Blogger Charged on Subversion of State

Writer and blogger Ran Yunfei was arrested on charge of subversion of State on Feb 24, 2011. Ran had been known as a '100 public intellectual' of China.

By no measure is Ran a political dissident. Ran never advocate for a regime change, never criticized the Communist Party. Ran did commented on some of the public policy, particularly in non-government areas. After the 2008 Sichuan Earthquate, Ran wrote an article encouraging the government to make good use of the feeling of pride among people and be truthful in handling corruptions revealed in the rescue mission. in 2009, Ran blamed the Central China Television Station was ineffective in repeating old brainwash tactics. In 2010, Ran asked more coverage of the history of KMT's resistance of Japanese invasion during 1937-1945.

Ran did sign the 'Charter 08' in 2008, in recognition of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Co-author Liu Xiaobo was subsequently jailed by the communist regime, but most of the 303 signees as well as the other co-author Zhang Zuye had been mostly left out of the persecution. It is equally surprising and puzzling as to why Ran caught in trouble.

Perhaps it's the Flower revolution. Mr. al-Gaddafi praised the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, and Mr. Hu Jintao vowed last week to apply tighter control of the Internet. It is likely that Ran was picked up to make an example for the rest of the Chinese. That explains why he, rather than some of the more vocal dissidents was singled out. The communist authority is trying to make a case that any ordinary people could be persecuted, if your mind is not aligned with the rules of the Party.

Pedestrian Detained in Wenchuan, Sichuan

Prominent lawyer Zhou Ze revealed via twitter that he was shortly detained in Wenchuan, the site of Sichuan Earthquake.

Zhou was at the site of Yingxiu High School, where hundreds of students died in the quake, when some undercover police handcuffed him and dragged him away from because a Party leader would be visiting the same site. Zhou was released by the same group of police after the Party leader left about 10 minutes later. What's interesting from Zhou's description:

1) The 'leader' was a rather low level local official that according to posted policies does not warrant traffic control.

2) The undercover police's standard equipment includes a hand towel which is used to silence people from calling on the leader's attention.

Changhong: An Interesting Chinese Corporation

Thanks to one corporation, families in the US can enjoy a DVD movie without breaking their banks, sort of.

Before Changhong DVD players being dumped into the US retail markets at $20 a piece, a DVD player was sold at more than $150 in the least. But what is interesting is that Changhong dumped $1 Billion worth of DVD players to the US in a duration of over three years. A Taiwan born Chinese American businessman imported Changhong DVD players from China at about $100 a piece, then sold them to retailers at $10 a piece, for three years. Changhong did not receive a penny from it. When Changhong reported realized what had been happening, it was too late to do anything about it. Reportedly, the $1 Billion lost wiped out everything Changhong had accumulated in the past 10 years, and more.

Magically, Changhong survived, and continued its thrive in Chinese household appliance market. How could a company survive from a lost of this scale, only God knows.

A recent whistle blower case revealed even more shocking scenario of the company. A former Changhong executive Fan Dejun told the court that Changhong blew up its sale by $1 Billion in the year 1998 alone. For example, Changhong claimed it pocketed $100 Million from Chongqing Departmental Store (a major retailer and distributor in Chongqing metropolitan), however, the real figure was only $15 Million. Two other stores in Sichuan Province claimed sales of Changhong product of $120 Million and $80 Million, while other official numbers showed no store in Sichuan sold more than $50 Million in the year of 1998.

Also in 1998, Changhong surprised the country in a stun announce that it had reserved 250 million color TV tube from eight largest color tube manufacture in China, which equals to two years of total production volume in China. At the time, Chinese law prohibited manufacture to import TV tubes from overseas. Therefore, Changhong's strike basically pushed every other TV manufacture in China down the ridge. Such bland monopoly measure was endorsed by the central government and legal systems.

Who are these guys?

Call for Help: Earthquake Relief

Dear Colleagues,

As you have heard from the news, south-western areas of China were struck by a deadliest earthquake two days ago. As I am reading and monitoring all news sources, the death toll has been mounting from a few thousands to the current 14 thousands confirmed, with more still buries under rubbles and many remain missing. While most attention has been drawn to the central of the disaster, Wenchuan, it is likely that peripheral regions such as Mianzhu suffered worse. Also, as the earthquake happened in school time, many of the victims are children attending classes. In some areas, a whole generation were lost when a major school building in the town collapsed. The most devastated areas are located in deep of mountains of Sichuan Basin. The most significant bottleneck of the relief operation has been to get more rescue people and resources into the area due to bad weather, mountain collapses and consecutive landslides.

My family in northern China was not affected by the earthquake. Thank you for your caring and comforting messages. While rescue teams are risking their lives racing with time trying to help people who lost, suffered, and many still waiting to be found, I would kindly ask that you make a donation, large or small to the relief effort of this disaster. In a disaster of this scale, any help could be used, and any help would make a difference.

I am not sure on the College EMail list policy, so I am sending this to you, my colleague in the same department, or had been in a same department. Please feel free to forward it to other colleagues and friends you know. I find following charities who are accepting donation for the earthquake online:

• American Red Cross
  
• Mercy Corps
  
• International Red Cross
  

Thank you for taking time reading this message. I will try to answer any questions you may have regarding the disaster and the relief effort. You may tell me the amount of your generous gift. For each dollar you give, I pledge to run one mile in local race events, the registration fees of which should benefit local charities and schools. Thank you very much.

What did Chinese Government do Wrong

1) although there's no reliable way in earthquake forecast, officials roughly know which areas are more susceptible to major earthquake attacks. This information should have been shared with the public. For example, Seattle had a major earthquake overdue. Southern California is expected to have a major earthquake in 20-30 years. If this information is known by the public, then people can make plans and arrangements accordingly in their daily life. Many lives could have been saved if an escape route planned at their schools and work places.

2) It's understandable to weigh in the factor of social stability when making earthquake warning decisions. However, it is 'plainly wrong' to have the summer Olympic Game as a factor in making such decision. Olympic is a timely event, which should never be a factor in decision making process.

3) As reporters asked this morning in the news press, why so many school buildings collapsed? This must be investigated after the completion of the disaster relief.

Chengdu Residents Stand in Line for Blood Donation

In the wake of the strong earthquake that killed at least 8000 people, Chengdu residents stood in line overnight to donate blood to save their country folks. Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province, also suffered damage and life losses from the earthquake although being 92 kilometers away from the center of disaster. Chengdu government advised residents to live in outdoor tents in the next month.

It was circulated on the Net that the historic city of Beichuan was buried by collapsed mountain entirely. Communication to Beichuan had been completely broken so casualties there had not been counted. If true, then I don't know what to say.

Military forces were promptly mobilized to rush to the area that suffered the most damage. Sichuan is notorious for its challenging roads, which had isolated it from the rest of the China in many incidents in history. Attempts to reach the area by helicopters had not been successful due to heavy rain. Elite troops were parachuted to disaster areas to set up communications. Frustrated by broken roads, one troop (First Division of Sichuan Armed Police) was reported having marched more than 30 kilometers in 4 hours on foot to save critical time. 24,000 troops were air lifted from bases across the country along with many specialized rescue teams.

School buildings were among the most in reported building damages. One of the worst scene was a collapsed school building with hundreds of children confirmed killed, and many more still buried under rubbles. The scene raised the concern of the quality of the newly erected school building. Even though it happened in the obvious earthquake, the actual cause of the failure of the building should be investigated after completing the search and rescue tasks. Too many young life perished. They deserve a truth.

Hundreds of thousands of toads were seen migrating two days before the earthquake struke Aba, a rural county close to the center of this earthquake. Many local people thought earthquake was going to happen based on ancient wisdom. Regrettably, the theory was disputed as rumor by the regional earthquake bureau. However, there is no known scientific way that can reliably predict or forecast an earthquake. An exception is the Haicheng Earthquake in 1975 which was successfully predicted mostly by observing abnormal animal behavior similar to the toads migration.

Money Kills Poor People

Xiaolian (little lotus), a 10 years old girl, lived with her grandma and grandpa. Her Mom died when she was four years old. Her father is a lazy bone, who does nothing but hanging around on the streets. Every day in the morning, the 76 years old grandpa would harvest a bunch of bamboo, then the grandpa and the granddaughter would carry the bamboo to the local market. The 50 Kg bamboo would earn them not more than 20 RMB Yuan ($2.50).

Thanks to a TV program who shred lights on the poverty problem in China, Xiaolian's situation was made known to the outsiders. In a short time, a fund with more than 33K RMB Yuan donations was set up for Xiaolian's education as well as emergency medical expenditures of the grandparents. The fund was held and managed by a volunteer committee comprised of a local official, some local residents and Xiaolian's school.

Unfortunately, the money from responsible citizens with good faith did not bring good luck to the family. In order to take control of the money, Xiaolian's father starved the grandparents for four whole days, until the grandpa, his own mother committed suicide by jumping in a river.

The grandpa won't be able to take care of Xiaolian without grandma's help. How will Xiaolin live?

This happened in Xingfu Village, Huojing Town, Qionglai City of Sichuan Province. Xiaolian's full name is Luo Yulian. Her father's name is Luo Yunlin. Her grandpa's name is Luo Jingui. Her grandma throw herself to the river on June 17, 2007.