First of all, an article about Baidu that relates to last week's post about censorship. It appears that Baidu is doing really well, which certainly couldn't please the Chinese government more. This is perhaps the latest type of censorship in China, but it's certainly not the first. Emperors from the beginning of time burned books and killed writers with whom they disagreed. Mao liked to bait traps, like in the Hundred Flowers Campaign when he asked for suggestions and got rid of anyone who made one. And of course, there was the Cultural Revolution.
This week I'm supposed to be writing about Mao. Some other sites have had retrospectives over the past two weeks. Interestingly enough, there has not been a major retrospective from out of China. Perhaps this is related to the initiative to take Mao out of the history books! In fact, in the years after his death, the high cadres decided that Mao had been "70% right and 30% wrong" and considered the book closed. More specifics were left out: most Chinese under fourty continue to revere Mao without knowing much of anything about him.
It is difficult to assess Mao's legacy. As a revolutionary, he was a great, a genius, and generally improved the plight of everyday Chinese. In Communist areas before the full takeover in 1949 and for some time thereafter, the Party redistributed land, largely ended child slavery and opium abuse, instituted more equal rights for women, schools and basic healthcare. As a leader, Mao presided over massive crackdowns like the Hundred Flowers and the Cultural Revolution, as well as the greatest famine in human history (and one that probably could have been avoided). And if you look at China today, it bears little resemblance to the socialist paradise that Mao aimed at creating.
You might say (as many have before you) that Mao was Lenin and Stalin rolled into one. The question this raises is how Lenin would have ruled had he lived. There are indications that Lenin would have been more of an internationalist, more of a moderate and less of a tyrant. There are also indications that Lenin would have been every bit as ruthless as Stalin. Different times call for different leaders. And you know what they say about power.
While it is true that Mao was a theorist and a true revolutionary in his youth and a vicious tyrant at the end, and probably made some poor judgements in between, this comparison suppreses another aspect of Mao's legacy we should look at. Mao was a nationalist every bit as much as he was a socialist (please note the lower case, I do not mean that Mao was a Nationalist as much as he was a Communist in terms of party affiliation [i.e. guomindang a.k.a. KMT] although he, like all early Communists, was a Nationalist early on). There is a big division between the international communists and the national communists. No major internationalist socialist has ever lead a Communist country. True, the USSR (sucessfully) sponsored Communists in Korea, Eastern Europe, China (sortof), Southeast Asia and Cuba (who in turn sponsored unsucessful Communists elsewhere in Latin America and Africa) and unsucessfully elswhere. But this was largely out of nessessity and a very national rivalry with the US. Real internationalists like Trotsky never came fully to power and probably never could have.
In fact, revolutionaries in many of those countries were oppsed simultaneously to a leadership supported by foreign capital or even foreign occupation, putting class and national interests in the same camp. This was certainly the case in China (Japan and to a lesser extent the US-supported KMT), Vietnam (France, Japan and the US) and Cuba (the US). Ho Chi Minh discribed himself as a Vietnamese nationalist first and a Communist second; arguably this was the case for Mao as well. During the war with Japan, the Communists were willing to form common ground with the Nationalists to force out the foreign threat. Following the take-over, Mao insisted on rapid industrialization based on heavy industry largely for reasons of national pride and security; allowing light industry to develop first would likely have resulted in smoother progress.
In this respect, the China of today is a real legacy of Mao. He lead the effort to drive out foreigners and develop China as a powerful and independant country. He would certainly be proud that China is a major force on the global scene and has begun to export technical expertise with development loans and has been asserting itself in the UN. He certainly would have liked the Three Gorges Dam. And in terms of the culture, China shows Mao's legacy in it's very language: Mao, like several emperors before him modernized the writing system and required everyone to learn Mandarin. This is a legacy that I can certainly appreciate.
Wednesday, September 20
Tuesday, September 12
Censorship
A brief summary of my Summer: I got off scott free from the diploma riots only to get mild sunstroke in Yangshuo, overcharged for ice cream on Putuoshan and some sort of nasty stomach-purging condition in Beijing while vacationing with my dad. I decided to move to Enlgand for the football, but then realized I would miss the American kind (also: happy with the way the Eagles defensive line looks, Stalworth may finally be the right number one for McNabb although I'm not ready to jummp on that bandwagon just yet and Westbrook is the real deal). I went on a trip West with Alex (McDonald), got some altitude sickness camping above 12000 feet and flew home from Denver with a more informed impression of the corn states (Nebraska, by the way, beats the snot out of Iowa). I have a great evening job at the ABC house in Swarthmore and plan on spending a lot of time playing Taiko at the college, but I'm still in the market for a day job.
And before the real post, some notes. It has been quite some time since I published with any regularity, however, I now find myself with a great deal of time on my hands and not a whole hell of a lot to do. On the advice of several people, I have decided to try to force myself to publish on some sort of shedule as opposed to when I have time and something to write about and my computer is not acting up or being censored by the Chinese government and I'm not feeling terribly lazy and/or some crisis or particularly newsworthy event provokes me into writing something. In any case, my current plan is to try to post every Tuesday in the hopes that I can develop something like a real readership, which will in turn give me more impetus to write something every Tuesday. So, those few of you reading this, I am calling on you to respond to my posts and to bug me if you wake up on Wednesday morning and find nothing new posted on the site.
Given the anniversary of 9/11, I felt a particular need to post something yesterday, and I will continue to post things like this when the fancy strikes me. However, I intend to hold myself responsable for these posts in addition to my (hopefully) regular Tuesday rants. Of course, so much is happening all the time that it may be harder than I anticipate to address everything I want to. For instance, in writing about 9/11 and today about censorship (which has been in the news), I managed to overlook another big anniversary: the death of Chairman Mao thirty years ago last Saturday (September 9, 1976). Some news organs have been writing about the cultural revolution in addition to terror. Mao and terror are both of great interest to me, so I'm gonna have to figure out a way to do them both justice considering that their milestones occured twenty five years and two days appart. Hopefully I'll have a system down by the time the Towers' 25th year of decease occurs two days after the Chairman's 50th. I'll write about Mao next week, which will give me time to read up. This week: censorship.
As you may have read, the CCP's official news organ, Xinhua, has instituted new restrictions on the ability of foreign new organs to distibute in China. Here are some reports in the People's Daily (Xinhua's English language paper) as well as reacation reported by BBC and the Financial Times and the full text of the regulations. Most pundits are convinced that these new restrictions are more a bid for the unprofitable Xinhua to take market share away from the big reporting companies like Reuters, the Associated Press and Bloomberg, especially in the financial reporting sector. Basically, the restrictions require foreign news to be distributed by companies approved by Xinhua; currently the only approved distributer is a subsidiary of Xinhua itself. It is not clear the degree to which the new restrictions will hurt reporting of general news topics, but they will almost certainly damage the availability of financial information to buisinesses, banks and financial services. This seems espeically counterproductive given that China is considering a new financial watchdog to better regulate a corrupt and comparatively ineffective sector.
A continuing criticism of Chinese media censorship, which goes so far as to put limits on foreign cartoons is that it not only leaves clear ground for governmental and civil rights abuses but also hurts the longterm capabilities of the Chinese economy. For China to develop a high-tech information economy, companies need free access not only to financial information but to any news that might affect financial markets, which is to say, any news. It is clear that Xinhua reporting alone, or for that matter, any single news agency, is not up to that task.
This is not the first time that new restrictions on speech have had the dual purpose of supporting Chinese companies over foreign ones. Government regulation and censorship of the internet, especially through search engines and portals, has been seen as a way to improve the market share of domestic corporations while simultaneously improving control over the flow of information. The government makes use of the so-called "Great Firewall of China" to punitively block certain sites as well as search engines which return those sites. To avoid their entire network of pages being blocked, search engines like Baidu and portals like SINA proactively censor anything they think might turn up the government list. This sort of complicit censorship is also carried to bbs and chat sites by university students and other volunteers. Even Google has censored it's Chinese search, although it has compromised by keeping two running, a chinese version of its main site which may return blocked results and itself be punatively blocked from time to time, and google.cn, which self-censors and will not return blocked sites. Google caught some heat for this, but they felt it was the most reasonable way to maintain their Chinese market share. This solution still provides an uncensored search which has the added benifit of enabling searchers in China to determine which sites are blocked by the combined use of both tools. Despite Google's solution, the punative blocking of sites that don't self-censor has made it much easier for the Chinese portals to grow, partially at the expense of foreign rivals like MSN and Yahoo.
This type of censorship is ingenious, it helps companies that censor obtain a higher market share, which means that a greater share of the population is using censored searches. The companies have incentive to do the work of censoring themselves or face the possibility of being blocked by the firewall; companies that censor better are blocked less which makes them more desirable to consumers. Outsourcing the censorship of print media can potentially work the same way. Giving Xinhua the ability to control their rivals' distribution will help grow Xinhua's market share. And of course Xinhua is censored, so that means a greater share of the print market will be reading reliably censored news. Who needs to burn books when you can give a leg up to a censored printer and let the market do the work for you?
The idea of occasional punitive censorship is based on the same principle of terror or secret police. There were far fewer Gestapo in Nazi Germany than is generally assumed. The threat of seemingly random arrests or crackdowns made the reach of the secret police seem greater. The threat of the Gestapo was that you might be arrested for anything at any time, so you would proactively avoid anything that might get you in trouble, even if it wasn't explicitly forbidden. This in turn created a network of informants quick to avoid being associated in any way with anything that might be construed a crime.
I saw this mentality come face-to-face with American individualism during the diploma crisis at Shengda. The Chinese teachers, without exception, avoided the issue as much as possible or stood with the administration. Many students were complicit and even active in informing the powers-that-were of any potential infractions of any kind (including when I ripped down a poster of the founder to make a tremendously juvenile statement of no real function). Administrators and teachers regularly would give us "advice" to stay home, which the troublemakers among us regularly ignored. Finally a meeting occured between the administration and the foreign teachers in which nothing useful was accomplished. The Chinese could not understand our inability to take a hint and self-limit our behavior out of fear of potential reprisals. We Americans (and Canadians, and Brits...) could not understand their inability to give us clear-cut guidelines on what we could and could not do. The administrator kept saying "this is a Chinese affair" while the foreign teachers sought some guidance on how to recognise a "Chinese affair." Basically, a "Chinese affair" is anything that might potentially be declared a "Chinese affair" by anyone who could possibly have the authority to make this sort of declaration. Earlier, in my writing class, I had been told by a student that they were not allowed to talk about "politics," which of course does not include things like Bush's mismanagement of Hurricane Katarina or the EU's limits on Chinese "textile dumping" or anything else that makes other people look bad, but does include anything that might make China look bad.
In fact, the very wording of the new regulations basically prohibit any news that makes China look bad, prohibiting anything that might (among other things):
"(3) endanger China's national security, reputation and interests;
....
(5) incite hatred and discrimination among ethnic groups, undermine their unity, infringe upon their customs and habits, or hurt their feelings;
...
(9) undermine social ethics or the fine cultural traditions of the Chinese nation;"
as well as the catch-all: "Xinhua News Agency has the right to select the news and information released by foreign news agencies in China "
This is getting rambling, but a last thought. I can't help but wonder if this crackdown on outside reporting is due in part to emberassment on reporting of a few major crises in the past year, including the diploma crisis and the violent crackdown in Guagdong.
And before the real post, some notes. It has been quite some time since I published with any regularity, however, I now find myself with a great deal of time on my hands and not a whole hell of a lot to do. On the advice of several people, I have decided to try to force myself to publish on some sort of shedule as opposed to when I have time and something to write about and my computer is not acting up or being censored by the Chinese government and I'm not feeling terribly lazy and/or some crisis or particularly newsworthy event provokes me into writing something. In any case, my current plan is to try to post every Tuesday in the hopes that I can develop something like a real readership, which will in turn give me more impetus to write something every Tuesday. So, those few of you reading this, I am calling on you to respond to my posts and to bug me if you wake up on Wednesday morning and find nothing new posted on the site.
Given the anniversary of 9/11, I felt a particular need to post something yesterday, and I will continue to post things like this when the fancy strikes me. However, I intend to hold myself responsable for these posts in addition to my (hopefully) regular Tuesday rants. Of course, so much is happening all the time that it may be harder than I anticipate to address everything I want to. For instance, in writing about 9/11 and today about censorship (which has been in the news), I managed to overlook another big anniversary: the death of Chairman Mao thirty years ago last Saturday (September 9, 1976). Some news organs have been writing about the cultural revolution in addition to terror. Mao and terror are both of great interest to me, so I'm gonna have to figure out a way to do them both justice considering that their milestones occured twenty five years and two days appart. Hopefully I'll have a system down by the time the Towers' 25th year of decease occurs two days after the Chairman's 50th. I'll write about Mao next week, which will give me time to read up. This week: censorship.
As you may have read, the CCP's official news organ, Xinhua, has instituted new restrictions on the ability of foreign new organs to distibute in China. Here are some reports in the People's Daily (Xinhua's English language paper) as well as reacation reported by BBC and the Financial Times and the full text of the regulations. Most pundits are convinced that these new restrictions are more a bid for the unprofitable Xinhua to take market share away from the big reporting companies like Reuters, the Associated Press and Bloomberg, especially in the financial reporting sector. Basically, the restrictions require foreign news to be distributed by companies approved by Xinhua; currently the only approved distributer is a subsidiary of Xinhua itself. It is not clear the degree to which the new restrictions will hurt reporting of general news topics, but they will almost certainly damage the availability of financial information to buisinesses, banks and financial services. This seems espeically counterproductive given that China is considering a new financial watchdog to better regulate a corrupt and comparatively ineffective sector.
A continuing criticism of Chinese media censorship, which goes so far as to put limits on foreign cartoons is that it not only leaves clear ground for governmental and civil rights abuses but also hurts the longterm capabilities of the Chinese economy. For China to develop a high-tech information economy, companies need free access not only to financial information but to any news that might affect financial markets, which is to say, any news. It is clear that Xinhua reporting alone, or for that matter, any single news agency, is not up to that task.
This is not the first time that new restrictions on speech have had the dual purpose of supporting Chinese companies over foreign ones. Government regulation and censorship of the internet, especially through search engines and portals, has been seen as a way to improve the market share of domestic corporations while simultaneously improving control over the flow of information. The government makes use of the so-called "Great Firewall of China" to punitively block certain sites as well as search engines which return those sites. To avoid their entire network of pages being blocked, search engines like Baidu and portals like SINA proactively censor anything they think might turn up the government list. This sort of complicit censorship is also carried to bbs and chat sites by university students and other volunteers. Even Google has censored it's Chinese search, although it has compromised by keeping two running, a chinese version of its main site which may return blocked results and itself be punatively blocked from time to time, and google.cn, which self-censors and will not return blocked sites. Google caught some heat for this, but they felt it was the most reasonable way to maintain their Chinese market share. This solution still provides an uncensored search which has the added benifit of enabling searchers in China to determine which sites are blocked by the combined use of both tools. Despite Google's solution, the punative blocking of sites that don't self-censor has made it much easier for the Chinese portals to grow, partially at the expense of foreign rivals like MSN and Yahoo.
This type of censorship is ingenious, it helps companies that censor obtain a higher market share, which means that a greater share of the population is using censored searches. The companies have incentive to do the work of censoring themselves or face the possibility of being blocked by the firewall; companies that censor better are blocked less which makes them more desirable to consumers. Outsourcing the censorship of print media can potentially work the same way. Giving Xinhua the ability to control their rivals' distribution will help grow Xinhua's market share. And of course Xinhua is censored, so that means a greater share of the print market will be reading reliably censored news. Who needs to burn books when you can give a leg up to a censored printer and let the market do the work for you?
The idea of occasional punitive censorship is based on the same principle of terror or secret police. There were far fewer Gestapo in Nazi Germany than is generally assumed. The threat of seemingly random arrests or crackdowns made the reach of the secret police seem greater. The threat of the Gestapo was that you might be arrested for anything at any time, so you would proactively avoid anything that might get you in trouble, even if it wasn't explicitly forbidden. This in turn created a network of informants quick to avoid being associated in any way with anything that might be construed a crime.
I saw this mentality come face-to-face with American individualism during the diploma crisis at Shengda. The Chinese teachers, without exception, avoided the issue as much as possible or stood with the administration. Many students were complicit and even active in informing the powers-that-were of any potential infractions of any kind (including when I ripped down a poster of the founder to make a tremendously juvenile statement of no real function). Administrators and teachers regularly would give us "advice" to stay home, which the troublemakers among us regularly ignored. Finally a meeting occured between the administration and the foreign teachers in which nothing useful was accomplished. The Chinese could not understand our inability to take a hint and self-limit our behavior out of fear of potential reprisals. We Americans (and Canadians, and Brits...) could not understand their inability to give us clear-cut guidelines on what we could and could not do. The administrator kept saying "this is a Chinese affair" while the foreign teachers sought some guidance on how to recognise a "Chinese affair." Basically, a "Chinese affair" is anything that might potentially be declared a "Chinese affair" by anyone who could possibly have the authority to make this sort of declaration. Earlier, in my writing class, I had been told by a student that they were not allowed to talk about "politics," which of course does not include things like Bush's mismanagement of Hurricane Katarina or the EU's limits on Chinese "textile dumping" or anything else that makes other people look bad, but does include anything that might make China look bad.
In fact, the very wording of the new regulations basically prohibit any news that makes China look bad, prohibiting anything that might (among other things):
"(3) endanger China's national security, reputation and interests;
....
(5) incite hatred and discrimination among ethnic groups, undermine their unity, infringe upon their customs and habits, or hurt their feelings;
...
(9) undermine social ethics or the fine cultural traditions of the Chinese nation;"
as well as the catch-all: "Xinhua News Agency has the right to select the news and information released by foreign news agencies in China "
This is getting rambling, but a last thought. I can't help but wonder if this crackdown on outside reporting is due in part to emberassment on reporting of a few major crises in the past year, including the diploma crisis and the violent crackdown in Guagdong.
Monday, September 11
Five Years Later
Coming off a long hiatus, I figure there's no better way to get back on the horse than to jump on the 9/11 anniversary bandwagon. Plenty of columnists have taken this opportunity to present their opinions on the responses to terror over the past five years. The general consensus, at least among my favored sources of news which, I'm sure, share my liberal bias, is that the US response to terrorism has made more terrorists, although not nessisarily more al Qaeda terrorists, and it may have also made the moderate Muslim community more vocal as well; that special interests and political parties have responded with more infighting rather than more consensus; that nothing really phases the British and that we need to be prepared to make more sacrifices. I agree.
The typical liberal perspective is that the war on terror is failing for similar reasons to the failure of the war on drugs and the like: it's not really a war and we don't really understand it. The solution is, like all liberal solutions, a call for more understanding and cooperation. The conservative perspective is that the war on terror is failing for similar reasons to the failure of the Vietnam war: liberals are pussies and are sapping our strength, and apparently our willingness to arrest all funny-looking brown people. I tend to think that both sides are right, or both sides are wrong, depending primarily on how ornery I'm feeling. Put another way, it is stupid to treat issues like they are coins; there are more than two sides to most conflicts and often the best solution is one that combines the better elements of heads, tails and the rim around the edge. Ok, that simile kinda got away from me....
But I'd like to use another simile to help visualize my perspective on terror. I think terror is a lot like weeds. The Bush approach to the War on Terror has been something like this: "dern weeds killed my prize rosebush," then he found the part of the garden with the most weeds and burned it. The problem with this approach is multifold. Burning kills weeds, but it also kills flowers and veggies and good stuff like that. Furthermore, it left portions of the garden unweeded. Furthermore, burning plants helps fix nitrogen in the soil and makes it easier for the next generation of plants to grow. Part of what makes weeds so weedy is that they are really good at growing where you don't want them to. Guess which plants are gonna spread most easily back into the burned section of the garden. Probably not the rosebush.
The liberal approach might be characterized, at its extreme, as somewhat like my grandma's take on gardening: "oh, well Queen Ann's Lace is beautiful too, and I don't like to call it a weed..." The thing is, Queen Ann's Lace does have some nice flowers, but it also tends to grow where you don't want it to, and to make it hard to grow other things. Goutweed, milkweed, all these plants can be pretty attractive in their own rights, but if they're growing in your neighbor's garden, your garden had better be filled with some pretty resliliant plants or they'll take over yours as well. Think of this in economic and social terms: if your economy is full of strong companies with good growth and your civil society is well developed, then you are pretty resiliant and dissent and division are not a major problems; if your "plants" are weak, it's easy for weeds to take over.
Neo cons, for their part, seem to be thinking: "we've got these great herbicides (profiling, wiretaps) so why won't these hippy vegan organic types let us use them?" Like the liberal gardener, the neo con has an approach that seems sensible in many situations. The problem is that they trade long-term health for short-term conveniance. Sure, herbicides will help keep your garden weed-free, pesticides will help kill the bugs and synthetic fertilizer will grow great looking gardinias, but at the same time, you are poisining the soil, and your tomatos will never taste quite as good as the organic ones.
So where does this garden metaphor bring us? The most sucessful garden always requires a real investment of time and energy, especially when it is first planted. You've gotta go in, weed by hand, compost, water and repeat. But a few years later, the garden gets to the point where it can do pretty well on it's own. Taking this back into the real world, I find it amazing how people love to consider the "problem" Islam - terrorists and fundamental regimes like Iran - in terms of Communists and Fascists, but have failed to learn the lessons of two hot wars and a cold one. Communists gained in power when the economies struggled, Fascists gained in power when governments struggled with Communists. Two World Wars did not end the "Communist threat," and if anything made it worse AND created fertile ground for American-style Fascism (or as close as we got, McCarthyism). Our ultimate sucess against Communism was through economic development, both in America and supporting it in Europe, Japan and Korea through the Marshal Plan and such. Communist countries that we tried to fight directly: North Korea, China (kinda), Vietnam, Cuba. All are still at least nominaly Communist. Communist countries that we fought indirectly, economically and such: The Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the rest of the Eastern Bloc. None are Communist anymore. Hrm.
The lesson is clear: we don't win this kinda war with guns, bombs and secret police, we win it simply by being there.
The typical liberal perspective is that the war on terror is failing for similar reasons to the failure of the war on drugs and the like: it's not really a war and we don't really understand it. The solution is, like all liberal solutions, a call for more understanding and cooperation. The conservative perspective is that the war on terror is failing for similar reasons to the failure of the Vietnam war: liberals are pussies and are sapping our strength, and apparently our willingness to arrest all funny-looking brown people. I tend to think that both sides are right, or both sides are wrong, depending primarily on how ornery I'm feeling. Put another way, it is stupid to treat issues like they are coins; there are more than two sides to most conflicts and often the best solution is one that combines the better elements of heads, tails and the rim around the edge. Ok, that simile kinda got away from me....
But I'd like to use another simile to help visualize my perspective on terror. I think terror is a lot like weeds. The Bush approach to the War on Terror has been something like this: "dern weeds killed my prize rosebush," then he found the part of the garden with the most weeds and burned it. The problem with this approach is multifold. Burning kills weeds, but it also kills flowers and veggies and good stuff like that. Furthermore, it left portions of the garden unweeded. Furthermore, burning plants helps fix nitrogen in the soil and makes it easier for the next generation of plants to grow. Part of what makes weeds so weedy is that they are really good at growing where you don't want them to. Guess which plants are gonna spread most easily back into the burned section of the garden. Probably not the rosebush.
The liberal approach might be characterized, at its extreme, as somewhat like my grandma's take on gardening: "oh, well Queen Ann's Lace is beautiful too, and I don't like to call it a weed..." The thing is, Queen Ann's Lace does have some nice flowers, but it also tends to grow where you don't want it to, and to make it hard to grow other things. Goutweed, milkweed, all these plants can be pretty attractive in their own rights, but if they're growing in your neighbor's garden, your garden had better be filled with some pretty resliliant plants or they'll take over yours as well. Think of this in economic and social terms: if your economy is full of strong companies with good growth and your civil society is well developed, then you are pretty resiliant and dissent and division are not a major problems; if your "plants" are weak, it's easy for weeds to take over.
Neo cons, for their part, seem to be thinking: "we've got these great herbicides (profiling, wiretaps) so why won't these hippy vegan organic types let us use them?" Like the liberal gardener, the neo con has an approach that seems sensible in many situations. The problem is that they trade long-term health for short-term conveniance. Sure, herbicides will help keep your garden weed-free, pesticides will help kill the bugs and synthetic fertilizer will grow great looking gardinias, but at the same time, you are poisining the soil, and your tomatos will never taste quite as good as the organic ones.
So where does this garden metaphor bring us? The most sucessful garden always requires a real investment of time and energy, especially when it is first planted. You've gotta go in, weed by hand, compost, water and repeat. But a few years later, the garden gets to the point where it can do pretty well on it's own. Taking this back into the real world, I find it amazing how people love to consider the "problem" Islam - terrorists and fundamental regimes like Iran - in terms of Communists and Fascists, but have failed to learn the lessons of two hot wars and a cold one. Communists gained in power when the economies struggled, Fascists gained in power when governments struggled with Communists. Two World Wars did not end the "Communist threat," and if anything made it worse AND created fertile ground for American-style Fascism (or as close as we got, McCarthyism). Our ultimate sucess against Communism was through economic development, both in America and supporting it in Europe, Japan and Korea through the Marshal Plan and such. Communist countries that we tried to fight directly: North Korea, China (kinda), Vietnam, Cuba. All are still at least nominaly Communist. Communist countries that we fought indirectly, economically and such: The Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the rest of the Eastern Bloc. None are Communist anymore. Hrm.
The lesson is clear: we don't win this kinda war with guns, bombs and secret police, we win it simply by being there.
Friday, June 23
Rain
Things have pretty much calmed down over the past three days. This is the result of three main events.
First, three nights ago at 9 o'clock, the Henan Department of Education issued a six-part order:
1. The (figurehead) president and vice president (the real leader) are fired.
2. They must make a formal appology to the students.
3. Students who missed exams (presumably either in protest or out of fear of the protesters) will be given a chance to retake them.
4. The new leaders appointed by Zhengzhou University will find a solution to the problems (right).
5. The change to the diploma stands (more on this).
6. The students need to return to life as usual.
Basically, this is a very reasonable order, the best that can really be expected, although it falls a little short.
I had been a little confused about the specifics of the diploma change, but now, through meetings with people form the DOE and the administration (who finally, after five days, deigned to tell us their version what is going on), I understand it. Basically, a law was passed three years ago to close a loophole that allowed students from colleges affiliated with public universities to put just the universities name on the diploma without specifying which college. Given that many of these colleges are almost de facto independant, it seems like an entirely reasonable measure. The reason it is an issue now is it only came into effect with the students who entered college in 2003 (the older students were grandfathered through the loophole).
The students (and several other foreign teachrs) don't seem to fully understand this either. One of the main reasons that they don't particularly understand it is that the college has (intentionally?) mislead them into thinking they could still get the less specific, and therefore more prestigious, degree. The students do understand to a certain degree that they have been lied to: many of them were going around wearing shirts with "honesty" written on the back. Given the dishonesty of the school, my personal position is that the students should be given some sort of financial renumeration, but I think pigs will fly first.
The second thing that made them calm down was a threat to kick out any party members who were seen continuing to demonstrate. Given the degree to which the students have already seen their chances of getting a job severly damaged, loosing any party membership they might have would be an even bigger disaster. Although this doesn't affect all of them by any measure, the party members are frequently the ones who make better leaders (yay! coopting potential opposition!).
The third reason that the students calmed down, and in my opinion the biggest, is that it started to rain on Tuesday and basically didn't stop until today (Friday).
The interesting effect of all of this is that it has started to make it clear who among the students were hard-core on this issue, who will potentially continue to be radicalized (including a good friend of mine who needs to be much more careful than she is being right now), who were along for the ride and who were afraid of crossing picket lines. It was already clear who were running dogs of the administration (it was generally clear a long time before the protests even started; "please respect my China").
The interesting thing about these protests (to me) is that the studetns were primarily being reactionary. They wanted the school to cancel a good (in my opinion) reform that the school had no real power to cancel. True, they were also concerned with overly strict rules, assaults on students as part of the (largely unsucessful) administration crackdown and especially dishonesty, but once the weather changed and the powers that be decreed that the diplomas would stay changed, the bulk of the students, even the bulk of the student leaders, dipersed in disappointment.
The lessons of Tian'anmen are still powerful. The bulk of the students have still not turned away from the promise of prosperity to demand human rights, they were merely protesting the fact that they may have a difficult time acheiveing the promised prosperity in the current job market. We'll see how long it takes for freedoms to become the primary demands, rather than mere afterthoughts. You can bet there will be more student protests. As the worsening job prospects make the carrot harder to reach, more will start wondering why they are still being beaten by the stick when they look for their own ways to get food.
I am packed, bought my ticket to Beijing (8 hours in seats, ugh!), and trying to figure out how to meet my dad given that my cell phone was broken by some overzellous, water-throwing students (celebrating graduation, not protesting diplomas). One last thing about the protests before I move on to a presumably less entertaining travelogue: the best photos I've seen of the riots are here: http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060619_2.htm.
First, three nights ago at 9 o'clock, the Henan Department of Education issued a six-part order:
1. The (figurehead) president and vice president (the real leader) are fired.
2. They must make a formal appology to the students.
3. Students who missed exams (presumably either in protest or out of fear of the protesters) will be given a chance to retake them.
4. The new leaders appointed by Zhengzhou University will find a solution to the problems (right).
5. The change to the diploma stands (more on this).
6. The students need to return to life as usual.
Basically, this is a very reasonable order, the best that can really be expected, although it falls a little short.
I had been a little confused about the specifics of the diploma change, but now, through meetings with people form the DOE and the administration (who finally, after five days, deigned to tell us their version what is going on), I understand it. Basically, a law was passed three years ago to close a loophole that allowed students from colleges affiliated with public universities to put just the universities name on the diploma without specifying which college. Given that many of these colleges are almost de facto independant, it seems like an entirely reasonable measure. The reason it is an issue now is it only came into effect with the students who entered college in 2003 (the older students were grandfathered through the loophole).
The students (and several other foreign teachrs) don't seem to fully understand this either. One of the main reasons that they don't particularly understand it is that the college has (intentionally?) mislead them into thinking they could still get the less specific, and therefore more prestigious, degree. The students do understand to a certain degree that they have been lied to: many of them were going around wearing shirts with "honesty" written on the back. Given the dishonesty of the school, my personal position is that the students should be given some sort of financial renumeration, but I think pigs will fly first.
The second thing that made them calm down was a threat to kick out any party members who were seen continuing to demonstrate. Given the degree to which the students have already seen their chances of getting a job severly damaged, loosing any party membership they might have would be an even bigger disaster. Although this doesn't affect all of them by any measure, the party members are frequently the ones who make better leaders (yay! coopting potential opposition!).
The third reason that the students calmed down, and in my opinion the biggest, is that it started to rain on Tuesday and basically didn't stop until today (Friday).
The interesting effect of all of this is that it has started to make it clear who among the students were hard-core on this issue, who will potentially continue to be radicalized (including a good friend of mine who needs to be much more careful than she is being right now), who were along for the ride and who were afraid of crossing picket lines. It was already clear who were running dogs of the administration (it was generally clear a long time before the protests even started; "please respect my China").
The interesting thing about these protests (to me) is that the studetns were primarily being reactionary. They wanted the school to cancel a good (in my opinion) reform that the school had no real power to cancel. True, they were also concerned with overly strict rules, assaults on students as part of the (largely unsucessful) administration crackdown and especially dishonesty, but once the weather changed and the powers that be decreed that the diplomas would stay changed, the bulk of the students, even the bulk of the student leaders, dipersed in disappointment.
The lessons of Tian'anmen are still powerful. The bulk of the students have still not turned away from the promise of prosperity to demand human rights, they were merely protesting the fact that they may have a difficult time acheiveing the promised prosperity in the current job market. We'll see how long it takes for freedoms to become the primary demands, rather than mere afterthoughts. You can bet there will be more student protests. As the worsening job prospects make the carrot harder to reach, more will start wondering why they are still being beaten by the stick when they look for their own ways to get food.
I am packed, bought my ticket to Beijing (8 hours in seats, ugh!), and trying to figure out how to meet my dad given that my cell phone was broken by some overzellous, water-throwing students (celebrating graduation, not protesting diplomas). One last thing about the protests before I move on to a presumably less entertaining travelogue: the best photos I've seen of the riots are here: http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060619_2.htm.
Tuesday, June 20
More Protests
Once again, almost too much has happened in the past 24 hours to remember, but I'll do my best. Please note, there are some reports going out in the Associated Press and in the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao which are not accurate: water cannons have not been used on the students; there have been no physical encounters between students and police although there are scattered reports of private security personel beating students (which I have not personally whitnessed although I have seen one student and one reporter with injuries); the students did not smash the windows in the library or any of the academic buildings, only in some of the dormatories and shops on campus (they didn't leave campus to destroy things outside); the student demonstrations since the night of the riot (6/16) have been almost entirely peacful...
In any case, I will pick up where I left off:
When I left the library to rejoin the students, they decided to march around campus insulting and admonishing the students who had gone to their exams (a small minority). Initially this was somewhat out of control, although I was able, with some help, to largely stop the students from throwing (plastic) bottles and the like. In the process I also had to keep them from attacking a private security person (incidently one who was trying to keep me from telling the students not to throw things) and several students who had taken exams and who are viewed as traitors. I did not want to become a central figure in this for a number of reasons, but especially because I don't want to open myself or the students to accusations of a forienger meddling in their affairs, but from this point onward I have largely been greeted with cheers and thumbs-up signs wherever I go.
In any case, the students completed their circuit a little after 11, whereupon they all dissappeared into their dorms for lunch and siesta (only in China). I watched the end of game 5 of the NBA Finals (great game, btw). Then I did some grading and took a nap. At about two in the afternoon, the students began to mass in front of the administration building again. Apparently a journalist from Xinhua, the official party newspaper had come to campus and was talking with the administrators. There had been reports of journalists parked outside and not allowed into the college the day before, as well as reports that a photographer had been attacked. The students pointed out a man who they claimed to be the photographer and who did have some nasty bruises around his neck. This, along with the report of an attack on one female student are the only ones that I have been able to confirm at all. Aside from these incidents the protests have been almost entirely peaceful, and even the bottle throwing has all but stopped.
The journalist left without talking to the students, reportedly breaking into a run as she neared the school gate. At that point, seven vans of riot police (who I mistakenly called SWAT in a previous post) and seven police trucks decended and formed a double line in front of the college gate. It was a very strange scene as the students went to the gate to see what was going on and began to taunt the police. After a little bit of bottle-throwing (which I quickly put an end to), the students began to sing songs (including the national anthem) and to say "Smile, one [of you]" to the riot squad. I escorted an older teacher out the gate, at which point the guards stopped allowing anyone to come or go. Along with several other students and teachers, I called the guards to open the gate, but they didn't do anything. Finally I just climbed over, admitedly not the smartest thing to do but the police didn't seem to care as long as things were orderly and the guards seemed to have dissapeared.
Finally, some time later the confrontation broke down. Part of this was apparently because another teacher (the same one I escorted out the gate) was standing and singing songs between the gate and the police. More, I think, was due to the PA announcement that the leaders had someting to tell the students. They all gathered in front of the administration building (at which point, I am told, the riot police backed off from the gate). The vice president started to make an announcement, but the students just started to yell "wrong!" and then the chant started for people to leave. Somehow the message was passed to go to the auditorium for another meeting.
Again, I managed to get a decent seat at the meeting (this time with a student to help translate). The vice president and some other official (reportedly from Zhengzhou University [Zheng Da]) were there but the president was not. They began to tell the students that they needed to calm down, that the administration had listened to their complaints and would respond. The Zheng Da administrator then started to talk about the problmes. First he responded to the accusation of students being beaten, basically by saying they would look into it and punish the guilty party. Then he began to talk about the problem of the diplomas but the students shouted that the first problem was not finished. He waited for the yelling to die down and then started on the diploma issue again. The long and short of it is that the students will not be getting Zheng Da diplomas because of a new law and there is nothing to be done about it. He then tried to dismiss the student complaints about the false advertising of Shengda as part of Zheng Da by claiming some ads only said Shengda College and as far as the others, "a mistake had been made."
The students were having none of this and started calling for a microphone. Their calls were ignored as a professor went to the table and began telling a slow story about his backgroung, presumably as an attempt to calm the students. They continued to get rowdy and call for him to step down. The leaders called for a meeting with student representatives, but the students are afraid (and justifyably so) of scapegoating. The vice president said the students need to find a legal way to air their greivances (protesting is basically illegal in China). This provoked more yelling. Finally one of my students stepped onto stage and began to say something, first into the mike and then to the vice president. Nothing really came of this and the students began calling for a mic again and when they were not given one, to leave.
That night there was a meeting of some of the foreign teachers (15 of the 25 that are left) to try to decide what our position should be, especially since the college told us nothing for the first two days and then sent an email telling us to stay out away from the students without a real explanation. There was a general consensus on final grades (to treat the final exam as optional and let the school fail the students if it so decided), but no real consensus on anything else. We decided not to send a message to the school from the foreign teachers as a group, and anything else was an individual matter.
This morning, I went again to the administration building where the students are gathered with the same purpose in mind (keeping things peaceful). At this point the president of the college confronted me; he said I should go home. I told him that I was only there to keep people from throwing things and from hurting anyone. Again, he yelled that I should leave. My response was to tell him that the students no longer listen to him, but they listen to me, which means that I am able to keep them from throwing things. At this, the students gave a yell and began to crowd around. They appeared to be thinking of attacking some teachers or staff members, so I ran up the steps to intervene.
At this point, Mr. Yang, the new head of the FAO arrived to essentially put me in "time out." I said I wouldn't speak to him unless Mr. Zhao (the old head of the FAO who I respect much more than Yang) came as well. When we got to the FAO I told them what I have been saying all along, that I am only there to stop the students from getting violent, to give them advice if they ask for it and to observe. Mr. Zhao seemed to calm down a bit and told me as a friend that this was a Chinese affair and I should be careful about it. I asked him if he had ever seen a protest or event like this and he replied that he had in fact been in one (presumably during the Cultural Revolution). I told him that I have been in protests too, but the students have not and so they need someone to help keep them in control of themselves. At this point, Zhao had to leave to do something else and Yang had a meeting, so I was given to another FAO worker to look after. I told her I wanted to go turn in my grades, but that I would come back and she let me go.
On my way to the appartment to get my grade books, I encountered a student who was almost hysterical because she wants to take the GRE and is afraid of how it will look if she doesn't take her tests but she is also afraid of her classmates and wants to support them. I told her that she'll probably be OK so long as she can explain the unusual circumstances to Universities. Then I went and turned in my grades and, accompanied by another foreign teacher, went back to the FAO.
In the FAO we were introduced to two representatives of the Public Security Bureau's Foreign Afairs Office. We, later joined by a third foreign teacher and a student, told them our side of the story as we see it. In addition to telling them about our understanding of the student riot and protests, we also mentioned several incidents that have happened to foreign teachers at Shengda (which I detailed several entries ago) and that the riots are being covered in the foreign press. They asked us what we thought about the riots and what should be done to solve the problem. Then we were assured that the police are here for our protection (as of now, I tend to agree, it has only been the private security personel who have been assualting students) and that they will look into what we have told them. They did not tell me that it was inappropriate to try to keep the students calm and in fact agreed that we are perhaps in a better situation to do so. I asked them for a copy of the report that they file, which I will try to post if and when I get it. The PSB also told us that the Henan Education Administrator or some such thing is here and will be making an announcement.
That is all as of now.
In any case, I will pick up where I left off:
When I left the library to rejoin the students, they decided to march around campus insulting and admonishing the students who had gone to their exams (a small minority). Initially this was somewhat out of control, although I was able, with some help, to largely stop the students from throwing (plastic) bottles and the like. In the process I also had to keep them from attacking a private security person (incidently one who was trying to keep me from telling the students not to throw things) and several students who had taken exams and who are viewed as traitors. I did not want to become a central figure in this for a number of reasons, but especially because I don't want to open myself or the students to accusations of a forienger meddling in their affairs, but from this point onward I have largely been greeted with cheers and thumbs-up signs wherever I go.
In any case, the students completed their circuit a little after 11, whereupon they all dissappeared into their dorms for lunch and siesta (only in China). I watched the end of game 5 of the NBA Finals (great game, btw). Then I did some grading and took a nap. At about two in the afternoon, the students began to mass in front of the administration building again. Apparently a journalist from Xinhua, the official party newspaper had come to campus and was talking with the administrators. There had been reports of journalists parked outside and not allowed into the college the day before, as well as reports that a photographer had been attacked. The students pointed out a man who they claimed to be the photographer and who did have some nasty bruises around his neck. This, along with the report of an attack on one female student are the only ones that I have been able to confirm at all. Aside from these incidents the protests have been almost entirely peaceful, and even the bottle throwing has all but stopped.
The journalist left without talking to the students, reportedly breaking into a run as she neared the school gate. At that point, seven vans of riot police (who I mistakenly called SWAT in a previous post) and seven police trucks decended and formed a double line in front of the college gate. It was a very strange scene as the students went to the gate to see what was going on and began to taunt the police. After a little bit of bottle-throwing (which I quickly put an end to), the students began to sing songs (including the national anthem) and to say "Smile, one [of you]" to the riot squad. I escorted an older teacher out the gate, at which point the guards stopped allowing anyone to come or go. Along with several other students and teachers, I called the guards to open the gate, but they didn't do anything. Finally I just climbed over, admitedly not the smartest thing to do but the police didn't seem to care as long as things were orderly and the guards seemed to have dissapeared.
Finally, some time later the confrontation broke down. Part of this was apparently because another teacher (the same one I escorted out the gate) was standing and singing songs between the gate and the police. More, I think, was due to the PA announcement that the leaders had someting to tell the students. They all gathered in front of the administration building (at which point, I am told, the riot police backed off from the gate). The vice president started to make an announcement, but the students just started to yell "wrong!" and then the chant started for people to leave. Somehow the message was passed to go to the auditorium for another meeting.
Again, I managed to get a decent seat at the meeting (this time with a student to help translate). The vice president and some other official (reportedly from Zhengzhou University [Zheng Da]) were there but the president was not. They began to tell the students that they needed to calm down, that the administration had listened to their complaints and would respond. The Zheng Da administrator then started to talk about the problmes. First he responded to the accusation of students being beaten, basically by saying they would look into it and punish the guilty party. Then he began to talk about the problem of the diplomas but the students shouted that the first problem was not finished. He waited for the yelling to die down and then started on the diploma issue again. The long and short of it is that the students will not be getting Zheng Da diplomas because of a new law and there is nothing to be done about it. He then tried to dismiss the student complaints about the false advertising of Shengda as part of Zheng Da by claiming some ads only said Shengda College and as far as the others, "a mistake had been made."
The students were having none of this and started calling for a microphone. Their calls were ignored as a professor went to the table and began telling a slow story about his backgroung, presumably as an attempt to calm the students. They continued to get rowdy and call for him to step down. The leaders called for a meeting with student representatives, but the students are afraid (and justifyably so) of scapegoating. The vice president said the students need to find a legal way to air their greivances (protesting is basically illegal in China). This provoked more yelling. Finally one of my students stepped onto stage and began to say something, first into the mike and then to the vice president. Nothing really came of this and the students began calling for a mic again and when they were not given one, to leave.
That night there was a meeting of some of the foreign teachers (15 of the 25 that are left) to try to decide what our position should be, especially since the college told us nothing for the first two days and then sent an email telling us to stay out away from the students without a real explanation. There was a general consensus on final grades (to treat the final exam as optional and let the school fail the students if it so decided), but no real consensus on anything else. We decided not to send a message to the school from the foreign teachers as a group, and anything else was an individual matter.
This morning, I went again to the administration building where the students are gathered with the same purpose in mind (keeping things peaceful). At this point the president of the college confronted me; he said I should go home. I told him that I was only there to keep people from throwing things and from hurting anyone. Again, he yelled that I should leave. My response was to tell him that the students no longer listen to him, but they listen to me, which means that I am able to keep them from throwing things. At this, the students gave a yell and began to crowd around. They appeared to be thinking of attacking some teachers or staff members, so I ran up the steps to intervene.
At this point, Mr. Yang, the new head of the FAO arrived to essentially put me in "time out." I said I wouldn't speak to him unless Mr. Zhao (the old head of the FAO who I respect much more than Yang) came as well. When we got to the FAO I told them what I have been saying all along, that I am only there to stop the students from getting violent, to give them advice if they ask for it and to observe. Mr. Zhao seemed to calm down a bit and told me as a friend that this was a Chinese affair and I should be careful about it. I asked him if he had ever seen a protest or event like this and he replied that he had in fact been in one (presumably during the Cultural Revolution). I told him that I have been in protests too, but the students have not and so they need someone to help keep them in control of themselves. At this point, Zhao had to leave to do something else and Yang had a meeting, so I was given to another FAO worker to look after. I told her I wanted to go turn in my grades, but that I would come back and she let me go.
On my way to the appartment to get my grade books, I encountered a student who was almost hysterical because she wants to take the GRE and is afraid of how it will look if she doesn't take her tests but she is also afraid of her classmates and wants to support them. I told her that she'll probably be OK so long as she can explain the unusual circumstances to Universities. Then I went and turned in my grades and, accompanied by another foreign teacher, went back to the FAO.
In the FAO we were introduced to two representatives of the Public Security Bureau's Foreign Afairs Office. We, later joined by a third foreign teacher and a student, told them our side of the story as we see it. In addition to telling them about our understanding of the student riot and protests, we also mentioned several incidents that have happened to foreign teachers at Shengda (which I detailed several entries ago) and that the riots are being covered in the foreign press. They asked us what we thought about the riots and what should be done to solve the problem. Then we were assured that the police are here for our protection (as of now, I tend to agree, it has only been the private security personel who have been assualting students) and that they will look into what we have told them. They did not tell me that it was inappropriate to try to keep the students calm and in fact agreed that we are perhaps in a better situation to do so. I asked them for a copy of the report that they file, which I will try to post if and when I get it. The PSB also told us that the Henan Education Administrator or some such thing is here and will be making an announcement.
That is all as of now.
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