ISLAM MOST POPULAR RELIGION WITH YOUNG CHINESE

BY CONOR GAFFEY ON 7/8/15 AT 3:12 PM

Muslims pray before breaking fast on the first day of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at the Niujie Mosque in Beijing, China, June 18, 2015.KIM KYUNG-HOON/REUTERS

Islam is the most popular religion in China among young people despite a government crackdown on Ramadan and historic persecution of the Muslim Uighur minority, according to a new survey.

Of the five religions recognised by the atheist state, Islam has the largest proportion of followers under 30, with 22.4% of Chinese Muslims fitting this age bracket, according to the China Religion Survey carried out by a research centre at Beijing's Renmin University.

Around 23.3 million Muslims live in China, making up 1.8% of the total population, according to Pew Research Center data from 2010. The Center predicts the Muslim population to grow to around 30 million by 2030.

The new statistics come on the back of China imposing controversial measures on Muslims observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The Communist Party has reportedly banned teachers, students and government employees in Xinjiang province from fasting, though Chinese authorities have denied these accusations.

The government has also reportedly instructed Muslim shopkeepers and restaurant owners to sell alcohol and cigarettes in order to combat "religious extremism" in Xinjiang, which is the largest of China's administrative regions and has a majority Uighur Muslim population.

Xinjiang is a hotly-contested area of China. Hundreds have died in recent years in clashes which China has blamed on Islamist terrorist groups, while the Uighurs say they are repressed by Beijing's policies.

Despite such restrictions, the survey also found that 60% of people working at places of worship considered government regulations on religious freedom to be fair.

In addition to Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism and Taoism are the other officially recognised religions in China.

Catholicism was the second-most popular religion among under-30s, while traditional Chinese religions Buddhism and Taoism were most popular among over-60s. Overall, Buddhism has the highest amount of followers in China, according to the survey.

Wei Dedong, a professor of Buddhist studies at Renmin University, told the state-run newspaper the Global Times that the primary reason for the growth in Islam among young Chinese was demographic.

"Most believers of Islam belong to ethnic minority groups and it is common for a woman to give birth to several children. The children would also become Muslims while it is very rare to have an adult converting to Islam," said Dedong.

According to Pew, the fertility rate for Muslims is higher than non-Muslims in China, with believers having an average of 1.7 children compared to the national average of 1.4 children. The research centre found that Chinese Muslims are generally less educated and tend to live in rural areas, two factors which are associated with higher fertility rates.

Islam has a long but chequered history in China. The Uighurs, an indigenous ethnic population who are mostly Muslim, inhabit the northwestern province of Xinjiang but consider themselves culturally closer to central Asian nations than Chinese.

Xinjiang became part of China in the 18th century and an independence movement, which declared a state of East Turkestan in the region, was crushed by Chinese authorities in 1949.

The latest Chinese census puts the Uighur population, who have lived in the region for thousands of years, at more than 11 million, although the Uyghur American Association estimates it to be above 15 million.

On Monday, the Chinese consulate in Istanbul issued a travel warning to its citizens after protests were held over the weekend as Turkish Muslims turned out in solidarity with the Uighurs, who they believe are suppressed by Beijing.

Ankara also summoned the Chinese ambassador last week about the reports that Uighurs in Xinjiang have been banned from fasting during Ramadan. A Chinese government statement said reports of a ban were "completely at odd with the facts".

 http://europe.newsweek.com/islam-most-popular-religion-young-chinese-329967

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZndpRlCwUig

Strange Creature Caught on Tape

Published on 25 Jun 2014

A strange mystery monster creature - Lord Of The Rings character Gollum, was photographed by a Chinese Tourist near Huairou, Beijing.

The Gollum-like mystery beast's images were posted on the internet quickly after it was spotted by the Chinese camping tourist in the mountains.

Is this an alien, a prank, or some new human hybrid creature?

So what's the deal with this creature that was caught on tape?

A Chinese Tourist was camping with friends outside of Beijing [Huairou, Beijing] when he spotted something mysterious in the woods

He snuck over and snapped some photos before escaping in fear.

The tourist then uploaded the creepy images of the Gollum-like creature from Lord of the Rings to the internet to get some help in learning the origins of his discovery.

He was quoted saying "I walked far away to have a pee, and suddenly saw a monster. I took a few pictures of it, but I am now terrified by my courage then."

A comment on the photo later revealed that this creature was just an sci-fi actor who wrote "Over the weekend I and my friends went to the mountains to take a mini sci-fi film.
And when I was having a pee a person popped up and took pictures of me and shot away."

*Well, I was disappointed to find that out that this really wasn't a real-life Gollum, but that's how a lot of these bizarre creature mysteries end.

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China Eases One-Child Policy

And ends system of re-education through labor in historic change

By Denver Nick

China’s top legislature moved Saturday to ease its long-standing one-child policy and end the practice of re-education through labor, or laojiao.

Under the new law passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, families will be allowed to have a second child if both parents are only children, CNN reports, quoting Xinhua state news agency. The one-child policy was introduced in the 1970s to curb population growth and is estimated to have prevented some 400 million births.

The closure of China’s controversial labor camps will go into effect Saturday and people still serving sentences in such camps will be set free, Xinhua reports. The camps date from the 1950s and have long been criticized by human-rights advocates for their role in silencing dissidents and persecuting intellectuals and spiritual groups.

Read more: China Eases One-Child Policy, Abolishes Re-education Labor Camps | TIME.com http://world.time.com/2013/12/28/china-eases-one-child-policy/#ixzz2p1O1LVC1

World's biggest mall a China 'ghost town'

World's biggest mall a China 'ghost town'

By Johan Nylander, for CNN

March 10, 2013 -- Updated 0427 GMT (1227 HKT) 

Dongguan, China (CNN) -- They built it, but the shoppers didn't come.New South China Mall in Guangdong Province opened in 2005. With 5 million square feet of shopping area, the mall can accommodate2,350 stores, making it the largest shopping center in the world in terms of leasable space -- more than twice the size of Mall of America, the biggest shopping center in the United States.At the outdoor plaza, hundreds of palm-trees blend with a replica Arc de Triomphe, a giant Egyptian sphinx, fountains and long-stretching canals with gondolas.Only problem is, the mall is virtually deserted. Despite the bombastic design and grand plans, only a handful of stores are occupied. "Most of it empty, with little consumer traffic and a high vacancy rate," according to a report last year by Emporis, a global building data firm. "It has been classified as a 'dead mall.'"Walking among shattered shops -- its dusty corridors and escalators covered in soiled sheets -- is a walk through a ghost mall. Rubbish piles up along the sides, paint is coming off the walls and store signs and advertisements have faded.

The mall's indoor amusement park, staff lay half asleep over counters or kill time chatting with each other while the 1,814-foot rollercoaster roars above.

Opened for the public in 2005, developers expected to attract some 100,000 visitors a day. But eight years later, the few people that visit the mall today typically hang out at the American fast food restaurants near the entrance or at the IMAX cinema outside the mall. Some parents bring their children to the Teletubbies Edutainment Center.

Part of the problem is location. Dongguan is a factory town and most of its almost 10 million inhabitants are migrant workers struggling to make ends meet. "People coming here to work in factories don't have the time or the money for shopping or the rollercoaster," said a migrant worker in his 20s, surnamed Xiao, who works at the mall.

The deserted mall is also a symbol of China's rapid urbanization and runaway investment in real estate projects, where massive development projects have been given the go ahead without proper marketing and business research.

"To me, many of these projects are a result of easy access to capital and a combination of wishful thinking and speculative behavior rather than rational business calculations," said Victor Teo, assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong.

"This mall is not the only one that is like that. Elsewhere in China there is the phenomenon of 'Ghost Towns', that is to say infrastructure projects, both residential and commercial, with no takers."

The credit boom of post-financial crisis stimulus has resulted in a proliferation of empty commercial developments and apartments built on rampant speculation. Yet why is the Chinese economy still moving at a brisk 7% to 8% growth rate?

"What China did in the stimulus credit boom is create a lot of `ghost cities': projects without a strong commercial foundation, and projects that didn't get done," wrote Jonathan Anderson in a research note entitled "Hurray for Ghost Cities" from Emerging Advisors Group last month. "What happens next?

"In most of the economy ... nothing. You haven't created a lot of new productive capacity; you're not driving down profits and returns in manufacturing and services, and you've left plenty of room for a rebound in the market-oriented property space.

"Rather, for all intents and purposes you just took the money and poured it down a black hole," Anderson wrote. And the Chinese banking system "has surprisingly little trouble absorbing that bad debt."

But while the macroeconomic juggernaut of China marches on, there remain regional areas of woe. Dongguan is facing mounting problems as factories close down and manufacturing moves to other cities in China and abroad which offer cheaper labor.

Still, the mall has plans to boost the number of tenants, said Ye Ji Ning, head of New South China Mall's investment unit. He claims the mall has a 20% occupancy rate measured by commercial area, although Ye declined to give specifics when challenged on that number. The company's goal is to increase occupancy to 80% in 2013, he said.

"From March onwards we will have big promotional activities in order to reach our new leasing targets," Ye said.

It's not the first time the owners try to blow life into the sleeping giant. The mall was initially headed by Dongguan native Alex Hu Guirong, who became a billionaire in the instant noodle business, and later sold to the Founders Group, a conglomerate set up by Peking University.

In a 2007 relaunch, the mall changed name from "South China Mall" to "New South China Mall, Living City" and a revitalization plan was drawn up. But after the relaunch, neither shoppers nor tenants came.

 http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/03/business/china-worlds-largest-mall