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):

Polio Outbreak in Burma

BURMESE: Polio Outbreak, Part 2 (05/09/07)

Reporter: Khin May Zaw

Length: 3:08 minutes
Announcer: We contacted the WHO office based in Rangoon and interviewed them on the detection of polio in Maung Daw Township in Rakhine State. First, when we asked if it was happening only in Rakhine State and how it was discovered, Dr. Nihal Sighn, the medical officer from the WHO, answered as follows:

We’re jamming: North Korea blocks incoming radio transmissions

On May 13, 2007, Free North Korea Radio(Kor) posted a message on its website asking the North Korean authorities to stop jamming their broadcast. You can read a little background on them here.

The Research Institute for Northeast Asian Broadcasting, a short-wave monitoring group based in South Korea, has recently found out that the North Korean authorities have been conducting intensive jamming of Free North Korea Radio’s short-wave evening program.

A ghost in China’s propaganda machine

UPDATE: I translated this after it was suggested on the Chinese Content Wiki by Mo Ming. It is visible via Google in at least a couple of different locations: here and here. RFA Unplugged has translated it for interest only, and RFA has no way to verify whether it is an accurate report of a real meeting, or, as the government loves to say, a fabrication. It is offered in the spirit of a look what is being talked about in Chinese cyberspace. You can read previous RFA stories in English involving the propaganda department here and here:

Interview: Uyghur Wirewalker Adil Hoshur

May 3 – The world record for high-wire walking is broken by a Chinese contestant at the world’s first high-wire walking competition across the Han river in Seoul. Eighteen contestants tread carefully on a thirty millimetre thick iron wire stretching one kilometre across the Han River in the South Korean capital. Participants braved strong wind and low-flying birds assisted only by a seven metre long rod. South Korean contestant Kwon Won-Tae broke the world record first after he walked across the wire in 17 minutes and six seconds. The South Korean’s record was short lived however as Chinese contestant, Abusataer Wujiabuduia, sped across the wire in a record 11 minutes and 22 seconds.

South Korea: N.Korean defectors in poor mental, physical health

Researching our English Web story on the mental and physical health problems that persist among North Koreans even after they have resettled in the South, I was sent an article in The Lancet [Correlation Between Traumatic Events and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among North Korean Defectors
in South Korea WooTaek Jeon, ChangHyung Hong, ChangHo Lee, Dong Kee Kim, Mooyoung Han, and SungKil Min], the abstract of which follows:

Newsdesk: North Korea Orders Children Home

RFA REPORTING FROM BANGKOK: CHILDREN OF NORTH.KOREAN DIPLOMATS AND BUSINESS OFFICIALS IN THAILAND CONFIRMED TO HAVE BEEN SENT BACK TO NORTH KOREA BY THE END OF APRIL 2007

(Dong-June Lee, May 9, 2007)

Following the official order to repatriate the children of all North Korean officials overseas, including trade and business representatives, by the end of April, all children between ages 5 and 9 and over 14 residing in Thailand with their parents were confirmed to have been returned to North Korea by the given deadline.

North Korean diplomats and trade officials have confirmed that their children had safely arrived in North Korea by the end of April. They will now all have to learn how to put up with being separated from their own flesh and blood.

Perry Link speaks about the state of censorship in China

On May 1st, the Freedom House and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (the US entity that oversees Radio Free Asia) held a half-day session on “21st century threats to media freedom.” Perry Link, professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, spoke about China’s state of censorship and how it has evolved over the last 30 years…

Professor Link said that while the CCP still holds ultimate power on what goes into the media, the ways it goes about it have changed to become far more insidious. As a result lots of young people in China know nothing about the Tiananmen massacre or Tibet and host of other issues deemed forbidden topics.

Listen to Professor Link’s statement (10 minutes.)

Related links:

Poems for June 4th. 

Interview with the former editor of Baixing magazine, whose hard-hitting reporting earned him and his staff the wrath of the powerful Central Propaganda Department.

Leaked document? A ghost in China’s propaganda machine

Publishing crackdown begins July 1

A hotshot civil rights laywer from the north tells it like it is… Mo Shaoping on YouTube