China Reform Monitor: No. 1023

March 11:

A multi-year joint operation between South Korean and American authorities has uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in dozens of accounts in several banks in Shanghai and throughout China. An anonymous “government source” told South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo that: “We have located the names of the account holders and account numbers, some of them set up in the days of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.” South Korean and U.S. officials urged China to include the accounts in the latest UN sanctions against North Korea, but Beijing refused. “Following North Korea’s third nuclear test, China has demonstrated a willingness to take part in sanctions against the North,” the source said. “But Beijing is reluctant to touch North Korea’s real Achilles heel.” When asked about the incident Professor Zhang Liangui of the CPC Central Party School told the South China Morning Post: “Beijing has to be tougher, Pyongyang has gone too far.”

March 12:

“The insurgent groups operating in the north eastern states of India have been augmenting their armoury by acquiring arms from China at Sino-Myanmar border towns and routing them through Myanmar,” India’s Minister of State for Home Affairs M Ramachandran said in a written statement to Lok Sabha, the Lower House of India’s Parliament “The government of India has taken up the matter with the Chinese side through diplomatic channels. The Chinese government has conveyed that it would never support armed groups that are against the government of India,” he said in comments carried by the Press Trust of India.

March 13:

An official at the Pakistan Embassy in Iran has confirmed to The Express Tribune newspaper that China is backing the $1.5 billion Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline with a $500 million loan to Pakistan. Iran will provide another $500 million and the remaining $500 million will be generated through a tax on Pakistani gas consumers. Petroleum Ministry officials confirmed that Pakistan is procuring compressors and pipelines for the project from Panyn Chu King Steel Ltd – a Chinese company. The 1600 km pipeline is projected to enable the export of 21.5 million cubic meters of Iranian natural gas per day to Pakistan.

March 14:

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has congratulated Pope Francis on his ascension to the papacy and called for improved ties, but warned The Holy See to “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, including in the name of religion.” She also said the Vatican must sever diplomatic relations with The Republic of China (Taiwan) before ties with Beijing can improve, The New York Times reports. The reaction underscored the tensions between Beijing and the Vatican. For its part the Vatican wants Beijing to guarantee religious freedom for Chinese Catholics and stop interfering in Church affairs, particularly in the selection of Church leaders.

[Editor’s Note: China’s roughly 12 million Roman Catholics are divided between a state-supervised church that appoints bishops without papal approval and an “underground’ wing that resist government ties at great personal risk. Both sides honor the pope as their spiritual leader. Pope Benedict XVI encouraged reconciliation and explored establishing formal relations with Beijing. But those efforts were thwarted by disputes about the appointment of bishops, Chinese restrictions on religion, arrests of believers, and the Vatican’s Taiwan ties.]

A pig farm in Jiaxing, Zhejiang has admitted to dumping thousands of diseased, dead pigs into the Huangpu River, which travels through Shanghai. The roughly 6,000 pigs were part of an outbreak of porcine circovirus, which killed 70,000 pigs in Jiaxing alone. Sanitation workers, clad in masks and plastic suits are fishing out the pink, decomposing, bruised pig bodies, whose foul wreaking odors are alarming residents. Despite government reassurances, the decomposing pigs are raising concerns about the quality of Shanghai’s water supply leading many to turn to bottled water. “Pig corpses that have been in the water for days leak blood, intestinal fluids and other pollutants, which could alter the taste and color of tap water,” CNN reports. Meanwhile, in Zhejiang a court sentenced 46 people to prison for selling diseased pig meat.