Wednesday 29 June 2022

Behind Closed Doors, Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi Stand Trial For Subversion of State Power

Last week, prominent civil rights defenders Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were put on trial behind closed doors on charges of subversion. The trials took place on Wednesday and Friday, respectively, in the Linshu County People’s Court, Shandong province, and ended without verdicts, which are expected to be issued at a later date. At the South China Morning Post, Mimi Lau and Guo Rui described the charges brought against Xu and Ding:

The pair have been held behind bars for more than two years. They were arrested soon after attending an activist gathering in southern Fujian province in December 2019.

[…] According to an indictment issued by the municipal prosecutor’s office in Linyi last year, Xu was charged with subverting state power for leading a “citizens’ movement” together with Ding.

Under the Chinese criminal code, the maximum penalty for subverting state power is life in prison.

The two are accused of recruiting a network of people to produce an “illegal” documentary, set up websites and publish subversive articles, and of organising “secret meetings” for the purpose of overturning the state. [Source]

Their judicial treatment has been far from fair, as neither defendant has been permitted sufficient access to lawyers, and their relatives and supporters have been barred from attending the trials. Prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao argued that “Such a political case has nothing to do with the law or evidence. The whole trial process is dominated by political forces behind the court.” Reporting on these cases for The Washington Post, Christian Shepherd described the “opaque legal process designed to conceal from people the plight of the country’s human rights defenders”:

Luo Shengchun, Ding’s wife who now lives in the United States, described the process as having taken place in “pitch darkness.” Her husband’s lawyers said they could not provide her additional information about the case. Supporters who tried to attend the trial were thrown out of their hotel rooms in the middle of the night. All Luo received was a text message informing her that the hearing was taking place.

“It’s getting ever worse,” she said in an interview. “The power of defense lawyers has been stripped to zero, and every step of the way they must sign a nondisclosure agreement. Even calling this case a state secret has no legal basis, because all they did was organize two private gatherings. Yes, they talked about human rights, but that should be allowed under freedom of speech.”

[… The] hearing on Wednesday proceeded in almost complete silence. [Xu’s] lawyers, under threat of disbarment, were unable to speak to the press. Calls from fellow Chinese human rights lawyers for Xu’s and Ding’s trials to be open to the public were ignored. The courthouse did not release any statements about the hearings. [Source]

Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi have long endured judicial harassment for their lifelong promotion of civil rights and the rule of law. They are perhaps best known as leading figures of the “New Citizens Movement” that aimed to promote transparency, civic engagement, and enforcement of the civil and human rights purportedly guaranteed by China’s constitution. In the months following an informal meeting that they organized to discuss these issues with colleagues in the town of Xiamen in December 2019, security forces hunted down and apprehended many of the participants. Ding was detained later that month, and Xu was detained in February of 2020 and formally arrested in June. There was speculation that the pair would be tried during the Christmas season of 2021, although that did not materialize.

As the NGO Chinese Human Rights Defenders has documented, UN experts have deemed Xu and Ding’s detentions as arbitrary under international law, and both men have made credible allegations of having been tortured during their detention:

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has examined the cases of the detentions of both Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, and in both instances found that the detentions were arbitrary under provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that the appropriate remedy would be immediate and unconditional release and the right to compensation. 

[…] Both Ding and Xu have credibly alleged that they were tortured while they were held in China’s notorious secret detention system known as “residential surveillance in a designated location” (RSDL). 

From April 1-8, 2020, Ding was fastened to a “tiger chair,” with his back tightly tied to the chair, and with a band tightly tied around his chest, which inhibited regular breathing. Every day Ding was interrogated for 21 hours – from 9am to 6am the next morning. From 6am to 9am, he was allowed to use the bathroom and eat, but he was not allowed to sleep. Officials utilized these torture methods 24 hours a day. By the morning of April 7, due to sitting in the tiger chair for so long, Ding’s feet had swollen up into round balls and he was physically depleted. In his first interrogation sessions, authorities gave Ding Jiaxi extremely limited quantities of food and water: one quarter of a mantou (a bland Chinese bun), and 600ml of water, with no other food.

[…] Similarly, authorities in Yantai, Shandong tied Xu Zhiyong’s arms and legs to an “tiger chair” while interrogating him for 10-plus hours per day, making it difficult for him to breathe. Each meal consisted of only one mantou and Xu was taken to the interrogation chambers in a black hood. [Source]

This past Sunday, June 26, was the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, and many NGOs have spoken out against the arbitrary arrest and illegal treatment of Xu and Ding. “The Chinese government is making a grave and shameful mistake by proceeding with the trial of Xu Zhiyong,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center at PEN America, who called for Xu’s release. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), stated that it “strongly condemns the alleged acts of torture and ill-treatment to which Mr. Ding Jiaxi and Mr. Xu Zhiyong were subjected while in detention […,] strongly condemns the closed-door trial of Mr. Xu Zhiyong and Mr. Ding Jiaxi, and urges the authorities to immediately release them.” An Amnesty International press release also criticized the arbitrary detentions of the pair: 

“The Chinese authorities have targeted Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi not because they committed any internationally recognized crime, but simply because they hold views the government does not like. These unfair trials are an egregious attack on their human rights,” said Amnesty International’s China Campaigner Gwen Lee.

“Having faced torture and other ill-treatment during their arbitrary detention, Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi now face being sentenced to years behind bars in secretive trials that have been rigged from the start.”

[…] “These men’s bravery in defending the human rights of others should be commended, not punished. Xu continued to loudly advocate for disadvantaged groups even after being jailed for it, and spoke out about the government’s handling of Covid-19 when others remained silent,” Gwen Lee said.

“The Chinese government is systematically using national security charges with extremely vague provisions, such as “subverting state power”, to unjustly prosecute lawyers, scholars, journalists, human rights activists and NGO workers among many others.”

[…] “Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi have been targeted solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedoms of opinion and association. They must be immediately released,” Gwen Lee said. [Source]

Their trials also generated protests, led by Ding’s wife Luo Shengchun, that took place online and in front of the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. The French and British embassies in China, along with U.S. government officials, called on the Chinese government to release Xu and Ding. After it was published, the French embassy’s Weibo post on Xu Zhiyong appeared to have been censored.

A number of other Chinese human rights defenders remain in detention. Xu’s partner, Li Qiaochu, a labor rights and feminist activist, was indicted in February on the charge of subversion and does not yet have a trial date. Human rights lawyer Chang Weiping, who participated in the Xiamen gathering with Xu and Ding, also remains in detention and has reportedly been subjected to repeated torture. Authorities have prevented his lawyer from reading his case files or from meeting with his client. 

Journalist and #MeToo activist Huang Xueqin and labor-rights advocate Wang Jianbing have been in detention since September of last year, and in March, both were charged with “inciting subversion of state power.” On Monday, the International Women’s Media Foundation awarded Huang the Wallis Annenberg Justice for Women Journalists Award.

On Saturday, in a bereavement symbolic of China’s hostile atmosphere for rights defenders under Xi Jinping, veteran Chinese defense lawyer Zhang Sizhi passed away at the age of 94. Among the first lawyers to practice law in the newly formed People’s Republic of China, Zhang became famous for leading the defense team for the “Gang of Four” and others who had been closely affiliated with the late CCP vice-chairman Lin Biao. Zhang was dubbed “the conscience of Chinese lawyers” for his promotion of human rights. As described by Josephine Ma from the South China Morning Post, “His fearless persistence in upholding the impartiality of the legal profession over many decades won him […] respect among lawyers and intellectuals inside and outside China”:

In the decades following the landmark trials, Zhang represented defendants in many sensitive cases that no other mainland lawyers dared to touch, including famous dissident Wei Jingsheng; Wang Juntao, accused of being one of the “black hands” behind the 1989 Tiananmen student protests; and Bao Tong, secretary to reform-minded former party chief Zhao Ziyang.

[…] Zhang also spoke out openly against the sentencing of dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo in 2009, calling it “absurd” and a “political judgment”.

[…] In December 2008, at a ceremony in Berlin, Germany’s then justice minister, Brigitte Zypries, presented Zhang with the Petra Kelly Prize from the Heinrich Boell Foundation for his “exceptional commitment to human rights and establishment of the rule of law in China”.

[…] “His pleas prove that, especially in trials against members of the opposition, the Chinese legal system is far from fair. His life mirrors perfectly the very contradictory development of the People’s Republic of China. In a unique way, he has been responsible for shaping China’s difficult path towards democracy and the rule of law.” [Source]



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/06/behind-closed-doors-xu-zhiyong-and-ding-jiaxi-stand-trial-for-subversion-of-state-power/
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Photo: Henan Geological Museum, by Gary Todd

Outside the glass-windowed Henan Geological Museum in Zhengzhou, China, two enormous, green, long-necked dinosaur sculptures dwarf passersby.

Henan Geological Museum, by Gary Todd (CC0 1.0)



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Li Wenliang’s Wailing Wall, June 2022: “Even when we’re getting rained on, we always try to hold up an umbrella for others”

Two years and four months after whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang’s death from COVID-19, the comments section under his last Weibo post, which has become known as “China’s Wailing Wall,” continues to serve as a repository for the hopes, dreams, worries, and opinions of countless Chinese citizens. CDT editors regularly archive and translate Wailing Wall content, including the selection of comments below. 

In early June, a number of commenters referenced June 4, the thirty-third anniversary of the violent crackdown on the Tiananmen protests in Beijing, and wondered how many of their fellow citizens were even aware of the significance of the date, given strict government censorship of any online commemorations. Throughout the month, many Wailing Wall visitors focused on current events such as the brutal beating of four women at a hotpot restaurant in Tangshan and the reported misuse of health codes by officials in Henan. Students awaiting university entrance exam (gaokao) scores confided their hopes and anxieties; workers discussed wages, the cost of living, potential layoffs, and how their livelihoods had been affected by China’s pandemic lockdowns. Commenters of all ages and walks of life described coping with COVID testing, app-based health codes, and circumscribed freedom of movement during the pandemic. As always, there were expressions of gratitude and admiration for Dr. Li’s courage during his lifetime, well-wishes for him in the afterlife, and requests for his blessing and protection in these uncertain times.

The following Wailing Wall comments, selected and translated by CDT editors, were originally posted during the month of June, 2022.

Comments from May 30-June 4, 2022:

听说名字可以取这么长哦哟：Already, many people are unaware of the significance of this date [June 4].

Mazkew: This Dragon Boat Festival memorializes both Qu Yuan and Dr. Li. Someday, when people look back at this period of time, Dr. Li should be regarded as a modern-day Qu Yuan. But the tragedy is that over the last two thousand years, some things haven’t changed.

Hooger-: History is still being written, and we will remember all of this. The former, writ upon a monument; the latter, etched upon a pillar of shame. Thank you for your sacrifice, Dr. Li. [Chinese]

Comments from June 5-12, 2022:

蜡笔小丸子131：Dr. Li, how are you, over there? I’m not doing well today. This overwhelming tide of brutal news has made me lose my last shred of faith that this society is safe. We teach girls to go home early, and not to wear revealing clothes, but why doesn’t anyone teach boys that it’s not okay to harm women? It’s really upsetting. What do we have to do in order to live in peace and safety?

朝不虑夕2333：If this matter isn’t dealt with properly, then how can we ever trust our government?

劉雅文Emilio：Dr. Li, I feel like society is bleak. On the night of April 27, it was raining, and I went to pick up my mom from work, and was followed by a strange man. Luckily, I ran fast and nothing bad happened. After seeing the news about the Tangshan incident, I was so sad, I couldn’t sleep. There are so many bad people. How can they expect women to give birth to three kids while at the same time, not doing anything to protect women? I saw some comments saying that the women who were beaten weren’t good women because they went out to drink and eat barbecue in the middle of the night. ? ? ? It’s 2022. Do women really have to be careful about what time they pick to go out for a meal?

Coolbigcat: Doctor Li, my 13-year-old Weibo account @漂亮的大猫 got blocked because I said something similar to what you said. How are you? The world isn’t getting better and better as you imagined. We’re getting further and further away from the life we ​​want.

凌晨的海w：I still don’t want to believe that this is China in 2022. There are some things happening in this country that I can’t quite bring myself to believe.

馋少年肉体的妖艳货色2：My memory will not be erased by “correct collective memory.“

_YANGZAI: Received an offer and took the first step to “run” to Hong Kong, but it seems Hong Kong is becoming more and more like the mainland. [Chinese]

Comments from June 13-18, 2022:

野生的奈奈阿： Dr. Li, I feel so hopeless and helpless. I can’t seem to do anything but cry and constantly doomscroll for news about Tangshan. I’m trying to stay rational and not believe random rumors, but why won’t they publish an announcement about the condition of those girls? Why haven’t we heard anything from the victims’ families?

四季稻F：You surely never imagined this, but health codes are already being used as a tool to restrict the movement of certain groups of people. How can they do this? // 幼稚_鬼：Never underestimate evil.

要和咩哥去海边：What these two incidents have in common is that all of us—you, me, the four girls in Tangshan, all of us ordinary people—are just trying to protect ourselves and the people around us. It’s that simple, but it never turns out well for us, does it? How is that not scary?

missLisasa: Dr. Li, they are bad people, rotten to the core. As a person born in 1989, suddenly now in 2022, I am utterly disappointed in this place I used to be so proud of!

张誉酩：I’ve been pretty happy recently. I met the right person and have a stable, satisfying relationship. Life’s not easy, but I try to be a kind person.

叶问天行：There have been no concrete updates on the Tangshan beating case, and there’s no way of knowing what steps have been taken regarding complaints [about gang violence] that people filed under their real names. Right now, Tangshan exists in a state of suspicion, cloaked in mystery. It’s like entering Tangshan has become a crime, and anyone who does is monitored. What are they so afraid of? Why haven’t Hebei’s leaders issued any concrete statements? Is it because they’re afraid of losing their cushy jobs?

-二吉：Dr. Li, I am applying for a job tomorrow, and I hope everything goes smoothly! Since graduating, I don’t seem to be very happy. Mostly I worry about the future. I don’t know what my future will look like. Will I be able to become an outstanding doctor? Will I be able to live the kind of life I want? I don’t know. All I can do is try my best with each task at hand, and hope for a good future. Also, I’ve recently discovered that this world is not as wonderful as we imagined.

太阳的麦兜：Dr. Li, the only reason I’ve been reluctant to uninstall Weibo is this place of yours. With so many friends who come here to call on you, you probably don’t have time to read all the messages. Even when we’re getting rained on, we always try to hold up an umbrella for others. Please remember those girls [who got beaten up in Tangshan]. Pray for them!

我就像没睡醒：The two most shocking sentences of 2022: “The world doesn’t want me anymore” and “We’re the last generation.” [Chinese]

Comments from June 19-26, 2022:

九味人生lww：Dr. Li, the violent incident in Tangshan has made us angry, and the foot-dragging by Tangshan’s local government has left us speechless. Henan’s red health codes are frightening everyone, and today from Shandong, there’s news of [people with too much money in their bank accounts being accused of] “maliciously refusing to buy homes” … Living isn’t easy.

-今天不饿TvT：Brother Liang, I want to make a secret vow—to become a person who isn’t cowardly or indifferent, who isn’t hesitant, or afraid, or nervous. If you happen to remember and have time, maybe you can give me a quiet helping hand. I do want to improve myself. Wish me luck~

四明山心：Governing the country with health app codes

Resaide喽：Dr. Li, I couldn’t stand to watch all of that video from Dandong … It’s getting too hard to live …

啊邪pig：Dr. Li, I was in an unfamiliar area today, searching everywhere for a hospital where I could get a nucleic acid COVID test. In the hospital lobby, I met a really kind-hearted and helpful older man. It made me so happy. // Gnemouz: The kindness of strangers can really warm your heart.

爱吃鸡蛋的小阳儿：Doctor, recently I’ve been afraid I’m pregnant. Although I’m at the right age to have a baby, I don’t think I’d be able to raise him yet. I don’t want him to come into this world and have to suffer. I wish he could wait until I have everything ready for him.

林海雪原950：Dr. Li, tonight I have to check my gaokao results, and I’m dying of nervousness. Send me your blessing, okay?

田甜鲸鱼：Dr. Li, if I pass by your grave a few decades from now, I’ll tell people that here lies a wise and courageous man. We suffered a grievous wound the night we lost him … [Chinese]

CDT’s Wailing Wall archive, and selections here, compiled by Tony Hu.

 



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/06/li-wenliangs-wailing-wall-june-2022-even-when-were-getting-rained-on-we-always-try-to-hold-up-an-umbrella-for-others/
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Tuesday 28 June 2022

Photo: Untitled (Jining–Tongliao Railway, Inner Mongolia), by Jim Maurer

In the engineer’s cabin of a weathered black steam engine, a man in a black jacket and woolen hat rests his shoulder on the sill of an open window and gazes back at the train behind him.

Untitled (Jining–Tongliao Railway, Inner Mongolia), by Jim Maurer (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/06/photo-untitled-jining-tongliao-railway-inner-mongolia-by-jim-maurer/
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China Plays Mediator in the Horn of Africa, Leverages Local Media to Reinforce Narrative of Benevolence

The Chinese government has been courting the Global South to advance its image as a responsible guarantor of international security and development. Last week, China took the initiative by hosting the first China-Horn of Africa conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, followed by the 14th BRICS summit in Beijing. The resulting joint-statements praised Xi Jinping’s new Global Security Initiative (GSI) and sought to rally states around non-Western approaches to international affairs, despite producing little substantive action. However, in a bid to reinforce public traction for Beijing’s leadership, Chinese state media content has made its way into local media coverage of these conferences, demonstrating that media continues to be an important vessel for China’s global ambitions. 

Describing the “international political signalling” emerging from the Horn of Africa conference, Lukas Fiala, a project coordinator at the London School of Economics IDEAS think tank, argued that the conference “provides us with another glimpse into the role of security arrangements in China’s future as a global power,” given China’s recent security agreement with the Solomon Islands and ongoing support of Russia’s war against Ukraine. As Garrett O’Brien reported in The Wire China, these arrangements take the form of “peace with Chinese characteristics”:

Billed as being derived from “diplomatic tradition and wisdom with unique Chinese characteristics,” the [Global Security Initiative] is a six-point plan that reflects Beijing’s long-standing emphasis on national sovereignty, including individual countries’ right to choose their own development paths, as well as its desire to resolve conflicts through “dialogue and consultation.”

[…] Yet this week’s conference has also demonstrated some of the potential inconsistencies in Xi’s blueprint for Chinese diplomacy, in particular its emphasis on non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs. Its latest foray into African politics is, in fact, a “formalization and acceleration of China’s active diplomacy or, in this instance, ‘soft interference’ in the domestic politics of others,” says [Seifudein Adem, professor of global studies at Doshisha University in Japan].

[…] “The fact that China was able to host this conference to begin with is already its biggest achievement,” says the Stimson Center’s Yun Sun. “This [was] not a typical peace or conflict mediation conference as we normally would envision. This [was] more of a conference where China gathered the countries of the region to come together and talk about China’s vision.” [Source]

Guled Ahmed, a non-resident scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said that the conference “serves as an alternative Chinese peace model (addressing only lack of development) to replace Western countries’ conflict resolution approach (focused more on strong intuition and democratisation), which serves well in authoritarian and less democratic countries with bad human rights records.” According to Ovigwe Eguegu, a policy analyst at Development Reimagined, African countries are a prime audience, particularly those that adhere to the principle of “non-interference.” He added that the GSI could provide these nations with an opportunity to hold greater sway in global economics and geopolitics. Redwan Hussein, a national security advisor to the Ethiopian prime minister, framed China’s mission as mere facilitation: “This initiative is owned, directed, managed, and steered by countries of the Horn of Africa, and China has only a supporting role.” 

But an examination of African local media coverage suggests that China intends to play a much greater role, particularly in terms of shaping public opinion about Chinese engagement in Africa. A CDT analysis, described in more detail below, reveals that in the lead-up to the Horn of Africa conference, numerous media outlets from at least two of its African participants, Uganda and Kenya, published a number of attributed and unattributed articles from Chinese state media praising China’s engagement in the region. This tallies with a recent report by the German Marshall Fund titled “China and the Digital Information Stack in the Global South,” which examines how China carries out digital information operations to advance its strategic goals and render the world more hospitable for autocracy. In one case study on Uganda, the authors analyze the rise of content-sharing agreements between Chinese and Ugandan media groups:

Among the most prominent of these has been that between PML Daily, a major Kampala-based news website, and Xinhua News. Such agreements can be mutually beneficial: PML Daily gets unlimited license to republish and distribute Xinhua’s stories, providing more content to readers while reducing the burden on its staff, while China dramatically expands its media penetration in Uganda, allowing it to promote narratives favorable to Chinese interests.

[…] Some information manipulation is much more malevolent, and a major focus of Chinese information manipulation efforts over the past two years has been the global COVID pandemic. Chinese media outlets have pushed back strongly against any suggestion of Chinese responsibility for the pandemic, going as far as to push conspiracy theories blaming American military laboratories. State-backed news agencies, like the China Daily, play up cooperation between China and Uganda on COVID vaccination, using China’s “vaccine diplomacy” to frame China as a responsible world leader, and a partner for Uganda’s government.

Outside the realm of COVID, Chinese news agencies with readership or viewership in Uganda also push support for the regime since it has been a convenient partner for the CCP. This includes stories by CGTN Africa framing [Ugandan President Yoweri] Museveni as a regional leader on economic and political integration. Even more problematically, Chinese news agencies have worked to legitimize Museveni and Uganda’s authoritarian political system through stories that validate his election victory and ignore or downplay allegations of fraud and intimidation. Through content sharing agreements, these stories are seen by many Ugandans on Ugandan news websites with few clear indications they come from Chinese media firms. [Source]

Shortly after the conference, on June 23, Uganda’s Daily Express republished a Xinhua article describing the resolve of Xue Bing, the Chinese Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, to continue supporting countries in the region. (It had also republished two more Xinhua articles the week prior.) On June 22, Ugandan media outlet Red Pepper used a local byline to publish an article that, apart from some light edits, echoed the wording and structure of a previous Xinhua article about the conference. The text of the slightly reworked Red Pepper article reads, “The countries of the region commend China for initiating” the conference, “commit to actively participate in implementing the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative,” and “[express their] gratitude to China for providing COVID-19 vaccines.” And last month, the magazine section of The Monitor’s Uganda edition published a longform article by the Chinese ambassador to Uganda offering fulsome praise for the GSI. 

Other local Ugandan outlets have recently carried Chinese state-media content unrelated to the conference. Among the last 25 China-related articles published since January 1 by Uganda’s The Independent, all but three were republished from Xinhua, and feature headlines such as: “China’s Digital Silk Road solution to corruption in Africa: AU experts,” “How China’s zero-COVID policy works without compromising economic, social development,” and “Xiconomics: Why China’s vision for development can help promote global prosperity.” Last month, Uganda-based East African Businessweek ran an op-ed, written by the director of an economics think tank sponsored by China’s Ministry of Education, that justified China’s zero-COVID policy.

Similar content has appeared in local Kenyan outlets. Five of the last six China-related articles published this month by state-owned Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) were from Chinese state media (the sixth describes a survey about pro-China sentiment in Africa). Just before the Horn of Africa conference, KBC published two articles from CGTN and Xinhua praising China’s Global Development Initiative. One of these articles appeared under the headline “China vows to work with Kenya to defend interests of developing countries.” Another local outlet, Capital News, ran the exact same article. Three of the last nine China-related articles published by Capital News were sourced from CGTN. The Star carried one Xinhua article on the GSI in late April. During the BRICS conference late last week, the homepage of The Nation hosted a Xinhua-sponsored article promoting BRICS efforts to combat climate change. 

Chinese state-media outlets Xinhua and CGTN both maintain regional offices in Kenya, and some local journalists from Kenya and Uganda have attended sponsored training and other exchange programs in China. According to a senior editorial director in Kenya, Xinhua has made inroads in Kenya by developing close links with local journalists and media personnel. DoubleThink Lab’s China Index has also documented other forms of Chinese influence in the Kenyan media landscape, such as local outlets running free content provided by Chinese state media, being partially owned by Chinese entities, or being part of state-media-sponsored networks. While Chinese diplomacy in the Horn of Africa may not succeed in solving the region’s conflicts, China’s state-media influence may help to persuade the public to embrace the Chinese government’s narrative that it is “a force for good” in the region. 



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/06/china-plays-mediator-in-the-horn-of-africa-leverages-local-media-to-reinforce-narrative-of-benevolence/
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Friday 24 June 2022

Photo: Clouds, by Xianyi Shen



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Tangshan Assault Case: Good Samaritans in China Fear That The Law Is Not on Their Side

The brutal beating of four young women, after one of the women rejected unwelcome advances from a drunken male diner at a hotpot restaurant in Tangshan, Hebei province, continued to spark outrage on Chinese social media. Tangshan police announced that nine perpetrators—some of whom have criminal records—have since been arrested, but online discussions about gender-based violence, as well as gang activity and police corruption, have continued despite intense censorship.

On Tuesday, Hebei’s provincial public security department released an update stating that the four victims suffered minor injuries. The report largely failed to quell public anger or check the spread of online rumors as netizens shared graphic photos of the women in hospital beds and decried the lack of independent reporting by the press. 

In the wake of accusations about the slow pace of the investigation, lack of public information, and possible collusion or foot-dragging by local law enforcement, Hebei’s provincial discipline commission announced that five local officials in Tangshan are being investigated for “seriously violating discipline and law” in their handling of the attack.  

In addition to fury against the abusers and the Tangshan authorities, some internet users also directed their ire at the bystanders who failed to intervene in the attack. Others cautioned against pointing fingers at regular citizens, given the fact that the law is often not on their side.

In a now-deleted essay archived by CDT, prominent author and social critic Li Chengpeng outlined a series of cases in which citizens attempting to be “good Samaritans” were hit with fines or otherwise punished by the law. The following is a chronological summary of some of the cases that corresponded with contemporaneous press reports:

In 2014, Xiaotu (pseudonym), a resident of Shenzhen, witnessed a sexual assault in progress in a public park and intervened by tackling the rapist, resulting in injuries to the attacker. Xiaotu was detained for 14 days, although the case against him was later dropped by prosecutors.

In the same year, Wu Weiqing, a resident of Guangdong province, aided an elderly man who appeared to have been knocked down in the street. The man then claimed that it was Wu who knocked him over, and demanded that Wu pay his hospital fees. Wu later commited suicide as police were set to investigate him, and the elderly man subsequently recanted his accusation. 

In 2015, a young man surnamed Guo, then a student at a martial arts school in Sichuan, witnessed a sexual assault on a bus and intervened. During the physical altercation that followed, Guo kicked the attacker in the head, resulting in an injury to the man’s brain. Guo was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and ordered to pay over 150,000 yuan (approximately $23,000 U.S. dollars) in damages.

In 2018, Zhao Yu, a 21-year-old man living in Fujian, got into physical altercation with a man outside his apartment building after he heard a woman shouting that she was being raped. Zhao injured the attacker and was detained for 14 days on assault charges, but the case against him was later dropped. He eventually received an award of 30,000 yuan (approximately $4,600 U.S. dollars) from the government for his heroism. 

In 2019, a 17-year-old Henan man, surnamed Wang, got into a fight with another man who was molesting a female friend of his, and broke the molester’s nose. Wang was arrested on assault charges and reportedly expelled from school. The result of the case against him is unclear. 

In 2020, a high-school senior surnamed Hu tackled a man who was molesting his female friend in a shopping mall in Hunan, injuring the molester. Hu was detained on assault charges. The case was later dropped.

The same year, Su Lei, a manager at a supermarket in Yunnan, was detained by police after he apprehended and injured an alleged shoplifter. Su later apologized to the man and paid 66,000 yuan in damages (approximately $9,800 U.S. dollars), a condition set by the police for his release. [Chinese]

Better known to the Chinese public is the controversial 2007 case of a man named Peng Yu. Peng, a resident of Nanjing in Jiangsu province, assisted a fallen elderly woman (Xu Shoulan) by taking her to the hospital. Xu later accused Peng of causing her to fall, and demanded compensation. A judge of the Nanjing District Court, arguing that Peng coming to the woman’s assistance constituted “unreasonable” behavior, ruled in Xu’s favor and ordered Peng to pay her partial damages. The case was later settled through mediation. According to public records, as part of the mediation, Peng admitted to having caused the woman to fall.

More contentious than the details of the case was the court’s reasoning. The court judgment stated that under normal circumstances, no reasonable person would take a stranger to the hospital or pay for their medical bills unless that person were somehow responsible for the injury, a statement that shocked the Chinese public. 

An essay on the WeChat blog 基本常识 (Jiben changshi, Weixin ID: GetCommonSense) also cautioned against blaming bystanders for not intervening:

The real problem is not that no one was willing to step up, but that no one dared to.

In a country as vast as China, it’s likely that the bullying and abuse of women, or fights such as the one in the Tangshan hotpot restaurant, are taking place on a nightly basis, but very few become the focus of public opinion. And in these cases unknown to the public, it stands to reason that there are many bystanders who stepped forward to put a stop to the violence, and may have brought trouble upon themselves or paid the price for it. We know this from years of observation and personal experience living in this society. [Chinese]

A 29-year-old man who claimed to be at the scene when the beating took place recounted his experience in a viral essay published on the WeChat blog 真实故事计划 (zhenshi gushi jihua, Weixin ID: zhenshigushi1). The man admitted to feeling guilty as social media bombarded bystanders for not stepping up to help the victims. However, he stated that after further reflection, he had come to the conclusion that there was little he and other patrons could have done to stop the thugs:

Even as a 29-year-old man in his prime, even assuming that I could summon all the young people at the scene for help, and assuming that they lacked fighting experience, I wouldn’t stand a chance against a group of thugs. Later, I saw many people on the internet accusing us of failing to help or intervene. 

[…] I have to admit that what I could have done was very limited. In the face of extreme violence, anyone would have felt frightened and powerless. [Chinese]

A now-deleted Weibo comment archived by CDT echoed similar sentiments about the potential consequences of intervening as a good Samaritan:

If you were in the Tangshan BBQ restaurant, would you have stepped forward and intervened? The answer is: No. We all have been living in China for so long, let’s not pretend to be [naive] foreign tourists. Stepping forward would have inevitably resulted in a physical altercation with those drunken thugs. As an individual, you wouldn’t stand a chance against a mob of people, much less a mob of violent criminals. You would have ended up in a hospital, or even a morgue. But let’s suppose you’re a great fighter, and that you were somehow able to knock them all out. You would have been arrested by the cops who rushed to the scene, because in their eyes, a brawl is a brawl. You would have ended up paying damages or even going to jail. You may think you’re being a good Samaritan, but in the eyes of the cops, you’re just a troublemaker. [Chinese]

A Beijing-based law firm published an article on the judicial dilemma of how to define the fine line between protecting good Samaritans and indulging vigilantism. The article called for a more liberal interpretation of the “necessity” requirement in determining whether use of violence is justified in a given case. From WeChat blog 北京和昶律师事务所 (Weixin ID: Trusmaticlawfirm):

In order to guard against unrestrained behavior that could lead to the proliferation of vigilantism, which would pose a potential danger to everyone, the law requires that good Samaritans meet the requirement that their intervention was undertaken out of “necessity.” 

In judicial practice, “necessity” is defined very narrowly, and only applies in certain strict circumstances. This leads to situations in which “whoever was killed or injured is in the right” or “whoever makes the biggest fuss is in the right,” thus threatening laypeople’s simple conception of justice.

[…] We urge [the judiciary] to relax the “necessity” requirement in cases of justified defense or self-defense, lest the tragedy of Tangshan be repeated.  [Chinese]

With additional translation by Cindy Carter.



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/06/tangshan-assault-case-good-samaritans-in-china-fear-that-the-law-is-not-on-their-side/
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Wednesday 22 June 2022

Photo: 希拉穆仁草原 [Xilamuren Grassland, Inner Mongolia], by Frank Wang

Wispy, fancifully shaped clouds adorn a pale blue sky above a relatively deserted stretch of the Xilamuren Grasslands in Baotou, Inner Mongolia.

希拉穆仁草原 [Xilamuren Grassland, Inner Mongolia], by Frank Wang (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/06/photo-%e5%b8%8c%e6%8b%89%e7%a9%86%e4%bb%81%e8%8d%89%e5%8e%9f-xilamuren-grassland-inner-mongolia-by-frank-wang/
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