Corruption Purge could claim Standing Committee Member

NYT reports this morning that the Hu/Zeng crime fighting dynamic duo have turned their sites on Beijing–and Standing Committee Member, Beijing party secretary, and Jiang Zemin ally Jia Qinglin could become the first member of that elite club to be purged for corruption since the CCP took power in 1949. “A widening Chinese anti-corruption probe has targeted Beijing’s party leaders, a sign that President Hu Jintao intends to continue removing officials he considers insufficiently loyal, people told about the leadership’s planning said. Some 300 Communist Party investigators have been examining property deals and procurement practices in the capital city since at least late September and have uncovered suspicious dealings that implicate top Chinese leaders, the people said…

If the investigation results in the removal of one or both of the men, it would make the ongoing housecleaning the most sweeping since the shake-up after the 1989 suppression of democracy protests.”

This past week, Jia Qinglin has been in the UK, meeting with British PM Tony Blair. Jia is scheduled to be in Europe until November 3 but there’s no word on whether the timing of the trip and the announcement were *ahem* coincidental.

Per the NYT, Standing Committee members have

October 26th, 2006

Banging the Grievance Drum

In today’s Christian Science Monitor comes a story of peasants so desperate in their search for justice, that they bypass their local courts and bring their plaints and pleas to the gates of Zhongnanhai.

Rapid economic growth has transformed the lives of China’s poor, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of wretched conditions. But the dismantling of the welfare system, together with rampant corruption and illegal land seizures, has seeded social tensions that often erupt into confrontation with local authorities. And in a political order stacked against them, China’s dispossessed face an uphill battle to voice their grievances over the injustices that scar their lives.

“For these people, petitioning is the only channel. They can’t turn to their local congress or the courts,” says He Junzhi, a political scientist at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Today’s petitioners are traveling a road to Beijing well-known to their forefathers.

China’s modern petitioning system – called xinfang, or “letters and visits” – has its roots in dynastic times when commoners could seek the intervention of the emperor and

October 25th, 2006

Blogger/Blogspot blocked?

A report from TMH (The Mighty Ho) out of Shanghai that as of this evening, blogger and blogspot are being blocked by the Great (Fire) Wall of China. Hopefully it’s a temporary setback. Curse you Chinabounder! You maniac! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God…damn you all to hell!” (Insert your own pathetic Charlton Heston imitation here.)

If you can read this, but you can’t get on the site (yes, I know I sound like the phone company–if you’re phone is out, please call…), the service PK Blogs will allow you to see the whole site again.

October 25th, 2006

The Morning Tea: How to build a CCP Quilt…An economic NATO…Baijiu gets its man…Leah’s World

Hu Jintao has put forward a bold vision for a harmonious society, promising to clean up the environment, end corruption, and bring economic prosperity to all–a veritable chicken in every hot pot. But as this excellent overview from the Economist points out, the devil is in the details and despite Hu’s utopian vision, nobody’s actually said how the CCP intends to do any of this. To be fair, we in the US are familiar with this formula as well: (utopian vision)-(concrete policies)/a country=our Iraq policy. Now solve for x.)

“Mr Hu can afford to spend more on the countryside, health care and education thanks to strong growth in government revenues. But he and other party leaders remain focused on the party’s paramount objective: maintaining social stability. Although corruption, rural poverty and damage to the environment threaten this, party leaders are still more concerned about the danger of unemployment.”

Meanwhile, Europe frets over the growing power of East Asia, leading Gabor Steingart to wonder in Spiegel Online if it’s time for an economic NATO to counterbalance the Asian ‘threat.’ In language that would not be out of place in the musty “Yellow Peril” screeds of the early 20th

October 24th, 2006

The Roommate from Hell

One of the funnier posts I’ve read recently is by Talk, Talk China regular Meursault recalling a day spent at his girlfriend’s apartment while the roommate from hell roamed the halls like a self-absorbed javelina. Like The 88′s classic in-laws post, Meursault’s story says a lot about China and the Chinese even as it transcends any one culture. I mean, who hasn’t known somebody like Nile in their life?

Warning: Meursault, writing as Yellow Wings, uses MSN Live Spaces which never works for me in anything other then (surprise, surprise) Internet Explorer. Make the effort, though. It’s funny, funny stuff.

Thanks to The Hao Hao Report for linking to this article. The HHR is one of the first places I go every morning–always a mix of interesting and off-beat stories there to go with breakfast.

October 24th, 2006
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