April 5, 2012 ZGBriefs is a condensation of news items gathered from published sources. ZGBriefs is not responsible for the content of these items nor does it necessarily endorse the perspectives presented. Get daily updates from ZGBriefs on Twitter @ZG_Briefs FEATURED ARTICLE Reason for Optimism in Policy Toward Chinese Christians (March 25, 2012, The Gospel Coalition, by Brent Fulton) Persistent reports of Christians in China being harassed, fined, detained, and oppressed through discriminatory policies often lead outside observers to conclude that the Chinese government is pursuing a concerted and consistent policy to restrict Christian activity and stem the growth of Christianity. While these troubling incidents remain a reality of life in China, a survey of the larger picture suggests that they are the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, there may be room for cautious optimism concerning future policy toward China’s Christians. GOVERNMENT POLITICS China tells Ai Weiwei no public trial for tax case (March 29, 2012, Reuters) Chinese authorities have told dissident artist Ai Weiwei he will not be given a public hearing to reconsider a 15 million yuan ($2.4 million) tax evasion penalty allegedly due from the company he works for, Ai said on Thursday, a move he denounced as “inconceivable”. Supporters of Ai, whose 81-day secret detention last year sparked an international outcry, have said the tax case is part of Beijing’s efforts to muzzle China’s most famous social critic. China arrests over coup rumours (March 31, 2012, BBC News) Chinese police have arrested six people and shut 16 websites after rumours were spread that military vehicles were on the streets of Beijing, officials say. The web posts were picked up last week by media outlets around the world, amid uncertainty caused by the ouster of top political leader Bo Xilai. The State Internet Information Office (SIIO) said the rumours had a “very bad influence on the public”. Two popular microblogs have temporarily stopped users from posting comments. Thousands march on liaison office (April 2, 2012, South China Morning Post) Scuffles broke out between police and activists as thousands of people took to the streets in protest yesterday against what they claimed was Beijing’s interference in Hong Kong’s chief executive election. Officers used pepper spray on activists who tried to break through barricades to get nearer the entrance of the compound in Western where Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong is located. Several activists, including legislator “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, were sprayed. A police spokesman said pepper spray was used twice and four demonstrators received warnings, but there were no arrests. One activist received first aid after being sprayed in the eye. Chinese billionaire linked to Bo Xilai detained (April 2, 2012, The Telegraph) Xu Ming, 41, is thought to have paid for Mr Bo’s son, Bo Guagua, to study at Harrow, Oxford and now Harvard, according to a report in the Shin Min Daily News, a Chinese overseas newspaper based in Malaysia. Mr Xu was China’s eighth richest man in 2005, according to Forbes, and one of its youngest billionaires, with a fortune of approximately 1.3 billion. His company, the Dalian Shide group, is a conglomerate that manufactures building materials, cars, and plastics. However, the Economy and Nation Weekly, a magazine affliated to Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, reported that Mr Xu was put under arrest on March 15, for economic crimes. China detains 22 after Inner Mongolia protest: group (April 3, 2012, Reuters) Chinese police detained 22 ethnic Mongolians after hundreds of them protested against the seizure of land in Inner Mongolia, an overseas rights group said on Tuesday, in the latest case of unrest in the vast and remote northern region. More than 80 police used “brutal force” on Monday to break up a demonstration by hundreds of Mongolians from Tulee village near the city of Tongliao, the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre said. HEALTH Diseases threaten economic growth (April 3, 2012, China Daily) China, the world’s biggest cigarette market, may suffer slower economic growth because of cancer and other chronic diseases that are hurting the labor force, Minister of Health Chen Zhu said. Non-communicable diseases which cause prolonged sickness are responsible for four out of five deaths in China, compared with about 63 percent globally, and absorb about 70 percent of the nation’s health spending, Chen said in an interview on Monday. Fighting the threat requires tighter scrutiny of the tobacco industry, linked to 1 million deaths in China, he said. China’s gross domestic product has grown an average 10 percent a year for the past three decades, transforming the nation into the world’s biggest exporter and replacing Japan as the second-biggest economy after the US. The same time, the country now counts more than 90 million diabetes and 120 million chronic kidney disease sufferers – the most in the world. EDUCATION / CULTURE Rare Chinese porcelain bowl sells for nearly $27 million (April 4, 2012, Yahoo News) A 900-year-old Chinese bowl has sold at an auction for nearly $27 million on Wednesday. The extremely rare item was only expected to receive a winning bid of about one-third the eventual total during a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong, Associated Foreign Press reports. The purchase by an anonymous bidder breaks the previous record for the most expensive ceramic bowl from the era. Sotheby’s says the bowl is from the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and easily tops a 2008 auction on a Guan Mallet Vase from the same era. “The Ruyao Washer is among the most sophisticated achievements in Chinese ceramics. Its appearance on the market has created enormous excitement,” Sotheby’s Asia deputy chairman Nicolas Chow said. Earlier estimates had the bowl going for about $10 million. SOCIETY Nation gets serious about seatbelt use (March 29, 2012, Xinhua) Traffic authorities have mounted a campaign to get people to use seatbelts to reduce fatalities on the road. A campaign initiated by three central government agencies requires that all commercial motor vehicles that use expressways have seatbelts installed. Currently, only 30 percent of commercial motor vehicles of passenger transport have seatbelts, according to the Ministry of Transport, one of the organizers. The campaign, lasting through the end of the year, will also include educating the public on passengers’ better chance of surviving crashes when they wear seatbelts. Seatbelt use will be checked on long-haul buses before they can depart. Taiwan doubles quota for solo Chinese tourists (April 1, 2012, AFP) Taiwan will double its quota of independent Chinese tourists to allow up to 1,000 visitors a day, the government announced Sunday less than a year after lifting a ban on solo travel from the mainland. The move, effective from April 28, will help promote friendship and tourism, the Taiwans Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement, adding that it to some extent, will also help stabilize and facilitate ties between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits. Travel between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland stopped at the end of a civil war in 1949. But the ban on solo Chinese travellers was lifted in June last year in a sign of warming ties between the two bitter rivals. Previously, mainland tourists had only been allowed to visit Taiwan as part of official tour groups amid fears the Chinese might overstay their visas to work illegally on the island. Government tallies indicate that as of March 26, more than 56,000 Chinese have visited Taiwan as individual tourists since the ban was lifted. China micro-blog comments back after rumour ‘clean up’ (April 3, 2012, BBC News) Services on two of China’s biggest micro-blogging sites are back after being part suspended three days ago. The companies that run the sites had stopped users commenting on other people’s posts, following rumours of a coup in Beijing. It was just one of a series of moves designed to quell the speculation.The rumours gained some credibility because of a crisis currently being played out at the top of China’s political system. The services were suspended on Twitter-equivalent micro-blogging sites run by Sina and Tencent last Saturday morning. This was done to allow a “concentrated clean-up” of comments about a coup, which had flown around the internet despite a lack of evidence. Chinese villagers clash with police in land-grab protests (April 3, 2012, The Guardian) Rural residents protesting against land grabs have clashed with police in north and south-west China, according to accounts posted online, in the latest cases to be sparked by one of the country’s most potent sources of unrest. Villagers in south-western Yunnan province were arrested and injured when police broke up a a three-day blockade of a highway over the suicide of a rubber farmer who complained her land had been illegally seized, according to an account posted by an unknown user. An officer at the Xishuangbanna police station confirmed that officers had dispersed farmers whose protest had blocked the road for several days last week, but said he did not know if there had been arrests and denied that anyone had been beaten. The local government could not be reached on Tuesday, a public holiday in China. Tibet to expand rural highway network (April 3, 2012, Xinhua) Southwest China’s Tibet autonomous region will invest heavily in constructing rural highways to provide road transportation to remote villages, local authorities said. A total investment of 3.11 billion yuan (494.2 million U.S. dollars) will be made, and 13,385 kilometers of rural highways will be built in three years, according to a statement issued by the regional department of transportation. The extended network will end the state of seclusion in 669 villages by linking them with highways, the statement said. Over 100 arrested for making new-type “gutter oil” (April 3, 2012, Xinhua) Chinese police said on Monday that they had arrested over 100 suspects for making a new type of “gutter oil” in a major food safety crackdown. “Gutter oil” previously refers to those oil illegally made by reprocessing waste oil or even leftovers from restaurants, and then marketed and re-used as cooking oil which had aroused grave public concerns. The new-type was made from dumped animal fat and then reprocessed into edible oil, said a statement issued by the Ministry of Public Security late Monday night. It noted that the special operation had shut down 13 underground workshop and seized over 3,200 tonnes of such new-type “gutter oil”. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei ordered to stop webcam project (April 4, 2012, BBC News) Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has turned off the four live webcams in his home following orders from the Chinese authorities. He installed the webcams on Tuesday to mark the anniversary of his 81 days of detention during a crackdown on political activists last year. The Chinese authorities called him on Wednesday afternoon ordering their removal, he said. Ai is currently fighting tax evasion charges related to his company. BUSINESS / ECONOMICS / TRADE Renminbi rate near ‘equilibrium’ (March 29, 2012, China Daily) The renminbi’s exchange rate is nearing “equilibrium”, a central bank researcher said on Wednesday, suggesting that the currency would be more likely to experience two-way fluctuation instead of the unilateral appreciation of previous years. “The Chinese economy is now rebalanced both internally and externally, with a fairly small trade surplus and a relatively low inflation rate, as well as a positive real interest rate,” Jin Zhongxia, director of the Financial Research Institute affiliated to the People’s Bank of China, wrote in an article for the China Financial News, which is run by the central bank. “This is a phenomenon rarely seen in the past decade,” Jin said, while regarding it as evidence that the renminbi exchange rate is now close to equilibrium after years of unilateral appreciation against the greenback. According to Jin, the yuan has gained 10 to 15 percent in real terms since the second half of 2008, and more than 30 percent since China introduced exchange reforms in 2005. Starbucks to Brew a Bigger China Pot (April 1, 2012, Wall Street Journal) Starbucks Corp. plans to triple the size of its work force and network of shops in China over the next three years, a top executive at the Seattle-based coffee chain said Sunday. The company currently has about 10,000 employees for more than 500 stores in China, said John Culver, head of China and Asia Pacific business at Starbucks. He said the company would accelerate growth in China, a country with thousands of years of tea culture, to capture the growing taste for coffee. China overtakes US as world’s biggest grocery market (April 3, 2012, The Guardian) China has overtaken the United States to become the world’s biggest market for grocery shopping, according to the latest report to underscore the country’s growing global economic dominance. The Chinese grocery sector will continue its fast growth over the next few years to hit almost 1tn by 2015, according to grocery industry researchers IGD. That trend brings opportunities for both Chinese and international retailers, but economists warn it will also put upward pressure on already high food prices. Driven by a growing population, a move to more expensive foods and robust economic growth, the Chinese grocery sector was worth 607bn at the end of 2011, while the US market slipped to second place at 572bn, IGD says in a report on Wednesday . The UK was the world’s ninth largest grocery market. The researchers forecast that China’s market will grow at twice the pace of the US to be worth 918bn by 2015. China eyes freer financial markets to boost yuan role (April 4, 2012, BBC News) China, the world’s second-largest economy, is looking to increase investment and competition in its financial and banking sectors. On Tuesday, it almost tripled the amount that international fund managers can invest in China to $80bn (50bn). At the same time, Premier Wen Jiabao told China National Radio that the monopoly of state-owned banks needed to be broken. The shift may boost growth and create a more international Chinese currency. Analysts have long said that opening up its financial markets was key to Beijing’s efforts of pushing the yuan as an alternative to the US dollar as a global reserve currency. China’s People’s Daily news portal launches $84 mln Shanghai IPO (April 4, 2012, Reuters) The online news portal of Chinese government mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, has launched an initial public offering in Shanghai, aiming to raise about 527 million yuan ($83.6 million). People.cn Co Ltd will sell 69.1 million shares through the IPO, it said in its prospectus posted on the Shanghai stock exchange website late on Wednesday.The proceeds will be used to upgrade technology, deliver news on mobile platforms and strengthen its editorial team. The company will set the IPO price range on April 17 and the final pricing will be announced on April 20, it said. ENVIRONMENT / TECHNOLOGY New subway line to open in Beijing in 2012 (March 31, 2012, Shanghai Daily) Beijing will open a new subway line by the end of 2012, municipal transportation authorities said today. The first phase of Line 6, which will run through the city’s central business district parallel to Line 1, will be 31 km long with 30 stations, according to Zhang Chengman, a spokesman for Beijing Railway Construction and Management Co., Ltd. The line will operate on a trial basis in September and go into full service before the end of the year, Zhang said. China surpasses 1 billion mobile phone user base (March 31, 2012, Shanghai Daily) China reached a milestone last month when its mobile phone user base surpassed 1 billion but the 3G penetration rate was still low at about 14 percent, the industry regulator said yesterday. In the first two months of this year, China added 21 million new handset users to create a total of 1.01 billion mobile phone users, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said yesterday. The user base is double the combined population of the United States and Japan. The penetration rate of China, now at 73.6 percent, is still lower than that of the West, where it reaches over 90 percent or even above 100 percent, meaning some people have two or more phones. Fire raging in south China’s scenic spot (April 4, 2012, Xinhua) A fire has been raging in a scenic site in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region since Tuesday afternoon, threatening a nearby TV signal tower, local authorities said. The fire broke out at around 4 p.m. Tuesday in the Yaoshan Mountain, a tourist attraction in the regional capital Guilin, according to the municipal forest fire control headquarters. More than 200 people were sent to fight against the fire, but due to strong winds, the fire is still spreading, the headquarters said. LINKS TO DETAILED ARTICLES / ANALYSIS The Revenge of Wen Jiabao (March 29, 2012, Foreign Policy, by John Garnaut) The ouster of Chongqing boss Bo Xilai was 30 years in the makinga long, sordid tale of elite families and factions vying for the soul of the Chinese Communist Party. Violent Crimes in Chinas Hospitals Spread Happiness (March 29, 2012, Bloomberg, by Adam Minter) In 2006, the last year for which detailed records on patient-doctor violence was reported publicly (including violence perpetrated by patient family members and friends), the Chinese Ministry of Health stated that 5,519 medical personnel had been injured in disputesa substantial increase over previous years. And on March 29, the China Daily cited an official source who said that in 2010, 17,000 violent incidents took place, affecting roughly 70 percent of all public hospitals in China. Why so much violence against one of the caring professions? Chinese media, and microblogs, are filled with theories. Two Sides to Labor in China (March 30, 2012, The New York Times, by Keith Bradsher) Labor shortages are already so acute in many Chinese industrial zones that factories struggle to find enough people to operate their assembly lines. Factories often pay fees to agents who try to recruit workers arriving on long-haul buses and trains from distant provinces. Slideshow: In Rural China, a Preserved Dynastic Village (March 30, 2012, The New York Times) For Chinas driving test, be ready for almost anything (April 2, 2012, The Washington Post, by Keith B. Richburg) Okay, answer quickly: If you have to suddenly jump out of an overturning vehicle, in which direction do you jump? And once you hit the ground, whats the best way to roll? How China Steals Our Secrets (April 2, 2012, The New York Times, by Richard Clarke) Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., said cyber-attacks would soon replace terrorism as the agencys No. 1 concern as foreign hackers, particularly from China, penetrate American firms computers and steal huge amounts of valuable data and intellectual property. In China Press, Best Coverage Cash Can Buy (April 3, 2012, The New York Times, by David Barboza) Want a profile of your chief executive to appear in the Chinese version of Esquire? That will be about $20,000 a page, according to the advertising department of the magazine, which has a licensing agreement with the Hearst Corporation in the United States. Analysis: Low cost era over for China’s workshops to the world (April 4, 2012, Reuters, by Clare Jim and Jonathan Standing) And after years of squeezing the profit margins of contract manufacturers making the gadgets beloved by consumers worldwide, the time is drawing nearer when big brand names may have to forego some of their profits to overcome criticism their products are built off the back of mistreated Chinese workers. In China, Following in Footsteps of Reform (April 4, 2012, The New York Times, by Did Kirsten Tatlow) As the country grapples with its biggest political challenge in decades over the purge of Bo Xilai, the polarizing former Communist Party chief of Chongqing, ahead of changes in the top leadership, hidden forces in the party, military and economy battle over Chinas future. Into this brittle mix, Yu Jianrong, one of the countrys leading scholars, has dropped a detailed proposal for political reform. In pictures: Tomb-sweeping festival (April 4, 2012, BBC News) The God of Gamblers (April 9, 2012, The New Yorker, by Evan Osnos) Why Las Vegas is moving to Macau. BLOG POSTS Western movies in Chinese translation (March 19, 2012, MandMx.com) Top 20 most affluent cities in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen not on list (March 30, 2012, Offbeat China) The Dams of Chongqing (March 30, 2012, Passport) Yesterday, however, ground was broken in Chongqing for development of the Xiao Nan Hai power station. A massive cascade of at least 14 dams is now slated for construction between Tiger Leaping Gorge and Three Gorges Dam. How can this happen? The reason is that in late 2011, the boundaries of the national fish reserve were moved upstream, in spite of the protests of Chinese environmental groups and a series of critical articles in state-run media. Talking with a female massage worker in Changsha, Hunan (March 31,2012, Bytes of China) She uses a feature Nokia phone & only texts on it. She bought a laptop so that she could chat with her husband when he goes to the Internet cafe. She uses wifi from another office downstairs. Senior Care in China: Challenges and Opportunities (China Business Review) China’s changing demographics offer immense opportunities for foreign senior care providers, but a lack of clear government guidelines may hinder some investment plans. (Subscription required) Chinese Youth: A Quick Q and A with Mary Bergstrom (April 3, 2012, The China Beat) JW: Youve been tracking trends relating to Chinese youth for years now, so what do you think are three things readers outside of China might not know about young people in the PRC that they should? Or tend to get wrong about this population? MB: 1. Chinese youth are not just like or on the way to becoming Japanese or American (or any other population). Han Han Finds Limits of New Weibo Freedom(April 3, 2012, China Real Time Report) In just his second post since firing up his long-dormant Sina Weibo account earlier in the week, bad boy blogger and race car driver Han Han took umbrage at the notion that the comment shutdown, which also affected users of Tencent Holdings microblogging service, was motivated by political rumors. Chinas Twitter Comes Roaring Back After Government Blackout (April 3, 2012, Tea Leaf Nation) And netizens have responded by the millions to express their thoughts and breathe a collective sigh of relief. Gifts are contracts: an explanation of the rising murder rate of Chinese doctors (April 3, 2012, Asia Healthcare Blog The cause in fact of violence against doctors is the breach of gift giving etiquette. Poor healthcare conditions are a secondary matter that contribute to general dissatisfaction, but by themselves would not be enough to create the sort of uptick in violence that were witnessing. SEE IT: Worlds longest and highest tunnel-to-tunnel suspension bridge built in China (April 3, 2012, NY Daily News) The longest and highest tunnel-to-tunnel suspension bridge in the world has finally opened, linking two cities in southern China. The Aizhai Suspension Bridge stretches 3,858 feet between a tunnel in Chadong and another in Jishou. It cuts the travel time of the trip between the two cities down from several days to just eight hours. Signs of a New Tiananmen in China (April 4, 2012, The Diplomat) Pervasive corruption, lawlessness among the ruling elites, and a sense of a loss of direction are permeating all levels of Chinese society. The conditions for another Tiananmen may be there. Jet-Setters in China: A Rising Class of Super Rich Consumers Could Spark a New Luxury Market (April 4, 2012, Worldcrunch) With the opening up of China’s low-altitude domestic airspace, which should happen within the next decade, and the fact that China is the world’s fastest growing market for luxury goods and largest spending power, private jets represent a huge potential market. Video: Half a million Chinese applicants flood US graduate schools (April 4, 2012, Shanghaiist) Dow Jones Newswires reporter Michelle Korn on the growing tide of Chinese students applying for enrollment at American graduate schools. The meaning of Qingming (April 4, 2012, Tea Leaf Nation) Netizens tweeted on a wide variety of matters, with a substantial portion tweeting about the memories of their departed loved ones and just as many sharing pictures from their recent springtime outings. The anatomy of a coup rumor (April 5, 2012, Analects) At nine o’clock in the morning on March 19th, financial journalist Li Delin tweeted on his account on Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblog, about unusually heavy traffic control on Beijings central east-west thoroughfare, Changan Boulevard. ARTICLES IN CHINESE (March 17, 2012, Gospel Times) (April 4, 2012, Gospel Times) 90 (March 30, 2012, Gospel Times) RESOURCES FOR RESEARCHERS Addressing US-China Strategic Distrust (Brookings) Politics and the PLA: Securing Social Stability (March 30, 2012, China Brief, by Dennis J. Blasko) RESOURCES East and West: The idiosyncrasies of two cultures (Scribd) Baojiayin Mobile App Good News in China (Baojiayin English site) OPPORTUNITY Leadership Camp (Cedarville University) We are excited to welcome 30 select high school students from China to the Cedarville University Summer Leadership Camp and Educational Tour of Washington, D.C. Led by top University faculty, this academic program will be rigorous, innovative, and hands-on. Students will strengthen their cross-cultural communication skills, practice problem-solving, and enjoy creative learning projects. Field trips and social gatherings will reinforce lessons from the classroom and provide outstanding opportunities to build relationships with new friends. ZGBriefs is a weekly compilation of the news in China, condensed from published sources and emailed free-of-charge to more than 6,000 readers in China and abroad. ZGBriefs brings you not only the most important stories of the week, but also links to blogs, commentaries, articles, and resources to help fill out your understanding of what is happening in China today. Coverage includes domestic and international politics, economics, culture, and social trends, among other areas. Seeking to explore all facets of life in China, ZGBriefs also includes coverage of spiritual movements and the role of religious believers and faith-based groups in China. The publication of ZGBriefs is supported by readers who find this weekly service useful. Click to view this email in a browser If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply to this message with “Unsubscribe” in the subject line or simply click on the following link: Unsubscribe Click here to forward this email to a friend ChinaSource PO Box 2160 Orange, California 92859 US
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