China Reform Monitor: No. 1119

August 6:

Last month, General Xu Qiliang, Vice-Chairmen of the Central Military Commission (CMC), visited frontier troops in Xinjiang and Tibet, including in the Aksai Chin region also claimed by India. The visit included stops to inspect troops at two sites of recent incursion incidents: the Karakoram Pass and Pangong Tso Lake. Xu visited one unit involved in the three week-long stand-off in April 2013 between Indian and Chinese troops in Depsang, Ladakh, and another charged with guarding the area near the Karakoram Pass. Xu also held talks with military leaders in Hotan, Xinjiang, and observed military drills at the Xinjiang Military Area Command. Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of general staff of the PLA, and Miao Hua, Political Commissar of the Lanzhou Military Area Command accompanied Xu, the Hindu reports.

August 7:

Wang Zuoan, director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, said China is developing its own “Chinese Christian theology.” “The construction of Chinese Christian theology should adapt to China’s national condition. Christian theology which is practiced in China must be compatible with the country’s path of socialism,” Wang told a seminar in Shanghai entitled the “Sinicization of Christianity” held to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China. In 2013, Beijing launched a five-year campaign intended to “promote the positive and correct theological thinking with a range of publications, exchanges, discussions and evangelism,” the official China Dailyreports.

[Editor’s Note: According to official statistics China has about 23-40 million Protestants, and each year about 500,000 people are baptized as Protestants. By the end of last year, China had 22 theological seminaries across the country and had published 65 million copies of the Bible.]

Xinjiang is expanding the one-child policy to Muslim Uighurs, who had previously been exempt and thus permitted to have multiple children. In an official editorial Zhang Chunxian, the Xinjiang Party Secretary, said Beijing will apply the same family planning policy for all ethnic groups in southern Xinjiang, home to about half of China’s Uighur population. Uighurs make up more than 98 percent of the ethnic minority population and 89 percent of the total population of Kashgar, the most populous prefecture in southern Xinjiang and the location of most of the recent violence. The policy’s intention,the Manila Times reports, is “to limit the expansion of the Uighur population.”

August 10:

Opponents of Yenching Academy, a new school at Peking University that seeks to produce “an elite class of future leaders,” are pushing back against the one-year, all-expense-paid graduate program in Chinese studies. The issue pits the administration against students and professors who are upset over the location, that only a third of the incoming class of 100 students will be from China, and because instruction will be in English. “Yenching Academy will provide its students and teachers a great number of privileges, something that’s unfair to other students,” said Gao Fengfeng, dean of the English department. Some students have vowed to slow construction through protests or litigation if key aspects are not changed, others have posted slogans of resistance online. Last month an essay by two Peking University alumni described the academy as “cultural poisoning and self-betrayal.” An unsigned faculty statement published called for a one year delay. It said: “The fundamental task of a university is to teach and nurture people, not to run leadership classes or entrepreneur classes.” Classes are scheduled to begin in 2015 and officials want to begin construction. The cost of the academy was not disclosed, but the New York Times reports that it will be financed by wealthy Chinese donors,

August 11:

China has invited India to join its international effort to revive the ancient Silk Road trade route through the construction of highways and seaports known as the New Silk Road initiative (NSR), the Times of India reports. Gao Zhenting, of the department of international economic affairs that oversees NSR, told diplomats and journalists that: “From historical point of view India is the converging point of Maritime Silk road and the ancient Silk Road on land. The Chinese government believes that India is naturally is an important partner.”