David Cameron meets Dalai Lama, hurts feelings of the Chinese people

Posted on 2012-05-16 by Allison Carol Goldman

May 16, 北京晨报

The Beijing Morning Post is a commercial daily under the Beijing Daily Press Group, controlled by municipal authorities. Today’s front page features the following assortment of headlines: “China strongly condemns the British Prime Minister’s meeting the Dalai Lama”, “Subsidized housing that is being rented out or left idle must be reported” and “Electronic passports have arrived!”

In the first article, the newspaper reports that China’s Vice-Foreign Minister, Song Tao, held an emergency meeting with the British Ambassador to express the nation’s opposition to Prime Minister David Cameron meeting the Dalai Lama in London on May 14. This was done despite China’s repeated attempts to prevent it, and flies in the face of the countries’ bilateral relations. It represents a serious interference within China’s internal affairs, undermined China’s core interests, and “hurt the Chinese people’s feelings,” Song complained. (See Mapping the hurt feelings of the Chinese people for a history of similar hurtful acts by various countries.)

The next headline, which announces that those receiving subsidized housing must report to the government if they lease out or do not inhabit their apartments. This announcement is probably connected to a recent government initiative to extend subsidized housing to another 130,000 Beijing households by 2015. The article states that those receiving subsidized housing can expect regular home visits and routine inspections to make sure they are using the housing as intended. Any violation, such as selling, lending, renting, or leaving the apartment empty will be reported to the Municipal Housing Commission. Tenants will also have to report changes to their income, assets, or status of other family members in a timely manner.

The featured photo shows an immigration official holding up an example of China’s new standard passports (ie: not diplomatic or fancy in any way). As of today, the Ministry of Public Security will begin issuing these passports, equipped with an embedded electronic chip that stores information on the bearer’s name, date of birth, photograph and other details. It will also contain records of the person’s fingerprints and signature. These new e-passports will provide increased security and will allow for self-clearance, so the bearer can just swipe his passport and walk through immigration.

Links and Sources
Beijing Morning Post: 中方强烈谴责英首相见达赖 ; 经适房闲置或出租 物业须上报 ; 电子护照来了！
Danwei: Beijing to provide subsidized housing to 130,000 households by 2015, Mapping the hurt feelings of the Chinese people

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Wang Yang: Look online for constructive feedback on governance

Posted on 2012-05-15 by Allison Carol Goldman

May 15 Dongguan Times

The Dongguan Times is a commercial daily affiliated with the Party news group in the southern manufacturing city of Dongguan. Today the front page features a picture of Wang Yang, Provincial Party Secretary of Guangdong Province and CPC Central Committee member. The headline is: “Wang Yang says online criticisms can help us lead with more clarity.”

Wang was recently reelected to the post of Guangdong Party Secretary, and yesterday was the first meeting of the new Provincial Standing Committee. In his opening speech, he told the new Standing Committee they must fulfill their responsibilities while making a collective effort to communicate online with those they govern.

Wang noted that Guangdong has one hundred million people living in it, and 63 million of them are online. These netizens encourage, support and, of course, criticize the government. Provincial leaders, Wang said, should make use of this feedback for cautious introspection, and deepen their online interaction with netizens to institutionalize the direction of development. Wang is known for developing the ‘Guangdong Model,’ a much more liberal alternative to the fallen Bo Xilai’s state-led, neo-Maoist ‘Chongqing Model’ of development. He made a splash across the Chinese blogosphere last week, when he commented that it was not the Party’s role to bestow happiness on the people.

****

Also on the front page: a food-safety story about the distribution of fake pig’s ears in Jiangxi province; and an article about a man who bombed a bank in hopes of robbing it. He was sentenced to death.

In the food-safety story, the Food Safety Office of Jiangxi Province apprehended a man for peddling fake pig’s ears made from a combination of gelatin and sodium oleate. Sodium oleate is slightly toxic, and will irritate the skin upon contact. If ingested in small doses, it will cause slight irritation to the mouth. In large doses, it can be lethal. The culprit was caught when someone ate one of the ears and noticed an unpleasant chemical taste.

In the second story, a man called Wang Hai, responsible for bombing the Wuhan branch of China Construction Bank, was sentenced to death. His two accomplices, Wang Wei, and Wang Anan were sentenced to 10 and 6 years in prison respectively. The three had started studying how to manufacture explosives together in 2010, and in July 2011 plotted to blow up a Bank’s armored car. By August, both Wang Wei and Wang Anan had backed out. Wang Hai carried out the December 2011 bombing solo. The homemade bombs were placed on the sidewalk and detonated by remote control when the bank’s armored car came to collect its cash box. Two people died in the explosion and 15 were injured. Wang Hai then grabbed the cash box and attempted to flee on a motorcycle.

Links and Sources
Dongguan Times: 汪洋：网友批评可便我们更清醒 , 武汉建行爆炸案主犯王海剑一审获死刑 , 江西公布人造猪耳检测结果 成分为明胶和油酸钠
Danwei: Wang Yang says its not the Party’s role to bestow happiness on the people
National Library of Medicine HSDB Database: Article on Sodium Oleate 

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China’s hospitals up security in the face of rising patient-to-doctor violence

Posted on 2012-05-14 by Allison Carol Goldman

May 14 Youth Daily

The China Youth Daily is a commercial daily run by the Communist Youth League. On the right hand side of today’s front page is a tiny headline: “how to restore the harmonious doctor-patient relationship,” along with a thumbnail picture of a medical worker learning self-defense from a policeman at the Women and Children’s Hospital, Ningbo City.  The article notes there have been several cases of patients killing doctors in the past few years. In response, the Ministry of Health has issued an emergency notice that requires health administrative departments at all levels to increase public security in hospitals and other medical institutions. Hospitals in particular must have a guard’s room equipped with helmets, shields, anti-stab vests and a long stick.

A number of cases have recently emerged where patients violently attack medical personnel at hospitals across China, because they are unsatisfied with the treatment received. Today, China Daily reported that a woman tried to stab an emergency-room nurse at a hospital in Nanjing, because she believed herself to be suffering from negative consequences of a caesarean operation she’d undergone at the hospital 16 years earlier. Other recent examples of patient-to-doctor violence include an April 13 incident, where a patient named Lu Fuke stabbed two Beijing doctors in the neck; and a case in Harbin, where a seventeen year-old patient named Li Mengnan stabbed one hospital intern to death and injured three other staff members, because he felt he had not received immediate care.

The China Youth Daily offered several reasons for the deterioration of the doctor-patient relationship in China. Most of these related to the long waits and high costs of most medical visits. Corruption also plays a role: doctors will commonly over-prescribe drugs, or unnecessarily prescribe the most expensive drugs, in order to supplement their own incomes through kickbacks. According to several of the experts interviewed in the article, one of the largest problems plaguing the system is that doctors’ legitimate incomes are not high enough; and their grey incomes are much higher.

The mandate for increased security is just the latest in a slew of reforms intended ease tension at hospitals, including stricter punishments for hospital ticket-scalpers that came out last week.

Links and Sources
中国青年报： 和谐医患如何回归  
China Daily: today’s article on hospital stabbing
Danwei:  article on increased punishments for hospital ticket-scalpers

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1.8 trillion yuan changed hands in 3 months of Chinese e-commerce

Posted on 2012-05-13 by Jeremy Goldkorn

淘宝网

Last week Deutsche Bank sent out an email summarizing some numbers about the Chinese Internet from iResearch, a firm that regularly releases stats and information about the Internet economy. Here are some of the numbers from iResearch:

• The growth rate of the Chinese internet economy in the first quarter of 2012 was 68.5%;
• Online video revenues for the same period grew to 1.8 billion yuan (79% year on year growth) • The mobile internet economy grew 167% year on year to 15.9 billion yuan, driven by mobile ads and games;
• The online advertising market expanded 58% year on year to 14.1 billion yuan (but was down 14% quarter on quarter)
• The top four B2C sites are Taobao (52% market share), 360buy (23%), Amazon (4%), and QQbuy / QQ mall, Tencent’s B2C platform (3%).

To this observer, the number that stood out was this: China’s e-commerce market transaction volume totaled 1.8 trillion yuan in the first quarter of 2012. That number would scare me if I was in the business of building shopping malls.

Links and sources
iResearch
Globe and Mail: It’s bricks v. clicks as China’s retail war intensifies

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China apprehends Waxy Kang, a prominent drug lord in the Mekong River

Posted on 2012-05-11 by Allison Carol Goldman

May 11 Youth Daily

The China Youth Daily is a commercial daily newspaper run by the Communist Youth League. Today the front page features a picture of Waxy Kang (Nuo Kang 糯康), a prominent drug lord in the notorious ‘Golden Triangle’ area of the Mekong River, being escorted off a plane to Beijing by Chinese authorities. The headline reads, “Waxy Kang, the main culprit behind the Mekong murder was escorted to Beijing.” The Mekong murder refers to an incident last October where a group of renegade Thai soldiers supposedly colluded with Kang’s group to hijack two Chinese merchant ships and kill 13 of the crewmembers.

According to the article, Kang is accused of murder, as well as trafficking illicit drugs, kidnapping, robbery, extortion and several other violent crimes. He was sought after by China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand in a joint effort to fight transnational crime, and was finally apprehended along with several of his group members, through cooperation by Laos, Burma and Thailand police. He has now been transferred into Chinese custody, and will be tried according to Chinese laws.

Also on the front page, on the top left, is a headline that Nanjing plans to launch an initiative to encourage entrepreneurship among college students. According to the article, the Nanjing Municipal Government announced the implementation of its “Million Young Collegiate Business Plan,” which intends to support 10,000 students to start their own businesses, and thereby promote the employment of 50,000 people by 2015.

Links and Sources
China Youth Daily: 湄公河血案主犯糯康被押解到京, 南京实施万名青年大学生创业计划
World News Forum: An article on last year’s Mekong murders

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Wang Yang says its not the Party’s role to bestow happiness on the people

Posted on 2012-05-10 by Allison Carol Goldman

Picture 4

The Southern Metropolis Daily is a Guangdong-based newspaper with a big print circulation in its home province, and a wide national audience online. The front page headline today is: “At the Party Congress, Wangyang said we must let go of the false idea that the party and government are responsible for providing people’s happiness.” This has been circulated all over the Chinese Internet since last night, when it first appeared.

Wang Yang is the Provincial Party Secretary of Guangdong Province, and a member of the CPC Central Committee. He is the representative of what has been called the “Guangdong Model’. In contrast to Bo Xilai’s state-led, neo-Maoist ‘Chongqing Model,’ Wang’s way is seen as more private enterprise-friendly and politically liberal.

What has got Chinese netizens so excited about this headline is the idea that a government official is finally acknowledging it is not the government’s role to give and take happiness like a feudal ruler.

The Southen Metropolis Daily is generally liberal, but it is controlled by the Guangdong provincial government. The fact that it chose to highlight this particular comment is significant: The comment itself was just a small feature of Wang Yang’s speech, which covered the standard topics in ordinary Partyspeak: persist with reform and opening up, continue scientific development, promote social harmony, and maintain the power of the Party. He highlighted a range of new accomplishments by the Guangdong government, but also assigned agency to the people themselves, saying, “reform and innovation must rely on the creation of the masses.”

Links and Sources
Southern Metropolis Daily:  汪洋在省党代会报告能出： 必须破除人民幸福是党和政府恩赐的错误认识
The New York Times: A comprehensive account of the recent Bo Xilai scandal

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Nanjing’s 30-somethings work themselves to death

Posted on 2012-05-09 by Allison Carol Goldman

Modern Express May 9

The Modern Express is a Jiangsu-based metro daily. Today’s front page featured the headline, “After continuously working overtime, a man in his 30s suffered sudden death.” The article describes how the man, who managed an international technology firm in Nanjing, recently suffered a sudden heart attack and died at the office. A reporter investigated the incident, and found that a growing number of young professionals are dying this way, because of overwork and high-pressure lifestyles. According to Qin Haidong, the Assistant Director of Emergency Calls at Nanjing No. 1 Hospital, the hospital has seen upwards of 30 cases of sudden death among 30-somethings since the beginning of April. Where these cases usually account for 10% of heart attack deaths, this year that percentage has risen to about 20%.

The China Medical Society has found that 60% of people working white-collar jobs suffer from overwork. They compiled a list of the top ten most overworked sectors. In order, these were: manufacturing, finance, education, media, law, IT, advertising, high-speed consumer service, and real estate.

Also on the front page was an article on a recent controversy over housing incentives in Yangzhou, that will be provided by the Provincial Real Estate Board. Officially, the incentives are designed to promote the completion of housing projects. Beginning on July 1, any personal purchase of a finished house will receive a refund of 4 to 6% in government subsidies. This is highly controversial since many people are questioning whether government funds should be used in this way. They are also skeptical of the true purposes behind the policy. As one interviewee put it: “If you can afford a 2 million yuan house, you don’t care about an 8000 yuan discount.”

Links and Sources:
现代快报：长期连续加班30岁的外企经理猝死 ； 买成品房有奖励 

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Middle schoolers copy homework in McDonald’s: bad for learning and for business

Posted on 2012-05-07 by Allison Carol Goldman

may 7 chongqing evening news

The Chongqing Evening News is a commercial city newspaper affiliated to the Chongqing Daily Group. Today, the front page features the headline: “Middle school students hang out in fast food restaurants, copying each other’s homework.” The article explains how Chonqing students have taken to meeting up in fast food restaurants to do their homework, away from the watchful eyes of parents or teachers. According to Miss Liu, who reported the trend to the newspaper hotline, the fast food restaurants surrounding a certain middle school, including a McDonald’s, KFC and Dicos, are packed with students every weekend. They take up 2-3 seats while slowly sipping on a coke and copying their homework. This, she says, is not conducive to learning, and is also bad for business.

A reporter went to the McDonald’s Miss Liu complained about to followed up, and sure enough, found students hanging out, copying answers off each other and discussing how best to disguise their answers to make the plagiarism discrete.

The reporter then asked a group of parents what they think of the phenomenon. The parents said copying homework is a form of self-deception, and that the problem runs very deep: students routinely go online to Baidu to find answers. It seems students enjoy the laid-back atmosphere of fast food joints, where they can eat and work comfortably; the phenomenon of copying is unrelated to the environment.

***

Also on the front page is the headline: “The countdown has begun: 30 days until the College Entrance Examination.” The College Entrance Examination (gaokao 高考)is given once a year to students across Mainland China, and is the single deciding factor as to what university students will go to, as well as their major. If a student is sick that day, or freezes during the test, they have to wait a full year to take it again. It is highly competitive and extraordinarily stressful. The article discusses what studying strategies are best in these last thirty days leading up to the test.

Links and Sources
Chongqing Evening News: 高考倒计时30天 , 中学生扎堆快餐店互相抄作业(组图)

See also ChinaSMACK: Chinese Students Get IV Drips While Studying for Gaokao Exam

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Clowning around in the media

Posted on 2012-05-05 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Clown - Beijing News

On Friday May 4, the Chinese media dramatically broke its silence on the saga of blind activist Chen Guangcheng with a series of opinion pieces, some sniffy, and some laced with the toxic vocabulary of an organized campaign. The Beijing Daily, which is controlled by the Beijing city Communist Party authorities, accused Chen Guangcheng of being a tool and a pawn for American politicians. The article also calls U.S. ambassador Gary Locke a troublemaker who tries every way at his disposal to sully the Chinese government’s reputation, citing his nefarious Starbucks-drinking, backpack-wearing, air-quality-testing habits as examples of his plot to foment social discontent in China.

Even the Beijing News, a paper known for its independent mindset, published an editorial condemning the U.S. Embassy’s role. David Bandurski writing at the China Media Project website calls the Beijing News “a paper with a proud though brief tradition of professional journalism”. He also notes that the Beijing Newseditorial uses “less severe language than the Beijing Daily editorial”. Bandurski’s excellent summary of Chen’s dramatic entry into the Chinese establishment press is titled Behind the Beijing editorial onslaught.

Excerpt:

The editorials, which were all published in top newspapers under the control of Beijing’s city leadership, should be understood, in our view, as China’s attempt to send a strong message on the Chen Guangcheng case while dissociating this criticism from the Chinese state per se in the midst of bilateral meetings.

China Media Project has also published a good summary with translations of “a touching plea for forgiveness” for publishing the editorial that the Beijing News “posted on its Sina Weibo account late Friday night, which has more than 1.38 million followers”:

The Beijing News: a clown with a conscience
The post was accompanied by a black-and-white photo of a circus clown taking a sad and solitary drag on a cigarette, and read:

In the still of the deep night, removing that mask of insincerity, we say to our true selves, “I am sorry.” Goodnight.

The editorials were certainly noticed by many people in Beijing. This writer at least overheard some old men I pass every day in hutong on my cycling route to work discussing the case on the morning of Friday May 4.

Ordinary youth and the rule of law

They may also have seen it on TV: at least some news programs broadcast footage of Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Liu Weimin talking about Chen, including Liu’s memorable assertion that “China is a country under rule of law” (中方强调，中国是法治国家). This statement was roundly mocked in various places online, including this Netease page (screengrab at left), which gives Liu Weimin a ‘ordinary youth’ hero award for the rule of law remark. Netease also has video of Liu’s statements as shown on Dragon TV (东方卫视).

For an explanation of the ‘ordinary youth’ joke and reference, see this post on Ministry of Tofu: The Ordinary, the Artistic and the Idiotic (Putong, Wenyi and Erbi) – the hottest Internet meme happening now in China.

Links and sources

China Media Project
The Beijing News: a clown with a conscience
Behind the Beijing media onslaught

The Beijing News
外交官不能逾越自己的本分

The Global Times
陈光诚和美馆都应保持角色清醒

Beijing Youth Daily
“作秀”无助于维护中美关系大局

Tencent
北京多家媒体评陈光诚事件 点名批评美驻华大使

Netease
英雄帖 – 普通青年
video of Liu Weimin statements
comments on video

China Daily
One-man show just a distraction
Chen Guangcheng reportedly hopes to study abroad
Stop misleading Chen Guangcheng comments, US urged

Global Times
US embassy in a quandary over Chen
China demands US apology on Chen Guangcheng’s entering US embassy
US to arrange for Chen to pursue overseas studies
Chinese media takes nuanced view of Chen case
Chen trump for US in human rights game

Tiannong
陈光诚事件是美国反华战略对中国农村的渗透

The Daily Show
Jon Stewart on Chen Guangcheng

China Daily Show
Following Spring Break, Chen Guangcheng to endure grueling Phi Kappa Delta hazing ritual

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Beijing to provide subsidized housing to 130,000 households by 2015

Posted on 2012-05-04 by Allison Carol Goldman

March 4 Star Daily

The Beijing Daily Messenger, formerly known as the Star Daily, is a weekday newspaper distributed on the Beijing subway. Today’s top headline says, “In three years, 130,000 households will receive subsidized housing by the city.” According to the Municipal Housing Commission, there are 270,000 households in Beijing in need of housing subsidies. 140,000 have already received help, and the city plans to provide subsidies to the remaining 130,000 by 2015. The city also plans to provide housing-rental subsidies to 100,000 families, and complete 700,000 units of affordable housing in various forms over the next three years.

The policies come jointly from Beijing’s Municipal Housing Commission and the Municipal Development and Reform Committee in accordance with their “Bejing Municipality “12th five-year plan” housing guarantee plan,” which seeks to increase affordable housing for city residents. The article reports that the city will expand the supply of public rental housing by 60% during the current five-year period, which will raise the number of affordable housing units to 300,000.

The featured picture was taken yesterday, at a meeting of the Beijing Municipal Publicity Department. The meeting discussed plans for a public celebration of “Tiananmen Square,” which has been present for 3,000 years of Beijing history. Olivia Chen, pictured second from the left, is head of the Beijing Performing Arts group. She will direct the large-scale festival of music, dance, poetry and painting that will be unveiled on May 16.

Links and Sources:
北京信报： 13万家庭3年住上保障房 ，《天安门》弘扬北京精神

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