Την ίδια ώρα, στην Κίνα...
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Καταπληκτικό έργο του Xu Bing (Ξ[Σ]υ Μπινγκ) εκτίθεται σε γοτθική εκκλησία των ΗΠΑ. Το αποτέλεσμα, μαγευτικό. (includes slide show)
Phoenixes Rise in China and Float in New York
Xu Bing Installs His Sculptures at St. John the Divine
By CAROL VOGELFEB. 14, 2014
(ΝΥΤ)
On a recent wintry afternoon, a team of eight was putting the final touches on a pair of monumental birds that had just been hung in the majestic nave of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights. As these phoenixes hovered some 20 feet above, their tiny, twinkling lights illuminated an array of unexpected materials: feathers fashioned from impeccably layered shovels; crowns made of weathered hard hats; heads created from jackhammers; and birds’ bodies sculpted from other salvaged construction debris, including pliers, saws, screwdrivers, plastic accordion tubing and drills.
(...)
Both Feng, the male, and Huang, the female, faced the decoratively carved bronze doors, as if poised to take flight in the middle of the night. “If they faced toward the church,” referring to the altar, Mr. Xu explained, “it would have seemed too religious.”
Throughout China’s history, every dynasty has had its form of phoenixes. Representing luck, unity, power and prosperity, these mythological birds have, for the most part, been benevolent, gentle creatures. But this pair, fashioned from the materials of commercial development, reflect the grimmer and grittier face of China today.
“They bear countless scars,” Mr. Xu explained, having “lived through great hardship, but still have self-respect. In general, the phoenix expresses unrealized hopes and dreams.”
(...)
The project started in 2008, when he was asked to create a sculpture for a glass atrium at the base of a new building designed by the architect Cesar Pelli for the World Financial Center in Beijing’s central business district.
“When I first visited the building site, I had a sense of shock,” Mr. Xu recalled in an interview at a coffee shop near St. John the Divine. “It was impossible to imagine that with all the modern technology today, the building was constructed with such low-tech methods.”
The poor working conditions for the migrant laborers who were building such luxury towers, he said, “made my skin quiver.” Mr. Xu had such a violent reaction to what he saw that he decided to make the phoenixes rise, as it were, out of debris and workers’ tools that he salvaged from the construction site.
That was just a few months before the financial crisis of 2008. It was also when there was a government ban on all trucking and construction to ensure cleaner air during the Beijing Olympics. The building’s developers, afraid that the birds carried a message about waste, asked Mr. Xu if they could be gussied up, perhaps with a crystalline exterior.
He declined, and, in the end, the developers rejected his birds. But Mr. Xu was determined to forge ahead. He had them constructed at a factory on the outskirts of Beijing, where they were to have taken take four months to complete. Instead, the process took two years, with Mr. Xu working from drawings, models and computer-generated diagrams.
Phoenixes Rise in China and Float in New York
Xu Bing Installs His Sculptures at St. John the Divine
By CAROL VOGELFEB. 14, 2014
(ΝΥΤ)
On a recent wintry afternoon, a team of eight was putting the final touches on a pair of monumental birds that had just been hung in the majestic nave of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights. As these phoenixes hovered some 20 feet above, their tiny, twinkling lights illuminated an array of unexpected materials: feathers fashioned from impeccably layered shovels; crowns made of weathered hard hats; heads created from jackhammers; and birds’ bodies sculpted from other salvaged construction debris, including pliers, saws, screwdrivers, plastic accordion tubing and drills.
(...)
Both Feng, the male, and Huang, the female, faced the decoratively carved bronze doors, as if poised to take flight in the middle of the night. “If they faced toward the church,” referring to the altar, Mr. Xu explained, “it would have seemed too religious.”
Throughout China’s history, every dynasty has had its form of phoenixes. Representing luck, unity, power and prosperity, these mythological birds have, for the most part, been benevolent, gentle creatures. But this pair, fashioned from the materials of commercial development, reflect the grimmer and grittier face of China today.
“They bear countless scars,” Mr. Xu explained, having “lived through great hardship, but still have self-respect. In general, the phoenix expresses unrealized hopes and dreams.”
(...)
The project started in 2008, when he was asked to create a sculpture for a glass atrium at the base of a new building designed by the architect Cesar Pelli for the World Financial Center in Beijing’s central business district.
“When I first visited the building site, I had a sense of shock,” Mr. Xu recalled in an interview at a coffee shop near St. John the Divine. “It was impossible to imagine that with all the modern technology today, the building was constructed with such low-tech methods.”
The poor working conditions for the migrant laborers who were building such luxury towers, he said, “made my skin quiver.” Mr. Xu had such a violent reaction to what he saw that he decided to make the phoenixes rise, as it were, out of debris and workers’ tools that he salvaged from the construction site.
That was just a few months before the financial crisis of 2008. It was also when there was a government ban on all trucking and construction to ensure cleaner air during the Beijing Olympics. The building’s developers, afraid that the birds carried a message about waste, asked Mr. Xu if they could be gussied up, perhaps with a crystalline exterior.
He declined, and, in the end, the developers rejected his birds. But Mr. Xu was determined to forge ahead. He had them constructed at a factory on the outskirts of Beijing, where they were to have taken take four months to complete. Instead, the process took two years, with Mr. Xu working from drawings, models and computer-generated diagrams.
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Hong Kong’s Indentured Servants (ΝΥΤ)
Υπηρέτριες από Φιλιππίνες και Ινδονησία
Υπηρέτριες από Φιλιππίνες και Ινδονησία
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Από την παρασκευιάτικη σούμα της γιαπωνέζικης Asahi Shimbun (τα παχιά, δικά μου):
In the high-profile Tokyo gubernatorial election on Feb. 9, former health minister Yoichi Masuzoe was the winner, backed by the pro-nuclear Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito. Defeated former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, supported by another former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, called for rebuilding Japan through a zero-nuclear energy policy.
In the meantime, the most-read article over the past week was a feature focusing on dolphin hunting in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. A fishing cooperative official connected with the seasonal dolphin hunt here is defending the tradition as painless to the small cetaceans and is inviting U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy to see for herself. There was very strong reaction and criticism from people opposed to dolphin hunting after the story went online.
Another story that got wide reader attention is about the increasing number of publications in Japan that are highly critical of China and South Korea, a phenomenon that is prompting leading publishing companies to jump on the bandwagon to take advantage of the trend.
In the high-profile Tokyo gubernatorial election on Feb. 9, former health minister Yoichi Masuzoe was the winner, backed by the pro-nuclear Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito. Defeated former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, supported by another former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, called for rebuilding Japan through a zero-nuclear energy policy.
In the meantime, the most-read article over the past week was a feature focusing on dolphin hunting in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. A fishing cooperative official connected with the seasonal dolphin hunt here is defending the tradition as painless to the small cetaceans and is inviting U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy to see for herself. There was very strong reaction and criticism from people opposed to dolphin hunting after the story went online.
Another story that got wide reader attention is about the increasing number of publications in Japan that are highly critical of China and South Korea, a phenomenon that is prompting leading publishing companies to jump on the bandwagon to take advantage of the trend.
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Κι άλλο γιαπωνέζικο: Φουκουσίμα, καθαρισμός, Γιακούζα και άστεγοι.
Special Report: Japan's homeless recruited for murky Fukushima clean-up (Reuters)
Special Report: Japan's homeless recruited for murky Fukushima clean-up (Reuters)
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Μετά από 65 χρόνια, συνάντηση Ταϊβάν-ΛΔΚ σε επίπεδο υπουργών, στο Νάντζινγκ.
(CNN)
The exclusion of two Taiwan reporters from covering the meeting has soured the start of Wang's historic visit, which is expected to last until Friday. Two journalists from Taiwan's Apple Daily and Radio Free Asia were excluded from a delegation of more than 80 reporters accompanying Wang, according to Freedom House, a press freedom watchdog.
(CNN)
The exclusion of two Taiwan reporters from covering the meeting has soured the start of Wang's historic visit, which is expected to last until Friday. Two journalists from Taiwan's Apple Daily and Radio Free Asia were excluded from a delegation of more than 80 reporters accompanying Wang, according to Freedom House, a press freedom watchdog.
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China Nobel wife's health worsens; needs treatment
GILLIAN WONG Published: Feb 14, 2014
(Associated Press)
FILE - In this June 9, 2013 file photo, Liu Xia, the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, cries outside Huairou Detention Center where her brother Liu Hui has been jailed in Huairou district, on the outskirts of Beijing, China. The health of Liu Xia has deteriorated under lengthy house arrest and she urgently requires medical treatment, close friends said Friday, Feb. 14, 2014. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan, File)
BEIJING (AP) - The health of the wife of China's jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate has deteriorated under lengthy house arrest and she urgently requires medical treatment, close friends said Friday.
Liu Xia has been forcibly sequestered at home alone for the past three years by state security in apparent retaliation for the activism of her imprisoned husband Liu Xiaobo. In recent months, friends who have had contact with her family or her say she has been suffering from heart problems and depression.
Her condition took a turn for the worse last month when she suffered what felt like a heart attack and had to be rushed to a hospital's emergency ward for treatment, said Wu Wei, a close friend of Liu Xia.
Wu, a writer based in the southern city of Guangzhou, said Liu Xia told him in a brief phone call Friday that doctors say she suffers from a serious shortage of blood to the heart muscle. Wu, better known by his pen name Ye Du, also said Liu Xia had a cold and fever.
"She sounds weak," Wu said. "Because she's been kept indoors for long periods of time, she has few opportunities to exercise and strengthen her health."
Another family friend, a writer who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of government reprisal, confirmed Wu's account of Liu being rushed to hospital last month because of her heart. The writer added that Liu's family was considering asking for permission to send her abroad for medical treatment but that she worried she would not be allowed to return to China.
The couple's lawyer Mo Shaoping said Liu was admitted on Feb. 8 to a hospital in Beijing to undergo a battery of tests but was unexpectedly asked by the hospital to leave after one night.
Mo said Liu was accompanied by four or five police officers and that the hospital might have been intimidated by the security presence.
Liu Xia's brother-in-law, Liu Xiaoxuan, said he had spoken to her late last month and that she told him her heart was not well and that she was trying to see a doctor.
Her husband, Liu Xiaobo, was convicted of subversion in 2009 and sentenced to 11 years in prison after he wrote and disseminated the Charter '08 document calling for democracy. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, an embarrassment for the Chinese government, which denounced the award.
___
Associated Press journalist Isolda Morillo contributed to this report.
GILLIAN WONG Published: Feb 14, 2014
(Associated Press)
FILE - In this June 9, 2013 file photo, Liu Xia, the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, cries outside Huairou Detention Center where her brother Liu Hui has been jailed in Huairou district, on the outskirts of Beijing, China. The health of Liu Xia has deteriorated under lengthy house arrest and she urgently requires medical treatment, close friends said Friday, Feb. 14, 2014. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan, File)
BEIJING (AP) - The health of the wife of China's jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate has deteriorated under lengthy house arrest and she urgently requires medical treatment, close friends said Friday.
Liu Xia has been forcibly sequestered at home alone for the past three years by state security in apparent retaliation for the activism of her imprisoned husband Liu Xiaobo. In recent months, friends who have had contact with her family or her say she has been suffering from heart problems and depression.
Her condition took a turn for the worse last month when she suffered what felt like a heart attack and had to be rushed to a hospital's emergency ward for treatment, said Wu Wei, a close friend of Liu Xia.
Wu, a writer based in the southern city of Guangzhou, said Liu Xia told him in a brief phone call Friday that doctors say she suffers from a serious shortage of blood to the heart muscle. Wu, better known by his pen name Ye Du, also said Liu Xia had a cold and fever.
"She sounds weak," Wu said. "Because she's been kept indoors for long periods of time, she has few opportunities to exercise and strengthen her health."
Another family friend, a writer who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of government reprisal, confirmed Wu's account of Liu being rushed to hospital last month because of her heart. The writer added that Liu's family was considering asking for permission to send her abroad for medical treatment but that she worried she would not be allowed to return to China.
The couple's lawyer Mo Shaoping said Liu was admitted on Feb. 8 to a hospital in Beijing to undergo a battery of tests but was unexpectedly asked by the hospital to leave after one night.
Mo said Liu was accompanied by four or five police officers and that the hospital might have been intimidated by the security presence.
Liu Xia's brother-in-law, Liu Xiaoxuan, said he had spoken to her late last month and that she told him her heart was not well and that she was trying to see a doctor.
Her husband, Liu Xiaobo, was convicted of subversion in 2009 and sentenced to 11 years in prison after he wrote and disseminated the Charter '08 document calling for democracy. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, an embarrassment for the Chinese government, which denounced the award.
___
Associated Press journalist Isolda Morillo contributed to this report.
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A Pure and Remote View: Visualizing Early Chinese Landscape Painting — A lecture series by Professor Emeritus James Cahill
Το βρήκα στη νεκρολογία του στην ΝΥΤ.
Εδιτ: να προσθέσω και αυτό το ενδιαφέρον, από την παραπάνω νεκρολογία:
The work, a scroll titled “Riverbank,” was said to be by Dong Yuan, a 10th-century painter. Professor Cahill said it was probably the work of Zhang Daqian, a 20th-century Chinese artist, collector and master forger whose own work sells for millions of dollars.
Το βρήκα στη νεκρολογία του στην ΝΥΤ.
Εδιτ: να προσθέσω και αυτό το ενδιαφέρον, από την παραπάνω νεκρολογία:
The work, a scroll titled “Riverbank,” was said to be by Dong Yuan, a 10th-century painter. Professor Cahill said it was probably the work of Zhang Daqian, a 20th-century Chinese artist, collector and master forger whose own work sells for millions of dollars.
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Ψήλωσαν οι Κινέζοι και δεν χωρούν στα τανκς! (και άλλα τέτοια εργονομικά που απαιτούν, τι άλλο; αύξηση στις στρατιωτικές δαπάνες) (nooz)
Κατά τη θητεία μου στο ΠΝ είχα ακούσει να διηγούνται την ιστορία ότι το δεύτερο «Έλλη», που πήραμε μεταπολεμικά ως πολεμική αποζημίωση, είχε χτιστεί αρχικά για το κινεζικό ναυτικό, με αποτέλεσμα να περισσεύουν τα πόδια των ναυτών μας από τις κουκέτες. Se non è vero...η ιστορία έχει κέφια πάντως.
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Πεκίνο, Σεούλ, Τόκυο, Ουάσινγκτον. Σταυρόλεξο για πολύ δυνατούς λύτες (υπάρχουν;)
Nationalistic Remarks From Japan Lead to Warnings of Chill With U.S.
(ΝΥΤ)
By MARTIN FACKLER FEB. 19, 2014
TOKYO — A series of defiantly nationalistic comments, including remarks critical of the United States, by close political associates of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has led analysts to warn of a growing chill between his right-wing government and the Obama administration, which views Japan as a linchpin of its strategic pivot to Asia.
Rebuttals from the American Embassy in Japan have added to concerns of a falling-out between Japan and the United States, which has so far welcomed Mr. Abe’s efforts to strengthen Japan’s economy and military outreach in the region to serve as a counterbalance to China. The comments, which express revisionist views of Japan’s World War II history, have also led to renewed claims from Japan’s neighbors, particularly China and South Korea, that Mr. Abe is leading his nation to the right, trying to stir up patriotism and gloss over the country’s wartime history.
One of the most direct criticisms of the United States came this week, when Seiichi Eto, a governing party lawmaker and aide to Mr. Abe, posted a video online in which he criticized the Obama administration for expressing disappointment in the prime minister’s recent visit to a shrine. The visit to the shrine, which honors the war dead including war criminals, stoked anger in South Korea and China, which both suffered under Imperial Japanese rule.
“It is I who am disappointed in the United States,” said Mr. Eto in the video on YouTube, which was removed on Wednesday as the prime minister’s office sought to control the diplomatic damage. “Why doesn’t America treat Japan better?” he added.
The disconnect between Washington and its strongest Asian ally comes at a time of rising regional frictions that Mr. Abe has likened to Europe on the eve of World War I. The disputes over history and territory have complicated the United States’ already fraught attempts to persuade Japan and Korea to present a united front to a more confident China, while also trying to avoid antagonizing the Chinese.
American officials express frustration that Mr. Abe is not doing enough to allay fears in South Korea, a crucial American ally in Asia, about a conservative agenda they worry includes rolling back the apologies that Japan made for its early 20th-century empire-building. American officials also fear he could undermine his own efforts to restore Japan’s standing in Asia by playing into what they call Chinese efforts to paint the Japanese as unrepentant militarists.
Analysts say such concerns are behind the United States Embassy’s taking the unusual step of publicly criticizing Mr. Abe’s trip to the shrine.
For their part, Japanese officials express their own exasperation that the United States does not take a clearer stand in favor of Japan in its continuing dispute with China over the control of islands in the East China Sea. They also complain that the Obama administration has not rewarded Mr. Abe enough, despite his self-proclaimed efforts to improve ties with Washington by taking such politically difficult steps as pushing to restart a stalled base relocation in Okinawa.
“Prime Minister Abe feels frustrated,” said Yuichi Hosoya, an expert on United States-Japan relations at Keio University in Tokyo. “He feels he is not being thanked enough for expending his political capital to strengthen the alliance.”
One of the most provocative comments from Abe allies came this month, when an ultraconservative novelist, Naoki Hyakuta, who was appointed by the prime minister himself to the governing board of public broadcaster NHK, said in a speech that the Tokyo war tribunal after World War II was a means to cover up the “genocide” of American air raids on Tokyo and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States Embassy called the comments “preposterous.”
Mr. Hyakuta’s comments came days after the new president of NHK, who was chosen last month by a governing board including Abe appointees, raised eyebrows in Washington by saying that Japan should not be singled out for forcing women to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during the war, saying the United States military did the same. Most historians say the Japanese system of creating special brothels for the troops, then forcing tens of thousands of women from other countries to work there, was different from the practice by other countries’ troops in occupied areas who frequented local brothels.
The Japanese discontent with treatment by the Obama administration goes back to early last year, when a newly elected Mr. Abe tried to arrange an immediate trip to meet the president, only to be told to wait a month. More recently, Japanese officials have appeared hurt that Mr. Obama wants to spend only one night in Japan during a visit to the region in April.
Some analysts say this feeling of being held at arm’s length may be driving some of the recent criticisms of the United States.
“This is one of the most dangerous moments in U.S.-Japan relations that I have seen,” said Takashi Kawakami, an expert on international relations at Takushoku University in Tokyo. “Japan is feeling isolated, and some Japanese people are starting to think Japan must stand up for itself, including toward the United States.”
Analysts note that many of the comments are being made by relatively minor figures, and not members of Mr. Abe’s cabinet. They also say that Japanese public attitudes remain overwhelmingly favorable toward the United States, which has been the guarantor of Japan’s postwar security with its 50,000 military personnel stationed in the country.
At the same time, the analysts say, frustrations on both sides are real. In the United States, they reflect an ambivalence toward Mr. Abe, as some worry that he is returning to the agenda he pursued the last time he was prime minister — trying to revise the country’s pacifist Constitution and downplay wartime atrocities in the name of restoring lost national pride.
“I think the Yasukuni visit was a turning point in U.S. attitudes toward Abe,” Daniel C. Sneider, associate director for research at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, said of the visit to the shrine. “It was a reminder that he is still trying to push his patriotic remake of postwar Japan.”
The Yasukuni Shrine visit, and the American criticism of it, also appeared to unleash the current wave of revisionist statements.
American analysts and officials have faulted Mr. Abe for failing to sufficiently distance himself and his administration from the nationalistic statements. Instead, his government’s spokesman has merely said the statements represented the speakers’ “personal views” without criticizing them, though the spokesman did say the administration had asked Mr. Eto to remove the video expressing disappointment in the United States.
Visiting members of Congress have also warned that revisionist statements as well as Mr. Abe’s visit to Yasukuni would only benefit China. They added, however, that the American relationship with Japan is still sound enough to be easily fixable.
“There are always unfortunate statements and unfortunate comments even among the best of friends, and this is something that is going to have to be worked out and gotten over with,” said Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, who was part of a group of visiting Congress members in Tokyo who met on Wednesday with Mr. Abe. “It is important that we have an economically vibrant and strong Japan to act as a counterbalance to China.”
Nationalistic Remarks From Japan Lead to Warnings of Chill With U.S.
(ΝΥΤ)
By MARTIN FACKLER FEB. 19, 2014
TOKYO — A series of defiantly nationalistic comments, including remarks critical of the United States, by close political associates of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has led analysts to warn of a growing chill between his right-wing government and the Obama administration, which views Japan as a linchpin of its strategic pivot to Asia.
Rebuttals from the American Embassy in Japan have added to concerns of a falling-out between Japan and the United States, which has so far welcomed Mr. Abe’s efforts to strengthen Japan’s economy and military outreach in the region to serve as a counterbalance to China. The comments, which express revisionist views of Japan’s World War II history, have also led to renewed claims from Japan’s neighbors, particularly China and South Korea, that Mr. Abe is leading his nation to the right, trying to stir up patriotism and gloss over the country’s wartime history.
One of the most direct criticisms of the United States came this week, when Seiichi Eto, a governing party lawmaker and aide to Mr. Abe, posted a video online in which he criticized the Obama administration for expressing disappointment in the prime minister’s recent visit to a shrine. The visit to the shrine, which honors the war dead including war criminals, stoked anger in South Korea and China, which both suffered under Imperial Japanese rule.
“It is I who am disappointed in the United States,” said Mr. Eto in the video on YouTube, which was removed on Wednesday as the prime minister’s office sought to control the diplomatic damage. “Why doesn’t America treat Japan better?” he added.
The disconnect between Washington and its strongest Asian ally comes at a time of rising regional frictions that Mr. Abe has likened to Europe on the eve of World War I. The disputes over history and territory have complicated the United States’ already fraught attempts to persuade Japan and Korea to present a united front to a more confident China, while also trying to avoid antagonizing the Chinese.
American officials express frustration that Mr. Abe is not doing enough to allay fears in South Korea, a crucial American ally in Asia, about a conservative agenda they worry includes rolling back the apologies that Japan made for its early 20th-century empire-building. American officials also fear he could undermine his own efforts to restore Japan’s standing in Asia by playing into what they call Chinese efforts to paint the Japanese as unrepentant militarists.
Analysts say such concerns are behind the United States Embassy’s taking the unusual step of publicly criticizing Mr. Abe’s trip to the shrine.
For their part, Japanese officials express their own exasperation that the United States does not take a clearer stand in favor of Japan in its continuing dispute with China over the control of islands in the East China Sea. They also complain that the Obama administration has not rewarded Mr. Abe enough, despite his self-proclaimed efforts to improve ties with Washington by taking such politically difficult steps as pushing to restart a stalled base relocation in Okinawa.
“Prime Minister Abe feels frustrated,” said Yuichi Hosoya, an expert on United States-Japan relations at Keio University in Tokyo. “He feels he is not being thanked enough for expending his political capital to strengthen the alliance.”
One of the most provocative comments from Abe allies came this month, when an ultraconservative novelist, Naoki Hyakuta, who was appointed by the prime minister himself to the governing board of public broadcaster NHK, said in a speech that the Tokyo war tribunal after World War II was a means to cover up the “genocide” of American air raids on Tokyo and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States Embassy called the comments “preposterous.”
Mr. Hyakuta’s comments came days after the new president of NHK, who was chosen last month by a governing board including Abe appointees, raised eyebrows in Washington by saying that Japan should not be singled out for forcing women to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during the war, saying the United States military did the same. Most historians say the Japanese system of creating special brothels for the troops, then forcing tens of thousands of women from other countries to work there, was different from the practice by other countries’ troops in occupied areas who frequented local brothels.
The Japanese discontent with treatment by the Obama administration goes back to early last year, when a newly elected Mr. Abe tried to arrange an immediate trip to meet the president, only to be told to wait a month. More recently, Japanese officials have appeared hurt that Mr. Obama wants to spend only one night in Japan during a visit to the region in April.
Some analysts say this feeling of being held at arm’s length may be driving some of the recent criticisms of the United States.
“This is one of the most dangerous moments in U.S.-Japan relations that I have seen,” said Takashi Kawakami, an expert on international relations at Takushoku University in Tokyo. “Japan is feeling isolated, and some Japanese people are starting to think Japan must stand up for itself, including toward the United States.”
Analysts note that many of the comments are being made by relatively minor figures, and not members of Mr. Abe’s cabinet. They also say that Japanese public attitudes remain overwhelmingly favorable toward the United States, which has been the guarantor of Japan’s postwar security with its 50,000 military personnel stationed in the country.
At the same time, the analysts say, frustrations on both sides are real. In the United States, they reflect an ambivalence toward Mr. Abe, as some worry that he is returning to the agenda he pursued the last time he was prime minister — trying to revise the country’s pacifist Constitution and downplay wartime atrocities in the name of restoring lost national pride.
“I think the Yasukuni visit was a turning point in U.S. attitudes toward Abe,” Daniel C. Sneider, associate director for research at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, said of the visit to the shrine. “It was a reminder that he is still trying to push his patriotic remake of postwar Japan.”
The Yasukuni Shrine visit, and the American criticism of it, also appeared to unleash the current wave of revisionist statements.
American analysts and officials have faulted Mr. Abe for failing to sufficiently distance himself and his administration from the nationalistic statements. Instead, his government’s spokesman has merely said the statements represented the speakers’ “personal views” without criticizing them, though the spokesman did say the administration had asked Mr. Eto to remove the video expressing disappointment in the United States.
Visiting members of Congress have also warned that revisionist statements as well as Mr. Abe’s visit to Yasukuni would only benefit China. They added, however, that the American relationship with Japan is still sound enough to be easily fixable.
“There are always unfortunate statements and unfortunate comments even among the best of friends, and this is something that is going to have to be worked out and gotten over with,” said Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, who was part of a group of visiting Congress members in Tokyo who met on Wednesday with Mr. Abe. “It is important that we have an economically vibrant and strong Japan to act as a counterbalance to China.”
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Στο νοσοκομείο (για δεύτερη φορά) η γυναίκα του Λίου Ξ(Σ)ιαομπό, Λίου Ξ(Σ)ια. Το σημερινό άρθρο λέει όχι ότι δεν θέλει η ίδια να πάει για νοσηλεία στο εξωτερικό (φοβούμενη ότι δεν θα της επιτρέψουν να ξαναγυρίσει στην κατ' οίκον φυλακή της) αλλά ότι δεν το επιτρέπει η αστυνομία. Επίσης λέει ότι η ίδια νωρίτερα δεν ήθελε να πάει σε νοσοκομείο γιατί φοβόταν περαιτέρω τιμωρίες, χωρίς να διευκρινίζεται τι είδους τιμωρίες. Γενικά, η τιμωρία σ' αυτή τη γυναίκα που δεν κατηγορείται για τίποτα πάει σύννεφο.
Wife of China's jailed Nobel Laureate Liu hospitalized
By Sui-Lee Wee
BEIJING Wed Feb 19, 2014 11:06pm EST
(Reuters) - The wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo has been admitted to a Beijing hospital after police refused to allow her to seek medical help overseas, a close family friend said on Thursday.
Liu Xia, who has been under effective house arrest since her husband Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, suffers from heart problems, possibly severe depression, and other ailments made worse during her time under guard, her friends say.
She was admitted to another hospital earlier this month under heavy police guard but the hospital told her to leave after a day without giving a reason, said Mo Shaoping, a prominent human rights lawyer and a close family friend.
Liu Xia was admitted to the second hospital on Tuesday but it is unclear how long she will remain there because her family has been told by police not to disclose details about her condition and whereabouts, Mo said.
"Her family had proposed seeking medical treatment overseas but the police didn't approve it," Mo said. It was then that Liu's family was told to find treatment for her in Beijing.
In December, Liu Xia's friends said she refused to seek medical help because she is afraid of further punishment.
Liu, who has not been convicted of any crime, is rarely allowed out of her home, except for occasional visits to her husband and family, and is almost never permitted visitors.
Ye Du, a writer and a friend, said Liu told him of her heart problems when they spoke recently by telephone.
"Last month, she said her heart was not feeling too good and she was sent to the hospital, where they told her that her heart was lacking blood," Ye said.
Ye confirmed Liu's family had asked to seek medical help for her overseas, possibly in Europe, but police had rejected the request.
"The environment that she's been placed in, having been put under house arrest for so many years, is the main reason (for her worsening health), and they thought that going overseas was the only way they could fully guarantee that she will have good treatment," Ye said.
Another friend, Ma Shaofeng, said Liu had told him when they spoke a week ago she had suffered a heart attack.
The United States and the European Union have repeatedly urged China to let Liu Xia move freely again.
Liu Xiaobo, a veteran dissident involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests crushed by the Chinese army, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 on subversion charges for organizing a petition urging the overthrow of one-party rule.
Liu Xia filed an extraordinary appeal for her husband's retrial last month, a move that could renew the focus on China's human rights record.
The Chinese government says that Liu Xiaobo is a common criminal and has rejected as unwarranted interference any criticism of its handling of the case by foreign governments.
(Editing by Paul Tait)
Wife of China's jailed Nobel Laureate Liu hospitalized
By Sui-Lee Wee
BEIJING Wed Feb 19, 2014 11:06pm EST
(Reuters) - The wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo has been admitted to a Beijing hospital after police refused to allow her to seek medical help overseas, a close family friend said on Thursday.
Liu Xia, who has been under effective house arrest since her husband Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, suffers from heart problems, possibly severe depression, and other ailments made worse during her time under guard, her friends say.
She was admitted to another hospital earlier this month under heavy police guard but the hospital told her to leave after a day without giving a reason, said Mo Shaoping, a prominent human rights lawyer and a close family friend.
Liu Xia was admitted to the second hospital on Tuesday but it is unclear how long she will remain there because her family has been told by police not to disclose details about her condition and whereabouts, Mo said.
"Her family had proposed seeking medical treatment overseas but the police didn't approve it," Mo said. It was then that Liu's family was told to find treatment for her in Beijing.
In December, Liu Xia's friends said she refused to seek medical help because she is afraid of further punishment.
Liu, who has not been convicted of any crime, is rarely allowed out of her home, except for occasional visits to her husband and family, and is almost never permitted visitors.
Ye Du, a writer and a friend, said Liu told him of her heart problems when they spoke recently by telephone.
"Last month, she said her heart was not feeling too good and she was sent to the hospital, where they told her that her heart was lacking blood," Ye said.
Ye confirmed Liu's family had asked to seek medical help for her overseas, possibly in Europe, but police had rejected the request.
"The environment that she's been placed in, having been put under house arrest for so many years, is the main reason (for her worsening health), and they thought that going overseas was the only way they could fully guarantee that she will have good treatment," Ye said.
Another friend, Ma Shaofeng, said Liu had told him when they spoke a week ago she had suffered a heart attack.
The United States and the European Union have repeatedly urged China to let Liu Xia move freely again.
Liu Xiaobo, a veteran dissident involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests crushed by the Chinese army, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 on subversion charges for organizing a petition urging the overthrow of one-party rule.
Liu Xia filed an extraordinary appeal for her husband's retrial last month, a move that could renew the focus on China's human rights record.
The Chinese government says that Liu Xiaobo is a common criminal and has rejected as unwarranted interference any criticism of its handling of the case by foreign governments.
(Editing by Paul Tait)
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Η πολιτική κατάσταση στο Χονγκ-Κονγκ ως προς τις σχέσεις του με την ΛΔΚ, από τη γνωστή και μη εξαιρετέα Jamestown Foundation. Και ένας όρος: mainlandization.
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Το ξήλωμα του δικτύου επιρροής του πρώην μέλους της 9μελούς Διαρκούς Επιτροπής του ΠΓ της ΚΕ του ΚΚΚ και πρώην αρμόδιου για την εσωτερική ασφάλεια Τζόου Γιονγκ-κάνγκ, συνεχίζεται με μια νέα σύλληψη κοντινού σε αυτόν στελέχους, αυτή τη φορά από τις υπηρεσίες εσωτερικής ασφάλειας.
Beijing Official Detained in Investigation of Former Security Chief
By CHRIS BUCKLEY and JONATHAN ANSFIELDFEB. 21, 2014
(ΝΥΤ)
Liang Ke, the director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of State Security, was taken into custody last month by the party’s arm for investigating official misconduct
The detention of Mr. Liang takes the investigation encircling Mr. Zhou into especially secretive terrain: The Ministry of State Security and its local bureaus are unaccountable even by China’s standards and rarely discussed in public.
Before retiring in November 2012, Mr. Zhou was one of nine men on the Politburo Standing Committee — the party’s top decision-making body — and headed the committee that oversees China’s courts, police and other arms of domestic security. In his five years in those two posts, he accumulated considerable clout as the party made maintaining social stability a top priority and devoted ever greater resources to the security forces under his control.
“Because the party stressed stability above all, and that became fundamental national policy, his power expanded to overshadow other Standing Committee members, and the police, courts, security authorities became his political resource,”
After Mr. Zhou stepped down in late 2012, party anticorruption officials began removing and investigating officials and company executives who had career links with him. They started in Sichuan Province, where Mr. Zhou was party secretary from 1999 to 2002. The authorities also detained executives, present and previous, of the China National Petroleum Corporation, or C.N.P.C., where Mr. Zhou had risen to become general manager in the 1990s.
In December, the party announced an investigation of a vice minister for public security, Li Dongsheng, who was appointed while Mr. Zhou was in power.
“I think Xi has been taking a very stepwise approach,” Mr. Johnson, the analyst, said of the investigations. “He blew up Sichuan, he blew up C.N.P.C., and last December he shifted over into the Ministry of Public Security, and so these guys are the next logical target.”
This week, authorities also announced that they were investigating Ji Wenlin, a vice governor of Hainan Province in southern China, who had served as an aide to Mr. Zhou for a decade, moving with him from the Ministry of Land and Resources to Sichuan Province and then to the Ministry of Public Security.
Mr. Xi appears determined to make a show of methodically dismantling Mr. Zhou’s influence, said Wu Wei, a former official. He said he had heard rumors of Mr. Liang’s detention.
“This amounts to pulling out a tiger’s teeth so it turns into a sick cat,” he said. ( μου άρεσε αυτό!)
Beijing Official Detained in Investigation of Former Security Chief
By CHRIS BUCKLEY and JONATHAN ANSFIELDFEB. 21, 2014
(ΝΥΤ)
Liang Ke, the director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of State Security, was taken into custody last month by the party’s arm for investigating official misconduct
The detention of Mr. Liang takes the investigation encircling Mr. Zhou into especially secretive terrain: The Ministry of State Security and its local bureaus are unaccountable even by China’s standards and rarely discussed in public.
Before retiring in November 2012, Mr. Zhou was one of nine men on the Politburo Standing Committee — the party’s top decision-making body — and headed the committee that oversees China’s courts, police and other arms of domestic security. In his five years in those two posts, he accumulated considerable clout as the party made maintaining social stability a top priority and devoted ever greater resources to the security forces under his control.
“Because the party stressed stability above all, and that became fundamental national policy, his power expanded to overshadow other Standing Committee members, and the police, courts, security authorities became his political resource,”
After Mr. Zhou stepped down in late 2012, party anticorruption officials began removing and investigating officials and company executives who had career links with him. They started in Sichuan Province, where Mr. Zhou was party secretary from 1999 to 2002. The authorities also detained executives, present and previous, of the China National Petroleum Corporation, or C.N.P.C., where Mr. Zhou had risen to become general manager in the 1990s.
In December, the party announced an investigation of a vice minister for public security, Li Dongsheng, who was appointed while Mr. Zhou was in power.
“I think Xi has been taking a very stepwise approach,” Mr. Johnson, the analyst, said of the investigations. “He blew up Sichuan, he blew up C.N.P.C., and last December he shifted over into the Ministry of Public Security, and so these guys are the next logical target.”
This week, authorities also announced that they were investigating Ji Wenlin, a vice governor of Hainan Province in southern China, who had served as an aide to Mr. Zhou for a decade, moving with him from the Ministry of Land and Resources to Sichuan Province and then to the Ministry of Public Security.
Mr. Xi appears determined to make a show of methodically dismantling Mr. Zhou’s influence, said Wu Wei, a former official. He said he had heard rumors of Mr. Liang’s detention.
“This amounts to pulling out a tiger’s teeth so it turns into a sick cat,” he said. ( μου άρεσε αυτό!)
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Εμείς λέμε για τα τσολιαδάκια, αλλά στις ΗΠΑ
American Flags Made In China Now Banned In U.S. Military
American Flags Made In China Now Banned In U.S. Military
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Uighur professor could face death sentence in China: lawyer (Reuters)
Advocates for Tohti say he has challenged the government's version of several incidents involving Uighurs. That includes what China says was its first major suicide attack, in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in October, involving militants from Xinjiang, by pointing out inconsistencies in the official accounts.
"China's accusation of so-called separatism is a political excuse to suppress Uighurs who express differing opinions," Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the main Uighur exile group, the World Uyghur Congress, said in an emailed statement.
Tohti, who teaches at Beijing's Minzu University which specializes in ethnic minority studies, told Reuters in November that state security agents had threatened him for speaking to foreign reporters.
"I have never associated myself with a terrorist organization or a foreign-based group," Tohti told Radio Free Asia's Uyghur Service last year in a statement he asked to have released if he was taken into custody. "I have relied only on pen and paper to diplomatically request the human rights, legal rights, and autonomous regional rights for the Uyghurs."
Advocates for Tohti say he has challenged the government's version of several incidents involving Uighurs. That includes what China says was its first major suicide attack, in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in October, involving militants from Xinjiang, by pointing out inconsistencies in the official accounts.
"China's accusation of so-called separatism is a political excuse to suppress Uighurs who express differing opinions," Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the main Uighur exile group, the World Uyghur Congress, said in an emailed statement.
Tohti, who teaches at Beijing's Minzu University which specializes in ethnic minority studies, told Reuters in November that state security agents had threatened him for speaking to foreign reporters.
"I have never associated myself with a terrorist organization or a foreign-based group," Tohti told Radio Free Asia's Uyghur Service last year in a statement he asked to have released if he was taken into custody. "I have relied only on pen and paper to diplomatically request the human rights, legal rights, and autonomous regional rights for the Uyghurs."
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Communique "Arrest of Professor Ilham Tohti" (2014/02/27)
We have learned of the formal arrest of Ilham Tohti, renowned professor of economics at the Central Nationalities University (中央民族大学). He now stands accused of attempted separatism, a crime punishable, in the worst of cases, by the death. Although Professor Tohti regularly speaks out to defend the rights of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang and to question the central administration’s policy in this region, he has never approved of violence, nor has he defended the cause of independence of Xinjiang or any other form of separatism. Ilham Tohti’s criticisms and propositions are based on his academic research which he has carried out with the utmost rigour. Indeed, through his website “Uyghurs online,” he has worked for a number of years towards creating a space for dialogue between the Han majority and the Uyghurs. Through student exchanges, co-advised PhDs and joint research projects, our university has enjoyed a long-standing partnership with the Central Nationalities University, an institution renowned for its academic excellence. For all these reasons, we wish to draw attention to the worrying situation of this colleague. This affair constitutes an inacceptable violation of the intellectual freedom of academics, and more generally, of freedom of expression.
Gregory Lee, Chair of the Department of Chinese, University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
Claire Dodane, Director, the Institute for Transtextual and Transcultural Studies (IETT), University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
Florent Villard, Deputy Director, the Institute for Transtextual and Transcultural Studies (IETT), University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Florent VILLARD
Département des Etudes Chinoises
Institut des Etudes Transtextuelles et Transculturelles (EA 4186)
Université de Lyon - Jean Moulin Lyon 3
http://univ-lyon3.academia.edu/FlorentVillard
We have learned of the formal arrest of Ilham Tohti, renowned professor of economics at the Central Nationalities University (中央民族大学). He now stands accused of attempted separatism, a crime punishable, in the worst of cases, by the death. Although Professor Tohti regularly speaks out to defend the rights of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang and to question the central administration’s policy in this region, he has never approved of violence, nor has he defended the cause of independence of Xinjiang or any other form of separatism. Ilham Tohti’s criticisms and propositions are based on his academic research which he has carried out with the utmost rigour. Indeed, through his website “Uyghurs online,” he has worked for a number of years towards creating a space for dialogue between the Han majority and the Uyghurs. Through student exchanges, co-advised PhDs and joint research projects, our university has enjoyed a long-standing partnership with the Central Nationalities University, an institution renowned for its academic excellence. For all these reasons, we wish to draw attention to the worrying situation of this colleague. This affair constitutes an inacceptable violation of the intellectual freedom of academics, and more generally, of freedom of expression.
Gregory Lee, Chair of the Department of Chinese, University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
Claire Dodane, Director, the Institute for Transtextual and Transcultural Studies (IETT), University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
Florent Villard, Deputy Director, the Institute for Transtextual and Transcultural Studies (IETT), University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Florent VILLARD
Département des Etudes Chinoises
Institut des Etudes Transtextuelles et Transculturelles (EA 4186)
Université de Lyon - Jean Moulin Lyon 3
http://univ-lyon3.academia.edu/FlorentVillard
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Internet Freedom in China: A Menace that Must Be Removed
By Mo Zhixu (China Change)
By Mo Zhixu (China Change)
Μια διάσταση που δεν πρέπει να ξεχνάμε.
Το κύριο χαρακτηριστικό της ραγδαίας οικονομικής ανάπτυξης της Κίνας είναι ότι κατά την προηγούμενη δεκαετία δόθηκε απόλυτη προτεραιότητα στη βελτίωση των οικονομικών μεγεθών αγνοώντας το περιβάλλον. Αυτό είχε ως αποτέλεσμα την εγκατάσταση πάνω από τις κινέζικες πόλεις ενός πυκνού νέφους ρύπανσης, οι μακροχρόνιες επιπτώσεις του οποίου δεν έχουν ακόμα αποτιμηθεί. Η αλλαγή πορείας όμως έχει πολιτικά χαρακτηριστικά γιατί η ραγδαία οικονομική αύξηση των τελευταίων χρόνων σταδιακά δημιουργεί κινέζικη μεσαία τάξη, η οποία εκτός των άλλων απαιτεί και ποιοτικές συνθήκες διαβίωσης. Είναι χαρακτηριστικό ότι σε δύο επαρχίες, στην ανατολική Shandong και στη βορειοδυτική Gansu έχουμε την προσθήκη της προστασίας του περιβάλλοντος στη δέσμη κριτηρίων για την οικονομική ανάπτυξη. Αυτό πρακτικά σημαίνει μείωση της εξάρτησης της οικονομίας από ρυπογόνες πηγές ενέργειας όπως το κάρβουνο. Είναι όμως κατανοητό ότι είτε μείωση είτε η κατάργηση κάθε τύπου παραγωγής ενέργειας προϋποθέτει την ύπαρξη αξιόπιστης εναλλακτικής λύσης η οποία θα στηρίξει την αναπτυξιακή πορεία της κινεζικής οικονομίας.
Άρα, όλα τα παραπάνω ενδεχομένως να αποτελούν τα επιμέρους θέματα της αλλαγής πορείας του τρόπου διακυβέρνησης της κινέζικης οικονομίας. Κι όλα να επικαλύπτονται από την προσπάθεια της κινεζικής ηγεσίας να επιβραδύνει το ρυθμό ανάπτυξης με στόχο:
α) τις διαρθρωτικές αλλαγές στην οικονομία και
β) την ορθολογική χρήση των φυσικών πόρων.
http://www.athensvoice.gr/article/city-news-voices/πολιτικη/ο-κινέζικος-δράκος-παρουσιάζει-αρρυθμίες
Το κύριο χαρακτηριστικό της ραγδαίας οικονομικής ανάπτυξης της Κίνας είναι ότι κατά την προηγούμενη δεκαετία δόθηκε απόλυτη προτεραιότητα στη βελτίωση των οικονομικών μεγεθών αγνοώντας το περιβάλλον. Αυτό είχε ως αποτέλεσμα την εγκατάσταση πάνω από τις κινέζικες πόλεις ενός πυκνού νέφους ρύπανσης, οι μακροχρόνιες επιπτώσεις του οποίου δεν έχουν ακόμα αποτιμηθεί. Η αλλαγή πορείας όμως έχει πολιτικά χαρακτηριστικά γιατί η ραγδαία οικονομική αύξηση των τελευταίων χρόνων σταδιακά δημιουργεί κινέζικη μεσαία τάξη, η οποία εκτός των άλλων απαιτεί και ποιοτικές συνθήκες διαβίωσης. Είναι χαρακτηριστικό ότι σε δύο επαρχίες, στην ανατολική Shandong και στη βορειοδυτική Gansu έχουμε την προσθήκη της προστασίας του περιβάλλοντος στη δέσμη κριτηρίων για την οικονομική ανάπτυξη. Αυτό πρακτικά σημαίνει μείωση της εξάρτησης της οικονομίας από ρυπογόνες πηγές ενέργειας όπως το κάρβουνο. Είναι όμως κατανοητό ότι είτε μείωση είτε η κατάργηση κάθε τύπου παραγωγής ενέργειας προϋποθέτει την ύπαρξη αξιόπιστης εναλλακτικής λύσης η οποία θα στηρίξει την αναπτυξιακή πορεία της κινεζικής οικονομίας.
Άρα, όλα τα παραπάνω ενδεχομένως να αποτελούν τα επιμέρους θέματα της αλλαγής πορείας του τρόπου διακυβέρνησης της κινέζικης οικονομίας. Κι όλα να επικαλύπτονται από την προσπάθεια της κινεζικής ηγεσίας να επιβραδύνει το ρυθμό ανάπτυξης με στόχο:
α) τις διαρθρωτικές αλλαγές στην οικονομία και
β) την ορθολογική χρήση των φυσικών πόρων.
http://www.athensvoice.gr/article/city-news-voices/πολιτικη/ο-κινέζικος-δράκος-παρουσιάζει-αρρυθμίες