2010年10月31日 星期日

In Northern Vietnam, a Region of Beauty and Ethnic Traditions


Justin Mott for The New York Times

A market in the village of Sa Phin is packed with vendors from all over selling livestock, local corn whiskey and Chinese beer, vibrant clothing and household goods. More Photos »


MY first glimpse of the place that some call Vietnam’s Shangri-La came on a brisk spring afternoon as we were careening along a narrow road hemmed in by sheer limestone walls. Our driver made a hairpin turn and all at once the landscape erupted into a sweep of dazzling slopes, serrated ridges and hanging valleys. In the pocket of a mountain pass called Heaven’s Gate, Hoang Tuan Anh, who also served as our guide, stopped his pickup truck so we could gaze at the vista of radiant sky that had opened up before us. This was only the beginning, Mr. Anh said, as we resumed our upward drive. “We will go as high as the clouds!”

My husband, my daughter and I had been in Vietnam nearly a month before we visited Ha Giang province in the northern reaches of the country. It was a place I had never heard of, but Vietnamese acquaintances talked about the region as if it were the Land of Oz, their eyes widening as they incanted its name (pronounced Ha ZAHNG). Worldly young Hanoians said that one could not truly consider oneself Vietnamese until having been there. Expatriate friends implored us not to squander any opportunity to experience this holy grail, far from the country’s deeply trodden tourist track.

Such reverence, we soon learned, was warranted, and it wasn’t just because of the region’s spectacular landscape. In an ever-shrinking world, Ha Giang, with its uniquely preserved tribal culture (nearly 90 percent of the population is ethnic minorities), is one of those rare places that hasn’t been corralled by modernity or prepackaged for visitors. At least, not yet. During the past two decades, as Vietnam’s lowlands and urban centers have teetered on tracks of globalization and economic development, much of this distant 5,000-square-mile province has remained detached and frozen in the past.

That isolation has been reinforced by strained politics, but in recent years, border tensions stemming from a 1979 Chinese invasion have thawed, the government has poured money into improving the province’s roads and other infrastructure, and new, albeit modest, hotels have arrived. Middle-class Vietnamese already appear in throngs, and foreign visitors have begun trickling in as well — last year some 3,500 foreign tourists visited the region. That figure seems poised to grow since the Dong Van plateau, at the province’s northernmost edge, was named the country’s first Unesco-designated Global Geopark earlier this month, a status that the organization bestows on places of significant geological and cultural heritage. The 900-square-mile plateau is studded with ethereal karst formations, evidence of tectonic events that started molding the area over 400 million years ago.

It was that plateau that beckoned to us, as it does to most travelers who venture to the region.

The overnight train from Hanoi deposited us at dawn in Lao Cai, a blustery northern city about 70 miles west of Ha Giang. There we boarded a crammed local bus that chugged for eight hours through misty hills. We spent part of the afternoon lodged in a mudslide, only to be rescued by a hydraulic backhoe doubling as a tow truck. Our 11-month-old daughter craned her head and stared quizzically through it all, as if we were toting her through some particularly mountainous corner of the Upper West Side.

In Ha Giang’s sleepy provincial capital, the city of Ha Giang, we were met by Mr. Anh, our guide of Tay ethnicity with whom we had arranged a three-day tour — first to Dong Van, a town that was less than two miles from the Chinese border, and then along a mountain road to the town of Meo Vac. Mr. Anh escorted us to the concrete headquarters of the immigration police to procure $10 permits from an unsmiling official. Although the requirement was abolished in most of the country in 1993, foreigners are still expected to obtain permits to tour Ha Giang, a Communist rite of the rubber-stamping variety so seldom experienced by travelers in modern Vietnam as to seem almost quaint.

Later, as we barreled past the limits of Ha Giang city into the area’s remarkable landscape, Mr. Anh, a garrulous man in his late 30s who had studied in England and lived in Hanoi before returning to his native Ha Giang, recounted how his parents would spend days during their youth walking the winding route to Dong Van before there were paved roads. Our trip, he said, would take a mere six hours.

THE story of Ha Giang is in many ways the story of the proud and independent Hmong who, following the Tay and other ethnic groups, began migrating there in the late 18th century, fleeing unrest in southern China. In Ha Giang, they found the high altitudes they were accustomed to, and alkaline soil in which their opium poppy crops would flourish.

Buffeted by the political winds that blew through Vietnam in the past century, the Hmong and other minorities occasionally rebelled but mostly cooperated with the French colonists and, subsequently, with the ruling Viet Minh, who promised them a degree of autonomy in exchange for their support. (They ultimately reneged on that promise.) The overriding desire to remain free and secure was challenged during the 1979 Chinese invasion; border flare-ups persisted for years, but by 1991, relations were normalized between the two countries, and negotiations led to a final decision last year about where the 800-mile border would be. Although one of the poorest provinces in Vietnam, with little industry besides mining and agriculture, Ha Giang was once again safe for the Hmong and others, and visitors began to show up.

Mr. Anh expounded on this history as we huddled around a table in the blue-walled dining room of the Rocky Plateau Hotel, a former government guesthouse on Dong Van’s main thoroughfare that he had recently acquired and renovated as a 16-room hotel with creature comforts (hot water, satellite television) and a degree of modern flair (airy white lobby, faux Pop Art paintings). Our room, oddly appointed with three queen-size beds, was comfortable, fitted with wooden furniture and a window looking out at a breathtaking wall of dappled rock. This would be our base for the next three days, under the affable care of Mr. Anh and his staff of polite local teenagers.

This coziness was in stark contrast to our initial impression of the town. It had been eerily quiet when we’d rolled into Dong Van, where cars and telephones are almost nonexistent and electricity is scant. The windows of weathered Chinese-style houses framed scenes lighted by flickering oil lamps: leathery-faced men knocking back glasses of home-brewed corn whiskey; mothers with babies balanced on their hips ladling rice. Some boys carried a dead body down the street; wrapped in a red cloth, only its bony feet were visible. It felt as if we’d alighted upon an Asian version of the American Wild West.

Dinner at Mr. Anh’s hotel that night — stewed tomatoes, boiled chicken, strips of garlicky sautéed morning-glory, a heaping plate of white rice and fresh chili sauce flecked with onions and cilantro — was the savory stuff of fantasy after a long day of travel. As we left the dining room, the only other guests at the hotel, a middle-aged British couple, walked in. We excitedly said hello but they responded curtly, making clear that they did not want to chat, and we wondered if we had punctured their Livingstonian fantasy of being the sole foreigners in town.

Dong Van snapped to life at dawn, seeming much as it probably did on a late-spring morning in the 18th century. Hmong women wearing vivid pink and green headdresses filed down from their hilltop abodes carrying heavy bamboo baskets of corn and vegetables to the town market, where miners in black Mandarin-collared shirts slurped noodle soup from tin bowls. Traders hustled tobacco, tea and homemade ginseng tonic. Farmers steered water buffalo around the market’s edge.

We lingered inside a century-old trader’s house that has been transformed into Café Pho Co, enjoying thick mango shakes and strong coffee, before plunging back into the market in search of breakfast. From one woman, we bought wads of sticky black bean paste wrapped in tobacco leaves and tied like pretty packages; from another there were warm slices of bean curd. A Hmong specialty of steamed, golden corn bread was sublime. Seated on wooden benches, we wolfed down a half-dozen thick pieces while the market sellers angled for turns holding our daughter.

We needed the sustenance. Sua, a young White Hmong woman who worked at the hotel, planned to lead us on a hike in the countryside. Dressed in a traditional hand-woven hemp skirt and indigo blue head scarf, Sua, who spoke no English, informed us of her plan by smilingly typing out a Vietnamese phrase on her cellphone that Mr. Anh translated for us: “I will take you on the small, beautiful trail.”

Its beauty was certain, but its smallness was surely a matter of perspective. For five hours, we followed Sua into the hills, huffing and sweating on a web of narrow, remarkably steep trails that serve as an everyday thoroughfare for locals tramping between their hamlets, their fields and Dong Van. In a speck of a village about an hour into the hike, a uniformed Vietnamese official halted us and ordered us into the local committee building. Seating us in front of him like reprimanded schoolchildren, he inscribed our passport numbers in a dusty, ancient ledger while local villagers popped their heads in to smile and stare. We offered them litchis while waiting out our detainment, and everyone graciously accepted the fruit, except for our government interlocutor.

That anachronistic bit of provincial red tape was worth it. After scaling a difficult incline just beyond the village, we were soon standing before an unearthly panorama of karst formations in the shape of giant upturned egg cartons. Unlike most mountain ranges in which erosion carves only the surface, the high composition of limestone causes much of the plateau to erode below as well as above the ground. The result is a surrealistic vista of giant cones, towers, pyramids, caves and sinkholes.

Subterranean erosion is also responsible for the area’s isolated valleys, which make traversing the landscape such an arduous up-and-down affair. And because rainwater sinks deep into the earth, a large part of the plateau is technically desert, rendering even more remarkable the hardy people who carve their lives on this barely arable land. On soaring shafts of stone, cultivated corn billows between rocks. Homesteads are perilously fastened to the slopes. Bursts of red and green flash near mountain peaks where brightly clothed women move about, tending to their crops.

Distant explosions of road-clearing dynamite mingled with the whistles of Hmong woodwinds played by young goatherds. As we passed a mud-walled house, we heard chanting and the clanging of a gong. Using gestures, we asked Sua if we could approach. With a comatose expression, she indicated that someone had recently died there, and we assumed that a shaman was purifying the house. We couldn’t help but wonder if it was the same dead person we’d seen the night before.

NEAR the tiny town of Sa Phin, 10 miles west of Dong Van, the landscape settles down slightly. According to Mr. Anh, who drove us to the area after we had rested from Sua’s tour, the comparatively gentle, turtle-shell shape of one hill there was deemed auspicious by a fortune teller who, some 100 years ago, was enlisted by a Hmong warlord to divine the most auspicious place to construct his palace.

“The fortune teller told the king, ‘If you build your house here, you will reign forever,’ ” Mr. Anh said.

The warlord was Vuong Chinh Duc, who, near the turn of the 20th century, helped provide the French a steady supply of opium, a key product in the colonial economy. Despite the fortune teller’s predictions, the Vuong clan’s power has been largely dissolved, but the palace has been preserved as a handsome museum.

We crept through the hushed palace, with its ornate teak furniture and luxurious tub that had been used for bathing in goat milk. In a corner of the royal lair, an intricately carved platform was identified as the Vuongs’ opium-smoking bed. Echoing throughout the palace was the inestimable importance of opium, which was produced legally in Vietnam until 1993. The residence had storage space for opium, and pillars had been chiseled with the shapes of globular poppy buds.

The next morning we set out early on the last leg of our exploration of Ha Giang: the 14-mile journey from Dong Van to the town of Meo Vac, a drive that some say is the most splendid in the country. Built beginning in 1959, the slender road linking the two towns clings to the side of a massive gorge and is not for the weak of stomach.

Mr. Anh steered his truck slowly as we gaped at the views. The Nho Que River, 2,600 feet down at the bottom of the gorge, was little more than an ochre thread. The road rose up and dipped, twisted and soared. At the Ma Pi Leng pass, a plaque commemorated workers who died building the road, noting that the cutting of the pass took 11 months. Hmong and Tay families zipped by us on motorbikes, unfazed by the dizzying drop-off beside them.

In Meo Vac, a town of roughly the same size and vintage as Dong Van, Mr. Anh told us about the local annual “love market” that is held near there each March, when ethnic minorities from all over the area flock here in search of romantic partners. Circling back, we passed through Lung Phin, where another market is held every six days in accordance with the lunar calendar and thousands of people representing every tribe in the region congregate in a burst of rural commerce. Mr. Anh regaled us with images of the frenetic exchange of horse saddles, dried mushrooms, gingered sausages, water buffalo, cardamom pods, plastic shoes, bright ribbons and embroidery thread, all traded along with gossip from the hilltops and accompanied by bowls of horse meat soup and shots of corn whiskey.

Next time you come here, you must make sure to see it,” Mr. Anh said.

We nodded, flush with fantasies of returning someday. For now, the town was still, with just a few old men smoking bamboo pipes and children running in the street. We gazed back at them, and the road unspooling behind us, and embarked on the long descent to the bottom of the rocky plateau.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE

Spring and fall are the best months for travel in Ha Giang; the weather is temperate and generally clear.

Visas are required for American visitors — a one-month, single-entry visa is $20 through My Vietnam Visa (myvietnamvisa.com), an online agency that arranges for documents to be picked up upon arrival at Vietnam’s international airports, where an additional $25 “stamping fee” must be paid.

The easiest way to get to Ha Giang is by private car or motorbike from Hanoi. For public transportation options, forgo the clunky sleeper train-bus combination that we used and instead take one of six daily buses from Hanoi’s My Dinh bus station straight to Ha Giang town. The buses leave between 4 and 6 a.m., and the seven-hour trip costs 120,000 Vietnamese dong (about $6.35 at 19,000 dong to the dollar). From there, public transportation is extremely limited, and it is advisable to rent a car or motorbike.

GETTING AROUND

There are several companies that offer tours of Ha Giang by motorbike or car that begin and end in Hanoi and include an English-speaking guide, accommodations, meals, permits and entrance fees. Most can be customized to include local market days if they coincide with a trip. Prices are per person based on a group of four, and exclude airfare. They cite their rates in U.S. dollars.

Exotissimo Travel (84-8-3827-2911; exotissimo.com) offers a five-day loop by car through Ha Giang, including visits to the towns of Dong Van, Meo Vac, Lung Cu and Yen Minh, for $560.

Free Wheelin’ Tours (84-4-3926-2743; freewheelin-tours.com), a small company that specializes in sustainable tourism coupled with local development projects, offers an eight-day custom motorbike tour of the northern highlands, including Ha Giang, for $960.

Offroad Vietnam (84-9-1304-7509; offroadvietnam.com) has eight-day custom motorbike trips around the northern highlands, including Ha Giang, from $880 to $1,120 depending on the quality of motorbike rented, or by car for $1,140.

Karst Plateau Travel (84-91-545-8668; karstplateau@gmail.com) is the company run by Hoang Tuan Anh, who arranges car tours leaving either from Hanoi or Ha Giang town and can be booked to lead them himself — a special treat since he’s a native of the area and knows it well. A five-day tour leaving from Hanoi starts at $500.

WHERE TO STAY

In Dong Van, the 16-room Rocky Plateau Hotel is basic and comfortable, with doubles for 300,000 dong. Reservations can be made through Mr. Anh (84-9-154-8668; karstplateau@gmail.com).

In Ha Giang town, Huy Hoan Hotel (14 Phuong Nguyen Trai; 84-21-9386-1288) is a modern, clean option with large rooms and private bathrooms. Doubles are 250,000 dong.

Twenty-five miles south of Ha Giang town, Pan Hou Village (84-21-9383-3565; www.panhouvillage.com) is a charming eco-resort with 30 rooms in traditional stilt houses; doubles start at $57, including breakfast. Beautifully designed with a restaurant, bar and small spa, it’s a good base to use for exploring the northernmost parts of Ha Giang.

日本与越南达成核能协议

2010年11月01日 07:25 AM

日本与越南达成核能协议
Kan agrees Vietnam power deal




Naoto Kan, the Japanese prime minister, has stepped up his efforts to promote overseas trade by concluding an agreement to build two civil nuclear reactors for Vietnam and to co-operate with the Vietnamese government on the exploration and refining of rare earth ­minerals.

日本首相菅直人(Naoto Kan)加大了其促进海外贸易的努力,与越南政府达成协议,将为该国建造两座民用核反应堆,并在稀土矿的勘探与精炼方面进行合作。

Mr Kan met Nguyen Tan Dung, his Vietnamese counterpart, on Sunday after a summit of Asian leaders in Hanoi. A Japanese government spokesman said the two leaders held “fruitful discussions encompassing political, security, economic and other issues”, including development assistance and possible Japanese projects involving high-speed rail and metro systems.

在亚洲领导人峰会结束后,菅直人与越南总理阮晋勇(Nguyen Tan Dung)周日在河内进行了会晤。日本政府发言人表示,两位领导人“围绕政治、安全、经济和其他问题进行了富有成效的磋商”,其中包括发展援助以及涉及高铁和地铁系统在内的可能的日本项目。

The civil nuclear reactor deal is a coup for the Kan administration and the first significant order since it embarked on a policy of supporting exports of Japanese technology overseas.

对于菅直人政府而言,民用核反应堆交易是一计妙招,也是自日本开始奉行支持本国技术向海外出口的政策以来的第一笔大订单。

The Kan administration has stated its goal of increasing infrastructure exports in order to support Japan’s economic growth. It has also been keen to promote Japan’s high-speed rail technology for use in Vietnam and other countries.

菅直人政府已明确了增加基础设施出口、以支持日本经济增长的目标。本届政府也一直热衷于推动越南和其它国家采用日本的高速铁路技术。

The Japanese nuclear project, which will be located in Ninh Thuan province, in southern Vietnam, is also the first order for the International Nuclear Energy Development of Japan Co, a public-private venture established last month designed to help export Japan’s nuclear ­technology.

这个日本核项目将落址在越南南部的宁顺省,也是Japan Co国际核能开发(International Nuclear Energy Development of Japan Co)的首个订单。该公司是上月成立的一家政府和私人合资企业,旨在帮助出口日本的核技术。

Global competition to sell nuclear technology to power-hungry developing nations is heating up, with France, Japan, South Korea and the US leading the way.

在法国、日本、韩国和美国的带领下,向渴求能源的发展中国家出售核技术的全球竞争正日益激烈。

France and South Korea have also been vying to secure nuclear power projects in Vietnam, which wants to generate as much as 20 per cent of its energy from nuclear by 2030.

法国和韩国也一直在竞争越南的核能项目,越南希望到2030年有20%的能源来自于核能。

The US concluded a memorandum of understanding on nuclear co-operation with Vietnam in March but Vietnam must sign a formal Section 123 agreement before it is allowed to import nuclear technology from the US.

美国3月份与越南就核能合作达成了一份谅解备忘录,但越南必须签署一份正式的《123条款协议》,才能获准从美国进口核技术。

In addition, Japanese and Vietnamese leaders have agreed to work together to exploit Vietnam’s reserves of rare earths, which are vital to the manufacture of technological products as diverse as wind turbines, car batteries and radar ­systems.

此外,日本和越南领导人已同意合作开发越南的稀土资源。稀土是制造从风轮机、汽车电池到雷达系统等多种技术产品所必不可少的材料。

China produces 97 per cent of the world’s rare earths but this dominance has become more controversial as the government has steadily reduced export quotas for the minerals.

全球97%的稀土产自中国,但这种主宰地位已变得更有争议,因为中国政府在稳步削减稀土的出口配额。

After meeting in Hanoi with her Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said she had been reassured that “China has no intention of withholding these minerals from the market”.

美国国务卿希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)与中国外长杨洁篪举行会晤后表示,后者已向她保证,“中国无意使这些矿物无法进入市场”。

But she said that, regardless of that assurance, the US and its allies in Japan and Europe would continue searching for new sources of rare earths.

但她表示,尽管得到了这种保证,美国及其在日本和欧洲的盟友将继续寻找新的稀土来源。


译者/李裕

2010年10月29日 星期五

中国面对凛冽的西风

媒体看中国 | 2010.10.29

面对凛冽的西风

面对来自西方的压力,中国官方作出不同的反应,在金融政策和国际关系上做出妥协,在"民主"、"自由"的价值观讨论上强调主权和"中国特色",同时将片面的历史观加给民众。

针对中国《环球时报》的说法,列强现在也没有停止过"从精神上征服其它国家","西方依然试图在意识形态上向中国挑衅",《法兰克福汇报》 认为,"这是对诺贝尔和平奖颁给刘晓波直言不讳的影射,中国政府媒体将和平奖谴责为企图将西方的价值观强加给中国。但是,这还不是中国官方感到受到西方挑 战的唯一领域。欧美公众认为北京的腔调越来越咄咄逼人,而中国却觉得陷入来自西方的凛冽朔风。"

不同的反应

《法兰克福汇报》写道,"对于新的对峙,北京作出显而易见的不同反应。涉及到金融市场和国际关系时,它越来越频繁地强调自己的利益,将西方的期待反 弹回去。……在表明不会在货币或气候政策方面屈从于外部压力之后,中国也宣布长期性地将人民币增值,并实行深刻的工业结构改造以减少碳排量,这完全是出于 自己的利益。在这些领域,中国实际上不像它造成的印象那样向国际舆论关闭自己。"

该报分析说,"作为民族国家和市场参与者,尽管偶尔露出 粗鲁腔调,但中国似乎很重视在外部世界中找到一席之地。这并不是自然而然的事,因为中国的崛起是史无前例的。以往的中央帝国根本就不知道有'外部',因为 在它的自我意识中,世界在不同层次上与中国等同。可是,与新的主权形成强烈对比的是,中国面对世界公共舆论及其价值表现出明显的易怒和不自信。中国试图对 付这个世界,把它塞进民族国家或经济模式中,比如,它要让挪威政府对诺贝尔和平奖承担责任,或者将谷歌批评新闻审查解释为市场上的失败。可是,对北京来说 也同样显而易见的是,这种牵强的做法在这个不可捉摸的领域并非是一有效的杠杆。"

该文写道,于是,北京便借助于它以往对付苏欧共产党国家常用的"意识形态"并将它用于对付西方,官方媒体谈及"煽动的时代",甚至提到"阴谋"。

"近年来,宣传部门更加提醒中国也必须发展自己的'软实力',现在对干部也更多提出应具有媒体能力的要求。即便反对人权、民主和个人发展等原则性论 证,并不受到中国老百姓的欢迎,但这个层面的争论仍然无法直接展开。'中国特色'这个北京乐于用来抵制'西方民主化模式'的名词,也大都流于空泛。"

截然不同的历史观

《法兰克福汇报》的这篇文章指出,在涉及全球舆论的价值讨论时,中国官方"实际上在拒绝它在经济上和国家政策上已经善于对付"的西方世界。"它要将 明显是它自己的、不同于西方的历史观加给自己的老百姓。西方把历史看作是个人主义和自由的不断实现,认识到历史的最大灾难源于压迫,而中国将其新近的历史 看作是不断重新赢得从前主权的过程。显然,这一视角的结果便是为对内对外维持秩序的威权政体进行辩护。

报摘编译:林泉

责编:李鱼

(以上内容摘自或节译自其它媒体,不代表德国之声观点)

2010年10月28日 星期四

假仙民主新聞自由: 中國媒體

Momentum builds for a freer press
China's muffled media-Gagging to be free

AT A gathering of intellectuals in Beijing, Xin Ziling, an author and former defence official, posed an interesting question. How would Marx have coped with the restrictions on civil liberties evident in China today? He would have needed government permission to publish his Communist Manifesto, and this would have been refused. "You say our capitalist system will disappear!" Mr Xin imagined priggish 19th-century English censors exclaiming. "You can't say that!"

Freedom of speech and the press are enshrined in China's constitution. But in reality there is only so much that people can say or write without getting into trouble. The occasion for the gathering at which Mr Xin spoke was the recent release from jail of Xie Chaoping, a former prosecutor and journalist who had written and published a book about the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of people during the construction of a massive dam on the Yellow River in the 1950s. He had been detained for nearly a month by local officials in Shaanxi province who disapproved of his writings. The manager of his printing company was also detained. The case attracted great publicity, with many activists and intellectuals agitating for the two men's release.

Mr Xin was one of two dozen retired officials, academics and Communist Party elders who, citing Mr Xie's case and others, argued recently for greater press freedom in a signed open letter to the leadership of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament. The mismatch between the right to freedom of the press, loftily asserted in the constitution, and the restrictions that are crudely enforced in practice, the group wrote, amounts to a form of "false democracy" that has "become a scandalous mark on the history of world democracy."

This is not the first attempt to expand press freedom in China. During a period of relative political liberalisation in the late 1980s, NPC members spoke openly about the need for a liberal press law. But that movement was doomed by the government's anxious, brutish response to the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989. The censor's pen is still much in evidence. None of China's thousands of newspapers and periodicals escapes it. And although officials pay occasional lip service to the fourth estate's important "supervisory" role as a check against corruption and other abuses, they also define its primary role as a prop to social stability.

It is not only dissidents who find their voices muffled. The open letter to parliament also complained that recent support for political reform expressed by Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, in speeches at the United Nations and elsewhere, had been scrubbed from the Chinese media.

Yet many activists are optimistic that liberal change is coming. Dai Qing, a prominent dissident pundit, notes that activists are finding it easier to raise money for their causes at home. They "no longer have to rely on money from people like George Soros," she says. She is also impressed by the diverse backgrounds of those pushing for a press law: they include young journalists, seasoned party members and officials, and even one or two military men.

假民主?中國媒體挑戰新聞自由

作者:經濟學人  出處:Web Only 2010/10

相關關鍵字:經濟學人

在一場於北京舉行的聚會中,前中國解放軍官員辛子陵提出了一個有趣的問題。馬克思如果碰上了目前中國對公民自由的限制會怎麼樣?馬克思得需要政府核准才能出版共產黨宣言,而且政府不會核准。

中國的憲法中寫著言論與新聞自由,但實際上並非如此。此次北京的聚會是為了最近被釋放的謝朝平而辦,謝朝平自費出版了一本書,內容與1950年代黃 河大壩興建時強迫居民遷徙有關。他被拘留了近一個月,印刷廠人員也遭拘留;該案引起許多關注,許多運動人士和知識分子也要求政府釋放兩人。

最近,二十幾位退休官員、學者、共黨老幹部,連名寫了一封公開信給全國人民代表大會。信中指出,憲法主張新聞自由,實務上卻採行嚴格限制,這是一種「假民主,成為世界民主史上的醜聞」。

在政治相對自由的1980年代末,全國人民代表大會的成員曾公開表示應制訂新聞自由法。但在1989天安門事件後,此事也隨之告終。審查仍隨處可 見,中國數千家報社和雜誌社都逃不出掌心,即使官員偶爾會不真心地讚揚新聞媒體的監督角色,他們還是認為新聞媒體的主要任務是維持社會穩定。

許多運動人士樂觀地相信,自由改革即將到來。著名的異議分子戴晴表示,運動人士現在在國內籌措資金比過去容易,不再需要倚賴索羅斯等人的資金。另一件讓她相當驚奇的事,就是推動媒體法案的人擁有各種不同的背景,有年輕記者、資深黨員、官員,甚至還有一、兩位軍人。

诺贝尔奖让北京领导人不得安宁


媒体看中国 | 2010.10.28

诺贝尔奖让北京领导人依然不得安宁

国际社会对刘晓波的声援没有丝毫的减弱,北京似乎也无法通过新闻封锁获得真正的安宁。近日,15名诺贝尔和平奖得主联名致信世界大国领袖,呼吁他们在将要 召开的韩国20国峰会期间向中共领导人施加压力,争取释放刘晓波并解除对其妻子刘霞的软禁。北京会允许刘晓波或刘霞前往奥斯陆领奖吗?

《世界报》报道说, 15名诺贝尔和平奖得主于10月25日联合声援刘晓波,其中有美国前总统卡特,西藏流亡精神领袖达赖喇嘛,波兰前总统瓦文萨等。他们在20国峰会召开前 夕,联名致信"世界上最重要的国家领导人和政府首脑",呼吁他们努力争取让北京释放被判刑11年的刘晓波,并取消对他妻子刘霞的软禁。对此,北京当局10 月26日做出"愤怒回应"。对于将这个问题列入20国峰会日程的要求,外交部发言人予以"粗暴拒绝",称刘晓波为"罪犯",并拒绝回答是否会允许刘霞于 12月10日前往奥斯陆领奖。

该报写道,"显然,诺贝尔奖得主们的信让北京领导人不得安宁。这个群体自称决定这样做,是因为捷克前总统哈 维尔和南非红衣大主教图图直接向胡锦涛的呼吁被置之不理。于是,15名获奖者请求国际政治家调解,这些政治家包括联合国秘书长潘基文,美国总统奥巴马,俄 罗斯总统梅德韦杰夫,印度总理辛格到德国总理默克尔。他们呼吁政治家在11月10日至11日汉城峰会期间与中国国家主席胡锦涛会晤时向他施加影响。"

诺贝尔奖得主在信中表示,"我们态度坚决地向您发出请求,亲自向胡锦涛主席争取释放刘晓波"。释放刘晓波也是"对中国近几十年来所经历的值得注意的转型的一个特殊肯定。"

该报写道,"诺贝尔和平奖已经公布20天了,诺贝尔奖的话题依然让北京领导人不得安宁。他们迄今采用新闻封锁的做法不让中国媒体对刘晓波赢得全球的 认可有任何报道,此外,他们每天都在扩大对呼吁自由的"和平宪章"签署者和同情者软禁的范围,切断他们的电话和手机。这样,所有批评者的对外联系都被斩 断,如作家余杰、天安门母亲的代表丁子霖或者持批评观点的前高干鲍彤"。

奥斯陆希望至少刘霞能代夫领奖

该报透露,刘霞的一封信被"成功地偷带出境交给了美国的人权组织"。她在信中写道,她觉得北京不会让她丈夫或她去奥斯陆的,"机会等于零"。信后附 有145位有影响的代表名单,是她和刘晓

波希望出席授奖仪式的人选,其中不仅有维权人士和维权律师,还有名人如剧作家王朔,博客写手和赛车手韩寒,电影导 演陈凯歌,还有创办联想电脑公司的企业家柳传志。刘霞写道:"为了社会进步,所有阶层都必须努力"。 《世界报》得到诺贝尔奖委员会的证实,已经知道这份名单, 每一位获奖者都有权利邀请自己的客人出席颁奖仪式。该报说,"奥斯陆在准备持不同政见者的约会, 然而,奖品只能由获奖人或其配偶领取",1975年苏联持不同政见者萨哈罗夫是由其妻子代领,波兰反共的团结工会领袖瓦文萨和缅甸反对党领袖昂山素姬也都 不得不让人代领。奥斯陆希望北京能让刘霞代夫领奖,"其他人难以被接受"。 报摘编译:林泉 责编:李鱼 以上内容摘自或节译自其它媒体,不代表德国之声观点)
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廖亦武返回中国前接受德新社采访
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作家余杰遭到软禁 港台之行被迫取消
有迹象显示,刘晓波获得2010年诺贝尔和平奖之后,中国政府加强了压制行动,多名异议人士遭到软禁,其中包括独立作家余杰。由于失去行动自由,余杰原定在香港及台湾参与的一系列讨论会也无法成行。
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Audio 作家余杰遭到软禁 港台之行被迫取消(音频)