China Chronicles November 1, 2012
- Hu offers condolences to Obama
CHINESE President Hu Jintao yesterday offered his deep condolences to his US counterpart Barrack Obama over the casualties and major property losses inflicted upon the US East Coast by Superstorm Sandy. Hu also expressed confidence that the people affected by the storm will overcome their difficulties.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi also sent a message to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing his condolences over the natural disaster.
- China seeks 'peaceful path' in region
Australia does not have to worry about a war between China and the United States as a result of US failure to share power because China does not pursue dominance or an exclusive regional order, Chinese Lieutenant General Ren Haiquan said yesterday.
Ren, vice president of the People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Science, made the remarks after attending the Chief of Army's Exercise 2012 in Australia held in Melbourne from October 28 to 30.
Ren commented on the idea first broached in a book, "The China Choice," by Australian strategist Hugh White, who argued that the United States should share power as an equal with China in the Asia-Pacific. Otherwise the power struggle between the two countries could lead to a catastrophic war, the book suggests.
"In terms of Australian national interests, I can understand why White brought up this idea. But it's overly anxious. China consistently adheres to long-term peaceful development policy. No matter to what extent we develop, China will never seek hegemony," Ren stressed.
"The road of peaceful development of China has taken means that China will not follow suit with past emerging powers in history that sought hegemony by military expansion and resource plunder.
"China will develop itself in peaceful and cooperative ways and rely mainly upon itself," Ren noted.
According to Ren, China does not pursue development only to seek dominance. "China has no intention to build a sphere of influence or create an exclusive regional order. We firmly persist in the principle of being a good neighbor and partner," he said.
Ren delivered a speech titled "China's Perspective on Regional Security and Stability in Asia" at CAEX, in which he proposed five points in order to maintain peace and stability and the momentum of development in Asia, namely development, inclusive mindset, cooperation, sound mechanisms and institutions, and stability.
Ren said it is interesting that many Asian countries have major business relati! ons with China but are also defense allies of the United States. "It showed a contradictory mindset," he said.
He emphasized that every country in the region has its own ability to tackle security issues independently. "Some external countries' involvement may complicate the situation on the contrary."
Ren also noted the Exercise Cooperation Spirit 2012, the first joint drill on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief by Chinese, Australian and New Zealand armies, will draw to a close today in Brisbane, Australia. It lasts four days.
- Ministry denies ban on unlucky song lyrics
A Ministry of Culture official said they have tightened censorship of songs but denied an online report saying they banned "unlucky" words such as "death" in songs.
The rumor was spread after Chinese pop music producer and songwriter Gao Xiaosong complained on Weibo on Sunday that due to the current tightened music censorship, songs to be broadcast by major TV stations cannot contain unlucky words.
Gao wrote that he has seen with his own eyes that a singer performing a popular Chinese song, "Love Beyond Death," was deleted because the song contains the word death.
That portion of his microblog had been forwarded more than 50,000 times by yesterday, with upset music lovers figuring out a new name for the popular song to help it survive the censorship.
Thousands of new names for the song were suggested, such as "Love Beyond Heaven," "Love Beyond The Tomb," "Love Beyond Harmonious Afterlife," or even "Love Beyond The Fact That You Are Resting in Peace."
Some Internet users complained that such censorship is meaningless and might damage the growth of the Chinese music industry.
In response, an official with the Ministry of Culture told Zhengzhou Evening News, which is based in Henan Province, that they have indeed tightened music censorship but they were not banning words as the online report said.
"The censorship could be strict but it is not that strict to ban such words as death," the newspaper quoted the official as saying. "The censorship will only be tougher in viewing songs' contents."
The official, whose named was not disclosed, said that some songs have been banned not because of their contents or wording, but because they are not properly registered.
A record company worker told the newspaper that music censorship is a very complicated process in China.
The worker said each song of an album has to be reviewed by 40 to 50 experts under the culture ministry. If one of the experts said no to a certain song, then it cannot get past t! he censorship, the worker told the newspaper.
"It is very common that a song has to be reviewed for over one month. Sometimes we have to wait for several months before it gets the green light," the worker was quoted.
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- Husband says wife asked him to help her die
A MAN sobbed in a northwestern China city court during his trial for murder by drowning his paralyzed wife, saying he did it at her request, Western Economic Daily reported yesterday.Jia Zhengwu, 38-year-old villager from Gansu Province, pushed his wife, Zhang Xiaojun, into the Yellow River on an April night in 2011 after Zhang spent 12 hours begging Jia to end her miserable life, the Lanzhou City Intermediate People's Court heard last month. The sentence was not announced. The maximum for murder is death, but defendants in such cases often get a reprieve or lesser sentence.
Zhang was diagnosed in 2003 with ankylosing spondylitis, or chronic inflammation of the spine, which causes back pain and stiffness. She had been paralyzed since 2007. Her treatment also nearly bankrupted her family.
"She was married to me for 17 years. It was really hard to make up my mind to do it," Jia testified. "I told her not to lose the will to live because I would make every effort to cure her. But she said we had huge debts and couldn't pass the burden to our two children," he added.
The man is known as a model husband in his village. Relatives, fellow villagers and police appealed for leniency. "My brother had no choice but to sell all his belongings - a cattle farm, a three-wheeled vehicle and some stored food - to raise 18,000 yuan (US$2,885) in order to cover his wife's medical expenses," Jia's brother Jia Shengli siad.
Their son, nicknamed Xiaoxin, said his mother once told him to get pesticides for her to end her life. "My mom told me to study hard and listen to my dad. She said she wouldn't be back home if she wasn't cured," Xiaoxin said Zhang told him before seeing doctors in March 2011.
The husband was arrested two days after his wife died. He planned to claim Zhang was missing, but instead led police to her body. He said he never thought he was breaking the law. "Is it wrong to follow her will to help free her of her miserable life?" he asked.
- Three Gorges Dam not affected by earthquake
THE Three Gorges Dam remained intact after an earthquake measuring magnitude 3.2 jolted a county 38 kilometers away early yesterday, local experts said.
The tremor hit Zigui County of Yichang City in central China's Hubei Province at 3:42am, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center. Its epicenter was 5 km below ground. No casualties had been reported as of late yesterday, but the earthquake was felt across Zigui.
"The minor earthquake has not affected the Three Gorges Dam, which can endure far stronger earthquakes," said Hu Xing'e, vice head of the management bureau of the project with the China Three Gorges Corporation.
She said that no earthquake-triggered landslides have been reported in the reservoir area and all power generating units and ship locks are working normally.
The dam, the world's largest water control and hydropower project, spanning the Yangtze River, China's longest waterway, was unaffected by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that hit the country's southwestern Sichuan Province in 2008.
On Tuesday, the water level of the hydropower project reached its designed full capacity of 175 meters in a test that allow experts to observe, research and validate the dam's original design and to test its hydropower turbo-generators. The test marked the third round of full-capacity storage tests since 2010.
"Wednesday's earthquake was a shallow-focus earthquake rather than a structural one," said Zhang Shuguang, head of the project's management bureau. "It was not very destructive."
Zhang said the earthquake could have been triggered by water pouring into caves or the excavation of coal mine shafts in the region.
Since the dam started to hold water in 2003, about 19,000 earthquakes, most of which have been slight or ultra-slight, have been reported in the reservoir region, according Niu Xinqiang, head of the Yangtze River Institute of Survey, Planning and Design.
- Town makes wine to cut costs
A TOWNSHIP government in south China's Guangdong Province has broken from tradition by serving home-made rice wine at government banquets, replacing the expensive liquor usually served at such events.
The Baishun Town government started using home-made wine this year, triggering an online debate over the expense of hosting extravagant banquets. While some on the Internet cheered the local government's effort to cut costs, others remain skeptical about its spending.
Ye Zhong, secretary of the town's Communist Party committee, said on Tuesday that the local government spends 4,000 yuan (US$640) monthly on expenses related to receiving government officials and investors who visit.
Ye Nanshan, a chef at the township government's cafeteria who is responsible for making the rice wine, said it is fermented using just sticky rice and water, making it far cheaper than the liquor that is usually served at banquets.
The township government consumes about 40 liters of the rice wine monthly, he said.
Lavish government banquets have been blamed for pushing up domestic liquor prices.
A bottle of Kweichow Moutai, considered the "national liquor," goes for about 1,800 yuan.
Other extravagant items served at the banquets, such as shark fin and abalone, have been seen by the public as a sign of possible corruption.
It has been estimated that the township government has saved about 4,000 yuan monthly by serving the locally made wine.
In July, the government of Wenzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province was praised for banning luxury dishes at official receptions.
- Camouflage
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Myarmy has added a photo to the pool:
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Myarmy has added a photo to the pool:
- Entrance to Jingshan Park
etherflyer has added a photo to the pool:
This High Dynamic Range 360° panorama was stitched from 39 hand-held bracketed photographs with PTGUI Pro, tone-mapped with Photomatix, and touched up in Aperture.
Original size: 31999 × 7205 (230.6 MP; 275.27 MB).
Location: Jingshan Park, Beijing, China - "Wen Jiabao, Grandpa Wen"
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