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Dunhuang, an oasis deep in the Gobi Desert along the famed Silk Road, has become a center for China’s drive to lead the world in wind and solar energy. — NY Times

Dunhuang, an oasis deep in the Gobi Desert along the famed Silk Road, has become a center for China’s drive to lead the world in wind and solar energy. — NY Times

In Korea, a mime dressed as a Chinese soldier commemorates Tienanmen Square — BBC

In Korea, a mime dressed as a Chinese soldier commemorates Tienanmen Square — BBC

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These were peasants and workers who made a living pedaling bicycle rickshaws, carrying passengers or freight around Beijing. It was those rickshaw drivers who slowly pedaled out toward the troops to collect the bodies of the dead and injured. Then they raced back to us, legs straining furiously, rushing toward the nearest hospital.

One stocky rickshaw driver had tears streaming down his cheeks as he drove past me to display a badly wounded student so that I could photograph or recount the incident. That driver perhaps couldn’t have defined democracy, but he had risked his life to try to advance it.

Nicholas Kristoff
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Local government officials in China have been ordered to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packs of cigarettes in a move to boost the local economy during the global financial crisis.
Telegraph
A former Chinese soldier who published a letter on the Internet calling for a reassessment of the Tiananmen crackdown of June 4, 1989 has been detained by police, a rights group said on Friday. Zhang Shijun’s letter issued earlier this month urged Chinese president Hu Jintao to “use his wisdom” to officially reassess the “June Fourth tragedy, the event in China’s recent history that causes bitter weeping and choking back tears.” He was taken away by police from his home in Tengzhou, Shandong province, around 2 a.m. on Friday, the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch group said. — Reuters

A former Chinese soldier who published a letter on the Internet calling for a reassessment of the Tiananmen crackdown of June 4, 1989 has been detained by police, a rights group said on Friday.

Zhang Shijun’s letter issued earlier this month urged Chinese president Hu Jintao to “use his wisdom” to officially reassess the “June Fourth tragedy, the event in China’s recent history that causes bitter weeping and choking back tears.”

He was taken away by police from his home in Tengzhou, Shandong province, around 2 a.m. on Friday, the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch group said. — Reuters

China’s Big Recycling Market Is Sagging Since Mr. Tian migrated from Sichuan province, the multibillion-dollar recycling industry has gone into a nosedive because of the global economic crisis and a concomitant fall in commodity prices. Bottles now sell for half of what they did in the summer. “Even trash has become worthless,” Mr. Tian said recently as he made his way to a collection center, his sacks nearly bursting. — NY Times

China’s Big Recycling Market Is Sagging

Since Mr. Tian migrated from Sichuan province, the multibillion-dollar recycling industry has gone into a nosedive because of the global economic crisis and a concomitant fall in commodity prices. Bottles now sell for half of what they did in the summer.

“Even trash has become worthless,” Mr. Tian said recently as he made his way to a collection center, his sacks nearly bursting. — NY Times

Tibetans Greet New Year in Opposition Snow fell across this mountain valley as red-robed monks in a prayer hall beat drums and chanted in tantric harmony, a seemingly auspicious start to Losar, the Tibetan New Year. But a monk watching the ritual on Wednesday morning made it clear: This was a ceremony of mourning, not celebration. “There is no Losar,” he said, standing in this monastery town on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. “They killed so many people last year.” A few weeks ahead of the 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, and a year after a crackdown on renewed ethnic unrest in this area, Tibetans are quietly but irrepressibly seething. Monks, nomads and merchants have turned the joyous Losar holiday into a dirge, memorializing Tibetans who died in last year’s conflict and pining for the return of the exiled Dalai Lama. — NY Times

Tibetans Greet New Year in Opposition

Snow fell across this mountain valley as red-robed monks in a prayer hall beat drums and chanted in tantric harmony, a seemingly auspicious start to Losar, the Tibetan New Year.

But a monk watching the ritual on Wednesday morning made it clear: This was a ceremony of mourning, not celebration.

“There is no Losar,” he said, standing in this monastery town on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. “They killed so many people last year.”

A few weeks ahead of the 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, and a year after a crackdown on renewed ethnic unrest in this area, Tibetans are quietly but irrepressibly seething. Monks, nomads and merchants have turned the joyous Losar holiday into a dirge, memorializing Tibetans who died in last year’s conflict and pining for the return of the exiled Dalai Lama. — NY Times

China Fears Tremors as Jobs Vanish From Coast As the global economic crisis deepens and the demand for Chinese exports slackens, manufacturing jobs in the Pearl River Delta and all along the once-booming coast are disappearing at a stunning pace. Over the last few months, more than 20 million migrant workers have been cast into the ranks of the unemployed, depriving impoverished towns like Tanjia of the much-needed income the workers sent home… …In a nation obsessed with social harmony, the well-being of China’s mobile work force has become the top priority for a government that has long seen its fortunes tied to those of the country’s 800 million rural dwellers. Mao’s revolution, after all, was fueled by embittered peasants, and it has not gone unnoticed in Beijing that decades of heady growth has fed a widening gap between urban residents and those who live in the rural interior. — NY Times

China Fears Tremors as Jobs Vanish From Coast

As the global economic crisis deepens and the demand for Chinese exports slackens, manufacturing jobs in the Pearl River Delta and all along the once-booming coast are disappearing at a stunning pace. Over the last few months, more than 20 million migrant workers have been cast into the ranks of the unemployed, depriving impoverished towns like Tanjia of the much-needed income the workers sent home…

…In a nation obsessed with social harmony, the well-being of China’s mobile work force has become the top priority for a government that has long seen its fortunes tied to those of the country’s 800 million rural dwellers. Mao’s revolution, after all, was fueled by embittered peasants, and it has not gone unnoticed in Beijing that decades of heady growth has fed a widening gap between urban residents and those who live in the rural interior. — NY Times

Chinese Give Year of the Ox a Noisy Welcome — Reuters

Chinese Give Year of the Ox a Noisy Welcome — Reuters

China’s government has accused the country’s leading internet search engines and web portals, including Google, of threatening public morals by carrying pornographic and vulgar content.While Beijing regularly launches web censorship campaigns, the new crackdown is the first in which the government has targeted heavyweight companies such as Google and Baidu, the local rival that leads the Chinese search market. During the last campaign about a year ago, the authorities listed only small and little-known websites as responsible for spreading unhealthy content. (Via Financial Times)

China’s government has accused the country’s leading internet search engines and web portals, including Google, of threatening public morals by carrying pornographic and vulgar content.While Beijing regularly launches web censorship campaigns, the new crackdown is the first in which the government has targeted heavyweight companies such as Google and Baidu, the local rival that leads the Chinese search market. During the last campaign about a year ago, the authorities listed only small and little-known websites as responsible for spreading unhealthy content. (Via Financial Times)