China feels the heat from torrid growth

The Chinese economy grew at its fastest pace for a decade in the second quarter, according to official figures released Tuesday, increasing pressure on the authorities to introduce measures to rein in runaway growth

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/18/business/yuan.php

China seeks oil security with stake in Russia firm

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/19/business/energy.php

Praise and punishment: It's a fine line in China

The case of Chen Guangcheng is typical of efforts in China to punish lawyers, journalists, and participants in environmental, health and religious groups who expose abuses or organize people in a manner officials consider threatening.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/19/news/blind.php

Taiwan-China cargo flight lands

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5193506.stm

Chinese storm kills more than 180

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5185314.stm

China says growth 'under control'

China's economy grew 10.9% in the first half of 2006 against the same period a year ago - but moves to cool growth are starting to work, the government says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5189842.stm

China plan to protect environment

China plans to spend 1.4 trillion yuan ($175bn) over the next five years on protecting its environment

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5192376.stm

In China, economy expands at 11.3% pace

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/18/business/yuan.php

Historic India-China link to open

China and India are due to open a historic trade route on Thursday that has been closed for 44 years. The Himalayan pass of Nathu La, 4,000m (14,000 feet) above sea level, was once part of the ancient Silk Road. It links the Indian state of Sikkim with Tibet and was the scene of a fierce two-month border war between India and China in 1962. Nathu La is opening just a few days after the first train service was launched from eastern China to Tibet. The opening ceremony at the border post is to be attended by China's ambassador to India as well as local officials from Sikkim and Tibet. The BBC's South Asia correspondent, Navdip Dhariwal, says the reopening of the route signifies a huge leap forward in diplomacy and trade between both countries. Workers on both sides have been frantically laying stones and tarmac in preparation for the historic opening, under the watchful eye of Indian and Chinese border guards. Optimistic local traders have welcomed the opening and say it will have a major impact on the regional economy. "Our lives are going to change once trade gets going," a grocery supplier, Sonar Bhutia, is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. "We're hoping to profit by it." but correspondents say the opening is more symbolic than substantive, with trade confined to some local goods. India will import 15 items from China, including goat and sheep skins, yak tails and raw silk. China, for its part, will import 29 items including tea, rice and spices. "Trading will take place four days a week, Monday to Thursday," says Sikkim director of industries, Saman Prasad Subba. Diplomatic triumph Some analysts believe that trade through the land route could generate millions of dollars in trade eventually. But at the moment most agree that there are more immediate political benefits rather than economic. "This resumption of border trade is more significant for Indian diplomacy, not for trade," says Jayantanuja Bandopadhyay, professor of international relations in Calcutta's Jadavpur University. Sikkim is a former Buddhist kingdom that merged with India in 1975, a move that was opposed by China which lay claim to the state. "By allowing trade through Nathu La, China has accepted Sikkim as part of India that it refused to do earlier," Mr Bandopadhyay says. The Nathu La pass was closed in 1962 after war broke out between China and India. The famed Silk Road was an ancient trading route that once connected China with India, West Asia and Europe.

Historic India-China link to open

China and India are due to open a historic trade route on Thursday that has been closed for 44 years. The Himalayan pass of Nathu La, 4,000m (14,000 feet) above sea level, was once part of the ancient Silk Road. It links the Indian state of Sikkim with Tibet and was the scene of a fierce two-month border war between India and China in 1962. Nathu La is opening just a few days after the first train service was launched from eastern China to Tibet. The opening ceremony at the border post is to be attended by China's ambassador to India as well as local officials from Sikkim and Tibet.

The BBC's South Asia correspondent, Navdip Dhariwal, says the reopening of the route signifies a huge leap forward in diplomacy and trade between both countries. Workers on both sides have been frantically laying stones and tarmac in preparation for the historic opening, under the watchful eye of Indian and Chinese border guards. Optimistic local traders have welcomed the opening and say it will have a major impact on the regional economy. "Our lives are going to change once trade gets going," a grocery supplier, Sonar Bhutia, is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. "We're hoping to profit by it." but correspondents say the opening is more symbolic than substantive, with trade confined to some local goods. India will import 15 items from China, including goat and sheep skins, yak tails and raw silk. China, for its part, will import 29 items including tea, rice and spices. "Trading will take place four days a week, Monday to Thursday," says Sikkim director of industries, Saman Prasad Subba. Diplomatic triumph
Some analysts believe that trade through the land route could generate millions of dollars in trade eventually. But at the moment most agree that there are more immediate political benefits rather than economic. "This resumption of border trade is more significant for Indian diplomacy, not for trade," says Jayantanuja Bandopadhyay, professor of international relations in Calcutta's Jadavpur University. Sikkim is a former Buddhist kingdom that merged with India in 1975, a move that was opposed by China which lay claim to the state. "By allowing trade through Nathu La, China has accepted Sikkim as part of India that it refused to do earlier," Mr Bandopadhyay says. The Nathu La pass was closed in 1962 after war broke out between China and India. The famed Silk Road was an ancient trading route that once connected China with India, West Asia and Europe.

Historic India-China link to open

China and India are due to open a historic trade route on Thursday that has been closed for 44 years. The Himalayan pass of Nathu La, 4,000m (14,000 feet) above sea level, was once part of the ancient Silk Road. It links the Indian state of Sikkim with Tibet and was the scene of a fierce two-month border war between India and China in 1962. Nathu La is opening just a few days after the first train service was launched from eastern China to Tibet. The opening ceremony at the border post is to be attended by China's ambassador to India as well as local officials from Sikkim and Tibet.

The BBC's South Asia correspondent, Navdip Dhariwal, says the reopening of the route signifies a huge leap forward in diplomacy and trade between both countries. Workers on both sides have been frantically laying stones and tarmac in preparation for the historic opening, under the watchful eye of Indian and Chinese border guards. Optimistic local traders have welcomed the opening and say it will have a major impact on the regional economy. "Our lives are going to change once trade gets going," a grocery supplier, Sonar Bhutia, is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. "We're hoping to profit by it." but correspondents say the opening is more symbolic than substantive, with trade confined to some local goods. India will import 15 items from China, including goat and sheep skins, yak tails and raw silk. China, for its part, will import 29 items including tea, rice and spices. "Trading will take place four days a week, Monday to Thursday," says Sikkim director of industries, Saman Prasad Subba. Diplomatic triumph
Some analysts believe that trade through the land route could generate millions of dollars in trade eventually. But at the moment most agree that there are more immediate political benefits rather than economic. "This resumption of border trade is more significant for Indian diplomacy, not for trade," says Jayantanuja Bandopadhyay, professor of international relations in Calcutta's Jadavpur University. Sikkim is a former Buddhist kingdom that merged with India in 1975, a move that was opposed by China which lay claim to the state. "By allowing trade through Nathu La, China has accepted Sikkim as part of India that it refused to do earlier," Mr Bandopadhyay says. The Nathu La pass was closed in 1962 after war broke out between China and India. The famed Silk Road was an ancient trading route that once connected China with India, West Asia and Europe.

Thousands demand Hong Kong rights

Tens of thousands of people have joined a rally in Hong Kong calling for full democracy in the territory. Organisers say 58,000 took part; police put the figure at 28,000. The marchers, some blowing whistles, carried banners reading "Justice, Equality, Democracy".
The rally marked the ninth anniversary of the former British colony's return to Chinese rule.
A pro-China rally held earlier in the day also attracted large numbers of people - police said 40,000 took part.

Partial democracy
Under Hong Kong's electoral system, its leader is chosen by an 800-member committee weighted in Beijing's favour. It also has a 60-seat legislature, half of whose members are directly elected. In 2003 and 2004, crowds of up to half a million took to the streets of Hong Kong to demand full democracy. But correspondents say the numbers have fallen as the economy is doing well and new leader Donald Tsang is proving popular. Thousands also supported a pro-Beijing march held earlier Cardinal Joseph Zen, who leads Hong Kong's Catholic community, urged followers praying on the march to show perseverance. "If we persist, our aim will be met," he told them. One of Hong Kong's most respected political figures, former chief secretary Anson Chan, addressed the rally to back calls for more democracy. "Today I come to take part in the march in support of democracy but this doesn't mean we are trying to challenge the government," she said. "Although the economy has been good it doesn't mean we don't need democracy. I call for people to come out and support democracy." The pro-Beijing rally held earlier in the day included performances by Hong Kong-based Chinese troops, cultural groups and local pop stars. But a speech by Mr Tsang was interrupted by pro-democracy MP Leung Kwok-hung, who was ushered away after he started heckling.

UK pondered China nuclear attack

Hong Kong was considered vulnerable to a Chinese attackThe UK wanted China to know the nuclear strength of the US could be unleashed if the Chinese attacked Hong Kong, previously secret papers show. In 1961 the UK felt nuclear retaliation was the only alternative to abandoning its colony if China attacked. Officials wanted "to encourage" China to believe nuclear action against it would follow any hostile action, papers released by the National Archives show.
Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997 having held it since 1842. The letters, circulated to prime minister Harold Macmillan, were written between 1957 and 1961 when concern was growing about China's intentions. Hong Kong was thought to be vulnerable, particularly as water and food supplies, from the mainland, could be cut off at any time.
Our object is to encourage the Chinese to believe than an attack on Hong Kong would involve US nuclear retaliation Harold WatkinsonMinister of Defence, 1961 The letters do not say who initially suggested the nuclear option, but they do show that British officials were keen for the Chinese to be aware of the threat while not giving the impression that Hong Kong was an American military outpost. Defence minister Harold Watkinson wrote to the foreign secretary and prime minister, saying: "Our object is to encourage the Chinese to believe than an attack on Hong Kong would involve US nuclear retaliation." Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home wrote a "top secret" letter to Mr Watkinson and Mr Macmillan in February 1961.
Outpost He wrote: "It must be fully obvious to the Americans that Hong Kong is indefensible by conventional means and that in the event of a Chinese attack, nuclear strikes against China would be the only alternative to complete abandonment of the colony. "In these circumstances it is perhaps not so much formal staff talks with the Americans that we need so much as an informal exchange of views involving a discussion of the use of nuclear strikes. "I need hardly say, however, that I agree entirely with your view that while we should encourage the Chinese to believe that an attack on Hong Kong would involve nuclear retaliation, we must avoid anything that would allow the Chinese to claim that the Colony is a military outpost of the United States." Secret meetings between British and American officials were held in Hawaii with the possibility of further meetings on board a US naval carrier during its frequent visits to Hong Kong. However, the idea stalled after Admiral Harry Felt, the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, responded cautiously when it was put to him. Any further response from the US at the time was not included in the National Archives file. The US was the only nation able to use nuclear weapons at the time.

BBC Images of new train line into Tibet

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/5128684.stm

Pact signed for 11 Hong Kong-China routes

The Associated PressMONDAY, JULY 3, 2006

Hong Kong and mainland China signed an aviation agreement that adds 11 new routes and allows this region's biggest airline, Cathay Pacific Airways, to fly passengers to Shanghai, the government and airline said Monday.
The current pact covers 45 routes between Hong Kong and the mainland, and the new deal will connect Hong Kong with all the mainland's major cities, the Hong Kong government said, without identifying the cities.
The agreement allows Cathay Pacific to fly passengers to Shanghai, which accounts for 35 percent of the passenger market and 68 percent of the cargo market between Hong Kong and the mainland, the carrier said.
Last month, Cathay acquired Hong Kong Dragon Airlines, or Dragonair, which has many routes to mainland cities, and it doubled its stake in Air China to 20 percent in a deal worth 8.22 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $1.06 billion.
"We appreciate the tremendous efforts made by the mainland and Hong Kong authorities in expanding the air services opportunities," said Philip Chen, Cathay Pacific's chief executive. "We are also encouraged that the overall arrangement supports the trend toward a more liberalized regime between the mainland and Hong Kong."
Restrictions on capacity will be relaxed on most routes, the government statement said.

Chinese law would apply to all media

By Joseph Kahn The New York TimesMONDAY, JULY 3, 2006

A Chinese draft law that threatens to fine news media for reporting on "sudden incidents" without permission applies to foreign as well as domestic news organizations, an official involved in preparing the legislation said Monday. The law, now under consideration by the legislature, calls for fines of up to $12,500 if news media produce unauthorized reports on outbreaks of disease, natural disasters, social disturbances or other so-called sudden incidents that officials determine to be false or harmful to China's social order. Wang Yongqing, vice minister of the legislative affairs office of China's State Council, or cabinet, said at a news conference that the law should apply to all news organizations, including foreign newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets that usually operate under different rules than local Chinese media.
"I think they should be included - the same as if a Chinese reporter goes to France or Britain, he also has to abide by your laws," Wang said, responding to a question about the law's applicability to foreigners. "It's aimed at the activity. If you engage in reporting activities, you also have to obey these rules." Foreign news organizations with offices inside China face travel restrictions and are monitored closely by security forces. But the authorities in charge of propaganda generally have not sought to censor foreign news reports the way they do those of domestic publications. As a result, foreign newspapers and magazines sometimes investigate sensitive political and social issues, including protests and outbreaks of disease, that local media report cannot report freely. Wang's briefing was aimed at reassuring the news media that the proposed law aims mainly to punish government officials who do a poor job of managing sudden incidents, like health emergencies or coal mine accidents. The clause pertaining to the media, Wang said, is intended only to prevent malicious behavior by news media that willfully mislead the public.

First train completes journey across the roof of the world

The Associated PressMONDAY, JULY 3, 2006
China's first train from Beijing to Tibet made the final leg of its two-day journey on the world's highest railway, reaching Lhasa Monday after climbing to high elevations that sickened passengers and tested the specially built rail cars. Girls, some dressed in track suits and others in traditional Tibetan robes, draped white scarves, a customary gift of greeting, on arriving passengers in the newly built Lhasa railway station. Many passengers spent the day coping with the altitude, breathing piped-in oxygen from tubes as the train passed its highest point, the 5,072-meter (16,640-foot) Tanggula Pass. Three passengers threw up, while others had headaches - both symptoms of altitude sickness. Outside, Tibetan antelope and wild donkeys grazed beneath snow-capped mountains and deep-blue skies. Aside from being a feat of engineering, the US$4.2 billion (€3.4 billion) railway is part of efforts to develop China's poor, restive west and bind it more closely to the booming east. Chinese leaders hope greater prosperity will help to still calls by Tibetans and other ethnic minorities for autonomy from the communist Beijing government. The line has prompted protests by activists who say it will bring an influx of Chinese migrants to the isolated Himalayan region, threatening its ecology and diluting its unique Buddhist culture. Trains completed shorter trips on the line between Lhasa and Golmud while passengers on the 16-car train from the Chinese capital were in the midst of their journey. State media gave heavy coverage to the railway, with newspapers publishing front-page photos of passengers singing and villagers waving to the passing train. The state television midday news showed President Hu Jintao congratulating workers who built the line.
Before the last leg of the trip to Lhasa, the train stopped in Golmud early Monday to switch its standard engine for three powerful locomotives required to haul the train at high altitude.
Passengers included a 2 1/2-year-old boy, a 78-year-old man and a group of ethnic Tibetans newly graduated from the Beijing Police Academy who were headed home to work as police officers. One Tibetan passenger asked a Western reporter what the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, thought of the train. The man, who asked not to be identified by name, said that with China's Internet monitoring, it was too dangerous for him to search news Web sites for the information himself. The only signs of human habitation in the arid highlands south of Golmud were traditional herders tending yaks and small train stations that dot the rail line.
After the train climbed above 4,000 meters (13,000 feet), ballpoint pens and bags of processed food burst due to the low air pressure. Laptop computers and digital music recorders failed, because moving parts in their disc drives are cushioned by tiny air bags that break at high altitude. China's government says it is spending 1.5 billion yuan (US$190 million; €150 million) on environmental protection along the Golmud-Lhasa stretch of the railway. But despite promises to minimize pollution, the sides of the line were littered with plastic bags, bottles and cardboard boxes. Large sections of the permanently frozen earth were grassless, puddled and scarred by vehicle tracks. Damaged permafrost "becomes dark, ugly, muddy water," said Daniel Wong, an engineer based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen who worked on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, also laid over permafrost. "The most unfortunate thing is that such damage will spread," he said. The railway is projected to help double tourism revenues in Tibet by 2010 and cut transport costs for goods by 75 percent. Until now, goods going to and from Tibet have been trucked over mountain highways that are often blocked by landslides or snow, making trade prohibitively expensive. New York-based Students for a Free Tibet set up a Web site, rejecttherailway.com, urging the public to wear black armbands in protest of the project, which the group says "is a tool Beijing will use to overwhelm (the) Tibetan population." "We reject the railway just as we reject China's illegitimate rule in Tibet," the site said. Communist troops marched into Tibet in 1950, and Beijing says the region has been Chinese territory for centuries. But Tibet was effectively independent for much of that time. The rail line is a decades-old dream for Chinese officials. But work began in earnest only in 2001, after engineers worked out how to stabilize tracks on permafrost. The highest station is in Nagqu, a town at 4,500 meters (14,850 feet) in the plateau's rolling grasslands.

Taiwan Wins a Vote in House

Agence France-PresseTHURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2006

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to strike down a ban on high-level government contacts with Taiwan in a move that, at least in theory, may open the way for visits by Taiwanese officials to the White House. The amendment, sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, would prohibit the government from enforcing the "Guidelines on Relations With Taiwan" that were issued in 2001 by the State Department. The amendment was tucked into a $60 billion spending bill that is to provide funding for the State Department and was passed by a voice vote. The Senate still has to approve the measure, but Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, one of those who sponsored the legislation, hailed the vote as a victory for friends of democracy in Asia. "China shouldn't control our foreign policy, Americans should," he said in a statement. "Lifting these humiliating restrictions will force State Department bureaucrats to treat Taiwan as an equal partner in freedom and democracy."
The guidelines were issued by the State Department to reinforce the "one China" policy adopted by the United States in 1979, when Washington switched its formal diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The guidelines specifically prohibited holding meetings with Taiwanese representatives at the White House or the State Department building, and barred high-level federal employees from attending formal Taiwanese receptions.
Mid-level State and Defense Department officials were banned from traveling to Taiwan on "official business," while officials above the rank of assistant secretary were barred from going to the island even for personal reasons. Neither the White House nor the State Department had an immediate response to the House vote.

China Navy Chief Sacked for Graft

A top-level Chinese military official has been sacked for corruption after his mistress turned him in, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Wang Shouye, 62, was sacked as deputy commander of the navy and expelled from the national legislature. According to official documents, an unmarried young woman reported Wang's activities and admitted an "improper relationship" with him. Wang is one of the most senior victims of an ongoing anti-corruption drive. China's ruling Communist Party is worried that widespread official corruption is undermining its legitimacy, and has taken care to highlight a number of high-profile falls from grace. Earlier this month, in an unrelated case, a former deputy Beijing mayor, Liu Zhihua, was sacked over unspecified corruption charges. Xinhua said the investigation into Wang began in January. According to documents submitted to the legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), he was removed from office on account of his "loose morals", and the fact he abused his power to ask for and take bribes. "Because of my involvement in economic crimes, I have been stripped from the post of deputy navy commander and thus no longer have the qualification of being a deputy to NPC. Please take me off the position," Wang said in a resignation letter dated March 29,2006, according to Xinhua.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/5128240.stm

A Desert's Deadly Advance Strangles an Oasis

China's favorite military strategist, Sun Tzu, surely would have warned against letting two mighty enemies, the Tengger and the Badain Jaran, form a united front. Yet a desert pincer is squeezing this struggling oasis town, and China's long campaign to cultivate its vast, arid northwest is now in retreat.

An ever-rising tide of sand has claimed grasslands, ponds, lakes and forests, swallowed whole villages and forced tens of thousands of people to flee as it surges south and threatens to render this ancient Silk Road greenbelt uninhabitable.

Han Chinese cover their heads and faces to protect against violent sandstorms. Farmers dig wells down hundreds of meters. If they find water, it is often brackish, even poisonous.

Chinese leaders have vowed to protect Minqin and surrounding towns in Gansu Province. The area divides two deserts, the Badain Jaran in the northwest and the Tengger in the northeast, and its precarious state threatens to accelerate the spread of barren wasteland to the heart of China.

The national "937 Project," set up to fight the encroaching desert, estimated in April that 3,900 square kilometers, or 1,500 square miles, of land turns to sand each year. Nearly all of north central China, including Beijing, is at risk. Expanding deserts and a severe drought also made this a near record year for dust storms carried east in the jet stream.

Sand squalls have blanketed Beijing and other northern cities, leaving a stubborn yellow haze in the air and coating roads, buildings, cars and lungs with a film of fine granules.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao traveled to the northwest recently, offering aid to drought-stricken farmers and ordering provincial officials to supply more water to Minqin. His call to reinforce the oasis is plastered on a giant billboard on the main road into town. But while local officials have tried grandiose schemes to rescue the outpost, environmentalists say that it will probably need to be at least partly abandoned and returned to nature if the regional ecology is to be restored.

"We must find ways to live with nature in some kind of balance," said Chai Erhong, an environmentalist and writer who lives in Minqin. "The government mainly wants to control nature, which is what did all the harm in the first place."

Government-led cultivation, deforestation, irrigation and reclamation almost certainly contributed to the desert's advance, which began in the 1950s and the 1960s and has accelerated since then.

Critics warn that some lessons of past engineering fiascoes remained unlearned. During the ill-fated Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered construction of a giant Hongyashan reservoir near Minqin that diverted the flow of the Shiyang River and runoff from the Qilian Mountains into an irrigation system. It briefly made Minqin's farmland fertile enough to grow grain. But Minqin is a desert oasis that gets almost no rainfall. The Shiyang and its offshoots had been its ecological lifeline.

With the available water resources monopolized for farming, nearly all other land became a target for the desert. Today, patches of farmland that cling to irrigation channels are emerald islands in a sea of beige.

Even the irrigated plots risk extinction. Competing reservoirs on the upper reaches of the Shiyang reduced its flow so severely by 2004 that the Hongyashan reservoir went dry for the first time since its creation in 1959. It was refilled after Beijing ordered an emergency diversion of water from the Yellow River, which itself now runs dry through much of the year.

Local officials, whose promotions in the government and Communist Party hierarchy depend more on increasing economic output than improving the environment, have tried desperately to preserve Minqin's farming. They have pleaded with cities on the upper reaches of the Shiyang to take less of its water.

They have also dug wells at a furious pace - 11,000 of them in total, some reaching more than 300 meters, or about 1,000 feet. Minqin also planted ramparts of Rose Willow, Sacsaoul and Buckthorn trees in a 300-kilometer Maginot Line along the Tengger and Badain Jaran fronts. They are now stranded by desert on two sides.

Such ideas have not worked. Wang Tao, who heads the 937 Project, said the only viable strategy to save arid land in Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia was to move people out, reduce production, form conservation parks and let nature heal itself. "Minqin is not going to get more water," he said by telephone from his base in Lanzhou. "It needs fewer people."

In fact, a 200-year trend of migration into northern Gansu from overcrowded lands in south and central China has shifted sharply into reverse, with tens of thousands of farmers being relocated, some as far away as Heilongjiang Province in the northeast. Along Minqin's northern frontier, villages like Xiqu, Zhongqu, Shoucheng and Hongshaliang have been totally or partly abandoned. Sand dunes smother empty homes. Olive, plum and date trees are stacked for firewood.

Shen Tangguo reckons he is the only remaining farmer in his village, called Huanghui, that once had several hundred. He carries water by motorcycle from a well a few kilometers away to irrigate his cotton, which he says is resilient but low yielding. He has pictures of Mao and Zhou Enlai as well as more recent Chinese leaders on his walls. But he says he has not seen an official in Huanghui since someone dropped by to collect a road-building tax a few months ago.

"Everyone else left because they have friends who can arrange things," he said. "I don't have any friends."

Chai, the Minqin environmentalist, grew up north of the city in a village now struggling to survive. His father left the village a few years ago to live with Chai, who is 44. Their ancestral home now has two remaining walls and no roof. The local elementary school closed last year when only three children showed up for class.

The village's decline prompted Chai to study ecology on his own. He now speaks volubly about the desert ecosystem and writes newspaper and magazine articles calling on the higher authorities to abandon water engineering schemes so that his native land has a chance to recover. But he is not optimistic.

Just outside his village is a vast wind-whipped plain where, he said, his father used to fish. It was called Qingtu Lake, once one of the largest in China's northwest until the diversion of the Shiyang gave the lake to the Tengger. Fifteen centimeters down, the soil remains dark. And on the surface are shells, fish bones and a snowlike powder of mirabilite crystal left behind by the alkaline waters.

"This is not a natural disaster. It is man-made," Chai said. "And unless people study the lesson of Minqin, it will repeat itself clear across China."


MINQIN, China China's favorite military strategist, Sun Tzu, surely would have warned against letting two mighty enemies, the Tengger and the Badain Jaran, form a united front. Yet a desert pincer is squeezing this struggling oasis town, and China's long campaign to cultivate its vast, arid northwest is now in retreat.

An ever-rising tide of sand has claimed grasslands, ponds, lakes and forests, swallowed whole villages and forced tens of thousands of people to flee as it surges south and threatens to render this ancient Silk Road greenbelt uninhabitable.

Han Chinese cover their heads and faces to protect against violent sandstorms. Farmers dig wells down hundreds of meters. If they find water, it is often brackish, even poisonous.

Chinese leaders have vowed to protect Minqin and surrounding towns in Gansu Province. The area divides two deserts, the Badain Jaran in the northwest and the Tengger in the northeast, and its precarious state threatens to accelerate the spread of barren wasteland to the heart of China.

The national "937 Project," set up to fight the encroaching desert, estimated in April that 3,900 square kilometers, or 1,500 square miles, of land turns to sand each year. Nearly all of north central China, including Beijing, is at risk. Expanding deserts and a severe drought also made this a near record year for dust storms carried east in the jet stream.

Sand squalls have blanketed Beijing and other northern cities, leaving a stubborn yellow haze in the air and coating roads, buildings, cars and lungs with a film of fine granules.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao traveled to the northwest recently, offering aid to drought-stricken farmers and ordering provincial officials to supply more water to Minqin. His call to reinforce the oasis is plastered on a giant billboard on the main road into town. But while local officials have tried grandiose schemes to rescue the outpost, environmentalists say that it will probably need to be at least partly abandoned and returned to nature if the regional ecology is to be restored.

"We must find ways to live with nature in some kind of balance," said Chai Erhong, an environmentalist and writer who lives in Minqin. "The government mainly wants to control nature, which is what did all the harm in the first place."

Government-led cultivation, deforestation, irrigation and reclamation almost certainly contributed to the desert's advance, which began in the 1950s and the 1960s and has accelerated since then.

Critics warn that some lessons of past engineering fiascoes remained unlearned. During the ill-fated Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered construction of a giant Hongyashan reservoir near Minqin that diverted the flow of the Shiyang River and runoff from the Qilian Mountains into an irrigation system. It briefly made Minqin's farmland fertile enough to grow grain. But Minqin is a desert oasis that gets almost no rainfall. The Shiyang and its offshoots had been its ecological lifeline.

With the available water resources monopolized for farming, nearly all other land became a target for the desert. Today, patches of farmland that cling to irrigation channels are emerald islands in a sea of beige.

Even the irrigated plots risk extinction. Competing reservoirs on the upper reaches of the Shiyang reduced its flow so severely by 2004 that the Hongyashan reservoir went dry for the first time since its creation in 1959. It was refilled after Beijing ordered an emergency diversion of water from the Yellow River, which itself now runs dry through much of the year.

Local officials, whose promotions in the government and Communist Party hierarchy depend more on increasing economic output than improving the environment, have tried desperately to preserve Minqin's farming. They have pleaded with cities on the upper reaches of the Shiyang to take less of its water.

They have also dug wells at a furious pace - 11,000 of them in total, some reaching more than 300 meters, or about 1,000 feet. Minqin also planted ramparts of Rose Willow, Sacsaoul and Buckthorn trees in a 300-kilometer Maginot Line along the Tengger and Badain Jaran fronts. They are now stranded by desert on two sides.

Such ideas have not worked. Wang Tao, who heads the 937 Project, said the only viable strategy to save arid land in Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia was to move people out, reduce production, form conservation parks and let nature heal itself. "Minqin is not going to get more water," he said by telephone from his base in Lanzhou. "It needs fewer people."

In fact, a 200-year trend of migration into northern Gansu from overcrowded lands in south and central China has shifted sharply into reverse, with tens of thousands of farmers being relocated, some as far away as Heilongjiang Province in the northeast. Along Minqin's northern frontier, villages like Xiqu, Zhongqu, Shoucheng and Hongshaliang have been totally or partly abandoned. Sand dunes smother empty homes. Olive, plum and date trees are stacked for firewood.

Shen Tangguo reckons he is the only remaining farmer in his village, called Huanghui, that once had several hundred. He carries water by motorcycle from a well a few kilometers away to irrigate his cotton, which he says is resilient but low yielding. He has pictures of Mao and Zhou Enlai as well as more recent Chinese leaders on his walls. But he says he has not seen an official in Huanghui since someone dropped by to collect a road-building tax a few months ago.

"Everyone else left because they have friends who can arrange things," he said. "I don't have any friends."

Chai, the Minqin environmentalist, grew up north of the city in a village now struggling to survive. His father left the village a few years ago to live with Chai, who is 44. Their ancestral home now has two remaining walls and no roof. The local elementary school closed last year when only three children showed up for class.

The village's decline prompted Chai to study ecology on his own. He now speaks volubly about the desert ecosystem and writes newspaper and magazine articles calling on the higher authorities to abandon water engineering schemes so that his native land has a chance to recover. But he is not optimistic.

Just outside his village is a vast wind-whipped plain where, he said, his father used to fish. It was called Qingtu Lake, once one of the largest in China's northwest until the diversion of the Shiyang gave the lake to the Tengger. Fifteen centimeters down, the soil remains dark. And on the surface are shells, fish bones and a snowlike powder of mirabilite crystal left behind by the alkaline waters.

"This is not a natural disaster. It is man-made," Chai said. "And unless people study the lesson of Minqin, it will repeat itself clear across China."

By Joseph Kahn The New York TimesPublished: June 7, 2006

A Crisis of Young and Old in China's Birth Rate

Shanghai is rightfully known as a fast-moving, hypermodern city full of youth and vigor. But that obscures a less-well-known fact: Shanghai has the oldest population in China, and it is getting older in a hurry.

Twenty percent of this city's population of 13.6 million is over 59, the official retirement age in Shanghai, and retirees are easily the fastest-growing segment of the population, with 100,000 new seniors added to the rolls each year. By 2020, about a third of Shanghai's residents will be over 59, remaking the city's social fabric and placing huge new strains on its economy and finances.

The changes go far beyond Shanghai, however. Experts say the rapidly graying city is leading one of the greatest demographic changes in history, one with profound implications for the entire country.

China, which has built its economic strength on the basis of seemingly endless supplies of cheap labor, could soon face manpower shortages. An aging population may also damage the credibility of the Communist government, which manufactured this historic shift with its one-child policy.

Introduced a generation ago, the birth control policy, strongly enforced in urban areas, has spared the country an estimated 390 million births, but may ultimately prove to be a monumental mistake. With China's breathtaking rise toward affluence, most people live longer and have fewer children, mirroring trends seen around the world. But the extraordinarily low birth rate has created a stark imbalance between young and old.

That imbalance threatens the country's pension system. Demographers also expect strains on the household registration system, which restricts internal migration.

The system prevents young workers from migrating to urban areas to relieve labor shortages, but officials fear that abolishing it could release a flood of humanity that would swamp the cities and depopulate the countryside.

"For the last two decades, China has enjoyed the advantage of having a high ratio of working-age people in the population, but that situation is about to change," said Zuo Xuejin, vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. "With the working-age population decreasing, our labor costs will become less competitive, and industries in places like Vietnam and Bangladesh will start becoming more attractive."

Even within China, Zuo said, many foreign investors have begun moving factories away from Shanghai and other eastern cities to inland locations where the work force is both cheaper and younger.

As remote as many of these problems may seem today in Shanghai, the country's most prosperous city, evidence of the changes is already on display. If Shanghai represents the future of China, it is in Jing'an - a central Shanghai district where about 4,000 people, or 30 percent of the residents, are above 60 - where one can glimpse that future.

Squads of lightly trained social workers monitor the city's elderly, paying regular house visits to combat isolation and ensuring that medical problems are attended to. At 10 a.m. on a recent spring morning, Chen Meijuan walked up a narrow and rickety wooden stairway to the second-floor apartment where Liang Yunyu has lived for the past 58 years.

"Good morning, granny," she called out as she entered the 100-year-old woman's small bedroom. "Did you have a good night's sleep?"

Chen, 49, earns about $95 a month as one of the 15 agents who are responsible for monitoring the neighborhood's elderly. Her caseload includes more than 200 seniors. "I usually pay visits to about five or six households a day, stay a little while and chat with them," Chen said.

After being introduced to a foreign visitor, Liang regales her guests with stories ranging across the decades of the 20th century.

"My daughter always invites me to live with her family, but I feel embarrassed to be with them," Liang said. "I'm worried I might die in her home, so I prefer staying where I am."

Her son, Zha Yuheng, a 76-year-old grandfather and retired textile industry worker, lives with her now, which also concerns her, she says.

"I am taken good care of here, but living with my son leaves him with a big burden, I'm afraid," she said.

In many wealthy societies, the very old are candidates for nursing home care. That sector is still tiny in China, though, especially compared with the size of the elderly population.

Zhang Minsheng opened the city's first private nursing home in 1998, a rambling, 350-bed affair in an industrial area far from central Shanghai that is now 95 percent occupied.

"People were not willing to enter nursing homes in the past because they were considered places for those without descendants," Zhang said. "Now, from the standpoint of ordinary people, it is becoming a normal thing."

The average age of the residents of Zhang's home is 85, and most live several to a room, sleeping on narrow beds separated by flimsy partitions. Many pass the daytime hours in long corridors furnished with chairs, where they chat or simply stare into the distance.

China has a patchwork of retirement ages, ranging generally from 50 to 60. Raising the retirement age would relieve pressures on the pension system but make it harder for young people to find jobs and would be resented by many of the elderly, most of whom have missed out on China's economic boom.

Lifting restrictions on internal migration raises the unwelcome prospect of a mass migration, while abandoning the one-child policy would be politically unpalatable. And the government has already tinkered with that policy. It now allows husbands and wives who are themselves only children to have a second child, for example, and has eliminated a four-year waiting period between births for those eligible to have a second child.

But Chinese demographic experts say that the leadership would resist more radical measures, because it is loath to acknowledge that one of the most ambitious social experiments of the 20th century, one conceived and carried out by the ruling Communist Party, was in any way a failure. Moreover, lifting child-bearing restrictions might not help.

Poorer people in the interior might have more children, but the rising middle class probably will not, experts say.

By Howard W. French The New York Times

Taiwan's Chen Survives Key Vote

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has survived a parliamentary attempt to oust him from office over scandals besetting his family and advisers. More than half Taiwan's legislators backed a motion to recall Mr Chen, but it fell short of the two-thirds majority required to pass.
Thousands of Mr Chen's opponents and supporters gathered outside parliament as the vote took place. Afterwards, Mr Chen urged his critics to end the political confrontation. Opposition campaign The crisis began last month when Mr Chen's son-in-law, Chao Chien-min, was detained on suspicion of insider trading. Mr Chen's wife has also been accused of questionable dealings. Earlier this month, in the wake of these allegations, Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang party launched a motion to oust President Chen - the first time this has ever been attempted in Taiwanese history. The opposition hoped some members of Mr Chen's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would back their plans so it could achieve the 148 votes needed to pass the motion to hold a public referendum to recall the president. But most ruling party legislators stuck with Mr Chen and boycotted Tuesday's vote, and there were only 119 votes in favour of the motion. Even though this vote has failed, opposition parties are likely to continue their fight and push for a vote of no confidence in the Cabinet. After Tuesday's session, opposition leader James Soong told the protesters: "Over half of the legislators voted to recall Mr Chen, so he should quickly tender his resignation."

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/5119672.stm

China Media Face Disaster Fines

China is considering imposing financial penalties on media outlets which report emergency incidents without prior government agreement. Media organisations could face fines of more than $10,000 if they disobey. It is unclear when the regulations might come into force and whether they cover international media organisations as well as local ones. China's authorities have always exerted tight control over the coverage of emergencies. They often impose news blackouts on stories they feel might damage the image of the Communist Party. Last year, officials in north-east China at first covered up a toxic chemical spill in the Songhua River, which meant nine million residents in the city of Harbin were without public water supplies for nearly a week. These proposed new rules are part of an ongoing government campaign to tighten up on China's already limited media freedoms. In recent months, several journalists and political activists who have exposed official corruption and wrongdoing have been arrested or imprisoned.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/5116928.stm

China Audit Uncovers Corruption

Chinese government officials lost more than $1.5bn (£800m) last year through corruption and poor tax collection, China's National Audit Office has said. State news agency Xinhua said the office found that 48 central government departments misappropriated 5.51bn yuan ($685m; £376m) from the central budget. Another 6.65bn yuan was lost through poor tax collection methods. But auditor general Li Jinhua said the central budget was in generally good shape with better budgetary controls. The number of people punished was also down sharply from 2004.
'Inner supervision'
A total of 176 people were punished in 106 cases, falling from the 762 people given criminal or disciplinary punishments in 2004. The decline was due to "the enhanced inner supervision by government departments," Mr Li said in his report. Nine central government departments embezzled a total 176m yuan of central government funds by tactics that included reporting fabricated projects. Another 18 departments took 702m yuan of central budget cash or other funds on building offices or other personal expenses. And seven departments got 360m yuan worth of central budgetary funds by hiding their revenue or fabricating expenditures, the auditor said.

Chinese coal mine blast kills 14

Fourteen mine workers in China have been killed in an underground explosion at a coal mine in the south-western province of Sichuan.
Another three people were injured in Sunday morning's blast.
The cause of the explosion was not immediately known, but mine accidents are frequent in China and the country has a dismal mine safety record.
According to official figures released last week, about 5,200 Chinese miners have died in accidents this year.
Last month a mine blast in Shaanxi province killed 166 people - the country's worst mining accident for a decade.
China, the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, has significantly increased coal production in the past year to meet the demands of rapid industrialisation.
Critics say lives are being sacrificed in the quest for energy.

SOURCE BBC Online

Dust storm migration begins in China

The Chinese government has begun moving large numbers of people from the country's north in response to the huge, choking dust storms which regularly sweep out of Inner Mongolia, over Beijing, and out towards the Pacific. The dust storms, which can entirely envelop Beijing, have become an all too frequent event - and China's neighbours, Korea and Japan, have also complained about the oppressive billows of dust. They are due to overgrazing and over-ploughing in Inner Mongolia, in the north of China, loosening the topsoil, which is then blown away by strong winds. It has prompted the controversial policy of ecological migration - shifting thousands of families off degraded lands and into small, newly-constructed villages. "Most farmers used to live in an area of poor ecological environment," Mr Xang, deputy director of the Inner Mongolian government, told BBC World Service's One Planet programme. "In the past farmers could occupy hundreds or even thousands of mu [a Chinese measurement equivalent to 670 sq m] of land. Nowadays a person can have two mu of irrigated land."
Increased yield The Chinese government's effort to tackle the dust storms is called the Ecological Construction Project. It is seen as an effort not only to revive, but to re-engineer the landscape and the communities that exploit it.
Almost 30% of China is believed to be desert or degraded, at an estimated annual cost to the economy of $6.5bn. Suddenly the sky is very dark - even at home, with all your windows closed, your air is full of dust Environmentalist and Beijing resident Dai Qing The sandstorms are the result of massive changes in land use in China. Geologist Edward Derbyshire, a professor at the Gansu Academy of Sciences, explained that these include changes in farming methods, such as intense grazing, but also due to infrastructure development, and the increase in the amount of traffic along unsurfaced roads, particularly from large trucking firms. Desertification in Inner Mongolia is occurring at a staggering 660,000 hectares per year - exacerbated by unpredictable rainfall and drought.
Mr Xang argued that it was not too difficult to persuade farmers to move, as they are given access to electricity, water and medical services in their new villages. And he claimed that families have increased their yield by 20%. "They will stay permanently here," he said. "Some of their old land has been stopped from farming, and returned to nature." He said that within his own county, there were plans to move 3,000 families - a total of 10,000 people - of whom 1,700 families had already moved. "We plan to move 447 families next year," he added. "We will complete it in three years time." Planting initiatives
Ecological migration is both sensitive and controversial. Another local government strategy is to leave land that previously was used to grow wheat, to grow fallow.
The strong winds which cause the dust storms to spread are causing other problems too. They are powerful enough to destroy the vegetation, leaving the land barren - creating a vicious circle.

Korea and Japan have complained about the dust stormsThe Chinese are attempting to combat this by planting trees to hold the soil down. The main species used is mountain apricot.
And there are plans to exploit this "red beauty" in years to come - a fruit juice factory is planned, along with autumn apricot festivals for tourists.
Meanwhile, officials say that while livestock ownership has been restricted, vegetation - from tree and grass planting - has doubled.
One national policy stipulates all citizens aged 11-60 years old should plant three to five trees each year, in the interests of combating desertification.
However Mr Xang said it would be two years before the dust storms were under control.
And Hong Jiang, a professor of geography at the University of Madison in Wisconsin, said that simply planting large numbers of trees did not guarantee success in fighting desertification.
"The effort is really widespread, but the question of how effective those plantings are is a different one," Ms Jiang said.
"As a dry land, the environment doesn't really support such a massive planting - especially of tree species that would use up a of lot of groundwater.
"So I have seen a lot of planting, but I have also seen a lot of failures," she said.

SOURCE BBC Online

China to introduce trial by jury

China is to introduce jury trials next year as part of reforms to its legal system, state media has reported. Jurors will be elected to serve a five-year term and must have at least two years of university education, court officials were quoted as saying. Under the current system, judges are the sole arbiters in China's courts, which have been widely criticised for their lack of independence. The number of judges will also be increased by 10%, the reports said. According to the China Daily, the candidates will be chosen through elections in January and February, and will then be trained in March and April. It is unclear how the elections will be carried out. The new jurors will have powers equal to a judge, the reports said. At the moment, China has about 24,000 "people's jurors", but these are not elected, have a low level of education, and serve purely as "figureheads", the paper said. The move to establish a jury system was one of nine tasks China's Supreme People's Court decided on at a meeting on Friday for next year, it said. Xiao Yang, the court's president, told the meeting that as the country became wealthier, it needed to strengthen its judiciary, and pinpointed fraud, intellectual property infringement, official corruption and human rights violations in the judiciary as specific areas of concern.

SOURCE BBC Online