Boston Globe Updates on Chai Ling's Nonprofit Work

Linda Matchan reports on Boston Globe today updating the status of Chai Ling's work in her nonprofit organization "All Girls Allowed," which fights against gender-selective abortion in China influenced by the country's one-child policy.

The newspaper describes her efforts as

Into this battle steps [Chai] Ling, who has had brushes with controversy even in this country. In civilian life she is the founder and president of Jenzabar, which makes educational software; her husband, Robert Maginn Jr., is chief executive. Jenzabar’s charitable foundation has committed $1 million to All Girls Allowed, which, with the help of private donations, dispatches volunteer foot soldiers to run four projects in China. A “Baby Shower’’ program gives financial incentives to mothers who keep their daughters. A scholarship program enrolls orphan girls in schools. All Girls Allowed provides legal aid to women who have been the victims of forced abortion.

It also operates antitrafficking campaigns, in one case crossing vast rural areas north of the Yellow River, distributing 60,000 pamphlets, and setting up a hotline in a successful search for a 3-year-old girl named Little Bean who’d been snatched in front of her house in 2010. The organization also hosts a website featuring profiles of kidnapped children and practical information on how to keep kids from being tricked or snatched. A typical post: “When walking with your child along the road, always have the child farthest away from the road to prevent traffickers from grabbing them as they speed by in a motorcycle or van."

[Chai] Ling reports that so far 550 mothers have received financial gifts, 25 orphans have enrolled in schools, and four children have been reunited with their parents. It’s modest progress considering the scope of the problem: according to the group’s own data, there are 1.3 million forced abortions in China every year, 1.1 million infants abandoned, and 200,000 children trafficked.

It describes Chai Ling as passionate in her endeavor, driven by her recent conversion to Christianity.

The paper also mentions controversies surrounding Chai Ling and her software company Jenzabar, including lawsuits brought by their former investors and employees. It says the court had cleared Chai Ling for any wrongdoings.

The other, perhaps more prominent, lawsuit is the one Chai Ling brought upon the producers of documentary "Gate of Heavenly Peace." Although that suit has been rejected by the court, the paper states that "Jenzabar is appealing."

Hong Kong Police Harasses Man Wearing Tiananman Shirt

Since returning to the fold of China, the city of Hong Kong has kept most of its freedom. Every year in June, thousands of Hong Kong residents gather to remember the deaths of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the only remaining commemoration of significance worldwide.

But there are signs that more limits are being imposed on the freedom of expression. Yesterday, a man wearing a T-shirt with the slogans of "Overturn the Verdict of June Fourth" and "Build up Democracy" was forcefully taken away from the street and detained by the police. Apparently, the Vice Premier of China, Li Keqiang, was due to visit that neighborhood and could be embarrassed by the presence of the T-shirt. The man was later released.

The incident was caught on camera and played on the evening news:

Ai Weiwei Talks, Ran Yunfei Walks

Almost half a year ago, during a wave of crackdown in China, many prominent dissidents were detained and/or arrested, some were charged with subversion. Among them were free lancer Ran Yunfei and famous artist Ai Weiwei.

Ai Weiwei's arrest in April caught world-wide attention and outrage. He was then released in June with parole conditions including no media interviews or participating in social media. He had kept his public silence, until now. This week, he showed up unexpected on Twitter, expressing concerns of his colleagues who were detained because of connections to him.

Even more strangely, he is now interviewed by the official newspaper Global Times. The paper describes him as "feisty" and quoted him saying "Of course you might live an easier life if you abandon some rights. But there are so many injustices, and limited educational resources. They all diminish happiness. I will never stop fighting injustice."

The interview was published in the English language edition of the paper. There was no mention in the Chinese language edition.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Ran Yunfei, who was detained in February, had just been released from prison. So far he had made no public statements.

Liu Gang Launches Protest Against US Government and Companies

1989 Chinese student leader Liu Gang was spotted outside of the White House with a home-made protesting poster yesterday. He was calling on the US government to act on what he termed as the "unrestricted warfare" conducted by the Chinese government on American soil.

Liu Gang has been embroiled in a nasty divorce after his second marriage fell apart. He publicly accused his estranged wife as a former Chinese military officer and that the Chinese government has launched a para-military campaign against him, his now-former employer, and other Chinese dissidents and American dignitaries. Almost a year ago, he sued Chinese president Hu Jintao in a New York court with similar accusations.

Liu Gang also claims that he was the initiator of the so-called "Jasmine Revolution" in China and that it made him a target of the Chinese government.

His public accusations of his wife and his former employer have led to him losing his job and being temporarily arrested a few times. But he has vowed to defy a court-ordered gag order and continue to protest his case in public. This morning, he declared he will travel around the country with his personal protests. He did not disclose details of his plan.

This Day in 1989: July 14, Chinese Students March in French Bicentennial

On July 14, 1989, hundreds of Chinese students in Paris participated in the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution. The anniversary was a major inspiration of the 1989 Chinese student movement itself.

Also on this day, Xiao Bin, a famous "rumor-monger," was sentenced to 10 years.

Days of 1989

Party Emblem at Tiananmen

For the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, a new but temporary symbol -- the hammer and sickle emblem of Communism -- is now installed inside Tiananmen Square, right between the National Flag Pole and the Monument of People's Heroes.

The giant emblem, about 40 feet in diameter, is part of a red, heart-shaped floral display that will remain in the square during the celebration period surrounding July 1st, the official anniversary date.

It is the very first time in history that the party emblem is so prominently placed in the symbolic center of the country.

Book Review: My Two Chinas

Tang Baiqiao's book, My Two Chinas: The Memoir of a Chinese Counterrevolutionary, came with high accolades. Its cover proudly boasts that the book was "foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama". Yet the first thing a careful reader notices is that it is not true. The book's Foreword, all of three brief paragraphs, was actually written by Dalai Lama's secretary.

This, combined with other sales pitches, such as that the author "Tang Baiqiao is one of China's most influential modern dissidents", "Tang's name became legendary during the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre", etc., -- overly exaggerations at best -- does not lend well to the credibility of the book itself.

Although signed in the form of "Tang Baiqiao with Damon Dimarco," the book takes a first-person singular tone to narrate the personal story of its main author Tang Baiqiao, who in 1989 was a college student in the remote Hunan Province and became a student leader there. The book covers Tang Baiqiao's experience growing up as a child in rural China, getting involved in the 1989 student movement, becoming a fugitive and then prisoner in the ensuing crackdown, and his eventual escape from China and his exiled life in America.

Tang Baiqiao's personal involvement in the 1989 student movement as retold in this book is surprisingly sketchy. In early April that year, he helped organizing a few student rallies and marches in his city and was elected to be the main leader there. In May, he took a trip to Beijing, hoping to connect with the movement leader there. The trip, as he frankly admitted in the book, was a failure. Other than participating in several marches, he did not accomplish anything there. So much so that he did not even become aware of the name of one of major student leaders -- he later thought Wang Dan was a name for a female student. By the time he returned to his home city in later May, the student movement had already petered out there.

But the book does provide a rare glimpse of the movement, and student life in general, far away from the capital city. In one amazing tidbit, Tang Baiqiao recalled being on the stage facing thousands of students chanting "Long Live Tang Baiqiao! Long Live Tang Baiqiao!" (P. 87) A scene never seen in Beijing.

Since the story is told in first-person, sometimes it is difficult to judge whether it is stating facts or mere perceptions of its main author at the time. For example, the book makes many careless statements such as "Fang Lizhi was also a close friend and adviser to Hu Yaobang" (P. 56) or "During his meeting with Gorbachev, Zhao Ziyang made it known that he was a puppet, nothing more." (P. 99).

My Two Chinas serves as an addition to the existing autobiographies of the movement participants such as Li Lu, Shen Tong, and Zhang Boli. It could be interesting to anyone who would like to learn about lives in that period in China from an individual perspective. But unfortunately there is not much information about the 1989 student movement here, nothing to justify the author's "legendary" status in it, at least.

Books About Tiananmen