via Vivian Poon:
各位, 我係圓玄小學既家長, 大家好~~

English Translation By Cecilia.W.Yu:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

今日睇佢地嘅組織部署，好恐怖，係一個共產黨，當校長一講完野之後，個班五十至六十歲嘅「家長」紅衫人會提高右手一呎拍左手，就算一啲雞毛蒜皮嘅講話，都會有人帶領連聲講「好！」「校長講得好！」

I am one of the Po Leung Kuk primary school parents.  Today I went to a”PTA meeting”. It was terrifying! It was a Communist meeting where as soon as the Head Teacher at the school finished speaking, a group of 50-60 years old die-hard “Red wearing” communists raised their left hands to Air-fists while with their right hands they continued to Clap every word that came out of the meeting. No matter what was said,  a group of agitators would shout : ” Brilliant! Every thing the President said is good!”
全個家長會, 家長不能夠有半句發言的機會, 咁多年家長晚會未曾試過SET機錄影!!

This was a PTA meeting! The Parents were not allowed to speak a word. In all the years I’ve attended Parents-Teacher meetings, I’ve never been videotaped!!

如果我地硬搶位, 紅衫打手就會立即起身叫我地收聲, 有個所謂[家長]仲講埋粗口, 我地當然唔肯走, 校長不斷請我地走, 話我地阻住下場家長, 我地當然頼死, 最後係等家長晚會散, 紅衫人也不走, 繼續人釘人釘住我地……昨天還是很多老師和教職員穿黑衣, 今天有90%是穿紅衣, 呢間究竟係一間乜野學校?!

As soon as we tried to get into a position where we tried to show that there’s different types of people, the Red shirt wearing horde would stand up and tell us to “Shut Up and be Quiet!”. An extremely rude person who claimed to be also a parent, used extremely long cantonese swear-words against us to try to get rid of us! Of course we Refused to Leave! The Head Master actually kept asking us to leave! They claimed we were not at the appropriate meeting as parents and we still refused to go! Then some of these so-called Party people started Tailing us even after the meeting was over!

Yesterday there were Loads of Teachers wearing Black to support Anti-Communist Brainwashing education and then today suddenly in this PTA Meeting, 90% of the people Had to wear RED to support Communism. Please tell me what kind of School is this turning into?
呢種處理家長訴求既方式, 真係前無古人, 後無來者, 係極之恐怖既體驗! 一班家教會成員可以去到如斯地步, 一個做左幾十年人既校長要用呢種方法去排除異己, 打壓家長, 在香港出現, 試問我們香港的下一代還有什麼希望?

This is a Regime of Harassment and Intimidation against Parents. It is not only unprecedented, it is unmatched in the level of personal horror and disgust from my personal experience!  Can anyone of you imagine a Parent-Teacher Association PTA, sinking to this level of depravity? A person who has only been a Head Master for a few years,  are now using this level of intimidation to harass parents into silence and to quash dissent against his personal political agenda. This is happening in Hong kong, right now! What hope does our next generation of Hong Kong kids have against this kind of  Bullying tactics?
MOREOVER, 有關注組家長問校長我們怎能釋除疑慮, 我入到黎學校突然間見到一片紅海, 老師竟會突然間愛上紅色, 校長答:[拿~~我唔講大話架, 佢地係咁啱一齊着紅色, 唔關我事架~(說是自己在偷偷的笑, 偷偷的笑)], 你地可曾想像過一個校長會這樣不堪!! 大家係成年人, 雞食放光蟲, 詨辯是相信是唯一的出路吧, 連一些我不認識的家長都會好奇怪咁問, 點解校長突然間多左咁多粉絲?? HAHAHAHAHAHA 公道自在人心, 那就留待我們市民去審判他們吧!!~~影片未能很快UPDATE, 敬請繼續關注:~

Furthermore, how can the association of parent like us allow this level of degradation of the system? As I entered the school, I saw an ocean of red, the old teachers suddenly had to develop a love of the color red! When I queried this, the Head Master answered: ”Look, I’m not lying, they really do all love RED, its not my problem! (as he said this, he was laughing smugly to himself in contradiction to his words)”

Can you imagine a Head Master that actually behaved in this unseemly way? We are all adults, yet his blatant one-tracked intention is likened to what we would say in colloquial chinese: The Chicken who ate the Glow worm.

*Translators note: The chicken who ate the Glow worm is a euphemistic way of saying “You can see all the entrail and crap inside the beast!”

Even parents whom I do not know as they are new, asked about the strangeness of the situation to me (who is an old timer at the PTA meetings!).  Sarcastically they asked me, “How come the Head Master suddenly have so many new Fans that we have never seen at the PTA before?” Hahahahhaa. I think the truth cannot be hidden and everyone know it in their hearts. So let us all exercise our Civil Rights and do our Civic Duties and Deal with these (aggressors)!!

I will post some pictures as soon as possible, Please share my personal experience! (so everyone will know!)
保良局圓玄小學國民教育家長關注組

From a Concerned Parent at the Po Leung Kuk Yuen Yuen Primary National Education

Translator’s note: This is my Open Letter to Po Leung Kuk 保良局

Po Leung Kuk Children’s fund provides many suplementary resources and monetary donations to many of the Hong Kong low income schools and helped many low-income families in Hong kong throughout its history, since its inception after World War II. During this time, many of the funders from Po Leung Kuk had been members of the Hong kong community for 4-5 generations since the beginning of Hong Kong’s history. My own Great Grandfather had been working closely with this organisation for many years in his philanthropic endeavours to provide affordable health care to the poorest and lowest in Hong Kong’s society! The trust is mandated to help women who had been victims of economic and other kinds of inequality for generations. Members of my family had actually performed on TVB for many years along with their friends to help fundraise for Po Leung Kuk every year since the mid-60s. 

May I say as a Hong kong Chinese with 5 generations of families in Hong kong and being a part of Hong kong since its early development, I would like to express that I am extremely disappointed in hearing what this clearly intelligent, articulate but working class, hard working Parent had to say about her treatment at the hands of one of Po Leung Kuk’s schools, funded by the Community Chest and many of Hong Kong’s current members of the Hong Kong Jockey Clubs as well as the generations of support many Hong kong Movie stars and Entertainers had provided to the foundation.

It seems to me, a rather patronising way of handling the concerns of parents and also a mis-use of school funds to stage unnecessary political allegiance excercise in what should otherwise be a normal, ordinary PTA meeting that encouraged diversity and parent participations.

May I remind all those at Po Leung Kuk, www.poleungkuk.org.hk/en/, that the intention of the founding members and boards of  Po Leaung Kuk was to empower and help those from the lowest economic strata in Hong kong’s society to obtain a World class first world Hong Kong education (which has always encouraged Creativity and Critical Thinking) that would address the social inequities in our competitive society.

Generations of Hong kong’s educators like Mr Szeto-Wah and members of my own family had poured their hearts, efforts and sweats into creating a World respected Education system for ALL those in Hong kong, including the lowest in our society!

We are not here to patronise  parents or silence the voice of dissents of parents simply because they do not express concerns which we personally deem relevant or because they do not come from the correct socio-economic background.

I urge Objectivity in this matter and for all those working for Po Leung Kuk to re-read their Trust Mandate, of which I am extremely familiar with because one of great Grandfather sat on the Board of the then first Hong Kong hospital which helped draft the Trust Mission of Po Leung Kuk, enabling free medical care to many refugees in Hong kong fleeing hardship and famines in Mainland China and many other refugess in later years as Hong kong became an international Haven for those fleeing war, dictatorships, famines and hardship. We did not tell others how to live, we merely provided help where it was desperately needed, regardless of their citizenship status !

As a descendent of those whose visions as self-made innovators in Hong kong, many of whom came from situations of extreme poverty in Canton, China…..I wish to say that I am shocked by the treatment given to this particular conscientious Parent in this particular incident at a Po Leung Kuk funded Public access school in Hong kong. I belive a formal enquiry into the Background and Records of all important role models within the organisations and their ability to seperate their personal lives/ideals from their ability to further the Po Leung Kuk Trust Mission, is VITALLY NEEDED at this point!

all the best , Cecilia.W.Yu  余詠詩

(Alumni of St.Mary’s Conoissian College Primary school, Hong kong)

The section of Hong Kong society portrayed by a Young Bruce Lee here was what Po Leung Kuk was set up to protect. Why are concerned parents now silenced in 2012?

watch?v=VZueDg0Wgyw&feature=player_detailpage

中共6.4血債未償，6月6日又再殺人 (translated : Chinese communist covered Tiananmen with blood on 4th June 1989 and now on 6th June 2012, the CCP killed again!)

89民運人士湖南邵陽工自聯領袖 李旺陽，23年前因參與民運先後被囚共22年之久。
在囚期間受盡酷刑及非人道對待，導致失明、耳聾。

被囚22年，62歲的李旺陽堅持六四信念「追求民主中國、實現多黨制」等普世價值。

可惜被釋放不足一年，在六四23週年後日，李旺陽疑遭當局報復，在李旺陽獨在家中時施以毒手，更設計成自殺事件，其後公安人員搶走屍首。令李旺陽蒙上不白之冤。

就此我們要求把凶手繩之以法，給予李旺陽家屬賠償並對民運人士 李旺陽平反

行動：今晚8時，西環 西區警署集合，遊行至中聯辦

李 旺 陽 死 亡 其 親 友 認 為 可 疑 更新：2012/06/06 18:03
一 九 八 九 年 六 四 事 件 期 間 ， 擔 任 湖 南 邵 陽 工 自 聯 領 袖 的 李 旺 陽 ， 清 晨 被 發 現 在 湖 南 邵 陽 的 醫 院 死 亡 。 當 局 表 示 他 是 自 殺 ， 又 強 行 移 走 遺 體 。 但 李 旺 陽 的 親 友 就 指 事 件 非 常 可 疑 。 又 指 李 旺 陽 在 前 一 天 表 示 要 努 力 醫 病 ， 並 無 自 殺 傾 向 。
李 旺 陽 的 妹 妹 趕 到 醫 院 時 ， 李 旺 陽 的 遺 體 仍 掛 在 窗 邊 。 陪 同 李 旺 玲 到 醫 院 的 還 有 幾 名 朋 友 。 他 們 在 早 上 六 時 多 收 到 院 方 通 知 指 李 旺 陽 自 殺 。 他 們 第 一 時 間 趕 到 醫 院 ， 當 時 院 方 仍 未 處 理 遺 體 。 當 局 指 他 是 上 吊 致 死 ， 但 當 時 親 友 發 現 遺 體 雙 腳 觸 地 。

親 友 指 李 旺 陽 離 世 前 幾 天 ， 一 直 被 至 少 八 、 九 名 公 安 人 員 24 小 時 監 視 。 他 們 覺 得 李 旺 陽 無 自 殺 傾 向 ， 覺 得 死 因 非 常 可 疑 。 李 旺 陽 的 朋 友 在 現 場 拍 攝 數 張 相 片 後 ， 警 方 就 將 他 們 趕 走 ， 並 且 強 行 移 走 李 旺 陽 的 遺 體 。

網 上 消 息 指 ， 各 地 有 維 權 人 士 正 前 往 邵 陽 ， 協 助 他 的 家 屬 辦 理 後 事 ， 而 李 旺 陽 的 親 友 就 正 待 律 師 幫 忙 。

六 十 二 歲 的 李 旺 陽 是 湖 南 邵 陽 的 前 工 運 領 袖 。 他 因 為 六 四 事 件 被 捕 ， 先 後 坐 牢 二 十 二 年 ， 到 去 年 才 釋 放 。

Those close to Li Wangyang are showing this photo of his “alleged suicide” position and saying:

我不能相信這是自殺，所以非常難受。一個人在醫院被殺還可以吊屍掛在窗前，雙腳卻未離地的，這是恐怖凶殘的謀殺迫害，就如公然將受害者吊上十字死刑架，要活著的人見證恐懼中死亡也不得安寧。一早看到死訊至今，有說不出的痛和流不盡的淚。

” I cannot believe this is suicide so I am feeling very bad. A person was killed in hospital and his corpse was left hanging in front of a window! His feet was touching the ground. How can this horror and premeditated murder be permitted ? So like those who were hung on the cross, anyone who witnessed this and had to attest to the Lord’s death, would feel horror and great sadness. From the moment I saw his death cell to now, I cannot tell you the pain that I do not know how to express nor can I tell you how endlessly my tears are flowing and will continue to flow”

攀山專家鍾建民（《爽報》訪問）：
１、李旺陽「上吊」所用的繩結「稱人結」，是「萬結之王」，手部須繞過自己頭部，再勒緊頸部，失明及行動困難者很難做到；
２、以李旺陽體重，那條「上吊」布條必斷；
３、李旺陽死前應本能掙扎，但遺體左手搭着的衣架毫無彎曲，不合常理！
再度說明，李旺陽上吊自殺的可能幾乎是零。

Translated: When the chinese community asked for a forensic expert (CSI) to comment on Li Wang Yang’s crime scene, they found:

1) The knot used was an expert knot, commonly known as “The king of knots”, safe & secure & infallible BUT rarely perfected unless someone had expert training. Furthermore there was burnt mark to the head in a position that indicated the victim could not inflict on himself (given his disabilities)

2) Given the weight of Li Wang Yang, if he hung himself, there is no way the rope itself could support his body weight.

3) Li Wang yang’s left hand was clutching a wire coat-hanger, if he had “hung himself” his natural body reflexes would have bent the wire one way or another, yet the Coat-hanger remain in perfect Triangular shape.

In the opinions of the CSI expert in the field, the chances of Li Wang Yang commiting suicide is almost ZERO!

At the time of writing this blog, this news has not broken in the western media yet. This is some basic information about Li Wangyang:

source: http://www.hrichina.org/content/4761

Li Wangyang was found dead, hung in hospital under very suspicious circumstances. Pictures showed that his feet was touching the ground, so how did he voluntarily “hang himself” given the forensic expert’s opinion finding evidence to the contrary? Many chinese activists are outraged and consider this a Retaliation by Communist Chinese Government for the success of 180,000 strong pro-democracy Tiananmen Memorial Candlight vigil in Victoria Park in hong kong on the 4th June 2012.

For more information about the event, read this blog: http://ceciliawyu.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/tiananmen-massacre-hong-kong-victoria-park-2012/

Li Wangyang, a veteran labor rights activist from Hunan Province, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “incitement to subvert state power” by the People’s Intermediate Court of Shaoyang on September 20, 2001. Li was accused of subversion for demanding that the government pay for treatment of medical conditions he developed during 11 years in prison for promoting labor rights during the 1989 democracy movement.

Born in 1950, Li Wangyang became of the earliest advocates for independent labor unions in China while employed at the Shaoyang Cement Plant. During the 1989 demonstrations, Li founded the Shaoyang Autonomous Workers Union. Union members frequently gave speeches, distributed printed materials, put up “big character posters” and organized committees and demonstrations that advocated better protections for the rights of Chinese workers.

On June 4, 1989, the day of the Beijing Massacre, Li glued a big character poster onto a traffic sign in the People’s Square of Shaoyang City. The poster appealed to local workers to go on strike and to “give their lives to the cause for love of country.” Two days later on June 6, Li and members of other independent organizations in Shaoyang held a public memorial for the victims of the massacre in Beijing. On June 9, Li was detained on charges of “counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement.” His formal arrest came a week later.

On October 25, 1989, the Shaoyang Intermediate People’s Court convicted Li on this charge, and sentenced him to 13 years in prison and four years’ deprivation of political rights. He was transferred to Hunan No.1 Prison.

In June 1996, Li was moved into a hospital for treatment of heart disease. Returned to prison in March 1997, Li developed severe hearing and vision problems, and his general health deteriorated to the extent that he could not walk without assistance. He was released from prison on June 8, 2000, after he had served 11 years of his 13-year term.

A medical examination following Li’s release revealed that in addition to heart disease, he also suffered from neck problems and had apparently shrunk in height during his stay in prison. Li measured 182 centimeters before entering prison. Eleven years later, he measured only 173 centimeters, the result of being beaten and confined to a cramped cell for many years.

With no source of income and facing large medical bills without health insurance, Li repeatedly petitioned the Shaoyang government to take responsibility for the numerous health problems he had developed as a result of the inhumane treatment he received in prison. Facing only silence in response, Li wrote to the city government on January 5, 2001. He demanded that the authorities act in a spirit of decency and morality, and escort him to the hospital. He threatened to bring his case to the attention of the international community, and said he was willing to lay down his life for the cause if necessary.

Four days later on January 9, city officials escorted Li to the hospital for treatment. But the authorities only arranged to pay for 2,000 yuan worth of medical treatment. On February 2, Li began a hunger strike to protest against the Shaoyang government’s decision to stop paying his medical expenses, while also expressing his opposition to political repression in China in general.

Li’s fast continued for 22 days. Officials from the local government and state security and public security bureaus visited Li in the hospital to discuss his situation. One official demanded that Li stop pressuring the government. Li told relatives he would end his fast but would continue to petition the government to pay his medical care.

Months later on May 6, Li was arrested on charges of “incitement to subvert state power” by agents of Shaoyang City Public Security Bureau at the Daxiang Hospital in Hunan Province. Li’s sister, Li Wanglin, and brother-in-law, Zhao Baozhu, were also taken from their home and put into police custody for questioning. Zhao was later released, but Li Wanglin was sentenced to three years of reeducation through labor for helping her brother publicize his situation and his hunger strike.

Li was convicted of “incitement to subvert state power” by the Shaoyang People’s Intermediate Court on September 5, 2001. Li’s brother-in-law, Zhao Baozhu, and many friends were denied access to the proceedings. In another closed hearing two weeks later, Li was sentenced to 10 more years in prison.
Joseph Chaney & Cai Jiquan

For everyone who reads chinese here, I find this comment by Li Wangyang  very moving!! (English info about Liu can be found here: http://www.hrichina.org/content/4761) :

受尽22年酷刑六四工运人士李旺阳永不言悔 (Translated:  Due to his protest of the Tiananmen massacre Li Wangyang was imprisoned for 22 years, yet he says: I regret nothing, ever!) What a courageous man! RESPECT! ♥

李旺陽先生, 一路好走…..余詠詩敬禮 

Translated: “Every inch of Liberty (is won) with an Inch of Blood,
Million miles of rivers (kingdom) bring  million miles of Woes.”
一寸自由一寸血；万里江河万里愁 (滕彪撰联挽李旺阳)

8th June 2012:

Chinese activists from around the world started using this symbol for Li Wang Yang’s death:

9th June 2012: Li WangYang’s last interview on the 2nd June 2012..an exclusive to HK online TV before he was murdered on the 6th June. he is talking about Tiananmen Massacre and 23 years of hardship, protest, courage & hope! ♥ RIP Li Wang Yang! PLEASE Share!!!

In Denmark, Danish Activists called for everyone in the country to put on a “white rope” around their necks when Hu Jintao visits Copenhagen and they are pressuring their own press to exercise Free speech and ask some “interesting questions”about Li to Hu Jintao when he visits before he goes to the G20.

Message from Danish Activists:

Would you all please share the message to anybody danish – or visiting Denmark this coming week – 14., 15. and 16. June – to wear a white scarf all the time everywhere they go? Please help spread the word! It such a visible – yet very peaceful and compassionate demonstration – that will show in all the press photos if enough people join.

10th June 2012:

「六四紀念館」展版被塗污
今早(6月10日)支聯會工作人員返回「六四紀念館」後，發現有印上鄧小平相片的展版部份，被人塗污。

In an act of non-violent Protest against the Killing of Tiananmen Students and LI Wang Yang, Hong Kong’s 4th June Tiananmen museum found that someone (we don’t know whom) has Desecrated the historic photo of Deng Shao Ping! …this is a symbolic protest in Southern China that has far reaching implications in the Chinese world given Deng Shao Ping symbolically planted a tiny “money” tree in Shenzhen (bordertown to Hong kong) when China’s economic first boom strategies started in the 80s!

On the same day Li Wang Yang’s body was cremated abruptly preventing the possibility of further forensic inquest!

Hong kong Apple Daily News: Li Wang Yang’s body was Crimated so that no further Forensic Test can be taken by experts to determine his REAL Cause of Death! Is this the Communist Chinese Party YOU want to do business with, world? Send your productions order to Indian or South America, anywhere where you can cost Hu Jintao Trade Money!

香港苹果日报，大版面报道关于李旺阳被火化的新闻。

11th June 2012.  In the short space of 3 days, Hong Kong managed to organise a 25000 strong demonstration asking for Justice4 LI Wang Yang during a weekday, working hours (which for many HOng kongers are not really the best time to attend a protest!) Yet apart from Apple Daily and am 730, all the other newspaper in Hong kong ignored the news because they were warned to “go cold” to freeze out the call for Justice4 Li Wang Yang!

6月11日主要報章頭條
李旺陽事件三天內能號召2.5萬人上街，請問昨天有比這大的新聞作頭條嗎？看看除了蘋果和am 730 外，其他報紙都冷處理遊行報導，自我審查到這種地步的報紙真係睇嚟都嘥時間!

25K Protestors demanded an explanation to Li Wang Yang’s “fake suicide”!

19th June 2012 from Hong kong re: 1st July Pro-democracy demonstration:

港7·1或逾5萬人上街 全球逾1.3萬人網上連署 北京為平息港人對“六四鐵漢”李旺陽冤案的憤怒，日前急令湖南徹查事件，但湖南當局根本無意查出真相，李旺陽胞妹李旺玲仍然失蹤，為李旺陽申冤的維權人士亦受打壓及恐嚇。支聯會及多個民間團體對北京的“假調查”極為不滿，正部署於6月30日發動大型示威，甚至包圍訪港國家主席胡錦濤下榻的酒店，要他親睹港人對李旺陽“被自殺”的怒火。 當局聲稱將徹查事件之際，李旺陽的家人與朋友仍然“被失蹤”，至今下落不明，未有因重新調查案件而被釋放。北京對李旺陽案的“假調查、真打壓”手法，引來香港泛民人士強烈不滿。 支聯會主席李卓人表示，湖南的做法正好證明北京所謂調查實際只是緩兵之計，旨在為七一遊行消音，“皇帝（胡錦濤）出巡，怕有人告禦狀。”他稱，一定要讓胡錦濤親睹港人對李旺陽冤案的憤怒，正部署6月30日發動大型示威，計畫當晚于胡錦濤下榻的酒店外抗議，令胡錦濤感受到港人怒火。 多個民間團體亦表明將全力配合支聯會6月30日發起的抗議行動，密切留意胡錦濤來港後所到的地點，展開機動式抗議行動，“我們一定會去抗議，要求平反六四、徹查李旺陽事件”。 李旺陽冤死事件，民怨燃燒至6月30日，跨越7月1日，當日遊行人數隨時遠超目標5萬人。警方週五晚向七一遊行發出不反對通知書，列明全面開放所有遊行路線的西行行車線，但不准玩樂器及舞龍舞獅。 不反對通知書列明，遊行當日會開放軒尼詩道、金鐘道等主要道路西行的所有行車線，又要求民陣安排至少200名糾察，並協助警方與參加者溝通，盡力確保參與者不會無牌籌款。 此外，湖南省方面雖表明會重新調查李旺陽死亡真相，但中國維權人士北風在上週三發起的全球連署行動，參與人數有增無減，截至週六中午12時，參與者已超過1.3萬人，參與連署人數仍陸續增加中。 今年七一特區政府換屆，胡錦濤來港主持交接儀式，但香港出現複雜的形勢，而李旺陽事件帶來的衝擊又難以估量，示威遊行的失控危機陡增，北京方面高度重視嚴峻局面，已部署重兵防備。 據悉，解放軍駐港部隊已進入一級戒備，週四晚由惠州秘密調動裝甲車隊來港，作為震懾力量“維穩”。

23 rd June SOS for Human rights!

Translated: Please keep up the pressure to Launch the “Li Wangyang is suicide the fact-finding Commission” which the pro- democracy fighters Zhou Zhirong has been very vocal about! Zhou is being targetted and is considered “a criminal and a thorne in the sides” of Communist Chinese Dictatorship! If the world does not Support Zhou’s case with our utmost attention, the Chinese Communists may once again, sentenced another innocent person to Death! We cannot lose any more Li Wangyang!

请大家继续关注发起“李旺阳被自杀真相调查委员会”的民主斗士周志荣。他是中共眼中的“累犯”，如果大家不给予高度关注，中共可能会对他再次重判。我们不能再失去更多的李旺阳了！

Also:

So Next Media (Apple Daily Hong kong’s pro-democracy press) just Declared in its newspaper that it is being attacked by phishers contacting those who are activists in Hong kong asking to interview them about yearly 1 July Pro-democracy Hong kong demonstration, impersonating Journalists from Next Media! Who do you think is doing that? btw. My Li Wang Yang blog in ceciliawyu.wordpress.com keeps getting the “Same robot” commenting claiming Li Wang Yang could have killed himself in the last week (funny how no IP is left when its a robot ! )

By way of an update, following the conviction and sentencing of Chinese lawyer Gao Zhisheng, during the past few years his whereabouts have been a mystery. In the way of an update about his current status, as recently reported by the New York Times, on March 28, 2012, his wife, Gao He said that her father and Mr. Gao’s brother had been allowed a half-hour visit with him at a prison in the western region of Xinjiang province.

For those unaware, Gao was convicted and sentenced for violation of the crime of inciting subversion of state power, which is  China’s “Law on Guarding State Secrets.”  Although Gao was earlier granted probation, he was later found to be in violation of the terms of probation and subsequently returned to prison.

In the earlier period of his legal career Gao persecuted both Christians and adherents of Falun Gong. He also did so while notably, though seemingly contradictory, devoting his time and energy to the representation of victims of medical malpractice and farmers who had lost their land to development.

The latter commitment to his clients, however, would eventually overshadow his former deeds, such as his persecution of Christians and those belonging to Falun Gong. This is because Gao would eventually find himself on the road to increasing troubles with Beijing when, in 2005, he renounced his Communist Party membership and then commences the practice of criticizing, by letters to Chinese leaders, China’s government.

Additionally, and further adding to Gao’s troubles, the letters to party leaders notwithstanding, he would also find himself challenging the party apparatus (i.e., the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)) by taking on politically sensitive cases, which would ultimately expose shortcomings of China’s legal system.

In the midst of Gao’s history as both an advocate and now prisoner, his plight has taken on a certain notoriety, because the international community took a great interest in his plight, as seen in the concerns of many, which range from the White House, European Union (EU), United Nations (UN), and human rights organizations.

Otherwise, for now, there is an update on Gao’s whereabouts, and a clear indication by his wife, Gao He, as the New York Times reported, that he is both “alive and in good health.”

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See also

• CECC Joint Statement on Vice President Xi Jinping’s U.S. Visit
• Hearing: The Case and Treatment of Prominent Human Rights Lawyer Gao Zhisheng, Tues ., Feb. 14, 2012, 2:30 p.m
• China Revokes Probation of Missing Human Rights Lawyer
• Statement of CECC Chairman Christopher Smith and Cochairman Sherrod Brown on the Release of the 2011 Annual Report
• The 610 Office: Policing the Chinese Spirit
• Statement of CECC Chairman Christopher Smith and Cochairman Sherrod Brown on Human Rights Lawyer Gao Zhisheng
• China’s Political Reformers Strike Back
• Rights Lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s Wife on His Abduction
• Chinese Rule of Law: The Rhetoric and The Reality
• HRIC | 中国人权 – Take Action in Year of the Rabbit!
• HRIC | 中国人权 – Clampdown on Individuals Following Nobel Announcement / 刘晓波获奖后中国政府打压行动一览
• HRIC | 中国人权 – Liu Xia, Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Liu Xiaobo’s Wife, Under House Arrest / 诺贝尔和平奖获得者刘晓波的妻子刘霞遭当局软禁
• HRIC | 中国人权 – Chinese Authorities Restrict Nobel Peace Prize News and Communications with Outside / 丁子霖无锡住所被切断对外通信联络
• Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo Wins the Nobel Peace Prize
• CECC – Statement of the Chairman and Cochairman on Political Imprisonment in China Today
• China Licence to practice not renewed for lawyers who defend human rights or Falun Gong
• Chinese Human Rights Defender Gao Zhisheng Disappears Again
• U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue Resumes: Foundation for Action? / 中美人权对话：采取行动的开端？
• 2 Falun Gong Lawyers Face Disbarment
• HRIC Statement: Chinese Government Should Respect Gao Zhisheng’s Rights / 中国政府应尊重高智晟的权利

All Rights Reserved by M. Ulric Killion, 2012.

Reblogged from Federal Way Conservative:

Chongqing, a sprawling municipality of 32 million people, last summer embarked on a campaign to promote “Red Culture,” to remind residents of the past glories of China’s Communist Party.

By Keith B. Richburg, The Washington Post, March 16, 2012 –

BEIJING — The dramatic events this week in China underscored one of this country’s most baffling dichotomies: between an increasingly sophisticated and globally connected economy, now the world’s second-largest, and the opaque, Leninist-style Communist Party that still runs it, with almost no transparency or public accountability and seemingly resistant to calls for political reform.

China is set for a leadership transition this fall, with the top job — Party general secretary and national president — expected to go to the current vice president, Xi Jinping. There will also be seven new faces on the all-powerful nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, the body that effectively runs the country.

Only a tiny handful of China’s 1.3 billion people have any say in who these new leaders will be, however, and few have any clue what they believe or where they plan to take the country.

Ostensibly, the new leadership team will be elected by 2,000-plus delegates to the National Congress, which meets every five years, including this year. In reality, all decisions are made beforehand by a small clique believed to include the current Politburo Standing Committee members and some retired Party grandees, such as former president Jiang Zemin and former premier Li Peng, who represent sometimes competing factions.

Even Prime Minister Wen Jiabao seemed to acknowledge the paradox that is modern China on Wednesday, when he said at what is likely to be his last major news conference, “We must press ahead with both economic structural reform and political structural reform — in particular, reform in the leadership system of our party and country.”

But Wen has often called for political reform in the past — typically using the same words — to no apparent effect. And within hours of his latest remarks, the Communist hierarchy demonstrated once again just how secretively it operates. . . .

China’s modern economy belies secretive and opaque politics – The Washington Post

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See also Mitt Romney profiting from sales of security cameras to Chinese government

See also EDITORIAL: Remembering the Tibetans’ plight

See also House Committee on Foreign Affairs Hearing on: “Congressional-Executive Commission on China: 2011 Annual Report”

See also, The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China – 2011 Annual Report:

Click here to download a copy of the Commission’s full 2011 Annual Report.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, established by the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 as China prepared to enter the World Trade Organization, is mandated by law to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China. The Commission by mandate also maintains a database of information on political prisoners in China—individuals who have been imprisoned by the Chinese government for exercising their civil and political rights under China’s Constitution and laws or under China’s international human rights obligations. All of the Commission’s reporting and its Political Prisoner Database are available to the public online via the Commission’s Web site, http://www.cecc.gov.

See also The Republican Conundrum

For a few bucks he’ll believe whatever you want him to.

This is just a strange, strange set of circumstances. It’s definitely worth reading the whole New York Times article:

As the Chinese government forges ahead on a multibillion-dollar effort to blanket the country with surveillance cameras, one American company stands to profit: Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney.

The company in question is Uniview, a manufacturer of security cameras. China is in the midst of a new push to install hundreds of thousands of security cameras in public spaces (and not so public spaces, such as in front of the homes of dissidents, monks and other people who the Chinese government wants to keep an eye on). There’s not really any secret there. But there’s mountains of money to be made for companies like Uniview, which is owned by Bain Capital, as long as you’re willing to overlook the outrageous abuses of human rights involved.

The Mitt Romney connection to the story, as usual, revolves around money and hypocrisy. While Romney asserts he has no current role in Bain’s management, he still makes millions from Bain via blind trusts. And Romney has made China-bashing a campaign theme, especially against Obama:

In public comments and in a statement posted on his campaign Web site, Mr. Romney has accused the Obama administration of placing economic concerns above human rights in managing relations with China. He has called on the White House to offer more vigorous support of those who criticize the Chinese Communist Party.

I’m not sure I can think of a more direct way to "place economic concerns above human rights" then selling human rights abusers the actual physical equipment they use to abuse human rights. That’s pretty damn direct.

So then, what should Mitt Romney do? He perhaps stands to make a few million dollars more from his company selling video monitoring equipment to China. We pretty much know that equipment is going to be used not just for "fighting crime," but for oppressing thought crimes. Uniview itself is quite pleased with the association:

Uniview is proud of its close association with China’s security establishment and boasts about the scores of surveillance systems it has created for local security agencies in the six years since the Safe Cities program was started.

“Social management and society building pose new demands for surveillance and control systems,” Uniview says in its promotional materials, which include an interview with Zhang Pengguo, the company’s chief executive. “A harmonious society is the essential nature of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Mr. Zhang says.

I suppose Mitt Romney could use his national platform to say that gosh, placing economic concerns over human rights is pretty damn rotten, and suggest that maybe his company not freaking do that. Saying "oh, the buckets of money I’m making from, among other things, selling surveillance equipment to the Chinese government is in a blind trust, so I’m not involved with that" seems rather weak. Does Mitt mean that it’s all right to make wads of cash from helping governments violate human rights, so long as it’s a corporation doing it?

It’s just another thing that demonstrates how ridiculous and vapid Mitt Romney is, and adds to the public perception that this guy would probably sell his own mother if he thought the price was right. If Mitt Romney actually managed to become president I wouldn’t be surprised to see him propose we buy a million or so security cameras and put them on American streets too. You know, for crime, not because he’s got a blind trust that would make a heck of a lot of money from the effort.

Daily Kos: Mitt Romney profiting from sales of security cameras to Chinese government

_______________

See also EDITORIAL: Remembering the Tibetans’ plight

See also House Committee on Foreign Affairs Hearing on: “Congressional-Executive Commission on China: 2011 Annual Report”

See also, The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China – 2011 Annual Report:

Click here to download a copy of the Commission’s full 2011 Annual Report.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, established by the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 as China prepared to enter the World Trade Organization, is mandated by law to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China. The Commission by mandate also maintains a database of information on political prisoners in China—individuals who have been imprisoned by the Chinese government for exercising their civil and political rights under China’s Constitution and laws or under China’s international human rights obligations. All of the Commission’s reporting and its Political Prisoner Database are available to the public online via the Commission’s Web site, http://www.cecc.gov.

See also The Republican Conundrum

Today marks the 53rd anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, an anniversary that, sadly, will go unnoticed in most parts of the world.

More than 30 Tibetans have set themselves alight in the past year in protest against Beijing’s repressive and destructive rule in the so-called Tibetan Autonomous Region and other areas.

Many of these immolations and protests have occurred in Aba prefecture, Sichuan Province, in what is euphemistically referred to as “predominantly Tibetan areas.” What most wire agency reports fail to say is that these areas were traditionally part of the Kham region, whose people, the Khampas, started armed resistance against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule in 1956, after their region was merged into Sichuan Province in 1955.

Free Tibet, the International Campaign for Tibet and other rights groups say the escalation in self-immolations shows the growing desperation and despair of the Khampas and other ethnic Tibetans under Chinese rule. That rule became even more draconian after the huge anti-Han, anti-Beijing riots of 2008, in which hundreds of Han-owned establishments and government offices were torched and hundreds of people killed.

Beijing tried for decades to suppress Tibetan Buddhism, barring Tibetans from practicing their faith. This prohibition was gradually eased in the 1980s, as Beijing realized how profitable it was to let foreign tourists into Lhasa and some other areas of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. However, many Tibetan areas, especially in Sichuan, continue to remain off-limits.

When suppressing religious practices failed to quench the Tibetans’ support for Buddhism, the Dalai Lama and preserving their way of life, Beijing turned to another method — flooding Lhasa and the Kham regions of Sichuan with Han migrants — just as it has done in Xinjiang to make Uighurs a minority in their homeland.

It has also continued its campaign to break Tibetans’ ties with their culture through pro-Mandarin policies. As Free Tibet noted on its Web site on Sunday, up to 700 Tibetan students protested upon discovering that their history, biology, chemistry, math and other textbooks, which had been in Tibetan, had been replaced by Chinese-language texts.

The CCP recently launched a “patriotic education campaign” for temples, which have been asked to display the portraits of former leaders Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), instead of the Dalai and Panchen lamas and other religious leaders.

Beijing has not only tried to demoralize and dehumanize the Tibetans by claiming to have “liberated” them from the oppressive policies of Tibetan rule, it has also done all it can to destroy the natural environment of Tibet through deforestation, strip-mining and the dumping of nuclear waste, turning much of the Tibetan plateau into an arid wasteland.

China’s rule over Tibet has made a mockery of its protests against Western imperialism and the destruction and looting of Chinese treasures by Western forces.

There will be a parade in Taipei today, starting at 2pm at the Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station, to mark the 53rd anniversary of the uprising. Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission Minister Luo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) has declined to take part because she is a government official, but anyone who values human rights and humanity should turn out for the march, or at least take time out from their busy day to spare a thought — and a prayer — for the Tibetans and their increasingly beleaguered existence. . . .

EDITORIAL: Remembering the Tibetans’ plight – Taipei Times

A portrait of Lei Feng, a soldier hailed as a role model, on a screen in Qingdao city, in eastern China’s Shandong Province. Wu Hong/European Pressphoto Agency

By Andrew Jacob, March 5, 2012 –FUSHUN, China — Some national heroes are born in the crucible of war. Others have far less dramatic origins.

So it was in the summer of 1962, when a soldier at this army base in northeast China reversed his truck into a telephone pole, sending it crashing onto the head of a 22-year-old comrade. The young man died, but his short life provided Communist Party propagandists with a perfect icon: Lei Feng, industrious, generous and irresistibly impish, China’s most endearing soldier, the sort of fellow who would darn his comrades’ socks and skip a meal so others might eat.

In urging people to “Learn from Lei Feng” a year after his death, Mao Zedong sought to imbue China’s youth with a passion for self-sacrifice and patriotism — and perhaps distract them from the hunger pangs of famine that followed his disastrous effort to rapidly industrialize in the Great Leap Forward.

But the party’s efforts to resuscitate the spirit of Lei Feng on the 50th anniversary of his death have exposed the limits of old school propaganda in the age of the Internet. The campaign, which culminated Monday with the annual “Learn From Lei Feng Day,” has provoked a fresh round of public cynicism about a ruling party that is struggling to cultivate a sense of legitimacy.

A member of the Chinese military gave a man a free haircut in Shanghai on Monday in observance of “Learn From Lei Feng Day.” Carlos Barria/Reuters

The familiar lessons about Lei Feng’s feats and thoughtfulness that have inundated newspapers and television have been met by snickers, expressed through essays, cartoons and blog postings that highlight the government’s failure to practice the idealized morality it seeks to propagate.

One posting on Sina Weibo, the country’s popular microblog service, seemed to sum up the sentiment that it is party officials, not ordinary citizens, who should be studying Lei Feng’s selflessness. . . .

‘Lei Feng Day’ Draws Chinese Cynicism – NYTimes.com

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See also American singer’s Lei Feng dedication

CHINA APPROACHES a leadership transition late this year amid signs that its investment- and export-led growth model is producing diminishing returns.

The giant country has grown roughly 10 percent a year for almost three decades, lifting half a billion people out of poverty with relatively little political turmoil. But the contradictions are mounting: An outmoded system of local government finance, based on sales of state-owned land, is driving a housing bubble; corruption undermines infrastructure projects such as high-speed rail; state-owned banks continue to channel resources into inefficient state-owned firms; and China’s one-child policy has caused a premature social aging process, saddling China with a large dependent elderly population before it’s truly rich enough to support it.

And so China 2030, a comprehensive 468-page blueprint for reform from the World Bank, is both timely and, for the most part, persuasive, in both its analysis and prescriptions. In fact, many of the bank’s recommendations — for a greater market role in banking, say, or increased investment in public services — are convincing precisely because they have been so often made before.

What might be different about this document is that the bank’s co-author was the Chinese State Council’s Development Research Center, an influential government advisory body. This suggests that reformists are already angling for greater power within the next administration and using the bank to help achieve it.

Well and good. Yet any reform effort must come to grips with the deepest contradiction within Chinese society — one too profound and controversial for the bank to mention openly but which is nonetheless implicit throughout the report. We are speaking, of course, about the tension between Communist Party rule and freedom and democracy.

“If the experience of other countries is any guide, the rising ranks of the middle class and higher education levels will inevitably increase the demand for better governance and greater opportunities for participation in public policy debate and implementation,” the report notes. “Unmet, these demands could raise social tensions.” In our view, such demands are legitimate whether they raise social tensions or not. The bank is also perfectly aware that “vested interests,” as it calls them, will resist needed structural changes. Indeed, they already have. China’s state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission lashed out at the report while it was still a draft.

The road to achieving the World Bank’s ambitious goals for the rule of law, greater regulatory transparency and a more open public policy debate — which should be China’s goals, too — must pass through political reform. The bank optimistically calls on China’s government officials to show “leadership” by embracing such changes. It calls on them to “empower people,” “grant rights to individuals” and “encourage broad participation.” Good advice. Yet, so far, it is also the very kind of counsel China’s rulers have most fiercely resisted.

To sustain growth, China must boost freedom – The Washington Post

Second Row, Center, Xi Jinping (L) and Li Keqiang (R) Poised to Emerge at the 18th Party Congress.

By Bruce Gilley, China Brief, Vol. 12, Iss. 2, Jan 20, 2012 –

In 2012, China will enter for the first time an era in which political leadership is held by people who do not have the direct imprimatur of veterans of the Chinese revolution. This will be important not just because it means they will have to work harder to establish their personal legitimacy as rulers, but also because it will open up wider possibilities for new thinking and bold policies.

The political challenges facing Xi Jinping, who will be installed as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in a succession scheduled for late 2012, concern both policy and government reform. Key benchmarks can be used to trace the implications of each of these three political stories of 2012—succession, policy and government—giving signs about the future direction of politics and leadership in China.

The Succession

There is little doubt that Xi Jinping will become CCP General Secretary. Under a succession process overseen by the party’s Organization Department under the “third generation” party leader Jiang Zemin, who was party general secretary from 1989 to 2002, Xi was identified as early as 1997 as the “fifth generation” head of the party after a broad-based vetting by the party of widely-admired younger leaders [1]. In that year, Jiang appointed Xi as an alternate member of the party’s Central Committee after the party rank-and-file failed to elect him to the body.

Since then, Xi has cultivated carefully his image and his alliances within the party leadership in order to consolidate his succession. Xi however lacks the revolutionary imprimatur of his predecessors. His father was a party revolutionary, but one who frequently butted heads with both Mao and Deng and is thus tainted in the minds of some in the party. The nod from Jiang, meanwhile, carries little weight within the party elite because Jiang did not fight in the revolutionary war and thus, even though he is a former top leader, he lacks the historical mantle of previous elders. Indeed, Jiang probably did not even join the party until after it emerged victorious in Shanghai, where he was a student, despite claims to the contrary. Hu Jintao, by contrast, was chosen by an ally of Deng Xiaoping and enjoyed Deng’s support, giving him a virtually untouchable position despite his gray personality. He too, however, will lack authority once he retires because his position was given as part of a new model of orderly, planned retirements of top leaders.

For that reason, the broader slate of candidates who join the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee in late 2012 along with Xi will be critical. . . .

The Jamestown Foundation: China in 2012: The Politics and Policy of Leadership Succession

Will the Constitution Give These Protestors a Voice in Political Reform?

By Keith Hand, China Brief, Vol. 12, Iss. 3, Feb 3, 2012 –

Starting last September, a protest in Wukan village made world headlines. After months of tension, thousands of villagers angry over the seizure of their land, inadequate compensation and the death of a villager in police custody expelled village officials and occupied the public square. Provincial party officials eventually diffused the collective dispute with a compromise settlement that authorities have taken some steps to implement (Wall Street Journal, February 3). Considerable debate has emerged regarding the significance of these events. Some Chinese commentators and officials have characterized the compromise as a turning point and a model for more conciliatory approaches to local governance and dispute resolution (South China Morning Post, January 5; People’s Net, December 22, 2011). Other commentators have expressed skepticism that the Wukan compromise will be honored or that it heralds a shift in social management policies (“The Grim Future of the Wukan Model for Managing Dissent,” China Brief, January 6).

Even if the skeptics are ultimately right about the immediate impacts of the incident, such critiques obscure Wukan’s potential to advance important grassroots constitutional awareness. Scholars recognize even unsuccessful dispute resolution outcomes may spark collective reflections that shape public understandings and reinforce emerging constitutional visions [1]. As prospects for formal legal processes to resolve constitutional disputes have dimmed, reform-minded Chinese citizens have turned to constitutional argument not primarily as a legal weapon, but as a tool to build public pressure for modest reforms and shape China’s political environment over the long term. Citizen reactions to Wukan provide an example of this dynamic and highlight the importance of property rights as a crucible of constitutional contention.

Citizens Use the PRC Constitution as a Political Tool

The PRC Constitution is sometimes characterized as an aspirational text rather than a legally enforceable charter. The National People’s Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee (NPCSC) are charged with supervising the enforcement of the Constitution. Although these organs have implemented some constitutional provisions through concrete legislation, they have fulfilled their other duties to enforce the Constitution only in limited respects. Chinese courts do not exercise the power to review the constitutionality of legislation and only occasionally reference the Constitution in their judgments. Chinese sources suggest the courts are prohibited from citing the Constitution as the legal basis for judgments (Center for People’s Congress and Foreign Legislature Study, May 26, 2011).

A series of events and leadership statements from 1999 to 2005 indicated the Party-State might be prepared to establish a more robust legal mechanism for adjudicating constitutional claims. Such an outcome never materialized (“NPCSC: The Vanguard of China’s Constitution?” China Brief, February 4, 2008). Party-State institutions instead took steps to eliminate the possibility of constitutional litigation in the courts (“The Death of Constitutional Litigation in China?” China Brief, April 2, 2009). Fearful of an avalanche of citizen claims, the NPCSC has avoided issuing formal public rulings on citizen proposals to review the constitutionality of lower-level legislation [2]. These developments, along with the sustained politicization of legal institutions and suppression of rights defense lawyers, have generated pessimism about prospects for constitutional law in China. . . .

The Jamestown Foundation: Constitutionalizing Wukan: The Value of the Constitution Outside the Courtroom

Hu Deping, son of reformer Hu Yaobang, Lecturing on Politics.

By Willy Lam, China Brief, Vol. 12, Iss. 3, 2012 –

China seems to have entered deep winter as far as political reform and human rights are concerned. While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership seems to have pulled out all the stops to stifle dissent, intellectuals both inside and outside the party still are pushing the ideal of liberalization. In a recent article in the party theoretical journal Seeking Truth, CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao reiterated the imperative to “unshakably going down the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics”—and staying away from the deviant path of Western-style political norms. “Enemy forces in the international arena are stepping up conspiracies to Westernize and divide us,” he wrote, adding that the party must “forever ring the alarm bell” against “infiltration from the West” (Qiushi, January 1). In the past two months, three dissidents known for their Internet articles about non-violent political liberalization—Chen Wei, Chen Xi and Li Tie—were given sentences of nine or ten years for “inciting subversion of state power” (New York Times, January 20; Ming Pao [Hong Kong], January 20).

Last month, Yu Jie, an internationally known writer and moderate reformist renowned for his advocacy of universal values such as civil and democratic rights, was forced to leave the country after having been subjected to torture in jail. In an article released upon his arrival in the United States, Yu quoted one of his jailers as saying “As far as we, the state security [department], can tell, there are no more than 200 intellectuals in the country who oppose the Communist Party and are influential.” “If the central authorities think that their rule is facing a crisis, they can capture them all in one night and bury them alive,” the security agent warned (Human Rights in China, January 18; Los Angeles Times, January 18). Is it true that just a few hundred from China’s academic and intellectual circles are challenging the CCP with their advocacy of ideas deemed dangerous and subversive by President Hu?

It is a well-accepted fact that after the Tiananmen Square crackdown—and the demise of icons such as former CCP general secretaries Hu Yaobang (1915-1989) and Zhao Ziyang (1919-2005)—the influence of reformist intellectuals has been on the wane. Yet it is significant that remnant liberals both in and out of the party have in the past several months staged a vigorous campaign to hold aloft the flickering flame of reform. A handful of organizations somehow tolerated by the authorities, such as the Hu Yaobang Historical Data Web, and two semi-official journals, the China Economic Structure Reform Monthly and the Economic Observer, have organized several “salons” to discuss new directions for political reform. . . .

The Jamestown Foundation: China’s Remnant Liberals Keep Flame of Liberalization Alive

Failed independent candidate Liu Ping (c) holds a banner proclaiming "fighting the fake begins with elections; one person, one vote will change China"

By Willy Lam, China Brief, Vol. 11, Iss. 17, Sept 16, 2011 — While much of the Middle East and North Africa has been swept by a “spring of democracy” since early this year, the Middle Kingdom is shrouded in deep winter. The latest manifestation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration’s determination to “nip all destabilizing forces in the bud” consists of draconian ways to prevent roughly one hundred public intellectuals from running for local-level parliamentary elections. This comes despite a host of articles in the official media pledging that citizens’ rights, including the right to participate in politics, will be fully honored. Moreover, there are signs that the roll-back of political reform will continue after the change of leadership at the 18th CCP Congress scheduled for October next year.

Since May, scores of academics, writers, bloggers, businessmen and NGO activists have announced their intention to run in elections for People’s Congresses (PC) at the level of counties and townships as well as municipal districts. Higher-level legislatures—such as those of big cities, provinces and the National People’s Congress [NPC]—are not open for direct elections. According to China’s Election Law, any citizen can become a candidate for PC elections as long as he or she has secured the nominations of ten citizens living in the relevant constituency. Big-name public intellectuals and community figures who wanted to become “independent candidates” for PCs included veteran labor activist Liu Ping from Jiangxi Province; Shanghai writer and businessman Xia Shang; Sichuan’s Net-based social critic Li Chengpeng, whose blog has 3 million subscribers; and Guangzhou-based NGO activist Liang Shuxin, who runs a respected educational foundation (The Economist, June 16; Ming Pao [Hong Kong] July 21).

None of these well-regarded intellectuals managed to become official candidates. This is despite the fact that all of them are considered moderate social critics, not political dissidents, like Liu Ping. She was disqualified from taking part in the recently held polls in the city of Xinyu, Jiangxi Province. Since she declared her desire to run in May, the activist was subjected to police harassment. Her flat was raided and she was briefly detained by public security officials. As a result of police intimidation, the majority of Xinyu residents who had nominated her for her candidature withdrew their support. Liu’s political platform—ensuring that all employers observe the Labor Law—can hardly be called radical or destabilizing (Caing.com [Beijing] May 21; China-review.com [Beijing] May 18).

Similar incidents have happened to other aspiring candidates. . . .

The Jamestown Foundation: Local Elections Open for All but the Independent Candidates

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promised that Hong Kong’s political system and way of life would remain unchanged for 50 years after 1997, when the handover of Hong Kong from the UK to China took place. However, in the past a few years, the political environment there has been worsening. One obvious sign is that the Hong Kong government often abuses police power to suppress peaceful demonstrations.

As a result, in a recent survey conducted by the University of Hong Kong public opinion center, HKU POP, public approval ratings for the Hong Kong police have fallen to their lowest level since 1997. On Aug. 18, Hong Kong police violently handled and illegally detained protesting students during a visit by Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) to the University of Hong Kong. The incident not only led to much increased tension between democracy activists and the police, but also drew wide criticism from lawyers, journalists and academics.

The police themselves were not to blame for the government’s misconduct.

As Wang Guangya (王光亞), director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs office of China’s State Council, said: Hong Kong civil servants “only know how to accept and execute instructions.”

High-ranking officials in Hong Kong’s government should be held responsible for the incident, but it is not very helpful to over-criticize them, because they were executing instructions too.

The real problem is that the territory still does not have universal suffrage. In the election for Hong Kong’s chief executive, which is to be held next year, the “functional constituency parties” will still be instructed by Beijing on who to vote for. The CCP will definitely manipulate the election and decide who will be the next chief executive.

Knowing this, it is easy to understand why Hong Kong Chief Secretary Henry Tang (唐英年), who is one of the CCP’s preferred candidates for the next chief executive, responded to the accusations of civil rights violations by calling them “completely rubbish,” Hong Kong Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee (李少光), who is seeking to take Tang’s position as chief secretary, followed Tang to denounce the media queries as “complete rubbish” and Commissioner of Police Andy Tsang (曾偉雄), who may be promoted to secretary for security, keeps adopting a hard line on demonstrations for human rights and democracy.

These Hong Kong officials are making the “rational choice” to obey and please those who give them political power. Accordingly, they need not care what protesters think while they take action to suppress them. One reason is Beijing does not like such demonstrations. Another reason is that lay citizens’ votes do not count in the election for the core leaders and thus do not affect their political careers.

On this point, government officials in Hong Kong are not too different from the CCP cadres, and the Hong Kong Police are becoming more like Chinese police while suppressing demonstrations, as a Hong Kong democracy activist commented.

It is the CCP’s strategy to delay universal suffrage for Hong Kong to strengthen its manipulation of the territory’s politics. The strategy is successful, as can be seen from the deteriorating democracy and human rights record in Hong Kong.

If the trend continues, “one country, two systems” is doomed to failure. Some people are rethinking Hong Kong’s political status. The rise of political movements promoting Hong Kong’s local values and British colonial culture, such as the Hong Kong City-State Autonomy Movement, gives a sign that “one country, two systems” is in doubt among Hong Kong’s people. “One country, two systems” is dying in Hong Kong. . . .

One country, two systems is dying in Hong Kong – Taipei Times

By Willy Lam, Asia Sentinel, June 29, 2011 –

Why the party could be its own worst enemy

As the Chinese Communist Party marks its 90th birthday on July 1 with fanfare and self-congratulatory rhetoric, it is also pulling out all the stops to defuse unprecedented challenges to the party’s supremacy.

Since a series of “color revolutions” swept the Middle East and North Africa earlier this year, state-security units have gone into overdrive, detaining hundreds of dissidents, public intellectuals, NGO activists and human rights lawyers.

While the leadership under President Hu Jintao seems convinced that “hostile anti-China forces” presumably led by the US are trying to subvert the country, the prime threat to the CCP’s proverbial “long reign and perennial stability” doesn’t come from any Western conspiracy. 

Given the central government’s wealth – it holds US$3 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves – an economic crisis precipitated by factors such as the bursting of the real-estate bubble is unlikely to derail the regime. And the party’s labyrinthine control apparatus is probably viable enough to prevent the estimated 180,000 cases of riots and disturbances a year from throwing the party out of power.

The party’s worst enemy is itself, or more preciously, its fast-declining ability to effectively manage the affairs of 1.4 billion people. Despite its bloated bureaucracy, Beijing has been unable to tackle age-old malaises ranging from contaminated foodstuffs and a deteriorating environment to endemic corruption. And it is the CCP’s worsening problem-solving capabilities that will likely prove its undoing. 

A few examples suffice to illustrate this conundrum. While Chinese consumers have for more than two decades been hit by fake food, liquor, medicines and other sub-standard and dangerous merchandises, the government should have taken the milk-powder scandal of 2008 as a wake-up call. . . .

Asia Sentinel – The Chinese Communist Party’s 90th Birthday

Jun 16th 2011 | BEIJING | from the print edition, The Economist

“A LIVE-FIRE exercise in democracy” is how one of China’s sparkier newspapers hailed a recent move by dozens of citizens to promote themselves online as independent candidates in forthcoming local elections. Communist Party officials, unnerved by Arab revolutions and sporadic unrest in the provinces, are far less jubilant. Voting rituals long choreographed by the party suddenly face a new challenge from the internet.

Elections at the lowest tier of China’s multi-layered parliamentary structure are the only ones in which citizens can directly vote for their legislators. But the party likes to leave nothing to chance. Citizens can, in theory, stand for election with support from ten fellow constituents. In practice, the party usually ensures that only its endorsed candidates make it to the shortlist. Ordinary Chinese often refer to the “people’s congresses”, as the legislatures are called, as mere ornamental “flower vases”.

So a flurry of internet-fuelled enthusiasm for such polls has attracted considerable attention, including in some state-owned media (to the disquiet of propaganda officials, say Chinese journalists). Li Fan of the World and China Institute in Beijing, thinks that more than 100 people have declared themselves as candidates in recent weeks for elections for people’s congresses that are due to be held around the country in the coming months. They have mustered support using microblogging tools such as Sina Weibo, a hugely popular Twitter-like service.

Even a hint of spontaneity in legislative elections can make the party squirm. . . .

China: Vote as I say | The Economist

Wang Shengjun

by Willy Lam, China Brief, Vol. 11, Iss. 11, June 17, 2011 —

Chinese Chief Justice Wang Shengjun’s advocacy of out-of-court mediation as a favored means of settling civil disputes and “enhancing social harmony” has raised concerns about the further deterioration of the country’s rule of law and judicial independence. At a recent seminar for senior judges, Wang, who has been president of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) since early 2008, praised tiaojie (“mediation and reconciliation”) as an “effective way to handle social conflicts and promote harmony.” He asked the judges to “aim for a synthesis of mediation and adjudication, with priority being given to mediation.” “Upholding the priority of mediation tallies fully with the original spirit behind China’s law-making,” he indicated. “It is also a development of legal-culture traditions such as ‘valuing harmony’ and ‘playing down litigation and ending conflict’” (Xinhua News Agency, May 30; Caing.com [Beijing], May 31).

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration’s push for mediation is understandable given the estimated 180,000 cases of riots, protests and disturbances that erupted in China last year (Bloomberg, June 13; Hk.msn.com, March 11). Since the spring, the country has been rocked by horrendous incidents including suicide bombings in several cities and prolonged confrontations between protestors and the People’s Armed Police in Inner Mongolia and Guangdong Province (See “Chinese Citizens Challenge the Party’s Authoritarian Tilt,” China Brief, June 3). The National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s legislature, passed the “Law on mediation of the People’s Republic of China” last August with the purpose of building multiple layers of institutions for pursuing “a harmonious society.” An NPC spokesman indicated at the time that “mediation and reconciliation is the first line of defense against contradictions in society” (Sina.com, August 28, 2010; China.com.cn, August 30, 2010).

While police, prosecutor’s offices, courts, as well as party and government departments are charged with implementing tiaojie, the courts have been at the forefront of promoting Chinese-style reconciliation. Since 2009, Chief Justice Wang has instructed regional and grassroots-level judges to play a key role in persuading parties to civil conflicts to settle out of court. In some provinces, at least half of civil cases handled by the courts have been resolved through mediation instead of adjudication. Wang pointed out in last March’s SPC Report to the NPC that 65.29 percent of civil and business-related cases heard last year by courts of various levels were dropped in favor of mediation. This was 3.31 percent more than the comparable figure in 2009 (Xinhua News Agency, March 19; People’s Daily, March 20, Wall Street Journal, May 31). Indeed, Chief Justice Wang noted as early as 2009 that Chinese courts had the prime mission of “upholding [economic] growth, upholding people’s livelihood, and upholding [socio-political] stability.” “Judges are social workers as much as legal workers,” Wang asserted. “While judges should know how to use the law to handle cases, they should be even more conversant with ways and means of defusing social contradiction” (New Beijing Post [Beijing], March 12, 2009; Chinalawinfo.com [Beijing], March 12, 2009).

The substitution of the due process of law by mediation, however, has been criticized by experts as eroding the rule of law, and depriving citizens of their constitutional rights of being protected by legal and judicial institutions. . . .

The Jamestown Foundation: CCP Tightens Control over Courts

Premier Wen Jiabao.

On the surface, trends in recent months would suggest that the conservative and reformist wings of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are locked in a ferocious struggle over seminal issues such as political liberalization and the treatment of dissidents. On the one hand, public and state security units have, since the outbreak of “color revolutions” in the Middle East and North Africa, launched the most severe crackdown on “destabilizing forces” in recent memory. A few members of the CCP Politburo have also called for the resuscitation of values heralded by late chairman Mao Zedong. On the other hand, pleas for political reform and tolerance for individual expression have continued to be made by supposed reformers including Premier Wen Jiabao. Yet, Beijing appears to be undergoing a major shift toward conservative and even quasi-Maoist norms, which begs the question: are there still checks and balances among the party’s disparate camarillas? This is despite the fact that while the 90-year-old party has always claimed that there are no “mountain strongholds”—meaning cliques and power blocs—within its leadership, factions pushing different ideologies and policies have existed since Mao’s days.

Before answering this question, it is instructive to examine the unprecedentedly iron-fisted repression of dissent. Since the spring, CCP authorities have attempted to impose near-total control over all aspects of the nation’s political, ideological and cultural life. In addition to globally known activists such as artist Ai Weiwei, scores of weiquan (“protect civil rights”) lawyers, dissidents and NGO organizers have been detained since early this year (Reuters, May 14; AFP, May 14). A dozen odd editors and reporters in relatively liberal media such as the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolitan News have been reprimanded for appearing to show sympathy for Ai, as well as detained Nobel Peace Prizewinner Liu Xiaobo (Ming Pao [Hong Kong], May 13; CPJ.org, May 13). Police action against a broad array of underground churches has also intensified. Last Sunday, Beijing’s public-security officers clamped down on worshippers at the Shouwang Church—who were trying to hold an open-air gathering in the capital’s southwest corner—for the sixth Sunday in a row. Hundreds of believers were briefly detained. Arrests of leaders of “house” churches in the provinces have also increased (South China Morning Post, May 16; BBC News, May 12). . . .

The Jamestown Foundation: The Death of Factions within the Chinese Communist Party?

Su Shilin.

The appointment earlier this month of Su Shulin, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary and general manager of Sinopec, as acting governor of Fujian Province highlighted the growing clout of the Energy Faction in Chinese politics. Senior executives of the Big Three yangqi (or centrally-controlled firms) in the oil-and-gas sector—Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC)—have frequently been named to top-level provincial positions throughout the past decade. Jiang Jiemin, 55, general manager and party boss of CNPC, deemed the “big brother” among the three monopolies, is about to be made governor of Yunnan Province (Reuters, April 8, Chinareviewnews.com, April 9; China Business Times [Beijing], April 12).  

Su and Jiang, who are both alternate members of the CCP’s ruling Central Committee, had in earlier parts of their careers already served in important provincial slots. Su, 49, was a member of the CCP Committee of Liaoning Province from 2006 to 2007. He is a ranking member of China’s Sixth-Generation cadre corps—a reference to up-and-coming officials born in the 1960s. Jiang, 55, who started his career as an oilfield technician in 1972, was vice-governor of Qinghai Province from 2000 to 2004 (Chinavitae.com, April 8; South China Morning Post, April 10). Other top-level officials who earned their first spurs in the petroleum sector include Party Secretary of Hainan Province Wei Liucheng, who is a full member of the CCP Central Committee. Wei, 64, was CEO of CNOOC before being appointed deputy party secretary of Hainan in 2003. Equally significant is the fact that two Politburo members began their careers in the oil-and-gas sector. They are Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of law and order Zhou Yongkang, and Politburo member and Party boss of Tianjin, Zhang Gaoli (Bloomberg.com, April 8; Financial Times, March 3).

The power of the so-called Energy Faction has also been boosted by the increasing prominence of a host of electricity-related yangqi, most of which also run China’s fast-burgeoning nuclear plants. . . .

>>Read the full Article here.

I like this one because it ties in a lot of stuff that makes me sound clever.  It’s also possible, in theory.

To begin. The Peoples Republic of China will become the richest, most powerful country on the planet, this is a fact. It’s a fact like no other and will change everything.   Chinese will one day come to challenge English as the lingua franka.  Their culture will enter ours in Europe and America in ways which we have never experienced.  Never experienced because the melting together of western cultures that has been our transnational (western) experience for the past few 100 years, and certainly in living memory, has been a far more protracted, subtle and altogether familiar affair.  The import of cultural ideas, food, aesthetics and so on from further afield has until now been a fairly genteel process, done for the most part on our (the West’s) terms.   But what happens when people start wanting to be like the Chinese?  I’m talking about your sons and daughters.  Eat, dress, talk, sing and dance, think like them.  How about that?

In my opinion it’s this thought that’s terrified the elites in the West for the past 30 or 40 years.  Recently this fear, since perhaps the last oil spike ($160 per barrel?), has got out of control.  ‘The time is upon us…’, they are thinking.  The yellow peril is no longer going to be a peril.  Yellow is gonna be a way of life.

In reaction to this fear, certain courses of action have been devised that would, it’s hoped, place the West in a more, shall we say, dynamic position.

So what were, or indeed are, these courses of action?  Well, war is out of the question.  Or is it?  More on that in a moment.  Traditional economic bullying is a non-starter.  Why choose the strongest weapon in your enemies armor?  Industrial espionage – too risky when so many of ones own interests are in the same field of operations.  In fact, all the hands-on stuff is out of the question.  Propaganda?  Well, we are in the middle of that right now; the Google spat is very revealing in this respect.  The only other arms length, directed form off attack could possibly be cyber warfare…  But that could backfire.  So back to good old fashioned warfare, and back, in fact, to the credit crunch.

The credit crunch, or more simply put, a massive global downturn, is a weapon.  Think about this for a moment.  Anything you can pick up and throw is a weapon, even if that’s your most expensive tool.  The question we should be asking is, what would a massive downturn in China produce?  Who knows?  But it can only be good news for the West in terms of global military and indeed economic strategy.  Don’t believe those who say China is going to make America more wealthy; wealth is relative, as is power.  And if you go from 1st to 2nd place, you are less wealthy.  Simple.

So how do we pick up and throw a massive downturn.  Well, as this is going to be a global option it is also going to be, metaphorically speaking, the nuclear option.  It is going to hurt you and it is going to hurt some of your friends – maybe mortally (sorry Iceland, Greece et al.).  How do you manufacture and deploy, with some degree of accuracy, a financial melt down?  Not as difficult as you may think.  You could start by pumping the ecomomy full of cheap money – easy credit.  Which is exactly what the Bush II administration did, causing a massive consumer bubble.  By consumer I am refering to household – i.e. houses.

Conspiracy point no.1.  Nobody can convincingly say that the various central banks did not realise what was going on in sub prime.  They knew.

And they knew what the results would be.

The rest is a well known story.  The credit market freezes; economies are stopped dead; international trade, and this is key, grinds to a halt.

Who loses?  Well everyone.  But really, who loses, or should I say, who has the most to lose?  The answer is China.  The answer is the Han controlled Chinese Communist Party.  They have a lot to lose.  There are 1.3bn souls and a lot of real estate out west.  Translate that to economic terms.

Who is weak?  Why and how are they weak?  The western elites? Not at all. Open market democracy is firm and growing firm across the world.  It’s wealthy, intelligent, connected, committed and for the most part, willing.  So who else?  The Russians?  Yes.  They are still poor on a per capita basis but this isn’t the point.  They had plenty of money from high oil prices, but the credit crunch saw to that.  They soon changed their tune when prices went down to $40 pb.  The Chinese? Yes.  But not because of oil.  They don’t have any.

The Chinese are weak, as we all know, as they keep telling us themselves, because they are 1.3bn.  ONE POINT THREE BILLION PEOPLE. If you live in the west, in Europe or America, you can’t imagine this.  You children may come to understand what this means one day but for now, you are only just beginning to get a vague idea.

A major downturn could cause unrest, possibly insurgency and possibly, quite possibly, some form of uprising, which would then spiral out of control, with a little help.  This is the hope of the Anglican, blue blooded American elite.  There are so many ways for them to benefit from this scenario.  Most importantly, in relative terms, it would make them more wealthy.

But what if it doesn’t work?  Well, it hasn’t so far. But there are a couple of interesting fall back positions that are worth mentioning.  Firstly, there’s the biggest stimulus spending operation ever know going ahead in the PRC.  At the very least this will focus the capitalist intuition.  Domestic consumer spending there is part of this equation.  Secondly there are interest rates.  Maintaining a 10% growth rate draws attention, a lot of attention.  Inflows of capital and the concurrent cheap money have caused another bubble that could explode if not well managed.  As such, the revaluation of the Yuan is imminent, and not a moment too soon for the rest of the capitalised world.

That’s it.  That’s the theory.  The main objective didn’t work, hasn’t worked but it has brought us all closer together and there were some fantastic spin offs with the Russians, who have never been so forthcoming as far as I can remember.

If you are interested in this murky world of currency manipulation or currency wars then you could read Currency Wars, written by Song Hongbin.   However, if you think this blog’s load of cr@p then go here, ..

Sergey Brin, Google boss, naturally freaks and decides to blow the whistle which he backs up with an ultimatum. The central CCP denies everything.  The point here is that for the centrists and the ‘lefties’ in the CCP, it’s perfectly clear who the culprits are, it is themselves… I mean it is the other CCP, the ones I mentioned before, with the jack boots poking out from the bottom of their suits.

This division could be seen as just one episode in a series of  events that have been plaguing the Party top brass since early last year when the effects of the economic crises were being felt in China.

The centrists and leftists in CCP  tried to play down the whole issue but the dye is cast.  Hillary wades in, Barack stays clear.

I am sure that within the party there is frustration with the hard-liners for this attack.  It will only make domestic and international public relations worse, something that the CCP is very sensitive to as it’s ongoing position on and view of its own population is one of ‘don’t get them wound up; keep them pacified whilst we grow, grow, grow..’.

In short, it’s apparent that the whole episode has backfired on the hard-liners.  The international liberal movement can justifiably celebrate a victory in the form of an Ultras own goal.

Unfortunately the celebrations are somewhat dampened by you know who:

This could’ve, should’ve been the perfect opportunity for US president to softly chide the CCP, even on a personal level.  His noble restraint and understanding tone would have had many times the force of Clinton’s yapping.  If only the Administration knew the Chinese Zeitgeist a little better.  But the Americans are, and always have been, the kind of essentialists that Edward Said famously describes.  How do they expect to lead by example?

Inspired by ‘wiki-wiki’ a Hawaiian idiom for quick-quick, programmer Ward Cunningham coins ‘wiki’ as a website that allows collaborative editing of its content and structure from its users. Connect this with ‘pedia,’ an abridged version of ‘encyclopaedia,’ and you get ‘wikipedia.’  Launched viral in 2001, Wikipedia can be seen as the radical step to sharing information. With almost eight years since its inception, it has become the key to unlocking knowledge in otherwise unknown disciplines. Its widespread success as a user-generated website stems from three major advantages. The first in accessibility, with no membership to browse and its entries are written in over 200 languages. Second, is the user’s ability to publish and update entries as new information and stories becomes available. The last point and probably the most controversial is how easy collective groups can write entries, and are only fast checked by Wikipedia editors and the global community.

For Wikipedia, the solution lies in a service that filters the influx of information and data, whilst also efficiently cataloguing it to provide knowledge and wisdom to all. This may remind you of the term Gatekeeping, which is a system that controls access or operations to files, computers, networks, or the like. Whilst New Media technologies are seen as challenging the role of gatekeeping, this may ‘prove to be an utopian assumption’ (Hartley 2002, 95). This is because of how the search engine has been programmed. Although not bound by personal ideologies, they remain a product of structural and organisational procedures of the service provider. In this context, the service provider is the Gatekeeper. For Wikipedia this is the user, which idealises produsage concept. And there is some economic value in gatekeeping: ‘people want information checked, evaluated and edited for them by professionals’ (Hartley 2002, 95).

Even though ‘many of the most popular websites are those that edit, organise and manage information on behalf of the consumer,’ this may result in bias, which is a serious flaw in the gatekeeping service (Hartley 2002, 95). An example of this is the ‘Great Firewall of China,’ which highlights an extreme use of this service. The omnipotent Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has developed elaborate filtering mechanisms to restrict access to forms of overseas content, remove objectionable or subversive material that provoke its regime (Flew 2002, 186). Reminds you of Nineteen Eighty-four, does it not? Such stringent restrictions have become an instrument of state propaganda for the CCP, Singapore and perhaps even the Australian Government. With proposed plans for a nation-wide Internet safety agency, NetAlert will manage ‘content that families may find offensive and/or inappropriate, especially for children’ (NetAlert 2009). I am not saying this is a terrible thing, because we do need some sort of gatekeeper for our children’s innocent minds. I just hope we do not evolve into China Down under.
For the above solution, I think we should look at what I call the new Wikipedia, the Wolfram Alpha. Much like Wikipedia, this computational knowledge engine will ‘collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything… [by using] expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels’ (Wolfram Alpha 2009). Sounds like something invented by Doc Brown from Back to Future, but its arrived early. Adapted to work on any web connectivity, a modern web browser, and all browsers this new online resource only uses systematic primary sources to answer your questions. I had many questions, so I asked it:

Wolfram Alpha

Looks like I need to refine my questions down, because with ‘10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains’ (Wolfram Alpha 2009) it can’t be Wolfram’s fault.

Referencing:

Crovitz, D. and S. Smoot 2009. Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe. English Journal, 98 (3), 91-97.

Flew, T. 2005. New Media. Singapore: Oxford University Press.

Hartley, J. 2002. Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. New York: Routledge.

NetAlert: Frequently Asked Questions. 2009. http://www.netalert.gov.au/filters/ faqs.html (accessed 20 May, 2009).

Wolfram Alpha 2009. FAQs. http://www.wolframalpha.com/faqs.html (accessed 20 May, 2009).