China’s top leaders marked National Day yesterday with an appearance on Tiananmen Square in central Beijing after Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) pledged greater “democracy” and rights for the people.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Wen and top Communist Party leaders descended on the vast square and bowed before the monument to revolutionary martyrs, as they marked the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
In a speech on Friday night, Wen pledged to address China’s biggest social issues, including rising inflation, a yawning income gap, unemployment, food safety, corruption, environmental destruction and social injustice.
“We will make great efforts to guarantee and perfect democracy and resolve the problems that most concern the people and that most directly involve their interests,” Wen said in the speech posted yesterday on government Web sites.
“We will make great efforts to advance the opening and reform and continue to push forward economic, political, cultural and social system reform. We will make great efforts to safeguard social justice, and ensure the people’s democratic rights and judicial fairness,” he said.
However, by “democracy” China’s communist leaders do not mean multi-party competition for power at the ballot box, generally referring instead to discussions within the ruling elite.
During his speech, Wen insisted that the nation would adhere to “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” code for the one-party dictatorship’s refusal to countenance the separation of powers seen in governments around the world.
However, “we must ... dare to study and draw lessons from the outstanding achievements produced by every nation of the world and make contributions to the advance of human civilization,” Wen said.
In recent years, China has witnessed an unprecedented number of street protests often aimed at government graft and the widening wealth gap.
In response, Wen has repeatedly pledged to advance democracy and human rights, even as his government has cracked down on any sign of unrest since jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
The crackdown intensified in February, with leading activists and rights lawyers disappearing into police custody without being charged amid anonymous Internet calls for Arab-style protests in China.
Wen’s remarks also come as the nation’s parliament deliberates amendments to the criminal code that would allow police to secretly detain suspects for up to six months without charges and without notifying their families.
Activists and rights group have loudly decried the amendments as a blatant violation of human rights.
China’s crackdown on dissent is likely to continue until at least next year when a key party congress announces a new leadership, followed by the retirement of Hu and Wen in early 2013, said Willy Lam (林和立), a China expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“Wen Jiabao remains a kind of minority in the leadership as far as political reform ... he is a voice in the wilderness,” Lam said. “Wen is determined to persevere until his term is up, but there is no possibility that the collective leadership will make a decision to revive or continue political reform ... in terms of facts there has been a retrogression on political reform.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not