Economic Reformer in Shanghai

The new leader of Shanghai wants more market reforms in Shanghai, but seems unlikely to bring about any political reforms. His likely seat on the Politiboro means that he has little interest in wanting political change in China. The CCP might want to rethink their corruption practices. It does not encourage curbing corruption by Hu Jintao placing a loyal supporter in a position held by someone arrested for corruption. There will be little halt to the practice of corruption as long as democracy and popular government are sidelined. Though if Ma in Taiwan gives an example, even democracies have problems with this issue, but at least democracies give the means to investigate those who commit corruption.

I was concerned with what juvenile justice policies there were in China. I found this article about a new juvenile justice network that has recently started up. A network of legal professionals concerned with juvenile justice issues was launched at a July ceremony in Beijing, with the symbolic click of a mouse to open the group's website, www.kidsandlaw.com. The Network currently draws together some 70 lawyers, judges and researchers from around half of China's provinces and municipalities. As well as sharing information and experience, the Network plans a number of concrete activities. These include a telephone legal advice service for youngsters, a school based legal education campaign, and the establishment of an information centre for the protection of children's rights and interests, aimed at meeting the information needs of professionals in the fields of public security and law. Concerned that this new scheme should take a positive attitude to children's rights rather than a merely punitive approach to juvenile offending, Save the Children in July held a training workshop in child rights for the legal educators. The organisation is now collaborating with education, public security and legal authorities in a pilot project in four middle schools, to develop effective and participatory legal education methodologies. Activities have included visits by school students to a juvenile detention centre and a 'Summer camp legal forum', in which 32 students participated in role play and other training exercises to equip them as peer educators in their schools.

I found this article when searching for news relating to China and the US. The article certainly leaves me with questions. However what I am most concerned with is why I never heard anything about this in the US. I don't remember any media news directed at this issue. I was wondering if anyone else had heard this story before.
Beijing secretly fires lasers to disable US satellitesBy Francis Harris in Washington
09/27/2006
China has secretly fired powerful laser weapons designed to disable American spy satellites by "blinding" their sensitive surveillance devices, it was reported yesterday.
Thev unreported attacks have been kept secret by the Bush administration for fear that it would damage attempts to co-opt China in diplomatic offensives against North Korea and Iran.
Sources told the military affairs publication Defense News that there had been a fierce internal battle within Washington over whether to make the attacks public. In the end, the Pentagon's annual assessment of the growing Chinese military build-up barely mentioned the threat.
"After a contentious debate, the White House directed the Pentagon to limit its concern to one line," Defense News said.
The document said that China could blind American satellites with a ground-based laser firing a beam of light to prevent spy photography as they pass over China.

China, US continue discussion on North Korea

On Sunday, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing discussed North Korea's nuclear program over the telephone on Sunday, China's Foreign Ministry said. But details of the conversation were not released.

Diplomats from the US and China arrived in Beijing on Sunday to help sort out details of a planned transfer of North Korean bank accounts after the latest round of six-party talks between North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States were stalled due to disputes over the freezing of North Korea's $25 million in bank accounts.

Currently in a Macanese bank, the frozen accounts of North Korea were initialy promised by the US and China to be placed into a Bank of China account held by Pyongyang's Foreign Trade Bank. But afterwards the promise transfer did not transpire, and thus, confrontation ensued. Daniel Glaser, the US Treasury Department's top North Korea negotiator arrived in Beijing on Sunday to sort out details of the transfer of funds.



Source: Beijing Reuters

Try this in your home

In China there are many different religions. With different religions, come different customs, one of which is the art of Feng Shui. This is a way of re-aranging your living space and home to improve health and productivity. True Feng Shui is based on 5 simple elements, earth, water, fire, metal, and wood. It relates ones surrondings to ones soul, and exlpaines why things in your surrondings affects you. It is based off of Tai Chi (yin and yang, balance). After looking at what the art of Feng Shui entails, it seems like common sense. Practicing Feng Shui includes, keeping your room clean and removing eye soars. Having an open bowl of water in your room promotes good Feng Shui and many other things such as color, and where you place personal items. Balance is the key in Feng Shui, and i believe that having balance in ones life is the key to having a good life.

Ancestor Worship In China

I would like to summarize what I've read about ancestor worship in China. The first point to understand about ancestor worship is that it is confined to the kinship group. Ancestor worship thereby played an indispensable role in reinforcing the cohension of family and lineage. It assumes continuance of personality in some form after death of the physical body. It further assumes the possibility of continued contact between dead and living family members. Finally least but not last I would like to end this up by saying that in the light of the family system and its hierarchical structure, it is assumed that original relationships remained in full force despite the death of a senior. The ancestors are thus deified. This conception of deification of the ancestors ultimately colors all of the Chinese religion.

Shi Mian Mai Fu or House of Flying Daggers (5)

Secondly, deception is a theme primary to the text of the movie. Repeatedly, characters deceive and are deceived. Jin and Mei’s relationship is based upon a web of lies. He lies about his identity by not telling her he is a captain in the military and tells her a false name. In addition, Mei lies to him by telling him she is the daughter of the old leader of the House of Flying Daggers and that she is blind. The story is all about perception and deception really. Mei says, “I’ll do anything to avenge my father,” but in reality he was not her father. Jin tells Mei he will not take advantage of her while she is bathing but through trickery he sneaks up on her and watches her bathe. It is interesting that their whole relationship is based on lies but after the truth is revealed their love remains the same. Is love in China really like the love portrayed here? I think that question is a difficult one to answer because love in America varies so much from person to person. One way cultural ideas are constructed and/or reflected is through film, however, so this film is constructing this notion of love for not just a Chinese audience but for an international one.

China Property Law

China's new private property law is a huge advance for China. Private property is one of the fundamental liberties established by Western philosophy. Hopefully, this leads China towards securing more liberties for its citizens. The law will also benefit the middle class which is essential to a strong democracy. Maybe I'm being optimistic, but this has to be a step forward.

Reconciling history of Japan, China

Twenty academics from Japan and China began meetings in Toyko yesterday to develop a report on the two nations' rivaling histories of World War Two.

The study aims to provide an 'objective' study towargs improving contentious relations between the two countries.

This year proves sensitve for it is the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre and the Marco Polo Bridge incident that led to one of the many wars between the countries.

Tensions grew this month when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made controversial remarks regarding "comfort women." Abe said there was no proof that Japan forced mostly Asian women into wartime brothels during WWII.

The scholars hope to release a report in 2008.

Source: Reuters

Buddhism in China

Buddhism was introduced to China from India approximately in the first century A.A., becomeing increasingly popular after the fourth century. In 67 AD, two Indian monks came to Luoyan, the capital. Emperor Mingdi ordered the building of a temple, which was named White Horse Temple, and asked the Indian monks to translate Buddhist scriptures into Chinese there. They were followed by other months from India and West Asia. At first, Buddhism was known only to members of the upper classes. It was during the period of the Southern and Northen Dynasties that it was spread among the ordinary people. Tibetan Buddhism, or Lamaism as it is sometimes called, is found primarily in Tibet and inner Mongolia. In conclusion to end my entry, now China has more than 13,000 Buddhist temples, with about 200,000 monks and nuns.

I found an aticle on women willing to find younger husbands. It's interesting consdering the dispropotionate number of men to women. Will this create more problems? Probably not significantly.
The reporter was told that in Hefei, many women aged between 40s and 50s meet marriage problems. Usually, women of this age group are willing to find someone who is older than them to marry. However, information from a matchmaking agency shows that the ratio of men to women of this age group is 3:7 in Hefei.
Men in their 40s or 60s have all experienced the happiness and hardships in marriage life. Most of those who were not happy with their marriage life have already divorced or remarried. Of those who remain single, many have found their ideal marriage partners now. So it is really difficult for women of this age group to find ideal husband. Faced with this reality, many women have to look for partners who are younger than them, said a lady in the matchmaking agency. Women who are in their 30s want to have a younger husband mainly because they want to have a baby, an expert on marriage issue said.
If these women could have a baby, then the family will become more stable, the expert added.
Some women, though in their 30s, are confident in their good looks and figure, so they also want to find men who are younger yet more romantic, the expert added.
Last year, many single women in their 20s went to matchmaking agents for help, accounting for 40% of the single women registered in the matchmaking agency. The requirements of some of these women for their future husbands are somewhat unusual. Someone said they wanted to marry a man who was younger while some said they didn’t want their future husband to have a stable job, a matchmaking agent told the reporter.

China Nationality

According to the lectures, over 90 percent of the population of the PRC belong to the majority

nationality, who call themselves " Han" Chinese after the first great imperial dynasty.

However, this statistics over states the homogeneity of the p0pulation, since the Han

themselves are differentiated in important respects. One striking difference is that Han Chinese

from different regions often speak mutually dialects. although the great majority of people with

some education can and do use modern standard Chinese, which as we all known outside China

as Mandarin. Mandarin is now the national language that has been promoted in schools

and by the media.

China Environment

Some environmentalists fear that China's industrialisation could have a disastrous effect on a

regional, or even a world scale. The argument runs like this: Chinese consumption of energy per

capita is around a quarter of the average for the developed world, but is growing rapidly, and

the absolute numbers involved are staggering. Over 300 million Chinese are expected to move

into cities by 2010; demand for electricity is expected to soar as households acquire washing

machiens and refrigerators; in the near future, the private car market will take off. The effect

on climate alone through global warming alarms many analysts. In conclusion, to sum this up,

from what I've read it said that China's economic growth raises serious environmental issues,

and disputes with the international community are likely to become increasingly acute.

Shi Mian Mai Fu or House of Flying Daggers (4)

Concerning moral values, I would like to approach the subject through the three central themes I have just presented: beauty, deception, and love. These themes are very central to the plot and message of the film and they also tell us something about the moral values presented in the film. First, beauty and the power of beauty was both inspiration and theme for the film. The ancient poem, “A Beauty from the North” warns against the power of beauty and it inspired Zhang to create this tragic love story. The scene in the Peony Pavilion is a crucial one to highlighting beauty’s power. It is in this scene that Mei says, “A real flower blooms in the wilderness.” In this speech about her name, she condemns the other brothel girls and seeks to set herself apart from them, not just by her looks but it would seem by her morals.

China, India heavily contribute to world pollution

The horrific environental conditions ongoing in China and India are affecting your weather, said Dr. Renyi Zhang, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M.

In a landmark paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Zhang said that man-made pollution in both countries are adversely affecting the storm track over the Pacific Ocean, which is a major determinant of weather forthe northern hemisphere.

Zhang directly pointed to pollution from industrial and power plants in both countries, which have experienced booming economies within the recent decade. The countless factories and power plants that sustain their economics emit soot and sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, which is carried over the Pacific Ocean by winds to affect weather patterns worldwide.

Source: Newswise

Shanghai Market Slump

The recent drop in the Shanghai Market caused drops in markets all over the world. The drop has finally recovered, but the event illustrates the interdependence of nations. The remarkable thing is how short of a time this interdependence has developed. US-Sino relations have come a long way from Kissinger's secret meeting in the 70s. Protective tariffs and other means of maintaining a national economy seem to methods of the past. Heavy US investment in China as well as our debt to China makes we wonder about the future of the nation-state. I find U.S. politicians desire to secure jobs in the manufactering sector naive promises. The U.S. needs to focus on educational investment. A greater educated workforce is the U.S. only way the U.S. economy is going to stay viable. It isn't China's fault these jobs are going oversees, but hopefully Chinese workers will be able to collectively bargain in the future and even the playing field.

Food and Revolution

Over the years china has been in the spotlight for its major revolutions, some being, the cultural revolution probably the biggest, and the well known Tienanmen incident and many others. I was looking for content on China's revolutions and found some interesting facts. if you ever eat at a Chinese restaurant and have a fortune cookie, you are actually helping to reenact on of China's major revolutions. Back in the day, a certain group of persecuted Chinese people would eat this cake- bread thing and in the middle it had revolutionary thoughts and instructions. So the people passed these cake things out and started a revolution.

Increase in Chinese Defense Spending

China’s officials announced that China’s military budget will increase 17.8 % in 2007.
Mr. Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for the National People’s Congress, states that money would be used mostly to increase wages for military personnel and to upgrade weapons, but gave no further details. He also claimed that their military budget rose 14.7 % from last year.
Jiang Enzhu said that military spending next year would amount to 350.92bn yuan, an increase of 52.99bn yuan.
United States has expressed concern over this increase in budget for military and called for greater transparency in Beijing’s budget. Vice President Cheney announced that with their missile test in January Chinese are not following peaceful developments they promised. As a response China hit back with a spokesman for the foreign ministry in Beijing accusing the US of acting like a nosy neighbor.
Qin Gang, spokesman for foreign ministry in Beijing, said China's policies were intended only at defense, rejecting claims of solid spending policies. As a response Mr. Gang stated: “China adheres to peaceful development and advocates a harmonious society of lasting peace and common prosperity. That's what has allowed China to win trust, co-operation and friends in the world."

China's Ghastly New Industry

I watched the New York Times video "China's Ghastly New Industry." This video is about BodyWorlds, a business that perserves skinless human cadavors for a museum dedicated to learning anatomy. The creator of this business, Dr. Gunther Van Hagan, also called Dr. Death and Dr. Frankenstein, says that this if for the furtherance of knowledge of human anatomy. He perserves bodies through a process which he calls "plastination." A team saws and slices bodies in their proper positions, removes body fluids and replaces them with plastic, and then around 50 or so medical school students place the bodies in real life postions, such as playing a guitar, in the "positioning room" of the busines. On the video I saw human bodies laying in hug tubs of formaldehyde. The business is located in an underground bunker and also uses animals in its exhibits. The creator says that he wants "to be the Mercedes of anatomy." He says that this makes learning anatomy fun. A lot of copy cat businesses have been accused of using unclaimed Chinese bodies. However the creator of Body Worlds says that the bodies that they use are from donors. The creator, origionally from Europe, says that he chose to come to China for this business because it is "the worlds factory floor."

Shi Mian Mai Fu or House of Flying Daggers (3)

The movie does not have very much to say about religious practices or ethnic relations in China. First, I will discuss the portrayal of religion in the film. Religious practice is entirely absent from the script. I believe that religious practice is important to Chinese culture and the absence of religious practice in the film is a misrepresentation of Chinese culture. However, the director does say that through sacrifice for love and the power of it, we discover the spiritual power of human beings. So if this is true, then religion is present in the movie through the sacrifice of love, but religious practice is still not portrayed. Secondly, the only ethnic group portrayed in the film is the Han. No others are addressed or presented. Ethnic diversity is not addressed at all in the film. The only time it is hinted at is in the allusions to “the North.” This may be to present a unified China to Zhang’s audience. The more probable conclusion for the absence of religious practices and ethnic relations is that Zhang was not interested in a correctly portraying Chinese culture but in producing a film that, while being distinctly Chinese, still presented universal themes of beauty, deception, and love to an international audience.

New Taiwan stamp does not include China

The Taiwan Postal Service yesterday released the first official stamp declaring the state as "Taiwan," without the customary "Republic of China" title.

Thousands of Tawiwanese independents supported the the long awaited new stamp, which marked one of the first moves by the government to reassert the island's identity and unaffiliation with mainland China.

The "name-retification campaign" also included the name change of the state enterprises. The government postal company was recently renamed "Taiwan Post Co" and other public transport agencies have done the same, dropping all reference to mainland China.