Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[Edward Campbell]

This, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, from this morning's Globe and Mail should give us pause to wonder about the purported drive for sovereignty by Taiwan:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080112.wtaiwanelection0112/BNStory/International/home

Taiwan opposition wins landslide

PETER ENAV

Associated Press

January 12, 2008 at 9:20 AM EST

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party won a landslide victory in legislative elections Saturday, dealing a humiliating blow to the government's hard-line China policies two months before a presidential poll.

President Chen Shui-bian, who has been criticized for aggravating relations with China by promoting policies to formalize Taiwan's de facto independence, resigned as chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party immediately after the extent of the defeat became clear.

“I should shoulder all responsibilities,” Mr. Chen said. “I feel really apologetic and shamed.”

Critics say Mr. Chen's policies have allowed Taiwan's once vibrant economy to lose competitiveness and ratcheted up tension in the perennially edgy Taiwan Strait. Washington has made it clear it finds Mr. Chen's China policies dangerous and provocative — particularly a planned referendum on Taiwanese membership in the United Nations, which appears designed to underscore the island's political separateness from the mainland.

A March 22 presidential election to chose a successor to Mr. Chen, who must step down after eight years in office, pits Frank Hsieh of Mr. Chen's Democratic Progressive Party against the Nationalists' Ma Ying-jeou. Recent opinion polls give Mr. Ma a 20-point lead.

The DPP wants to formalize the independence Taiwan has had since an inconclusive civil war nearly 60 years ago, but has held off out of fears that China would make good on threats to attack. In contrast, the Nationalists favour more active engagement with China and do not rule out eventual unification.

With most votes counted, TV station San Li projected the Nationalists would win 82 seats in the 113-seat Legislature, against only 27 for the DPP, with four going to independents. In Taiwan's bitterly partisan media environment, San Li is a strong DPP supporter.

Speaking at Nationalist headquarters in Taipei, Mr. Ma said the party had won 81 seats — enough to give it a three-quarters majority together with four pro-Nationalist independents — but cautioned against overconfidence.

“We need to be cautious about the presidential poll, and hopefully we can win,” he said. “With a Nationalist presidency and Nationalist-controlled legislature, we can push forward the reform expected by the Taiwanese people.”

If the Nationalists do go on to recapture the presidency, they will be in a strong position to end years of deadlock between Taiwan's legislative and executive branches, and stabilize the island's rocky relations with China. In Taiwan's bitterly partisan media environment, San Li is a strong DPP supporter and offered the most conservative assessment of the Nationalist sweep.

Shelley Rigger, a Taiwan specialist at North Carolina's Davidson College, said in order for Mr. Hsieh to win the presidency, he must distance himself from Mr. Chen, who has grown increasingly unpopular after a series of corruption scandals and a sputtering economy.

“He needs to convince people that he is different from the rest of the party,” Ms. Rigger said.

During Mr. Chen's two terms as president, the Nationalists used a slender legislative majority to block many of his policy initiatives, including the purchase of a multibillion-dollar package of American weapons. Also left stagnating have been negotiations to open direct air and shipping routes between Taiwan and China.

In the legislative campaign, Mr. Ma emphasized his message that Mr. Chen's reluctance to engage China inflamed tensions and hurt the island's economy — one of the 20 largest in the world and a major research and manufacturing base for the computer industry.

Mr. Ma also drew attention to American unhappiness with Mr. Chen's China policies. Twenty-nine years after it shifted recognition from Taipei to Beijing, the U.S. remains Taiwan's most important foreign partner, supplying it with the means to defend itself against any future Chinese attack.

In contrast to Mr. Ma, Mr. Hsieh maintained a relatively low profile in the legislative campaign, apparently because of his ambivalence over Mr. Chen's pro-independence stance.

Mr. Hsieh hews to the DPP's pro-independence line in principle, but has made it clear he rejects some of Mr. Chen's hard-line policies, including his moves to limit Taiwanese economic ties to the mainland.

He favours ditching Mr. Chen's requirement that Taiwanese companies limit investments in China to less 40 per cent of their asset value. He has also indicated a willingness to expand direct charter flights across the Taiwan Strait.

Mr. Ma and the Nationalists go considerably farther. They want to remove the asset requirement altogether, and sanction scheduled flights between China and Taiwan.

China's government did not immediately react, but was likely to be comforted by the election results.

“The election will have a positive impact, benefiting stability across the Taiwan Strait,” said Yu Keli, head of the Taiwan Studies Institute, a Chinese government-backed think tank in Beijing. “The Taiwanese electorate has delivered a no-confidence vote on Chen Shui-bian.”

But, a split administration - a "sovereignist" president held in check by a pro-Chinese legislature - might satisfy many Taiwanese. 

 

[CougarKing]

Mr. Campbell,

I am actually a little bit surprised by this Guo Min Dang victory, and just weeks before Chinese New Year- a good omen for them?  ;D

I don't think I overestimated the DPP's pro-independence appeal among both the benshengren; it can be inferred that perhaps all those recent scandals such as those that involved Chen-Shui Bian's brother-in-law and Chen's First Lady were among the many things that made their party less appealing, aside from the fact that cooler, more pragmatic heads who are more worried about NOT being invaded for simply declaring independence and about the economy.

Poor "Ah-Bian"...as the Taipei locals affectionately call him, partially because he was their former mayor, if I can recall correctly.

 

[Kirkhill]

Just curious - Who would the Taiwanese vote for if they wanted both the Weapons Package AND More Flights and Trade?  Is that an option?

 

[CougarKing]

Just curious - Who would the Taiwanese vote for if they wanted both the Weapons Package AND More Flights and Trade?   Is that an option?

For BOTH, of course, you'd want the Nationalists/Guo Min Dang of course. But they've already been doing more trade since the 1980s, during the rule of President Chiang-Ching Kuo, the son of Chiang-Kai Shek, who began all these conciliatory gestures at opening trade links/waishengren family visits to the mainland before he died, although there were no DIRECT trade and postal links between mainland China and Taiwan before March 21, 2000, if I can recall correctly, since prior to that, Hong Kong had to be the conduit for all Taiwanese trade and other links to the mainland; I've also heard something about there being talks to restart direct air routes between Taiwan and the mainland without having to go all the way to Hong Kong for a layover anymore, regardless if their destination in the mainland was Beijing or Qingdao or even Xian!

 

[CougarKing]

The GPD and Xinhua are at it again, trying to downplay the PLA's buildup, even if this article was from a US site.

:

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,159976,00.html?wh=news

Chinese General Downplays Buildup
Associated Press  |  January 14, 2008
BEIJING - China's top general sought to allay U.S. concerns Monday about his country's military buildup, but defended a decision late last year to deny Hong Kong port calls by an American aircraft carrier and other navy ships.

Gen. Chen Bingde, in charge of day-to-day operations for the 2.3 million-member People's Liberation Army, offered no new explanations as to why Beijing turned away the U.S. ships, a move that sparked consternation at the Pentagon.

"The distance between China and U.S. militaries is big. ... We don't have the ability to make you afraid of us," Chen, chief of the general staff, said at the beginning of talks at the Defense Ministry with Adm. Timothy Keating, the top U.S. commander in the Asia-Pacific region.
Keating, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, was making his first trip to China since Beijing turned away the USS Kitty Hawk and five ships accompanying it for a Hong Kong port call in November. The same week, two U.S. Navy minesweepers also were turned away after seeking shelter during a storm.

"China is a country with its own territory. If your ship wants to stop by in Hong Kong you have to follow the international rules and go through some procedures," Chen told Keating.
He did not say whether the ships had failed to follow proper procedures, but said they were welcome to make port calls in the future.

China hinted at the time that its actions were triggered by the U.S. Congress' honoring of the Dalai Lama and U.S. arms sales to China's rival Taiwan. China views the Dalai Lama - a spiritual leader to Tibetans - as being intent on separating Tibet from China. Beijing considers self-governing Taiwan a breakaway province that it hopes to reclaim.
Keating's Hawaii-based Pacific Command oversees a vital strategic area for the U.S., including busy trade routes that feed China's booming economy and the potentially unstable Taiwan Strait, a 100-mile-wide body of water that divides Taiwan from the mainland.

U.S. politicians and military leaders have voiced worries about China's rapidly rising military spending and the country's secretiveness about its military aims. Beijing has overseen double-digit percentage growth in its military spending annually for the past decade.

Keating was scheduled to go to Shanghai on Tuesday and then southern Guangdong province to visit a military base there.

Still, if one looks at the biography of General Chen Bingde (陈炳德), one may get a better idea of whether this current leader of the PLA GSD will be more of a party sycophant or a real, professional soldier.

http://www.chinavitae.com/biography/Chen_Bingde/career

The above link shows that he spent most of his time with combat arms units-especially the infantry- before going through a number of high positions that included the Director of the GAD and later one of his current positions/hats: the head of the PLA's GSD/General Staff.

Biography
Chen Bingde, male, Han nationality, is a native of Nantong, Jiangsu Province. He was born in 1941 and holds the equivalent of a technical college degree. Chen joined the PLA in 1961 and the CPC in 1962.

A section chief of the Military Training Section, Chen was a division commander and deputy commander in the 1980s. He joined the Nanjing Military Region as chief of staff in 1985 and was promoted to major general in 1988.

A year after receiving his lieutenant general stars, Chen became the commander-in-chief of the Nanjing Military Region. He served concurrently as deputy secretary of the command's Party committee. A member of the 16th CPC Central Committee, Chen was made commander-in-chief of the Jinan Military Region in 1999. He became a member of the CPC Central Military Commission and Director-General of the PLA General Armaments Department in 2004.
In 2007, he became chief of the PLA Headquarters of the General Staff, a member of the 17th CPC Central Committee and a member of the 17th CPC Central Military Commission.]

 

[TCBF]

- Notice how, even with a population of over one billion, they STILL have on strength a soldier who joined in 1961.  Our HR Mil types could learn a lot by visiting China.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Chinese have a tradition of very old (senior) soldiers.

They respect (revere might be an appropriate word) age and experience - sometimes too much, perhaps.

Octogenarian generals were (are?) common in the Central Committee a few years ago - they were a shoo in if they had participated in the "Long March."  We might suggest that Deng Xiaoping owed part of his power base to being a "Long March" survivor - otherwise the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four (Mao's widow +) might have been able to have treated him more harshly.


Edit: spelling Deng Xiaoping

 

[CougarKing]

The Chinese have a tradition of very old (senior) soldiers.

They respect (revere might be an appropriate word) age and experience - sometimes too much, perhaps.

Octogenarian generals were (are?) common in the Central Committee a few years ago - they were a shoo in if they had participated in the "Long March."  We might suggest that Deg Xiaoping owed part of his power base to being a "Long March" survivor - otherwise the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four (Mao's widow +) might have been able to have treated him more harshly.

Mr. Campbell,

The reverence for age and experience goes a bit too far for the "paramount leader" of China with a kind of personality cult, as you well aware, as demonstrated with Mao Zedong and to a much more limited extent with Deng Xiaoping; a similar personality cult arose in North Korea with Kim Il Song when he was still alive, and obviously with his son Kim Jong Il. However, I have not observed or seen any instances where Dr. Sun Yat Sen or Generalisimo Chiang Kai-Shek were revered as almost "deity-like" as with the other two countries, even if Dr. Sun can be argued to be the father of modern/Republican China before the main schism of Chinese history led to a diverging of paths between Mao's CCP and Chiang's GMD. I have heard of and seen statues and numerous portraits of both Sun and Chiang at memorial parks and I think govt. buildings when I used to study in Taiwan.

As for the idea of "octogenarian generals" or really old, senior generals within the PLA, I do not think that this is limited to China, since US Army General Douglas MacArthur was about 70 when he took part in the Korean War and I think that Field Marshal Paul Von Hindenburg of Germany and Marshal Carl Gustaf Mannerheim of Finland still served their respective nations in spite of their age.   

 

[CougarKing]

Ahh yes...the Spratleys island chain...the point of contention claimed by the PRC, ROC and a few other Southeast Asian nations in the region because of its supposedly rich oil deposits.

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20080123-114334/Taiwan-sends-military-aircraft-to-disputed-Spratlys

Taiwan sends military aircraft to disputed Spratlys
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 19:43:00 01/23/2008


TAIPEI -- Taiwan has for the first time sent a military aircraft to the disputed Spratly islands, a defence official said Wednesday, amid reports of a planned visit there by President Chen Shui-bian.
"The C-130 aircraft landed on the Taiping islet on Monday and returned to Taiwan later that day," the defense ministry official told Agence France-Presse without giving details.
The Taipei-based United Daily News said Wednesday Chen was planning a trip to the Spratlys before the March 22 presidential election to underscore Taipei's claim to the disputed archipelago in the South China Sea in a move expected to spark tensions in the region.

Presidential office spokesman Lee Nan-yang declined to confirm the planned visit and rejected speculation that it was aimed at drumming up support for Frank Hsieh, presidential candidate for the ruling pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Chen, who is to retire in May after eight years in office, planned to take an air force C-130 transport aircraft to the Taiping islet, the biggest island in the Spratlys, the newspaper said.

The trip, if it goes ahead, would likely lead to protests from neighboring countries -- including Taiwan's rival China -- which also lay claim to the islands, the daily said.

Taiwan's defense ministry began building a 1,150-meter (3,795-feet) runway on the fortified Taiping islet in mid-2006, despite protests from Vietnam, and the project has been completed, the paper said.

Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, China, Malaysia, and the Philippines claim all or part of the potentially oil-rich Spratlys.
All claimants except Brunei have troops based on the archipelago of more than 100 islets, reefs and atolls, which have a total land mass of less than five square kilometers (two square miles).

The DPP suffered a humiliating defeat in parliamentary elections on January 12, with the main opposition Kuomintang and its smaller allies winning 86 of 113 seats. Chen immediately resigned as DPP chairman.

Yes, Mr. Chen...way to "build cooperation" by emphasizing ROC/Taiwan sovereignty over the area by going there during the last week before Chinese New Year; that'll really show you really want to reconcile with the mainland or seek diplomatic recognition for the ROC from other neighbours.   :

 

[CougarKing]

Ahh yes...Beijing wants the satellite shootdown data from the US DoD.  :

What hypocrites! They want info on the US shootdown when the PRC government themselves didn't provide advanced info. on their own satellite shootdown not too long ago, even when the US officials requested it. In contrast, a lot of advance warning was given by the US government on the satellite downing over the past week.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,162524,00.html?wh=news

China Wants US Satellite Downing Data
Associated Press  |  February 21, 2008
BEIJING - China asked the U.S. to release data on the shootdown of an ailing spy satellite, while the Communist Party's newspaper blasted what it called Washington's callous attitude toward the weaponization of space.

China registered its objections well before the satellite's destruction by a missile launched from a Navy cruiser on Wednesday, which likely accounted for a mild response Thursday from the Foreign Ministry.
 
"China is continuously following closely the possible harm caused by the U.S. action to outer space security and relevant countries," spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a regularly scheduled news conference.
"China requests the U.S. ... provide to the international community necessary information and relevant data in a timely and prompt way," Liu said.

In contrast, the overseas edition of People's Daily excoriated Washington for opposing a recent Russian-Chinese proposal on demilitarizing space.

"One cannot but worry for the future of space when a great nation with such a massive advantage in space military technology categorically refuses a measure to prevent the militarization of space," the paper said.

Washington has rejected the Russian-Chinese proposal for a global ban on space arms because it would prohibit an American missile interceptor system in the Czech Republic and Poland, while exempting Chinese and Russian ground-based missiles that can fire into space.

China's official Xinhua News Agency on Thursday reported the satellite downing without comment, while a Defense Ministry spokesman, who identified himself only by his surname, Ji, said no statement on the issue would be forthcoming.

China's objections signal its skepticism over whether the satellite downing was truly necessary and unease over apparent U.S. mastery of a key military technology that Beijing is also pursuing. They also appear aimed at turning the tables on U.S. criticism of Beijing's own shootdown of a defunct Chinese satellite last year.

"The concern is whether the U.S. version of the story is true: Whether that satellite is indeed failing and out of control and if this kind of missile shooting is the best way to remove the threat," said Shen Dingli, an America watcher at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Or, he said, the reasons could be a pretext for an anti-satellite weapons test.

Unlike Beijing, which gave no notice before using a missile to pulverize a disabled weather satellite in January 2007, Washington discussed its plans at length and insisted it was not a test.

Subsequent requests by U.S. officials for more information were ignored and none of Beijing's recent statements mentioned China's own satellite shootdown.

China's anti-satellite test was also criticized for being more dangerous. The targeted satellite was located about 500 miles above the earth and the resulting debris threatened communication satellites and other orbiting space vehicles. Foreign space experts and governments labeled China a space litterbug.

Still, the distinction between the two actions may be lost for many, said Denny Roy, an expert on the Chinese military at the East-West Center in Honolulu.

"What the Americans (have done) greatly undercuts the condemnation heaped on China last year," Roy said. While the circumstances are different, that is "a fine point that is easily overlooked," he said.

Beyond propaganda, the potential tie-in to missile defense is a source of real worry to China. Beijing sees those plans as a way of integrating the U.S. defense with regional partners such as Japan, while reducing the threat that China's growing arsenal of medium range ballistic missiles poses to Taiwan, the self-governing U.S. ally that China claims as its own territory, to be recovered by force if need be.

While some in the Pentagon may believe it is wise to put China on notice about U.S. capabilities, it could serve to further embolden Beijing, said Theresa Hitchens of the Center for Defense Information, a security policy group in Washington, D.C.

"This may give the hard-liners in the PLA (People's Liberation Army) what they need to prevail," she said.

 

[a_majoor]

Perhaps the Chinese are on a fishing expedition. The shoot down of a satellite is of a different order of magnitude than ABM defense (something the Americans have demonstrated to their own satisfaction), and doing a shoot down with a mobile weapon such as the SM-3 represents a much more developed capability than using larger, land based launchers.

For China, this represents a possible counter to the threat of 800+ missiles aimed at Taiwan, US Navy warships have a demonstrated potential to intervene in a crisis and make the targeting solution far more difficult (which missiles will actually make it through?), as well as making the PLAN's job more difficult as well, since they will have to sail into the open waters of the Pacific to find and neutralize the USN missile cruisers.

The USN will have to get a lot more of these weapons into service, and qualify many more platforms to carry them as well in the near future to deal with potential missile threats in East and Southwest Asia......Arsenal ship anyone?

 

[tomahawk6]

The Burke class DDG is also capable of firing this specific SM-3.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here is an interesting article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080304.wchina05/BNStory/International/home

Beijing gives its military a double-digit boost

GEOFFREY YORK

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
March 4, 2008 at 11:43 PM EST

BEIJING — The dispute between China and the United States over military spending took a turn for the worse Tuesday as Beijing announced another sharp rise in its defence budget and angrily accused Washington of “Cold War thinking.”

China disclosed that its military budget will jump by 17.6 per cent this year, continuing its controversial trend of boosting its military spending by significantly more than the growth rate of its economy.

China has given a hefty double-digit budget increase to the People's Liberation Army in 19 of the past 20 years, provoking criticism from rivals such as the United States and Japan.

A day earlier, the Pentagon released a report accusing China of concealing the true magnitude of its military spending. The report estimated that China's actual military spending could be more than triple its official budget. And it warned that the Chinese secrecy could trigger a military crisis.

“The lack of transparency in China's military and security affairs poses risks to stability by increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation,” the report says. “This situation will naturally and understandably lead to hedging against the unknown.”

The report expressed alarm over China's rapid push into high-technology warfare tactics, including anti-satellite weapons, sophisticated missiles, nuclear submarines and cyber-warfare capabilities.

And it said China is putting new emphasis on what it calls “Assassin's Mace” programs, which are designed to give it an advantage over a technologically superior adversary.

Japan echoed those concerns Tuesday, noting the rapid rise in Chinese military spending and calling for “transparency” in the Chinese military budget.

China lashed back at the U.S., denouncing the Pentagon report as “interference” in China's internal affairs.

“We demand that the U.S. abandon Cold War thinking and correctly recognize China and China's development and revise the mistaken ways of the report,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Tuesday. “We are extremely dissatisfied.”

Under its latest budget, China is planning to spend about $59-billion (U.S.) on its military this year. This is a 17.6-per-cent increase over its actual spending last year, and a 19.1-per-cent increase over its original budget for the year.

China's total spending on its military arsenal, however, is much bigger than its official budget would suggest. For example, the official budget does not include the cost of China's strategic forces, its military research and development, its paramilitary forces and its foreign military purchases.

The Pentagon estimates that China's total military spending last year was between $97-billion and $139-billion. This amount is still dwarfed by the U.S. military budget, which will be around $620-billion this year. But the Chinese budget can finance a much bigger military machine than it might seem at first glance, since Chinese wages are far smaller than American wages.

A research institute in Stockholm estimated that the Chinese military budget was around $188-billion in 2006 if measured in terms of purchasing power. This made it second only to the U.S. military budget of about $529-billion in 2006.

Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for the Chinese parliament, argued that China's military budget as a proportion of gross domestic product is smaller than the military spending of the U.S., Britain, France and Russia.

Most of the latest increase will be spent on higher salaries and better meals and training for its two million soldiers, he said.

“China's limited military capability is solely for the purpose of safeguarding independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and does not pose a threat to any other country,” Mr. Jiang told reporters Tuesday.

“In recent years, the Chinese government has moderately increased its spending on national defence on the basis of sustained, steady and fast economic growth and rapid build-up of government revenues,” he added. “These increases were of a compensatory nature to make up for the weak defence foundation.”

Mr. Jiang's talk of “territorial integrity” is a codeword for Taiwan, which China considers to be part of its territory. China often makes military threats against Taiwan, and Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday made an unusually pugnacious attack on Taiwan's pro-independence government, calling it “the biggest menace to national sovereignty and territorial integrity … and the biggest threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

A friend who has just returned from a lengthy visit in China (his first trip “home” in nearly a decade) commented on the extraordinary self confidence being displayed by all levels of official China. It’s not just the Olympics – although they promise to be spectacularly successful in every respect, especially as a major propaganda coup for China; almost everything, he says, seems to be working (well enough). The economic growth is spreading from the East Coast Strip into the central Chinese provinces (like Hunan) and even into the West. The Party is more and more open to (Chinese) criticism and citizens are more prone to expressing their grievances in public – he told me a about a revolt by ‘old age’ pensioners (who can be as young as 45 in China!) over the cost of their annual park passes; something that would have been unheard of 10 years ago.

The increase in the defence budget is, I think and expression of that increased confidence. Five, maybe even three years ago the priority would have been on regional economic expansion because the Chinese were worried about civil unrest caused by economic inequality. (Remember the Canadian Department of Regional and Economic Expansion? It was created in 1969 by Pierre Trudeau - as his answer to Stalin’s Five Year Plans, I suppose.) China would also have worried about the reactions of the bankers in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore – no longer: the Chinese hold enough credit to dictate now, not obey.

This is not, in my opinion, a cause for great worry. China is a major power, an emerging superpower and she should be expected to want to be able to assert herself. There is a need to balance (nout necessarily ‘counter’) China with a more prosperous India and strengthened Western “cores – Europe and a US led Anglosphere +.”

 

[CougarKing]

Ahhh yes...the continued hypocrisy of the CCP. They host the Olympic Games in Beijing while human rights abuses there are ignored. Say something bad about the party in public or start doing morning exercises that resemble those of Falun Gong and you might notice plain-clothes Guo An Bu agents suddenly following you around everywhere by the end of the day.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23576671/

U.S. cites China for repression, torture
State Dept. report says Olympic host has poor record on human rights
BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
updated 11:14 a.m. PT, Tues., March. 11, 2008
WASHINGTON - China, host of the summer Olympics, is an authoritarian nation that denies its people basic human rights and freedoms, harasses journalists and foreign aid workers and tortures prisoners, the United States charged Tuesday.

China is still among the world's human rights abusers despite rapid economic growth that has transformed large parts of Chinese society, the State Department said in an annual accounting of human rights practices around the world.

Portions of the report were obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release Tuesday. The report gives a chilling account of alleged torture in China, including the use of electric shocks, beatings, shackles, and other forms of abuse. It includes an account of a prisoner strapped to a "tiger bench," as device that forces the legs to bend sometimes until they break.

The report details then lengths some Chinese officials have taken to enforce China's well-known "one child" policy, and says forced relocations went up last year. The report notes claims that people were forced from their homes to make way for Olympic projects in Beijing.

"The year 2007 saw increased efforts to control and censor the Internet, and the government tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and the domestic press," the report says of China. "The government continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison journalists, Internet writers and bloggers."

The country-by-country report is compiled separately from U.S. diplomatic efforts and presented to Congress. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was releasing it at the State Department.

The report also notes further backsliding in President Vladimir Putin's Russia last year, and ticks off a string of undemocratic moves taken by close U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan.

"In Russia, centralization of power in the executive branch, a compliant State Duma, corruption and selectivity in enforcement of the law," onerous restrictions on aid groups and the media "continued to erode the government's accountability to its citizens," the report said.

The report said Pakistan's human rights situation worsened during the year, "stemming primarily from President Musharraf's decision to impose a 42-day state of emergency, suspend the constitution, and dismiss the Supreme and High Provincial Courts."

Political adversaries Cuba, Iran, Zimbabwe and Syria were all listed as human rights abusers. Sudan's record was called "horrific."

North Korea is called an absolute dictatorship with repressive policies that control the most basic aspects of daily life. The report does not mention the intensive U.S. campaign for nuclear disarmament in North Korea, which included the first regular visits in decades by U.S. diplomats to the secretive regime in 2007.

"Pregnant female prisoners underwent forced abortions in some cases, and in other cases babies were killed upon birth in prisons," the report noted in its section covering detention and imprisonment in the North.

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23576671/
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© 2008 MSNBC.com

 

[CougarKing]

Will the PRC end its notorious "one-child" policy soon?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23626472/

End for China's one-kid rule?
Government advisers warn rule has sparked social, economic problems
Reuters
updated 2:44 a.m. PT, Fri., March. 14, 2008
BEIJING - China faces a grim mismatch between population and social needs unless it soon relaxes its one-child rule, government advisers and experts have warned, stoking fresh debate about the once untouchable policy.

The warning has come from members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and separately from prominent population experts in a newspaper on Friday.

Their calls come after officials sought to play down recent comments from a senior family-planning administration official who said the government was considering relaxing rules that restrict most urban couples to one child and farming couples to two.

With the world's biggest population straining scarce land, water and energy, China has enforced rules limiting family size since the 1970s and argues that keeping the current restrictions is crucial to economic growth.

But during the annual session of the Consultative Conference, a literature scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and 28 other members signed a proposal urging "abolition of the one-child rule as quickly as possible," according to a report on the Xinhua news agency Web site on Friday.

A deputy of the National People's Congress, or parliament, which is still meeting, also called for "appropriately altering family planning policies," the report said.

No caretakers for elderly

Scholar Ye Tingfang and her supporters in the Conference argued that the one-child rule is generating serious economic and social-welfare problems and creating a nation of lonely, socially-maladapted children and elderly parents without caretakers.

"If we enforced the old coercive policies out of desperation, now desperation calls for ending that policy," she earlier told the Southern Metropolitan Daily, a bold tabloid published in Guangzhou. She suggested urban couples be allowed two children.

The Consultative Conference is a powerless body, and the central government is unlikely to relax the "one-child" policy any time soon. Ye made a similar call last year.

But the open calls from the politicians, together with warnings from demographers -- in the wake of the official's comments -- suggest that debate is growing.

Heavy fines for offenders

In the Southern Metropolitan Daily on Friday, three Chinese experts assembled a case for quickly relaxing the restrictions, which threaten offenders with heavy fines, restricted government services and, especially in the past, forced abortions.

Officials contend that the policy has prevented 400 million births that would have put even greater strain on already stretched food stocks and other resources.

Keeping the controls for much longer will sap the population of young people in coming decades when the country faces growing numbers of aged, a shrinking workforce and a huge demand for old-age pensions, Zeng Yi of Peking University and two others said.

Zeng, a well-known expert on China's population dynamics, said now would be the "best time" for relaxing family size controls -- while the workforce is strong and the proportion of aged relatively low.

"If we wait five, 10, 15 years to adjust population control policies," Zeng told the paper, "that would be compounding one disaster with another -- then will be too late for regrets."


Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

 

[CougarKing]

Chinese security forcecs swarm all over Tibet in the biggest crackdown on dissent in recent years! At least 30 rioters were killed so far! 

The relative quickness with which the PRC govt. came down on the protests only further proves that the CCP is very much paranoid about losing stability and will crack down on any threats to it.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4456111

Exile Group Says 30 Killed in Tibet
Tibetan Exile Group Says at Least 30 Killed in Chinese Crackdown on Riots
By AUDRA ANG
The Associated Press
BEIJING

China ordered tourists out of Tibet's capital Saturday while troops on foot and in armored vehicles patrolled the streets and confined government workers to their offices, a day after riots that a Tibetan exile group said left at least 30 protesters dead.

The demonstrations against Chinese rule of Tibet are the largest and most violent in the region in nearly two decades. They have spread to other areas of China as well as neighboring Nepal and India.

In the western province of Gansu, police fired tear gas Saturday to disperse Buddhist monks and others staging a second day of protests in sympathy with anti-Chinese demonstrations in Lhasa, local residents said.

The protests led by Buddhist monks began Monday in Tibet on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. They turned violent on Friday when demonstrators burned cars and shops. Witnesses said they heard gunshots on Friday and more shooting on Saturday night.

The eruption of violence comes just two weeks before China's Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which passes through Tibet. China is gambling that its crackdown will not bring an international outcry over human rights violations that could lead to boycotts of the Olympics.

Beijing's hosting of the Olympics in August has already brought scrutiny of China's human rights record and its pollution problems.

But so far, the international community has reacted to the crackdown in Tibet only by calling for Chinese restraint without any threats of an Olympic boycott or other sanctions.

China's official Xinhua News Agency reported at least 10 were killed Friday when demonstrators rampaged in Lhasa, setting fire to shops and cars.

"The victims are all innocent civilians, and they have been burnt to death," Xinhua quoted an official with the regional government as saying.

The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India said it had confirmed Chinese authorities killed at least 30 Tibetan protesters but added the toll could be as high as 100. There was no confirmation of the death toll from Chinese officials and the numbers could not be independently verified.

China maintains rigid control over Tibet, foreigners need special travel permits to get there and journalists rarely get access except under highly controlled circumstances.

Streets in Lhasa were mostly empty Saturday as a curfew remained in place, witnesses said.

China's governor in Tibet vowed to punish the rioters, while law enforcement authorities urged protesters to turn themselves in by Tuesday or face unspecified punishment

Tourists reached by phone or those who arrived Saturday in Nepal described soldiers standing in lines sealing off streets where there was rioting on Friday. Armored vehicles and trucks ferrying soldiers were seen on the streets.

"There are military blockades blocking off whole portions of the city, and the entire city is basically closed down," said a 23-year-old Western student who arrived in Lhasa on Saturday. "All the restaurants are closed, all the hotels are closed."

Plooij Frans, a Dutch tourist who left the capital Saturday morning by plane and arrived in the Nepali capital of Katmandu, said he saw about 140 trucks of soldiers drive into the city within 24 hours.

"They came down on Tibetan people really hard," said Frans, who said his group could not return to their hotel Friday and had to stay near the airport. "Every corner there were tanks. It would have been impossible to hold any protest today."

Government workers in Lhasa said Chinese authorities have been prevented from leaving their buildings.

"We've been here since yesterday. No one has been allowed to leave or come in," said a woman who works for Lhasa's Work Safety Bureau, located near the Potala Palace, the former residence of the Dalai Lama. "Armored vehicles have been driving past," she said. "Men wearing camouflage uniforms and holding batons are patrolling the streets.

Tourists were told to stay in their hotels and make plans to leave, but government staff were required to work.

Some shops were closed, said a woman who answered the telephone at the Lhasa Hotel.

"There's no conflict today. The streets look pretty quiet," said the woman who refused to give her name for fear of retribution.

Xinhua reported Saturday that Lhasa was calm, with little traffic on the roads.

"Burned cars, motorcycles and bicycles remained scattered on the main streets, and the air is tinged with smoke," the report said.

In the western Chinese province of Gansu, several hundred monks marched out of historic Labrang monastery and into the town of Xiahe in the morning, gathering hundreds of other Tibetans with them as they went, residents said.

The crowd attacked government buildings, smashing windows in the county police headquarters, before police fired tear gas to put an end to the protest, residents said. A London-based Tibetan activist group, Free Tibet Campaign, said 20 people were arrested, citing unidentified sources in Xiahe.

"Many windows in shops and houses were smashed," said an employee at a hotel, who did not want either his or the hotel's name used for fear of retaliation. He said he did not see any Tibetans arrested or injured but said some police were hurt.

Pockets of dissent were also springing up outside China.

In Australia, media reported that police used batons and pepper spray to quell a demonstration outside the Chinese consulate in Sydney. The Australian Associated Press reported that dozens of demonstrators were at the scene and five were arrested.

Dozens of protesters in India launched a new march just days after more than 100 Tibetan exiles were arrested by authorities during a similar rally.

And in Katmandu, police broke up a protest by Tibetans and arrested 20.

———

Associated Press writers Anita Chang in Beijing, Ashwini Bhatia in Dehra, India, and Binaj Gurubacharya in Katmandu, Nepal, contributed to this story.

———

On the Net:

International Campaign for Tibet: http://www.savetibet.org

Chinese official news agency: http://www.xinhuanet.com


Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

 

[Yrys]

Report: 100 dead in Tibet violence

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Violent protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa against Chinese rule have left at least 100 people dead, according to unconfirmed
reports from exiles in India, while official media put the death toll at 10.

The protests, sparked by the anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising that sent Tibet's Dalai Lama into exile, are the latest embarrassment to hit 2008 Olympic-host
China, which has attracted international criticism over its human rights record. Quoting the Tibetan government, China's state-run Xinhua news agency said 10 were
killed in Lhasa Friday after police blocked a march by monks, sparking the violence. "The victims are all innocent civilians, and they have been burnt to death," an
official with the regional government told Xinhua.

Tibetan exiles in India meanhwile cited unconfirmed reports that at least 100 people were killed and many more injured. Video broadcast on China's CCTV Saturday
showed flames and black smoke rising the market, where hundreds of rioters used hands, feet and sledge hammers to break down doors and shatter windows.  One
of the targets of their violence was a Bank of China branch. Protesters, including some monks dressed in red robes, could be seen overturning cars and throwing rocks
to chase away other people. There was no sign of Chinese police in the video.

The protests in Tibet began Monday when hundreds of monks rallied on the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising against Beijing that forced the Dalai Lama into exile.
Police used gunfire and tear gas to quell the Lhasa protest, according to witnesses, human rights groups and Xinhua. Demonstrators set fire to vehicles and shops.
One source said late Friday that up to a third of the city may be on fire and that power lines had been cut.

Some ethnic Tibetan shopkeepers hung scarves outside their stores in an effort to spare them from the protesters' wrath, a witness reported.

Chinese bloggers and U.S.-based human rights groups said Chinese security forces had sealed off the three main monasteries around Lhasa after the violence
broke out. The bloggers also said police wearing armored vests were moving toward Lhasa in armored personnel carriers.

Beijing is hosting the Summer Olympics in August, and Tibetan exile groups told CNN they plan to hold demonstrations when the torch is carried through India in April.
...
Chinese authorities blamed the Dalai Lama for the unrest, but the Dalai Lama said the protesters were simply acting out of "deep-rooted resentment" of the
Chinese government. "As I have always said, unity and stability under brute force is at best a temporary solution. It is unrealistic to expect unity and stability
under such a rule and would therefore not be conducive to finding a peaceful and lasting solution," he said in a written statement.

"I therefore appeal to the Chinese leadership to stop using force and address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue with the
Tibetan people. I also urge my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence."

Article link

 

[chanman]

You can pick up a couple stories on the front page of The Economist.  Seems like one of their correspondents is actually in Lhasa, and hasn't been told to get out yet.

 

[Yrys]

You can pick up a couple stories on the front page of The Economist.  Seems like one of their correspondents is actually in Lhasa, and hasn't been told to get out yet.

If a journalist has the stomach to stay in a country in unrest time, it must be akin of a golden mine,
in being in the whirl of history, publicity and money. Which seem to me to be even truer in Tibet nowadays,
with the JO looming soon in China, all eyes are looking that way. On the article that I read, the corespondent isn't identify,
so maybe chinese official don't know yet who it is...


End Tibet unrest, says Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama has called for an end to violent protests in Tibet, denying claims by China that he was responsible for the unrest. He said he would resign
as head of Tibet's government-in-exile if the violence in his homeland worsened.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao earlier accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the protests against Chinese rule.China says 13 people were killed by rioters in Lhasa.
Tibetan exiles say 99 have died in clashes with authorities. The protests began on 10 March - the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule - and
have gradually escalated.

More on article link

 

[CougarKing]

Interestingly, the current PLA General in charge of the General Logistics Department of the PLA- General Liao Xilong (廖锡龙)- was the commanding general of the PLA forces that crushed a rebellion in 1989 in Tibet, that is similar in some ways to the current violence in Tibet. Coincidentally, soon after the rebellion, he befriended Hu Jintao- the current PRC President- and who was then the local CCP party secretary/party chief for Tibet's provincial government. Not surprisingly, Liao is not only the commander of the GLD, but also a member of the current Central Military Commission.

Liao has risen through the PLA's ranks quite proficiently and even commanded a PLA regiment during the 1979 Chinese invasion of Vietnam; that "regiment captured the border village of Phong To", for which he received a commendation from the CMC (54, Flanagan).

Liao is thus an example of the fine balance that PLA Officers must make between professional soldiering and towing the party line.

Perhaps Hu and Liao are giving their proteges "hands-on" experience in Tibet for succeeding them?

Sources: Flanagan, Stephen J. and Marti, Michael E., et al eds. The People's Liberation Army and China in Transition
             Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2003 (.)

             http://www.chinavitae.com/biography/Liao_Xilong%7C489