten topics that are off-limits for reporting during the session. One piece of data – the annual military budget – was not revealed at the press conference on the eve of the session's opening as expected [See update below]. As AP reports:
Other changes that are expected to be announced during the congress include an administrative reorganization of government ministries. Notably, the scandal-plagued Ministry of Railways is expected to be demoted and broken into commercial and operational arms. From Reuters:
Individual delegates to the CPPCC and other activists have issued public calls for specific reforms at the NPC. As the New York Times reports, some delegates are calling for an end to re-education through labor, or laojiao, camps, following vague promises from the government on the issue:
Human Rights Watch issued a letter to Xi Jinping calling for the abolition of laojiao and a number of other reforms. But as the New York Times article quoted above points out, deeper political reforms are unlikely to come to fruition at the current congress:
UPDATE: Early Tuesday morning Beijing time, Xinhua released the military budget:
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
Chinese NPC Rep: “We Must Allow Chinese to Have a Second Child. We Cannot Wait Another Minute.” Posted: 04 Mar 2013 11:56 AM PST China's Two Sessions are in full swing, with lawmakers proposing a variety of new regulations addressing issues of concern to China's citizens. Perhaps one of the most welcomed of these proposals was Guangdong National People's Congress (NPC) representative He Youlin's call for an adjustment to China's One-child policy, which became the hottest topic in Weibo's My Two Sessions Proposals category, the hottest trending topic of conversation on the Twitter-like site. "Two years ago I raised this matter, and I raised it against last year. I will raise it again this year!" remarked He Youlin. "We must allow Chinese to have a second child. We cannot wait another minute." The top five comments on this Sina article, each receiving more than 500 "likes," expressed support for He's proposal. The One-child policy, which has restricted most Chinese to having a single child in order to curb population growth over the past three decades, is unpopular among most Chinese and has recently drawn harsh criticism from academics and scholars, who say the policy may lead to economic and societal disaster. As recently as January of this year, the head of China's National Family Planning Commission affirmed that the policy was in place for the long term. In response to the statement, NPC delegate He Youlin said, "That isn't right. You can't consider such matters from the perspective of your professional department. You should think about it from the perspective of a people's development, of the future strategic development of our country." Over 3,000 Weibo users commented on He Youlin's third attempt to make it possible for Chinese families to have two children. Most comments proclaimed support for He's persistence, as well as a desire for the policy to end, many citing statistics on China's slowing population growth and aging demographics. A not-insignificant group of commenters even said that economic realities would prevent most Chinese from having two children anyway, so the issue was moot. Still others decried the inhumanity of the policy, implementation of which has resulted in forced abortions and financial threats. While some Weibo users voiced support, many others sadly voiced their opinion that He's proposal would never gain broad support at the government level. Commented one user, "If they let people have two children, think of how much less money the government will make in fines [for having too many children]. This alone means the proposal will never pass." One economist estimates that the government has made over US$316 billion from such fines since the policy was first instituted. Another netizen wrote, "The One-child Policy is actually China's greatest social stability measure. If there aren't any young people at all, who will protest?" Many proposals raised at the NPC will never become law, so the raising of this measure does not signify a movement in the government towards an adjustment of the One-child policy. Debate continues, however, online and at the highest levels, with an increasing number of citizens calling for change. |
Ministry of Truth: Ten Points on Two Sessions Posted: 04 Mar 2013 10:30 AM PST The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online.
Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to these 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. 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 on CDT Chinese 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), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
China’s Real Estate Bubble, and Hopes for Democracy Posted: 04 Mar 2013 10:24 AM PST For CBS' 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl visits China to investigate the "largest housing bubble in human history" and explore ghost cities, such as Ordos, Inner Mongolia, and housing and shopping developments that have been built and left empty around the country:
Stahl interviews developer Wang Shi who acknowledges that the bubble is "dangerous" and on the verge of bursting. In an accompanying Internet feature, Stahl also interviews real estate mogul Zhang Xin — the "richest self-made billionaire woman in the world" — who made waves not for her comments on the real estate market in China, but on democracy, made in the last minute of this clip:
60 Minutes Overtime gives more background on Zhang's comments and discusses her activity on weibo:
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
Choking to Death: Health Consequences of Air Pollution in China Posted: 04 Mar 2013 09:39 AM PST In the past few months, I wrote about the food the Chinese eat, and, more recently, Liz Economy wrote about the water the Chinese drink. But the air that the Chinese breathe is now a major concern. As the nearly 3,000 delegates of the National People's Congress (NPC) arrive in Beijing to attend the yearly event to formally endorse nominees for key government leadership posts and important national policies, it would be hard for them to ignore the poor air quality in the country's capital. Last Thursday morning, readings near Tiananmen Square measured the concentration of PM2.5—fine particles in the air that are smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter and are considered dangerous because they tend to penetrate the gas exchange regions of the lungs—at 469 micrograms per cubic meter, which corresponds to a U.S. EPA Air Quality Index reading of 479 (the scale stops at 500). Anything above 301 is considered "hazardous" in that it can cause "serious aggravation of heart or lung disease and premature mortality in persons with cardiopulmonary disease and the elderly," and there is a "serious risk of respiratory effects in general population." The PM2.5 levels in other famously polluted cities pale in comparison to those in Beijing; for instance, the highest PM2.5 level in a 24-period recorded in Los Angeles was 43 micrograms per cubic meter. The poor air quality, according to a leading Chinese public health expert, is worse than SARS because nobody can escape it. Research suggests that air pollution can raise the risk of cardio-respiratory death by 2 to 3 percent for every increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter of pollutants. Only 1 percent of China's 560 million urban residents breathe air considered safe by European Union, according to a 2007 World Bank study. A report released by China's Ministry of Environmental Protection in November 2010 showed that about one-third of 113 cities failed to meet national air standards.The 2012 Cancer Registry Annual Report revealed that lung cancer is top among all types of cancer in terms of the number of cases and deaths in China. Indeed, the number of lung cancer-caused mortality in China has increased by 465 percent in the past three decades. In Beijing, the number of lung cancer patients has increased by 60 percent in the last ten years. The rising incidence rate of lung cancer coincides with drastic reduction in the incidence rates of stomach cancer and cervical cancer, which is thought to be a result of improvements in public health standards. For years, public health experts considered smoking the leading risk factor of lung cancer. Yet a recent report prepared by some prominent Chinese public health experts and economists did not find any significant change in China's overall smoking rate over the last decade. A group of scientists analyzed historical records of aerosol particles and lung cancer incidence in Guangzhou and found that a dramatic increase in the occurrence of air pollution from 1954 to 2006 was followed by a large increase in the lung cancer incidence rate despite the drop in the overall smoking rate. It was found that 750,000 Chinese die prematurely each year, primarily because of air pollution in large cities. According to more recent estimates by Greenpeace and Peking University's School of Public Health, exposure to PM2.5 contributed to more than 8,500 premature deaths in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Xi'an in 2012 alone. The thick haze served as a wake-up call for the government, which seems to become more transparent in discussing air pollution in China. As public awareness of the problem grew, pressure on the government to address the underlying causes also increased. To improve the air quality, the Beijing municipal government has taken some emergency measures, including temporarily shutting down more than 100 factories and ordering one-third of government vehicles off the streets. However, given that coal burning in neighboring provinces and cities is a major contributor of the PM2.5 concentration in Beijing, the effectiveness of these steps has been limited. Moreover, while emissions from motor vehicles and coal-burning operations are responsible for the worsening air pollution in China, economic growth requires increased energy use. Since the regime's legitimacy hinges upon delivering robust economic growth, governments at all levels continue to pursue growth at the expense of environment. We are going to see more NPC delegates pushing for better environmental protection measures, but don't expect any fundamental change until the government has shifted to a new legitimacy base and restructured the state-society relationship to allow for more effective participation of civil society groups in the public policy process. In the words of Chinese premier-to-be Li Keqiang, "It will be a long process to resolve environmental problems." |
Shine Has Worn Off Wukan’s Early Triumphs Posted: 04 Mar 2013 07:39 AM PST While a disputed land sale has sparked protests and demands for democracy in the Guangdong village of Shangpu, Reuters reports that "spring is over" in the nearby village of Wukan, which made headlines last year for holding elections after ousting its own village leadership in late-2011 land grab protests:
Resentment has simmered among Wukan villagers at their leaders' inability to secure the return of their land, but the Financial Times reports that deputy village chief Yang Semao believes critical villagers "are not reasonable:"
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
How Can a Chinese Woman Born in 1990 Already Be ‘Too Old’ for Marriage? Posted: 03 Mar 2013 11:06 PM PST This is a part of a Tea Leaf Nation series covering gender issues in today's China. On February 22, a report released by Internet portal Sina made waves among China's youth. A post on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, attracted heated discussion: "According to relevant regulations, the first marriage of males aged 25 or older and females aged 23 or older are considered 'late marriages.' A bit of simple math shows that 2013 is the first year that some post-80's (those born in 1980 or later) are turning 33, and the first year that some post-90's (those born in 1990 or later) are of 'late marriage' age." Over 400,000 web users discussed the topic on Weibo, and with print media covering it as well, the subject of "late marriage" has generated discussion on a variety of issues related to marriage, age, and gender roles in China. Surprised by the airing of a well-known but seldom-discussed tension, many Web users shared feelings of melancholy and loss. Wrote Weibo user @糖糖咖啡物语: "If the post-90's are already late to marriage, how can we un-married post-80's survive?" User @New-姜浩 wrote: "I always thought of the post-90's as little kids, and now I suddenly realize that post-90's girls are considered late to marry…I am old, old, old, old. Time is a butcher's knife!" Many users shared other concerns, hopes and the feelings about bearing the "post-90's" label. Some remained optimistic. Use @Grace-贞 wrote: "[Being one of the post-90's]…however old we are, we should never lose our ability to be patient in waiting for and loving someone. We are still young, we should do what we are supposed to – trust in love, find love and pursue love." User @资海小鱼 commented: "Marriage? No way. I just graduated from college, how can I afford to get married? Marriage is too far away and unrealistic for me. 'Post-90's' has never sounds like praise, the elderly always see us as extremely frivolous, and I don't understand why." But current regulations' classification of some "Post-90's" are "late" to marry collided with stereotypes surrounding the generation, whose members are seen as poor planners who lead lives that older Chinese might derisively describe as "non-mainstream." User @李芬尼 mocked both his own single status and the seemingly out-of-touch policy: "I have lived more than 20 years. Though I have not achieved anything big, I have made one single contribution – by practicing the national 'family planning' policy and 'late marriage, late childbearing' policy, I have sacrificed by precious youth for the sake of the national strategic plan." In fact, several decades ago, late marriage was not considered a problem according to China's so-called one-child policy. The concept of "late marriage" is addressed in the 1980 Marriage Law, in Chapter 2, Article 5: "Late marriage and late childbirth should be encouraged." Though the age for late marriage was not set in the law, 23 years of age for women and 25 years for men has been the assumed standard at local levels, and has been used in such documents as the Population and Family Planning Policy of Beijing (Chapter 3, Article 16), published in 2003. Although the original purpose of the Population and Family Planning Policy was to curb population growth by encouraging late marriage, policy-makers today have far different concerns. A recent letter signed by many prominent academics in China has also pointed out that China's population will begin to shrink in ten years, even if its one-child policy were to be scrapped immediately. Faced with an aging population that may begin shrinking very soon, China has a vested interest in hurrying its post-90's citizens into marriage. In 2012, the National Population and Family Planning Commission and Jiayuan.com, an online dating website, conducted a survey on marriage with approximately 80,000 participants. Results showed that while 52% of the women respondents believed owning a house to be a prerequisite for marriage, 41% of all respondents believed that men should be financially responsible for the majority of household expenses–another 40% believe the burden should fall on whoever is financially better off. Whether this schism is due to traditional ideas about gender roles or China's gender imbalance, the reality is that bachelors are under great pressure when it comes to buying a home. In fact, according to a CNN.com report based on a study by Columbia University Professor Shang-Jin Wei, 48% or (US$8 trillion worth) of the rise in property values across 35 major cities in China is linked to the country's gender imbalance. With pressure on men to buy property – and on women to help them – men are more than twice as likely to have legal sole or joint ownership of property as women, with two-thirds of men owning property compared to only one-third of women. Due to this imbalance in financial security, men have more leverage and more options in romance and relationships. China's gender imbalance means that more men than women between the ages of 25 and 29 are unmarried. But men in this group are not marrying women of their own age, instead searching for younger partners. Women aged 27 or older, according to the Chinese government and many media outlets, are "leftover," less likely to find matches than their younger counterparts. Becoming "leftover" has long been a source of anxiety among women from the post-80's generation, but the blogosphere has shown strong pushback against claims that post-90's are already late to the altar. Many saw through the buzzwords of 'late marriage' and 'leftover' to the heart of the matter. Weibo user @MaDingMaLittleTiger wrote: "If the post-90's are not in a hurry to get married, real estate won't sell, and then developers won't buy up property. The marriage industry will slow down, and lawyers will be afraid that with all these late marriages, people will be mature and less likely to divorce. All kinds of industries will cease to make money, and tax revenues will decrease. Without tax revenues, and unable to sell property, our leaders won't have the excellent results they want or a high GDP. Therefore, post-90's must be late for marriage, whether or not you're in a rush to do it. It's a serious social problem!" Media and the government continue to emphasize issues like "leftover women" and "late marriage," but critical discussion of the subjects by Internet users shows that Chinese are no longer taking these buzzwords at face value. "Sometimes," wrote Weibo user @jiuyue2010, "Our anxieties are the product of outside forces." As time goes on, the post-90's late marriage crisis, both real and imagined, will continue to shed light on China's larger issues. |
Villagers Protest Land Grab, Demand Democracy Posted: 04 Mar 2013 06:56 AM PST Police have set up a blockade around the Guangdong village of Shangpu, just 100 kilometers away from Wukan, after residents clashed with thugs they claim were sent by the local communist party chief in connection with a disputed land deal. The villagers have demanded democratic elections, according to AFP, which has gained entry into Shangpu:
Residents told AFP that the village chief and party head fraudulently collected signatures to facilitate the transfer of farmland to a local businessman for industrial use, and they fear they will not be properly compensated. China's state-run Global Times reported on Monday that the county-level public security bureau arrested the village leader and eight others it claims were hired by the village leader to attack the Shangpu residents:
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
No Privacy Expectation Up In the Cloud Posted: 03 Mar 2013 11:06 PM PST A ministry William Steven Albaugh at St. Joseph's Church in Fullerton, MD was arrested for processing of child pronography. Verizon detected the offensive files when Albaugh uploaded them to 'the cloud' (Verizon Online Backup and Sharing Account), and notified authorities. Albaugh admitted to collection child pronography since the 1970s. Some courts see files uploaded to the cloud invokes a third party doctrine, which nullifies any expectation of privacy. However, in order to decide whether to refer a case to external authorities, Verizon would have to had technical staffs to examine the materials which triggered the automatic software alarm and rely on these persons' judgement. In other words, someone at Verizon, a technology company, routinely reviews customer files before seeking explicit agreement. This practice was unseen before. |
Village Paper Dares to Challenge the Official Line Posted: 03 Mar 2013 11:39 PM PST For the Telegraph, Malcolm Moore profiles a village newspaper near Shijiazhuang which has established itself as the opposition to the local official propaganda paper:
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
You are subscribed to email updates from Update » Blogs » Politics To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 |
Comments