Three Gorges Dam

In 1994, work started on the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River. Still a year away from full operation, it is the world's largest energy plant, spanning 1.5 miles across, and holding a 400 mile reservoir behind it (7 times the size of Washington DC). However, there have been issues with relocation. Estimated to wipe out 13 cities, 140 towns, and relocate around 2 million people, the government has been slow and unresponsive to many residents in terms of payback and helping relocate. As well, reports predict future problems with landslides and river bank collapses, which will continue to cause citizen relocation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/yangtze/yangtze.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/22/wave-tidal-hydropower-water

Rights in China

China's Constitution, last created in 1982, is much more restrictive than the US Constitution, and has no enforcement. The judicial system does not have the power of judiciary review, leaving the practice of these rights open to the interpretation of the government at any time:

• Right to free speech
• Freedom of the press
• Freedom of religion
• Suffrage
• Right to fair trial
• Property Rights

Tibet

In 1950, when Mao Zedong took power over newly Communist China, he decided to flex his authority by taking over Tibet, confiscating the Dalai Lama's military weapons. In 1959, a rebellion uprising in Tibet started to oppose the oppression that ultimately led to around 85,000 deaths. In the 1960s, over 6,000 monasteries were destroyed. In 2008, riots broke out and caused the deployment of 4,000 Chinese troops, which ultimately used violence to quell the protests.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/4152353.stm

Tiananmen Square Protests

Tiananmen Square Protests

In 1989, one hundred thousand student protestors gathered in Tiananman Square to oppose the Communist government, after neglecting a political rival's funeral. To oppose the dissidents, the government imposed martial law, and ultimately killed an estimated 3,700 people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/4/newsid_2496000/2496277.stm

Guanxi in China

The value of "Guanxi" in China influenced every person in this nation. In China, guanxi refers to a vast network of connections arising from party, family and work cennections that may go back several generations. No guanxi network relies ona single individual. Foreigners almost always rely on only one or two individuals for their supposed connection. This kind of network is too fragile to be of enduring value. In the China business environment, foreign investors who think they have created a guaxi network in China are usually simply deluding themselves.

Many foreign investors do not realize that goverment officals in China are regularly moved from offce to office and from region to region. As a result, the connection with a local offcial is unlikly to be a long-term connection. So it is quite common to negotiate a project for several years and then learm that the offcial in charge has been transferred to a new post. Where the project is not in compliance with the law, their replacements will often refuse to sign the documents that have already been negotiated.

In many cases, the provider of guanxi will make use of the fact that the project is not in compliance with the law to ask for addtional benefits. Since the foreign side has no legal resourse, the foreign side must acced to what is in effect a blackmail request or risk to cooapse of the project. When the foreign investor comes to a lwyer to help, there is nothing that can be done, since the project itself is either illegal or poorly documented.

Guanxi is a very beneficial course to learn for foreigners who attend business in China. However, there is also a boundary of between ethical and unethical. Guanxi has linked many offcials in China to jail by corruption.

Link: http://www.chinalawblog.com/2008/02/guanxi_in_china_fugetaboutit.html
Link: http://www.chinasuccessstories.com/2007/08/22/scientific-study-on-guanxi-in-business/

Political. China will treat fairly all international firms.

Many foreign executives have complained about the Chinese laws. They say that Chinese Government give better treatment to Chinese-invested companies. Thus, Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, said that they want to create an open and fair environment for foreign firms and they treat both foreign and Chinese companies equally. Furthermore, Chinese government said that they are going to favor those businesses which use energy and natural resources and help China more efficiently.

In my opinion, China's Government wants to make an impression of an open and fair country by allowing some laws that make the country to seem more liberal. At the same time, they said that they will favor companies that use natural resources so that they can excuse themselves if they treat preferentially Chinese companies.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704190704575489590837512112.html

China first anti-monopoly takes effect in 2008

China proposed the anti-monopoly law 1996 years ago and finally received approval in 2008 after 14 years. However, the article talked about that there is no better way to solve the problems in some crucial centrally administrated, state owned large enterprise and industry. Link:http://english.sina.com/china/2008/0801/175349.html

However, 1 year after the anti-monopoly law has established. China is still meeting its problem on defining the legal issues over large anterprises in the coutry. Lawyer zhou sued China Mobile on charges of abusing its market position to charge users exorbitant monthyly rental fees. However, the court reached a conciliatory agreement with the telecommunication giant. Zhou agreed to withdraw his lawsuit and in return China Mobile agreed to pay a 1,000 yuan "gratitude payment" for this suggestions and agreed to stop charging him a monthly mobile rental fee.

This is the fisrt time since the contry's new anti-monopoly law came into effect on August 1 last year, that a plantiff has recived any kind of compensation in an anti-monopoly lawsuit launched against domestic firm. Legal experts who are familiar with legal complexities of the anti-monopoly law, explained that "despite the fact that everone on the face of the earth knows that China Mobile is monopoly firm, given the complexity of the anti-monopoly law, ordinary consumers are simply not capable of obtaining the evidence needed to convvince the court to even accept the case. Offcials claimed that, as the mergers and acquisitions that took place among china's centrally-woned enterprises were led by the central goverment, state-owned enterprises are under control of the central goverment, they didn't need require any administrative approval.
Link: http://www.eeo.com.cn/ens/Politics/2009/11/10/155247.shtml

New political reforms bring right to property ownership in China

In the past few years, China has seen an increasing growth in suicide levels, as well as quality of life. In a move to counter the problem as well as address concerns of the rights of individuals, China is slowly bringing reforms such as property ownership into their political system. Although not as liberally democratic as the United States, they still maintain a stance of growing individual rights, comparing their goals to Singapore.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/95479/

POLITICS. The History of Communism in China

What is communism?

It is a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.

The Communism in China began around 1911, when for the first time China was not controlled by an Imperial Government. All those ideological influence came from Karl Marx and many people started joining revolutionary groups to change their country.

Mao Zedong was a poor person who became the main leader of the communism party in China around 1949. His goal was to achieve the liberation of the proletariat class, although he tried to achieve it with totalitarian strategy.

That situation changed when Deng Xiaoping took the power. He thought in a different way as Mao did. Deng's goal was to have a free market so that the economy could increase and get better.

After Deng, the next president was Jian Zemin, who allowed private entrepreneurs to exist in China.

As we can see in this article, China is slowly shifting itself to a more democratic country and lately they are allowing more practices that before they did not.

This is the article where we found the information about Communism in China

http://www.gowealthy.com/gowealthy/wcms/en/home/articles/travel/culture/Communism-In-china-WBBDG6ZFB4.html

China census highlights growing rights awareness

China is set to conduct their census starting November 1. This is a much more difficult task for their government than the United States due in part to their population - over four times the size of the United States. Another issue is with immigration - the millions of migrant workers who travel from the country to their jobs in the cities leave their contact information the same. According to the Associated Press, another hot topic is the one child per family law. Many citizens violate this law, and as a result cannot register their children legally, leaving many people out of the census. These issues are considered a growing concern as China's population expands rapidly.

Source - http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gXpfRoU00hdFjbtCkWbUczxKNAhQD9HVSU500