China: New regs seek to control video-sharing sites

From RFA’s Mandarin service:把自己拍摄的生活录像，或者自己喜欢的电影电视节目传到网上，与更多的人分享，个人的生活空间随着网络的延伸而扩大。总部在广州的我乐网就是提供这种网络视频节目服务的公司。过去2年多来，这家网站播放过5000多万个视频作品，注册用户达2500多万。该网站工作人员表示，他们是中国最大视频分享娱乐网站之一：

It could soon be much more difficult for Chinese netizens to post video to ordinary Web sites or to the Chinese equivalent of YouTube under a set of new rules aimed at imposing strict controls on online video. If you take a look at this recent video of clashes between riot police and villagers in Baima village, Guangdong province, you can see how this kind citizen journalism is becoming increasingly normal in China, where the official media is barred from covering rural unrest of this kind.

China: More crackdowns in 2007

Human rights in China suffered in 2007, activists and experts say, with heavy-handed crackdowns on dissidents and petitioners as well as tougher curbs on freedom of expression and religion. “The worst period of China’s human rights violation in the last five years was when the Chinese Communist Party held its 17th Congress” in October, dissident and rights activist Hu Jia said in an interview. “People involved in the Congress security arrangement totaled almost 1 million. It was out of fear that unmanageable protests might erupt while the meeting was in session,” Hu said. At the same time, authorities warned dissidents and activists against traveling or publishing.

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.

Dongzhou drama escalates, 2,000 police on guard

The drama in Dongzhou, a small fishing village in Guangdong province, seems destined to escalate. At least that’s what the villagers say, as local official insist that any troubles have been minor and are long past. The latest news comes from native witnesses on the ground—reporters are being bundled away—who say some 2,000 police are guarding a key electricity pylon in the village, site of a deadly crackdown two years ago.
Witnesses told RFA’s Mandarin service that 1,000 more police were sent in Dec. 22, in addition to some 1,000 police sent in earlier.

Cantonese: Land protest in Dongguan

A villager from Baima village, Dongguan city, Guangdong province said the local authorities used the excuse of building a university to buy their land at a very low price—8,000 yuan per mu. But later the villagers found out the local authorities resold the land to a third party at a price ten times higher than that which they compensated the villagers for. The villagers deem the compensation is unreasonable and blockaded the village committee offices in protest on Monday.

One villager told RFA’s Cantonese Service, “Almost all our villagers (about several hundred villagers) went to protest. When we blocked the committee office, the Gu On and armed police beat us. Some villagers are injured.”

China’s online air pollution map

An online, interactive, non-government map which shows the worst atmospheric polluters in China. These include 40 multinational companies. This story has been picked up all over the domestic Chinese media. The following extract is from the China Daily:

Forty multinationals are among some 4,000 firms on an air pollution blacklist released Thursday.

Top companies such as Michelin China, Sina-Mars Group APP in China, the joint ventures of Toyota and Ford

Cyber-dissident Zhang Jianhong’s condition worsening

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders is calling on the Chinese authorities to release on humanitarian grounds of cyber-dissident Zhang Jianhong, 49, also known under the pen-name Li Hong. He’s been hospitalized for two months in Zhejiang provincial jail in southeastern China and suffers from partial paralysis. “He has been in Zhejiang prison hospital for almost two months. His condition has neither improved nor worsened. His muscles have wasted away. He no longer has any strength in his hands. He cannot wash his food bowl or his clothes,” his wife, Dong Min, told RFA’s Mandarin service. “He can do nothing for himself and has to be helped by other patients. If his condition worsens he could be completely paralyzed. This makes me very frightened.”

China: Xiamen PX project fears resurface

UPDATE: Xinhua news agency covers the story, reprinted here in the China Daily, leading with the call for citizens’ opinions and suggestions during the 10-day public consultation period.

The Xiamen authorities put the potentially dangerous chemical project, known as the PX (paraxylene) plant in the city’s Haicang District, 16 kilometers from the city center, on hold on May 30 after coming under immense pressure from citizens virulently opposed to the project.

This is interesting, that Xinhua is referring to the plant as “potentially dangerous”. Could it be that someone in central government has taken against the project, because they don’t want a repeat of the Songhua River fiasco?

Sex sells. Even in Communist China.

In China, sex happens.

This ought to be self-evident, since the Middle Kingdom’s population is now approaching 2 billion—and storks don’t proliferate in China. Some of the world’s oldest erotica, further, originated in China. The best-known may be the Qing Dynasty masterwork—long banned under Communist rule but widely regarded as the apex of Chinese classical fiction—The Dream of the Red Chamber. But Red Chamber was preceded by The Golden Lotus, the satirical Carnal Prayer Mat, and others—all serving the didactic purpose of enlightening readers about maximizing sexual pleasure. Shanghai Baby and The People’s Republic of Desire are simply new additions to an old genre. Not that any of this rich sexual tradition would have been apparent in modern times, post-1949. (Think baggy unisex Mao suits.) Not, that is, until quite recently.

China: Legal Day protest ends in clashes

UPDATE:  Thousands of petitioners who gathered outside China’s state television (CCTV) headquarters in Beijing were dispersed by police. The photo–given to RFA by a ‘volunteer’–shows this protest.

More in Chinese: 普法日数千访民央视请愿　警察暴力阻截并阻挠外媒采访 

Just over 100 petitioners gathered in the trees lining a Beijing crossroads Monday to “speak about injustice”. About a dozen foreign journalists turned up to cover the event. Protester Chen Yingcai said the event was to highlight the beatings, detentions and even labor camp sentences routinely suffered by anyone in China trying to pursue an official grievance.