China Reform Monitor: No. 864

November 13:

PLA military officers are undergoing training to help them deal with the media. At a seminar at the University of National Defense, China's top military academy, more than 80 senior officers studied communication techniques and media management skills. Representatives from the State Council Information Office, Xinhua, Tsinghua University, and the People's Liberation Army Daily attended the seminar. The training is intended to help China's military undertake more international operations that bring it into greater contact with foreign media, like disaster relief and UN peace keeping, China Radio International reports.

November 15:

The Hindu reports after a meeting in Wuhan, the foreign ministers of Russia, India and China - Sergey Lavrov, S. M. Krishna and Yang Jiechi – have signed a joint statement expressing their unified positions on Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear program and the North Korean nuclear issue. The foreign ministers’ joint statement called on all parties to return to six-party talks and, “expressed concern at the deterioration in the security situation in Afghanistan, and stressed the need for the adequate development of Afghan national security forces to protect the country's sovereignty and independence.” The three ministers also “recognized Iran's right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” but said “Iran should convince the international community of the exclusively peaceful aims of its nuclear developments.”

November 18:

Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice-premier Li Keqiang have rejected a proposal to pump water from the Bohai Sea on the eastern coast to fill lakes in western deserts. The plan had called for billions of cubic meters of water to be pumped uphill more than 1.6 km above sea level and travel more than 2000 km, the South China Morning Post reports. Meanwhile, the official Global Times reports that over the next 5 years a 10.8 million kW wind farm will be built in Hami, Xinjiang. Guan Baili, deputy secretary general of the Hami Prefecture Committee of the Communist Party of China, said the area’s potential wind power is 75 million kW. China also plans to build another six 10-million-kW wind power farms by 2020. When completed, the seven projects will have a combined capacity of 90 million kW; 60% of China’s total.

November 19:

On the eve of the Asian Games’ opening ceremony, half a million of Guandong’s security personnel have been deployed and about 2000 of the usual suspects arrested. To ensure a trouble-free event, the South China Morning Post reports that the arrests are intended “to silence dissidents and maintain social stability during the Games.” Some activists, including lawyer Tang Jingling and writer Ye Du, were removed from Guangzhou or placed under surveillance. He Guangping, deputy chief of Guangdong’s Public Security Department, said 1740 suspects and 207 wanted criminals were arrested and nearly 2 million fireworks and 6.5kg of dangerous chemicals were seized. He said that there are 200 security checkpoints and more than 438,000 police had checked more than 2.8 million cars and nearly 5.4 million passengers. Another 117,000 police and security workers were also deployed to guard the torch relay before the Games.

November 22:

Afghan drug cartels are financing rebels in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the director of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service, Viktor Ivanov said in comments carried by Russia’s Interfax news agency. Ivanov singled out Xinjiang as among the top three regions most adversely affected by “Afghan drug trafficking, which has become a major factor in generating instability, extremism and organized crime.”

[Editor’s Note: In September 2009, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that: “Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is down 22 percent, opium production is down 10 percent, while prices are at a 10-year low. The number of opium poppy-free provinces has increased from 18 to 20 out of a total number of 34, and more drugs are being seized as a result of more robust counter-narcotics operations by Afghan and NATO forces.”]