Dear Policeman Kang

Nick Young of the China Development Brief has - after the closure of the Chinese edition of his leading publication - published a statement and a letter he wrote to investigating police officer Kang. (In full here - courtesy of the WSJ).
Of course, policeman Kang probably does not care less, since it is for him an illegal operation. But it show a bit what kind of trouble he is heading for, when he or his superiors decide to push ahead with the closure.
The letter includes a list of organizations who have supported the newsletter:
Oxfam Hong Kong, Save the Children UK, The Worldwide Fund for Nature, The Ford Foundation, The Trace Foundation, The Kadoorie Charitable Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Great Britain-China Centre, The Japan Foundation, ActionAid, The British Council, The Canadian International Development Agency Civil Society Program, The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Human Rights Project Fund, The Australian International Development Agency, The Charities Aid Foundation (UK), The European Union Beijing Delegation, CARE International; Voluntary Service Overseas, Save the Children UK, The International Fund for Agricultural Development, The United Kingdom Department for International Development, The University of Harvard Centre for Global Equity, JP Morgan Bank, HPBilliton

China Development Brief ordered to close

Authorities in Beijing have ordered the leading publication on NGO-activities in China, the China Development Brief, to close its Chinese edition. reports Time at its blog.

Nick Young, founder of the publication that has been around since 1996, keeps hope:

"My hope is that these actions have been precipitated by zealous security officers," he says, "and that more senior figures in the government and Communist Party will realize that actions of this kind are not in China's best interest."

The publication was, according to the local security officials both "illegal" and conducting "illegal surveys". The closure, last week, comes at a time when China seems busy in trying to control non-governmental activities by foreigners, one year ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Earlier a US group also accused China of deporting over one hundred foreign missionaries from China.

While those acts are obvious going to be an embarrassment for the central government, zealous local official might have their own interpretation of what is needed in the country.

Nick Young remains faces a 5-year ban from China, but remains optimistic for the time being:

One irony of the moves against the publication is that the China Development Brief, whose motto is "to enhance constructive engagement between China and the world," has editorialized against what Young describes as "more or less openly hostile" Western criticism of China. "I do consider myself to be friend of China," he says. "I think it's a serious problem if the state cannot distinguish between friends and enemies."

Update: I just learned from a press release that the servers of this online publication are based in the UK, making it - if it has any nationality - a British publication that should adhere to British laws and regulations. When the authorities have any misgivings about an online publication, they can block it.
That is most likely why Public Security in Beijing got the local statistics bureau involved and included "illegal surveys" as another offense. I'm not sure how much meat is on that one. Anyway, even if the accusation by the Beijing authorities are illegal, it would not make the life of Nick Young much happier.

NGO's help to build roads in Jiangxi

Nineteen villages in Jiangxi Province are part of a rather unique project in China, where NGO's take the lead in building roads and other infrastructure, writes Reuters.

Chris Spohr, an economist with the [Asian Development Bank] ADB in Beijing, said the government's readiness to take NGOs on as partners showed its commitment to spreading the benefits of prosperity more evenly.
"It suggests that terms like 'building a harmonious society' and 'government role transformation' are not merely rhetoric, but are being at least cautiously explored and pushed ahead," Spohr said, referring to two stock phrases the leadership has employed to etch out its priorities for reform.