September 5:
The government of Vietnam has filed two formal protests in response to the posting of so-called "invasion plans" on mainland websites that detail China’s complete military occupation of the country. While unsourced and apparently unofficial, the plans evision a 31-day invasion, including five days of missile strikes from land, sea and air, electronic jamming of Vietnamese command and communications centers, a blockade in the South China Sea, and climaxing with an invasion involving 310,000 troops sweeping into Vietnam from Yunnan, Guangxi and the South China Sea. "Vietnam is a major threat to the safety of Chinese territories, and the biggest obstacle to the peaceful emergence of China. Vietnam has to be conquered first if Southeast Asia is to be under China’s control again,” plans posted on Sina.com and at least three other websites said according to the South China Morning Post. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing responded that "different voices" on the internet represented individual acts "by only a handful of people, which by no means represented China's stance.”
September 8:
China’s Supreme People's Court has upheld a verdict by the Nanjing Military Region's military court which sentenced Dai Yibiao, a 33-year-old People's Liberation Army [PLA] first lieutenant and platoon leader, to death for spying for Taiwan. Dai was convicted and executed soon after on September 5th as authorities concluded that he had provided scores of confidential military electronic files to the self-governing island’s spy agency. In April 2006, Dai made contact with a Taiwan spy agency, the Beijing leaning Ta Kung Pao reports, and on November 25, 2006 he sent 116 confidential military electronic files from an Internet cafe located in Wuxi, Jiangsu. Nine of the sent files were top secret, 35 secret, and 55 confidential and Dai was paid 82,160 RMB in return. Although Dai refused to accept the verdict and filed an appeal, it was rejected and the court upheld the original judgment.
September 9:
Beijing’s increasingly technology-savvy propaganda machine has launched an official fan site dedicated to the president and premier in an effort to seize on the leaders' rising popularity among the country's patriotic youth. The official People's Daily website, "FANS Circle," had attracted 105,000 registered fans and generated more than 2 million hits since it was opened on September 4, the South China Morning Post reports. Fans have affectionately dubbed Communist party General Secretary Hu Jintao "Elder Brother Tao" and Premier Wen Jiabao as "Little Bao." In May, a page for Wen appeared on the social networking site Facebook and by the time it was removed in early June the Premier had become one of the top 10 most popular politicians on the site.
September 11:
Each year on the anniversary of the death of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong his relatives and followers visit his mausoleum in Beijing to pay their respects and present flowers. This year, however, on the 32nd anniversary of the Chairman’s death, authorities stationed a police car in front of the mausoleum “to prevent any incidents from happening,” the Ming Pao reports. The decision comes after the recent death of Mao’s successor and ardent supporter, CPC Chairman Hua Guofeng, who had paid his respects at the mausoleum each year on the anniversary leader’s death. "Remembering Mao Zedong" fervor has quietly taken hold among China’s disenchanted and many Communist Party leftists are also openly criticizing the inequalities that have resulted from China’s thirty years of economic reform. In one such comment made in late August Zhang Chunxian, Party Chief in Mao’s home province of Hunan said, “power should be returned to the people,” The Economist reports.