China Reform Monitor: No. 885

March 2:

China and Columbia have both confirmed a deal to build a 280-mile long railway network connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the Homeland Security Newswire reports. The objective is to create an alternate route from America’s western ports to eastern markets that bypasses the Panama Canal and is also cheaper than U.S. railroads. By cutting travel costs, the Columbia rail project hopes to reduce the price of Chinese products on the east coast and raw materials from American producers in China. The railroad will begin on the Pacific side at a new city south of Cartagena where imported Chinese goods will arrive for export throughout North and South America. Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos told the Financial Times: “The studies [the Chinese] have made on the costs of transporting per ton, the cost of investment, they all work out. There’s a proposal to build whole railway system that would even connect Venezuela with the Pacific.”

[Editor’s Note: China is also building the world’s largest industrial port in Brazil to facilitate the transport of millions of tons of iron ore, grain, soy, and oil to help ease its ever-growing demand for energy and natural resources, The Guardian reported in September.]

As calls for a “Jasmine Revolution” continue to be disseminated through the Chinese internet, authorities are becoming increasingly alarmed. Ming Pao reports that some Beijing universities “have asked students not to organize group activities in the coming days as this may create confusion that they are organizing protests. Even students who want to play badminton have to go to the venue separately.” School authorities have also reportedly asked teachers and staff to pay attention to students who behave “strangely.”

March 3:

Chinese construction firms are building a large electronic eavesdropping complex just outside Harare for Zimbabwe’s security and military services, which, amongst other things, will be used to monitor internet use and telephone calls. Chinese workers first erected a massive outer wall to prevent people from seeing inside, the SW Radio Africa news reports. China is equipping the facility with technology that will allow Zimbabwe’s security agencies to read emails, monitor website visits, social networking sessions, and telephone calls made over the internet on a country-wide scale. Zimbabwe’s strongman Robert Mugabe is unsatisfied with the current bugging systems, which is only able to monitor a small amount of e-mails, phone calls and internet use for high profile political opponents, like the opposition Movement for Democratic Change leadership. Zimbabwe’s security and military services still answer to Mugabe who over the last two decades has devastated the economy, deepened racial divisions, and terrorized and killed political rivals.

March 6:

The Shaanxi Education Department has issued an urgent circular to all universities in Xian to prevent students from participating in gatherings. The circular said colleges should use every means possible to keep students from leaving the campus. Students must get approval to leave and people from the outside are not allowed to enter the campus. Xian has reportedly closed at least 11 universities and colleges, including Xian Jiaotong University, one of the nation’s schools for engineering and the sciences. The Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Hong Kong reports that PLA Air Force reconnaissance aircraft were spotted in the skies monitoring the city’s college campuses.

March 8:

In a written response to questions from 19 Indian Members of Parliament from across party lines, India’s defense minister AK Antony has said that “necessary steps” were being taken to counter China’s military buildup in Tibet and Xinjiang. Extensive road-rail links give the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) the capacity to amass over two divisions (30,000 soldiers) along the India border within 20 days, Antony wrote. China’s total road network in Tibet is 58,000 km and an extension of the Qinghai Tibet Railway to Xigaze is under construction as is another rail line from Kashgar to Hotan in Xinjiang. Antony also noted that the PLA has five fully operational airbases in Tibet and is upgrading several other airstrips in the region so China’s Sukhoi-27 and Sukhoi-30 fighters can expand practice operations. In response, India sent two new Sukhoi-30 to Chabua airbase in Assam last week, making it and Tezpur airbase the only locations in Northeast India that support the fighters. Both airbases will eventually have two Sukhoi-30 squadrons, each with 16 to 18 jets. India’s Army has also raised two new mountain infantry divisions with 1260 officers and 35,011 soldiers, the Times of India reports.