China: The Roots of Madness (1967)

This film covers China's political history including Mao Tse-tung, the Boxer Rebellion, and the Nationalist - Communist victory. Made possible by a donation from John and Paige Curran. An introduction to the complex state and cultural ambivalence of China. The programme covers a period of one hundred and seventy years. The visuals include lithographs and line drawings from the early 1800's, still photographs from mid-century, early footage from Burton Holmes, Pearl Buck, Reuters newsmen and current footage. Experience the American Journey through our country's visual heritage in this historical recording provided by the National Archives of the United States. This film covers China's political history, including Mao Tse-tung, the Boxer Rebellion, and the Nationalist-Communist victory. From the Central Intelligence Agency Securities and Exchange Commission.

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• China: The Roots of Madness

China: The Roots of Madness; National Security Council. Central Intelligence Agency. (09/18/1947 - 12/04/1981);

Producer: National Archives and Records Administration; Creative Commons license:
Public DomainTV documentary.

China's Missing Children (2010)

It is estimated that more than 70,000 children go missing in China every year, an average of 192 a day. Child trafficking is seen as a growing problem in China, despite government attempts to crack down on it. What can be done to stop the black market trade of children in China?

Google vs. China?

• Google to Stop Censoring China Results, May Shut
• An Inside Look at Google China
• Google briefly blocked in China

What's the state of freedom?

Tibetan Exiles Grow Impatient - India (1998)

Monks describe how they were imprisoned, interrogated and tortured inside Tibet. They claim the Chinese persecution in Tibet is getting worse. Only in the refuge of Dharamsala can Tibetan culture truly flourish. We meet young Tibetan exiles who are training up for a physical assault against the Chinese. They say the Dalai Lama's 'Middle Way' of peaceful negotiation is getting no response from the Chinese. They fear that time is running out for Tibetan culture. And now with the arrival of the Karmapa Lama in India, their anxieties can only grow over a possible Chinese security crackdown in Tibet. Also available: Key footage revealing violence of Chinese occupation: Tibetan Monks are beaten by Chinese Police.

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• Tibetan Exiles Grow Impatient - India
  

CCTV-9 Propaganda Documentaries (2008/2009)

Following the 2008 Tibet Unrest, China's official international broadcaster, CCTV-9, began airing a series of documentaries about Tibet. The spin was that China's role in Tibet has been positive and that it has resulted in economic development and the abolition of the traditional system of serfdom.

No matter which side of the line you stand on the Tibet issue, these documentaries offer an insight into the official Chinese line and the art of producing propaganda documentaries.

Time of Reform - 50 Years of Democratic Reform of Tibet

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More Videos:

• The Road to Prosperity - 50 Years of Democratic Reform in Tibet
• Striding Through History - 50 Years of Democratic Reform of Tibet
• This is Tibet: Human rights in old Tibet
• Qinghai-Tibet Railroad - Living in the Clouds
• Foreigners Witness Lhasa Riot

Further Reading:

• Media coverage of the Tibet unrest
• Tibetan unrest, Chinese lens
  

HOME (2009)

We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate.

Faster and faster, in the last 60 years, the earth's population has almost tripled, and over 2 billion people have moved to the cities. Faster and faster, Shenzhen in China, with its hundreds of skyscrapers and millions of inhabitants, was just a small fishing village barely 40 years ago.

The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.

HOME has been made for you: share it and act for the planet.

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• HOME
  

African boots in Beijing

A documentary film by Luke Mines and Jeremy Goldkorn about Afrika United, a team of Africans playing in a football championship league in Beijing, China.

Medical Mecca (2004)

A controversial treatment using the stem cells of aborted foetuses is producing remarkable results. Many desperate patients see it as their only hope.

They come from all over the world in search of miracles. "We heard that people were coming over to China and they were getting better," explains Mike Thomas. "They were walking again, talking again, breathing again." China's lax safety regulations and different ethical considerations have enabled Dr Huang Hongyun to blaze a trail in this field. He is the only doctor in the world to inject stem cells directly into the brains or spinal cords of ALS suffers or paraplegics. His work has turned two pieces of conventional medical wisdom on their head -- that spinal injuries are untreatable and that ALS is impossible to stabilise. For the first time ever, Dr Huang has allowed tv cameras to film the extraordinary surgical procedure. In the words of patient Laura Jackson, "He does miracles here."

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• Medical Mecca - China
  

Electronic Trash in China

Electronic Trash Village - China (2007)

Every year, 35 million tonnes of electronic waste is exported to China to be scrapped. There the rubbish is broken down by hand, poisoning workers and polluting the environment. "Smoke from the computers is too strong to breathe", complains one disposal worker. "I feel dizzy and can't see any more". Many employees at the electronic disposal plant suffer from respiratory illness or skin diseases. They work for ten hours a day, with no protection from the hazardous chemicals.

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• Electronic Trash Village

China's Pollution Busters - China (2007)

In the past six years, infant birth defects in China have increased by an unprecedented 40%. This rise is being blamed on pollution from factories. Now green campaigners are taking on the multinationals.

"The untreated waste is pumped out secretly at night", states activist Wu Deng Ming, pointing at a water outlet leading from a factory into a river. "People living along the river have enlarged livers", claims one local. They suffer from: "loss of appetite or cancer and all sorts of terminal diseases". Although strong laws governing pollution exist, these are regularly flouted. "Some local officials give protection to polluters", claims Ma Jun. In an attempt to put pressure on polluters, campaigners are naming and shaming guilty companies online. "We let people know that this company, with such a popular brand, is violated waste water discharge standards". There are also signs that central government is taking the problem more seriously. "The state is very serious about environmental problems", states official Zhou Linbo. Some factories have been closed down. But strong resistance to change still exists. "Polluting factories hire hooligans to deal with people they believe will damage their reputation", claims Wu Deng Ming. Other companies threaten to relocate to Vietnam or Indonesia where; "we can still discharge more of less freely".

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• China's Pollution Busters
  

Production Line to Picket Line (2009)

Computers, clothes and toys once poured off China's production lines, destined for the West. Now the factories are closed, millions are out of work and Chinese officials fear serious political unrest.

All of the orders vanished' says Tanley, the owner of a toy factory in Dong Guan, known as 'the factory of the world'. He's seen factory upon factory close since the autumn of last year. Often, owners flee without paying their staff. 'The local government had to pay the workers' Tanley says. For the 30 million Chinese now thought to be unemployed, there is no safety net. But the government is stepping in to control the large protests evolving out of sudden plant closures. 'We all know the workers are working in the worst situation in the world' says radio DJ and former Tiananmen Square protester, Han. But he believes the crisis has forced the government to address labour rights. 'It's a bad image to arrest workers for going on strike for legal payment - they don't want to exacerbate the tensions' he says. It's 60 years since the communists came to power and 20 years since the massacre at Tiananmen Square. Now at the sharp end of this economic crisis, the government is doing everything it can to prevent a revolt. 'This is progress in the absence of genuine democracy, a more tolerant authoritarian regime.'

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• Production Line to Picket Line
  

China Slowdown (2009)

Chinas economy is in danger. We travel to Dongguan, the Southern market city known as the workshop of the world to discover just how the global financial crisis is bringing down the Asian Giant.

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• China Slowdown
  

Reds Go Green (2009)

Meet the F3 the electric-powered car of the future made in China. Keen to reduce its choking emissions and limit its dependence on oil, China is spearheading new clean energy technologies.

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• Reds Go Green - China
  

Demolition Dissidents (2009)

Economic development and the 2008 Olympics gave Beijing an amazing facelift. But when many Beijing residents were forced to evict their homes they were left struggling and angry at the political system.

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• Demolition Dissidents - China
  

Uighur Dilemma (2009)

Ever since the violence between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese, a fear of fanaticism has taken hold. Is the government's decision to demolish the Uighur area Kashgar really due to an earthquake threat?

Kashgar is a cultural icon. Parts of the city have stood for 2000 years and within its labyrinth, Uighur traditions are unchanged. 'We live as we did in the old times' says Tursun, a 6 generation pot thrower. But times are changing. Beijing's deputy mayor has announced that destruction of the old town is the only way to prepare for an earthquake threat.

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• Uighur Dilemma - China

Al Jazeera - 101 East - 60 years communist China (2009)

As China celebrates its 60th anniversary, new land reforms could bring sweeping change to the country, affecting 800 million farmers.

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Related Videos:

• The Rise of China's Economy - Sixty years after Mao Zedong's communist forces seized power, China has transformed from an economic backwater into an economic superpower.
• China's Long March - China is preparing to mark 60 years of communist rule, with a lavish military parade in Beijing and celebrations across the country.
• China shows its military might - celebrating 60 years since its founding with a mammoth display of national pride and ceremonial pomp.
• Counting the Cost - China's Economic March - As China flexes its military muscle in celebration of the 60th anniversary of its communist revolution, Counting the Cost looks at the economic revolution that has accompanied it.

Al Jazeera - 101 East - China and the Olympics (2008)

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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• Part 1
• Part 2
  

Al Jazeera - 101 East - China's Challenges (2008)

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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• Part 1
• Part 2
  

Al Jazeera - People & Power - Islam in China (2008)

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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• Islam in China
  

The Great Firewall of China (2008)

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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• Journeyman Pictures - The Great Firewall of China
  

Troublemakers Are Insane (2008)

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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• Journeyman Pictures - Troublemakers Are Insane