China’s Evolving Legal System – Part 2/2

December 7, 2010

During the 1990s, Zhou Litai became famous as one of the first lawyers fighting for the rights of workers injured or mistreated by China’s new wave of private enterprises.… Since then, he has handled thousands of workplace injury cases, and even houses and feeds some of his most destitute clients. Source: New York Times

Zhou Litai has been featured in China Daily and on CCTV in China.

In the 2006 documentary, Zhou Litai says, “In Shenzhen every year, 10,000 insured workers get injured.  It’s reported that 95% of injured workers do not file lawsuits.”

“After winning cases,” Zhou Litai says, “some clients went back home to buy a house or to open a home business. Also, a few have started self-education in law such as Fu Shulin, who comes from Anhui Province.”

“Before he came to Shenzhen,” Zhou Litai says, “Fu Shulin was a student at a vocational college in Hefei City and he’s been living with me after filing a lawsuit. During the legal process, he realized the power of the law and decided to study after me.”



In May 2006, a short documentary of China’s changing legal system was produced.

Before becoming a law clerk, Fu Shulin had a hand cut off while operating a machine. He was sent to a hospital.

Shulin says, “At first, the doctor told me that my hand was able to be reconnected. However, after my boss talked to the doctor, he told me that my hand wouldn’t be reconnected because the bones had been shattered.”

Shulin had problems with his factory boss so he saw Lawyer Zhou Litai.

After seeing Zhou Litai, Shulin was offered 30,000 yuan by the factory (less than $4,000 US). He turned it down.

Then the boss had him locked up in a factory room, but Shulin managed to get a note to his lawyer, Zhou Litai, who came with the police to free him.

in 1998, the district court ruled in Shulin’s favor and awarded him 160,000 yuan (more than $19,000 US dollars). The factory boss appealed and lost. The final settlement was 168,000 yuan (more than $20,000 US)

Return to China’s Evolving Legal System – Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | business, China, cultural differences, government, legal system | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Evolving Legal System – Part 1/2

December 7, 2010

Since China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi (259 – 210 BC), a legal system was established that was relatively modern and forward-looking. Trained administrators were sent across the country to govern by statute. What was right and what was wrong was not subject to the whim of erratic autocrats or juries. Source: Anthropologist in the Attic

In general, ancient China’s legal system attempted to enforce filial piety, to uphold the respect of family ancestors, to avoid legal action when possible, to create deterrents to actions and to “control outbursts” (which explains why China locks up dissidents and others). Source: Kwintessential.co.uk

No matter how much Westerners may disapprove of China’s ancient legal system, it had the respect of the Chinese people because they understood the traditions behind the laws.


In May 2006, a short documentary of China’s changing legal system was produced.

As part of its economic reforms and policy of opening to the world, between 1980 and 1984, China established special economic zones in Shantou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai in Guangdong Province and Xiamin in Fujian Province and designated the entire island province of Hainan a special economic zone.

Many of China’s new laws were written after this happened.

The rapid growth in industry led to a large number of work related injuries. For example, In 1998, there were over 15,000 serious work related injuries and industrial accidents.

Zhou Litai, a Chinese lawyer, arrived in Shenzhen in 1995 to work on worker’s compensation cases. He says there are three reasons behind worker’s compensation cases in China.

1. The facilities are old and outdated. Some of the equipment was used in Taiwan, Hong Kong or Korea 20 years ago.

2. The workers don’t get the necessary training before they start work.

In fact, Zhou Litai says, “The government has clearly regulated that workers need to be trained before starting a new job, and working permits are required.”

3. The worker’s health deteriorated due to working overtime on a regular basis.

4. The government control isn’t strict enough (For more than two millennia the legal system avoided legal action when possible).

Many Western legal concepts are foreign to Chinese culture.

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, legal system | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Sensitivity over Tibet – Part 2/2

December 7, 2010

Since the two best-known spiritual rulers in the world are the Dalai Lama and the Pope, I’m going to compare the two.

The Dalai Lama seems to get about as much attention as the Catholic Pope in Rome, who rules over the Vatican in Rome. The Pope is also the spiritual leader of about one billion Catholics.

What about the Dalai Lama and Buddhism?


The working class peasants/serfs in old Tibet before 1950

Buddhanet says that it is generally agreed that about 6% (or 350 million) of the world’s population are Buddhists.

Then Adherents.com says, The number of adherents that follow Tibetan Buddhism is estimated to be between ten and twenty million, (which is about the same as the population of New York state in the US).

There are four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama is the temporal head of the Gelug(pa) “Way of Virtue” school, and Dalai Lamas have been the “spiritual” leaders of Tibet from the mid-17th to the mid-20th centuries.

The 2000 population census in China reported that about 2.62 million lived in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

If those facts are correct, today’s Dalai Lama is technically the spiritual leader of about 2 million in Tibet and between 8 to 18 million globally that are citizen of other countries.


The ruling class in old Tibet before 1950

The only explanation for the attention the Dalai Lama gets in the media is that a very vocal following of fanatics has grown around him turning him into a cultish godlike figure.  At best, the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of about one third of one percent of the global population. 

At the low end, the Dalai Lama only represents about one tenth of one percent, which may represent the number of followers he has in China compared to the total population there.

Learn more About Tibet or return to China’s Sensitivity over Tibet – Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

1 Comment | Buddhism, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, history, politics, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Sensitivity over Tibet – Part 1/2

December 6, 2010

Earlier this year, Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reported on China’s sensitivity over Tibet. 

He says the Dalai Lama has long been a thorn in the flesh of the Chinese government. Beijing openly calls him a Jackal in a Monk’s Robe. The Dalai Lama has met every US President since George Bush Senior in 1991.

Birtley says, China state media often says that Tibet has always been part of China long before Hawaii become part of the United States.

The Dalai Lama’s people, on the other hand, claim that China never ruled Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s global followers blindly accept this claim as the truth.

Since Birtley offers no evidence in his report to support China or Tibet’s claims, I offer two sources of primary evidence from unbiased and non-Communist sources that support China’s claim.

I will start with the oldest source. Robert Hart (1835 – 1911) worked in China from 1854 to 1908 and was the most powerful Westerner in China’s history. 

In a letter Hart wrote in October 1885 to Campbell, his agent in England, he mentioned a diplomat from the British Foreign Office was seeking friendly relations and trade with Tibet. However, China did not want “Tibet, its tributary”, exposed to Western trade and influence.

In another letter in December 1903, Hart mentions the Chinese Amban in Tibet.  An Amban was the title for the political governor assigned to Tibet by the Emperor in Beijing.

Granted, Tibet was remote and difficult to reach and manage, and there were times during those 636 years where it may have appeared that the Tibetans managed themselves.

However, the facts show that China does have a claim that Tibet was part of China.

The second source appeared in The National Geographic Magazine (NGM) in October 1912 when the medical officer of a Chinese mission sent to Tibet in 1906 wrote a piece about Tibet for the magazine.

If you want to read about and see Tibet of that time, I suggest reading Dr. Shaoching H. Chuan’s The Most Extraordinary City in the World (pages 959 -995). 

The NGM also published about 60 photos the doctor shot.

On page 979, Dr. Chuan describes the government of Tibet, “the Ambans are appointed by the Chinese Emperor every four years. All governmental affairs have to undergo examination by the two Ambans…”

The reason Tibet declared its independene from China in 1913 was due to British political medling.

Tibet stayed free less than 40 years before Mao sent the PLO to reclaim territory China ruled as a tributary state since the 13th century.

Learn more about Buddhism in China

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

2 Comments | Buddhism, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, history, politics, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Does Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg believe he is a Virtual god?

December 6, 2010

With amazement, I read a post written by Doug Caverly, a staff writer for WebProNews, about Facebook’s goal to trademark the word “face”.

Doug explains that if Facebook gains control of the use of the word “face” it would only apply to the realm of [t]elecommunication services.  Go to Doug’s original post (use link above) for details.

In my opinion, this is a sign of paranoid megalomania on the part of Mark Zuckerberg.  How can Zuckerberg look at his “face” in the mirror each morning as he attempts to own a word (at least the virtual use) in the English language?

What’s frightening is the “Untied States Patent and Trademark Office sent Facebook a Notice of Allowance, indicating that it doesn’t take issue with the idea,” Doug says.

Are federal government employees in the US that stupid or are they just brain dead?

 

Sunil R. Nair defends Mark Zuckerberg (on another issue) at India’s Business Blog, Trak.in.  Nair’s conclusion says, “In defense of Mark Zuckerberg, I can say that if I had to do all of what he did to build a great company I could do it without regret and in the same manner that he did.”

I wonder if Sunil still feels that way since Zuckerberg’s move to own the virtual use of the word “face”.

In fact, face is a concept that has been part of Chinese civilization for several thousand years, is still in use today, and has been mentioned on the Internet. The concept of “face” to the Chinese is complicated and is part of China’s culture.  If anyone should own the use of “face”, it should be the Chinese—not Facebook.

Mark, you may have gone too far — again.

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

3 Comments | America, business, capitalism, China, government | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »