• China premier, once friend of democracy activists, elected on 99 percent of vote

    China Daily via Reuters

    China's newly-elected Premier Li Keqiang (left) shakes hands with former Premier Wen Jiabao as China's President Xi Jinping, seated right, and other delegates applaud Friday. Li was once friends with democracy activists, but a dissident accused him of covering up an HIV scandal.

    By Sui-Lee Wee, Reuters

    BEIJING -- China's legislature formally chose Li Keqiang as premier on Friday, installing an English-speaking bureaucrat as the man in charge of the world's second-largest economy.

    The largely rubber-stamp National People's Congress chose Li, 57, to replace Wen Jiabao.

    Nearly 3,000 delegates gathered in Beijing's Great Hall of the People to vote on Li's appointment, putting the final stamp of approval on a generational transition of power.

    Li drew only three no votes and six abstentions from the carefully selected parliament.

    China's parliament named Xi Jinping as president four months after he took charge of the Communist party pledging reform. John Sparks, Channel Four Europe reports.

    He rose and shook hands with Xi Jinping, who was elected president by the legislature on Thursday, as legislators applauded.

    While Xi is the country's top leader, Li heads China's State Council and is charged with executing government policy and overseeing the economy.

    A reformer?
    As premier, Li is faced with one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor.

    "I believe that in this class (of new leaders), his intent to reform is quite strong," said Chen Ziming, an independent political commentator in Beijing. "He has a close relationship with reform-minded economists."

    More than any other Chinese party leader until now, Li was immersed in the intellectual and political ferment of the decade of reform under Deng Xiaoping, which ended in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that were crushed by troops.

    As a student at Peking University, Li befriended ardent pro-democracy advocates, some of whom later became outright challengers to party control.

    His friends included activists who went into exile after the June 1989 crackdown.

    "He has a better understanding of how Westerners think," a source familiar with China's foreign policy told Reuters.

    Li, who has a degree in law and a doctorate in economics, will take the reins of an economy whose growth slowed in 2012 to a 13-year low, albeit at a 7.8 percent rate that is the envy of other major economies.

    Both Xi and Li will need to deliver a blueprint to stabilize the real estate market. They need to do this quickly to calm a market in which real estate prices have soared 10-fold in major cities during the last decade.

    Dissident beaten up
    Across China, people are resentful of the widening income inequality gap.

    China has 2.7 million U.S. dollar millionaires and 251 billionaires, according to the Hurun Report.

    However, 13 percent of its people live on less than $1.25 per day, according to United Nations data. The average annual urban disposable income is just $3,500.

    During his time in central Henan province from 1998 to 2004, Li was criticized by activists for helping to cover up the extent of an HIV/AIDS crisis there, when hundreds of thousands of impoverished farmers became infected through botched blood-selling schemes.

    Leading dissidents, Hu Jia told Reuters he was detained in Henan, while Li was governor, for four days in 2002, when Hu was advocating for rural victims of AIDS.

    "When the AIDS epidemic exploded, everything that Li Keqiang did was with the aim of covering it up," Hu said. "He didn't allow the ordinary people to go to Beijing to petition, meet the media, and didn't allow Aizhixing, the institute I was working at, [to] enter Henan to examine and report on the reality of the AIDS situation."

    Hu said two state security officers beat and kicked him on Thursday till his head bled. He was summoned by police on a charge of "provoking quarrels and making trouble." The Dongcang police station, where Hu was held, could not be reached for comment. 

    Related:

    Sign here, Mr. President: China's Xi completes rise to the top

    China seeks to pacify middle class; boosts defense spending

    Full China coverage from our Behind the Wall blog

    This story was originally published on Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:19 AM EDT

  • Rebellious Chinese village's experiment with democracy sours

    Staff / Reuters

    Villagers gather outside the Wukan Communist Party offices to protest about land disputes in Wukan village in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong Friday.

    By Reuters

    WUKAN, China -- One of China's most celebrated experiments in grassroots democracy showed signs of faltering on Friday, as frustrations with elected officials in the southern fishing village of Wukan triggered a small and angry protest.

    On the first anniversary of an uprising that gave birth to the experiment, more than 100 villagers rallied outside Wukan's Communist Party offices to express anger at what they saw as slow progress by the village's democratically elected governing committee to resolve local land disputes.

    "We still haven't got our land back," shouted Liu Hancai, a retired 62-year-old party member, one of many villagers fighting to win back land that was seized by Wukan's previous administration and illegally sold for development.

    PhotoBlog: Chinese villagers defy government in standoff over land rights

    The small crowd, many on motorbikes, was kept under tight surveillance by plain-clothed officials fearful of any broader unrest breaking out. Police cars were patrolling the streets.

    "There would be more people here, but many people are afraid of trouble and won't come out," Liu told Reuters.

    A year ago, Wukan became a beacon of rights activism after the land seizures sparked unrest and led to the sacking of local party officials. That in turn led to village-wide elections for a more representative committee to help resolve the rows.

    The Chinese village of Wukan in China's southern Guangdong Province had enough of local government corruption and threw out local party officials earlier this year. Now they are in a tense standoff with security forces who have formed a cordon around the town, cutting it off from the outside world.

    Growing pains?
    Friday's demonstration was far less heated than the protests that earned Wukan headlines around the world last year. But the small rally reveals how early optimism has soured for some.

    Nevertheless, Wukan's elderly village chief and former protest leader, Lin Zuluan, who was voted into office on a landslide, stressed these grievances were natural teething problems with any fledgling democracy.

    Democracy declined worldwide in 2011, watchdog says

    He stressed his administration had made concrete strides including wresting back 625 acres and implementing clean, legal and open administrative practices including full disclosure of village finances and open tenders for projects.

    "At this starting point for Wukan there will definitely exist some problems but it doesn't mean there hasn't been democracy or that we have made major mistakes," he said.


    In March, expectations were high in this village, built near a sheltered harbor fringed by mountains, after Lin and his fellow elected leaders pledged to swiftly resolve the land issue.

    Villagers defiant as government creates new narrative

    Lin said complex land contracts and bureaucratic red-tape were hindering their work, with nearly 700 disputed hectares still unaccounted for.

    Some critics say the village committee, which includes several young leaders of last year's protests, lacked administrative experience, failed to engage the public and allowed itself to be out-maneuvered by higher party authorities.

    Shady deals
    "They were people's heroes," said Chen Jinchao, a villager still trying to get back about 1.6 acres of farmland.

    "But now we see them differently. We don't have any new hope. What's the point of electing them if they can't solve the (land) problem?" he added.

    Some say recent discord has been partly sown by allies of the former disgraced village leader, Xue Chang, while higher officials in the Shanwei county seat of government remain tangled in shady deals involving hundreds of acres of Wukan land in a new economic development zone.

    "If Shanwei's corrupt officials aren't cleaned out completely, it is very difficult for us to move forward," said Zhang Jiancheng, one of the young activists elected onto the village committee.

    "Of every 100 things, we may do 50 of them. But people only complain about the 50 things we don't do ... The village committee has been trying to get the land back piece by piece. It's been a very painful process but we must follow legal procedures."

    Journalist beatings erase Wukan optimism

    With China about to choose new leaders, any further unrest at Wukan could impact Guangdong province's high-flying leader, Wang Yang, hailed as a reformer by some for defusing the Wukan standoff by acceding to key village demands and averting a potentially bloody crackdown.

    Read more news from China on NBC's Behind The Wall

    Some villagers have spoken of marching again and putting real pressure on county and provincial authorities.

    "In the end, if they really force us to the very limits, it will be like a volcano exploding," said a senior villager who asked not to be named. "You can't control it."

    More world stories from NBC News:

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  • China censorship: Shares fall 64.89 points on June 4, 1989 protest anniversary

    Bobby Yip / Reuters

    People take part in a candlelight vigil at Hong Kong's Victoria Park on Monday to commemorate those who died during the military crackdown of the pro-democracy movement at Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – Government controls many aspects of life in China, but for today at least the invisible hand of market forces proved too strong even for the country’s ruling Communist Party.

    In an apparent coincidence, Shanghai’s local stock market, the Shanghai Composite Index, opened trading this morning at 2346.98 points. Read backwards, it looks like the date, June 4, 1989 – this day 23 years ago when the Communists brutally cracked down on pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in the capital.

    Even more bizarre? By the end of trading in the afternoon, the market had lost 64.89 points.

    PhotoBlog: Thousands remember Tiananmen Square crackdown

    The significance of the numbers might have passed without comment had authorities not tried to censor discussion of the anniversary by preventing users on Weibo - China’s equivalent of Twitter – from posting terms such as “six four,” “candle” and “never forget.” With users abuzz over the Shanghai Composite Index numbers, censors had to widen the list of banned terms to include the Chinese word for ‘Index’.

    Hundreds of students and other civilians are estimated to have been killed in 1989 as People’s Liberation Army soldiers entered the capital to clear the streets of protesters. The topic of the crackdown is taboo in this country and little discussed aside from sanitized official accounts in textbooks that call the event a “political disturbance.”  

    Security around Tiananmen Square is typically boosted before the anniversary and censors work to keep discussion to a minimum. 

    June 4, 1989: NBC News reports as Chinese soldiers crush demonstrations.

    State Department deputy spokesman, Mark Toner, issued a statement on Sunday urging the Chinese government to "release all those still serving sentences for their participation in the demonstrations; to provide a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing; and to end the continued harassment of demonstration participants and their families."

    In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, called U.S. statements on the June 4th incident a “crude meddling in domestic Chinese affairs.”

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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  • Rebellious Chinese village takes baby steps toward democracy

    Bobby Yip / Reuters

    A villager shows off his ballot before dropping it into the ballot box beside an election worker at a polling station at a school in Wukan village in Guangdong province on Feb. 1.

    By Bo Gu, NBC News

    BEIJING – Wukan, a village in Guangdong province in southern China, is making headlines again – this time for taking the first steps toward open and transparent elections, which 7,688 villagers participated in on Wednesday.

    Wukan was in the spotlight late last year for a high-profile protest by villagers against local officials believed to be illegally selling public land to developers. 

    The 11-day rebellion was defused peacefully in late December after senior Communist Party officials reached an agreement with Wukan’s protest leaders – promising free elections and an investigation into the murky real-estate deals. They also promised to investigate the death of a protester who had died in police custody.

    In another surprise, the local Communist Party appointed Lin Zuluan, one of the well-respected leaders of the defiant revolt, as the village party secretary. So Lin served as the chief in command for the first balloting that took place in the Wukan Elementary School Wednesday.

    Villagers gathered in a festive scene to cast votes, for many the first time ever, to select an independent election committee to oversee upcoming ballots.  

    Initial steps
    Dozens of aluminum ballot boxes were placed around classrooms at the elementary school and students were mobilized to help count the ballots before they were distributed. Teachers helped elderly villagers who could not read or write.  A media counter was set up outside the school, and journalists were allowed in after registration.

    “My biggest impression here at Wukan is that the atmosphere here is very different from any other Chinese villages,” one Chinese reporter at the scene wrote on Sina Weibo, the Chinese microblog. “The people here are very used to foreign journalists walking around filming. The village committee is open to everyone. Every family invites you to go to their house to stay, to eat or to drink tea. Brave and lucky Wukan villagers made their home different than any other Chinese villages with the same problems.”

    Str / AFP - Getty Images

    Residents register before casting their votes during the first-ever open democratic elections for the village committee in Wukan, in China's Guangdong province, on Feb. 1.

    The election lasted nine hours (with a two-hour break). It began at 9 a.m. with the national anthem playing and fireworks being set off – a Chinese tradition during the new lunar year.

    The final results came at 11 p.m.: Out of the 50 candidates, 11 (including one woman) were elected to be on the election committee.

    The new members will be responsible for organizing an upcoming election for the Wukan Village Committee. They will devise a plan for the election process; mobilize and familiarize the villagers with the new plan; scrutinize and publish the candidate list; and, most importantly, organize the villagers to vote. The election is due to start in early March.

    Not a new idea
    Village-level elections are not a new concept to Chinese people, but seldom are they transparent or democratic. The Communist Party still maintains single-party authority across the government – from Beijing to the smallest village – and has absolute control.

    There have been experiments with grassroots elections since the 1980s – the outcome is usually just pre-determined from above. Representatives are often appointed by higher-level government officials and the process is usually murky or manipulated.

    In Wukan, the former village head had been in power for 40 years without ever being properly elected. He was accused of misappropriating public land and embezzling compensation money that belonged to villagers.

    So many are hopeful Wukan’s experiment will spread.

    “Wukan is a start of China’s local political reform! I hope to see a real self-rule in the countryside,” wrote a Weibo user going by the name “Orient leaping towards wealth."

    Str / AFP - Getty Images

    A Chinese man fills out his voting form as residents cast their votes during the first-ever open democratic elections for the village committee in Wukan, China on Feb. 1.

    The user added, “Villagers that have both traditional legal culture and modern citizen spirit, they are the hope of China’s democracy.”
    ‘An experiment in democracy’
    But others are not so sure about declaring a democratic victory in Wukan.

    Chang Ping, a veteran journalist based in Hong Kong who has been closely following events in Wukan, is not so optimistic about its future.

    “Their path is not going to be very smooth. The Guangdong government was smart about not cracking down with violence like other local governments, but that doesn’t mean they agree with complete self-rule. They will try to absorb Wukan into their old system, which they can still control. If that happens, the election will be the same election happening everywhere else,” Chang told NBC News in a phone interview. “Wukan’s protest has no end. Democracy doesn’t arrive just because you had three months of protest.”

    However, Chang agreed that the event is revolutionary – if only as an exercise in how elections are supposed to work.

    “Most of the elections we see are usually manipulated or the villagers don’t really know what their vote means. But Wukan villagers have their own understanding of voting, after their protest to finally obtain this right,” said Chang.  “It is an experiment in democracy, and it will affect other places in China.”

    Related stories on Wukan:

    Photo Blog: Chinese village takes halting democratic step

    Rebellious Chinese village under siege by police

    Villagers defiant as government creates new narrative

    A contagion of conflict in China?

  • "Film them all, film them all, so many, so many!"

    By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

    "Burma VJ" writer/director Anders Østergaard takes questions from the audience.

    It seemed somehow fitting that news that Myanmar’s opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prizewinner, Aung San Suu Kyi, had been freed from 15 years of house arrest came to us during a screening of “Burma VJ” at Nordox 2010, the annual Nordic Documentary Film Festival in Beijing.

    The movie is a moving and powerful account of a team of Burmese “video journalists” covering the startling and tragic events of September 2007.

    Armed with tiny video cameras, these VJs documented the rise and fall of days-long protests in Yangon led by monks railing against the military junta and demanding Suu Kyi’s release. Running the highest risks, the journalists filmed everything commando-style (secretly, but sometimes openly) and smuggled the footage out by Internet and couriers so that it could be re-broadcast back into Myanmar.

    Watching “Burma VJ” sometimes brought a chill down one’s spine. After the initial – and moving – images of hundreds of saffron-robed monks walking quietly through the city streets with their alms bowls turned upside down in a defiant gesture of protest (a man turns to the camera and shouts, “Film them all, film them all, so many, so many,” is he a supporter or a spy?), the footage then documents the violent conclusion: military troops moving in to contain the demonstrations.

    It was hard not to be reminded of similar-looking pictures from 1989, when hundreds of thousands of students and workers had descended on Tiananmen Square. And then again when thousands of People’s Liberation Army troops were trucked in to end the protests decisively and brutally on the night of June 3.

    The parallel was not lost on the audience, an even mix of Chinese and westerners. Following the documentary, its director and writer, Anders Østergaard, fielded a number of insistent questions from curious Chinese who wanted to know whether he thought democracy was possible in China; what he thought of the imprisonment of that other Nobel laureate, Liu Xiaobo; whether he believed there was a global trend towards democracy; or what kind of country the Burmese VJs wanted if they were “not satisfied with the military government.”

    Perhaps the most telling question, however, was one that recognized nothing has changed in Myanmar despite the documentary’s compelling message and international distribution, buoyed by a clutch of awards and an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary this past year. The military junta still has a firm grip on power. The VJs are no longer active, having been arrested or driven into exile. And, until tonight, Suu Kyi was still under house arrest.

    As the film’s narrator, Joshua (the VJs’ team leader), put it before the protests began, “I feel like the world has forgotten us.”