The China/India border kerfuffle is over for now, and the Chinese tourists came home from their fandango into disputed waters – see below. Shifting back to the interior, the NY Times has two excellent stories linked to the damming of the Nu River in Yunnan. EbSE blogger Zhou Dequn posted on this critical issue in April.
The biggest news this week in EbSE land comes from Kunming where EbSE has briefly entered the spotlight while covering Kunming’s protest against the construction of a PX chemical plant west of the city. EbSE blogger Brian Eyler live-tweeted the protest on 5/4 (@aikunming) and was mentioned here at China Digital Times. EbSE contributed photos used in international coverage of the protest. The BBC, Reuters, Phoenix Satellite all had protest coverage. Phoenix and Caixin have ongoing analysis.
Kunming protestors sent a petition with 13000 signatures to the White House this week. Hopefully it doesn’t get lost in the mound of mock petitions sent to the White House by China’s Netizens as well this week.
People’s Daily English version released a statement that Kunming’s PX project is still on hold and the Chinese language version acknowledged that “today we live in the information and government institutions and state owned enterprises must be transparent in their processes.” The Chinese language version posted on 5/8 that “protesting the PX project is part of the road to decision making.” Both assessments suggest certain institutions at the central government level are in support of these protests.
Whether or not the protest was approved by the city Civil Affairs Bureau remains unsettled. EbSE contacts say the protest was indeed approved, but other sources close to organizers claim the protest was not approved. The relaxed and permissive atmosphere during the three hour protest suggests that the it received approval, but we could be wrong.
Lastly, the Philippines’ South China Sea arbitration case against China at ITLOS is gathering a lot of discussion online. EbSe launched its focus on the South China Sea and this issue yesterday with the first in a series of posts from RedOceans.
One month into our launch, we are providing you with more content throughout the week, so the news digest will be published on Fridays from here forward for your weekend reading pleasure.
