quote:

Originally posted by Sgt_Schlappy:
Agreed...but I won't be surprised to hear more and more of these types of stories leak out as the world economy continues to falter.

While the money flows and their rice bowls are full, all is content inside China...but once that stops, those 800 million peasants will become restless and any little sign of government abuse could become the tinderbox the Chicoms fear.

quote:

The World Bank says China's economy will grow by less than expected next year, adding to the country's, and Asia's economic gloom.

China's economy is expected to grow by 7.5% in 2009, according to the Bank.

A few months ago, before the global financial crisis, it predicted the Chinese economy would grow by about 9%.

But the Bank says China will still do well enough to avoid the worst effects of the global recession, and could still help other developing countries.

The World Bank has revealed it is in talks with Beijing about providing additional money to help developing countries through the current crisis.

Speaking at a press conference, David Dollar, head of the World Bank's China office, said economic recession in the United States, Europe and Japan would affect China.

No immunity

Until recently, China had largely avoided the effects of the global crisis because its financial system is insulated from the rest of the world.

But that crisis is now leading to a worldwide economic recession - and that will affect China.

If people across the world have less money to spend, they will buy fewer Chinese imports; that will lead to factory closures and job loses in China.

"So far [the crisis] hasn't impacted all that much [in China], but we will see that impact intensifying," said World Bank economist Louis Kuijs.

But it is not all bad news - the Bank says the Chinese economy will still grow at a reasonable rate.

That is partly thanks to a $586bn (£387bn) economic stimulus package recently announced by the government in Beijing.

As part of the package, China will be spending more on infrastructure projects over the next few years, including railway lines, urban subway systems, and water and sanitation projects...

quote:

Originally posted by Thrust_0311:
I'm impressed by the resilience of the Chinese people. Here, we back down from our morals and even condemn each other when we should stand together. The cruel legacy of the warlords exists in China's government but what other people have suffered as much and kept going? Here's to the hope that they someday rise up and overthrow the CCP.

quote:

China's middle class vents anger
Actions have caught a government fearful of labor movements off guard
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
The Washington Post
updated 12:01 a.m. PT, Wed., Dec. 17, 2008
CHONGQING, China - When 9,000 of Shin Guoqing's fellow taxi drivers went on strike early last month, he felt he had to join them.

Soaring inflation had undermined what his $300-a-month income could buy for his family, and Shin said he was frustrated that the government had done nothing to help. "After running around the whole day, you have only a few renminbi for it," he said, referring to China's currency. "You don't feel good about your life."

For two days, the drivers held this Sichuan province metropolis of 31 million people under siege, blocking roads and smashing cars. The Communist Party quickly stopped the violence by promising to address the drivers' demands for easier access to fuel and better working conditions.

From the far western industrial county of Yongdeng to the southern resort city of Sanya and the commercial center of Guangzhou, members of China's upwardly mobile working class — taxi drivers, teachers, factory workers and even auxiliary police officers — have mounted protests since the Chongqing strike, refusing to work until their demands were met.

China's government has long feared the rise of labor movements, banning unauthorized unions and arresting those who speak out for workers' rights. The strikes, driven in part by China's economic downturn, have caught officials off guard.

Protests come to the cities
Rural protests, often led by impoverished farmers angry over land seizures that leave them unable to feed their families, have occurred sporadically over the past decade. But richer, more educated Chinese are behind the recent strikes, which have disrupted life in China's cities. The success achieved by the drivers in Chongqing has inspired work stoppages elsewhere.

Urban workers say they are worried about being unable to pay for their children's college education, missing payments on car loans, and not having enough money left each month to dine out with friends or go on vacation.

In the past 30 years of economic liberalization, younger Chinese have come to see these things not as a luxury of modern life but as a right.

In the central province of Hunan on Dec. 2, more than 100 auxiliary police officers seized control of a Communist Party office in Leiyang county and demanded that the government reinstate a bonus it had taken away after the Olympics. According to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, the group smashed chairs and did not allow anyone to enter or leave the building for three hours. Tan Caiyu, a municipal official, said in an interview that the government is considering raising the auxiliary officers' salaries as a result.

That same week, more than 1,000 teachers in neighboring Longhui county went on strike over unpaid allowances. The teachers accused the local government of misappropriating 400 million yuan, or about $60 million, over the past 10 years.


In other places, such as the inland province of Shaanxi and in northeastern Liaoning province, teachers protested because they said they deserved to be paid as much as other government employees with the same experience.

Taxi drivers feel the pinch
In Gansu province's Yongdeng county, taxi drivers said their income had fallen because of the rising number of illegal taxis that the government had allowed to proliferate...

"Rise up!" one leaflet urged. "Let us all unite and strike together!"...

...Drivers shared plans for the strike by text message and word of mouth. Taxi driver Liu Mingsheng said the purpose of the strike "spoke to my heart."

"With my salary, I can have an ordinary life. I can buy books, toys and have medical treatmey.

Drivers said the strike appeared highly organized — although none would admit to knowing who set it up. Blockades were erected...

Chongqing's Communist Party secretary, Bo Xilai, China's former commerce minister, responded by convening a meeting to discuss terms for ending the strike. No leaders emerged to take credit for organizing the protest, so the taxi companies selected their own representatives.

The meeting was broadcast live by the local TV station and even the official state news agency's online portal, Xinhuanet.com.

Sitting next to Bo was Tang Zhirong, who represented female taxi drivers in the city. Tang, 38, who has a college degree in accounting, said she has no regrets about the strike because the outcome was so positive.

"Before, we really didn't have any way to make complaints, and without the strike the government wouldn't have given in," Tang said in an interview.

Crackdown
Even as government officials publicly praised the taxi drivers for their candor, they were hunting for organizers and trying to detect connections between Chongqing and other protests across the country....

quote:

Three killed in riot in China's Xinjiang region
1 hour, 20 minutes ago

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Three people died in rioting in China's restive far west Xinjiang region on Sunday, state media reported, in a confrontation that underscored the tense divide there between Han Chinese and the Uighur ethnic minority.


The official Xinhua news agency said rioters "illegally gathered in several downtown places and engaged in beating, smashing, looting and burning" in the regional capital Urumqi.


The dead were "three ordinary people of the Han ethnic group," Xinhua said. It did not say how they died.


Nor did the official reports specify the ethnicity of those involved in the unrest or the reasons behind it, and calls to the Xinjiang government spokesperson's office and Urumqi police were not answered.

But other sources told Reuters the clash involved members of the Uighur ethnic minority, many of whom resent the Chinese presence in the region, and the cultural and religious controls imposed by China's ruling Communist Party.


(...)

Many Uighurs complain they are marginalized economically and politically in their own land, which has rich mineral and natural gas reserves.


An eyewitness in Urumqi, who requested anonymity, told Reuters the police moved in and the confrontation turned violent.

Rioters overturned traffic rails and smashed buses until thousands of police and anti-riot troops swept through the city, using tear-gas and high-pressure water hoses to disperse crowds.

"Now the whole city is on lock-down," he said.


CRACKDOWN EXPECTED

(...)

"Now, I hear, the authorities have been going through university dorms to hunt down participants. ... There will be a harsh crackdown, but the basic problems won't disappear."

The Chinese video website Youku (++www.youku.com) ran footage titled "Urumqi riot" that showed smoke rising from an expressway as a firetruck stopped at the scene.

An overseas Chinese news website, Boxun (++peacehall.com), showed pictures it said were of the Urumqi riot, including hundreds of civilians pressed against a row of police, burning wreckage on a city street, and anti-riot police in shields and helmets.

Almost half of Xinjiang's 20 million people are Uighurs. Many of them resent controls imposed by Beijing and an inflow of Han Chinese migrants. The population of Urumqi is mostly Han Chinese, and the city is under tight police security even in normal times.

Xinjiang has been under increasingly tight security in recent years, especially in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, when the region was hit by several deadly attacks that authorities said were the work of militants.

But human rights groups and Uighur independence activists say Beijing grossly exaggerates the threat from militants to justify harsh controls restricting peaceful political demands.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; editing by Myra MacDona

quote:

China says 140 killed in riots in west

Associated Press
50 mins ago - July 6, 2009

URUMQI, China – Violent street battles killed at least 140 people and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit China's volatile western Xinjiang region in decades, and officials said Monday the death toll was expected to rise.

Security forces have clamped down on the city of Urumqi and set up checkpoints to catch any fleeing rioters, state media reported, after tensions between ethnic Muslim Uighur people and China's Han majority erupted into riots.

Rioters on Sunday overturned barricades, attacking vehicles and houses, and clashed violently with police, according to media and witness accounts. State television aired footage showing protesters attacking and kicking people on the ground. Other people, who appeared to be Han Chinese, sat dazed with blood pouring down their faces.

There was little immediate explanation for how so many people died. The government blamed Uighur exiles for stoking the unrest. Exile groups said the violence started only after police began violently cracking down on a peaceful protest.

About 1,000 to 3,000 people had gathered Sunday in the regional capital for the protest that apparently spun out of control. Accounts differed over what happened, but the violence seemed to have started when the crowd of protesters refused to disperse.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported hundreds of people were arrested. Mobile phone service provided by at least one company was cut Monday to stop people from organizing further action in Xinjiang.

The demonstrators had been demanding justice for two Uighurs killed last month during a fight with Han Chinese co-workers at a factory in southern China.

Tensions between Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese are never far from the surface in Xinjiang, China's vast Central Asian buffer province, where militant Uighurs have waged a sporadic, violent separatist campaign.

Uighurs make up the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, but not in the capital of Urumqi, which has attracted large numbers of Han Chinese migrants. The city of 2.3 million is now about overwhelmingly Chinese — a source of frustration for native Uighurs.

Wu Nong, director of the news office of the Xinjiang provincial government, said more than 260 vehicles were attacked or set on fire in Sunday's unrest and 203 houses were damaged. She said 140 people were killed and 828 injured in the violence.

She did not say how many of the victims were Han or Uighurs.

Xinhua quoted regional Police Chief Liu Yaohua as saying several hundred people had been arrested in connection with the riot and police were searching for about 90 other "key suspects." He said checkpoints had been set up in the city and in neighboring Changji and Turpan prefectures to prevent the rioters from fleeing. Liu also said the death toll was expected to rise.

..//..

Many Uighurs yearn for independence for Xinjiang, a sprawling region rich in minerals and oil that borders eight Central Asian nations. Critics say the millions of Han Chinese who have settled here in recent years are gradually squeezing the Turkic people out of their homeland.

But many Chinese believe the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) are backward and ungrateful for the economic development the Chinese have brought to the poor region.

Adam Grode, an American Fulbright scholar studying in Urumqi, described a heavy police and military presence in the city Monday.

"There are soldiers everywhere, police are at all the corners. Traffic has completely stopped but people are walking on the sidewalks," Grode said.

He said authorities took him to the police station Monday morning after seeing him taking photographs from his apartment window. They deleted his photos, confiscated his passport and released him. They gave no reason for taking his passport <---[fascist Iranian tactics!!!) but said it would be returned Tuesday.

Seytoff said he had heard from two sources that at least two dozen people had been killed by gunfire or crushed by armored police vehicles just outside Xinjiang University.

Wang Kui, an official with the Foreign Affairs Department at the university, said she aware of no such incident. She said no students from the university were among those killed or injured.

"We are not allowing students to come and go because the situation is chaotic at the moment," Wang said. "All the students are at school, and we are taking care of them. But we are not clear about what's been going on outside."

China Mobile phone service was suspended in the region "to help keep the peace and prevent the incident from spreading further," <---[again, same as Iran!) a customer service representative in Urumqi said. The woman would give only her surname, Yang.

..//..