Another mass incident involving tens of thousands in Hubei Province. And once again it was sparked by what would normally be a relatively minor dispute over an alleged suicide. The speed of the reaction (and numbers) by townspeople to the rumors that police/officials may have been involved in the death is testament to the extraordinary depth of resentment among ordinary Chinese against the authorities. (Thing about the online support, too, that cop killer Yang Jia received or outpouring of sympathy in the Deng Yujiao case). I have long felt that such "mass incidents" were local and containable. Not exactly full of noise and fury signifying nothing, but certainly not a harbinger of doom for the cadres in Beijing. But a string of incidents like Shishou (think Weng'an or the clashes in Longan Gansu etc etc) and many smaller episodes are forcing me to reconsider. If so many Chinese are on a such a hair trigger that they'll pour into the streets on the basis of rumors about the death of an unknown, things are reaching a pretty serious pass. Anyway, here's the youtube footage of the confrontation that has been going on since June 19. (Here's a good summary of the background at the invaluable Global Voices site):

To follow up on Simon's previous post on Beijing's recent bout of bad air, here's my story about real-time pollution monitoring. For an in-depth look on air quality in the Chinese capital, I recommend checking out the blog Live From Beijing. And finally, a new study suggests that the good air conditions during last year's Olympics owed more to the weather than pollution control measures.

We Beijingers have been spoiled in the last few months, with many gloriously clear and minimally polluted days. Today we got a rude reminder of how awful the city can still be. The air smells like a garbage fire and at four o'clock in the afternoon visibility dropped to a few hundred meters. I'd be willing to bet the API must be well into the hundreds. Yuck. I haven't posted a picture from my window for a while, mostly because the air quality had improved so much. Here's a shot from my new place that makes me think of London in the late 19th century. Pea soupers and all that.

Here's my latest story on time.com about a group of Chinese human rights lawyers who are at risk of losing their licenses for taking controversial cases.

This is from the Financial Times:

US firm warns PC makers over Chinese software

By Kathrin Hille in Beijing

Solid Oak, the developer of one of the US' leading net nanny software products, has started legal action to stop HP and Dell from shipping PCs equipped with a Chinese censorship software that it alleges contains codes stolen from Solid Oak's products.

The company had sent “cease and desist” letters to HP and Dell warning them that they would face damages if they went ahead, said Brian Milburn, Solid Oak CEO, in a phone interview. “They will receive the letters today (Tuesday), and I hope to hear from them later today,” he said.

The rest of the story is here.

Deng Yujiao, the pedicurist/karaoke bar waitress (like everything else in this story the details keep changing) who stabbed and killed a Communist Party cadre after he tried to force her to have sex with him (these exact details also very fuzzy) has been freed by a court in her native Hubei Province. (Here's the latest official version from the China Daily) Meanwhile the government's attempt to force computers makers to install what was alleged to be a pornography blocking program called Green Dam Youth Escort (our story here) on all new computers from July 1 is cratering under a torrent of criticism and a good deal of gleefull abuse by outraged netizens. (See here for some of the cartoons circulating around the web, often involving the scantily clad "Green Dam Girl" and "Grass Mud Horse," a homonym for a very rude curse in Chinese.) It seems highly likely that, mirroring past similar episodes, the authorities will quietly  let the whole issue fade away. In another less noticed case, a policeman in Harbin who was one of six who beat and killed a college student (the incident was caught on video and widely see on the Internet: our take and the video links here) was sentenced to life in prison. A colleague got 12 years.

All good news and testimony to the growing power of the internet to bring transparency and justice to China, right? Certainly a great many Chinese web surfers think so. Here's a typical comment from an anonymous poster at the forum 21cn.com: "Let's remember the great power of the netizens. It was their keen eyes and collective voice that brought about justice and ideals. Finally we can proudly say that the Deng Yujiao case is a victory of the netizens." I guess it is a victory of sorts. Deng herself expressed her appreciation to netizens for their support. And it's undeniable that cases like these would probably have been buried by local officials in the past. But how much are these real victories demonstrating the power of the net rather than testimony to the extremely smart way the authorities throw the occasional bone like this to netizens while never loosening (and indeed actually tightening lately) their iron control of content on the web. Take any really important issue that the government doesn't want aired it's simply wiped from existence. Sure some web users try to get around the censorship and control but eventually they give up and move on. The issue of whether or not many more schools collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake than other buildings because of shoddy construction and related corruption is a primary example. Reference to this was systematically deleted over and over and now pretty much exists only in the artist Ai Weiwei's blog, when it is available. (His original blog bears the dreaded words 此博客已被关闭, "this blog has been closed" if you try and access it now; see here for our past postings on his efforts to tally the number of children who died in the earthquake including an interview transcript and details of his latest run ins with the police). Ai is the exception that proves the rule. He's only still able to keep at his self assigned task, as he himself says, because he's so well know. And there's still no guarantee that he won't cross that invisible line and get hauled in. Even this issue isn't remotely as sensitive as the big ones like Falungong, Tibet, questioning the authority of the Party etc, which even mavericks like Ai are far too savvy to raise on the web or elsewhere (He laughed when we asked him if he would address some of those topics and said he didn't have "suicidal tendencies.")

So the U.S. destroyer John S. McCain is the latest ship to run into trouble with the Chinese navy in the South China Sea. In this case, a Chinese submarine, which was undoubtedly tracking the vessel, ran afoul of a sonar tracking device being towed by the ship. The incident took place outside of Subic Bay in the Philippines, where even the most extreme Chinese  territorial claims don't reach, I don't think. Still, it's instructive that from a senior Chinese officer's point of view, the incidents won't stop until the U.S. leaves the area completey. Here's the money quote from the story in the China Daily:

Major General Luo Yuan, a senior researcher with the Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing, said though the collision was accidental, the existence of US ships in the South China Sea is cause for potential incidents.

"The best way to avoid such collisions is for the Pentagon to stop its unfriendly moves toward China in this region," he said.

Here's my story on the rapid growth of electric bikes in China and what it means for the future of transportation here.

As some observers have noted, Barack Obama has appeared a few times on the cover of TIME. This cover of Obama as Chairman Mao, spotted by the Quirky Beijing blog at Beijing's Joy City mall, is not an official TIME product. Will Sarah Palin want a copy for the next campaign?

So it now seems four of the 17 Uighurs mentioned in the post below ended up in Bermuda, which I guess is kind of like Palau but 10,000 miles closer and run by Britain. The U.S. seems to have a thing about Muslim detainees and tropical islands, Guantanamo, Diego Garcia, Palau, the Bahamas. Anyway, here's part of a nice AP story on their reactions to their new home (why did they have to put on ties?) and, more depressingly, the reactions of some Bermudans to their arrival:

 

 

Freed after being locked up seven years, the four men were given ties during their flight to the island and their lawyers gave quick lessons in how to knot them. They kept a low profile after landing and declined to talk with journalists.

They arrived just as islanders were starting to celebrate Bermuda's 400th year of settlement. But Washington's surprise announcement of the transfer set off grumbling by some islanders, and the colonial rulers in London bristled over not being told ahead of time.

Putting a cloud over the deal, Britain's government said it was studying whether to allow Bermuda Premier Ewart Brown to go ahead with his plan to take in the men as refugees. Brown said the men eventually would be permitted to pursue citizenship and would have the right to work, travel and "potentially settle elsewhere."

The four previously had been expected to join 13 other Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, that the Pacific island nation of Palau has just agreed to take in from Guantanamo over the strong objections of China, which calls them terrorists.

The 17 were among Uighurs detained in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001, but had been in legal limbo since American authorities decided they were not enemy combatants or a danger to the U.S. and should be let go.

Lawmakers in Congress objected to any Uighurs being released in the U.S., and few other nations showed any interest in accepting them. Albania took in a few in 2006.

China demands the Uighurs be sent home for trial, but U.S. officials have said they fear the men would be executed if they returned to China.

Brown said he had no security concerns because the men were cleared by U.S. courts. But Britain, which handles Bermuda's defense, security and foreign affairs, expressed displeasure at the deal.

The British Foreign Office complained that Bermuda's leaders failed to consult "whether this falls within their competence or is a security issue for which the Bermuda government do not have delegated responsibility."

At the State Department, spokesman Ian Kelly said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton discussed the transfer with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Thursday.

The U.S. is "confident that we can work these things through with the government of (Britain)," he said.

Emphasizing the transfer's importance to the U.S. administration, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said White House counsel Greg Craig and Guantanamo closure chief Daniel Fried flew with the Uighurs to Bermuda.

Brown insisted that accepting the Uighurs was "the right thing to do." But he indicated at a news conference that he had an uncomfortable conversation with British Gov. Richard Gozney over the transfer.

"He is seeking to further assess the ramifications of this move before allowing the government of Bermuda to fully implement this action," Brown said. "Our colonial relationship with the United Kingdom certainly gives him license to do so."

Gozney said the transfer was done without Britain's permission and raised foreign policy and security questions.

"We will now need to assess these four individuals," Gozney said. "We were only told this morning."

The four Uighurs, who come from a vast, arid territory that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, found themselves in a new, strange land. Hamilton, the capital, boasts pastel Victorian buildings along narrow streets that are patrolled by police in white tunics.

The former prisoners kept to themselves after arriving, releasing a brief statement.

"Growing up under communism we always dreamed of living in peace and working in free society like this one. Today you have let freedom ring," former detainee Abdul Nasser said in the statement issued by his lawyers.

Before the plane landed, attorneys lent the Uighurs their cell phones so they could call friends and family.

"I can't describe to you in words how overjoyed these men are," lawyer Susan Manning told The Associated Press by phone. "They have enormous grins as they're talking to their families."

The Uighurs were eager to look around and explore where they would live, she said. Two of them speak some English, and they will likely teach the other two, Manning said.

They spent years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo for suspected Taliban and al-Qaida figures, and didn't even know where Bermuda was.

As the Uighurs boarded a plane at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, they peppered their attorneys with questions.

"They were just trying to understand very basic information about Bermuda," Manning said. "Where is it? What's life like there? What do people there do for a living?

Bermuda, which lies about 1,000 miles (1,610 kilometers) east of the U.S. coast, has the third-highest per capita income in the world, more than 50 percent higher than that of the United States. The island, with its pink-sand beaches and designer golf courses, caters to wealthy tourists and has a robust offshore financial industry.

But beneath the veneer of wealth lie economic problems, and some islanders were upset at the news that Bermuda was giving the Uighurs refuge.

Dozens unleashed their anger on the Facebook page of a local paper, The Royal Gazette.

"Our Island is struggling at this present time with shootings, gangs ... and road fatalities. These are the issues we need to focus on, not where are we going to house Guantanamo Bay Chinese Muslims which inevitably we as tax payers will be supporting," one entry said.

Immigration Minister David Burch said he does not believe Bermudians should have been consulted about the Uighurs' resettlement.

"You couldn't make a decision of that magnitude and try to get 65,000 opinions," he told Bermuda Broadcasting Corporation radio.