China Reform Monitor: No. 1056

September 1:

Journalists from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau have warned that Beijing is using media organizations to expand its influence in Taiwan as it has already done in Hong Kong and Macau, reports the Taipei Times. “Beijing is tightening its control over Hong Kong, including its media,” Hong Kong Journalist Association (HKJA) chairperson Sham Yee-lan said. Macau Journalist Association director Connie Pang said things are worse in Macau than Hong Kong. “Most journalists have been reminded that, while they may criticize Macau government officials, they should not criticize Macau's chief executive,” Pang said. “We sometimes have to learn what’s going on in Macau through Hong Kong media.” The government is trying to amend Macau’s Press Law and the Audio-visual Broadcasting Act in ways that tighten control over the media. Association of Taiwan Journalists chairwoman Chen Hsiao-yi said the public and media must stop Taiwan from turning into Hong Kong or Macau.

[Editor’s Note: According to a HKJA survey about 30 percent of Hong Kong journalists said they self-censor news reports and 50 percent said they hesitate to criticize Beijing. Reporters without Borders ranked Hong Kong 18th in freedom of the press in in the world in 2002 and 58th in 2013, behind Taiwan in 47th place.]

September 5 :

Illicit ivory worth $30.2 million was shipped through Port Mombasa, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 2011 mostly to buyers in China and Thailand, according to a UN Office on Drugs and Crime report. The report estimated that between 5,600 and 15,400 elephants are killed annually by poachers producing between 56 and 154 metric tons of ivory which threatens to wipe out the east African elephant population. It also confirmed the findings of an earlier study that linked mainland Chinese to the rise in poaching, Kenya’s Daily Nation reports. “While much of the poaching encountered in east Africa in the past may have been opportunistic, it appears a growing share is the work of dedicated poaching expeditions some of which are cross-borders involving non-state armed groups, particularly Somali gangs. Expatriate Chinese residents in east Africa comprise some of the most important middlemen,” the report noted. “Thailand and China remain the most important destinations of illegal ivory,” it says. A spokesman from the Chinese embassy in Nairobi denied Chinese were linked to poaching.

September 9:

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force scrambled fighter aircraft after two People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Airforce H-6 bombers flew round trip from the East China Sea to the Pacific Ocean without violating Japanese airspace the day after overflying waters between Okinawa islands. The two H-6 bombers headed back to China after flying in skies between Okinawa’s main island and the Miyako islands. On July 24, a PLA early warning aircraft overflew waters between the two islands, making it the first-ever Chinese military plane to do so, the Asahi Shimbun reports.

September 10:

The Chinese government has launched a nationwide propaganda and police offensive against “malicious rumor-mongering” online, The New York Times reports. Since last month, hundreds of microblog users have been detained on charges of spreading false claims. This week, China’s highest court and prosecution office issued guidelines for defining and punishing online rumors and slander. The rules protect citizens who accuse officials of corruption, but also say a slanderous message forwarded more than 500 times or read more than 5,000 times could get the poster three years in prison. For weeks commentaries in the official press have warned bloggers on Sina Weibo to watch their words. “Internet rumors have become a cancer in the ideological sphere,” read a recent issue of Red Flag, a party ideological journal. “On Weibo, China appears as if it’s an evil country,” said Wang Wen, a commentator urging tightened controls on microblogs. “It’s seriously affecting China’s social stability and political governance.”

September 12:

In Beijing 315 delegates from 30 provincial-level regions across the country attended the 9th National Chinese Christian Congress. At the Congress, which is held every five years, a new leadership was selected for the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC), both Communist Party-controlled organizations. China’s top Christian authority adopted a report on cooperating “to build a harmonious and healthy Chinese Christian community,” the official People’s Daily reports.