China Reform Monitor: No. 904

June 7:

Chinese-made K-8W aircraft and Shaanxi Y-8 transport planes will be among the new equipment on display during Venezuela’s bicentennial military parade on July 5, Venezuela’s El Nacional newspaper reports. China supplied eighteen K-8W aircraft, each with 24 air-to-ground missiles, and an unknown number of Y-8 to support the operations of Caracas’ C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. The full scope of Venezuela’s military purchases from China are unknown.

June 10:

In June 2007 a journalist named Qi Chonghuai was sentenced to four years in prison following his publication of an article on Xinhua’s website alleging official corruption in the Tengzhou, Shandong Communist Party. Qi was reporting on a lavishly built Tengzhou municipal government building when he was arrested for “extortion, blackmail, and embezzlement,” the Apple Daily reports. After serving his sentence and with his release date approaching, the Tengzhou People’s Court has reconsidered the case and given Qi another 8 years. Upon hearing the news Qi’s wife attempted suicide. His lawyer called the ruling “preposterous.”

June 11:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has criticized China’s economic relations with African countries. In a television interview in Lusaka covered by Reuters, Zambia Clinton was asked about China’s rising influence on the continent and responded that Africans should be wary of friends who only deal with elites. “The United States is investing in the people of Zambia, not just the elites, and we are investing for the long run. We don't want to see a new colonialism in Africa,” Clinton said. “We are beginning to see a lot of problems in China that will intensify over the next 10 years,” she warned, pointing to friction over Chinese efforts to control the Internet as one example. “There are more lessons to learn from the United States and democracies,” Clinton said.

The Apple Daily reports that China has been installing listening devices on cars in Hong Kong, creating a vast eavesdropping network across the island. In July 2007 the Shenzhen Inspection and Quarantine Bureau began installed the recording devices as “inspection and quarantine cards” on at least 20,000 cars and tens of thousands of trucks and buses with dual China and Hong Kong license plates. The cell-phone sized device, which attach to a vehicle’s front window, has a chip that converts voice signals into digital information, a crystal that generates a frequency for radio transmission, and an antenna that broadcasts a signal with a 20 km range.

June 15:

The Taiwan High Prosecutors Office has arrested a Taiwanese businessman, Lai Kun-chieh, 35, on charges of spying for Beijing. In May 2010, Lai approached an acquaintance - a major in the Air Defense Missile Command - offering him NT$1 million ($34,560) for confidential information about Taiwan's Patriot missiles and related systems. Alarmed by the offer, the major reported the case to his superior, who started monitoring Lai, culminating in his arrest. During a raid of Lai’s hotel room, prosecutors found a large amount of U.S. dollars, the China Post reports. Investigators say Lai told them that while working for a computer company in Beijing he was approached by a Taiwan Affairs Office official with the Beijing city government who threatened to make his life in Beijing “bitter” if he refused to spy for the mainland, the South China Morning Post reports.

[Editor’s Note: Lai is one of the eight Taiwanese, in five separate espionage cases, to have been arrested for gathering classified information for Beijing since President Ma Ying-jeou took office in May 2008. The incident also comes after Taiwan arrested major general Lo Hsien-che in February for leaking classified information to Beijing. The arrests give the opposition Democratic Progressive Party another opportunity to attack Ma’s policy of increasing engagement with Beijing.]