AHS Comparative Government

In 2006, the Chinese government opened the first railway connecting Tibet with the rest of China. Construction of the railway constituted a significant technical achievement: the line is at such a high elevation that much of it traverses permafrost. The opening of the railway was intended to tie Tibet more closely to the rest of China, by allowing Han Chinese people to move to Tibet (which is overwhelmingly Tibetan, and not Han Chinese) and by allowing goods to move more easily between Tibet and the rest of China.

In 2014, the Chinese government began work on a second rail line connecting Tibet with the rest of China. The new line should be completed by 2030. Completion of the second line will be an even greater achievement than construction of the first Tibetan rail line. The new line will be 1000 miles long, and will cross fourteen mountains:

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21699167-plans-new-railway-line-tibet-pose-huge-technological-challengeand-political

Most of the Nigerian government's revenues come from selling crude oil to multinational oil companies. Most of the foreign currency that Nigerian importers use to purchase foreign goods also derives from crude oil exports. Crude oil prices have fallen globally over the past several years; as a result, the Nigerian government is facing a revenue shortfall and Nigeria is struggling to import enough food to feed its population.

To address the decline in its revenues, the Nigerian government is reducing its subsidies of imported petroleum products. (Gasoline is sold in Nigeria at well below its market price, with the government paying the difference between the market price for gasoline and the price paid by Nigerian consumers). Similar subsidy reductions have been attempted in the past, in an attempt to discourage consumers from wasting gasoline and in order to reduce corruption in the subsidy program. The past attempts to reduce subsidies were met with nationwide protests and strikes; as a result, past subsidy reductions were quite modest. The current round of subsidy reductions is faring better. The global reduction in crude oil prices has lowered the market price of imported gasoline, so the subsidy reduction hasn't caused too much pain to Nigerian consumers -- yet:

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21699171-petrol-prices-are-now-bit-more-realistic-will-naira-be-next-fuel-and

Last Monday was the 50th anniversary of the start of China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.  Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party in 1966, launched the Cultural Revolution to stamp out all vestiges of traditional Chinese culture and as a way to purge such moderate Party leaders as Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi and thereby strengthen his own political power.  Over one million Chinese (including Liu) were killed during the Cultural Revolution; millions more were tortured or sent to "reeducation camps" in the Chinese countryside.

Although the Chinese Communist Party has acknowledged that the Cultural Revolution was "a grave blunder," it has never acknowledged that Mao bears the primary responsibility for the grave abuses committed during the period.  Mao, after all, was the founder of the People's Republic of China (that is, the modern Chinese state).  Small wonder, then, that there was no official observation in China of last week's anniversary:

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21698701-china-still-denial-about-its-spiritual-holocaust-it-was-worst-times

In April, China's national legislature, the National People's Congress, adopted a law imposing strict new regulations on foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the country.  Under the new law, foreign NGOs must register with a Public Security Bureau (i.e., the police) and must be supervised by a state-approved official sponsor; foreign NGOs, moreover, may not engage in religious or political activities, or take any action that, in the view of the security services, weakens Chinese "national interests" or "ethnic unity."  According to The Guardian, adoption of the new measure is only part of a sweeping crackdown on civil society in China:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/28/china-passes-law-imposing-security-controls-on-foreign-ngos

In December 2015, the Chinese government announced reforms to the country's household registration (hukou) system.  Under the reforms, as many as one-third of the 250 million Chinese who have migrated, illegally, from rural villages to cities over the past thirty years may gain the legal right to reside in the cities where they live.  Under the measures announced by the central government, however, China's largest cities were given wide latitude to fashion their own policies for addressing the status of their illegal residents.

In China's two biggest cities, Shanghai and Beijing, the municipal authorities have adopted policies that will make it very difficult for Chinese living in those cities illegally to become legal residents.  Indeed, both cities have taken measures to try to force illegal migrants to leave, by destroying low-cost housing and by making it more difficult for illegal residents to send their children to school:

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21697871-chinas-biggest-cities-are-afraid-growing-bigger-they-should-not-be-megalophobia