Mary Charmaine Divinagracia

Pharmacy 3-A
There were four parts in the video entitled China from the inside so I will
comment on each part separately.
Power and the People
"Although there are hundreds of millions of workers and peasants, they don't
count. You can ignore them. You can also rob and exploit them. It's not a
problem. The most important thing is to get the powerful on your side."
-- Kang Xiaoguang, Professor of Regional Economics and Politics
It isn't easy, running China, with its 1.3 billion people and 56 officially recognized
ethnic nationalities. It's a vast mix of languages, living standards, beliefs and
customs. Run it successfully, and you have a prosperous, innovative, powerful
empire to rival any the world has seen. Make mistakes, and the chaos will be vast
and terrible.
China is run by the Communist Party, which bases its legitimacy on delivering both
stability and the conditions for prosperity. But stability is under threat as economic
boom strands millions at the margin. Meanwhile rampant corruption is sapping
people's trust in the Party. Officials are increasingly seen not as public servants but as
profiteers.
This episode films patrols along China's border with Kazakhstan, Party meetings,
officials in Tibet trying to impose authority at the grass-roots, a village election, and
a corrupt embezzler in prison, reprieved from a death sentence. Chinese people
throughout, from farmer to Minister, speak frankly about the problems the country

Finally, we see a glimpse of urban life where the younger generation of women has
left the countryside for factory work in the cities. The hours and conditions are tough
but the women are slowly gaining confidence and independence.
Shifting Nature
"I've had anonymous, threatening phone calls, saying, 'This isn't any of your
business, so keep out of it. Don't stick your nose into matters that don't concern
you.' That's one thing. But it's not all. I have been beaten up."
-- Huo Daishan, environmental campaigner
China is trying to feed 20 percent of the world's population on 7 percent of the
world's arable land. A third of the world uses water from China's rivers. But rapid
industrialization and climate change have led to bad air, polluted rivers and drought.
Environmental activists, Party officials, academics and scientists are in a daily
struggle over the damage to nature in China.
Environmental campaigner Huo Daishan has been trying to save the heavily polluted
Huai River, which provides water for 150 million people. Research took him to its
main tributary, the Shaying, into which over a million tons of raw human sewage and
untreated waste water are dumped daily. Rather than clamping down on polluters,
local government protects local industries.
Along the Huai's main tributary, 50,000 people suffer from cancer. In one village
alone, 118 people have died. The Deputy Minister of the Environment accepts that
many cancer cases are related to environmental pollution, but says he is powerless to
shut down polluting companies.

faces and the ways forward.

Other stories explore northern China's dire water shortage, which is being remedied
The Party attracts eager young recruits and is trying to re-invigorate its older
members. They visit sites of communist achievement, like the Red Flag Canal,
hoping to be inspired by the revolutionary zeal of the past. "If all Communist
officials today were like those who built this," one Party member exclaims, "the
Communist Party would rule forever."
Women of the Country
"There's a saying among men, 'Marrying a woman is like buying a horse: I can
ride you and beat you whenever I like.'"

by channelling water from the south in what will be the biggest hydraulic project in
world history. A project in the arid Ningxia region has benefited nearly half a million
people, but elsewhere relocation from dam areas, like the Three Gorges, is causing
huge social upheaval.
Freedom and Justice

"The main thing is to speak the truth. Why should a nation be drowned in lies and de

whoever lied to him would be killed for disrespect. But now the liars get promoted as
people's dogs live better than the peasants."
-- Dr. Gao Yaojie, veteran doctor and

-- Xie Lihua, Women's magazine editor

How free are the Chinese people? How
China's women have always been under pressure: from men, from family, from
work. Now more and more are under new pressure -- from themselves -- to take

learn the truth from the media? To hear the

the government? How can people with a

control of their lives; to get an education; to have a career; to marry for love. It's a
slow, difficult process, and it is changing China.

Tibetan Buddhism has long been feared as a rallying point and cover for Tibetan independ

Party's strict terms -- neither government employees nor students are allowed to practice. A
Mass migration from the countryside to the cities is increasing prosperity, but
fracturing families. It also gives women new roles -- whether running the farm back
home, or as wage-earners in the city. Xiao Zhang has lived in Beijing for 14 years,

Catholicism -- administered not by the Vatican but by the Communist Party -- is far from C

million adherents who want nothing between them and their God. The film also explores F

the Chinese government as well as examining the limits on the right to assembly and press

cooking and cleaning. This episode follows her home to her village 600 miles away
for Chinese New Year, where she is reunited with the children she hasn't seen for a

The second half looks at popular grievances: forced evictions, government cover-up of the

year. The cameras capture the visit of the local Birth Planning Officer to check on

grabbing. There were 87,000 officially-recognized cases of public disorder in 2005. The co

young wives, the plight of unwanted girl babies and abortion issues, and a village

sensitive cases, forcing ordinary people to petition government -- a frustratingly ineffectua

wedding which turns nasty.

"Re-education through Labor" camp to which women are committed without trial for up to
offences -- or for petitioning.

The film also explores the discrimination suffered by Xinjiang's Muslim women, the
hardships of life in Tibet, and China's tragic suicide figures: China has one of the

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has acknowledged the problems facing China's rural populatio

highest suicide rates for women in the world: 150,000 a year. One every four

it calls a "New Socialist Countryside" with free education, improved healthcare, no agricu

minutes.

with corruption rife in local government, will the money and the measures reach the peopl

The final sequence in the series is the story of what happened to Taishi Village, which soug

remove its corrupt leaders. Praised by the leading Party newspaper in China one minute, th

and militia the next. The corrupt old leaders were reinstated by local government amid violence, intimidation and arrests.
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