April 28 – AP Comp Gov - Stations

1. April 28 – AP Comp Gov - Stations Agenda: • Country Briefs • The Chinese Dream • Challenges to the State HW: Read and annotate “Little Emperors” and be prepared with two discussion questions for class tomorrow Take out: • Pen/Pencil • Notebook • Homework write-up

2. China – Special Report Xi described the dream as "national rejuvenation, improvement of people’s livelihoods, prosperity, construction of a better society and military strengthening." He has stated that young people should "dare to dream, work assiduously to fulfill the dreams and contribute to the revitalization of the nation.” Is the “Chinese Dream” attainable under the existing system?

3. Stations • The Party • Separatists • One Country, Two Systems • Civil Society • Environment • Population • Urban/Rural Gap/Poverty • Human Rights/Falun Gong • Mega Cities • Each one deals with some aspect of current challenges • In some instances it will tell you how the government has responded. In others you will have to use what you know about China to predict how to respond.  Your Task for Each Station: • As the new (5th) generation of Chinese leaders, what actions should you (the state) take to deal with China’s challenges?  • Read through the materials, and answer the following questions: • What specific challenges are presented here?  • Based on your assessment of the challenge, is action needed? If so, what do you choose to do about it? Justify your decision What needs to be clear is your awareness and application of Chinese political culture in both your assessment of what you see as a challenge to the state in what you see/read and also in what you think should be done about it.

5. 1 CCP (Chinese Communist Party) • Largest political party in world with growing membership. • Only 8% of those over 18 belong. Many of those come from the Youth League (almost 70 million belonged by 2005) • Allowed Capitalists in in 2001 • Women members up 22.6%, ethnic minorities up 11.6% and college graduates up 40.8%

6. 1 CCP (Chinese Communist Party) • 2007 Chinese Government reported 73.36 million (increase of 6.42 million over 2002) • 7.96 million... workers; • 23.1 million... farmers, herdsmen and fishermen; (Peasants) • 21.3 million... cadres, managerial staff and technical specialists; • 1.6 million... army men and armed police; • 1.95 million... students; • 13.77 million... retired people, and • 3.64 million...'others'... • Of the new members • 4.2 million (31.9 %) women • 6.5 million (49.3%) were policemen, doctors or teachers • 134,000 from the “new social stratum”* applied. Some accepted. 64,000 likely to join. *"The 'new social stratum' includes private entrepreneurs, technicians and managerial-level staff in private or foreign-funded companies, the self-employed and employees in intermediate organizations, according to the CPC.

7. 1 Recruitment levels for CCP at an all-time high in Universities • In 1997 just over 4% of undergraduates were party members. Within a decade the proportion had doubled... • In 2010 more than 1.2m students joined, about 40% of the total (see chart)

8. 1 CCP Graduate Employment *In a survey of graduates from 12 universities Employment rate within two months of graduation Only at vocational colleges did the party members appear to have an advantage: gaining work within 2 months Jobs at state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are among the most coveted of all: • More than 21% of non-members surveyed got work at SOEs, compared with just under 20% of party members. 80% 85% Members Non-Members 96% 90% Members Non-Members

9. 2 Tibet • Since 13th century theocracy (power by Buddhist priest, the Dalai Lama). Former government of Tibet never recognized Chinese authority and many Tibetans today campaign for independence. • Control to PRC 1951 instead of war. Constitution gives them the right to self-govt as an autonomous region but autonomy limited. • Do have latitude in population control (not one-child policy) and language • 1959 widespread revolt against Chinese rule led to invasion by PLA and kept firm grip ever since. • Dalai Lama active internationally but tensions because some see as possibility for political protest. • 2008 riots and demonstrations in Tibet on 49th anniversary of failed uprising • 300 monks demanded release of other monks who were detained for several months. More demands followed, Tibetans and non-tibetans quarreled, and rioting, looting and burning and killing began. • Premier Wen Jiabao blamed Dalai Lama for orchestrating. Denied. Tense…protests in other provinces with Tibetan populations followed.

10. 2 Xinjiang • Home of the Uyghurs – Muslims (Sunni) of Turkish descent. • Constitution gives right to self-govt but autonomy limited. • Given latitude in population control and language (Turkic-speaking) • July 2009, riots broke out in the capital city of Xinjiang. – sparked by dissatisfaction with the Chinese government’s handling of the deaths of two Uyghur workers during previous disruptions, but mostly part of the ongoing ethnic tensions between the Han and the Uyghurs. • 3 days of rioting, HuJintao had to leave G8 summit to return and give his full attention to the violence. • Police tried to stop rioters with tear gas, water hoses, roadblocks and armored vehicles. Internet shut down, cell phone restricted. • China’s official news media reported death toll 197, and hundreds more hospitalized. • communist party in Xinjiang promised that those who have “committed crimes with cruel means” would be executed • resent the growing presence in Xinjiang of Han Chinese people, whom they say get the better jobs and land. • Uighurs once formed the vast majority of residents in Xinjiang… In recent decades, the number of Han Chinese residents has grown, aided by migration. Uighurs now make up 46 percent of Xinjiang’s civilian population of 22 million, and Han Chinese account for 40 percent, according to government estimates…

11. 2 Blood in the streets: Brutal rioting broke out this week in China's Xinjiang region between members of the Uighur ethnic group, Han Chinese, and government security forces. More than 156 people were killed in the riots in the capital of Urumqi, which began after police quashed a protest by students over ethnic discrimination. China has threatened to execute the leaders of the uprising -- while intervening to protect the Uighur community from ethnic reprisals. The violence has briefly focused global attention on one of the world's bitterest, but least-understood, ethnic conflicts. Above, an unconscious protester is pulled away from the fighting on July 7. PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images

12. Meet the Uighurs: The majority of Uighurs live in Xinjiang, the massive western "autonomous region" that accounts for nearly a sixth of China's land area. At its height in the ninth century, the Uighur empire stretched from the Caspian Sea into eastern China. The Uighurs also managed to establish independent republics twice during the 20th century before being annexed by the People's Republic of China in 1949. Above, a Uighur man sells knives in the 2,000-year-old city of Kashgar on April 3, 2008. MARK RALSTON/Getty Images

13. Under Bejing's gaze: The Chinese government has actively promoted the migration of Han Chinese to Xinjiang, and since the 1950s, the region's Han community has grown from 5 to 40 percent of the region's total population. Although recent years have seen enormous economic growth in the region, local Uighurs have become increasingly resentful of control from Beijing. After a Uighur uprising in 1990, the Communist Party took steps to accelerate the integration of Xinjiang into China by stepping up migration and increasing the security presence and control over religion in the region. Above, a Han woman and a group of Uighur men stand in front of a statue of Chairman Mao in a park in Kashgar on June 14, 2008. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

14. Mosque and state: Most Uighurs practice Sunni or Sufi Islam, infused with a fair amount of local folklore and tradition. Uighur Islam is traditionally extremely moderate on social issues, though in recent decades, more fundamentalist traditions were introduced by students who studied abroad in Central Asian and Pakistani madrasas. The Uighur independence movement has had a strongly Islamic character since the 1980s. Until recently, there was almost no tradition of Islamist militancy in Xinjiang, but there have been reports that the Central Asian jihadist group Hizbut-Tahrir has made inroads in the region. The government tightly regulates the practice of Islam and accreditation of clerics. Above, Uighur women and children leave a mosque in Kashgar on June 14, 2008. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

15. Trade zone: Uighur cities, particularly Kashgar, have been important trade outposts along the Silk Road for more than 2,000 years. But in recent decades, many Uighurs have felt economically marginalized and shut out of Xinjiang’s rising prosperity as they’ve been forced to compete for jobs and agricultural land with the rising Han population. Here, cattle vendors tend to their animals at a Sunday market in Kashgar on June 15, 2008. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

16. Crackdown: Above, a Uighur woman walks with her son past security forces after demonstrations in Kashgar in 2008. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Chinese government switched its official position from denying the existence of unrest among Xinjiang's Muslim population to actively linking the region's separatist movement to global terrorism. International human rights groups say China is exaggerating the extent of Uighur terrorism and that many of the incidents labeled "terrorist attacks" are actually spontaneous civil unrest. MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images

17. The world is watching: The Uighur independence movement has received far less attention in the Western media than has neighboring Tibet, but its profile has been growing in recent years, thanks largely to actions by the Uighur diaspora. Above, a Uighur protester attempts to extinguish the Olympic flame during the torch relay preceding the Beijing Olympics on April, 3 2008. Below, Uighur demonstrators protest in Paris this week.

18. 2 Map of Ethnic Groups BBC.com

19. 3 Hong Kong • Status: Semi-autonomous, special administrative region of China • Population: 6.9 million (via UN, 2006) • Area: 1,098 sq km (424 sq miles) • Life expectancy: 80 (men), 86 (women) • Monetary unit: Hong Kong dollar • Main exports: Electrical and electronic goods, clothing • GNI* per capita: $31,610 (World Bank, 2007), $52,190 (World Bank, 2012) China = 73, 77 * sum of value added by all resident producers plus any product taxes. Data are in current international dollars.

20. 3 Hong Kong Once home to fishermen and farmers, modern Hong Kong is a teeming, commercially-vibrant metropolis where Chinese and Western influences fuse. The former British colony became a special administrative region of China in 1997, when Britain's 99-year lease of the New Territories, north of Hong Kong island, expired. Hong Kong is governed under the principle of "one country, two systems", under which China has agreed to give the region a high degree of autonomy and to preserve its economic and social systems for 50 years from the date of the handover. Hong Kong's constitution, the Basic Law, provides for the development of democratic processes. However, Beijing can veto changes to the political system and pro-democracy forces have been frustrated by what they see as the slow pace of political reform. Hong Kong's economy has moved away from manufacturing and is now services-based. The region is a major corporate and banking centre as well as a conduit for China's burgeoning exports. Its deepwater port is one of the world's busiest. Companies based in Hong Kong employ millions of workers in the neighboring Chinese province of Guangdong. In the 19th and 20th centuries Hong Kong's population was boosted by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants from China, many of whom were fleeing domestic upheavals. Industrialization gathered pace, and by the 1970s Hong Kong had become an "Asian tiger"; one of the region's economic powerhouses. With little room for expansion across its hilly terrain, high-rise Hong Kong has among the highest population density in the world; some 6,300 people per square kilometre. Skyscrapers and temples, shopping malls and traditional markets sit cheek-by-jowl.

21. 3 Taiwan • China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the defeated Nationalist government fled to the island as the Communists, under Mao Zedong, swept to power. • In July 2009 the leaders of China and Taiwan exchanged direct messages for the first time in more than 60 years. • And in June 2010, the two countries signed an historic trade pact that was described by some analysts as the most significant agreement in 60 years of separation. • For decades, the island was an authoritarian one-party state ruled by the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT), which under President Chiang Kai-shek controlled much of China before the Communists' rise to power in 1949. • In the early 1990s, however, Taiwan made the transition to democracy and the KMT's monopoly on power ended completely in 2000. • Taiwan has open, multiparty elections for all local and island-wide positions. • Different political and economic systems. Taiwan is an island which has for all practical purposes been independent for half a century, but which China regards as a rebel region that must be reunited with the mainland - by force if necessary.

22. 4 Interest Groups • Mass organizations – government created and organized • Factory workers belong to the All-China Federation of Trade unions. • Largest trade union in the world. 134 million members. • Divided into 31 regional organizations and 10 national industrial unions. • Women = All-China Women’s Federation • Impact?: Chinese citizens have labor laws that protect workers (ex: provide written contracts and restrict use of temporary laborers to give more employees long-term job security) BUT they only get those protections through the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. There is no ability to form independent unions. This is an example of what policymaking-relationship vocab term?

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24. 4 Over 500,000 NGOs* are registered with the statesince 1990 • perhaps 1.5 million more are not registered • Some of these, like MrZeng’s, pursue activism in areas which officials have often found worrying. • These unregistered NGOs are growing in number and influence. • Even official NGOs have doubled in a decade (see chart) • huge earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, which killed 70,000 people. Thousands of volunteers converged on Sichuan to lend a hand to the rescue. Ordinary people found out what it was like to get organized and join in. “We all saw the NGOs at work, and saw that they were much more effective than the government,” says the Sichuan Academy’s MsGuo. The government drew similar conclusions and allowed more NGOs to register through state organizations. *Many NGOs are quasi-official or mere shell entities attempting to get government money. Of those genuine groups that do seek to improve the common lot, nearly all carry out politically uncontentious activities.

25. 4 New for NGOs For his troubles, MrZeng, (the leader of the Panyu Migrant Workers’ Service Centre - working for more than a decade to defend the rights of workers in the factories of Guangdong province)has been evicted from various premises, had his water and electricity cut off, and been constantly harassed by local officials and their thugs. Then last autumn (2012) he received a call from one such official. “The man asked if I wanted to register the NGO,” he says. “I was very surprised.” Until 2012, any NGO that wanted to register—and so be legal—had to have a sponsoring official organization, typically a government agency that worked in the area of the NGO • Charity organizations were allowed first, if they registered. • Environmental protection and HIV/AIDS were among the first areas to benefit from a new toleration of some NGOs. • Since 2011 four types of groups have been able to register directly in a number of provinces: industry associations, science and technology organizations, charities and outfits providing social services. • Still Not OK: • Human rights organizations (banned) • Groups promoting religious, ethnic or labor rights • NGOs are not allowed to register branch offices in different provinces. • Foreign funding of NGOs • Meddling (see box) • New Rules for NGOs that provide services to groups such as the poor, elderly and disabled • Allowed to develop provided they submit to control by the state through registration • No longer need official sponsor • Free to receive public donations IF fundraising goes through a government-controlled “NGO” Yirenping works on the fringes, an advocacy NGO staffed by lawyers who take on legal cases with an eye to the precedents they might set. One of its recent cases was that of a girl who was not allowed to take the national high-school exam because she is blind. It has helped people with hepatitis B and AIDS who have been fired from their jobs. One of its lawyers, Huang Yizhi, says the group will probably not try to register. Like many NGOs unable to find an official sponsor, it is currently registered as a business. If it registered as an NGO, says Ms Huang, it might receive government money but it would have to tone down its advocacy. The ambiguity of its status suits it as it chooses its cases carefully, engages in advocacy on issues, such as social equality, that the party says it cares about too and tries not to tweak the dragon’s tail enough to risk being squashed by it.

26. 5 Environment • http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/ • http://www.pbs.org/kqed/chinainside/nature/waterissues.html

27. 5 Environment • The World Bank: 16 of world's 20 most polluted cities • Rivers in north drying up • Environmental Performance Index* ranks China 128 out of 132 countries. (India last) • When including air quality, water, agriculture and climate change China 116. (India last at 125) *a bi-annual report put out by Yale University and Columbia University that ranks countries based on a number of environmental factors

28. 5 2013 – In January, outrage boiled over as air pollution in north China reached record levels • Air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010 • Pollution is the fourth-leading risk factor for deaths in China in 2010, behind dietary risks, high blood pressure and smoking... • China’s toll from pollution was the loss of 25 million healthy years of life from the population in 2010 • There has been growing outrage in Chinese cities over what many say are untenable levels of air pollution. Cities across the north hit record levels in January, and official Chinese newspapers ran front-page articles on the surge — what some foreigners call the “airpocalypse” — despite earlier limits on such discussion by propaganda officials.In February, the State Council, China’s cabinet, announced a timeline for introducing new fuel standards, but state-owned oil and power companies are known to block or ignore environmental policies to save on costs... The discovery of at least 16,000 dead pigs in rivers that supply drinking water to Shanghai has ignited alarm there. The Beijing government on Thursday released details of a three-year plan that is aimed at curbing various forms of pollution… The report quoted Wang Anshun, Beijing’s mayor, as saying that sewage treatment, garbage incineration and forestry development would cost at least $16 billion… The public fury forced propaganda officials to allow official Chinese news organizations to report more candidly on the pollution.

29. 5 Coal-fired power plants • Greenhouse gases. In 2008, China surpassed the United States as the largest global emitter of greenhouse gases by volume. (On a per capita basis, however, Americans emit five times as much greenhouse gas as Chinese.) The increase in China's emissions is primarily due to the country's reliance on coal, which accounts for over two-thirds of its energy consumption. It contributes to sulfur dioxide emissions causing acid rain, which falls on over 30 percent of the country. • China’s pollution comes mostly from its coal-fired power plants and motor vehicle emissions (caused by cheap gas and diesel). • Chinese state-owned enterprises in the oil and power industries have consistently blocked efforts by pro-environment government officials to impose policies that would alleviate the pollution.

30. 5 Land Desertification in China leads to the loss of about 5,800 square miles of grasslands every year, an area roughly the size of Connecticut. • excessive farm cultivation, particularly overgrazing, is one of the leading causes of desertification. • policy followed from the 1950s to the early 1980s that encouraged farmers to settle in grasslands. • As the deforestation grows, so do the number of sandstorms; a hundred were expected between 2000 and 2009, more than a fourfold increase over the previous decade. • Desertification also contributes to China's air pollution problems, with increasing dust causing a third of China's air pollution. Soil contamination China has problems with soil contamination from arsenic and other heavy metals from mines and factories. Zhou Jianmin, director of the China Soil Association, told the Guardian that he estimated that one-tenth of China’s farmland was affected. Soil contamination could have potentially dire consequences for food production and human health, scientists told the Guardian.

31. 5 Beijing, 2005 • Population and development. One example of this can be seen in car production: As Kelly Sims Gallagher notes in her book, China Shifts Gears, China produced 42,000 passenger cars in 1990. By 2004, the number hit one million, with sixteen million cars on China's roads. By 2000, motor vehicles were the leading cause of China's urban air pollution, though China adheres to stricter mileage standards than the United States.

32. 5 Henan Anyang iron and steel plant’ssewage flowed into Anyang River. March 25, 2008 • roughly 200 million tons of sewage and industrial waste poured into Chinese waterways in 2004.

33. 5 • Villager washing in a seriously polluted pond in Guiyu, Guandong province. November 25, 2005 • rivers and reservoirs have been contaminated

34. In Ma’anshan, Anhui province, along the Yangtze River there are many small-scaled Iron selection factories and plastic processing plants. Large amounts of sewage discharged into the Yangtze River June 18, 2009 • 70 % of the country's rivers and lakes are polluted

35. 5 A Large amount of the chemical wastewater discharged into Yangtze River from Zhenjiang Titanium mill every day. Less than 1,000 meters away downstream is where the water department of Danyang City gets its water from. June 10, 2009 • 1/3 of China's population lacks access to clean drinking water. China's own government has admitted that about 14 % of China's water sources had unqualified drinking water and that 11.4 % of water supplies to cities were unsafe.

36. 6 Protests over • Land seizures by local authorities are one of the main causes of the tens of thousands of protests that break out in China each year; earlier this month hundreds of villagers in southern Guangdong besieged government buildings and attacked police over confiscated farmland. • 2.5 million to 3 million farmers a year lose land to development, rarely with sufficient compensation. • Land sales have become one of the main sources of income for local governments, generating as much as a third to a half of revenues in some areas. (the tax system is skewed so that local revenues benefit from industrial development far more than residential.) • Corrupt officials are often blamed for taking bribes from developers. But Tao says the problem was more basic. Land is collectively owned and farmers have no right to sell the patches they lease.

37. 6 Protests • http://video.pbs.org/video/2035448290/ • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkA2mgCDfz0&feature=player_embedded • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjXpzWIpS58&feature=player_embedded#at=51 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgASba_Feo0 • Most of these 2008

38. 6 Rural Protests • By govt’s own count, 87,000 “public order disturbances” in 2005 (up from 10,000 in 1994) • Over high taxes, Corruption, Lack of central government spending

39. 6 Corruption • Popular frustration about the issue is one of the driving forces behind the rising signs of civil unrest around China. • By one estimate, there were 127,467 "mass incidents" in China in 2008. • In one government poll last year, 75 percent of respondents cited corruption as the number one problem facing the country.

40. 6 Population Growth • China’s One Child Policy • Families with more than one child are subject to pay fines, economic penalties, and can be restricted from getting work bonuses. • Country dwellers are more eligible to have multiple children, especially if first born is female or disabled • All non-Han ethnic groups are subject to different rules. The one child policy covers “nationalities” in China with over 10 million members. Tibet, with a population of 5 to 6 million, is a “minority nationality” and is, in theory, exempt from family planning provisions. • Generational problem – gradual relaxation of one-child policy in urban areas

41. 7 Poverty Lines • Poverty levels in China have dropped from 260 million in 1978 to 42 million in 1998

42. 7 World Bank Income • Average income in 1985 = $293. • But in 2006, that figure had risen to $2,025. • Society has also loosened up. Chinese people have now more freedom to choose such things as where to live, what to wear and which career to pursue.

43. 7 Gains • China's economic growth and reform since 1978 have dramatically improved the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, increased social mobility, and expanded the scope of personal freedom. • This has meant substantially greater freedom of travel, employment opportunities, educational and cultural pursuits, job and housing choices, and access to information. • In recent years, China has also passed new criminal and civil laws that provide additional safeguards to citizens. Village elections, though narrow in scope and often procedurally flawed, have been carried out in over 90% of China's approximately 600,000 villages.

44. 7 Migrant Workers • government says there are currently 210 million. These are farmers who leave their fields to work in the cities. But the children of this migrant population do not have the right to a free education when they move. State schools receive no funding for migrant pupils, so often claim to be full. Special schools have been set up in most cities, and although they receive a little support from city governments, these schools mostly rely on the fees paid by their pupils. Most cities have special schools for migrant workers' children "The 30 years of success have raised expectations in China," he told the BBC. "There is goodwill and pride but, at the same time, we have a new generation coming up and they will be impatient." There have been enormous social and economic changes in China over the last three decades, but few political reforms - and that could be a problem. "The decision-making process is a consensual group process, but [China's leaders] are very attentive to the idea that they have to be responsive to public moods," said the World Bank president.

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46. 8 Falun Gong • Falun Gong is a quintessential blend of both yoga exercises and spirituality principles. • Beliefs - Practitioners of Falun Gong are supposed to assimilate themselves to the qualities of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance by letting go of "attachments and desires,“being kind, and suffering to repay karma. The ultimate goal of the practice is enlightenment, and release from the cycle of reincarnation. • There are no administrators or officials within the practice, no system of membership, and no churches or physical places of worship. Students are free to participate in the practice and follow its teachings as much or as little as they like, and practitioners do not instruct others on what to believe or how to behave. The emblem of Falun Dafa is called the “Falun,” a Chinese term that translates loosely as “Wheel of Law.” It is composed of two primary elements: yin-yang symbols, which are Taoist in nature, and srivatsa, which are Buddhist. The srivatsa is commonly seen in Asian Buddhism.

47. 8 Falun Gong • The practice involves a series of five exercises. The purpose of these exercises is to channel and harmonize the qi that is supposed to circulate through the body. Falung Gong is a form of qigong developed in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, a railway official with no particular spiritual or medical training. One advantage Falun Gong has over other forms is that its exercises are relatively simple, can be learned quickly, and can be performed anywhere, making it ideal for people living busy lives in modern cities. • Falun Gong espouses the belief that through moral rectitude and cultivation, supplemented with the practice of exercises and meditation, a person’s body can be purified and, in effect, healed of illnesses. The fifth exercise involves focusing the mind in meditation on a visualized wheel spinning within the core of the body. The wheel of dharma is a literal wheel of energy that rotates within each properly exercised human body and connects the human person to the rotation of the cosmos.

48. 8 Falun Gong • by 1999 estimates suggested there were 60 – 70 million Falun Gong practitioners in China • Cast as superstitious, got a lot of criticism from many different organizations. • Thousands of FG followers wrote to the government to complain about treatment • April 1999— 10,000 people lined curbs, standing silently all day outside the compound where most of the government and party elite live in Beijing, and then walked off • Protesting treatment by media and party • Falun Gong has asserted their determination to practice their beliefs through large-scale, organized, disciplined, dramatic protest. • In July 1999, China banned Falun Gong in the mainland, fearing "a serious ideological and political struggle that would have a bearing on the future of the Communist Party and the State". They arrested hundreds of members, demanded US extradite the founder. • Ten years later, in 2009 as many as 8,000 practitioners were detained, according to experts on human rights, and at least 100 died in custody.

49. 8  Human Rights in China 2008 Amnesty International • 470 people were executed and 1,860 people sentenced to death during 2007, although the true figures were believed to be much higher. • Death sentences and executions continued to be imposed for 68 offences, including many non-violent crimes such as corruption and drug-related offences. • 2012 the govt removed 13 of these (and added more) • An estimated 500,000 people were subjected to punitive detention without charge or trial through "re-education through labour" and other forms of administrative detention.  • 3,500 people executed in 2004 • Iran was next with 159, Vietnam (64) and the US (59) • 2012 Report • estimated 500,000 people are currently enduring punitive detention without charge or trial • Former RTL (Re-education through Labor) prisoners reported that Falun Gong constituted one of the largest groups of prisoners. The authorities used a variety of illegal forms of detention, including "black jails", "legal education classes", "study classes" and mental health institutions to detain thousands of people. • The government was in year 2 of a three-year campaign to increase the “transformation” rates of Falun Gong practitioners, a process through which individuals were pressured, often through mental and physical torture, to renounce their belief in and practice of Falun Gong. Practitioners who refused to renounce their faith were at risk of escalating levels of torture and other ill-treatment.

50. 9 Migration and Urbanization • Until a decade ago, the government enforced stringent controls on internal migration. Today officials cite the additional 300 million farmers expected to move to cities over the next two decades as a positive force that will help alleviate China’s urban-rural income gap. • Ten years ago, a Chinese citizen needed to get permission from his supervisor, his work unit’s party secretary and the local police just to apply for a passport (which could take months, assuming the passport was approved at all). Today it takes less than a week. • Less than two decades ago, all foreigners in Beijing were forced to live in designated locations, such as hotels or compounds guarded by military police. Today, foreigners and Chinese live side by side. When Chinese are asked about the democratization of their society, they are as likely to mention these sorts of changes as they are elections or judicial reform. They may be confusing the concept of liberty with democracy, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the expansion of their personal freedom as insignificant.