CSG news update -- 2007-03-05

[China Study Group <chinastudygroup@gmail.com>]

China Study Group news update

Healthcare Under Fire
http://www.bjreview.com.cn/nation/txt/2007-03/01/content_57188.htm
Beijing Review | 2007-03-05
Li Li
Doctors and nurses, normally seen as protecting their patients, are increasingly coming into confrontation with them due to the dysfunctions of China's healthcare system, and in some cases tension has even led to physical violence.  On December 24 hospital staff at Shanxia Hospital, a private ...

In a tiny corner of China, a gamblers' paradise spawns glitzy, ritzy, gargantuan casinos
http://www.boston.com/travel/getaways/asia/articles/2007/03/02/in_a_tiny_corner_of_china_a_gamblers_paradise_spawns_glitzy_ritzy_gargantuan_casinos/
Boston Globe | 2007-03-04
Clifford Coonan
MACAU -- This small city-state's transition from sleepy Portuguese colonial backwater to insomniac Asian Las Vegas, where the dice roll hot and China's new elite play is well advanced, but not complete.  Nearly 450 years of Portuguese rule have left a strong impression on the southern Chin...

Beijing moves to end foreign favours
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f07370c8-ca74-11db-820b-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2007-03-04
Richard McGregor
With the passage through the Chinese parliament in the coming days of an innocuous-sounding bill on corporate tax, Beijing will be drawing a symbolic close to nearly three decades of ­policies favouring foreign investment.  Companies with part foreign ownership and projects in nearly 60 specially...

The stock-dealing communists: China's eager capitalists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2025922,00.html
The Observer | 2007-03-04
Jonathan Fenby
A 9 per cent fall in the Chinese stock market was a major factor behind the global meltdown. Jonathan Fenby reports on how the authorities are trying prevent boom turning to bust.  China's emerging markets, in Shanghai and the southern boom city of Shenzhen, are not like others. Though borrowi...

Beijing Accelerates Its Military Spending
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/world/asia/05military.html
New York Times | 2007-03-04
Jim Yardley
BEIJING, March 4 — China announced its biggest increase in defense spending in five years on Sunday, a development that quickly prompted the United States to renew its calls for more transparency from the Chinese military about the scope and intent of its continuing, rapid arms buildup.  Jia...

A people's sexual revolution in China
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/04/asia/web.0304barboza.php
New York Times | 2007-03-03
David Barboza
SHANGHAI: WHEN Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue hit the newsstands last week in China for the first time, with the sexy singer Beyoncé on the cover, the competition was fierce.  Readers here had already seen the February issue of For Him Magazine, which features a Chinese singer named A Du...

Migrants suffering for China boom, says study
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2024886,00.html
The Guardian | 2007-03-02
Jonathan Watts
China's spectacular economic growth has come at the cost of dire working and living conditions for 150 million migrant workers, Amnesty International says in a report that calls on the government to do more for the country's urban underclass.  The accusation of discrimination and human rig...

Where The Coal Is Stained With Blood
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595235,00.html
Time | 2007-03-02
Simon Elegant
Old Zhao, his fellow miners called him -- a weary-looking man, 54, wearing a yellow safety helmet and a miner's lamp strung around his neck, black coal dust embedded in the lines on his forehead and lightly powdering the insides of his ears. Last May Zhao and a team of other veterans were assign...

China to pass first private property law
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1b26d35c-c81b-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2007-03-01
Richard McGregor and Andrew Yeh
The Chinese parliament is expected to pass China's first law to protect property rights after a contentious, year-long debate marked by traditional ideological divisions about the role of the private economy under communist rule.  The annual session of the National People's Congress opens ...

The underestimated party-state
http://www.howardwfrench.com/archives/2007/03/05/the_underestimated_partystate/

Financial Times | 2007-02-26
Arthur Kroeber
People in the rich world perturbed by China's rise spend a great deal of time these days consoling themselves with a political fantasy. China's economy may be growing fast, the argument goes, but unless that growth is matched by political reform – specifically, the adoption of Western-styl...

China's good corporate citizens find their voice
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8a170396-c504-11db-b110-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2007-02-25
Richard McGregor
For years, China has been subjected to sharp foreign criticism about conditions in its factories amid claims that its cheap exports come at the expense of the environment and workers' safety and pay.  In recent months the debate has taken a twist, with an increasing number of similar charges l...