Blogs » Politics » Blue Devils on the Silk Road

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• Blue Devils on the Silk Road
• In China, Betting It All on a Child in College
• The Economic Impact of a War Between Japan & China
• Stay Undercover in the US, Await the Call from Motherland
• Wire-tapping Wars: The World of Official Espionage
• Photo: Icons, by Michael Steverson
• Striving for Freedom in the Chinese New Year
• China’s “Bio-Google” Hunts for Roots of Genius
• Mongolia: Before the Gold Rush
• With Creativity and Profanity, Chinese Web Users Lambast “Drug Lord” and “Criminal” Kim Jong-Un
• Dam Breach in Shanxi Leads to Flooding, Evacuation
• Some Chinese Souring on Being N. Korea’s Best Friend
• More Sights from Maui, the “Valley Isle”
• On the Importance of Understanding Chinese Thoughts using Chinese Terminologies

Blue Devils on the Silk Road Posted: 17 Feb 2013 08:01 PM PST Ministry of Education Preliminarily Approved Since December 2012. The Duke Chronicle has reported that Duke Kunshan University, a joint venture university between Duke University, Wuhan University, and the city of Kunshan (connected to nearby Suzhou and farther Shanghai by high-speed rail),  has stalled due to communication and funding problems, the fifth delay in three years since Duke made its first agreement with Kunshan authorities in 2010. Although construction had begun by mid-2011 (in 2009, Duke announced the campus would open in Fall 2011), Duke didn't suspect anything was amiss until early 2012 and didn't find out that the developer, Kunshan Science, Technology and Education Park, was hiring unskilled workers and lowballed cost projections, leading to corner-cutting. Now they aim for a Spring 2014 launch. Much of the campus' construction has been plagued by information failings and lost or simply ignored requests. Communication between contractors and designers—sometimes between 40 and 50 different groups—was poorly managed, and there was no Chinese government team specifically charged with managing K-STEP's progress on DKU, said Duke project manager Dudley Willis. Duke committed $5.5 million toward design and construction oversight for the project in 2010. The money pays for several private American-based firms, including Gensler, Syska Hennessy Group, Thornton Tomasetti and Jones Lange Lasalle. The latter firm currently has five on-site people—up from three in earlier years. The firms identified problems but did not have the authority to effect change. Although Duke officials visited the campus every two or three months, there was no representative on the ground in China consistently through the first few years of construction. For all readers who have experience working on projects in China, I'll give you a moment for the déjà vu to pass. Credit where credit is due, though, since Duke is sticking to its guns about not only facilities, but having unrestricted internet on campus. Construction apparently wasn't the only cause of delay, since the Ministry of Education didn't even give DKU preliminary approval until December 2012, and the quickest they expect final approval is the end of 2013, cutting it a bit close for a Spring 2014 first semester. DKU will initially roll out a Master of Management Studies (MMS) from Duke's Fuqua School of Business and a Master of Science in Global Health through the Duke Global Health Institute for mainland students. Duke no doubt expects these top-shelf credentials in business and bio sciences, targeted at élite professional mainlanders, will make the entire operation profitable. It's possible, however, that Duke's biggest battle yet will be with its own faculty, who will submit course recommendations this month. Notice the precious usage of "unique" and "special" here: In planning courses, the committee is on familiar ground in some respects but also will meet unique challenges as a consequence of the campus' location in China, Robisheaux said. The committee will emphasize quality, aiming to make every course offered at DKU similar in difficulty and subject matter to those offered on the Durham campus. The Faculty Committee on Courses is following its usual procedures to approve courses while applying them to the special circumstance of DKU. Two Duke faculty also raised concerns about the project and problems faced by other "Anglo-Saxon universities" (one of them is a German professor) in 2011, when the Duke Chronicle also urged administrators to "get the faculty on board." It's true that elite universities in Beijing and Shanghai enjoy much greater freedom of access to information, online and offline. I don't know if Wuhan, though in the top-tier, has the clout of a Renmin, Peking, or Tsinghua, which boast the highest number of graduates in the 18th Communist Party Central Committee [ZH]. Duke was originally partnered with Shanghai Jiaotong University, which is higher in the lists than Wuhan both in Party bigshot alumni and overall school rankings. Meanwhile, NYU Shanghai's inaugural class of mainland and international undergraduates begins this fall. Their institutional partner is East China Normal University, which ranks way below Jiaotong or Wuhan, but then again the host city government is Shanghai/Pudong, which has a bit more weight to throw at these problems than Kunshan – not to mention that I bet NYU has a thriving MBA alumni program in Shanghai, whereas Duke alums are thin on the ground in Kunshan. Stanford, meanwhile, opened its program on Beijing University's campus last spring. Duke took the hard road choosing to build an entire campus in a location comparatively deprived of wealthy elites – we'll see if it pays off. It'll be interesting to see, particularly with NYU and Duke's mixed student bodies, how they navigate Chinese and American student's differing expectations not only about curriculum, but for dormitories, student services, and off-campus activities. Which group's norms will be the standard?

In China, Betting It All on a Child in College Posted: 17 Feb 2013 05:35 PM PST China's success in massively increasing college attendance has outpaced corresponding shifts in its job market, producing a growing "ant tribe" of un- or underemployed graduates. In the latest part of the New York Times series 'The Education Revolution', Keith Bradsher explains how this raises the stakes for rural parents, some lacking any formal education themselves, who invest everything in an only-child's education in the hope that his or her future earnings will support them in old age. Wu Yiebing has been going down coal shafts practically every workday of his life, wrestling an electric drill for $500 a month in the choking dust of claustrophobic tunnels, with one goal in mind: paying for his daughter's education. His wife, Cao Weiping, toils from dawn to sunset in orchards every day during apple season in May and June. She earns $12 a day tying little plastic bags one at a time around 3,000 young apples on trees, to protect them from insects. The rest of the year she works as a substitute store clerk, earning several dollars a day, all going toward their daughter's education. […] Her parents' sacrifices to educate their daughter explain how the country has managed to leap far ahead of the United States in producing college graduates over the last decade, with eight million Chinese now getting degrees annually from universities and community colleges. But high education costs coincide with slower growth of the Chinese economy and surging unemployment among recent college graduates. Whether young people like Ms. Wu find jobs on graduation that allow them to earn a living, much less support their parents, could test China's ability to maintain rapid economic growth and preserve political and social stability in the years ahead. Reading the whole article is strongly recommended. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Ant Tribe, college entrance exam, college graduate joblessness, college students, education, gaokao, job market, jobs, rural children, rural poor, rural urban divide, unemployment Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The Economic Impact of a War Between Japan & China Posted: 17 Feb 2013 04:26 PM PST One Minute MBA uploaded a video explaining the global economic impact of Sino-Japanese war over the Diaoyu Islands (or Senkaku Islands) if it really happened. Written by Oiwan Lam · comments (0) Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Stay Undercover in the US, Await the Call from Motherland Posted: 17 Feb 2013 10:16 AM PST Former table tennis player and world champion Mr. Zhuang Zedong passed away on Feb 10, 2013 in Beijing. Zhuang was a key figure in the ping-pong diplomacy which began the official ties between China and US. It was an amazing incident that was often dubbed as 'a small ball who pushed around the globe.' As many of those who rode the tide of the Great Cultural Revolution, Zhuang was sacked after Deng Xiaoping took charge of China in 1978. It might be a hint to understand his public demonstration of loyalty to Mao in following years. Actually, Zhuang was deemed an idol by many who shared the same political ideology. In days on his sickbed, Zhuang kept a high spirit, receiving many visits from extended family members, friends, social and cultural celebrities. Zhuang's last words was a remark written on the back of a photo of kids of a close friend of him. It reads: await for the call from motherland while living undercover in the US. Zhuang was also known for his mastership in calligraphy. Seventy-three year-old Zhuang had been a living legend, and a lasting winner transcending career, time, age and political trends. But for him, the call did not come in time. With any luck, it should never do.

Wire-tapping Wars: The World of Official Espionage Posted: 17 Feb 2013 12:00 PM PST Before the Southern Weekly crisis broke out last month, one of the paper's sister publications, the magazine Southern People Weekly, published a scathing exposé on the secret world of spying and backstabbing endemic throughout Chinese officialdom. Aside from revelations about Bo Xilai bugging calls with president Hu Jintao, there has been little available information about surveillance inside the Party. The December article narrates the adventures of Qi Hong, an ex-wire-tapping detective who was so busy debugging the offices of various Chinese officials, he once dismantled 40 hidden wires and cameras in a single week. The piece is no longer available from Southern People Weekly online. CDT's Mengyu Dong has translated the entire article: Wire-tapping with Chinese Characteristics Qi Hong grabbed a handrail on a crowded Beijing subway, exposing a deep scar. Others on the train took notice and immediately moved away. The scar was from 23 years ago. Although he had became used to people's stares after all these years, it nonetheless evoked in him a sense of utter helplessness. He can't explain what happened to other people. Just like countless other life experiences, this story started with ideals but ended with absurdity. Qi Hong, about 185 centimeters tall, always appears very stern and alert when not speaking. But when he does speak, one can feel the intensity of his thoughts. I knew about him through a news report published on the front page of Southern Weekly. In the report, he revealed that Daocheng Company (which claimed to be "the third party between the doctor and patient") bullied their patients, deceived the public, and allegedly committed other illegal acts. "It's not 'revealing'–it's simply telling the truth," Qi Hong corrected me. I spent a few days chatting with Qi Hong in a city in Shandong Province. Much of the content of our conversations cannot be told to you at this time. Right now, I just want to tell you that he dismantled more than 300 pieces of wiretapping and video equipment from the cars, offices and bedrooms of over 100 government officials. This happened in 2011. Wiretapping as Common Practice The man's legs went soft and he collapsed to the floor, speechless for a long time–Qi Hong clearly remembers the reaction of the government official when he dismantled a piece of eavesdropping equipment for the first time. He didn't expect such a reaction. Even more unexpectedly, he started to gain a name for himself among officialdom. Personal connections are like passing permits. One after another, officials approached him, through acquaintances, to have him look for and dismantle eavesdropping equipment and hidden cameras. They found Qi Hong either because they wanted to be on the safe side, or because they had already sensed something unusual–for example, their wives became aware of their secret whereabouts, or their leaders had given away some "hints" in their speeches. During his busiest week, Qi Hong dismantled over 40 eavesdropping wires. This whole amazing experience started at a dinner party, during which an official from Shanxi divulged that "wire-tapping was a common practice among officials." Officials commonly used spying equipment to eavesdrop on each other and gain the upper hand on their rivals in order to ascend from #2 to #1 at the office. "Nowadays, we hug each other when we meet, taking the opportunity to feel around for spying equipment. Important conversations take place in bath houses," the Shanxi official said. This astounded everyone at the dinner party. In the areas around Shandong, this was unheard of. People could just not be trusted, they emphatically sighed. Qi Hong contemplated further. "What consequences will it bring if public servants collect secret info on their colleagues?" He told his friends, "I want to check your security. Let me figure out how to do it. You just wait." A few days later, he found a set of detective equipment. Starting out, he conducted his detective work within his circle of friends. "Focal point" persons were his priority, like this one, a mid-level, high profile cadre that had authority over examination and licensing. "What if my private life is discovered, and my wife doesn't let me back in the house?" this mid-level cadre joked when Qi Hong proposed helping him look for eavesdropping equipment. But he wasn't laughing shortly afterwards, when two wires and one pinhole camera were discovered hidden in the air conditioner in his office. "He gazed straight at the ceiling, and his face immediately turned deathly pale." Two or three hours later, he regained consciousness and told Qi Hong that the apparatuses couldn't have been set up by family. But the mistress was "quite adept at scheming." After calming down, he set about dealing with the situation. Over the course of the following week, he frequently visited and sent gifts to his superiors. Finally, he got the "suggestion" he sought–a certain deputy head was deemed exceedingly competent and was therefore transferred to a more challenging post. He name was suddenly cleared as he ordered his deputy head to leave. Very Worried The spying equipment Qi Hong discovered for his friends was installed by wives, lovers, colleagues, and political rivals. After finding the first 20 or 30 wires and secret cameras, Qi Hong couldn't help but think: When friends get together, they speak their opinions, comment on politics, and express their shared disgust towards corruption. But what is their image like back in their offices? How do they become one of the "corrupted"? Initially, he was curious to understand officialdom in China and pry into a different side of human nature. But as he gradually delved deeper into their private worlds, things became unexpectedly awkward. He mentioned a friend, a bureau-level official, who had always been a decent, eloquent, and insightful man–as he put it, "like a state leader." During one particular chat, this person said, in a rather tongue-in-cheek way, "Why don't you check me out and see if I am a good cadre?" Subsequently, there came a series of turning points. As it turned out, Qi Hong really did find plug-in-style wires in his car. He then saw an extremely distorted face. "Suddenly, it looked like his skin became wrinkled, as if he was radiated by a sudden nuclear explosion." 20 days later, the friend came to Qi Hong and said, sternly, "I admit, I have two mistresses. I will call off the relationships immediately!" But why did he specifically confess to Qi Hong? I think Qi Hong also had this embarrassing question in mind. On other occasions, people exclaimed to him, "Damn it! I didn't take graft!" Others pretended to be calm. But Qi Hong isn't stupid. He immediately thought, "Why are you reacting so slowly, and why is your expression suddenly so dazed?" As for that "decent" friend, Qi Hong only remembers feeling embarrassed as he replied, "This is your personal life. If the mistresses make you feel wonderful or full of passion, you can still continue. You can even forget that you ever had a friend like me." Qi Hong sighed, adding, "That is his freedom," and continued to tell the story of another bureau chief. Unlike the former one, this bureau chief swiftly accepted the result,  asserting that the mistress set up the wire. Afterwards, he decisively called off the relationship with her. "Repulsive." Bringing up this incident once again, the bureau chief still gnashed his teeth. Having heard so much about how many other officials fell due to their affairs, he even started to be suspicious of his mistress's background. "Could she be have been planted at my side by someone? Was anyone using her?" Depression and uneasiness haunted him for a long time. Since the incident with that bureau chief, Qi Hong has witnessed much, much more. Some officials cursed and called people dirty, back-stabbing dogs. Others had heart attacks, worrying day and night… Qi Hong would rush to the hospital and see them laying there, looking pathetic. But Qi Hong couldn't ask questions of his own accord. Neither could he persuade them to act a certain way. Nobody wanted to broach the problem. What about those lucky officials who ended up not being wire-tapped? Were they relieved? No! They were very much worried as well, suspicious day and night–could it be that the equipment used to inspect their offices was not advanced enough? "Should I tell him?" Qi Hong gradually struggled more and more with his conscience as he continued to detect wires and hidden cameras. "If I don't tell them, what paths will they go down in the future? I don't want to see miserable things happen. If I do tell them, seeing so many terrible expressions, people becoming sick or just staying silent, I need to comfort them. But I can't say anything comforting. I can't just say: What did you do? Confess. Donate your assets." Some even eye Qi Hong with suspicion. You offer to test our offices for us… Could you have some ulterior motives yourself? Eh? No Control of One's Destiny Inevitably, "miserable things" happened. A week after Qi Hong discovered one wire, a friend of his (a director at a state-owned capital management office) was detained and interrogated for alleged bribe-taking. According to Qi Hong's description, this director was very principled. He treated others with kindness and hated owing money or favors to people. He was the kind of person who would rush to pay the bill after a meal. Qi Hong proposed to help him inspect his office because "it would have been difficult for him to be in cahoots with evil forces, and he presided over a crucial position. Many forces, including his superiors, found it hard to gain interest through him." At the time, Qi Hong told him, "You have a great tendency to be viewed as a dangerous dissident, a stumbling block for interest groups." With regards to the warning, the director merely restated the importance of "principles." However, in spite of this reaction, when he saw the wire dismantled by Qi Hong from behind the table lamp in his office, he fell silent. "Not rage, but silence," Qi Hong said with an air of thorough understanding of this world–lost, yet indifferent. He thought a great deal about the deeper meaning behind the director's reaction– until he met him again. By then, the director was already in jail. "I only took money once, and got into trouble!" He asserted with anger and resentment that the wire-tapping was a scheme and the bribery a trap. The purpose was to get rid of him! Everything is irreversible. During that meeting at the jail, Qi Hong found out the director was sacked just one week after Qi Hong dismantled the wire. The reason why the director took the bribe, Qi Hong said, was because he could not handle the pressure caused by being in constant discord with his bureau chief. Both those above and below him could "work" smoothly only if he was more in lockstep with the chief. Because of this, the director was regretful–not for taking bribes, but because "it would have been better if I went corrupt much earlier, together with them. In this way, it's hard to say if I would be sacked or not, because everyone would cover for each other," the director said. For a long time, Qi Hong was greatly affected by this. But later, he discovered that this director's situation was no isolated incident. Another upright man in his eyes–the principal of a university–was also wire-tapped. Out of all of these miserable cases, the principal was the only one who kept calm (but Qi Hong suspected that he might just be a good actor). The principal merely chuckled and said, "Who would have done this to me? Is the Party testing me? Or are my colleagues observing me?" "Who was using this stuff on him? What was the purpose? If a man like him is sacked and another group of people ascended to power, what would become of the work unit? If such tactics become commonplace in the professional lives of officials, how will it affect their mentality? Will this restrain them and make them perform better, or just make them slier? If this dark force were to come from officialdom, what consequences will it bring?" Qi Hong didn't get answers to these questions before he found out that wire-tapping and secret filming were not necessarily from rivals or "dark forces." Even if a given group of officials were proverbially all in the same boat, they still had to test each other to ensure the security and stability of their collective interests. "After an apparatus is discovered, the official will immediately check to see if it was installed by the Committee of Discipline Inspection and inform their partners to seek collective security and protection," Qi Hong said. The next official he mentioned reacted in a similar way to most. After the spying equipment for him was discovered, he tried his best to keep calm and analyze the different chains of interest with which he was involved, consulting with all kinds of channels to determine the origin of the threat. "Just like a kid who committed some wrongdoings and is afraid of the consequences, he had to ingratiate himself. He immediately turned modest." After a series of discussions and meticulous investigation, the official involved with this case determined the wire came from colleagues who were taking "preventative measures." This ultimately strengthened their "sense of loyalty" between them and solidified their alliance. "No worries–it was from our own side," the official said when he met again with Qi Hong. By that time, the official's life was back to normal. Qi Hong saw him and his colleagues having a meal together happily. Officials, no matter what, would argue in defense of themselves. Most of them lament that they do not control their own destinies. Qi Hong gave the following rough narrative as an example: "People like me undoubtedly have no serious problems at work. But you know, how could it be possible to not have some minor issues? Nowadays, how could someone be so strict at the workplace? People give you some gifts, then give you a little money for your birthday. Under these circumstances, how could you say 'no' to someone like Comrade Jiao Yulu did? It's impossible. If you do so, it will probably affect your work. All I can say is that it is a kind of necessary socialization, a type of communication. Under the current situation, if you don't conduct yourself in this way, how can you still be able to work?" Responses Most often, officials actively looked for ways to solve their problems. Through witnessing their responses, Qi Hong saw multiple aspects of human nature. Some people ended their underground lives and became more honest in their work; some people became more careful and strengthened their information security; some people requested to install spying equipment as a counterattack on their adversaries; some people realized the importance of forming alliances and sought protection; some people thought to "separate power" in order to strengthen their own troops; some people thought it might be better to find themselves an "agent"… During one meal, Qi Hong heard a bureau chief say, "People are so jealous nowadays, installing wires and secret cameras. Perhaps there are people following me on my way to and from work. When I lay on my bed, perhaps someone is watching over me. How about I just relinquish my power? But you know, I am a bureau chief. It would be impractical for me to resign. It would affect the interest of the group and arrangements made from above. Things aren't that simple. So what should we do? In order to reduce jealousy and attacks from others, I'll divide my power so that nobody hates me anymore." "That would simply be self-disguise," Qi Hong said. Everyone at the table sensed anger in his words. "Without power, how could you still be corrupt?" As he dove deeper into detective work, Qi Hong started to become used to all of this. He established new standards to decide between right and wrong in order to differentiate the good people from the bad. He said, for those "obvious jerks," he would resolutely refuse to help them check for wires. However, he's made mistakes. He once helped an official dismantle a wire inside a car. The person was unwilling to accept the fact he had been eavesdropped. "I'm an excellent member of the Communist Party. There's no way this was set on me, because I never say anything that contradicts Party discipline," he argued. "Are you sure? Don't be so conceited. I bet I can make you stop talking like this." Qi Hong contended. "Are you going to use a wire?" he asked in reply. "I wouldn't use such an elementary measure. I'll record what you say in some private meeting and play it back to you someday. But you must not sue me. Let's sign a deal. Do you dare?" Seeing him roll his eyes and fall into silence, Qi Hong continued. "There are lots of things you don't know. When it comes to this stuff, I know more than you do. It's just like how you know more than I about intra-Party affairs, but you know less than me about other things." Having heard this, the "excellent" official burst into laughter and said he was just joking. Another bureau chief, after seeing a dismantled wire, stated lightheartedly, "That was set by my wife." Qi Hong explained, "He thought he was so popular within his work unit that nobody would spy on him, because he was the one who convinced the whole work unit to become corrupt, and every member of his staff had already gained a lot from it." Qi Hong reminded him that the there were still laws in this country. "In our work unit, I have the final say! What I say is the rule!" In times like this, Qi Hong always feels a quickly-growing sense of utter disgust. Gradually, he totally lost interest in such issues. He once tried so hard for his friends to understand why they were being wire-tapped and secretly filmed. He also hoped to warn officials about this phenomenon before it was too late. But he could wait for those positive results no longer. When someone suggested he should turn this into a career, he chose to step down and gave away all of his detection equipment. "This is such ridiculous phenomenon. I will do this ridiculous work no more. But I'm glad that I've seen all kinds of miserable and terrified reactions from these officials. There's no need to examine them in-depth. Their facial expressions already tell it all," Qi Hong said. Via Southern People Weekly. Translation by Mengyu Dong.   © Little Bluegill for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: official corruption, Southern People Weekly, Southern Weekly, surveillance Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Photo: Icons, by Michael Steverson Posted: 17 Feb 2013 11:39 AM PST Icons © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Michael Steverson Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Striving for Freedom in the Chinese New Year Posted: 17 Feb 2013 11:34 AM PST At The Washington Post, Perry Link and CDT founder Xiao Qiang point out a hollow in Xi Jinping's "China dream", between individuals' material wishes and the "spiritual" goals of the state. What is deliberately missing, they suggest, is the aspiration for personal dignity articulated in January by Southern Weekly's censored New Year message. One might ask why Southern Weekly's notion of dignity cannot simply be inserted into Xi Jinping's China dream. Why should it conflict with either material improvement or national strength? The problem — and Southern Weekly editors wrote the point plainly — is that personal dignity depends on personal rights, and such rights can be secure only under a constitutional system of government. "Constitutional government is the basis for the entire beautiful dream," they wrote. "Only when we have established constitutional government, only when the powers of government have been limited and separated, will citizens be able to voice their criticisms of authority with confidence and be able to live in freedom, in accordance with their inner convictions. Only then will we have a free country and a country that is truly strong . . . . The real 'China dream' is a dream for freedom and constitutional government." […] After officials of the Communist Party's Propaganda Department "revised" the Southern Weekly statement, all of the lines quoted above had been removed and were replaced with words from Xi Jinping's speeches about materialism and state power. It was announced that the editors had made these changes, and the result was published as "Message for 2013: We Are Closer to Our Dream than Ever Before." Propaganda officials' actions sparked popular outrage in Guangdong and online. At the same time, the strong-arm tactics show the weakness of the party's position. China's rulers are well aware that something is missing in their version of the dream. Charter 08 and the original Southern Weekly statement both put "individual dignity" at the dream's center. If it were true, as the regime often maintains, that such ideas are "Western" and stirred up only by "external hostile forces," then there would be no reason to censor them or to jail their proponents. Authorities could simply publish the ideas and then watch the Chinese people inoculate themselves by rejecting them as "un-Chinese." But no one is clearer than China's rulers that this would not be the case. See more on China's constitutionalist movement and Xiao Qiang and Perry Link's previous collaboration on subversively coded online slang, via CDT. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Charter 08, China Dream, constitution, perry link, propaganda department, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013, universal values, Xi Jinping, Xiao Qiang Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China’s “Bio-Google” Hunts for Roots of Genius Posted: 17 Feb 2013 11:25 AM PST At The Wall Street Journal, Gautam Naik details one of Chinese gene-sequencing firm BGI's current projects: a search for the genetic roots of exceptional intelligence, conducted together with Robert Plomin at King's College London. According to Christina Larson's recent profile of the budding "bio-Google", the research would cost $15-20 million in the West, a sum that ethical reservations and uncertain results would likely place beyond reach. "Maybe it will work, maybe it won't," Plomin told Larson, "but BGI is doing it basically for free." "People have chosen to ignore the genetics of intelligence for a long time," said Mr. Zhao, who hopes to publish his team's initial findings this summer. "People believe it's a controversial topic, especially in the West. That's not the case in China," where IQ studies are regarded more as a scientific challenge and therefore are easier to fund. […] But critics worry that genetic data related to IQ could easily be misconstrued—or misused. Research into the science of intelligence has been used in the past "to target particular racial groups or individuals and delegitimize them," said Jeremy Gruber, president of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a watchdog group based in Cambridge, Mass. "I'd be very concerned that the reductionist and deterministic trends that still are very much present in the world of genetics would come to the fore in a project like this." Mr. Zhao is a phenomenon in his own right. In addition to his genetics wizardry, he says his near-fluent English is self-taught. His career as a geneticist began quite humbly—with the cucumber. In 2007, he skipped afternoon classes at his school in Beijing and started an internship at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He cleaned test tubes and did other simple jobs. In return, the graduate students let him borrow genetics textbooks and participate in experiments, including the sequencing of the cucumber genome. Mr. Zhao was 15 years old; when the study of the cucumber genome was published in Nature Genetics in 2009, he was listed as a co-author. BGI's own site shows the range of its other projects, which in 2012 included work on bats, blood parasites, cloned sheep, cotton, goats, gut microbes, hepatitis B, maize, millet, obesity, oysters, pandas, watermelons and yaks. Researchers at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, meanwhile, have isolated the genetic change responsible for some East Asian physical characteristics. From Nicholas Wade at The New York Times: The traits — thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, characteristically identified teeth and smaller breasts — are the result of a gene mutation that occurred about 35,000 years ago, the researchers have concluded. The discovery explains a crucial juncture in the evolution of East Asians. But the method can also be applied to some 400 other sites on the human genome. The DNA changes at these sites, researchers believe, mark the turning points in recent human evolution as the populations on each continent diverged from one another. […] About 93 percent of Han Chinese carry the variant, as do about 70 percent of people in Japan and Thailand, and 60 to 90 percent of American Indians, a population descended from East Asians. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: ethics, gene research, genes, intelligence, medical ethics, pandas, scientific advancement, scientists, yaks Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Mongolia: Before the Gold Rush Posted: 17 Feb 2013 11:21 AM PST China's hunger for raw materials has brought double-digit economic growth to its northern neighbor, the coal and mineral-rich republic of Mongolia. But an anti-Chinese nationalist backlash has arisen in response to the environmental toll of foreign mining and the deeply uneven distribution of its rewards. The Economist's Banyan discusses the rise of Mongolian "resource nationalism": One of the world's fastest-growing economies, Mongolia finds itself at odds with the sources of its new-found wealth: the foreign miners and financiers dazzled by the unfathomable bounty under its vast terrain. Some foreigners fear that populist politicians, pandering to a belief that the nation is selling its birthright too cheaply, may kill the goose before it has laid any golden eggs. Almost certainly not; but "resource nationalism" will surely make life uncomfortable for geese. […] During the campaign [ahead of parliamentary elections last June], a scandal blew up when the foreign-controlled owner of Ovoot Tolgoi, a Mongolian coal mine, wanted to sell it to a Chinese state-owned enterprise. Acutely conscious of their commercial dependence on China, Mongolians are sensitive to any hint of its gaining control over them. A "strategic entities foreign-investment law" was pushed through, tightening approval procedures. Mongolia is far from unique in having such a law, but it was taken as a sign of an incipient backlash. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: coal, minerals, mining, mining industry, mongolia, nationalism, natural resources, raw materials market, resources Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

With Creativity and Profanity, Chinese Web Users Lambast “Drug Lord” and “Criminal” Kim Jong-Un Posted: 17 Feb 2013 11:23 AM PST Images like this one poking fun at Kim Jong-Un briefly saturated the Chinese Web. (Via Weibo) "Wanted: Evildoer, drug lord, arms trafficker, may be wearing ladies' makeup to avoid detection. If you spot him, you should immediately report it to the American FBI." Criminal lawyer Gan Yuanchun's February 12 announcement on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, accompanied by photoshopped images showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un with eyeshadow, lipstick, and various colored wigs, was obviously tongue-in-cheek. But in the aftermath of North Korea's widely panned decision to conduct a third nuclear test last Tuesday, the post was representative of the type of online reaction that would follow throughout the week: bawdy, creative, and utterly disdainful of a northern neighbor that Chinese Web users now appear to view more as a criminal enterprise than as a country. We've seen this movie before Animosity toward North Korea has long simmered among Chinese grassroots Internet users. In May, 2012, North Korea authorities captured a Chinese fishing boat and held the fishermen on it for ransom. As Tea Leaf Nation reported then, it was evident even then that China and North Korea had completely grown apart, with online language painting North Korea as a rogue vassal state and "de facto enemy." Over the past several days, that online anger has intensified in both severity and volume. A recent search for the term "North Korea" found over 39 million recent mentions on Weibo. Meanwhile, images mocking Kim Jong-Un briefly saturated the Chinese blogosphere. One (shown above) satirized Kim as the pudgy lead character of the movie "Up." Another showed a nuclear mushroom cloud in the shape of a middle finger. Online rhetoric was perhaps even more damning. A reporter named Liu Xiangnan asked, "Let's say Korea and the U.S. had another war, which side would you choose? Would you still exhort everyone to cross the Yalu River [separating China and North Korea] to 'resist the Americans, assist the Koreans, defend the nation?'" Some users continued to view the United States as a bigger threat. @胖子冯中杰 took implicit aim at the U.S. by posting a picture of Kim Jong-Un next to one of U.S. President Obama, writing, "How evil is North Korean really? North Korea has invaded…Vietnam…Afghanistan…Iraq…Libya. North Korea bombed the Chinese embassy, struck a Chinese plane, sold arms to Taiwan, helped the Japanese seize the Diaoyu islands, supported every destruction of Chinese power, supported Tibetan independence, supported Xinjiang independence." A clear and present danger? But most commenters seemed to regard North Korea as a clear and present danger to Chinese interests. Many called for an end to North Korean drug trafficking. In a widely-shared post, a lawyer named Chi Susheng wrote, "There are actually some people who still don't admit to the iron-clad fact that the Kim dynasty is making and selling drugs, not to mention those who don't understand the depth of harm that North Korean drugs have had, particularly on China's three northern provinces [of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning]! So many families have been scattered and broken because of this, with many sentenced to death in just the past few years. [Meanwhile] we continue to needlessly send rice to North Korea [while] they send us drugs. Can those who understand the truth please retweet." Another lawyer named Wan Wenzhi wrote, "Kim III has willfully sent 'ice' [a type of amphetamine] into China, harming the northern three provinces. North Korea has already become the third big foreign exporter of drugs into China along with the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent." Others expressed concerns about the environmental fallout of the latest test. In the number one trending tweet the day after the test, sociologist Ma Yong asked, "Why can't China's environmental bureau show a bit of concern, and go to the China-North Korean border to test the pollution situation?" When the Ministry of Environmental Protection stated that the fallout would blow to North Korea's southeast and "does not threaten the health of the Chinese people," users like writer Yu Shenghai skeptically responded that they hoped the Ministry was right, and "should not hide the truth from us just to look good." (Mis)managing the message Indeed, so often happens, Chinese citizens' perception of foreign aggression began to turn back against the Chinese government itself for failing to take sufficient protective or retaliatory action. Many worried China had fallen into a pattern of inaction or even appeasement. One user wrote, "TV told us that North Korea would not have a nuclear test; the result was a detonation. Experts immediately said, North Korea would not have a second test; the result was a detonation. Experts then said right away, North Korea would absolutely not have a third test; the result was that North Korea broadcast its intention to have a third test. Experts opened their mouths to say that even with a test there would be no pollution…I just heard that China was safe, and I quickly began to cry, are these people experts or ravens?" Official efforts to calm citizen ire appear to have misfired. When the vice president of a prominent government-affiliated think tank went on China Central Television to argue that "China has spent a lot of effort to de-nuclearize the Korean peninsula: for example, holding the six-party talks, providing the space for free, providing free coffee and other beverages," the mocked refrain quickly became a viral meme. User @热门头条 posted an image comparing Chinese government responses from 2006, 2009, and 2013, writing, "North Korea conducts its third nuclear test, China issues its third statement; the similarities between the words are 99.99%." @杨锦麟 wrote, "This is the true foreign enemy force, this is the greatest threat to China's national security… A government that really took responsibility for its country and people would absolutely not tolerate this kind of thing happening, it would act preemptively and worry about the [cleanup] later. On this kind of issue, any hesitation is a crime!" Another started a hashtag, "#China needs to wake up." North Korea against the world Some commenters felt that government inaction on North Korea was harmful not only to Chinese people, but to people everywhere. User @直言文化-陋习屌丝团 put it this way: "How does North Korea threaten the world? Answer: 1) It's provided a standard template the world over for how to found a dictatorship, carry out highly repressive internal governance, and limit people's thoughts and freedoms; 2) A spirit of disrespect for agreements, doing as you please, and making a business of drugs, nuclear weapons, and other inhuman things has progressively spread; 3) It's established an illusion of warriors struggling against the U.S., misleading young people into mistakenly [wanting to] participate in international conflict, ultimately leading to a narrow theory that victory is all that matters, regardless of the means." Exasperation with Chinese authorities was not limited to the social web. Liberal columnist Zhao Chu (@赵楚) penned a widely-shared column for the Wall Street Journal's Chinese language site in which he wrote, "It is unbelievable that nations the world over have sat idly by while small neighboring countries walk the road of nuclear armament. North Korea already declared the six-party talks dead back in 2009 when it tested a nuclear weapon, yet China has continued willingly to sit by as it loses control of the peninsula." Others felt that China had already lost control. User @李冰冰 posted a variation of a joke well known among Chinese watchers of their troublesome neighbor, one that suggests that Chinese influence over North Korea is far less than Chinese–or Americans–might hope: North Korea: Big brother, I want to do a nuclear test! China: When? North Korea: Five. China: Five days? North Korea: Four. China: Four days? North Korea: Three. China: Can you just tell us when? North Korea: Two. China: Are you an idiot? North Korea: One. Fire! China: We tried to prevent a North Korean nuclear test up to the very last second!

Dam Breach in Shanxi Leads to Flooding, Evacuation Posted: 17 Feb 2013 10:02 AM PST Chinese state media reports that a dam in Shanxi has collapsed causing the shutdown of a highway. This comes amid criticism of the Shanxi government's cover up of a water contamination incident due to an industrial aniline spill. From The People's Daily Online: The top of an irrigation water duct at the Quting Reservoir in northern China's Shanxi Province has caved in. This led to the partial collapse of its dam walls, causing some flooding, and parts of a national highway to be shut down. Officials say residents near the reservoir have been evacuated. And no casualties have been reported. The Ministry of Water Resources has sent a work team to deal with the flooding. PLA troops and paramilitary police have also been dispatched to help with rescue work.The No.108 national highway is still blocked due to silt on the road surface. According to The South China Morning Post, it is unclear how many residents were affected: Officials said the irrigation duct was built in 1959 and attributed its collapse to its age. A China News Service report said train services through the county had been suspended at Linfen , which administers Hongtong. A video clip circulating on the internet shows hundreds of passengers queuing at Linfen railway station to have their tickets refunded. "The train stopped in Linfen for several hours because of an emergency at a dam in Hongtong. Some passengers have started insulting train conductors," Sina microblogger Yang Jie Zai Long Shang wrote yesterday. Three hours later he wrote: "The train started again and will take another route for passengers travelling to Taiyuan . Other passengers are getting off the train and taking the bus." Xinhua reports reconstruction of the dam has already started: Repair work started Sunday on part of a reservoir dam that collapsed in north China's Shanxi Province, the state-run news service Xinhua reported local authorities as saying. Flooding had forced the relocations of more than 10,000 residents and resulted in the death of one elderly man from Nanyangxie Village, witnesses told the state-run news service Xinhua. By Sunday night, sludge had been cleared, allowing both railway and highway traffic to resume, sources with the emergency communications headquarters said. Some residents have returned home, while others remain in temporary shelters, the state-run news service Xinhua reported the source as saying. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: dam, floods, Shanxi Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Some Chinese Souring on Being N. Korea’s Best Friend Posted: 17 Feb 2013 09:40 AM PST According to Reuters, North Korea has told China that it is prepared to stage one or two more nuclear tests this year. This information emerged after China's condemnation of North Korea's underground nuclear tests. "It's all ready. A fourth and fifth nuclear test and a rocket launch could be conducted soon, possibly this year," the source said, adding that the fourth nuclear test would be much larger than the third, at an equivalent of 10 kilotons of TNT. The tests will be undertaken, the source said, unless Washington holds talks with North Korea and abandons its policy of what Pyongyang sees as attempts at regime change. North Korea worked to ready its nuclear test site, about 100 km (60 miles) from its border withChina, throughout last year, according to commercially available satellite imagery. The images show that it may have already prepared for at least one more test, beyond Tuesday's subterranean explosion. "Based on satellite imagery that showed there were the same activities in two tunnels, they have one tunnel left after the latest test," said Kune Y. Suh, a nuclear engineering professor at Seoul National University in South Korea. Chinese state media outlet Global Times says China needs to find the right way to punish North Korea: Washington, Seoul and Tokyo are anxious to see China change its North Korean policy. Since Pyongyang's nuclear test has damaged China's interests, it's necessary for China to give Pyongyang a certain "punishment." The key problem is what the extent of this punishment should be. Beijing should punish Pyongyang, but should also try to avoid being the focus of North Korean and global public opinion. The reduction in China's assistance to North Korea shouldn't be more prominent than the increase in sanctions by the US, Japan and South Korea. This should be the bottom line for China to participate in international sanctions against North Korea. The Korean Peninsula has remained in a Cold War state. The West tends to perceive the North Korea issue from an ideological perspective, and the US has its own strategic considerations on the peninsula. The nuclear issue has become a time bomb. Both North Korea and the US, Japan and South Korea should take the blame for this. It's unreasonable if Washington, Tokyo and Seoul don't make any changes but demand that China change its attitude toward North Korea. China should stick to being a mediator in the nuclear issue, and not join any side to confront the other. It's possible that tensions on the peninsula will further escalate and a war could break out. China should prepare itself for any extreme situations, which is important for it to safeguard its security and not be held hostage by either side. While China has urged the UN for prudence on North Korea, some Chinese are beginning to sour towards their friendship with Pyongyang. From The New York Times: At home and abroad, China has long been regarded as North Korea's best friend, but at home that sense of fraternity appears to be souring as ordinary people express anxiety about possible fallout from the test last Tuesday. The fact that North Korea detonated the device on a special Chinese holiday did not sit well, either. Among Chinese officials, the mood toward the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has also darkened. The Chinese government is reported by analysts to be wrestling with what to do about a man who, in power for a little more than a year, thumbed his nose at China by ignoring its appeals not to conduct the country's third nuclear test, and who shows no gratitude for China's largess as the main supplier of oil and food. "The public does not want China to be the only friend of an evil regime, and we're not even recognized by North Korea as a friend," said Jin Qiangyi, director of the Center for North and South Korea Studies at Yanbian University in Yanji City. "For the first time the Chinese government has felt the pressure of public opinion not to be too friendly with North Korea." Other experts suggested the test could worsen relations between the North and China and urged China's new leadership to consider taking a tougher stance to curb the North's nuclear weapons program, which appears to be advancing after some early technical difficulties. Despite China's open criticism of North Korea, NKNews.org reports that China's trade with North Korea has reached a record high. CDT previously reported despite the tensions between the two countries due to failed business ventures, North Korea's trade with China has increased: [...] Despite crippling sanctions related to the North's missile and nuclear programs, some of which China has agreed to enforce as a member of the UN Security Council, bilateral trade between the two has increased to a record high of $6.03 billion – twelve times the 2000 total. Much of this growth has been driven by natural resources, with China remaining the North's main source of oil, while the North's primary export to China is minerals, especially iron ore. The North has also begun upgrading its poor information and communication infrastructure, with computer and component imports from China growing an average of 61% per year between 2005 and 2010. However, there is also a significant consumer aspect that cannot be measured because much of it derives from the underground trade in everything from Chinese electronics and clothes to bootleg copies of movies and tv shows. This trade continues to thrive, despite reported border closures and increased security. Still, while some analysts saw the most recent nuclear test as a possible breaking point for the Chinese, initial statements point to continuation rather than reexamination of their approach, at least for the time being. China has continued to expand trade with North Korea largely for strategic reasons, and despite the poor investment climate and provocations, the benefits still outweigh the costs. Some of this is based on geopolitical considerations. The most oft-heard argument is that North Korea acts as a buffer state between China and the US-allied South, but this is perhaps a bit overstated. The simpler geopolitical reason remains that, mercurial and unpredictable as it is, North Korea remains China's only ally in the region, and is not to be discarded easily. As trade of legal goods increase, The Economist reports that illegal items, such as crystal meth, are also crossing the border: Fuel, rice, wheat and basic consumer goods all flow legally, usually by lorry over bridges on the Yalu, into North Korea. Imports from the North include minerals, coal, scrap metal and seafood. There is also a thriving black-market trade both ways, usually by boat. This feeds the growing demand for other non-staple products among the new North Koreannouveaux riches. Border police, especially in the North, are known to take bribes to allow illicit trade to pass. One illegal North Korean export causing social problems is crystal meth, a drug known in China as bingdu, or "ice". If China's government clamps down on official trade with the North to express its displeasure at the nuclear test, the result will only be more smuggling, says a local who has invested in North Korean minerals. Illicit trade brings its own problems. North Korean border guards shot dead three Chinese smugglers in 2010, and tensions remain. Meanwhile, as goods flow into North Korea, people continue to flow out. Some come legally to work in North Korean restaurants in Dandong and will return home. Outwardly they are unswervingly loyal—"China is all right, but North Korea is better," says one—but local Chinese say they are more confident and chatty than before. Many more flee illegally across the river and live in secret in China or try to make it to South Korea, often through a third country. Tesco, a British supermarket chain, has a store in Dandong with a special section offering "Korean food"—mainly imported from South Korea—that an employee says specifically caters to North Koreans. Wealthy tourists from elsewhere in China pay for boat rides on the river or can even book a trip into North Korea itself, perhaps to remind themselves how far China has come. Others buy cigarettes and trinkets labelled as North Korean but, according to locals, actually made in China. There is sympathy for North Koreans, but no-one wants to miss a good business opportunity. © Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: North Korea, North Korea nuclear, North Korea trade, nuclear testing, trade Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

More Sights from Maui, the “Valley Isle” Posted: 17 Feb 2013 02:40 AM PST Following are mostly landscape shots I took today. Even though I came across great materials of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, I have decided to wait until I am able to do additional research before writing a post on him. So, for now, enjoy this set, from Maui, the "Valley Isle." A woman about to take a plunge at Hoopika beach A surfer riding a wave a Hoopika. The northern side of Maui is windy and has big waves. Surfers at Hoopika. Some even wind-surf and boogie board. Hawaiian Sea Turtle swims to shore to rest for the night and to avoid sharks as high tide rolls in. Silhouette of me at Hoopika beach taken right before the next big wave crashes in. Sunset at Kalama beach park in Kihei. Giant taro leaves at Iao Valley, site where Kamehameha 1 had a bloody fight in his conquest to rule all of Hawaii. Sugar cane at Iao Valley. The sugar cane plantation brought many Chinese, Japanese, Filippinoes and other laborers to Hawaii. A river at Iao Valley. Flash flood can occur when excessive rains come pouring. Sunset at Black Rock beach in Kaanapali.

On the Importance of Understanding Chinese Thoughts using Chinese Terminologies Posted: 17 Feb 2013 01:13 AM PST Recently, Zack brought to our attention a great article at Asia Times by Thorsten Pattberg, who is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University. Pattberg dedicated his life to study Chinese philosophy, political thoughts, and culture in their original meanings. He concludes: Western people are curious like all the people of the world. If someone gave them Chinese taxonomies, they would look them up, familiarize with them, and internalize them. They would stop calling a junzi a (British) "gentleman", or a (German) "Edler"; instead they would call a junzi just this: a "junzi". To put "culture" back in a more economic perspective: Nations should compete for their terminologies like they compete for everything else. I was too quick to disagree with the need for China to explicitly compete for her culture and for preserving her ideas in her own taxonomies, assuming a richer China will somehow automatically cause the problem to correct itself.  So, I was really happy today seeing perspectivehere chiming in on this topic and later on Allen giving a good gist on what this means for him. I recommend Pattberg's article linked above in its entirety and of course  perspectivehere's and Allen's remarks below. perspectivehere February 16th, 2013 at 13:21 | #219 Reply | Quote DeWang : One disagreement I have with the article is in China needing to explain and protect her ideas. The way I see it is that once China becomes much richer, the West will naturally want to learn more Chinese. I think what you say is true, but there's more to it than that. Of course, being vacation in lovely Hawaii, it's understandable that you should be outdoors and enjoying the scenery, rather than spending time typing long comments on a blog! So this is not a criticism. But I'd like to suggest some further ideas in this vein. As you note, China being richer is fundamental. This means a larger number of students able to afford study, and able to become scholars and writers and other producers and interpreters of Chinese knowledge able to communicate in English (as well as other non-Chinese languages) and in Chinese. It takes years of personal effort and institutional support to nurture such scholars and talents. A richer and more economically vibrant Chinese society generates opportunities for careers for individuals seeking to tap into this economy. This provides opportunities for not only the population of ethnic Chinese, but also non-ethnic Chinese. Scholars like Professor Pattberg who have devoted years of their lives to Chinese studies play an enormous part in helping people understand the significance of Chinese intellectual and cultural traditions. This doesn't "just happen" as a result of China becoming wealthier – after all, individuals need to choose to study these fields, to find meaning in what they do, and the subject matter needs to be intellectually enriching for them to build a professional scholarly career upon. But of course, the wonderful thing is that the richness of Chinese traditional intellectual culture (including the period in the last 150 years as it has confronted western and modern traditions, as well as the fracturing of Chinese social and political institutions under the onslaught of Western (and Japanese) imperialism) provides so much of interest to the scholar that there is an endless profusion of material on which to generate new ideas and new knowledge for consumption in education, cultural and markets for applied knowledge. One of the areas in which we have seen a proliferation of "Chinese terminology" in English language during the past few decades are terms relating to Chinese martial artsand medicine. The terms "kung fu", "qi", "Tai chi (Taiji)", "yin yang", "tao" (dao) and "feng shui" have become almost commonplace English language concepts. Perhaps someone has already traced how these terms were transmitted and became popular knowledge in English, but I suspect this has been less due to professional academics and more due to widespread attention given to Chinese martial arts movies and above all the influence of Li Xiaolong (Bruce Lee) in the world outside China. It is also due to the influence of dozens of practitioners of Chinese medicine who plied their crafts outside of Mainland China, and taught students (many of whom are not Chinese) who then went on to practice and teach and spread this knowledge to others. One of the great examples of the latter is this book and author: The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine. I haven't actually read this book but I've seen so many references to it as to its importance in transmission of Chinese traditional medicine concepts in English that I thought it worthwhile to mention. I think it is in the fields of applied, practical knowledge such as medicine where people who acquire the knowledge will by necessity need to use concepts that derive from Chinese philosophy, and this means using Chinese terminology. (I should note that, with respect to the reason to use Chinese terminology, it is not because of a particular nationalistic fetish for Chinese words, it is so that concepts can be communicated accurately and with fidelity to the original source documents and historical traditions.) The title of the work is very interesting and I think important to contemplate. The quote below comes from a review of the book in the European Journal of Oriental Medicine: "It is instructive to look back at the original passage from which Ted chose the book's title, written by the renowned biologist and sinophile, Joseph Needham. In Volume 2 of Science and Civilisation in China there is a section which describes the Chinese insights into the inner workings of the world. Needham (as did also Derek Bodde), makes the case for the need to distinguish between the Chinese view of the internal arising of life which has its own implicit natural order and the western view of an external force imposing 'laws of Nature'. Needham writes '..the conception of a net is close to that of a vast pattern. There is a web of relationships throughout the universe, the nodes of which are things and events. Nobody wove it, but if you interfere with its texture, you do so at your peril. In the following pages we shall be able to trace the later developments of this Web woven by no weaver, this Natural Pattern, until we reach, with the Chinese, something approaching a developed philosophy of organism'." I think there is much truth to this view. Traditional Chinese thinking is holistic and integrates natural and social philosophy. A traditional teacher of taijichuan once told me that all of Chinese thinking and practice of martial arts, medicine, health, cuisine is all linked to common ideas and similar concepts. I think this concept of a "web" or "net" that has no weaver is very fundamental (although Chinese themselves probably don't use either of these terms to describe it, but it is a useful non-Chinese concept for explaining it). The author, Professor Ted Kaptchuk, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Harvard-wide Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter (PiPS) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He is also a lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. According to his bio: "As a leading figure in placebo studies, a scholar of East Asian medicine and an academic authority on medical pluralism, Professor Kaptchuk's career has spanned multiple disciplines, drawing upon concepts, research designs and analytical methods from the humanities and basic, clinical and social sciences. In collaboration with his colleagues, Professor Kaptchuk has made significant contributions to the field of placebo studies through his investigations of the impact of placebos in various illnesses, the neurobiology of placebo effects, the experience of patients being treated by placebo, and various psychological, cultural, sociological and philosophical dimensions of placebos. Professor Kaptchuk has written well-regarded histories of placebo controls and the placebo effect, and significant ethical analyses of the use of placebos in clinical practice and research. His laboratory is currently investigating molecular signatures for placebo responses. Professor Kaptchuk entered the field of placebo research after pioneering the study of East Asian medicine in the United States and Europe and establishing himself as a scholar of multiple healing traditions. He is the author of The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine, a classic textbook, and was senior writer and researcher for the 9-hour BBC-TV series The Healing Arts, which documented healing practices around the world. In the 1980s, he directed the pain unit at Boston's Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, a state-run chronic disease facility." ************************ It is interesting to see that Kaptchuk's place within a mainstream medical school is primarily seen from the perspective of "placebo studies". As we know, a placebo is a medical treatment which is seen by mainstream modern medicine as ineffectual, but due to psychological or other factors, nonetheless has clinically significant effects on a patient. Seen from the perspective of modern medicine, Chinese medicine is argued to be effective due to its placebo effects. But the notion of "placebo effect" throws into question notions of how the body and mind function together, and perhaps there is something in the modern medicine's modelling of the human body which is lacking. Some say it is because of the "mind-body dualism" inherent in modern medicine which is faulty, and a more holistic model that integrates the mind and body as one organism would be more accurate. Chinese medicine fulfills these functions. However, in a modern institutionalized medical system, the individualistic style of Chinese medicine has a hard time fitting in. I see an analogy here to the place of Chinese in the world. Chinese themselves are becoming more important in the world and self-aware of their own importance, and yet the mainstream world has been accustomed to fitting China within a particular box which is somewhat delegitimizing, disempowering and belittling. Like Chinese medicine which was often seen as superstitious quackery that will be swept away by the march of modern scientific thinking, yet these traditional practices have survived and flourished in a way that was totally unexpected, and now live on in an uneasy co-existence with the modern western "allopathic medicine." Over time, I think traditional Chinese medicine will further develop and as more people become familiar with it, more of the traditional terminology will continue to enter the English language. This will be true in other fields as well. But it will take people who consciously seek to apply Chinese concepts and thinking, like Pattberg, Kaptchuk and others.   Allen February 16th, 2013 at 22:09 | #220 Reply | Quote @perspectivehere Perhaps we should make this into a post… I like you point about Chinese medicine. I think it's the same with Chinese philosophy, especially political philosophy. It's seen as not legitimate, and when it does have application, it has very narrow one, almost a you got lucky type of thing this one time… A placebo… Going back to language imperialism – it's about narrative and stories that are associated with terms and concepts… the presumptions, the pictures, the fears, the hopes, the ideals, the history, the worldviews that are invoked – that set the norms. Think authoritarianism – the fears of "1984″ … but that's a degenerative form of authoritarianism – not the ideal form. It's been hijacked. Same thing with democracy – the hopes and ideals overrides the double standards, the double speak, the emptiness of the term. Same with freedom… it's rhetoric that masks politics that goes all the way down … And with Chinese terms like junzi, shengren and rendao, etc. They are deemed as so quaint. So useless and irrelevant. It doesn't work. We need people to check all the bastards in gov't. And if you want to aim for good gov't by inovoking shengren, mandates of heaven … you get laughed. Someone here mentioned not long ago that the Chinese system doesn't work, because every few hundred years, you get a bloody revolution. Perhaps that's a part of history, not Chinese system. And who's to say democracies also don't go through that? If inequality continues to widen, if economy shrinks, if the West lose a major war and their status as neo-colonizer, will there really not be revolution ever? We are too quick to judge. Too clouded by current ecosystem of ideas … framed in part by language imperialism – narrative imperialism – concept imperialism – thought imperialism – all possible because we so quickly forget our heritage … we do not have imagination to break out of the conditions we find ourselves … and we all want to join the powerful … want to move "forward."

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