China :: Exposé

Chen Guangcheng (The Epoch Times) Blind Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng and his wife Yuan Weijing were brutally beaten for four straight hours by the local mayor and other officials in July of this year, in the presence of their terrified young daughter, Chen Kesi. The disturbing information was related to The Epoch Times on Oct. 27 by He Peirong, a resident of Nangjing, after reports earlier this month that Chen may be dead, and amidst growing calls for support and investigation. Ms. He has been a friend and supporter of Chens and twice visited him at his home in Dongshigu Village, Linyi County of Shandong Province where he has been under house arrest since being released from prison on Sept. 9, 2010. Chen and his wife and child have lived in near total isolation during the past 14 months. To stop Chen from contacting the outside world, local authorities place around-the-clock guards and installed electronic shielding devices around his house. But on the evening July 25...

A new U.S. Army publication (pdf) invites American soldiers to ponder the role of cultural factors in shaping perception and action. Analyze this statement: The English drive on the wrong side of the road. In some Islamic countries women wear burkas. Who is advantaged and who is disadvantaged by this? Why do you think major religious traditions tend to have a plain version and a more mystical version? What do television commercials tell us about American culture? This is not a purely theoretical exercise, but is intended to support the Armys counterinsurgency role in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Soldiers must understand how vital culture is in accomplishing todays missions, the new publication says. Military personnel who have a superficial or even distorted picture of a host culture make enemies for the United States. Each Soldier must be a culturally literate ambassador, aware and observant of local cultural beliefs, values, behaviors and norms. See Culture Cards: Afghanistan & I...

The oil and gas production facility in Uushin Banner, Inner Mongolia. (Photo from SMCOCA) The death of a herdsman known for protecting his pasture and livestock from damage by oil transport convoys has sparked a series of protests, according to a blog reporting on Inner Mongolia. According to the Central News Agency's report dated Oct. 24, a herdsman named Mr. Zorigt of Uushin Banner, Inner Mongolia, was killed by a collision with an oil transport truck on Oct. 20. According to Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese authorities in Uushin Banner in the Ordos Municipality, in Southern (Inner) Mongolia, said that Zorigt sped after the truck on his motorcycle, trying to overtake it. But, colliding with the right side of the truck, Zorigt was badly injured and later died in the hospital. The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center, headquartered in the United States, claimed Zorigt was trying to protect the grasslands when he was killed. The Germany-based Inner Mongolian...

For two weeks in October 1969, the Nixon Administration secretly placed U.S. nuclear forces on alert. At the time, the move was considered so sensitive that not even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was briefed on its purpose. Still today, no conclusive explanation for the potentially destabilizing alert can be found. Even with full access to the classified record, State Department historians said in a new volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series that they were unable to provide a definitive account of the event. Previous historical scholarship has inferred from selected declassified documents that the alert was somehow intended to communicate a firm resolve to end the Vietnam War by whatever means necessary. (See Nixons Nuclear Ploy by William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball, National Security Archive, December 23, 2002; and The Madman Nuclear Alert by Scott D. Sagan and Jeremi Suri, International Security, Spring 2003.) But based on the classified recor...

Democratic activists in Guizhou celebrate Chen Xi's release on May 26, 2005. Chen is shown on the front row, third from the left. (Photo provided by Mr. Huang Yanming) A political candidate who is independent from the ruling Chinese Communist Party was seized by police in Guizhou Province on Oct. 19. Chen Xi, a writer known for having participated in 1989s Tiananmen Square student movement, was attempting to run as an independent candidate in the upcoming National Peoples Congress election and it was because of this, says his wife, that he has been detained and their home raided. Chen went to his local board of elections in the early afternoon of Oct. 19 to view the list of eligible candidates. There, he transferred the election information to his flash drive and returned home. But two staff members from the Board and a police officer came to his home a few hours later and claimed that Chen had copied protected information. He was told to leave with them. Ms. Zhang, his wife, desc...

During fiscal year 2011, there were 143 new secrecy orders imposed on patent applications under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reported this week. This represents an increase of 66% over the year before, and it is the highest number of new secrecy orders in a single year since 1998. The Invention Secrecy Act authorizes the government to block the disclosure of a patent application if it contains information that might be detrimental to the national security. Remarkably, this secrecy authority extends even to privately-generated inventions that the government does not own or control. According to USPTO statistics obtained by the Federation of American Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act, a total of 5,241 patent secrecy orders were in effect at the end of FY 2011, including both new secrecy orders and those from previous years that had been renewed. This is the highest annual total since 1995. An explanation for the increase in secr...

Jia Jia and his son Jia Kuo, a photo taken before Jia Jia left for China in 2009. (Photo provided by Jia Kuo) Jia Jia, a prominent democracy activist in China, is serving a jail term in Jinzhong prison in northwest Chinas Shanxi Province for his pro-democracy activities. Jia Jia was the General Secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Association of Scientists and Technology Experts. He fled to Taiwan with a tour group on Oct. 22, 2006. He went to Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia before getting to New Zealand, where he was granted permanent resident status. On Jan. 1, 2008, Jia Jia was elected to be the first Vice President of China Interim Government. Three years later, Jia Jia went back to China and was arrested at the airport in Beijing. Jia Jias family members did not hear anything about him until this May when Jia Kuo, his son, learned that his father was sentenced to eight years in prison on charge of inciting subversion of the state. Jia Kuo, who lives in New Zealand, told The Epoc...

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) hired 600 to 700 new employees each year between 2005 and 2008, newly released budget documents indicate. Still, the coming wave of retirement presents significant risks that the program will lose valuable institutional knowledge and critical skills and capability. These observations were presented in NGAs annual budget justification materials for fiscal years 2009 , 2010 and 2011 (pdf). Unclassified excerpts of the budget documents were released by NGA last week in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from the Federation of American Scientists. NGA is an intelligence agency that provides all manner of imagery, mapping and other geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) products for national security as well as other applications. It is funded through the National Intelligence Program (NIP) and also through the Military Intelligence Program (MIP). NGA products support mission planning, mapping, environmental monitoring, urban plan...

(Epoch Times) Editor's note: The Epoch Times here publishes direct translations of statements made by Chinese people in renouncing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its subordinate organizations. Statements such as these are submitted to a website affiliate of the Chinese version of The Epoch Times, Dajiyuan. The movement to renounce, withdraw from, or quit the CCP , called Tuidang in Chinese, began in late 2004, soon after The Epoch Times published the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, an editorial series that explores the nature and history of the CCP. The statements offer a rare and candid glimpse of history in the making: the Chinese people turning their backs on the Communist Party, choosing conscience over pragmatism, and peacefully ushering in a future China free of Party rule. Statement to Quit the CCP and Its Affiliates For half a century, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has created calamities for mankind, especially the Chinese race. It promotes deceptio...

Caption: Entrance to the Chengdu City Legal Education Center; there is no identifying sign, and the gate is often locked. (Minghui.org) A Sichuan woman in her fifties was forcibly admitted by Chinese authorities to a so-called Legal Education Center for brainwashing. Ten days later, she was dead, her body black and blue from beatings. Ms. Wang Mingrong, a head nurse at Chengdu Rehabilitation Hospital, who practiced Falun Gong , was abducted on Sept. 7 by personnel from the notorious 610 Office, which is in charge of eradicating Falun Gong in China, and by officers from the local police and street neighborhood committee, a sort of spy agency that keeps track of what everyone in the neighborhood is doing. Wang was taken to the Chengdu City Legal Education Center (LEC), a facility, which is used for detaining and brainwashing Falun Gong practitioners. A person familiar with Wangs case, who asked to remain anonymous, said Wang went on a hunger strike to protest the unla...

A court ruling that interpreted the term national defense information expansively to include unclassified, non-governmental information could open the door to a new series of anti-leak prosecutions under the Espionage Act, warned a petition that was filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week. There is no statute that outlaws the mishandling of classified information generally. That term is not used in the Espionage Act (18 USC 793 ), which instead prohibits the unauthorized disclosure and transmission of information relating to the national defense. To fall within the scope of the Espionage Act, information must pertain to the national defense and, previous court rulings have explained, it must also have been closely held by the United States government. In practice, this limitation has almost always meant that only classified U.S. government information can be subject to the Espionage Act. But in the case of Dongfan Greg Chung, who was convicted on charges of economic espio...

Activists from the southern Chinese province of Guizhou deliver an elegant vase to the headquarters of China's so-called "eight participating parties" on Oct. 8. (Courtesy of Members of China Democracy Party at Guizhou) In a gesture inspired by the dissident artist Ai Weiwei, six activists in Guiyang City of the southern Chinese province of Guizhou delivered an elegant rattan vase to the headquarters of what are officially referred to as the eight participating parties" in China on Oct. 8. Attached to the vase was a statement telling these parties their time on historys stage was over. Chen Xi, one of the participants, told Voice of America: In China, people generally believe these eight democratic parties serve as a vase to the Communist Party. The eight participating parties are democratic parties in name only that follow the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They have no independent function and in effect only serve to show off the CCP, or...

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng with his family prior to his serving a four year prison sentence. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) A group of Internet activists trying to visit blind human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng has been detained by security forces, according to dissidents contacted by The Epoch Times. Chen has for months been confined to his home by thug-like enforcers, who have from time to time carried out violent raids and beatings. His case has received international attention from human rights groups. The activists called their pilgrimage the October 5 Visit to Chen Guangcheng, but by the afternoon of Oct. 5 none of them were contactable by telephone, and the last messages they left were desperate cries for help. Chen, who became famous when he was interviewed by Time magazine in 2005 about his investigation into regime-organized forced abortions, lives in Linyi, Shandong Province. Finding his work a nuisance, in August 2006 communist authorities convict...

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng with his family prior to his serving a four year prison sentence. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) A group of Internet activists trying to visit blind human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng has been detained by security forces, according to dissidents contacted by The Epoch Times. Chen has for months been confined to his home by thug-like enforcers, who have from time to time carried out violent raids and beatings. His case has received international attention from human rights groups. The activists called their pilgrimage the October 5 Visit to Chen Guangcheng, but by the afternoon of Oct. 5 none of them were contactable by telephone, and the last messages they left were desperate cries for help. Chen, who became famous when he was interviewed by Time magazine in 2005 about his investigation into regime-organized forced abortions, lives in Linyi, Shandong Province. Finding his work a nuisance, in August 2006 communist authorities convict...

Reporting on intelligence can be a challenge even for an experienced national security reporter, observed Dana Priest in her book Top Secret America (co-authored with William Arkin). Having traveled the world with the military, I just didnt understand why I was failing to progress with [reporting on] the CIA, she wrote (p. 19). Maybe I wasnt using the right terminology or phrases, or hadnt found the right people to ask. But the obvious answer was made clear to me one day when [CIA spokesman William] Harlow finally got tired of the badgering and let me have it, explaining in a very loud voice why, for the umpteenth time, he had no comment to my questions. This is a goddamn secret organization! Thats why! The notion that its secret because its secret actually goes a long way towards explaining the often reflexive and indiscriminate practice of national security classification. It therefore stands to reason, says a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice, that if classifiers were...

A 17-year-old Tibetan monk from the western Chinese province of Sichuan immolated himself on Monday, making it the fifth case of its kind in China this year. Kalsang Wangchuk, a monk from Ngaba County's Kirti Monastery, set himself on fire near a vegetable market in Ngaba Town while holding a photograph of the Dalai Lama and shouting, There are no religious rights and freedom in Tibet. While full details of the incident have yet to emerge, Free Tibet, a London-based NGO campaigning for Tibetan rights, and the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet reported that according to some exiled sources, the police extinguished the fire, beat Kelsang Wangchuk, and took him away. After the arrest, the whole town was put under police and military control to prevent anyone from entering or exiting. Two young monks from the same monastery, Lobsang Kalsang and Lobsang Konchok, set themselves on fire a week ago , on Sept. 26. The well being and whereabouts of the three monk...

Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling , who is accused of leaking classified information to reporter James Risen, should not be permitted to argue at trial later this month that he was unfairly singled out for prosecution, government attorneys urged in an October 4 motion . The Court should bar the defendant [Sterling] from presenting any evidence, argument or comments of selective prosecution or that everybody leaks classified information, the prosecution motion said. Further, the motion said, Sterling should not be allowed to introduce evidence that everyone at the CIA or on Capitol Hill leaks information or evidence regarding specific examples of the leaking of classified information, whether prosecuted or not. If such evidence were to be introduced at trial, prosecutors said , then Fights over the classification levels of the information, the potential damage caused to the United States, and a host of other issues would consume and overwhelm the real issues in this case. Among sever...

Hundreds of Tibetans in Seda County of Sichuan Provinces Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture demonstrated against Beijing's oppressive policies toward Tibet on China's National Day on Oct. 1, raising the Tibetan national flag which was quickly and forcibly taken down by police. More than 200 monks and civilians participated, Voice of America reported. The demonstration was stifled by authorities and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, as police have stepped up patrolling efforts during China's National Day and other celebrations.. National Day on Oct. 1, the anniversary of the founding of Communist China in 1949, is a touchy date for Tibetans, some of whom protested for independence and raised the Tibetan flag at Jinshan Square in the heart of the region. No one was injured during the protest. Police took down a flying Tibetan flag and a Dalai Lama portrait, rankling protesters and heightening tensions in the region. Ever since large-scale demonstrations against the Co...

The Department of Defense this year cancelled 82 security classification guides as a result of the ongoing Fundamental Classification Guidance Review , a focused effort to combat overclassification of national security information. The cancelled guides can no longer be used to authorize classification of DoD information. The Fundamental Classification Guidance Review, which must be performed by all classifying agencies under President Obamas executive order 13526 (sect. 1.9), is intended to ensure that classification guidance reflects current circumstances, and is supposed to eliminate obsolete or unnecessary classification requirements. Remarkably, it seems to be having a measurable effect. The cancellation of the 82 DoD classification guides, which are compilations of detailed instructions used for classifying information on various topics, will not make a huge dent in Pentagon secrecy. The defunct guides amount to only a little more than 4% of the total number of DoD classification...

An elderly Chinese-Australian man from Melbourne, who gave his name as Jack, talked with The Epoch Times about his decision to quit the Young Pioneers, an affiliated youth organization of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is necessary to quit the CCP . It reveals our position towards it, and how we perceive it. Now over 100 million people have quit the CCP and the affiliated communist Youth League and the Young Pioneers. It is a great thing, a great trend! Quitting these organizations has removed the mark of the beast from my body, and lifted my spirit, Jack said. Jack was born shortly before the CCP took over power in 1949. His family was in one of the groups that were marked and discriminated against by the regime, and this gave him firsthand experience of the CCPs nature. But it was only after he read the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, an editorial published in 2004 by The Epoch Times, that he gained a thorough understanding of the CCP and decided to quit the Young P...

Chinese netizens are trying to recruit U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke, to visit one of Chinas most oppressed rights defenders, blind activist Chen Guangcheng, who is kept under strict house arrest by authorities. Netizens think the Oct. 1 National Day holiday would be a good time for such a visit. Lockes frugal style, approachability, and kind manners have won Chinese peoples admiration. They see in him an exemplary and trustworthy public servant who lives like an everyday person and cares about ordinary people. Mr. Chens plight is well known to the world. He has been under house arrest, along with his wife and young daughter, in their Linyi, Shandong Province home, for over a year. Chen and his wife have been severely beaten several times by security forces stationed outside the house. Theyve also had most all of their belongings taken, including their childs toys. Chen is bared from making any contact with the outside world. Past attempts by several groups of caring citizens to...