Death in the Chinese Mining Industry

For the first time in its history the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has begun releasing death toll figures from coal mine accidents; they have also for the first time admitted that several thousand miners die annually. However, observers believe the real figure is much higher than the official one.

Just looking at the official figure, China's coal mine accident death toll far exceeds that of all other countries in the world put together. Mining in China has become the most dangerous occupation in the world. And this from a country that is going to host the Olympic Games next year.

Recently, Mr Feng, a Voice of America (VOA) short-wave radio listener in mainland China, wrote a letter to the VOA regarding a coal mine accident in Shandong province. Mr Feng said that during the flood accident in Huayuan Coalmine in Shandong, which led to the death of 170 miners, the cruelty of the local regime was blood-curdling.



Mr Feng wrote, "When the first group of miners got out of the mine, the water level inside the mine had already reached as high as the calf, but as the company was more concerned about profits than the miners' lives, they continued to send the second group of miners down into the mine—afterwards, the accident was classified as a natural disaster. The family of every dead miner should have received 170,000 yuan (approximately £11,333.00) in compensation, but the company's leaders embezzled the money. Consequently, it sparked daily protests of about 350 to 400 relatives in front of the Mining Bureau. The local regime mobilised large numbers of police to suppress the protesters, and sent three to four ‘officers’ to monitor every dead miner's family."

Mr Feng said the management of the mine is very inhumane. Miners are forced to work overtime under all kinds of pretexts, but never receive any compensation. It is common to work for over 12 hours without a break.

He wrote in the letter, "According to the mine's punishment regulations, the penalty for being late for work is 20 yuan (approximately £1.50), and the penalty for missing one shift is 100 yuan (approximately £6.50), but miners do not earn much in a whole month. In recent years, the mining industry has been very profitable, but miners' wages have not increased at all. The union is supposed to protect worker's rights, but now it stands on the side of the company, helping to find excuses to monitor the families of the dead.

Mr Feng also disclosed that in order to prevent the miners from protesting, the company sent 17 bus loads of miners to its other mines around the country, such as in Shaan'xi, Shanxi, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia.

He wrote, "Those miners that are transferred to other places do not receive any assurances. They live in tents, eating pickles everyday. Some of them complained to upper level authorities, but have received no reply. Some returned home without permission and were dismissed immediately, regardless of how long they have worked for the company. The company does not care for the miners' interests, but only cares about profits. Their only concern is to exploit the coal mine in the shortest time possible at the expense of miners' safety and the local environment."

This, I am afraid, is the sad state of an industry that is a million miles away from the cheap tat that is exported to the West under designer labels.

French Action Against Beijing Olympics

Two months ago a French-based group called the Collective for the Boycott of the Beijing Olympics (COBOP), supported by many other organisations, journals, professors, philosophers and intellectuals held a protest in front of the Chinese Embassy, calling for boycotting next year’s Beijing Games.

The Group pointed out that since getting the right to host the Olympics, the Chinese government has increased its “attempts to weaken dissidents, its critical intellectuals, the poor, the unproductive, and the country’s independent unions”. The Games has also “meant the accelerated demolition of many working-class neighbourhoods (hutongs) and historical sites. The international recognition of the Games, consecrated by the Olympic consensus, will put a stamp of acceptability on this violence”.

Pointing to China’s aggressiveness with regard to Taiwan, the release said that it not only has plans to take over Taiwan, it is also pursuing a diplomatic and warlike offensive on Japan whilst terrorizing the autonomous Uighur region. “The colonisation of Tibet is taking a genocidal turn: acts of murder, torture and forced abortion are committed with total impunity,” said the release. Referring to other controversial Games in Berlin and Soviet Russia, the release said that “the Olympic Games have always served as a screen for strategies of war and extermination”.

Finally the group pointed out that in the end the Olympics is about ‘manipulation and waste’. “Five billion euros are being spent to impose a fortnight of “fun” in a country where the oppressed are in every way deprived. The waste that the Olympic Games represents is an insult to world poverty. How can we tolerate that the sports world and its colossal capital preach this lesson of solidarity to billions of people living on less than 1 euro a day?,” the group asked.

“Ultimately for the 2008 Olympic Games, the International Olympics Committee’s diplomatic manoeuvre is well and truly to support a regime of totalitarianism and slavery” said Mr Fabien Ollier from COBOP. The demonstration was attended French and Tibetans living in Paris and across France.

It would seem that the French have taken the lead on this issue and it is up to all other free-thinking nations to follow suit!

Chinese Torture – 21st Century Style

Many years ago, the phrase ‘Chinese Water Torture’ involved four main methods. Firstly, the victim would be strapped down horizontal and was subjected to a steady drip of water onto his head. This could last for days on end and usually ended up driving the victim insane.Another method was where the victim was laid horizontally onto a bed of fast-growing bamboo shoots, which were then watered. The shoots pierced the victim, resulting in a slow and painful death.

A third, more devastatingly brutal method, was where the victim was force-fed bamboo shoots and water until he could not take it any more. The shoots grew inside the victim, until they eventually protruded through the skin.

And lastly, the victim was simply force-fed water until he drowned internally.
Fast-forward several decades later and what do we find?

Evidence has surfaced in recent years of over 100 torture methods being employed against Falun Gong practitioners in China’s labour camps, detention centers, and mental hospitals. Yes, you read correctly. If you follow Falun Gong, you are deemed mentally ill. This is a quite sickening in this modern day and age but it is yet another illustration as to the lengths the Chinese regime will go in stamping out any form of religious worship.
Of course the ultimate goal is to completely eradicate the Falun Gong either by coercing its practitioners to renounce their belief, or by physically destroying them if they refuse.

The tactics range from long-term sleep deprivation, being surrounded with loudspeakers demonising their practice 24 hours a day, to being force-fed with human feces, or shocked and even raped with electric batons.

Pictured below is a disturbing example of the types of burning torture carried out by the Chinese police/security services. Numerous reports have emerged from China of police and labour camp authorities burning Falun Gong practitioners with cigarettes, car lighters, irons, and hot metal rods as a way to force them to give up their beliefs. Sometimes, hot irons are heated to be red-hot, then used to burn practitioners’ flesh or pierce their nipples. Many have reported being burned repeatedly with cigarettes, including on their faces, necks, and genitals.

Take the case of Tan Yong Je, 27, who was severely burned with red-hot irons.

On June 2, 2001, while Tan Yong Je was being illegally held at the Luobo Labour Camp in Guangdong Province, three police officers tortured him. First they beat him and tried to force him to write “repentance statements” denouncing Falun Gong. However, Mr. Tan did not give in. Later, the guards tied him to a pillar. One guard heated up a rusted iron rod on an electric burner until the rod turned red, then pressed the rod against Mr. Tan’s legs in over a dozen places while asking: “Do you still want to practice Falun Gong?”

He still never gave in. Mr. Tan was seriously burned. His legs shook and he cried out loudly. He was in so much pain that he lost control of his bowel functions. One can only imagine at the total degradation of the helpless, innocent man.

The guards later dragged him back to his small cell and locked him in. He could neither walk nor sleep because of the pain. Later, the guards ordered him to work taking charge of an orchard. They thought that this sentiment would butter the man up for probable later, more brutal tactics. However, Mr. Tan made a daring escape and lived to tell his tale. He arrived in Hong Kong on June 10 and fled to the United States.

Miss Wang Hua Jun - burned alive by prison authorities

36-year-old Wang Hua Jun lived in Fengjiashan, Macheng City, Hubei Province. Police seized her on the morning of April 18, 2001 because she was protesting about the authorities’ persecution of her cult.



The police beat her so viciously all day long that by 11 o’clock that night she was on the verge of death. Eye witnesses said that practitioner Wang was still lying on the ground when the fire was started. When the fire started to burn, she moved, trying to get up. The police officers at the scene panicked because they were afraid she would somehow escape and speak the truth. But by this time Miss Wang was so exhausted, due to being so severely tortured, that she could no longer stand up.

Finally, when the fire had gone out completely, it was found that the front of her body was burned while her back did not have any signs of burning. Moreover, there were deep knife wounds on her throat and the back of her head! Police told witnesses, such as one female street cleaner, that the woman had set herself on fire. A “suicide note” miraculously still un-burnt by the flames was found inches from her charred body, along with her ID, which the police had confiscated months earlier.

These are just two cases of torture carried out by the Chinese police authorities. There will be more posted on this blog as time goes by . . .

What Kind of Regime Would Kill Its Own People?

The Chinese, that’s who . . .

The 55-year history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a phenomena built on a mountain of with blood and lies. The stories behind this bloody history are both extremely tragic and rarely known. Under the rule of the CCP, 60 to 80 million innocent Chinese people have been killed, leaving their broken families behind. Many people wonder why the CCP kills. While the CCP continues its brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and other ‘organised’ religions and recently suppressed protesting crowds in Hanyuan with gunshots, people wonder whether they will ever see the day when the CCP will learn to speak with words rather than guns, bullets and bayonets.

Mao Zedong summarized the purpose of the Cultural Revolution, " . . . after the chaos, the world reaches peace, but in seven or eight years’ time, the chaos needs to happen again." In other words, there should be a political revolution every seven or eight years and millions of people need to be sacrificed on the alter of ‘political expediency and economic growth’ every seven or eight years.

Ideologically, the CCP believes in the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and "continuous revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat." Therefore, after the CCP took over China, it killed the landowners to resolve problems with production relationships in rural areas. It killed the capitalists to reach the goal of commercial and industrial reform and solve the production relationships in the cities. After these two classes were eliminated, the problems related to the economic base were basically solved. Similarly, solving the problems related to the superstructure also called for slaughter.

The suppressions of the Hu Feng Anti-Party Group and the Anti-Rightists Movement, eliminated the intellectuals. Killing the Christians, Taoists, Buddhists and popular folk groups solved the problem of religions. Mass murders during the Cultural Revolution established, culturally and politically, the CCP's absolute leadership. In effect it has led to a Fascist state.

The Tiananmen Square massacre was used to prevent political crisis and squelch democratic demands. The persecution of Falun Gong is meant to resolve the issues of belief and traditional healing. These actions were all necessary for the CCP to strengthen its power and maintain its rule in the face of continual financial crisis (prices for consumer goods skyrocketed after the CCP took power and China's economy almost collapsed after the Cultural Revolution), political crisis (some people not following the Party's orders or some others wanting to share political rights with the Party) and crisis of belief (the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, political changes in Eastern Europe, and the Falun Gong issue). Except for the Falun Gong issue, almost all the foregoing political movements were utilized to revive the evil spectre of the CCP and incite its desire for revolution. The CCP also used these political movements to test CCP members, eliminating those who did not meet the Party's requirements.

Killing is also necessary for practical reasons. The Communist Party began as a group of thugs and scoundrels who killed to obtain power. Once this precedent was set, there was no going back. Constant terror was needed to intimidate people and force them to accept, out of fear, the absolute rule of the CCP.

On the surface, it may appear that the CCP was "forced to kill," and that various incidents just happened to irritate the CCP evil spectre and accidentally trigger the CCP's killing mechanism. In truth, these incidents serve to disguise the Party's need to kill, and periodical killing is required by the CCP. Without these painful lessons, people might begin to think the CCP was improving and start to demand democracy, just as those idealistic students in the 1989 democratic movement did. Recurring slaughter every seven or eight years serves to refresh people's memory of terror and can warn the younger generation, that whoever works against the CCP, wants to challenge the CCP's absolute leadership, or attempts to tell the truth regarding China's history, will get a taste of the "iron fist of the dictatorship of the proletariat."

Killing or mass murder has become one of the most essential ways for the CCP to maintain power. With the escalation of its bloody debts, laying down its butcher’s knife would encourage people to take vengeance for the CCP's criminal acts. Therefore, the CCP not only needed to conduct copious and thorough killing, but the slaughter also had to be done in a most brutal fashion to effectively intimidate the populace, especially early on when the CCP was establishing its rule.

Since the purpose of the killing was to instill the greatest terror, the CCP selected targets for destruction arbitrarily and irrationally. In every political movement, the CCP used the strategy of genocide. Take the "suppression of reactionaries" as an example. The CCP did not really suppress the reactionary "behaviors" but the "people" whom they called the reactionaries. If one had been enlisted and served a few days in the Nationalist (Kuomintang, KMT) army but did absolutely nothing political after the CCP gained power, this person would still be killed because of his "reactionary history." In the process of land reform, in order to remove the "root of the problem," the CCP often killed a landowner's entire family.

Since 1949, the CCP has persecuted more than half the people in China. An estimated 60 million to 80 million people died from unnatural causes. This number exceeds the total number of deaths in both World Wars combined!

As with other communist countries, the wanton killing carried out by the CCP also includes brutal slayings of its own members in order to remove dissidents who value a sense of humanity over the Party nature. The CCP's rule of terror falls equally on the populace and its members in an attempt to maintain an "invincible fortress." Is this beginning to resemble Nazi Germany and the emergence of one Adolf Hitler?

In a normal society, people show care and love for one another, hold life in awe and veneration and give thanks to God. In the East, people say, "Do not impose on others what you would not want done to yourself." In the West, people say, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Conversely, the CCP holds that "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." In order to keep alive the "struggles" within society, hatred must be generated. Not only does the CCP take lives, it encourages people to kill each other. It strives to desensitise people towards others' suffering by surrounding them with constant killing. It wants them to become numb from frequent exposure to inhumane brutality, and develop the mentality that "the best you can hope for is to avoid being persecuted." All these lessons taught by brutal suppression enable the CCP to maintain its rule.

In addition to the destruction of countless lives, the CCP also destroyed the soul of the Chinese people. A great many people have become conditioned to react to the CCP's threats by entirely surrendering their reason and their principles. In a sense, these people's souls have died—something more frightening than physical death.

So I ask the question again, what kind of regime would kill its own people?

The Next Time You’re in ASDA or Wal-Mart . . .

When did you last buy something in either ASDA stores (UK) or Wal-Mart (US)? Like me, it might have just been recently, BUT I was in ASDA to buy some groceries. You see I don’t have anything against ASDA when it comes to such provisions as fruit and vegetables, soft drinks, biscuits, kitchen items, cakes and newspapers. It’s all the rest of the stuff I have a problem with. Why? Read on...

A recent China Labour Watch (CLW) report revealed the most austere working conditions amongst staff of manufacturers such as Fuhua Textile, Yi Kang Textile, Yi Xing Shun Fashion Manufacturer, and Regina Miracle International Limited. All of these factories (or sweatshops) had/do recently produced for internationally well-known brands such as Adidas, Bali Intimates, Hanesbrands Inc., Piege Co (Felina Lingerie), Quiksilver, Regina Miracle Speedo, Walcoal America Inc., and Wal-Mart.

In this particular investigation, CLW conducted an independent research on four textile/garment factories located in Guangdong Province (south China, skirting Hong Kong). Sadly, though major corporations claimed to have their own aspect of ethical standards in terms of maintaining corporate social responsibility, the investigation still discovered what can only be called inhumane, substandard and down-right appalling employment conditions among their suppliers.

Consider this; would you work for your employer under these conditions:

· Workers are required to work nine hours per day as regular hours in addition to five to six hours of mandatory overtime during peak season which accumulates to 14 work hours per day - about 420 hours per month.

· Staff are not protected with social insurance until after one full year of employment.

· Factories lacks basic safety training, thus workers and products' safety is questionable.

· No freedom of association exist in the factories which results in workers not having a fair playing field in terms of organising and protecting their rights.

· New staff are required to pay a one time £2.60 (40 RMB) health examination fee, £1.25 (19 RMB) summer uniform, £1.60 (25 RMB) winter uniform in addition to a £20.00 (300 RMB) monthly deduction from the monthly wage for the first three months. In other words, a total of £65.45 (984 RMB) wage deduction is imposed on new workers in their first three months.

· Workers are paid by the hour of usually £0.25 (3.59 RMB), and without overtime, it is impossible for staff to sustain themselves. From the living costs shown below, gathered by CLW investigators in 2007, one can begin to appreciate workers' difficult circumstances:

- Rent: about £12.00 (180 RMB) / month
- Utilities: about £ 6.00 (90 RMB) / month
- Living expenses (food, daily commodities, etc.): about £ 24.00 (350) RMB / month
- Education (tuition for children):
Kindergarten = about £ 32.00 (490 RMB) / month
Primary / Elementary School = about £ 150.00 (2,200 RMB) / term
Secondary / Middle School = about £ 180.00 (2,695 RMB) / term

Only from the statistics shown about education, is it not hard to imagine that almost none of these workers can afford to provide their children proper education, thus the endless cycle of poverty may possibly surround these workers for generations. In addition, without working overtime, it is merely impossible for workers to receive an actual living wage. How they exist from day to day is beyond all human comprehension.

So the next time you amble into ASDA or Wal-Mart with a wallet or purse full of pounds or dollars to spend on your next pair of boots or shoes, just think twice about what you have read here. There is every possibility that they have been manufactured by an employee of the above mentioned sweatshops under these depressing conditions.

Official! Tibetans Must Not Send Photographs Abroad

Forasmuch that I do not want this website to champion the Tibet cause in its entirety, with regard to Chinese cultural, economic and religious freedom, I must highlight this report that recently appeared in Reporters Without Borders. Can it really be that it is now an offence for a Tibetan to send a simple photograph abroad? Have the Chinese authorities clamped down on such a trivial, everyday occurrence to the detriment of the Tibetan people? Well, yes. Read on . . .

Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage at harsh prison sentences for “espionage” of three to ten years handed down yesterday to three Tibetans by the intermediate court in Kardze, Sichuan province on the Tibetan border.

The three, who had sent abroad photos of demonstrations held at the beginning of August by nomadic Tibetans, were charged with “espionage on behalf of foreign organisations, putting state security in danger”.

Adak Lupoe, a senior monk at Lithang monastry and Kunkhyen, a musician and teacher, were sentenced to ten and nine years respectively for taking photos and recordings of the demonstrations following the horse festival on 1st August. (No, you did not misread that statement – not 10 months and nine months – ten years and nine years!)

Under the Chinese justice system the fact of sending pictures to “foreign organisations” constitutes a “threat to national security”. Jarib Lothog was sentenced to three years in prison for helping send the photos.

Some shots of the demonstrations were used by media run by the Tibetan community in exile and by human rights organisations. Tibetans in the region have reported that since the ‘incident’, described by the State-run Xinhua News Agency as a “laying siege to government buildings”, tension has increased in the Lithan area and Chinese military reinforcements have been sent to the region.

“These very harsh sentences demonstrate the risks run by ordinary Tibetan citizens when they try to send information aboard, a step which is similar to citizen journalism,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. Runggye Adak was given an eight-year jail sentence on the same day before the same court for being the “instigator of the 1st August rally”. He was found guilty of “separatist activism” after giving a speech supporting the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet.

“It is striking that an organiser of the demonstrations was given a lesser sentence than those who took the photographs,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This shows the regime’s paranoia towards those who produce evidence of disputes within China, Tibet and Xinjiang. We call for the verdict to be quashed and the Tibetans released,” said the organization.

Perhaps this illustrates once more the very real brutal and totally unacceptable behaviour of a ‘justice’ system unquestioningly committed to stamping out all forms of ‘suspicious behaviour’ on the part of simple Tibetan human rights activists!

Beware of China

‘Beware of China’ is going to be a personal journal of my research and observations on the Chinese regime’s overt and covert policies of dominating world financial, industrial, cultural and religious markets and customs. What has spurred my imagination and motivation in developing such a blog? Well, to begin with I have been a life-long lover of Tibetan culture and religion and over the years have read the countless journals and other documentation covering the invasion of Tibet by the Peoples Republic of China. The utter destruction, the killings, torture, raping and pillaging of that country, the people and its resources, has led me to this point.

Regarding Tibet, consider this:

China invaded Tibet in 1949 based on the premise that it had always been part of China and that they came to liberate the Tibetan people from the feudal ‘hold’ by the Regents, the Dalai Lama and monastic rule. Lies, total lies. The truth of the matter was, Tibet and China lived peacefully side-by-side for 1300 years. It is not the purpose of this blog to delve deep into Sino-Tibetan relations, suffice to say, that after the Chinese cultural revolution of Chairman Mao, the Chinese decided that Tibet had always been a part of China and after the invasion of the Peoples Liberation Army in 1950, life would never be the same for Tibetans.

It seems like life today for all of us in the West, as well as the East, is being systematically influenced by China. One cannot go into a shop, a supermarket, a back-street haberdashery, a High Street boutique, even designer clothes shops, without being confronted by the now ubiquitous ‘Made in China’ label. I, personally, became more and more conscious of the extent of the sheer enormity of Chinese goods in our High Street shops and malls when I bought a pair of Wrangler jeans a couple of years ago only to find they were made in China. Wranglers made in China? Yes! Even American classics were being manufactured in China!

With my background knowledge of what China had done in Tibet, I decided to check every label and tag, brand, mark and stamp on anything and everything: electrical goods, clothes, toys, stationery items, computer equipment, food stuffs; you name it, the Chinese had manufactured it. It’s when I learned that they have and continue to use forced/slave labour, prisoners and even children to manufacture all of the above - and it is this that shall be the singular thread running through all subsequent blogs.

Just recently I read one of the most powerful books I have ever read in my lifetime. It was when visiting the http://www.boycottmadeinchina.org/ website that I discovered the thought-provoking Buying the Dragon’s Teeth by Jamyang Norbu. If I had my way, I would have this book made a part of the British National Curriculum - in fact it should be necessary reading for all people above the age of 16 around the world. I would have it given away on the National Health Service, because this book is probably the definitive work on the evil Chinese regime ever published.

With the writer’s/publisher’s permission I want to include a review of this important publication on this blogsite. We shall see. In the meantime look out for the beginning of a blogsite dedicated to exposing the evils of the most dangerous regime since the Nazis.