Cautious Call for Political Reform in China

BEIJING â€" This week marks the beginning of a sensitive political memory in China - the anniversary of the start of the 50-day-long democracy protests, nearly a quarter of a century ago, that ran until June 4, 1989, when ordinary people seized on the sudden death of a former leader seen as a political liberal to call for change.

Glasses were raised Monday in many places, in private, to toast the memory of Hu Yaobang, a former general secretary of the Communist Party who still symbolizes people’s aspirations for political reform. Mr. Hu died of a heart attack on Apr. 15, 1989, two years after being removed by Deng Xiaoping for being too liberal. The anniversary comes as the pressure for reform is probably greater today than at any time since the failed protests, which were crushed by the army on June 4.

So it was significant that yesterday, a party newspaper ran a highly unusual commentary, and another party newspaper ran a recommendation to read it, praising Mr. Hu, in a move that has people wondering: by allowing these mentions in its mouthpiece media, is the government at last signaling it may be inching toward building a political consensus on reform

At Mr. Hu’s grave in Gongqing in Jiangxi province, about a thousand mourners paid their respects Monday morning alone, said a tour guide, Tong Lihong, according to the China News Service. Ms. Tong said about 300,000 mourners visit the large, ornate grave every year.

“I really esteemed Hu Yaobang,” said 78-year-old Guo Xilian, a mourner from Lanzhou in Gansu province, far from Jiangxi province, in China’s northwest. “He was open and candid, unsoiled by corruption. He was an example to us. I try to learn from him and I tell my children to learn from him.”

In the Liberation Daily newspaper, an article by Zhou Ruijin, a former deputy editor of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, called on China to learn from Hu Yaobang: to pursue reform, dare to innovate, to be honest and good. By Monday evening, the People’s Daily had listed the article as “essential reading.”

It’s significant that these mentions were coming from party newspapers, since party support is crucial to the success of any reform. The article and the recommendation are being viewed by commentators as part of efforts from elements of the new leadership of Xi Jinping to reach out to more liberal groups in China and build consensus for reform.

After his death, Hu’s name vanished from official Chinese media until 2005, when the Communist Party officially honored him with a ceremony on the 90th anniversary of his birth at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

On its official Weibo, or microblog, account, the Global Times posted a comment with a flickering candle of remembrance: “China’s road ahead lies in the words ‘democracy’ and ‘science.’ We have been struggling for them for nearly 70 years and paid a high price. We still have hard work to do.” Then it noted simply: “Hu Yaobang” and his dates of birth and death, 20.11.1915 - 15.4.1989.

“The Chinese government and Chinese media have consistently avoided the topic of Hu Yaobang so it is particularly significant this article was published,” said Li Weidong, a former chief editor of the magazine China Reform.

Sue-Lin Wong contributed reporting.

Climate Change Didn’t Cause the Big Drought

The Hague â€" During his most recent State of the Union Address, President Obama cited the Great Plains drought last year as an example of extreme weather caused by climate change.

According to a U.S. government report, things are not so simple.

A new report by the Drought Task Force found that the central Great Plains drought, the worst drought in Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota since record keeping began in 1895, was mostly not the result of climate change.

Instead, it was caused by the failure of moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to stream northward and the relative lack and dryness of thunderstorms, the scientists said.

“The event was rare, and we estimated maybe a once in a couple of hundred years event,” Dr. Martin Hoerling, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the senior author of the report, told the media.

“I’m an advocate of global warming because science tells me that greenhouse gases have warmed the planet by about 1 degree Celsius in the last 100 years,” he said. “But the science also tells that every drought that’s occurring isn’t a result of climate change.”

By contradicting the established and widely accepted theory â€" Rendezvous also reported on the connection â€" that the drought was a palpable and detrimental sign of climate change, the report grabbed headlines in the American press and prompted sharp retorts from climate change scientists and climate activists. The report and the reactions help illustrate how difficult real-life local weather modeling can be when it is based on the global phenomenon that is climate change.

Dr. Kevin Trenberth, former head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, was quoted by ThinkProgress:

This report has some useful material in it describing aspects of the drought in 2012 in the central US. But it is quite incomplete in many respects, and it asks the wrong questions. Then it does not provide very useful answers to the questions that are asked.

At issue, Dr. Trenberth explains, is the fact that certain factors that would have influenced the summer weather were not taken into account by the report. He writes:

It fails completely to say anything about the observed soil moisture conditions, snow cover, and snow pack during the winter prior to the event in spite of the fact that snow pack was at record low levels in the winter and spring.

And while Dr. Trenberth criticizes the NOAA report for ignoring important factors in the drought that themselves are thought to be the result of a warming climate, the NOAA report focuses on the natural variation in weather.

In an email, Dr. Hoerling of NOAA explained that the effects of climate change on the natural variability of weather become less significant over shorter periods of time â€" in this case the summer of 2012 â€" or specific locations, such as the Great Plains in the United States.

Predicting or explaining droughts using global warming as the key factor, then, is still difficult.

“Global warming itself fails to give the very critical features of specificity that make a forecast practical,” he wrote.

When asked about the criticism leveled against the findings in the report, Dr. Hoerling wrote that he welcomes criticism, as long as it is based on scientific reasoning.

“Detracting criticism based solely on not liking the result of scientific findings need themselves to be criticized, however,” he wrote. “Science by assertion is merely pseudo-science.”

Meanwhile, Jamie Henn of 350.org, one of the U.S. environmental groups that fights climate change, wrote that the organization is looking forward to hearing from other climate scientists to confirm or refute the government scientists’ findings.

“After the warmest year on record, Superstorm Sandy, and other climate-related disasters worldwide, I don’t think the drought debate will slow down the growth in public concern about the climate crisis,” wrote Mr. Henn in email.

IHT Quick Read: April 15

NEWS In an unexpectedly close race, Venezuelans narrowly voted to continue Hugo Chávez’s revolution, electing his handpicked political heir, Nicolás Maduro, to serve the remainder of his six-year term as president, officials said late Sunday. William Neuman reports from Caracas.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that the United States was prepared to reach out to Kim Jong-un of North Korea if he made the first move to abandon his nuclear weapons program. Michael R. Gordon reports from Tokyo.

Reporters who joined students from the London School of Economics on a sight-seeing trip to North Korea did not disclose their true purpose and filmed an undercover documentary, the university said. Ravi Somaiya reports.

With less than six months to go before parliamentary elections in Germany, a new political party, Alternative for Germany, is calling for an end to the European currency union is gaining strength. Nicholas Kulish and Melissa Eddy report from Berlin.

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to take up the highly charged question of whether human genes can be patented. But another question could trump it: Has the field of genetics moved so far so fast that whatever the court decides, it has come too late to the issue Andrew Pollack reports.

Google has for the first time agreed to legally binding changes to its search results after an antitrust investigation by European regulators into whether it abuses its dominance of online search. Claire Cain Miller reports.

The Chinese economic recovery lost some of its momentum during the first quarter of this year, official data released on Monday showed, surprising analysts who had expected growth to accelerate on the back of ample credit, strong infrastructure spending and firm exports. Bettina Wassener and Chris Buckley report from Hong Kong.

ARTS Sir Colin Davis, the magisterial conductor whose career with the London Symphony Orchestra spanned over half a century and included 11 years as its principal conductor, died on Sunday. Michael Schwirtz reports.

SPORTS Adam Scott became the first Australian to win the Masters when he drained a 12-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole Sunday and defeated Ángel Cabrera of Argentina, whose birdie bid moments earlier had died on the edge of the cup. Karen Crouse reports from Augusta, Georgia.

It made for an exciting race full of sound and fury, with multiple pit stops, multiple changes of position and six different leaders. But the result of the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday signified very little, as the top three qualifiers also finished in the top three positions â€" albeit, in the reverse order of their starting positions. Brad Spurgeon reports from Shanghai.