China Reform Monitor: No. 1038

May 20 :

Over 800 drug crime suspects from China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have been arrested as part of a multi-national anti-drug campaign along the Mekong River conducted by law enforcement from China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. Launched on April 19, the ongoing two-month action seized 1.93 metric tons of drugs as well as firearms and ammunition, said Lan Weihong, the operation’s Chinese spokesman, in comments carried by the United Press International. Since the murder of 13 Chinese sailors in 2011, the four countries signed a joint statement on cross-border crime and transportation security that includes regular joint patrols on the Mekong to reduce drug inflows from the Golden Triangle Region.

May 21:

On May 9 Chinese nationals engaged in illegal small-scale mining shot and killed two Ghanaians over a disputed claim in Obuasi, Ghana. In response, China sent a 14-member delegation led by Song Haijun, Director-General of the Guangxi Foreign Affairs Office, where most of the small-scale miners are from, to meet with a presidential task force including Ghana’s Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini and Minister of Defense, Mark Woyongo, among others. The meeting was aimed at finding a solution to the problem of a high number of Chinese nationals operating illegally in Ghana’s small-scale mining sector. Alhaji Fuseini told the Chinese delegation that Chinese mining “constituted a national security threat,” Ghana’s Daily Graphic reports. They have polluted water, degraded the environment, and “as if that was not bad enough they have also engaged in the shooting of Ghanaians. This is an affront to the laws of the country. As a government we have a duty to uphold and protect the laws of this country.”

May 28:

Arms exports are an important part of China’s foreign policy, Chen Hongsheng, chairman of Poly Group, one of China’s largest defense contractors, said in comments carried by the South China Morning Post. The former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer oversees the conglomerate that deals in arms, real estate, event management, finance, and has its own auction house. “Some people think that exporting weapons and armaments is a bad thing, like being a rogue arms dealer, but this is a misunderstanding. China’s weapons and equipment exports are an important part of the country’s external affairs and diplomatic work. Cooperation in the field of military armaments and technology can promote the development of political, diplomatic and economic relations between countries,” Chen said. Last year Poly reported 18.8 billion yuan in profits, a 38.9 percent increase over the last five years. In 2008, the State Council praised the company as an “advanced enterprise in the handling of confidential official documents and correspondence.”

May 29:

A military delegation led by Lt. General Liu Xiaorong, deputy political commissar of the PLA General Logistics Department, is in Luanda, Angola for meetings with deputy Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) chief of General Staff General Abreu Muengo Ukwachitembo, reports the Angolan Press. Meetings were held on how to improve Angolan “logistics and infrastructure” and “on the need to modernize the FAA and lift cooperation to higher levels” – a common euphemism for increased arms sales.

May 30:

Chinese police in three cities have arrested primary school teachers for molesting their female students. At the Puman Central Primary School in Jiahe, Hunan police detained a math teacher, Zeng Xingming, for molesting 12 second graders and suspended the headmaster. “Zeng was immediately asked to accept a suspension. The school apologized to the victims and their families, and other teachers were sent to comfort the girls,” the official China Daily reports. Meanwhile, another second-grade teacher, at the Hongji Primary School, in Shenzhen, Guangdong, pleaded guilty to molesting female pupils since last August.

[Editor’s Note: Over the last 20 days nine cases of child molestation at primary schools have been publicized. Over the last three years in Guangdong alone some 2500 girls, half of them under the age of 14, were sexually victimized, the official People’s Daily reports. In many cases offenders are convicted of “prostituting girls,” which significantly reduces their sentences.]