Daily Life in China

Ke Dawei

Newspaper Reading, Week 3:

Assignment:

1.      Part 1: Read and determine what the article 1. is about.

2.      Write up two of the big issues or big picture topics in the article.

3.      Write what three items which are mentioned but no so important in the article.

4.      Write a good effective title.

5.      Write a compact lead in one sentence if possible.

6.      Part 2: Write leads and titles for the article bodies 2 & 3.

 Original titles and leads below then articles below them:

Farmers sue county for illegal land use

By Wang Zhenghua (China Daily)

Updated: 2005-08-30 06:12

117 rural families are suing the local county government in Northwest China's Gansu Province. The hearings open today, with the villagers claiming the demolition and construction on their land is illegal.

Growing energy moves by China make U.S. angry

(chinadaily.com.cn/agencies)

Updated: 2005-09-07 10:58

China will be increasingly in conflict with the United States if it continues to pursue good relations and energy deals with countries U.S. believes “problematic”, a senior Bush administration official said Tuesday.

Siberian oil pipeline to go to China first: Putin

(chinadaily.com.cn)Updated: 2005-09-08 10:49

1. The farmers, who gathered in Longnan in Gansu Province yesterday, are asking the Longnan Intermediate People's Court to award them 25 million yuan (US$3 million) from Chengxian County government.

The suit also names the local land procurement and relocation office, charged by the government to do the demolition.  According to plaintiffs' lawyer Wang Dong, the county government issued a notice in September 2001 saying it would requisition the land in the county's Chengguan township in order to construct a sewage treatment plant.

In the following year, the procurement and relocation office pulled down the farmers' single story houses and constructed residential buildings.  "It's illegal because the land, covering about 21,300 square metres, was collectively owned by farmers," Wang said yesterday. Chinese law states that land owned collectively by rural residents should be managed by a board elected by the residents. According to 1996 figures, 46 per cent of land in China falls into this category.

If the government has to use the land for the general public's welfare, then it needs to consult and compensate the farmers.

But Wang, who took the case along with another lawyer, said the county government demolished the farmers' houses through coercive measures without compensation.

"Each farmer has a certificate to prove the land is owned collectively," Wang said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Worse, the government did not even keep its promise that it would compensate the farmers . "As a result, these homeless rural workers have to seek shelter in their relatives' houses or elsewhere," Wang said.

"Only a few resettled families, who have special relations with the government, have moved into new houses."

He also said some victims had been afraid of accusing the government, especially those who have family members working as county civil servants.

In recent years, nevertheless, some wrote petition letters to relevant departments, and others visited the General Office of the State Council in Beijing.

"These peaceful farmers are now outraged," Wang said.  He said that to obtain the evidence, he pretended to purchase a house from the developer of the residential buildings.   

But Wang said the developer has yet to obtain the proper certificate to use the land, and there are other loopholes in its use.

The lawyer for the local government could not be reached for comment.

According to local media reports, the local land procurement and relocation office said it had reached agreements with each family and, in addition, the suit has exceeded its statutes.

However Wang said the government has persisted in violating farmers' legal rights.

2. In a meeting with Western analysts and journalists at the Kremlin late on Monday, Putin said shipments initially would go to China's oil center in Daqing, according to the US newspaper, citing participants of the meeting.

"The Daqing pipeline will be built first," Putin reportedly told the group. "But we will also build to Nakhodka (the route for oil to go to Japan – David )."

The Russian government refused to comment on the report.

According to the newspaper, construction of the pipeline is to begin later this year, with the first stage capable of carrying 30 million metric tons of crude oil annually from the Siberian city of Taishet to Skovorodino near the Chinese border.

From there, the pipeline is expected to take two-thirds of the oil south to Daqing, while the remaining 10 million metric tons would be shipped by rail to a new port to be built on the Pacific coast near Nakhodka. The project is expected to be completed around 2008.

Putin also pledged to expand the line's capacity to 50 million metric tons a year, or roughly 1.2 million barrels per day, and to extend the line all the way to the Pacific coast at some time in the future, the Journal report said.

Putin reiterated Russia's plan to expand its oil production amid worries about global petroleum supplies. He played down the slowdown in output growth over the past year, noting that, despite problems at the embattled energy giant Yukos, Russian production has still been on the rise.

"Even without Yukos, oil production has increased and will continue to increase," Putin was quoted as saying.

3. However, Beijing says it has pursued an independent foreign policy, guided by the principle of mutual respect for sovereignty, mutual benefit, non-interference into each other’s internal affairs and peaceful coexistence, which is earning it growing friends.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick told reporters in Washington that he was worried about China’s increasing energy ventures in cooperation with countries such as Iran, Sudan and Venezuela, which Washington does not like.

Zoellick said that it was unlikely that China could guarantee its energy security through contracts with countries which Washington considers troublesome "because you can't lock up energy resources" in a global marketplace, the Reuters quoted him as saying.

Zoellick, in charge of a new U.S. strategic dialogue with Beijing, discussed key issues facing the two countries ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's attendance at the United Nations summit in New York next week.

Hu had been due to make his first official visit to the White House on Wednesday but it was canceled so President George W. Bush could focus on the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.

The two are still expected to meet on the fringes of the U.N. summit. Cooperation on trying to end the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs will be on the U.S. agenda.

Zoellick launched the strategic dialogue on a trip to Beijing in August amid rising U.S. concern over China's growing economic and military strength. He acknowledged "there are questions that are being asked not only in the U.S. but other parts of Asia and Europe about how China will use this growing power," according to the report filed by Reuters.

China became the world's third largest importer of oil in 2003. It sought energy and mineral deals with Iran, whom the United States and Europe accuse of pursuing nuclear weapons, with Sudan, whom U.S. and others accuses of human rights abuse in its Darfur region, and Venezuela, which has allied with Cuba, a U.S. adversary.

Zoellick said he told Chinese officials that from a U.S. perspective "it looked like Chinese companies had been unleashed to try to lock up energy resources."

He warned that Beijing's ties to what the United States considered troublesome states -- the list also included Myanmar and Zimbabwe -- were "going to have repercussions elsewhere" and the Chinese would have to decide if they wanted to pay the price.

China must choose whether to work with the United States to ameliorate problems posed by these states, or whether it "want(ed) to be against us and perhaps others in the international system as well," Zoellick was quoted as saying.

The State Department's former chief China official, Randall Schriver, told Reuters last week he feared the two powers were on a "collision course" over the ties Beijing is forging with those “problematic countries” in its search for energy to feed its growing economy.

China’s CNOOC Ltd this year made a bid for a U.S.-owned oil company but withdrew after a torrent of criticism from the U.S. Congress. Many Chinese online readers chided the U.S. political interference which nipped an otherwise normal business dealing.