DATE: Friday, March 26th 2010
TIME: 16:30-18:00
VENUE:
Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business 长江商学院
Oriental Plaza, 12th floor, Tower E3 (Ernst&Young Tower 安永大楼)
1 East Chang An Avenue, Beijing 100738, China
Tel: 010-85188552 (website)
中国北京市东长安街 1 号东方广场东 3 座 12 层
English map, Chinese map

ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: email fcccadmin@gmail.com so we know numbers and for security clearance

Note: The speech will be in English, with questions answered in Chinese with English translation.

DATE: Monday, March 29 2010
TIME: 7-8.30pm

VENUE: CHP’s Office, Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP)
Room 309, Building E, No.46, Fangjia Hutong, Andingmennei Dajie, Dongcheng District, Beijing
北京市东城区安定门内大街方家胡同46号E座309室

ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: email fcccadmin@gmail.com so we know numbers and for security clearance.  CHP’s office can accomodate a limited number of people, so please RSVP in advance to reserve your seat. Members and people who RSVP’d will get priority if the event becomes overcrowded.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
He Shuzhong is a passionate cultural conservationist and one of China’s leading experts in cultural heritage law. In 1998, working as a teacher at China University of Political Science and Law, he launched a small volunteer group called Cultural Heritage Watch, which later evolved into CHP. In 2003, Mr He founded Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center as an NGO (legally registered with the Beijing Bureau of Civil Affairs). Mr He received his Bachelor’s Degree from East China College, Shanghai, in 1984, and then became Associate Professor at China Political Science and Law University in Beijing. In 2004 he received the Outstanding Public Service Award from the Archaeological Institute of America, and in 2005 was awarded the Outstanding Administration Award by the government of the People’s Republic of China.

Please join fellow journalist Marcus Muhariwa and Tanaka Masayoshi for a discussion on reporting in Africa. Marcus covered politics and society in his native Malawi and will return to journalism there after a year studying in Beijing, while Tanaka-san was stationed in Kenya and Paris before moving to China for NHK in 2004.

DATE: March 21
TIME: 11 am (Sunday)
REGISTRATION: no
VENUE:
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, 798 Art District, JiuXianQiaoLu No.4, ChaoYang District, Beijing, 100015, 北京市朝阳区酒仙桥路4号，798艺术区，尤伦斯当代艺术中心 100015

DATE: Friday, March 12
TIME: 7-10:30pm
VENUE: The Bookworm
ENTRANCE: Free. Non-members very welcome as always

DRINKS DISCOUNT: FCCC members wielding a valid membership card get the usual crazy discounts on draught Carlsberg and Yanjing, bottled Tsing Tao, house wine and mixed drinks.

International news reports on the riots in Tibet and Xinjiang, and on the 2008 Olympic torch relay, caused a stir among young Chinese, who accuse the Western media of distorting the truth and the real China. Washington’s recent arm sales to Taiwan and President Obama’s meeting with Dalai Lama saw a robust response from Beijing, which issued an unprecedented public warning of sanctions against US arms companies. Has China changed or have we ever really known the real China? What is the real China? Mr Wang Xiaodong, one of the co-authors of the controversial book “China is Unhappy”, asks these questions. He argues that it is better for the “Western press” and China to enhance their understanding of each other, “rather than stick to banal opinions”. He will seek to explain why China is “unhappy”.

TITLE 2: Coming Currency Wars?
DATE: Friday, March 19 – 12:00-13:30
SPEAKER: Gong Shengli (巩胜利), author of “China is Very Happy”

Fending off foreign pressure, China’s central bank has said at least three times that the Yuan will not appreciate. But Mr Gong Shengli will show why it must — and soon. Come hear him give his reasons for that, and why he also thinks the Yuan “will have to fight for its place on the global stage”. Will the Yuan one day become as accepted as the world’s currency as the Dollar and the Euro? He will seek to answer that in this talk.

VENUE for both talks: Face Bar
26 Dongcaoyuan, Gongti (behind the Cervantes Institute)
工体南路东草园26号 (map, website)

ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: email fcccadmin@gmail.com so we know numbers and for security clearance. When you sign up for these talks, please specify which of the two sessions you’ll be attending.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Wang Xiaodong (王小东) is a researcher at the Communist Youth League-affiliated China Youth and Children Research Center. He is better-known as one of the co-authors of the controversial book “China is Unhappy” and is widely seen as a leading thinker among China’s nationalists.

Gong Shengli (巩胜利) is an independent scholar and the current chief researcher of Guoqing Neican (国情内参), a weekly magazine published as internal reference for China’s ministries. Mr Gong has been studying international and Chinese social and economic issues for over 30 years. His articles have been published at home and abroad in several publications including People’s Daily, Southern Weekend, Fortune Magazine, Newsweek. He is also the main author of the book “China is Very Happy”.

With global warming, the prospect of the Arctic being navigable during summer months has become real. That has impelled the Chinese government to allocate more resources to research on the energy-rich Arctic region.
Several Chinese academics have encouraged their government to be aware of the political, economic and military implications of shorter shipping routes and untapped energy resources. However, Chinese officials advocate caution for fear of causing alarm and provoking countermeasures among the Arctic states. Beijing-based SIPRI Senior Researcher Linda Jakobson will discuss a new report she authored: “China and the High North prepare for an ice-free Arctic”. The report is is based on Chinese sources and interviews with Chinese scholars and officials. Press Release, Report

DATE: Monday, March 8 2010
TIME: 14:00-15:30
VENUE:
Royal Norwegian Embassy
1, Dong Yi Jie, San Li Tun
100600 Beijing
挪威使馆，朝阳区三里屯东一街1号
Tel: +86 10 8531 9600, website , map

ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: email fcccadmin@gmail.com so we know numbers and for security clearance

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Linda Jakobson is the Acting Programme Director and Beijing-base Senio Researcher of the China and Global Security Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). She previously worked for ten years at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA), most recently as Director of China  Programme and Senior Researcher. Jakobson has lived and worked in China for over 15 years and published six books on Chinese politics, foreign policy, and East Asian society. Jakobson’s research at SIPRI focuses on China’s foreign and security policy as well as regional security issues in Northeast Asia.

Did China achieve the impossible by chalking up nearly 9 per cent GDP growth while maintaining deficit at a low level? The reality: only a small share of the 26 trillion yuan or so in central and local stimulus projects is financed out of Chinese government budget. To raise money for these stimulus projects, local governments set up some 8,000 local investment companies, which issued equity and bonds, and borrowed from banks.

Prof Shih estimates that local government investment companies have borrowed US$1.68 trillion dollars (11 trillion yuan). Local investment companies continue to take on more debt to finance projects. This debt is onerous for local governments, most of which run perennial deficits. Totting up the total debt of the Chinese government – rather than just official debt – China, in fact, has a relatively high debt-to-GDP ratio.
And this debt burden has other broader implications, Prof Shih will show. In the years to come, millions more urban residents will be forced to relocate so that land can be sold – to repay banks.

DATE: Wednesday, March 17th 2010
TIME: 12:30-14:00
VENUE:
Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business 长江商学院
Oriental Plaza, 12th floor, Tower E3 (Ernst&Young Tower 安永大楼)
1 East Chang An Avenue, Beijing 100738, China
Tel: 010-85188552 (website)
中国北京市东长安街 1 号东方广场东 3 座 12 层
English map, Chinese map

ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: email fcccadmin@gmail.com so we know numbers and for security clearance

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Professor Victor C. Shih is a political economist at Northwestern University specialising in China. An immigrant to the US from Hong Kong, Prof Shih received his doctorate in Government from Harvard University, where he researched banking sector reform in China with the support of the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship and the Fulbright Fellowship.

He is the author of a new book published by the Cambridge University Press entitled Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation. It is the first book to probe the links between elite politics and banking policies in China. He has also written numerous articles for academic and business journals, including The China Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, The Asian Wall Street Journal and The Far Eastern Economic Review. He is also frequent adviser to the private sector on the banking industry in China. His current research covers the dynamics of elite politics and local government debt in China.

The crisis over Iran’s nuclear program has come full circle to 2006, as the United Nations’ Security Council considers a new package of sanctions. Three rounds of sanctions lukewarmly supported by China failed to coerce Iran to stop its uranium enrichment. President Barack Obama has shifted from Bush-era confrontation to engagement with Iran, a policy that hasn’t made the Iranian regime any more malleable. Tehran has vowed never to yield, while Iran’s domestic political crisis seems to have left its foreign policy decision making in disarray.

China has emerged as Iran’s largest trading partner and by far the largest investor in Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure, linking Iran with western China through Central Asia. Opposition to sanctions is a core  principle of China’s foreign policy, and China and Iran both oppose US domination of Central Asia and the Greater Middle East. China views Iran’s vibrant opposition movement as a Western-inspired velvet or color revolution to bring down the Islamic regime and replace it with a liberal, pro-Western government.

Please join us for a talk by long-time China foreign policy analyst Willem van Kemenade, who travelled to Tehran just as demonstrations broke out last year following the disputed reelection of hardline president Mahmud Ahmadinejad. His expectations that sanctions will defuse the nuclear stand-off this time?  Low!

DATE: Friday, February 26th 2010
TIME: 11:00am-12:30
VENUE:
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Liangmahe Nanlu 4
荷兰王国驻华大使馆 – 北京
中华人民共和国北京市亮马河南路4号
Phone: (86) (10) 6532 1131
Website: click here

ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: WAITINGLIST email fcccadmin@gmail.com so we know numbers and for security clearance
**Bring passport or photo ID**

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Willem van Kemenade is a longtime China analyst, specializing in foreign policy. His latest book is “Iran’s Relations with China and the West: Cooperation and Confrontation in Asia,” Clingendael, The Hague 2009.

He studied History and Chinese in Leiden and Amsterdam and obtained his MA degree in 1975. From 1977 through 1997 he reported for NRC Handelsblad from Hong Kong, Taipei, Jakarta and Beijing. He has also travelled to Japan, Russia, India, Central Asia and Iran.

During the last 13 years, he has been a consultant and lecturer, as well as author of articles for public affairs journals such as The Washington Quarterly and reports for think tanks, including the International Crisis Group, the European Institute for Asian Studies in Brussels and private consulting groups.

Since 2002 he has been a lecturer at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael and the Netherlands Defense College in The Hague, teaching courses on the international political economy and geo-strategy of China and Asia for European and Asian diplomats, senior military and government officials. He has been a visiting senior fellow at Clingendael since 2006.

Books published:
“China, Hong Kong, Taiwan Inc., The Dynamics of a New Empire”, Knopf, 1997
“China and Japan: Partners or Permanent Rivals”, Clingendael, 2007.
“Détente between China and India: The Delicate Balance of Geopolitics in Asia”, Clingendael, 2008.
“Iran’s Relations with China and the West: Cooperation and Confrontation in Asia,” Clingendael, 2009.

www.clingendael.nl
www.willemvk.org

More than a year after the earthquake, these concerns have prompted debate among policymakers, academics and the NGO community about the need to liberalize the regulations governing NGOs – while Beijing continues to grapple with its fear of “colour revolutions”.

Mr Xu Yongguang, a prominent leader in China’s NGO circles, will speak about some of these debates, and the growing role of private foundations in supporting civil society in China after the earthquake.

DATE: Wednesday,  February 24th 2010
TIME: 11:00-12:30
VENUE:
Italian Embassy Cultural Office
2, San Li Tun Dong Er Jie – 100600 Beijing (enter from 3rd Ring road, see map)
Phone: +86 10 8532.7600
Website: click here

ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: email fcccadmin@gmail.com so we know numbers and for security clearance
**Bring passport or photo ID**

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Shawn Shieh is a Visiting Scholar at the International Education for Students (IES) Beijing Center where he teaches classes on Chinese politics and foreign relations.  He is coeditor of a book on Chinese NGOs, State and Society Responses to Social Welfare Needs in China: Serving the People (2009), and is currently engaged in a research project on the effect of the Sichuan earthquake on Chinese NGOs, and writing a book on social activism in China that profiles founders of prominent NGOs.  He also has a blog devoted to NGOs in China at www.ngochina.blogspot.com.

Xu Yongguang (徐永光) is Vice Chairman and Secretary General of the Narada Foundation (南都公益基金会), a private outfit which aims to foster civil society in China, focusing on the issue of migrant children’s education. Mr Xu, born in Wenzhou in 1949, is also Vice Chairman of the China Youth Development Foundation, and a member of the Ninth and Tenth National Committees of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

A renowned NGO academic who has been researching and developing the sector for 20 years, he was also head of the Organisation Department under the Central Committee of the China Communist Youth League in 1986. Later, as Secretary General of the China Youth Development Foundation, he founded and facilitated the Project Hope, among China’s most well-known charities.

Nine Hong Kong reporters arrived at the Chengdu courthouse around 7 a.m.
We wanted to interview the lawyer and relatives of Sichuan earthquake activist Tan Zuoren outside the courthouse, before the trial was scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. Around 9 a.m. police ordered us to enter the courthouse. When we refused to go, they used physical force, and shoved us into a holding room.
One reporter who was carried in was slightly injured in a scuffle.

The authorities said they wanted to check our media credentials. Around 10 a.m., after the verdict was issued, the authorities returned our credentials and released us. We went outside the courthouse and tried to interview the lawyer about the five-year prison sentence for subversion, but uniformed police kept pushing us around. They said we were violating regulations by blocking the sidewalk. Despite the disruptions, we were eventually able to complete the interviews.