CSG news update -- 2007-06-10

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

China Study Group news update

Machine tool giant sells stake to US company
http://chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-06/10/content_890803.htm
Xinhua | 2007-06-10
BEIJING - China's largest machine tool manufacturer, the Shenyang Machine Tool Group Ltd., Saturday sold 30 percent of its equities to the U.S. Cornerstone Financial Company in a move to sharpen the company's competitive edge.  "The share holding reform will preserve and increase the value...

Police assault on vendor triggers riots in China
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=154198&version=1&template_id=45&parent_id=25
AFP | 2007-06-10
BEIJING: Riots broke out in China last weekend after police beat a street vendor, a witness and rights group said yesterday, in the second such incident reported this week.  The Hong Kong-based Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said Yang Changming, a flower-seller, was seriously injured by a p...

Police rescue slaves from brick factory in China
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=c5270b79-d56a-4736-bbba-4371af273056
Reuters | 2007-06-09
BEIJING - Chinese police have rescued 31 people forced to work for a year as slaves -- given only bread and water and no pay -- at a brickworks run by the son of a local Communist Party official.  Eight of the workers were so traumatized by the experience they were only able to remember their name...

Strike at China Christmas Tree Factory
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/06/09/ap3804995.html
AP | 2007-06-09
Thousands of workers at a plastic Christmas tree factory in southern China clashed with police after a 10-day strike, news reports said Saturday.  Several hundred police arrived Friday at the factory in Shenzhen, a boomtown in Guangdong province, and tried to disperse the strikers, Hong Kong's...

Corrupt Chinese dental body defanged
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IF07Cb02.html
Asia Times | 2007-06-08
Candy Zeng
SHENZHEN - Under mounting public pressure, the Chinese government recently dismantled the scandal-ridden National Committee of Oral Health (NCOH), a government-supported organization for the prevention of dental disease that was found to have been illegally certifying oral-health products, including...

Rising pork prices in China signal pricier times worldwide
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/08/africa/pork.php
International Herald Tribune | 2007-06-08
Keith Bradsher
GAOYAO, China: Few things are as essential to the Chinese as their pigs.  From pork spare ribs and mu shu pork to char siu bao - barbecued pork buns - pork is a staple of the Chinese diet. So in this Year of the Pig, an acute shortage of pork has been national news, as butchers raise prices almost...

And they call China a threat ...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IF08Ad01.html
Asia Times | 2007-06-07
David Isenberg
WASHINGTON - As threat documents go, the latest version of the Pentagon's annual report, "Military Power of the People's Republic of China", released last month, is actually a fairly reassuring document.  In contrast with its now-distant predecessor, "Soviet Military Power", put out during...

Chinese Mirror
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070625/perlstein/
The Nation | 2007-06-07
Rick Perlstein
[from the June 25, 2007 issue]  In 1967, when Time magazine managed to get an Australian reporter by the name of John Cantwell into mainland China, his dispatch read like what a report from North Korea--or from another planet--would look like today. "Red Guards march around in vigilante groups, st...

Activists Say Students Rioting in China
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6690853,00.html
Anita Chang | 2007-06-07
BEIJING - A thousand college students rioted in central China this week, scuffling with police and overturning cars after city inspectors beat a female student, a human rights group said Thursday.  Hundreds of police were called for backup as students from three universities surrounded the two ins...

Xiamen mayor says street protests "inappropriate"
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HKG56299.htm
Reuters | 2007-06-06
John Ruwitch
HONG KONG, June 6 (Reuters) - The mayor of a major Chinese city that has been rocked by protests against a proposed petrochemical plant said on Wednesday recent street marches were "inappropriate" and some people had acted illegally.  Xiamen mayor Liu Cigui said the city government would consider ...