Chinese government shuts down Western-run China Development Brief newsletter in Beijing.As the old saying has it, "No good deed goes unpunished unpunished Adjective without suffering or resulting in a penalty: the guilty must not go unpunished, such crimes should not remain unpunished Adj. 1. ." The London-based Nick Young founded China Development Brief in 1996 mainly "to get coherent, informed and independent Chinese voices into international debates about China--rather than those debates being dominated by Western voices that are often ill-informed and unsympathetic to the real difficulties of governing this huge and complicated country." Young says he "hoped that China Development Brief could come to offer the world at large 'the best in Chinese thinking on social development, in plain English Plain English (sometimes known, more broadly, as plain language) is a communication style that focuses on considering the audience's needs when writing. It recommends avoiding unnecessary words and avoiding jargon, technical terms, and long and ambiguous sentences. ."' He recently told The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times, "I have spent the last decade telling foreigners Foreigners alienage the condition of being an alien. androlepsy Law. the seizure of foreign subjects to enforce a claim for justice or other right against their nation. gypsyologist, gipsyologist Rare. that China is not as repressive re·pres·sive adj. Causing or inclined to cause repression. and totalitarian as Western media often portray it to be. At the end of the day, I hoped that if we had an open, intelligent conversation, we would be accepted. "But I think we miscalculated, or they miscalculated," he says now that his Beijing office has been told to cease publication. "Unauthorized surveys" Young writes on his website, www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com, "On July 4 our Beijing office was visited by a joint delegation of a dozen officials from the Beijing Municipality MUNICIPALITY. The body of officers, taken collectively, belonging to a city, who are appointed to manage its affairs and defend its interests. Public Security Bureau, the Beijing Municipality Statistical Bureau, and the Beijing Municipality Cultural Marketing General Legal Implementation Team. After investigations and interviews lasting around three hours, they ordered the Chinese edition of China Development Brief to cease publication forthwith Immediately; promptly; without delay; directly; within a reasonable time under the circumstances of the case. forthwith adv. a term found in contracts, court orders, and statutes, meaning as soon as it can be reasonably done. . The authorities are now deciding what punishment to apply. It appears that initially they were considering a relatively modest fine. I, as editor of the English language English language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world, English is the official language of about 45 nations. edition of China Development Brief, am deemed guilty of conducting "unauthorized surveys" in contravention A term of French law meaning an act violative of a law, a treaty, or an agreement made between parties; a breach of law punishable by a fine of fifteen francs or less and by an imprisonment of three days or less. In the U.S. of the 1983 Statistics Law, and have been ordered to desist. It was made perfectly clear to me that any report posted on this website (which is run off a UK server) would count as the output of an unauthorized survey. "Unauthorized surveys" generally refer to "gathering statistics," but the Statistics Law is vague enough to prohibit almost any kind of information gathering that requires interaction with local citizens. The Times reported, "China Development Brief had no license to publish in China, and its [11] employees were not registered as news correspondents, meaning the newsletter had long operated without the permits required of larger publications. But Mr. Young said local authorities had monitored his business for years, and he believed they understood that providing objective information to foreign aid agencies served China's interests." Young writes on his website that he remains "open to negotiation and discussion with the Chinese authorities. ... Finally, I would like to pay a warm tribute to my Chinese colleagues who have reacted to this series of unfortunate events calmly and courageously. We remain hopeful that the authorities will recognise the value of their work, and find some way of allowing it to continue." Nick also writes that they "have removed the subscription form from this site, as we are no longer in a position to guarantee that we will continue for another year." China & North East Asia East Asia A region of Asia coextensive with the Far East. East Asian adj. & n. Monitor NL/NL was unsuccessful in contacting Nick Young. We did, though, ask Richard Londes-borough if he had ever had problems with the authorities as publisher of Business Monitor International, whose 70 newsletters include China & North East Asia Monitor. His reply: "We've not (knowingly) had any problems with the Chinese government--but of course we publish from London so there's not too much they can do. We have no evidence of newsletters or reports being intercepted or destroyed when sent to subscribers (unlike certain Middle East countries I could mention). "We have about 400 subscribers in China, mainly foreign multinationals or China state sector/government." We suggested to Richard that Nick Young and he could take Rupert Murdoch's approach and bow to the Chinese government Ever since Republic of China founded in January 1st, 1912, China has had several regional and national governments. List
China Development Brief, www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com Business Monitor International, Third Floor, Mermaid Lane, 2 Puddle Dock Puddle Dock, in Blackfriars in the City of London, was formerly the site of one of London's docks. It is now the site of the Mermaid Theatre. , Blackfriars, London EC4V 4 DS, U.K., (44)(0)20-7248-0468. www.businessmonitor.com |
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