China Reform Monitor: No. 1172

June 29:

Ren Jia, president of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, has proposed the creation of a security mechanism among Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM). The Chinese want a formal multinational security partnership involving a joint command headquarters, intelligence sharing, and joint operations to target non-traditional security threats including ethnic insurgencies, terrorism, drug trafficking, HIV, antiques smuggling, and cross-border human trafficking. These problems threaten to derail an ambitious undertaking known as the BCIM economic corridor to build transportation,energy and telecommunication networks. The corridor connects Kolkata, India with Kunming, Yunnan through nodal points, such as Mandalay and Lashio, Myanmar, and Manipur, India, with branches extending to Cox Bazar and Chittagong ports in Bangladesh. Chinese experts say that except for a 200 km stretch between Manipur and Silchar, and a similar length between Kalewa and Monywah, Myanmar, the infrastructure is nearly functional, The Hindu reports.

June 30:

China’s $1 billionHiyangSgiyou 981 oil rig is returning to Vietnam’s coast to conduct “ocean drilling operations” in search of oil and gas from June 25 to August 20. China’s Maritime Safety Administration said the rig would be located about 75 nautical miles south of Sanya, Hainan, and about 100 nautical miles east of Vietnam’s coast,Oilprice.com reports. Beijing urged all vessels in the area to stay at least 2,000 meters away to ensure safety. The rig’s new location is not as close to Vietnam’s coast as it was during an operation last year, when it prompted an aggressive reaction from Hanoi. At that time it was operating near the Paracel Islands, which both China and Vietnam claim.

July 1:

President Xi Jinping has called on Communist Party of China (CPC) members to maintain loyalty and devotion to the Party on its 94th anniversary. Xi made the remarks in a letter to six members of the No.1 land survey team of the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation. “Xi praised the team for their patriotic spirit and achievements, urging all CPC members to love and contribute to the Party,” theofficial China Daily reports.

July 6:

In Taipei, hundreds of high-school students, some holding black umbrellas, protested against the Ministry of Education’s “China-centric” alterations to school curricula, theTaipei Times reports. Protesters accused the ministry of “opaque” and “arbitrary” manipulation of textbooks and called for the abolition of the curriculum guidelines set to be introduced next month. They accused the government of manipulating history and attempting to inculcate a China-centric viewpoint among students by altering the content of students' history, geography and civic education textbooks. The students called on the ministry to retain the 2009 curricula, which focuses on Taiwan’s history, rather than China’s. "We have serious doubts over the credentials and professionalism of the curriculum review committee," said a Taoyuan High School Alliance spokesperson. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson, and likely presidential candidate, Tsai Ing-wen supported the protest, calling it a "civic education lesson outside of the classroom." She said on Facebook: “The curricula must be based on facts, and the creation of curricula should follow the guidelines of objectivity and professionalism. If the government does not change their mind, we will shoulder the responsibility next year.”

July 9:

After Shanghai's main stock index dropped 30 percent in two weeks, China's propaganda authorities ordered state media outlets not to criticize the Communist Party. The party's Publicity Department issued an urgent order requiring the media not to report the market crash in connection with politics and to write positively about Beijing’s economic policies. The directive said the media must report calmly about stock prices and guide public opinion. It ordered Chinese journalists and editors to report positively about the country's economy, and exclude experts’ comments that are critical of the government. The directive came amid rising anxiety and frustrations among individual Chinese investors, who account for about 80 percent of all equity transactions in China. The Chinese leadership, which initiated numerous measures to arrest the sell-off, is concerned that plummeting stocks could lead to protests and social unrest, Kyodo reports.