China Reform Monitor: No. 1046

July 1:

“The Al-Asalah Islamic Bloc has expressed deep regret because nobody cries for Muslims in China despite the renewed massacres.” The group said Chinese Muslim’s “suffer from the most heinous crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” and called for “not letting our brothers face this fate alone without helping them.” In Bahrain’s Akhbar Al-Khalij news outlet, the group charged that: “In order to completely eliminate Muslims and seize their wealth China implements policies to melt and dissolve their identity. Beijing has changed the names of cities and villages to Chinese ones, destroyed historic Islamic and Turkish monuments, closed mosques and traditional Islamic schools, tightly controlled mosques, and forced imams, religious studies students, and preachers to carry official permits that are renewed on annual basis.” Despite the desperate need, however, the article said there is “disgraceful Arab and international silence about the tragedy.”

July 2:

Turkey is “strongly leaning towards” buying China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corp.’s HQ-9 medium and long-range anti-missile air defense system, which is awaiting the prime minister’s final approval. The HQ-9 would beat out Raytheon and Lockheed Martin’s Patriot air defense system; Russia’s Rosoboronexport’s S-300; and the Italian-French consortium Eurosam’s SAMP/T Aster 30. A Turkish official said China’s system is technologically acceptable, allows for tech transfer, and is far cheaper. Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper quoted a U.S. official as saying: “Integrating a Chinese-Turkish air defense system into NATO assets may not be a good idea.” Another NATO-county diplomat said: “We do not understand the logic of opting for a Chinese system with no interoperability with the existing [NATO] assets.”

Beijing has enacted a law compelling adult children to visit their parents, the New York Times reports. “Protection of the Rights and Interests of Elderly People,” has nine clauses that lay out the duties of children and their obligation to tend to the “spiritual needs of the elderly.” According to the law, passed in December by the National People’s Congress, children should “often” visit their parents and send them greetings, and firms and work units should give employees time off to visit. No punishment is stipulated for parental neglect, yet, in Wuxi, Zhejiang, a court recently ruled that a couple had to pay compensation to the wife’s 77-year-old mother – who sued her daughter and son-in-law for neglect – and visit her at least once every two months.

July 5:

For the seventh straight year a 7,500 sq. mile algae bloom has befouled Qingdao’s beaches with green, stringy muck. The “sea lettuce” is harmless to humans but kills marine life and smells like rotten eggs when it rots. Officials have declared a “large-scale algae disaster,” sending hundreds of boats and bulldozers to clean the waters. So far 19,800 tons of algae have been removed, the New York Times reports. At an estimated 1 million tons of biomass per year the Yellow Sea’s annual algae bloom in is the world’s largest. Scientists suspect that pollution and increased seaweed farming in Jiangsu are the cause. The farms grow porphyra on large rafts in coastal waters offshore, which attracts fast-growing Ulva prolifera algae and when the farmers clean it off each spring they spread into the Yellow Sea, where they bloom on a massive scale.

[Editors note: This year’s green slime is twice the size of the 2008 outbreak that threatened the Olympic sailing events in Qingdao and cost abalone, clam and sea cucumber farms $100 million in earnings. That year it cost more than $30 million for boats, helicopters, and 10,000 workers to clear the waters.]

July 7:

During a Xinjiang inspection tour, Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, urged the armed forces to “resolutely combat terrorism and safeguard stability.” Fan ordered the armed police to tighten security measures, intensify patrols, and keep on high alert. He said ethnic unity and social stability in Xinjiang are the armed forces’ responsibility. “We must unswervingly fight against terrorists and the ‘three forces’ of terrorism, extremism and separatism, in order to safeguard ethnic unity,” he said in comments carried by the official People’s Daily.