Bao Tong: Talk to the Dalai Lama

Here is Bao Tong’s essay translated in full. Original Chinese as broadcast on RFA’s Mandarin service here.

Take harmony seriously; talk to the Dalai Lama
by Bao Tong

The Lhasa incident has caused massive grief for all the Tibetan people and all of China. Anyone who has ever been through a great historical tragedy will understand its significance. The Chinese government spokesman said the whole thing was orchestrated by the Dalai Lama — a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize — from behind the scenes. However, as a reader from Europe put it: “Nobody here believes what the Chinese government says.”

Tibet: Reactions from inside China

The recent protests by Tibetans come amid growing calls among Chinese intellectuals for dialogue with the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing accuses of conspiring to split the motherland by secretly orchestrating the March 15 protests and riots in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, during which armed police opened fire on Tibetans, and where house-to-house searches and arrests are still continuing.

Sun Wenguang, a retired professor of eastern China’s Shandong University said the authorities were wrong to suppress the Tibetan protests using force.

“To crack down on the protests, especially to open fire, is a crime.

Newsdesk: Chengdu under tight security

Huang Xiaomin, a Han Chinese activist in Chengdu, told Mandarin reporter Xinyu: “All major thoroughfares leading to the Tibet Autonomous Region’s office in Chengdu are manned by riot police and also armed police sitting in cars waiting. I walked around the neighborhood and saw no fewer than 60 vehicles, including mini vans and cars, with tags indicating that they were from public security. All cars traveling toward the direction of the TAR office are subject to inspection. Car trunks are searched. The drivers must get out of the cars and show their IDs. “

Our reporter Xinyu called the TAR office in Chengdu to confirm the security checks and was told by the duty officer: “We don’t know about that.”

From RFA’s Mandarin service.

Uyghurs: On the trail of the Urumqi shooting story

Xinhua news agency tells us that there was a shootout with Uyghur ‘terrorists’ in the regional capital, Urumqi, in which two ‘terrorists’ were killed. (Image: The Opposite End of China)

Chinese police kill two terorists, arrest 15 others

URUMQI, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) — Chinese police destroyed a terrorist gang last month in Urumqi, capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, killing two persons and arresting 15 others, local sources said on Monday.

China: Troubled times at Bingtuan 106

Bingtuan 106, is in the middle of the long blue area to the south of the Tarim Basin on this map of the bingtuan. Otherwise known as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, the bingtuan was set up in 1954 to secure China’s borders, and continuing access to the abundant natural resources in the area. Administratively, it is a law pretty much unto itself, answering only to Beijing, and having very little truck with regional officials who administer the civilian areas, which are home to millions of ethnic minority, Muslim, Uyghurs.

In this report by RFA’s Mandarin service (Chinese), retired bingtuan worker and petitioner Liu Xingyuan says 106 Bingtuan leader Luo Yucheng misdirected funds he said were to build a new highway. Liu, 80, has been writing letters of complaint since 1998, and has received threats and harassment from local authorities following a directive from China’s cabinet, the State Council, to sort out the issue as quickly as possible.

North Korea: China ‘wants N. Korean army to be fed’

From RFA’s Korean service (in Korean)- Feb. 14, 2008 Sungwon Yang interview with Prof. Hazel Smith of Warwick University, at a Korea Society event in New York City:

China and South Korea actually want the North Korean military to be fed. The last thing they want is to have to deal with is hungry and desperate North Korean soldiers roaming the border areas, looking for food.

– Hazel Smith

According to the North Korea scholar and former WFP official, the rice aid sent to North Korea by South Korea or China is first distributed to the North Korean military.

Between 2000 and 2002, Prof. Hazel Smith of the UK’s Warwick University acted as a WFP official, administering rice aid for North Korea and also designing rice distribution monitoring plans. RFA had an exclusive interview with Prof. Smith

China: Govt promises to up land compensation

China says it will set up efforts to educate farmers on their property rights and encourage them to resolve land disputes through legal means, RFA’s Mandarin service (ZH) reports.

Whether this will include having locally elected officials recalled if they don’t meet requirements, isn’t yet clear.

In the meantime, China plans to raise the compensation it offers farmers for land requisitioned for development by 20 to 30 percent. 

China: Three reporters missing in Guangdong land protest

From RFA’s Mandarin service: In Heping county, Guangdong province, three reporters whose video equipment carried the China Central Television (CCTV) logo are missing after they interviewed local villagers about how tens of thousands of mu of farmland had been expropriated for commercial use.

On December 26, after the three wrapped up their interviews with the villagers, officials from the local county government took them away and said they were to be treated to a meal.  But the three have been missing since.

Traffickers use drugs on North Korean ‘brides’ in China

We’ve reported extensively on the trafficking of North Korean women into China, where men abound, women are scarce, and the black-market trade in wives often takes a grim and grisly turn. But here’s a new angle, unearthed by RFA’s Korean service: The traffickers, taking a page from pimps in the West, are using addictive drugs to keep their women pliable. “Brokers force North Korean women defectors to take illegal drugs,” said a North Korean woman who defected to China in search of a better life, only to be passed from human smugglers to bride traffickers.

China: Tough on mental health patients

Guo Zhong of Zibo city, Shandong province wrote an open letter to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao on Dec. 16. In it, he describes the suffering of his wife from mental illness over the past seven years, and the lack of medical and social support that is generally available to mental health patients. He calls on Wen to increase government investment in mental health services, and to pay close attention to the need for a Mental Health Law.