China Reform Monitor: No. 982

July 28:

The Communist Party of China’s (CPC) propaganda departments are tightening media control ahead of this fall’s 18th party congress in an effort to promote the nation’s “golden 10 years” under President Hu Jintao. Most recently, on July 18th, Shanghai’s propaganda department dismissed the publisher of the Oriental Morning Post, Lu Yan, and suspended the paper’s deputy editor-in-chief, Sun Jian, after a series of bold reports over several months. One article by economist Mao Yushi argued that China can only sustain growth with political reforms and another by economist Sheng Hong called for more limits on state power. The Oriental Morning Post, launched in 2003, had a reputation as Shanghai’s most outspoken newspaper and for covering breaking news and liberal ideas. The purge came a day after Lu Fumin, former editor-in-chief of Guangzhou's New Express, was removed and some of the paper’s sections were slashed, the South China Morning Post reports.

China will forge closer military ties with Bangladesh and remain “a reliable and affordable source of weapons and equipment,” according to a public statement by China’s embassy in Dhaka. “The upcoming years will witness a growing number of high level exchange visits, training programs, defense procurement and security cooperation,” it read. On July 26th China’s Ambassador hosted a celebration for the 85th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at the Radisson Hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s Daily Star reports.

July 29:

Depending on estimates, between 90,000 and 32,000 Hong Kong parents, students and teachers carrying placards with slogans such as “We don’t need no thought control” have demonstrated against a school curriculum plan that extolls the CPC’s achievements. The furor focuses on a Hong Kong government-funded 34-page book titled “The China Model” praising the social and economic accomplishments of China’s single party state. The book, which next year will form the basis of a national education curriculum for students over six in Hong Kong schools, is aimed at building national pride and Chinese identity. It does not mention the June 4, 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and describes the U.S. political system as having “created social turbulence” and harmed people’s livelihoods, Reuters reports.

July 30:

China and North Korea are implementing a labor program under which China will allow 40,000 North Koreans to work in factories in northeastern China. A garment factory in Tuman, Jilin, a town on the North Korea border, has hired 145 North Korean women and Hunchun, Jilin is finalizing a deal to import North Korean workers. The Tuman workers are provided living quarters and paid 1500 yuan per month, of which the North Korean authorities take an 80 to 90 percent cut, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reports. The program is part of Pyongyang’s effort to expand its labor export program to earn foreign exchange.

July 31:

Reuters reports that Japan’s annual defense white paper has identified the PLA’s growing influence over China’s foreign policy as a security risk. Relations between the PLA and the CPC leadership are “getting complex” and “call for attention as a risk management issue.” As a result “China has responded to conflicting issues involving Japan and other neighboring countries in a way that has been criticized as assertive, raising worries about its future direction.” There is a possibility that the degree of PLA influence on foreign policy decisions has been changing, the paper said, without elaborating. The white paper also reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance: “The presence of U.S. forces stationed in Japan functions as deterrent against regional contingencies, and it brings the sense of security to countries in the region.”