Poems for June 4: Wang Dan and Luo Yihe

These poems are taken from a collection published on RFA’s Mandarin Web site for the 18th anniversary of the June 4, 1989 crackdown, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands of people were killed by People’s Liberation Army troops. Wang Dan (ZH) was a prominent leader of the student protest on Tiananmen Square, and spent seven years in prison in the northeastern city of Liaoning. He was exiled to the United States and is currently a PhD student at Harvard. Luo Yihe (1961-1989) was a professional poet who died on hunger strike during the pro-democracy protests of 1989:

 

in the hours between dusk and dawn
we believe in everything –
taste the revenge of time
in joys not yet arrived

 

– Wang Dan

Bao Tong’s June 4 essay: Pressure is a good thing

UPDATE: Poems for June 4th. This essay was broadcast recently by RFA’s Mandarin service, to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the military crackdown on June 4, 1989. Here is their anniversary page (ZH), including a collection of poems written for the occasion by prominent intellectuals and dissidents:

“An utterly repressive society leads to an utterly corrupt prosperity. Repression has split China down the middle, into a paradise for corrupt officials, and a purgatory for those with no power. The one-party, authoritarian system dominates China: it is used to deploy personnel, to make laws, to administer the country, to administer judicial affairs; it is the supreme principle to which all others must bow, for all its corruption.” – Bao Tong

Video: Xiamen protest over chemical plant

This video was sent to RFA’s Cantonese service by a participant.

Residents of Xiamen city in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian marched to the municipal government offices Friday to protest against a PX (related to benzene) chemical plant which is planned for the area. Carrying banners which read “Protect Xiamen’s environment” and shouting “Protect our homes!”, “Protect Xiamen!”, they also called for the resignation of the city’s mayor.

Propaganda Train or Friendship Train?

-A Few Remarks on the Historic Inter-Korean Rail Run-

Last May 17, a North Korean train crossed the DMZ into South Korea for the first time in decades. The train’s shrieking brakes suggested that the carriages and diesel locomotive suffered from old age, but a great paint job aimed to cover it all up.

Although its value is barely more than symbolic, the re-opening of the railway connection between the two Koreas was an event worth celebrating by Koreans on both sides of the DMZ.

Newsdesk: Family planning protests continue, officials try to make quiet amends

The Guangxi family planning unrest continues in Rong county. If you want the original Chinese, you can catch the latest from RFA’s Cantonese service and Mandarin service. There is plenty of background in English, from this blog, from the RFA Web site, and from ESWN. Here is a summarized version of a recent Cantonese report:

A year and a half for threatening to commit suicide

On April 27th, a couple living in Hexi village, Qingdao city of Shandong Province, climbed on the roof of their home where from they were being evicted and threatened to set themselves on fire. The home was quickly surrounded by demolition crews and enforcement staff. In the end, the couple was arrested and they were sentenced to one and one and a half years in prison last week.

RFA’s Mandarin service obtained a clandestine video of the event last April.

Newsdesk: China’s publishing crackdown to begin July 1

China is planning to bring in new regulations aimed at tightening up its magazine and periodicals market as part of a general tidy-up by the General Administration of Press and Publishing (GAPP) ahead of the 2008 Olympics. This is related to the leaked but unconfirmed document we blogged about earlier this month, in that it seems to tie in with the ‘main theme’ campaign of the Party’s powerful Propaganda Department. From Mandarin service(ZH) reporter Ding Xiao in Hong Kong:

Interviews: Peasant authors Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao

Husband-and-wife team Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao made a big splash a couple of years ago with their book, The Situation of China’s Peasants, shocking the well-heeled urban bourgeousie with their tales of extreme hardship and official abuse suffered by the farming communities of Anhui province. Their hard work won them awards, literary nominations, online plaudits from many netizens, and a libel suit from one of the officials they named in their account. They were recently in the United States for a literary festival which coincided with the publication of the English translation of their book in the U.S. under the title, Will the Boat Sink the Water? The Life of China’s Peasants. They spoke to RFA investigative reporter Bai Fan from the Mandarin service. Here are some extracts from the original interviews which you can read/hear in Chinese here:

Is the Internet a force for democracy?

At an Oxford Union Debate on 18 May, the motion ‘This House believes that the Internet is the greatest force for democratization in the World’ was defeated.

Watch Web casts of the debate, or check out Rebecca MacKinnon’s blog – Rebecca specialises in just this line of enquiry.

The Story of Qu Chao: Disabled Goldfish Farmer

What follows is the story of Qu Chao, a goldfish farmer in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin, and his attempt to lodge a complaint via the courts and through complaints procedures in Beijing, against local officials who, he says, sabotaged his business and deprived his family of their livelihood. The resourceful Qu is one of the first petitioners to record their beating at the hands of provincial officials who came to Beijing to bring him home. He was severely disabled before the beating; now he says his condition has worsened. You can read and listen to the original RFA Mandarin service Investigative Report (ZH) here, and listen to audio of Qu’s detention and beating at the appropriate place in the text. One of the interesting things about this story is that RFA first came to hear of him when Qu posted an item on the listener comments page(ZH) of its RFA China blog (ZH):