On February 9, 2009 a fire destroyed the new Mandarin Oriental hotel in Beijing, which was still under construction. Local residents who were busy celebrating the Lantern Festival with fireworks, took time away from their traditional festivities to enjoy the spectacle. Many onlookers took photos and were photographed smiling at the blaze.
One person died and seven others were injured.
More story and photos at Fire claims building at CCTV Beijing headquarters
Sphere: Related ContentChina’s deadly earthquake on May 12 was a tragedy. It is already reported that over 50,000 people lost their lives. Now that rescue efforts are winding down attention is turning to other matters. In a country where families are only allowed to have one child, many are asking why so many schools collapsed. Some disturbing things are emerging.
The Washington Post reports in: Schools Fell While Other Buildings Held
Since the quake, parents’ grief has turned to anger.
Why, they ask, did the school collapse when other nearby buildings, including government offices, the teachers’ dormitory and even an old classroom building housing pet rabbits, withstood the quake?
The same question is being asked all over Sichuan, as residents have started to notice that, on street after street, schools collapsed while most government buildings did not. In Mianzhu county, a quarter of the 43 primary and secondary schools caved in, leaving more than 1,000 students dead, while the gleaming government complex remained fully operational and is now a staging area for emergency rescue and cleanup operations.
In total, nearly 7,000 schools have been reported destroyed in Sichuan by the quake; that figure could rise as reconstruction crews reach the hardest-hit areas.
The earthquake was a devastating tragedy. Sadly, it reveals a few unpleasant things about safety and where priorities were not in good alignment.
Sphere: Related ContentWithout a doubt China is an emerging nation. But when it comes to contentious issues, the government controlled media invariably resorts to name calling. They dish out insults of the variety that would make the meanest of tabloids blush. Well, you’d be embarrassed too if you found yourself repeating today ideological slurs that are reminiscent of the the Cultural Revolution era. You remember that one? The page in history that China doesn’t like to talk about?
China calls the Dalai Lama a “cat’s paw of international anti-China forces.” Protesting monks are labeled the “scum of Buddhism,” and foreign critics are said to have a “dark and despicable mentality.”
In responding to recent anti-Chinese protests in Tibet, Beijing has revived shrill language from past decades, displaying the communist regime’s extreme sensitivity over the issue and enduring authoritarian nature.
Three decades of market-oriented economic reforms and an increasingly vibrant society have little impact when it comes to core issues of sovereignty and state power, experts say. Not even the impending Beijing Olympics seems to have moderated the tone.
“‘China’ is several things,” says Princeton University China expert Perry Link. “The sizzling economy and flashy cities are real, but so is the tired old political-rhetorical culture that sits on the shelf and is pulled out when needed.”
Read more in the International Herald Tribune: China’s anger over Tibet revives harsh terminology of yesteryear
Sphere: Related ContentIn a sure sign of temerity and unabashed certainty of their moral right, China has lashed out at western media for its bias. As Howard French puts it in the International Herald Tribune:
The Chinese press is similarly full of claims of Western media bias and distortion, a charge made straight-faced in a country that routinely blocks foreign media, strictly censors its own news, and has only allowed the media to cover street violence by Tibetans.
Read the complete article: Rejecting dissent, China exposes its candor gap
Sphere: Related ContentIt was a perfect photo from a propaganda point of view. China’s Central Television included it in an awards ceremony as one of 2006’s most influential photos of the year. It conveyed exactly what the government wanted to convey to environmentalists about the recently completed Qinghai-Tibet rail line. The Tibetan Antelope, one of the five official mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is facing extinction and it is feared the new rail line will hasten that extinction. The photo appears to show the animals living in harmony with the high speed train.
It is a fake.
The photographer, 41 year old Liu Weiqing, was under contract with Xinhua to provide photos for China’s largest government-run news service. He faked the the photo using of Photoshop to combine two separate images and create the desired effect.
This is the aim of propaganda anyway, making the unreal seem real.
‘The truth is probably the opposite of what the picture was trying to claim,’ Su Jianping, a zoologist at the Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, in Xining, told the journal Nature last week. The antelopes are shy and their migration patterns are being disturbed by the trains. ‘There is no such thing as harmonious coexistence between trains and antelopes,’ Jiangping said.
Read more in the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian: Tibetan rail wildlife photograph faked, China Eats Crow Over Faked Photo Of Rare Antelope
Sphere: Related ContentThe Washington Post writes on China’s offer to resume human rights dialog with the United States. The headline says it all: China’s Offer To Resume Rights Talks Is Discounted. On Wednesday, activists from some of the world’s leading human rights organizations testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
Robin Munro, research director of the China Labour Bulletin, said China’s official record makes a “mockery of promises made” and warned that the crackdown on dissenters might “become the new normal” once the Games are over.
The China Blog also mentions the irony of Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi’s remarks that public security officers are more likely to offer a protester a “a cup of tea” than arrest them. The remarks were made on the same day another “a petition organizer was seized in Beijing”.
It seems that lying is also the norm.
Sphere: Related ContentWhy exactly did Beijing get the Olympics? The International Olympic Committee is unwavering in its public support of Beijing. In light of all the shortcomings and unfulfilled promises, the IOC continues to proclaim that the games are good for China. They still would have you believe that the human rights situation in China is improving.
Follow the news, and it is clear that the Olympics are being used as an excuse to suppress human rights in China more than ever before. The IOC, like the Chinese government, is guilty of practicing double-speak; they know what they say is all lies but they still claim it’s true.
The now famous Chinese dissident, Hu Jia, describes for the world what they can expect to see during the summer games. In an open letter translated by Human Rights Watch, he writes: “You may not know that the flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood.”
Please be aware that the Olympic Games will be held in a country where there are no elections, no freedom of religion, no independent courts, no independent trade unions; where demonstrations and strikes are prohibited; where torture and discrimination are supported by a sophisticated system of secret police; where the government encourages the violation of human rights and dignity, and is not willing to undertake any of its international obligations.
Clearly, this is turning out to be the worst choice of host city in the history of the Olympic games. Not only are there many promises the Chinese are having trouble keeping, such as pollution, traffic, and a real openness; but even the IOC is not standing up for humanity. The IOC is now unequivocally complicit in human rights violations. It’s not the 2008 Olympics people should be boycotting, but all future games until the IOC gets their head on straight.
Read the complete translation of Hu Jia’s letter.
Sphere: Related ContentThe BBC reports on the arrest of three women and a man for allegedly smuggling newborn babies from Viet Nam to China. This is also the first time Vietnamese police have uncovered the smuggling of unborn babies.
All the babies were sold for eight million dong ($500) each.
The police said they would be offered for adoption to couples in China for around $2,000 each, because they were boys.
Girls would be sold for half the amount, according to investigators.
Read the complete article: Vietnam ‘baby-smugglers’ arrested
Sphere: Related ContentNick Cohen of The Guardian writes: “Pick any dictatorship at random and chances are you’ll find China lurking in the background.”
The only justification for the Beijing games is that they will allow connoisseurs of the grotesque to inspect this ghoulish hybrid of the worst of capitalism and the worst of socialism close up. … The International Olympic Committee and all the national sports bureaucracies will follow up by instructing athletes not to say a word out of place.
I wonder if, as an accredited journalist, Nick will be on hand to cover the games in Beijing.
Read the complete article The only winner in Beijing will be tyranny
Sphere: Related ContentFrom The Guardian’s editorial Europe should put a brake on Beijing’s excesses
The Chinese government is not immune to pressure. It respects economic power. It does not heed its internal critics because they are commercially irrelevant.
Also very quotable, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry recently said:
Sphere: Related ContentChinese people know best about China’s human rights situation.