As many as 10,000 college students fought with Chinese police in four days of protests over their academic status, damaging cars and buildings and leaving at least 20 people injured, a foreign monitoring group said yesterday.
The protests erupted on Oct. 21 in Nanchang, a city in Jiangxi Province, after students learned that records from two private schools might not be recognized by the government, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
The paramilitary People's Armed Police was deployed to contain the protests and at least five people were detained, the report said. It said the protesters were from ethnic minorities, including some 2,000 Uighurs from China's Muslim northwest. The report said students were calling for a protest to be held on Sunday.
No domestic news organization reported the demonstration.
Students said a large crowd, filling almost two-thirds of a football pitch, had staged a demonstration on Monday and demanded to meet the college authorities, prompting clashes with the police.
"There were about 60 riot police. I heard some students attacked them," a female student who gave only her surname, Chen, said. "Classes have been suspended since the start of protests. We were supposed to start lessons again today, but no one attended. We don't know what to do. Many people want to quit."
Police said that the students had "committed extreme acts such as vandalizing and looting." Students blamed the theft of computers and the smashing of office windows on locals who had sneaked into the campus during the disturbance.
People who answered the phone at the Nanchang police headquarters and the administration offices of the two schools wouldn't confirm the report or give their names.
China has seen a series of such protests over the status of degrees granted to students who study at private schools set up as profit-making ventures by universities. The schools serve students who failed intensely competitive entrance exams for government-subsidized universities but can afford to pay higher private tuitions.
Universities initially granted such students degrees in the name of the parent institution. But the government has cracked down on that practice, prompting student complaints that the new status hurts their job prospects.
The institutions that were targeted in the Nanchang protest were the Jiangxi Ganjiang Institute of Technology and the Jiangxi Institute of Fashion College, according to the Information Center.
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
RSS