BBC: China in DR Congo aid deal

It's a scene that - with just a few changes - you might have found in the central African bush in the late 19th Century.


Alongside, a deferential African bearing a long pole. The two are barely able to communicate with one another.

You're reminded, irresistibly, of images of Victorian era explorers such as David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley, hacking their way across the continent.

But this foreigner comes from a country that suffered from colonial exploitation itself.

Biggest deal

He's Chinese, an engineer, and his assistant's pole is not for beating down the vegetation. It's a global positioning tool, taking satellite readings to plot the exact course of a road that's about to be built.

The pair belong to an advance team of surveyors deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo by a massive state-owned firm based in Beijing, the China Railway Engineering Corporation, or CREC.


DR Congo Timeline

And the new road they're planning will be the first fruit of the biggest single deal China's ever done in Africa, worth $9bn.

Due to be signed in Beijing in the next few days, it gives DR Congo $6bn of desperately needed infrastructure - about 2,400 miles of road, 2,000 miles of railway, 32 hospitals, 145 health centres and two universities.

Watch the documentary:
China in DR Congo aid deal


read the rest of the article: China in DR Congo

source: BBC

China’s $1.5 Trillion Bet: Understanding China’s External Portfolio

China is now by far the United States’ largest creditor. Its treasury portfolio recently surpassed that of Japan’s, and it has long held more agency (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) bonds than any other country. Never before has a nation as poor as China provided so much financing to a country as rich as the United States. In this Center for Geoeconomic Studies Working Paper, Brad W. Setser and Arpana Pandey estimate the true scale of China’s U.S. portfolio and examine how the pace of growth and composition of China’s portfolio have evolved over time.


Link to the full article (pdf) (26 pages): China’s $1.5 Trillion Bet: Understanding China’s External Portfolio

China Press Freedom

Recent unrest in Tibet has once again raised questions about media freedom in China. The gulf between Western perceptions of this developing superpower and China's desire to control the message now seems bigger than ever.


101 East - China Press Freedom - Pt 1



101 East - China Press Freedom - Pt 2



Source: AlJazeeraEnglish

Restless China

As the global economic crisis worsens and Chinese exports shrivel, thousands of factories are closing and already 20 million Chinese workers have lost their jobs. Is the global financial downturn creating potential political and social unrest in China?

101East - Restless China - 26 March 09 - Part 1



101East - Restless China - 26 March 09 - Part 2



Source:
AlJazeeraEnglish

TankMan - Tiananmen Square Protests

Tank Man, or the Unknown Rebel, is the nickname of an anonymous man who became internationally famous when he was videotaped and photographed during the Tiananmen Square protests on 5 June 1989. Several photographs were taken of the man, who stood in front of a column of Chinese Type 59 tanks, preventing their advance. The most widely reproduced version of the photograph was taken by Jeff Widener (Associated Press), from the sixth floor of the Beijing Hotel, about half a mile (800 m) away, through a 400 mm lens.

Another version was taken by photographer Stuart Franklin of Magnum Photos. His photograph has a wider field of view than Widener's picture, showing more tanks in front of the man. Franklin subsequently won a World Press Award for the photograph. It was featured in LIFE magazine's "100 Photos that Changed the World" in 2003. Variations of the image were also recorded by CNN and BBC film crews, on videotape, and were transmitted across the world.

The still and motion photography of the man standing alone before a line of tanks reached international audiences practically overnight. It headlined hundreds of major newspapers and news magazines and was the lead story on countless news broadcasts around the world. In April 1998, the United States magazine TIME included the "Unknown Rebel" in its 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

The incident took place just a minute away from Tiananmen on Chang'an Avenue, which leads into the Forbidden City, Beijing, on June 5, 1989, the day after the Chinese government began cracking down violently on the protests. The man stood alone in the middle of the road as the tanks approached. He held two bags, one in each hand. As the tanks came to a stop, he appeared to be trying to wave them away. In response, the front tank attempted to drive around the man, but the man repeatedly stepped into the path of the tank in a show of nonviolent action. By looking at these two photographs and using the painted road lines as a reference, it is evident that the tank has moved forward. After blocking the tanks, the man climbed up onto the top of the lead tank and had a conversation with the driver. Reports of what he said to the driver vary, including "Why are you here? My city is in chaos because of you"; "Go back, turn around, and stop killing my people"; and "Go away." Video footage shows that anxious onlookers then pulled the man away and absorbed him into the crowd and the tanks continued on their way.

Little is publicly known of the man's identity. Shortly after the incident, British tabloid the Sunday Express named him as Wang Weilin, a 19-year-old student; however, the veracity of this claim is dubious. Numerous rumours have sprung up as to the man's identity and current whereabouts, but none are backed by hard evidence.

There are several conflicting stories about what happened to him after the demonstration. In a speech to the President's Club in 1999, Bruce Herschensohn — former deputy special assistant to President of the United States Richard Nixon — reported that he was executed 14 days later; other sources say he was killed by firing squad a few months after the Tiananmen Square protests. In Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Jan Wong writes that the man is still alive and is hiding in mainland China.

An eyewitness account of the event published in October 2005 by Charlie Cole, a contract photographer for Newsweek magazine at the time, states that the man was arrested on the spot by the Public Security Bureau.

The People's Republic of China government made few statements about the incident or the person involved. In a 1990 interview with Barbara Walters, then-CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin was asked what became of the man. Jiang replied "I think never killed."

A June 2006 article in the Hong Kong Apple Daily stated that the man is now residing in Taiwan.

- Wikipedia Extract

Assessing the fallout from Tiananmen

By Don Murray

The bloody scars of the past have been airbrushed out of the photo and those who try to draw attention to that cleansing of the historical record have been hustled away.

Consider the case of Liu Xiaobo, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen protests in 1989. I met him a year ago, just after the 19th anniversary of the crackdown.

Liu hadn't been available in the run-up to the day. Chinese security police had locked him in his apartment and cut him off from the rest of the world. When they did eventually let him out, they drove him to his meetings.
Some obvious symbolism as cannons fire a salute in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 2009, the day before the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in 1989. Security was heavy in the square and authorities blocked certain social networking websites. (Elizabeth Dalziel/Associated Press)Some obvious symbolism as cannons fire a salute in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 2009, the day before the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in 1989. Security was heavy in the square and authorities blocked certain social networking websites. (Elizabeth Dalziel/Associated Press)

Liu was sardonic about his treatment.

As a result of his role at Tiananmen, he had been tried for counter-revolutionary activity and jailed three times.

Still, he said, last summer as the Beijing Olympics beckoned, things were improving.

"When I was arrested in 1996, they ransacked my apartment and left a mess. When I was arrested a decade later they came with white gloves, and when they left, they put things back."
That was then

There will be no interviews with Liu this year, however. In December 2008, he led a group of intellectuals in drawing up and publishing Charter 08, a petition calling for respect for human rights, representative government, an independent judiciary and a federal system for China.

The petition was an updated, condensed call for democracy that was last heard loudly in public in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
An unidentified Chinese man stands in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, where hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed. (Jeff Widener/Associated Press)

It's an iconic image. A lone figure confronting a column of menacing tanks in Tiannamen Square in 1989. It seemed to symbolize the overwhelming odds faced by China's short lived pro-democracy movement. Though it happened just 20 years ago, the event seems like ancient history to most Chinese, observes the CBC's Michel Cormier (video runs: 4:01).

Right after the publication of Charter 08, Liu was promptly arrested and taken away. His wife has seen him just once since then. The authorities won't say where he's being held.

Charter 08 was consciously modelled on Charter 77, the Czech call for freedom and human rights drawn up by playwright and dissident Vaclav Havel in 1977 when the Communists ruled Eastern Europe.

Click here to read more Assessing the fallout from Tiananmen

The Tank Man

On June 5, 1989, one day after Chinese troops expelled thousands of demonstrators from Tiananmen Square, a solitary, unarmed protester stood his ground before a column of tanks advancing down the Avenue of Eternal Peace. Captured by Western photographers, this extraordinary confrontation became an icon of the fight for freedom around the world. Filmmaker Antony Thomas investigates the identity, fate, and significance of the tank man.




Click here to buy FRONTLINE: The Tank Man DVD

China and the Olympics

China is pulling out all stops as its capital takes to the world stage as host of the 2008 Olympic games. Since winning the bid seven years ago, Beijing has undergone a construction boom, making this Olympics the world's most expensive games ever, at a cost of $43 billion. This week on 101 East we ask, what does hosting the 2008 Olympics mean for China and its people?




101 East - China and the Olympics - Part 1



101 East - China and the Olympics - 7 Part 2



Source: AlJazeeraEnglish

The Great Firewall Of China

China has the most sophisticated censorship and internet surveillance in the world. But despite this autocratic control some guerrilla bloggers are still managing to get their message through.

"The Government always wants to try to act as the cat to control people's access to information but I think the mouse is running faster." This is the voice of Isaac Mao, he was one of China's earliest bloggers, and has learnt how to work the system. "The Chinese government's goal is not to control one hundred percent of what people are doing one hundred percent of the time," if they are too authoritarian, they will be faced with civil unrest. As CNN correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon points out, "to remain in power they want to prevent certain uses of the internet that might lead to overthrow." Journalists like Zhang Shihe work the gaps in the censorship to broadcast their message, " I rely on my instinct. Am I telling the truth or lies? Am I trying to help improve the situation? I know if I can control this, I'll be fine." He regularly films and comments on rural working conditions, and has as yet avoided jail. But his story is not typical. With about 30 known journalists and 50 internet users known to be behind bars, the Committee to Protect Journalists has branded China "the world's leading jailer of journalists."

Watch:
The Great Firewall Of China

Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

China's Challenges

In 25 years China has been taken from poverty to modernity, the Olympics and the brink of superpower status. But their have been costs - galloping inflation, the world's worst pollution and a social fabric that is showing the stain. This episode of 101 East asks what the future holds for China after the games.


101 East - China's challenges Part 1




101 East - China's challenges Part 2




Source: AlJazeeraEnglish.

China's Modern Authoritarianism

By PERRY LINK and JOSHUA KURLANTZICK From today's Wall Street Journal Asia.




In the wake of the 1989 crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party seemed morally bankrupt. Average Chinese complained bitterly about graft and special privileges reserved for the Party's elite, and few believed the Party's sloganeering about socialism when officials practiced ruthless capitalism. The army, too, had lost face: The Tiananmen killings showed that the "people's army" could open fire on the people themselves. The urban economy seemed locked within an inefficient and corrupt iron framework of the old work-unit system. No one either inside or outside China saw the country's authoritarian system as a model to follow.

Twenty years later, the Chinese Communist Party has built a new popularity by delivering staggering economic growth and cultivating a revived -- and potentially dangerous -- Han Chinese nationalism. China's material successes, as seen in its gleaming city skylines and piles of foreign currency holdings, suggest the government's top priority is economic growth. The increasing socioeconomic diversity in Chinese society suggests that the regime seeks liberalization and might one day throw open its political system.

These are dangerous misconceptions. The Party's top priority remains what it has always been: the maintenance of absolute political power. Economic growth has not sparked democratic change, as one-party rule persists. Through a sophisticated adaptation of its system -- including leveraging the market to maintain political control -- China's Communist Party has modernized its authoritarianism to fit the times.

The Party has utilized a sophisticated strategy to maintain control of its populace. While growing the economy, it has kept the majority of wealth in the hands of an elite class of business leaders, many of whom have willingly accepted authoritarian rule in exchange for getting rich. Far from forming a middle class that might challenge authority, these groups now have reason to join their rulers in repressing "instability" among the people. Meanwhile, the Party has also deliberately stoked and shaped Chinese nationalism, and many inside China now feel pride in the government's model of authoritarian development, especially as the model of liberal capitalism staggers in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Despite its tailored suits and suave diplomats, the Party also maintains a key tool in inducing popular obedience that dates to Mao's era, a technique called "thoughtwork." This ideological enforcement today operates more subtly than in the past, but it is still highly effective. It is covert -- accomplished, for example, through confidential telephone calls to newspaper editors, rather than in banner newspaper headlines. And it is targeted: Whereas Mao Zedong-era campaigns aimed to transform society and even human nature, thoughtwork today focuses on political issues that are vital to the Party's rule, and lets the rest go.

The effects of thoughtwork are far reaching. The Party's activities include outright censorship, but much of the rest of thoughtwork entails the active cultivation of views that the government favors among the media, businesspeople and other opinion leaders in Chinese society. This assertive side of thoughtwork has become especially important in recent years. Many Chinese still harbor complaints about the government's management of the economy, the environment and the country's political system. Particularly in rural areas, it is easy to find people furious at corruption, land grabs, worker exploitation, the wealth gap and thuggish repression.

But thoughtwork counters these complaints in two ways. First, the Party encourages the belief that the central leadership remains pure and all of the problems are due to corrupt or uninformed local officials. Second, the Party simply distracts its citizens. Demands for clean air, for instance, are answered with 52 Olympic gold medals and massive propaganda about the Games. Displaced homeowners are encouraged to worry about the Dalai Lama "splitting the motherland."

The Party's adaptive methods of disruption and distraction have helped maintain control during a period of rapid change, suggesting a durable domestic model of authoritarian governance. Even more worryingly, the government is translating its success at home into success abroad, where the "China model" of authoritarian capitalism is gaining currency. Governments from Syria to Vietnam have sung its praises.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Authoritarian elites seek formulas for maintaining their power while also growing their economies. In poor developing countries, average citizens are vulnerable to this propaganda, which China spreads by extending aid and investment with no human rights strings, running training programs in China for foreign officials and students, opening cultural centers such as Confucius Institutes within foreign universities, and offering diplomatic cover to repressive regimes at the United Nations and elsewhere.

China has extended its hand of friendship to many different types of nations, from harsh regimes -- including those of Sudan, Burma, Uzbekistan, North Korea and Zimbabwe -- whose leaders are seeking only financial assistance and protection at the U.N. and other international bodies, to a diverse group of developing countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa that seek economic, political and cultural ties to China. The scale of this effort is difficult to calculate. For example, China trains at least 1,000 Central Asian judicial and police officials annually, most of whom could be classified as working in antidemocratic enterprises. Over the long term, Beijing plans to step up its training programs for African officials. The scope of China's broader aid programs is similarly difficult to quantify, but the World Bank estimates that China is now the largest lender to African nations.

The China model, although a definite threat to democratic values, is no juggernaut. Its appeal abroad will depend in large part on how the Chinese economy weathers the global downturn, and how any stumbles it might encounter are perceived in the developing world. Back at home, the Party is more frightened of its own citizenry than most outside observers realize. Chinese citizens are increasingly aware of their constitutional rights; a phenomenon that does not fit well with authoritarianism. The Party may win the affection of foreign elites, but still faces dissent at home from local nongovernmental organizations, civil society and elements of the media.

Since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, China's leadership has modernized the country's economy but also its authoritarianism. And because the system's flaws are as glaring as its resilience, its challenge to democracy is a crisis in the original sense of the word -- the course of events could turn either way.


Joshua Kurlantzick is the author of "Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming the World". You can purchase the book for only 8.30 (shipping included) @ half.com
Charm Offensive

Made In China: The People's Republic of Profit

* China is only slightly smaller than the U.S. in terms of land, but the population of people in China is four times are large.
* China is the fourth largest country in the world after Russia, Canada and the U.S.
* The life expectancy in the U.S. is 78 years. The life expectancy in China is 73 years.
* One demographic consequence of the “one child” policy is that China is now one of the most rapidly aging countries in the world.
* Literacy is higher in the U.S. than in China by 10%.
* The age structure of people in China between 15 and 64 is 12% higher than in the U.S.
* Annual inflows of foreign direct investment rose to $75 billion in 2007.
* By the end of 2007, more than 5,000 Chinese enterprises had established direct investments in 172 countries and regions around the world
* China has an industrial production growth rate of 13.4% while the U.S. has a rate of 0.5%.
* China’s main exporting partner is the U.S. carrying out 22% of all exports.
* There are 228.1 million more cell phones in use in China than in the U.S.


CNBC Originals:
China's capitalist revolution has produced a thriving new business class that includes over 400,000 millionaires - entrepreneurs and innovators - who are helping to make the country a global economic powerhouse. Melissa Lee reports.




Source:
CNBC

China: Pollution

China's cities for years are leading in one unpopular category: Pollution. One city, Lifen (Shanxi Province) according to many sources is one of the most polluted city not only in China, but in the world. !


“This soot-blackened city (Linfen) in China's inland Shanxi province makes Dickensian London look as pristine as a nature park. Shanxi is the heart of China's coal belt, and the hills around Linfen are dotted with mines, legal and illegal, and the air is filled with burning coal. Don't bother hanging your laundry — it'll turn black before it dries. China's State Environmental Protection Agency says that Linfen has the worst air in the country. “ Time




Shocking Facts:

Only 1% of China’s 560 million urban dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union, and nearly 500 million lack access to safe drinking water.
US population is ~310 mln (so imagine the entire country without acess to safe drinking water)

World Bank recently examined 20 of the most severely polluted cities in the world. Sixteen of these cities are located in China !, and Linfen City (watch video below), in Shanxi Province, was cited as the world's most polluted city.
Potentially Affected People: 3,000,000.

Residents of Linfen are claiming that they literally choke on coal dust in the evenings.

The rate of birth defects in this region is six times higher than the national average.

China has promised to clear up its air and water, but in this province, industry comes before a cleaner environment.!!!




Did you ever wonder what one of China's most polluted city looks like? Well wonder no more.





Sources:

More on China and other countries @
http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/files/FileUpload/files/AR2008.pdf

http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-6-10/42510.html
http://www.greencross.ch/en/knowledge/most-polluted-places//2007/linfen-china/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8012852.stm

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1661031_1661028,00.html

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTDATASTA/64199955-1178226923002/21322619/LGDB2007.pdf


About VBS:
VBS is an online broadcast network. We stream original content, free of charge and 24 hours a day. We carry a mix of domestic and international news, pop and underground culture coverage, and the best music in the world. People have used words like eclectic, smart, funny, shocking, and revolutionary to describe VBS, but we kind of just snapped our fingers in their faces and went, “Whatever. Tell us something we don’t know.”

With Academy Award-nominated director Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) as our creative director, original content from a veritable United Nations of contributors, and bureaus in 20 countries, VBS has hit the planet in a manner not unlike a massive global plague. Streaming on VBS’s signature “in-room” widescreen and remote, content will be available all the time, on-demand.

Basically, VBS will exploit every utopian vision the internet has thus far failed to live up to. Thanks for watching.
website: http://www.vbs.tv

China's Foreign Policy

China foreign policy is based on the concept of soft power. In other words, they spread their influence peacefully, without any major military conflicts in the last 100 years. In the last 9 years alone, US is involved in 2 military conflicts: Afghanistan and Iraqi War, more news on those conflict later. Back to soft power. The concept was developed by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.


China's Soft Power Key points:

· soft power is an alternative to hard (military power)
· China primary goal is simply to maintain peace on its periphery, that allows china’s economy to grow.
· China uses its soft power to push Japan, Taiwan and even United States out or regional influence.
· China’s soft power – ability to influence by persuasion rather than coercion include economic measures, culture, as well as investment and aid. Ex, Cambodian students attend Chinese – language schools that receive assistance from Mainland China sources. Universities will enroll over 120,000 foreign students,
· Soft power can be “high” directed at elites, and “low” directed at broader public
· At high level, Beijing has increased influenced over leaders in less democratic nations. At low level, in places like Philippines leader can move closer to china since the public supports warming relations
· China is a rising hegemon in East Asia with hegemonic aspirations
· China crafted more nuanced strategy reinforcing the concept of peaceful development. Secondly, china establish institutes and language schools as leading South East Asian universities.
· In order to counterbalance China power Us is trying to ally with India (military alliance)
· As a part of their soft power China promotes Beijing Consensus, Chinese model for development. (china was able to maintain political dictatorship, and still have marketing economy). Model is tied to Chinese’s aid packages. China promise it won’t interfere in other countries domestic issues, “win-win” situation, china is only interested in resources. Ex. China get oil from Sudan, in exchange China does not care about mass genocide in Darfur. China wiped out all of Africa’s loans. In return, they signed minerals deals, which gave china opportunity to extract resources on favorable contracts)
· China in order to expand it influence peacefully in Central Asia, created, Shanghai Cooperative Organization. Designed as self help org, features three major oil countries form Central Asia.
· Disputes over Diaoyu islands between Japan and China may cause abandon of China’s soft power and use of military. Secondly, Taiwan is another example. China would not accept Taiwan movement to establish republic of Taiwan. US has defense treaty with Taiwan to prevent Chinese takeover.




enjoy.