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Blogs » Politics » Hung out to dry |
- Hung out to dry
- How China Saw the Olympic Opening Ceremony
- Gold Farming for College Credit: Berkeley Offers China Online Game Class
- Beijing Floods, Act III: the Negligence Claims
- Photo: School children in Hong Kong, by Henrik Berger Jørgensen
- Cultural Jealousy
- Tenuous Calm After Qidong Pollution Protests
- Photos: Unrest in Qidong
- Translation: One Author’s Plea for a Gentler China
- China Eases Restrictions on Foreign Investors
- Hong Kong Protests Patriotism Classes
- China: ‘Violent' Pipeline Protest in Qidong
- Sexy Cosplayer banned from ChinaJoy 2012
- The Tragicomedy of Errors: China, British Imperialism, and the Opium Wars
| Posted: 29 Jul 2012 10:21 PM PDT A bus is nearly submerged in Lianhua overpass, Haidian district, on the early morning of July 22. Photo: Li Hao/GT Brigades of traffic police, firefighters, water drainage workers and other disaster-relief personnel, totaling more than 100 staff, swarmed to the road junction of Guangqumen in Beijing on Wednesday, getting ready to combat an expected new round of torrential rains and flooding. They were in position in full gear as early as 4 pm under the road bridge, on alert for the storm forecasted to hit Beijing that night. The 3-meter-deep water of four days earlier had ebbed after it devoured five vehicles and killed a man who was trapped in his car. The dried mud on the wall was a reminder of the tragedy. The heaviest rain in 61 years hit the capital on July 21 and killed at least 77 people, most drowned in flooded streets or buried beneath mountain mudslides. The staggering number of casualties shocked the country and left many incredulous that the capital city of more than 20 million residents could be so vulnerable to the rain. Apart from Beijing's long-criticized and outdated drainage system, many people slammed the management of the city's ineffective emergency alert system, blaming the authorities for not being serious enough with disaster alerts and prevention. They believe the number of casualties would have been significantly smaller if there had been proper mechanisms in place to warn people to stay away from dangerous roads and mountains. The public blamed the tragedy on the slow action by the municipal authorities in the face of the record-breaking downpour. Even though the Beijing Meteorological Bureau forecasted the heavy rain as early as two days before the storm and repeatedly issued alerts during the day, there was no actual action by the authorities until there had already been several hours of devastating rain. Two Beijing residents carry a baby home through the water. Photo: CFP Young system Beijing created a disaster alert system in 2004 after an unexpected rainstorm wreaked havoc on the city's traffic network. Since then, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau has sent text messages to mobile phone users informing them of extreme weather conditions. But few messages went out before this storm. Emergency alerts are also transmitted through other media like television, radio and the Internet, and cover rainstorms, lightning and landslides. However, the alert mechanisms have seldom gone beyond information sharing. Critics say an effective alert system should be a comprehensive one that involves a number of government departments and begins multiple layers of disaster prevention efforts. This July 21, the organized evacuation of residents from disaster-prone mountainous areas did not start until the rain started to endanger the old houses, no warning was made to weekend tourists going to the suburbs, there were no explanations of what the "blue," "yellow" and "orange" alert means and no directions of how commuters could avoid flooded roads. The authorities did not cancel or postpone large public events that stormy night. Beijing Guoan hosted a football match for the Super League that night and the teams played in the rain. Among the dead, 38 of the victims were clustered in Fangshan, a suburban district Southwest of Beijing. The mountainous area provides a good summer escape for urbanites, and when the mudslides intercepted roads and the rising water of the Juma River destroyed bridges, thousands of people were trapped on the mountains. People wonder why the municipal and district authorities didn't inform tourists of the danger beforehand, since the forecasts had been in place for days. The Beijing Drainage Group, whose duties include discharging and recycling rainwater, is on the front lines after any storm. Workers prepared for the flooding and worked out a unique solution to each of the frequently-flooded crossroads around the city on the day of the rain. However, the drainage group proved to be overly confident about their facilities and plans, as the heavy downpour overwhelmed the capacity of the sewage tunnels soon after the rain began.  A drainage worker tries to clear a sewer entrance, Beijing. Photo: CFP Lack of enthusiasm Tian Siyuan, a law professor with Tsinghua University, said Beijing has developed the alert system quite well, and it's only a matter of communications between the authorities and residents. "The regulations haven't been closely connected with individuals and the concerned government departments. The mechanism should motivate the government departments and enterprises, and involve them in pre-arranging public resources and rescue efforts," Tian was quoted as saying by the Procuratorial Daily. Other countries have more proactive systems. After Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005, killing over 1,000 people and stranding hundreds of thousands of others, the US government took steps for better warning and evacuation systems. These proved beneficial when another hurricane struck the country. The alert efforts include evacuating residents from lower-lying terrain, hospitals getting ready to receive the injured, public transportation gearing up, and public shelters open. In contrast, the Beijing authorities didn't take active steps ahead of the July 21 tragedy. Fewer than 10 percent of Beijingers received the alert text message ahead of the storm. The wide-spread doubt and anger against the municipal authorities have evidently prompted them to work more proactively. Four days after the deadly storm, authorities sent about 11.7 million rainstorm-alert text messages to residents concerning another potential storm, and dispatched tens of thousands of personnel. "Though the rain on Thursday turned out to be light, it's always good to be on high alert for safety's sake," said Gao Jianguo, vice secretary general of the China Association for Disaster Prevention. He said although the alert might make people overreact, avoiding tragedies is key. Beijing residents have been praised for their Good Samaritan efforts and civil spirit during the storm, but others blamed residents for paying little attention to the alerts. Xiao Xiang, one of the 16,000 tourists who were stranded in the mountains in Fangshan on July 21, said he noticed the weather report but didn't think it would cause trouble, given the fact that Beijing is normally a dry city. Gao said the residents are not to blame for their lack of disaster awareness. "The authorities must draw a clear line for residents as to what to do in order to keep themselves safe. In this case, the government should have closed the tourism spots in Fangshan and forbid people from entering," he said. Aftermath efforts The Chinese government musters huge amounts of manpower and spending on post-disaster relief. Beijing deployed more than 160,000 workers in the aftermath of the July 21 storm, searching for the lost ones and repairing damaged facilities among other relief work. But preventative work would be more effective and life-saving. After the devastating earthquake in Wenchuan in 2008, the central government was fully involved in disaster relief and the following reconstruction of cities and towns in Sichuan Province. Operations were directed by the center, while charitable donations came from local governments, enterprises and individuals all round the country. By mid-2011, investment in Wenchuan had totaled more than 885 billion yuan ($138.7 billion), spent on 41,130 government-initiated projects, as announced by the National Development and Reform Commission. However, when it comes to disaster prevention, China is apparently far behind countries like earthquake-prone Japan. In contrast with Japan's efficient media network for disaster monitoring and its well-trained nationals who react smoothly to emergencies, it's easy to find the shortcomings of China's disaster reaction system. Many Chinese feel little sense of security or trust in the authorities when it comes to natural disasters, preferring to rely on their own efforts. Experts say that the government must attach more importance to continuous, life-long disaster education and preparation. Otherwise people could only learn this life-saving information through personally experiencing calamities, at huge social cost. Following the July 21 storm, Beijing authorities have grown more cautious. On Friday when heavy rains were forecasted on three suburban districts, including Fangshan, the local governments evacuated more than 12,000 residents. In contrast to Beijing's failure, Chongqing withstood the largest flood peak of the Yangtze River since 1981 last week. The municipal government issued the highest flood alert one day before the peak and ordered the evacuation of river-front residents and shop owners. The overflowing water flooded the river-side road and adjacent buildings. Luckily, unlike Beijing, no casualties were reported. Source:Global Times |
| How China Saw the Olympic Opening Ceremony Posted: 29 Jul 2012 09:33 PM PDT Since the opening of the Beijing Olympics four years ago—a declaration of national arrival which awed some and terrified others—the question has lingered of how London would follow it. Comparisons were inevitable, and perhaps even invited: while China paired one girl's voice with another's face for a rendition of "Ode to the Motherland", director Danny Boyle had "God Save The Queen" sung and signed by a choir including deaf and wheelchair-bound children. Lauren Collins examined the contrast at The New Yorker, where she awarded Boyle a gold medal for his three-hour tribute to British music, literature, industry and healthcare.
Among the most eagerly anticipated reviews were those from China itself. The Telegraph reported reactions from CCTV, Xinhua and a couple of men on the street:
The BBC also explored Chinese views of the ceremony and the games more generally, including the security arrangements and the booming trade in Union Jack underpants.
Also writing before the ceremony, Global Times seemed less convinced that any valuable lessons lay in London, though it at least approved of the organisers' choice of Chinese fireworks.
The Legal Evening News was still more blunt, according to Simon Rabinovitch at The Financial Times:
But Bird's Nest co-designer Ai Weiwei, who wrote last week of his hopes for a more inclusive Games in London than in Beijing, gave the ceremony a glowing review at The Guardian:
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Gold Farming for College Credit: Berkeley Offers China Online Game Class Posted: 29 Jul 2012 08:03 PM PDT
I figure this sounds much more fun than it really is. This course undoubtedly includes the same sort of reading list that would be required with any China history/culture class, so it's not like the kids are going to escape the real work. Additionally, as with any online game, it can become dull and tedious as one grinds away, hour after hour, going on missions, looking for gold, killing things and breaking shit (or blowing things up, depending on the game). After a while, it just seems like work. To be honest, after about two or three hours of most games, for me it's a toss-up between soldiering on and ditching the game for a good book. I wonder if the Berkeley class will require a certain number of game hours played, in-game achievements, etc.? If you get to a certain level, maybe you can earn extra credit, but let's hope that the game in question isn't one of those where you can simply buy your way to better weapons and higher levels — that wouldn't exactly be fair, would it? Anyway, the idea itself is cool in terms of educational creativity, although it does sort of discriminate against the older students. Imagine going back to school after 20 years to get a college degree and your professor, who is probably younger than you are, tells you that you have to learn how to play a MMORPG to graduate. I assume your reaction would be "What the &$^@ is an MMORPG, and can I pick one up at the bookstore?" If this Berkeley class is a hit, I'm going to try and find a game for my class. What would be the most appropriate for a foreign investment law class? © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Beijing Floods, Act III: the Negligence Claims Posted: 29 Jul 2012 07:35 PM PDT
Standard negligence argument, right? a) company had duty of care regarding management of the highway in question; b) rainstorm and related problems were foreseeable; c) company was negligent in allowing traffic onto the road given the flooding; and d) company was negligent in not having additional staff on hand to deal with storm-related issues. Sounds like a pretty good case. I don't think the "We haven't had rain like this in X number of years" defense against foreseeability holds up. Moreover, even if the company wasn't aware of the specific traffic conditions on all parts of the road when motorists were being charged tolls and allowed to drive on, I assume that the company ought to have known. Here's a second opinion on the case:
There you have it. Bad news for the company, although a good "design defect" argument might be a mitigating factor. Heck, who am I kidding? If this whole thing goes down the same way as other natural disasters, also food scandals, the government will get directly involved in an overall settlement, pooling compensation on the one side and qualified victims on the other. The companies involved will piss and moan, and then go on about their business, and the victims will bitterly complain about insufficient damages. Mission accomplished, in terms of a harmonious-ish settlement. While this goes on, many of these individual complaints, some of which will be filed in Beijing courts, will be quietly dismissed pending formal action on the settlement fund. (I'm assuming, by the way, that these companies are private. If they are part of the municipal or State government, then that throws a wrench into the litigation analysis of course.) Is that the best possible outcome? Well, I'm biased in favor of tort cases. In addition to being a U.S. lawyer, I grew up in the Ralph Nader age, where public interest lawyers used tort to get bad actor corporations to learn the error of their ways. There are only two ways to do that, you know. First, government can regulate. This doesn't work so well in some places and with certain industries. In the U.S., the government has been "captured" by companies in many industrial sectors, precluding effective enforcement. Second, the tort system can be wielded by individuals in court, given legal standing, as a weapon against misbehaving companies. The business end of that weapon is, of course, punitive damages, which can be high enough to hurt these guys' bottom lines. The U.S. tort system is aggressive and has often been abused. However, that's what judges are for (and an independent judiciary), but that's a long discussion. Suffice it to say that in my opinion, the good has outweighed the bad. The modern American environmental movement, for example, owes a very great deal to the tort system. China also has a tort system, and a fairly new tort law, but we do not have anything here resembling the structure that Ralph Nader used to such great effect. The entire system is different here, including trial procedure and discovery, which precludes the kind of tort litigation for which America has become famous (or infamous). And the goals here are different. With a large-scale problem like some of the food scandals or a natural disaster, the priority is to get some compensation to the victims in an efficient, non-confrontational manner. No fighting, no disharmony, and certainly none of the U.S.-style litigation ugliness, including the siphoning away of a lot of compensation to plaintiffs' attorneys. We don't have punitive damages here, and if companies do bad things, well, that's a problem for prosecutors and administrative enforcement. Will we see the usual settlement fund for the floods? I'd expect that, yes. Will this change the bad behavior of companies like this highway management firm? I doubt it, and I'd rather see a hefty civil complaint that makes them hurt and scares other companies out there. But that isn't going to happen, and at least with a settlement fund, some folks will come away with something. Best possible outcome. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Photo: School children in Hong Kong, by Henrik Berger Jørgensen Posted: 29 Jul 2012 07:18 PM PDT  School children in Hong Kong © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Posted: 29 Jul 2012 06:17 PM PDT Li Songjun [name altered] fondles his earring as he speaks, stopping to think every few words. We have been drinking coffee and tea for nearly three hours now, originally meeting for business with our respective jobs, but have now wandered far into a discussion of Chinese culture. "You know Hanggai?" he refers to a popular Mongolian group. Hanggai is actually from Inner Mongolia, a Chinese province, and has made a career out of their Mongolian minority identity. "Yes, he's quite good." Mr. Li, forty with a clean-shaven head, one pierced ear, and trim in his skin-tight jeans and T-shirt, nods thoughtfully before gushing, "they developed so fast and so well over these past ten years, and it's mostly because of their identity. They get up there and play the Mongolian whistle and beat a drum and throat-sing and people love it. It's because these guys have something to be upset about, something to oppose." He was of course referring to the nebulous force of Chinese ethnic policy (i.e. The Party) and popular Chinese attitudes toward ethnic minorities (i.e. Han people). "But me, I'm Han," he laughs a little pathetically, like an abashed teenage boy, "I've got nothing to oppose." And nothing to believe, I think, but instead say, "Maybe what you have to oppose is just more abstract." He shrugs. "I could have been a great musician if I had such an identity as that — if I had something to be upset about." As he excuses himself for the third cigarette break of our business-meeting-turned-confessional, I start to appreciate the significance of his statement. I have heard Han Chinese people make a lot of remarks about ethnic Chinese minorities, who comprise 8% of China's population. Popular among the perceptions is the belief that the Han Chinese, under Mao's guidance, liberated minority cultures from backwardness. Slave societies, teenage marriages, and the oppression of females was all but obliterated by the moralistic sword of communist justice. And the minorities — many of them terribly ungrateful, as shown by acts of protest over the years — even get extra points added to their college entrance exams, just for being non-Han! These are the standard replies I get from Chinese friends and acquaintances. Most do not have minority friends, especially since China's minorities are not at all concentrated on the wealthy Eastern seaboard. This was the first time I had ever heard a Han Chinese express jealousy of an ethnic minority's identity. There were a lot of factors at work that got him to the point of openly admitting this to another person, as I found out from the post-cigarette continuation of our discussion. "You know, it's not part of Chinese culture to criticize things. When I started to make foreign friends, they were always being so critical, and it made me really uncomfortable. Then I realized that we don't criticize enough in Chinese society. Even with my close friends, it's always about how good this or that is. I'm trying to learn to take criticism, but it always stings." It is somewhat rare for Chinese people to be openly critical about their country in front of a foreigner. I certainly don't try to push the matter, lest I come off as hateful. But there are also some people who, as Tom wrote once, will be more candid with foreigners, using them as a sort of release valve, or secret diary (oh, the irony). Mr. Li, having been abroad to Europe and having made foreign friends over the years (plus an open-minded predisposition) was a likely candidate for confessing cultural insecurity. I appreciated his candidness with me, but I did not at all agree that he had nothing to oppose. He in fact had the same thing to oppose as Hanggai does — a litany of unfair government policies and societal-wide streaks of ignorance. For him, though, the challenges are not so easy to pin down, and certainly less easy to commodify into song and dance. They truly comprise an all-or-nothing struggle, the enormity of which is simply daunting, for which it is easier to use the common Chinese phrase, "there is nothing to be done." Perhaps the Han majority has something to learn, then, from the throat-singing, drum-beating minority. Filed under: Life in China Tagged: Asia, China, Chinese, Chinese culture, Chinese people, Han Chinese, hanggai, Inner Mongolia, Mongolia, Xinjiang   |
| Tenuous Calm After Qidong Pollution Protests Posted: 29 Jul 2012 05:38 PM PDT AFP reports quiet in Qidong amid a heavy police presence following Saturday's violent protests against a planned pipeline.
A reporter for The Asahi Shimbun, Atsushi Okudera, was reportedly beaten by police while covering the protests. The newspaper has complained to the Chinese government, and Japan's Consulate General in nearby Shanghai is investigating the incident. From The Asahi Shimbun:
CHRD's account of how the violence started, if true, may blunt some criticism of the protesters' conduct. Shanghai-based blogger Jian Shuo Wang wrote on Saturday that "we crossed the line, seriously crossed the line […]. Right goal always cannot prove the rightness of process. If we continue to follow the current thinking too far, China may enter into the next terrible violence-ruled circle." Others, though, have suggested that violence is inevitable when other avenues for raising grievances are blocked. From Tsinghua professor Patrick Chovanec, for example:
Peaceful protest did seem to have secured the closure of a controversial chemical plant in Dalian last year. But even Dalian was a sign of a dysfunctional system, Tang Hao wrote soon afterwards at chinadialogue, lamenting the "sinister truth[ that] from officials to activists, everyone is ignoring the rules".
Tang noted, however, that such protests might ultimately lead to "positive interaction and system reform", pointing to Taiwan's environmental and other campaigns of the 1980s. Mark McDonald cited Dalian, Qidong, Shifang and others as possible signs of a developing "Chinese Street" at The New York Times' Rendezvous blog:
Other, offline factors are also at play, Willy Wo-Lap Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong told Bloomberg:
See also CDT's collection of photos and video from the protests and an infographic, translated by Tea Leaf Nation, explaining the protesters' grievances. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Posted: 29 Jul 2012 01:40 PM PDT Saturday's protests in Qidong, Jiangsu, over a proposed pipeline, escalated into violence and riot police were called in. Numerous photographs of the scene have been distributed online by bystanders, which show an immense crowd gathered outside the local city government offices and large numbers of police. Some protesters broke into the offices and were shown on the building rooftop. Violence broke out on both sides, and the photos and video below show protesters being beaten as well as overturned police cars. For more on the protests, see yesterday's CDT post and a post from Tea Leaf Nation.
The following video of Qidong was posted by Boxun News:
See more photos of the unrest via CDT Chinese [zh] (here, here and here), on Cryptome and via the official Global Times. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Translation: One Author’s Plea for a Gentler China Posted: 29 Jul 2012 12:20 PM PDT  Author Murong Xuecun (originally Hao Qun) On Wednesday, July 25, a famous Chinese author and liberal voice with the pen name Murong Xuecun (@慕容雪村) shared a long and heartfelt plea to his countrymen via Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, based on a speech given earlier in Hong Kong. According to Hong Kong University's Weiboscope, which tracks Weibo posts popular with influential users, the text of this speech became the most popular image for July 25, with over 36,000 reposts and 8,000 comments. Just over one day later, the post was deleted by censors. Three Tea Leaf Nation writers have combined to translate Xuecun's ambitious but important piece. Please enjoy. The water in autumn and the unending sky There is one clear advantage to living in mainland China: It's always easy to separate theory and reality. We have some rights in theory, but in reality, they do not exist. Income has increased in theory, but once you get to the market, you'll see that you can't even afford to buy meat. In theory, some people have risen up, but actually, they're still kneeling. In theory, you've moved a few mountains, but you've actually just fallen into a hole. In theory, you're the master of your country, but in actuality, you live in chains. Textbooks describe a society broken down into two classes: The rulers and the ruled. In these times, it's fair to say that officials big and small–over 50 million of them in fact–make up the actual ruling class. Theirs is the highest paying work in the world; the mayor of one town can embezzle tens of millions, while a provincial governor can embezzle hundreds of millions. Even more powerful officials are wealthy beyond imagining. In the past few years, the phrase "the great endeavor" (伟业) has come into use, and this mostly refers to the great work of corruption and embezzlement. The phrase "the state of the nation" (国情) has also been bandied about quite a bit. This is the true state of the nation: We have the world's largest and most corrupt system of bureaucracy–barbaric, wasteful, and immoral without precedent–but it insists that each and every one of us walk the straight and narrow path. Modern China is a strange new world. Every day, tragic and unbelievable things happen, leaving us not knowing whether to laugh or cry. All of those mining disasters, incidences of black lung, infants with kidney stones, train accidents, car accidents, food safety incidents, the forced and violent destruction of homes, cases of corruption and embezzlement, all prisoners of conscience who died from "playing hide-and-seek" or "drinking boiled water," and the rising storm of mass opposition incidents…you can be certain, within the next few years, these kinds of incidents will not only not go away, but they will grow in number and visibility. These incidents are mostly due to one reason, and that is almighty, unruly, unchecked government power. Over the past few years, every time I've gone to Hong Kong, I'll buy a few magazines about politics to see what observations and analyses political observers have to offer about China's future. In my opinion, these analyses and predictions have ignored a very important point, which is that years of living under authoritarian rule and being brainwashed by the educational system have made residents of Mainland China into a special people. These people have not only influenced China's present, but also will undoubtedly influence its future as well. They have made Chinese society barbaric, violent, incredibly unsafe, and they have also made it slow and stupid, unlikely to force a change of the present system of government. Numbness The first kind of [social malady] is a "numb personality." In a totalitarian society, people have already had most of their rights and privileges taken away from them, and any rights remaining are seen as a gracious gift from the rulers. Because of the simple fact of entropy, this state of affairs has become the new normal. Even in cases of extreme violence, the people are not able to protest, they have no way to protest, so they willingly accept this state of misery, this life of toil, this tragic fate. As time passes, they don't even consider whether or not this should be their fate, whether or not it's fair. When their food is robbed they just go hungry; when they're slapped in the face, they just take it; when their homes are destroyed, they just watch it; when their wives are abducted and forced to abort their babies, they just cry. All injustices are seen as inevitable, expected; it would be abnormal only if it were otherwise. People live with heads bowed and eyes glued to the ground, they don't cry out against their fate, they shut up and hide, shut up and clap, shut up and lend a hand. Even when they die, they do it with their mouths shut. All of this shutting up can be traced back to one precondition: they don't dare start something. If it were just one punk you didn't want to start something with, you could just hide, but if what you're facing is a system full of punks, you can't run, you can't hide, and you certainly can't afford to start anything. The only choice you have left is to change it. Becoming numb is often an act of malice and cruelty towards others. If you could quantify empathy, it might sadden you to discover that residents of Mainland China rank very low. In the famous Wang Yue incident, a two-year-old girl died in the middle of the road, and 18 people walked by without helping. These 18 people represent a greater number, a very unkind number of people that will yell at beggars, ignore victims of distant disasters, and even lack empathy for their own relatives. If people are beaten, they'll just stand around and watch. If people are complaining, they'll just coldly mock them. If people say they are going to commit suicide, they'll just say "They want to get famous." I once painted a portrait of one of these kinds of people: If no one speaks up for them, they'll just put up with it. If someone speaks up for them, they'll just watch. If someone is able to secure rights for them, they'll thank fate and say hey, what's mine is mine! If someone isn't able to get their rights for them, they'll pretend like they knew that would happen all along. They'll say, "Why would you waste your time?" If someone speaks up for them and is snatched away by the police, they'll stand to one side, snickering, and say, "Serves you right for trying to stir things up!" In George Orwell's "1984," the protagonist Winston Smith and Julia have one particularly moving conversation. They escaped the ever-present network of spies and met in the Golden Country meadow. At the end of their time there, Winston said to Julia: "Listen. The more men you've had, the more I love you. Do you understand that?" "Yes, perfectly." "I hate purity, I hate goodness. I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones." "Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the bones." We might say this is the late stage of numbness. In this stage, the numb personality has become an antisocial personality. People will hate everything good, and harbor suspicion of all kinds of language and action. They will carry hatred in their bones. In this stage, they are no longer numb, but easily angered, easily provoked to violence. The smallest thing will set them off, and then they will stop at nothing to indiscriminately lash out in revenge. The cruelest part is, the victim of their anger is usually those who are even more unfortunate, even more vulnerable. Lu Xun's Ah Q [a novel from 1920s China] is a prime example: When he's beaten by the mayor, Ah Q doesn't dare strike back, so he goes to hit Wang Hu. When he can't hit him, he goes after Little D. When he can't win in that match, he goes to hit Wu Ma. When he can't match her, he goes after the children in pre-school. This is not simply a joke or fiction, and the increasing number of murdered preschool children in mainland China proves this point. Unreality The second kind of personality can be called "difficulty in accepting reality." A long period of ignorance and brainwashing must by necessity lower the ability to learn of the society as a whole and impair critical thinking. People are unwilling and unable to accept obvious facts, and do not hesitate to defend bold-faced lies. In this light, honesty is not just a moral issue, but also an issue of capacity. In Mainland China, at least half the population still believes Mao Zedong was the "great savior of the people," and that he saved the Chinese people, rescuing them from poverty and suffering. At Mao's Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, people wait in line to pay their respects to his corpse. In taxis and private limos, people hang his picture like some kind of diety, seeking his blessings and protection. Even to this day, many people still feel nostalgic for the Cultural Revolution, believing that it was a time with no corruption, when everyone was equal. Just two months ago, a debate took place on the Internet about the great famine during the Great Leap Forward, and a substantial number of people believed that it had never happened at all, that it was just a story created by a small group of evil people to attack the government. They didn't think it was possible that tens of millions had died of hunger. In order to prove their point, these people raised the following laughable doubts: If that many people died of hunger, then where are the mass graves? If there was really such a disaster, why haven't there been any reports about it in the media? If that many people really died of hunger, why do we still have to have the One Child Policy? My hometown is also really poor, so why haven't I heard of people starving to death? If it's true that so many people died of hunger, then let me ask you, how many people in your family starved to death? Some people say 30 million people starved to death, that's equal to 1/20 of China's population, is that even possible? The most shocking question was: If they didn't have any rice to eat, why didn't they just eat meat? Servility The third type of personality is called the "slave" personality. Like Lu Xun described, China has only had two [alternating] eras: Temporary stable periods during which people are slaves, and periods when people want to be slaves but can't. In ancient times, slaves were loyal to the emperor and the dynasty. Today, most of them do not believe themselves to be slaves, but think they are the masters of their country. They have been taught since they were small to be loyal to the collective group, to the country, and to the Party. The only thing they are not to be loyal, is to themselves. This type of person believes the government is above all else, and anyone who criticizes the government is their enemy. They believe they are patriots, and everything must be somehow "patriotic" to have any meaning at all. Studying is for the good of the country, and so is work, exercise, protecting one's eyesight, even sex. The "national interests" that they speak of are actually mostly the interests of the government, the Party, the small minority of the people. Because of these so-called "national interests," they'll hate whomever the higher-ups tell them to hate. In a normal country, freedom, equality, and human rights are good words, but in the eyes of these slaves, they are all imperialist conspiracies. They support the practice of informing on others and betraying them, even turning in one's own relatives, and are prepared to sacrifice their own lives at any moment. This kind of slave, when subject to a long period of education in hatred, will become strange and easily angered, in its final stage becoming a "violent slave" personality. In the eyes of this type of person, most media in the world is anti-Chinese, all human rights organizations are anti-Chinese forces, all dissidents are filthy traitors and slaves to Western powers. If a Chinese woman marries a foreign man, then it's a national shame; on the other hand, if a Chinese man seeks out a foreign prostitute, then that's just China getting its revenge on everyone else. I've heard–and not just once–"patriotic" angry youth describing their ideals: They want to go to Japan after they get rich to find a Japanese prostitute, and then have their vengeance for a hundred hears of oppression on their bodies, until they are fully sated and she is dead. They openly call for war, and often say that China and Japan, or China and the U.S., will inevitably be at war with each other. The implication behind these lines is clear: Even if you don't come after me, I'm still going to go after you. Some people even openly discuss putting bombs on commercial planes and setting them off on Japanese soil. It is easy to appreciate the viciousness of this kind of thinking. These "patriots" are not so essentially different from the Red Guards of 50 years ago or the Boxer Rebellion of 100 years past. They are just as ignorant, just as furious, just as bloodthirsty and just as unstable. In a normal society, these people would be seen as a danger; but in China, the authorities coddle and fan their anger. It's basically playing with fire. Once the conditions are right, this irrational fire will consume everything in its path. Life in the minefields The fourth type of personally is "minefield personality." For many people, living in China does not make them feel safe. It is as if they are walking in a dangerous minefield. Here, the law is just a fiction, and state power can derail at any time. There is no clear line between the legal and the illegal. Almost every company is cheating on its taxes, and almost everyone does something not completely legal….Take the owner of a small shop for example. In his striving to run his business, the Commerce Department, the Tax Department, the Police Department, the Fire Safety Department, the Health Department… almost every kind of state power can force him to close down his shop. Every time he does not follow the wills of these powers, he faces the possibility of complete disaster for him and his family. Due to this kind of insecurity, most people do not keep long term plans, but rather focus only on instant profits. In government, business, and people's personal lives, we see too many people care only about profits and not a bit about ethics. Government officials horde money into their own pockets and businesses disregard the standards of ethics and law to maximize profits. Once they make enough money, they either transfer their money away or spend it carelessly. These people never think of the consequences that might follow in the future. The origin of this feeling of insecurity makes a group of uneasy people feel even more unsettled. Most people feel a need to rush: While the plane is still moving, people start opening the luggage compartments; while driving on the road, cars jostle for small openings in traffic without any care for safety; while waiting in line, there will be someone who cuts in line and break the rules. Furthermore, this pervasive insecurity has strained relationships among people. Family and friends guard against one another, suspect one another, and even despise one another. The old saying of "if someone is in trouble, help comes from every direction" has become just a fairytale. Instead, our society exemplifies "if someone is in trouble, everyone watches," or "if someone is in trouble, no one helps." Who's at fault? There may be various reasons for all the personalities I mentioned above, but the most importantly, the fault sits squarely with institutional cajoling and instigation. Having been long immersed in slavery training, party-line indoctrination, and coaching in hatred, people have lost their true heart, forgot their conscience, and even thrown out their most important identity: Humanity. "I am a person first, and then I can be everything else. I am myself first, then I can help with society." This is a simple idea. However, it is sad that most people cannot understand it all their lives. As soon as you talk about the "human rights" situation in China, people will pick a fight with you, behaving as if "human rights" are not their rights. All the talk of how China is special, all the rationalizing that China is unique, originate from people forgetting their humanity. This is why there are a lot of weird ideas. Some people will see suffering—regardless of the reason for the suffering—as something that is naturally moral. A few decades ago, countless urban youth were sent to the countryside simply because people thought they needed to suffer. The countless hardships and trials ruined their youths and destroyed their lives. Some of these people, unbelievably, still sing the praises of their oppressors. They say their suffering was well deserved and much appreciated. The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote a novel called "Humiliated and Insulted." We see the humiliated and the insulted in our own lives; they rationalize their own suffering, defend their own suffering and cheer for own their suffering. In China, "sacrifice" is a highly regarded ideal. Few people understand that the word sacrifice originally referred to the animals killed in religious ceremonies. So many songs, so many essays , so many heroic stories encourage people to sacrifice, to become those animals. What to do when the wood from the commune falls into the river? Sacrifice myself to pick it up. What to do when the production team's sheep are lost in the snowstorm? Sacrifice myself to find them. Even today, many people believe in the saying "fear neither hardship nor death." I can barely understand not fearing hardship, but not fearing death is just completely ridiculous. In this time of peace, why would you encourage people to not be afraid of death? What is it to you? I am definitely not talking about something from the past. After flipping through the newspaper, you will see that this absurd era never ended. The legacy from those years has never left us; it is right beside you. Those inhumane ideas and encouragements have never left us. Here, I want to encourage every to learn from Professor Kong Qingdong. He created a famous "Three Mother Rule": if someone asks you to endure hardship, you say "go find your mother;" if someone asks you make a sacrifice, you say "go find your mother;" if someone tell you to turn in your family for the good of the country, you know what to say. Additionally, the government encourages people to embrace the idea of giving. In the past few decades, the Chinese government never stopped asking people to give. Every government official extols the virtues of giving (before they are caught, anyway). The more corrupt these officials are, the more they talk about giving. The truth is, giving and taking always come together. They are two sides of the same coin. Your giving is their taking. If a company asks its employees to selflessly give, all they want is for you to work more, and for them to pay less. If a country asks its citizens to selflessly give, then it is openly taking from them. Someone will ask: Isn't true that we need to selflessly give in a society? A normal society needs selfless behaviors. However, what it needs more is a contract of freedom and equality. There is a sequence to these two rules. Once we have a contract, then they can give selflessly. If there is no contract, then there is no such thing as giving. Government is supposed to work for us, not the other way around We always see on TV or read in the newspapers about people who move into government housing or receive government monetary support. They'll say to the camera, tears in their eyes, "Thank you, government!" We should not be criticizing the people who say things like that, rather we need to criticize the government for accepting the praise. We taxpayers living under your rule are having such a hard life, but you are accepting their gratitude? We now know that the government is not a splendid, wonderful, and perfect deity. The government should be something we elect. Its power should be borrowed from us. To some degree, the government is like our bodyguard or janitor. They take our money, and clean our floors. If a janitor does a good job cleaning the floor, is it necessary to thank the janitor, tears in your eyes? Is that not the janitor's job? I am not looking down on janitors. However, if a janitor is not doing a good job, but instead always asks you to thank him, and even asks you to cherish him unconditionally, then you should ask him: "Can I scream at you?" At least you would tell him to come back after he cleans the floor. In regard to government, the best comment comes from Thomas Paine: "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable evil." We know that every penny that the government spends comes from our wallets. That's why we need to check its account from time to time. If your janitor tells you that he bought a broom for thousands of dollars, then he is embezzling from you. If he takes your money and buys a million-dollar watch, then he is nothing but corrupt. If your cleaner, in the name of cleaning the floor for you, eats in upscale restaurants, drinks expensive Maotai liquor, smokes high-end cigarettes, then you have all the right to think: Would not it be better if someone else is cleaning the floor? The key to success: Deregulation A smart government will accept its own shortcomings and rely on its people's strengths. On the other hand, a government that boasts its omnipotence is usually an incompetent one. It will try to control everything, but it does nothing well. In the last 30 years, they did make some progress, especially with the economy. As a result, many people have been lifted out of poverty. However, if we have to credit the government, it is because of its willingness to deregulate. The history from the past 30 years show that whenever the government keeps a loose grip, the Chinese people can always demonstrate an amazing innovative power. Only a few years after the government deregulated household electronics, Chinese household electronics can now compete with big international brands. At the same time, every sector that the government controls strongly feels dead. Why are movies from China so bad? It is because the government controls the movies. Why are Mandarin TV shows so bad? The government controls the TV. Why are there no modern literary masterpieces? The government controls the culture. Why is Chinese soccer so bad? The answer is the same as to the other questions: The government cannot let go. Why "bad news" isn't bad There are roughly two kinds of government in the world: Those who know shame, and those who do not. Governments that know shame will listen to criticism; even if they don't want to, they will show some degree of humbleness. The latter kind of government, however, will only listen to flattery; worse yet, it will get angry even if your flattery was just a little bit off from what it wanted. Under the rule of this kind of government, "negative news" is usually hidden. Many incidents will be reported over and over again by overseas media, but you will never read about it in Mainland China. In fact, "negative news" is itself a problematic phrase. There's nothing negative about reporting bad news. By exposing atrocious behaviors, results, and traditions, we will be able to alert viewers who can then stay away from them instead of copying these incidents. Our life experience tells us that people can learn more from being informed of "negative news." Watching 30 years of News Broadcast [a daily news program by China Central Television, known for its prescreened material] won't teach you much, other than the fact that one can perfect the art of butchering pigs by studying Mao Zedong Theory. But a simple exposure to the death of 2-year old Wang Yue will teach you what it means to be a responsible parent and what the passers-by should have done. In the last few decades, our history books have muted out too much "negative news," much of which are crimes of the system and violence of the collective. All of this should be seen as the misfortune of our country…If you really want to love your country, then you have to love more than its glory—you have to love its misfortunes too. Don't just love this country's prosperity; you have to love its scars, its sadness, its darkness, and its torment, too. We often divide people into those who belong within the system and those who remain outside of it. In a system that stands against humanity, such as the ones in Nazi Germany and North Korea, people who work for the system usually only have two outcomes. Either they hurt themselves without reaping any benefits, or they benefit a little, but hurt themselves even more. Most people who are sitting here today are good people, but it's possible that some among us are informants and spies too. If you are one of those, then I would like to tell you today that even you are responsible for the future of our country as well. Open advice to government officials: Be decent If your job is to merely approve of documents, issue licenses, fill a form, or catch a thief, then you are not closely related to the crimes of this system—the jobs you do have to be done in order for society to function. But I still hope you understand that your real bosses are the ones who ask you to help them and perform these functions. These are the people who contributed their wages to pay for yours, they are your sustenance, so please be nice to them. Even if you can't greet them with a smile, at least you shouldn't treat them with contempt or anger. You should follow the rules, do your job, and not make things extra difficult for them. If something can be done with little effort, please don't beleaguer them with extra work and make them visit your office over and over again. You have to know this–it's hard for them to keep paying for you. If your job deals with education, propaganda, and ideology, then beware: Your influence reaches much more than one or two people; your influence reaches millions. Over the centuries, and across all societies, human beings have reached a consensus: We should keep our children away from poison. In fact, poisons for the mind, such as lies, fallacies, hatred, and propaganda against humanity, are equally if not much more dangerous than those that harm the body. Even if we can't ban these things, we should at least keep our children away from it. If you are a journalist, then you shouldn't contribute to the making of these poisons; if you are a teacher, then you shouldn't engage in the distribution of these poisons; if you are a scholar, then you should insist on truth and reject fallacies; if you are an author, then you shouldn't invent open-faced lies. These are not your highest callings; rather, they are the most basic demands. If your job is to dismantle other people's house, smash other people's shop stalls, abort other people's babies, and beat those who are unfortunate, then, well, I won't expect you to go to them with an embrace, but I do hope that you can maintain some shreds of conscience. George Orwell, the author, fought in the Spanish War of 1936 as a sniper. One morning, he saw an enemy soldier coming out of his trench. He had no shirts on, and he was using his hands to hold up his pants. Orwell could've shot him easily, but he hesitated for a long time, and gave up eventually. He said: "How can someone whose hands are holding up his pants be a Fascist? How can you shoot someone when his hands are holding up his pants?" This is "Orwell's question", and this is also where we differ from animals—our precious sympathy. Here, I would like to say this to those who work for the demolition teams, interception teams, and urban enforcement teams: I know that you have a responsibility, but I hope you can think about "Orwell's question" occasionally. I know that your supervisors make demands on you, but I still hope that you can cherish the moments when your conscience becomes aware of itself again. Or maybe you have a righteous heart, and you feel like you are fighting for the good side and protecting your country. But even beyond your country, there is a bigger good, and that is the righteousness in our heart. The figure kneeling in front of you is a person too, you know? He has emotions, feelings, parents spouse children and siblings just like you! If you yell at him, he will get scared; if you hit him, he will feel hurt; if you insult him, he will hate you. When you bury one enemy under your feet now, he will grow into two enemies next year. You are just doing a normal job; there's no need to create so many personal enemies for yourself. You can do your job without embracing all this hatred. The importance of a clear heart A real tragedy happened in a jail in Jiangsu Province once—a prison guard was beating up a prisoner for no reason, and the prisoner said: "You are in charge of me, so it's your job to discipline me and give me orders. But the beating that you are giving me now has nothing to do with your job, it's purely between the two of us. I don't have the guts to fight you back now, but remember, you will have to pay for this eventually!" A few years later, the prison guard's child was found hanged in front of the prison. I hate this prisoner's crime just as much as all of you do. However, everyone within the system should learn from this. Hatred is like a knife—if you make it too sharp, it will be turned against you and hurt you too eventually. In a world where power is unrestrained, in a world where laws are powerless, even if you wield an enormous amount of power now, there's no guarantee that you can have any sense of security in the long run. Today, you make him hide from you; tomorrow, you might need to hide from him instead. Today, you block those who want to appeal to law; tomorrow, someone else will block your attempts, too. We already know that those who are blocked are not just ordinary citizens—policemen, judges, officials, and even the head of the Appeals Department can be found among their ranks, too. Someone once asked a wise monk: "What makes a person good?" The monk said: "Mercy and clarity." The person asked again: "What are those?" The monk answered: "They are like the water in autumn and the unending sky." I think what it means to be a good person is to be a modern citizen who values his character and who has a sense of shame. Mercy and clarity are our sympathy and conscience. These two things aren't useful in real life; they won't help you get rich or get promoted, and they definitely won't help you to "do well" in this order-less world. However, they distinguish us from animals. It might not be smart to harbor sympathy for others, but these "stupid people" are even more valued in chaotic times. It is because of these people, who raised the muzzle, moved away from the trigger, and stopped the tank "at the wrong times," that our society managed to maintain its basic humanity and dignity. We live in an age when dust blocks the sky. Politics is dirty, the economy is dirty, and even culture smells like it's rotten. Our heart is supposed to be clear like the water in the autumn and the unending sky, but if we place it in the dust for a long time, then it can't help but getting dirty and frangible. When we mail fragile items at the post station, the staff there will stamp the image of a red glass on the package to show that what's inside is fragile. I hope everyone stamps a red glass on their heart too. It will remind us that this is a heart that needs sympathy and a heart that needs clarity. It is precious, but it is also fragile. We should take care of it every day and keep it free of dust. It should be as clear as the water in autumn, and as clean as the sky.
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| China Eases Restrictions on Foreign Investors Posted: 29 Jul 2012 11:09 AM PDT Despite China's launching of a body to screen foreign investment in Chinese companies, Beijing has now announced it will relax its control over qualified foreign institutional investers (QFII), from Xinhua:
According to the Wall Street Journal, the new regulations are similar to the draft rules issued last month:
As China's economy looks as though it will miss it's 2012 growth target, the CSRC claims foreign investors will be able to make more long-term investments, Reuters reports:
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Hong Kong Protests Patriotism Classes Posted: 29 Jul 2012 11:08 AM PDT Amid fears that the mainland is increasing their involvement in Hong Kong politics, the San Francisco Chronicle reports parents, students, and teachers took to the streets in Hong Kong to protest China's planned curriculum change:
According to the New York Times, protesters have referred to the change as 'brainwashing':
Hong Kong officials have responded to the protests claiming they only used the China booklet as a model, but Hong Kong residents have expressed discontent for its officials. From Reuters UK:
These protests come during a time when anti-Beijing sentiments are high, AFP adds:
Read more about Hong Kong's relationship with the mainland, via CDT. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| China: ‘Violent' Pipeline Protest in Qidong Posted: 29 Jul 2012 07:57 AM PDT On Saturday 28 July 2012, tens of thousand of protesters surrounded the local government building in Qidong city in China's Jiansu province, to protest against the construction of a pipeline, which would channel wastewater from a Japanese owned paper mill into the sea. Some protesters broke into the building compound and in response, a number of public opinion makers from the Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo condemned them for using violence. Similar accusations were also made last month during the Shifang protest against the construction of a molybdenum copper plant, which helped justify the government's crackdown there the following day. Banned from Sina Weibo, Chinese dissidents used Twitter to criticize public opinion leaders for ignoring the political reality in China.  A Twitter user bridged photos from Weibo to show the difference between the scale of violence used by the State and by the Qidong protesters. Li Kaifu, former Google president in China used [zh] the Taiwan 2006 protest experience to deliver his idea of peaceful demonstration via Weibo:
[The courage to stop a loaded arrow] Back in 2006, a million protesters dressed in red surrounded the Chen Shuibian government in Taiwan, the leader Si Mingde insisted that they should not crush into the building and no blood should be shed. He did not romanticize the means [the use of force]. If the protesters took the wrong path, an army of justice would become sinners in history. He said: "An arrow is loaded and is ready to take the shot, it takes more courage and wisdom to unload it then letting it go off." I wish people from Jiansu would see this. In the comments section, many netizens have wisely pointed out the differences between the political systems in Taiwan and mainland China:
布吉-moxie：Mr Li, at least you have to distinguish the difference between the political systems in the two regions, one is democratic, one is authoritative. Could the Jews have negotiated with Hitler? Of course ordinary people don't want to shed blood, but when there is no other way out, they are brave enough to sacrifice themselves for a greater cause.
满怀希望满怀感激：You are wrong. People in mainland Chinese are different from the Taiwanese red shirt protesters. They are under a democratic, orderly system aspiring for justice and clean governance. The Chinese counterparts are under a despotic, authoritative system, struggling for their survival. Why did the Qidong people take to the streets? Pollution [from the pipeline] will affect their lives and their children. You may well say that it is courageous to unload the arrow, because no one is pointing the knife to your neck! Li's comment is echoed [zh] by his colleague Wang Jianshuo, who is a former Microsoft employee in China:
It is heart breaking to see what's going on today. People have crossed the line too far. This is a bad beginning, unlike the Xiamen rally [note: protest in 2006 against the construction of a chemical factory]. People would get addicted to the use of violence. Don't justify your wrongs with others' wrongs. While your cause is right, the means can be wrong. If such rationalisation continues to spread, China will enter a cycle of violence. This YouTube video produced by Boxun uploaded by CleosThoughts looks at the cycle of violence from another the perspective, showing how the police beat up the protestors: Isaac Mao on Twitter points out [zh] that without a mechanism for genuine negotiation, mob behavior is inevitable:
Mobs cannot be controlled. Even the participants could not tell how things happened. So many people were gathered in such a small area, interacting and reacting to one and other. No one can predict the outcome. Unless there is a mechanism for dialogue with the authorities through public assembly and permission for representatives to carry on negotiating with the government. No one can take hold of the situation. The majority of the demonstrators were very peaceful; YouTube user Free More News captured the mass protest on video: Artist-activist is very angry at [zh] how the public intellectuals channelled the discussion:
How does violence start? How is authority established? How is interest distributed? How is the truth covered up? How does the conversation end? How does one lose his/her rights? You don't count these as violence and only when the victims make their desperate cries, then you can see violence. Twitter user @oldwine questions [zh] the integrity of the public opinion leaders via Weibo:
People in Qidong launched a successful ambush. Immediately so many people stepped out to thank the party for being kind and merciful, advocating against the rioters and the use of violence. Now that the Party state is ready to crackdown on the protest, then they would come out and say, the authorities are over-reacting. They are like grass growing on top of the wall, ready to move with the wind. They just want to avoid commenting on the essence of the evil political system and are conspiring to the current situation. Written by Oiwan Lam · comments (0) |
| Sexy Cosplayer banned from ChinaJoy 2012 Posted: 29 Jul 2012 12:02 AM PDT Model Li Ling, who caused a big Internet wave by showing off a breathtaking cosplay of the goddess Athena for an online gaming company, ZQGAME, on the first day of ChinaJoy 2012, is ultimately banned by China's Administration of Press and Publication and ChinaJoy's organizer. According to source close to the China's largest gaming fair, the Administration of Press and Publication and ChinaJoy's organizer have strongly condemned ZQGAME and demanded the company to cancel the contract with the model. Obviously now, the government is determined to crack down on vulgarity in China's digital gaming conventions notorious for scantily dressed showgirls. To avoid the penalty from the organizer that will force the company to leave this year's gaming expo. ZQGAME seems to have broken up with Li Ling. At 18:16 p.m. on July 27, the 22-year-old model tweeted on Sina Weibo (@angel宝贝歪歪), "Today, I was demanded by the organizer to leave the booth, just after I completed the first performance. I was not allowed to take part in the following two days' activities too. It came all of sudden, I don't know how to do the next. I just wanted to do my own job well. Every showgirl works very hard, behind every smiling face is our bitterness. You have to move on, everyone. There are still two days to go. But I have to leave for home early." |
| The Tragicomedy of Errors: China, British Imperialism, and the Opium Wars Posted: 28 Jul 2012 01:20 PM PDT Great Britain has many reasons to feel great about itself. Its empire was the largest in history and covered over a fifth of the world's population. It had more Asian and African colonies than any other European power. It came, it saw, it divided, and it conquered. It raped and it reaped, it gleefully slaughtered millions of people, joyfully massacred entire populations, regularly caused civil wars, flattened countless cities and towns, and destroyed whole civilizations and dynasties with pleasure. It sucked the life out of its colonies and reduced them to what we now call third-world nations. It drew and redrew boundaries and created whole new countries randomly on a whim. Most of the conflicts in the world today can be traced back to British Imperialism - the Kashmir issue and India-Pakistan rivalry, the Sino-Indian border dispute and India-China rivalry, the Tibet issue, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Sudan - the list goes on. Yes - Great Britain had reason to feel greatly proud about itself. It had the largest empire in the world. It had managed to keep it's European competitors in check. There was no known threat to its global dominion. It seemed that Great Britain was destined to rule the world. And then it all came tumbling down. Sometime in the past century, the great Island Story crumbled to pieces, and the empire followed. Slowly but surely, the empire on which "the sun never sets" went out like a cigar puff. Today it finds itself with as much geopolitical influence as an American missile base. Once great, Great Britain is now America's top bitch - a tart that can be ordered to suck America's coattails whenever it is needed. The relationship between the two countries is much like that between a dog and its master, or as it is referred to in public, a "special relationship". Your guilt is worse than my guilt Britain is a sunny place, but acceptance of its imperialist crimes is rather chilled. For example, to this day, Britain refuses to return many of the treasures that it stole from its colonies, such as the Kohinoor diamond, which adorns the British Crown jewels. British government officials today fondly think about the good old days of imperialism. Somewhere deep inside the British consciousness, there still lurks a forced feeling of trying to justify or deflect criticism from its imperialist crimes. One of the best techniques ever devised to do so is to imply that the colonies that the British terrorized and destroyed were somehow deserving of their fate, that they brought it upon themselves - the age-old "blame the victim" strategy. In order to make British imperialism appear less criminal and barbarous than it really was - this white-man's-burden-esque trick has proven to be remarkably effective, and has served to a very large extent to shift attention and criticism away from British bigotry. Hence, Julia Lovell, author of a new book on the first Opium war, quotes the typical anecdotal Indian novelist as saying Indians have "generally been aware that (they've) been responsible for (their) own problems" , thus trying to create the impression that this is the general prevalent opinion among Indians, when in reality it is no such thing. However, since India is decidedly pro-western (in terms of both its history textbooks and its foreign policy) and presents no real threat, such arguments against India are less common. China, on the other hand, is a country that, regardless of whether it is a threat or not, has been decided to be perceived as one by the western establishment and media. The phrase "(Chinese) self-loathing" can be found throughout the book. In the typical Thomas Friedman style of judging an entire country's opinion on the first person one meets outside the airport, she quotes a Beijing taxi driver as saying that China "had it coming". The basic premise of this western strategy has been to say that while the west humiliated China for a hundred years, China was already rotting from within. So what if Britain forced an illegal drug down its throat? The Economist simply calls it "free trade". Defending the indefensible Officially of course, British crimes cannot be denied or justified. Hence, any discussion about such issues appears with a disclaimer or clarification quietly tucked away in a corner. As Humphrey Appleby once famously remarked - A clarification is not to make oneself clear, it is to put oneself in the clear. For example, The Economist's review of Lovell's book - an article that remains one of the most imperialistic, chauvinistic, and sadistic pieces ever written about the Opium war in modern times - contains a sentence, added almost as an afterthought as if doing a favor to China in acknowledging British crimes: "Westerners have good reason to be ashamed of their treatment of China in the 19th century" which is quickly followed by a counter-statement lest the reader read too much into it: "Yet Ms Lovell contends that they administered only the final blows to an empire that was already on the brink." This concept should come as no surprise to regular readers of The Economist, a newspaper that quite enjoys reporting Chinese deaths in incidents that prove the government's incompetence and "wasteful spending", such as its satirical reaction ("Whoops") to the deaths of 40 Chinese in the Wenzhou Train crash. This disclaimer is issued in letter and in spirit by Lovell herself in her book as well as on promotional platforms: "The British national character is portrayed very negatively in Chinese textbooks, which is right and proper. The British are ashamed of our imperial past: the racism, massacres and involvement in the slave trade." Presumably that's why they are still repeating it. In her book she argues that the Opium war is the "founding episode of modern Chinese nationalism" (which is the standard term specifically reserved to describe Chinese people's love for their country i.e. patriotism). Lovell calls the Opium war a "useful episode" in Chinese history - and repeats the much ballyhooed assertion that it is used by the CCP to justify its rule. This "Opium war button" as she calls it, can apparently be pressed by the CCP at any time to "remind the Chinese people that the West has always been full of schemes to undermine China". However, how exactly this curious phenomenon of a government justifying its rule by an incident that occurred 170 years ago occurs is not very clear. Perhaps proponents of this theory assume that a farmer whose land has been forcibly taken away is going to forgive the government because Britain forced China to import Opium 150 years ago. It would make a good story for The Onion: CHINESE FARMER LOVES GOVERNMENT FOR LEAVING HIM HOMELESS BECAUSE BRITAIN HUMILIATED CHINA IN THE OPIUM WARS. The CCP and the Chinese people: The right to tule Many in the west often interpret the relationship between the Chinese people and their government to suit their own purposes - they fluctuate between one of these two interpretations, depending on their current argument: 1. The CCP doesn't really care about people that it rules over and will take policy decisions regardless of what the average Chinese actually feels or desires (such as in the case of the Three Gorges Dam). 2. The CCP deliberately stirs up nationalist passions and panders to them (such as in the case of the South China Sea disputes). Western newspapers and academics often change their colors according to the argument in question. The real justification for CCP rule that it has envisioned - and a justification that is starkly different from India's - is hardly ever discussed. For fanatics of democracy, winning an election is all the justification a government ever needs to rule a country. Two tragedies don't make a right Most Britishers have never heard of the Opium war. Those that have are largely limited to historians and academics. Among them, the simple reality of the Opium wars - that they were a blatant act of aggression by a European power on a defenseless Asian empire - are sidelined, and the only major aspect of the legacy of the war and the following century is just reduced to blind criticism of the CCP and its "patriotic education". The usage of the century of humiliation by the CCP to "justify it's own rule" is used as a smokescreen to deflect a balanced discussion about British atrocities and two-facedness. Julia Lovell, in this well-researched work that has been universally praised in the media, tries desperately to present this much-needed balanced view, and as those numerous praises would have us believe, largely succeeds.
This is again a standard tactic among analysts, who precipitately jump to take refuge in false comparisons. To explain this phenomenon, I propose a Goodwin's law of Chinese historical analogies, which states that, "As a discussion about Chinese history grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Mao's policies or Tiananmen approaches one". Any discussion about Chinese history must necessarily mention about how Chinese textbooks ignore the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, and anything else one can think of. This tendency has now become ubiquitous, whether one is discussing the Nanjing massacre or the Opium wars, even when the two issues being compared have no relation with one another. The Opium wars have nothing to do with the "traumas of communism", but they are still mentioned in one breath. This tactic represents a useful tool in shifting blame towards China in international disputes. Regardless of whatever the other party does and regardless of whatever sufferings China has endured, it is inevitably and unquestionably doomed to criticism and is always in the wrong because it doesn't tell its people about the Great Leap Forward. Any suggestion of western hegemony and genuine attempts to weaken China are sidelined by simply making the one simple statement that China and the Chinese are overly suspicious of the west since the CCP has kept the "humiliations alive" through its "patriotic education". The Tragicomedy in the Opium War Here's part of the description of the book from the back cover:
Yes - believe it or not, Lovell finds something funny in the tragedy. She actually calls the war a "tragicomedy", something that was aptly described by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing as a mixture of emotions in which "seriousness stimulates laughter, and pain pleasure". In other words, Schadenfreude in its purest form. Of course it may be argued that a tragicomedy is simply a literary device, or even a pathway to finally accepting that "laughter is the only response left to man when he is faced with the tragic emptiness and meaninglessness of existence". Very true, humour is indeed something that is the ultimate form of cynicism and anger towards the injustices of this world. But why stop there? Why not call every war a "tragicomedy"? After all, doesn't every war have its share of "bureaucratic fumblings" and "military missteps"? The usage of the term reflects the callous attitude towards the war, and British imperial crimes in general, by westerners (who never had to really face them) and by the British themselves. This indifferent attitude pervades the entire book. It would be unthinkable for a British or western historian to use the epithet to describe, say, World War II or the Holocaust. In fact, just as a mental exercise in parallelism, the entire blurb above can be modified to produce an exact parallel describing the Holocaust, another tragic incident that Israel derives its (and its nuclear weapons') legitimacy and justification from:
One war, two perspectives: China and the West today But Ms. Lovell doesn't stop there. What could have been a unique work about an important historical event is bastardized largely by recourse to two specious tactics: selectively quoting extremist Chinese netizens' reactions on various events to prove a point (this is readily explained by the fact that she writes regularly for The Guardian and The Economist), and by relating the Opium Wars and subsequent events to every aspect of China's current foreign policy. The second transgression in particular represents an acute lack of understanding of modern geopolitics. Towards the end of the book, she ventures into territory clearly outside her milieu - foreign policy and diplomacy. She desperately tries to relate recent events to China's patriotic eduction and suspicion. She argues that "delusion and prejudice have bedevilled (China's) relationship with the modern West." In other words, whenever China refuses to bow down to American hegemony and obey its commands, it is not because America is indeed inherently hegemonic in nature, but because China is unduly suspicious of the west. Hence it transpires that when America and the west try to push through a skewed climate deal at Copenhagen that requires major developing nations to be treated on the same level as developed ones (as though the greenhouse gases that the west has been emitting since 1900 haven't contributed to global warming at all), or when it hypocritically lectures China on human rights, or when it arrogantly pokes its nose in the South China Sea disputes, or when it continues to break promises and sell weapons to Taiwan in the name of a pretend promise to defend it, or when it goes about selling weapons all along China's periphery and increases its military presence in the region to surround China from all sides - China is wrong to feel victimized and targeted - it is simply its paranoia and oversensitivity talking! How can the west do anything wrong when China treats everything the west does as suspicious? Perhaps it doesn't know that the west has always had China's best interests at heart. She even finds parallels between the Copenhagen Climate Change conference and the Opium Wars. Lovell talks about that fateful day in December 2009 (an incident about which climate journalist Mark Lynas famously and publicly flipped his lid) when Wen Jiabao allegedly snubbed world leaders and "insulted Obama". She finds Wen Jiabao's absence from a meeting of World leaders
Lovell, instead of presenting the balanced view that she claims to present, fails to tell her readers that Wen Jiabao was in fact not even informed by the conference organizers of the meeting. Moreover, the fact that India, South Africa, and Brazil also vehemently opposed America is completely omitted. Perhaps those countries too wanted to seek revenge for their respective "humiliations" at the hands of the west. She also mentions the curious case of Akmal Shaikh, the British drug mule sentenced to death in China for carrying 800 times the permissible amount of drugs to China, and, like The Economist, speculates on whether the (irrelevant but useful) fact that he was caught in Xinjiang (which had recently witnessed bloody ethnic riots) might have had an effect on Chinese citizens' reactions to the issue. She extensively quotes media reports saying that Shaikh's family insisted that he was mentally ill, perhaps assuming that a death convict's family would simply come out in the open and say that he deserved to die. A simple open and shut case (even his own lawyers admitted that the evidence against Akmal Shaikh was overwhelming) was converted into something political by the media, and this was excellent fodder for Lovell in her interpretation of justice - that Akmal Shaikh was not given an independent medical examination and subsequently sentenced to death because of the "Opium War button". She fails to explain why a drug smuggler should be given special treatment because he was British. In all fairness however, Julia Lovell's book is indeed more balanced than other western views about the Opium Wars in the west, and about European colonialism in general. The book represents an evolution in the study of the "useful episode" and the century that followed it - from blatant lopsidedness to a more nuanced approach. What she does not - and cannot - understand is that the reason why China thinks that "the west has always been full of schemes to undermine China" is that the west has indeed been full of schemes to undermine China. China might be paranoid about the west, but that is only because the west gives it a lot to be paranoid about. China doth protest too much? The origin and centralization of the entire gamut of Chinese nationalism and geopolitical decisions to a single point in Chinese history is something that particularly suits the west, since it can be a useful tool for deflecting criticism from one's own devious policies. Whenever China takes a decision that suits its own national interest, as any country would, western governments and the media can simply press their own "Opium War buttons" and claim that China is being uncooperative because of its xenophobia. In the closing paragraphs of the book, Lovell asserts,
Portraying China as a pressure cooker about to burst and current Chinese foreign policy as being driven by ancient history is extremely attractive since it portrays the west as an angel - China's benefactor that can do no harm. Any Chinese foreign policy decision can be attacked, and any western decision can be defended - all one has to do is simply hint that China is unduly suspicious of the west due to its own xenophobia and historical bias. Perhaps the Opium War was a useful episode after all.  |
[Armed Police use the campus of the Qidong High School as a base]
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