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June 10, 2007 (Sunday) － Issue No. 105 |
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Tiananmen Massacre Commemoration Slips into Regime's Newspaper |
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Chinese
Farmers Demand to Place Human Rights Before Olympics |
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Hundreds
of Students Riot in Central China |
| Ex-envoy
Details Chinese Regime's Overseas Scheme He knew from his work at the Sydney consulate that the Australian Chinese Times was paid to print content from a number of newspapers in mainland China, where content is vetted by state censors and generally toes the party line....…Full Article |
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Chinese Investors Protest Stamp Tax Increase on Stock Transactions Many investors lost control of their emotions and are blaming the Ministry of Finance. Some investors launched a signature campaign asking for the impeachment of the Minister of Finance......…Full Article |
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June 4 was the eighteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. The massacre is a forbidden subject in China and the communist regime has taken very strict preventative measures over the years to try and erase this incident from Chinese minds and hearts. But a mainland newspaper, the Chengdu Evening News, brought a lot of attention to the massacre by running a commemoration ad. According to the United Daily News report, The Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and the Chengdu City Party committee have sent officials to the newspaper office; the newspaper staff are under a full investigation. Although it was only a one-sentence ad, "Salute to the mothers of the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989," it has touched a particularly raw nerve in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). High Profile Newspaper The Chengdu Evening News belongs to the newspaper group— Chengdu Daily, which is the official newspaper of the CCP's Chengdu Municipal Party Committee. So it does hold a position of influence. The ad appeared on the bottom right of page 14. An Epoch Times reporter called the Chengdu Evening News, and one employee told the reporter that she knew about the ad "accident," and upper level officials have been sent to the newspaper office to investigate it. However, as to whether the departments related to the placement of the ad will be punished, she said it was not convenient for her to reveal. The reporter called the Chengdu Municipal Party Committee, and a staff member said that he was not clear about the event. He told the reporter to ask the Propaganda Department of the Municipal Committee, but staff at the propaganda department hung up the phone even before the reporter finished asking the question. Who Processed the Ad? A democratic activist in Sichuan Province explained why the ad could have been published, "Management of newspapers in China is very disorganized. Newspaper offices often divide up ad pages to ad agencies to sell space to others. The people who are responsible for this ad probably did not notice it or made a mistake." According to a media worker, before printing the paper, there are three editing procedures; so obviously, all these reviews missed the ad also. People must provide their ID to place an ad in the newspaper, but it is possible someone used a fake ID. So far the Chengdu
Evening News has been forced to stop printing one issue because of
the ad, but no notice has been released regarding a punishment for
any individual yet. Back Thousands of landless farmers in China are demanding their human rights, claiming that the Chinese communist regime regards the Beijing 2008 Olympics as many times more important than their well-being. Two representatives for Toulin Town of Fujin City, Heilongjiang Province stepped forward to speak for the 2,913 petitioners who signed a statement that demands their rights be placed before the Olympics, according to an article published by China Affairs on June 1. Voices from Thousands of Signatures A farmer named Xu from Changan Town disclosed that five to six thousand farmers have signed the statement, and they are just not yet posted online. Xu exclaimed that the Olympics is a costly event that is given much more attention than their life's worth. He said, "The people's lands have been taken away by the authorities. Tell me how the Beijing 2008 Olympics would be useful?" Another farmer claimed that they are not against the Olympics, but the Olympics only functions to give the Chinese Communist Party a good image while it doesn't even care about the citizens' well-being. Farmers from Fujin City who have lost their land have spent the past 11 years appealing for their rights. A villager named Qian said, "Eleven years of appealing and filing lawsuits have been useless. No official wants to take care of it, and CCTV refuses to report it unless we have signatures from the central authorities. We can see from this how corrupt the regime is. In China, human rights cannot be guaranteed." Officials Collect Rent from Farmers According to the farmers' appeals, officials of Fujin City usurped their land in April 1995, under the pretense of acquiring land for national development projects in conjunction with South Korea by investing in joint farm land in Touxing area. They used 570 thousand Chinese acres of land and forced many local villages to relocate. Farmers were only handed small compensation packages ranging from 10 yuan (US$1.31) to 70 yuan ($9.17) per Chinese acre. In 1997, the Sino-Korea Joint Farm Land broke up, but the local authorities founded a development company in order to continue occupying the land. They now rent the land back to the farmers at very high prices. Farmers say that the officials have even employed criminal syndicates and policemen to stop villagers from farming to make a living, and their appeals yielded no results. Keep Fighting for Land Villagers also expressed anger towards the officials selling their land to others. During the past eleven years, over 20 thousand hectares from just one village were seized. One villager stated, "This is our land. We demand democracy! Now we have nowhere to go, and we won't win appeals anywhere." Local authorities are also reported to persecute the farmer's representatives. They threaten to jail him until he stops appealing. The farmers are
also saving to sue the officials. Over a hundred peasants from Toulin
town, Xinghua village, Qingfeng village, Qingfu village, and Lianfeng
village filed an administrative lawsuit. Back China has officially released the news that Huang Ju, vice Premier the State Council of the People's Republic of China, member of the Standing Committee of Political Bureau died in Beijing at 2:03 a.m. on June 2 at the age of 69. Huang Ju was a key leader of the Shanghai Gang, a power group led by former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Unimportant Titles on the Death Notice of Huang From Huang's death note published by the CCP's official media, Xinhua News, China's present leaders Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao (Hu and Wen) did not grant fancy "titles" to the No. 6 CCP leader. The death note plainly states the facts of his death, without statements of sorrow and without titles such as "the Great" or "the Revolutionist." Huang was referred merely as the "an excellent CCP member, a soldier of communism and an outstanding leader." A Break to CCP's Political Balance Huang Ju was a key leader of the Shanghai Gang. Among the Standing Committee members of Political Bureau, Huang has the closest relationship with Jiang Zemin, former Chinese dictator. Jiang Zemin, Huang Ju and Chen Liangyu, who was removed from position last year, were the "Iron Triangle" of the Shanghai Gang. Hu and Wen actually declared the complete disintegration of the Shanghai Gang using Huang's death. Since Hu and Wen started their regime, China's political situation has been the battle field of two main power groups: one is led by Hu and Wen, composed by the former CCP Youth League leaders, intellectual officials and the former Beijing Gang; the other group is the Shanghai Gang led by Jiang Zemin and some officials who were close to the former Soviet Union. At the beginning of Hu and Wen' regime, they were on the weaker side and their orders could not move beyond their office. But recently Hu and Wen had turned the situation around by promoting the "anti-corruption" campaign. Analysts pointed out that Huang's death and the Shanghai Gang's disintegration have broken the CCP's original political balance. China's political situation will undergo a short reforming process, possibly a relatively chaotic phase. Faced with the new situation, various cliques will reevaluate and rearrange. The Beijing Municipal Party Committee Secretary Turned To Show Loyalty to Hu Take the Beijing Municipal Party Committee Secretary Liu Qi as an example. He used to be the backbone of Jiang's clique, but this May, he expressed loyalty to Hu in the Beijing Party Meeting. He said that at any time, under any circumstance, he would conscientiously maintain the Central Committee's authority, and ensure smooth execution of the Central Committee's orders in Beijing. Seething Popular Discontent May Erupt Anywhere After removing the Shanghai Gang's resistance, Hu and Wen are faced with forced rearrangement before the Seventeenth National Congress of the CCP. Now the biggest challenge facing the CCP's political situation comes from the populace. With destruction of the ecological environment, the trampling on the human environment and long-term social injustices, seething popular discontent may erupt anywhere. The continued persecution on Falun Gong has amounted to huge political blood debt, who is going to pay for it? All of these will be presented only more clearly in front of Hu and Wen. They become the main issues that Hu and Wen must face directly. Analysts pointed
out that at this time, Hu and Wen can only sort out the relationships
and truly master their fate before the convening of the Seventeenth
National Congress by following "the will of the Heaven and the
people." Back BEIJING—Hundreds of students clashed with police and burnt cars in central China after street inspectors beat up a female student, a police officer and a witness said on Thursday, the latest in a series of public disturbances. Students from several universities in Zhengzhou, Henan province, went on the rampage on Wednesday after a student vendor was beaten by several street inspectors as they cleared her unlicensed stall, a student witness told Reuters. Last June, thousands of students from the same city smashed windows and ransacked their campus in a riot sparked by anger over the wording of their diplomas. "I was also selling things on the street, and I could not take it any more, when I saw them even beating up a girl, so I joined the riot by throwing a brick at the inspectors," a student from the Henan University of Finance and Economics said. The Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy put the number of students rioting at 1,000. One witness put it at 2,000. A police officer also confirmed the riot. "A lot of students were rioting last night, and the situation was quite serious," the official, surnamed Wang, told Reuters. "The general city police office had to send more police to help," she said by phone, adding that the case was under investigation. The girl lost her front teeth in the clash and five students were detained by police, the rights centre said. Six inspectors were detained, two were sacked and four received warnings, the local Dahe News paper said, citing a government notice. Unrest of any kind is highly sensitive in China, whose Communist government prizes stability and brooks no challenges to its power. But student protests are an even more potent symbol because of a legacy of student activism, most recently in the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations on Tiananmen Square. Clashes between members of the public and the inspectors, known as "cheng guan" and mainly responsible for cracking down on unlicensed hawkers suspected of selling unsanitary food or low-quality goods, are common. The inspectors were set up across China in the late 1990s to ease the burden on police and ensure cities were clean and orderly. But critics say they have become a huge interest group thriving on fines and confiscations with over-reaching power. A widening gap
between rich and poor, corruption and official abuses of power have
fuelled demonstrations and riots around the country that are often
sparked by seemingly minor issues. Back Big Brother knows no borders. That was the message Mr. Chen Yonglin brought this week on his first visit to Canada following his high-profile defection from the Chinese consulate in Sydney, Australia two years ago. Through an in-depth interview and never-before-released documents provided to The Epoch Times, Chen detailed the regime's efforts to control Chinese-language media overseas, and through student and community groups acting as front organizations, influence western government officials. The purpose, Chen says, is to discredit and intimidate five target groups: Tibetan exiles, Taiwanese, Uighur Muslims, democracy activists, and most of all Falun Gong practitioners. Chen served as the first secretary of the consulate in Sydney and headed up the consulate's political department, which was responsible for taking the lead to combat the five groups. He defected in May 2005 saying his conscience forbade him from doing the work, which he says included spying on Australians in the five groups and interfering in their activities. Now he's warning western governments to pay heed. "The control of the overseas Chinese community has been a consistent strategy of the Chinese Communist Party and is the result of painstaking planning and management for dozens of years," says Chen. "It's not just in Australia. It is done this way in other countries like the U.S. and Canada, too." Media Control As head of the political department, Chen was also a member of the Special Anti-Falun Gong Working Group, which included the head of each department at the Sydney consulate and the Consul General, Chen said. He said the same group exists in Chinese missions around the world. Chen said he knew from his work at the Sydney consulate that the Australian Chinese Times was paid to print content from a number of newspapers in mainland China, where content is vetted by state censors and generally toes the party line. The Toronto edition of the Ming Pao newspaper, one of the largest newspapers read mainly by Hong Kong Chinese in Canada, also prints content from a Mainland Chinese newspaper. He also said his newspaper has a clear policy not to publish Falun Gong advertisements. "This [policy] has been in place for many years – it's no secret." Lui said Ming Pao papers across North America follow the same policy. Chen described several methods that the Chinese regime uses to control the overseas media. One is to have media publish content from Mainland Chinese media. Another is to directly invest or set up fully controlled media. Chen offered as an example the nine state-owned television channels from mainland China that were recently approved by the CRTC to broadcast in Canada. "This is an infiltration of the Chinese Communist Party's ideology; the purpose is to legitimize its human rights violations," said Chen. "Opposing Falun Gong is the top priority of the Chinese embassy and consulates," Chen says. "Now they feel they can't let people know about what has been done to Falun Gong in China." Back Chinese
Investors Protest Stamp Tax Increase on Stock Transactions Back At 12:09 a.m. on May 30, China's Ministry of Finance suddenly announced its measure to raise stamp taxes on stock transactions from 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent. The news was announced by the state-run media, Xinhua News. The Ministry of Finance increased stamp taxes twice, and the measure caused stocks to plunge over 6 percent after the stock markets opened in Shanghai and Shenzhen on May 30. The incident caused a shockwave of reactions among investors. Investors, who as a result, suffered a heavy loss, labeled the huge change in stock prices the "5-30 Tragic Event." Many investors lost control of their emotions and are blaming the Ministry of Finance. Some investors launched a signature campaign asking for the impeachment of the Minister of Finance. Some investors from Beijing, Shanghai and other places travelled to Tiananmen Square, the organizations of the Financial systems in Beijing and the Shanghai Securities Monitoring Department to protest. Other investors made their own banners displaying innuendoes against the government for not to keeping its promise. In addition, on the afternoon of May 30, the website of the Ministry of Finance was down for seven hours, only reporting back with the message "unable to find server". Investors speculate that this was also related to the sudden increase in stamp tax by the Ministry of Finance. An Epoch Times reporter called the website maintenance center of the Ministry of Finance, and staff working there confirmed that the website had been down, but was now operating properly. When the staff member was asked whether the website had been under attack, he said "It is possible." Shanghai investor Mr. Xiao revealed that a rumor predicting the increase in stamp tax spread quickly in the markets last week, but the Directors of the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration Department all claimed that they had never heard of such a planned adjustment to the tax on stock transactions when they were interviewed by mainland Chinese media. Mr. Yang from Beijing told The Epoch Times that at about 10:00a.m. on May 30, more and more people gathered at Tiananmen Square and that there were several thousand people there in the afternoon. These people expressed their dissatisfaction, complaining that the government was cheating the public and not being responsible to its people. Some investors said, "The government is relying on making money through increasing tax revenue; it is similar to their actions in taking away peoples' lands." There are over one hundred million Chinese investors, but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constantly worries about them and about the fact that the stock market might become China's "unstable factor." Mr. Yang said, "The government does not have the power to manage this; it is out of control now, and they are just desperately trying anything that they think might help." At present, the number of individual investors who invest in Chinese stock markets is increasing tremendously. Official data shows that the total number of accounts from both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets was over one hundred million at the end of the trading day of May 28. Back |
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