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• China’s Biggest Problem? Too Many Men
• Photo: The Great Hall of the People and the Forbidden City, by Bill Perry/Shutterstock
• Chinese Report Warns of Android Invasion
• Wen Jiabao Steps Down to Uncertain Legacy
• Tibetan Writer Honored by U.S. State Department
• CCTV Finds Toys Still Made from Medical Waste
• China’s Black Jail Industry
• Sensitive Words: NPC Shockers and Disappointments
• Hopes Fade Over Sino-Japan Summit
• In Barcelona, Huawei Tells its Story

China’s Biggest Problem? Too Many Men Posted: 05 Mar 2013 11:36 PM PST Rob Brooks, professor of evolution at New South Wales University in Australia, looks to the surplus of men over women in China as a potential threat to social stability. From CNN: A long history of son preference, particularly among the Han majority, has led to female infanticide and the neglect of daughters in some parts of China. But in recent decades, the spread of cheap ultrasound (enabling sex-determination in early-mid pregnancy) and easy access to abortion courtesy of the government's one-child policy, has led to the widespread abortion of female fetuses. [...] Many factors contribute to the number of men who will never find a mate. Economic inequality, for one, leaves a great many poor young men unable to attract a wife. When a society allows powerful men to take several wives, too few women remain for many poor men to take even a single wife. But most dramatically of all, male-biased sex ratios consign the excess men to never having a family of their own. [...] China is already feeling the effects of so many bare branches. The economist Lena Edlund estimates that every one percent increase in the sex ratio results in a six percent increase in the rates of violent and property crime. In addition, the parts of China with the most male-biased sex ratios are experiencing a variety of other maladies, all tied to the presence of too many young men. Gambling, alcohol and drug abuse, kidnapping and trafficking of women are rising steeply in China. See more on China's gender imbalance via CDT. © Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: abortion, family, gender imbalance, gender selection, marriage, sex-selective abortion Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Photo: The Great Hall of the People and the Forbidden City, by Bill Perry/Shutterstock Posted: 05 Mar 2013 11:20 PM PST The Great Hall of the People and the Forbidden City © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Chinese Report Warns of Android Invasion Posted: 05 Mar 2013 02:54 PM PST A white paper (PDF) by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's China Academy of Telecommunication Research has warned of excessive dependence on the Android mobile operating system, and accused its developer Google of discriminating against Chinese companies. While Google's share of the search market in China has dropped to 15%, Android now powers over 80% of all mobile devices sold in China. From Reuters: "Our country's mobile operating system research and development is too dependent on Android," the paper, posted online on Friday but carried by local media on Tuesday, said. "While the Android system is open source, the core technology and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google." […] Analysts said the white paper, which lauded Chinese companies such as Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group and Huawei Technologies for creating their own systems, could be a signal to the industry that regulations against Android are on the horizon. "In China, regulators regulate regularly especially where they can position the regulations as helping out domestic companies," Duncan Clark, chairman of technology consultancy BDA, said in an email to Reuters. At The Wall Street Journal, Paul Mozur examined the complaints' possible roots: The stronger language used in the most recent report could indicate that the research institute believes that Google had violated one of the conditions laid out by China's Ministry of Commerce when it approved Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. in May. As part of the approval, the ministry said Google couldn't use its Android operating system to discriminate against manufacturers. […] In September Google forced the delay of a planned release of an Acer Inc. 2353.TW +4.06% smartphone that was set to run Aliyun, an operating system developed by Alibaba. Google said the operating system was a "non-compatible" version of Android, meaning that Alibaba allegedly created its operating system by taking Google's Android software and making changes to it. […] Alibaba denied Google's claims. "Aliyun OS is not a part of the Android ecosystem so of course Aliyun OS is not and does not have to be compatible with Android," it said in a statement. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: alibaba, Google, Google Android, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, mobile phones, mobile technology, Motorola, smartphone, software Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Wen Jiabao Steps Down to Uncertain Legacy Posted: 05 Mar 2013 02:39 PM PST Premier Wen Jiabao, who will give up his post to Li Keqiang during the current National People's Congress session, has delivered his final work report to congress delegates. In the speech, he set economic goals for China over the next five years, including a growth rate of 7.5%, and called for more attention to environmental problems (read the full report here). He also acknowledged additional problems that had not been effectively resolved during his tenure. From Bloomberg: "We are keenly aware that we still face many difficulties and problems," Wen told almost 3,000 delegates in his final report to the National People's Congress in Beijing today. He set an economic growth target of 7.5 percent for this year, unchanged from 2012, and an inflation goal of 3.5 percent. Those achievements have come at the cost of surging inequality, environmental degradation and growing financial risks, challenges that he leaves for incoming Premier Li Keqiang. "There are also many problems Wen left behind, and the new leaders are to face and tackle," said Zhang Zhiwei, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong. They include "the risk of a property bubble, significantly increased local government debt, income equality and worsening pollution," said Zhang, who previously worked for the International Monetary Fund. Wen has promoted an image of a grandfatherly figure who is in touch with the people's problems. In his final months in office, he has expressed regret for not accomplishing more while in office, and has also spoken out in favor of political reform and against corruption – even while being the subject of an investigative probe by U.S. media. From the New York Times: Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China, well known for baring his emotions in public, has displayed a blend of defeatism and defensiveness as he winds down his decade in office. During a visit last month to a Muslim neighborhood here, Mr. Wen lamented that he "fell short in some tasks" to improve people's livelihoods. "In my heart I feel guilty and constantly blame myself," he said. But his most intriguing comments have touched on corruption. During a cabinet meeting last month, he said that even among top officials, "abuse of power, trading power for cash, and collusion between officialdom and commerce continue unabated." And in a vague mea culpa before a group of overseas Chinese in Thailand late last year, Mr. Wen admitted to unidentified failings but defended his integrity by paraphrasing an ancient Chinese statesman said to have taken his own life to protest imperial corruption. "In the pursuit of truth, I would die nine times without regret," he said. With his retirement looming at the end of the annual meeting of China's legislature that begins Tuesday, Mr. Wen, 70, has been struggling to push through economic changes and to shore up his image as a frugal populist and one of the few Communist Party leaders to champion political reform, even if that push has come to naught. But he has also been pressing hard to clear his name, particularly in the months since The New York Times published accounts of the way his immediate family had become extraordinarily rich during his time in high office. But Wen has also been called "China's greatest actor" by critics. The South China Morning Post looks at these two sides of Wen's legacy: Professor Liu Kang, a China-watcher and director of Duke University's China study programme, said Wen had been working hard to cement two legacies – as "a political reformer" and "a people's premier". Wen called for political reform in a series of speeches in recent years, mostly during trips overseas, appearing more like a dissident or a human rights campaigner than a communist leader by saying that "democracy, rule of law, freedom and human rights are shared values pursued by humanity over the long course of history, the products of a common civilisation". Critics accuse him of using his last two years in office to cultivate his public image before retirement – or deliberately playing the role of an outspoken reformer in an effort to balance the communist leadership's conservative image. But sympathisers say Wen has really represented a dissenting voice within the top leadership because many other members of the Politburo and its Standing Committee have argued the opposite on countless occasions. His final work report also received mixed reviews on Chinese social media, according to the BBC: Wu Tianzheng says on Sina Weibo: "Premier Wen's last report made it clear that urbanisation is part of the modernisation drive, and that it would help the reform of the registration card system. It's a good proposal, but it was not implemented during his last five years in government; Now that he is retiring, who will carry it through?" On Tencent Weibo, Hu Zhihai posts that economic increases have "only benefitted the corrupt officials; ordinary people are still poor, some dying in garbage bins, or under the bridge; many can't afford to go to school or buy houses. Please save these people." Liu Jianqiang, a magazine editor, is pleased that the speech referred to pollution issues. "He [Wen Jiabao] says let people see hope from our actions – very impressive; but I feel that hope is fading, now even soil has become a state secret. People know nothing." Read more about Wen Jiabao, via CDT. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: economic growth rates, NPC 2013, political reform, Wen Jiabao Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Tibetan Writer Honored by U.S. State Department Posted: 05 Mar 2013 01:34 PM PST Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser is one of ten recipients of the U.S. Secretary of State's 2013 International Women of Courage Award. The award "recognizes women around the globe who have shown exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for women's rights and empowerment, often at great personal risk." From the State Department's biographies of the award winners: In a period marked by increasing self-immolations and protests in Tibetan areas of China, Tsering Woeser has emerged as the most prominent Mainland activist speaking out publicly about human rights conditions for China's Tibetan citizens. Born in Lhasa, Tsering Woeser's website, Invisible Tibet, together with her poetry and non-fiction and her embrace of social media platforms like Twitter, have given voice to millions of ethnic Tibetans who are prevented from expressing themselves to the outside world due to government efforts to curtail the flow of information. Despite the constant surveillance of security agents and routinely being placed under house arrest during periods deemed to be politically sensitive, Tsering Woeser bravely persists in documenting the situation for Tibetans, noting that "to bear witness is to give voice to," and asserting that "the more than 100 Tibetans who have expressed their desire to resist the forces of oppression by bathing their bodies in fire are the reason why I will not give up, and why I will not compromise." Woeser has dedicated her award to the Tibetan self-immolators, and expressed disappointment that she will be unable to travel to the United States to accept it personally. From Dharamsala-based Phayul.com: "I am grateful to the US State Department for granting me the International Women's Courage Award," Woeser told Phayul. "I would like to think this goes to show their concern over the self-immolations on the Tibetan plateau." "I want to dedicate this award to the more than one hundred people, who have bathed their bodies in fire and their families," the Tibetan writer added. […] "Unfortunately, I can not accept the award in person. In fact, at the moment, I will not only fail to accept the award, but I have been put under house arrest," the fearless writer said. […] This is not the first time that Woeser will be barred from receiving her award in person. Last year, she was barred from collecting the Prince Claus Award, presented annually by the Netherlands-based Prince Claus Fund for outstanding achievements in the field of culture and development. She also couldn't receive the Norwegian Author's Union's 2007 Freedom of Expression Prize in Oslo and the International Women's Media foundation's 2010 'Courage in Journalism award' in New York. Woeser tweets as @degewa, and her writing is regularly translated into English at High Peaks Pure Earth. See more about and by her via CDT. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: house arrest, self-immolations, Tibet, Woeser, writers Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

CCTV Finds Toys Still Made from Medical Waste Posted: 05 Mar 2013 01:34 PM PST While baby milk powder is smuggled into China from Hong Kong and around the world due to fears of tainted domestic products, a recent CCTV investigation showed another health hazard for children both in China and abroad. At Global Times, Chen Tian reports a lack of progress in the year since CCTV exposed use of toxic materials in Shantou's toy industry, whose exports reached $1.6 billion last year: In March 2012, CCTV reported that Shantou's toy manufacturing industry was habitually using toxic materials to make its products. After a public outcry, the city's deputy mayor apologized, and vowed to make fundamental quality improvements in the industry. However, any improvement sparked by the television report was short-lived. A revisit from CCTV reporters found that local processing workshops are still providing toxic materials, such as medical waste made from plastics, to toy manufacturers. […] At the processing workshops, plastic materials and used medical devices, which are often found in garbage cans, are simply smashed, rinsed and dried, and then sold to toy producers. Sometimes the workshops even added ground-up stone in the materials to make it heavier, with the hope of making more money, CCTV reported Sunday. […] Toy retailers at a Chenghai district plastics city, a marketplace for the city's retailers, told CCTV that quality certification can be easily printed on the toys without any inspection by governmental supervisory body. Xinhua reported last month that students at 21 Shanghai schools had been warned not to wear their uniforms after one batch was found to contain carcinogenic dye. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: manufacturing, public health, public safety, Shantou, toxic, toymaker, toys Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China’s Black Jail Industry Posted: 05 Mar 2013 08:01 AM PST While there have been promising signs of change for those who travel to Beijing to present their grievances, there are still cases of petitioners being detained in China's unofficial black jails. Chinese state media report on the black jail industry, focusing on a recent case where ten people were imprisoned for illegally detaining petitioners. Some argue that the chief conspirators are still at large, from The Global Times: The recent Spring Festival holiday was the gloomiest ever for 70-year-old Yuzhou villager Wang Yuzhu. At a time when most Chinese return home for family reunions, his son, Wang Gaowei, was sent to jail by the Chaoyang district court on February 5, just five days before the start of Spring Festival. Song Xuefang said she appeared at Wang's trial last November, and "remembers clearly Wang admitted to the judge that a man named Bai Zhongxing hired him." This matches Wang's father's words, who recalled his son was hired by a man surnamed Bai. Bai Zhongxing, the official from Yuzhou Bureau of Letters and Calls who hired Wang Gaowei, is a well-known figure to Yuzhou petitioners as many of them know of Bai's connections to the black jail. That liaison officials and local letters and calls bureaus are profiting through illegal detention centers has become an open secret now. According to Yu Jianrong, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, there are two major modes of cooperation between letters and calls bureaus and black jails. Read more about black jails, via CDT. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: black jails, illegal dententions, petitioners Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Sensitive Words: NPC Shockers and Disappointments Posted: 05 Mar 2013 07:54 AM PST As of March 4, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the "search for user" function). "Representation by unelected delegates is rape." National People's Congress: - sand c**t + Beijing (沙逼+北京): Beijing was battered by a sandstorm last week, earning a nickname that plays on the curse "stupid c**t" (傻逼 shǎ bī): "sand c**t" (沙逼 shā bī). - Two Sessions + shock (两会+雷人): "Shocking" images from the National People's Congress are making the rounds online. See these photo galleries (1, 2) from CDT Chinese [zh]. (Together with the People's Consultative Congress, these annual gatherings are known as the "Two Sessions.") - Five Do-Nots (五不搞): Do not make a system in which multiple parties govern in turn; do not diversify guiding ideologies; do not "separate the three powers" and create a bicameral system; do not federalize; do not privatize. - Three Above-Alls (三个至上): Service to the Party above all; the interests of the people above all; constitution and laws above all. - movie star + take a curtain call (影帝+谢幕): After delivering his "government work report" yesterday, outgoing prime minister Wen Jiabao bowed three times and took a "curtain call" in response to applause. Exiled writer Yu Jie described Wen as a movie star in his 2010 book China's Best Actor: Wen Jiabao. - three bows (三鞠躬) - movie star + wen (影帝+wen) - Wen Jiabao + housing prices (温家宝+房价): People are grumbling about the 20% tax recently added to the sale of previously owned homes. A number of netizens attribute the ever-rising price of housing to the failure Wen's policies over the past decade. Other: - defend freedom of the press (捍卫新闻自由) - suppression of public opinion (舆论钳制) All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results. Browse all of CDT's collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet. CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese's latest sensitive words post. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: censorship, Internet censorship, Ministry of Truth, NPC 2013, Sensitive Words Series, weibo, Wen Jiabao Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Hopes Fade Over Sino-Japan Summit Posted: 05 Mar 2013 07:51 AM PST Amid claims that China is attempting to keep the peace at sea, a former defense ministry official has dampened speculation about a war between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands. From Xinhua: Tension behind China and Japan may currently be high amid some speculation of armed conflict between the nations, but Qian Lihua, a member of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said in an interview with Xinhua, "It is not rational or true that China and Japan are doomed to fight a war. "A military solution is the last resort to settle problems. We should not talk about war and military actions in such a careless way when the two countries just have problems." China values its relations with Japan and has always targeted settling disputes peacefully through dialogue, said Qian, who used to head the foreign affairs office under the Ministry of National Defense. "Once we sit down and talk, there will always be a way out," the official added. Despite these claims, tensions continue as Japanese automakers post lower sales in China. Another Xinhua article reports that National People's Congress spokesperson, Fu Ying, blames Japan for the current dispute: However, "one hand alone can't clap," Fu said, quoting a Chinese proverb to indicate that Japan has failed to engage in negotiations. She said the Japanese government's move to "purchase" part of the Diaoyu Islands last year went against the consensus reached by the two countries, which in turn shook China's basis for maintaining restraint. "If the other party chooses to take tougher measures and abandon consensus, 'it is impolite not to reciprocate,' as another Chinese proverb says," she said. "We wish Japanese society and all sides could listen attentively to the voice of the Chinese people and put what happened in the past and what is happening now in perspective, so the two countries find a basis for the dialogue," said Fu. While the dispute remains unsolved, China's envoy to Japan, Cheng Yonghua, said that a high-level summit between the top leaders of the two nations is unlikely. From The South China Morning Post: "The atmosphere facing bilateral ties between the two countries is at a very critical point now," Cheng said on the sidelines of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference annual session on Sunday. "There are no plans now to hold a high-level bilateral summit between leaders of the two nations." Mainland observers said the island dispute's impact on bilateral exchanges was wide-ranging, so a high-level summit was unlikely in the coming months. "Some academics have also refused to attend conferences hosted by Japan," said Professor Da Zhigang , an expert in Japanese affairs at the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences. "There is no official order banning us from participating in the events, but the atmosphere between the two nations has made it difficult for us. It is embarrassing if we criticise Japan, but it is also out of the question for us to support Japan." Anti-Japanese sentiment has also escalated due to the territorial dispute. According to the China Policy Institute Blog, China has handled these outbursts of anti-Japanese sentiment through appeasement and repression: Based on its foreign policy and domestic considerations, Beijing has adopted three different types of approach to public expressions of anti-Japanese sentiment and opinion: 1) tolerance or leniency, 2) tight control or suppression and 3) a two-pronged approach. When the political leadership had more incentive to burnish its nationalist credentials and appeared to lack internal consensus concerning the conduct of its relations with Japan, the authorities displayed a greater tolerance of or a more lenient attitude towards public anti-Japanese outbursts. However, when the leadership pursued a moderate and cooperative approach to Japan and had greater concerns about social stability, it sought to suppress or control anti-Japan public sentiment, voices and actions to avoid jeopardizing its efforts to maintain good relations with Japan as well as social stability. By contrast, when the leadership sought a tougher stance in the handling of dispute with Japan, it adopted a two-pronged approach to nationalist outpourings by selectively allowing (or tolerating) some mass anti-Japanese protests to increase pressure on Japan whilst simultaneously making efforts to avoid such outbursts from spiraling out of control. The authorities' suppression and tight control of nationalist sentiment has led to a narrowing of political opportunity for the nationalistic public to make their voices heard. However, Beijing's tolerance or selective allowance of anti-Japanese popular protests for its domestic and/or international gains caused the Chinese government itself to face a dilemma by leading to a widening of political opportunity for the public to affect the government's policy towards Japan. Anti-Japanese popular nationalism was able to play a greater role in China's approach towards Japan when the public took advantage of the political opportunity created by the authorities' tolerance to express their nationalist feelings and opinions in a collective way and to push Beijing into displaying a more assertive stance in the handling of relations with Japan. Dispite efforts by the Chinese authorities to ease them, anti-Japanese sentiment in China still remains quite strong, which significantly limits Beijing's available options to ease tensions over the territorial row. By appearing too keen to re-engage with Japan, Beijing may suffer a backlash from an angry public. There are few signs of the mounting tensions being defused so far. The diplomatic tit-for-tat between Beijing and Tokyo seems likely to continue until the two sides find a mutually acceptable resolution of the dispute which would save their faces in front of their peoples. Read more about the Diaoyu Islands dispute, via CDT. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: cheng yonghua, diaoyu islands, Fu Ying, Japan, maritime dispute, senkaku islands, territorial disputes Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

In Barcelona, Huawei Tells its Story Posted: 05 Mar 2013 03:11 AM PST Kevin O'Brien of The New York Times checks in from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where Huawei executive Ryan Ding has offered the press something the telecom giant has often avoided – access to its decision makers: "We hope that the more people know about Huawei, the more it will help us," Mr. Ding said through an interpreter in Huawei's crowded exhibition stand. "It is certainly a positive influence and help with our global business when we are open towards the government, media, customers and the general public." For Mr. Ding, a spry, 43-year-old, for Huawei and perhaps for China, now is the time to tell the company's story, instead of letting others do it for them. That is a priority for Huawei, which has been virtually shut out of the U.S. market, the world's biggest for telecommunications equipment, because lawmakers are concerned about its links to the Chinese government and military. A recent spate of hacking incidents tied to the military has not helped its cause. Huawei denies that it is subsidized by the Chinese government and that its equipment poses a threat. The company says the U.S. blockade, encouraged last year by a congressional committee, is trade protectionism. © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013.