BBC News
April 16, 2013
Media in China are discussing tributes paid to late reformist leader Hu Yaobang and the impact his death had on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Southern Metropolis Daily and many other state media outlets republished tributes for Mr Hu, whose death in 1989 culminated in mass pro-democracy protests and a bloody crackdown by the military in Tiananmen Square.
The reprinted tributes, published in Shanghai’s Liberation Daily, hail Mr Hu for establishing a market economy and political democracy and for vindicating the persecuted victims of the Communist Party’s many ideological purges, including the Cultural Revolution.
Thousands of people on Monday visited Mr Hu’s resting place in Jiangxi province, while tens of thousands more posted tributes online, Global Times adds.
In Hong Kong’s Ming Pao, Bruce Lui Ping-kuen, a veteran China news reporter, believes the Communist Party only allowed media tributes to Mr Hu to prevent mourning for the victims of Tiananmen from getting out of control, especially ahead of the 25th anniversary of the crackdown next year.
“The Chinese Communist Party still has no place for Hu Yaobang,” he writes.
Hong Kong’s Apple Daily says it is “wishful thinking” to assume that the Communist Party has reversed its damning verdict on the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement.
It says there can only be hope of a vindication when the Communist Party lifts the ban on media coverage of Mr Hu’s late successor, Zhao Ziyang, who was also ousted from power for sympathising with the Tiananmen protesters.
Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily News says the Communist Party’s liberal and leftist factions must rebuild a consensus on lifting the historical burden of Tiananmen.
Meanwhile, Ming Pao and overseas-based China Digital Times highlight how a majority of respondents to a People’s Forum online poll voted “no” for President Xi Jinping’s China Dream, while more than 80% voiced opposition to one-party rule. The survey has disappeared from the site.
Economic stress
In business news, Southern Metropolis Daily says China’s economic slowdown could be a long-term trend and stresses that local governments must not rely on real estate and land sales and shirk deeper-level systemic reforms.
Bankers tip off the South China Morning Post on the China Banking Regulatory Commission upgrading warnings about local government debt and issuing a circular calling on lenders to restrict loans to financing vehicles of local governments.
In an interview with People’s Daily, Chinese Centre for Disease Control expert Luo Huiming says there is no need to upgrade emergency measures, as there is “still insufficient evidence” to prove that the H7N9 bird flu virus is migrating north.
University of Hong Kong microbiologist Ho Pak-leung tells the CSouth China Morning Post that H7N9 could turn into a pandemic after a four-year-old Beijing boy was found to have the virus despite not showing any flu symptoms.
Families of H7N9 patients also complain to the South China Morning Post about the “questionable response” of authorities to the virus and lax hygiene and quarantine measures at some hospitals.
The newspaper says mainland media and hospitals have been ordered to present an upbeat spin on the outbreak – “no front-page stories, just reports with a positive angle”.
Global Times calls on the government to introduce a roadmap and timetable for officials to publically disclose assets. It notes that public demands are growing for Chinese officials to follow the example of French and Russian ministers in disclosing assets.
Local authorities in Hunan’s Fenghuang have waived tourist entry fees for the residents of neighbouring counties and will reduce entry fees from 80 yuan ($13, £8.50) to 20 yuan for students following a mass strike by business owners over the city charging high tourist entry fees, The Beijing News reports.
Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily News cites reports by the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, a Hong Kong-based rights monitoring group, on a continuing standoff between villagers and authorities in Fujian’s Xike over the alleged unauthorised sale of their land to build a golf course.
Violent clashes broke out on Saturday after police forcibly drove off thousands of villagers continuing a month-long sit-in protest outside the township government building.
In international news, North Korean ambassador to China, Ji Jae-ryong, sends a commentary to Xinhua news agency calling the US an “enemy” of the state plotting to ignite the flames of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula.
Iceland has also become the first European country to sign a free trade agreement with China. People’s Daily and experts in China Daily say the breakthrough deal, after six years of negotiations, will help Iceland’s battered economy and the European debt crisis.
