Chinese police ‘fire on Tibetan protesters’

There are Tibetan communities outside Tibet, like this one in Shanba town, Sichuan

Ten people were injured when #Chinese police opened fire on #Tibetan protesters demonstrating against the detention of a village leader, two activist groups and overseas news reports say.

The incident is said to have taken place on Tuesday in Sichuan province's Ganzi prefecture, also known as Kardze.

Arrests were also made and some people fled, the activist groups said.

The incident does not appear to have been reported in Chinese state media.

Obtaining independent confirmation of events both in Tibet and in ethnic Tibetan areas in surrounding regions is extremely difficult.

Both access to these areas and information flow out of them is tightly controlled.

Chinese state media does confirm some of the incidents but not all. Accounts from activist groups have proved reliable in the past.

Armed police

According to UK-based group Free Tibet, a village leader named Wangdak was arrested on Monday over a dispute with local authorities.

The group said the row related to alleged harassment of female members of a dance troupe at a celebration villagers had been ordered to stage for senior officials.

The US-based International Campaign for Tibet said it also related to a dispute over official restrictions on a traditional gathering at a local horse festival.

After Mr Wangdak was detained, a crowd of Tibetans gathered to protest.

Both groups said armed police were deployed, used tear gas and then opened fire.

Mr Wangdak's son was among those who were shot, both activist groups said.

Free Tibet said at least two people were shot but the nature and cause of the other injuries was not clear.

The village was now surrounded and many adults had gone into hiding, Radio Free Asia reported, citing a Tibetan exile monk. BBC

Jealous husband' sentenced to death for China killings

Court officials said Shao was seeking revenge after learning about his wife's affairs

A man who killed six people over his wife's extra-marital affairs has been sentenced to death in China, state media say.

Shao Zongqi, 38, was found guilty of the January 2014 killings in Yunnan.

According to the court, Shao sought revenge after discovering his wife's affairs with two men, Xinhua reported.

One the eve of Chinese New Year, he shot nine people, killing one of the men and his family, as well as two members of the other man's family.

The other man as well as his son and mother survived the attack.

In Monday's ruling, the court awarded cash compensation of 604,000 yuan ($98,000) to the surviving family members affected by the shooting.

Shao said that he would lodge an appeal against his sentence, Xinhua reported. BBC

Are beards and burqas the right target in China’s battle against radical Islam?

A city in Xinjiang has banned the wearing of Islamic veils and dresses, along with long beards, over security concerns during a sporting event. After a backlash, the government explained the Islamic clothing were 'cumbersome' for sports. Photo: AFP

A recent government ban on long beards and conservative #Muslim attire on public buses in a #Xinjiang city highlights China’s renewed – but counterproductive – effort to curb the spread of radical #Islam, scholars say.

The ban which took effect this week in Karamay, in the northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, prohibited those wearing burqas, hijabs and niqabs, or clothes bearing Muslim symbols like the crescent moon and star from boarding buses.

The restriction will be enforced until August 20th, when a local sports event ends.

The authorities said ban was part of measures “to ensure safety on public transportation and combat terrorism”. It warned that “those who do not cooperate will be handled by police”, according to city’s official newspaper Karamay Daily.

The crescent moon and star is a symbol carried on the flag of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist militant group accused by Beijing of advocating ethnic violence.

China blames it for a string of deadly terrorist attacks in Xinjiang and elsewhere in the mainland in the past few years.

Shan Wei, a National University of Singapore professor who studies the ethnic conflicts in Xinjiang, pointed out: “The banned apparel do not belong to traditional Chinese Uygur minorities’ customs.

“Instead the [clothing is] associated with the ‘extremists’,” Shan said.

Barry Sautman, a political science professor from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who specialises in ethnic politics on the mainland, said “a ban on religious symbols is counter-productive even where those symbols have been appropriated by ‘extremists’.

“Beards, veils, star and crescent symbols are associated with Islam … not just with Uygur nationalism [or] separatism,” Sautman said. “To think otherwise is like saying that the Star of David that appears on the Israeli flag stands only for Zionism, when in fact it is also a Jewish religious symbol.

Meanwhile, Burqas (an enveloping outer garment); the hijab (veil that covers the head and chest); and the niqab (which conceals much of the face except the eyes) are traditional attire for Muslim women.

“The [Karamay] restriction serves two purposes: one is to prevent potential terrorist attacks carried out on public transport, but more importantly, it contains the spread of radical Muslim ideology,” Shan said.

Uygurs, a large ethnic group in Xinjiang, have traditionally followed a moderate form of Islam, but in recent years have experienced a change following the rise of fundamentalist Islamic ideology in countries bordering Xinjiang, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Observers said many local Uygur men and women in Xinjiang have been favouring the recognisable conservative Islamic attire (such as tunics and burqas) over their traditional costumes.

Xinjiang women’s traditional attire, for instance, are colourfully patterned dresses and squarish caps.

Shan said the ban showed Beijing’s determination to curb the radical Islamic influence using cultural means. “I can see some justifications behind the government’s approach, but the measure is too oversimplified and crude,” he said.

“Many Uygur minorities who wear the banned apparel do not have any radical political or extremist ideology,” he said.

In fact, since as early as a year ago, several Xinjiang local governments have banned burqas in the wake of a terrorist attack in the small northwestern county of Shanshan last June, leaving some 30 dead.

Businesses in a number of villages were ordered to stop producing and selling burqas while the official newspaper Xinjiang Daily carried a number of articles claimed wearing the Muslim dress was an “act against the Uygur tradition.”

China has over the years used “two-handed policies” – soft and hard – to deal with Xinjiang unrest. While the mainland government was convinced that raising the level of economic development in Xinjiang, specifically, improving Uygur households’ income and education levels, it is increasingly set on employing “hard policies”.

These include increased monitoring and beefing up the security apparatus, in the light of the string of terrorist attacks in the region, said Reza Hasmath, a University of Oxford lecturer in Chinese politics.

In the face of mounting opposition from Uygur residents and rising international condemnation, local officials have sought to downplay the association between conservative Muslim garb with terrorism.

Karamay officials on Thursday said they placed the ban partly because the clothing was cumbersome and “inharmonious with the athletic spirit” as the city prepares to host a regional sports event, the Global Times reported.;

In April, to stem the spread of extermist ideas, approximately 200,000 Communist Party cadres were ordered by the government to live in rural communities across Xinjiang, in what Hasmath called a grid “social management system”.

“The party members are assigned to each community zone and are tasked to monitor and conduct surveillance of various activities that are threatening, or potentially threatening”, said Hasmath.

He said the moderate option to deal with the spread of radical Uygurs lies in continuing to boost their employment and income levels.

Sautman also argued that increasing preferential policies for minorities and allowing them self-representation – not self-determination, or independence – in cultural and political spheres was the best path to douse ethnic tensions and curb radical Islamic thought.

“If Uygur minorities are in fact gaining ground in all spheres of activity, including relative to the Han population, the ‘solution’ offered by radical Islamists is much less appealing,” he said, referring to the Han Chinese majority in China.  --SCMP

China bans beards, veils from Xinjiang city's buses in security bid

(Reuters) - A city in China's restive western region of Xinjiang has banned people with head scarves, veils and long beards from boarding buses, as the government battles unrest with a policy that critics said discriminates against Muslims.

Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people who speak a Turkic language, has been beset for years by violence that the government blames on Islamist militants or separatists.

Authorities will prohibit five types of passengers - those who wear veils, head scarves, a loose-fitting garment called a jilbab, clothing with the crescent moon and star, and those with long beards - from boarding buses in the northwestern city of Karamay, state media said.

The crescent moon and star symbol of Islam features on many national flags, besides being used by groups China says want to set up an independent state called East Turkestan.

The rules were intended to help strengthen security through August 20 during an athletics event and would be enforced by security teams, the ruling Communist Party-run Karamay Daily said on Monday.

"Those who do not comply, especially those five types of passengers, will be reported to the police," the paper said.

In July, authorities in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi banned bus passengers from carrying items ranging from cigarette lighters to yogurt and water, in a bid to prevent violent attacks.

Exiled Uighur groups and human rights activists say the government's repressive policies in Xinjiang, including controls on Islam, have provoked unrest, a claim Beijing denies.

"Officials in Karamay city are endorsing an openly racist and discriminatory policy aimed at ordinary Uighur people," Alim Seytoff, the president of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association, said in an emailed statement.

While many Uighur women dress in much the same casual style as those elsewhere in China, some have begun to wear the full veil, a garment more common in Pakistan or Afghanistan than in Xinjiang.

Police have offered money for tips on everything from "violent terrorism training" to individuals who grow long beards.

Hundreds have died in unrest in Xinjiang in the past 18 months, but tight security makes it almost impossible for journalists to make independent assessments of the violence.

About 100 people were killed when knife-wielding attackers staged assaults in two towns in the region's south in late July, state media said, including 59 "terrorists" shot dead by police. A suicide bombing killed 39 people at a market in Urumqi in May. Reuters

China promotes new strategic partnership with Africa: white paper

BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- China promoted a New China-Africa Strategic Partnership with the continent, according to a white paper released by the Information Office of the State Council on Thursday.

The white paper named China's Foreign Aid(2014) said the country has actively developed its cooperation with African countries, gradually expanded assistance to the region and effectively promoted the comprehensive development of its relations with the continent.

In the field of agricultural cooperation, China established 14 agricultural technology demonstration centers in Africa from 2010 to 2012 and sent a large number of experts there to carry out technical cooperation.

The country also gave support to infrastructure construction and integrated development in Africa. From 2010 to 2012, China built 86 economic infrastructure projects in African countries.

In 2012, China announced the establishment of trans-national and trans-regional infrastructure construction cooperation partnership with African countries, rendering support in project planning and feasibility study.

China has long been committed to helping African countries improve their medical and health care conditions. Currently, there are 43 Chinese medical teams in 42 African countries.

China also assisted the construction of 30 hospitals and 30 malaria prevention and control centers. It provided 800 million yuan worth of medical equipment and supplies and anti-malaria drugs, and trained over 3,000 medical staff for African countries.

In terms of education, China built 150 primary and secondary schools in Africa and trained a total of 47,000 people of various professions during the three years.

China has been helping African countries improve their ability to cope with climate change and has strengthened cooperation with them in meteorological satellite monitoring and new energy development among others. Xinhua

Japan gearing up for first military export deal in decades – report

Patriot Advanced Capability-2 anti-missile launcher (Reuters/Richard Chung)

Tokyo is likely to approve its first military export deal in decades, Nikkei business daily reported. Japanese-made sensors will be installed on American PAC-2 missile defense systems, to be further re-exported to Qatar.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries produces high-performance, infrared seeker-tracker sensors, the key component of missiles in the Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) air defense system, under license from US arms manufacturer Raytheon. Japan has been making the sensors for its own defense force.

Japan’s government in April relaxed its arms export rules, enabling exports of military technology for the first time since 1967. Now such deals are fully legal and only require government approval.

Raytheon’s problem is that its production capacities are already engaged in making updated sensors for the next-generation Pac-3 missile interceptor system. To satisfy the Qatari order, Raytheon opted to delegate the sensors production to Japan’s Mitsubishi, Nikkei reported.

Patriot Advanced Capability-2 anti-missile launchers (Reuters / Richard Chung)

Though international agreements prohibit the export of military technologies to countries engaged in military conflicts, Tokyo and Washington might have come to the conclusion that delivering PAC-2 complexes to Qatar would not affect any other country.

Yet there have been reports that Qatar, an American ally and home to the US Al-Udeid Air Base, has been actively participating in a number of conflicts in recent years, such as ousting Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 and the ongoing civil war in Syria.

After decades of taking a pacifist stance, fixed in Japan’s post-WWII constitution, and an absolute ban on the trade of defense equipment and technologies, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expanding the country’s defense industry, enabling its participation in international weapons development programs and easing rules of military exports products to ensure industrial growth.

The three new principles of military technology export from Japan are internationally recognized and will include the transparency of arms deals, securely screening to prevent possible transfer of Japanese equipment to third parties and no weapons exports to countries involved in conflicts and regimes under UN resolutions, PM Shinzo Abe’s government assured in April. RT

China bans Ramadan fasting in Muslim northwest

Muslims in other parts of China have been fasting - here the evening meal is prepared at a Beijing mosque

Chinese authorities are cracking down on religious activities following deadly unrest in the country’s Muslim northwest, banning citizens from fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Statements posted Wednesday on websites of schools, government agencies and local party organizations in the Xinjiang region said the ban was aimed at protecting students’ well-being and preventing any official promotion of religion, The Associated Press reported.

“No teacher can participate in religious activities, instill religious thoughts in students or coerce students into religious activities,” a statement for one school in Ruoqiang County said on its website.

“Students shall not participate in religious activities; they shall not study scripts or read poems at script and choir classes; they shall not wear any religious emblems; and no parent or others can force students to have religious beliefs or partake in religious activities,” it said, AP reported.

Retired teachers in the city of Bole were called in to stand guard at mosques and prevent students from entering, the report said. Other government agencies and bureaus were asked to sign letters promising not to fast.

A ban has been implemented in the past to protect students from religious influence, but this year is slightly different because the crackdown is a security response to attacks that the government blames on Muslim extremists.  Washington Time

China arrests 380 in ‘terrorism’ crackdown

BEIJING : China has arrested more than 380 suspects in the first month of a year-long crackdown on “terrorism”, media said Monday as authorities grapple to curb rising violence stemming from mainly Muslim Xinjiang.

A total of 32 “violent terrorist” gangs were broken up as part of the campaign launched after a deadly attack on a market in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said.

Assailants in two vehicles killed 39 people last month, one of several high-profile attacks blamed on militants from Xinjiang. In recent months these have spread beyond the far-western region and targeted ordinary citizens rather than government or security personnel.
The day after the Urumqi market attack Beijing announced that “terrorists and extremists will be hunted down and punished” as part of a year-long campaign, which also targets “gun and explosive manufacturing dens and terrorist training camps”.

A total of 264 devices capable of detonating 3.15 tons of explosives were also confiscated, the report said. Xinjiang is the resource-rich homeland of China’s mostly Muslim Uighur minority, and much of the violence stems from ethnic tensions. CCTV’s report did not detail the ethnicities of those arrested.
China executed 13 people last week for “terrorist attacks” in the violence-racked region as three others were condemned to death over a fiery car crash at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Authorities in Xinjiang also sentenced 55 people for offences including terrorism at a mass sentencing in May.

In the most recent confirmed flare-up of violence, police shot dead 13 people Saturday after they drove into a police building in a county outside Hotan and set off an explosion.
Exile groups say cultural oppression and intrusive security measures imposed by the Chinese government are the main causes of tension, along with immigration by China’s Han ethnic majority, which they say has led to decades of discrimination and economic inequality.

Beijing says the government has helped improve living standards in Xinjiang and developed its economy.

17 Chinese soldiers killed in weapons facility blast: Xinhua

Chinese Policmen

#BEIJING: At least 17 #Chinese soldiers have died in an explosion at a weapon storage facility, state media said Wednesday.

The blast Tuesday afternoon occurred in Hengyang city in central China´s Hunan province as "soldiers were piling up ammunition", the official Xinhua news agency reported.

No cause for the explosion was given and authorities were investigating, it said.

In a separate incident involving the military earlier this month, a Chinese navy plane crashed on a training mission over the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, Xinhua reported at the time. It was not clear if there were any casualties.

China has the world´s largest standing army, with 2.3 million troops.
The country has boosted military spending at double-digit percentage rates for more than a decade as it seeks to modernise its armed forces.

It will be decades before China rivals the United States as a military superpower, but its spending has caused Asian neighbours to boost their own military budgets as well. The News

Security Company Says Secret Chinese Unit 61486 Hacked in U.S.

Part of the building of 'Unit 61398', a secretive Chinese military unit, is seen in the outskirts of Shanghai February 19, 2013. Carlos Barria/Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A private #US cybersecurity company on Monday accused a unit of #China’s military of conducting far-reaching #hacking operations to advance the country’s satellite and aerospace programs.

Security company CrowdStrike said Shanghai-based unit 61486 of the People's Liberation Army 12th bureau has attacked networks of Western government agencies and defense contractors since 2007.

CrowdStrike said the hacking targeted the U.S. space, aerospace and communications sectors. The cyberspying targeted "popular productivity applications such as Adobe Reader and Microsoft Office to deploy custom malware through targeted email attacks," CrowdStrike said.

Less than three weeks ago the U.S. Justice Department took the unprecedented step of unsealing indictments against five members of another People’s Liberation Army unit that allege they stole trade secrets.

CrowdStrike said it was publicizing a report previously sent to clients to show that the issue was broader than many realize.

“After the Chinese response, where they basically said this is all fabricated, we said why don’t we unleash something that’s undeniable,” said CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch. He said the company had briefed U.S. intelligence agencies before publishing its report.

CrowdStrike said an individual named Chen Ping registered website domain names used in some of the intrusions. Chen's personal blog appears to put his age as 35, and he identified himself as a soldier, the report said.

Chen's email is tied to profiles, blogs and forum postings, CrowdStrike said. Among material on those sites was a photo album titled “office” that includes a building CrowdStrike identified as the Shanghai headquarters of the military unit in question.

Spokesmen for the Chinese Embassy in Washington and Chen could not immediately be reached for comment.

CrowdStrike was founded by former senior executives at big antivirus company McAfee, now part of Intel . It has contracts and other ties to the U.S. government.

The new report is likely to add to the escalating tensions over cybersecurity issues between the world’s two largest economies. Chinese officials have already responded sharply to last month’s indictments, pulling out of talks on hacking issues and accusing the United States of plundering Chinese political and military secrets. -- Reuters

China claims 23 terrorist, extremist groups broken up this month

May 22, 2014: Armed policemen prepare to patrol near the site of an explosion in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

BEIJING –  So far this month, police in #China's restive western region of Xinjiang have broken up 23 terror and religious extremism groups and caught over 200 suspects, state media reported Monday.
It was the first announcement of a large number of arrests since an attack last week in the region's capital killed at least 43 that police have blamed on a "terrorist gang." Authorities subsequently launched a high-profile one-year security crackdown targeting terrorists and #extremists, although the figures for the latest detentions are for the whole month of May.

The official Xinhua News Agency cited the regional security bureau in providing the information. The Tianshan news portal, which is run by the regional branch of the Communist Party, also reported the detentions and raids, which took place in the cities of Hotan, Kashgar and Aksu. The publicity office of the Ministry of Public Security did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.
Based on the names of the five suspects police have identified in Thursday's attack, all appeared to be Uighurs, the region's most populous Muslim minority.

Many among the Muslim Turkic Uighur people claim they are discriminated against by the Chinese government and dominant Han ethnic group. Recent attacks blamed on radicals among the Uighurs have become bolder. However, Xinjiang experts say it is unclear whether organized groups of people are linking up to make long-term plans on how to maximize terror.

Xinhua said that police had caught an unspecified number of suspects in their 20s and 30s since Friday, who had learnt how to make explosives and given themselves physical training through watching videos on the Internet. They had used text messages and social media to chat about how to make explosives and spread the idea of "jihad," Xinhua said. Police also seized more than 200 explosive devices, it said.

In Thursday's attack, two trucks plowed through crowds at a market in Urumqi, with explosives tossed from their windows. It was the largest number of victims in a single incident of violence blamed on Xinjiang tensions in recent history. Police said that four of the assailants were killed in the bombing and that the fifth was captured Thursday night.

At the end of April, two suspected suicide bombers detonated their explosives at the exit to the Urumqi train station, killing themselves and one other person. Another eight people attack passengers with knives, leaving a total of 79 injured.

Sean Roberts of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, who has studied Uighurs in Central Asia and China, said it often wasn't clear what was being termed "religious extremism" when authorities grouped "terror and religious extremist groups" together.
"Often the way of defining religious extremism is any kind of independent religious activity which does not necessarily have any violent intention at all," he said. Fox News

For China’s Communist Party, Stability as Usual Isn’t Enough

A demonstrator holds a placard during a protest against the construction of a waste incinerator in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province May 7, 2014.

Recent public protests in Hangzhou over plans for a large waste incinerator there show once again that some Chinese citizens are raising questions about the quality of government they’re getting.

And according to a critical commentary on Thursday in the Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily, the present policy of maintaining social stability at all costs isn’t providing the right answers.  Instead, it’s another wake-up call to cadres to connect with the masses to make better policy.

Stability maintenance—the practice of making sure that local opposition to authority and policies in China stays local—has been Beijing’s default approach to potential unrest under previous leaderships. Under President Xi Jinping, the same strategy has emboldened cadres to repel calls for political change, especially from activists.

But too often, the commentary says, this pursuit of stability has compelled officials to simply stay with the status quo. That’s unhelpful because social stability “shouldn’t be something blindly sought, or be without brave advances and progress.”

“Society is founded not on violent undulations or a drifting, falling economy, but a healthy steadiness—something that’s also the goal of governance practiced by every local official,” the essay argues. By pursuing social stability at all costs, according to the essay, officials end up “striving to be passive, and that will produce steady stagnation and slackness, negatively impacting the morale of residents and eventually causing damage and instability itself.”

After all, the essay says, “public scrutiny is everywhere, with microblogging and letters to the media.” Cadres who are simply trying to hold on hold up progress.

Thursday’s commentary echoed an earlier analysis in People’s Daily of what caused the riots in Hangzhou. That essay sought to lay out a middle ground about the need for the Chinese government to be strong on the one hand, and yet not be silent when the public asks questions.

According to the author, “‘responsible people’ acknowledge the need” for waste facilities in Hangzhou and elsewhere in China. On the surface, there was no reason for public anger and anxiety to call a halt to the construction of trash incinerators.

However, the essay said, what happened in Hangzhou reflects the fact that “a solid foundation of mutual trust and communication” between government and citizens isn’t always present in China. Even when officials “work to untie the knot of suspicion, that does not always proceed smoothly.”

Determining what residents actually want, as the author puts it, requires “a front-line perspective”—to “see, hear, think, feel, and let more people know what is the reality, the truth.” Governing that way enables officials to “strive to make their observations and thinking richer, and to make their advice and suggestions more targeted” towards what citizens are seeking—which are not always the investment projects that historically brought cadres a higher profile and political promotion.

As another editorial about Hangzhou put it, “there’s a need [for officials] to be open and transparent, reasonable and legitimate.” Officials should stop focusing on “opportunities to punish criminals,” the commentary insisted, and instead look to rid themselves of “the lazy political thinking” that celebrates stability and quiescence.

While this need for dialogue between the Communist Party and the Chinese public isn’t a new plea, it comes at a time when Beijing is caught between the anxiety of an impending anniversary and apprehension about terrorist attacks.

Then there are also the growing signs of a slowing economy for cadres to contend with—an economy that, when it was growing faster, was often seen by Beijing as the best safeguard against unrest.
Still, the fact that Communist Party media are carrying an argument for something more than just the same old social stability is significant.  It indicates not only displeasure amongst the public about officials who talk but don’t listen, but dissatisfaction within the central leadership itself about just how well it can govern by relying on politics as usual. --WSJ

Deaths, injuries reported after attack in capital of volatile western China region

BEIJING –  Attackers crashed a pair of vehicles and tossed explosives in an attack Thursday near an open air market in the capital of China's volatile northwestern region of Xinjiang, leaving an unknown number of people dead and injured, state media reported.

The official Xinhua News Agency said several people were rushed to hospital and flames and heavy smoke were seen at the scene, which was cordoned off.

Xinhua said the assailants plowed through crowds of shoppers in off-road vehicles and threw explosives out the window before crashing head-on in the early morning attack in the city of Urumqi. It said one of the vehicles then exploded and quoted an eyewitness as saying there had been up to a dozen blasts in all.

A statement from the Xinjiang regional government said the attack occurred at 7:50 a.m. and people had been killed and injured, but gave no further details.

"I heard four or five explosions. I was very scared. I saw three or four people lying on the ground," said Fang Shaoying, the owner of a small supermarket located near the scene of the blast.

Photos from the scene posted to popular Chinese social media site Weibo showed at least three people lying in a street with a large fire in the distance giving off huge plumes of smoke. Others were sitting in the roadway in shock, with vegetables, boxes and stools strewn around them. Police in helmets and body armor were seen manning road blocks as police cars, ambulances and fire trucks arrived on the scene.

Urumqi was the scene of a railway station bomb attack late last month that killed three people, including two attackers, and injured 79. Security in the city has been significantly tightened since the attack, which took place as Chinese leader Xi Jinping was concluding a visit to the region.
The city saw ethnic riots that killed nearly 200 people in 2009, but had been relatively quiet since then amid a smothering police presence.

The station attack and other violence have been blamed on radicals from among the region's native Turkic Uighur Muslim population seeking to overthrow Chinese rule in the region.
Information about events in the area about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) west of Beijing is tightly controlled.

Tensions between Chinese and ethnic Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) in Xinjiang have been simmering for years, but recent attacks -- while still relatively crude -- show an audaciousness and deliberateness that wasn't present before. They are also increasingly going after civilians, rather than the police and government targets of past years.

In an unprecedented incident last year, three Uighurs rammed a vehicle into crowds in a suicide attack near the Forbidden City gate in the heart of Beijing, killing themselves and two tourists.

And in March, 29 people were slashed and stabbed to death at a train station in the southern city of Yunnan blamed on Uighur extremists bent on waging jihad.

Uighur activists say the violence is being fueled by restrictive and discriminatory policies and practices directed at Uighurs and a sense that the benefits of economic growth have largely accrued to Chinese migrants while excluding Uighurs. The knowledge that Muslims elsewhere are rising up against their governments also seems to be contributing to the increased militancy.

Thursday's attack came two days after courts in Xinjiang sentenced 39 people to prison after being convicted of crimes including organizing and leading terrorist groups, inciting ethnic hatred, ethnic discrimination and the illegal manufacturing of guns.

Among those convicted Tuesday was 25-year-old Maimaitiniyazi Aini, who received five years in prison for inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination for comments he made in six chat groups involving 1,310 people, the Supreme Court said.
In another case, a Uighur man was jailed for 15 years after he preached jihad, or holy war, to his son and another young man, according to the court.
Source: Fox News

China's Lenovo sees 29% jump in full year net profit

The world's biggest personal computer maker has posted a 29% jump in full-year earnings while at the same time extending its position as market leader in the PC industry.

#Lenovo earned $817m (£485m) in net profit for the 12 months to March.
The company sold 55 million PCs during the year, extending its global market share to 17.7%, when the overall industry saw an 8% fall in PC sales.

Lenovo also sold 50 million smartphones and 9.2 million tablets.
The company's chairman and chief executive Yuanqing Yang said in a statement: "The record sales and profits that we delivered last year prove that Lenovo can grow and deliver its commitments, no matter the market conditions."

China Launches Manhunt for Alleged Terrorist Mastermind

An explosion shook the Urumqi South Railway Station in northwest China’s Xinjiang region just hours after President Xi Jinping wrapped up a four-day visit to the area earlier this year.

Associated Press

Chinese police have launched an international manhunt for a member of a separatist organization suspected of plotting a knife-and-bomb attack at a train station in the northwestern region of Xinjiang in April, official media reported. As the WSJ’s Jeremy Page reports:

Police are accusing the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, for the attack that left three people dead in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, on April 30, the government’s news agency, Xinhua, reported on Sunday.

Xinhua quoted local authorities as saying the attack was planned outside China by an ETIM member identified as Ismail Yusup and was carried out by 10 of his partners. Two of the 10 were killed in the blast, while the rest were captured, the report said.
It was the first time authorities have alleged involvement by separatists. Chinese authorities had previously said two religious extremists were responsible.The attack came a few hours after President Xi Jinping visited a mosque in Urumqi at the end of his first trip to Xinjiang since coming to power. Xinhua didn’t say how authorities had identified Mr. Yusup nor say where he is believed to be.

The report said police were hunting for him in cooperation with the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol. Interpol didn’t respond to a request for comment and Mr. Yusup’s name didn’t turn up in a search on its website of “red notices,” which are issued for people wanted internationally.
Xinjiang, which shares a border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic group, some of whose members have been waging a decadeslong campaign against Chinese rule there.
While most attacks have targeted police, government buildings and other symbols of state power, the Urumqi attack and two other recent ones—a mass stabbing at a railway station in southwest China and a car crash and fire off Beijing’s Tiananmen Square—caused terror and casualties among civilians.

Many Uighur activists refer to their homeland as East Turkistan and accuse Beijing of restricting religious freedom and flooding the region with non-Uighur migrants who they say get preferential access to jobs, education and public services.The Chinese government has long accused the ETIM and its affiliates of perpetrating terrorist attacks in China and having links to foreign terrorist organizations including al Qaeda.
Source: WSJ

Chinese ships reach Vietnam to extract thousands of citizens after deadly attacks

China evacuates thousands from Vietnam

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Two Chinese ships arrived at the coast of #Vietnam on Monday to begin efforts to collect thousands of Chinese citizens who are fleeing the country after deadly attacks last week.

The chartered ships reached the port of Vung Ang in Ha Tinh, the coastal province where some of the worst violence targeting Chinese factories and workers took place, Chinese state media reported.

Along with two other ships that are still en route, the vessels plan to pick up almost 4,000 Chinese citizens who are leaving because of the recent unrest, #China's state-run broadcaster CCTV reported Monday.

Chinese authorities said Sunday that more than 3,000 Chinese had already been evacuated from Vietnam after protests over China's decision to move an oil rig into disputed waters of the South China Sea spiraled into riots in which foreign-owned factories were burned and looted.

Two Chinese citizens were killed in the violence and more than 100 were injured, authorities said.

The crisis has frayed ties between the two Communist-run Asian nations, and there is little sign of either side backing down over the increasingly bitter territorial dispute.

Security tightened

A series of chartered planes carried around 300 Chinese citizens, including 16 critically injured workers, back to China on Sunday, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

Vietnamese authorities have clamped down on the unrest, arresting hundreds of people. They have beefed up security at key locations and urged citizens not participate in further protests.

But that hasn't stopped China from pressing ahead with the measures to extract thousands of its citizens from the country. Beijing has also warned Chinese people not to travel to Vietnam and said it will suspend some planned bilateral exchanges with Hanoi, according to Xinhua.

Ships clash at sea

Out in the South China Sea, ships from both countries are facing off.

Vietnam's state-run news agency VNA on Saturday accused China of continuing to show "its aggressiveness by sending more military ships" to the area around the oil rig. Vietnam has demanded that China immediately withdraw the rig from the disputed waters.

The news agency cited Nguyen Van Trung, an official at the Vietnam Fisheries Surveillance Department, as saying that China had 119 ships in the area on Saturday morning, including warships, coast guard vessels and fishing boats.

Some of the ships were provoking the Vietnamese vessels by ramming them and firing water cannons at them, he said.

'We are not afraid of trouble'

China, for its part, has continued to accuse Vietnamese ships of similar acts, saying they are trying to disrupt the oil rig's drilling operation. It has declared a three-mile exclusion zone around the rig, which is operated by the state-owned oil and gas company CNOOC.

"We do not make trouble, but we are not afraid of trouble," Gen. Fang Fenghui, the chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), said Thursday during a visit to the United States.

"In matters of territory, our attitude is firm. We won't give an inch," Fang said after meeting U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.

U.S. concerns

Relations between China and Vietnam soured earlier this month, when the Chinese platform began drilling for oil near the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by both countries.

At the time, the U.S. State Department called the move "provocative," saying it "raises tensions."

Beijing has laid claim to most of the South China Sea, putting it at odds with several of its neighbors in the region, including the Philippines and Malaysia. China is also locked in a bitter dispute with Japan over a group of tiny islands in the East China Sea.

"We have to acknowledge there are territorial disputes," including "what exactly is the status quo and who is seeking to change it," Dempsey said Thursday at the news conference with Fang of the PLA.

His comments were a veiled reference to Washington's view that Beijing is attempting to change the status quo by more aggressively seeking to establish control over disputed areas.
Source: CNN News

China stands firm with Africa in combating terrorism

BEIJING, May 18 (Xinhua) -- China stands ready to jointly face terrorism with Africa by ramping up its efforts helping countries in the continent build their capabilities in the fight against terror.

On Friday night, an unidentified armed group attacked a Chinese company's camp in northern Cameroon, leaving one Chinese national wounded and 10 others missing. This came around a month after Nigeria-based Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls and threatened to "sell them on the market."

Some say that Africa is turning into the new frontier for the global war on terror as several of its countries have seen major terrorist attacks in recent years.

But the fight against terrorism is a global task, which requires collective and coordinated action from the international community.

China, also a victim of terrorism, will continue to do what it can to provide support and assistance to African countries to jointly face the threat the terrorism brings not just to Africa, but the world.

During his four-nation Africa tour in early May, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that #China stands ready to assist Africa's capacity-building in peace-keeping and counter-terrorism.
Li also visited Nigeria as scheduled despite the recent attacks in the country, offering assistance to help find the schoolgirls abducted in Chibok, Borno, on April 14.

The Chinese premier assured President Goodluck Jonathan that China will support #Nigeria's fight in every possible way, including the training of military personnel for anti-insurgency operations.

Li also promised that China will make any useful information acquired by its satellites and intelligence services available to Nigeria's security agencies.

Taking advantage of the political and security turmoil in some parts of Africa, terrorist organizations are spreading their activities to the continent, trying to establish a new safe haven.

Africa needs help from the international community in dealing with this serious threat, as limited resources and capacity have become its biggest issues in combating terror.

China is ready to redouble its efforts helping African countries promote capacity-building in the justice and security sectors and strengthen the exchange of experience and information sharing.

The country can also effectively assist the continent by helping it address the root cause of terrorism, including poverty, widespread unemployment and the unequal distribution of economic resources.
Trade and economic ties between China and Africa are more intertwined and diversified than ever, and Chinese investment has created huge employment opportunities in #Africa, playing a big role in improving people's livelihood.

Meanwhile, the Chinese premier pledged to further boost relations with Africa by upgrading bilateral economic and trade ties in a bid to benefit the peoples of both sides during his fruitful Africa tour.
China, an "all-weather" friend and partner of Africa, will stand firm together with the continent in face of the growing threat of terrorism, and make unremitting efforts to ensure continuous and effective assistance.
Source: Xinhua News

China evacuates thousands of citizens from Vietnam after deadly attacks

Hong Kong (CNN) -- China has evacuated more than 3,000 of its citizens from Vietnam and is sending ships to retrieve more of them after deadly anti-Chinese violence erupted last week over a territorial dispute between the two countries.

Five Chinese ships will travel to Vietnam to help with the evacuation, the official #Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Sunday, citing the Ministry of Transport. One of the ships has already set off from the southern island province of Hainan, the ministry said.

Sixteen critically injured Chinese citizens were flown out of Vietnam on Sunday morning on a chartered medical plane organized by Chinese authorities, Xinhua said.

Two Chinese workers were killed and more than 100 others were injured in the violence that hit parts of Vietnam last week, according to the news agency. Some of the worst violence appeared to have taken place in the central coastal province of Ha Tinh.

Foreign factories, particularly those run by companies from China and Taiwan, were burned and looted by rioters outraged over Beijing's decision to send an oil rig into waters of the South China Sea that both countries claim as sovereign territory.

Protests spin out of control

Vietnamese authorities initially allowed protests, which are usually forbidden in the country, to take place over the Chinese move. But after the unrest spiraled lethally out of control, the government tried to rein in its angry citizens.

On Saturday, the government sent out a series of text messages to cell-phone users saying Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung was urging people "not to participate in illegal protests that cause public disorder and harm social safety."

Chinese officials have repeatedly called on Vietnam to take action over the riots, protect Chinese citizens and help victims.

Vietnamese authorities have arrested hundreds of suspects and started legal proceedings against several of them, Vietnam's state-run news agency VNA reported Saturday, citing Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang.

He described the attacks as regrettable, saying dozens of police officers were injured as they tried to bring the situation under control.

Ships clash at sea

But out in the South China Sea, neither side appears to be showing any sign of backing down over the territorial dispute that sparked the violence.

VNA on Saturday accused China of continuing to show "its aggressiveness by sending more military ships" to the area around the oil rig. Vietnam has demanded that China immediately withdraw the rig from the disputed waters.

The news agency cited Nguyen Van Trung, an official at the Vietnam Fisheries Surveillance Department, as saying that China had 119 ships in the area on Saturday morning, including warships, coast guard vessels and fishing boats.

Some of the ships were provoking the Vietnamese vessels by ramming them and firing water cannons at them, he said.

'We are not afraid of trouble'

China, for its part, has continued to accuse Vietnamese ships of similar acts, saying they are trying to disrupt the oil rig's drilling operation. It has declared a three-mile exclusion zone around the rig, which is operated by the state-owned oil and gas company CNOOC.

"We do not make trouble, but we are not afraid of trouble," Gen. Fang Fenghui, the chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, said Thursday during a visit to the United States.

"In matters of territory, our attitude is firm. We won't give an inch," Fang said after meeting U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.

Relations between China and Vietnam soured earlier this month, when the Chinese platform began drilling for oil near the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by both countries.

Beijing has laid claim to most of the South China Sea, putting it at odds with several of its neighbors in the region.
Source: CNN News

China enhances regulation of interbank business

BEIJING -- China's financial regulators on Friday issued rules to enhance and improve regulation of interbank business to contain financial risks and direct more capital into the real economy.
The 18 rules were jointly formulated and issued by the People's Bank of #China (PBOC), the central bank, and the country's top banking, securities, insurance and foreign exchanges regulators.

Innovation and rapid growth in interbank businesses have played an important role in facilitating #liquidity #management, improving financial resources allocation and supporting the real economy, according to a central bank statement.

However, some of the interbank businesses should have been better regulated, there has been weak information disclosure and some of the businesses intended to evade financial regulation, it said.
The rules cover lending, deposits, payments and other financing transactions between banks and other financial institutions.

Under the new rules, there would be stricter accounting standards and risk control measures for interbank businesses.

The central bank said the improved regulation would help build a sound financial market order, promote the healthy development of interbank business, effectively contain financial risks, and guide more capital into the real economy.

Protection plans launched for three Guangzhou sites

The Guangzhou government has drafted protection plans for three of six historic sites in the Guangdong provincial capital that will apply for World Cultural Heritage status as part of the legacy of the ancient Maritime Silk Road. 

 The metropolis in southern #China is one of nine cities whose historic sites concerning the ancient Maritime Silk Road were included in the country's World Cultural Heritage tentative list in 2012.
Yi Xibing, deputy director of the archeology department of the city's research institute of cultural relics and archeology, told China Daily on Friday that the city is facing two major challenges in applying for World

Cultural Heritage status for the six sites.

"Firstly, the government needs to do more to inform the public of the application's importance and of the World Cultural Heritage's selection criteria," Yi said.

"For example, recently the public and some experts have been concerned over why the area where the Thirteen-Trades Monopoly of the Qing Dynasty was not on the city's tentative list of World Cultural Heritage sites.

"We didn't include it because it doesn't meet the criterion that there must be historical remains above ground. But few people know these criteria well."
The second challenge is how to build an ambience that befits the ancient sites in a modern metropolis, Yi said.

"Besides the core architecture, a World Cultural Heritage site is also demanding on its nearby surroundings," he said.

"However, the environment has changed a lot as the city develops. For example, the Light Pagoda at Huaisheng Mosque is now surrounded by modern dwellings."

The six Maritime Silk Road historic sites in Guangzhou applying for World Cultural Heritage status are: Nanyue Kingdom Palace, the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King, Guangxiao Temple, the Light Pagoda at Huaisheng Mosque, the #Muslim sage's tomb near Jiefang North Road and the Temple of the South Sea God and the wharf.

The Guangzhou government set up a working group in March to handle the application of the city's six historic sites for World Cultural Heritage status.
The executive office is under the city's administration of culture, radio, television, film, press and publication.
The office comprises of six teams each taking on a different job: communication and supervision, collecting text data, protection plan drafting, environmental management, law making and public education.
Source: China Daily