Chinese Press Review: Lushan Mourning, Maritime Disputes, Border Disputes, and CPBS Emergency Broadcasts

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1. Offerings to the Spirits of the Dead

On Friday, a ceremony to honor the two earthquake (military) relief workers Yang Bo (杨波) and Li Tangdong (李堂东) was conducted at a funeral parlor in Meishan, Sichuan Province, reports China News Service (中国新闻网, via Huanqiu Shibao). The two are referred to as martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the rescue efforts in Lushan, Sichuan Province, which occurred on April 20.

Yang Bo, a platoon leader (probably around the rank of a lieutenant, with the 13th Army Group) died in an accident when his military vehicle got off a road due to a bursting tire and fell off a cliff.

Li Tangdong, a corporal who drove the vehicle, also died in the crash. Li was from Wuxi County (Chongqing).

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2. Maritime Disputes with Japan

Japan has adopted a five-year blueprint for protecting maritime interests, partly in an effort to counter territorial claims by China and South Korea, reports The Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo). It suggests closer cooperation between Japan’s military and coastguard. Okinotorishima as well as other remote islands on what is defined as Japan’s borders reportedly are to play a role as port facilities according to the five-year plan plan, so as to protect interests in the nation’s exclusive economic zone. Methane hydrate, which could become a next-generation fuel, is among the undersea energy resources in the maritime regions in questions, writes Asahi Shimbun.
China’s Huanqiu Shibao quotes Japan’s Yomiuri Simbun on the same topic. According to Huanqiu (or its possibly rather loose rendition of Yomiuri’s coverage), Japan’s five-year blueprint calls for responsive strategies to Chinese vessels that enter the waters of the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands in Chinese). Rather than port facilities as described by the Asahi Shimbun, Huanqiu Shibao refers the plans for the remote islands as ones for resupply bases or depots (补给站). Okinotorishima is referred to as a “reef” (礁) while the Asahi Shimbun calls it an “island”. According to Huanqiu Shibao, the Japanese government, for wanting to protect its interests in resources, has begun to promote the protection of remote islands and the management of the legalization process [of Japan's claims or rights].

In 2012, a research team from Tokyo University detected large quantities of rare earths beneath the seaground of Minami-Tori-shima‘s adjacent waters. It was then that the Japanese government decided to strengthen the protection of energy sources and natural resources in its exclusive economic zones.

2012年，东京大学研究小组在南鸟岛周边海底发现了大量稀土。以此为契机，日本政府决定加强在保护专属经济海域内能源资源方面的措施。

[...]

Okinotorishima reef is said to be a southern Japanese atoll in the Pacific [don't quote me on this - I'm not sure that this is what Huanqiu really says about the place in Chinese - JR]. In recent years, the Japanese government has spent huge amounts on creating man-made corals at these reefs, thinking of these atolls as “islands”, trying to declare sovereignty on this basis, taking the opportunity to expand their “territorial” waters and the range of the “exclusive economic zones”, to make the development of nearby marine resources more convenient.

据了解，冲之鸟礁是日本南部太平洋海域的一处环礁。近年来，日本政府斥巨资用来在此礁人工养殖珊瑚，并认为该环礁为“岛”，企图以此来宣布主权，借机扩大其“领海”和“专属经济区”范围，为开发附近丰富的海洋资源提供方便。

As for the Okinotorishima reef, China believes that this is a reef, and not an island. Okinotorishima reef provides no base for human habitation, doesn’t sustain economic activity, and there is no basis to establish establish [i. e. claim] any connection between it and the continental shelf. On September 11, 2009, the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf said that a working group under the commission had commenced the handling of an application from Japan concerning the extension of the southern continental shelf into the Pacific.  China has filed objections with the UN.

有关冲之鸟礁问题，中国方面认为冲之鸟是 岩礁而不是岛屿。冲之鸟礁不能供人类居住，也无法维持经济生活，设定大陆架没有任何根据。2009年9月11日，联合国大陆架界限委员会表示，该委员会下 属的一个工作小组已经着手处理日本提出的南太平洋大陆架延伸申请。中国已向联合国正式提交反对意见。

Huanqiu Shibao’s emoticon vote suggests a strong trend of anger among the traditionally nationalist readership – the option “I’m angry” rose from 160 to 181 within about thirty minutes. Clicks for “this is ridiculuous” stayed at 14.
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3. Sino-Indian Border Conflicts

Meantime, Huanqiu Shibao has soothing news from the South:

China News Service, April 26 [published by Huanqiu Shibao on April 27] — Indian foreign minister Salman Khurshid answered questions from Indian media on April 25, concerning the confrontational incident on the Sino-Indian border, and said that the consultation mechanism on border issues had been started. He believed that this mechanism would find a solution for the issue in question, just as it had found solutions in the past.

中新网4月26日电 4月25日，印度外长库尔希德在回答印媒体关于中印边境对峙事件的提问时表示，印中双方已启动边境事务磋商机制，相信该机制能够像过去一样，为此次事件找到解决办法。

Huanqiu Shibao quotes Salman Khurshid as saying that bilateral relations grown over many years shouldn’t break down by overemphasizing small issues and were just like some acne on a face which only required some ointment.

“我期待在下个月访问中国之前，双方能够通过外交渠道结束僵局。”库尔希德说，我们不能因为某个地方发生的小问题而毁掉双方多年来为双边关系付出的投入和心血，正如不能因为脸上有一个小的痤疮就说这张脸不美，所需做的只是敷一点药膏而已。

Kurshid was looking forward to his planned visit to China next month.

Correspondingly, only eleven clicks from the readership were made to express anger, while 374 clicks express delight. Still, 46 clicks find the article (or the news) ridiculous. Both the “delight” and the “ridiculous” numbers are increasing quickly. Those readers who take the trouble to comment appear to be less conciliatory though.
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4. Emergency Radio Frequencies (older news)

On Monday, Central People’s Broadcasting Station (中央人民廣播電台, CPBS, now also known as China National Radio, but only the English name changed in 1998) started special emergency broadcasts in the wake of the Lushan earthquake. These were the first broadcasts of this kind, according to CPBS itself. A studio was established in the hardest-hit county of Lushan, broadcasting rescue information, expert interviews, news, psychological support and consolation, and practical information. Frequencies used were 9,800 kHz and 12,000 kHz on shortwave and 92.7 MHz on VHF/FM.

The 6th plenary session of the CCP’s 17th Central Committee^*)  had issued plans for such an emergency broadcasting system, and the plans were then included in the country’s 12th five-year plan, according to CPBS.

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Note

^*) the same plenary session adopted the party’s cultural decision, in October 2011.
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Chen Guangcheng: “No Remaining Legal Issues”

Chen Guangcheng leaves U.S. embassy for what, it is suggested, is going to be a normal life in China. Meantime, Beijing reportedly makes some unusual announcements concerning investigations of “extralegal” activities of the local authorities in Chen’s hometown, and demands an apology from the U.S. for interference in Chinese domestic affairs.

Chen Guangcheng: Point of no Return?

Bob Fu (傅希秋), a pastor and activist who runs US-based group China Aid (对华援助协会), is quoted as saying that Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚) had changed his mind and was now prepared to leave China, provided that his family would accompany him. “[Chen] understands that there is no way he could return to Dongshigu now”, Fu told AFP in a telephone interview, without revealing his sources.

Hu Jia (胡佳) and other friends of Chen had previously said that Chen wanted to stay in China, but Hu added that Chen, after having entered the US embassy, was in a difficult position, ABC News reports today. There had been no way to shelter Chen within an underground network of safe houses where Chen had stayed between his escape from his home village Dongshigu, and his second getaway within days, to the American embassy.

Confidence-Building Measure: “Rebel” turns Party Secretary

In December last year, Lin Zulian (林祖恋), along with other “Wukan rebel leaders”, was facing the prospect of being punished, once caught. Now, he has become secretary of Wukan’s local party branch.

This is the first ever case where a man on the government’s wanted list has become the Party Secretary of a village, the Telegraph‘s Peter Simpson quotes Yang Semao, one of Lin’s co-leaders in last year’s uprising.

That might be true. But in Chinese pre-communist history, co-opting rebels into leadership, if punishment would come at too high a cost (or if simply impossible) isn’t that new.

The Wukan revolt is seen as a small but significant milestone in the struggle between clean governance and Party dominance among China’s rural poor communities,

writes the Telegraph. This conclusion is almost certainly hyperbolic. For one, corruption exists beyond CCP officialdom. That’s not to say that power will corrupt Lin Zulian, but it remains to be seen what kind of party secretary he will be, and if he will last in his new position at all. He might, because he should be familiar with the big brotherhood’s hierarchy and procedures. According to Phoenix, Hong Kong, he has been a party member since 1965.

What this co-option has achieved however, is that it has saved Guangdong’s leadership’s face, in what may be a competition between different concepts of power. After all, Guangdong counts as one of the socially most advanced places in China. Bo Xilai might have handled the uprising quite differently.

And there will probably be a stabilizing effect in Wukan’s success, in that at least the local party secretary won’t feel motivated to avenge the CCP’s loss of face. The former “rebels” will feel more secure, than if the successor to Wukan’s previous party chief had come from outside the village.

Some party leaders may also remember Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily‘s savage assault of last month. “If it is difficult to rule a village, how can you rule what’s under heaven?”, the paper – as quoted by RTI – jeered (or wondered) in December.

Now, Lin Zukang must show that he can govern a village. The party will continue to govern what’s under heaven, the rest of the country, and Lin Zukang himself.

Hong Kong Fireworks 2012

Hong Kong Fireworks 2012, recorded from Kowloon by MrBartvl1979

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Related

» Taipei 101 2011 New Year Fireworks, Jan. 1, 2011

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The Siege of Wukan: If you can’t govern a village, how can you govern what is Under Heaven?

Wukan (乌坎) may best be translated as “Black Ridge”, and it is a fishing village in the vicinity and administrative area of Lufeng City (陆丰市), a county-level city in the Shanwei municipal region (汕尾), Guangdong Province. After months of tensions about land requisitions, protests starting in September this year led to the Communist cadres and administration fleeing Wukan.

The village was then stormed by riot police, according to the Daily Telegraph, after which the officials switched from stick to carrot, asking the villagers to appoint 13 representatives with whom they could negotiate – only to seize and arrest five of them on December 9. On December 12, news broke that Xue Jinbo (薛锦波), one of the five arrested, had died in police custody. His body reportedly showed signs of torture. Since December 11, the village has been under siege, without food, water, and electricity, after police had made an unsuccessful attempt early in the morning to recapture the village.

Radio Taiwan International (RTI) quotes from an Oriental Daily News (東方日報, Hong Kong) article of Friday (today) which gives an account of the events from September until now.  At the beginning, the “Wukan incident” had been just another matter of corruption, according to the article, where proper handling by the authorities could have won the villagers’ hearts and minds back. But nothing had been done about the corrupt officials, and instead, foreign hostile forces (境外敌对势力介入) were used as an excuse to explain why the situation deteriorated and finally went out of control. This had triggered the wrath of Heaven and the resentment of men (天怒人怨 – i. e. strong resentment). RTI quotes Oriental Daily as asking if the authorities, the current Wukan incident, are focusing on serving the people, or on serving corrupt officials – and with a question which would be damning even in a European country, but particularly in the celestial kingdom:

When it comes to Wang Yang (汪洋, Guangdong Province’s party secretary), “if it is difficult to rule a village, how can you rule over what’s under heaven?” (“一村尚且难治，又何以治天下?”)

RTI’s article is written in simplified characters, for the benefit of potential Chinese readers (if they can get over the firewall). In turn, Sina.com‘s Taiwanese website informed its Taiwanese readers on Thursday that according to the BBC, China had started to block microblog information on Wu Kan, which had led to internet users writing “WK” instead of the Chinese characters for Wukan.

Update [September 6, 2012]: the Sina article linked above has since been removed. See the two screenshots below for the original article:

online article, 1

online article, 2

The siege of Wukan includes the villages fleet of fishing boats, according to the BBC report quoted by Sina.com (Taiwan). The BBC in turn is quoted as quoting a Daily Telegraph reporter [Malcom Moore, apparently - see Daily-Telegraph link in this post's second paragraph] who had visited the village, and who had said that twenty-thousand people in Wukan were in open resistance, and that the authorities were completely out of control.

Sina.com (Taiwan) also quotes China News Service (中新社), China’s second-largest news agency. China News Service quotes Shanwei’s acting mayor, as saying that the legitimate demands of the people had already been resolved, or were in the process of being resolved.

It remains to be seen if this means that the people of Wukan will be starved into submission, and a crackdown will start right away, beginning with the surviving twelve village negotiators who once dared to stick their necks out, or if the authorities will choose to serve the people (as the Oriental Daily puts it), rather than avenging their official’s humiliation. (They may also choose to take the earlier approach first, and the second approach later, once national and international attention has abated.)

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Related

» Scalpel gives Way to Hatchet, Sinostand, Dec 16, 2011
» Blocked List, Things You Don’t Know, Dec 14, 2011

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Updates / Related

» The Foreign-Devils Pact, Malcolm Moore, Dec 15, 2011

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So, M. le Président, …

… you’ve become father again today. I wish you a lot of time to devote yourself to your family life – starting next year. Even earlier, if that can be done.

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Related

» … his presidency might provide some clues, Aug 20, 2011
» L’Homme du Midi, January 14, 2010

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Wen rescues Wenzhou: Many Happy Returns

Wenzhou Financial Crisis? JR's Blog - the World's Reference Point.

This China Daily piece (last update on Monday) reads a bit like satire, and I’m not sure what of it is intentional, and what is unintentional:

Wenzhou has nothing to offer in terms of amenities, so these luminaries didn’t go there to seek temporary relief from the heavy burdens of state. Instead, they traveled to the city to address what has recently become a huge headache for the manufacturing powerhouse.

The high-level visit served as a reminder that a localized credit crisis in Wenzhou is threatening to escalate into a national issue. Similar problems, on a lesser scale, are known to be troubling China’s other manufacturing hubs, including cities in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

This refers to a visit by state chief councillor Wen Jiabao, finance minister Xie Xuren, and PBoC governor Zhou Xiaochuan some time during the national holidays.

On a press conference in March, on the occasion of the 4th plenary session of the 11th “National People’s Congress”, a reporter from Zhejiang Province (that’s where Wenzhou is) had told Zhou Xiaochuan that small and medium-sized enterprieses had absolutely no bargaining power and could easily be harmed by currently very tight bank financing, and asked how harm could be avoided.

Capital prices had to rise, under the macro-economic changes, with monetary policies being switched from moderately loose to a firm one, Zhou replied in March. And: We also encourage small companies to choose from the market.

If you can believe China Daily’s article of Monday, the luminaries (i. e. Wen, Xie, Zhou et al) have now made the banks do what banks and companies need to do, to such a degree that economic fugitives (not necessarily SME bosses) even return from America, full of hope as the leadership has successfully addressed the problem:

Among the owners who absconded, Hu Fulin, the president of China’s largest manufacturer of spectacles, the Wenzhou-based Center Group, was the biggest debtor and also one of the first to return to his hometown.

Hu fled to the United States on Sept 21, leaving up to 2 billion yuan in arrears, including 1.2 billion yuan in high-interest debt from underground banks.

“I came back to receive help from the government. I hope that my company can overcome the current difficulties with support and guidance from the local authorities,” said Hu in an interview after his return on Monday.

Another errant executive, Sun Fucai, chairman of the board of Aomi Fluid Equipment Co Ltd, returned to Wenzhou on the same day.

And besides, problems won’t be that big in the Yangze and Pearl River Deltas, because

“The majority of SMEs in the Pearl River Delta don’t participate in private lending activities as frequently as Wenzhou businessmen, so they won’t fall into the same traps. They’ve also learned enough lessons to avoid the risks in the future”,

China Daily quotes experts.

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Related

» From Wenzhou to the Global Economy, Oct 15, 2011
» Sincere Thanks, February 15, 2011

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