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Jan 8

Sanxiang Dushibao 8Jan
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“Let the people have justice”: Xi Jinping calls for reform of “education through labour”

“Education through labor” (劳教) has been the fate of many people in China since the 1950s: confinement to a labor camp to be reformed through hard work. The system is still very much in operation in China today, with more than 60,00 people apparently still confined in labor camps. Anyone can be sent to a labor camp for any kind of offense. Social society attempts to have the system reformed have in the last decade all been rebuffed.

Until yesterday. Xi Jinping, about to take the reins of government in China, yesterday made a somewhat passionate statement unequivocally calling for an end to “education through labor.” Today, China’s newspapers are full of portentous words such as “new era”, “complying with the interests of the people”, “fair justice for all”, “resolutely opposing unfair law enforcement and corruption”, “improving people’s safety and happiness”, and “the rule of law”.

The rhetoric is almost breath-taking. For now these are only words, yet you have to hand it to Xi Jinping, what words! Intending to capture the true essence of Xi’s momentous statements, the front page of the Sanxiang City Express (三湘都市报) from Hunan province today proclaims the end of the labor camp in China with the headline “Education through labor: 1957-2013″, along with a simple design of a wall broken through, a great barrier breached.
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Jan 7

Xiandai Jinbao 7Jan
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Wanton tree destruction in Ningbo and other stories from China’s front pages today

When a user snapped and posted on Weibo a picture of trees mysteriously uprooted on a road in Ningbo and then left there to die, a journalist picked it up and decided to investigate. What he found was no massive corruption scandal, flagrant malfeasance or incompetence; just bad management and professional neglect that left all the many trees over a ten kilometer stretch of road uprooted, and slowly dying in the open, one by one.

Also, we mention a few other stories from China’s newspaper front pages today:

  • From Beijing Morning Post (北京晨报): The first job fair in Beijing in two years at which 43,000 graduates turned up with only 18,000 jobs on offer
  • From the Henan Business Daily (河南商报): China’s first female astronaut returns to her home in Henan saying she feels “warm inside”
  • From Modern Evening Times (新晚报): A girl with a master’s degree takes a job as a street cleaner in Harbin and says she “likes it just fine”, and
  • From Yangzi Evening News (扬子晚报): Do we eat 60 tons of food in an individual lifetime, or just nine?

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Jan 6

Image from ESWN: The Shishou Mass Incident (2009)
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Legal Daily report on mass incidents in China in 2012

The Legal Daily 法治日报 has published a summary of their ’2012 Mass Incident Research Report’ 2012年群体性事件研究报告, quantifying and analyzing ‘mass incidents’ in China – riots, civil unrest, and protests. The data sources and methodology behind the report are not made explicit in their introduction (which says the full report can be provided if you contact them; Danwei has not yet obtained a copy of the full report).

The summary does not give an absolute number of mass incidents in 2012, and the numbers in the geographical distribution section which seem to indicate, for example, that Guangdong only had eight mass incidents, do not make sense when compared to previous reports by Chinese government organs that talked about 80 to 100,000 mass incidents a year nationwide.

The report highlights Weibo as an increasingly significant factor in mass incidents, and makes recommendations that local authorities take “positive” steps like making official announcements and dealing with the person responsible for the situation, rather than using “negative” methods such as information blackouts, forced dispersals and arrests.

Some key statistic of the report are summarized below: Read more

Jan 4

Dongfang Jinbao 4 Jan
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China’s “most severe traffic law in history”

China’s newspapers are today mulling over what is being portrayed as a sea change on China’s roads, a new regulation that has caused some consternation: Running a yellow light (note yellow, not red) will now be severely punished with an automatic deduction of six points! Thus cartoons and graphic depictions of cars, traffic lights and other nondescript yellow things (see gallery below) all bellow out that running a yellow light (闯黄灯) is now no longer cool.

Yet when a journalist from Orient Today (东方今报) from Henan province yesterday went to observe the traffic in Zhengzhou (郑州), capital of Henan province, he found the usual black Audis and other cars jumping yellow lights, some drivers talking on their mobile phones while they did so, as if there were no new “most severe traffic law in history” in force in China.

Here’s a few other yellow traffic light-themed front pages from around China today:

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Dec 31

Qiyejia Ribao 31 Dec 12
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China’s leading entrepreneurs of 2012

The entrepreneur that makes it big in China makes it very big, reaching rock star levels. The Entrepreneurs’ Daily (企业家日报) today is one of a handful of Chinese papers that published a retrospective of the year of 2012. As befits its business focus, the front page today displays the newspaper’s selection of China’s leading entrepreneurs of 2012, which it couches under the headline of “Relaxed and confident, measuring their forward march” (从容与自信 丈量他们前行步伐). Included in the newspaper’s special 2012 business retrospective are in all four sections, which the front page summarizes as follows:

  1. “While the global stock market rose in 2012, China’s A-share market continued the decline from 2011 and found itself in 2012 once again at the bottom of the global stock market”
  2. “Along with improving product quality and greater competitiveness, Chinese businesses in 2012 started to deploy a concerted global strategy on natural resources as part of ‘going global’
  3. “In 2012 China’s entrepreneurs continued to exhibit the entrepreneurial spirit, displaying anew the Chinese model of entrepreneurship on the global stage”
  4. “Innovative marketing brought new value in 2012; ten unique marketing plans brought about new branding wealth”

On the page expounding on point 3 above we find brief descriptions of the near super-human business achievements of 12 men (yes they are all men) in 2012, ranging from vast increases in company and personal profit, being awarded this or that prize, inclusion on rich lists, and all the other trappings that accrue to China’s leading businessmen in 2012.

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Dec 30

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The benefits of allowing free land trade – reflections on land allocation in China


This is the 1510 Digest, a weekly roundup of recent essays and articles published on the Chinese web, with links to translations on the Marco Polo Project.

Although China controls an extensive territory, pressure on land is high. A large proportion of the country is not suitable for human habitation, and the government exerts strict control on land allocation.
The pieces in today’s digest propose various perspectives on land allocation mechanisms in China. Economist Mao Yushi suggests that a more flexible market for farm land would have positive social and economic effects. Zhou Qiren describes administrative procedures for deciding what area will be considered urban or rural. Finally, Tu Motuo’s ‘On mountains’ presents a meditative counterpoint, by offering a more personal reflection focusing on the significance of inhospitable landscapes.

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Dec 28

Qinghai Fazhibao 28 Dec
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China’s ten biggest criminal cases of 2012

The Qinghai Legal News (青海法制报) from Qinghai province today published the newspaper’s editorial selection of China’s ten biggest criminal cases of 2012. In a somber tone, the newspaper prefaces its selection with the following summary:

This year, all the many public charges that ensued from criminal investigations gave many people a profound impression, leaving in their minds a lingering mark of the criminal cases involved. In the ten criminal cases listed below, there are some people who will never be able to be reunited with their families; there are some people who got rich quick only to have their fake dream world shattered; there was fraud; and there was the question of the safety of the school bus that is still haunting people’s consciences….. The people involved in these ten criminal cases in 2012 left behind footsteps that echoed loudly and terrifyingly.

The ten biggest criminal cases of 2012 are the following (detailed descriptions follow below):

  1. “Sticky Rice” Kang (aka Waxy Kang) and the massacre of the Chinese sailors (糯康案)
  2. The homicide of Bo Gu Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun ((薄谷开来、张晓军故意杀人案)
  3. Wu Ying’s fund-raising fraud (吴英集资诈骗案)
  4. The Gansu school bus accident (甘肃正宁校车事故)
  5. The 488 million yuan Sichuan pyramid scheme (四川4.88亿特大传销案)
  6. Luoyang sex slaves (洛阳性奴案)
  7. Liao Dan and the fake treatment form (廖丹“刻章救妻”)
  8. “Almighty God” cult “全能神”邪教
  9. Zhou Kehua (周克华案)
  10. Mayor of Haitang Bay in Sanya causes loss of 700 million yuan (三亚海棠湾原镇长李骥致国家损失7亿)

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Dec 24

Jinchen Liu Dian 24 Dec
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China’s hottest “styles” of 2012

The Six O’Clock This Morning (今晨六点) from Shandong province today has a special feature rounding up the newspaper’s selection of the hottest “styles” of 2012, using an English word that has been popularized in China this year because of the global pop song hit ‘Gangnam Style’. Intending to capture some of the humor and pedantic banality of our social media-obsessed world, the special round-up of 2012 is divided into six categories:

  1. “Funny (幽默) Style”
  2. “Strong (实力) Style”
  3. “Emotional (感情) Style”
  4. “Surprising (惊诧) Style”
  5. “Lateral Thinking (偏锋) Style”, and
  6. “Controversial (争论) Style”

To put the whole section in its proper context, the newspaper prefaces it with the following quip:

In this year of 2012 sports and entertainment stars performed all kinds of remarkable deeds; they accomplished acts of great strength; they made some unconventional winning gambits (剑走偏锋); they got a lot of attention by means of marriage and divorce; and they swaggered around endlessly leaving you dazed and confused. No matter what kind of Style, these were all hot in 2012. They fully deserve the right to be called hot, and yet we are still mystified at why they became hot.

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Dec 17

Dushi Nvbao 17 Dec
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The Ten Biggest Sex and Gender Stories of 2012

The City Lady (都市女报) from Shandong today has a front page story on the Ten Biggest Sex and Gender Stories of 2012 in China (年度十大性与性别事件). Based on an exercise led by the head of the Sex and Gender Institute at the Beijing Forestry University (北京林业大学性与性别研究所) named Fang Gang (方刚) (a man), this Top Ten list has been published every year from 2008. Each item on the list is accompanied by commentary from the staff at the Sex and Gender Institute, which is translated below along with each of the ten items.   Read more

Dec 15

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It’s just that we can’t see them – reflections on class and poverty


This is the 1510 Digest, a weekly roundup of recent essays and articles published on the Chinese web, with links to translations on the Marco Polo Project.

Over the last thirty years, along with remarkable economic development, China has seen the gap between rich and poor increase widely. But how do these statistics translate into daily life and experiences?
Today’s digest proposes two pieces that consider the impact of this distance as it applies to the individual. Hong Kong University lecturer Zhou Baosong offers a philosophical reflection on the Evils of poverty by conjuring up the figure of a struggling ‘Mr Zhang’; a post by ‘W’, a Chinese student in America, shows a young person’s perspective on the question of class.

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