Chinese Kaleidoscope

CHINA CELEBRATES NATIONAL DAY

The celebrations came just weeks before a key Party Congress expected to announce big changes in the country’s leadership. President Jiang Zemin is expected to retire as Party leader and begin the transfer of power to Vice-President Hu Jintao. China Daily reported, “We have proceeded so far down the road of reform and opening up that no one can reverse the trend. Everybody believes that.” BBC News, 1 October 2002

WEALTH GAP LOOMS AS THE GREATEST THREAT

Even model workers have been laid off all over China, the Workers Daily reported indignantly in August. A survey of the jobless in Hangzhou found 177,000 registered unemployed with an average age of 38, average work experience of 17 years and education up to two years at middle-school. About 80% had lost their jobs since 2000 because of restructuring of firms. A quarter had no savings while 38% were using savings to survive. The number of such urban poor ranges from 19.3 million (according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs) to 31 million according to estimates by scholars. All are supposed to receive a basic minimum income each month from the State but many do not, either because city governments are too poor, or because officials steal the money. The urban poor are the biggest potential source of rebellion. SCMP, 3 October 2002

FAKE “GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS” IN CHINA!

Hundreds of Chinese have been risking their lives over the past five years thinking their reward would be a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. One man bungee-jumped from a helicopter. Another spent 25 days perched on a steel wire suspended across a gorge and a third swam across an Antarctic bay. But none of these death-defying acts will be recognized as a record. A company in Shanghai that claimed to be the representative of the Guinness World Records has been exposed as a fraud that charged hundreds of pounds to “witness” each of these record-breaking attempts. The sham was exposed by a Beijing businessman who himself attempted to set a record for the first bungee jump from a moving aircraft. The bogus company published its own version of Guinness World Records and attracted enormous publicity throughout China with front-page newspaper coverage. Sunday Telegraph, 29 September 2002

CHINA EXECUTES GANG LEADER

China has executed the ringleader of a gang that abducted and sold more than 200 women. A farmer from impoverished Guangxi province persuaded the women to leave their homes in the remote highlands by promising to find them jobs in the city. He was executed by lethal injection after a court rejected his appeal. Daily Telegraph, 27 Sept 2002

THE “ME” GENERATION

Few of the young people I met while making Young in China were prepared to spend time worrying about social justice, the environment, HIV/AIDS, political legitimacy or any other pressing issues. Possibly because they’ve been discouraged from thinking independently, possibly because of the sudden allure of consumerism, political consciousness simply doesn’t exist for them. The idealism which drove their parents’ generation to roam the countryside as Red Guards chanting Maoist slogans is treated with a mixture of distrust and contempt. In their eyes, political idealism is both self-indulgent and irresponsible. Instead, many call themselves Buddhist. They talk of teaching their spirits to flow like water, of learning to fill whatever space they are poured into. They talk about “quietism,” learning to accept the tumultuous changes in the world around them, of contributing to the sum of human happiness by smiling at their neighbors. The only inclusive politics now is that of national identity, and this the “me” generation embraces with enthusiasm. From farmers to authors, journalists to detectives, they all tell me of their pride to be Chinese and count off the achievements of the past year. China reaching the World Cup finals, entering the World Trade Organization and winning the campaign to host the Olympics in 2008. All told, these twenty-somethings are an extraordinary generation, exhilarating in their optimism, their openness and their determination to be happy, frightening in their impatience with the past and its victims. BBC On Air magazine, Nov 02

Editor’s Note: The above article has important implications for the evangelism of the modern generation of China’s young people.

TALKS ON TIBET

The first formal talks for more than two decades between representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese-appointed government of Tibet have taken place in Lhasa. The Chairman of China’s Tibetan Autonomous Region said he had met the Dalai Lama’s envoys to America and Europe while they were in Lhasa to meet family members and pray at its sacred sites. In a hint that the talks carried greater significance, he said that negotiations on the future of Tibet would only be held with personal representatives of the 67-year-old Dalai Lama. “They must be conducted between us and his representatives, not the government-in-exile. That is an illegal organization not recognized by any government.” Daily Telegraph, 17 September 2002

JAPAN USED GERM WARFARE IN CHINA

A Tokyo court acknowledged for the first time that the Japanese army waged germ warfare in China during and before the Second World War. The judge accepted as “reasonable” the detailed testimony on the crimes of Unit 731 near Harbin. Some 3,000 Chinese were killed in experiments to develop cholera, bubonic plague and anthrax as weapons of war. Huge numbers of Chinese civilians were killed when Japanese aircraft dropped fleas inflected with plague on Zhejiang and Hunan provinces. However, the Tokyo court rejected claims for compensation from 180 Chinese plaintiffs who had relatives killed. Daily Telegraph 28 Aug 02

CULT CHARGES DROPPED

The Hubei Province Supreme Court declared in early October that four of the leaders of the South China Church house-church network were innocent. They were released, but immediately re-arrested by local police and reportedly sent away for three years “re-education through labor.” The four women were planning to start a law-suit against the police and guards who had allegedly tortured them while in prison. The founder, Pastor Gong Shengliang, and two others who had been facing execution were sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Li, the second-in-command and publisher of an underground church magazine, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, along with one other. He also had been given a death sentence in the original trial. During the retrial, the court dropped all “evil cult” charges against the house-church leaders. One judge told Pastor Gong’s family privately that he should be released. All faced harsh treatment in prison. The court reportedly ruled that prisoners are forbidden to have Bibles, and copies sent by their families had been confiscated. They have been forbidden to pray out loud in their cells. Some have been severely beaten. But they will now be allowed visits from family members. The retrial came as President Jiang Zemin prepared to visit President Bush. Asian Harvest quoting VOM, 11, 14 & 15 October 2002

CHINA WILL “BEAT U.S.” IN MANNED MARS MISSION

Despite the cost estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars and immense technical difficulties, China boasts that it will beat the U.S. with a manned mission to Mars. Before the end of the year, China plans to be the third nation to put an astronaut in space with its own rockets. These preparations have been intensified as scientists rush to complete the program ahead of a 2005 deadline for placing astronauts on an orbiting space station. The program for reaching Mars is slightly vaguer, although 2010 is often mentioned as a target date. Sunday Telegraph 18 August 2002