China Reform Monitor: No. 876

January 22:

In meetings with Li Changchun, senior member of the CPC and Ai Ping, Vice Minister of the CPC International department, Nitin Gadkari, President of India’s BJP party, pushed China to pressure Pakistan to stop supporting cross-border terrorism and pull Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) troops out of Kashmir. Gadkari said China still occupies 38,000 square km of Indian territory in Ladakh and was ceded another 5,000 square km in Kashmir by Pakistan. Gadkari also pushed Beijing to stop the process of issuing stapled visas to residents of Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh and treat then the same as all Indian citizens, the Press Trust of India reports.

January 24:

The number of Chinese women forced into marriage and prostitution has risen sharply as a result of the increased involvement of organized crime said Chen Shiqu, director of the anti-human trafficking office of the Ministry of Public Security. Forced marriages in poor areas in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces were behind most of the trafficking, he said. “But there has been a growing trend for organized transnational human trafficking crime groups to target Chinese women for forced prostitution in foreign countries,” Chen told the official China Daily. Dai Peng, head of the investigation department of the Chinese People's Public Security University, said a lack of money and manpower undermines efforts to fight traffickers. Since April 2009, when the Ministry of Public Security launched its special anti-trafficking campaign, Chinese police report to have cracked 9,165 trafficking cases, rescued 17,746 women, and together with neighboring countries, including Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos, established eight anti-trafficking border offices.

[Editor’s Note: China has signed the Mekong River Sub-regional Cooperation Anti-trafficking Memo with Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia and set up an annual senior-level meeting mechanism to help curb international trafficking. Chinese police have also engaged in intelligence exchange and investigation with their Russian, British, Australian and Malaysian counterparts. Malaysian police alone report detaining 5,453 Chinese women for prostitution in the first 11 months of 2010.]

January 26:

China’s Premier Wen Jiabao has become the first Chinese leader to meet with petitioners at the national petition bureau, officially known as the State Bureau for Letters and Calls. Wen told bureau officials to make it easier for citizens to criticize and monitor the government and urged them to handle petitioner cases properly. “We are the people’s government and our power is vested in us by the people,” the prime minister said during the visit, according to state-run news media and the New York Times. “We should use the power in our hands to serve the interest of the people, helping them to tackle difficulties in a responsible way.” Every year, hundreds of thousands of aggrieved Chinese visit the petition bureau seeking redress for official abuses including corruption, illegal land seizures, and labor disputes, making it a lightning rod for public anger.

January 27:

Hong Kong’s Ming Pao reports that footage aired on state-run CCTV news reportedly depicting a PLA Air Force J-10 fighter jet shooting down a target during a military training exercise on January 23rd was cropped from the American blockbuster film Top Gun. In the stolen scenes, a F-14 fighter, "flown" by the Hollywood movie star Tom Cruise shoots down a F-5 fighter. The footage is available at Military Photos.net. The suspect frames take place between 1:10-1:14 and 1:51-1:53.

January 28:

CPC censors have cracked down fast on news surrounding Wen’s talk with petitioners. Petitioners’ comments to Wen that contradicted official policies were first carried on many state-run websites – including Sina and Sohu on the morning of January 27th – but censors removed them later that afternoon, Ta Kung Pao and Dongfang Zaobao report. Meanwhile, the day after Wen’s visit, the Ming Pao reports that security guards outside the national petition bureau in Beijing “pushed and shoved” its Beijing-based reporter while he was gathering news on petitioners. Three security guards snatched his camera and deleted sensitive photos.