September 27:
“The Authentic Speeches of Zhu Rongji,” a 2042 page, four-volume selection from Zhu’s time as vice premier from 1991 to 1998 and then as premier until early 2003, has become a best seller in China and sold out in many Shanghai book stores. Zhu’s speeches decry crumbling flood dykes as “tofu dregs” built by “parasites,” corrupt bankers as “half-wits and “criminal accomplices,” and special guest houses for Communist Party elites wasteful piles of “golden splendor.” One quote that has spread widely online is from 1998: “If this government is one of yes-men, we owe the people an apology.” Another Zhu comment, this one from 2001: “I've been in charge of the economy for a decade, and still today 68 percent of state-owned businesses cook their books. I should be the first official dismissed.” Reformist former officials and intellectuals are holding up Zhu’s words, many made public for the first time, as an unflattering mirror reflecting the conservatism and conformism of Chinese leaders, Reuters reports.
[Editor’s Note: Growing numbers of retired Chinese leaders have published books and memoirs. Although party censors can block some content, seniority gives these leaders some sway over what they publish and when. Zhu dragged back the Chinese economy from over-heating in the early 1990s, pushed through reforms that shut or privatized many state-owned firms, reformed the tax code, launched housing ownership reforms, and sought to push the army out of business.]
October 1:
Democracy movement activist Wang Dan has established the online New School for Democracy, an online education center aimed at promoting democratic reform in China. At the school’s opening ceremony in Taipei, Wang, an exiled Chinese dissident who as a student famously led the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, said the school will invite leading political scientists to give lectures and engage in “preparatory work for China’s political democratization. While I know Chinese authorities would make every effort to block access to the online school on the mainland, I believe the facility would be able to reach out to tens of thousands of Chinese studying abroad.” Wang hopes his online school, which was registered in Hong Kong, will help shatter “one-party rule” in China, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reports.
China and Tajikistan have formally redrawn their boarder giving China an additional 1158 square km of land, the official Sina news agency reports. As a result of the transfer, Tajikistan’s total land area was reduced by 1 percent. At a ceremony representatives from both militaries installed a new border marker and exchanged gifts. The land transferred contains part of the Pamir mountain range, a strategic region that provides access to Afghanistan and Pakistan. China and Tajikistan agreed to the land transfer in January, which only includes 5.5 percent of the land that Beijing originally requested, according to the Tajik foreign minister. Last year, Kazakhstan rejected a Chinese proposal to lease a million hectares of land for soybean farming. China is the biggest investor in the Tajik economy, particularly in the energy and infrastructure sectors.
October 2:
Burma has halted construction on the $3.6 billion Myitsone mega dam for five years, the Bangkok Post reports. The decision came amid growing public protests against the joint China-Burma hydropower project and the forced relocation of 12,000 residents from 63 villages without compensation. China’s state-run China Power Investment Corporation has contracted with AsiaWorld, a private Burmese company on both the U.S. and EU sanctions lists, for construction of the dam. The anti-dam coalition includes such diverse actors as the rebel Kachin Independence Army and The National League for Democracy, headed by Aung San Suu Kyi. The Kachin rebels, who have been resisting a major offensive in northern Burma, have blocked the transportation of construction materials for the dam project from China.
[Editor’s Note: Last year China accounted for $8.3 billion, or 41.4 percent, of all foreign direct investment in Burma. Chinese investments include hydropower projects, oil and gas projects, and pipelines carrying natural gas and oil from Yunnan province to the port of Kyaukpyu on Burma’s western coastline. Anti-Chinese feeling among many Burmese is on the rise. Police have been deployed to prevent at least two anti-Chinese protests in front of the Chinese Cultural Office in Rangoon, the Chinese Embassy in the former capital.]