Bao Tong: Of Kings and Bandits

Many bloggers around the region have been covering the “nail house” phenomenon which has been sweeping through Chinese cyberspace, and which the official media are now forbidden to cover, although bloggers are filling the gap. Essentially, nail houses are property holders who refuse to sell out to developers, and in the above video clip, this Chongqing homeowner tells reporters that she will not vacate her home, which now stands isolated in a vast construction site. (via CDT)

Directly related to these themes of property rights and citizen journalism is this essay, which forms the second part of Bao Tong’s commentary on the passing of the Property Law of the People’s Republic of China. It was broadcast on RFA’s Mandarin service Friday March 30, 2007. You can read the original essay in Chinese here:

The recognition of private property rights lies at the core of Roman civil law. Liu Bang, rebelling against the Qin dynasty, issued a decree specifying the three main crimes: theft, murder and causing injury. This decree explicitly forbade these three crimes, and also recognised the private rights of individual citizens. In 1946, Clause 8 of the Constitution of the [Kuomintang] Republic of China guaranteed the property rights of the people. But Mao Zedong wasn’t having any of it…

China’s “real name registration system” to extend to pre-paid mobile phones

A China Unicom spokeswoman told RFA’s Cantonese service recently that a real-name registration system requiring people to give their ID cards to buy a pre-paid mobile phonecard(ZH) probably wasn’t far off. The government has been trying to introduce real-name registration in a number of areas, including Internet discussion forums, blogs, and even bicycle registration. But not much notice has been taken of the pre-paid mobile phone market – until now, that is:

RFA Video: The Yongzhou Unrest

RFA’s Cantonese service has been given some video of the Yongzhou bus riots. The introductory screen says that 20,000 residents of the city, in Hunan province, took to the streets in protest about a hike in bus fares, in what turned into four days’ rioting.

Gao Yaojie: Interview with RFA

Here are some extracts of interviews with Chinese AIDS activist and retired gynecologist Gao Yaojie, broadcast last week on RFA’s Mandarin service

“I am very concerned that the authorities will find new ways to keep
me down, when I return. I am particularly worried about my family.
Both mine and my son’s e-mail accounts have been closed.  I want to publish
two books. One is a manuscript that I gave to a publisher in 2004,
which has been dragging its feet ever since. Now the material is out
of date, so I must update it and reorganize it. That book is called
“AIDS Orphans”. Another book is called “10 years in AIDS prevention”.

“China Has Come Full Circle” — Bao Tong on the “Enlightenment” ushered in by China’s new Property Law

UPDATE: Bao Tong has written a second essay on the Property Law, which you can read in English here.

This essay was broadcast Friday March 16 by RFA’s Mandarin service.

The Property Law of the People’s Republic of China was passed by a majority of 97% in the National People’s Congress.

What does this mean? It means the final bankruptcy of the theories and policies of the “transitional stage” of socialism proposed by Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong in 1953.

It means that after repeated twists and turns for more than half a century, China has finally come full circle. Back to where it started. The first half of this circle took the abolition of private property as its centrepoint, with the nationalization of property and of the economy. But the things which were taken from Chinese citizens had precious little to do with either the state or the people. In fact all that nationalized property and the state-run command economy would have been more aptly named “official property” or “the Party leadership economy”, because without officials, you wouldn’t have groups of Party leaders in charges of allocating and disposing of these resources. The result was the blatant plunder of private property in the name of the nation and the people, and the loss of any stable basis for the continuance of socialism, throwing the entire country into a continual process of upheaval. This process, still lauded by some theorists in the Party as ‘revolution’, or ‘Mao Zedong Thought’, or, ‘a firm basis for socialism’, was enshrined in the Constitution.

Sun Wukong comes to Pingdingshan

From Chapter 32 of Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng’en.

樵子道：『此山径过有六百里远近， 名唤平顶山。山中有一洞，名唤莲花洞。洞里有两个魔头，他画影图形，要捉和尚； 抄名访姓，要吃唐僧。

The woodcutter said, “That mountain is around 600 li from here. Its name is Pingdingshan (Flat Top Mountain). Inside the mountain is a cave called Lotus Cave. Inside the cave are two demons who will do anything they can to catch and eat monks from the Tang court.”

Tibetan protest via YouTube

BoingBoing has an interesting post about a planned protest this Saturday, March 10 by Tibetan exiles, using YouTube to post videos commemorating the March 10, 1959 uprising against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Several of the videos are already viewable at March10.org. This is a great idea worth checking out.

If you speak/read Tibetan, RFA’s Tibetan service has a commemorative broadcast, too.

Call for Chinese and Korean speakers to make charity podcasts

Jacky Peng at Little Bridge wrote, on the Chinese Content Wikispace:

–The real life in North Korea It’s been on the net for quite a long time, and been cross-posted on many other BBSs. It gives many detail information of the normal people’s life in North Korea with many interesting photos, but apparently, the photos were taken from many different sites. I am not able to verify the accuracy of this post. Can anyone tell me whether this post worth translating? It is a god-damn 5000 words post.

To which I replied:

I have taken a look at it, and on a quick first glance I’d say it is largely borrowed from other sources and doesn’t contain much in the way of originality. But I didn’t go through it with a fine-tooth comb.

Newsdesk: Is you is or is you ain’t promoted?

ESWN asked, on the Chinese Content Wikispace, whether the Pengshui officials’ transfer constituted a promotion or a demotion. Here is some background on the Pengshui SMS poem libel case from his blog:

At noon on August 15, 2006, Qin Zhongfei sent out a poem via SMS about corruption and ineptitude in Pengshui county. This poem apparently touched some nerves. According to Observation magainze, the Pengshui party secretary Lan Qinghua has been at his post for six years and county mayor Zhou Wei has been at his post for five years. As such, they were due for transfer/promotion and they didn’t want to hear about any negative news when the higher-ups come around to evaluate their performances in order to determine their next assignments.

North Korean women trafficked to China – RFA Korean transcripts

RFA’s Korean service [홈페이지]] has recently had its 10-part series of programmes on the trafficking of North Korean women in China translated by Grigore Scarlatoiu, who provided the English Web team with an epic tale in English. We have only been able to showcase a fraction of this translation work in our regular Web story on the subject. More will appear soon on the Women in Their Own Words feature page. Meanwhile, here is an extract, and a link to Greg’s entire opus: