August 9:
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its subordinate domestic force, the People’s Armed Police (PAP), have launched an extensive ten-year plan to “reform and merge military academies to meet the needs of military informationization.” The Beijing-controlled Ta Kung Pao reports that “China’s military academies lack of inter-disciplinary military command talent, high-caliber IT talent and professionalism” prompted the reforms. The Air Force Radar Academy will become the Air Force Early Warning Academy; the Communication and Command Institute will become the National Defense Information Academy; and the Artillery Academy is to become the Ground Force Officer Academy. The 27 PAPs academies will be consolidated into 14; four for academic education and ten specializing in professional education. The four academic institutions will be the Engineering University of the PAP, Police Academy, Logistics College, and SWAT College of the PAP. The ten professional academies will become regional police training bases to develop “large numbers of high-quality military talent.”
August 14:
More than seven city management personnel (cheng guan) were detained after they injured a female bicyclist and sparked a riot in Guiyang, Guizhou. During the violence 10 vehicles were smashed, five were set on fire and more than 10 police officers and security staff were injured, the official China Daily reports.
[Editor’s Note: The cheng guan are infamous throughout China for their abuse of power and willingness to use force against local merchants, migrant workers and average citizens for even the most minor offenses. This year their abuses have included the killing of a one-legged fruit seller and the beating of a pregnant woman, both of which sparked large scale riots in Anshun, Guizhou and Zengcheng, Guangdong, respectively.]
August 15:
China, Ethiopia, and the independently governed republic of Somaliland have signed trilateral agreements on gas and oil development and port construction, reports Somalinet.com. A Somaliland delegation met with Chinese investors and government representatives to discuss the joint project. Over the next three years, Hong Kong-based PetroTrans Company will build oil and gas pipelines from Ethiopia’s Ogaden basin to Somaliland’s Berbera seaport at the mouth of the Red Sea as well as petroleum processing facilities there. Last month, Ho Ltd signed a 25-year agreement worth $4 billion with the Ethiopian government to develop the Ogaden region’s oil and gas reserves. Beijing will also support the expansion of Berbera, which Somaliland plans to lease to Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings. Ethiopian Shipping Lines has ordered nine vessels from China at a cost of $293 million for use at the port, which will serve as a hub for Chinese traders in the region, a transit port and an international transshipment and refueling center.
[Editor’s Note: Previous Chinese efforts to retrieve oil and gas from the Ogaden region have been thwarted by rebel groups in the region. In 2007, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) overran a Chinese-run oil field, killed 74 and kidnapped 7. Earlier this month the group again issued a warning to China: “ONLF requests the Chinese government stop sending their citizens to the Ogaden battlefields. If Ethiopia is further rewarded in its war crimes and crimes against humanity, the ONLF and the Ogaden people have no alternative but to pursue all legal, political and other necessary means in order to protect their land and God-given natural resources.”]
August 22:
Police in mountainous Shuangfeng, Hunan have set up a special team to investigate the kidnapping of over 100 Vietnamese women. The women, first purchased by their Chinese husbands in Yunnan Province for about 30,000 to 40,000 RMB ($4,700-$6,300), are part of an ongoing problem of human trafficking and marriage fraud. After their kidnappings, the Chinese men received calls from their “wives” claiming that they were in another remote village and they needed 20,000 RMB ($3,150) to return or they would be sold again. The women’s “husbands” have been reluctant to report kidnappings to local police since they had themselves purchased the women and were afraid of being accused of trafficking. The official People’s Daily reports “trafficking of women is rampant. There are more males than females in Chinese rural areas, as boys are preferred, so some men in poor regions must resort to buying wives.”