tagged: china
China's Hu urges navy to prepare for combat
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday urged the navy to prepare for military combat, amid growing regional tensions over maritime disputes and a US campaign to assert itself as a Pacific power.
China village protest: Wukan residents plan march
Residents in the southern Chinese fishing village of Wukan say they are determined to march to the city in an ongoing dispute over land grabs.
Violent protests erupted earlier this month when their negotiator, Xue Jinbo, died in police custody.
A villager told the BBC that police have surrounded the village’s waterfront and food supply is limited.
Meanwhile the local Communist Party head has lashed out at the villagers for talking to foreign reporters.
There have been simmering protests over land seizures in the village, in Guangdong province, since late September.
Residents say officials have sold off their land to developers and failed to compensate them properly. They also believe Mr Xue was killed by police - who say he died of a “sudden illness”.
They say they plan to petition the Lufeng city government on Wednesday to demand a solution to the problem. [read more]
From the archives: Using Language to Evade Online Censorship in China
Officially, Chinese law prohibits media content that could “endanger the country by sharing state secrets. In practice, this includes everything from dissident sites and news servers such as CNN and the BBC, to sexually explicit content and even health sites. As a result, netizens and the Chinese government engage in a game of cat and mouse, where each constantly maneuvers to outsmart the other. Controversial websites are routinely blocked, search results are filtered, and online forums are peppered with posts from the government employed propagandists. But infamous government censors notwithstanding, China maintains a robust online culture - bloggers, activists, and ordinary internet users find unexpected and inventive ways to get their voices heard. That doesn’t mean they are talking politics - most aren’t - but those that do have, thus far at least, continued to identify new and innovative ways to keep the conversation going despite censorship.
tagged: china
China issues ultimatum to bloggers and blog commenters
The Chinese capital recently ordered users of weibos — popular microblogs similar to Twitter — to register using their real names, making it easier for authorities to track them if they post sensitive material.
The move comes as nervous authorities tighten their grip on the Internet amid fears it could help fuel unrest as China prepares to undergo a once-in-a-decade leadership transition this year.
An official at the Beijing government surnamed Tian told AFP that from March 16, those who failed to register with their real names would no longer be able to post or repost comments, but refused to provide more details.
According to the official Xinhua news agency, users who do not comply will not be kicked off microblogs altogether as they will still be able to read other people’s postings.
Beijing was the first city to introduce real-name registration rules to curb the spread of “rumours and vulgarities”, and since then, other cities such as Shanghai, and the south’s Guangzhou and Shenzhen, have followed suit.
With more than half a billion Chinese now online, authorities are concerned about the power and influence of the Internet to spark unrest in a country that maintains tight controls on traditional media.
The government already censors the web in a system dubbed the “Great Firewall of China”.
But despite the controls, people are still using weibos to vent their anger and frustration over official corruption, scandals and disasters by re-posting information and images as fast as the authorities can take them down.
Residents in the southern province of Guangdong protesting against land seizures and a power plant in December posted photos and reports on weibos, defying official efforts to block news of the incidents.
At least one of the protests ended with an apparent victory for local residents.
![Hundreds of Tibetans gathered in China’s southwest to hold a vigil for a young Buddhist monk who set himself on fire, a rights group said, in the latest self-immolation to hit the country.
The 18-year-old monk, identified as Nangdrol, set himself alight Sunday in Sichuan province’s Rangtang county, where one Tibetan was reportedly shot dead by security forces last month, the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said on Monday. [read more]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzq1a8ieHg1r6u68ho1_500.jpg)
Hundreds of Tibetans gathered in China’s southwest to hold a vigil for a young Buddhist monk who set himself on fire, a rights group said, in the latest self-immolation to hit the country.
The 18-year-old monk, identified as Nangdrol, set himself alight Sunday in Sichuan province’s Rangtang county, where one Tibetan was reportedly shot dead by security forces last month, the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said on Monday. [read more]
tagged: china
Isn't that nice? China to end organ donations from executed prisoners
China has pledged to end the practice of taking organs from executed prisoners within the next five years, state media report.
