China Reform Monitor: No. 941

December 23:

The personal information of up to 50 million Chinese subscribers to websites, popular online gaming, and social networking sites have been stolen. As part of the attack, hackers accessed user IDs, passwords, and e-mail addresses of 6 million users of the China Software Developer Network. A representative from China’s leading anti-virus software provider Qihoo 360, which exposed the hack, said: “Many Internet users have registered the same passwords for their e-mail, microblog, online gaming and online payment accounts, so if the server of one of the websites is hacked, their accounts and passwords on other websites would also be stolen.” The official PLA Daily reports that in the first half of 2011, 217 million Chinese Internet users, 44.7 percent of China’s online population, were attacked by malware, including viruses or Trojan horses, and 121 million had their accounts or passwords stolen.

December 24:

To encourage them to “be loyal to the country, serve the people, and be responsible, just and clean,” China’s civil servants are required to attend at least six hours of “professional ethics” training over the next four years, the South China Morning Post reports. Other ethics-boosting activities include speech contests and essay competitions. Last month Jiangsu became the first province to implement the program, requiring officials to learn the civil servants code of conduct and “the correct view of power.” Jiangsu’s “model civil servants” instruct the ethics classes, share their experiences and teach lessons about ancient officials famed for their incorruptibility. To ensure the training sessions are strictly observed, officials who cut class, arrive late or leave early are punished and all are required to take an ethics exam in April.

[Editor’s Note: The absence of checks on officials under China’s one-party rule remains the primary impediment to preventing corruption. Officials’ decisions remain opaque and the domestic media cannot aggressively cover malpractice. The education system’s emphasis on academics at the expense of ethics is also to blame.]

December 25:

China is launching a national online marriage database to fight bigamy; a large problem in China with many couples living apart for work and migration reasons. “It will not only provide technical support to improve our marriage management and services, but also will act as a protective screen against bigamy and the concealment of marriage,” Dou Yupei, the vice minister of civil affairs, said in comments covered by CNN. The database, which will be completed within five years, will include marriages dating back to 1949. More than 20 provinces have already digitized local marriage registrations.

December 27:

In an effort to stem rampant corruption, profiteering, deception, fraud, and abuse among medical practitioners in China, the Ministry of Health has issued a draft of conduct standards meant to systematize medical practitioners’ behavior. The new medical ethics and doctor-patient relationship guidelines including 10 chapters with 53 clauses were posted on the Ministry’s website to solicit responses from society and medical professionals. According to the draft, practitioners in all medical institutions should respect patients, enhance communication with them and not illegally accept money or gifts. The conduct standards will provide a benchmark for evaluating medical workers’ performance and guidelines for punishing those who break the rules, the official China Daily reports.

China Shenhua Group Co. Ltd., the country’s largest coal producer, has signed an agreement with the Guangxi Provincial government to build Asia’s largest coal-powered thermal power project in Beihai. The plant, which will take about five years to build, will have eight power generators each with a capacity of 1 million kilowatts. The province hopes the project will ease the severe power shortages caused by continued drought that has limited hydropower production. Beihai will build a coal storage facility with an annual capacity of 30 million tons in Tieshan Port. Guangxi needs to build four docks each with a capacity of 100,000 tons to allow Shenhua’s ships to unload coal supplies from the company’s mines in Indonesia and Australia, the official People’s Daily reports.