Epoch Times
By Gu Qing’er

A 16-year-old from China’s northern Liaoning Province is being prosecuted for willful assault after being caught in a tussle with a gang acting on behalf of local Communist Party officials; he stabbed one of the aggressors, who later died.

“My boy is still young. He deserves another chance,” the mother of the 16-year-old Zhao Mingyang, told The Epoch Times.

Zhao is a resident of Xiaowa Village, Fushun City, Liaoning Province. He stabbed an “interceptor” to death while on his way to petition in October 2009; his case has recently entered appeal the process. Interceptors are hired by local government officials to prevent residents from appealing to higher levels of government (calling “petitioning”) and violence is a staple in the process.

Over 900 of the 1500 residents of Xiaowa Village have signed a petition to the court for granting leniency to Zhao, who has been deemed a civil hero on Chinese websites.

The farmers of Xiaowa Village make their living by growing rice on 500 acres of land. In a bid to build a new town there, called Shenfu, the Fushun municipal government forced the farmers to relocate in 2009 with compensation of around 700 yuan (US$100) per acre.

Residents of the village reported that Zang Yuquan, the Chinese Communist Party village branch leader, and Liu Fengtong, the village committee director, embezzled a good portion of the total. Zang’s new Mercedes Benz now stands out in the village, since the average annual income per capita is far below that buying power.

Zhao’s father and another farmer, Tong Zhengang, decided to appeal and spread the news to the rest of the village over loudspeaker on October 8, 2009. Retaliation was swift.

“Liu hired more than 20 gangsters and smashed the Zhao and Tong family,” said Wang, a villager interviewed by The Epoch Times who was privy to the events. “Half of them went to Zhao’s house first. Zhao’s mother and Zhao were at home. They threatened Zhao’s mother with a knife not to petition or they’d kill Zhao’s family. The other half jumped over the wall and forced into Tong’s house. They beat up Tong and his wife and smashed his house.”    more …

The Epoch Times
November 29, 2009
By Wu Tsen-hsi
Epoch Times Staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan—The Chinese communist regime is determined to “unify” with Taiwan by 2012, according to exiled Chinese law professor Yuan Hongbing. He discloses confidential findings in his new book, Taiwan Disaster, which was released on Nov. 17 in Taipei.

In his presentation at National Taiwan University on November 17, Yuan said that a lot of documents quoted in the book were provided by regime insiders—insiders who risked their own lives to reveal the truth.

In his book, Yuan maintains that, through its strategy of unifying the market and financial systems of the mainland with those of Taiwan, Beijing is, at the same time, stepping up its own reunification agenda with its neighbor.

While Taiwan appears to be benefiting from the current economic cooperation with the mainland, in the end Beijing plans to achieve its political endgame of “Unification via the Economy.”

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Yuan Hongbing said, “The [global] financial crisis which began in late 2007 resulted from the practice of excessive consumption. It was meant to be an opportunity for mankind to reflect on our worthiness and the true purpose of our lives.

“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) however, is utilizing [the crisis] to achieve its ultimate goal of enslaving the entire human race—with Taiwan as its first target.”    more …

Asia Times
By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING – The legal traditions of China and those of ancient Rome and Greece have very different origins. They grew out of different social needs and political requirements, reflecting the varied natures of the civilizations that created the laws.

In ancient China, three words covered the modern meaning of the Latin word lex (law): xing (punishment), fa (norm, standard), and li (ritualistic behavior). As the Lun Yu (the ancient collections of the sayings attributed to Confucius) told us, the aristocracy, the junzi, was to be managed through li, whereas for common people, xing was more appropriate.

The word xing, punishment, indicated corporal punishment, as suggested by the radical “knife” in the character. This could be

cutting off the nose or the ears, or the fingers – or a branding on the forehead. Such marks showed clearly to everybody the criminal record of the individual. In this sense, xing, by cutting, gave a new shape to the culprit, it adapted the object, the person. A thief, thus, would be punished by having to take on the shape of a thief – that is, for example, without a hand.

In a sense, the punishment of xing was to correct a person by changing his name from the one given to the one that was appropriate for him. This was a practical and concrete application of the Confucian principle, “The father must be a father; the son, son; the king, king; the minister, minister.”

The ritualistic li, was a complex system of education and etiquette for people with access to higher social positions, covering how to behave in different circumstances and with different people. A lack of etiquette, as it is today, is not punished by torture or corporal punishment, but simply by subjecting the guilty to a humiliating lack of etiquette in response. The “impolite” person loses face, is demeaned, and thus is already punished enough. This system assumes a society split in two, between the educated and the uneducated or the underprivileged. They are different, behave differently, and should be treated differently.   more …

Asia Times
SUN WUKONG
By Wu Zhong, China editor

HONG KONG – The welcome by Chinese property developers to the news that insurance companies will be allowed to invest directly in real estate has been countered by financial analysts; they caution that the impact on the property market will not be as immediate or as strong as some expect.

The government, concerned that investment losses by an insurance company would hurt the interests of policy holders and thus may cause social instability, has imposed strict restrictions on an insurer’s use of its capital, which mainly comes from policy premiums. The country’s first Insurance Law, enacted in 1995, stipulated: “The use of the capital of an insurance company must be restricted to bank deposits, trading in sovereign bonds, financial bonds and in other ways approved by the State Council.”
These limited channels of investment in low-risk, low-yield bonds restricted the growth of insurers’ profits, while also reducing their risks of losses.   more …