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Blogs » Politics » Visiting the Morecambe Bay Victims’ Families |
- Visiting the Morecambe Bay Victims’ Families
- Photo: Villager at rest, on the site of the Eastern Qing Tombs, Hebei Province, by stevenjballa
- Mo Yan, According to You — Part Two
- As CPC Approaches, Is Mao’s Influence at Risk?
- China: Two Faces of Social Protest
- Tibetan Man Dies in Third Self-Immolation in Four Days
- (Finally) Announcing My New Project: 2Non.org
- Taiwan Racked By Its Own Health Care Debate: How to Tend to Mainland Students
- Villagers Clash With Police Over Coal Plant
- China Bans Foreign Vessels from Waterways
- Chinese Company’s Suit Against Pres Obama Leads to Surprising PR Win For The United States
- The Daily Twit – 10/23/12: Transitioning From U.S. Election to China Leadership Change
- Baby hiding in a corner for fear of an injection goes viral
- American man accused of raping teen in Shenzhen
- China: New media organization to tackle social issues
- Many Urge Next Leader of China to Liberalize
| Visiting the Morecambe Bay Victims’ Families Posted: 23 Oct 2012 11:07 PM PDT Hsiao-Hung Pai recounts her visits to family members of the 23 Chinese migrants who drowned in Morecambe Bay in 2004. As well as their grief, many were left with heavy debts incurred to pay "snakeheads" for their relatives' passage to Britain. From The Guardian:
For details of the tragedy, see The Guardian's 2004 report. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Photo: Villager at rest, on the site of the Eastern Qing Tombs, Hebei Province, by stevenjballa Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:55 PM PDT  Villager at rest, on the site of the Eastern Qing Tombs, Hebei Province © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Mo Yan, According to You — Part Two Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:44 PM PDT In the first part of this long post, I took a closer look at Mo Ya's political choices and explained why many Chinese find him objectionable as a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. At the end, I asked the question: If Mo Yan is such a critical writer, as many in the west believe (the Nobel Committee certainly does), why does the Party embrace him completely, feature him prominently internationally, and award him all the official literary prizes there are in China? Knowing that the Chinese government censors criticise harshly and consistently? Why? Here is my attempt to answer this question. Just like the face of China has changed beyond recognition over the last 30 years, so has China's literary scene. Even though the Chinese Writers Association is still under the control of the Party and writers still must carry out "assignments" from the Party now and then, in today's China, it is decidedly unfashionable, and despicable, for writers to sing the Party's praises as they did in Mao's era. In the CWA, only the relics of the past would write like that and they look as ridiculous as seeing someone wearing a Mao suit on street today. If those who have some respectability at all have to do it, they would do so discreetly. This is because such writings have long been rejected by readers. The Party knows it very well, and the writers know it even better. As a matter of fact, the withdrawal of encomiastic literature began as soon as China's "reform and open-up" in late 1970s. You may still see a few books of this nature in government-run bookstores; during Party anniversaries and the National Day celebrations, you would see lavish performances on CCTV, but these are "assignments." Even with a film like《建党伟业》("the Great Endeavor of Founding CCP" but misleadingly translated into "Beginning of the Great Revival" ), the style has little in common with similar works in the past, and it takes discerning eyes to pierce through the fog. Of the most famous or best-selling literary authors, no one has succeeded for adulating the Party. In our email exchanges, O'Kane (quoting him with permission) thinks that, the CWA may not be a good thing, but "if it provides a living for talented writers like Han Shaogong, Wang Anyi, and Diao Dou, then so much the better." Well, I must say that this view of the CWA is a bit naïve. The Party sets up organizations such as the CWA, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (文联), which is a government entity from the top level all the way to the county level, claim to take away writers' worries so that they can devote their minds on writing. Instead, these entities are reins and yokes meant to control the writers. Many people, in recent years, have called for disbanding these organizations provided by tax payers' money, but Chinese writers all know very well that, unless they write something that offends the Party badly, their job security is probably one of the highest among government employees. The relationship between the CWA and the Party is somewhat like a teenager and a dictator father. In the old days, the strict father required the teenager to return home before 6 o'clock every day and allowed no hanging-out on weekends. Now that the time has changed, the father relaxed quite a lot, allowing free weekend play, and moving the curfew to midnight. But what has not changed is the absolute power of the father and the bottom line that whatever you do you still must go home every night. The Party doesn't require you to sing praise every day, but it makes sure that you don't write anything offensive, or worse, subversive. Since Deng Xiaoping's time, the CCP has distanced itself from the Mao era as well. It issued an official document in 1978 to denounce the Cultural Revolution, and it has also admitted mistakes made during land reforms, the anti-rightest campaign, the great leap forward, etc. But at the same time, it is very sensitive as how deep and how broad historians and literary writers would explore the recent past, thwarting works that may cause people to question the fundamental legitimacy and justification of the Party. When O'Kane and Lovell say Mo Yan's works are no encomia to the Chinese rulers, they are still using the 6 o'clock curfew as their yardstick while the curfew was moved to midnight long ago. Inside the CWA, many writers have been writing about the recent tragedies, and all of them would be bold, critical writers if measured by the 6 o'clock curfew. Take for example Life and Death Are Wearing me Out, one of Mo Yan's newer novels in 2006. In the first volume, a landowner was shot to death during the land reform at the end of 1940s. To avenge himself, he was reborn as a donkey. From the fragmentary narrative of the donkey, we learned that the landowner was a good man who had helped the poor and lived a diligent life. He was shot in the head, his land was distributed to the poor, his two concubines remarried to his two farmhands respectively, and his house became the village hall. The donkey's owner is one of the landowner' old farmhands, the only man who refused to join the cooperative, the precursor of People's Commune. The donkey was exceptionally handsome, more magnificent than a horse, so much so that the head of the county made it his own. The donkey later had an accident in which he broke his legs, and was eventually killed. This of course is just a summary. But as far as the historical land reform is presented, the novel is surprisingly spotty and one-dimensional, not too much more than my summary. But the first volume roams on for over one hundred pages, what do they consist of? Words; overflowing words, superabundant words, a florid rain of words. As for the subject of the land reform, following the highly simplified and symbolized route of beating-down the landowners, killing the landowners, digging up their wealth and dividing their land and houses has long become the standard route for writers of CWA writers. In the following volumes, the novel's depiction of the other major events of the recent history is just as sketchy and standard. So I said the other day, half jokingly and half seriously, "in Mo Yan's 'hallucinatory realism,' 99% is hallucination, and 1% is realism." About ten years ago, Mr. L, the chief editor of Shanxi Literature, a CWA writer as well, interviewed dozens of old folks in his hometown in northwestern Shanxi province for their stories during the land reform. Later he compiled these interviews into a book. His interviewees included the then village heads, militiamen, poor peasants, well-to-do families, adult and youth, men and women. From historical documents to the Party's decrees, from individuals' tragedies to village population analysis, from the voting procedure for executing landowners to details of various tortures, his interviews presented a layered and panoramic view of the land reform. Readers of his book were shocked, including people who were not strangers to the subject. But no publisher would publish his book, the reason being: it's too much. By comparison, the land reform in Mo Yan's novel, whether it's the characters or the events, has the quality of a jingle, highly cursory and generic. There is nothing sensitive about it, because it doesn't provoke, nor challenge, you to think. This is why the barbarism and ugliness depicted in Mo Yan's novels somehow don't connect. You can read at flying speed without being seized by something that makes you pause and think. As a matter of fact, this novel of 460,000 characters, "the consummate work of my writings" as Mo Yan told Xinmin Weekly recently, was also written at flying speed in 43 days. Next to a non-fiction work, of course we must also consider the structure, the symbolism and other elements of a novel in our evaluation. My point here is to demonstrate what kind of realism is Mo Yan's realism, and what is acceptable to the censorship and what is not. Until I started reading Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (I read the Chinese original), my impressions of Mo Yan still stayed in the 1980s and early 1990s. In the '80s when the memories of Cultural Revolution were still fresh, Mo Yan's Red Sorghum, part of a new literary movement, was different from anything people had read for a long time. To use—guess who?—Liu Xiaobo's words, it was like "a cracking rock that startles the sky" (石破天惊). Especially after the movie adaption by Zhang Yimou, it became an expression of the kind of eruptive energy widely felt in the 80s. For a long while, almost every Chinese young man was singing or humming the "Liquor Song" of the movie: "March ahead bravely, my beloved!" ("妹妹你大胆地往前走"). And the scene in which a burly country man makes a clearing in a sorghum field and lays down a young, beautiful woman was an indelible cultural memory of a generation. But I never thought Mo Yan as an author with a critical bent, probably because there were many outspoken writers at the time and, next to them, Mo Yan didn't stand out. On the other hand, I was weary of Mo Yan's increasing tendency toward hyperbolic depiction of violence, barbarism and sex, because the surreal treatment of them turns them into entertainment, desensitizes their potential criticism, and turns readers' attention away from the real evil and its roots. In addition, Mo Yan's language has always been colorful but overly indulgent that can really test your patience. But according to Wolfgang Kubin, the German scholar of Chinese contemporary Chinese who has written a lot about Mo Yan and other Chinese writers, such excess has been corrected in translation. Mo Yan's English translator Howard Goldblatt seemed to suggest, in an interview with Nanfang Weekly in 2008, that the translator had done quite bit of editing, even re-writing, of the original. Fans of Mo Yan like him not for his sharp criticism of either the past or the present, but find his brand of extravaganza intriguing and exhilarating. Since the Prize, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon, that is, a lot of Chinese readers are asking: Where is Mo Yan's criticalness? The writer himself also seems to feel the necessity of defending himself. He said in a news conference,"if you have read my books, you would know that my criticism of the dark side of the society is very harsh and serious. The Garlic Ballads, Republic of Wine, Thirteen Steps, and Big Breasts and Wide Hips that I wrote in the 1980s were all unreserved criticism of social injustice from a humanistic point of view." To write this post responsibly, I can't just rely on my past impressions and the one novel I am reading now. So I emailed my friend, Professor Z of the College of Literature, Beijing Normal University, the very institution with which both Liu Xiaobo and Mo Yan had ties, to seek his views. In the 1980s, my friend was a college student of Chinese literature, and now he is a professor in the same field. For years he was a fan of Mo Yan, wrote about him quite a lot, and has made contacts with the writer in countless professional occasions. He said he had read just about everything Mo Yan had written except for Republic of Wine and Life and Death Are Wearing me out which he lost interest when he reached "Volume Three, the Wallowing Pig." First of all, I asked Professor Z to tell me the "history of Mo Yan's conflict" with the authorities, if any. This is his reply: "Mo Yan had had run into trouble with the authorities. The biggest occasion came when he published Big Breasts and Wide Hips (1995). A bunch of leftists complained about him, saying that this work of his was anti-Party and anti-socialism, and they took their case all the way to the PLA Army General Staff Department. As a result, Mo Yan had to write self-criticism, and then had to leave the military to a job at Procuratorial Daily. I knew a bit about this episode at the time, and just this afternoon I heard more from an insider who told me that Mo Yan had had trouble twice because of this book. The second time was when the Workers' Publishing House planned to re-issue the book but there were people who were still at him. This insider happened to be the censor/reader who helped protect him. But after being published for a while, the book was banned again." Then I asked Professor Z to evaluate how critical a writer Mo Yan has been. This is his view: "My reading experience of Mo Yan has been somewhat complicated. I admit that he has written good works before Big Breasts and Wide Hips, which I believe is his best work, that were strong as social critiques. But his works have become weaker steadily ever since. His craftsmanship has grown more and more deft in later works but their substance and level of criticism have become thinner and thinner." How about his latest novel Frogs? The Nobel Committee said it was a "brave" work that critiques China's birth control policy. Professor Z said, "I guess you can say Frogs is a critical work, but it's not compelling enough. I wrote in an article last year that 'the novel tells the story of the aunt, and the history and the current situation of China's one-child policy, in the form of letters to a Japanese friend. Because the recipient of the letters is a foreigner, it's impossible for the author to bare it all. The narrative then becomes a dilemma for him: on the one hand he wants to explore the cruel history of it, but on the other he engages in a kind of cover-up. So half-said-and-half-unsaid is the basic narrating strategy of the novel. Technically you can't lay blame on the narrative strategy an author chooses, but it does dull the sting and leave readers wanting.'" Mo Yan's real aunt, the archetype of the aunt in Frogs, said recently when interviewed by a Hong Kong TV station (start 4:20) that, as a busy country midwife, she delivered about 20,000 babies over the course of the last 40 years, and aborted twice as many. Considering the aunt in the novel only aborted 2,000, some asked, "Doesn't the novel down play the one-child policy?" Well, I won't find fault this way with a fiction that I haven't read, but the effect would surely be different if the aunt in the novel aborted twice as many as she delivered. How does my professor friend think about Life and Death Are Wearing me Out? Since Mo Yan's Nobel Prize, he said he had pulled it out again to finish from where he had left it. "At the time I felt Mo Yan was too indulgent in playing dazzling tricks without much substance. This afternoon I was chatting with a colleague of mine, and he was of the same opinion." I shared my assessment of Mo Yan with my friend: That he is a boy who comes home dutifully before the midnight curfew. My friend agreed. "I feel the same way," he said. "What Mo Yan wrote in his later works is permissible; and his critiques are critiques well within the boundaries." My friend went on to say, "the current publishing system in China means that what have been published are safe to publish; if a work is too challenging, it wouldn't be published to begin with, because publishers are afraid of taking risks, because it directly concerns people's livelihood. This I think is the key problem." Interestingly enough, in terms of criticism, Mo Yan's self-assessment seems to coincide with that of my friend. You may have noticed it too: in my earlier quote of Mo Yan, he mentioned only his earlier work to defend that he is a critical writer. Needless to say, contemporary Chinese literature is rather diversified. But reading Life and Death Are Wearing me Out, I am reminded of a couple of "vanguard" writers I read in the 90s and a few writers I came across more recently. Together they seem to represent a winning trend in Chinese literature. Depending on the writers, it more or less has the following characteristics: It's set in a specific time of the past before 1949, but the sense of time is very thin; its descriptions tend to be elaborate and copious; the characters tend to be poker-faced and immobile, lack of connection with real people; it has universal themes but seldom challenges the readers morally or existentially; and one feels hollow after reading such novels. I call it pseudo literature, and the China depicted in such works pseudo China. It looks like the authors and the government have found harmony with each other in such a trend: The authors write happily and indulgently; the critics have plenty of material to expound on; and as far as the Party is concerned, you can write about all the pillage and all the rape in the world as long as you don't ask questions about the real realities, which in many ways are ten times worse than Mo Yan's fictional realities. Do the censors and the watchers from the propaganda department really like Mo Yan? Not necessarily. But dictators don't err in what's damaging to them and what's not. Writers like Mo Yan are perfectly acceptable to them, and at the same time, they know that such writers are the only viable athletes to represent China in the cultural Olympics of the world. And for the world, perhaps a little too eager to concede something to the communist China that looms big economically, Mo Yan looks right and feels right. In an interview with Time magazine in 2010, Mo Yan said he never worried about censorship when he chose what to write. "'There are certain restrictions on writing in every country,' he says, adding that the inability to attack some topics head on is actually an advantage. Such limitations make a writer 'conform to the aesthetics of literature,' Mo Yan argues. 'One of the biggest problems in literature is the lack of subtlety. A writer should bury his thoughts deep and convey them through the characters in his novel.' " So, censorship helps writers write better literature? I don't know that before! I feel so sorry for all the great writers of the world, and in history, who haven't had the good fortune to benefit from censorship. How much better would they have written?! Mo Yan's defense of censorship reminds me of a conversation I had with another CWA writer friend of mine in China a couple of years ago. When I shared Shen Shuren with him, he liked it very much but told me right away that it was not publishable in China. So I commented on the lack of freedom to write even though there was considerable space for good writers to shine. To my surprise, he corrected me sternly. "I have complete freedom to write," he said. "What I am writing now is what I will be writing anyway in a state of complete freedom." At this juncture, it would be interesting to compare Zhang Yimou (张艺谋) and Mo Yan. With the same Red Sorghum, one as a short story and the other as a movie, the two men opened up new horizons in the 1980s and became famous overnight. Both were disliked in the 80s and part of 90s by the government, and both "adapted" to the realities. Zhang Yimou has been making grandiose but vapid "visual banquets" such as Hero (英雄) and Curse of the Golden Flower (满城尽带黄金甲), while Mo Yan found home in "hallucinatory realism." Both are now China's gold medalists in the realm of world culture, towering signs of China's cultural achievement next to its economic miracle. These days I don't think there are that many people outside China who regard Zhang Yimou as a critical movie maker anymore, but the assessment of Mo Yan will be a lot more complicated, partially because not that many people have the patience to read 500-page novels one after another, partially because he is now shrouded in the aura of the Nobel Prize. I don't think Mo Yan made a mistake when he named only his earlier writings to defend the critical quality of his works and the risks he has taken to write them. I haven't read enough myself to agree or disagree with my professor friend, but the fact remains that, after the mid-1990s, Mo Yan has not run into any trouble with the authorities and his status in the officially anointed Chinese literary scene has pinnacled long before the Nobel Prize. Julia Lovell, in her article in the New York Times, warns against intellectual laziness on the part of western readers who might judge Mo Yan unfavorably simply because he's a writer embraced by the Party and the government. She urges them to find answers in his works. I, too, would warn against intellectual laziness on the part of any reader, Chinese or otherwise: Just because Mo Yan does not portray power and the government in favorable light doesn't automatically make him a critical writer. And more importantly, don't let the Nobel Prize deify anyone for you. I don't know how many times I have heard argument over the last couple of weeks for separating literature from politics. First of all, the Party doesn't for a second think that way. For the Party, everything is politics, literature and art in particular as tools to shape ideas and minds. Second, aren't Mo Yan's painstaking avoidance of Liu Xiaobo and going along with handcopying Mao all political choices? As a matter of fact, when Chinese writers and movie makers escape into the era before 1949, into the ancient times, or take pains to blur the clear memories of the recent past into a fog, aren't they political behaviors after all? As a Harvard scholar pointed out the other day (sorry I can't find the link anymore), now that he is a Nobel winner, Mo Yan has become a political figure whether he likes it or not, more so in China than in the world. People will seek him out for his opinions on the hottest topics of the day and he will not be able to just say "no comment." The Party will watch him closely to make sure that he stays on track. For Chinese literature, the message is clear: Forget all those talks about idealism and conscience; what you need is the right formula. For days I have had the wicked image of the five judges of the Nobel Committee and the nine members of the Politburo sitting together, exchanging their enthusiastic views of Mo Yan over a cup of warm tea. "… Who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary," the old dons from the Swedish Academy of Letters say. "… Who is an outstanding representative of a slew of great works by Chinese writers with Chinese characteristics, Chinese style and Chinese grandeur," said Li Changchun (李长春), the Party's propaganda tsar. These two groups of old men have thus far disagreed on just about everything else, and the latter hates the guts of the former for being "vicious" to China. But with Mo Yan, the chemistry between the two changed miraculously, swirling merrily together like a hot cinnamon bun. So, readers, no matter who you are, Chinese or foreigners, men or women, having read Mo Yan or not, for him or against him or having no opinion of him, knowing China or not, no matter who you are and where you are, we can all agree on one thing: Mo Yan has it all. And that is truly a huge, unprecedented achievement for which one Nobel Prize is not enough. I think this year's Peace Prize and Chemistry Prize should have gone to Mo Yan as well. Filed under: Uncategorized   |
| As CPC Approaches, Is Mao’s Influence at Risk? Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:28 PM PDT Reuters reports that the legacy of Mao Zedong, long thought untouchable among the pillars of Communist Party orthodoxy, may wane as the next generation of Chinese leaders looks towards reform:
The South China Morning Post has more on Monday's gathering of the Politburo, a meeting attended by current president Hu Jintao, and explores the extent to which the CCP may play down Mao's philosophy in the 18th Party Congress:
See also additional CDT coverage of the 18th Party Congress and China's upcoming leadership transition. © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| China: Two Faces of Social Protest Posted: 23 Oct 2012 04:18 PM PDT Memo #183 By Xi Chen – xichen48 [at] email.unc.edu
Many collective protests have been effective. Peasants managed to force local officials to cancel illegitimate fees for local school or road projects. Retirees from state-owned enterprises obtained compensation before a socialized pension system was established. Urban residents stopped the building of chemical plants or other polluting factories around their cities. My research in Hunan province shows that when social protests become routinized, they help the political system, which lacks effective representative institutions. But as Chinese leaders are well aware, there is a more ominous aspect of widespread collective protests. Waves of collective protests reveal fundamental weaknesses in political institutions in China. Collective protests as a primary form of interest articulation are costly for everyone involved. The Communist Party of China (CCP) has dramatically increased its spending on Weiwen (维稳, stability maintenance) in recent years. In 2011, the budget approved by the National People's Congress included spending of 624 billion RMB ($95 billion USD) on items related to law and order, slightly exceeding military spending. To cope with waves of collective protests, the CCP is trapped in a vicious circle. For the sake of "stability," local officials are pressured to treat "troublemaking" protesters favourably, sometimes even by bending rules for them. For example, while compensation for demolished houses has often been very low, a few "troublemaking" house owners were awarded excessive compensation. Similarly, when unsatisfied litigants resorted to "troublemaking" petitioning, judges were often instructed by their superiors to substitute mediation for adjudication, or continue to solve related problems even after a decision was issued. Clearly, such an approach encourages more collective protests. In interviews I conducted in China, local officials sometimes complained, "The more Weiwen, the more social instability." Only by making more institutionalized channels of interest articulation available and accommodating popular contention with the rule of law, can the CCP destroy such a vicious circle. Dr. Xi Chen is Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Social Protest and Contentious Authoritarianism in China (Cambridge, 2012). If you enjoyed this memo, subscribe to our e-newsletter for free and receive new memos 2+ times per week via email.  A protest against a chemical plant project in Xiamen, 2006. (Source: factsanddetails.com)  A peasant protest in Wukan, Guangdong, 2011. (Source: mychinanet.com) Links:
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| Tibetan Man Dies in Third Self-Immolation in Four Days Posted: 23 Oct 2012 03:37 PM PDT Another Tibetan man has died in the third self-immolation in four days, Voice of America reports. Fifty-seven year-old Dorjee Rinchen set himself on fire near the Labrang Monastery in Gansu. A day earlier, a 61-year-old farmer, Dhondup, also self-immolated near the monastery. On Saturday, another man set himself on fire elsewhere in Gansu. These deaths bring the total of self-immolations since 2009 to 58, according to exiled Tibetan groups, though the exact number differs by source. From the VOA report:
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| (Finally) Announcing My New Project: 2Non.org Posted: 22 Oct 2012 11:30 PM PDT Longtime readers will know that I have been alluding to a "big project" on this site for quite some time. In fact, it has taken long enough to get here that you would be forgiven for thinking this "big project" was actually just an excuse to not update this site much. Today, my friends, I announce that it is real. Click here to go to 2Non.org. Our first article is about the nightmare of red tape that victims of forced demolitions often remain trapped in long, long after the actual demolition of their house has concluded. I think you'll enjoy it: "After Forced Evictions, a Nightmare of Red Tape" You can even listen to an audio recording of the article if that's your kind of thing, although for now it's just a simple reading of the article. (Future articles will feature more fully produced audio versions). What is this? 2Non is a non-profit media organization that produces documentary films and shorts as well as written reportage on issues of social justice. Although I hope someday to expand its focus, for the moment our work is focused entirely on China because that's what I know. Basically, it's a nonprofit platform through which we'll be making and distributing our films (starting with Living with Dead Hearts) as well as posting original reporting like the article above on a regular basis. Why? After seeing such a strong response to both rounds of fundraising for our film, I began to think about ways in which we might be able to work on projects like that on a more full-time basis instead of having to squeeze it in around work schedules. I also lamented that our many generous donors still had to pay taxes on their donations. So you want us to give you money? Don't I always? Yes. Well, if you like the work we're doing, then yes. But the good news is that if you're American, your donations will now be tax-deductible! And, as with the film fundraising, we've set up a tiered rewards system so that everyone who donates gets something awesome in return (if they want it, it's not mandatory). What does this mean for ChinaGeeks? Well, any story that has the potential to be a longer-form written piece is probably going to end up on 2Non. But as you can tell if you've read our first article, I really never wrote articles like that on ChinaGeeks to begin with anyway. So not much will change. Translations and analysis pieces will still be posted here; 2Non will be for long-form reported pieces. Obviously my posting here has slowed down over the past year and that's not likely about to change, but it shouldn't get any worse, either. What does this mean for the film? And hey, how's that coming along, anyway? Barring some kind of deal from a major distributor that's just too awesome to refuse, the film will be distributed through 2Non, as will our subsequent films. We may still work to place modified versions on television or elsewhere, but ultimately, all films should end up on the site where we'll be able to offer them at lower prices and without crap like DRM restrictions for digital downloads or wasteful packaging for DVD/Blu-Ray orders. And the film is going well, thanks for asking! It is done and we've applied to 12 film festivals so far, with more planned as we can afford to pay for them (so help us out with a donation). Well, that's it. Please go check out 2Non.org and tell your friends to help us out by donating if they like what they see. Thanks! VN:F [1.9.10_1130] Rating: 5.5/10 (2 votes cast)  |
| Taiwan Racked By Its Own Health Care Debate: How to Tend to Mainland Students Posted: 23 Oct 2012 11:33 AM PDT  The hospital at National Taiwan University. (Xuan Shisheng via Wikimedia Commons) Over the past few weeks, Taiwanese legislators and citizens have engaged in an increasingly heated debate about whether or not to make Chinese students eligible for Taiwanese National Health Insurance (NHI). The controversy's roots date back to the period between 2009 and 2011, when Taiwan passed a series of education laws that ultimately allowed Chinese students to begin studying at Taiwanese universities in September 2011. Geopolitical concerns have complicated the well-intentioned program: While most foreign students apply for residency visa status in Taiwan, Chinese students can only live in Taiwan under a special "stay" status that renders them ineligible to apply for the NHI system. On Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, a Chinese student (@西门小炒_雁彬) complained about the unequal treatment: "Today I went to see the doctor and the nurse asked me for my health insurance card. I said 'I'm from China, so I don't have health insurance.' She replied, 'Oh, newly arrived foreigners don't have health insurance.' I said, 'No, I'm from China…'" One can imagine how that conversation ended. Until now, the debate about including Chinese students in the NHI has focused on two major considerations: The economic ramifications, and the human rights questions posed by excluding Chinese students from the system. The Taiwanese media has been waving the flag of human rights, with many Taiwanese newspapers reporting the Executive Yuan's (行政院) intention to "pay great attention to humanity concerns and human rights," and to "create a friendly living and learning environment" for mainland Chinese students." Chinese citizen @isyunn just wanted to see results, writing, "To pay for one's own medical expenses is really costly here. The average clinic registration is NT500 (about $17), while Taiwanese with health insurance identification only need to pay NT150 (about $5). So mainland Chinese want to be eligible for NHI as fast as possible. Otherwise what is there to gain from the fact that the Taiwanese keep shouting about human rights?" Indeed, real-life examples of "orphans" excluded from the system are attracting sympathy online. A Xinhua story recently making the rounds on Weibo highlighted the September 27 hospitalization of a Chinese student receiving treatment at Tamkang University. Without health insurance, she faces steep hospital bills, to be fronted by either by her family or a private insurance provider. Taiwanese citizen @百度知道臺灣版 asked his followers: "Are you in favor of Chinese students taking part in Taiwan's [NHI]? Currently, Tamkang University has one Chinese student hospitalized, but without health insurance, the health insurance system can't pay more than NT10,000 (about $340) of the hospital fees every day. Foreigners in Taiwan are included in health insurance, and Chinese students are subject to these regulations, but currently they are still not included and have been nicknamed 'NHI Orphans.'" It doesn't help that a negative stereotype persists in Taiwan that mainland Chinese are particularly accident-prone and thus put a heavier strain on the NHI system. Many news stories in Taiwan over the past years have focused on Chinese injuries and even casualties. @seven_oaks asked rhetorically: "Why are all the accident-prone travelers in Taiwan always Chinese? Is it really as people say—that Chinese have more money, so they are foolish enough not to fear death?" But economic concerns run both ways. While some Taiwanese fear that including Chinese students will further deepen Taiwan's national healthcare deficit—the system already teeters on the edge of bankruptcy–others fear that excluding Chinese students also strains the healthcare system, as hospitals, educators, and taxpayers must decide on a case-by-case basis whether to shoulder the initial burden of treating an uninsured patient. Commenter @呼呼心就不痛了 felt that Taiwan should focus on helping its own first: "Taiwan has many types of insurance that will soon go bankrupt (labor insurance, health insurance, military veteran subsidies), now suddenly it wants to take Taiwanese taxes to subsidize Chinese students entering the NHI system…I want to ask, was China ever this good to Taiwanese students or Taiwanese businessmen? Why not use the money to support Taiwanese who are short of money but locked into having a health insurance card?" In spite of the many calls for exclusion, current proposed regulations take the opposite tack, giving Chinese students cheaper access to health insurance than the rest of the Taiwanese population. As noted in the Wall Street Journal's Real Time China Report blog, under the proposed rules, Chinese students would pay only 60% of what the average Taiwanese citizen pays per month. Taiwanese citizen @台灣掌門人complained, "I have no objection to Chinese students and foreign students being included in NHI, just remember to ask them to pay their own bills." There is no easy conclusion, and the end of the debate is not yet in sight. On October 17, the Taiwanese Executive Yuan stated its intention to include Chinese students in the system, but it remains to be seen whether or not the ideologically divided Taiwanese political parties will reach a bipartisan solution to let Chinese students participate in the health care system and hold residency status. While the Taiwanese carry on with their debate about equal economic opportunity and human rights, Taiwanese citizen @Cooper_Li, who lives on the other side of the strait, sees only injustice: "For the purpose of fair treatment, Taiwan intends to let Chinese students enter Taiwanese NHI. On the other hand, I came to China nearly 11 years ago and I still don't dare get sick!" |
| Villagers Clash With Police Over Coal Plant Posted: 23 Oct 2012 11:36 AM PDT As work resumes at a paper plant in Jiangsu after violent protests, residents in southern China have protested the building of a coal power plant, from the Associated Press:
Environmental issues have been a source of tension in recent years. According to the Washington Post, the protest turned into a violent nine day clash between villagers and police:
Radio Free Asia reports more than 25 people remain in custody following the clashes despite local officials denials of arrests:
Read more about environmental protests in China, via CDT. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| China Bans Foreign Vessels from Waterways Posted: 23 Oct 2012 11:32 AM PDT Bloomberg reports China is banning foreign vessels from sailing on its domestic waterways, which are among the busiest in the world. Amid the economic slowdown, the shipping industry was hit by a contraction in trade:
As China prohibits overseas investors from sailing the domestic rivers, the ban also includes Chinese companies use of foreign ships, from Reuters:
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Chinese Company’s Suit Against Pres Obama Leads to Surprising PR Win For The United States Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:26 AM PDT  (Harvey McDaniel via Wikimedia Commons) China's blogosphere has just taught an interesting lesson on the dual nature of soft power. The U.S. and China have been trading jabs in a number of recent trade-related disputes. In early October, the U.S. congress angered Chinese netizens with a warning that government and private businesses should steer clear from Huawei and ZTE, two Chinese telecom companies. Just days earlier, President Obama intervened to block Chinese machine maker Sany Heavy Industry (三一重工) from purchasing a wind farm project in Oregon. Sany reacted by suing President Obama in U.S. court via an affiliate. But a funny thing happened on what appeared an inevitable road to U.S.-Sino recriminations: Netizens decided they admired the U.S. for taking the suit in the first place. On Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, prolific financial author and researcher Yu Shenghai (@余胜海) shared his counterintuitive take on the recent Sany suit. He wrote, "Friends on the Internet have asked; what does it mean when a country is governed by the rule of law? Answer: China's Sany sued U.S. President Obama, [and] the U.S. courts took it. That's rule of law!" [Chinese] Yu's tweet struck a chord. First posted on October 21, it has been retweeted over 24,000 times and has received over 6,800 comments, most in support. Some commenters expressed admiration, even amazement, at a legal system that would allow a foreign company to sue the President. @沉默亦然 was incredulous: "Suing Obama? The U.S. prosecutors haven't arrested anyone? Gutsy, I can't imagine it." @Yuxh added with apparent admiration that "American police don't have the right to send you to re-education through labor, [and if] it doesn't go through the courts the American police don't have the right to find you guilty." There are, of course, caveats. @纽约评论 noted that Obama's not really on the line, writing, "The issue is not as simple as you're saying. A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Nixon v. Fitzgerald held: The President 'is entitled to absolute immunity from damages liability predicated on his official acts.'" (Thanks, we suspect, goes to Wikipedia.) Many netizens hastened to add that taking a case and ruling in the plaintiff's favor were two different matters. But the contrast between Chinese and American legal systems was nonetheless profound. Many netizens noted that even a township mayor (县长) would not be subject to a suit in China. @Ciscogeek wrote, "Ah, try suing even a township mayor in the Celestial Dynasty [online code for China] and see what happens." For many, commentary became an opportunity to discuss what China lacks, not what the U.S. has. @余胜海 complained, "The Celestial Dynasty calls itself a country ruled by law, but Chinese citizens can't even bring up the names of their leaders on Weibo, can't even talk about instances of corruption!" @画响 wrote, "I want to sue the [Chinese] Chairman, [the Communist] government won't even let me register to form a limited liability company! In democratic countries including Hong Kong, anyone can register to set up a business and they don't have to get verified." @花果山布衣 remarked bitterly, "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues to crow about how we are a country governed by law. It makes me laugh so hard my teeth fall out." So will China's upcoming leadership change herald a more rule-based society? Some, like @福建季叔, were optimistic that changes were coming "not too long from now." Others took solace in time-tested humor. @跟屁虫Oo右 wrote, "We can't have this type of problem, because all issues are solved at the banquet table." @ZacharyDean shared an oldie but a goodie: "There's a joke that Americans say America is good because Americans can go to the White House and bad-mouth the U.S. President; the Soviets say the USSR is good because Soviets can go to the Kremlin and bad-mouth the U.S. President." It's perhaps cause for optimism that on China's Internet, netizens find a way to bad-mouth seemingly everybody. Footnotes (? returns to text)
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| The Daily Twit – 10/23/12: Transitioning From U.S. Election to China Leadership Change Posted: 23 Oct 2012 06:05 AM PDT OK, so we've all had quite enough of the U.S. never-ending election, yes? The good news is that it actually does end, albeit briefly, and that end date is coming up in two weeks. The toning down of the China bashing started today with the last presidential debate. I mentioned in the last Daily Twit that I would probably write a post on the debate, since it was supposed to be not only about foreign policy, but specifically about China, at least in part. That didn't work out so well, and the debate was remarkably without substance. I did write a post this morning, but it was more of a complaint than a commentary. U.S. Presidential "Foreign Policy" Debate: China Fatigue? Before I give you a few links, allow me to quote from the debate moderator as he pivoted to the discussion on China. This is difficult to believe, so I feel more comfortable with a direct quote:
First, note that I'm not making this up. That is indeed a direct quote. Second, if you're not familiar with debates of this kind, the guy who made that statement is a "journalist" and is supposed to be neutral. So yeah, the moderator basically kicked off the China segment of the debate by blatantly questioning whether the PRC is America's greatest security threat. Amazing, huh? The surprising part of all that, or I should say the more surprising part, was that the debate did not devolve into nasty China scare mongering. In other words, the candidates did not take the bait dangled in front of them by the crappy moderator. Right. Some links: Asia Society: Why Obama-Romney Anti-China Rhetoric Will End (After the Election) — Interview with Richard Solomon, who discusses the usual cycles that U.S. presidents go through with respect to China policy. Business Insider: Romney Can't Afford To Do Much More China-Bashing — My impression of the debate was different, as I saw it as a toned down version of the campaign. The warning put forward in this article, therefore, is unnecessary. Wall Street Journal: Experts React: Obama, Romney 'Debate' China — The usual round-up of expert opinions from the folks at WSJ. Associated Press: Obama, Romney say China needs to play by the rules — The main thrust of this article is that the debate was less about foreign policy than domestic issues. With respect to China, that meant talking less about bilateral issues and more about what the U.S. needs to do with its own economic policy to better compete with the PRC. Reuters: U.S. candidates pass over tough China questions in final debate — Similar to the AP article, describing the China segment of the debate as little more than an excuse to discuss domestic policy. China Law & Policy: China & the Presidential Debate — Elizabeth Lynch wasn't thrilled with the debate either, but she does manage to review the China parts without sarcasm or snark, which is more than I can say for myself. New York Times: Pressing Issues in Asia Get Scant Attention in Debate — Mark McDonald pretty much agrees with the guys linked to above, although he also mentions that North Korea was almost completely ignored. Hard to believe. And now for something completely different. So as the presidential election in the U.S. winds down, you're going to start seeing the media ramp up their coverage of China's legislative sessions, the Party Congress, and a whole bunch of rumor mongering. Should be fun. Here's a taste of what to expect, from Reuters: Reuters: China hints at reform by dropping Mao wording — Certain high-level official proclamations in China include formulaic language, and when those formulas are altered, it's a huge deal. Removing "Mao Zedong Thought" is significant and signals . . . something. Probably either future reforms, or maybe the image of a reformist leadership, or perhaps just a push back against the Bo Xilai crew. Either way, it's a heck of a lot of fun to speculate. A couple other things: Business Insider: Consumption 10 years firstly contributes more to economic growth than investment — OK, ignore the Chinglish headline. That was supposed to say that consumption in China is finally outpacing investment. If that is indeed the case (big if) and is sustainable, this is a huge win for the "rebalancing" crowd. Getting consumption up is the solution to several things, arguably even the trade imbalance (you remember Y = C + I + G + (X – M), right?). Bloomberg: China Bans Foreign Ships From Rivers as Local Operators Struggle — This is a strange story of protectionism that I need to look into more. My first question is whether any of this is/was covered by WTO commitments. Atlantic: A Taste of Mob Rule in China — Damien Ma talks about the anti-Japanese protests and government control. He also tells the story of how he was, well, almost kidnapped. A personal, scary read. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Baby hiding in a corner for fear of an injection goes viral Posted: 22 Oct 2012 06:09 PM PDT
A photo of a baby hiding in a corner and appearing innocent for fear of taking an injection has gone viral on China's twitter-like Weibo. The blogger super陶太太 shared the photo on her Weibo account to entertain her friends, but unexpectedly, it was forwarded hundreds of thousands times and the baby now is a widely loved star. The blogger said she snapped the photo when she watched her friend's baby son turning to the corner to hide as the nurse was ready to give him a shot. How sweet it is! |
| American man accused of raping teen in Shenzhen Posted: 22 Oct 2012 05:00 PM PDT
An American man has been arrested by local police on suspicion of raping a 16-year-old Chinese girl in Shenzhen, according to Shenzhen Daily. The man, around 50, was identified as Robert Dean McDowell, who had lived in cities like Shenzhen and Dongguan for years. He was said to be a frequent bar-goer. In the evening of September 23, McDowell picked a 16-year-old girl from a bar in Luohu's Guomao area and then raped her, according to Shenzhen police. He was being investigated by the city's criminal investigation department, but more details could not be released. People who knew him said that his work here involved trade between Shenzhen and the United States. His American wife who used to teach in Shenzhen left him several years ago and now has a restraining order against him. |
| China: New media organization to tackle social issues Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:19 AM PDT Charlie Custer, China Geeks blog author has launched his new project: 2Non.org, a non-profit media organization producing documentary films and shorts as well as written reportage on issues of social justice. Written by Violeta Camarasa · comments (0) |
| Many Urge Next Leader of China to Liberalize Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:13 AM PDT Despite his mastery of keeping low profile and toeing the party line, China's president-in-waiting Xi Jinping has recently sent out possible signals of political reform, while a chorus of voices urges him on. The New York Times' Edward Wong discusses the likelihood of reform during Xi's reign, possibly along the lines of Singapore's "flexible authoritarianism":
Calls for reform and the extent of Xi's inclination and ability to answer them were also discussed recently by Chris Buckley at Reuters (via CDT). © Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us |
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