News From Other Sites
Dear President of China
Police in Tiananmen Square. A duel between China and Western media seems to be coming to a head/Reuters Photo [The New York Times] By Thomas L. Friedman MEMO to: China’s President Xi Jinping. From: A Friend of Your Country. Dear President Xi, in recent years there’s been a tug of read more →
Japan pledges $20bn to ASEAN in bid to dilute China’s influence in the region
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a news conference after his Cabinet approved a massive stimulus package. Photo: EPA [AFP/The Telegraph] Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe offers aid and loans over five years to Southeast Asian bloc against the backdrop of an ongoing territorial dispute with Beijing Japan pledged read more →
Tibet’s Tense New Reality
Chinese soldiers on patrol in Lhasa, capital of China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. (Anastasia Corell) By Anastasia Corell [The Atlantic] Checkpoints with fire extinguishers, pincer-wielding police officers, and spies disguised as monks—welcome to daily life in Lhasa. From nearly any point in Lhasa, capital of China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, read more →
BBC Report: Tibetans displaced within region ‘amid rampant mining’
Campaigners and researchers say that mining operations have gathered apace in recent years By Navin Singh Khadka Environment reporter, BBC News A record number of Tibetans have been displaced in their own homeland amid rampant mining and river damming in vacated areas, according to reports. Tibetan leaders and researchers claim read more →
Chinese authorities increase pressure on foreign correspondents
[FCCC] International journalists working in China complain that the Beijing authorities are making life difficult for them, sometimes making it impossible for them to do their work. Visas are being delayed or denied. Reporters are finding it increasingly difficult to conduct interviews because people who speak to them suffer from police read more →
US calls on China to release Liu Xiaobo
Liu Xia, pictured in 2012, has been under virtual house arrest since 2010. Her husband Liu Xiaobo was jailed in 2009. Photograph: Ng Han Guan/AP By Tania Branigan [The Guardian] Secretary of state John Kerry says Nobel prize winner should be freed and his wife released from house arrest The read more →
THE MEANING OF CHINA’S CRACKDOWN ON THE FOREIGN PRESS
By Evan Osnos [The New Yorker] The Chinese government is threatening to expel nearly two dozen foreign correspondents, working for the Times and Bloomberg News, in retaliation for investigations that exposed the private wealth of Chinese leaders. It is the Chinese government’s most dramatic attempt to insulate itself from scrutiny in the thirty-five years since China read more →
Biden decries China squeeze on US media
By Anthony Zurcher [BBC] China is putting the squeeze on the New York Times and Bloomberg News, and it could have severe consequences for press freedom. The nation has blocked internet access to the two organisations’ websites, denied access to key events, such as the recent meeting between British Prime read more →
Ngaba area completely cut off from Internet access
Behind China’s Cyber Curtain: Visiting the country’s far reaches, where the government shut down the Internet BY CHRISTOPHER BEAM The New Republic December 5, 2013 On the bus ride from Chengdu, the teeming capital of Sichuan Province, to Aba County in northern Sichuan, my cell phone signal flickered in and read more →
Human Rights Watch: Bishop must pressure the Chinese on human rights
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon listens as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop speaks during a Security Council meeting/AP file photo [Human Rights Watch] If Australia wants a healthy trade relationship it needs to go beyond ‘quiet diplomacy’. When Julie Bishop visits China for the first time as Australia’s Foreign Minister, will read more →
Dalai Lama sorry he missed meeting Mandela in 2011
By Vishal Gulati Dharamsala, Dec 6 (IANS) Two years ago, Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama called off a trip to South Africa as it was “inconvenient” for that country’s government to grant him a visa and missed a chance to meet Nelson Mandela again. After cancelling his trip in October read more →
No one can feel secure in China: Top US official
(Times of India/PTI | Dec 5, 2013) WASHINGTON: A top Obama administration official has said that no one can feel secure in China as the country impose strict restrictions on the fundamental rights of its people. “The Chinese people are facing increasing restrictions, on their freedoms of expression, assembly and read more →
Hack Tibet: Welcome to Dharamsala, ground zero in China’s cyberwar
By Jonathan Kaiman [Foreign Policy] DHARAMSALA, India — Lobsang Gyatso Sither sits at the front of a Tibetan school auditorium, the bright rectangle of his PowerPoint presentation dimly illuminating the first few rows of students before him. “Never open attachments unless you are expecting them,” Sither says. The students nod. read more →
Chinese Functionary Rules Out Tibet Autonomy, Criticizes ‘Divisive Nature’ of Dalai Lama ‘Clique’
[Zurich Neue Zuercher Zeitung (Electronic Edition) in German 04 Nov 13] [Article by Beat U. Wieser on interview with Zhu Weiqun, chairman of the Subcommittee of Ethnic and Religious Affairs of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, at Bern’s Bellevue Palace Hotel] Talking with Chinese functionaries is often like banging your head read more →
China needs to change view of Tibet
By Abanti Bhattacharya [Asia Times Online] The source of the problem in India-China relations is not Tibet. The problem is rooted essentially in how China perceives Tibet. China’s flawed perception on Tibet both colors and distorts its relationship with India. For India, the intractable border dispute is the primary issue read more →