China Reform Monitor: No. 1058

September 17:

Incoming freshmen at Dongguan University of Technology in Guangdong are required to sign an agreement absolving the school of responsibility if the student commits suicide. The agreement, which serves as a “warm reminder” of long-standing school policy, has outraged parents and online commentators. “The school should provide counseling services and other help for students, instead of trying to absolve themselves of responsibility even before anything has happened,” said one parent whose son is among 5,000 freshmen at Dongguan. Chinese students, who suffer from notoriously high stress levels, now face the probability of joblessness after graduation. Of the class of 2013, with some 7 million graduates across the country, just 35% had found a job at the time of graduation – a fall of 12% over 2012 levels, Time reports.

[Editor’s Note: Suicide rates among college students are around one or two per 100,000 people – a rate well below the national average. In 2010 the Ministry of Health found the suicide rate in large urban areas was 6.41 per 100,000 people and 10.01 per 100,000 in rural areas.]

September 18:

For the first time since 2009 Iran has opened access to Facebook and Twitter, leaving China and North Korea as the only countries which still block the social media websites. Tehran’s decision came days after Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg met with Cai Mingzhao, head of China’s State Council Information Office, to discuss “Facebook’s role in helping Chinese enterprises expand overseas,” and “other cooperative items,” the South China Morning Post reports. Beijing claims there is no internet censorship in China. When state media reported Myanmar lifting its Facebook ban in March it said: “Only four countries in the world still ban the website: North Korea, Cuba, Iran and another country.” In fact, however, Cuba does not block Facebook.

China Petroleum Technology and Development Corporation and the China Railway #2 Engineering Group Ltd. have signed an $11.6 billion agreement with Kenya’s Adra International Ltd. to build an offshore refinery in Mombasa, upgrade oil pipelines, develop geothermal potential, and build the Mombasa-Kampala railway line. Adra, a supplier of power cables, railway signaling cables, and construction equipment was among those Kenyan companies to sign MoUs with Chinese companies during President Uhuru Kenyatta’s visit in August, Kenya’s The Star reports.

September 19:

Beginning in early July, China’s Ministry of Public Security Border Control Department and Russia’s Federal Security Service conduced three months of joint operations aimed at “boosting mutual law enforcement cooperation” to ensure border safety and stability. The exercises, which were aimed at “cracking down on smuggling, drug trafficking and illegal immigration,” have concluded with a combined drill to counter illegal border crossing at an undisclosed “Chinese land port,” the official People’s Daily reports.

September 20:

Last year, changes in China’s registration process for “civil organizations” that allow industrial, charity, community service, and technology-promotion organizations to register without a government backer increased the number of registered groups by 8.1 percent to 499,000. But that number, according to the China Civil Organization Administration, is still only about half of the true amount since many groups want to “avoid government control,” while others found registration difficult. Private-owned foundations, which accounted for 56 percent of all Chinese foundations in 2012, should “refresh their model of operations and act without privileges. They should really speak for groups of people in society, rather than in the interest of the public sector,” the official China Daily reports.