Chinese military expenditure is going to grow nearly 18 percent in 2007, announcement that comes, as ever mixed with menaces to Taiwan. This continues the trend maintained lately by Chinese leaders, and is not very well related to the PM's statement about focusing on pollution and poor:
He warned that illegal land confiscation had to be stopped. He praised the real estate industry as an essential part of the national economy, but he called on developers, who have built expensive projects all over China, to also focus on building affordable housing and not to threaten "primary farmland."
In the past, Wen has used his speeches before the National People's Congress to announce plans to repeal the agricultural tax on farmers and to extend free schooling to students in the poorest regions. This year, he said the government would stop collecting tuition and fees from all rural students. He said the government also would expand pilot projects to build a rural cooperative health care system and would begin establishing the equivalent of a welfare program for the poorest people.
Corruption, meanwhile, has become a dominant concern in recent months, as President Hu Jintao has ordered a nationwide crackdown that many political analysts consider as much about purging political enemies as cleaning up the government.
It is not either very proportionate to the actual Chinese economical growth, which reached 10.7, judged essential by experts who think it is the main cause of the survival of the Communist rule.
But Chinese rulers are much more surprised than by their economical record, by the religious surge that the country lives today. Anyway, religious people do not have it easy to live their faith.
ICC (International Christian Concern) has reported about the case of Ms Shuang Shuing, an elderly Christian woman (77 yrs old) who has been sentenced to 2 years imprisonment for asking for her son, Hua Huiqui, a detained and very active pastor. She has been charged of willfully disturbing public and private property. Also UN in Thailand has denied refugee state to a persecuted Chinese pastor.
Related links: Christian persecution in China. Human Rights Watch World Report for 2006: China and Tibet. About Catholic persecution:
State interference in Catholic affairs was evident in January when the officially-sanctioned Chinese Catholic church, rather than the Pope, ordained five new bishops. As of October, at least seven Catholic bishops remained in detention in China, many of whom had been held for years. On September 14, sixty police officers took eighty-one-year-old Bishop Zeng Jingmu into custody, together with two priests.
You can also read Cardinal Kung Foundation index of persecuted Catholics.
Lastly, former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific), David Kilgour, and Human Rights lawyer David Matas, have issued a report about Falun Gong prisoneres who have been harvested for live organs, something which has been denounced repeatedly by Chinese dissidents and Human Rights Lawyers. Last evidence here.
UPDATE: Spanish on-line newspaper El Diario Exterior reports that the announcement of the increase in military budget has been made during the visit of US State Subsecretary John Negroponte to China, and after protesting about the US announced intention of selling missiles to Taiwan.
But China had already increased military expense by 15% (approx. US$ 36,600 millions) before Negroponte's visit. Now Chinese Government has only announced a greater increase (approx. US$45.000 millions). They have declared that it is only to substitute old military material and that their intentions are peaceful.
Also in The Washington Post (from Kosmoblog).
Chinese authorities have also announced an increase of 41% in the educational budget.
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El gasto militar chino va a ser aumentado este año en un 17,8%, casi el doble de lo que va a crecer la economía china (10,7%). A pesar de eso, el presidente chino ya ha dicho que está más interesado por la contaminación y por los pobres, al mismo tiempo que hacía un llamamiento a los especuladores inmobiliarios para que dejaran de apropiarse ilegalmente de tierras que no les pertenecen e hicieran más casas baratas.
La corrupción se ha convertido en uno de los quebraderos de cabeza del Gobierno chino, porque la especulación en prácticamente todos los sectores, pero principalmente en el inmobiliario, ha hecho que muchos den lo que aquí se conoce como pelotazo financiero. Los críticos del Presidente Hu Jintao creen que las purgas para reducir la corrupción, tienen como verdadero objetivo purgar a los disidentes que existan dentro del Partido Comunista.
Ahora bien, lo que más les sorprende a los dirigentes chinos es el florecimiento religioso que está teniendo lugar en el país. Pero, claro, su sorpresa no trae buenas consecuencias para los que osan no cumplir con la "ortodoxia religiosa china". Tanto budistas como cristianos o musulmanes están siendo perseguidos.
Como ya sabreis, los católicos en China están divididos en dos grupos: aquellos que no reconocen la soberanía de Roma y se integran en la Iglesia Católica Patriota China y los que siguen fieles a Roma. Estos últimos son los que se llevan la peor parte, llevando algunos obispos -que son investidos de forma totalmente privada- varios años en la cárcel. Algunos de ellos como el obispo Zeng Jingmu, que hoy tiene 81 años, han estado en prisión más de 30 años entre rejas por no apostatar. Zeng Jingmu fue detenido junto con otros dos sacerdotes el pasado septiembre.
Pero los que sin duda están siendo peor tratados y torturados de la peor manera posible son los seguidores del Falun Gong. El movimiento, pues no puede ser considerado religión, constituye una disciplina para mantener la salud en cuerpo y mente. Sin embargo, el Partido Comunista chino los ha venido persiguiendo y sometiendo a torturas de forma regular y son considerados como disidentes peligrosos. 3013 ya han sido asesinados y más de 100.000 enviados a campos de trabajo forzados.
Y ahora un informe independiente, encabezado por el ex-Secretario de Estado Canadiense para Asia-Pacífico, David Kilgour, y el abogado de Derechos Humanos, David Matas, ha confirmado lo que muchos activistas de Derechos Humanos ya habían denunciado: los prisioneros disidentes del Falun Gong estaban siendo literalmente cosechados para producir órganos humanos destinados a trasplantes, que en un gran porcentaje se hacen fuera de China.
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Related posts:
About Chinese military expenditure: Technology disputes and weapons sales, Beijing feeds the hype, Chinese new arsenal.
About the organs' market: The organs' market appears to be thriving in China.
About Human Rights' violations: They are firing at them like dogs, China, still on the podium of torture, Death Penalty buses in China, Chinese mother forced to have an abortion because she was not married, China: Internet cos must obey its laws, Tiananmen.
Others: Chinese prisoner's sons, Tibertans murdered and Chinese geopolitical importance.
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