B Raman heads up on July 6, Torch alert: demos in Bejing?

Paper no. 2754

02-July-2008

World Tibet Day: Need to be Alert on July 6
By B. Raman

Members of the Tibetan diaspora all over world observe two important anniversaries.

2. They observe March 10 every year as the Tibetan Uprising Day to mark the anniversary of the day in 1959 when His Holiness the Dalai Lama crossed over from Tibet into India after the collapse of the Tibetan revolt against the Chinese. Generally, this anniversary passes off peacefully, but this year, being the year of the Beijing Olympics, it took a dramatic turn with widespread demonstrations and incidents of violence in Lhasa and other Tibetan-inhabited areas of China. The resulting unrest continued for some weeks before the Chinese authorities were able to bring it under control. A few days after the event, some Tibetan girls living in New Delhi managed to forcibly enter the Chinese Embassy after breaking the security cordon of the police and created anxious moments for the police and the staff of the Embassy.

3. The Tibetans all over the world observe July 6 every year as the World Tibet Day to mark the birth anniversary of His Holiness. Usually, the observance is peaceful with photo exhibitions, films and talks. The observance of the World Tibet Day started in 1998 at the initiative of some American friends of the Dalai Lama with three objectives in view, namely: to create an annual worldwide event to help restore essential freedoms for those living in Tibet; to increase global awareness of the genocidal threats to the Tibetan people; and, to celebrate the unique beauty and value of Tibetan culture and thought.

4. The US-based Free Tibet Movement has issued instructions for the observance of the "World Tibet Day" on July 6, 2008, in a similar manner as in the previous years. Since this year's World Tibet Day falls just a month before the Beijing Olympics, it would be necessary for the police force responsible for physical security outside the Chinese diplomatic mission in Delhi and consular missions in Mumbai and Kolkata to be extra vigilant to prevent the possibility of any incident similar to what happened in New Delhi in March last.

5. One should not rule out the possibility of fresh demonstrations in Tibet, where the public mood is still sullen

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retired), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)

Dalai Clique slapped by Cadre: Cadre winces

Jul 2, 6:32 AM (ET)

The report from China Sichuan is that the goons are roaming int he ten cities to enforce the zero tolerance for protests, mourning, demands, any sort of human response to the deaths of thousand of children in badly built schools. And that there will be no active investigation. And that the zero tolerance is not in spite of the Olympic Torch but because of it.

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

BEIJING (AP) - China's Communist Party boss in Tibet delivered a fresh attack on the Dalai Lama Wednesday, even as envoys of the region's exiled leader met for a second day with Chinese officials for talks aimed at easing tensions following anti-government riots.
The official Tibet Daily quoted hardliner Zhang Qingli as saying that supporters of the Dalai Lama were behind the violence that began with deadly rioting in Tibet's capital Lhasa on March 14 and quickly spread throughout Tibetan areas of western China.
"The March 14 incident was a seriously violent criminal incident by the Dalai clique. The organized and orchestrated incident was created by Tibetan separatists after long-term preparation, with the support and instigation of Western hostile forces," Zhang was quoted as saying.
He said the violence was timed for the run-up to next month's Summer Olympics in Beijing.
"At a sensitive moment, they harbored the evil intention of turning the incident into a bloodbath, of disrupting the Beijing Olympics and destroying Tibet's stability and political harmony," Zhang said.
The remarks, which echo earlier Chinese accusations about the riots, indicate no letup in Beijing's relentless campaign to vilify the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, despite talks this week that followed widespread calls for dialogue from overseas.
The self-proclaimed Tibetan government-in-exile has said two days of talks would be held in China's capital, but Chinese officials would not confirm any details, including where the meetings would be held or what the agenda was.
China denies the India-based government's legitimacy and does not want such contacts portrayed as formal negotiations.
So far, neither side has commented on the talks. The Tibetan government-in-exile, based in Dharmsala, India, has said Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche was expected to comment only after the meetings end.
Calls to the Propaganda Office of the United Front Work Department, a body within the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee which is hosting the talks, were not answered Wednesday.
The talks have particular importance in light of China's hopes of hosting a flawless Olympic Games. Some experts believe Beijing agreed to the talks to ease criticism ahead of the games, in a nod to international opinion that broadly regards the Dalai Lama as a figure of moral authority.
Some world leaders have said they might boycott the opening ceremony to protest the Chinese security crackdown in Tibetan areas of China after anti-government. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said this week he would attend if the latest talks made progress.
China has governed Tibet since communist troops marched into the Himalayan region in the 1950s. The Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid a failed uprising in 1959, has said he wants some form of autonomy that would allow Tibetans to freely practice their culture, language and religion.
The meetings this week follow informal talks held in early May in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen that ended with an offer from Beijing for future discussions.
China has been accused of using heavy-handed tactics in quelling the anti-government riots and protests in Tibet. Beijing says 22 people died in the violence in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, while foreign Tibet supporters say many times that number were killed in the protests and a subsequent government crackdown.

"May raise questions"

A dry note below from the NYT science team. "May raise questions" is the agreed upon polite phrase for a catastrophe of practice, confidence and prospect in the Bejing Cadre. The Sichuan earthquake matter of factly revealed that what has changed in China since the Maoist nightmare of the 1976 quake and today is that the Cadre is more vain, less blood thirty, more arrogant, less cocksure and much, much more ambitious.

Sichuan Earthquake
On the afternoon of May 12, 2008, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale hit Sichuan Province, a mountainous region in Western China. By the next day, the death toll stood at 12,000, with another 18,000 still missing. Over 15 million people live in the affected area, including almost 4 million in the city of Chengdu. Nearly 2,000 of the dead were students and teachers caught in schools that collapsed.

Since the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, which killed over 240,000 people, China has required that new structures withstand major quakes. But the collapse of schools, hospitals and factories in several different areas around Sichuan may raise questions about how rigorously such codes have been enforced during China’s recent, epic building boom.

Tibet silenced, Sichuan silenced, Bejing silenced, Cadre mute

The news is that there is no news on the search for the dead in Sichuan Province, nor is there certainty of the investigations into the poor school buildings, the lac of transparency in the recovery effort, the prospects for clarity from the Bejing Cadre. Meantime, the reporting from Beijing points to a Potemkin village Olympics, with canned, edited TV coverage, severely restricted access, manufactured crowds, severe mind games. The Cadre is fearful, and it speaks with one voice, which is the voice of fear.

No answers for Chinese who lost children to quake

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 20, 2008
Filed at 1:20 p.m. ET

WUFU, China (AP) -- About 150 parents gathered Friday at the ruins of Fuxin No. 2 Primary School, hoping to learn why the building collapsed in last month's earthquake, killing their sons and daughters.

They left with nothing: The results, officials say, were just not ready.

The parents said local officials had promised to give them the details on why the school crumbled in the May 12 quake. They accused the government of stalling.

''We are not satisfied with the government. They are playing for time,'' said Huang Zaojun, whose 11-year-old son was among 270 students that authorities say died when the three-story school collapsed.

Hong Kong Cable TV quoted parents as saying that officials denied in the meeting that they had promised to give details of the investigation. The school was located in the town of Wufu, 45 miles north of the provincial capital Chengdu.

''The government said the experts are still making an evaluation and asked us to wait. They said the result might come out in three or five days, or one or two years,'' Huang said.

He said parents would ask lawyers to find experts to make a separate evaluation.

Accusations of shoddy school construction have increasingly turned to anger against local authorities in Sichuan province, where more than 69,000 people died in China's worst disaster in three decades.

Parents have protested at numerous schools in the province, calling for explanations as to why schools collapsed so easily while nearby buildings were still standing after the 7.9 magnitude quake.

The parents were sensitive to official pressure and pushed a television crew out of the area that did not have media passes because they thought the crew was from the government.

Foreign engineers who inspected collapsed buildings in Sichuan blamed poor construction.

''If the government compels students to be in schools, and designs and constructs the schools, then the government has responsibility,'' said Brian Tucker of GEOHazards International, a nonprofit organization that works for better quake-proof buildings.

But Tucker said the many levels of government involved made it difficult to pinpoint who was at fault.

Kit Miyamoto, a spokesman for the Structural Engineering Association of California, said he found many cases of non-reinforced concrete when he inspected collapsed schools in Sichuan.

Miyamoto, head of engineering firm Miyamoto International Inc., said telltale signs of substandard construction were readily discernible.

''It took me four hours to understand what went wrong,'' he said. But Miyamoto added it could take longer to find out who is responsible.

At least four journalists representing foreign media outlets were detained for as long as six hours while trying to cover the meeting between the parents and authorities, including an Associated Press reporter who spoke to parents at the school.

Thunderstorm and heavy rainstorms were forecast this weekend in Sichuan, the provincial weather bureau said. This month marks the start of the annual rainy season, which routinely causes rivers to flood their banks.

Landslides are a particular concern because the May 12 earthquake caused steep hillsides to shear away and crash into river valleys below. Many slopes remain unstable and are at high risk of being washed away by rainstorms.

Authorities have evacuated more than 110,000 people since Sunday from mountain districts near the quake's epicenter, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The government has ordered many survivors to move several times because of potential danger from damaged homes, aftershocks and possible flooding from ''quake lakes'' that formed when huge piles of debris blocked rivers.

Torrential rains have swept much of southern China in the past week, killing at least 63 people, swamping millions of acres of farmland and causing billions of dollars in damage. Low-lying parts of eastern Sichuan have been affected, but there have been no reports of flooding in the quake zone.

The Cadre searches for a fall guy and chooses a grieving dad and widower

The cynicism of the Cadre is fresh and boundless. To bring their investigation of corruption and tyranny to a satisfying conclusion, they have chosen the principal of the Dongqi middle school to blame for all the deaths of the children. It is highly useful that the man they have identified as the warlord of the Shoddy School Clique is School principal Zhou Dexiang, 45 years old, who lost his 18-year-old daughter in the collapse. The added use for choosing the criminal wrecker Zhou is that he also lost his wife, a teacher at another school. Zhou will permit anything, will say anything, will bear the weight. He is already doomed. The Cadre grins nervously and peeks out the shade. Are they still angry?

Amid Rubble, A Search For Blame
Gaps in Accountability
Emerge as Chinese Ask
Why Children Died
By MEI FONG
June 12, 2008; Page A6
MIANZHU, China -- For Dongqi Middle School's freshman class of 2006, the class photo marked their entrance into one of the district's elite schools. Beaming, they posed in front of a mural depicting the soaring mountains nearby.

When China's massive earthquake struck last month, Dongqi Middle crumbled, killing all but a handful of the students in the photo. Dozens of other schools collapsed, too, resulting in the deaths of thousands of students and triggering an outcry among their relatives.


Mei Fong/The Wall Street Journal
Vice mayor Zhang Jinming promised the grieving parents a full investigation into the school's collapse, with results by June 15.
Now, as investigators comb through the rubble of Dongqi a month after the May 12 quake, there are still few clear answers about who is to blame for the collapse here, which killed at least 220 of the school's roughly 900 students, as well as 14 teachers.

What has emerged instead are gaps in accountability that grew largely out of China's transition from Communism's state-run schools to a more fractured system, where lines of responsibility weren't clear and money that was supposed to be spent on Dongqi and other schools often wasn't.

Officials say the magnitude-7.9 quake was wholly to blame for the Dongqi school's collapse. Grieving parents point to a big crack on the wall clearly visible in the 2006 photo as evidence of shoddy construction that they think contributed to the death toll. But assessing blame is hard for a school built more than 30 years ago by a state-owned company that has since transferred it to the local government.

The Sichuan earthquake has also exposed other fault-lines in China's social policies that added to parents' grief. Tight budgets led some schools to impose hefty fees, forcing many lower-income parents to work long periods in wealthy cities far away from their kids. China's three-decade-old one-child policy exacerbated the loss.

"She was all of our hope, all of our future. Now we have nothing," said Wu Jiangqiong, who became a migrant worker when her 17-year-old daughter was just four to pay for her schooling. Ms. Wu is one of hundreds of parents now protesting what they say was official negligence that worsened the disaster, in a show of mass defiance rare in China.

Dongqi's parents believed the school had adequate funds. It was built and run for years by a subsidiary of Dongfang Electric Corp., a big state-owned producer of power-generating equipment. Dongqi's teachers were paid better than those at most schools. Yet a company official admits the company hadn't sufficiently invested in the school's infrastructure. "The money is limited. The warehouses also need money," said Zhang Dongsen, head of Dongfang's propaganda department.


As the grief unfolds at Dongqi, it is dividing the community. School principal Zhou Dexiang, 45 years old, lost his 18-year-old daughter in the collapse. His wife, a teacher at another school, also died. Mr. Zhou taught at Dongqi for 25 years and recalls only one time when structural improvements were made, in the 1980s. Still, he defends his school. "If I thought this building was dangerous, I would never send my daughter to this school and put her life at risk," said Mr. Zhou, his face sagging with grief and exhaustion.

But many of the bereaved parents blame Mr. Zhou, at least in part, for the tragedy. They shun him. Among them is Ms. Wu, a slight woman who makes about 30 cents an hour on the assembly line packing quilts, and supports five people on her wages. The bulk of her income went to her late daughter Guangxiang's pocket-money and $300 yearly school fees -- a huge sum of money for a migrant worker.

In another camp are the parents who work for Dongfang, who are torn between criticisms of the local authorities and cries against their employer. Dongfang built the main school building in 1975, a year before a major earthquake in northern China prompted new, sturdier building codes nationwide. At the time, big state-owned companies like Dongfang provided for almost all the needs of their employees, running schools, hospitals, and living quarters.

Dongfang transferred control of Dongqi to the local education bureau in 2006 as part of a nationwide policy by Beijing to slim down state companies. The transfer slowed down the school's transfer to newer facilities, according to education officials and parents.

Parents allege that Dongfang transferred some 45 million yuan ($6.5 million) to local authorities for rebuilding the facilities, but that the money wasn't used. A Dongfang official confirmed the transfer happened in 2006. Local officials declined to comment, saying investigations are still pending.

When the quake struck at 2.28 p.m., sections of the building crumbled in just over 10 seconds. Students on the third and fourth floors had no chance to escape. Ms. Wu's daughter was among them, as was Principal Zhou's.

Preliminary investigations now show the U-shaped building's structural design and construction quality were flawed, according to construction experts. Parents also complain of a slow response time by local officials and authorities, forcing them to dig with their hands for survivors.

Principal Zhou had been in his office handling administrative tasks when the quake struck. Then, along with other parents and faculty, he began trying to pull out buried students. He knew his daughter was likely among them. He tried to call his wife, who worked nearby, but couldn't get through. He only learned of his wife's death three days later.

In the end, 58 students were pulled out of the rubble. At least three later died. Principal Zhou identified his daughter's body four days later. "From her body, she was really badly injured before she died," he said.

Aside from emotional devastation, many parents are also bracing for financial loss. Many of them had worked to pay for their only child to attend school in hopes the children wouldn't end up as migrant workers like them. They also expected to depend on their offspring in old age, as is common in China, where health-care and pension systems are inadequate.

"I am too old to have another child," said Ms. Wu. She is haunted by her last phone conversation with her daughter two days before the quake, when they quarreled because her daughter wanted a cellphone. Ms. Wu had snapped, "Look, I'm not rich, it is hard for me to make money for you."

Parents' anger has mounted with the death toll. On May 29, Ms. Wu, along with other grieving parents, stood in the falling rain at the offices of the local education bureau, demanding answers from officials including Zhang Jinming, vice mayor of Deyang, the city that administers the area.

Using a megaphone, and occasionally wagging a finger, Mr. Zhang told the parents to "be patient." He promised a full investigation into the school collapse, with results by June 15. But he said nature was to blame. "The school building was a dangerous building," he said, but "the main reason for its collapse was the earthquake."

That didn't satisfy the parents. On May 31, hundreds marched again to the offices of more senior officials. Authorities sealed the area and sent in police. On June 3, a much smaller group showed up at the gates of a Dongfang Electric plant. They rattled the steel gates yelling, "Your company is rich. Why didn't you build a better school?" A loudspeaker boomed telling Dongfang's workers: "Do not engage. Do not explain. Be silent, defend the gate."

Meanwhile, Principal Zhou has thrown himself in the task of trying to move forward. "The conditions right now aren't good," he said wearily on Tuesday, as Dongqi resumed classes. The school is now two rows of flat white-and-blue temporary structures at the end of a road. There are eight classrooms with chalkboards and new desks. There aren't enough textbooks. Nearly everything has been donated.

One of the students back at school is Feng Yuan, 17, a member of the enrolling class of 2006 who had their pictures taken in front of the school mural. She made it to the stairs when the quake hit and was able to claw her way out of the rubble. "I just want to forget the past," she said. Most of her good friends and classmates are dead.

--Sue Feng and James T. Areddy in Mianzhu, Ellen Zhu in Shanghai and Gao Sen in Beijing contributed to this article.

Write to Mei Fong at mei.fong@wsj.com

Student Rebellion Upside Down: The Torch understands irony

In theory, protesting students praising the Cadre is breathless nonsense. In practice, it looks like nationalism is looking for leadership. Not the Cadre.

Chinese Students Rally, but Often
In Support of Government
By JASON LEOW
June 4, 2008; Page A14
BEIJING -- Nineteen years after Beijing's bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy movement, China's college students today are more likely to favor nationalistic causes and work within the one-party system.


Reuters
A group of women with stickers of the Chinese flag pasted on their cheeks gather to watch the Olympic torch relay at Wenzhou in Zhejiang province.
The patriotism that drove young people to criticize authorities in the 1980s is now seen by many students as best expressed by supporting China's leadership for the progress it has achieved in expanding China's economy and raising its international profile.

That sentiment has been strengthened in recent months by the political crisis in Tibet, the Sichuan earthquake and the approach of the Beijing Olympics.

Students rallied against foreign criticism of Beijing's policies in Tibet, where violent antigovernment riots in March were met with a harsh crackdown, and they have often lauded the state's response to the devastating quake. Thousands of Beijing students have volunteered to help with logistics of the Summer Games, which they see as a national triumph.

The student support for the government is a sharp contrast to the image of Chinese students shaped by the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that still lingers for many in the West. China's government has never said how many people died in the June 3-4 crackdown that ended those demonstrations. Outside groups say the number was anywhere from several hundred to several thousand. Ahead of the Olympics, international groups like Human Rights Watch have renewed their calls for Beijing to release some of the estimated 130 people who remain in jail for their involvement in the demonstrations.


Associated Press
A Beijing University student leader argued with a policeman in April 1989.
In some ways, much of the symbolism of the Olympics appears aimed at redefining an international view of Beijing still darkened by the Tiananmen crackdown. The square has been used for such Olympic functions as the starting ceremony for the global torch relay. At a routine press conference Tuesday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Qin Gang declined to answer a question on the Tiananmen protests. The question was omitted from a transcript of the briefing posted on the ministry's Web site.

Many young people in China don't know what took place in 1989 and don't seem especially keen to find out. China's students today aren't especially antiestablishment or openly critical of authority -- a product both of their own experiences and of an active effort by Communist Party leaders to better shape and co-opt student opinions.

Last year, Peking University's administrators tore down three notice boards at a corner on campus called the "sanjiao di" that students had long used to display social and political commentary. In the spring of 1989, at China's most prestigious school, the boards had helped rally student sentiment for the Tiananmen Square demonstrations.


Now sanjiao di boasts just a few pine trees and some wispy grass. Wang Jianbin, an undergraduate studying law, says students stopped posting political content on the boards several years ago, long before they were removed. "Students were posting rental requests and information about test-preparation programs," he says.

In the 1980s, China's leadership sometimes encouraged constructive criticism from students, believing that public criticisms could foster national unity. But today political challenges are frowned on, and Chinese schools teach virtually nothing about the Tiananmen protests, or June 4, as the event is known in China. "All I know is that on June 4, the school authorities get a little bit antsy," says Yang Linyan, a senior in international politics at the Beijing International Studies University. "Any student activity you want to organize on June 4 is usually scrutinized extra carefully," she says.

Virtually all Chinese universities house student groups and clubs allied with the party's Communist Youth League, which claims more than 75 million members, including most college students. That makes antigovernment activism immediately taboo and encourages public displays of support for the authorities. "China is a very well-run country, and our future will be better," says Ren Shaopeng, an engineering student and vice chairman of the Students' Union at the Beijing Science and Technology University.

Young people in China often equate the notion of government with country. Student support is also rooted in the tremendous economic progress experienced by most Chinese young people -- all of whom were born well after market-oriented liberalization began three decades ago. Grass-roots affection has reached a peak after the earthquake, as many express appreciation to the central government for mobilizing troops and supplies and for Premier Wen Jiabao's rapid arrival in the disaster zone.

"The authorities have performed very well," says Xu Xuexin, a senior at top-ranked Tsinghua University in Beijing. "I hope foreigners can see the unity of the Chinese people and their government."

Economic prosperity has played a major role in generating student support for the government. In the 1980s, students were angered in part by huge social problems, like double-digit inflation rates and remnants of the old communist system that impeded opportunities, such as the government work-assignment system that dispatched them to state jobs after graduation, with no heed paid to their personal preferences.

Today's Chinese students live in an era of relative prominence and plenty -- and there are far more of them, thanks to a major expansion of college enrollment. Higher-education funding rose sixfold between 1996 and 2005, the last year for which China's government has numbers.

Major universities boast new sports complexes where some Olympic events will be scheduled. In April, the education ministry said it planned to increase student subsidies amid soaring food prices, a policy that will affect some 20 million students across the country.

"Chinese students are pragmatists now," says Ruth Cherrington, author of "China's Students: the Struggle for Democracy," and a lecturer at Warwick University in the United Kingdom. "They have a lot more economic incentive to stay with the present brand of patriotism."

Young Chinese have far greater access today than their parents did to international media and other sources of information from abroad. Yet many feel their country and their government are deeply misunderstood in the West. That feeling flooded out amid protests in some Western cities against the Olympic torch relay. The protests upset many Chinese students, who counterattacked with demonstrations and campaigns to boycott Western conglomerates.

Many students accept the Chinese government's argument, which might seem anathema on college campuses in the U.S. or Europe, that unfettered freedom of expression can be destabilizing.

Mr. Wang, the Peking University law student, plans to head to law school at Duke University after he graduates in July. He rejects the idea that "democracy" and "human rights" are universal notions. "Unlike in the West, we don't stand on a higher plane and spot problems with democracy and human rights in other places," he says. "You have your values, we have ours.

The Torch waits on the Moms

This is heart cracking. It is impossible to look into the face of these moms. Today there came an opportunity my 18 year-old son to travel to Sichuan province this summer to help with the clean-up, and I hope we can organize the visa work and the airfare. China and the United States share much, and much more to learn. One thing to share is that transparency and accountability are the bedrock of a stable state. And only liberty can provide the muscle.

China Restricts Protests
And Media in Quake Zone
Police Break Up Rally
On Children's Deaths;
New Rules Over Access
By MEI FONG
June 3, 2008 2:00 p.m.
MIANZHU, China -- Chinese officials clamped down on protests by parents angry over the deaths of their children in last month's earthquake, with police breaking up at least one demonstration and attempting to prevent media access to other quake-stricken towns Tuesday.


Associated Press
Dozens of parents who lost children to the May 12 quake protested outside the court house in Dujiangyan, China Tuesday.
In some cases, local officials cited what they said were newly imposed media regulations, although they gave scant and sometimes contradictory information on these new rules. The new measures appear to scale back some of the media freedoms granted after the May 12 earthquake, which so far has killed almost 70,000 people.

In the hard-hit town of Dujiangyan, police hauled away more than 100 parents of children killed in a school during the quake who were protesting in front of a courthouse, the Associated Press reported. An AP reporter and two photographers, as well as two Japanese reporters, were detained briefly when as they tried to observe the event, the report said.

Several eyewitnesses said the parents wanted to go into the courthouse and file a lawsuit but they were blocked by hundreds of police. "The government has been talking about the investigation for such a long time. We still have no answers," said Ms. Wang, who lost her niece at Juyuan Middle School and declined to give her full name. She accompanied the girl's mother to the court in Dujiangyan Tuesday morning, where she says there were about 200 to 300 parents, each holding pictures of their lost children.

The clamor of grieving parents -- who say poor construction led to their children's deaths -- has emerged as a sensitive issue for Chinese authorities. Just two months before the media glare surrounding the Beijing Olympics, they are juggling the demands of disaster-relief work with the need to manage growing pockets of unrest among parents, many who lost their only child when schools collapsed in the quake.


Columbia University Prof. Xiaobo Lu, who studies Chinese politics, said it was just a matter of time before the Chinese government pulled back from its relatively liberal attitude toward news coverage of the Sichuan quake. "In the back of the authorities' mind, there is a fear of looming unrest. Their approach is to address the problem in a way they can control," said Prof. Lu.

The restrictions appeared tightest in areas where collapsed schools killed hundreds of students, places that have become the scenes of increasing protests by parents over the past week.

A Wall Street Journal reporter present during a peaceful protest in Hanwang town on Tuesday was questioned repeatedly by police there, with one officer attempting to stop the reporter from taking photos. Later on, propaganda officials tailed the reporter by car out of town and pulled the reporter over for questioning.

On the same day, police also blocked roads to Wufu, another town with a school that collapsed while surrounding buildings survived, and prevented several Chinese reporters from entering the town, according to people present.

The Chinese government is investigating the causes of collapse at many of these schools, but parents are chafing at the delay in results, which could take several more weeks.

The anger appears to be fueled, in part, by the disclosure that family-planning officials were offering to give annual sums of $144 per parent as partial compensation for their loss, which many felt was too low.

When the magnitude-7.9 quake occurred on May 12, hundreds of foreign and domestic news organizations swarmed to Sichuan to cover the disaster, initially with few or no restrictions.

Now, the new rules appear to limit access to the areas where parents have been protesting. Yan Hua, an official from the Mianzhu propaganda department, told a reporter that as of Monday, journalists were required to obtain permission from the local-government office in Deyang and media passes issued by the Foreign Affairs Office of the Sichuan Provincial People's Government were no longer valid.

A spokeswoman from the Foreign Affairs Office of the Sichuan Provincial People's Government confirmed that the department is issuing new media passes, but she said the passes would cover all Sichuan -- so reporters wouldn't have to seek individual permission from the province's various municipalities.

While the new regulations were put into place Monday, she said, the new passes aren't yet available and further details about how to obtain them would be posted on the Sichuan government's Web site. But a check of the Web site Tuesday evening offered no further information.

Highlighting the often-contradictory information about the new media rules, Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters in Beijing Tuesday: "I don't know of any new regulations there. The principle remains unchanged for transparency and openness."

Meanwhile, the parent protests appear to be escalating. On Tuesday, parents from Dongzhi school protested in Hanwang, outside a subsidiary of Shanghai-listed Dongfang Electric Corp.

The state-owned company is one of China's largest power companies and had built the school before it was transferred to the local government in 2006. Parents clustered outside the factory gates shouting things such as "Your company is rich! Why didn't you build a better school?"

Liu Wenzhong, whose 17-year-old son, Yu Dan, was killed, stood at the gates of the company, crying. A burly policeman patted him on the back and said, "You should calm down. We can solve this, the issue can be solved -- but not this way."

Authorities Delay Draining of Quake Lake

Meanwhile, Xinhua said authorities have delayed for two days a bid to divert water from a huge lake formed when the quake sent landslides tumbling into a river in Beichuan, in northern Sichuan.

Water levels in the lake had been rising steadily and threatened to flood surrounding areas, prompting authorities to evacuate nearly 200,000 people already uprooted by the quake. But Xinhua said with little rain forecast for the next several days, rescue workers were not likely to start draining off the water until Thursday. The work had been expected to start Tuesday.

Workers have already used heavy earth-moving equipment to dig a runoff channel to remove the water. The government is worried the newly-formed lake could burst, sending a wall of water through a valley.

In an indication of how difficult rescue conditions are in parts of Sichuan, there is still no sign of a helicopter that crashed nearly three days ago while ferrying survivors. Thousands of soldiers have been combing remote mountains in search of the military helicopter.

The Russian-designed Mi-171 transport was carrying 19 people, 14 of them people injured in the quake, when it flew into fog and turbulence and crashed Saturday near the epicenter of the temblor in the town of Wenchuan, state media reported.

--The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Write to Mei Fong at mei.fong@wsj.com

57 Rules meet One Rule

The Torchlike the rules. The Torch has its own rules. No 1 Rule is, Liberty.

China Issues 57 Rules
For Olympics Visitors
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER and SKY CANAVES
June 3, 2008
HONG KONG -- The Beijing Olympics organizing committee issued a detailed handbook of ground rules for foreign visitors to this summer's Games. The 57 points address behavior from public drunkenness to political statements, a message that China won't be letting down its guard during the Games.

BEIJING 2008

In recent months, the government has reported crushing several attempted terrorist plots to disrupt the Games. It has increased supervision of foreigners in China by tightening rules for issuing visas and checking up on foreign residents already in the country.

Most of the guidelines issued Monday, phrased in a question-and-answer format -- and only in Chinese -- are restatements of existing laws and regulations. They stipulate that foreign visitors to China should carry passports and other official documents at all times. Visitors who plan to stay with friends or relatives in Beijing must register with local police within 24 hours.

Some of the guidelines are less weighty. Entertainment venues have to be closed between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. Another guideline reminds visitors that "it is prohibited to sleep in public places," including airports, train stations and parks.

On sensitive issues such as public speech and protest, the rules offer no guidance beyond the vague prohibitions the government has offered in the past.

At major public venues, behavior that "disturbs order" is prohibited, the rules say. Inside Olympic venues, it is illegal to display "any religious, political, and ethnic slogans, banners, and other items."

People hoping to hold marches or demonstrations must apply to the police for permission, the rules say, but they don't explain where such protests will be allowed, if at all.

The Beijing Olympics organizing committee wasn't available for comment.

International human-rights groups and some athletes' organizations have expressed concern over the ability of participants and spectators to speak freely during the Games. In April, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said that "freedom of expression is something that is absolute" and is shared by athletes. But he also said that athletes are guests in China and would have to abide by Chinese law.

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com and Sky Canaves at sky.canaves@wsj.com

Burme Cadre Jr twists the deal, UN notices deal is worthless

U.N. Says Myanmar Is Forcing
Cyclone Survivors Out of Camps
Associated Press
May 30, 2008 8:02 a.m.
YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar's military government is forcing cyclone victims out of refugee camps and "dumping" them near their devastated villages with virtually no aid supplies, the United Nations said Friday.

Eight camps set up earlier by the government for homeless victims in the Irrawaddy delta town of Bogale were "totally empty" as the clear-out continued, Unicef official Teh Tai Ring told a meeting of aid groups.

"The government is moving people unannounced," he said, adding that authorities were "dumping people in the approximate location of the villages, basically with nothing." Camps were also being closed in Labutta, another delta town.

An estimated 2.4 million people remain homeless nearly a month after Cyclone Nargis hit the country May 2-3. The government says the storm killed 78,000 people and left another 56,000 missing.

Centralizing survivors in the centers had made it easier for aid agencies to deliver emergency relief since many villages in the delta can only be reached by boat or over very rough roads.

Aid workers who have reached some of the remote villages say little remains that could sustain the former residents. Houses are destroyed, livestock have perished and food stocks have virtually run out. Medicines are nonexistent.

The Unicef team leader in Myanmar said some of the refugees were "being given rations and then they are forced to move," but others were being denied such aid because they had lost their government identity cards. There was speculation that authorities didn't want "a refugee mentality" to set in, with camp inmates dependent on aid for a long period of time.

Terje Skavdal, a senior U.N. official in Bangkok, Thailand, said he couldn't confirm the camp closures but that any such forced movement was "completely unacceptable." "People need to be assisted in the settlements and satisfactory conditions need to created before they can return to their place of origins," said Mr. Skavdal, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "Any forced or coerced movement of people is completely unacceptable."

Aid groups say Myanmar's military government is still hindering foreign assistance for victims of the cyclone, while the junta has belittled the aid efforts. Foreign aid workers are still awaiting visas, and the government is taking 48 hours to process requests to enter the Irrawaddy delta, aid groups said Friday. They said the International Red Cross was waiting for permission to send 30 foreign staffers into the delta.

"We urge speedy implementation of all agreements, on access, visas and use of logistical assets," Mr. Skavdal said. "We need to see more relief experts, including (those) from the (International Red Cross), getting into the delta as soon as possible without bureaucratic hindrance."

While he said there have been "promising indications that the government is moving in an overall right direction," Mr. Skavdal added that the real test remains implementation on the ground.

While welcoming millions of dollars from the international community for cyclone relief, Myanmar lashed out at donors for not pledging enough. State-run media condemned donors for pledging only up to $150 million -- a far cry from the $11 billion the junta said it needed.

Copyright © 2008 Associated Press

Sharon Stone mentions Tibet and karma and the Cadre cringes:

What is Dior, Tibet, Stone, Cadre, karma, Sichuan and earthquake all doing in a news item. Torch befuddles the news. The Torch goes to the top of Everest under guard, and the Indian plate jumps 23 feet into the Eurasian plate. No connection. Sure not. Still. The Cadre is spooked.

China embarks on quake diplomacy
Published: May 29 2008 19:41 | Last updated: May 29 2008 19:41
For Sharon Stone, the Sichuan earthquake was karmic retribution. For Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, it was a moment to show the Communist party’s human face. For Japan, it has provided a small, but genuine, opportunity to lay to rest some of the ghosts that still haunt Sino-Japanese relations.

Beijing’s decision to ask Japan’s Air Self Defence Forces to fly relief equipment into Sichuan is rife with symbolism. Not since 1945, when the Japanese withdrew from China after 14 years of brutal expansionism, will a Japanese military aircraft have landed on Chinese soil. China’s seizure of the moment is laudable. So is Japan’s enthusiastic response. Less than two weeks ago the idea had seemed unthinkable. Then, Tokyo sent rescue workers to pick through the rubble of Sichuan. But they flew on commercial aircraft, via Beijing, losing time.

Natural disasters have a way of accelerating existing trends. Earlier this month, Hu Jintao, China’s president, made a remarkable visit to Tokyo in which he praised Japan’s peaceful postwar rise and suggested it could play a bigger international role. The remarks, broadcast live in China, may have come as a shock to many citizens fed a diet of Japan’s wartime barbarities and supposedly continued untrustworthiness.

Mr Hu has correctly gauged that dragging up history to shame China’s most important neighbour is counterproductive. It damages Beijing’s aspiration – evident in its high-level meeting with Taiwan – to be seen as an emerging power willing to join the global order.

The symbolism of Japanese aircraft arriving as saviours rather than aggressors could yet backfire. Internet chatter shows how raw the events of six decades ago still are. “Yesterday their planes were dropping bombs,” says one post. “Today they are giving a little kindness to confuse the Chinese people.” Nor is it certain Beijing’s shift is irreversible. The suspicion remains that, if things get tough domestically, the Communist party may play the anti-Japan card to shore up support.

Yet, rather like the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Sichuan will go down as a turning point. Kobe exposed Japan’s lamentable preparedness. It laid the groundwork for a response to its economic crisis. The Sichuan quake has jolted China just as it was meant to be celebrating its Olympic triumph. It has provided an opportunity to re-evaluate everything from dam construction to the importance of civil society and the role of the Communist party in people’s daily lives. Now it is helping to exorcise wartime ghosts. Some good can come of this tragedy yet.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

We have to pretend that the Beijing Cadre couldn't order her released tonight. The Torch lifts a brow.

The Burma Cadre Jr works for the Beijing Cadre. Same as Kim Jong Il and the gang in Khartoum, Mugabe in Haarare, and any other lowbrow bully they can collect cheap. The Beijing Cadre has the hygiene of sludge. And is not without shame.

Suu Kyi detention extended
YANGON, May 27 - Myanmar’s military junta extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi by another six months on Tuesday, a government source said.

The official, who asked not to be named, said a government officer had gone to the Nobel laureate’s home to read out the extended detention order in person.


Oxford-educated Suu Kyi, 62, has been under house arrest or in prison for more than 12 of the last 18 years.

The widely-expected move is likely to dismay Western donor nations which have pledged tens of millions of dollars in conditional aid since Cyclone Nargis hit on May 2, leaving up to 2.4 million people destitute.

The military, criticised for its slow response to the disaster which left 134,000 dead and missing, has slowly opened the isolated Southeast Asian nation to foreign aid and workers.

But the generals have also shown no sign of relaxing their iron grip on the country.

Earlier on Tuesday, police arrested 20 youth members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) trying to march to her home in the former capital, opposition sources said.

A Reuters reporter saw at least six police trucks, a prison van and a fire engine parked near the NLD headquarters before a ceremony to mark the end of the latest phase of her house arrest.

Suu Kyi’s latest stretch of detention started ”for her own protection” after clashes between her supporters and pro-junta thugs near the town of Depayin on May 30, 2003.

However, her formal house arrest under a state security law did not start until Nov. 27 of that year. It was renewed once for six months, and has since been renewed every year on or around May 27.

The last time Suu Kyi was released, in 2002, she drew huge crowds on a tour of the country, a reminder to the generals of the huge sway the daughter of independence hero Aung San still held over Myanmar’s 57 million people.

The NLD won more than 80 percent of seats in a 1990 election, but was denied power by the military, which has ruled the former Burma since a 1962 coup.

© Reuters Limited Click for restrictions
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Burma Cadre Jr relents not in the least: Assuaging the Beijing Cadre in small steps

The United Nations mania for the status quo ante results in a naked disgrace. A captive people can expect no help. Jaw jaw leads nowhere. Note that the visa section of the Burmese embassy in Bangkok burned down in a mysterious fire less that 12 hours after Moon announced a breakthough in Rangoon.

Nervous junta opens door to relief workers
By Amy Kazmin in Bangkok
Published: May 26 2008 23:36 | Last updated: May 26 2008 23:36
Foreign relief workers began filtering into Burma’s devastated Irrawaddy delta on Monday as aid agencies tested the ruling military junta’s contention that it would allow a big international effort to help 2.5m victims of cyclone Nargis.

Unicef, the United Nations children’s agency, said it had received permission over the weekend for six foreign technical experts to work in the delta, which had been off limits to foreign aid workers.


The World Food Programme also had several international staff, including a logistics officer, travelling to the region.

However, a foreign doctor and sanitation specialist working for a British charity who attempted to travel to the delta without permission were turned back 50km outside Rangoon.

Most international aid agencies are seeking official sanction for their foreign staff to visit the delta so they can cross military checkpoints ringing the affected region. “A disorderly mass influx of internationals into the delta will make them very, very nervous,” said Andrew Kirkwood, country director of Save the Children.

Aid agencies are cautiously optimistic that they will finally be able to deploy foreign technical specialists to support overstretched Burmese aid workers, who have been running the relief efforts for the past three weeks.

“Things seem to be progressing,” said John Sparrow of the International Federation of the Red Cross, which has 30 foreign technical experts in Rangoon. “We are hopeful that in the next couple of days we will get some news about what we can do and how we can progress.” Cyclone Nargis and the subsequent tidal sea surge killed an estimated 133,000 people and left a further 2.5m in need of food, clean water, shelter and medical care.

After three weeks of barring foreign aid workers from the delta, Senior General Than Shwe, the Burmese army chief, told Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, that “genuine” humanitarian workers could join the relief effort.

At a weekend meeting in Rangoon, global governments promised significantly to scale up their support for the aid effort if the generals allowed greater international access to the area.

However, the regime has still refused to permit US, French and British naval vessels carrying large quantities of relief supplies to airlift their life-saving cargo directly to needy survivors in the delta. France said it was “shocked”, but ordered its ship to neighbouring Thailand, where the supplies can be unloaded before being flown to Rangoon.

The UN estimates that about 1m people – 41 per cent of the 2.5m affected – have received some help since the cyclone, but mainly around Rangoon and not in the worst affected, hard-to-reach areas of the Irrawaddy delta.

UN officials say many survivors from the worst affected areas are migrating to the north of the country in search of help.

Dalai Lama: Wolf in Monk's Robe, speaks to the FT re the Cadre's confusion

The Old China Ways are broken and Marxism have failed. The Dalai Lama is not unclear. Non-violence has not worked so far. The new way is confrontation and resistance.


Gloom descends on Tibet’s exiled leader
By James Blitz, Lionel Barber and Lifen Zhang
Published: May 25 2008 19:16 | Last updated: May 25 2008 19:16
The Dalai Lama has long been renowned as an optimistic and beaming figure, one who regularly breaks into infectious laughter in his encounters with the international media. But when he greets the Financial Times on the latest stage of a European tour to drum up support for the Tibetan cause, we find the 72-year old Nobel laureate in a subdued, almost black, mood, about the plight of his 6m people.

As our 45-minute interview progresses – in a hotel next to Nottingham racecourse that must seem a world away from his home in exile in northern India – he reveals an increasing sense of resignation and frustration. He says his commitment to pursuing autonomy for Tibet by peaceful means is losing the support of the younger generation of Tibetans. He says at one stage: “I no longer care whether I’m losing influence or not.”

There then follows a shrug of the shoulders under his crimson robe as we ask him how he feels about the prospects for a homeland he has not seen since 1959. “I really feel helplessness that’s all. I have done my best. For half a century I have remained a homeless man with one goal. Has my moral response to help the Tibetan people failed? OK, so it’s failed. But then I am a Buddhist. Compared to ordinary politicians, my thinking is a little bit different.”

This sense of helplessness is understandable in these difficult days, and yet 2008 ought to have provided him with a golden opportunity to extract real commitments from China on greater autonomy for Tibet. Beijing is determined to hold a successful Olympics this summer – and many Tibetans had thought this would put pressure on the Chinese authorities to make concessions.

Yet the Chinese earthquake, which has claimed at least 60,000 victims, turned China from villain to victim overnight, drying up the international well of sympathy for Tibet. China had attracted a wave of criticism, after riots erupted in Lhasa in March.

The Dalai Lama acknowledges the point. “Of course, initially, people are showing more concern over the victims of this large-scale earthquake.”

But he insists that one of the reasons Tibet is now being eclipsed is that China refuses to allow the outside world into witness the crackdown on human rights.

“The re-education [of monks] is going on. That is quite clear. There are arrests in some areas. That’s why I have always said to the international community and to the Chinese government ‘Please let more people go there and see for themselves what is happening’.”

The Dalai Lama clutches at one strand of hope. In its determination to keep Tibet calm in the run-up to the Olympics, Beijing has agreed to hold talks next month with his representatives about the region’s future. The Dalai Lama is suspicions of Beijing’s motives, of course. “Is this only being done for the Olympics or is to deal with the real situation of Tibet?” he asks. “I do not know.”

Still, he has a range of requests, starting with fair trials for demonstrators arrested in the Lhasa riots. As far as a political settlement is concerned, he insists he is not seeking full independence for Tibet, just “realistic autonomy”. Nor is he demanding autonomy for a far larger swath of territory, encompassing the 4m ethnic Tibetans living elsewhere in China.

However, he insists China must give enhanced rights to Tibetans wherever they live. “What we are seeking is genuine implementation of the rights of the [Tibetan] minorities. They are facing of elimination of their culture and language. We are acting on behalf of all of them.”

Whatever happens at next month’s talks, tensions with the Chinese leadership will remain high. And yet he shows understanding for the conservative line on Tibet of the Chinese president and prime minister.

“I feel sympathy for Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao,” he says. “They have a country of over 1bn people with a lot of complications. There are still wounds from the Cultural Revolution and then another generation has the wounds of Tiananmen. There is a lot of corruption.

“China is today such a complicated country. The old Chinese tradition is much damaged and Marxism has failed. So it’s a very difficult period. As a result, the Chinese leadership is more cautious. That is realistic and it is understandable.”

However, he will not hide the hurt that he feels at the verbal ferocity with which China assaults him. “If some Chinese officials feel it is appropriate to call me a ‘demon’ or a ‘wolf with a robe’, that’s perfectly all right. But what about the millions of innocent young Chinese? If they really feel the Dalai Lama is a demon, then I feel very sad.”

Interview by James Blitz, Lionel Barber and Lifen Zhang

The Cadre threatens Siberia with cash. The Kremlin broods. The Torch awaits Moscow Games.

The future of Siberia is to become a trading partner to the Chinese markets, and while the Cadre can pretend it is just a customer, the truth is that it must buy Siberia. With that cash, Siberia does not need the Kremlin. Target date 2025, the trade war on the Kolyma.

Russia’s aim in wooing Mr Hu
Published: May 23 2008 19:06 | Last updated: May 23 2008 19:06
On his first foreign excursion since becoming Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev has turned east, to Kazakhstan and China, not west. It is no idle gesture. The choice of destination is clearly intended to underline a new emphasis in Moscow’s international ties. China is becoming a preferred partner, just as relations with the rest of Europe, and America, have cooled.

Yet even loyal Russian analysts are keen to stress that this does not mean a fundamental shift in priorities. Rather, following in the footsteps of Vladimir Putin, his predecessor and mentor, Mr Medvedev is signalling that Russia will be hard-nosed and pragmatic in pursuing multiple partnerships. Like Mr Putin, the new president has gone to Beijing, a large retinue of Russian businessmen in tow.

Both political and trade ties between Russia and China are much improved in recent years. Commerce is flourishing. Two-way trade rose 44 per cent to more than $48bn in 2007, a five-fold increase in the eight years since Mr Putin came to power. They have joined forces in the Shanghai Co-operation Organis- ation, bringing the countries of Central Asia into a security agreement seeking to counterbalance US influence in the region. Beijing and Moscow see themselves as part of a multipolar world: hence their joint condemnation on Friday of US plans for a missile defence shield.

It is a far cry from the bitter relations that prevailed during most of the cold war when, far from being close communist allies, the two regimes were at loggerheads. Today the two sides would like to present their new-found friendship as a fully-fledged strategic partnership. Yet it is more an alliance of convenience that disguises many tensions.

China is now lead partner in the relationship. In spite of the soaring price of oil and gas, Russia’s sales to China grew little more than 12 per cent last year, to $19.67bn, while China’s exports rocketed by almost 80 per cent to $28.48bn, giving China a trade surplus for the first time. Mr Medvedev wants to boost sales of Russian military equipment, aircraft and nuclear technology to redress the balance.

China clearly wants access to the massive mineral resources of Siberia to fuel its economic growth. But Russia has always mistrusted Chinese motives, and is cautious of too much investment, or migration, into its vast and under-populated eastern regions. Promises to build a new oil pipeline have yet to bear fruit, after a decade of negotiations.

Mr Medvedev’s next foreign trip will be to Berlin. Germany is still Moscow’s number one partner for trade and investment. Other western partners – including the US – will have to wait their turn. It is the Kremlin’s way of saying that it does not like to be taken for granted. Yet in the long run, Russia fears China far more than it fears its western neighbours. It has only ever been conquered from the east.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

The Cadre shakes the hand of the Baby Bear, and the Cheka grins. Somewhere a satlink beeps.

The Torch notes that old enemies make for less old allies, and that the explanation for why the murderous Mao made up to Nixon was that he feared the murderous Kremlin more. Now the turn of the screw. The Asian giants consider their futures, uneasily, and agree to dislike the giant they cannot intimidate, for now.

Medvedev and Hu hit out at US missile plan
By Neil Buckley in Moscow
Published: May 23 2008 19:16 | Last updated: May 23 2008 19:16
On his first foreign trip, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s new president, joined Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in Beijing in condemning US plans for a missile defence shield, warning they could upset strategic stability.

The joint statement seemed to mark a determination by Mr Medvedev to maintain the assertive foreign policy pursued by his predecessor, Vladimir Putin.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
Editorial Comment: Wooing Mr Hu - May-23

Medvedev trip east sends signal to west - May-22

Medvedev finalises his team - May-13

Russia makes its political moves - May-13

Slideshow: Russia’s Victory Day parade - May-09

Putin steals Medvedev’s limelight - May-08

Friday’s statement did not specifically identify the US, though the two countries have criticised Washington’s missile shield plans before. But the wording was stronger this time and the statement came during a visit by Mr Medvedev that had already been seen as a signal to the west that Russia had other partners it could work with.

“Both sides believe that creating a global missile defence system, including deploying such systems in certain regions of the world, or plans for such co-operation, do not help support strategic balance and stability, and harm international efforts to control arms and the non-proliferation process,” the statement said.

Mr Medvedev had travelled to China via the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, breaking with tradition by making his first visit as Kremlin leader to the east rather than the west. His two-day visit to Beijing follows a warming in relations between Russia and China during the eight-year presidency of Mr Putin – though the countries remain rivals in important areas.

“By visiting China on his first trip abroad since taking office, [Mr] Medvedev has shown that he attaches a high level of importance to the development of bilateral ties,” Mr Hu said.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Cadre 2108. A heart and a stomach. More bamboo please!

The Torch frees the future Cadre, too. Surprising discoveries of the juristic talents of panda bears who make decisions based upon sound, smell and temperature.

Leo Lewis, Chengdu
They are the symbol of Sichuan, they are the pride of Sichuan: locals believe they are the very spirit of Sichuan. And now, like the 5 million other residents of the province left homeless and hungry by the earthquake, the giant pandas share the pain of Sichuan.

Today, distressed, displaced and missing vital tonnage of the food they love most, six of the iconic creatures joined the dreadful exodus from the quake zone: the latest unhappy refugees whom the region can no longer support.

Loaded into trucks, the six pandas were taken to a reserve near the city of Ya’an, some 120 miles away from the worst-hit areas.

Another eight of their kind - possibly badly traumatised by the quake and its aftershocks - made a more glamorous exit from their mountain home. They were shuttled off from Sichuan to Beijing in a special flight. For them awaits the limelight of the August games and the delighted stares of millions of fans.

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“I’m not sure about the mental state of the pandas right now,” said Ye Mingxia of the Beijing Zoo in anticipation of the bears’ arrival in the capital on Saturday, “we will have to observe them carefully after they arrive.”

Famous throughout China, the Wolong breeding centre of Sichuan is home to no fewer than 53 of the rare and endangered giant pandas: visitors travel from around the world to admire them engaged in their two principal pastimes - eating and sleeping.

But since the mighty quake that ripped the region apart on May 12, the much-loved pandas have had extreme difficulty doing either.

The reserve they used to call home sits just 20 miles from the epicentre of the quake that thundered through the surrounding mountains, tearing down lives and livelihoods. More than 50,000 people are dead, thousands of children have been orphaned and China has barely begun rebuilding the shattered province.

Daily trips into the mountains to harvest the bamboo so adored by the pandas have been low on the list of priorities of the few locals that remain in the stricken area. With the reserve now cut off from easy access and usable roads, the bears’ keepers are increasingly worried about the animals’ diet.

Fearing for the wellbeing of Sichuan’s most celebrated quake victims, the Chinese government last week managed to shipped to Wolong an emergency consignment of around 5 tonnes of bamboo and a vast quantity of apples and other feed. But more trips will be tough and without the locally gathered variety of bamboo, the pandas are not happy.

Giant pandas are, even their fondest aficionados admit, notoriously picky eaters. Their absolute favourite breakfast, lunch and dinner is arrow bamboo - and when this bursts into its once-in-a-decade flowering season the black and white bears have been known to starve rather than widen their diet.

And the demands of their stomachs are not small: pandas have digestive systems unsuited to processing bamboo leaves, meaning they have to consume about 12 kilos of the stuff just to extract the nutrition they need.

It remains unclear whether other pandas from Wolong will also be taken elsewhere in coming days. Three other pandas remained missing following the quake, said staff at Wolong, and two were treated for injuries sustained in the violent tremors.

Meanwhile the Burma Cadre Jr. defies reason and the UN and all eyes: and refuses food

The Cadre at Beijing is directly responsible for the intransigence and vacuum in Burma. The original Cadre blocks direct intervention and refuses to permit the French advocacy to take control. The Cadre has no answers and looks for none.

In Ravaged Myanmar, Aid Goes Underground
May 23, 2008
KYAUKTAN, Myanmar -- It has been more than two weeks since Cyclone Nargis lashed this riverside town, blowing away Ma San's house and all her possessions.


The Wall Street Journal
Dozens of children -- some wearing sunblock on their faces -- crowded along a riverbank earlier this week at the Pariyatti monastery to look at a body floating in the river, the refugees' source for water for cooking and washing.
Since then, she and about 100 newly homeless neighbors have camped on the crowded ground floor of a nearby Buddhist monastery. "I lost everything," said 54-year-old Ms. San, as hard rain pounded uprooted tree trunks outside. "And if it were not for the monks, by now I would be dead."

Myanmar's military junta has been criticized world-wide for restricting international aid to the cyclone's victims as it fails to cope with the disaster's fallout itself. But as a visit to Myanmar's storm-ravaged areas shows, an informal network has now sprung into action to try to fill this vacuum -- with Buddhist monks, Internet-savvy activists and pro-democracy students providing shelter, clothing and food to survivors like Ms. San.

The country's isolationist junta, subject to U.S. sanctions since it crushed a pro-democracy movement two decades ago, fears that an uncontrolled influx of Western aid workers might undermine the regime's stranglehold over Myanmar's 53 million people. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon arrived in Myanmar on Thursday, meeting with Prime Minister Thein Sein in an effort to nudge open channels for foreign aid. (Please see related article.) Yet for now, it is the grass-roots relief effort, fueled by widespread revulsion at the junta's handling of the disaster, that is emerging as a powerful and insidious challenge to the ruling generals.

The impromptu relief work has already greatly enhanced the prestige of Myanmar's Buddhist clergy, which includes some 500,000 monks and remains the only large organized force independent of the regime. Storm-relief efforts have also provided a new rallying point for pro-democracy activists, silenced by last September's bloody crackdown on protests in Myanmar's main city, Yangon.

The volunteers say their motivations for relief work are purely humanitarian. But in a country as tightly controlled as Myanmar, any independent campaign inevitably acquires political overtones. Many of those helping the survivors are openly critical of the regime, circulating photos and compact discs that capture the horror of the tragedy and the frequent absence of government response. They include several young activist-bloggers who circumvent Myanmar's tight restrictions on Web access, venting their fury on antiquated computers in dim Internet cafés around Yangon.

'Obstacles to Aid'

"The people are very angry," said the head of one large Yangon-based aid organization involved in the independent relief operations. "They don't understand why the government is throwing up so many obstacles to aid."

The regime has begun to acknowledge this discontent. "Internal and external saboteur groups are making malicious remarks and slanderous accusations, and driving a wedge among the people," the government's mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, said in a comment published Wednesday. "They did destabilize the nation to a certain degree."

Truckloads of soldiers in full battle gear have appeared on Yangon streets this week, amid rumors that monks may stage a demonstration to coincide with the visit by Mr. Ban, the U.N. chief. Another possible rallying point comes Saturday, when Myanmar's leaders plan the second round of a referendum to approve a constitution that would further entrench their rule over this country, previously known as Burma.


Associated Press
Buddhist monks, doling out tarps near Yangon on Saturday, have stepped in as Myanmar's rulers curb relief efforts.
In power since 1962, Myanmar's military regime, headed by Senior General Than Shwe, is deeply suspicious of the outside world. The country doesn't allow roaming by foreign cellphones and blocks access to Web mail services including Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail, and to hundreds of sites it deems politically sensitive. Since 2005, the ruling generals have ensconced themselves in a remote new capital city, Naypyitaw. The regime's mantra, repeated daily by state media, is "to oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges and holding negative views."

The leadership's initial response after Nargis struck on May 2 was to minimize the extent of the catastrophe. The official count of the dead and missing has since swelled to 134,000, far exceeding the toll of this month's earthquake in neighboring China. The U.N. estimates that some 2.5 million cyclone-displaced Burmese need shelter and food.

Prodded by international criticism, the ruling junta is now allowing relief supplies, including those from the U.S., to be delivered to Yangon's airport. It has also issued some visas to foreign relief experts.

But even those Western aid workers who managed to come to Myanmar are still prohibited from entering the cyclone's epicenter in the Irrawaddy Delta, except on brief helicopter tours that the junta organized for visiting dignitaries. Western reporters have generally been refused journalist visas. Visitors who are discovered to be practicing journalism face deportation or arrest.

Such curbs mean that aid convoys chartered by Buddhist monks and Yangon volunteers are often the only ones reaching those most in need in the delta, a low-lying labyrinth of mangrove swamps, inlets, rice paddies and villages perched on levees.

Monks of Yangon's Chaukhtatgyi Paya monastery, home of a giant reclining Buddha statue, say they returned outraged from one such convoy -- two busloads of food, clothes and medicine -- that trekked to the delta town of Hpayapon.

"The officials only think about themselves and their own families," said the monastery's assistant principal, U Ti Lawka, who says he traveled with the convoy and is now organizing another. "People we have seen have no food, they are under rain with no shelter and no clothes. They have been neglected."

At the military checkpoints that stud all roads to the delta, he said, soldiers were instructed to confiscate cameras that can document the disaster's scope. The monks in the convoy hid their camera, snapping photos of decomposing corpses -- human and bovine -- caught in riverside shrubs. Laminated, the photos have been passed across the monastery and to devotees.

Vendors have also appeared on Yangon streets peddling bootleg compact disks with footage smuggled from the worst-hit parts of the delta. These CDs, sold in defiance of authorities and commanding double the price of counterfeit Hollywood blockbusters, show bloated cadavers and villagers with grotesque wounds who express sullen dismay at being left without assistance.

This contrasts with the tone of reports in state media. Newscasts by the government's TV monopoly focus on generals in wide-brimmed green hats handing out boxes of food to bowing, smiling subjects. Monks, if shown at all, are seen receiving aid rather than distributing it. "Rescue and relief efforts have been nearly completed," the New Light of Myanmar announced earlier this week. "A tremendous national task has been implemented successfully."

Bribes at Checkpoints

Independent relief workers, who say they often have to pay bribes to cross army checkpoints into the delta, accuse Myanmar's military of hoarding a large portion of international aid shipments and reselling some of the rest. At Yangon's markets, shopkeepers sell Singaporean condensed milk and Thai dry noodles that some say came from relief shipments.

A blogger and independent relief activist who identified herself as Htaike Htaike helped deliver eight truckloads of privately gathered aid to the delta town of Bogalay last week. She says she found shops there stocked with U.N.-provided vitamin-rich biscuits selling for 600 kyats, or 55 cents, apiece. "The soldiers sold the biscuits to the shops, and the shops are making money," she said.

The government has issued a statement angrily denying any misappropriation.

Convoy to Bogalay

The convoy that Ms. Htaike shepherded to Bogalay was financed by a $40,000 donation from a private Burmese businesswoman and organized by several fellow bloggers, convoy members say. They operated under the aegis of a Yangon Buddhist abbot, Thidagu Sayadaw, who is seen as an opponent of the regime. It brought medicine, clothes and -- crucially for the delta's many monks -- purple robes for clerics left without them by the cyclone. A second shipment, to another part of the delta, left by hired boat on Tuesday, organizers say.

Some of these aid caravans are funded by foreign aid organizations that don't have Burmese staff and are therefore unable to reach cyclone survivors themselves. Convoys are often put together with almost conspiratorial secrecy, as relief workers fear publicity may bring government retribution and disrupt the flow of supplies. One Yangon businessman ferries food to areas near the city by night to make his effort less visible to authorities.

Many of these independent aid workers return to Yangon distraught by what they've seen in the delta. "The only food people have received from the government there is four stale and rotten potatoes per family," Ms. Htaike said. "How can you live on that?"


That's four more potatoes than the government aid that reached Ms. San and other inhabitants of the Pariyatti monastery in Kyauktan, a town about one hour's drive southeast from Yangon. The cyclone wasn't nearly as lethal here as in the Irrawaddy Delta, where entire towns were flattened by wind and giant storm waves.

Unlike the delta, proclaimed a closed military area after the cyclone, Kyauktan and neighboring villages are relatively accessible to foreigners.

Fishermen Lost at Sea

U Oatama, Pariyatti's deputy abbot, estimates that about 50 people from the neighborhood around the monastery were killed by the storm, most of them fishermen who had been at sea in small wooden boats. But more than 100 locals, including Ms. San, had their homes blown away by the wind, crushed by falling trees or lost to landslides. These survivors have all been offered shelter and food by the monastery, which normally houses 10 monks and faces a popular shrine perched on a nearby island.

Men, women and children sleep without privacy on the floor, under a large papier-mâché white elephant, a revered symbol in Burmese Buddhism. Water for cooking and washing comes from the muddy river that laps in the back of the monastery. With a foreign visitor present earlier this week, dozens of children crowded the shore, holding their noses and staring at a human body that floated up.

Still, refugees say they're grateful, as the other option would be to remain in the mud under near-constant rain, without roofs over their heads. "The monastery is the only place we can depend on," Ms. San said.

Mr. Oatama says refugees were initially fed from the monks' rice stocks. These ran out after three days. "The government gave us nothing, nothing in aid. We feel we are abandoned," he says. A rare moment of government attention came in the form of two men who followed the foreign visitor throughout the neighborhood and, identifying themselves as policemen, instructed him not to come back.

So far, private food donations are keeping the monastery's inhabitants alive. In one such improvised relief mission on a recent afternoon, two Yangon university students drove up to the monastery, offloading clear plastic bags with the survivors' first meal of the day -- two hard-boiled eggs and two small buns per person. As the monks kept the surging crowd at bay, the bags were snapped up by hungry women and children. Some immediately stuffed the bread into their mouths.

"We've eaten nothing since last night," said 42-year-old Win Htay as she clutched her ration close to her chest. "This is the only thing that we get."

Now, Pariyatti's monks say, the government is pressuring them to oust the refugees by the end of this week. The reason: On Saturday, the monastery will serve as a voting station for the second round of Myanmar's constitutional referendum. In the first round, held on May 10 in areas unaffected by the cyclone, the regime says 92.4% of voters supported the plan that would solidify the junta's authority.

"The monks want to help the people, but the government doesn't allow it and wants us to leave the monastery," says Daw Ohmar Kyi, a 63-year-old who sought refuge in Pariyatti after her home was destroyed. "We are trying to think of where we can go if we are expelled from here. So far, there's nowhere else."

Torch 2012: Britain trembles at Torch threat: Liberty is unowned!

This will not be the last of this debate, but it is worthy irony to note that the Torch already intimidates London because it represents a tiny bit more freedom than a land without a constitution can bear.

London 2012 Summer Olympics
May End Global Torch Tour
By AARON O. PATRICK
May 22, 2008 1:02 p.m.
LONDON -- The London summer Olympics in 2012 may end the practice of taking the Olympic torch on a global tour, organizers said Thursday.

A final decision could be a few years away, said Sebastian Coe, head of London's Olympic organizing committee at a press conference Thursday.

BEIJING 2008

Read complete coverage of the Olympics and China's efforts to prepare for the Games, and track the torch's route.
The torch relay has become a particularly delicate decision after China's recent experience. Human rights and Tibetan activists disrupted the torch relay in cities around the world, creating a public relations debacle for China ahead of the Beijing Olympics this summer.

In its bid to host the games in 2012, London proposed taking the famous symbol of the Olympics on a tour of countries whose citizens had won the Nobel Peace Prize, according to Jackie Brock-Doyle, director of communications and public affairs for the London Olympics organizing committee. But London had "never made a decision" to hold the tour and isn't obligated to run the event, Ms. Brock-Doyle said. London's plan will have to be approved by the International Olympic Commission, the Olympics' governing body.

Throughout most of its history, the Olympic torch was carried by runners --usually a cross-section of society -- on a tour around the country hosting the games. It didn't become an international event until the Athens games in 2004.

"We should not forget that traditionally the relay has been inside the country organizing the games," said Denis Oswald, a member of the International Olympic Committee, at the press conference. "It's an exception."

Mr. Oswald gave the city a 9.75 out of 10 for its work preparing for the games so far.

One concern is that Britain's torch tour could become a focus for activists, including protests over the war in Iraq, much like the recent tour for the Beijing Olympics.

Write to Aaron O. Patrick at aaron.patrick@wsj.com

Cadre claims credit for showing up.

The Cadre now aim to claim credit for showing up at Chengdu in the mask of the concerned Wen., Mr. No. 2. Note that the Cadre has now raised the bar on how it must respond to crises. Show up. Note too that the Cadre did not show up at Lhasa back in March. And why not? BEcause the Neo-Red Guards only know about rules of one way power. Force is power. Showing up is now seen as an expression of power. Two emotions for the Cadre. Bully emotion. Pity emotion. Same Cadre, without dreams, with thoughts for the belly and far of each other. This is progress. The Torch had concentrated the Cadre's mind on survival school. On to the Olympics.

Not too that the Torch has exposed the gamesmanship.


Rapid Response to Quake
Enhances Beijing's Image
Volatile Issues Take
Back Seat for Now;
Support From Tibet
By JASON DEAN in Beijing and GORDON FAIRCLOUGH in Shanghai
May 22, 2008
Natural disasters sometimes leave damaged governments among the rubble in their wake. But more than a week after a giant earthquake shook southwestern China, it is increasingly clear that the catastrophe has actually strengthened the leadership in Beijing.


The rapid reaction by China's government to the earthquake, along with media -- much of it state-run -- that has spotlighted the best aspects of that response to a newly unified public, have helped enhance Beijing's image as responsive and effective. The strong world-wide expression of sympathy, meanwhile, has quieted -- at least for now -- criticism of Beijing's policies in Tibet and elsewhere that had threatened to overshadow its hosting of the Summer Olympics in August.

While Chinese leaders clearly would have preferred to avoid such devastation and loss of life, the disaster has presented a political opening for the Chinese government, says Jing Huang, an expert on Chinese politics at Singapore's East Asian Institute. "It provided them with the opportunity to show that they can care for the Chinese people and can handle this kind of crisis."

The human cost from the magnitude-7.9 earthquake in China's Sichuan province -- the country's worst disaster in at least three decades -- continued to grow Wednesday, as the effort to rescue survivors drew toward a painful conclusion. The state-controlled Xinhua news agency reported the recovery of only one more survivor, a woman who had been trapped in a tunnel under a damaged hydropower plant. Hope for more such miracles was all but extinguished as the country passed its ninth day since the quake struck.


Many migrant workers living in Beijing are confronting their worst fears as they return to their home towns near the earthquake's epicenter. WSJ's Mei Fong takes a train with one family on its trip home.
The official death toll hit 41,353 as of midday, with 32,666 still missing, the government said. More than 270,000 people have been injured, including nearly 26,000 who are still being treated.

China faces years of costly rebuilding and relocating many of the roughly five million people left homeless. In one glimpse of how big the challenge will be in some areas, officials announced Wednesday that they will rebuild Beichuan, a town that lost about 70% of its buildings and two-thirds of its 13,000 people, on an entirely new site.

Premier Wen Jiabao announced Wednesday that the government will cut spending on other items by 5% this year to make more funds available for the relief effort. The savings will help finance a 70 billion yuan, or roughly $10 billion, rebuilding fund.

The scope of the devastation has prompted a flood of international sympathy from human-rights groups and others that have been highly critical of Beijing. That has, at a minimum, halted the momentum of foreign censure that had been building since deadly antigovernment riots in Tibet in March and the harsh crackdown that followed.

In a sign of how dramatically the mood toward China has changed, the Tibetan government in exile, which Beijing accuses of fomenting unrest in Tibet, said Wednesday it had instructed its offices world-wide to organize prayer meetings and raise funds for victims of the earthquake. "Tibetans across the world should shun staging demonstrations in front of the Chinese embassies" in the countries where they live, the Tibetan group, based in Dharmsala, India, said on its Web site.


Associated Press
Senior Chinese leaders including President Hu Jintao, fourth left in front row, Premier Wen Jiabao, third left in front row, mourn during a silent tribute in Beijing Monday.
The U.S. Congress adopted a resolution on Monday expressing condolences to the Chinese people for the tragedy and calling on President George W. Bush "to respond to any requests for humanitarian assistance" made by the Chinese government.

Such shifts in attitude will likely prove temporary -- the Tibetan government in exile said its moratorium on protests will last "at least till about the end of May." And opinion within China could still turn against the central government if it falters in the enormous recovery tasks ahead. Furthermore, the unprecedented outpouring of public action in the aftermath of the disaster, while in tune with the government's efforts this time, could set a precedent that Beijing may come to regret, says Mr. Huang, the political analyst.

"People will be inspired to push for more open and more transparent and more responsible government" in the future, he says. "That will have a far-reaching impact."

But overall, the government's response appears likely to give a meaningful, and potentially lasting, boost in support for China's leadership, analysts said. That is a stark contrast to the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which was widely criticized in the U.S. as slow and ineffective. The resulting public backlash helped send President Bush's approval ratings, already suffering from economic concerns and the war in Iraq, to their current lows.

In China's response last week, the most visible figure was Premier Wen, who has become a populist hero as a result of his actions. While Mr. Bush waited until two days after Katrina made landfall to travel to stricken New Orleans -- and then flew over it without landing -- Mr. Wen arrived in quake-battered Sichuan province within hours after the quake struck on May 12. He spent the next four days traveling from one devastated town to the next, often by helicopter when roads were blocked, comforting the victims and promising more help.


Associated Press
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, left, comforts earthquake survivors in Muyu Township, Qingchuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province.
It took time -- in some cases days -- after the quake before large numbers of rescuers could overcome blocked roads and bad weather to reach some of the hardest hit areas. It wasn't until Tuesday evening that the government declared that rescuers had reached all 1,044 of the villages designated worst-hit in Sichuan. Teams airlifted into towns and cities near the epicenter last Tuesday, the day after the quake, often found themselves overwhelmed by the scale of the devastation and the number of casualties.

But overall, the government's massive relief effort -- involving more than 100,000 troops, paramilitary police, firefighters and others from across China -- has won plaudits from quake survivors and other Chinese citizens. State media has been filled with images of young soldiers and other rescuers at work. Mr. Wen -- whose trip was covered intensively by the Chinese state media -- has been followed by other top leaders, including President Hu Jintao, making much-publicized tours of the disaster zone in the days since.

Blame for any shortcomings has tended to land on local-government officials. In Dujiangyan, a tourist town near the epicenter, three local officials were fired for responding inadequately to the quake, according a government-run newspaper.


Reuters
Soldiers handed out schoolbags at a temporary school in Sichuan Wednesday, as state relief efforts continued.
In the town of Wufu, parents of children killed in a school collapse held a demonstration Monday, saying that poor construction, not the earthquake, was primarily responsible for the deaths of their children. The buildings around the school withstood the temblor and remain standing.

"It's not the central government's fault. It's corrupt local officials," said Bi Kaiwei, standing amid the rubble of the collapsed Fu Xing No. 2 Primary School, where his 13-year-old daughter was killed. "We need to punish these guys." Parents said local reporters came and interviewed them, but didn't report the story.

Beijing has been praised by press-freedom advocates for giving local reporters unprecedented leeway to report on the disaster in the first week. Officials have answered reporters' questions in daily news conferences and the government has been unusually forthcoming with answers on everything from casualty figures to acknowledging difficulties on the ground.

There are some signs Beijing has tightened the reins in recent days. Officials appear to be trying to discourage reporting of events that could cast the government in an unfavorable light.

At least some people are afraid to speak out as a result. One man, picking up the body of a girl from a makeshift morgue near a collapsed middle school in the town of Hanwang, said: "I don't want to say anything. It's like attacking the government. I'll get in trouble."

The economic costs of the earthquake have so far been less severe than initially feared, largely because the worst-hit areas were relatively rural and generally lacked major industry. Li Rongrong, chairman of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, said on Wednesday that the earthquake caused at least 30 billion yuan in losses to the companies under his control -- mainly in power or other infrastructure sectors. That is a relatively small sum given the huge size of China's state-owned companies.

Write to Jason Dean at jason.dean@wsj.com and Gordon Fairclough at gordon.fairclough@wsj.com