This in-depth, must-read looks at a spike in intolerance for activism in China, which, under President Xi Jinping, has culminated in a massive setback for the country’s human rights activists, faced with the most severe crackdown since the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. China Digital Times explores what happened and why the government is so threatened by the emergence of independent civic groups and both domestic and foreign NGOs.
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China makes no new promises in battle to clear the day as it fine-tunes pollution targets
One year after Premier Li Keqiang declared war on pollution, the central government seems to be refraining from making any new promises on the matter this year, focusing instead on following through on all its previously set targets. South China Morning Post reports.
Canada may blacklist SNC Lavalin – The view from India
Media sources in India are following the Canadian government’s investigation of SNC-Lavalin with great interest.
All-seeing, all-knowing
To some, the availability of big data in China signals a shift toward democracy. But technocrats within the government also see it as a way to create a more efficient form of authoritarianism. Aeon Magazine reports.
China dams on Brahmaputra pose huge ecological risk
The author of “Meltdown in Tibet” challenges China’s claims its cascade dams planned for the trans-boundary Brahmaputra River pose no impacts for downstream communities. “These dams are just the start of things,” he says. If all the proposed dams go into operation “the river will never be the same again”. Free Press Journal reports.
Will China’s dams control the Mekong’s flow?
Low water levels and stranded boats on the upper Mekong River — although, nothing new for a February in recent years — are once again stirring concerns over China’s dam-building program to the north. What is new is the apparent readiness of Chinese authorities to give an account of their actions to rectify the situation. The Lowy Interpreter reports.
Without corruption, some ask, can the Chinese Communist Party function?
Has President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign accelerated China’s economic slowdown? Some say officials are “engaged in a test of will” with Xi, delaying decisions that would promote growth to avoid risks and to punish Xi for taking “away their cheese without offering anything in return.” The Washington Post reports.
Bombardier Transportation accused of corruption in South Korea
Canadian aerospace giant Bombardier accused by South Korean prosecutors of making gifts to local officials in relation to a multibillion dollar metro elevated train project described as “more like a bus” in reality, a bus expected to cost Yongin taxpayers $3.5 billion over the next 30 years, including maintenance. CBC reports.
Is China’s Internet becoming an intranet?
China’s ban on virtual private networks (VPN) prompts this ChinaFile conversation between global experts on the potential outfall from Beijing’s latest pullback on citizens’ online access. According to award-winning journalist George Chen: “These days, the government is keen to regulate everything it hates and promote everything it likes with new legislation or renewed enforcement. That’s what the rule of law Chinese-style is all about.”
Yang Zili and the paranoid regime
Xiao Shu in this piece comparing the 2001 incarceration of fellow Chinese journalist, Yang Zili, and his colleagues today from the Transition Institute, explores the deeper psychological cause driving the country’s “stability-obsessed regime”: a paranoia so institutionalized that it drives state power compulsively. A must read.
China: Update – Release of human rights defender Mr Huang Kaiping
After three months of ‘enforced disappearance’, Huang Kaiping, has been returned to his home in Beijing. Front Line Defenders reports.
Five years after earthquake, Haiti’s journalists show resilience amid threats to freedom of the press
Divided before the earthquake of 2010, the disaster united Haiti’s media landscape out of necessity and in the face of a strong adversary in the administration of President Michel Martelly. Nowadays, that landscape is facing a tight squeeze from a government opposed to press freedom and moneyed NGOs with communication agendas that outnumber the country’s news organizations 10 to 1. Shearon Roberts for Journalism in the Americas reports.
China crushes intellectual freedom even after decades of successful market reforms
The brutal treatment of champions of freedom is a stark reminder that market reforms are not enough to serve as the foundation of a free society. Atlas Network reports.
To the piste!
The constant stream of news coverage on China’s water crisis hasn’t dampened Beijing’s bid to host the 2022 winter Olympics and the production of a key, water-guzzling component of that bid: snow. The Economist reports.
Policy: Four gaps in China’s new environmental law
China’s new environmental protection law is not enough without robust implementation mechanisms, accountability regimes and institutional arrangements. This report for the science journal Nature identifies four gaps that will cause challenges for the new law.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
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Probe International 