By Jonathan Watts | The Guardian (United Kingdom)

January 25, 2012

Chinese relations with Norway have been frosty since Oslo-based Nobel committee announced that dissident Liu Xiaobo would be peace laureate.

Norway could shut China out of the Arctic Council if Beijing does not stop a campaign of diplomatic snubs imposed after the Nobel peace prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo, a Norwegian newspaper has reported.

If confirmed, Oslo's move would mark a bold confrontation with the world's fastest rising economic power and highlight the growing importance of the Arctic, which is opening up for navigation and mineral exploitation as it melts due to global warming.

China's relations with Norway have been frosty since October 2010, when the Oslo-based Nobel committee announced that Liu, an imprisoned Chinese democracy activist, would be the next peace laureate.

Although the Norwegian government has stressed that the Nobel committee is independent, Beijing has punished its host nation by cutting political and human rights dialogues.

Until now, Norway has tried to use quiet diplomacy to ease the situation but, with little sign of progress, the Aftenposten, Norway's best selling newspaper, claims the government is preparing to up the stakes.

Citing an unnamed high-level diplomatic source, the paper said Norway would find it difficult to agree to China's application to be a permanent observer on the Arctic Council while the current situation persisted.

The Arctic Council is a forum for political discussions on the far north. It was established in 1989, originally to discuss measures to protect the Arctic environment, but has since expanded to work on scientific research, sustainable development and responses to emergencies.

Officially, the two governments have yet to comment on the issue.

"I can neither confirm nor deny this story, but I can say bilateral contacts between Norway and China are at a low level," Karsten Klepsvik, the senior Arctic official at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said.

He said no decision had been reached about Norway's position on applications from several nations to join the Arctic Council, adding: "As of today, we have not had inter-agency consultation on applications, but we will have to do that in the near future."

China makes no secret of its interests in the Arctic. The country has had a permanent research base in Norway since 2004 and conducted four expeditions of the region, according to the website of the government's Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration.

It has also announced plans to build a new 8,000-tonne icebreaker by 2013 to join its current vessel, the Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, on some of the other three expeditions planned by 2015.

The potential is enormous. If the ice clears sufficiently for reliable summer navigation, ships could drastically cut the time needed to carry goods from China to Europe, and Chinese academics believe the Arctic could become the most important trade route in the world.

The region also has abundant resources, including fisheries, minerals, more than 10% of the world's undiscovered oil reserves and 30% of its undiscovered gas reserves.

Although much of this is within territory that has already been claimed, emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil seek influence over these opportunities through observers seats at the Arctic Council, which currently has eight full members - Norway, Canada, Russia, the US, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark.

Until now, it had been thought that Russia and Canada were the strongest opponents of expansion, while Denmark has been the most supportive of a greater role for China in the development of the Arctic.

The Danish ambassador to Beijing, Friis Arne Peterson, said in October that China has "natural and legitimate economic and scientific interests in the Arctic".

Denmark hopes to benefit from the shrinkage of Greenland ice with the extraction of major deposits of rare earths, uranium, iron ore, lead, oil and gems. China is likely to be a key customer for these resources.

>> Original Source

By Edward Wong | The New York Times

18 January 2012

Yu Jie, a prominent writer of 11 books and a critic of the Chinese Communist Party, said Wednesday in a news conference in Washington that he and his family had left China on Jan. 11 after more than a year of harassment and house arrest.

Mr. Yu said his ordeal began Oct. 13, 2010, when he was placed under house arrest after the announcement that his close friend Liu Xiaobo, an imprisoned writer, had won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. That December, Mr. Yu said, he was detained for four days and tortured nearly to death. He said security officers criticized him for planning to write a biography of Mr. Liu and for writing "China's Best Actor: Wen Jiabao," a scathing critique of the prime minister.

Mr. Yu was then kept under house arrest, with a travel ban, until this month.

>> Original Source

By BBC World News

January 17, 2012

A veteran Chinese dissident, Zhu Yufu, has been charged with subversion for writing and publishing a poem on the internet, according to his lawyer.

The poem, entitled It's Time, urged people to gather in support of freedom.

Mr Zhu's lawyer said no date had been set for the trial. Chinese officials have not commented on the reported charge.

Mr Zhu was formally arrested last April as China began a wide-ranging clampdown on dissent.

The lawyer, Li Dunyong, said he had collected the indictment on Monday from a court in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

He told Reuters news agency he had met Mr Zhu, who he said was "in a good condition".

Jailed twice

Zhu Yufu, who is from Hangzhou, is a veteran activist who was involved in the 1979 Democracy Wall movement, which pressed for a quicker pace of change in China.

He has been jailed twice before for his activism - in 1999 for seven years and in 2007 for two years.

The Chinese authorities formally arrested Mr Zhu in April 2011 for inciting subversion of state power - a charge often used against critics of the Communist Party.

A verse of his poem reads: "It's time, Chinese people! / The square belongs to everyone / the feet are yours / it's time to use your feet and take to the square to make a choice."

But Li Dunyong said Mr Zhu was not connected with internet appeals for rallies inspired by uprisings in Arab countries.

Chinese police rounded up dozens of dissidents in response to those calls; but the rallies themselves were tiny, with participants outnumbered by security officials.

China's Communist leaders have been stressing the need for stability ahead of a leadership change later in 2012.

The authorities have continued to detain and question large numbers of activists and lawyers.

In December 2011 the prominent Sichuan writer and political activist, Chen Wei, was sentenced to nine years in prison for inciting subversion.

Days later, the veteran Guizhou dissident, Chen Xi, received a 10-year sentence on the same charge.

>> Original Source

By Radio Free Asia

January 13, 2012

Entire Chinese village raises complaint to the government over a land grab.

Authorities in the southeastern province of Fujian detained about half a dozen people following demonstrations at an ethnic minority Muslim village over a government land grab inspired by last year's protests in the Guangdong rebel village of Wukan.

"That's right, they were probably detained on Thursday afternoon," said a resident of Fujian's Xibian Hui Minority Village, near Chendai township. "The whole village went to the township government to complain."

She said the majority of Xibian villagers were Hui minority Muslims. "Only reporters from Hong Kong dare to report this," she added. "Journalists here don't dare to report it."

Protests have continued in the village since Dec. 27, when villagers took to the streets carrying banners which read, "We must learn from Wukan," and "We strongly demand our land back."

In a case they say is similar to land grabs in Wukan, where protesters won major concessions from officials after several days of pitched battles with riot police, Xibian villagers accuse local officials of secretly appropriating more than 900 mu (60 hectares) of local land.

The villagers were detained by police after around several hundred villagers marched to the government office building on Thursday, local residents said.

"About 500 to 600 people went on the march yesterday," said a villager surnamed Ding. "There were hundreds of police there, and they snatched away people's flags and banners and threw them away like rubbish."

"There are still a few people locked up," he said. "There was one guy who tried to go to the district-level parliament to complain, but they wouldn't let him in, and they locked him up too."

Photos

Photos of the protest posted online showed an elderly villager in a wheelchair waving a flag, and heading towards the ranks of assembled policemen. They also showed a banner which read, "We welcome China's central government leaders and the overseas media to come and investigate the truth."

An official who answered the phone at the Xibian village committee office denied that any demonstration had taken place.

"No, there wasn't," the official said. "I don't know [what the situation is]."

According to online posts, protests began in September amid allegations that the relatives of the village ruling Communist Party secretary had appropriated hundreds of millions of yuan in village funds from the sale of local farmland.

"In other villages they divide up the proceeds [of land sales] among each individual," said another Xibian resident. "We got nothing here in our village. I don't understand it."

An employee who answered the phone at the Chendai police station declined to comment on the protests.

"I don't really know," the employee said.

Clashes between farming communities and police are becoming more and more widespread as local residents increasingly challenge lucrative property deals involving communal land by local officials.

Last week, activists in the southwestern province of Sichuan said they were spurred on by the concessions won by Wukan villagers amid strikes at a major state-owned steel works in Chengdu.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin service and by Lin Jing for the Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

>> Original Report

By Chris Buckley | REUTERS [India edition]

January 11, 2012

One of China's most prominent dissidents, Hu Jia, said police confiscated two computers from his home on Wednesday and warned that he could face renewed detention or investigation on accusations that he broke the terms of his jail release.

Hu, 38, was released in June last year after serving a jail sentence of three and a half years for "inciting subversion of state power", a charge used to punish dissidents who criticise China's ruling Communist Party in print and online.

Communist Party chiefs are preparing for a leadership handover late this year, when the party's long-standing focus on fending off political challenges is likely to intensify.

Hu has largely avoided the limelight since his release while showing support for rights campaigners and protesters through online comments, visits and appearances at government offices.

He told Reuters that authorities appeared to be seeking to silence him with the threat of fresh punishment.

"Eight police came to my home -- one of them was an Internet police investigator -- and took away two computers," he said, adding that the police had told him to go to a police station for further questioning on Thursday.

"They said I might have violated the conditions of my release and there could be consequences, perhaps detention for fifteen days or I could be held on suspected inciting subversion charges," he added in a telephone interview.

Reuters' calls to the police headquarters of Tongzhou district in Beijing, where Hu lives, were not answered.

If Hu is detained again, that could add to international friction over China's heavy grip on dissent, which recently brought the jailing of two less-well-known activists.

He won the European Parliament's human rights prize in 2008. Supporters also spoke of him as a potential recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which in 2010 went to his friend and fellow Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo.

Before he was detained in late 2007, Hu pursued an energetic career as an environmental protection campaigner, advocate for rural victims of AIDS, and critic of China's restrictions on dissent.

Hu said that when he was released from jail, police told him not to accept interviews from foreign reporters, protest, publish his views on the Internet or otherwise speak out. But he said he had always insisted he would not remain entirely silent.

He said the police might have been prompted to move against him because of his vocal support for Gao Zhisheng, a prominent Chinese right lawyer who was recently sent back to jail.

"I told them from the very beginning that when I saw other people's human rights were being violated, I wouldn't avoid speaking my views," he said. "I was never secretive about it. I told them that was my position."

In late December, a court in Guizhou, southwest China, jailed a veteran dissident, Chen Xi, for 10 years on subversion charges, in one of the heaviest sentences for political charges since the Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo was jailed two years ago.

Chen Xi's long sentence came days after another dissident -- Chen Wei from Sichuan province in southwest China -- was jailed for nine years on similar charges of "inciting subversion".

(Editing by Yoko Nishikawa)

>> Original Source