Ex-Tiananmen convicts still struggling to survive

 Zhang Yansheng, 41, poses after an interview at a cafe in Beijing, China, on Wednesday, April 29, 2009. When Zhang was 21 years old, he was sentenced to life in prison for stealing a videotape and tossing it into a burning army truck in the early hours of June 4, 1989. The tape filmed by paramilitary guards showed people trying to block the army's advance toward the democracy demonstrators occupying Tiananmen Square.

Sun Liyong talks on the telephone at home in the Sydney Australia, suburb of Campsie, on Thursday, April 30, 2009. The former Beijing policeman was arrested in 1990 for criticizing the Chinese government's Tiananmen Square crackdown. on a telephone in his home in the Sydney, Australia, suburb of Campsie. He spent seven years in a Chinese jail with about 150 other so-called "June 4th thugs" and recorded his experiences in a unpublished memoir titled "Passing through the Iceberg."

By ALEXA OLESEN

BEIJING (AP) — For some imprisoned in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, getting out of jail has not meant freedom.

Imprisoned at 21 for destroying a videotape of clashes between soldiers and Beijing residents, Zhang Yansheng spent nearly 14 years in prison before his life sentence was commuted in 2003. He served another five years of parole, barred from media interviews, publishing, free speech or travel.

Now he's out of prison, but he cannot find steady work and shares his elderly mother's apartment and meager pension.

Finally able to tell his story at 41, Zhang says: "Most of us were in our 20's, just starting out, and then our lives were ruined, just like that... Now, after so many years we get out and no one cares. There is no one to look after us."

While most Chinese have moved beyond the events of 1989 — either because government taboos prevent discussion or because they're wrapped up in the boom that has brought prosperity to many — Zhang lives with his decision every day.

He cannot find steady work because he was a convict, and scrapes by on his mother's $150-a-month pension. 

His niece and nephew don't know he was in jail; they were told he was in the army. The Beijing of his youth is gone.

Unfamiliar buildings and the sea of new cars left him disoriented when he first got out; he felt lost and frequently scared in his old neighborhood. People had changed too.

"We were all very much the same back then. Nobody was better than anybody else and people put other people's feelings first," Zhang told The Associated Press at a cafe near his apartment. "That feeling of camaraderie, of helping each other is all gone. You're chatting, someone says 'Can you help me with this or that?' The first response is 'How much will you pay me?'"

Bald and slim, with a missing tooth, Zhang looks tough but speaks softly and has a wry sense of humor.

At the time of his arrest, Zhang was an usher at the Beijing Exhibition Center, an ornate 1950's-era communist landmark. His former co-workers now have families, meager pensions and health insurance. Zhang has none of that. 

He was released from jail with stern warnings to avoid trouble and nothing else, he said.

Like many of those given the harshest sentences for the Tiananmen protests, Zhang was not a student or a protest organizer. He was one of the working class youths who burned army trucks, fought with soldiers or stole equipment.

In the early hours of June 4, 1989, he stole a video filmed by paramilitary guards that showed Beijing residents trying to block the army's advance on democracy demonstrators occupying Tiananmen Square, and tossed it into a burning army truck.

Zhang said he thought that by destroying the videotape, he might save someone from jail or possibly death.

"They called us thugs and said we were against the government," Zhang said, speaking in a whisper at times so other cafe patrons would not hear him. "We weren't anti-government. But we were against what they were doing, their methods. Why were they using the army to crush their own people?"

Thousands of people are believed to have been killed when troops stormed into the center of Beijing on orders from top party leaders to break up the pro-democracy protests.

Zhang said he and others rounded up after June 4 are "history's sacrificial lambs."

"The students didn't face any serious consequences. They went back to school and were dealt with there, with reeducation classes. But we were punished for the students to see... because the government needed to restore social order," he said.

Sun Liyong, a former Beijing police officer, was arrested in 1990 for criticizing the government's Tiananmen response. 

He spent seven years in prison with Zhang and about 150 other so-called "June 4 thugs," and recorded his experiences in an unpublished memoir titled "Crossing Ice Mountain."

An excerpt shared by e-mail describes how he spent 183 days in solitary confinement, his hands and feet shackled and linked by a chain, only able to eat like a dog, with his face in the plate.

Now working living in Sydney, Australia, where he works for a moving company, Sun has established a fund for former Tiananmen prisoners. 

He sends $450 to them when they first get out and more when he is able. He has also compiled case files for dozens of them, documenting their financial and health problems.

One describes how Sun Chuanheng, released in 2006 after serving 18 years for setting two military trucks on fire, tried unsuccessfully to work as a newspaper delivery man and a door to door salesman.

Now he scrapes by earning $88 a month at a friend's hardware store, eating one meal a day and wearing clothes bought before he went to jail. He could not be interviewed due to the terms of his parole.

Neither could Zhang Maosheng, who served 18 years for burning an army truck. He told Sun Liyong that he sometimes goes to a soup kitchen and has been so ashamed of his life outside that he wished he were back in prison.

Most of the former prisoners need medical attention for eye problems, high blood pressure, back trouble and other ailments but they can't afford it, Sun said.

China's Ministry of Justice did not immediately respond to faxed questions about the Tiananmen prisoners.

Last June, the U.S. State Department said there were still an estimated 50 to 200 Tiananmen prisoners serving time in Chinese jails, and urged China to release them all.

Looted relic to be auctioned despite China protest

 Tourists admire the ruins of Haiyan Hall at the Old Summer Palace

PARIS (AFP) — A French auction house said the sale of an 18th-century Chinese imperial seal would go ahead on Wednesday despite angry protests in Beijing, in the latest row over the sale of looted relics.
"The sale is going ahead, everything is in order," said Thierry Portier, in charge of the sale organised in Paris by the auctioneer Beaussant-Lefevre, which values the jade piece at 300,000-400,000 euros (396,000-528,000 dollars).

The authorities that manage Beijing's Summer Palace, former home to China's Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) emperors, issued a sharp protest on Wednesday saying the seal was looted by British and French forces in 1860.

"Such relics should all be repatriated to China and returned to their place of origin," the palace authority said in a statement.

"We once again express strong indignation at this sort of repeated action that hurts the Chinese people's feelings, harms their cultural interests, and violates relevant international pacts," it said.

China's communist central government did not immediately comment.

Mounted with two carved dragons back to back, the white jade seal comes from the personal collection of a descendant of Elie Jean de Vassoigne, a French general who commanded some of the invading troops.

But Portier said General Vassoigne was not mentioned in records of the pillage of the Summer Palace, pointing out that he was in charge of Takou fort in Tiensin, 200 kilometres (120 miles) from Beijing, in 1860.

"We know he was in Takou at the time," he said, adding that it was not known how the seal came to be in his possession.

According to Portier, a dozen Chinese imperial seals are sold each year across the world, with one 17th-century piece snapped up in southern France last year for 5.6 million euros.

Chinese authorities have never complained so far, he said, adding that Beaussant-Lefevre had already secured the French government's authorisation to export the latest piece from France after the sale.

The contested auction comes two months after Christie's sold two bronze animal heads looted from the Summer Palace, which belonged to late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge.

The 15.7-million-euro sale sparked a firestorm of criticism in China and further strained Sino-French relations already hurt by a December meeting between President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama.

Authorities in Beijing had repeatedly called for the sale of the Saint Laurent bronzes to be halted, and the relics returned to China.

A Chinese art collector later said he was the bidder but refused to pay, leaving the auction in limbo.

Shamed by SARS, China vows transparency

Beijing swings into action against swine flu in a dramatic contrast to 2003's policy of denial
By MARK MACKINNON
BEIJING -- There has not yet been a single confirmed case of swine flu in China, but an epidemic of official anxiety over the virus has already struck this country, with the government taking pains to show that it has learned from its bungled handling of the SARS outbreak in 2003.
"Precaution" was the one-word headline in the official China Daily newspaper yesterday, running amid a series of photographs of people around the world wearing face masks to guard against the spread of the killer swine flu. 

President Hu Jintao ordered the government to step up efforts to keep the virus from entering China and to control any possible outbreak to "ensure the people's health and safety," state television reported. 

Premier Wen Jiabao weighed in as well, and government officials of every level were tripping over themselves yesterday to declare how swiftly and transparently they would report on any swine flu outbreak in this country of 1.3 billion people.

A school was closed Sunday in the northwestern province of Shaanxi and students were examined after several displayed flu-like symptoms that were reportedly later determined to have been caused by relatively common Type-B influenza. 

Several other suspected cases were being examined, although none were described by the World Health Organization as likely to be the H1N1 strain of swine flu that has killed scores in Mexico and rapidly spread to Canada, the United States and several other countries. 

South Korea and Thailand were among the countries investigating probable cases of swine flu yesterday.

Hans Troedsson, the WHO's representative in China, said the reporting of suspected cases in Shaanxi and elsewhere suggested that the government is well prepared for the potential spread of the virus. 

"If you don't have any suspected cases, I would say that your surveillance system might not work that well. So, it's actually a good indication that they have a surveillance system that works," he said after meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Health.
Though bigger tests are likely to lie ahead, the government's willingness to report even suspected cases of swine flu already stands in stark contrast to 2003, when Chinese officials were accused of abetting the spread of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, by initially denying its existence and then underreporting the scope of what was happening. 

SARS eventually killed 650 people in China and the handling of the epidemic sparked rare public displays of anger at the government.

Shamed and smartened, Beijing is vowing to be a model of transparency this time around. 

The policy-making State Council declared fighting the spread of the swine flu virus its "central task" and ordered a host of measures be put into place, including the creation of a "direct reporting system on the epidemic leading to early discovery, early reports, early diagnosis, early quarantine and early treatment."

"As soon as cases are discovered in our borders they must be publicly announced in a timely manner," a statement released by the State Council said. 

The government also banned pork imports from Mexico and the U.S. states of Texas, Kansas and California.

Because of its mammoth population and densely packed cities -- not to mention the 450 million pigs raised here, half the global total -- China is seen as being at high risk as the virus spreads and any outbreak of swine flu could have devastating effects here.

However, the SARS experience should help China cope if swine flu does cross its borders. Temperature screening machines have been in use at many Chinese airports since the epidemic. The special autonomous region of Hong Kong -- which was hit hardest by SARS, with 1,755 infections and 299 deaths in 2003 -- is among the best-prepared cities anywhere, with 1,400 beds available in respiratory isolation units as a result of SARS and a stockpile of some 20 million treatment courses of Tamiflu, a medicine to which the swine flu has yet to develop resistance, for its population of seven million people.

Even the official press has made clear that the public expects better from its leaders this time around. 

"China must remember the lessons it learned from the SARS experience: that transparency of information is essential for combatting the spread of an infectious outbreak," read yesterday's editorial in the Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Communist Party. 

"The more information the public is provided with, the better equipped we will be as a country and as a society to decrease its potential impact."

Beijing rejects reports on China origin of flu

 A woman helps her child to wear a mask at a hospital in Beijing

BEIJING (AFP) — A senior Chinese health official said Wednesday that overseas media reports pointing to China as the source of a swine flu outbreak were aimed at tarnishing his nation's image.
"Driven by ulterior motives, overseas media have ignored the facts of the epidemic and basic scientific knowledge and deliberately fabricated rumours that this epidemic came from China," health ministry spokesman Mao Qunan said.

"(They) aim to muddle right and wrong, create disturbances and ruin China's image," he said in a statement posted on the ministry's website.

A number of press reports have said that the swine flu virus originated in Asia, with some quoting the Mexican governor of Veracruz, Fidel Herrera, as telling reporters Monday that the virus began in China.

"We are resolutely opposed to this," Mao said.

He said China was ready to work with the international community to help curb the spread of the A/H1N1 swine flu which has killed seven in Mexico and has spread around the world.

So far China has not reported any human cases of the swine flu.

"At present we have not detected any cases of human infection of this virus, nor have we discovered any similar infections in pigs," Mao said.

In recent years China has suffered outbreaks of other diseases that scientists believe could lead to a global pandemic, including the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak and more recently avian flu.

"After the swine flu epidemic broke out in the United States, Mexico and other places, the Chinese government placed a lot of importance on this and immediately initiated the emergency prevention system," Mao said.

"In the process of fighting this epidemic, our nation will maintain close cooperation and make common efforts with the World Health Organisation and the governments of nations hit by the outbreak."

According to the China News Service, China on Wednesday agreed to give Mexico five million dollars in aid to help fight the outbreak.

Japan chides China on lack of nuclear transparency

 Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone talks during his meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at Zhongnanhai in Beijing in this March 1, 2009 photo.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's foreign minister chided Beijing on Monday for a lack of transparency about its nuclear arsenal ahead of Prime Minister Taro Aso's visit to China this week.

In a speech outlining an 11-point initiative for global nuclear disarmament, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone backed U.S. President Barack Obama's recent call for a nuclear-free world. He also said North Korea's ballistic missile development was a source of suspicion and tension around the world.

"China continues to modernise its nuclear arsenals and has not undertaken any nuclear arms reductions," Nakasone said. "Nor does the country disclose any information on its nuclear arsenal."

Aso is expected to raise the issue of the lack of transparency in Beijing's military spending when he meets Chinese leaders on Wednesday and Thursday.

Nakasone said Japan, the only country that suffered from atomic bombs, wanted to host an international conference to discuss global nuclear disarmament early next year ahead of the 2010 review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the pact that aims to prevent the spread of nuclear arms.

Japan has for decades banned the possession, production and import of nuclear arms but relies on a U.S. "nuclear umbrella" for its protection.

Nakasone also urged India, Pakistan and Israel to join the NPT as non-nuclear powers, while stressing the need for Iran to adhere to U.N. resolutions on its uranium enrichment to win confidence from the international community.

In China, Knockoff Cellphones Are a Hit

 A man tested out a fake phone at a mobile phone market in Shenzhen, China.

Technological advances have allowed hundreds of small Chinese companies, some with as few as 10 employees, to churn out what are known here as shanzhai, or black market, cellphones, often for as little as $35 apiece. This fake Louis Vuitto-branded phone was available at a mobile phone market in Shenzhen, China.

 A large mobile phone market in Shenzhen, China. Just as Chinese companies are trying to move up the value chain of manufacturing, from producing toys and garments to making computers and electric cars, so too are counterfeiters.

 Four different sizes of fake Apple iPhones on display at a mobile phone market.

 The Meizu M8 mobile phone is a virtual copy of the Apple iPhone.

By DAVID BARBOZA

SHENZHEN, China — The phone’s sleek lines and touch-screen keyboard are unmistakably familiar. So is the logo on the back. But a sales clerk at a sprawling electronic goods market in this Chinese coastal city admits what is clear upon closer inspection: this is not the Apple iPhone; this is the Hi-Phone.

“But it’s just as good,” the clerk says.

Nearby, dozens of other vendors are selling counterfeit Nokia, Motorola and Samsung phones — as well as cheap look-alikes that make no bones about being knockoffs.

“Five years ago, there were no counterfeit phones,” says Xiong Ting, a sales manager at Triquint Semiconductor, a maker of mobile phone parts, while visiting Shenzhen. “You needed a design house. You needed software guys. You needed hardware design. But now, a company with five guys can do it. Within 100 miles of here, you can find all your suppliers.”

Technological advances have allowed hundreds of small Chinese companies, some with as few as 10 employees, to churn out what are known here as shanzhai, or black market, cellphones, often for as little as $20 apiece.

And just as Chinese companies are trying to move up the value chain of manufacturing, from producing toys and garments to making computers and electric cars, so too are counterfeiters. After years of making fake luxury bags and cheap DVDs, they are capturing market share from the world’s biggest mobile phone makers.

Although shanzhai phones have only been around a few years, they already account for more than 20 percent of sales in China, which is the world’s biggest mobile phone market, according to the research firm Gartner.

They are also being illegally exported to Russia, India, the Middle East, Europe, even the United States. 

“The shanzhai phone market is expanding crazily,” says Wang Jiping, a senior analyst at IDC, which tracks technology trends. “They copy Apple, Nokia, whatever they like, and they respond to the market swiftly.”

Alarmed by the rapid growth of counterfeits and no-name knockoffs, global brands are pressing the Chinese government to crack down on their proliferation, and are warning consumers about potential health hazards, like cheap batteries that can explode.

Nokia, the world’s biggest cellphone maker, says it is working with Beijing to fight counterfeiting. Motorola says much the same. Apple Inc. declined to comment.

Even Chinese mobile phone producers are losing market share to underground companies, which have a built-in cost advantage because they evade taxes, regulatory fees and safety checks.

“We’re being severely hurt by shanzhai phones,” says Chen Zhao, a sales director at Konka, a Chinese cellphone maker. “Legal cellphone makers should pay 17 percent of their revenue as value-added tax, but shanzhai makers, of course, won’t pay it.”

So far, however, China has done little to stop the proliferation of fake mobile phones, which are even advertised on late-night television infomercials with pitches like “one-fifth the price, but the same function and look,” or patriotic appeals like “Buy shanzhai to show your love of our country.”

Last month, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did warn consumers about the hazards of shanzhai phones, saying “their radiation usually exceeds the limit.” China’s consumer protection agency says faulty mobile phones were the No. 1 consumer complaint last year.

A few weeks ago, a 45-year-old man in south China was severely burned after his cellphone exploded in his shirt pocket, according to state-run news media.

But that hasn’t seemed to affect sales of black market phones, which typically sell at retail for $100 to $150. In the spirit of what is called “shanzhai” — which suggests rebels or bandits and which applies to counterfeit products of all kinds — many consumers are willing to take a risk on a cheap item that looks stylish.

“I saw iPhone pictures on the Web; it’s so cool. But it costs over $500 — too expensive,” says Yang Guibin, 30, an office worker from Chongqing. “So I decided to buy a shanzhai iPhone. I bought it in a digital market here; it looked exactly like the iPhone.”

Some experts say they believe the shanzhai phenomena is about being creative, Chinese style.

“Chinese grass-roots companies are actually very innovative,” says Yu Zhou, a professor at Vassar College. “It’s not so much technology as how they form supply chains and how rapidly they react to new trends.”

While the phones may look like famous brands, companies actually add special features like bigger screens, dual-mode SIM cards (which allow two phone numbers) and even a telescopic lens attachment for the phone’s camera.

Since it is the SIM card that makes a phone run in China, as in most places other than the United States, all you have to do is insert a valid SIM card into a shanzhai phone and it works.

All this innovation comes from an industry that only took off in 2005, after Mediatek, a semiconductor design company from Taiwan, helped significantly reduce the cost and complexity of producing a mobile phone.

Using what experts call a turnkey solution, Mediatek developed a circuit board that could inexpensively integrate the functions of multiple chips, offering start-ups a platform to produce a low-cost mobile phone.

The industry got another boost in 2007, when regulators said companies no longer needed a license to manufacture a cellphone.

That set off a scramble by entrepreneurs in this electronics manufacturing center. Counterfeiting and off-brand knockoffs flourished. Tiny companies would buy a Mediatek chip loaded with software, source other components and ask a factory to assemble them.

Marketing strategies were simple: steal. Designs and brand names were copied identically or simply mimicked. (Sumsung for Samsung or Nckia for Nokia.)

Tapping into the supply chains of big brands is easy, producers say. “It’s really common for factories to do a night shift for other companies,” says Zhang Haizhen, who recently ran a shanzhai company here. 

“No one will refuse an order if it is over 5,000 mobile phones.”

The people who make fake iPhones admit it’s a shady business.

“We are a kind of illegal producer,” says Zhang Feiyang, whose company, Yuanyang, makes an iPhone clone. “In Shenzhen there are many small mills, hidden. Basically, we can make any type of cellphone.”

The competition is already forcing global brands to lower prices, analysts say. And new Chinese brands are emerging, like Meizu, a would-be Apple that has opened stylish stores here.

“Our phone is even better than the iPhone,” says Liu Zeyu, a Meizu salesman in Shenzhen. “Our goal is to create a phone that makes Chinese proud.”

In Vietnam, New Fears of a Chinese 'Invasion'

 The border war between China and Vietnam

By Martha Ann Overland / Hanoi

Thirty years ago, Vietnamese soldiers waged a final, furious battle in the hills of Lang Son near the country's northern border to push back enemy troops. Both sides suffered horrific losses, but Vietnam eventually proclaimed victory. 

Decades later, diplomatic relations have been restored and the two nations, at least in public, call each other friend. Vietnam's former foe is a major investor in the country, bilateral trade is at an all-time high, and tourists, not troops, are pouring in.
No, not Americans. Chinese. 

As part of an aggressive effort to expand its commercial and political influence in Southeast Asia, China is investing heavily in Vietnam. Chinese companies are now involved in myriad road projects, mining operations and power plants. 

Yet, despite the fact that cooperation between the two communist countries is being encouraged by Vietnam's leaders, this friendly invasion does not sit well among a people who have been fighting off Chinese advances for more than a thousand years, most recently in 1979. 

Many in Vietnam worry that China is being handed the keys not just to their country's natural resources but also to sensitive strategic areas, threatening the nation's security. 

"The danger is that China has won most of the bids building electricity, cement and chemical plants," warns Nguyen Van Thu, the chairman of Vietnam's Association of Mechanical Industries. "They eat up everything and leave nothing." 
Thu says he suspects some Chinese companies have won construction contracts by submitting lowball bids, which could mean they are cutting corners, threatening quality and safety. 

But Thu's biggest concern is the influx of large numbers of Chinese workers, including cooks and cleaning staff, that are taking jobs from Vietnamese and threatening the country's social stability. 

"Chinese contractors bring everything here, even the toilet seats!" declares Thu. "These are materials Vietnam can produce, and work that Vietnamese can do."
The latest lightning rod for anti-Chinese sentiment is Hanoi's plan to allow subsidiaries of the Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco) to mine bauxite ore in Vietnam's Central Highlands. Bauxite is a key ingredient in aluminum, which China needs to fuel its construction industry. Vietnam has an estimated eight billion tons of high-quality bauxite, the third-largest reserves in the world. The environmental cost of extracting the mineral, however, can be high. 

Strip mining is efficient, but scars the land and bauxite processing releases a toxic red sludge that can seep into water supplies if not adequately contained. 

Several senior Vietnamese scientists as well as Vietnam's burgeoning green movement have questioned the wisdom of giving mining rights to China, whose own mines were shut down because of the massive damage they caused to the environment.
But the real opposition appears to have less to do with the environment and more to do with Vietnam's fear of its neighbor on the country's northern border. 

Nationalist groups accuse Hanoi of caving in to pressure from commodities-hungry China by allowing the mining project to go forward. 

Bloggers are whipping up fears that the influx of Chinese workers is part of Beijing's long-term strategy to occupy their country. 

Banned pro-democracy groups, which are happy for any opportunity to criticize the authoritarian government, call the mining venture an "ill-begotten scheme." 

Earlier this month, a dissident Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Do, said that strip mining will destroy the way of life of the region's ethnic minorities. He added that the project created "an illustration of Vietnam's dependence on China." 

Perhaps the most unexpected criticism has come from General Vo Nguyen Giap, a revered Vietnamese military leader who helped defeat the French and later the Americans. 

In a letter to Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, the 97-year-old war hero voiced concern over the presence of large numbers of Chinese in the Central Highlands, which is a strategic gateway to Vietnam, one where battles have been won and lost.
Other countries in the region are made uneasy by China's thirst for resources. 

Last month, the Australian government rejected a $1.8 billion bid by Chinese mining company Minmetals to acquire debt-ridden OZ Minerals, the world's second-biggest zinc miner, due to national security concerns. OZ Minerals has operations near Australia's Woomera weapons testing site.
The Hanoi government says it is listening to concerns but it appears to be unmoved. 

Dung recently declared bauxite mining a "major policy of the party and the state." Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai reaffirmed the government's support, and several local provincial officials were on hand at a recent mining conference to defend the project, arguing that despite the presence of the Chinese workers, development will benefit the impoverished ethnic minorities who live in the region.
The pressure on Vietnam to proceed as planned is enormous, says Carl A. Thayer, a Vietnam expert who teaches at the University of New South Wales' Australian Defense Force Academy. Vietnam needs to trade with China, the world's third-largest economy, to survive. 

Thayer acknowledges that no Chinese company operates independently of the government. "If you go up far enough you will find a military or a security connection," he says. 

Some of the problems are of Vietnam's own making, observes Thayer. 

The country has become increasingly dependent on foreign direct investment to buoy its economy. Last year, overseas investors sunk a record $11.5 billion into Vietnam. China last year had 73 investment projects worth $334 million in the country. But in the wake of the global recession, foreign direct investment plummeted 70% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same time period last year.
Hanoi has been calling for increased investment, and is even more desperate for external cash infusions now that its economy has flatlined. Vietnam has also racked up a massive trade deficit with China. 

As more Chinese companies venture across the border and sink millions into new investment projects, Hanoi can't dictate all the terms. Nor can they just close the spigot. 

"The Vietnamese have to be careful of what they wish for," says Thayer.

China Can’t Have It Both Ways

New York Times
The Chinese government issued two statements last Thursday. Both were only briefly, and separately, noted in the press. They make for a curious contrast.

In one, China denounced Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso for making an offering to the Yasukuni shrine. This is the shrine that honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 war criminals from World War II.

China was furious when the then-prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, visited Yasukuni in 2005, and the next two prime ministers stayed clear.

But Mr. Aso, a pugnacious nationalist, revived the controversy on Tuesday by offering the Shinto shrine a potted plant. Mr. Aso’s spokesmen insisted that this was not the same as a visit, and in any case would not affect his scheduled visit to China next week.

China was furious, telling the Japanese that “the question of history is highly sensitive.”

In the other statement, China demanded that the United States cancel a visit by the Dalai Lama (he arrived on Friday for a two-week tour). 

The Buddhist religious leader, a recipient of the Nobel peace prize who is respected around the world, says he is seeking only autonomy for his homeland, Tibet. China vilifies him as a separatist and regularly lambastes countries and leaders who receive him.

“We oppose the Dalai Lama going to any country to engage in splittist activities under any pretext,” said Jiang Yu, the same Foreign Ministry spokeswoman who had earlier found history to be so sensitive.

Mr. Aso’s offering to Yasukuni was provocative, even if all he offered was a potted sakaki evergreen, and his explanation — that he was just expressing “appreciation and respect” to Japanese who gave their all — was disingenuous.

We understand China’s frustration. But it only makes Beijing’s repression of Tibet and its attacks on the Dalai Lama all the more hypocritical.

As it carves out an ever greater role in the world, Beijing will have to learn that it cannot have it both ways. 

China cannot be the aggrieved victim in the morning and the bully in the afternoon.

Tibetan students protest in China

 Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims pray during a ceremony at the sacred Labrang Monastery in the town of Xiahe

BEIJING (AFP) — Hundreds of students at a Tibetan school in China's northwest held a daring protest, demonstrating over education conditions, locals and an overseas Tibetan group said Saturday.

The protest took place Friday morning among Tibetan students at the Xiahe middle school in Gansu province, the proprietor of a local hotel told AFP by telephone.

"The students protested on Friday. There were no protests today," he said without giving his name.

"There were a few police, but no violence. Everything is quiet."

Xiahe, is home to the Labrang Monastery, a famous Tibetan Buddhist temple, where monks protested in March 2008 when anti-Chinese unrest spread throughout ethnic Tibetan regions of China.

During the unrest, the remote town and monastery were besieged with armed police, the proprietor said.

According to Phayul.com, an exiled Tibetan news website, several hundred Tibetan students were expressing their disappointment over the rise in the number of Chinese students in college-level institutes.

The students said college seats that are normally given to Tibetans were being given instead to Chinese students, it said.

Phones at the Xiahe public security office and the Xiahe Middle School were not being answered Saturday.

Unrest in ethnic Tibetan regions in China spread last year after riots erupted in Lhasa during March.

China has said "rioters" were responsible for 21 deaths, while saying that its security forces killed only one "insurgent."

However, the exiled Tibetan government headed by the Dalai Lama has said more than 200 Tibetans were killed in China's subsequent crackdown.

A Tibet court issued a suspended death sentence for one man and stiff jail terms for two others for setting deadly fires in the Lhasa riots last year, Chinese state media said Tuesday.

The two fires killed six people, Xinhua news agency said, quoting the Tibet Daily newspaper.

Steel Wars: Europe and the U.S. Accuse China of Dumping

An employee works at a steel and iron factory in Changzhi, Shanxi province

By Leo Cendrowicz / Brussels
Are Europe and the U.S. headed for a steel war with China? 

Brussels and Washington have long complained that China unfairly helps its steel makers. 

Now the recession — and the different way steel firms are responding to it — is adding to the angst.

In February the alliance of European steel manufacturers Eurofer accused China of systematically distorting steel markets through subsidies. 

The result, say Europe's steel makers, has been "irrational capacity extension." 

The European Commission has slapped duties on Chinese steel pipe imports, and is now threatening World Trade Organization action as well.

On April 8, the U.S. steel industry filed an antidumping suit with American authorities against Beijing, alleging that $2.7 billion of pipe steel was unfairly dumped onto the American market last year. 

Eurofer General Director Gordon Moffat calls it a "perfect storm" for a trade war. 

"Demand has fallen off a cliff since October," Moffat says. "We know China is simply waiting for demand to return before flooding the markets."

Steelmakers around the world have indeed been hit by falling demand from automakers, shipbuilders, construction and heavy engineering sectors. Tight credit and the need to generate cash flows have resulted in a massive drop in steel inventories industry-wide.

But where European and U.S. steel mills are cutting back on production, China seems to be expanding. 

Luxemburg-based ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker, is slashing output by half, for instance. Yet state-supported Chinese steel companies are actually ramping up both capacity and output, according to Chinese government figures. 

The China Iron and Steel Association says that the production of crude steel has risen since December, from 1.2 million tons a day to 1.4 million. (China's annual excess production capacity is already about 100 million tons, more than the annual U.S. steel output.)

China's steel makers employ some 2.5 million people and Beijing is desperate to keep those jobs going. 

But U.S. and European rivals say China isn't playing fair and accuse Beijing of subsidizing steel companies, offering preferential tax rates, giving access to low-priced materials, and exempting steel firms from labor and environmental rules.

European and U.S. steel makers say those policies have artificially depressed steel prices and helped boost China's share of total E.U. steel imports from 2% in 2003 to 30% today and its share of U.S. imports from 4% in 2003 to 19% today. 

"The Chinese are in trouble and they must decide between allowing growth rates to fall — something that is politically very difficult — or annoying their trading partners by dumping their exports," says Paul Scott, managing consultant at London-based mining analysts CRU. 

"They are likely to choose the lesser of two evils, exporting their way out of the problem, and this could trigger a trade war."

Jackie slams S'poreans

Straits Times
SINGAPOREANS have no self respect, action movie star Jackie Chan told an audience of businessmen.

He said this in the same speech at the annual Boao Forum in Hainan last Saturday, at which he said Chinese people need to be 'controlled'.

In that address, he reportedly said of Singapore: 'A lot of people are not like those in USA and Japan who voluntarily have self-respect. When you don't have self-respect, the government will have to control you.

'In Singapore, you have to abide by Singapore's regulations. In China, you can litter, In Singapore, try littering and you will be jailed immediately.' Shin Min Daily news had earlier this week published a transcript of his 'freedom speech' which touched on the issue of liberty in China.

The 55-year-old sparked an uproar after he told a business forum last Saturday that 'we Chinese need to be controlled', lamenting that freedom had made Hong Kong and Taiwan societies chaotic. 

'I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not,' said Chan, who added: 'If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.'

The backlash against Chan has escalated even after his spokesman claimed that he was referring to freedom in the entertainment industry and not Chinese society as a whole.

In China, a prominent Beijing academic is leading a group of locals calling for a boycott of Chan's 'Believe in China' charity concert on May 1, which will be the first music event held at the iconic Bird's Nest stadium.

In that speech, he also lashed out at Singaporeans' lack of social graces, The New Paper reported on Saturday. 'Sometimes, I wonder why I can't eat chewing gum in Singapore. Then, I think it's actually right not to eat chewing gum," he was reported as having said.

''If I let you eat chewing gum, those people will leave them on tables and chairs. They have no self-respect at all.' His comments have drawn a backlash from much of the Internet community here.

'What's up with him lately? Before he criticised our local female artistes for not working hard enough. Now this? I have suddenly lost respect for him,' said Gabriel_23 on the HardwareZone forum.

Jackie Chan Strikes a Chinese Nerve

Jackie Chan, with his son, Jaycee, at a news conference this month to promote his coming concert in Beijing. Last weekend, Mr. Chan made some unflattering remarks about Chinese people.

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — Jackie Chan, the Hong Kong martial arts star well known for showing his own failed stunts at the end of his films, may have another blooper to his credit.

When Mr. Chan told a high-level gathering of Chinese government officials and business leaders last weekend that Chinese people were ill equipped to handle liberty, he found himself on the receiving end of a verbal thrashing from across the Chinese-speaking world that is still reverberating.

“I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled,” Mr. Chan said during the Boao Forum, the annual economic conference held on Hainan Island with a keynote speech by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. “If we are not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.”

The response was strongest in Hong Kong and Taiwan, which Mr. Chan, one of Asia’s wealthiest and best-known entertainers, held out as particularly “chaotic.” 

But even some intellectuals in mainland China spoke out against stereotyping Chinese as people who crave authoritarian leadership.

Apple Daily, one of Hong Kong’s biggest newspapers, used its front page to anoint him “a knave.” Politicians in Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island that China claims as sovereign territory, described him as “idiotic” and “ignorant.” 

Albert Ho, a Hong Kong legislator, called Mr. Chan a “racist,” adding: “People around the world are running their own countries. Why can’t Chinese do the same?”

Here on the mainland, a writer published online by The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, gave him a thumbs down. 

“I guess Jackie Chan has never experienced the lack of freedom, and has not been cruelly controlled,” the commentator, Li Hongbing, wrote.

As the storm gathered, words turned to action: the mayor of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, dropped Mr. Chan as an ambassador for the 2009 Summer Deaflympics in Taiwan. The Hong Kong Tourism Board said it would reconsider his role as its most high-profile spokesman. On Facebook, more than 9,700 people threw their weight behind a tongue-in-cheek effort to dispatch Mr. Chan to hypercontrolled North Korea.

“I wouldn’t watch his movies again unless he apologizes,” said Shing Hiu-yi, vice president of the Students’ Union Council at Hong Kong University, one of many groups that have been issuing condemnations and calling for boycotts. 

“What he said was insulting to the Chinese people.”

On the other hand, few have publicly acknowledged that Mr. Chan’s sentiments, even if “taken out of context,” as his spokesman insisted, are quietly accepted or embraced by many Chinese. The Communist Party has long argued that the people of China are ill suited for Western-style democracy. 

Even many educated Chinese unabashedly insist that the bulk of their brethren are too unschooled or unsophisticated to participate in matters of politics and governing.

Give the people too long a leash, the thinking goes, and everyone will end up strangled.

Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based analyst of Chinese politics, said that there was a prevailing sentiment in the Chinese-speaking world that too much freedom could only fuel disharmony and instability, viewed as archenemies of China’s drive to put economic development first.

“Jackie Chan said those things because he thinks they are true, and there are major sections of society who couldn’t agree with him more,” Mr. Moses said. “But such thinking is increasingly out of touch with this simmering debate about what the extent of state authority should be.”

Mr. Chan’s remarks provoked some navel-gazing, especially on the Internet. 

In a subtle subversion, Yan Lieshan, one of China’s best-known writers, suggested that no amount of government control could help a nation lacking manners and morals. 

Writing in Southern Weekend, a liberal-leaning newspaper in Guangzhou, Mr. Yan bemoaned the neighbors who dump trash on his sidewalk and the cars that speed down his narrow street. “How I wish the relevant authorities would come and enforce the rules, but there is no one to control them,” he wrote. “When you lodge a complaint, no one responds.”

Although he was reared in Hong Kong by parents who fled mainland China, Mr. Chan, 55, has been an unalloyed Chinese patriot. He sang during the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, and he angrily denounced protesters who sought to interrupt the torch relay. During an earlier swat at electoral politics, he called the 2004 presidential elections in Taiwan “the biggest joke in the world.”

Even if he believes that Chinese people need more control, many observers suggested that Mr. Chan was simply seeking to stroke the authoritarian government that recently banned his latest film, “Shinjuku Incident,” because of excessive violence.

Hu Xingdou, an economics professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said he was so infuriated by what he described as Mr. Chan’s pandering that he was organizing a boycott of a May 1 concert Mr. Chan had scheduled at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing.

“It’s easy to sacrifice freedom when you’re treated like a V.I.P. or some high-level official every time you come to China,” said Mr. Hu, who is known for his tart criticisms. 

“I’m sure Jackie Chan has never thought about the suffering of the little people who have no power.”

Bổ nhiệm chủ tịch huyện Hoàng Sa

 Hoàng Sa đã hoàn toàn về tay Trung Quốc từ năm 1974

Việt Nam chuẩn bị bổ nhiệm người đứng đầu huyện đảo Hoàng Sa, tuy quần đảo này đã hoàn toàn bị Trung Quốc chiếm đóng.

Tin cho hay ngày 25/04, Ủy ban Nhân dân thành phố Đà Nẵng sẽ công bố quyết định bổ nhiệm trực tiếp chủ tịch của 8 quận huyện, trong đó có huyện Hoàng Sa.

Được biết ông Đặng Công Ngữ, hiện là Giám đốc Sở Nội vụ Đà Nẵng, sẽ lãnh trách nhiệm này. Trước khi nhậm chức, ông Ngữ nói với các nhà báo rằng ông sẽ "tiếp tục cùng toàn dân cả nước đấu tranh để khẳng định chủ quyền của quần đảo Hoàng Sa thuộc về Việt Nam, tiếp tục thu thập tư liệu liên quan đến Hoàng Sa để làm kỷ yếu và hồ sơ lưu trữ".

Mới đây, người ta đã phát hiện ra một sắc chỉ cổ từ thời nhà Nguyễn có liên quan tới quần đảo Hoàng Sa.

Sắc chỉ do gia tộc họ Đặng ở đảo Lý Sơn, tỉnh Quảng Ngãi, lưu giữ , là của vua Minh Mạng, phái một đội thuyền với 24 lính thủy ra đảo Hoàng Sa năm Ất Mùi (1835) để làm nhiệm vụ bảo vệ đảo.

Dưới triều Nguyễn, Hoàng Sa thuộc Quảng Ngãi. Chính phủ Việt Nam Cộng hòa đặt Hoàng Sa dưới sự quản lý của tỉnh Quảng Nam.

Sau 1975, Hoàng Sa thuộc về Quảng Nam - Đà Nẵng và năm 1997, trở thành huyện đảo trực thuộc thành phố Đà Nẵng.

Trụ sở ủy ban nhân dân sẽ đặt tại Đà Nẵng.

Một huyện đảo khác là Trường Sa, thuộc tỉnh Khánh Hòa, cũng có ủy ban nhân dân đặt tại Cam Ranh.

Quần đảo Hoàng Sa, cách Đà Nẵng 390km, đã bị Trung Quốc chiếm hồi tháng 1/1974.

Mới đây Việt Nam đã có nhiều động thái tăng cường tuyên truyền về chủ quyền biển, trong đó có cuộc thi tìm hiểu về biển đảo phát động hồi tháng trước.

Chưa rõ phản ứng của Trung Quốc trước việc bổ nhiệm mới này ra sao. Bắc Kinh đã kịch liệt phản đối khi Việt Nam tổ chức bầu cử hay mở tour du lịch ra Trường Sa.

Vinh danh tử sỹ

Tháng 12/2007 có thông tin Quốc vụ viện Trung Quốc phê chuẩn việc thành lập thành phố hành chính Tam Sa để trực tiếp quản lý ba quần đảo trong đó có Hoàng Sa và Trường Sa mà Việt Nam tuyên bố chủ quyền.

Thông tin này đã làm nổ ra một số cuộc biểu tình ở H̀a Nội và TP Hồ Chí Minh.

Việt Nam còn nắm giữ một số đảo ở Trường Sa, nhưng Hoàng Sa đã hoàn toàn về tay Trung Quốc sau một trận hải chiến đẫm máu giữa hải quân Trung Quốc và hải quân VNCH, trong đó 50 chiến sỹ thiệt mạng.

Một cuộc đụng độ khác với hải quân Trung Quốc năm 1988 ở gần Trường Sa làm hơn 70 bộ đội Việt Nam tử trận.

Cựu phó đề đốc Hải quân VNCH Hồ Văn Kỳ Thoại, người đã ra lệnh khai hỏa vào ngày 19/1/1974 để bảo vệ chủ quyền Việt Nam tại Hoàng Sa, nói tuy quân số hai bên không khác nhau nhiều, các chiến hạm của Trung Quốc tối tân hơn hẳn của Việt Nam Cộng hòa.

Ông Thoại tin rằng Trung Quốc đã nổ súng giao tranh vì biết rằng Hoa Kỳ sẽ không tham dự trong trận chiến này.

Cho tới nay, tại Việt Nam chưa có hành động chính thức nào để vinh danh hải quân VNCH đã hy sinh vì chủ quyền Hoàng Sa.

'President' of Paracel islands

 Map of Paracel islands (Hoàng Sa), occupied by China since 1974

HANOI (AFP)- VIETNAM on Saturday named a 'president' for the government body overseeing the disputed Paracel islands (Hoàng Sa), which are occupied by China since 1974, an official and press reports said.

'It's a matter of the sacred earth of the homeland... and we are going to continue our struggle to defend the integrity and the maritime sovereignty of the islands,' Dang Cong Ngu was quoted as saying by the VNExpress news website.

China has administered the islands, also claimed by Taiwan, since 1974 when its troops overran a South Vietnamese outpost shortly before the end of the Vietnam war.

Mr Dang was named president of the Paracel district People's Committee at a ceremony in central Danang, a civic official in the city told AFP.

In 2007 several hundred Vietnamese marched in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to protest a decision by China to set up a local government unit which would include the Paracels and another disputed island group, the Spratlys, under its zone of authority.

The two archipelagos, considered strategic outposts in the South China Sea, have potential oil and gas reserves and rich fishing grounds. 

China to drive Australia military upgrade

CANBERRA, April 25 (Reuters) - China's growing military strength and strategic competition among Asia's great powers will drive a huge upgrade of Australia's military in a new defence blueprint, a newspaper report said on Saturday.

Australian defence planners will next week outline a A$100 billion ($72 billion) upgrade of the close U.S. ally's military, including doubling its submarine fleet and building powerful new surface warships with ballistic missile defence, the Australian newspaper said.

The defence white paper, which will guide Australia's strategic planning for coming decades, could upset China.

Beijing has plans to develop a so-called blue water navy to help secure access to vital resource routes, including sea lanes to energy and mineral suppliers in Australia.

Australia has also signed a security pact with China-rival Japan, linking both countries into annual defence talks with the United States and which China has criticised as an attempt at strategic confinement.

Australia has already begun a A$60 billion upgrade of the military, including new air warfare destroyers, stealth fighter aircraft, amphibious assault carriers, tanks and helicopters.

But with the country teetering on the brink of recession, the centre-left government has been under pressure to rein-in spending amid market expectations that cumulative borrowings could reach A$300 billion in the May 12 budget.

The military would be largely spared from budget cuts at the insistence of China-expert Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the Australian said.

But the purchase of 100 F-35 stealth fighter aircraft from Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) would be delayed by a year to 2014-15, it said, while the military would have to find reductions to offset the large equipment shopping list.

The strategy document would double Australia's submarine fleet to 12 from 2025 to allow seven boats at any time to be on station in the country's north, close to key maritime straits running through the Indonesian archipelago.

It would also allow for construction of eight 7,000 tonne warships equipped with ballistic missile defence systems, as well as a new fleet of long-range maritime surveillance aircraft.

Australia's military should be capable of taking the lead security role in Australia's neighbourhood, particularly the South Pacific, as well as having the ability to deploy military forces further afield, the report said. 

U.S. plans to accept several Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo

The Uighurs would be the first detainees from the prison to settle in America. Challenges are expected from China and within the U.S.
By Julian E. Barnes
Reporting from Washington — The Obama administration is preparing to admit into the United States as many as seven Chinese Muslims who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Their release is seen as a crucial step to plans, announced by President Obama during his first week in office, to close the prison and relocate the detainees. 

Administration officials also believe that settling some of them in American communities will set an example, helping to persuade other nations to accept Guantanamo detainees too.
But the decision to release the Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, is not final and faces challenges from within the government, as well as likely public opposition. Among government agencies, the Homeland Security Department has registered concerns about the plan.
The move would also incense Chinese officials, who consider the Uighurs domestic terrorists and want those held at Guantanamo handed over for investigation. 

U.S. officials no longer consider the Chinese Muslims to be enemy combatants and fear they would be mistreated in China.
There are 17 Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) at Guantanamo. A U.S. official familiar with the discussions over their release said that as many as seven could be resettled in the U.S., possibly in two or more small groups.
Officials have not said where in the United States they might live. But many Uighur immigrants from China live in Washington's Virginia suburbs, and advocates have urged that the detainees be resettled near people who speak their language and are familiar with their customs.
The release would mark a dramatic turn in the history of the Guantanamo Bay facility, set up in Cuba by the Bush administration as an offshore prison beyond the reach of American law. Intended to hold alleged terrorists captured during the "war on terror," Guantanamo turned into an international symbol of U.S. overreach. At its peak, it held nearly 800 prisoners; about 250 remain.
The Uighurs are primarily from the northwestern steppes of China in a region officially called the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region but known to Uighurs as Turkestan. Beijing, which controls the area, has been criticized by Washington and others for repressing Uighur religious rights and freedoms.
The Uighurs were sent to Guantanamo in 2002 after being captured in Pakistan. Before that, they had gravitated to Afghanistan, where they received firearms training at a camp apparently run by a Uighur separatist.
Some former U.S. officials have said government information indicates that the Uighurs may pose a danger if released. But other officials and human rights organizations insist they pose no threat to Americans.
"It is kind of hard to tell other countries you would like them to accept some of these guys from Guantanamo if you are not willing to accept them," said the U.S. official, who described the internal discussions on condition of anonymity.
The release is a slap in the face to Beijing, which has requested that the Uighur prisoners be repatriated to China to stand trial for separatist activities. In their testimony before the Guantanamo tribunal, the Uighurs admitted that their purpose in going to Afghanistan was to receive military training to fight Chinese rule over Xinjiang.
"If these people are terrorists, they should be punished. If they are not terrorists, the United States should apologize to China for holding them so long and make compensation," said Zhang Jiadong, an expert in terrorism at Fudan University's Center for American Studies. 

Zhang said, however, that he did not expect the Chinese government to retaliate because it was already widely anticipated in Beijing that the United States would not return the Uighurs to China.
"The [Chinese] foreign ministry will criticize the decision, but there is nothing they can do about it. We're used to the United States being tough with us," Zhang said.
In captivity, the Uighurs filed suit to win their freedom. A U.S. district court in 2008 ordered their release. The decision, appealed by the Bush administration, was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Lawyers for the Uighurs appealed to the Supreme Court.
U.S. officials did not detail what supervision the Uighurs might receive once they are living on their own. But they said the Uighurs would be allowed to live freely.
In 2006, the U.S. released five Uighurs into Albania. After pressure from Beijing, which also urged other countries with Uighur communities not to accept the released detainees, Albania declined to take any more.
The Uighurs oppose the Chinese government but do not consider the U.S. government a direct enemy. Still, many of the Uighurs hold strict views of what is permitted under Islam.
Within the prison, Uighurs are not considered a grave threat and are allowed greater freedom, such as television privileges, than other detainees.
But the TV privileges underscored potential difficulties to come, according to one current and one former U.S. official. Not long after being granted access to TV, some of the Uighurs were watching a soccer game. When a woman with bare arms was shown on the screen, one of the group grabbed the television and threw it to the ground, according to the officials.
Since then, officials at Guantanamo have bolted down the TVs and shown pre-taped programs, editing out any images they thought Uighurs might find offensive.
U.S. officials said they expected any release of former Guantanamo Bay prisoners into the U.S. to generate opposition among Americans.
"It is a very emotional issue," said the official familiar with the internal discussions. "It is all about determining the risk of placing these people into American society."
But the Obama administration's plans reflect the view that, despite expected opposition, the Uighurs would be the easiest detainees to relocate in the U.S.
Sabin Willett, a lawyer for some of the Uighurs in Guantanamo, argued that his clients should be set free immediately. But he said officials should make sure that the Uighurs have some measure of protection from people who might mistakenly consider them a threat.
"I fear political opponents of the Obama administration will try to sow fear and paranoia about the Uighurs," Willett said. "Once America gets a look at our clients, all this mythology will fall away, and America will feel ashamed at the fact they were in prison so long."
U.S. officials have supported Chinese Uighurs who have sought asylum to remain here but are opposed to elements of the Uighur movement. Earlier this week, the Treasury Department froze the assets of a Uighur leader, Abdul Haq. Haq's Eastern Turkestan Islamic Party advocates secession from China and creation of an independent state.
In a statement, the Treasury Department focused on a threat by Haq to attack the 2008 Olympic Games in China, and cited his party's support for Al Qaeda. There have been no allegations that the Guantanamo detainees have been affiliated with Haq.
Human rights advocates read the move against Haq as a diplomatic olive branch to Beijing to blunt the fallout from releasing the Uighurs into the U.S.
Willett, the detainees' attorney, said that of the five former Uighur prisoners released to Albania, four are still there and one has moved to Sweden.
"They have been living peacefully for three years," Willett said.

Disabilities in China's polluted Shanxi

By James Reynolds in Shanxi, central China 

 Hong Wei was born with an extra thumb on his right hand

For the Li family, the best part of the day comes at noon.

Every day, after school, Li San San picks up his children from school, jams them all onto the back of his motorbike and drives them through the hills back home.

The kids cling onto each other and laugh as they try not to fall off.

On the main roads nearby, lines of coal trucks head off to the rest of China. The valleys are full of steelworks and heavy industry.

The Li family get back to their home, which is carved into the side of a hill.

Six-year-old Hong Wei eats his noodles and sits quietly in front of his school notebook.

He has a shy smile and hides in his sister's lap when we try to talk to him.

Hong Wei was born with an extra thumb on his right hand. His elder sister Lixia, who's 14, was born with a twisted left foot and walks with a heavy limp.

Like many people in Shanxi, this family is too poor to go to the doctors. The parents don't know why their children were born with defects. They're simply left to guess.

"The air isn't good around here," says Li San San. "When it's bad, it's difficult to breathe, it looks gloomy and smoggy out there."

The province of Shanxi is one of the most polluted places in the world.

The rate of birth defects in this region is six times higher than the national average.

In January, the director of family planning in Shanxi, An Huanxiao, told the China Daily newspaper that the province's high rate of birth defects was related to environmental pollution.

But doctors we spoke to in Shanxi are more sceptical.

One doctor at a village clinic told us that a local survey carried out in 2002 concluded that birth defects were caused by malnutrition.

As a result, he said that the authorities decided to distribute enriched flour to poor families in the area.

Poor medical care

At the Zhong Yang county maternity hospital, also in Shanxi, there's a view that malnutrition is as much to blame as pollution.

A poster on the wall encourages pregnant mothers to eat well.

Zhao Shuzhen, 23, has come in for an ultrasound as she is nine months pregnant.

"This is my first baby so we want to know whether or not the kid will be okay," she says. "My husband was worried so we discussed it and decided to come to the hospital."

The Zhang family, in the village of Gao Jiagou, has never had the benefit of proper medical attention.

The family's two eldest children, 13-year-old Yi Mei and 9-year-old Yi Long were both born with mental disabilities.

Yi Long is unable to talk. Yi Mei can only say one word and spends the day listening to music on a mobile phone.

Their mother has just given birth to a third child, Yi Wu.

The new baby lies under a blanket in the middle of the only bed in the house. A cardboard box is propped up behind his pillow.

His mother believes it's too soon to tell for sure whether or not Yi Wu has been born without any disabilities.

But she keeps looking at him, hoping for signs that he is okay.

"When I look at him he seems alright," she says hopefully.

She wants him to be a doctor when he grows up.

China has promised to clear up its air and water, but in this province, industry comes before a cleaner environment.

And in the grime of this one house in Shanxi, the hopes of an entire family rest on one baby.