April 2:
China National Tobacco Corporation has applied to have its research into a “theoretical system and application of Chinese-style cigarettes” judged for China’s annual national science prize. China’s health experts and tobacco control organizations oppose considering tobacco research for the honor, the PLA Daily reports. Jiang Yuan of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said there is no proof “Chinese-style” cigarettes are less harmful; they merely use additives to improve cigarettes’ taste and promote consumption. “The application is an offense,” he said. The candidates list for the award will be finalized in late 2012 and a panel of experts will select the winner in 2013. Other candidates include energy-saving materials, computer science and medical research.
April 4:
The official Xinhua news agency has published a rare eulogy to late Communist Party leader and political reform advocate Hu Yaobang. The comments come ahead of the Ching Ming festival to honor the dead and the anniversary of Hu’s death this month. One of the mourners at Hu’s mausoleum in Gongqing, Jiangxi said: “Hu Yaobang honored the idea of the people’s welfare from his days of revolution to his days as state leader.” It is rare to see any mention of Hu in the official media, as his death is associated with the Tiananmen protests in 1989, a taboo topic. In the run-up to the party’s once-a-decade leadership change this fall liberals may have honored Hu to push China’s stalled reform process, the South China Morning Post reports.
[Editor’s Note: A Communist Party liberal, Hu was forced to resign as general party secretary in 1987. Widespread public grief following his death in 1989 developed into the Tiananmen Square student movement. In 2005 China commemorated the 90th anniversary of Hu’s birth and in 2010 Premier Wen Jiabao wrote a eulogy to him.]
April 6:
China’s Ministry of Public Security has released the names and pictures of six figures in the East Turkestan group (ETIM), a militant group responsible for attacks in Xinjiang. The announcement said they were conducting terrorist activities in Central, West and Southeast Asia and in “a certain South Asian country,” i.e. Pakistan. Some discount ETIM saying the crude weapons used in most attacks do not bear the earmarks of terrorism. But others, including Rana Muhammad Amir Rana, the director the Pak Institute for Peace Studies in Islamabad, claim ETIM has a “very effective network in” North Waziristan and is in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. In 2011 the movement split, Rana told The New York Times, one part focuses on separatism inside China, while another, the Turkestan Islamic Party, concentrates on global jihad.
After five days of cyber attacks authorities in Anhui, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Guangxi have restored eight official websites ending with “gov.cn.” The attacks, the largest ever launched by overseas hackers on China, are part of the international hacking group Anonymous China’s campaign to “free the Chinese people,” the South China Morning Post reports. The sites were left displaying the message: “All these years, the Chinese Communist government has subjected its people to unfair laws and unhealthy processes. You are not infallible. Today websites are hacked, tomorrow your vile regime will fall. Nothing will stop us, not your anger nor your weapons. You do not scare us.” On April 1 the group announced via Twitter: “Chinese hackers and programmers all over the world, we invite you to be part of Anonymous China, fighting for justice.”
April 7:
To fight corruption The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has established an audit work and steering group chaired by General Liao Xilong, chief of the General Logistics Department. At the group’s first meeting on April 6 Liao outlined its objective to “unite thoughts and actions to the decisions and instructions made by Chairman Hu and the Central Military Commission.” Liao said the auditors’ attention would focus on the PLA’s management of construction projects, real estate proceeds, large-scale procurement and medical services. The committee will also monitor the cost of defense related projects, military training, equipment development and hi-tech military forces. In January, one of Liao’s deputies, Lieutenant General Gu Junshan, was sacked after being implicated in “economic problems,” a euphemism for corruption, the South China Morning Post reports.