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Epoch Times
Jul 7, 2010
By Fang Xiao

The clash that erupted in Xinjiang on July 5 of last year (7-5 incident) is considered by some China’s worst ethnic violence in decades. The Epoch Times talked to residents in Urumqi, Kashi and Aksu over the phone a few days before the one-year anniversary, asking them for their opinion of what caused the violence in 2009.

Policy of Discrimination

People said rancor between Han and Uyghur groups has been growing due to discrimination by authorities against Uyghur citizens. One person stated that the communist regime’s policy for Uyghurs is to eradicate them.    more …

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 …

com
July 8, 2010
By MARK THOMPSON / WASHINGTON Mark Thompson / Washington
China’s satellites and spies were working properly, there was a flood of unsettling intelligence flowing into the Beijing headquarters of the Chinese Navy last week. A new class of U.S. super weapon had suddenly surfaced nearby. It was an Ohio-class submarine, which for decades carried only nuclear missiles targeted against the Soviet Union, and then Russia. But this one was different: for nearly three years, the U.S. Navy has been dispatching modified “boomers” to who knows where (they do travel underwater, after all). Four of the 18 ballistic-missile subs no longer carry nuclear-tipped Trident missiles. Instead, they now hold up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, capable of hitting anything within 1,000 miles with non-nuclear warheads.

Their capability makes watching these particular submarines especially interesting. The 14 Trident-carrying subs are useful in the unlikely event of a nuclear Armageddon, and Russia remains their prime target. But the Tomahawk-outfitted quartet carries a weapon that the U.S. military has used repeatedly against targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan. (See pictures of the U.S. military in the Pacific.)

That’s why alarm bells would have sounded in Beijing June 28 when the Tomahawk-laden 560-foot USS Ohio popped up in the Philippines’ Subic Bay. More alarms likely were sounded when the USS Michigan arrived in Pusan, South Korea, the same day. And the klaxons would have maxed out as the USS Florida surfaced the same day at the joint U.S.-British naval base at Diego Garcia, a flyspeck of an island in the Indian Ocean. The Chinese military awoke to find as many as 462 additional Tomahawks deployed by the U.S. in its neighborhood. “There’s been a decision to bolster our forces in the Pacific,” says Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There is no doubt that China will stand up and take notice.”     more …

The Epoch Times
Jul 2, 2010
By Hua Ming

When foreigners visit China, they may find the red carpet rolled out for them—an actual red carpet. Behind the flattering attention and well-orchestrated hospitality may lie years of meticulous research aimed at gaining influence over selected visitors.

“Doing business in China is the greatest honor in my life,” Steven Miller, director of a private storage company, told a New Epoch Magazine reporter. He was with other business professionals. “The treatment I’ve received is like a king: red carpet, excellent food, and local officials who are very responsive.”

Sam Sullivan, former mayor of Vancouver, Canada, was equally moved and impressed during his time in China. “When I go to China, they treat me like an emperor. And we don’t have that tradition of that red-carpet thing, so it’s a little embarrassing for me in a way,” he said in an interview with The Vancouver Sun.

According to the report, Sullivan recalled that on a trip to China as city councilor, he discovered that almost every major Chinese official at every city hall had his own dining room and his own chef to welcome guests.

Joe Trasolini, mayor of Port Moody, Canada, visited Beijing some years ago and was given similarly warm treatment. He met with the mayor of Beijing, and the city footed the bill for his travel expenses. The next time he visited China, although he paid for his own travel, he was entertained by municipal-level officials. After a few hours of sightseeing in the morning he would enjoy extravagant banquets in the evening.

Excepting the super rich, most live a lifetime without receiving such treatment. In today’s China, however, it has become the norm for communist officials to personally receive in lavish style Western VIPs, businessmen, and delegates, who cannot help but feel honored.

Changed Attitudes

After being treated like an emperor, Western politicians have found their attitudes changed toward subjects such as Chinese dissidents and the persecution of Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa). Some have gone from denouncing the human rights violations of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to singing the praises of a developing China.    more …

Epoch Times
Jul 2, 2010
by Gu Qinger & Gu Xiaohua

Chinese villagers, unwilling to have their property forcibly demolished, have seized 22 demolition vehicles as bargaining chips. One man was seriously injured and villagers are demanding resolution.

A villager was run over by a government vehicle during a June 21 confrontation between over 300 unarmed Qiantaobu village residents and a demolition team lead by the local Communist Party chief of Weizi town, Weifang City, Shandong province. Angered by this, local residents smashed the vehicle that caused the accident and drove the government officials out of the village.

In a June 24 interview, villagers said that after the incident the township officials went into the village to try to strike a deal for the return of their vehicles. However, the majority of the villagers did not want to talk about the forced demolition issue because the injured villager was still hospitalized. At present, officials are trying to deny that the government vehicle injured the villager.    more …

BBC News
July 2, 2010

Amnesty International has challenged the official Chinese version of events in Xinjiang a year ago, when nearly 200 people were killed in ethnic clashes.

China blamed the violence in the regional capital Urumqi on the local ethnic Uighur population, saying most of the recorded dead were Han Chinese.

But the human rights group says police used unnecessary force against Uighurs, followed by mass arrests and torture.

The claim comes as thousands of CCTV cameras have been put up across Urumqi.

The cameras, which have a “riot-proof” protective shell, have been set up across the city, including at bus and railway stations, schools and shops.

Last year’s violence, China’s worst in decades, erupted on 5 July and only ended after huge numbers of troops were deployed.
Chinese special police show off their skills during a drill in Beijing (30 June 2010) China’s police have been staging drills to deal with any similar emergencies

Xinjiang, a resource-rich region that borders Central Asia, has more than eight million Uighurs.

Many are unhappy about the large influx of Han Chinese settlers, which they say has increasingly marginalised their interests and culture.

Amnesty International (AI) says it has newly gathered testimonies from Uighurs who fled China after the unrest.

They allege that demonstrators were attacked by the security forces, shot in the back or denied protection.     more …

BBC News
3 July 2010

Rinchen Samdrup

A Tibetan environmentalist has been sentenced to five years in prison by a Chinese court, his lawyer has said.  Rinchen Samdrup, the third brother in his family to be jailed, was found guilty of inciting separatism in China, reports say.  Mr Samdrup, who had pleaded not guilty, was accused of posting a pro-Dalai Lama article on his website.  The sentence comes just over a week after one of Mr Samdrup’s brothers was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Authorities in China said an article on the Tibetan spiritual leader was posted on Mr Samdrup’s website, the Associated Press news agency reported.  The website is devoted to protecting the environment in the Himalayan region.  Mr Samdrup told Changdu Intermediate People’s Court that he did not post the article himself.  His lawyer, Xia Jun, was quoted as saying: “It was a mistake, but not a crime.” The lawyer did not say who posted the article on the website.

The sentence comes after his brother, a nationally known environmentalist once praised by the Chinese government as a model philanthropist, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.    more …

The Epoch Times
By Sonya Bryskine

The much-awaited publication of the memoirs by the former Chinese Premier Li Peng, which detailed controversial events leading up to the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, has hit a roadblock, after the Hong Kong publisher has been forced to halt the book’s release.

About 20,000 Chinese-language copies of The Tiananmen Diary of Li Peng had initially been scheduled to go on sale in Hong Kong on June 22, but Bao Pu, of New Century Press, stopped the presses on Friday because he did not have copyright ownership, reports Reuters.

Reuters obtained an advance copy of the memoirs in which Li reveals that China’s former leader Deng Xiaoping, said the government had to “spill some blood” to quell the June 4, 1989, protests.

The memoirs were written in 2004, but have been suppressed by the Chinese leaders who have sought to erase any reference to the bloody crackdown that led to the deaths of thousands.

“Relevant institutions provided information related to copyright (ownership) before publication. According to Hong Kong copyright laws, we have no choice but to scrap our original publication plans,” Bao told Reuters by telephone from the former British colony on Saturday.    more …

The Epoch Times
By Reggie Littlejohn

Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, everyone opposes forced abortion because it’s not a choice. China’s One Child Policy causes more violence to women and girls than any other official policy on earth.

Crematorium workers in Guangdong Province found an infant crying in a “medical waste” receptacle on its way to being cremated, reports the Shanghai Daily News. The crematorium workers immediately sent the infant back to the hospital. Later that day, the hospital sent the infant back to the crematorium, dead. The hospital offered no explanation of the cause of death.

Earlier this year, Xinhua reported that 21 bodies of fetuses and babies were found discarded in a river in East China. Xinhua News stated, “The bodies may have been dumped by cleaners from local hospitals after abortions and induced labor. Such dead bodies are treated as ‘medical waste’ by hospitals.”    more …

Epoch Times
By Li Jingyi

After 3 years in prison, Chinese poet, freelance writer, and activist, Li Hong, is in a critical condition. His wife and friends are calling for help from the international community.

Li Hong (original name Zhang Jianhong) from Hangzhou City in China’s Zhejiang Province was released on bail for medical treatment on June 5. He was directly transferred to the Ningbo Number Two People’s Hospital and admitted to its intensive care unit.
Poet persecuted in prison

Li was the founding editor of the popular Zhejiang news and literary website Aegean Sea. On March 19, 2007, he was sentenced to six years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” for articles he wrote criticizing the regime’s human rights record in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.     more …