CSG news update -- 2007-06-17

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

China Study Group news update

Reporting China since the 1960s
http://www.johngittings.com/id32.html
John Gittings | 2007-06-17
John Gittings
[This essay is published in Lionel Jensen & Timothy Weston eds., China in Transformation: the stories beyond the headlines, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).]  Fascinated by China since I was a child, I took my degree in oriental studies at Oxford and then spent my adult life working in this field as ...

F.D.A. Tracked Tainted Drugs, but Trail Went Cold in China
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/health/17poison.html
New York Times | 2007-06-17
Walt Bogdanich
After a drug ingredient from China killed dozens of Haitian children a decade ago, a senior American health official sent a cable to her investigators: find out who made the poisonous ingredient and why a state-owned company in China exported it as safe, pharmaceutical-grade glycerin.  The Chinese...

The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html
New York Times | 2007-06-17
Julian Dibbell
It was an hour before midnight, three hours into the night shift with nine more to go. At his workstation in a small, fluorescent-lighted office space in Nanjing, China, Li Qiwen sat shirtless and chain-smoking, gazing purposefully at the online computer game in front of him. The screen showed a lig...

China wants food first, not fuel
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IF16Cb02.html
Inter Press Service | 2007-06-16
Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - A customary Chinese greeting from the years of rations and shortages - "Have you eaten yet?" - is being jokingly resurrected as the public watches the prices of key staples, particularly pork, soaring by the day.  Chinese economic minders, however, are not amused. Worried about social in...

Survey: Villages in China bled dry of workers
http://en.ce.cn/Business/Macro-economic/200706/16/t20070616_11780544.shtml
Xinhua | 2007-06-16
The supply of migrant workers to Chinese cities is drying up, according to a new survey conducted by the Development Research Center of the State Council.  The survey, which covered 2749 villages in 17 provinces and autonomous regions, said in 74 percent of villages there were no longer any worker...

Chongqing to urbanize rural migrants
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-06/16/content_895700.htm
China Daily | 2007-06-16
After relocating 1 million residents in the Three Gorges area, Chongqing is set to urbanize some 10 million rural migrants over the next decade.  The local government will invest 4 trillion yuan creating more job opportunities and boost urban infrastructure.  The central government selected Chon...

China to investigate into 'slave labor' incident
http://chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-06/16/content_895699.htm
Xinhua | 2007-06-16
China's central government will send a team of investigators to look into the use of "slave labor" at illegal brick kilns in central China, which has raised great concerns among the public.  The Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS), which will head the team, said preliminary investigat...

Gruesome tales from brickyard
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=10&art_id=46956&sid=14087446&con_type=1&d_str=20070616&sear_year=2007
AFP | 2007-06-16
A brickyard boss has confessed on national television to killing a man for not working hard enough, in just one of the gruesome tales to emerge from a slave scandal that has shocked China.  Brought before the cameras by police, Zhao Yanbing matter-of- factly described how he beat to death the man,...

Enslaved, burned and beaten: police free 450 from Chinese brick factories
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2104336,00.html
The Guardian | 2007-06-16
Jonathan Watts
More than 450 slave workers - many of them maimed, burned and mentally scarred - have been rescued from Chinese brick factories in an investigation into illegal labour camps, it emerged yesterday.  The victims, including children as young as 14, were reportedly abducted or tricked into labouring a...

China approves sale of Midea Electric stake to Goldman Sachs
http://english.people.com.cn/200706/15/eng20070615_384730.html
Xinhua | 2007-06-15
China's Ministry of Commerce Thursday agreed in principle the sale of almost 76 million yuan-denominated Midea Electric shares to GS Capital Partners Aurum Holdings, a fully-owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the Chinese home-appliance maker said on Friday.  Last November, Shenzhen-l...

Residents fight forced evictions in Inner Mongolia
http://chinaworker.info/en/content/news/206/
China Worker | 2007-06-13
5,000 railway workers and their families confront police in the city of Hohhot in China's latest outbreak of unrest  Thousands of workers and local residents clashed with armed police last Friday in a struggle against eviction from their apartments – earmarked for demolition by city governme...