China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development

AIDS: Anger and recrimination block progress in Henan

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:35:16 +0000

AIDS activists in China remain angry at what they see as the culpability and inaction of authorities in Henan Province, while government officials there remain implacably hostile to people they see as troublemakers. Nevertheless, reports Nick Young with Mian Liping (勉丽萍), things are changing in Henan, but the stand-off between government and citizen activists seems to be delaying the kind of progress that has been seen in neighbouring Anhui.

“Things haven’t changed that much in Henan,” Dr. Gao Yaojie (高耀洁) tells us. “The government has created model areas to show it’s doing something, but there are still counties that are not open (公开) and where they get nothing.”

Full steam ahead for ‘charity’ even as brakes are applied to NGOs

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:11:49 +0100

A high-level international symposium on charity legislation, held in Beijing this summer, underlined the Chinese government’s determination to mobilise charitable giving even as the authorities were tightening their surveillance and control of the informal NGO sector.

Eco-tourism: snapshots from four villages

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:54:18 +0100

It is a decade since mass tourism arrived in the picturesque northwest Yunnan towns of Dali, Lijiang and Zhongdian. But what of the villages and townships that some more adventurous tourists are beginning to visit? Julie Perng visits four communities that hope to embrace tourists without being overwhelmed by them.

In 2006, total receipts from tourism in Yunnan Province reached CNY 49.97 billion (USD 6.2 billion), almost 90% of which came from Chinese tourists. Receipts were up 16.7% on the previous year, and accounted for 12.5% of the provincial GDP. The tourism industry is clearly flourishing in one of China’s most ethnically, geographically, and biologically diverse provinces.

Message from the editor

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:51:38 +0100

October 10, 2007

Negotiations with police and government officials following our political difficulties this summer (click “read more” for details) brought no useful result, writes Nick Young. Indeed, when I tried to return to China in September, immigration officials turned me back at the airport and cancelled my multiple-entry visa, citing Article XII of the Immigration Law (“Foreigners considered to be persons who might endanger the security of the State or the social order of China shall not be allowed to enter the country.”)

In these circumstances, I can see no way to continue our English language publishing, which relied on constructive but impartial reporting from the field.

However, in the remaining months of this year, I will complete and publish work that was already in progress or had already been commissioned. Julie Perng’s article on eco-tourism, posted today, is one such example. Also forthcoming is an in-depth Special Report on Civil Society and HIV/AIDS in China. That, along with the rest of our archived material, will be accessible to all visitors.

Meanwhile, I remain open to reasonable proposals from readers and other interested parties as to how China Development Brief’s useful life might be prolonged. I can be contacted by email at a gmail.com account, the username being nickyoung888. No offers of software, “meds” or penis enlargement, thank you.

Scholars question division of pastoral lands

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 07:11:33 +0100

Grassland conservation and development cannot be separated from pastoralist culture and people, but decision-makers have ignored this over the past decades, academic experts and environmentalists say.

Some have started initiatives to bring people involved in grassland issues together for better policy-making and research.

At the 16th International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences Conference to be held in Kunming in July 2008, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) will host a parallel meeting to discuss the grassland environment and changes in herders’ lives.

‘Rustification’ revival to create jobs, reverse brain drain

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:19:06 +0100

In an ambitious drive to increase access to higher education, China’s college and university enrolment increased from around six million in 1998 to 21 million in 2005. But with the flood of new graduates, individuals are having a tough time finding jobs in an increasingly competitive labour market. Li Mu (李沐) reports on government interventions designed to alleviate graduate unemployment by encouraging young job seekers to "Go west, go down to where motherland and people are in greatest need."

Move to prevent green protest shows uneven distribution of free speech

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:23:35 +0100

Chinese Internet authorities have ordered websites—including a Chinese language environmental NGO site operated by China Development Brief (www.greengo.cn)—to remove an open letter from twelve organisations calling for a fair trial for jailed environmental activist, Wu Lihong (吴立红).

Anomalously, the move came after China’s official media had already reported on the contents of the letter, which argued that “in order to support public confidence in the rule of law and build a harmonious society” Wu’s trial should be open to the public and based on lawfully obtained evidence.

Brick kiln ‘slavery’ exposé follows Olympic child labour report

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 03:10:34 +0100

Senior Chinese officials vowed to act on an international NGO and trade union report alleging abusive practices in four Pearl Delta factories contracted to produce goods for the 2008 Olympics, even as the report was overshadowed by shocking revelations of forced child labour in brick kilns in the provinces of Henan and Shanxi.

Editorial: Riots underline development dilemmas

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:14:45 +0100

Violent protests this month in Guangxi’s Bobai (博白) County—sparked, according to international press reports, by heavy-handed implementation of birth control rules—are a tragic reminder of the pain caused by a policy that has, nevertheless, played a key role in China’s social and economic transformation.

China in Africa: A relationship still in the making

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:15:34 +0100

Are China’s increased trade, investment and aid flows to Africa a neo-colonial threat or a new opportunity for South-South cooperation? Probably nothing so simple, concludes Nick Young in this review of the growing literature on the topic—but if the relationship is to be “win-win” it must embrace a wider and deeper discussion.

“China is resigned to the fact that US [global] domination is a cold reality it has to live and contend with. China has come to see globalisation as a way of transforming great power politics and establishing more co-operative forms of interstate competition that can increase the prospects for China’s peaceful rise. This has led to a situation where China, while recognising the dominance of the US, seeks to limit it through the UN and other international organisations, and by using its resources to forge stable relations with other countries and regions.”

China not solely responsible for its ecological footprint, says WWF

Tue, 29 May 2007 14:58:58 +0100

Consumers around the world, especially in developed countries, share responsibility for China’s growing ecological impact overseas, argues the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in a new report.

Open government: A step forward, but with sideways shuffles too

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 03:16:10 +0100

China is introducing new transparency rules for government—in part, it seems, to curb corruption. But, reports Chang Tianle (常天乐), some progressive localities are ahead of the central government on this issue, and the national rules remain ambiguous as to how much the public has a right to know.

China’s first national regulations on public disclosure of government information have been cautiously welcomed by scholars and NGOs, but most say that China still has a long way to go to achieve transparent government.

The Regulations on Government Disclosure of Information (政府信息公开条例) were approved by the State Council on January 17, 2007 and take effect on May 1, 2008. Article 1 states that they aim to “ensure that citizens, legal persons and other organisations (公民、法人和其他组织) can obtain government information by lawful means, and increase government transparency.”

HIV/AIDS: NGOs proliferate as the Global Fund steps in

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:16:27 +0100

Although not an HIV hotspot, over the last three years China’s north-eastern province of Heilongjiang has seen a surge of local NGOs working on AIDS prevention. But, Nick Young and Mian Liping (勉丽萍) ask, is this a civil society success story or an opportunistic response to the influx of international funds?

HARBIN Away from the bright lights of Gogol Street, the main entertainment strip in this northern industrial city with historic ties to Russia, a Saturday night crowd has gathered in a downmarket bathhouse that caters for MSM—“men who have sex with men.”

EU, UNDP boost government efforts to manage civil society, biodiversity

Tue, 22 May 2007 20:22:03 +0100

The European Union has deepened its collaboration with the United Nations Development Program in China with an EUR 8.08 million (USD 10.5 million) contribution to a UNDP-managed “Governance for Equitable Development” program, while funds from an earlier EU-UNDP agreement are now beginning to flow to consortia of international NGO and local government agencies partnering on biodiversity conservation projects.

Around 40% of the governance program funds will be devoted to civil society support projects implemented through the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MoCA), according to Edward Wu (吴晓晖), UNDP’s Team Leader in Beijing for Rule of Law and Democracy.

“Give2Asia” funding channel swells steadily

Fri, 18 May 2007 03:19:15 +0100

At least USD 3 million in donations will be channelled to social development projects in China this year through a “Give2Asia” facility created by the Asia Foundation to link North American donors with Asian grant seekers.

China is the strongest growth area for the facility, which the Asia Foundation first established in 2000. Disbursements began in China in 2003 with a modest USD 166,000, reached USD 1.2 million in 2005 and doubled to USD 2.35 million in 2006. More than 70 China projects are currently funded through the scheme.