This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
As Bloomberg Reporter Is Beaten Up In China, Wen Jiabao Promises To Crack Down On "Power Abuse"
With violent protests springing up like mushrooms, following recent appearances in North Korea and Vietnam, and following last weekend's failed attempt at a Jasmine Revolution, China's authoritarian regime is about to be put to the supreme test. Bloomberg reports that "Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to punish abuse of power by officials and narrow the growing wealth gap as police blanketed Beijing and Shanghai to head off planned protests inspired by revolts in the Middle East." In other words, beatings (and disappearances) will continue until morale finally improves. As for the beatings, Bloomberg's Stephen Engle managed to experience one up close and personal: "Security officers also detained several foreign journalists, including
Stephen Engle, a reporter for Bloomberg Television. The Wall Street
Journal saw Mr. Engle being grabbed by several security officers, pushed
to the ground, dragged along by his leg, punched in the head and beaten
with a broom handle by a man dressed as street sweeper." Yes, China may be the most repressive regime when push comes to shove, but should 1+ billion angry and hungry Chinese decide there is nothing all that unique about China compared to Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Ivory Coast, Vietnam, North Korea, Djibouti and countless more to come, not even the most convincing "blanketing" by police forces will do much of anything to prevent the only revolution that matters.
Bloomberg on China's latest desperate attempt to deflect public anger:
The root of corruption lies in a government that has too much unrestrained power, Wen said in a two-hour online interview with citizens yesterday. He promised to curtail food costs and tackle surging property prices. Wen also cut economic growth targets and said the government would focus on ensuring the benefits of expansion were more evenly distributed.
Wen’s comments came as hundreds of police deployed in Beijing and Shanghai at the site of demonstrations called to protest corruption and misrule. At least seven people were bundled into police vans near Shanghai’s People’s Square, while in Beijing several foreign journalists were forcibly removed from the Wangfujing shopping district.
China’s leaders have emphasized the country’s economic successes in their response to demonstrations both in China and in the Middle East. While the country’s economy has expanded more than 90-fold in the past three decades, Wen said rising inequality is threatening social stability.
“The party leadership needs to reassure the people that in the absence of political reform they can nonetheless meet the people’s rising expectations,” said Chinese University of Hong Kong’s adjunct professor of history Willy Wo-lap Lam. “The expectation for what the government should do for the people has increased” as a result of protests sweeping Arab nations.
And following all that is the only thing that matters:
An August report by Zurich-based Credit Suisse AG put income inequality levels in China at levels not seen outside of sub-Saharan Africa. High food prices, unemployment and anger over corruption helped spark the protests that toppled Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and have fueled rebellion against Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi.
As for what is really happening in China, we can't wait to see Bloomberg's Stephen Engle recount first thing tomorrow:
Police easily quashed last Sunday's call for protests at designated sites in 13 cities, including a McDonald's outlet in the popular Wangfujing shopping street in downtown Beijing. For this past Sunday, the online activists urged people to protest silently by simply "taking a stroll" at many of the same sites.
In Beijing, hundreds of security officers—including uniformed police, burly plainclothes agents with earpieces, public-security "volunteers" in red armbands, and at least one SWAT team armed with automatic rifles and body armor—were deployed to Wangfujing. They initially allowed people to move fairly freely, while checking identification papers, but later cleared out most people and blocked off a 200-meter section of the street as two street-cleaning machines swept up and down spraying water to either side.
Security officers also detained several foreign journalists, including Stephen Engle, a reporter for Bloomberg Television. The Wall Street Journal saw Mr. Engle being grabbed by several security officers, pushed to the ground, dragged along by his leg, punched in the head and beaten with a broom handle by a man dressed as street sweeper.
Bottom line: you can take the authoritarian despotism out of the procyclical capitalism, but... nah, who are we kidding.
»
- 8675 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Ohhh, You are sucking me into the China syndrome
What Chinese syndrome?
Ivory Coast is a totally different setting. IC is a country which was forced to hold a national election when the country was spilt into two and whose judge of election was a foreign power (the UN)
It has very little to do with other countries.
The article also promises more to come. Yet when checking other countries, on important figures like national population, revenue per capital, PC spent on food, inflation etc, one has to notice that despite many bad performances, some countries are left untouched by the phenomenum.
Why so?
China might think that foreign agitators are in the mix. They might be on something as the phenomenum is extremelly select.
My thoughts exactly, but since I haven't been to mainland China for ages and don't have a clue, we can only rely on 2nd hand accounts. Besides, I've learned not to ignore articles like this on ZH. Some are obviously clueless, but others are astute. A Bloomberg cretin got tapped by a 90yr old road sweeper, and that somehow translates into a police crackdown. He should try loitering outside the School of Americas in Fort Benning.
Bring the Chinese into the Bloomberg and CNBC studios and instruct them to beat the dog shit out of all of these ass clowns.
Now that would be entertainment to the masses!
+1
Mayor B. not happy with this. He's going to order a) no smoking in any park or road in Bejing, b) removal of all trans-fats in the restaurants, and c) chefs can not add salt to the food.
That'll do the trick!
- Ned
Welcome to the TSA, Mr. Engle.
Am I supposed to be shocked?
Coulda been a Laura Logan moment, or hour, ....
Engle was planning a bearish article on Chinese solars.
So then the street sweeper was Leo?
Leo work? (pukking my guts out in laughter)
"...pushed to the ground, dragged along by his leg, punched in the head and beaten with a broom handle by a man dressed as street sweeper..."
You sir, are a vagina.
And you're saying that from the safety of the confines of your nicely appointed golden cage.
Please wear a flag, so we know who to target. Oh, you ain't in the US.
Never mind.
Note to the Chinese People: You can't count on the people in government who caused your problems to now fix them.
Raw Video: China Police Prevent "Jasmine" Demos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v3Dtksr84c&feature=player_embedded
The housing bubble in China is about to pop. Jasmine will turn into Joshua Trees.
"The World Bank has cited real estate crashes in Japan and Ireland as a warning to Chinese officials to rein in their finances. “China must carefully study the cases of Japan and Ireland, where the collapse of the real estate bubble caused a financial crisis and economic stagnation,” the World Bank’s chief economist Justin Yifu Lin told a Beijing University symposium recently."
"Properties in the new and booming Central Business District (CBD) in east Beijing, for instance, start at 50,000 yuan per square metre.
A typical three-bedroom property in CBD, considered an upscale area with many foreigners and wealthy Chinese, runs about nine million yuan ($1.34-million), or 90 times the average annual salary of a civil servant.
The average cost of a two-bedroom apartment along the more affordable Fourth Ring Road area - considered the edge of central Beijing - is three million yuan or $447,000.
“It’s very, very expensive. Only very rich people can afford to live in this area,” said Heather Liu, 36, a private real estate agent dealing in high-end properties in the city. Though she called recent price increases “unbelievable,” she said she has already seen a slowdown in sales as clients find it harder to obtain mortgages."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/china-gets-tough-on-property-speculators/article1922762/
Michael, even the housing bubble popping talk is a distraction from massive structural problems faced by China.
IChina's recent growth has been like putting a kid on steroids from 6 months old and expecting them to "normalize" when they become teenagers.
China and India (and a host of smaller nations too) are dying under the yoke of frankenglobalization. Too much, too fast, too soon.
Explosions ahead for sure. I've never found it again, but HG wells had a superb quote, close to a hundred years ago, about how Bombs of every kind would be th elingua franca of the 21st century.
I don't think he was prescient. He just knew the plan.
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/the-fascinating-dr-chippalone/
Oman, north of Yemen may be on the verge of collapse. 6 dead in protests.
Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, the country’s ruler since 1970 number is up. Check Intrade.
"Six people were killed in Oman on Sunday, a government hospital said, after police opened fire with rubber bullets at protesters demanding political reform.Earlier reports on Sunday had put the toll at two.
The roads to the Gulf state's key industrial area Sohar, home to a refinery port and aluminium factory, has been blocked by protesters and a supermarket has been set on fire, witnesses said on Monday."
http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_six-killed-in-oman-protests-on-sunday-says-govt-hospital_1513546
Oman clashes widen protests in the gulf
http://www.freep.com/article/20110228/NEWS07/102280344/Oman-clashes-widen-protests-gulf
Oman Stocks Slump the Most in 15 Months as Protests Spread; Dubai Retreatshttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-28/oman-stocks-slump-the-most-in-15-months-as-protests-spread-dubai-retreats.html
What's Mandarin for 'Flash Mob'?
Zerohedge
Anytime the MSM decries a foreign crackdown the cry "FOUR DEAD IN OHIO" should be referenced, lest we forget. Based on his recent discussions with his staff Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker, needs a reminder that foreign potentates are not the only ones who wave a flag, make empty promises and then open fire on peaceful demonstrations.
sb 4 dead in Illinois. Them Dims follow the polls...and are choking...
http://understory.ran.org/2011/02/25/breaking-wisconsin-police-have-join...
It coulda been worse. He could have had a run-in with TSA at LAX.
Go long ROOSTER SAUCE B!tchez
#CN227 Twitter
timely updates, reported homeboys beatdown hours before bberg. Photos of street sweepers (jackboot thugs).
Tiananmen Square taught the chinese leadership that they can crack down on rebellion and get away with shooting a few thousand people every now and again. Within a generation it is hardly remembered.
They call that technique the "Hillary Hush-up."
Looks like Vietnam is following Egypts lead by banning Gold in the free market.
http://vietnamnews.vnanet.vn//Economy/208826/Trade-in-gold-bars-to-be-banned.html
Hunh. Article, doesn't mention anything about real estate (private), so I guess the Vietnamese will still be using gold for that market?
http://vnre.blogspot.com/2010/11/property-loses-golden-lustre-duet.html
It seems to me that the way to ensure the mass exodus of gold out of your country is to ban the free market.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Official government cable:
iPads for everyone!
Nope..wait...mistranslation - that's:
Jobs making iPads for everyone!
Wow, I heard he was quite ill.
He is, but scientists at Foxconn - in order to protect their company's interest - have developed a genetic cure for whatever he is afflicted with that is being withheld from shareholders in order to keep Apple stock high and keep the underage slaves in the Foxconn factories going full tilt while preventing them from hanging themselves from the rafters so Stevo can hang around long enough to buy off on the latest Apple technology in hopes somebody can be groomed to take his place to prevent Apple falling on its ass - which it has done every time he left or was pushed out, so Foxconn can keep producing expensive toys for its consumer masters in the good old USA. Wait...did I say "consumer masters?" Does that mean that without a viable US consumer the Chinese are in deep shit? So, does that mean to break the Chinese system, the US consumer first has to destroy American companies...since that is the conduit of their wealth? hhmmmm....
I guess their population policy is prohibiting them from cloning him...and to think that Steve lifted his ideas from Xerox...irony bitchez!
Yeah, Xerox PARK got a sweet spot on the Apple IPO for "lifting the Kimono" to Jobs. But, initially, it was Steve Wozniak who made Apple.
Woz!
I predict teachers will be cutting back on their I-shit purchase as their benefit bills increase.
Here's hoping you become deathly ill right as Medicaid is wiped out and then denied coverage, gaping asshole.
I said this in another thread, if you can afford it buy American made products and do not support "American" corporations that outsource tons of jobs.
"American companies."
I'm thinking it is time we stopped dignifying these transnational corporate sociopaths with the "American" name. They renounced their citizenship responsibilities long ago. They no longer even earn their keep . . . even as they ready themselves to buy our elections outright (rather than the old undercover routine.)
If China is, on balance, not our friend, certainly the corporations that dealt them into the game in exchange for trillions of middle class American wealth cannot claim to be on our team.
Is it time to stop referring to them as American companies?
It would appear that we are in sync this morning.
If they don't pay their fair share of tax and if they don't hire American workers, while they are benefitting from the pax americana paid for by the American people in both blood and taxes, they are simply manipulating the American people.
Why are they then American companies? They are no longer ... off with their heads.
They're the fat assed unemployed 35 year old crack head living in the basement who jacks the familiy car, writes bad checks on Dad's account, steals Mom's jewelry and beats her down when she complains, while collecting welfare and cashing the parental units' social security checks before they can get to the mailbox.
Time to toss that sick bastard onto the street and let him make his own way.
The US Consumer is swallowing itself whole, like the Ouroboros. The US Consumer is dead.
What lies beyond? I know it's a difficult concept in this day and age, but what about the US Citizen?
You can clearly see where this would leave multinational corporations who have allegiance to nothing but profit ...
Jobs for everyone! make iPads!
Everyone make iPads for Jobs.
The national thugs in Beijing like to play the sympathizers while they secretly order the local thugs to bash heads in. China is not the future. China is a sick joke.
It sure would suck to have them as your biggest creditor.
Tyler: Congratulations on Oscar for Inside Job..Zerohedge was catalyst for this win..xoxox
@Sqworl
See my comment two below. Did you see the Aaron Sorkin comment?
It was the filmmaker Charles Ferguson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpz5DVwnbnk
Chinese proverb say when tea vendor ask round eye how many lumps he want, never reply "A whole lotta big ones!"
OT, but did anyone see the Aaron Sorkin clip calling out the banksters at the Oscars? I heard about it, but didn't see it.
A lot of Hollyweird types got skinned by banstas, hedge whores and Ponzi promoters. We should all feel sorry for them, they could have used that money on blow, bling, bitchez and mega-cribs.
They did use the money for that. They're just pissed that the loan repayments were based on gross, not net.
+1
I happened to see it. Before he said his thank you's, he said he (words to the effect of) that he wanted to point out that our big, recent financial collapse was due to fraud and that no executives have gone to jail yet. It was a very good call out. I wondered if he had just read Matt Taibbi's recent article. I also wondered how many of the sheep watching the Oscars actually knew what he was talking about.
In this country?....-300,000,000.
@Bob Sponge
Thanks for the confirm. I, too, take it as a sign of the inevitable change of public sentiment; when this will metastisize into something larger and more threatening to TPTB is anyone's guess.
It was the filmmaker Charles Ferguson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpz5DVwnbnk
Cursive: It was the producer Charles Ferguson who called out the banksters: Nobody went to Jail...Inside Job will be used in schools to teach kids what really happened to their futures!...
The "power abuse" Wen Jiabao was likely referring to was that of a free press and several hundred million Chinese who are getting a little snotty about the possibility of their kids having to eat grass while a moneyed class of Communist potentates eat Foie Gras washed down with Domaine de la Romanee-Conti.
Spoken from a true connoisseur of life. I'm impressed. Keep up the good work!
Does that mean it is ok to drink DRC with obese goose liver?
The newly rich Chinese are very happy with foie corneille and counterfeit Petrus (mixed with Sprite), so the revolution will have to come from elsewhere.
"...should 1+ billion angry and hungry Chinese decide there is nothing all that unique about China compared to Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Ivory Coast, Vietnam, North Korea, Djibouti..."
You forgot Wisconsin, whre thankfully then cops are on your side.
Go long....Fondue?
At least until they send in the national guard, then go long batons.
True...and tear gas, and Growlers and jack-booted thugs on horseback....how the hell you go long that one? In China, it seems go long whistles and water.
"jack-booted thugs on horseback....how the hell you go long that one?"
The SEC is bound to have detailed downloads on that subject.
They probably do, but it sunk into their porn-laced brains as jerking-off hung thugs on whores backs.
Do the masses in China actually get the news about what is happening in other countries?
Not all of them, no. Those relative few with the Internet can find a way - even though the Internet is censored in China. But, word tends to filter down, but a lot of older Chinese probably do not buy into the younger generation's info. When I worked in Mozambique, we wanted to spread a message to villagers to not pick up or mess with landmines, and a local scientist recommended we use the "drums," which was a communication method that had been used for centuries. They could convey a simple message, and the guy assured us that if people did not understand the message, they would ask around and get the information. Well, it worked. There are ways of communicating without high-speed Internet, but they work more slowly. In China, time and patience are a part of the nature an the people.
Yes and no. If the students who come to London to do their postgrad studies are any indication, they can by-pass any state censors to access whatever they want. Whether they actually bother, is another matter. They distrust the MSM like every other intelligent person - a valuable lesson they learned from birth. So, the answer to your question is, yes they do, yes they can, and no they won't (Distrust), no they can't (67% of the population w/o internet)
China surpassed internet usage per week, no. of internet users, and any other internet stat a few years back. Over 384 million Chinese are online and growing geometrically. Oddly enough, the Chinese govt. issued "a white paper on internet policy emphasizing the guarantee of citizens' freedom of speech on the Internet and exhaustive usage of it." (International Business Times) last year.
After the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, Deng Xiaoping famously said massacre needs to take place every twenty years to ensure social stability. What they have been doing since then is to put lithum in their drinking water to ensure their social stability.
In conjunction with a little saltpeter to keep the low birthrate policy in place?
china's gone...
hedge funds are overbidding all risk currencies at the moment. bizarre, dragging hapless japanese margin traders in and a investment bank or two - to one massive bull trap.
china stock market celebrating, bringing along some valium-fed hedgies from HK to the party as well, and up and up goes euro (sorry ireland, no time for your election) and aud (too bad RBA is not hiking but copper in shanghai is up BIG TIME - do they use cu for solar panels?) and the dog GBP is up big time too this morning. JBTFD!
US Budget deficit is the gravest danger to the world economy
http://dawnwires.com/investment-news/us-budget-deficit-is-gravest-threat...
Maybe, but the "global economy" continues to finance it, or risk losing the 800 Lb gorilla of the US consumer that drives the global economy. The US is not going insolvent - the world will make sure that does not happen.
They can't prop US consumers up forever. China is diversifying into other currencies and assets. Eventually there will be even more dollar devaluation on the way.
???
kuài sh?n zú
Get back to work, I need a new toaster bitchez!
best. comment. ever.
Were they beating him up cause Bloomberg articles are so lame? Were they trying to beat some significance into him? Kick the innanity out of him?
the totalitarian chicoms are just as brutal - though not as elegant but perhaps more honest - as the western plutocratic pigs....but totalitarian bush 1 was anxious to bring this brutal police state into polite company so that his overlords could profit from 1+ billion new economic and debt slaves.
tianamen square redux.
Whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward.
Whoever cannot take care of himself without that law is both.
For a wounded man shall say to his assailant, "If I Die, You are forgiven. If I Live, I will kill you."
...Such is the Rule of Honor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc (edited for better youtube slip)
I'd like to think we live in a slightly more civilized society (at the moment anyway).
What's all the hub bub about? The reporter was asking questions. Why ask questions when the ruling powers already have the answers? Silly reporter.
It would be like asking whether the market is going to go up. Open your eyes people.
Beatings for ZH, all around ...
"All political power comes from the barrel of a gun." - Chairman Mao
"One man with a gun can control 100 without one." - Lenin
Understand the tyrant's mentality. How do you argue with the above reasoning.
The Chinques will have no problem executing 100 million useless eaters. It will be a perfect opportunity to reduce the surplus population by getting rid of the usual trouble-makers like the educated, university professors, businessmen, etc. Sorry for you billion sheeple who are unarmed... I'm sure their parasite class and minion enforcers learned what to do by watching the NWO storm troopers in black body armor attacking peaceful, unarmed university students at the G-20 meetings in Pittsburg and Toronto.
Disclosure: Long steel, lead & rope.
Ignore G-20 brutality in the Lands of the Free.
nothing all that unique about China compared to Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Ivory Coast, Vietnam, North Korea, Djibouti and countless more to come, not even the most convincing "blanketing" by police forces will do much of anything to prevent the only revolution that matters.
Coming to an inner-city near you.
Phila, PA
Newark, NJ
Camden, NJ
Detroit
LA
It only takes a spark, to start the fire