China Reform Monitor: No. 713

August 21:

China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Central Organization Department will hold joint meetings to implement a series of “special measures” designed to stop party cadres from using public funds for pleasure trips abroad, the official Zhongguo Tongxue She reports. The crackdown comes after Party General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao provided specific written instructions forbidding the use of public funds for nonofficial travel.


August 22:

In a late change to its election campaign platform this year, America’s Democratic Party expanded its commitment to Taiwan, adding two small but important phrases to an earlier draft that had virtually ignored the Taiwan issue. The platform now reads: “We are committed to a ‘One China’ policy and the Taiwan Relations Act, and will continue to support a peaceful resolution of cross Straits [sic] issues that is consistent with the wishes and best interests of the people of Taiwan.” The change, the Taipei Times mused, may have come directly from Mr. Obama’s camp. In May, Obama sent a letter to Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou congratulating him on his inauguration and offering support. “A sound U.S.-Taiwan relationship will certainly be the goal of my administration,” Obama wrote. “I believe that the United States should strengthen channels of communication with officials of your government. We should continue to provide the arms necessary for Taiwan to deter possible aggression,” the letter read.


August 24:

While flowers bloom in Beijing for the Olympics, 90 minutes south, in Baoding, Hebei, about 31,000 Chinese peasants face ruin because their water was diverted to guarantee supplies to the Games. To support the potential influx of some 500,000 visitors to Beijing, the CPC tapped water-rich Hebei province, where up to 31,000 people “lost their land” in a massive water-diversion project and water prices soared. The dislocation and hardship may have been for naught, however. With turnout for the Games much lower than initial projections, Beijing essentially said “never mind.” According to the Sunday Times, Beijing ended up taking not one drop of water from Hebei but did leave “half-built aqueducts, pipes that disgorged a murky trickle, [and] untapped reservoirs where water gleamed just a pebble throw from parched fields.”


August 25:

Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie met with Tin Aye, chief of Defense Industries of Myanmar. Liang, also a state councilor, said China and Myanmar have increased cooperation in political and military affairs in recent years. “The Chinese defence ministry is ready to work with Myanmar to further expand bilateral cooperation, so as to help the two nations' defence building.” Liang noted in comments carried by the official People’s Daily. China has long been among the Burmese regime’s top sources for military hardware and this meeting is the latest effort to further the bilateral military relationship.


August 28:

Bank of China (BoC), one of the nation's big four state-owned commercial lenders, has denied allegations raised in a lawsuit by more than a hundred Israeli terrorism victims that it helped finance terrorism by transferring millions of dollars to groups like Hamas. The charges are "completely unfounded" and "sheer nonsense," BoC said. The class action suit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and seeks unspecified damages, alleges that BoC had conducted dozens of wire transfers between 2004 and 2007 worth several million dollars to Hamas and Islamic Jihad through branches in the United States, the Shanghai Daily reports. The banking services "caused, enabled and facilitated the terrorist attacks in which the plaintiffs and their decedents were harmed and killed," the complaint reads.