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- Good Bye and Good Luck
- Hexie Farm (蟹农场): No Erroneous Path
- Thousands of Chinese Protest after Traffic Accident
- Photo: 13 Club Beijing, by Azchael
- As President Obama visits Myanmar, China needs to rethink its strategy in Southeast Asia
- Tea Leaf Nation’s New Partnership With Asia Society’s ChinaFile
- How Government 2.0 Is Gaining a Foothold in China
- Censorship Vault: Beijing Internet Instructions Series (11)
- China to Launch Second African Satellite
- ASEAN Calls for Talks With China on Sea Dispute
| Posted: 17 Nov 2012 08:32 PM PST Two greatest patriots, libertarians and idealists of our time stepped down from their podiums last week.  Washington D.C., Nov 14, 2012, Representative Ron Paul delivered his farewell speech to the Congress, in which he asked penetrating questions such as: Why Congress voluntarily bend over to the executive branch? Why alternations of the ruling party does not carry any policy changes? Why big corporations were bailed out in 2008, while middle class left loosing families and jobs? Why so many officials believe in making fortune out of printing money? Why so many people agree government and politicians can provide protection without sacrificing freedom? Why people never realize war destroys wealth and freedom? Why so little attention on the kill list made by the President, even when American citizens have been included in it? How come patriotism equates to loyalty to the government, rather than to the principle of liberty and people?
As a matter of fact, some fans filed a petition on the White House site asking President Obama to respond. The petition has garnered 5,711 signatures in 2 days, 19,289 short of the 25,000 threshold which in theory warrant an official response. Beijing, China, the same day on Nov 14, 2012. The once-a-decade power transition was accomplished 'successfully' with the concluding of the 18th National Convention of Chinese Communist Party. The 'next generation' leaders, represented by Party boss Xi Jinping and future premier Li Keqiang become the top party officials replacing Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. Hu Jintao made a last contribution, maybe the first and real contribution to Chinese political system by not extending his term as the command-in-chief. When Hu visited a Japanese elementary school classroom in 2008, an eight-year old asked him, 'why do you want to be China's President?' Hu replied, 'I don't want to be the president, Chinese people want me to be the President.' Retrospectively thinking, perhaps Hu was indeed being sincere at that moment.  China's true lost was Mr. Wen Jiabao, the only voice for people's liberty and freedom in the 800 million strong political force ruling China. In the past two years, Wen had publicly asked for political reform. Many times he was shut out by propaganda department, and many times he had to take chances to talk about it with foreign news agencies when he was en route visiting other countries. As the top government official, Wen's last ten years, in a sense, is an edition of Ron Paul after winning the presidential campaign. By disguising his true color and blending in among his colleagues, Wen raised to the top of the executive branch in China as the premier. While Ron Paul had been by and large ignored by the Democrats and buried by the Republicans as a Congressman, Premier Wen had been distanced and suppressed by his colleagues in the politburo. For most part of his two terms, Wen was seen as a fire fighter, rushing to every disasters and accidents. Even as an coordinator of rescue and relief, Wen did not have much authority. During the Sichuan Earthquake, PLA officers refused to send it troops to the disaster area. Wen was over heard threatening a top brass in the phone, 'you are fed by the people, use your conscious.' With his limited authority, Wen abolished a long lasting ordinance which allowed police to detain anyone out of his hometown without proper permission. Instead of questions, Wen left with alarming warnings to the ruling communist party. 'Without political reform, there would be no future but peril', and a vow, 'I will push the political reform, until my last breadth.' Wen suffered a blown to his face when New York Times published a lengthy investigation on the wealth controlled by Wen's family and friends. The article showed an astonishing $2.7 billion fortune amassed by his close connections. Although NYT claimed the article was the result of years of journalism, Voice of America as well as a few other western news agencies revealed that shortly after Wen fired a Maoist leader Bo Xilai, all western media in Beijing received packages with same information from mysterious sources. Some of the information presented is difficult to verify, while some turned out as poorly disguised smear campaigns. The author of the author, David Barboza explained he obtained his sources from public inquiry. It may sounds plausible to westerners, but for anyone familiar with Chinese politics, that is nothing but flat lie. Wen responded with a statement from oversea lawyers, the first ever when a top communist officials bring legal system into a political turmoil. Wen also requested a formal investigation on his financial status. "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away", as said by General MacArthur. Nevertheless, the legend of Paul and Wen will keep inspiring people across the globe in the years to come.  |
| Hexie Farm (蟹农场): No Erroneous Path Posted: 18 Nov 2012 11:29 PM PST For his latest contribution to the Hexie Farm CDT series, cartoonist Crazy Crab interprets President Hu Jintao's speech at the 18th Party Congress, in which he stated that "… we have held high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics and rejected both the old and rigid closed-door policy and any attempt to abandon socialism and take an erroneous path." The tank representing "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" heads down the path, at the end of which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is seen falling off a cliff.
Read more about Hexie Farm's CDT series, including a Q&A with the anonymous cartoonist, and see all cartoons so far in the series. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Thousands of Chinese Protest after Traffic Accident Posted: 18 Nov 2012 10:50 PM PST According to reports, a traffic accident during a police chase in Fuan, Fujian, led to a riot by thousands of residents. AP reports:
Photos of the incident are circulating online. These were posted by Zhongguo Molihua Geming (China Jasmine Revolution):
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Photo: 13 Club Beijing, by Azchael Posted: 18 Nov 2012 10:14 PM PST  13 Club Beijing © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| As President Obama visits Myanmar, China needs to rethink its strategy in Southeast Asia Posted: 18 Nov 2012 04:29 PM PST Barack Obama makes a historic visit to Myanmar this morning. On his fourth visit to the region in as many years, he is including stops in Myanmar and Cambodia, marking the first time a sitting US president has traveled to those two countries.* It is a move sure to get China's attention. Myanmar and Cambodia are the two top recipients of regional Chinese aid. China is Myanmar's top trading partner with 39% of total Myanmar exports sent to China, much of it conducted over newly constructed overland routes linking the two countries together. China's economic boom has driven high rates of growth in Southeast Asian states, and China's economic links with SEA will continue to deepen faster than that the US' due to China's proximity and politico-cultural overlaps. US investment in Southeast Asia will never eclipse or even come close to China's. By revisiting its role in SEA, the US has an opportunity to advise and guide democratic and rule-of-law based institution building in regional governments and between regional organizations. Of the five "Indochinese" countries on the SEA peninsula, all but Thailand are transitional states with weak and inchoate institutions. All five have variant and high levels of corruption in government which tend to stunt the high rates of growth emerging from the region. Furthermore, it is only in the last ten years that the SEA nations have made a concerted effort to try to get along with each other. The United States has an opportunity to play a role in the region that helps states mitigate problems and create regional synergy. This is a role that China has been trying to play behind the curtains but is loath to express publicly since it contradicts the driving principles of its own foreign policy: not to meddle in the affairs of other states and not to become hegemonic. The US in its hubris, has never had a problem with these conditions, and Southeast Asia has since the end of the Cold War generally (if not universally) welcomed the US as a benign and constructive force. SEA states are also rightfully concerned over Chinese development aid. Their leaders and constituencies see reports of high-speed railway crashes due to faulty construction and lack of oversight inside China's borders as they look out their windows to see a Chinese construction company building their capital city's airport. Officials in SEA have rising security concerns and expend political capital to put out fires caused by Chinese construction projects that exclusively send resources to China, as shown by the 2011 skirmishes between Kachin rebel forces and the Burmese national army at the Myitsone dam site on the Irawaddy River. Burmese troops died because China's foreign policy does not dictate the projection military or security forces across borders to protect its national interests, projects or own citizens who build those projects. Leaders also see the CCP playing its hand in regional decision making as Cambodia, China's closest client state in the region, forced the collapse of the key ASEAN talks in July 2012. They watch China's dams go online upstream on the Mekong River while fishery depletion downstream in their backyard creates food security issues threatening to alter domestic food production and threatening to disenfranchise large swaths of the poor populations of these countries. With these events in mind and trends playing out, there is no wonder that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is concerned about the completion of a $2.5 bn, 2380 km long natural gas pipeline. Despite the enormous level of income that the pipeline will generate for Myanmar at a critical time of its development, she is concerned about security of her country and meeting the needs of the Burmese people at a basic level first. It wasn't always this bad. Joshua Kurlantzick wrote of China's "charm offensive" with its neighbors in a book of the same name. His chronicle of China's soft power expansion from roughly 1995 to 2006 showed an astute and energetic China needing to positively improve its regional identity in order to quell the fears of it becoming a powerful, temperamental dragon. China also went on a mission to patch up its diplomatic issues to ensure its domestic development needs would be met via ties abroad. It was a charm offensive consisting mostly of extravagant state banquets that made heads of state feel like kings regardless of the distance from Beijing or the size of the country's pocketbook. The decade saw an impressive volume of aid delivered to SEA from China and the Chinese-sponsored funding of infrastructure development projects across borders that positively changed the way the region links up. As a result, the region saw huge jumps in trade growth in general and across borders and China began to send its masses southward to seek out business opportunities. Confucius schools dotted the region as Mandarin became the new hot regional language. Kurlantzick finished his book prior to the 2008 election but he outlined the issues clearly: US foreign policy was distracted with wars in the Middle East and had lost ground on soft power in SEA, China moved in to fill that void, arguing that the US should reconsider its strategy. But now with failing investment projects abroad and a tenuous leadership transition in China plus a mere testing of the waters and an elegant two-step by Obama, it is clear that the tables have turned. China clearly needs to revisit its strategy toward the region. First China should reconsider the bundle of conditions that come with aid and investment – stop saying that investment comes with no strings attached because it never did. These projects simply reward elites in both China and abroad even as the failure rate of Chinese ventures damages China's credibility. In order to save face, the Chinese leadership continues to pump state money into these failed and empty projects that is then channeled into the pockets of Lao and Myanmar officials. In other words, China needs to practice what it preaches by truly treating its neighbors to the south in an egalitarian fashion as its expressed foreign policy ideals dictate. By taking an unrealistic approach to subordinating these countries, China only looks and becomes weaker. China should realize that the incremental returns on state banquets are always diminishing and develop plans with countries south that clearly serve the economic and social needs bilaterally in a win-win fashion. China needs to take on a larger role in multilateral institutions such as ASEAN (likely) and the Mekong River Commission (unlikely). Chinese foreign policy toward its neighbors needs to break the trend of approaching multilateral situations with bilateral solutions because that's not the way the ASEAN community rolls in the new century. China, by making the right strategic choice here, will only strengthen ties with the US who seeks also to increase its leadership role with ASEAN. And to toss in two more simple pieces of advice for China: encourage your diplomats to speak English. Of all the regional meetings I've been to, the Chinese delegations are the only ones that refuse to speak English, instead using exclusively Mandarin even when they are able to speak English and converse directly with their counterparts. Yet Myanmar, the black-sheep-turned-little-darling of the region has its crack delegations muddle through English. Finally as Myanmar opens up, don't get too distracted from a level approach to the region. Maintain and healthily strengthen your commitments to all southern neighbors, especially Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, despite the great sucking sound coming from Burma. The US and Barack Obama should do the same. *Jimmy Carter visited Cambodia in the 2009, and Herbert Hoover owned and managed silver mines in northern Burma 100 years ago.
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| Tea Leaf Nation’s New Partnership With Asia Society’s ChinaFile Posted: 18 Nov 2012 03:28 PM PST Tea Leaf Nation is proud to announce a partnership with ChinaFile, an online magazine intended "to broaden your understanding of China and spark new conversation about its place in the world." Home to a number of respected contributors including Orville Schell and Michael Anti, ChinaFile has formed partnerships with several excellent media outlets including Caixin Online, The New York Review of Books, and ChinaDialogue. We are honored to join them, and highly recommend readers visit an exciting new site destined to become a must-read for China watchers. ChinaFile is a product of the team at the Center for U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. The Asia Society is a leading educational organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among peoples, leaders and institutions of Asia and the United States in a global context. Across the fields of arts, business, culture, education, and policy, the Society provides insight, generates ideas, and promotes collaboration to address present challenges and create a shared future. Founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Asia Society is a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution with headquarters in New York, centers in Hong Kong and Houston, and affiliated offices in Los Angeles, Manila, Mumbai, San Francisco, Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney, and Washington, DC. Over the coming months, readers on this site may notice some fresh Tea Leaf Nation content that results from a collaboration with ChinaFile. Readers at ChinaFile will now begin to see Tea Leaf Nation content on ChinaFile as well. This will not affect Tea Leaf Nation's continuing close collaboration with The Atlantic; in fact, ChinaFile is itself a partner site with The Atlantic, so our mutual ties will only grow stronger. We at Tea Leaf Nation are honored to stand in such fine company.         |
| How Government 2.0 Is Gaining a Foothold in China Posted: 18 Nov 2012 03:04 PM PST  (Shizhao/Wikimedia Commons) At 11:51 AM on July 21, the Weibo (Chinese Twitter) account called "Safe Beijing" (平安北京) advised its three million followers to "take caution outdoors today!" Over the course of the day, the falling rain would grow into the worst rainstorm to hit Beijing in 60 years, eventually killing over 70 people and causing millions of dollars worth of damage. Throughout the storm, Safe Beijing posted thirty more messages detailing road closures, traffic updates, safety information, and news stories. These posts were forwarded on by Safe Beijing's readers, with one post—detailing the heroic actions of a Beijing police officer—forwarded over 5,000 times. Notably, Safe Beijing is not the account of a concerned Beijinger or of a citizen watchdog group. It is instead managed by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau (PSB), the city's primary police force. E-government shows promise in China Conventional wisdom holds that the Chinese government's use of Internet technology most often serves to impede free speech, open society, and progressive thought. Human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have expressed concern that the Chinese government uses Internet technology as a tool for suppression. Less discussed are government programs like Safe Beijing, which seek to increase the use of Internet technology as a tool to promote citizen-state interaction and to increase the availability of social services through what is known as "e-government," which refers to web-based interaction between government officials, citizens, and businesses. While e-government has become standard in the Western world, it is also a valuable tool for developing country governments to become more efficient and responsive. Although China is not among the top 50 in the United Nation's 2012 ranking of national e-government performance—it ranks 78th—Chinese leadership has increasingly encouraged e-government programs, which have outpaced China's economic and demographic peers. In 2012, a UN survey labeled China's e-governmentrance gains "impressive." China's embrace of e-government is particularly interesting because e-government has the power to inform and empower Chinese citizens, yet China currently controls what is almost certainly the world's most sophisticated Internet monitoring apparatus. Some critics would argue that e-government in China is simply another tool for the Chinese Communist Party to keep a close watch on its citizens. But the Party's motives may be less nefarious. "China's long-term and sustainable economic success hinges on government transparency that helps provide a level playing field for both foreign and domestic business," said Mei Gechlik, an e-government expert with the non-profit Good Governance International (at which this author volunteers). As a result, Chinese policy-makers have a real stake in seeing e-government in China succeed on multiple levels. Movement in the right direction Following the lead of the Beijing PSB, a variety of government officials and agencies—including tourism, public health, and even the State Council—have established Weibo accounts both to inform subscribers of relevant developments and to establish a new avenue for interaction. Some officials have even taken to "liveblogging" government conferences, political meetings, and other official events, offering a unique glimpse into the traditionally closed-door world of Chinese policy making. E-government programs are not limited to China's central government. Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, recently embarked on an ambitious e-government initiative, focused on informing citizens and promoting further government interaction. In 2009, Guangdong, partnered with Guangzhou, the central government, and Chinese telecommunication giant China Unicom to establish the Digital Guangdong initiative. The twenty-year plan hopes to establish a robust e-government system, to facilitate information sharing via Internet technology improve the informization of the province, and to encourage local industry to capitalize on government-provided information communication technology tools to improve the provincial economy. Reaching the countryside Chinese e-government may also help address the staggering disparity between rural and urban Chinese. Many commentators argue that the large gaps between rural and urban income, services and infrastructure in China—some of the world's most drastic—can be addressed by closing the "digital divide" between the two regions. Chinese policy-makers appear to agree. Between 2005 and 2010, each "Number 1 Central Document"—an annual policy directive released by the Party's powerful Central Committee—has mentioned the "informization" of rural China as a primary goal. By increasing Internet availability and supporting rural e-government, Chinese leaders hope to quickly improve state administered services in rural China. In 2009, China earmarked 850 billion RMB (about US$136 billion) of recession-driven stimulus spending to upgrade and digitize China's healthcare system. Policy makers have focused on upgrading medical equipment to allow for more sophisticated medical services, and creating a cloud-based network to facilitate information sharing, advanced training techniques, and large-scale data analysis. The Ministry of Education also hopes to use e-government to address problems in rural education. Several state-run programs, including "Connecting Every Class," to provide Internet access to the majority of rural primary schools within the next five years. For e-governance to work, it will have to embrace mobile technology as well. A 2012 study by the China Internet Network Information Center found that the majority of rural Chinese—who often cannot afford a personal computer and may not live near Internet cafes—access the Internet via mobile phone. In 2010, the Ministry of Agriculture began an outreach program aimed at rural farmers that distributes information on weather, drought, and agricultural science via text message. Leaders in Beijing also hope that new e-government programs can increase civic engagement in rural China, in part to mitigate the destabilizing effects of rural unrest and provincial corruption. The obstacles are substantial. Ms. Gechlik holds that, "confronted with such challenges as inadequate human capital and telecommunication infrastructure, rural China's overall e-government development often lags behind that of urban China." The popularity and success of Safe Beijing bodes well for e-government in China. Indeed, urban e-government initiatives have received high amounts of praise by Chinese state-run news outlets—a strong indicator of government favor. The fate of more complex, and perhaps more significant rural e-government initiatives, however, is not yet clear. Regardless, it is apparent that loud voices within Chinese policy circles believe e-government—both urban and rural—is a central component of any successful plan for China's future.     |
| Censorship Vault: Beijing Internet Instructions Series (11) Posted: 18 Nov 2012 01:30 PM PST In partnership with the China Copyright and Media blog, CDT is adding the "Beijing Internet Instructions" series to the Censorship Vault. These directives were originally published on Canyu.org (Participate) and date from 2005 to 2007. According to Canyu, the directives were issued by the Beijing Municipal Network Propaganda Management Office and the State Council Internet management departments and provided to to Canyu by insiders. China Copyright and Media has not verified the source. The translations are by Rogier Creemers of China Copyright and Media.
These translated directives were first posted by Rogier Creemers on China Copyright and Media on November 18, 2012 (here). © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| China to Launch Second African Satellite Posted: 18 Nov 2012 09:31 AM PST After launching a second satellite for Venezuela, Chinese state media reports China is now planning for a launch of a second African satellite. This announcement comes amid recent tensions in Africa surrounding the murder of two Chinese nationals in Nigeria. From the Global Times:
Aside from the satellite itself, AsiaOne reports China will also build the ground control and training facilities for the Democratic Republic of Congo:
Earlier this year, according to Xinhua, China launched its own navigation satellite to serve the Asia Pacific region. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| ASEAN Calls for Talks With China on Sea Dispute Posted: 18 Nov 2012 09:38 AM PST As the tensions between China and other countries over the sovereignty of the South China Sea continues, Reuters reports Southeast Asian leaders want to hold formal talks with China about the South China Sea disputes as soon as possible:
The United States has also played a continued role in the disputes, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit earlier this year had reflected the tensions in the region. President Barack Obama will also visit Cambodia to attend the summit, from AP:
Previously, a consensus on the South China Sea dispute had been elusive, but the head of ASEAN has expressed confidence in progressing towards a code of conduct for the disputed waters, the Wall Street Journal adds:
While ASEAN hopes for a code of conduct for the region, the Voice of America reports China is remaining inflexible on the sea dispute:
Aside from talks about the South China Sea, Southeast Asian nations will also launch talks on establishing a free trade pact with China, Japan, and other neighboring countries, AFP adds:
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
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