Shame! Shame! Shame on China! -- Letter from China's Conscience: An
Unpleasant Reality
Letter from China's Conscience: An Unpleasant Reality/China's Growing
Investment and Influence in Africa
Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:55:00
http://english.ntdtv.com/?c=164&a=1353
Segment 1: Letter from "China's Conscience": An Unpleasant Reality
Known as "China's Conscience", Lawyer Gao Zhisheng was recently featured
on the cover of the New York Times. He was named one of China's top-ten
lawyers in 2001 and has worked for China's vulnerable groups: coal
miners, home-demolition victims, and house church members. In August
2006, Mr. Gao was arrested, and a few months later, the U.S. Congress
unanimously passed a resolution sup****ting him. He has been forbidden by
the communist regime to communicate with the outside world since. While
facing surveillance, house arrest, detention, and even attempts on his
life, Mr. Gao managed to rally China's activists and legal community
around human rights causes like never before. On September 20th, 2007,
Lawyer Gao Zhisheng sent a 9-page letter to the U.S. Congress expressing
his concern over the Beijing Olympics. It stated that human rights in
China have deteriorated even more ahead of the Olympic Games.
Guest: David Kilgour, former Secretary of State of Canada, Asia Pacific.
Segment 2: China's Growing Investment and Influence in Africa
In September 2007, China announced its plans to lend the Democratic
Republic of Congo $5 billion to modernize its infrastructure and mining
sector. This is another huge Chinese investment foray into Africa.
Chinese investment in Africa has grown rapidly in recent years, and with
it has come a need for the West to rethink its approach to doing
business in the region. Direct investment in Africa by China more than
quadrupled between 2001 and 2005. In 2006, Chinese contractors won a
third of all public works contracts funded by the African Development
Bank, eight times the number awarded to any other country. Unen***bered
by principles, Chinese companies are free to go where many Western firms
cannot. Beijing moved closer to Nigeria in the 1990s and has maintained
close relation****ps with Libya and Sudan. Should Wa****ngton and average
African citizens be worried and concerned?
Guest: Professor Deborah Brautigam. American University, author of
"Chinese Aid and African Development"
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