China From Inside : Power and the People

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 faces and the ways forward.

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."

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China from Inside : Shifting Nature

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

Debris chokes the banks of the Yellow River. Over half the country's major river systems are unfit for any human use.    



Explore a map of China's top water problems

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.

Other stories explore northern China's dire water shortage, which is being remedied 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.

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China From The Inside : 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.'"
    --  Xie Lihua, Women's magazine editor




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 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.

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, 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 year. The cameras capture the visit of the local Birth Planning Officer to check on young wives, the plight of unwanted girl babies and abortion issues, and a village wedding which turns nasty.

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

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.

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Vladimir Putin - The Putin System

The Putin System is a documentary chronicling Putin’s rise to power in Russia along with the implications for ordinary Russian people.

Russia is once again flexing its muscles. This time its weapons are not the Red Army or its nuclear arsenal, but the huge energy resources lying under the Siberian tundra.

Vladimir Putin is the man responsible for the reemergence of Russia as a global power, but how much is really known about him and his ascendance? This film explores his journey to the highest echelons of the Kremlin and contextualizes his rise against a newly belligerent Russia nostalgic for the past glories of the Soviet empire.
This investigative documentary covers 30 years in the history of Russia through the personal history of Vladimir Putin: a man who has single-mindedly played all the rules of the game to reach the throne of power.

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Inside The Saudi Kingdom

Lionel Mill's film has unique access to Prince Saud bin Abdul Mohsen, one of the rulers of the rich, powerful and secretive Saudi royal family. This is a fascinating insight into the conflicts between tradition and modernity in one of the world's most conservative and autocratic countries.

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