China unveils ambitious plan to overhaul health care sector

Via Xinhua

BEIJING, April 7 (Xinhua) — China unveiled a three-year plan on health care reform Tuesday, which it said would lay a solid foundation for equitable and universal access to essential health care for all in China by 2020.

Under the 850 billion yuan (124 billion U.S. dollars) plan for 2009 to 2011, the government promised universal access to basic health insurance, introduction of an essential drug system, improved primary health care facilities, equitable access to basic public health services and pilot reform of state-run hospitals.

The document from the State Council, or Cabinet, detailed tasks and goals for the 2009-2011 period as the government explained how it would implement its long-term health care reform plan, which it announced Monday.

The plan did not elaborate how the 850 billion yuan, including 331.8 billion yuan from the central budget, would be used.

But it is widely expected to be spent on subsidizing basic medical insurance programs, supporting grassroots-level health facilities and in underdeveloped western and rural regions.

TARGETING SCARCE, COSTLY CARE

After more than 20 years of transition from a socialist planned to a market economy, China’s cradle-to-grave social security network was gradually dismantled, leaving many vulnerable.

Efforts in the past decade to reform the health sector were also regarded as unsuccessful.

Between 1980 and 2005, annual disposable income per capita increased by almost 20 times in China, while annual health expenditure per capita increased by 133 times, according to figures from the Ministry of Health.

According to the 2007 World Health Statistics, available on the ministry website, government and private expenditures on the health sector in China were respectively 38 percent and 62 percent in 2004, compared with 54.1 percent and 45.9 percent in Brazil, 17.3 percent and 82.7 percent in India, 86.3 percent and 13.7 percent in Britain, and 44.7 percent and 55.3 percent in the United States.

In the same year, China’s total health expenditure accounted for 4.7 percent of its GDP, against 15.4 percent in the United States, 8.8 percent in Brazil, 8.1 percent in Britain, and 5 percent in India.

“The three-year reform mainly targets the pressing problem that medical care is too expensive and hard to get, which has drawn many complaints from the people,” said the document.

The current system had many problems, the government admitted.

“Some people are not covered by medical insurance, the public health sector has been weak for a long period, and state-run hospitals are too profit-obsessed,” said the document.

“These problems must be solved to lay a solid foundation for the long term and for overall health care reform,” it said.

China wants to have more than 90 percent of its population covered by some sort of basic medical insurance by 2011.

Three different insurance programs already exist for urban employees, unemployed urban residents and rural residents, into which governments, employers, and individuals contribute.

More than 200 million urban workers, 100 million urban residents and some 800 million rural residents have already joined the three programs respectively, according to the Development Research Center under the State Council.

The health insurance subsidy offered by the government for unemployed urban residents and farmers will rise from 80 yuan per person to 120 yuan per person as of next year, according to the action plan.

The level of reimbursement an inpatient or an outpatient can get from one of the three programs will be gradually raised.

The reformers also intend to have more vulnerable people covered by insurance, such as retirees from bankrupt or financially troubled companies that can no longer pay for insurance, migrant workers and the self-employed.

In some places where pilot work was carried out, progresses have been made in bringing more people under the shelter of medical insurance.

Li Liang, a farmer in Ejin Horo County, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said he only paid 10 yuan (1.46 dollars) a year to join the New Rural Cooperative Medical Care system, into which the central and local governments contribute 130 yuan.

Meanwhile, Li is entitled to have as much as 50,000 yuan reimbursed every year to pay his medical bill, if there is any.

“Now I feel quite relieved because 50,000 yuan can be a huge burden for me and my family,” said Li.

Fu Wei, an official with the health ministry, said the reimbursement level would be further raised to ease rural residents’ financial burden.

PROMISING GOOD MANAGEMENT

The broad principles contained in China’s new reform “are in line with what the World Health Organization (WHO) is promoting. For example, the principle of equity, the principle of having the poor (covered by) health policies,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday.

The government promised good management and supervision of funds for the insurance programs, and it said it would explore more rational and convenient methods for people to use the programs.

To lower prescription costs, which have drawn much criticism, the government will promote a system of essential medicines for state-run hospitals, clinics and pharmacies. A list of essential drugs will be published this year.

Due to longstanding low government funding for state-run hospitals, which in many places only covers 10 percent of operating costs, doctors often aggressively prescribe expensive, sometimes unnecessary medicines and treatment, in order to make profits for the hospital.

This situation has meant high medical bills and corruption in the medical profession.

The reformers want to designate essential drugs, at controlled prices, to cut the cost of hospital services, while promising to increase funding to non-profit state-run hospitals and clinics, which account for 80 percent of medical institutions in China.

This forms part of the arduous reform of state-run hospitals to improve efficiency and quality. The plan said pilot work would be carried out this year in chosen hospitals, without giving details.

IMPROVING PRIMARY CARE, TRAINING

To improve primary health care facilities, China will give priority to construction of about 2,000 county-level hospitals so each county would have at least one hospital that was essentially in compliance with national standards.

The central government will fund the construction of 29,000 township hospitals this year and the upgrading of 5,000 township hospitals, under the plan.

The central government will also finance the construction of village clinics in remote areas so that every village will have a clinic in the next three years.

It said 3,700 community health centers and 11,000 community health stations would be set up or upgraded in cities.

Liu Xinmin, an official with the health ministry, said the plan is aimed at improving the medical service network at grassroots level so that patients do not have to travel far to see a doctor.

He said the distribution of hospital resources was extremely unbalanced at present, with about 80 percent of hospital resources in cities.

Even in places where village or township clinics are available, many patients opt for big hospitals in the city just because they do not trust local medics, he said.

In the next three years, China will train 1.37 million village doctors and 160,000 community doctors. Also, city-level hospitals, which usually have better expertise and equipment, will each be required to help three county-level hospitals to improve the skills of medics.

Doctors at city hospitals and disease control agencies will be asked to serve in rural hospitals for at least one year before they can be promoted.

Other measures include setting up a universal medical records database, which will be strictly managed, regular exams for those older than 65 or younger than three, and pre-natal check-ups.

In addition to programs to prevent or control major diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, China will launch new projects to help those below the age of 15 receive hepatitis B vaccines, eliminate risks from coal-burning fluorine poisoning and improve rural water and sanitation facilities.

It will also provide folic acid to rural women who intend to get pregnant or are in the early stages of pregnancy, to prevent birth defects.

China Central Television, the state broadcaster, has been ordered to open a TV channel for health education.

According to the plan, China will increase investment in the public health service at a standard of 15 yuan per person a year in 2009, and 20 yuan by 2011. This translates to a huge investment of between 19.5 billion yuan and 26 billion yuan each year.

“Such investment is very necessary for China because people must understand that disease prevention and control will eventually help save more money,” Liu Xinmin said. “In China, many people become ill just because they don’t know how to prevent.”

Book review: Jenny Clegg - China’s Global Strategy: Towards a Multipolar World

[Review by Thomas Fenton]

Jenny Clegg’s superbly analytical book arrives at a critical historic moment. The US-dominated post-cold war world order is finding itself increasingly challenged in the context of the imperialist economic collapse and the quagmire into which the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have descended.

This year will also mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949, following the Chinese people’s victorious struggle against Japanese imperialist occupation and the subsequent struggle waged under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) against US imperialism and domestic reactionaries. This constituted the greatest revolutionary achievement of the 20th century, following the October Revolution. China today is not only the world’s most populous nation, with 1.3 billion people, but also a country committed to socialism and the leading developing country.

This book’s chief contribution is to situate China’s internal development within the context of the rising developing world. The internal development issues that Clegg addresses include the economic and political, specifically, the recent transition from a strategy of “rapid growth at any cost” toward a “people first” and sustainable approach, which, she argues, must tackle such problems as social inequality, the consequences of mass rural migration into the cities, and environmental degradation.

Clegg also expresses support for China’s sovereignty in both Taiwan and Tibet, although she claims, without further elaboration or explanation, that in the latter case – a favourite issue for the ‘anti-China’ lobby in the UK and elsewhere – the government should nevertheless “modify” what she describes as “its top-down approach” as far as is realistically possible.

Relating China’s internal development to world developments, Clegg states that, since 1949, the country has maintained the view that “the primary conflict in the world is between imperialism and anti-imperialism, rather than capitalism and socialism”.

The end of the cold war “unleashed a new age of imperialism”, with the United States “emerging as the world’s sole superpower”, and China’s strategy in response to these historical developments constitutes a “Leninism for the twenty-first century”, according to Clegg.

Chinese foreign policy has, in fact, consistently allowed for cooperation between developing countries with differing social and political systems, as spelled out by Premier Zhou Enlai at the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955, which Clegg sees as intrinsic to China’s current development of a “political strategy of counter-hegemonism”.

Clegg believes that the new ‘Chinese Leninism’, places the “Third World struggle for development” at the centre of world transformation, within which China pursues a new international political and economic order (NIPEO), envisioning nuclear disarmament/demilitarisation, and an increased regional level of multi-polar organisation. Such an order, argues Clegg, would further comprise an “equitable sharing of world markets”, finance oriented towards development, sustainable development, and a stabilised international monetary system.

Jenny Clegg is a distinguished academic and a lifelong friend of China and anti-imperialist, anti-war activist. There is a serious dearth of contemporary western scholarship that adopts a sympathetic but rigorous perspective towards the Chinese revolution and its domestic and external strategies. Whilst one may not necessarily agree with all her conclusions, Clegg’s book represents a serious and timely attempt to grapple with vital issues and therefore constitutes an important contribution to a much-needed debate.

If this book helps bring about a more advanced understanding of the contemporary features of imperialism, and the paramount importance to the communist and progressive movement of supporting China’s socialist construction and its foreign policy of independence and peace, then it will have served a valuable purpose.

Meeting report: Celebration of the 1959 defeat of the serf owners in Tibet

In March 1959 the victorious socialist forces proclaimed the end of serfdom in Tibet, bringing to an end a long history of feudal backwardness and imperialist meddling in this autonomous region of China. To commemorate this red letter day of the revolutionary calendar, members of the Hands Off China campaign held a meeting on 5th April in Bristol’s Malcolm X Centre.

The speaker reminded his audience of the 1904 invasion of Tibet by Britain and the subsequent transformation of Tibet’s serf army into a fifth column for meddling in China’s affairs. Despite the training and weaponry provided by Britain, this army proved no match for the patriotic forces of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). However, as the speaker went on to explain, it was the ability of the PLA to win the illiterate and downtrodden Tibetan masses over to the path of liberation which laid the foundations for the victory for the revolution in 1959. When the Dalai Lama tore up the agreement on peaceful reform to which he had earlier signed his name, inspiring the doomed military coup which precipitated the final rout of the serf-owners, feudalism signed its own death warrant. Released from centuries of slavery and serfdom, the labouring people of Tibet set off on the road to socialism, shoulder to shoulder with the other fifty five nationalities which together form the People’s Republic of China.

In response to some critical comments made in the ensuing frank and lively discussion, Hands Off China campaign activists explained why it was important for British people to support China. One explained that, by showing solidarity with socialist China when she was under attack by false propaganda, workers in Britain would strengthen their own struggles against imperialism at home. Another explained the importance of unifying many nationalities in a common struggle for progress by reference to his own homeland, Iran. A third, a Chinese student who wore his Young Communist League badge to the occasion, was able to supply much useful information about the efforts being made to transfer prosperity from the developed east of China to the less developed West, and helped dispel many of the myths about the pretended “national oppression” suffered by the Tibetan minority within China.

The chair concluded the meeting by thanking everyone for their participation and suggesting that a useful follow-up meeting could focus on the twentieth anniversary of the failed provocation against Chinese socialism in 1989, falsely branded the “Tienanmen Square Massacre” by those same forces of reaction which egged it on in the first place. These “big lies” put about by our own ruling class need to be challenged by workers in Britain.

Xinhua: Lalkar publishes article marking anniversary of democratic reform in China’s Tibet

Via Xinhua

LONDON, March 11 (Xinhua) — A UK journal has published an article in its March issue to mark the 50th anniversary of the democratic reform in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, hailing it as “Tibet’s liberation.”

Lalkar (meaning “challenge”), a bi-monthly anti-imperialism journal published in Britain, runs an article titled “Celebrate the anniversary of Tibet’s liberation!”

It reads: “March 2009 sees the fiftieth anniversary of the triumph of the socialist revolution in China’s Tibet province. The decisive rout of the serf-owners revolt in March 1959 drew a line under centuries of feudal backwardness and decades of imperialist manipulation, most notably by Britain.”

“By giving their support to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and their battle to unify all the peoples of China under the common banner of socialism, the Tibetan masses broke with a whole epoch of subservience to slavery and serfdom,” it adds.

The article then writes in length about why Tibet’s liberation was delayed nearly ten years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, analyzing “the oppression suffered by the Tibetan masses and the strenuous efforts made by foreign powers to preserve this feudal backwardness and turn it to their own advantage.”

With quotes from Israel Epstein, the Warsaw-born journalist and author, as well as Robert Ford, a British radio operator turned UK diplomat who worked in Tibet in the 1950s, the article highlights the meddling of “British imperialism” in the region from early 20th century, particularly its military involvement, which it says was later replaced by the “U.S. imperialism” embodied in CIA operative in training “saboteurs.”

“The disgraceful role played by imperialism last year in Lhasa, inciting deadly mob violence against Han, Muslim and Tibetan citizens alike, is sufficient reminder of the secessionist games some would still like to play in the name of ‘free Tibet’ unwittingly assisted by those in the West who fall for the propaganda,” says the article.

“Yet Tibet is indeed free right now — free from the scourge of poverty, warlordism and imperialist diktat and plans to stay that way. The vigorous rebuff last year’s provocation received reminds the world yet again that ‘imperialism lifts up a rock only to drop it on its own feet.’”

The article concludes that “We are proud to congratulate the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of free Tibet!”

Fifty years ago, the Chinese central government foiled an armed rebellion started on March 10 by the Dalai Lama and his supporters to block the reform of the feudal serfdom in Tibet and split the region from China.

On March 28, 1959, a new local Tibetan government was formed, freeing millions of Tibetan serfs and slaves, who accounted for more than 90 percent of the then population in the region.

The Dalai Lama and his followers, who fled the country after the failed rebellion, have since made continuous attempts to separate Tibet from China and restore feudal serfdom in the region. In one of the latest incidents, followers of the Dalai Lama staged violent riots in Lhasa, the regional capital, on March 14 last year, causing 18 civilian deaths and huge property losses.

Celebrate the anniversary of Tibet’s liberation!

Via Lalkar.

March 2009 sees the fiftieth anniversary of the triumph of the socialist revolution in China’s Tibet province. The decisive rout of the serf-owners revolt in March 1959 drew a line under centuries of feudal backwardness and decades of imperialist manipulation, most notably by Britain. By giving their support to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and their battle to unify all the peoples of China under the common banner of socialism, the Tibetan masses broke with a whole epoch of subservience to slavery and serfdom.

When we consider that this year will also mark the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) itself, we need to account for the apparent delay of nearly ten years in the progress of the Chinese revolution. To understand this, we need to recognise both the depth of the oppression suffered by the Tibetan masses and the strenuous efforts made by foreign powers to preserve this feudal backwardness and turn it to their own advantage.

England herself had seen the back of serfdom proper by the fourteenth century, as early bourgeois development began to undermine the feudal foundations. However twentieth century British imperialism proved more than happy that Tibet should remain steeped in that feudal backwardness from which bourgeois society had long since escaped, hoping thereby to render them easy targets for annexation. So it was that modern, “enlightened” bourgeois democracy embraced as brothers the warlords, serf-owners, tyrant priests and torturers of feudal Tibet.

British imperialism strained every muscle to wrest this province from China and make it part of “British” India, “rescuing” it from the democratic progress being fought for by the Chinese masses. In 1912 Britain tried to make recognition of the new republic, founded in 1911 under the progressive leadership of Sun Yat Sen, conditional upon Tibet’s exclusion from unified Chinese administration, and in 1914 a suitably groomed Tibetan puppet of imperialism was bullied and cajoled into signing off the so-called “McMahon line”, carving off 90,000 square kilometres of south-eastern Tibet to the British Raj.

A key focus of Britain’s meddling was the old Tibetan army. Despite its feudal backwardness – serfs led by aristocrats and priests on the basis of blind obedience – the army had put up some brave resistance when Britain invaded in 1904, until Britain’s superior firepower won the day. In the ensuing years, however, whilst the rest of China was plunged into the struggle against Japanese imperialism and the class struggle against the comprador and warlord forces, the Tibetan army was being systematically corrupted into little more than a fifth column of Britain’s Indian army. The Tibetan army was supplied with British rifles, machine guns and ammunition, it was drilled using English commands, and its soldiers were posted to India for training. The purpose of all this was to break Tibet from China (of which the province had formed an integral part since the thirteenth century) and to convert Tibetan serfs into British cannon fodder.

The real role of this supposedly “Tibetan” army became abundantly clear when the victorious forces of the PLA advanced in the direction of Tibet, taking Qamdo. In his book “Tibet Transformed” (New World Press, 1983) to which this article is indebted for much of its information, Israel Epstein notes that the army “was serving the interests both of Tibetan feudalism and of imperialism.” He continues: “Its arms were British, its radio communications were in the hands of British nationals, who did more than tap keys. One of them, Robert Ford, later wrote that he also provided such ‘advice’ as ‘put some Bren guns in the hills and dynamite the bridges’”. Another such British “adviser”, styling himself the “Foreign Minister of Independent Tibet”, urged the army to make a proper how of resistance, the better to “mobilise world opinion” so that “the Americans will feel that they ought to give immediate and substantial military aid, possibly by air” (Epstein, p.214).

The PLA easily repelled the demoralised serf army in October 1950. However sooner than advance straight away to liberate Lhasa, the patriot army bided its time, remaining in Qamdo until the following summer. Whilst there the PLA fought an even more significant battle than the taking of Qamdo: the struggle to demonstrate in practice how an army of liberated serfs defending the new China differed from an army of oppressed serfs driven to defend the interests of warlords and imperialists.

A revealing eyewitness to this political struggle was no less than the bloodthirsty Robert Ford already referred to – an unlikely enough apologist for the revolution! Ford wrote that the PLA “made it clear that they had no quarrel with the Tibetan religion. Nor with the Tibetan people, who were treated correctly. In spite of the tremendous supply problem the Chinese army did not live off the country… And the soldiers had strict orders to respect both the persons and property of civilians and make friends with them by all possible means” (Epstein, pp. 214-5). He went on to admit that, whereas captured PLA men had earlier faced slaughter at the hands of their captors, the troops of the vanquished Tibetan army were simply lined up, given safe conduct passes and told to go back to Lhasa.

Only after negotiations with the Dalai Lama had borne fruit in the May 1951 agreement on measures for the peaceful liberation of Tibet did the PLA advance on Lhasa. Again, the most difficult battle the volunteers of the PLA had to fight was the battle against the reactionary influence of serf-owners, tyrant priests and imperialists. Epstein quotes one such volunteer. “Every item and service bought from the people was paid for. But some aristocrats tried a boycott. They threatened to punish the serfs who sold us things, or did anything for us. Also, they told lies about us, which many at first believed. We made allowances for this. These people had seen nothing but oppressors. They had to convince themselves that we were different through new experience. So we let our actions speak, carrying water for them and helping repair houses which were falling apart. As a result they began to invite us to stay in their homes, and it was only then we did so, paying rent even when they didn’t want to accept it. We were drilled never to transgress their customs and feelings. We never fished in the streams even when hungry. We never entered a temple…” (Epstein, pp. 193-4). Through such instructive encounters with the PLA, repeated thousands of times, the Tibetan masses came to understand who were their friends and who their enemies.

The PLA meanwhile were building roads, to end Tibet’s isolation. “In 1953-54 we were building the Sichuan-Tibet Highway. It was harder than a military campaign. What gave us energy was that we understood that we were laying a road that would protect this country, and link its peoples. How could a better life come to Tibet on the backs of pack-ponies or yaks?” How proud this comrade would be to see the railroad that now connects Lhasa with the rest of the multinational Chinese homeland!

Not all comrades agreed with the temporary compromises which had to be made with the aristocrats and tyrant priests, who still tried to lord it over the people during this transition period, flagrantly breaching many of the terms of the agreement that had been signed by the Dalai Lama. Epstein’s eyewitness account neatly sums up the contradictory character of this period. At a mass meeting in 1955 to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the founding of the PRC – held in front of the Dalai Lama’s Potala Palace, and with the Dalai Lama’s portrait prominently displayed alongside Chairman Mao’s – the reviewing stand was occupied both by comrades representing the central government in Beijing and by continuing stalwarts of the feudal power, attired in gold brocade. “While crimson banners fluttered overhead the old Lhasa police, still unreorganised, loped through the throng, their rifles left behind for the day but their whips slowly swinging.”(Epstein, p.30).

But to those comrades who questioned the slow pace of Tibetan reform, Mao gave a clear reply. Since the feudal forces are unwilling to live up to the agreement they have signed up to, “well then, we can leave it for the time being and wait. The longer we delay, the stronger will be our position and the weaker theirs. Delay will not do us much harm; on the contrary, it may be to our advantage. Let them go on with their insensate atrocities against the people, while we on our part concentrate on good deeds – production, trade, road-building, medical service and united front work (unity with the majority and patient education) so as to win over the masses and bide our time before taking up the question of the full implementation of the Agreement”. (“On the Policies for Our Work in Tibet”, 1952)

A further prediction was completely borne out by events seven years later: “If the reactionaries of Tibet should dare to launch a general rebellion, then the working people there will win liberation all the faster. This is beyond doubt”. (Ibid) And so it proved to be. The abortive coup launched by the Tibetan army in 1959 was a short-lived and ignominious failure, eliciting no popular sympathy and concluding with the Dalai Lama’s flight across the border.

Nor were subsequent efforts by US imperialism to pick up where Britain left off blessed with any greater success. The CIA operative who was later to earn notoriety as the architect of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Richard Bissell, provided training for 170 saboteurs at Fort Hale in Colorado in the late fifties. But as fast as they were parachuted in – keeping well away from PLA garrisons – the faster they vanished into thin air, having found out the hard way where the true sympathies of the Tibetan masses now lay. Only about 10% survived to tell the tale. Other Fort Hale graduates were posted to a base in Nepal with a view to organising remnants of the feudal army. Yet despite lavish CIA funding disbursed by the Dalai Lama’s own brother, nothing was ever achieved beyond a few shallow border incursions. The battle for hearts and minds waged for so long by the PLA had well and truly paid off.

The disgraceful role played by imperialism last year in Lhasa, inciting deadly mob violence against Han, Muslim and Tibetan citizens alike, is sufficient reminder of the secessionist games some would still like to play in the name of “Free Tibet”, unwittingly assisted by those in the West who fall for the propaganda. Yet Tibet is indeed free right now – free from the scourge of poverty, warlordism and imperialist diktat – and plans to stay that way. The vigorous rebuff last year’s provocation received reminds the world yet again that “imperialism lifts up a rock only to drop it on its own feet”.

We are proud to congratulate all the peoples of China and the Communist Party of China on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of free Tibet!

Public meeting (Bristol): Celebrate the 1959 defeat of feudalism in Tibet

There will be a Hands off China public meeting in Bristol on Sunday 5 April, 3-6pm.

Venue:

Malcolm X Community Centre
141 City Road
St Pauls
Bristol
BS2 8HY

More details soon. Download leaflet

China hits back at US criticism on human rights

Via The Telegraph.

“The US practise of throwing stones at others while living in a glass house is testimony to its double standards and hypocrisy and has undermined its international image,” said a spokesman for the State Council, the Chinese equivalent of a ministerial cabinet.

The fierce response came after the United States criticized China in its annual global human rights report, issued by the State Department. The report said China stepped up repression last year in Tibet and Xinjiang, restricting dissent and religious freedom.

“The government’s human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas,” the US report said. It added that the situation in Tibet had “deteriorated severely”.

The condemnation came days after Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of State, disappointed human rights activists by conceding that the US would put economic ties above human rights in its dealings with China.

“As in previous years, the reports are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but mention nothing of the widespread human rights abuses on its own territory,” said the Chinese report into the US.

Its preface adds that the report was designed to “help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States, and as a reminder for the United States to reflect upon its own issues.”

The Chinese report highlights the 1.4 million violent crimes, including 17,000 murders, recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2007, and said the frequency of gun crimes was a “serious threat” to lives of US citizens. The Chinese also said that the 1.35 million students who were threatened or injured by a weapon on school premises was a shocking violation of human rights.

It cited government surveillance of online activities, new legislation on government wiretapping last July, more cases of police abuse of force and neglect of basic rights of 2.3 million prisoners in the United States, and added that the US has a range of social problems, including a widening wealth gap and increasing numbers of homeless and hungry.

The report quoted the US Census Bureau as saying in August 2008 that 12.5 percent of Americans, or 37.3 million people, were living in poverty in 2007, up from 36.5 million in 2006. It also added that racial discrimination pervades “every aspect of social life” in the US.

“The United States is one of the few countries in the world where minors receive the same criminal punishments as adults,” the report said. “It is the only country in the world that sentences children to life in prison without possibility of parole or release.”

“The United States has a string of records of trampling on the sovereignty of and violating human rights in other countries,” the report said. It listed the Iraq war, prisoner abuse at Guantanamo, and the five-decade embargo against Cuba, which the UN has criticized.

The war in Iraq had claimed more than 1 million civilian lives and caused the same number of homeless people, it said. US arm sales reached USD32 billion (Pounds22 billion) in 2007 and weapons were sold to more than 174 nations and regions.

China said the US government should “face its own human rights problems with courage, and to stop applying double standards to human rights issues”.

Jackie Chan comes out fighting for China’s looted sculptures after YSL sale

Via The Times

Jackie Chan, the action film star, has thrown his weight behind Beijing’s efforts to shame France over the sale of two looted Chinese sculptures that were part of the Yves Saint Laurent collection.

The bronze rat and rabbit, removed when British and French forces sacked the Old Summer Palace in 1860, were sold for ¤14 million (£12.5 million) each to two anonymous bidders last night, despite Chinese objections.

Mr Chan said France had behaved disgracefully in allowing the sale. “They remain looted items, no matter whom they were sold to. Whoever took it out [of China] is himself a thief,” he said . “It was looting yesterday. It is still looting today.”

The Rush Hour star accused Western countries of stealing cultural relics from nations with ancient heritages such as China, Egypt and Cambodia, while insisting they were doing so only to preserve them. He said that he was planning to make a film about the return of some of China’s stolen national treasures, with filming scheduled to start next year.

China, mindful of President Sarkozy’s support of Tibet and the Dalai Lama at the Beijing Olympics, has been eager to highlight the issue. The bronzes were among 12 animal head sculptures that formed a zodiac-themed water clock in the palace of Emperor Qianlong. China has bought back 5 of the 12 but said yesterday that it did not plan to buy any more. “That would give the ‘stolen’ goods a coat of legitimacy,” the Old Summer Palace museum said.

Chinese president’s Africa tour gives fresh impetus to traditional friendship

Via Xinhua

BEIJING, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) — After a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia beginning Feb. 10, Chinese President Hu Jintao started an Africa tour aimed at enhancing China’s friendship with developing countries in the region.

The trip, which took Hu to Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius from Feb. 12 to 17, has given new impetus to the traditional friendship between China and Africa.

The time-honored friendship between China and Africa can be traced back to as early as the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), when Chinese navigator Zheng He traveled to the African continent during his seven epic voyages.

In the 1960s, when most African countries launched a wave of independence struggles, late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai had also visited Africa to express his country’s staunch support for its African brothers.

The fates of the Chinese and African peoples are closely interrelated as they share a similar history and similar developmental tasks, and the two sides have carried out various forms of cooperation based on the principles of equality and mutual benefit.

“Every time I come, it’s like coming back home,” Hu said while delivering a key speech in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam on Monday.

So far, China has provided aid to the best of its ability to 53 African countries under the framework of “South-South cooperation,” aiming to help the countries achieve independent development and socio-economic progress.

China-Africa relations entered a new stage of comprehensive development at the Beijing Summit of China-Africa Cooperation Forum in 2006, when they established a new type of strategic partnership featuring political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation and cultural exchanges.

Hu’s latest visit to Africa, his sixth in all and second since the Beijing Summit, opens a new chapter in the China-Africa friendship.

The tour also brings new opportunities to review the results of the China-Africa friendly cooperation.

The Chinese president announced an eight-measure policy designed to strengthen pragmatic cooperation with Africa at the Beijing Summit in November 2006. Several months later, he paid a visit to Africa, during which a series of cooperation agreements were signed with an aim to implement the policy.

Now in 2009, the concluding year for implementation of the package, the Chinese president visited Africa again to exchange views with the leaders of African countries on the fulfillment of the commitments made at the Beijing Summit.

During the visit, Hu also discussed with them the preparatory work for the fourth ministerial conference of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum later this year in an effort to enhance the China-Africa strategic partnership.

The swift and efficient implementation of the eight measures has brought tangible benefits, and the measures have thus been well received by the governments and people of Africa and the international community.

Chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission, Jean Ping, said in late January that China is Africa’s key cooperative partner.

The AU chief also spoken highly of China’s role in Africa’s infrastructure development, saying “China has played a fundamental part in the improvement of infrastructure facilities across African countries.”

The World Bank has said China has made major contributions to promoting the development of Africa, and expressed the hope that African countries would combine China’s developmental experiences with their own national conditions.

Moreover, President Hu’s trip this time brings new commitments for the future development of friendly and cooperative ties between China and Africa.

Countries around the world currently face grave challenges amid the ongoing global financial downturn, with the impact of the crisis spreading to emerging-market countries as well as developing nations.

Under such circumstances, Hu made a solemn pledge during his Africa tour that China will continue to implement its commitments made at the Beijing Summit in a timely and reliable manner, despite all the challenges his country faces in its own economic development.

China will by no means cut assistance to Africa, said Hu. Instead, it will do its best to continue to increase aid to the continent, offer debt relief to African countries, and expand trade and investment with them.

Hu’s commitments were warmly applauded by the leaders of the African countries, who pledged to join hands with China in facing the impact of the financial crisis.

A Gabonese newspaper commented that China, which had pledged to honor its earlier commitments and not to reduce aid to Africa despite the economic pressure from the ongoing crisis, had indeed exercised the responsibilities of a big country.

Premier lifeline for kid suffering from leukemia

Via China Daily

It was a chance meeting. But it made the difference between life and possible death of a 2-year-old boy suffering from leukemia. Just when lack of money had driven Li Guishu and Wang Zhihua to stop their son’s treatment and return home to Hebei province on Monday, they heard a round of loud applause for someone at Tianjin railway station.

It was Premier Wen Jiabao whom passengers were applauding. The premier was returning to Beijing after an inspection trip in Tianjin, the Beijing Times said on February 19.

Yang Zhengkui, Li’s brother-in-law, says he will never forget the scene. “The premier was shaking hands with the passengers. When he came to us, he asked what we were doing in Tianjin and I told him that the boy had an aggressive form of leukemia and we could not afford his treatment.”

The child was sleeping in his mother’s arms. Wen looked at him and enquired about the symptoms of the disease. He then held Yang’s hand and said: “Come to Beijing, and I will make arrangements for his treatment.”

Wang couldn’t believe her ears, nor could she hold back her emotions. She knelt in front of the premier and kept saying “thank you” before Wen and other officials lifted her up.

All this while Li was away, buying yogurt for his son. He returned to see his wife visibly excited and saying repeatedly: “We met the premier, we met the premier”.

“It was like in a dream All we knew was that our child had the hope of life,” Li says.

On Wen’s instruction, their son Li Rui was sent to Beijing Pediatric Hospital, where he underwent a thorough checkup on Monday. The boy had undergone an ECG test and CT scans by yesterday.
On Tuesday morning, several State Council staff members visited Li Rui, and handed over 15,000 yuan ($2190), including 10,000 donated by Wen, to his parents.

Doctors have promised to do all they can to save the child. Li, a farm worker from Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, is still at a loss of words. The only thing he says is: “I want to write a thank-you letter to the premier.”

When Li and Wang first took their son to the emergency department of a hospital in June, the doctors suspected he was just suffering from fever. But on their second visit, doctors told them about the diagnosis.

Li and Wang rushed their son to a hospital in Zhangjiakou, but the 60,000-yuan bill was crippling for the family that earns only about 3,000 yuan a year. Hence, they were forced to return after only three months of treatment for Rui, the newspaper said.

But Li was determined to raise more money for his son’s treatment. So he sold more than 400 kg of plants and saved 2,000 yuan. He took Rui to Tianjin Blood Research Center this time.

But the cost of treatment in the Tianjin hospital was very high, Li says. That left the parents with no choice but to forego their son’s treatment.

And then the meeting with Wen took place.