China Reform Monitor: No. 1068

November 2:

China has expanded efforts to stamp out the Dalai Lama in Tibet by ensuring his “propaganda” is not received through the Internet, television or other means. “Strike hard against reactionary propaganda,” wrote Tibet party chief Chen Quanguo in the latest issue of Qiushi, Seeking Truth, a Communist Party’s journal. Chen said the government would ensure only its voice was heard and would confiscate illegal satellite dishes, increase its monitoring of online content and make sure all telephone and Internet users were registered using their real names. It will “work hard to ensure that the voice and image of the party is heard and seen over the vast expanses” of China’s Tibetan regions, he wrote, “and that the voice and image of the enemy forces and the Dalai clique are neither seen nor heard.”

November 3:

Six days after a vehicle plowed through a sidewalk packed with tourists in Tiananmen Square killing two and injuring 40 more, General Peng Yong, chief of the People’s Liberation Army in Xinjiang, was removed from the region’s Standing Committee, reports the New York Times. General Peng’s prompt demotion suggests the urgency that has gripped officials. There was no immediate indication about whether General Peng would maintain his military post or his spot on the party’s Central Committee. During a meeting in Uzbekistan, Meng Jiangzhu, the nation’s domestic security chief, urged Central Asian officials to root out Uighur separatists to “maintain the safety and stability of our region.” Guo Jinlong, the Beijing party secretary, exhorted the police to improve their intelligence-gathering abilities.

China’s official CCTV has released, and then deleted, details about the Tiananmen explosion on its English microblog account. The reports said Uighur co-conspirators from Hotan, Xinjiang had collected 100 gallons of gasoline, “Tibetan” knives and about $6,600 in preparation for the attack. It said the attackers had “set up a terrorist group” in September and then made three trips to Tiananmen Square before five of the participants returned to Xinjiang last month. Beyond suggestions that the assailants were Uighur separatists inspired by militant Islamists, the Chinese news media has shed little light on what prompted the three people – Usmen Hasan, his wife and his elderly mother – to drive a Mercedes SUV through the throngs of tourists and then take their own lives. Harsh security measures in Xinjiang limit reporting by foreign journalists there.

November 5:

China and Iran have struck a deal to release the $22 billion of back oil payments in an Iranian bank account in Beijing blocked under the U.S. oil embargos against Iran. The two sides agreed that China would send capital equipment to Iran for development projects and identified 40 potential projects. “The Chinese will make investments in Iran's petrochemical, cement, steel, underground, water and waste water projects through a Chinese company which is already a trade partner to Iran,” said Ali Mohammad Ahmadi, member of the Iranian Parliament’s Planning, Budgeting and Auditing Commission. Another “measure Iran has been taking to work around embargos” is having payments for Chinese oil exports deposited in yuan in Chinese accounts, and then using the money to buy non-embargoed items such as food and consumer products from Chinese companies, according to the Fars News Agency.

[Editor’s Note: China recently overtook the US as the world’s largest oil importer. The latest OPEC monthly market report estimates that China has imported 16.01 metric tons of Iranian oil during the first nine months of 2013, 428,160 barrels per day, a 17.54 percent increase in Chinese imports of Iranian oil over the same period last year.]

November 7:

At least one person was killed and eight others injured in an explosion outside the Shanxi Provincial Communist Party Committee office in the provincial capital Taiyuan. Metal ball bearings and circuit boards were found scattered at the scene, suggesting the bomb was self-made. Kyodo news reports that it is “likely” that explosive devices were planted in eight locations around the ruling party’s building. Police believe the suspect finished planting the explosive devices and left the scene shortly before the blasts occurred at about 7:40 am, Kyodo news reports. The explosion comes despite Chinese authorities efforts to tighten public security ahead of a four-day meeting of the Communist Party’s top officials.

[Editor’s Note: China has seen a rash of unsophisticated attacks on public buildings like the Beijing airport, Fujian bus bombing, etc. Most recently, blasts occurred about a week after a sport-utility vehicle plowed into pedestrians and burst into flames almost in front of a huge portrait of Mao Zedong, founder of Communist China, just across from Tiananmen Square, leaving a family of three ethnic Uighurs inside the car and two bystanders dead, and 40 others wounded.]