I am glad to see (via ESWN) that another blogger, and an especially good one, is asking the same simple question I asked last week.

… I’m not sure what [to] make of the EU choosing him over other Chinese activists. In the last chapter of Out of Mao’s Shadow, Philip Pan describes Hu as “one of the nation’s most outspoken human rights advocates”, and, “in the debate between the purists and the pragmatists, Hu was one of the purists. Some people thought he was too much of a self-promoter, too willing to confront and provoke the authorities… But if he sometimes behaved recklessly, he also never backed down.” Only we don’t get an idea what his “pure” and provocative actions have actually achieved.

While mentioning Hu Jia in passing during summarization, Pan devotes several full chapters to a number of other people whose stories are familiar to me, and to many Chinese. Among those, there are the Southern Metropolis Daily journalists, whose tactful but effective true journalism resulted in the government’s abolishing the unjust and cruel “shourong” system; there are the two authors who wrote the book An Investigation of China’s Peasantry that pushed for the eventually realized relaxation of the peasants’ unbearable tax burden; there is the retired army doctor who first exposed the severe reality of Beijing’s SARS disaster to the outside world, helping to avoid an even bigger calamity… All of those people also suffered punishment from the government. They were not purists, but they aimed for actual change instead of simply provoking.

I don’t know what the criteria are for the “prize for freedom of thought,” but why not give it to those people?

One thing that made Hu Jia stand out from the others, it seems, is that he is presently in prison while the others are not (though some of them have been).

Quite correct. Go back to my original post, where in the comments I discuss a conversation I had just yesterday with people whose work is connected to Hu’s causes. I also met someone who worked with Hu on an AIDS awareness project at BeiDa. All I’ll say is no one who actually works with him thinks he was the best candidate for this kind of recognition. Quite the contrary.

It’s intriguing to see how devoid of actual content the articles that praise him are: planted a few (very few) trees, brought roses to Tiananmen Square and criticized the CCP there, did some good blogging, got arrested and tried to use the Olympics as a soapbox to taunt and condemn the Party. And all those things are great. However, the difference between Hu and the other heroes cited above is simple: the others actually made huge strides for their causes. Arrest and publicity are not what they’re best known for, although they’ve been there and done that. They are known for advancing very specific causes and their being jailed or harassed was a sidebar to their activism – it wasn’t the headline. As Inside-Out says, “They were not purists, but they aimed for actual change instead of simply provoking.”

There’s an entire article cited in the earlier thread going on about Hu’s purity, for whatever that’s worth. I started off two weeks ago under the Hu spell, and I said he would be the best choice for the Nobel Peace Prize. A friend of mine then made a healthy argument about why I was wrong, which led me to track down people I know who actually know Hu Jia, or who’ve worked with his wife (who gets universal praise from all). I was really surprised. Not like he’s bad or undeserving of praise for bravery, but he is so down the list in terms of inspiring those around him and bringing meaningful change to China. He became everybody’s sacred cow because the foreign media created a halo around him that’s far bigger and brighter than his actual achievements.

Amazing, the things you can learn when you leave your preconceptions at the door and look for the different sides of a story. And I am still willing to learn on this one.

Funny, how what sounded like such a crazy notion to some just a year ago now seems to be pretty much accepted as a given the world over. Soros saying as much gives the point – obvious as it always was to the prescient – added weight.

China will be the biggest winner of the current financial crisis, US billionaire and philanthropist George Soros said. The financier gave an interview to Germany’s Die Welt, in which he told of the roots of the crisis and said that the mortgage bubble only triggered the process, which entailed the economic collapse. The businessman also explained the reason why the Bush’s administration proved to be unable to cope with the crisis.

The United States and a part of Europe will have nationalized banks and huge debts. China will become the new global financial empire….

“The USA’s influence has already begun to decline. For the past 25 years, we have been running a constant current account deficit. The Chinese and the oil-producing countries have been running a surplus. We have consumed more than we produced. While we have run up debt, they have acquired wealth with their savings. Increasingly, the Chinese will own a lot more of the world because they will be converting their dollar reserves and US government bonds into real assets. The power shift towards Asia will occur as a result of the sins which America committed during the recent 25 years,” Soros said.

You can ignore Soros at your own risk. His track record has been nothing short of astonishing. And for my right-wing friends who fell for the Fox News smears of Soros as a deranged leftist, all I can say is do your homework. Soros is a man of principle, a great philanthropist and a huge friend to liberal causes. Yes, he has a few – very few – skeletons in his closet (insider trading in 1988) like other billionaires do, but all in all he is a hero, and a role model for other billionaires.

We all know how much China sucks in so many ways. Most of us also know what an amazing country it is, how splendid many of its people are and what promise it holds for the future. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, we are in decline while Asia in general and China in particular are rising. That is not a judgment call on whether China should hold this honor. It’s just the way it is, like it or not. And in a lot of ways I don’t like it. It’s just what’s so. They were smarter than we were. I have to hand it to them.

Along with just about everybody else. The Houston Chronicle, LA Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune (!) and and The Peking Duck all have endorsed Obama. Colin Powell’s endorsement is significant because he is widely respected across traditional divides, and he was, if anyone remembers that far back, one of Bush’s top cabinet members. He made some bad mistakes, but he always struck me as the pearl among the swine, a person of integrity who, tragically, let his soldier’s loyalty override what he knew was the right thing to do when it came to Iraq.

Powell had the courage to criticize the McCain camp for being needlessly negative, and singled out McCain’s attempts to tie Obama to Bill Ayers as “not what the American people are looking for.” Another great day for Obama.

Update: Excellent, concise analysis of why this is so catastrophic for McCain, who had considered Powell as a running mate. Do read it. Closing arguments:

I’d just add that Powell didn’t just tacitly offer a vague endorsement, he offered his unapologetic support to Obama, while blasting what’s become of his old friend, John McCain. He sounded like a man who barely recognizes what’s become of today’s GOP. For self-described moderates and independents, Powell remains a widely admired figure. What’s more, few if any Americans enjoy the media adulation that Powell has, which means coverage of this morning’s announcement is likely to be very strong.

With that in mind, Powell’s endorsement this morning may very well have a significant impact.

That’s from a Republican newsletter. Fried chicken, ribs, watermelon, Obama’s face on a donkey all superimposed on a food stamp. Yes, I really can’t wait for the stables to be cleaned.

And Sam, I know some dumb liberals spray painted a car in Santa Monica and two teenager wore Sarah Palin T-shirts with dirty words on them. There will always be idiots in this world. But this is institutionalized bigotry from an actual Republican voters’ group. This is the kind of mentality today’s GOP reflects with it’s somewhat subtler but equally insidious message, “He doesn’t see the world the way you and I do.”

I came down with a vicious cold and sore throat yesterday but had to schlepp into work to get a proposal done anyway. You know how it is. So on top of feeling miserable, I had to face the anguish of hearing that Daisy, one of my two cats back in the States, died today. We adopted Nick and Daisy (named after characters in The Great Gatsby) in 1991 when they were tiny kittens. Nick is still fine, a bundle of energy. Sometimes too energetic, even at 17. But Daisy had been sick for nearly a year, having gone bind last November and then rapidly deteriorating – we knew it was coming.

My friend Lisa went through a similar trauma just a few weeks ago, and I knew it would be Daisy’s turn soon. I know, it’s a cat, but the difference these beautiful creatures can add to our lives….

Alright, I’ll stop before I get too sentimental. Let me just say I loved Daisy and she had a special story. The week we adopted her she got violently sick and was diagnosed with feline leukemia. The vet suggested we put her to sleep. I couldn’t do it, and said if she had to die, better it be at home with people who loved her looking after her. Well, that was in 1991, and she recovered and did great for the next 17 years. So we can’t really complain. But still…but still…. It’s just that you feel like part of you died with her. Even though she’s “just a cat.”

Bad timing, though I guess there’s never really a good time to die. Okay, I’ll go back to sipping tea and and get to bed early. Three people from my office were sick with the same thing today so there’s definitely “something going around.” I can’t say how much I’ll miss Daisy, and am thankful she died painlessly in her sleep, under the watchful eye of a wonderful person who loved her as much as I do.

No comments on this. Maybe when I recover from the cold and the news. Thanks.

Can you believe a political blogger, Erick Erickson, at a “serious” right-wing Web site actually wrote this?

The National Enquirer now suggests Barack Obama had an underage, gay affair with a pedophile. Yup. That Frank Marshall Davis guy Barry says was his good friend? Turns out he was a perv of the first order and liked young boys.

This post is not intended to spread that rumor.

Let’s look at this at a few levels. First, a 10-year-old child can’t have a gay or straight love affair with an adult man. They can be the victim of that man, they may have been molested by that man, but they were not carrying on an affair with them. As if – were this story to have any plausbility at all – this would count as something to damn Obama for. As this awesome response points out:

That’s a pretty interesting way to describe what may have happened between the two. Obama met Frank Marshall Davis when Obama was ten years old. When people discuss (possible) sexual contact between ten-year-old boys who are not their political enemies and grown men, they usually refer to the “underage gay affairs” as sexual abuse. They also recognize that adults who have been abused may or may not wish to tell the whole world the details, and they respect it. Admittedly, most people are not members of the NAMBLA wing of the Republican Party, or, failing that, curdled into pure meanness. Maybe Erickson just holds with the more sweeping theories about the cultural construction of the age of consent. Whatever the reason, he’s sure that that little vixen, ten-year-old Barry Obama, was asking for it man.

On another level, do you believe the claim, made while blasting the story around the world, that the post “is not intended to spread that rumor”? I mean, can the writer truly believe we are all birdbrains?

And on another level, it just tells us how far the far-right is willing to go to make any claim no matter how looney, no matter how spurious – toss as much shit at the wall and hope some of it sticks. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, right?

There has never been an election like this one. I actually remember when elections were about issues and economics and laws and causes and people. Huge kudos to Obama for keeping calm and never responding with anything even close to the rancor or hysteria displayed by the other side. A dark, ugly day in American politics. What can they possibly do next?

I stumbled upon a site today and found this quite disarming. (And can anyone tell me what a “blandare” is?) Especially nice after the Harbin post below got me thoroughly depressed. These videos got me to smile – just a sweet thing to do.

(A friend listening with me tells me he’s definitely from Taiwan.)

Blog was liquidated shortly after I linked. Kiss of death?

One of my favorite bloggers has translated some materials that all of you have got to see. We thought sinister places like these were “reformed away” after the brutal murder of Sun Zhigang and that they no longer exist. They weren’t reformed and they still exist. The posts take you on a guided tour of the “Hutong Hiltons.”

I was going to give a long snip, but that’s kind of pointless. Go there and read it for yourselves. This medieval practice is taking place right here, in our lovely, prosperous, reform-oozing Beijing. He even has photos that show exactly where they are.

Hallelujah. There really is a god.

The American economist Paul R. Krugman won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.

Mr. Krugman, 55, a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey and a columnist for The New York Times, formulated a new theory to answer questions about free trade, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

“What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions,” the academy said in its citation.

“He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography,” it said.

Mr. Krugman was the lone of winner of the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) award, the latest in a string of American researchers to be honored.

This is long overdue. Krugman called all the shots on the dangers of “free trade,” which was actually unregulated connivery and mayhem. Finally, some good news.

The Democrats about to win in a landslide. Krugman winning the Nobel Prize. Is our faith in humanity actually about to be restored?

The following is a guest post from my friend Bill Stimson, one of this blog’s most frequent contributors back in the old days. Bill runs a dream workshop in Taiwan that is absolutely wonderful, which you can read about at billstimson.com. As stated in the comments folowing the post, Richard does not necessarily agree with the content, but definitely respects Bill’s opinion on this very tricky issue.

————————————————————

“A Voice For Taiwan?”

by William R. Stimson

Invited to Helsinki, Finland to present my work with the dreams of university students in Taiwan, I took the ferry yesterday over to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, to spend a day wandering around one of the best-preserved Medieval cities in Europe. Luckily, it turned out to be a rainy day – otherwise I wouldn’t have sought shelter in an uninteresting-looking little museum on a narrow cobblestone street where I stumbled upon an exhibit that brought tears to my eyes. Replace the People’s Republic of China for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and Taiwan for Estonia – the story is the same: a giant country tries to gobble up a tiny one on its border. Estonia has yet one more element in common with Taiwan – its people love to sing. The exhibit documented in pictures how the Estonians got the world to recognize them as a nation by singing, in what has been called “the singing revolution.” The Russians sent in tanks. The Estonians placed huge boulders on the roads to block the way. The tanks had to withdraw because the little nation captured the heart of the world with its solidarity in song. Russia relinquished its claims. The Estonians toppled Lenin’s statue. One man climbed the pedestal and raised his arms in a gesture that expressed the feeling of a nation. A photographer captured the moment for all time.

There is a big lesson in this for Taiwan. But the question is – can the 23 million Taiwanese do what the 1.5 million Estonians did? And can they do it now while there is yet time? Do the Taiwanese have what it takes? Do they feel as deeply that Taiwan really is a separate nation? Or do the people of Taiwan prefer to be swallowed up by China and digested into something that can have neither the significance nor the destiny history has thrust upon this island people? Do Taiwanese parents care more about how much money they can grab today than they do for the future of their children tomorrow? Are they that much like the late president and his family?

I raised these points because I feel now is the time in which the answers must emerge; and because, standing there in that small museum on this other side of the world, it struck me that the way the Estonians sang their nation to freedom is an option for Taiwan and could win it the sympathy of world organizations that it hasn’t been able to get by any other method. I work with the dreams of young Taiwanese college students. I have seen inside their hearts and minds. I know them to be world-class as a group, the equal of young people anywhere. Though perhaps not ethnically, linguistically, or culturally separate from the mainland Chinese – they are a larger people, even though a smaller population; and they aspire to a higher destiny, even though on a more limited scale. The world needs a Taiwan and Taiwan needs a world that can see this.

As I stood before the museum exhibit with tears in my eyes, an old Estonian man approached me. “Where are you from?” he asked.

“Taiwan.”

“Oh,” he immediately understood. “You are like us. We have Russia. You have China. The same story.”

The old man was right.

Perhaps political leaders in Taiwan have forgotten that they have a higher mission than lining their own pockets and those of their family members. This little nation is right now being entrapped in wording and behaviors that bit by bit will cause it to be engulfed by its huge neighbor next door. Our young people stand to lose their nationhood and their opportunity for freedom and self-expression unless we act now. What better way than following the Estonian example and organizing mass singing events (in English as well as Chinese, so the world, as well as China, can hear) that can enable Taiwan’s young and old alike to come together and show the world they are a people unique among peoples, with a voice all their own. If that voice can show it deserves to be heard, it will be heard. The world organizations will listen.

This doesn’t need to be restricted to Taiwan. Sizeable student and resident populations of Taiwanese all over the United States, Europe and elsewhere can join in – and carry the song of our people, and their dream of freedom and democracy, around the world. If little Estonia, with only 1.5 million people could do it, why can’t we, with over fourteen times as big a population? The only possible reason would be that we don’t care enough, and so don’t deserve any destiny other than the one China’s Communist Party deigns to allot us. The hands in our pockets then will be much bigger, much more numerous, and much more greedy.

* * *

Back to Richard. Let me just say this: I do believe Taiwan’s situation is unique and monumentally delicate. No matter what we would like to see there, the hard cold reality that isn’t going away is that the joining of China and Taiwan is going to happen, perhaps slowly, perhaps with a lot of bumps along the way, perhaps not at all fairly – but it will happen. Does that mean I want it to happen? No. I do know, however, that there has been a shift over the past four or so years. More and more Taiwanese are eager for a reconciliation and a coming together – not with Taiwan becoming another province of China, but rather a Hong Kong-like “one party, two systems” arrangement. The reasons for this are simple: No matter what we think is right or fair, China’s shadow looms across Asia the way America’s has loomed over much of Europe and the Americas. Countries that cooperate with and embrace China are thriving. Think Singapore and Malaysia and, increasingly, Japan.

I was speaking last week with a Taiwanese friend studying Traditional Chinese Medicine here at the Sino-Japanese Hospital. Like so many others I know from Taiwan, he can’t wait for Taiwan to come to a Hong Kong-like agreement. The reasons might be termed “greed” by some, but to me thay are less malevolent than that. My friend is tired of the unemployment and the shrinking opportunities Taiwan has suffered for years. In its inimitably ruthless way, China has one by one shut many of the doors leading from Taiwan to the outside world. Just as the US has done to countries it wanted to intimidate and force to comply to its will. (Cuba, anyone?) I am not talking about right or wrong here, simply about what is. And what is is that the US and China have the power to do this.

Would I love Taiwan to be independent and free to determine its own course? Absolutely. Do I think it will happen? Absolutely not – at least not the way the Blue party envisions it. China “knows” as a matter of fact that Taiwan belongs to it. And more and more Taiwanese appear willing to accept this. I think reconciliation and “reunification” are now well on the way (even if the Chinese flag never flew over Taiwanese soil, making the word “reunification” something of a misnomer).

I love Taiwan and think about it everyday with fond memories. It is the most civilized, most delightful place in Asia to live and work. It is a paradise in many ways. Let’s hope that, whatever agreement it ultimately comes to with the Mainland, Taiwan can retain its integrity and a high degree of independence, even after it is “reunited with the Motherland.”