I am traveling now and will be for nearly the entire month. But let me direct you to a brilliant post by one of my favorite bloggers about a topic all of us are interested in. Xujun, who’s from Chongqing, puts into perspective a complex story in a truly must-read post.

By commenter t_co

In many ways, the world’s most important election is happening out of sight. Even though there’s been plenty of coverage on the upcoming 18th CPC National Congress, the Bo Xilai scandal has risked overshadowing the more meaty and substantive issues at hand. Taken together, these issues sum up the what ought to be the raison d’etre for this Congress: What should the China of 2022 look like, and how can China get there?

1. How will China move past an investment-driven growth model without fumbling the ball like Japan in 1990 or South Korea in 1997? How can China move past an investment-driven growth model when, right now, every single important interest group in China is tied to the construction/real-estate/investment triad? Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Can you teach an old dog new tricks without giving the dog a heart attack?

2. Who will bear the pain of an economic transition? Basically, the accounting losses from failed projects have to end up somewhere–if not on seizure of assets from local governments, then as NPLs on bank balance sheets; if not as NPLs, then as a hidden tax on household wealth in the form of negative real interest rates on household savings. each of these forms of losses has a different rhythm and pitch to it–short, sharp pain and the feeling of “冤枉” (unjust punishment) on a crop of rising cadres if you seize assets; Japan-style stagnation if you keep it all as NPLs; the possibility of household capital flight if you further lower the real rate of return available to China’s household savings pool.

3. How will the government bridge the credibility gap it has with the populace? Right now, China’s government has the dubious distinction of having substantial credibility issues with every segment of the people. farmers have land seizures and government price hikes in fuel and fertilizer; the urban poor have general inflation as well as a lack of social mobility; the middle class worry about corruption, an invisible ceiling in advancement caused by nepotism, and food/product safety; the upper class fears arbitrary forfeiture of assets and becoming pawns in political struggles. More than ever, the upcoming leadership needs to build trust not only within the apparatus but also amongst the people.

4. How will China create sustainable and flexible safety valves for discontent? Right now the only common safety valve available is for Chinese rich people to pack up their assets and move abroad. The other safety valves (petitioning, protesting, rioting, making angry posts on sina weibo) are all either ineffectual, highly risky, or both–and people are aware of that, so they are losing their efficiency as safety valves. And even moving assets abroad is more of a curse than anything, as it means that wealthy Chinese increasingly have no stake in their country’s future.

5. How can China build up an internal “infrastructure of trust”? China has done a wonderful job building up physical infrastructure–roads, railways, ports, airports, a world-class telecom network–but the soft infrastructure is missing. Soft infrastructure, meaning things like universities that aren’t viewed as merely second-rate stepping stones to graduate school abroad; accounting firms and ratings agencies that are impartial and trusted; a capital market that allocates capital based on economic viability rather than political connections; consumer protection agencies that actually do their jobs; a media that seeks truth from facts rather than seeking profit from rumor; etc…. resting on the bedrock of a people that actually trust each other. Something needs to be done to build social faith between people and institutions and people themselves, or else nefarious forces will take advantage of that drought of faith to create trouble like the Taiping Rebellion did in the 19th century.

6. How can China assert itself on the international stage without causing its neighbors to ally against it? From 2010 onwards we saw an increasing amount of Chinese power being displayed both in its near abroad, the Western Pacific, and as part of multilateral forces in Somalia. China now has its own fifth generation stealth fighter, its own aircraft carrier, guided ballistic missiles, and a cyberwarfare capacity second only to the United States. In and of themselves, all of these systems are great for expanding Chinese reach and influence; but if they cause all of China’s neighbors to bandwagon against it, they may end up paradoxically weakening China. more than anything, as China’s power increases, Chinese diplomacy must become even *more* polite to offset it. Also, given that the United States has pretty much declared its intention to remain the regional hegemon of the Western Pacific, and has forged a coalition with Australia, Japan, and South Korea in doing so, China needs to formulate a strategic response. Its current course will take it into direct conflict with 4 other countries with much more combined power.

7. A subquestion of #6 is what to do with North Korea. North Korea is a long-running strategic liability for china: dependent on food and fuel aid while angering every single neighbor it has, constantly risking a collapse and an exodus of refugees and wholesale domination by the South. North Korea’s role as a buffer against South Korea and the US is rather illusory given that South Korea/the US could annihilate the North Korean military within months if they chose to accept the loss of Seoul and Inchon to artillery. On the other hand, a unified Korea would be a great counterweight to Japan, and would remove one of the key reasons for a forward-deployed US military presence in the Western Pacific. Furthermore, contrary to what might be expected, a unified Korea would not necessarily be anti-China, either–consider that even though Germany and Russia have at times been the worst of enemies, after Russia let Germany reunify, the two nations became decent allies with many areas of cooperation ranging from keeping Europe addicted to Russian natural gas to sharing weapons technology to coordinating the anti-US half of EU foreign policy.

8. What is the contingency plan for Chinese stability? what if China experiences mass instability–does the administration have a plan that doesn’t involve international embarrassment or a mass reduction in the credibility of the government?

Note that none of these questions relate to what most speculation has tended to focus on–*who* gets the 9 standing committee seats. In the end it matters little which combination of cadres wins, because every one of the candidates has been nominated for their ability to execute on policy. Therefore any policy that comes out of the congress has a decent chance of being executed to the best of the ability of the Chinese government. What *is* important is the party line and policy that comes out of this meeting (even if that policy is hidden from public view).

The one thing to bear in mind about the resulting party line is that a simple focus on “continuing reform” or “maintaining social harmony and stability” will no longer be enough. A superficial and vague policy that comes out of the 18th congress will be the path of least resistance–but also the worst possible outcome for China. Now is *not* the time for singing songs or pithy slogans or a revival of the ideas of the 1960s or the 1980s. Now *is* the time for an actual vision on what the China of 2022 ought to be, and how to get there.

There has been so much written in the past 48 hours on the unbelievable twists and turns of the Bo Xilai catastrophe that it’s been hard to keep up. At the moment I feel I have little to add to the trainwreck. But my friend Jeremiah has a lot to add and has written a masterful post that manages to wrap it all up in a way that will make you laugh out loud. It’s over at my new favorite China blog, which you should all have on your blogrolls and RSS feeds.

I’ll have a real post up soon. I am finishing my Big Project that I’ll be able to tell all of you about in the early Fall. I am also having some family issues, namely a sick relative who is requiring my near-constant attention. I hate to see no posts on the Duck for 12 days in a row, since in the old days I would put up as many as five posts a day. Please be patient, and sorry to disappoint with my silence.

Should I feel proud that Shaun Rein, in his new book The End of Cheap China, devotes two entire paragraphs to me? A two-bit blogger? Maybe I would feel proud if the two paragraphs weren’t a simple act of revenge. Maybe I would feel proud if Rein didn’t misrepresent the truth about me. Truth was never his strong suit. Let’s take a look at what he says.

The [Chinese] government sometimes overreacts to potential threats of instability. To Americans, especially those with limited knowledge of China, these measures can seem brutish. Critics like Richard Burger, a US-based blogger who lived in China for less than three years and who lasted less than a year working for the government mouthpiece newspaper The Global Times, wrote on June 26, 2011 on his blog The Peking Duck, that the government is “a giant squid, tentacles reaching across the nation to restrict all aspects of life in the land it liberated, silencing opposing voices and existing solely for its own perpetuation. Celebrate away, while people who know real freedom snicker…. and once again [it] has made a laughingstock of itself.”

Undercutting Burger’s claim that the government is a “giant squid,” the non-partisan Washington DC-based think tank Pew Research Center found in 2009 that 86 percent of the Chinese population supports the direction in which the Chinese government the country…. Chinese are generally happy with most measures implemented by the government.

Alright. First we have to consider the fact that the self-proclaimed China marketing guru is actually quoting in his book a guy who runs a blog as a hobby and who has never claimed any great knowledge of China. But if he is right, if I am just “a US-based blogger who lived in China for less than three years,” then why on earth is he quoting me in his book? Think about that. What’s going on here? Rein also left out the opening phrase of the passage he quotes from my blog: “Despite some of the good it has brought to China since opening up, the government…” This puts the sentence in a somewhat different perspective.

To be clear, I have said countless times on this blog that I am not a China expert. I lived in Greater China for about eight years, of which over three years were spent in Beijing. “Less than three years” is simply false. He could have written to me and asked. Then, we have the claim that I “lasted less than a year” at the Global Times. This makes it sound as though I was fired or was incompetent. The truth is, as all my friends know, that I left because of personal family issues, and that I left the paper on very good terms. (I always go back and visit them when I travel to Beijing — there are some very cool people who work there.) I also damaged my relationship with the paper when I blogged about their terrible attacks on Ai Weiwei. I felt I had to do it. Rein has also said on Twitter that I censored articles when I worked there. This too is outrageously false. I have never censored an article in my entire life. It is also a rather droll irony that the censors of the government Rein so admires have seen fit to ban his own book in China. Yes, The End of Cheap China has been banned in China, according to Rein’s own tweets. But that’s another story.

Shaun really loves that 2009 Pew Research poll. In the first post I ever wrote about Rein, I remarked on the appalling suckupishness of his writing and cited as evidence this quote from his infamous Forbes article on Google:

They [China’s leaders] have also seen how 30 years of economic growth brought happiness to the Chinese population. Let’s not forget that the Pew Center has found that 86% of Chinese are happy with the direction the government is taking the country.

Happy happy China. Well, as I’ve often said, many if not most Chinese people do trust their government and the CCP must be given ample credit for lifting all those millions of Chinese from poverty. But Rein, in refuting my comparison to a giant squid, writes, “If government policies were overly harsh surely they would not garner such a high rate of support.” Not true.

I will never state that the Chinese government is like the Nazi Party. It is not. But what I will say is that Nazi Germany is the greatest example of how people can be wildly supportive of their government, even though that government is a giant squid controlling society at all levels. Shaun, just because people say they are happy doesn’t mean their government is not brutal. There are countless episodes throughout history of people who blindly supported their oppressive governments. (My favorite post on this blog is all about this phenomenon.) The Chinese are “happy” with their government to the extent that they can make money and enjoy certain social freedoms. Once the economy sours, as it may well do at some point in the future, those poll numbers will be quite different. Meanwhile, there is no denying that the CCP does indeed operate as a giant squid, controlling all aspects of life in China. Sure, there are more freedoms there than ever before, but it is always on the government’s terms. You can always only go so far; there are red lines you cannot cross or the squid tightens its grip.

I took down a post I wrote about Shaun a couple of months ago because I felt it was too harsh, written in a moment of emotional pique. Now I sort of wish I’d left it up. You see, we all know Shaun Rein didn’t include me in his book because he thinks I am some great influencer with whom he disagrees. I’m just a blogger with a blog that I hardly even update anymore. No, this is revenge, pure and simple, for my having made a fool of him by quoting his own words and revealing his pattern of carrying water for the CCP. If you aren’t familiar with my coverage of Rein you can find the posts here, here and here. I am not alone in calling Rein out as a blatant apologist. China Law Blog, Modern Lei Feng, Fear of a Red Planet, China Geeks and others have all made similar arguments.

So back to the post I took down. It was about Rein’s need for revenge. My friend Lisa had written a comment critical of him in this thread. He immediately blocked her on Twitter, as he blocks anyone who doesn’t kiss his ring, and then he went to Goodreads and gave her highly praised novel, Rock Paper Tiger one star — the lowest rating there is. (The book got stellar reviews in the NY Times, the South China Morning Post, Time Out Beijing and many other media, and James Fallows of the Atlantic wrote a glowing post about it.) But here’s the thing: I will bet you my life savings that Rein never read the book. What a coincidence, that the day after his being offended and blocking Lisa on Twitter he went and tried to pull her book down in the Goodreads rankings. Did he read the entire book right after he read Lisa’s comment? Did he really find it so awful he gave it the lowest rating? No, this action, just like his attack on me in his book, is Rein getting even.

I should feel in good company, as Rein also goes after James Fallows, Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini, though not with nearly the same degree of viciousness he reserves for me. Once again, he proves my initial impression of him was correct: that he is deeply insecure and a serial falsifier of fact.

I had vowed not to post about Shaun Rein anymore, as I thought I had said it all. And then I discover this act of personal character assassination, this smear, and I can’t be silent about that. Rein’s book may become a bestseller but that won’t make him any less of a brat and a hatchet man.

The best and the brightest of China’s bloggers come together to make this the funniest, smartest China blog, maybe ever. Go there now and keep scrolling. I found this post and this post especially hilarious.

This blog emerged when I was away on a ship in the Caribbean last week or I’d have blogged about it earlier. A masterpiece.

Du Guang is a good party member, a retired professor from the Central Party School, an 83-year-old man with a serious heart condition. And his book on the CCP and how it has deviated from its original charter has so frightened the party that they called its Hong Kong publisher and warned him not to publish it. Bao Pu, the founder of the publishing house, New Century Press, which also published Zhao Ziyang’s memoirs, saw the call as consistent with the CCP’s obsession with “internal security.”

[T]here is no telling what will stir anger these days in a country that is increasingly prosperous and powerful but also curiously insecure — so much so that China spends more on internal security than on defense and views as a threat an octogenarian authority on Marxism and believer in democracy….

“This is what happens if you give unlimited power to the security apparatus,” Bao said, echoing a widespread view that the party, though the architect of China’s spectacular economic renaissance, is in thrall to retrograde security organs that see flickerings of subversion in every corner.

Du is not your average thorn in the CCP’s side. He is a life-long communist who now accuses the National People’s Congress of being “nothing more than a democratic signboard for a one-party dictatorship.”

Unlike student protesters who enraged the party by erecting a statue modeled on New York’s Statue of Liberty in Tiananmen Square in 1989 or the jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo who championed Western liberties and mocked party dogma, Du is a party member who takes Chinese communism seriously. In some ways, though, that makes him especially troublesome.

His book, an advance copy of which has been reviewed by The Washington Post, doesn’t ridicule the party or call for its overthrow but dissects its theoretical gobbledygook and traces how far it has drifted from its early ideals. The book’s title: “Getting Back to Democracy.”

It’s funny (bizarre) to see the government of the world’s up and coming superpower get twisted into knots over the writings of a sick octogenarian. As China appears to be reforming in so many ways, as Chinese people find new methods to speak out and demand change, as China solidifies its position as a force to be reckoned with, how can they let an old man with a heart condition scare the crap out of them? This is a rhetorical question, as I think we all know the answer. The CCP for all its bluster is as insecure as a frightened child.

Needless to say, the censors have been going into overdrive to delete his writings on the Internet, causing him to post on his blog, “The strangling of free speech is not possible. It only . . . makes you lose face before the whole world.” The post, of course, was deleted, but has been re-posted on other sites by angry Netizens.

Update: Looking at this post a few days later, I found it a bit too self-righteous and outspoken, and edited it accordingly.

I saw a few stories on China today that are thread-worthy and wanted to share.

First of all, this is a story on how China is giving the one-child policy a facelift — not changing the policy itself, but softening its sloganeering. The story made my eyes pop out when I read this:

People’s Daily cites several examples of “harsh slogans,” including those “which sometimes even threaten criminal acts.” The newly instituted program, slugged the “face-washing project,” will offer more proactive slogans to help enforce the policy, which has been in place since 1979. China claims the policy, which applies to those living in urban areas, affects approximately 35.9 percent of the population and has resulted in an estimated 400 million fewer births since first being implemented.

Some examples of the more offensive slogans currently in use include:

“If you don’t receive the tubal ligation surgery by the deadline, your house will be demolished!”

“We would rather scrape your womb than allow you to have a second child!”

“Kill all your family members if you don’t follow the rule!”

And…

“Once you get captured, an immediate tubal ligation will be done; Should you escape, we’ll hunt you down; If you attempt a suicide, we’ll offer you either the rope or a bottle of poison.”

The new less offensive slogans replacing the more callous ones will reportedly seek to “avoid offending the public and stoking social tensions.”

I want to ask my friends in China, is this for real? Is this an example of extreme Western media bias and ignorance, or do these sickening slogans actually exist??

[Update: CDT offers a source. Reliable?]

Next, there’s an interesting blog post on whether or not China is ready for democracy. Yes, we all know this is a tired subject, but this post is quite thoughtful and knowledgeable. I have never said I believed China was ready for democracy, but I do believe it’s ready to become more democratic, to give it’s people better representation (as opposed to giving them Western-style democracy). The post is well worth a read. The government’s position for decades is that the people aren’t ready. Will there ever be a time when they are? Excerpt from the blog post:

As popular blogger Han Han argued at the start of the year, China isn’t ready for democracy, because the people aren’t capable of making their own good decisions (Charlie Custer, from ChinaGeeks.org, wrote an excellent post exploring this particular issue). This idea has been put forth time and again by Party sympathizers, that simply the character of the average laobaixing is too low to make these kinds of decisions (Similar arguments were made in the US around the turn of the century in relation to voting rights for minorities and women).

The part of this argument that I find the most sickening, is that many Chinese are poorly educated and are therefore ill-equipped for democracy. But who is responsible for the current state of China’s educational system? The very people who would lose the most in a democracy.

Given this, it is also worth noting that China’s current system seems incapable of promoting people worthy of public service. With rampant corruption leading to weekly scandals that effect the lives of the laobaixing, what evidence is there that democracy would make things worse? Are farmers really more likely to vote for candidates that can’t protect their land rights? Would urbanites put up with officials that approve the construction of heavily polluting factories that send their children to the hospital?

In fact, the results of low-level elections have already achieved encouraging results in the countryside. As John Kennedy noted in a 2001 study, village elections result in leaders that are more accountable to the villagers, and results in more equitable land distribution (cited in this 2009 paper by Kevin O’brien and Rongbin Han which is worth reading). The problem is that elected village leaders are still dominated by local Party secretaries in a way that minimizes the voice of the laobaixing.

I love the line, “With rampant corruption leading to weekly scandals that effect the lives of the laobaixing, what evidence is there that democracy would make things worse?”

And finally, you should all check out this delightful post on the recent resurrection of Lei Feng (I know, it seems he’s always being resurrected) to keep people patriotic and willing to take what they get even as they see trillionaires driving by in Ferraris and eating a restaurant meal that costs more than they earn in a year. No matter what, they should be happy to live as Lei Feng did, if he ever existed, content to be a screw in the wonderful Communist Party machine. Do any Chinese still buy this nonsense today?

From today’s Global Times.

The country’s Tibetan-populated regions are in a party mood as the Tibetan New Year, or Losar, falls today, striking a stark contrast with the call by the “Tibetan government in exile” to cancel celebrations.

Decorations decked Lhasa’s main streets, and local people were busy with last-minute preparations for their most important festival of the year.

Yonten, the head of publicity and education with Drepung Monastery on the outskirts of Lhasa, told the Global Times that families have cleaned up the buildings, prepared heaps of food and purchased new Tibetan garments as the Tibetan Year of the Water Dragon drew near.

“Markets in the city were crowded Tuesday with shoppers snapping up fruits, beverages and other goods for the holiday. We will get up before sunrise tomorrow morning in brand new clothes,” Yonten said.

Take a look at the photo, too. China’s minorities always wear such bright, colorful costumes.

This is not a post about Tibet per se but about how the Chinese media sugarcoats stories about it to the point of making these stories self-parodying and downright embarrassing. (This old post is my favorite example.)

About Tibet, let me just say I understand the Tibetan and the Chinese points of view. About who is right and wrong, we can leave that for another discussion, as it has been over-discussed already. My sole point here is how the Chinese government portrays Tibet in the media. Do they truly believe anyone fails to see it as rather desperate propaganda?

Let me start by condemning this incredibly offensive photo that was much discussed on the news tonight.

This photo, put out by the network that broadcasts the Knicks’ games, makes a grotesque issue of Lin’s race and I am delighted to see that it was quickly condemned by even right-leaning media. This was outrageous.

Next, let me say that I never thought I’d ever put up a post about basketball. It will be brief.

Even I, who have never had the slightest interest in team sports of any kind, have been impressed by the incredibly rapid and dramatic ascension of Jeremy Lin, unheard of a few days ago and now the most-heard name on television, and everywhere else. It’s not surprising. On top of his pyrotechnics on the court he has other qualities that ensure he will be a media darling, especially his deep Christian faith and the fact that he is Harvard-educated yet modest, soft-spoken and irresistibly charismatic.

I’ve been reading that although he’s already a superhero on China’s social media, the Chinese media’s response to Lin has been muted. He is, after all, an American, a devout Christian, and his success raises questions as to why there is no Lin equivalent in China, i.e., a brilliant young man educated in the country’s finest university who went on to turn himself into a sports sensation.

The best piece I’ve seen on this topic is here (h/t to James Fallows). The reporter, Adam Minter, quotes a Chinese microblogger:

If Jeremy Lin lived on the mainland, he would either be a semi-literate CBA [Chinese Basketball Association, China’s state-run professional league] player or an ordinary undergraduate who likes basketball in his spare time. We admire him not because he is an ethnic Chinese, but because he has proved for a fact that the main reason that Chinese don’t play basketball well is because of the system, and not their physique!

I’ve written before about China’s sports factories that churn out athletes who have no skills outside of their sport, and how those who don’t make it usually end up with limited skills and poor job prospects. So I kept wondering, could China produce a Jeremy Lin? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. Not yet.

I was listening to interviews on NPR this morning with fans in China who insist Lin is Chinese due to the color of his skin and the fact that his roots go back to Zhejiang (and Taiwan). Their hero worship of Lin will continue, as he is all they have. As Minter says in his closing line, “Until there is a Jeremy Lin born and made in China, Jeremy Lin the Chinese-American will almost certainly remain a favorite of native-born Chinese basketball fans.”

This is an open thread that I’d like to kick off with this most unusual article claiming China is a fascist state.

I never claim that China is fascist. I do not say it is a police state, though sometimes, when they arrest people I know, I think it’s a fair label. China is many things and defies being pigeonholed. There may be fascist characteristics, but I’ve certainly felt that at times about many other countries, at times even the US. China can be remarkable free, as all of us know. But it’s more complicated than that. You know as soon as you start talking with Chinese people about Tibet and Taiwan and the looting of the Summer Palace that there’s a lot of groupthink going on. They may be completely right on those topics, and I sympathize with their viewpoints; that’s not my point. My point is the uniformity of opinion. In the US we have violently different thoughts about Iraq and politics and government and foreign policy. In China, there are certain topics where you know in advance what the response is going to be, right or wrong. But even here absolutes are unreliable; Chinese are increasingly speaking up and even making fun of their government’s clumsy efforts to control its people’s brain cells.

I equate fascism with complete totalitarianism, and China doesn’t meet that criterion. Several of the points the writer brings up, however, are quite true, especially in regard to Chinese perceptions of China’s deserved place in the world and its collective sense of national humiliation. I’m just not sure this constitutes fascism. So many Americans believe in our manifest destiny and America’s unquestioned right to bear the mantle of leader of the world. That isn’t quite fascism, it’s just crazy.

But the article did make me think. Sometimes I thought I was reading the musings of a frustrated English teacher worried about the “China threat,” sometimes I thought he made some astute observations.

Thanks to the reader who sent me the link. I hope I don’t regret posting about it.