China Watch

Authorities in Shanxi Province have sacked an editor after his paper ran a story exposing the careless handling of health vaccines that may have caused the deaths and serious illnesses of children there, said an ANI news service report May 12, citing the Sydney Morning Herald.

A famous Chinese history teacher has openly called Mao Zedong a dictator who massacred people. He has said the only right thing he did since founding the PRC in 1949 was his death, according to Global Times, international edition of China’s party mouthpiece People’s Daily, May 8.

For defending a Falun Gong practitioner, China has revoked the licences of two lawyers, thereby imposing a permanent ban on practicing their profession.

On the World Press Freedom Day of May 3, Paris-based international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) named Chinese President Hu Jintao as one of the 40 predators of press freedom.

China marked the World Press Freedom Day of May 3 in the only possible way it could: restricting the country’s media’s coverage of the spate of violent attacks on children in schools, the Shanghai World Expo, the risk of a real estate bubble, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il’s visit to China and the political situation in Taiwan, said Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Apr 4.

Chinese experts have praised Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou for pledging that his country would never ask the United States to help fight a war with China, calling it a demonstration of his determination to push for better cross-Straits ties.

China is to target online information from what it calls "overseas hostile forces" in its next crackdown to tighten Internet controls, reported AP May 02, citing a government spokesman.

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jou said Apr 30 in an interview with the CNN that he supports autonomy for Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s efforts to talk to China. “This is the only way to solve the Tibet issue,” DPA Apr 30 quoted Ma as telling CNN.

About 500 villagers in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province blocked a highway and a railway line and fought with police in what was described by China’s official Xinhua news agency Apr 30 simply as a dispute about land.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has, in its latest annual report released Apr 29, listed China among the top 13 worst violators of religious freedom.

Major countries such as China and Russia continued to use repressive policies to restrict the scope and independence of media outlets in 2009 which was yet another year of decline in press freedom across the world, reported US-based rights NGO Freedom House in its latest annual global survey on the issue.

As China opened itself to the outside world with a spectacular opening on Apr 30 of the May 1-Oct 31 Shanghai World Expo, attended by many world leaders, it imposed a harsh security clampdown on its critics within the country, reported the Independent online (UK) Apr 30.

China on Apr 29 adopted a revision to its Law on Guarding State Secrets which it said narrowed the definition of "state secrets," in an effort to boost transparency.

China on Apr 29 adopted a revised State Compensation Law under which compensation should be paid for injuries inflicted when officials at detention centres or prisons abuse or beat inmates, or allow others to do so, reported the official China Daily newspaper Apr 30.

China’s Propaganda Department had on Apr 25 issued a directive, instructing the country’s media to reduce their coverage of the consequences of the Qinghai earthquake and, instead, increase the number of reports and features about the Shanghai World Expo exhibition, said Paris-based media watchdog Reporters without Borders (RSF) Apr 29.