China

SCMP reports that there have been no new cases of the H7N9 virus in China since May 13, marking the longest period without a new infection since the influenza outbreak began in March. [ more › ]

More information has come out about a blast at an explosives plant in Shangdong, which left 13 people dead and another 20 missing. [ more › ]

David Sheff speaks with Ai Weiwei in a wide-ranging interview for Playboy Magazine, in which the dissident artist discusses imprisonment, free speech and the internet, as well as his time spent in the United States: PLAYBOY:As China has opened to the West, what’s the impact of a nondemocratic system in which the Communist Party selects its leaders from within? AI: The way to survive in this party is to hide yourself or to become a person who obeys orders from above. These are not people with new ideas who are bold. One generation chooses the next, and one is worse than the former. It’s like inbreeding. After so many generations, it becomes weaker and weaker. You can see in the first generation— Chairman Mao’s generation, Castro’s generation—the first revolutionaries are strong characters, maybe crazy but a bit romantic. Idealistic. Now you see nothing. They cannot even remember what 64 their ancestors said. PLAYBOY:Along with your Twitter messages, is your art largely a result of frustration with the current political system? AI: I’m a person who likes to make an argument rather than just give emotion or expression a form and shape in art. I became an artist only because I was oppressed by society. I was born into a very political society. When I was a child, my father told me, as a joke, “You can be a politician.” I was 10 years old. I didn’t understand it, because I already knew that politicians were the enemy, the ones who crushed him. I didn’t understand what he was talking about. But now I understand. I can be political. I can say something even though we grew up without true education, memorizing Chairman Mao’s slogans. I memorized hundreds of them. I can still sing his songs, recite his poetry. Every morning at school we stood in front of his image, memorizing one of his sentences telling what we should do today to make ourselves a better person. [Source] Ai also discusses his venture into the medium of rock and roll, calling heavy metal music “poetry within a storm.” This morning, he posted a new heavy metal music video to his website in which he recreates scenes of his 2011 detention: Click here to view the embedded video. [Source] Ai told The New York Times that he made the video and related music album because he “wanted to do something impossible:” “It’s about the whole condition,” he said in an interview at his studio last week after showing final cuts of the video to a reporter and a photographer. “It’s not really about me. I think it’s about how the power of the state tries to manage and maintain this kind of control.” Mr. Ai wrote the lyrics in one morning. He asked a friend, the rocker and contemporary artist Zuoxiao Zuzhou, to handle the music. Six songs are expected to be released together in an album called “The Divine Comedy” on June 22, the second anniversary of Mr. Ai’s exit from detention. The video was shot by the cinematographer Christopher Doyle, an Australian resident of Hong Kong who is best known for his work with Wong Kar-wai, a director of highly stylized films, and Zhang Yimou, who has in recent years been a favorite of the Communist Party. Near his studio Mr. Ai has created a full-scale model of the austere room in which he was kept for much of his time in detention. He said the actual prison was in western Beijing and was used to house prominent detainees. [Source] © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei detention, Beijing, detention, dissidents, music Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Date: May 22nd 2013 10:51a.m. Contributed by: geofferson

4G mobile internet will be making its way to the streets of Shanghai next month for a select few China Mobile subscribers in the city. 4G will dwarf the speeds of the current mobile internet offerings, with the new technology boasting 10-60 megabits speeds per second compared to the mere one megabit per second available previously. [ more › ]

From QQ: Zhejiang High Court Gives Wrongly Convicted Uncle and Nephew Over 1.1 Million Yuan Each in State Compensation 2013 May 17, the Zhejiang Province High People’s Court issued a state compensation judgment during the review of Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping’s previous convictions, overruling the previous decision and declaring them innocent, whereby Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping will each be paid 1,105,730.60 yuan, totaling 2,211,461.20 yuan. 2013 May 2, Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping requested state compensation from the Zhejiang Province High People’s Court after being declared not guilty during a rehearing of their case. The two applied for a total of 2.66 million yuan in state compensation, which includes 1.2 million yuan in compensation for restriction of personal freedom, 1.2 million yuan for mental/emotional distress, 100 thousand yuan for legal feels, 150 thousand yuan for the selling their Jiefang truck at a low price, and 10 thousand yuan for the two Samsung mobile phones that had been seized. The Zhejiang Province High People’s Court filed the case on the same day. During the investigation of the case, Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping individually requested an additional 50 thousand yuan in compensation for deprivation of personal freedom, 50 thousand yuan for mental/emotional distress, and 30 thousand yuan for medical expenses. The Zhejiang Province High People’s Court, heard Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping’s complaints, and after lawfully investigating, believe that from Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping’s detainment on 2003 May 23 to their release after appeal on 2013 March 26, the restriction on their personal freedom totaled 3,596 days. According to Article 33 of the “The People’s Republic of China State Compensation Law” which states “with regards to infringing upon a citizen’s personal freedom, daily compensation amounts shall be calculated in accordance to last year’s national average wages for a worker”, it was determined that Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping shall respectively be paid 655,739.60 yuan in compensation for infringing upon their personal freedom. At the same time, in accordance with Article 35′s provisions in “The People’s Republic of China State Compensation Law”, and in comprehensive consideration of Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping’s wrongful conviction, sentence implementation, the impact to their work, and such specific circumstances, it was determined that that they would respectively paid 450,000 in mental/emotional distress damages. As for the legal fees, medical expenses, the loss from the sale of their truck, and the other compensation requests by Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping, they were ruled as being lawfully outside the Zhejiang Province High People’s Court’s scope of state compensation. Related Links: Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping are related as uncle and nephew. 2003 May 18, around 9pm, after being introduced by someone else, victim Wang X (age of death 17 years old) hitched a ride on the ?J-11260 Jiefang cargo truck driven by Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaoping headed to Shanghai for deliveries. It passed through Zhejiang province Lin’an city Changhua town, and the next morning at 1:30am arrived near Hangzhou city’s Tianmushan Road West Bus Station. After victim Wang X left the bus station, she was murdered on the morning of 2003 May 19 and subsequently her body was dumped in a gutter along Liuxi Road and Dongmuwu village in Hangzhou city’s West Lake district’s Liuxia town. Through an investigation by the Public Security Bureau, it was determined that this was done by Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaopeng. Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaopeng were detained on 2003 May 23, and arrested on June 28 of the same year. 2004 February, the Hangzhou Municipal People’s Prosecutor’s Office charged Zhang Hui and Zhang Gaopeng with rape at the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. 20

The White House announced Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet in California next month for the first time since Xi’s promotion as China’s new leader, according to The New York Times: Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi will meet on June 7 and 8 at Sunnylands, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg estate in Southern California, the White House said. Mr. Obama already had travel scheduled on the West Coast at that time, officials said, so they decided that Sunnylands, a less formal setting, would provide a better environment for the two men to get to know each other. To prepare for the meeting, Thomas E. Donilon, the president’s national security adviser, will travel to Beijing from May 26 to 28. “The U.S.-China agenda is big and complex, and we have a lot of issues to discuss and work though,” said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House. “As we have said before, the relationship has elements of cooperation and elements of competition. We have no illusions about this. Our approach to China seeks to expand the areas of cooperation in managing regional and global challenges, and we seek to manage our differences in a way that prevents disruptive and unhealthy competition from undermining our interests and those of our allies in Asia.” [Source] The two leaders will attempt to “establish common ground after an awkward three-year period which has demonstrated many of their competing interests,” write Geoff Dyer and Victor Mallet of The Financial Times. The agenda will likely include North Korea, cyber security, the ongoing dispute in the South and East China Seas, as well as a range of economic issues, according to The Los Angeles Times. In Beijing, Reuters reports that a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said China is willing to put its best foot forward to bolster ties with the United States: “Of course, some differences exist between China and the United States, which require proper and active management by both sides,” Hong said. “This year, Sino-U.S. relations have got off to a good start and are facing an important opportunity for development.” Hong said the two leaders would have “comprehensive and in-depth discussions” on a range of issues. © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: ', Barack Obama, cybersecurity, east china sea, North Korea, South China Sea, U.S. relations, Xi Jinping Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Date: May 22nd 2013 9:42a.m. Contributed by: cityweekend Wine and dine with the winners you helped pick

Date: May 21st 2013 8:26p.m. Contributed by: stonebanks

Date: May 22nd 2013 9:22a.m. Contributed by: positivelynatalie