An interesting post about a new RAND study. This further confirms my own belief that any move on Taiwan’s part toward closer ties to the Mainland will be based on one thing alone – money. And that’s a very big consideration. And China, shrewd as ever, understands it well.

Precious few Taiwanese are yearning to return, like a lost babe in the woods, to “the motherland.” They will move closer and may even “reunite” (some day) if the economic advantages are enticing enough. Ironically, as the reports points out, Taiwan has some economic sway over the Mainland, so the strong-arming can’t be too coercive. It’s a balancing act. Check out the post and, if you have the stomach for it, the book-length report to which it links.

Will we let them? Just take a look at this anatomy of a smear. Absolutely shocking. A non-existent group puts out a sham press release. Drudge trumpets this “news” atop his Wurlitzer site. Instacracker at. al. slavishly lap it up, and – voila! – you have a perfect smear. Full of sound and fury, signifying far less than nothing. A pure, unashamed hatchet job. And everyone goes after the “nutroots” and the “kos kids” as irresponsible and far out. They have never, and I repeat, never smeared anyone on the right like this, not even close. Gore was getting good press last night, so he had to be destroyed, out of the blue with whatever “evidence” was on hand. Disgusting. Intolerable. Vile and shameful.

I have been covering the harassment, trials, tribulations and greatness of China AIDS activist Gao Yaojie for many months, and I am thrilled to see China doing the right thing and allowing her to fly to the US to receive an award for her work.

A 79-year-old prominent Chinese AIDS activist is to fly to the United States as early as Sunday to receive a human rights award after she was freed from house arrest thanks to U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Gao Yaojie is to receive the Vital Voices Global Women’s Leadership Award for Human Rights in Washington in March for helping bring to light official complicity in the spread of AIDS in her home province Henan in central China, where thousands of poor farmers sold blood in the 1990s and have been infected.

To prevent her from going and embarrassing China, police in Zhengzhou, provincial capital of Henan, placed Gao under house arrest on February 1. The move sparked an international outcry.

Henan authorities relented and freed her on February 16, days after Clinton, a Democratic presidential-hopeful, wrote to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Vice Premier Wu Yi, urging them to intervene and let Gao leave for the United States.

“World pressure was too heavy. Henan was ordered by the central government (to let me go) because China did not want relations with the United States to become too tense,” the retired gynaecologist told Reuters in her Beijing hotel room.

A vice health minister paid Gao a courtesy call last week to extend the vice premier’s greetings, a sign of a change of heart.

But fellow AIDS activist Hu Jia declined to reveal Gao’s departure details in case the authorities decide to change their mind about letting her go. She plans to return in late March.

Hu Jia has faced his own misery from local authorities, and is another of my heroes.

Can we imagine just how wonderful it would be if China simply allowed people like Gao Yaojie their basic freedoms, and treated them as the heroes they are? Wouldn’t it be inspiring to see China honor people like Gao and Hu Jia and send them off to such events as China’s goodwill ambassadors, showing the world how China is becoming open and confident and a willing participant in noble international causes like AIDS awareness? Wouldn’t it be thrilling if China would…well, I think I’d better end it there. Because the questions bring tears to my eyes.

I know it was local officials who harassed her, and central officials who ended her dilemma. Unfortunately, the two are inextricably bound by a one-party system in which the central party has no choice but to tolerate all sorts of noxious behavior by local officials, upon whom they rely for keeping the system oiled. And yes, it’s getting better, and yes, I am praising China for ultimately doing the right thing. I just have to keep asking, why do they always do so many things wrong (as with SARS and AIDS and other cover-ups) before finally doing what’s right? Why don’t they do the right thing first, and show all the world how they have matured? (And for all my friends who insist on drawing parallels, yes, the US under Bush is often just as bad.)

A great post on a topic that’s of great interest to me: how do Beijing and Shanghai really compare in terms of cost of living and cost of entertaining? Interesting to see the blogger’s arguments, as well as the commenters’. To all my friends who are moving from Beijing to Shanghai, read this post first.

Love it or hate it, The Departed, the Martin Scorsese remake of Infernal Affairs (Wu Jian Dao) has won the Oscar for Best Picture. Also, after five tries, Scorsese finally grabbed a statue for Best Director. I liked both versions, but I’m hardly a film critic (in fact I am told I have horrible taste in movies) and my New England roots–I grew up on folktales of Whitey Bulger–might also make me less than objective here. Anyway…thoughts?

It really struck me this morning – Beijing’s winter seems as mild as North Carolina’s. Walking to work today, I wondered why I bothered carrying gloves and scarf; a windbreaker would have been fine. Of course, this has its ups and its downs.

The hands had melted off a delicately entwined couple of ballet dancers crafted by an ice-sculpting team from Vladivostok. Eaves fashioned from packed snow drooped into icicles at the Roast Meat Fire House restaurant. Authorities banned people from approaching the ice-cube tower at Ice and Snow World because big chunks kept falling off.

The popular ice festival here — based on a local tradition of making ice lanterns and sculpting snow that reaches back almost 1,400 years to the Tang Dynasty — has been undercut by climbing temperatures. Heads are falling from statues and intricately sculpted ice animals are turning into shapeless blobs.The global warming trend that a panel of U.N.-convened scientists last month called unequivocal may or may not be inextricably linked to what is happening in Harbin. It is impossible to say. But the people of Harbin blame climate change for what they say has been a pattern of rising temperatures over the past several years.

“So much melting,” lamented Wang Xuhai, director and Communist Party secretary of the Harbin Ice Lantern Art Exhibition Center. “It’s part of a worldwide problem.”

For Harbin, a usually frigid city in northeast China about 400 miles east of the Russian border, the rise in temperatures is a direct threat to a tourist attraction that brought in 5 million visitors last year and injects millions of dollars into the local economy through tickets, hotel stays, restaurant meals and taxi rides..

Everyone knows I hate the winter and wish Beijing could be warm all year. But if I were invested in the ice festival, I’d be scared as hell – this is what Harbin is world famous for, and now it’s threatened with extinction. And according to the article, this is part of a trend, not a one-time phenomenon. Whether global warming is specifically to blame I can’t say, but I would be inclined to think it is. It’s right in keeping with so many other stories I’m seeing about the changing trends in world climate. If so, Harbin had better come up with a new branding plan fast.

One of my favorite blogs, long in hibernation, is back.

Dave, thanks for all your great posting over here, and I hope the rebirth of your blog doesn’t keep you from guest-posting now and then.

In the journal First Things, David Gress reviews the new book What is the West? by French philosopher, Phillippe Nemo. In answering his own question, Nemo suggests, perhaps unsurprisingly, that we must first look to Greece:

The story begins with the Greeks, who invented scientific speculation and the ideal of the city, in which “individual lives are no longer submerged in a vast sea of humanity. . . . Each person now has individuality and character.” To this-a point of capital importance-the Romans added their “invention of private law,” whereby they “invented the individual human person.”

The next stage, of course, is Christianity or, rather, the impact of biblical religion and spirituality on ancient culture, an impact that was crucial in transforming that culture into what we call medieval. Biblical religion introduced an ethical and an eschatological revolution, “cherishing the individual, morally responsible human being, by emphasizing human individuality as desired and created by God for all eternity.” But, Nemo adds, that ethical revolution “might never have bestowed such theological significance on the individual person had these beliefs not taken root in a society that had already granted importance to the human ego.” Without Christianity, there is no civilization of human rights, but without the Greek city, Greek science, and Roman law, there is no Christendom.

I’m assuming Nemo has never heard of Mencius. Gress then suggests that Nemo uncovers a “fundamental logic of western civilization,” and here I think a comparison to China is worth mentioning. Gress writes:

The West is a civilization of borrowings and mixtures, whose result, never fixed and never self-satisfied, is more than a mere function of those borrowings.

Well, I suppose that is true. But isn’t it true of many places, including China? Certainly in what is today China there have been many groups and ideas coming and going, both changing and being changed by what was there before. The idea of static, unchanging, unyielding CHINA absorbing all who come into her borders doesn’t seem to work when compared to the historical record.

But then Gress cites Remi Brague, who I think makes a point that distinguishes at least how China and Europe interpreted their respective historical legacies:

The West, Remi Brague has written, is by definition a “secondary” culture, a culture of followers who know they are followers. Neither Greek poeitical philosophy nor Christianity were western inventions, yet their confluence created the West.

A culture of followers who knew they were followers. In one way, we could argue that this fits in China. Confucius called himself a “transmitter” of an ancient way. But I think the extent to which “China looks only backwards” has been quite overstated (beginning but sadly not ending with Weber.) It is the second line that I think gives some distinction between China and Europe: China never defined itself as a “secondary culture” to anyone. To anyone that is, until the intellectuals of the late-Qing and the New Culture Era started casting their nets wide for new ideas on how to reform old institutions in, using the words of Yan Fu, the search for wealth and power. Even then, reformers such as Yan, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Chen Duxiu, or even Mao Zedong would probably have explicitly rejected the idea that Chinese civilization was “secondary” to any other. It is a kind of lasting cultural confidence that I think goes a long way to explaining why China has managed to remain (more or less and with definite gaps in the record) unified for so long. Of course, defining what we mean by “China” or “Chinese civilization” (as we saw in the recent post on “5000 years of history”), is almost as tricky as trying to define some vague notion of “The West.”

Much more controversially, Nemo’s book suggests:

Holding democracy to be a result of how Christianity evolved in the West, Nemo is equally firm in holding that modern totalitarianism was not the evil essence of the West. The West, in this semi-Marxist view, is characterized by power and exploitation, democracy being merely a sham. Totalitarianism was simply the West without the mask. Any decent political philosophy that rejects totalitarianism must, in this widespread interpretation, also reject much of the West. In both elite ideology and much popular common wisdom, modern totalitarianism and Christianity are lumped together as bad, authoritarian, inhuman ideologies of unnatural constraint that must be rejected, and, since they were western, the rejection takes the form of multiculturalism and liberal guilt.

The final stage of Nemo’s historical analysis is to ask whether western culture is universal now and, if so, what that means. “Does modernization require westernization?” asks the Indian-born economist Deepak Lal. Nemo remains agnostic but suggests that we need not wait for the final answer, if any, to the question of what the West is today and what it should do to survive.

I’m not sure I like the way Nemo, after such a provocative argument, ducks Professor Lal’s question. I’m also, frankly, not enough of a Europeanist to give Nemo’s ideas the thorough workout they deserve. But I’ll put the questions here: “Does modernization require westernization?” What does it mean to be “modern”? What does it mean to be “Western” or “Chinese”? How do we define and use these terms?
—————–
via Arts & Letters Daily

It seems that whenever a foreign observer criticizes China too strongly, they are labeled as somebody who feels threatened by China’s rise and seeks to undermine or belittle the accomplishments of the last 25 years. But who really hates China? For example, if I hated China – if I really wanted to see China fail – what would I do?

1. I would censor media reports about the spread of HIV/AIDS in China and harass or arrest anyone who seeks to publicize the truth about the extent of the disease while allowing this horrible virus to continue its destruction of lives, families, and communities. Instead of more education about the actual causes and transmission of the disease, I would blame the crisis on immoral foreigners and ‘troublemakers’ in the medical community.

2. I would make sure that economic growth, incomes, and opportunities were distributed unevenly throughout the country because there is no better way to be a ‘splittist’ of a nation than to make one part rich and keep a whole other (larger) part really poor. I would then systematically dismantle social welfare programs so that the ability to pay becomes the primary qualification for access to education and medical care. Those people too poor to pay I would let fend for themselves as a permanent pissed-off underclass, because that’s never caused problems in China before, right?

3. I would censor artists, musicians, painters, and filmmakers so that the true creative potential of the people can only be reached in secret or overseas. If an international body recognized an artist for the brilliance of their work, I would make sure first that the work was politically correct or appropriately edited before allowing the artist to receive his or her award. This would send a warning to others in the arts community that future creative endeavors must first meet the requirements of state and party. After all, which would you rather spend an evening watching: Zhang Yimou’s Ju Dou or the CCTV New Year’s Extravaganza?

4. I would create a system whereby local officials were never accountable to those they govern. Instead, I would reward officials only on the basis of self-reported economic growth thus gutting of any meaning laws protecting the environment or local communities. I would supervise the courts so that people would find it incredibly difficult to sue the government and, if they do, I would arrest their lawyers, thus further weakening the rule of law and the legal protections of stakeholders in society. Instead, I would watch blandly as China’s careens towards the greatest environmental mess in human history with poisoned rivers, industrial wastelands, and children and adults suffering horrific illnesses due to the toxic smog that envelopes most of China’s major cities. It’s hard to argue with logic that says cancerous particulate matter in the air is an acceptable cost of economic development but drinking a cold beverage is harmful to your health.

5. I would continue to cling to the territorial legacies of past empires and claim sovereignty over peoples that have never had any desire to be ruled by Beijing. I would further destabilize those regions by suppressing the language, culture, and religion of the subject people (including exiling major religious figures). I would anger the local communities by promoting the settlement of Han Chinese into those areas further diluting the culture, and build new railroads and pipelines to facilitate greater exploitation of resources so as to build grand cities thousands of miles away. If some territories did break away and succeeded in forming their own government, I would work to alienate those people from the world community and block their membership in any international organization. I would also promise invasion if that territory ever tried vote to form its own country, because nothing says ‘togetherness’ like the threat of military force.

6. I would create a birth-control policy that results in the abortion or export of unwanted girl children causing horrifically skewed sex ratios and a growing population of unmarried and underemployed young males because that’s a sure recipe for a stable society. Meanwhile, I will label any Chinese who marries or dates a foreigner as ‘immoral.’

7. I would use the basest justifications of geopolitics, amoral capitalism, and resource extraction to guide my international relations and foreign policy. This would ensure that despite Olympic Games and gleaming towers, the world community still thinks of China’s government as an enemy of the people and friendly to thugs. I’m here to tell you: the United States has used this strategy for over a century…anyone care to turn on CNN and see how well it’s worked out for us?

8. I would create a political ideology that systematically denies the people a voice in the affairs of government. I would make sure that political organizing, activism, and being socially and politically aware were as difficult as possible if not illegal. In this system, I would make the hold on power of an elite few more important than the well-being and potential of the great many. This would trickle down and create a ‘me first’ society that destroys community spirit while breeding mistrust towards others. I would create a society where pushing and shoving are common in public places, where people are treated differently based on their race or gender, and where every person approaches any commercial or social interaction with a stranger by wondering: ‘How am I going to get screwed? How can I screw the other guy?’

9. I would react to anything critical of China by throwing a temper-tantrum and screeching about ‘seeking the destruction of the Chinese nation’ even if the story is about bathrooms, funny English signs, or coffee shops. I would also label any criticism of China, by Chinese or foreigners and no matter how valid or vital, as ‘unpatriotic” or “anti-China.’

If I hated China, there are many things that I could do, but few that haven’t already been done by the Chinese government and the CCP. Few observers of China do ‘hate China.’ We choose to live here and work here. Many of us have families here. For my part, I have made the study of Chinese history my life’s work.

Even in the United States there are those in society and government who label criticism of US policies as ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘un-American.’ What’s more, the United States has quite a bit of experience with problems such as economic growth at the expense of the environment and workers’ rights, unequal distribution of wealth, crumbling social services, rampant consumerism, political apathy, immoral foreign policy, and the systematic oppression of a subject people-to name a few. Guess what? We are still cleaning up the mess. Surely, China with its long history and grand civilization can be counted on to be wiser and more level-headed, right?

I am glad that there has been a lot of progress recently, especially in environmental protections, improving the rule of law, working to broker a deal with the DPRK, and freeing the media to report on corruption and local issues. But there is so much yet to be done and it’s worth noting that many of these changes came about as the result of an increasing concern by the leadership regarding China’s image abroad.

I criticize the Chinese government for the same reason I criticize the US government: because I do love the country and it hurts to see what is being done to it. If it pains me, a laowai, how much more should it hurt a self-proclaimed ‘Chinese patriot?’

Isabel Hilton writes in the Guardian

A genearlly excellent article. As I have said before, I believe the environment is now the single-greatest issue facing China – economic growth, the wealth gap, civil rights, etc are important, but if pollution is not tackled before it is too late, any changes in those areas could well be irrelevant.

The following was one of my favourite paragraphs:

The targets sounded ambitious, but another set of figures illustrates how much room there is for improvement in China’s industrial performance. It is staggeringly wasteful. Each unit of GDP takes seven times more resources to produce than in Japan, nearly six times more than in the US and nearly three times more than in India. Even small efficiency savings would clearly yield important gains.

India is three times more efficient than China? Ouch!

Hilton then goes on to say how she believes officials will not enforce new laws, even if they are enacted. As she asks, how can we expect anyone to challenge them?

The press is constrained, the legal system is rarely independent, there is no possibility of a change of government via the ballot box and local state environmental protection bureaux come under the authority of provincial governors, whose behaviour they are meant to regulate. The only watchdogs are the infant NGOs – underfunded and vulnerable to persecution. Even at national level, environmental enforcement is the weakest branch of government.

Denial won’t change anything. The central government will have to tackle environmental issues as hard as it can, even if it leads to embarrassing news reports and trouble caused by local politicians or even residents who lose jobs as a result of factory/business closure/fines. If it sticks its head in the sand, hoping that regions will do the right thing, it is condemning China (and potentially the world) to a nightmarish future.