BEIJING – Following the high-profile news that Google had allegedly been hacked in China in 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointedly responded in a statement: “We look to the Chinese government for an explanation.”

China’s response at the time was: "Accusations that the Chinese government participated in cyber attacks, either in an explicit or inexplicit way, is groundless and aims to denigrate China.”

Over the years, Beijing has consistently faced widespread accusations of hacking – albeit based almost completely on circumstantial evidence. Some of the allegations are that the central government is either actively engaged in, or contracts out to civilians, the job of hacking American defense and corporate servers in order to raid valuable U.S. defense and business trade secrets.

China has always voraciously denied such allegations, claiming that its state Internet intentions were “transparent and consistent” and that efforts to link the country to hacking was merely an attempt to smear the mainland.  Last year, Chinese digital security officials went so far as to even play the victim, claiming 60 percent of its Netizens have been hacked and 30 percent have had passwords stolen.

Which is why it came as a surprise this week that China’s state broadcaster, CCTV, debuted a 20-minute documentary last month on its military channel (CCTV-7) entitled, “Military Technology: Internet Storm is Coming,” which may have inadvertently shown custom designed hacking software.  

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How to hack advice
Thirteen minuts into the broadcast, the story shows footage of a computer screen as a user appears to open a hacking program known as a DDOS, or "distributed denial-of-service.” A DDOS is a simple hacking tool that swamps websites with data in order to disable them. During the show, when the computer program opens, the viewer is presented with a series of options as well as a list of “targets” to attack.

The video has since been pulled off the CCTV website but was still available to watch on YouTube (see below, 35 seconds into start of video). The channel’s website and Sina Weibo account made no comment on the matter. A translation of the program’s options and text is below (hat tip to Shanghaiist for the link).

A screen grab of the DDOS program employed is seen above. The translated lines of text (by line) are:
1)People's Liberation Army Information Engineering University
2) Select Attack Destinations
3)Target IP
4) List of Falun Gong sites:
5)Falun Dafa in North America
6)Falun Dafa web site
7) Meng Hui web site
8)Witnesses of Falun Gong web site 1
9) Witnesses of Falun Gong web site 2
10) ATTACK CANCEL

A ‘smoking cursor?’
The authenticity and functionality of the alleged hacking program is of course open to debate, but the fact that hacking software with an obvious offensive capability was shown on state television raises important questions regarding the reasons behind the software’s inclusion in the report.

Given China’s resolute steadfastness that it is not involved in state sanctioned hacking and the overall tone of the documentary that generally supported that argument, it is entirely likely that the footage found its way into the piece simply because the editor was unaware of the political significance and repercussions of such video being seen by foreign viewers. 

In a post on his online research newsletter, China SignPost, Dr. Andrew S. Erickson, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College's China Maritime Studies Institute, suggested that the program was a “smoking cursor” or proof of the existence of Chinese offensive hacking software. However, in the case of this program, Erickson suggests that the software may have been a decade old and part of stock footage given to the producers of the show by the PLA:

Perhaps the least unlikely explanation is that program producers sought specific footage to document specific cyber attack techniques. For reasons of Chinese pride, and perhaps PLA assertiveness, they wanted to show that China could do something itself in the face of perceived threats. Falun Gong, particularly despised by Beijing, offered a politically-correct and “morally justified” target even for ideologically dubious techniques. Footage from previous interviews and interaction with the PLA Electronic Engineering Institute may have happened to be available in convenient form, and met visual requirements…

Perhaps most importantly, the CCTV-7 software contents appear to correlate so closely with a set of attacks that China is alleged to have engaged in a decade ago that their construction would appear to be tedious for the production schedule of a major weekly television program.

Regardless of whether the software is real or not, the presentation of offensive hacking capabilities put together by PLA research institutes presents for Beijing the unwelcome perception the government is actively involved in cyber-warfare.

The timing of this revelation is troublesome as it comes months after the U.S. announced a new cyber strategy that advocated responding with military force to foreign cyber attacks. Or as one military official put it at the time: "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks." 

It also comes on the heels of the release of the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military forces, which argued the mainland was “steadily closing the technological gap with modern armed forces.”

BEIJING – On Monday this week, a China Daily photographer snapped a picture of the Libyan embassy in Beijing with both the green Libyan flag of the Gadhafi regime and the rebel’s re-purposed flag of the Kingdom of Libya flying side by side.  The iconic green flag was later lowered, with an embassy employee telling Chinese media that “the Gadhafi regime was finished.”

The fall of his reign is a dramatic turn of events for the Chinese government which, in public at least, has been unabashedly against any foreign interference in Libya’s domestic affairs.

Since the start of foreign intervention in Libya, China has steadfastly stuck to its foreign policy of general non-intervention, starting with its abstention on the vote for United Nations Resolution 1973, which authorized a no-fly zone and “all necessary measures” against forces loyal to Gadhafi.

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Later, China vigorously condemned the NATO air strikes, which played a critical role in denying Gadhafi’s forces full use of the armor and heavy weapons that effectively slowed rebel advances early on in the campaign.

Back in China, coverage of the war in state media often played up downsides of the conflict – anarchy, indiscriminate shootings, and civilian casualties – while ignoring the popular support that the rebels enjoyed amongst large swathes of the population.

Quite bravely, Al Jazeera’s Arabic correspondent in China, Ezzat Shahrour eloquently took the Chinese media to task for its coverage, writing at the time, “I just don’t see what the point is of [Chinese] media spending so much money to prepare their journalists to go to a dangerous place like Libya when all these reporters do is simultaneous interpretation in China of Gadhafi’s own television station.” 

While Shahrour wrote of Chinese language media coverage, China’s foreign policy slant was also noticeably obvious in the English language stream: state-run news agency Xinhua elected to title its special coverage of the Libyan war, “Foreign Military Intervention in Libya.”

In this light, it would be easy to conclude that China may find itself on the outside looking in at the vast reconstruction effort – and contracts – that many experts anticipate will follow with the inevitable formation of a new government.

Learning to play both sides

However, despite the strong pro-regime stance Beijing has publicly taken since the start of hostilities, Chinese officials have gone out of their way to also maintain relations with the rebels throughout the war--in a sign perhaps of Beijing’s growing clout abroad and of an evolving foreign policy.

This past June, my colleague Eric Baculinao, wrote about a very public meeting that occurred between Mahmoud Jibril, the chairman of the executive board of the Libyan National Transition Council (NTC), and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.  

That meeting was preceded earlier that month by a visit from Col. Gadhafi’s foreign minister, making China--as Eric wrote at the time, “The only great power so far that both warring parties in the nation's civil war have been willing to visit… [Giving] China a potentially central role in brokering any possible political negotiation.”  

Soon after, though, Chinese diplomats met with NTC officials several times, even dispatching a senior diplomat to Benghazi in July who told rebel officials that they had become an “important dialogue partner” on the Libya question. In return, the NTC pledged to protect Chinese citizens and business interests in rebel-held territories.

It was perhaps with those business interests in mind that China this week upped the ante again in their bid to boost relations with the rebels. Today a slew of announcements were issued from Beijing on Libya, starting with the Chinese Foreign Minister urging that the U.N. step in to guide future efforts in Libya and announcing that Beijing was in contact with the NTC--a strong signal that they now view the Gadhafi regime finished.

Also today, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce conveyed China’s hopes for Libya, specifically the rekindling of over 50 capital projects it has invested in throughout the war-torn nation.

“We hope that Libya will restore stability as soon as possible, and we are willing to play an active role in Libya's reconstruction along with the international community," said Shen Danyang.

With more than 35,000 Chinese citizens at one time working in Libya before the conflict began, China is said to have invested over $18.8 billion in projects ranging from engineering to construction projects to oil exploration.

In particular, the oil question will likely draw closer global scrutiny. As the world's second-biggest oil consumer, China imported roughly 150,000 barrels of crude oil from Libya last year through its state-owned oil company, Sinopec Corp.

As the second-largest oil consumer in the world, any cut in its supply – as implied by Abdeljalil Mayouf, an information manager at Libyan rebel-run oil firm, AGOCO, as punishment for China’s lack of support for the rebellion – would not be catastrophic to Chinese interests, but would still be a noticeable hit to supply.

For his part, Yin Gang, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing told Reuters this week that he doubted that rebel leaders would terminate China’s oil contracts, saying, “This was one individual's opinion. I can say in four words: They would not dare; they would not dare change any contracts."

Whether the NTC will make China take a bath financially for not pledging support to the rebels earlier in the conflict remains to be seen. However, the speed with which Beijing shifted its previously unshakable faith in a non-interventionist policy is perhaps the clearest example we’ve seen yet that the country’s economic rise at home has forced it to revaluate its core principles abroad.

With surging crises throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it will be intriguing to see how China fares as it continues to try to walk the fine line between protecting its business interests and preserving its neutralist foreign policy elsewhere.  

BEIJING – The memory of last week's Georgetown/Bayi brawl was definitely back of mind for fans and the large media contingent attending Monday night’s final game between Duke University and China’s Olympic basketball team.

But no punches were thrown at this game. Instead it ended with applause and cheers of appreciative fans who were awed by the high-wire dunks and athleticism of the Blue Devils and by the tenacity of a Chinese side that battled back from a 28-6 deficit in the first quarter to pull within three points early in the third quarter.

Duke’s 93-78 victory was surely what tour organizers had been hoping for when they green-lighted this trip. In a nod to the events of last week, security was beefed up throughout the arena, with tighter security protocols – including bottles and lighters being confiscated outside the arena while concession stands poured cans of beer and soft drinks into paper cups for customers.

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Both steps were taken to prevent the hurling of bottles and lighters onto the court or at players, which one sports blogger here in Beijing called “par for course” at China Basketball Association (CBA) games.  

Stern-looking ushers and security guards in white short-sleeved shirts and black pants replaced the standard “mall-cop” security at games. Jon Pastuszek, who writes about Chinese basketball in his NiuBBall blog, described the usual security detail as “boys lacking in training and a fundamental understanding of what their job as security is supposed to be.”  While the security was noticeably more confident than what appeared present at the Georgetown brawl, they certainly did not cast a pall on the event and in fact seemed to blend into the crowd.

Despite the enhanced precautions, however, Pastuszek – who frequently attends CBA games – believes that the security at the Duke game was not typical of games in China. “I would say the level of security at the Georgetown/Bayi games was more consistent with CBA security than last night’s Duke game,” said Pastuszek.

Pastuszek said that he was surprised soda and beer was sold at the game – because they usually don’t allow sales from concession stands at official CBA games. He added that the Mastercard arena, where the game was played, is not managed by the same organization as most professional Chinese games, so they were allowed to sell drinks.

The crowd's energy throughout the game was excited and cheery, a mood hammered home by the eclectic soundtrack constantly piped in – apparently a CBA hallmark – over the game. It ranged from peppy Top 40 hits to rockabilly to techno versions of “If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands....”

Questionable officiating?
It was probably for the best that the music drowned out the noise of the game, as it likely sheltered the crowd from the periodic outbursts of Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski who at times appeared unhappy with the officiating.

His frustration was particularly noticeable during a series of events during the final minute of the first half. Coming out of a timeout with 59 seconds left in the half, Duke’s players took to the court while China’s remained in a huddle long after the horn to restart play had blown.

With a lull in the music, Coach K could be seen animatedly gesturing at the referees while yelling, “Come on! Come on! That’s not right!”

Later, following a Duke offensive turnover from a questionable non-call that led to a critical basket from China to bring the score to 40-49 with less than 30 seconds in the first half, timeout was called, and Coach K had to be physically pulled away by an assistant as he yelled at a ref. 

By halftime, the free-throw disparity between the two teams was striking: Duke 6-8, China 18-27. As both teams left the court, Coach K could be seen having a hard talk with the referees before storming off to the locker room, muttering under his breath and wearing a disgusted face.

“When the score gets a little out of control, and there are three Chinese refs in the game, they are going to want to keep the game closer,” said Pastuszek, who was at Monday night's game. Indeed, there were numerous moments in the second and third quarter when it seemed timely calls and hard luck fouls seemed to go against Duke.  To the credit of the players from both teams, both expressed their frustration at the officiating but never took it beyond an exasperated look or a clap of the hands.

A local sports journalist at the game said that the referees for that night were registered with an international referees' organization and thus spoke English.  This was certainly a far cry from the past two games Duke played as well as the Georgetown/Bayi match, where the refs allegedly did not speak English and ignored the frustrated castigations of the two university coaches.

As one Duke fan sarcastically noted on a live chat during the game, “Duke fouling much less in this game. Obviously K finally got some English speaking referees.”

Through the three games Duke played in China, the Blue Devils were called for 85 fouls to the 55 called against the Chinese sides.  Despite the questionable disparity in calls, Coach K was gracious in a joint post-game press conference with the Chinese coach, saying he felt that the Chinese side had been hospitable throughout their entire stay here and speaking bullishly of China’s strong basketball future.

BEIJING – In preparation for their tour to China this week, players from Georgetown’s basketball team participated in an orientation program with officials from the U.S. State Department to prepare them for the ambassadorial role they would play.

Ping Pong Diplomacy this was not.

The now widespread video of the bench-clearing brawl that erupted during a “goodwill game” between the Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets, a China Basketball Association (CBA) team, has generated widespread outrage and buzz on both sides of the Pacific, though Chinese media coverage has been scrubbed away on the Internet due to the embarrassing circumstances.

That the free-for-all occurred during a high-profile visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and thus was an important diplomatic side event for the Chinese hosts makes the whole event all the more startling.

So why did this brawl happen? Reports from those in the stands and conversations with those who closely follow the CBA suggest a confluence of decisions and circumstances that made Thursday’s friendly match primed for some sort of altercation.

Perhaps key to this was the decision to play Bayi in the first place.

Much has been written about the fact that Bayi is a team that represents the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). But while the players are indeed representatives of the army and hold military ranks, it is unlikely that any of them have done serious field training, but rather were recruited specifically for their basketball acumen.

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For example, Wang Zhizhi – the first Chinese athlete to play in the NBA – competed for the Bayi Rockets for several seasons, but unless you count the seven CBA Championships he won with Bayi, his active military service seems limited at best.

“There are regular pictures of Wang Zhizhi doing his compulsory annual training,” said Maggie Rauch, editor of China Sports Today, “It’s done, but I don’t know if they go through anything like the training a regular soldier does.”

Nevertheless, Bayi’s military background – the team was founded by members of the PLA – has deeply influenced their style of play, translating into an aggressive, attacking defensive game that often overpowers opponents. The results of such a style speak for themselves: 34 national titles and a Yankees-esque eight wins in 16 CBA championships.

“It’s a big honor to play for Bayi, that and the national team,” said Rauch. “It’s not as big of a deal now since they aren’t winning as much, but it’s still a big deal to be selected to play for them.”

Great legacy and national pride
However, with this national reputation for success comes a strong desire to protect the winning legacy. Jon Pastuszek is a Beijing-based writer who covers the CBA and the Chinese basketball industry on his website, NiuBBall. He noted that player recruitment at early ages, as well as limited education and exposure to foreign players – Bayi is the only CBA team that does not sign foreign players to play for them – may have contributed to a conflation of winning and national pride. 

“They represent the People’s Liberation Army. There are no foreigners on this team, so I think that the team is a bit more nationalistic than maybe other teams are,” said Pastuszek, “[Bayi] are maybe more prone to protect their country and maybe they feel threatened to kind of aggressively attack, if you will.”

That aggression manifested itself in yesterday’s game. Sarah E. Burton, an American living in China for five years, was at the game sitting between the two bench areas of the stands with predominantly Chinese fans. She described a friendly, excited atmosphere amongst the fans, but a very different vibe on the court.

“I think what was surprising to me was that from the very beginning of the game, the Chinese team played a very, very aggressive, defensive game,” said Burton, “In fact I would describe it as streetball.”

“I think at first it surprised the Georgetown players and then it agitated them,” she added.

To Burton, however, things appeared to take a turn for the worse when one of the Bayi players had words with Georgetown coach, John Thompson III.

“One of the most shocking things that I saw last night was one of the more hot headed members of the Chinese basketball team, number 24, approached the Hoyas coach and said in English, he yelled at the Hoyas coach in English and said, ‘Is this how you let your players play?’”

The shocking disrespect of an opposing player chewing out a visiting coach during a goodwill game aside, the comment is all the more surprising coming from a player representing a military team and thus one who necessarily understands and respects hierarchy.

CBA team, CBA officiating, but no CBA security
The scene for the brawl was further set by officiating that seemed heavily biased against Georgetown. In what has been described by all accounts as a physical game played by both sides, the amount of free throws – in other words the amount of fouls called against Georgetown – was stacked heavily in Bayi’s favor, with the Rockets shooting 57 free throws to just 15 for the Hoyas.

“There was more fouling then I’ve ever seen in any basketball game I’ve attended in China,” said Burton.

The disparity in foul calls was not unexpected.

“China’s referees do not have a very good reputation, even amongst the league itself,” said Pastuszek, “There have been a lot of reports of corruption and various scandals… But what you see especially at international competitions is a very large bias from the Chinese refs to the Chinese teams. I think they probably feel that it reflects poorly on China if they lose badly or if they lose by a lot so they call more fouls to keep the game even.”

“This isn’t the first time that it happened amongst universities, but this is the first time it has led to an escalation like this,” he added.

Though Georgetown coaches had probably prepared its players for a one-sided officiated game, the obvious home court advantage paired with an aggressive game plan from Bayi probably caught the Hoyas off-guard. After all, the players are here for a goodwill exhibition, not a physical defensive battle.

“I’ve spent some time with these teams, for [traveling university teams] it’s about visiting China, having an experience they’ve never had before,” said Rauch. “It’s only slightly about basketball. It’s more about promoting their university and representing their country.”

“They don’t come here thinking if you don’t come here without a ‘W’ [win], it’s a disgrace. It’s about going out, playing hard and playing together,” she continued.

The end for collegiate goodwill games?
The Georgetown-Bayi brawl could be seen as a strong disincentive for many NBA stars who have already expressed interest in coming to China to play if the ongoing NBA lockout continues. However, many suggest the real loser will be future collegiate trips for so-called “goodwill games.”

Just this year alone, basketball teams from Yale, University of Hawaii, Duke and Georgetown have travelled to China to play exhibition games. While victory in these games is a matter of pride for the players, the real winners are the American universities eager to tap into the academic and (potential) athletic promise of China’s youth.

Whether university teams will continue to decide to come to China to play friendly matches remains to be seen, but this will almost certainly be a thorny issue for any college athletic director in light of yesterday’s scuffle. Pastuszek believes that schools will need to think twice about sending teams abroad to China: “I think what you are going to see is universities be a little bit more hesitant to use this model in the future to promote their universities.”

For Georgetown at least, the tour will continue, but a Hong Kong TV report now says, it will be an abbreviated schedule in which a second match against Bayi in Shanghai has been canceled. However, players and coaches from both teams met today and according to a report on the Georgetown website, amicably discussed future exchanges between the two teams.

The announcement would seemingly stave off an inglorious end to a basketball connection that goes back to 1978 when China sent its basketball team to the United States to play its first game there against none other than Georgetown University.

Silver Siwei Wang contributed research to this report

Hoyas, Chinese try to make up after brawl

By Adrienne Mong and Bo Gu

BEIJING—With roughly two weeks to go before the start of the new academic year, Yang Hui and her cousin Yang Ying abruptly found themselves with no school to attend.

“They didn’t say anything,” said Yang Hui, a 15-year old who was expecting to start the ninth grade at the New Hope School in Beijing’s Haidian district.  “They said they wouldn’t demolish it, but then they did.”

With no warning, New Hope was torn down on August 10.  Only eight days later did official announcements go up on walls and wood poles around the site, saying the school was demolished because it was deemed unsafe.

But New Hope was also a school for the children of migrant workers and considered illegal despite the fact that roughly 1,000 students attended classes ranging from kindergarten to ninth grade.  The Yang cousins and their families are from Henan Province; their parents engage in small-time trade in Beijing and have lived in the city many years.

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The hukou
Through a rigorous and rigid household registration system designed to control the movement of China’s 1.3 billion people, the central government classifies all its citizens as either city dwellers or rural peasants.  The registration, also known in Chinese as hukou, determines not only a citizen’s residence but also what kind of social services individuals are eligible for.

It is extremely difficult to change one’s hukou although there are many ways, including marrying a person with a different registration status, applying for a new status through one’s job, or paying an enormous sum of money.

In Beijing, which has an estimated 5 million migrant workers, none of these people are allowed to obtain state-sponsored health care or schooling if their hukou is registered in their hometowns—which most likely it is.  As a result, their children—many of whom are born in the Chinese capital—can only attend privately-run and unapproved schools.

Twenty-four migrant schools in three districts across Beijing are being shut down, stranding some 40,000 students with only days before the new year begins.

The Yang cousins said they were able to find another migrant school on their own and have re-registered.  But more than half their fellow students at New Hope haven’t been so lucky.  “Many of them have gone back to their hometowns,” said Yang Hui.

Nearby, one family was packing up their belongings.  “We have to move, because we have to find a new school we can send our child to,” said the mother who did not want to be identified.

As the demolitions took place, local news coverage gathered steam, eventually forcing municipal authorities to provide some guidance on alternative schools for the parents.  Some officials even pledged no child would be left without a school, because of the shutdowns.

“They assigned us to a new school,” said Zhang Jia Hu, another Henan native who has lived and worked as a garbage recycler in Beijing for six to seven years; his twin daughters were born in the capital.  “There was a notice, and I went over to the new school this morning to look it over.”

Zhang is also a lucky one.  There is no tuition at the new migrant school.

Popular resentment
News of the school demolitions and shutdowns spread quickly on the Internet, with many netizens voicing concern at the fate of so many children without schools.

“No respect to education,” wrote one person on Sina Weibo, a popular microblog.  “This is the biggest evil of this country.  The disaster brought by education is the reason of all disasters. The officials who caused the children to lose their schools should be sued.”

Another Sina Weibo user said, “To close a school is like opening a jail.”

Even a well-known presenter on Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV weighed in.  “The rights you are born with are eliminated,” said Yang Jinlin.

Education is a hot button topic in general in China, especially whenever the Chinese sense not enough attention or resources are dedicated to schooling their children. 

A charity project called “China-Africa Project Hope” has recently become the target of virulent public criticism.  The project, initiated by China Youth Development Foundation and World Eminent Chinese Business Association, promised to donate 1,000 schools in Africa within ten years.  (It has also come under public scrutiny because of allegations of misappropriation of funds by the head of the charity, but that’s another story entirely.)

Wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs plan to spend $233 million altogether on these schools, with the first one breaking ground in Tanzania last March.  The project was slammed by netizens after news emerged of the migrant schools being demolished in Beijing. 

“Why can’t you take care of your own education problem?” asked one comment on Sina Weibo.  Another user said, “One of the recipient African countries, Kenya, actually spends 7 percent of its GPD on education. China, a country that spends less then 4 percent of its GDP on education, donates schools to a country that spends seven percent? I don’t understand…are they nuts?”

When China’s senior government officials—including Politburo members like Vice President Xi Jinping and Chongqing Party Chief Bo Xilai — send their children to top schools and universities in America and Europe, people are even more irritated.  A widespread joke online mocks the officials: “If next autumn all the top European and American schools want a meeting with the parents, the Communist Party’s 18^th Congress will have to be put off.”

With additional research by Silver Siwei Wang.

By NBC News’ Bo Gu

BEIJING – For decades, aspiring opera stars from around the world would head to Europe to learn about arias and the traditions of bel canto. But now, a new generation is looking East, and learning how to sing in Mandarin, not just Italian or German.

This summer, 20 young American and Canadian opera singers descended on this city for intensive training in the Western and Chinese opera traditions as part of the “I Sing Beijing” program.

Sponsored by the Confucius Institute under China’s Education Ministry, the program is the brainchild of Hao Jiang Tian, one of the few Chinese singers to become a regular fixture on the international opera scene.  

Born in Beijing to a musical family in the mid- 1950s, Tian lived through the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. His father was a conductor and his mother was a composer, but when they were sent to a reeducation camp, Tian was forced to work in a factory. Years later, he got back to music and was part of the first generation of Chinese singers to go overseas. For the past 19 seasons, he has been the principal soloist at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. He wrote a one-man show “From Mao to the Met” based on his autobiography that was broadcast across the United States on PBS.

“For 20-something years, we have been helping Chinese young singers to go to the West, to find scholarships for them, to find agents to hear them, to help them stand on a Western opera stage. But today is different,” Tian said after a recent session where he was teaching an American tenor how to sing a popular Chinese opera song, “I love you, China.”

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Learning how to sing in Mandarin
The 15 American and five Canadian singers participating in the program were selected after two rounds of competitive auditions. None of them had visited China before. Now that they are here, they have embraced the cultural exchange they’ve found on and off the stage.  

“Everybody cooks on the street, everybody sells on the street, the whole life of the city is outside in the street,” said Thomas Glenn, a long-time Kung Fu fan from Canada. “It’s exciting, it’s surprising.”

For the singers, the most challenging part is learning to sing in a completely different language. They take an intensive two-hour Mandarin course each day before their rehearsal.

“It’s really hard…. A lot of Chinese vowels are sung or spoken in at least more of a closed mouth, and that doesn’t really work with the Western style, so there has to be a sort of compromise,” Glenn said after his afternoon rehearsal.

But for other singers, like Julia Metzler, performing in another language is just part of opera. “The sounds are foreign, but they are no more difficult than singing in less frequent operatic languages, like Czech.”

Investing in culture
China has invested heavily in building large performance halls as cultural showcases over the last several years, from Beijing to Guangzhou.

The National Center for the Performing Arts – a $414 million project that Beijingers nicknamed “The Egg” – has held over 3,800 performances by both Chinese and foreign artists, entertaining more than 2 million since its opened three years ago. And the city of Guangzhou spent over $200 million on its opera house, which was designed by the London-based avant-garde architect Zaha Hadid. 

“In the past five years, over 50 international-level theaters have been built all over China, in big cities, even small cities,” said Tian. “All those city governments, they all want to build up connections with the world, especially with the Western countries, so how do you do it? They all think about the cultural exchange. It’s the best way to make connections.”
 
China’s influence on Western classical music is growing, with recent international premiers including Zhang Yimou’s “Turandot,” Tan Dun’s “The First Emperor,” and Guo Wenjing’s “Poet Li Bai.”

Chinese-themed performances like “Madame Mao” or “Nixon in China” which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera last February also have attracted attention from international opera fans.

Big-budget operas in China, like the “Road to Revival” and “Mulan Psalms,” mobilized the nation’s best actors and singers to perform, including Peng Liyuan, who could be China’s next first lady. (She’s married to Xi Jinping, who is widely expected to replace President Hu Jintao in 2012.)

The recent debut of a Chinese version of the hit “Mama Mia!” opened another chapter – bringing a Broadway classic to Chinese fans.

Catherine Chu, program director of “I Sing Beijing,” described the future of Western opera in China as “a vibrant scene…. They are developing new audiences. They are hungry for it.”

Not surprisingly, Tian agrees.

“Opera is becoming more and more popular in China. I’m happy to see at least 80 percent of the audience with black hair,” said Tian. “I think the Chinese audience is ready for international level operas.”

The program will culminate with a performance at Beijing’s “Egg” on Aug. 18, accompanied by the China National Symphony Orchestra.

Thousands of people turned out on the streets of the prosperous port city of Dalian, China on Sunday demanding the closure of a local chemical factory. The protest was mounted after waves from Tropical Storm Muifalast week broke a dike guarding the plant and raised fears of a toxic spill.
 
In a sign of Chinese authorities fears of popular protest, they quickly announced that the factory would be closed and moved. Adrienne Mong reports. 

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BEIJING—The new U.S. ambassador to China made waves even before he landed on these shores.

Over the weekend, Gary Locke--the former U.S. Commerce Secretary and Governor of Washington--was photographed by a Chinese tech entrepreneur who spotted our new envoy at a Starbucks in the Seattle airport. 

Locke, sporting a backpack and accompanied only by one of his three children, was buying coffee.

Within hours, the photograph was uploaded onto the entrepreneur’s Sina Weibo page and then re-posted 28,000 times. The buzz? 

The fact that Locke was unencumbered by an entourage and paying for his own coffee.

“In China, even a low-level official uses police to open up the road for them when they go out.  Learn from America!” said one netizen in comments about the Locke photo on iFeng.com. 

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“We are so used to Chinese officials’ privileges that we’re now not used to Gary Locke’s normal behavior,” wrote another.

Others were more taken aback with the fact that Locke had initially tried to use a discount voucher to pay for his coffee and joked that America must be really poor for a government official to need to use a coupon.

With the previous U.S. ambassador Jon Huntsman, the Chinese were treated to—for them--unusual displays of the common touch.  Like another American envoy of another era, Huntsman was frequently seen riding his bicycle alone around the capital during his short stint in China.

But what no other previous American envoy to China has had to contend with is their loyalty.

Although most news outlets covering Locke’s debut as ambassador focused on his comments that America is “committed to getting our fiscal house in order” and that the Chinese government’s U.S. dollar investments are safe, the majority also underscored the fact that he’s the first Chinese-American to ever hold this post.

Locke himself raised the point in his prepared remarks:

“…I am both humbled and honored to stand here before you as a child of Chinese immigrants representing America, the land of my birth, and the American values my family holds dear.  I can only imagine just how proud my dad, Jimmy, who passed away in January, would be for his son to be the first Chinese-American to represent the United States in the land of his and my mother’s birth.  My parents, my wife, our children – we all personally represent America and America’s promise as a land of freedom, equality, and opportunity.”

That Locke is here to represent the U.S. government was asserted repeatedly during his interaction with the Beijing press corps—suggesting that his audience in China should be wary of confusing his ethnicity with his nationality. 

After all, this is a country where ethnic Chinese are often considered Chinese first and foremost--no matter where they were born or raised.  (In fact, your correspondent has lost count how many times the question of "loyalty to the motherland" comes up at sensitive times dealing with government officials.)

Locke’s status as an ABC (American-born Chinese) could add an interesting dimension to his posting, but let’s just hope it doesn’t detract from the real work that needs to be done between Washington and Beijing.

By Bo Gu, NBC News

URUMQI, Xinjiang, China – For a country of 1.3 billion – it should come as no surprise that China has at least 56 different officially recognized ethnic groups. But the largest ethnic group, the Han Chinese, are not just the majority – they dominate by a large margin and make up 91.5 percent of the population or approximately 1.2 billion people.  

And as the Han Chinese footprint spreads across the country, some groups like the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic Muslim minority of about 8 million who live predominantly in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, are feeling increasingly marginalized. (See a great New York Times Interactive map of ethnic minorities in China).

Walk down the street in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang Autonomous Region, and you might mistake it for any other Chinese provincial capital. With its ugly cement boxy buildings, wide roads with maniac taxi drivers, cheap stores selling fake Nike products and DVDs, and construction sites everywhere – it looks like any other Chinese city. That is if you took away the Uighur women in their bright traditional veils and the Turkic-looking language on shops and road signs.

But it was also the site of violent clashes between Han Chinese and Uighurs in July 2009 that left almost 200 dead, the vast majority of whom them Han Chinese.

Similar clashes between Han Chinese and Uighurs happened at the end of July in Kashgar, a city at the far western tip of Xinjiang. At least eleven people were killed and dozens more injured. 
 
The Chinese government blamed “separatist forces,” and claimed the troublemakers received training in Pakistan. But as usual, news coverage of the incidents was tightly controlled by the government. 

Is Han influence all bad?
Despite the recent clashes and the assumption that the Uighurs don’t care for the Chinese incursion into their territory, it is worth asking if the Han’s presence in the area is all bad.

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Beijing, via the Xinjiang Development and Reform Committee, invested $12.3 billion dollars in key projects in the Xinjiang region during the first half of 2011 alone – a 44 percent jump from the same period last year, according to the China Business Times.

The cash-infused projects include hydropower stations in Hotan, a high voltage power grid between the Turpan and Bayingol regions, a thermoelectric plant in Usu, many new highway links connecting cities, and thousands of civil construction projects like kindergartens and residential buildings.

For the past six decades, the Chinese government has been applying the same strategy to Xinjiang as it has to Tibet – putting a lot of money and people in the region.

China’s sixth national census conducted in late 2010 shows that 40.1 percent of Xinjiang’s population is ethnic Han – compare that to 1953, when the Han population was merely 6.8 percent.

Since the 1950s, Xinjiang’s GDP has been steadily growing at an annual rate of 8 percent. In 2008, contribution to economic growth by industrial enterprises was 52.3 percent, 274 times more than what it was in 1952, according to a report titled, “Xinjiang’s Development and Progress,” released by the State Council in September 2009.

Hundreds of dams have been built and millions of miles of roads have been paved. Airports are everywhere, greatly enabling people’s speed of travel. Tourism has blossomed, and the illiteracy rate has dropped.

A Silk Road culture pushed to the brink

During the period from 1950 to 2008, direct investment from the central government in Xinjiang added up to $60 billion. Since 2000, when the government launched its grand strategy to “develop the West,” financial aid to Xinjiang has grown at a rate of 24.4 percent annually. In 2008 alone, the central government’s financial aid to the province reached $11 billion.  
It is probably hard to say whether Xinjiang would be better off without the Han authorities. What really scares all the ethnicities is that they fear the recent attacks in Kashgar won’t be the last. 

Many Han migrants in Xinjiang (and in Tibet) don’t understand why the violence happens, especially against them. “We’ve invested so much to help you, why do you revenge by killing us?” is a question often asked.

But not every Uighur is ungrateful. Many of them are very open to Han culture.

With many questions on my mind, I interviewed Elham a 24-year old Uighur man living in northern Xinjiang who spoke candidly on the condition of anonymity. While he represents just one viewpoint on inter-ethnic relations in the area, his responses are interesting. Here is an excerpt of our dialogue. 

Q: I know that you went to a Han school when you were young. Why did you choose to go to a Han school instead of a Uighur school? Don’t you think it’s a pity that you didn’t learn your own language?

Elham: It was my decision, because I wanted to learn Chinese, because I thought it would be useful. A lot of useful literature was written in Chinese only. There were only three or four Uighur kids in my class. The Uighur language was not taught in my school. I only started to learn how to write in Uighur a few years ago. Now I’m kind of struggling…but I don’t think it’s a pity.

Q: What was it like when you went to school with all the Han children? Did you get along?
Yeah, we all got along. When you are kids you don’t really know the difference between different ethnicities. We would go to the Han kids’ families to play, and they would come to ours. When we had our holiday like Corban Festival they would come and celebrate with us. (Corban Festival is the Uighur term for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha or “Festival of Sacrifice” that commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God, but instead was able to sacrifice a ram).

Q: Is it still like that?
I feel like since graduation things became a bit different. I think this has something to do with family education. I sometimes hear Han parents tell their kids to stay away from Uighur kids. This is unbelievable. They tell their kids that they are better than Uighurs. I didn’t feel like that when I was younger. I remember when I was a kid I used to go to a food market to buy food for my mom. Sometimes I didn’t have enough cash on me. I would just ask the Han food vendor to come to my home and get the money, and then my mom would welcome him and treat him with fruit, just like how she treated her friends. There wasn’t any distance.

Q: Do you have Han friends? Would you marry a Han girl? Is interracial marriage common?
Oh yes, a lot. My girlfriend [another Uighur] and I are engaged, and all my Han friends say they can’t wait to come to my wedding! No, I won’t marry a Han girl, this is about tradition. I don’t think many Han men marry Uighur girls, either. You see maybe three or four interracial marriages out of 1,000 couples.

Q: What does your parents’ generation think of the Hans? Do they feel like their territory is invaded? Do you feel like younger people like you are more open to ethnic differences?
Quite the opposite. I think my parents’ generation is more open to the Han, while in our generation, the distance is growing. In Xinjiang, the Han people used to share a lot of habits with the Uighurs, like they didn’t eat pork, either.

Like when I was a child, when my mom made naan (a type of Uighur bread baked with butter), we would always invite our Han neighbors to share with us, and when they made their Han-style steamed bread, they would share with us, too. It seems like when the society is more developed, our relationship is somehow not as good as before. During my parents’ generation, it was like everyone was everyone’s friend, but it’s not like that anymore.

Q: I heard in Xinjiang, that Uighurs have a better chance to find jobs if they speak Mandarin, is that true? If so, do you think it’s unfair?
It depends. If it’s in north Xinjiang, Uighurs have to learn Mandarin, while in south Xinjiang, the Han have to learn Uighur. Yeah, I think in north Xinjiang if you speak Mandarin, you have a better chance to find a good job, but I don’t think it’s unfair. It’s a great thing to master another language. Like when I learn the history of Xinjiang, I love it that I’m able to read the history books in both languages, so I can compare and I know better. It’s a good thing.

Q: Is it true that college students and government staff are not allowed to engage in any religious activities like Ramadan. Are Uighurs against that idea?
Well, the law says as a citizen you have the right to be religious or not. This is what Chinese law says. But then they ask you not to be religious. It’s like they support your religion, and at the same time they do not support it. But this is our tradition.

Q: What do you and your friends think about the Uighurs who blew up buses and killed Han Chinese people over the past few years? 
We hate them. We are completely against what they do. They go abroad and claim Xinjiang should be independent, but they don’t do anything. It jeopardizes our safety here.

Q: Do you think the Han have brought convenience and a modern life style to the Uighurs? Like the infrastructure they built here?
Yes, of course. It’s like fresh blood. They brought new things and helped the development, like modern technology and business opportunities.

Q: Do you think both Han and Uighur people should make more efforts to understand each other better? Who should do more?Yes, absolutely. But I don’t know how. I hope more people come to Xinjiang to travel.

Q: We’ve learned about the demolition and reconstruction of the old town in Kashgar. Some people think it’s wiping away the Uighur people’s lives and culture. What do you think?
Well, everyone wants a better life. If you go to those old towns, they have very limited space and a family of five to six people shares a very small house, and you have to go up to the roof to use the toilet at night with a flashlight. I wouldn’t want to live like that. Who doesn’t want a better life and new house? I don’t know what they think but I would not be against the demolitions.

 

Related link:A Silk Road culture pushed to the brink

KASHGAR, XINJIANG—Just days after the latest violence struck China’s far northwestern region, we expected security to blanket this ancient Silk Road city of 600,000.

On the eve of Ramadan last weekend, Kashgar saw at least 14 people killed and more than 40 others injured, according to state-run media.  It came on the heels of another deadly clash—this time in the southern provincial city of Khotan--between the Han Chinese and Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic Muslim minority that lives predominantly in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

All of the incidents—which made up the bloodiest month in the region since the July 2009 riots between Han Chinese and Uighurs--were blamed on separatist extremists. In fact, the Chinese government claimed the assailants in the two Kashgar attacks were Uighurs who had been trained in neighboring Pakistan.

China’s minister for public security has sworn there would be “no mercy” for anyone pursuing violence or separatism.

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Security sprawl?
Sure enough, throughout Kashgar—where 80 percent of the population is Uighur--there were small squads of soldiers equipped with firearms and riot shields outside virtually every major government ministry building. 

Much larger teams of troops manned People’s Square, facing out onto the Mao statue across Renmin Lu, and around the Id Kah Mosque, the largest of its kind in Xinjiang.  And a shopping mall that catered largely to Han Chinese was home to a smattering of black-uniformed police sporting reflective sunglasses. 

But the security presence was still nowhere to the scope and scale that we’ve seen in Urumqi after the July 2009 riots or in Lhasa after the March 2008 unrest--where entire companies were deployed across both cities.

Nor was the tension as palpable as local reports claimed.  “In Kashi [Kashgar], a silent tension also hangs in the air.  People go about their daily life but the presence of heavily armed police and armored cars dampens the spirit,” according to an article in the English version of the Global Times, a nationalist state-run newspaper.

“The Xinjiang story is always [about] playing the double game,” said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch.  “When the local officials emphasize security, they get more support from Beijing.  At the same time, they reassure the Han [Chinese] population that it’s safe to be there to demonstrate to Beijing that they’re doing a good job at maintaining stability.”

Which may have explained the appearance of normalcy.  The streets were crowded with life.  We passed only one checkpoint that consisted of two local police wilting under the sun, next to a busy sidewalk, occasionally stopping cars to check for IDs.  A curfew that went into effect as night fell only hampered traffic flowing into, not out of, Kashgar.

We experienced no evident threat, and, as two Chinese-looking individuals wandering the streets of Kashgar, we encountered no hostility from Uighurs.  If anything, we provoked more stares from the Chinese. 

'No one wants to take Uighur cabs'
Nevertheless, what we found was a highly divided community.

It struck us immediately after we landed at Kashgar’s airport.  A crowd of taxi drivers—Chinese and Uighur—haggled with us over the cost of driving us into town.  We settled on the most reasonable offer, which happened to come from an ethnic Chinese cabbie called Zhang.

As soon as we’d climbed into the back of his taxi, he asked whether we were Han Chinese.  Then he barked at us, “Can’t you tell the difference between Han and Uighurs?  No one wants to take Uighur cabs.  They all feel unsafe.” 

Zhang, a native of neighboring Gansu Province, came to Xinjiang when he was serving in the Chinese military 26 years ago.  He made no effort to hide his feelings for Uighurs: “I hate them.”

But when we asked whether he’d go back to his hometown, he shrugged.  “What would I go back for?  There’s nothing there….  Here, I have my taxi business.”

The Uighurs we chatted with were much more circumspect (even after I reassured them I’m American).  None would engage in a conversation about the weekend’s attacks.  One person only went so far as to advise me not to take photographs of the security on People’s Square.

Knowing that the attack sites were being closely monitored by police, we decided to avoid them and focused instead on parts of the Old City.

Old City under threat
Although it remains unclear why the recent attacks took place, there’s been much speculation about growing Uighur resentment over the erosion of Kashgar’s native Uighur culture—typified by wholesale demolitions of the Old City that were first announced in 2001 but only began taking place in early 2009.

Government officials have argued that the Old City needs to be razed and rebuilt because they say the dusty brick and wood homes are unsanitary and dangerous, especially in an earthquake-prone region. 

“The Old City is actually central to the story,” said Bequelin, who’s conducted research in the region for years.  “What prompted the decision to re-draw Kashgar, because that is essentially what this is about…was simply the protest in Tibet in 2008.  That’s what really made the government decide it has to be quite aggressive on Xinjiang.”

For generations, an estimated 13,000 families have lived in this picturesque section of Kashgar.  The sand-colored buildings are laid out in a maze of narrow alleys, reminiscent of parts of Kabul’s Old City currently being restored with the help of international foundations.  The Old City is the primary draw for the high tourist traffic.  In fact, it was a stand-in for the 1970s Kabul featured in the movie version of “The Kite Runner.” 

“The Old City is not something the Chinese administration has the method to manage,” said Bequelin.  In effect, he added, to destroy the area is part of wider efforts to make this most Uighur of all cities in Xinjiang more “Han Chinese-friendly.”

And, as with many ethnic Chinese metropolises all across the country, the Old City’s residents say they have not been informed—let alone consulted—on official rebuilding plans.

“I don’t know,” said a 21-year-old university student who went by the name Guli.  A major in tourism, she was showing us around the warren of mazes that make up one sector of the Old City and we had paused to overlook an acre of land that had been recently cleared.  “I don’t know where the residents ended up.”

In another sector of the Old City--close to the main artery bisecting Kashgar, Renmin Lu, and facing the city’s Grand Bazaar—a woman sat in the shade of her doorway, away from the blistering desert heat. 

On one side of her home there was nothing but rubble and dirt.  The neighbors had left months ago, their house demolished, leaving behind 400 to 500 families like hers still living in the densely packed hill.

“They moved to another part of the city,” explained the woman, who did not give her name but said she was a nurse.  “I don’t know when they’re going to rebuild this area.”

She did know, however, that she and her family did not want to move.  “There are elderly members in my family.  They can’t move around easily,” she said.  “This is a good place to live.”

Dividing a community
It was hard to escape the symbolism of the demolitions.  Consider the mere fact that the Old City is no longer one whole.  We saw at least three different sections, surrounded by the high-rises of new Kashgar.  As a strategy to break up the Uighur community, it looks increasingly effective.

Non-residents aren’t even permitted to enter the Old City without first paying an entrance fee of almost $5 (30 renminbi) and having a tour guide.  And though local media have reported a dramatic downturn in tourism to Kashgar, a steady stream of Chinese tour groups could be seen everywhere. 

Outside one section, two or three large tour buses parked by the curb.  Many of the tourists had come all the way across the country from Jiangsu Province on China’s eastern seaboard.

And yet Kashgar still retains an overwhelmingly Uighur feel.  The Grand Bazaar may be quiet because of Ramadan, but the colors, aromas, sounds, and people are all distinctly of Central Asia, not China.  Threading through the crowds were the occasional South Asian, Central Asian (Xinjiang counts most of the Stans as its neighbors), or handful of ethnic Chinese tourists.

Ramadan is observed to a high degree in the Uighur parts of the city.  Most cafes and restaurants were shuttered in the daytime, leaving us to fend for ourselves in the Chinese section of town, where we found a Mao-themed restaurant serving Hunan cuisine.

Searching for the plans to remake Kashgar
The Uighurs weren’t the only ones who seemed unclear about the Old City’s fate as a metropolis reborn.

It took us the better part of an afternoon to track down an urban planning exhibition that promised to explain the plans for the remaking and remarketing of Kashgar into a special economic zone. 

The Chinese central government announced last year that it would create the zone to encourage wider regional trade and investment.  The new airport we landed in—costing $25 million--was a key initial step towards establishing the zone.

When we had found it—housed in a snazzy new pavilion parked on the water in Donghu Park—it was shut.

“The exhibition opens on October 1,” said a young woman who unlocked the door to let us into the air conditioned space.  “We don’t know much about the plans.  But they haven’t been finalized; everything is still under discussion.”

We couldn’t enter the exhibition hall, but the displays visible to us from the entrance looked impressive and expensive: large digital screens and colored panels with detailed maps.

Evidently, someone somewhere was clear about the plans.

With additional research by Silver Siwei Wang.

By NBC’s Bo Gu
BEIJING – After a week of unusually outspoken outrage among the Chinese public over a high-speed train crash, Chinese authorities imposed a news blackout on the subject over the weekend. 

For about a week the Chinese media enjoyed unprecedented freedom with reports on the deadly train crash in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou that killed 40 people and injured nearly 200.

Social media, especially the many Chinese equivalents of Twitter-like microblogs, buzzed with millions of messages questioning why the accident happened, whether or not rescue efforts had been botched and if the investigation was jeopardized by the train cars being buried shortly after the accident. Even state-run media ran reports critical of the powerful Railways Ministry and that questioned the government’s handling of the accident. 

But the brief flurry of “free speech” didn’t last long.

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Late on Friday evening, the propaganda authorities imposed a media ban on the train crash, forcing newspapers nationwide to pull their pages of coverage at the last minute. Investigative reports and commentaries were no longer allowed to be published – only positive news or information released by the authorities.

As one tweeter @twccl wrote on his Chinese Twitter page, "for the last 20 years, it has proved to be a joke every time you think freedom of speech in the mainland has become more tolerated."

Angry journalists and editors complained about having their stories pulled from the front page and posted their ditched pages on microblogs instead. “They can be so shameless…One night, all the media, including newspapers, Internet, print, video, are ordered to delete, scrap, be muzzled,” Gao Xubo, founder of the ChinaRFL web site wrote on his microblog. “This is humiliating to Chinese history and to Chinese people. This is one of the most notorious nights in human civilization. We give condolence for ourselves.”

‘A nest of corruption’
The outrage over the train crash had made citizen-journalists out of relatives and friends of victims.

Yang Feng, a young man who lost five relatives, including his mother and his pregnant wife, gathered more than 160,000 followers on his Sina.com microblog in just a few days.

Yang spoke directly to Premier Wen Jiabao, and demanded a thorough investigation into why his relatives were not found until 30 hours after the crash.

People have been particularly outraged that the Railways Ministry, which is responsible for overseeing high-speed rail transportation, was also handling the investigation and compensation for victims and their families. Several critics called for the entire organization, which has controlled China’s railway system exclusively for decades, to be disbanded.

He Weifang, an outspoken law professor from Peking University and a long-time critic of the government, published an open letter appealing for the disbandment of the Railways Ministry. "It’s not humane to let the one who made mistakes investigate how he made the mistakes and how much responsibilities he should take," He wrote.

Liu Junning, a politics scholar at the China Culture Study Institute, wrote on his microblog that the Railways Ministry is "a nest of corruption that only focuses on political achievements instead of serving the people."

Relatives of victims were particularly incensed by the fact that the ministry demanded to see a cremation certificate before they could be compensated, even though it had insisted on burying one of the train cars involved in the accident just one day after the crash.

Chang Ping, a journalist who was fired just a few months ago for his frank columns criticizing the government, posted a furious message on his microblog that was later forwarded far and wide: "This is the logic of robbers. As long as someone is confirmed dead, their relatives should be compensated. What has it to do with the Railways Ministry, whether the victims are cremated or buried or put in a crystal casket? You already killed them, and you want to make sure they are burned to ashes? Are there any murderers in this world more professional than you?"