May 30:
Both Vietnam’s Navy and Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force have established “hotlines” to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy. The Vietnamese Navy recently used theirs to inquire after the whereabouts of fishermen taken into custody by the PLA Navy. “We consistently oppose China’s imposing the fishing ban on Vietnam’s waters,” said Vice Admiral Nguyen Van Hien in comments carried by the Thanh Nien newspaper. Meanwhile, in Tokyo Premier Wen Jiabao met his Japanese counterpart, Yukio Hatoyama, and agreed to set up a hotline following a series of tense naval encounters. Both sides also agreed to resume formal talks on jointly exploring offshore gas and oil fields, the Agence France Presse reports.
May 31:
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are making “covert and extensive efforts under U.S. pressure to disrupt China's dependence on Iran's oil and gas imports.” Last year China surpassed the U.S. as the largest importer of Saudi Arabia's oil, and total annual trade stands at roughly $40 billion this year. In coordination with Qatar, Saudi Arabia is working to convince China to support trade sanctions on Iran and in exchange have offered to provide China with “any amount of oil that it has been getting through Iran.” So far China has resisted such pressures, Iran’s Aftab-e Yazd newspaper reports.
June 1:
Xinhua has signed an agreement with The Kenya Times granting the newspaper unlimited use of its pictures and stories and other materials. The cooperation will focus mainly on online content, popular among Kenyan youth, who make up 35 percent of the newspaper’s circulation. The partnership will also help strengthen ties between China and Kenya, said Andrew Sunkuli, Kenya Times Chief Executive. Xinhua boasts 4,000 photographers around the world, producing over 1,800 pictures daily. “I am sure Kenya Times would immensely benefit from their services,” said Wang Yao, Xinhua Deputy Editor-In-Chief, the Kenya Times reports.
[Editor’s Note: China has signed similar content agreements with news agencies throughout Africa. By providing content Xinhua seeks to extend the reach of CPC propaganda to new foreign audiences, many times without the reader’s knowledge of its true source.]
President Hu Jintao's protégés continue to take up top posts at the provincial level; now in Anhui and Shanxi. Shaanxi governor Yuan Chunqing was promoted to Communist Party chief in neighboring Shanxi, and his predecessor, Zhang Baoshun, was appointed to the top post in Anhui. Yuan and Zhang are key members of the tuanpai i.e. those with a background in the Communist Youth League, Hu's powerbase, the South China Morning Post reports. Zhang was alternate secretary of the Youth League's secretariat when Hu was its first secretary. Yuan spent nearly 20 years working in the Youth League and served on the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. There were also reports that Li Xiaopeng, son of the former premier Li Peng, will be Hunan's next governor. More shuffles are likely amid the intense maneuvering in the lead up to the 2012 CPC party congress.
June 3:
The New York Times reports that at a speech at Tianjin Foreign Studies University entitled “Understanding Journalistic Protocols for Covering Breaking News,” Mr. Xia Lin, Xinhua Deputy Chief Editor, revealed how the official news agency manipulates and covers up facts. In his PowerPoint demonstration, Xia referenced last July’s coverage of ethnic rioting in Xinjiang that left nearly 200 dead. According to the transcript, he explained how Xinhua concealed the facts of the unrest for fear they would set off violence beyond Urumqi. Uighur rioters, he said, burned bus passengers’ alive, raped women, and decapitated children, Xia told the class. Xinhua journalists also photographed the bodies of Uighurs slain by Han Chinese and reported those deaths back to Beijing, but not in public news reports. It was after receiving these “internal reference news” that President Hu Jintao flew home early from the G-8 Summit meeting in Italy. “Under those circumstances, it would have exacerbated ethnic conflicts if more photos were released,” Xia said in an abridged transcript of the presentation available at China Digital Times.
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