China's Politics And Stuff

[La_Dolce_Vita]

LDV - I only hope that you never achieve power - war will be inevitable. The true horror is that you simply cannot see it - that makes you a most dangerous delusional to hold any sort of power or influence.

I am not advocating a world where nations state use their power to coerce others - that happens in the world today. Just look at Afghanistan and the gunboat diplomacy that it becoming ever more fashionable with the US and Europe.

 

The example I gave is a simply demonstration of why I have no problem with one authority removing or competing with another one if the result is better for those controlled - in line with your talk on colonialism and the supposed rightfulness of China national sovereignty.

[Pierrot Lunaire]

Just look at Afghanistan and the gunboat diplomacy that it becoming ever more fashionable with the US and Europe.

That was always going to fail as a policy. Afghanistan's landlocked.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Is that a joke, Pierrot? If it is well...these ships of today have pretty amazing power projection abilities.

[rolandkirk]

That won't unfortunatly be enough to change China views on death penalty.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8435413.stm

 

[Rog]

That won't unfortunatly be enough to change China views on death penalty.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8435413.stm

 

 

Astounding ingratitude.

 

The Chinese carried out what was for once a real honour killing for the family ----- and they just moan about it.

[Chinahand]

China's repression has increased significantly recently and should be a major cause of concern.

 

Gao Zhisheng is a lawyer who has had the courage to represent defendents viewed as anathema by the Communist regime - believers in Falun Gong, Home Church Christians, workers protesting about exploitation.

 

For his troubles he was disbarred and then detained and tortured - rather than quietly accepting all this he loudly resigned his Communist Party membership and published an account of his torture.

 

As a result in February 2009, he disappeared - the assumption was that he'd been taken into secret police custody and had been imprisioned without trial or due process.

 

Then a few weeks ago rumours started that he'd been killed. His brother was told that his brother had gone "missing" in September last year.

 

This whispering campaign has now taken another twist.

 

At a press conference a spokesman for the Chinese Government cryptically said that Gao Zhisheng is "where he should be". But when the transcript of the press conference was released the censors had removed all mention of this and Gao Zhisheng.

 

It is a grave injustice that people should be able to just disappear in today's China. It seems the Chinese government is admitting it knows what has happenned in this case, but is then censoring its own pronouncements about it.

 

Whether he is alive or dead for the authorities to withhold whatever information it has on him is a grave injustice.

 

Please think about signing the petition here, or writing to the Chinese Embassy expressing concern.

[aimeejulia]

its quite sad that we are still seeing these instances of kidnap, torture and persecution

[gazza]

But they do make good electronic

[Rog]

Please think about signing the petition here, or writing to the Chinese Embassy expressing concern.

 

 

It’s none of our business. It’s their country, they’re dealing with their problems. Good luck to them.

[bluemonday]

China was awarded the Olympic games in order to help the growth of democracy IIRC one of the lame reasons for the decision

 

Hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic.

 

 

Another popular Chinese problem highlighted here - Corruption

Public Support Teenager Who Killed Corupt Official

[bluemonday]

More threats.

China threatens Obama over Dalai Lama meeting

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle7011834.ece

After a series of diplomatic spats over internet censorship, Taiwan and Iran, Beijing’s anger spilled over. A warm welcome for the exiled Tibetan leader in Washington could harm economic ties, a Chinese official warned.

[Chinahand]

If you want an overview of China's politics; the up coming leadership changes; and how the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army and the State all link together then this is a pretty good overview (albiet with an American slant).

 

Over the past few months, several people have written asking me to offer a short “primer” on China’s upcoming leadership transition, which begins next year. The handover to a new president and premier has generated plenty of speculation in the press, about who the leaders are and what is will all mean, but sometimes it’s useful to go back and fill in the very basics, since China has a unique and in some ways quite confusing political system.

 

The first and most important thing to understand about that political system is that it is composed of three parts. In the U.S., we have the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. In China there is the Party, the Army, and the State. Unlike in the U.S., where the three branches are co-equal and are specifically designed to check and balance each other’s powers, in China the Party is supreme and rules over the other two elements. China’s “leadership transition” involves coordinated handovers of power involving all three parts of the political system.

 

[Chinahand]

Twitter and blogs are able to provide an insight into evil.

 

These are the tweets of a 40 year old lawyer who disappeared for 3 months into the Chinese security apparatus for working to protect people's human rights. The taut brevity of Twitter gives each tweet an almost poetic impact describing person caught up by a totalitarian power.

 

The kind of fear that you can describe is small, while the kind of fear you can't speak of is the greatest. The mouse that praises the cat must be extremely afraid, I think. Just like some people will fall in love with the person he or she is afraid of, perhaps. Human psychology is complex, the good thing is that we all want to get rid of fear, and this is why we struggle. To compare different people's responses to fear won't solve the problem.

 

When I was released, I felt myself flowing through the air. I walked as though I were weightless. After I was escorted back to Xinjiang, I called my boyfriend, and only at that point did I know that he had been visited by police many times. They even visited his company, and spoke to his sisters and brothers, asking them to demand that he should break up with me and write a separation letter. My boyfriend refused to write it, and told them they would have to jail him as well. He said even if you shot TianTian dead, I would not write such a thing.

 

After I was detained, they searched my apartment and my boyfriend's apartment. They searched everything. They even forced my boyfriend and his brothers and sisters to watch a video that showed me walking into a hotel with other men.

 

Even my boyfriend had no interest to know who I was having sex with. The police showed more concern. They identified the guys and wanted to document details like, who paid for the hotel? Who suggested to have sex? How many times? Who seduced who? They asked me to give all these details.

 

Since they really wanted to know the details and I was forgetful, I offered: If you really want to know, you can invite all these guys here, and I can do it all over again for your records. They said it wouldn't be as good as an adult video and did not authorise it.

 

I feel embarrassed to write about sex, but I would suffer more if I don't speak out. During the interrogation, I even made some jokes about it, but deep down I was so ashamed, as if I was beaten but kept smiling and saying that I didn't feel the pain. So helpless. The sense of fear is still very strong.

 

Fortunately, I did not shed a tear in front of the police. I did not lose self-control. When I said, if you don't give me a lawyer, I won't sign my name on the testimony document, the police asked if I wanted to be beaten. The officer stood up in front of me and wanted to beat me. I said be careful, I will bite your ear and neck. He grabbed my hair and threatened to hit me

 

I tried very hard to adjust my mind from going crazy. There were 7-8 times that I almost broke down. — well, no windows is just a minor problem. Just think about those who died in the cultural revolution, what I am facing now is nothing. This is how I comforted myself to stop my mind from breaking down.

 

The police asked me to write down who I got to know through the Internet. There were about 30 names that I wrote down, including those whom I met in Beihai. They asked me exactly how I knew them and how we communicated. I had to write down all these details. They were satisfied. They asked me in particular to write down details about Ai Weiwei, Liu Xiaoyuan and Tien Biao. I wrote down all the facts that I know.

 

Before I boarded the plane, the police officer gave me the release-document and asked me to tear it into pieces. I did not do so. I asked him if he liked his job on the way to the plane. He said he had to do it to feed his family. I said that must be difficult and that I hoped the government they were protecting would have a long life or else he would face the same kind of trouble I am facing now. After I checked in, I waved to him. He was filming me on video as evidence that he escorted me to the plane.

 

She also wrote a blog post about it - but China's censors deleted it inside the Great Firewall of China:

 

May 24: I was Discharged from the Hospital

 

 

It's been a while since I've been in touch. First, let me tell you a story.

 

 

One day, a hornet worried unreasonably that a little bird would stir up its nest. (As it happened, some distant hornet nests had recently been stirred up.) The hornet grabbed the little bird and began stinging it frenziedly. Unable to bear the hornet's stings and thinking there was no point to suffering this ordeal, the bird realized that no one would gain anything and that there was no way to change the hornet's ways. So, the bird kneeled down to the hornet and kowtowed in order to extricate itself. The hornet, knowing that the force of justice was on the increase in the animal world, didn't dare do anything rash to the bird and came up with a plan that would satisfy everyone. It agreed to release the little bird, but only if the bird promised: (1) not to speak of the past few months; (2) not to damage the hornet's reputation; and (3) not to urge other animals to stir up the hornet's nest. Finally the bird was free.

[Chinahand]

China really is being repressive at the moment.

 

Lawyers who work in sensitive areas - helping people petition for grievences; defending people who practice illict religions like home church Christianity or Falun Gong; working to build grass roots civic organizations - are disappearing into the security apparatus' extra-judicial prisons, where they are psychologically and sometimes physically tortured.

 

They are being intimidated to stop their work, with their and their family's wellbeing being threatened.

 

There is a real xenophobic attitude within this - with outsiders, and foreigners being blamed for encouraging these "bad elements" to "threaten state security and social harmony" by helping the least advantaged in society get some redress from a disfunctional, corrupt and oppressively violent state.

 

This article by in the South China Morning Post sums up the situation pretty well.

 

Amnesty International also has a (long) report on it.

 

China has become more repressive, more xenophobic, more nationalistic and more powerful in the last 10 years. That should worry everyone as it's not a stable set of circumstances.

 

I am all in favour of a successful, democratic, strong China becoming a good international citizen - but that is not what is currently happening, and you've got to dread what an oppressive state might do if its grip on power weakened.

 

Interesting times is all I can say.

 

 

Fan Yafeng, a respected legal advocate, received a call inviting him to the local police station for a chat.

 

When he got there, a hood was thrown over his head. He was shoved into a car and taken to an undisclosed place. Fan was forced to sit motionless for more than 10 hours and was beaten if he moved.

 

He was tortured for nine days and threatened with 20 years in prison for allegedly engaging in illegal business practices and subversion.

 

Released almost two weeks later, the normally fearless legal expert was a broken man. He refused to go public with what had happened to him and asked friends not to contact him.

 

For years, rights lawyers and dissidents have played a game of cat and mouse with the mainland authorities, refusing to buckle in the face of harassment, licence revocations, detentions, beatings and, sometimes, brutal torture and imprisonment.

 

...

 

But over the past six months, the feared guobao, or domestic security apparatus, which monitors the activities of activists, has adopted unknown new tactics that have frightened its targets into silence.

 

"The methods they're using are different now," a Beijing lawyer said. "Now no one is willing to talk. When you call them, they won't even answer the phone. They obviously received a serious warning. The methods being used have exceeded their ability to withstand the pressure."

 

The lawyer said the level of fear has been raised, "sending a message of fright to the entire society."

 

Apart from going silent, some lawyers have started to turn down cases.

 

"These lawyers used to take controversial cases," said one US-based lawyer, "but since the crackdown, it has been noted by one of the lawyers that it is difficult for people to find lawyers for sensitive cases, especially religious cases, such as those involving the Falun Gong."

 

Many of the lawyers and activists have been illegally detained and held for excessive periods in violation of Chinese laws. In some instances, people have been abducted off the streets, with a black hood thrown over their heads by non-uniformed security officers.

 

The victims of "black-hooding" are often illegally held in unknown locations, incommunicado for periods ranging from days to months in what some call a "black box". Sometimes the abductions are carried out by thugs hired by the police to intimidate the targets.

 

...

 

The cases

 

Jin Guanghong, lawyer Forcibly medicated; tied up and beaten; given injections. Can't remember much. Disappeared on April 8 or 9 and returned home on April 19.

 

Tang Jingling , lawyer Forcibly medicated; tied up and beaten; given injections. Can't remember much. Put under residential surveillance for "inciting subversion of state power" but being held outside his residence.

 

Jiang Tianyong , lawyer Detained for two months, from February 19 to April 19. Beaten for two days for refusing to collaborate.

 

Teng Biao , lawyer Detained for about 68 days.

 

Tang Jitian , lawyer Detained from Feb 16 to March 4.

 

Li Fangping , lawyer Detained from April 29 to May 4.

 

Li Xiongbing, lawyer Detained for two days, May 4-6.

 

Xu Zhiyong , lawyer Detained for one day.

 

Liu Shihui , lawyer Missing since Feb 20. Earlier, he was brutally beaten by a group of unidentified individuals at a bus stop.

 

Li Tiantian , lawyer Disappeared on Feb 19 and reappeared on May 24.

 

Liu Xiaoyuan , lawyer Detained for six days.

 

Ni Yulan , lawyer, and husband Dong Jiqin Believed charged with "creating a disturbance", Ni and her husband were taken into detention on April 17. She is thought in poor health.

 

Fan Yafeng, legal scholar Taken to a secret location on December 9 and tortured for several days.

 

Ai Weiwei , artist Detained on April 3. Ai has not yet been formally arrested or indicted.

 

Ran Yunfei , writer and blogger Detained on February 20. Formally arrested on March 25 for "inciting subversion of state power".

 

Wang Lihong, citizen journalist Taken on March 21 and formally arrested on April 20, and charged with "assembling a crowd to disrupt social order". In poor health.

 

Yu Jie, writer Believed to have been seriously tortured.

[ScotsAlan]

China really is being repressive at the moment.

 

Lawyers who work in sensitive areas - helping people petition for grievences; defending people who practice illict religions like home church Christianity or Falun Gong; working to build grass roots civic organizations - are disappearing into the security apparatus' extra-judicial prisons, where they are psychologically and sometimes physically tortured.

 

They are being intimidated to stop their work, with their and their family's wellbeing being threatened.

 

There is a real xenophobic attitude within this - with outsiders, and foreigners being blamed for encouraging these "bad elements" to "threaten state security and social harmony" by helping the least advantaged in society get some redress from a disfunctional, corrupt and oppressively violent state.

 

This article by in the South China Morning Post sums up the situation pretty well.

 

Amnesty International also has a (long) report on it.

 

China has become more repressive, more xenophobic, more nationalistic and more powerful in the last 10 years. That should worry everyone as it's not a stable set of circumstances.

 

I am all in favour of a successful, democratic, strong China becoming a good international citizen - but that is not what is currently happening, and you've got to dread what an oppressive state might do if its grip on power weakened.

 

Interesting times is all I can say.

 

 

 

Yes, it's oppressive. But it's not that much different to the UK's treatment of "Terror suspects".

 

On a day to day basis, I think the average Chinese person probably has more personal freedom than we do in the west. I mean the small things, such as smoking in bars, letting your dog shit in the street etc. Although the CPC are trying to change that in the big cities at the moment, but most people seem to ignore them.

 

It might be interesting if the Jiang Zemin rumours turn out to be true.....