CSG news update -- 2007-07-08

From China Study Group <chinastudygroup@gmail.com>
Date Sun, 8 Jul 2007 02:00:28 -0700



China Study Group news update

Can China Reform Itself?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/weekinreview/08kahn.html
New York Times | 2007-07-08
Joseph Kahn
PHONY fertilizer destroys crops. Stores shelves are filled with deodorized rotten eggs, and chemical glucose is passed off as honey. Exports slump when European regulators find dangerous bacteria in packaged meat.  More product safety scandals in China? Not this time. These quality problems prompt...

Chinese capitalism reveals dark side
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/chinese-capitalism-reveals-dark-side/2007/07/06/1183351458713.html
The Age | 2007-07-07
Mary-Anne Toy
MIGRANT worker Lei Mingzhong, 27, is unconscious on a trolley at Heyuan People's Hospital, the sheets stained with his blood.  It is Tuesday night, four days after about 40 thugs in the employ of Fuyuan Hydropower company attacked Mr Lei and 200 other striking workers on a building site in the...

China city moves to ban anonymous Web postings
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/06/content_912280.htm
AP | 2007-07-06
A southern Chinese city is considering a new rule banning anonymous Web postings after residents used the Internet to successfully halt construction of a massive chemical factory, a report said Friday.  A Xiamen official told local reporters the proposed regulation bar anonymous postings online an...

Unions in L.A., China team up
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/259106.html
Sacramento Bee | 2007-07-06
Aurelio Rojas
The 800,000-member Los Angeles County Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, on Thursday announced the first formal relationship between a U.S. central labor council and a counterpart in China.  The agreement with the 6 million-member Shanghai Municipal Trade Union Council brings together unions from the two ...

Drinks king finds Danone dispute hard to swallow
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=20&art_id=48399&sid=14362324&con_type=1&d_str=20070706&sear_year=2007
The Standard | 2007-07-06
Benjamin Morgan
Bold, frank and aggressive, millionaire drinks king Zong Qinghou is a self-made Chinese entrepreneur who has refused to back down in his bitter battle with French food giant Danone.  The charismatic founder of Wahaha Group, China's biggest drinks firm, remains locked in a months-long power str...

Thousands protest at land seizures
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=10&art_id=48403&sid=14365691&con_type=1&d_str=20070706&sear_year=2007
Reuters | 2007-07-06
Thousands of people protested for days against land seizures in southwestern China, besieging government offices and clashing with riot police, a human rights watchdog and a local resident said Thursday.  Eight people have been taken into police custody in Yanjia township in Chongqing municipality...

Mine explosives blamed for China nightclub blast
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK20538.htm
Reuters | 2007-07-06
BEIJING - An illegal stash of mine explosives was probably to blame for a nightclub blast that killed at least 25 people and levelled a neighbourhood in northeast China, media reports said on Friday.  The explosion ripped through the club in Benxi county in Liaoning province, killing at least 25, ...

China Sentences Official to Death for Corruption
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/world/asia/06cnd-china.html
New York Times | 2007-07-06
David Barboza
SHANGHAI, July 6 — For the second time in three months, a former high-ranking official at China's top food and drug watchdog agency has been sentenced to death for corruption and approving bogus drugs, according to the state-run news media.  Cao Wenzhuang, who until 2005 was in charge of...

Thawing a decades-old freeze
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=20&art_id=48307&sid=14350166&con_type=1&d_str=20070705&sear_year=2007
LA Times | 2007-07-05
Mitchell Landsberg
The Chinese hosts did not know quite what to do. They had a bus full of foreigners - Americans, at that - chanting "Si, se puede!" and clapping their hands in rhythm.  Was this the new world of globalism? It was, precisely.  The boisterous Americans were representatives of the Los Angeles County...

Lack of clout hits Chinese pollution agency
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1b539450-2b0d-11dc-85f9-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html
Financial Times | 2007-07-05
Mure Dickie and Richard McGregor
China's state environmental protection agency has accused a copper company of refusing entry to its inspectors, graphically illustrating its lack of clout over industrial polluters.  Pan Yue, the agency's deputy head, also complained that local governments were often protecting polluters r...

Ageing Chinese city promotes two-child policy
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070705/3/34ck3.html
Reuters | 2007-07-05
BEIJING - Single-child families in the booming Chinese city of Guangzhou are being encouraged to have a second child to counter the social and economic problems of a rapidly ageing population, state media said on Thursday.   Since 1980, China has limited most couples to one or two children, depend...

Clinton and Obama back China crackdown
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e628b512-2b20-11dc-85f9-000b5df10621.html
Financial Times | 2007-07-05
Eoin Callan
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination, have agreed to co-sponsor legislation that would levy punitive duties on Chinese goods to cajole Beijing into revaluing its currency, according to aides.  The endorsement is a sign that trade with China ...

Another Chinese sop to US pressure
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IG04Cb02.html
Asia Times | 2007-07-03
Wu Zhong
HONG KONG - China's sharp cut in export-tax rebates effective from July 1 is the 11th and the largest in scale since 2004, but it is unlikely to discourage exports enough to reduce its trade surplus significantly, as intended by the policymakers in Beijing.  Rather, the move should be seen as ...

China Aims for Bigger Share of South Asia's Water Lifeline
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=9377
Japan Times | 2007-07-02
Brahma Chellaney
NEW DELHI — Sharpening Asian competition over energy resources, driven in part by high growth rates in gross domestic product and in part by mercantilist attempts to lock up supplies, has obscured another danger: Water shortages in much of Asia are beginning to threaten rapid economic moderniz...