China is pulling out all stops as its capital takes to the world stage as host of the 2008 Olympic games. Since winning the bid seven years ago, Beijing has undergone a construction boom, making this Olympics the world's most expensive games ever, at a cost of $43 billion. This week on 101 East we ask, what does hosting the 2008 Olympics mean for China and its people?
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In 25 years China has been taken from poverty to modernity, the Olympics and the brink of superpower status. But their have been costs - galloping inflation, the world's worst pollution and a social fabric that is showing the stain. This episode of 101 East asks what the future holds for China after the games.
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Islam is still establishing itself in China under beijing's watchful eye and decades have been spent building a fragile trust between the country's Muslims and the Communist central government. People & Power profiles two key Chinese imams who walk a fine line between their followers and the political authorities.
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There are lots of people who don't care if the goods they buy are original or knock-offs, as long as they look like the real thing and they're cheap. After all, what harm can there be in buying a fake designer bag or trainers - all you're doing is denting the profits of the multinational manufacturers. But, as the first of this two-part investigation shows, it goes much deeper than that. For instance, with the counterfeit market now encompassing pharmaceutical drugs, consumers could be damaging themselves, too. Among the more eye-opening revelations is a massive seven-storey shopping mall in China selling nothing but fakes, and a peek into a backstreet factory that manufactures eggs out of industrial chemicals because it's cheaper than keeping real chickens.
Two-part series examining the global industry of fake goods and how luxury brands and large companies are struggling to fight back. The hidden victims of counterfeiting are slaves forced to work in factories, relatives of people who have died after taking fake medicines, and investors and regulators who face death after leading the battle against illegal goods syndicates. The programme also looks at how the internet has led to a rise in the number of fake medicines detected across Britain.
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China has the most sophisticated censorship and internet surveillance in the world. But despite this autocratic control some guerrilla bloggers are still managing to get their message through."The Government always wants to try to act as the cat to control people's access to information but I think the mouse is running faster." This is the voice of Isaac Mao, he was one of China's earliest bloggers, and has learnt how to work the system. "The Chinese government's goal is not to control one hundred percent of what people are doing one hundred percent of the time," if they are too authoritarian, they will be faced with civil unrest. As CNN correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon points out, "to remain in power they want to prevent certain uses of the internet that might lead to overthrow." Journalists like Zhang Shihe work the gaps in the censorship to broadcast their message, " I rely on my instinct. Am I telling the truth or lies? Am I trying to help improve the situation? I know if I can control this, I'll be fine." He regularly films and comments on rural working conditions, and has as yet avoided jail. But his story is not typical. With about 30 known journalists and 50 internet users known to be behind bars, the Committee to Protect Journalists has branded China "the world's leading jailer of journalists."
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Chinese authorities have got a radical weapon against troublemakers: lock them up indefinitely in police-run mental hospitals. Written off as 'dangerously ill', 'patients' are often never seen again.
Zhang, a democratic activist, was abducted by the police and taken to an institution where he's been detained alongside genuine psychopaths. As his sister tried to prove his sanity, it appeared that the motive was his political views. Another victim was incarcerated and force-fed pills for a year after challenging a court ruling. Coming out, she talked to human rights activists: 'What on earth is wrong with me that I must stay with murderers in one cell? Is there a law in this world?' Psychiatrists claim that 'patients' have pathologically distorted views of reality. Anyone opposing the Chinese government must be insane indeed.
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Police in Beijing are racing to rid the streets of so-called troublemakers before the Olympic opening ceremony. Their targets are the law-abiding Chinese who go to Beijing to protest against corruption.
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The young athletes of China have a great opportunity, the chance to win an Olympic medal in their home country. But with great opportunity, comes enormous pressure. The young athletes at No 6 Middleschool in Lanzhou, one of China's poorest provinces, have an exhausting training and school programme. Some students start training from 5:30am and then there are fourteen hours of school programmes per day. Many of the athletes here come from poor farming families. They hope that sport will be their chance not only to compete in the Olympics, but also to have a better future.
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On May 12th an earthquake shook the Sichuan Province. Hundreds of schools collapsed, killing thousands of pupils. Parents are asking why did the schools fall when other buildings withstood the quake?
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ABC's Stephen McDonnell travels to the epicenter of the tragedy, to a city that is no more. He brings back a compelling report that reveals the terrifying scale of the devastation.
As disaster struck, Yingxiu became a mountain of rubble overnight. Thousands of people, including many children have been trapped under ruins for days. Lack of means has hindered rescue efforts, leaving many survivors helpless and frustrated. For locals 'the only future...is to bulldoze everything and start from scratch'. A powerful eye-witness account from the heart of this tragedy.
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It was the most ambitious building project ever attempted in the history of mankind. And its story has been almost impossible to tell - until now. Based on astonishing new archaeological finds and extraordinary first-person accounts, Great Wall of China tells the story of one of the greatest wonders the world has ever known.
It's more than 3,000 miles in length and was built in just 20 years by a workforce of nearly two million using technology and construction techniques that continue to inspire awe even today. The story of its building, one of human drama, labour and loss, is told in this film through three individuals, each one central to the tale. Thirteen-year-old Emperor Muzong, whose Kingdom is pushed to the brink of destruction by invading Mongolian warriors, demands that a wall be built that can never be breached again. General Qi Jiguang, a military hero and engineering genius, is tasked with overseeing the largest workforce ever assembled on earth. And Zhou Li, an ordinary soldier, is forced to work in conditions of unimaginable hardship but ultimately finds sanctuary and peace in the shadow of this great wall.
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Recent unrest in Tibet has once again raised questions about media freedom in China. The gulf between Western perceptions of this developing superpower and China's desire to control the message now seems bigger than ever.
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The US economy is facing the prospect of a recession, with the sub-prime credit crunch adding to its problems. But many analysts are looking to China to pick up the global economic slack. China's phenomenal expansion in the last 25 years, with current growth roaring ahead at more than ten per cent annually, has raised hopes that its strength could insulate Asia from the weakening American economy. That has not been an entirely painless process; inflation on the mainland has been climbing, with many ordinary Chinese suffering as the cost of staple foods and goods soar.
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Every year, 3000 Tibetan refugees risk death from the weather and border guards as they flee China across snow covered passes in the Himalayas to Nepal.
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Part 1 tells stories and reports on the conditions back in the villages where many migrant laborers come from. We are given insights into the conditions that catalyze the decisions for migrant laborers to move to the city, and what happens to families as a result.
Part 2 shows a bit of the underbelly of Shanghai. for many of Shanghai’s 6 million migrants, equality is something of a dream. For many of these 6 million, they work day and night doing jobs the native Shanghaiese would never do. Their kids go to substandard schools, and there are few safety nets. Without the migrant labor there would be no Shanghai, no Beijing, no economic miracle...
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This film is being brought to television as a result of a BBC/British Film Institute co-production. A recently restored treasure-trove of colour films from the 1940s and 1950s provides the core of this astonishing film, which allows us to see what Tibet was like before its brutal occupation by China. As members of the aristocracy and the Tibetan government in exile recall, the Tibetans world revolved around a series of colourful religious festivals, taking up 68 days of the year. In The Great Prayer Festival, monks take over from the government for a few days and, whilst ceremoniously whipping their subjects, impose fines for such offences as singing in public or having a dirty house. The film includes a revealing interview with the Dalai Lama, who reminisces about how much he missed his mother and his envy for his brother who got to play with all his toys.
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According to Old Tibetan law, Tibetans were divided into 3 categories, each was further divided into 3 classes. The Pala Villa owners´ wealth was beyond imagination. His house had about 1,000 rooms, in which there were 50 servants. His family also had 6 other estates in Tibet, and over 50 people to manage the estate. Gesang Quzhen and her mother slept in a room without roof. They were always hungry, but dared not ask for food. Deqing Zhuoma´s family were serves for 4 generations. She was born in a cowshed, and she was the 4th generation serf. Before 1959, there was a practice in Tibet, that is lama service - If a family had two sons, one of them had to be a lama. The basement of the building was a prison, where many cruel and savage ways of punishments were practiced. At meal time, the prisoners were sent to the streets to beg for food. Those who could not get food, would have to go hungry. The streets were full of beggars. Democratic reform was carried out in Tibet, it put an end to the system of feudal serfdom. It turned 1 million tibetan serfs into free men.
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Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was born in Daktse Village in Qinghai. He was the son of Tibetan peasants. In every aspect, the Dalai Lama enjoyed the most expensive attention a supreme personality could enjoy in mediaeval Europe. The West has long been interested in Tibet. After living Buddha Radeng´s death, Tenzin Gyatso was deeply influenced by the thoughts of "independence". The indication from the Angel was the 16-year-old Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso should lead. Dalai Lama began his political career then. In Zhongnanhai, the Dalai Lama met Chairman Mao for the first time. In 1956, General Chen Yi arrived in Lhasa, leading a delegation from the central government. The US started deeping their hands directly into Tibetan affairs. In 1959, the Dalai Lama and his followers openly announced "Tibetan independence".
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China's CCTV-9 broadcasts a fifteen minute´s documentary on the riot happened in Lhasa, Tibet on March 14th at 22:00 Beijing time on March 20th.
The video shows the criminal acts of beatings, vandalism, looting and burning, plotted by the "Dalai Clique" in Lhasa, March 14, 2008.
The riots in Lhasa last Friday are the most serious incident in the region for decades. Local residents are still reeling from the aftershock, even as they try to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. In the following documentary, we look back at the events to see how they've impacted the people in Tibet.
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There are 75,000 children in China orphaned by AIDS (2004). In Yingzhou District, impoverished farmers sell their blood for 53 yuan (slightly less than $7) and some cake. The plasma is removed from the blood, and the remainder re-injected into the donors, so that they can recover quicker to donate again. Infected blood has given AIDS to 10% of the population of some villages.
The Blood of Yingzhou District chronicles the lives of several orphans: and also documents the efforts of Chinese and foreign relief workers to help the children, even though the challenge appears overwhelming.
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Newsnight's Tim Whewell reports on China's multi-billion pound aid for minerals deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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A timely report on life in Tibet under Chinese occupation as Tash Despa returns to his homeland after eleven years in exile, accompanied by award-winning director Jezza Neumann. For three months the pair risked imprisonment and deportation as they tried to uncover the true extent of the so-called 'cultural genocide' described by the Dalai Lama. Their film reveals that the nomadic existence of native Tibetans is being eradicated and that freedom of expression is increasingly tightly policed.
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Unaccompanied by Chinese authorities for the first time, BBC cameras offer an insight into the daily lives of Tibetans and reveal the significance of Buddhism within society.
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China's economy is, by any measure, a success story. Eleven per cent economic growth, rising wealth even among the poor and it's all set to be showcased spectacularly at the Olympics. Amid the celebrations, it's hardly been acknowledged that this is the 50th anniversary of the Great Leap Forward - Chairman Mao's failed attempt to modernise China the first time round. In Paul Mason's powerful presentation on China he asks what few in that country's media are prepared to: What are the parallels between then and now? We'll also be getting Lord Patten's analysis of how China is faring economically. Fifty years on from Mao's Great Leap Forward, BBC Newsnight's Paul Mason finds a country haunted by fears of a financial bubble, environmental disaster and struggling to come terms with the political injustices of half a century ago.
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Angry workers in China are defying government orders and taking to the streets to protest about mass redundancies and corruption.
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