China Reform Monitor: No. 1148

February 5:

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina and President Xi Jinping signed 22 agreements on space, nuclear, hydropower, and telecommunications, aerospace, mining, and wind energy, etc. Among the agreements is one for the construction of a fourth nuclear power plant (natural uranium and heavy water) and a fifth nuclear power station, with a minimum of 70 and 50 percent of components made in Argentina, respectfully. The bilateral “strategic integral alliance,” according to official Argentine news agency Telam, will also “promote cooperation for exploration and utilization of outer space, joint development of satellites and instruments.” Beijing also provided $300 million in financing this week for the Nestor Kirchner and Jorge Cepernic hydroelectric power stations in Santa Cruz province. China state television will gain access to Argentina.

February 9:

China expects at least one million more births this year as a result of changes to birth control policy. The new policy, piloted in Zhejiang in January 2014, allows couples to have a second child if either parent is an only child. Last year, about 1 million couples applied for a second child. Also last year, 16.9 million new mainland Chinese were born, 470,000 more than in 2013, the official Shanghai Daily reports. Since the 1990s, the annual number of newborns has decreased from more than 20 million to a low of 15.8 million in 2006. Gender imbalance is another side effect of the one-child policy. In the past 20 years, the sex ratio of newborns has remained above 115 men to 100 women. In 2014, that ratio dropped slightly to 115.88 to 100 from 117.6 to 100 in 2013.

February 10:

Lin Fei-fan, Chen Wei-ting and Huang Kuo-chang, two students and an academic who were leaders of Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement, were among 118 people indicted after the Taipei District Prosecutors Office concluded its investigation into the March 18-April 10 occupation of the Legislature, the March 23-24 intrusion into the Executive Yuan, and the April 11 siege of the Zhongzheng District First Police Precinct building. A total of 22 Legislative Yuan occupiers, including Lin, Chen and Huang, were charged, while the failed occupation of the Executive Yuan building produced 93 indictments. Those that ransacked top government officials’ offices at the Executive Yuan were charged with breaking and entering and criminal incitement. At the time, police forced them out using batons and water cannons, Taiwan News reports.

February 17:

Kenya’s Daily Nation published an exposé accusing the Chinese company Star Times of “cutting deals with communications ministers, telecommunications regulators and powerful political brokers in Africa.” Star Times, which has straddled the continent, cutting opaque deals in Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, etc., is facing protests from local broadcasters. “When a local player’s interests clash with the interests of Chinese capital in the digital migration space, you will unwittingly find yourself pitted against an impregnable nexus of influential power brokers. This conflict is about the tactics and games which the Chinese company is employing as it positions itself to control the whole digital migration process on the continent.” In Mozambique, the president’s daughter owns Star Times’ partner, Focus 21. Last month Ghana’s communications minister said: “It is increasingly clear that Star Times and China Eximbank will not be able to support Ghana’s migration from analogue to digital TV broadcasting.”

February 20:

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of petitioners from across China, many with longstanding grievances, were detained after they tried “to wish our leaders a Happy New Year, and tell them about our complaints,” one petitioner told Radio Free Asia. About 300 people trying to visit Xi Jinping’s residence in Yuquanshan got as far as his road when he police chased them away. Another group tried to visit former premier Zhu Rongji. When about 500 protesters showed up at the gates of the Zhongnanhai leadership compound near Tiananmen Square they were detained and then released. When they returned to the area they were arrested, booked at Fuyoujie police station, and sent to Majialou and Jiujingzhuang petitioner detention centers.