Patriot pains: Shanghai citizens exiled during the Cultural Revolution are refusing to give up their fight for equal benefits
14 October 2006
South China Morning Post

When he was 17, Wang Weiguo found himself planting cotton at the edge of the Taklimakan desert in China's far western region of Xinjiang, a world apart from his home in cosmopolitan Shanghai.

The year was 1963 and patriotic zeal had prompted him to volunteer to tame the frontier. Tens of thousands of young Shanghainese heeded the government's call and went to the borderland as pioneers in the 1960s. "We were patriotic," Mr Wang said. "We were innocent. It's not like now."

More than three decades later, some returned to the city of their birth to live out their twilight years. But they feel forgotten and neglected by the government that sent them to Xinjiang , since many have been unable to secure adequate pensions.

With the same determination that allowed them to transform desolate land into productive fields, the returnees have organised a weekly protest for the past three years to seek higher benefits from the Shanghai government.

Recent revelations that corrupt Shanghai officials were stealing from the city's pension fund have increased their anger. The scandal has already ousted Shanghai's top leader, party secretary Chen Liangyu .

"We ought to receive the same treatment as Shanghai workers," one returnee said. "The government must take responsibility for its past mistakes and give us compensation."

An estimated 100,000 Shanghai "educated youth", their ages ranging from below 16 to the mid-20s, went to Xinjiang from 1963. The decision to send them was reportedly made by Wang Zhen , then a vice-premier who eventually rose to vice-president.

Shanghai was, as usual, the vanguard of the revolution. The practice of sending students and urban youth to rural areas would later grow into a political campaign known as "Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside" during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.

"It is imperative that educated youth go to rural areas to be re-educated by the poor and lower-middle peasants. We must convince cadres and other people in cities to send their children {hellip} to the countryside," Mao Zedong wrote in a People's Daily article headlined "We Have Two Hands Too. We Will Not Loaf Around in the City".

Although many in Shanghai volunteered, some had little choice, and others were coerced. Neighbourhood officials allowed families to keep their other children in Shanghai if they would surrender one for Xinjiang.

Many of the families who sent children had bad class backgrounds from working for foreign companies before 1949 or being labelled "rightists" in earlier political campaigns. The government blocked their children from attending university or finding good jobs.

The send-offs from Shanghai were grand events. Dressed in army uniforms with Mao buttons pinned to their chests, members of the children's crusade excitedly boarded trains hauling bundles filled with food and supplies packed by worried mothers.

Arriving in Xinjiang after a week-long journey by train and truck, their idealism was quickly eroded by the rugged conditions. The soil they tilled was often barren or alkaline. Temperatures ranged from minus 20 degrees Celsius in winter to more than 40 degrees in summer.

Mr Wang and his group of nearly 200 went to an area outside Aksu city, along the old Silk Road trading route. They ate boiled turnips and slept in pits covered with tree branches and dirt. "If you were walking at night and weren't careful, you would go through someone's roof," he said.

This was life in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a military-linked conglomerate engaged in agriculture and industry. Popularly known as the bingtuan (soldier group), the corps encouraged migration and protected stability in the border region.

Still in existence today, it is a "state within a state", operating a system of labour camps that have drawn criticism from human rights groups.

The Shanghai contingent remained out west for years. Some escaped by sneaking back to Shanghai, fleeing to other provinces. Many died. Young women could find a way out by marrying local husbands.

Only after the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of reforms in 1978 did those sent to the countryside regain hope about the prospect of going home.

As Shanghai people sent to other parts of the country began to trickle back to the city, those in Xinjiang found their return blocked by a set of rules known by its number, Document No 91, which said the government should take steps to ensure that they stayed put.

"Take practical, feasible measures to resolutely make the vast majority of Shanghai youth remain stably in Xinjiang," ordered the document, issued by Shanghai and Xinjiang with the backing of the central government.

For Shanghai's part, this meant tactics such as detaining returnees, shutting down their small businesses and barring their children from attending local schools. This went on through the 1980s.

Various theories have circulated about why Shanghai specifically discriminated against returnees from Xinjiang, including their poor political backgrounds and the city's reluctance to accept a mass influx of people who were still needed in the western region.

In the 1990s, however, looser controls and retirement have allowed an estimated 20,000 to return to Shanghai.

Their return has highlighted a major flaw of the mainland's pension system: lack of a national scheme. Residents across the country contribute different amounts and receive different benefits, and localities manage the funds without central government oversight.

Some of the Xinjiang returnees never paid into a retirement scheme because they were working before pension reforms started. Others paid into a fund, but were unable to transfer their accounts to Shanghai.

Those who are receiving benefits from the Shanghai government have found that the levels are far below those of the city's other retired workers, since they are based on Xinjiang salaries and living standards. Mr Wang, 60, receives about 500 yuan a month - roughly half the average Shanghai level. His medical insurance adds a further 20 yuan. He relies on his children and renting his home to a retail shop to supplement his income.

He bristles at the idea of accepting poverty relief, saying he believes it denigrates his contribution to the nation. "Our slogan is that we want the same treatment given to Shanghai's retired workers," he said.

No one will openly say who organised the weekly protests, which began in June 2003. Shanghai has handled the demonstrations delicately, since the protesters are elderly and considered patriots by many. Still, authorities view the returnees as a threat to state security and make periodic arrests.

After foreign journalists stumbled on the protests in March 2004, authorities used it as an excuse to crack down. Police held reporters from the South China Morning Post and French news agency Agence France-Presse for several hours.

The following week, the city sent hundreds of riot police to clear the protest and later offered a one-off increase of 50 yuan in benefits as part of the government's dual approach to the problem. Police have since warned foreign journalists about covering the demonstrations and protesters have been cautioned about speaking to reporters. A leader of the group recently declined to be interviewed, saying: "We can handle our own internal affairs."

The protests, now held every Wednesday outside an office of the Shanghai Labour and Social Security Bureau on Hankou Road, still attract hundreds. They even play a social function, allowing retirees with shared experiences to meet and exchange information.

In the two months since the Shanghai pension scandal came to light, talk has turned to whether reforms to help their plight could follow.

Zhong Renyao , a professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics who advises the government on pension reform, said the corruption case could bring change. He is calling for a move towards a unified national system and more transparency on the part of local governments over how the funds are invested.

Ideally, the central government would take control of local pensions, but some provincial and city level officials would oppose such a move, the professor said. As a halfway measure, the central government could set uniform rates for pension contributions and benefits. "This is entirely possible," he said.

In the meantime, the Xinjiang returnees cling to the hope that they might one day receive better treatment. Lawyers have refused to take on their case, so they have launched a letter-writing campaign to ask the Supreme People's Court to accept a lawsuit.

"If we want to eat, we have no money to see a doctor. If we see a doctor, we have no money to eat," one letter said. The court hasn't responded.

Xia Lin , who spent more than 30 years near Korla city farming and doing menial labour before returning to Shanghai in 1996, said he hoped the group's contributions to the nation would be recognised.

He wants someone to write the complete history of Shanghai youth sent to Xinjiang, but the topic is still too sensitive. One returnee, Xie Mingan , has written a trilogy, Bitter Love, about his personal experiences. The work had a limited printing. Overseas, stories of young people who were "sent down" to the countryside are reflected in works such as the memoir Spider Eaters by Rae Yang and a movie directed by Joan Chen, Tian Yu, about a teenage girl who compromises herself in an attempt to return home.

Mr Xia, who is self-taught with only a middle school education, is the scribe of the group. He spends his days writing articles about their plight and letters to various government bodies.

He doesn't feel up to the task of writing a history, but he says the work should gather the collective experiences of the returnees. "This is a history of the government using forced labour," he said.

Some names have been changed.

Chinese dissident asks Nobel award winner to help Uighur Muslims
13 October 2006
Agence France Presse

WASHINGTON, Oct 13, 2006 (AFP) -

US-based Chinese dissident Rebiya Kadeer on Friday asked Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to help introduce his successful poverty eradication concept among minority Uighur Muslims in China.

"I wish to congratulate him and hope he can help my people overcome poverty," said Kadeer, among 191 people nominated for the Nobel award this year.

Bangladesh's Yunus, dubbed the "Banker to the Poor", and his Grameen Bank won the Nobel award Friday for helping millions escape the poverty trap through a system of small-scale loans.

Kadeer, leading a struggle for eight million Uighurs in China's autonomous northwest Xinjiang, said her people were in dire need of assistance to free them from poverty, allegedly worsened by an influx of mainland Chinese.

The 58-year-old grandmother spent six years in prison in China before she was deported in March last year to join her family in the United States.

Before her arrest, Kadeer was a millionaire businesswoman and her businesses were a source of training and employment for fellow Uighurs. Her companies have come under constant harassment from the Chinese authorities and are now on the verge of collapse.

About 100,000 Uighurs, including her three sons, are languishing in jail for their political and religious beliefs.

Kadeer was nominated by a Swedish parliamentarian for "championing" Uighur rights and for being "one of China's most prominent advocates of women's rights."

China Exclusive: Wild horses protected with collar cameras
13 October 2006
Xinhua News Agency

URUMQI, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Inside Karamay Nature Reserve, in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a herd of Przewalski's horses are roaming around a pond, while the lead mare swings her tail leisurely.

That is a picture broadcast from a camera attached to a collar around the mare's neck, said Cao Jie, director of Xinjiang Wild Horses(Przewalski's Horses) Propagation Center.

On Sept. 30, research workers from the United States, Germany and China collared a mare and a stallion from two separate groups of Przewalski's horses inside Karamay Nature Reserve, in the Junggar Basin.

The collar cameras are the first of their kind in China, says Cao, who heralds the move as a crucial step in releasing the horses into the wild.

The center is considering putting the collars on the remaining lead mares of four more herds the center has released.

Przewalski's horses have existed for 60 million years, and are the only surviving wild horse species in the world. They were first known to the outside world in 1879 when Russian explorer Nikolay Przewalski discovered them in Xinjiang.

A German party captured 52 of the horses in 1890 for transport back to Hamburg, but only 28 survived the journey. The thousand or so Przewalski's horses in the world, including those in Xinjiang, are said to be the offspring of those survivors.

The horses disappeared in this westernmost region of China due to excessive poaching for meat and environmental degradation over a period of 100 years before 1986.

To bring Przewalski's horses back to Junggar Basin, their natural habitat, the Chinese government has included them in a protection scheme for eight endangered animal species.

The Xinjiang Wild Horses (Przewalski's Horses) Propagation Center opened in 1986 with the import of 18 horses from the United States, Britain and Germany.

The center keeps 290 horses, most of them in captivity. It started to release the horses into a semi-wild environment in 2001 and so far 45 horses have been released into the hilly areas around Karamay.

Eighteen colts have been born to six herds in the semi-wild environment.

However, some of the wild horses have gone astray and died. Herders were hired to look for missing horses, says Cao.

"With the collar cameras in place, it will be easier for us to track the six herds in the semi-wild environment," says Cao.

The two collars were donated by the Smithsonian's National Zoo, in Washington, DC, and the Cologne Zoo, Germany.

Previously, tracking and monitoring was done manually, with the help of telescopes and a jeep, he says.

"Information flashed back will not only enable research workers to respond immediately when a herd encounters misfortune, but will also be of great value to drafting of new development plans for the horses," says Cao.

No releases are planned this year because of a lack of suitable ground, but the collar cameras are helpful in finding locations.

It is expected more wild horses will be released next year.

Like most endangered species, the wild horse is facing the problem of hereditary degeneration due to inbreeding and long captivity.

Six Przewalski's horses were imported from Germany to vary the gene pool last year, says Cao.

Xinjiang Schools Ban Hepatitis-B Virus Carriers
By Xie Chuanjiao
11 October 2006
China Daily

Nineteen junior high school students have been told to leave school after they were found to be carriers of the Hepatitis-B virus.

The move has caused controversy among those who say the ban goes against the youngsters' rights.

The pupils were told to go home in the city of Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

"I am in a desperate situation now; no school is willing to accept me with a drop-out paper in my hand," one student called Xiaoxiao told the Beijing News on Monday.

The 13-year-old boy was in the first grade of junior high at Urumqi No 15 Middle School six weeks ago. The school told him to return to his village three weeks later because he "carried the Hepatitis-B virus."

Mao Qun'an, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, blasted the decision to ban the pupils.

"This is prejudice. All these students can go to school unless they are sick enough to be hospitalized."

The Hepatitis-B virus, like the HIV virus, is mainly transmitted through sexual contact and blood.

It cannot be spread through food or water, sharing eating utensils, breastfeeding, hugging, kissing, coughing, sneezing or by casual contact.

China is believed to have more than 120 million Hepatitis-B virus carriers.

Most people who become infected get rid of the virus within 6 months, but it can cause cirrhosis (scarring) of the liver, liver cancer, liver failure, and even death. Not everyone who tests positive goes on to develop any symptoms, although they could still be spreading the disease.

"All the seven students we sent away are Hepatitis-B virus carriers in a contagious period," Sun Xiaomei, an administrative official from the No 67 Middle School told China Daily yesterday.

"We made the decision when considering a safe environment for our other 900-plus students, including 400 that board," Sun continued.

Yin Xiuqin, from the No 15 Middle School, showed reporters a paper released in March by the Urumqi education department. It said students can be told to leave school if they have "chronically contagious diseases in a spreading period, all kinds of epidemic diseases in acute conditions and abnormal liver functions."

"We are doing things according to the rules," Yin said.

An official with the Urumqi Education Bureau who was reluctant to give his name told local media on Monday: "We have proved their cases may cause an epidemic after DNA tests. We had to tell them to leave school."

Zhang Yuexin, a senior expert from the Xinjiang Liver Disease Centre, disagreed, telling the Nanfang Daily: "There is nothing wrong with their liver functions. Viruses are duplicating inside their bodies, but do not show they are in an acute period."

"What the schools have done is not legal. Even if the students are Hepatitis-B virus carriers, they still have the right to a normal school life," a local lawyer named Zhang Yuanxin told China Daily.

China has launched a nationwide campaign calling on people not to take a biased attitude towards people carrying the Hepatitis-B virus, said Mao from the Ministry of Health.

The number of Hepatitis-B patients has become a major public health issue, sources from the ministry said.