September 9:
Indian officials led by MK Narayanan, New Delhi’s National Security Advisor, have voiced their displeasure with China's resistance to India's nuclear deal at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting in Vienna. Although the agreement was eventually approved, and the Chinese leadership eventually declared its support, China’s delegation threatened to walk out of the NSG proceedings, the Indian Express reports. Mr. Narayanan is India's special envoy involved in border talks with Chinese officials, making it likely that India's unhappiness will spill over to the bilateral border talks. “I am surprised by these reports. Facts speak louder than words. China has always worked responsibly towards consensus both in the International Atomic Energy Agency and the NSG,” Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in comments carried by The Hindu.
September 10:
While on an inspection tour of two Taiwan military bases - Tahan radar station and the Dongsha Islands - President Ma Ying-jeou told officers and enlisted men posted at the remote mountaintop radar base that "Cross-strait peace talks could be tantamount to capitulation [to China] if we [Taiwan] lacked sufficient defense capabilities." President Ma continued, "If we fail to beef up our defense arsenal and hone our combat capabilities, we would not have enough chips on the table in our negotiations with Beijing." Ma added that Taiwan’s government “will allocate budgets to finance military buildup projects and procure advanced weapon systems to maintain national security,” Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reports.
September 11:
In the wake of the Olympics there has been a surge in the number of protests in China. In Beijing, hundreds of emboldened residents protested against a waste-disposal plant that was smothering their homes in a foul stench and held up trucks heading to the facility. In Jishou, Hunan, thousands of people protested about a property company that had cheated them. They blocked roads and a train station and clashed with police on September 3rd and 4th. In some cases officials have taken action. In Yunan province, for instance, two senior officials were sacked and two others reprimanded after a riot in July involving rubber farmers. The government has also admitted for the first time that shoddy construction was partly to blame for the collapse of schools during the Sichuan earthquake in May that killed at least 69,000 people, including thousands of schoolchildren, The Economist reports.
[Editor’s Note: Liaowang, an online magazine published by the official Xinhua news agency, reported this week that more than 90,000 “mass incidents” took place in 2006, up from 87,000 the previous year. The numbers, it said, had kept on rising, reflecting a rise of resentment at the grassroots level that “should not be underestimated.”]
September 12:
In two fiery speeches at a Xinjiang cadres meeting on September 10th, Nuer Baikeli, chairman of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Regional Government, and Wang Lequan, member of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) Central Committee Political Bureau and secretary of the CPC Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Regional Committee, have condemned Rebiya Kadeer, leader of the World Uighur Congress, and vowed to crack down on all Uighur independence forces. Mr. Baikeli accused Ms. Kadeer of “carrying out reactionary propaganda and deceptive agitation” with the help of “the anti-China forces in the West,” the Ta Kung Pao reports. For his part, Mr. Wang was unequivocal in his hard line stance against Uighur separatists. He called for “a high-pressure crackdown” designed to “beat them down whenever they raise their heads.” However, Wang, in what appeared to be an acknowledgement that Beijing could do more to provide equal opportunities to Uighurs, also called for “more minority cadres [to] assume important posts” and “intensified efforts to train minority cadres and promote them,” in comments carried by the Zhongguo Xinwen She.