Blogs » Politics » My impressions of China so far
Blogs » Politics » My impressions of China so far |
- My impressions of China so far
- 81st Tibetan Self-Immolation Reported
- Black Friday in Red China
- In Brief: Who’s Really Disappearing Reporters
| My impressions of China so far Posted: 24 Nov 2012 02:59 AM PST I have now been living in China for almost 4 month and I'd like to write a little about my impressions so far from personal experience and in talking to the people. As you all know by now, my views on things like the rule of law, human rights and democracy may be quite different from some of yours (see the posts and comments here, here, here, here, here and here for example).
With regard to the rule of law, I see it as the best practical solution for the foreseeable future to secure basic dignity of the vast majority of Chinese citizens despite the ideal of trying to institute society-wide virtue may be a better ultimate solution in the very long-term. I also believe that democracy (at least some versions of democracy) is a good in itself. Many of you have disagreed with these views (though I'm still not completely sure the reasons why) in vigorous debates we have had. The rule of law, which for me, is simply the practice and desire of making law as objective, transparent, reasonable and non biased as possible so as to protect against abuses and misuses by interested parties, has been rejected by some of you but you haven't supplied any feasible alternatives in its place in any of your criticisms. However, my experiences in China so far has confirmed my views quite palpably to me. China does need serious reforms. Not only that but the people are very vocal for these kinds of changes. They demand them. Every single person I have spoken with (and I have spoken with quite a lot so far as I have made it my goal to speak with people about what they thought about their country and government) have serious criticisms and grievances of their country. Granted the people I have spoken with may be different from the average Chinese as I am in the Haidian area of Beijing (where the so-called Chinese Silicon Valley is located) where the average person is probably significantly more educated than the average Chinese but I see no reason to believe that their views are that much different than the folks in the rest of China. There are massive problems with modern Chinese society. The country needs reforms. There is rampant corruption, abuse of power resulting in the poor and regular people's lives being destroyed, and massive income inequality. I see this everyday and hear people talking about it almost daily. There is essentially little to no rule of law. Whoever has money and connections almost always get their way, the evidence be damned. This is widely known in Chinese society. There is wide-spread poverty and despite the growth and improvements, many people even in the large cities such as Beijing live lives substantially below the standards of living in the US. The property prices have roughly doubled in the last 3 years (due to a housing bubble caused by rich investors buying houses not to rent them out but for profiting on the resale) and many people can hardly afford homes. The environmental problems are serious (but from what I hear improving) and the food safety issues are a constant worry for many Chinese. From what I hear from people, they demand changes such as instituting further the rule of law and they demand more rights. Granted their concerns are often not what the western media portrays as what China really needs. They receive quite a bit of personal freedoms of expression, for example and that is not quite their concern. I don't believe there is much concrete difference in this regard with the US nowadays when every criteria of freedom of expression is taken into account. But their quality of life is significantly harmed by a lack of fairness and objectivity in the legal system, a lack of security in financial and health matters, anger over corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, environmental worries, etc. Now I do believe that many of these issues are deep, society-wide problems in which the government has done quite a bit to help out so far. It takes the whole society to be truly civil and modern. For example, take the terrible traffic. It's not that China doesn't have the right laws regarding traffic. It's that drivers and pedestrians are very ignorant and that there are not enough resources in terms of civil engineering, traffic police, and competent legal system to curtail the behaviors (disobeying the rules of the road) that cause traffic jams. It's not that China doesn't have good laws. Even Chen Guangcheng said that China has very progressive laws in protecting workers and the disabled. It's that the other aspects of the rule of law that are not in place. Such things as a well-informed population of their rights and willingness to take action necessary for affirming the institutions of law such as bearing witness and so forth, the lack of competently trained lawyers/judges, standarization of legal or police procedures which causes huge problems for society. As China grows more prosperous and educated, I believe many of these problems will be ameliorated due to those very factors. But I can't help but think that the government can do more in many of these instances such as train lawyers and judges, enforce the laws, make the system more efficient, more transparent and to educated the public on their rights. In fact, during speeches by China's new leaders, they acknowledged many of these problems and have promised to institute many of these measures Chinese people demand. It's not plausible that those who live in the US and travel to China on occasion for vacation only to go back to their homes in the US know more about China than the Chinese people or the Chinese leaders. These are not stupid or western-media-brainwashed people. They are proud Chinese who live and deal with the realities of modern Chinese society everyday. I believe that it's time to take a serious, sincere look at China for what it is both good and bad. We have all done a great job of defending China when it is needed. But we must never forget that China has many weaknesses and if we are true sinophiles, we must also not blind ourselves to the reality and do what is right for China's future. |
| 81st Tibetan Self-Immolation Reported Posted: 24 Nov 2012 02:39 AM PST According to the Dharamshala-based Central Tibetan Administration, an 81st self-immolation protest took place on Friday evening. Xinhua has confirmed the incident.
RFA has published further details of new measures reportedly introduced to deter the protests:
At the BBC, Martin Patience examined the prospects for change under the incoming fifth generation Chinese leadership.
See more on Tibet and the wave of self-immolations at CDT, including news of the 80th and 79th cases, discussion of the challenges involved in verifying reports from the region, and the last words of several of the self-immolators. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Posted: 24 Nov 2012 01:51 AM PST November 11th was Singles Day—in Evan Osnos' words, the "Chinese answer to Black Friday … an orgy of consumption on a level the world has rarely seen". At The New Yorker, Osnos contrasts this festival of middle class prosperity with the recent detention of Beijing-based Twitter user Zhai Xiaobing (@stariver) for a satirical post about the 18th Party Congress.
Yasheng Huang questioned the nature of the link between stability and prosperity in a recent essay at Foreign Policy, featured on CDT earlier this week. "Some analysts believe that the Chinese people tolerate corruption in exchange for fast growth," he wrote. "This is a bit like saying that New Yorkers tolerated Hurricane Sandy. Fast growth maintains a façade of stability not because it has secured tacit complicity from the Chinese people, but because it has funded the instruments of repression." The petition for @stariver can be found here. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| In Brief: Who’s Really Disappearing Reporters Posted: 23 Nov 2012 11:23 AM PST At this point probably everyone is familiar with the "Bijie Boys" and most of you are probably also aware of how that turned out for the reporter who broke the story. The fact that a reporter would be held for reporting a story no one disputes the veracity of should surprise exactly no one, but there is one aspect of this story I'd like to explore a little bit. Now, before I start, I want to say that I love Beijing Cream. I find the site both informative and funny and it has been one of my favorite China blogs for a while now. Moreover, I think every writer there is probably at least familiar with the argument I'm about to make, so I'm really just using the Beijing Cream article as an example here. In fact, I suspect Anthony Tao might actually agree with what I'm about to write, but going into all this was rather outside the scope of his article, so he understandably didn't. Anyway, my point here is that this article shouldn't be taken as a critique of Tao or Beijing Cream in general. That said, this section of Tao's take on the Li Yuanlong's arrest jumped out at me:
While the latter half of this paragraph is undoubtedly true, I do disagree to a certain extent with the first half. On the face of it, of course, it is quite true: I'd bet an awful lot of money that the decision to detain Li was made and executed by local officials who were not in any contact with higher authorities. But I wouldn't say it's really true that higher authorities had nothing to do with it. The central government's inability to control, or perhaps lack of interest in controlling, local governments fosters and facilitates an I-am-king-around-here attitude in local officials, and that inevitably leads to stories like this. Central authorities didn't order the arrest of Li, no, but they have for decades presided over and molded a system that allows local authorities to do things like arrest reporters with minimal consequences, and often no consequences at all. In fact, the system often offers de-facto rewards to local officials who keep their regions quiet by quieting anyone publicizing negative stories, because the officials that get promoted are often the ones who come from the most "stable," "harmonious" districts. Officials have long-since learned that the surest route to apparent "harmony" is threatening, arresting, coercing, and censoring the people who would spread negative stories about their districts — reporters, petitioners, protesters, bloggers, etc. This way, higher authorities don't often have to order the detention of people like Li — they have set the system up in such a way that people like Li can be silenced without anyone in the central government getting their hands dirty. Moreover, if I — some random dude living halfway across the world — am aware that Li Yuanlong has been detained and "vactioned" at this point, certainly the authorities theoretically responsible for overseeing this sort of thing should be aware of this particular case by now. If they disapproved, undoing it shouldn't take more than a phone call — the story could have been killed before I even woke up this morning, probably — and yet something tells me that phone call isn't coming. Even if this case requires a few extra days to work its way through the bureaucracy, I'd be willing to bet it won't; come Monday, I'd bet Li will still be on vacation. (Though I hope I'm wrong; something tells me this "vacation" isn't all that pleasant). (It didn't take the authorities long to respond to this local problem by sacking the creepy official in question. Somehow, though, I doubt that will happen to the men behind Li's detention). I've written about the this-is-a-local-issue argument before, because it's something you hear quite frequently when discussing injustices in China. And while it is, to an extent, true, I think it's also important to elucidate the higher-level indifference and the systemic structures that makes these kind of local injustices possible year in and year out. VN:F [1.9.10_1130] Rating: 10.0/10 (3 votes cast) Tags: Censorship, Injustice  |
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