Absurdist Republic

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Posts tagged with "China Watch"

China: Statistics of Mass Incidents

The Birth and Growth of Religious Research in China

Christians: Worshipers in a Dark Place

China Security Forces and Peasants Destroy House Church

A Troubled River Mirrors China’s Path to Modernity

Democratic or Legalistic Legitimacy?

Are 800 Million Chinese Peasants On The Threshold Of Opportunity Or Oblivion?

Ex-Red Guards Come to Grips with Maoist Tumult

The Labor of Reform in China

Bribery Reported in Village-level Elections

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Posts tagged with "China Watch"

Friday, 24. November 2006, 10:22:08

By Roland Soong
EastSouthWestNorth
November 15, 2006

Since I am a statistician by profession, I get very sensitive and sensitized to numbers and their exact meanings. The number that has been bothering me for some time is the number of "mass incidents" in China. This particular number is one of the most frequently cited numbers for China (well, not as often as the total population of 1.3 billion people, about the same as the 123 million Internet users and more than the US-China trade deficit/surplus). The reason for the frequent citations is that it is favored for certain types of discussions, such as the "Coming Collapse of China" theory. For example, it is frequently cited that there were 87,000 "mass incidents", which then gets spun into (365 days) x (24 hours per day) x (60 minutes per hour) / (87,000 incidents) = 6 minutes per incident -- every six minutes, another mass resistance against human rights violation occurs in China! How shocking! And how could a nation stay together at this rate!

Tuesday, 21. November 2006, 19:59:11

Religion, China Watch

Between secularist ideology and desecularizing reality: the birth and growth of religious research in Communist China
By Fenggang Yang
Sociology of Religion
Summer, 2004

Merely three decades ago, China appeared to be the most secularized country in the world. Not a single temple or church was open for public religious service, and people appeared to wholeheartedly believe in atheism, as reported by this American observer. At the turn of the twenty-first century, however, China may have become one of the most religious countries in the world. All kinds of religions, old or new, conventional or eccentric, are thriving. American and other Western media often feed images and stories of spectacular revivals of various religions and reckless crackdowns of religious organizations by the Communist government. The growth of various religions and the government's religious policies are important research topics both for understanding China and for theoretical development in the social scientific study of religion, which have received limited but some scholarly attention (e.g., Hunter and Chan 1993; Madsen 1998; Overmyer 2003; Kindopp and Hamrin 2004).

However, between the atheist ideology and repressive religious policy of the government on the one hand and the desecularizing reality of thriving religions on the other hand, religious research in China has emerged as the third entity playing complicated but increasingly important roles in China's religious scene. This paper focuses on the changing scholarship of religious research. (1) What are the roles of religious research in China under the rule of the Communist Party? Is the scholarship merely part of the atheist propaganda and for the purpose of controlling religion? Or is it serving the interest of religions? What are the predominant theories, perspectives, or approaches in religious research? How are these changing and why?

I will show that during the last two decades of the twentieth century, the birth and growth of religious research in China have been dramatic. In a sense it parallels the paradigm shift in the sociology of religion in the United States (Warner 1993), in which the new paradigm offers a more objective, scientific, and consequently more balanced approach to religion than the old paradigm that favors secularization as the destiny (Stark and Finke 2000). Religious research in China remains limited and restricted in many ways. However, the scholarship has shifted away from ideological atheism--a radical form of secularization "theories"--to a more scientific, objective approach that affirms both the positive and negative functions of religion. This intellectual history has three distinct periods: the domination of atheisms from 1949 to 1979, the birth of religious research in the 1980s, and the flourishing of the scholarship in the 1990s. Religious research in Communist China was established for the purpose of atheist propaganda and religious control, but it grew into an independent academic discipline that has become more responsive to the desecularizing reality.

Read the full report here

Tuesday, 21. November 2006, 19:40:19

Religion, Human Rights, China Watch, Activism

By Jason Lee Steorts
National Review
Jan 31, 2005

(Mr. Steorts is a freelance writer.)

BEIJING I meet Qiu Yue and her friend Yang Jie at an average-looking restaurant. Qiu has chosen the place precisely because it is unremarkable. Our meeting must have a low profile: Qiu and Yang's safety would be jeopardized if the authorities knew they were having lunch with a Western journalist. In fact, Qiu fears that her security has already been compromised. She suspects that her phone has been tapped, and knows that her e-mails, like those of everyone else in China, are screened by software that searches for terms deemed politically sensitive. We have therefore taken precautions: Our phone conversations have been short and vague, and in our e-mails we have made a habit of writing "C" instead Christian, "B" instead of Bible. Probably we have avoided detection. But one cannot be sure.

Tuesday, 21. November 2006, 19:08:50

China Watch, Religion

China Security Forces and Peasants Destroy House Church, Group Says
By BosNewsLife News Center
Nov 3rd, 2006

BEIJING, CHINA (BosNewsLife) -- A group of Chinese Christians faced a difficult period Thursday, November 2, after their house church building located in the campus of Changchun Agricultural University in the suburb of Changchun city, Jilin province was reportedly demolished forcibly by local authorities.
"It is known that the building served as the gathering place for Nongda house church, at other times it was used as the 'Morning Star Supermarket', " said China Aid Association, a US-based religious rights groups which has close contacts with Chinese house churches.
CAA quoted witnesses as saying that the government sent 500 policemen and several hundred peasant workers to the site early October, 26, and "drove the people out of the building while they were sleeping." Within an hour, the main part of the building as well as the furniture in it "became piles of debris. In the entire process, no explanation was given...," CAA claimed. Chinese officials have not reacted to the claims, but China's government in general has denied human rights abuses.
The 10-year old Nongda house church served Christians from the nearby countryside and was well-known in the region. Despite reported attacks and threats, the church refused to affiliated itself with the Communist government backed Three-Self-Church, or register with authorities on what they see as Biblical grounds.
BUILDING "BULLDOZED"
"Who can imagine that within an hour's time, the main part of their church building was bulldozed under the pretext of 'urban appearance rearrangement? Only a two-story building was left," CAA said in a statement to BosNewsLife, adding that Christians of the church had asked for prayers.
The organization said it has urged the Changchun government to give an explanation account to Nongda house church "and arrange a place for a new building, in order not to bring shame on the ancient city of Changchun." It was unclear Thursday November 2 if and when officials would provide another accommodation.
There are about 80 million Christians in China, most of them worshipping in the unofficial and often 'underground' house churches, religious groups say. The Communist Party of China has been reluctant to openly allow unrestricted growth of house churches amid fears they could challenge its ideology and power structure, analysts say. (With reports from China).

Copyright 2006 BosNewsLife. All rights reserved.

Monday, 20. November 2006, 09:47:59

Economy, China Watch

By JIM YARDLEY
New York Times
November 19, 2006

DOLKA, China — At the two glacial lakes that give birth to the Yellow River, a Tibetan nomad named Tsende stands at the river’s edge and rolls up his pants. He says a dragon lives in the lakes, a god of rain. Two decades of drought convinced him the dragon is angry.

Tsende steps barefoot into the river, a human speck at an altitude of almost 15,000 feet, swallowed in the emptiness of the Qinghai Province grasslands. He is carrying five silver rings. A nomad on the other side has 20 sheep. They have arranged a trade.

He will travel across grasses that once touched his knees but now barely reach his ankles. Hundreds of nomads, prodded by the government, have sold their herds and fled the land around the lakes. Others like Tsende have rammed a Buddhist prayer pole into a hillside and prayed to the dragon. Told that some scientists offer another explanation for the weather — climate change — Tsende is unimpressed.

Friday, 17. November 2006, 17:34:20

China Watch, Politics

By Lynn T. White III
Leadership
Vol. 25 (3) - Fall 2003
The Harvard International Review

Lynn T. White III is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.

Professor Wei Pan ("Crossing the River," Summer 2003) suggests China's next decade of reform will succeed or fail according to three choices: whether "reformists" or "conservatives" run the government, whether external powers (especially the United States) help or hinder China's political reform, and whether Beijing elites prefer a "legalistic rule of law" or "democracy." I agree with Pan on his first two points. On the third, his position is unadmittedly conservative, not reformist, even though its inadvertent result may be democracy. Any modern country has both laws to constrain officials and elections to legitimate them. Laws lend predictability to rule, but they do not guarantee good governance any more than does any other regime type, including democracy. Competitive elections provide temporary mandates to the winners. Such rulers can make allocative decisions, including market-regulative ones of the kind that Pan recognizes as necessary.

Friday, 17. November 2006, 17:23:48

China Watch, Economy

BY RICHARD McCORMACK
Manufacturing & Technology News
Volume 13, No. 10
May 15, 2006

Social unrest in China is growing at a fast rate, but what it means for the political stability of the country is up for debate.

Last year, the Chinese reported 87,000 "mass incidents," of unrest, or about 240 per day. This is up from 58,000 incidents in 2003; 40,000 in 2000; 24,500 in 1998; and 8,700 1993. "This is not something [China's government is] dealing with occasionally, but on a constant daily basis," says Joshua Muldavin, professor of Asian studies at Sarah Lawrence College. But little is known about most of these events other than that they disrupt public order.

Friday, 17. November 2006, 17:00:14

Cultural Revolution, China Watch, Activism

By Jehangir S. Pocha
The Boston Globe
August 29, 2006

BEIJING Li Qingyou vividly recalls the hot summer day 40 years ago in Tiananmen Square. He was among the one million members of the new cadre of radical students called Red Guards who stood at rapt attention and waved their Little Red Books as Mao Zedong exhorted them to destroy China's "Four Olds" - old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits.
The historic mass rally was the first under the Cultural Revolution, Mao's effort to rid the country of its feudal past and create an agrarian utopia. Over 10 years, it led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and scarred China's national psyche.
It is an anniversary that the government would prefer that Li, a 55-year-old retired factory manager, and other Chinese forgot.
The government, which still reveres Mao, has taken few steps to redress the wrongs committed during the Cultural Revolution, leaving many Chinese of that generation, including former members of the Red Guards, struggling to make sense of the madness that enveloped their nation and the trauma it inflicted.

Friday, 17. November 2006, 16:33:44

China Watch, Political Economy

By Mary Gallagher, Ching Kwan Lee and Albert Park
The Journal of the International Institute
Vol. 11, No. 1, Fall 2003

Mary Gallagher is assistant professor of political science, Ching Kwan Lee is associate professor of sociology and Albert Park is associate professor of economics at the University of Michigan.

As globalization expands international trade and investment and the scope of global production linkages, the experience of labor in different parts of the world has become increasingly interdependent. With the world’s largest labor force of over 700 million workers and one of the world’s fastest growing economies over the past two decades, China is a critical site for determining world labor outcomes. Its own workers are going through a challenging period of painful restructuring of state-owned enterprises and growing competition from imports as China meets its World Trade Organization commitments to open up trade. Through its international linkages China affects the situation of labor in many other countries throughout the world.

Thursday, 16. November 2006, 14:19:27

China Watch, Politics, Injustice

China Daily
2006-10-09

XINHUA While China is making efforts to promote village democracy, some voters were found being bribed in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

According to the Beijing-based weekly magazine Outlook, Yun Lianchang was voted head of the village committee in Qian Baimiao Village of Jinhe Town after he spent 400,000 yuan (50,000 U.S. dollars) on laying on banquets for villagers and paying them sums of cash.

He defeated his only rival Qiao Yumei, who reportedly spent 260,000 yuan (32,500 U.S. dollars) for the same purpose. The loser even asked the villagers for her money back once she learnt of her defeat.

"My wife and I received a total of 2,400 yuan (300 U.S. dollars) from both candidates," villager Zhang Yue told the magazine. "Candidates also canvassed voters by serving them meals in restaurants," he added.

The Hohhot local government and people's congress are now investigating the election but so far Yun Liancheng remains in his new post. According to Chinese law, elections marred by bribery are void.

Qiao Yumei defended her bribery efforts by claiming that "someone used bribery to beat his rival in the previous election and held the position for the past three years without being punished."

The investigation by "Outlook" uncovered similar activities in other villages in the Jinhe and Xibashan Townships.

The amount of money spent on being elected was higher in the villages closest to the city. "Those who want a more prestigious position have to pay more. The more money a candidate spends, the more votes he gets," said one villager on condition of anonymity.

"Many villagers enjoyed the election days. After all, they were being given free meals and cash," he said.

The average annual income of a village official is no more than 10,000 yuan ( 1,250 U.S. dollars) in Inner Mongolia. Once elected, village officials are sometimes able to recover the election expenditure through land deals and some infrastructure projects, the magazine quoted a villager as saying.

Land prices on the outskirts of Hohhot, the regional capital of Inner Mongolia, are soaring as the city searches for more land to accommodate its growing population and industries.

"The expropriation of land by the government results in huge sums of compensation being granted to the village committee," said a villager named Li Baoming. "But I have no idea where the compensation money has gone, since I have received nothing from the village committee."

In Xiaoyi City, Shanxi Province, the local government has failed to supervise the activities of village officials who have the final say on the village's budget and spending. These local village committees lack transparency and democracy, the magazine quoted Xue Houhua, a local official, as saying.

Those who have been successful in the village elections have to recover their spending through taking bribes or skimping villagers, Qiao Wangwang, a villager in Qian Luojiaying Village, Xiaoyi, said.

Election-related bribery is rampant due to the low cost of bribery and lack of relevant laws to curb such illegal activities, the Outlook magazine cited law experts as saying.

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