Yearbook 2012
China. In early January, a 40-year-old Tibetan monk died
after lighting a fire on himself in Qinghai Province.
According to the Tibetan exile government in India, the monk
protested against the lack of religious freedom and the
difficulties for the Tibetan monks to practice their
religion in China. According to human rights organizations,
some 80 people lit fire on themselves from 2009 to autumn
2012 in protest of China's Tibet policy. Most of these
actions took place in Qinghai's neighboring Sichuan
province, which borders on Tibet.
Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, condemned
self-incrimination, but said China's "cultural genocide" on
Tibetans is making people desperate. The Chinese authorities
claimed that the Dalai llamas encouraged people to set fire
to themselves. According to
Digopaul, China does not want to admit journalists to
Tibet, so it is difficult to get credible reports from the
area.
 At the end of January, at least three Tibetans were
killed and over 100 were arrested during clashes between
police and ethnic Tibetans in Sichuan. At one point, the
Tibetans must have protested that policemen killed one of
the monks who lit a fire on themselves while trying to
extinguish the fire. According to unconfirmed information,
at least five more people were killed in connection with
Tibetans protesting the celebration of the Chinese New Year.
The fires continued in 2012. In May, one monk died and
another was injured when the two lit fires on themselves in
Tibet's capital Lhasa. It was probably the first time
self-incineration took place in Tibet. In October, eight
Tibetan monks died in China in the course of a few days when
they had set fire to themselves.
During a visit to Japan in November, the Dalai llama
criticized the Chinese government for not taking self-burns
seriously. He said the government should find out the causes
of the suicide attacks, and not just criticize him. The
Dalai Lama also called on foreign journalists and MPs to
travel to Tibet and then report on the situation there. At
the end of November, four more self-reported fires were
reported, leading to a demonstration by Tibetan students in
Qinghai.
In January 2012, official statistics showed that for the
first time, the urban population in China had become larger
than the rural population. More than 51% of the country's
1.3 billion residents lived in urban areas.
At the end of January, activist Lin Zulian was elected
local party secretary in the village of Wukan in Guangdong
Province. Lin replaced the leader he and the rest of the
village had severely criticized a month earlier. In December
2011, the villagers had protested that municipal leaders
sold the villagers' leased land without compensating them.
The protests led to the sale being stopped, and the choice
of the activist was seen as a victory for the villagers and
for democracy.
On March 15, influential politician Bo Xilai was
dismissed from his post as party secretary in the city of
Chongqing, which was the start of one of the biggest
political scandals in China in decades. Bo was a member of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party and of the
Politburo, and was seen as a hot candidate for its standing
committee which was to be renewed in conjunction with the
party congress in November. The reason for the dismissal may
have been that the local police chief had found evidence
that Bos's wife, the former lawyer Gu Kailai, had been
involved in the death of British businessman Neil Heywood in
the fall of 2011. It had previously been said that Heywood,
who was hanging out privately with Bo's family, had died of
alcohol poisoning. There were also reports that the Chief of
Police had sought in vain at the US Consulate in Chengdu for
fearing for his life after the disclosure.
No official explanation for Bo Xilai being fired was
given, which also led to speculation about an ideological
power struggle within the Politburo. Bo stands to the left
of the Communist Party and wanted to see a change in the
current market economy system. There were also rumors of an
imminent military coup, which caused the authorities to shut
down some of the micro-blogs that supported Bo.
On April 10, the scandal developed further. Then the
authorities announced that Bo Xilai had been excluded from
the Communist Party Central Committee and the Politburo
because of "serious disciplinary violations". On the same
day, Xinhua State News Agency stated that new investigations
showed that the British businessman, who was found dead in a
hotel room in Chongqing in 2011, had been murdered. It was
said that the businessman and the Bo-Gu family had become
enemies because of business. On April 10, Gu Kailai and a
domestic worker were arrested as the main suspects of the
murder.
The trial of Gu Kailai was held in August. She did not
deny that she had poisoned the British businessman because,
according to the indictment, he had threatened to reveal her
plans to bring black money out of China. Gu received a
conditional death penalty, which means that the sentence is
likely to be converted to life imprisonment.
At the same time, speculation continued as to why Bo
Xilai had been deposed. According to the American newspaper
The New York Times, he had devoted himself to extensive
interception to be sure what his colleagues and other
politicians thought of him. Even President Hu Jintao must
have been eavesdropped. According to sources in another US
newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, the slain British
businessman must have been an agent for the British
intelligence service MI-6, which the latter denied.
In September, Bo Xilai was expelled from the Communist
Party, causing him to lose his prosecution immunity and
could face trial. He was suspected of discipline violations,
abuse of power and bribery. In September, the former chief
of police in Chongqing was also sentenced to 15 years in
prison for bribery and for helping to conceal the murder of
the British businessman.
Another scandal arose in April around self-taught lawyer
and human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who has been in
house arrest since 2010. On April 22, Chen, who is visually
impaired, fled from the house arrest in Dongshigu city and
went to the US Embassy in Beijing where he was declared have
applied for asylum. The issue came to affect China's
relations with the United States. At a security meeting
between the countries in early May, US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said that China cannot deny its citizens
their aspirations in life. The Chinese authorities then
agreed that Chen may study in the United States. In late
May, Chen traveled with his wife and children to New York,
where he began to study law. Chen criticized the Chinese
authorities for their treatment of him and his family.
In August, Chen appealed to the US authorities to
investigate his case and to protect his relatives in China.
The human rights activist said the Chinese government had
not kept its promise to investigate the abuses against him
in Shandong Province. Neither did they guarantee the safety
of his relatives in Shandong, where a nephew of Chen had
been arrested by the police.
Police hit two major leagues dealing with children in
early July, according to the Chinese authorities. The
operation was carried out simultaneously at different
locations in the country. 181 kidnapped children were
released and 802 people were arrested for human trafficking.
Every year, thousands or maybe tens of thousands of children
are kidnapped in China. They are sold for adoption or as a
labor force. China's one-child policy has created a demand
for small boys among other childless. Demand, and the
difficult financial situation for many, also cause some
families to sell their newborn or toddlers to criminal
leagues.
At the end of July, 37 people perished when Beijing was
hit by the worst skies in the capital over 60 years. Most
people drowned in the floods, while others died in the
masses of buildings when buildings fell due to high water
levels. About 65,000 people were evacuated from their homes.
Roads were flooded and this led to major traffic problems.
Around 500 flights had to be canceled, affecting tens of
thousands of passengers. A few weeks earlier, other parts of
China had also been hit by floods as a result of rainfall.
During the summer and autumn, China's old unresolved
conflict with Japan re-emerged with the Senkaku archipelago
- in Chinese Diaoyu - in the East China Sea. The uninhabited
islands are controlled by Japan, but China and Taiwan also
claim them. The great interest is because there is natural
gas and minerals in the waters off the islands. In early
July, Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced that
the Japanese government had entered into bargaining with the
businessman who owned three of the islands. The Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesman then went out and warned Japan to
state what he described as Chinese territory. Japan bought
the three islands, which increased tensions between China
and Japan. In September, both countries sent patrol boats to
monitor the islands.
The conflict was also noticed in China, where people
demonstrated, looted Japanese stores and businesses and
vandalized Japanese cars under the prevailing Japanese
atmosphere. Some large Japanese companies closed their
offices and factories waiting for the protests to subside.
At the end of September, China's foreign minister raised the
issue at the UN General Assembly, but Japan was not
interested in negotiating with China. Japan's Prime Minister
Noda explained that the government had bought the islands to
avoid Tokyo city doing so. Tokyo's mayor would then have
built the islands, and through the purchase, the government
wanted to avoid the provocation it would have meant for
China. In mid-December, Japan accused China of violating its
airspace with a Chinese aircraft. Japan sent a battle plan
and submitted an official protest to the Chinese government.
China also accused Japan of violating its airspace. At the
same time, China submitted a request to the UN with its
demands on the Senkaku Islands. China claimed that there is
geological evidence that the islands are a natural extension
of China's territory. A UN commission with geological
experts would investigate the matter, but had no mandate to
resolve the conflict. The last days of the year, the
conflict was further diluted when a Chinese fishing boat was
seized by Japanese Coast Guard and the crew was accused of
fishing on Japanese waters. Japan's new Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe, who took office after the December elections,
promised tougher deals with China.
In October, Chinese author Mo Yan was named the 2012
Nobel Laureate in Literature. The appointment was well
received by the Chinese authorities, at the same time as
Swedish media felt that the praise of Mo would thus not be
conducive to the development of human rights in China. Mo is
considered by many Swedish literary critics to be socially
critical, but in a way that does not go against China's
Communist Party. The Chinese city of Gaomi planned to build
a large tourist park dedicated to Mo Yan.
During the Communist Party's 18th Congress in November,
as expected, Vice President Xi Jinping, 59, was elected new
Secretary-General of the Communist Party after the outgoing
party leader and President Hu Jintao, who turned 70 in
December. In March 2013, Xi becomes China's president. Xi
was also given the second most important position in China,
as chairman of the Central Military Commission. In previous
changes of leadership, the outgoing president has continued
as chairman of the Military Commission for a few years, but
Hu also left that post.
According to analysts, the change of leadership will not
mean a major change to China's policy. In the speech Xi made
after the appointment, he stressed the importance of
fighting corruption and addressed the problems of party
officials who are mutually mutually bureaucratic and who
have come too far from the people. In addition to Xi, the
new members of the party's most powerful body, the
Politburo's Standing Committee, were presented, which was
reduced from nine to seven members. Responsible for the
economy was Li Keqiang, who will take over as China's new
prime minister after Wen Jiabao in March 2013.
The world's longest express train was opened in China in
early December. The line, which is close to 230 kilometers,
links the capital Beijing in the north with the industrial
hub of Guangzhou in the south. On the new track, the trains
run for 300 kilometers per hour, which has halved the travel
time.
At the end of December, China's new government tightened
its already tough Internet rules. Under the new rules,
Internet users must disclose their identity when purchasing
Internet subscriptions. Actually, this was a requirement
already before, but it was not always fulfilled and with the
new rules control would be tightened. The authorities
justified the tightening of the desire to protect personal
information on the Internet, but critics felt that the
government wanted to limit freedom of expression.
|
