China Reform Monitor: No. 901

May 31:

Thousands of ethnic Mongolian protesters were put down and Martial Law has been declared in major cities across the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, including Hohhot, the regional capital, Tongliao, Chifeng, and Dongsheng. The protests began when hundreds of people marched to the Xilinhot government headquarters to protest the killing of a herder killed on May 10 as he tried to stop coal trucks from taking a shortcut across grazing land. He was run over. More than 40 ethnic Mongolian herders and students have been arrested after hundreds clashed with thousands of police in Chifeng. In Tongliao, troops dispersed hundreds of Mongolians gathered at the city square. Most Mongolian schools and colleges are under heavy police guard, including large numbers of police and troops deployed to patrol city centers, seal off public squares and guard university entrances in Hohhot and Xilinhot. The South China Morning Post reports that social media, including the instant messaging service QQ, text messaging and internet chat rooms, which played a key role in organizing the early protests, have now been closed.

[Editor’s Note: The crisis is seen as a test for Hu Chunhua, the Communist Party chief of Inner Mongolia. Hu, a rising star who is a protégé of CPC Chairman Hu Jintao, is tipped to be a contender for the Politburo in next year's leadership reshuffle. His position might be at stake if protests escalate under his watch.]

Twenty-two years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Chinese public security authorities have for the first time approached one of the families of the victims offering compensation. In February and April, a police unit in Beijing contacted a member of the “Tiananmen Mothers” and mentioned the possibility of compensation, the Ming Pao reported, in a letter from the group. The letter said the Mothers welcomed the offer but also called on authorities to end surveillance of the victims’ families and allow them to openly memorialize their loved ones, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reports.

June 1:

Officials have begun a series of policies aimed at transforming Heilongjiang Province into a “Russia-oriented distribution center,” the official China Daily reports. “We plan to expand trade with Russia to many fields and a higher level,” the province’s foreign trade bureau announced. To increase the scale and efficiency of cross-border commerce, Heilongjiang will build trade and development zones, logistics parks and wholesale markets in border cities such as Suifenhe, Tongjiang, and Heihe. In 2008, the province did a record $11.1 billion in trade with Russia, but in 2010 trade fell to $7.5 billion, behind both Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces. To attract Russian businesses, the province will provide new incentives to 1,280 private companies. Heilongjiang is looking to export agricultural, textile and other light industrial product exports to Russia, while increasing imports of energy and raw materials, such as timber, mineral resources, petroleum, natural gas, fertilizers and electricity. Over the past five years the province imported 15 million tons of crude oil and petroleum products, 7.7 million tons of iron ore, more than 40 million cubic meters of timber and 4.27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from Russia.

June 2:

South Korea’s military is facing a growing number of cyber attacks from North Korean hackers based in China, Yonhap News Agency reports. South Korean officials said Internet protocol addresses in China used for the latest attack were identical to those used in previous cyber attacks against South Korea. They said China-based North Korean hackers sent e-mail messages attached with malicious computer codes to South Korean military officers, attempting to dupe the receivers into believing that the virus-carrying e-mails came from graduates of South Korea’s Military Academy.

During Burmese President Thein Sein’s recent visit to Beijing, he signed several bilateral economic and security deals and fielded a request by China’s navy to use Burma’s ports in the Bay of Bengal. It remains unclear whether the agreement on port access was finalized, the Norway-based Burmese Democratic Voice of Burma reports, but Beijing is seeking logistical support for its warships and docks for its commercial shipping fleet. China wants to monitor the increasing number of cargo ships laden with oil and destined for Burma’s Bay of Bengal coast, where the new Chinese-built trans-Burma oil and gas pipelines will pump it into China. The twin pipelines, which will deliver Burmese gas and Middle Eastern and African oil to Yunnan province, helps reduce China’s reliance on the congested Malacca Straits for energy imports.