I won't go on in this vein forever (previously #1, #2, #3, #4), but the topic is important enough to bear a little more elaboration, IMHO. Part of the importance: there is no country with whom America's interactions are more consequential, or perpetually more complicated, than China. Another part of the importance: how the American public understands these interactions makes a big difference, in recognizing the points of disagreement and the areas of possible cooperation. Tomorrow, one more installment from the US government official who participated in important meetings and whom I have quoted twice before. For now:
This morning on the Chris Matthews show I mentioned earlier, a White House reporter for the Washington Post said that the Shanghai town meeting was another item on the disappointment/failure docket for America. Her argument was essentially: the Chinese outsmarted the Obama team and kept their countrymen from seeing it. I don't remember whether she said it was not broadcast at all or only on one "local" network; as mentioned yesterday, that one network reaches 100 million households.
So to a member of the traveling press pool, viewing the session mainly as a campaign stop whose advance work went either well or poorly, this looked like a bust. Here is how it looked to a foreigner who has just written me -- a person who has lived in China for two decades, still does business there, and speaks Mandarin:
"In your series, you touched on the
Shanghai town hall, quoting from President Obama's opening and his
response to the Twitter/Great Firewall question, and gave voice to a
White House insider as to the power of his words and their likely reach
inside China. There's been some buzz among western journalists about
how the town hall "reached no one".
"I've been monitoring the China
internet in the wake of the town hall and, based on my observations of
these things over the years I'm very much leaning toward the White
House insider's view -- that the reach was vast and deep, in the many
millions or tens of millions, though not necessarily entirely positive.
But the comment from President Obama that I think will have the most
impact inside the firewall was not the one about US principles that you
quoted in your followups. It was this one:
'Now, I should tell you, I should be honest, as President of the United States, there
are times where I wish information didn't flow so freely because then I
wouldn't have to listen to people criticizing me all the time. I think people naturally are -- when they're in positions of power sometimes thinks, oh, how could that person say that about me, or that's irresponsible, or -- but the truth is that because in the United States information is free, and I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me, I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear. It
forces me to examine what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis to see, am I
really doing the very best that I could be doing for the people of the
United States.'
"Wow! As a
resident of China for two decades and a Mandarin-speaking China-watcher
for three decades, I can say without any doubt that those words will
resonate far more deeply -- and potentially more "subversively" or
"destabilizingly" -- than any overt thumb-in-the-eye hectoring that any
foreigner or foreign leader might muster, in public or private.
Those words are ***precisely*** the kind that Zhongnanhai [Chinese term equivalent to "the Kremlin"] fears the
most, and rightly so."
After the jump, two other reader responses, one with an additional Chinese perspective and one with a historical comparison. ______
Things are warming up on this front. Previously here, with backward links. Today's points:
1) Many people have forwarded me a posting from my friend and former colleague Chuck Todd, saying that people who criticize the press's horse-race, instant-analysis coverage of Obama's trip are guilty of the same horse-race, instant-analysis thinking themselves. Ie, Hypocrite lecteur - mon semblable -- mon frere!
With all good will toward Chuck, let me point out the distinction: What (we) reporters say or write about an event can in fact be judged as soon as we say or write it, because it's all out there to be seen. What happens in a meeting between the leaders of China and the US often can't be judged for months or years after it occurs -- which is the complaint about instant analysis of what Obama "got" or didn't from this trip. For instance: no sane person imagined that an agreement about the value of the RMB would be announced just after this session. That is not the way the Chinese government has ever behaved in response to foreign "pressure." We will know whether US intervention on this issue had any effect over the next few months. It reveals zero familiarity with the issue to expect anything else -- or imply that the absence of an announcement is a "failure."
2) Many people have sent clips of today's talk show by my friend and former colleague Chris Matthews, which went in super-heavy for the "Obama humiliated in Asia" line. With all good will to Chris, I fear that this show today, notably the comments by the Washington Post's reporter from the Asia trip, will be the new symbol of exactly the kind of instant-analysis that, in my view, fundamentally misrepresents what happened on the trip. (Distillation of my complaint in an On the Media segment here; also, it was one theme of my All Things Considered discussion with Guy Raz yesterday.)
2A) As a bonus, here is what the Post's page showed yesterday for discussion of Obama's trip: was it a success or "an embarrassment"?
3) Below and after the jump, more comments from a US government official who was on the trip and knows first-hand about many of the meetings with foreign dignitaries. Earlier from this person here. About the "humiliating" bow to the Emperor of Japan:
"Obama's
attitude was, this is an elderly gentleman in a country where this kind
of greeting is customary. It does not seem extraordinary to show this
kind of gesture to him. The Fox news poll said that 67% of
Americans thought it was a good thing for him to have done. When the
president heard that some people had complained, I'd characterize his
reaction as: The notion that the United States is somehow humbling or
humiliating itself by showing respect for a local custom, when it is
transparently the most powerful country in the world, leaves me
speechless."
Manufactured failure #3: insider's view of the Obama trip
Late yesterday -- after I had recorded my On The Media complaints about mainstream coverage of Barack Obama's trip to Asia, but before I had seen Howard French's and Tish Durkin's similar complaints -- I got a call from a government official who had been on the trip. This person -- for convenience, I'll say "she" rather than "he or she" from here on -- wasn't aware that I'd already weighed in about the coverage, and was calling to say that I, as person who'd recently been living in China, might be interested in how different the events seemed to her from what she'd seen in the U.S. press.
She agreed to have her views conveyed "on background," which I'll do here and in a few more installments over the next two or three days. Obviously these are the views of an interested party, who was involved in planning the trip and believes it should be seen as a success. But compare them with what you read and heard about the trip last week -- including about the "failure" of the Town Meeting in Shanghai. About coverage of the trip in general:
"I don't care if someone criticizes us, I just would like it to be accurate and in context. I fear I am learning that is not the skill of some in the White House Press corps. They are experts on horse races, and so that is the way everything is cast."
About what the Administration hoped for from the trip:
"In thinking about the trip, the things we were trying to accomplish were all basically long term things. We were not looking for 'deliverables' or one-day stories. You've now got eight or nine countries among the G20 that are Asia-Pacific countries. The historic shift of power and influence from West to East is reflected in that number.
"Obama is very focused on global issues, things like climate change, financial imbalances, non proliferation, energy issues. We saw all the countries on this trip as players on those global issues. Of course China is important in particular, but also Korea and Japan and the ASEAN countries. So we saw this as a way of developing relationships that would be helpful to us as we tackled these issues coming down the road.
"We've got Copenhagen [climate talk] coming up in mid-December. We have Iran heading increasingly likely toward Plan B rather than Plan A, pressure rather than inducements. North Korea. And the Copenhagen session is very far from a done deal. The countries we dealt with are all key players here. And on the economic side, you've got the whole issue of rebalancing the global agenda. None of those is something where you come out of a meeting and say Eureka. They're all part of a long process and a long game.
"The other thing we had in mind, which has to do with the whole "rising China" phenomenon: we wanted to solidify the relationship with China. To show them that we're not going to have a fluctuating policy. That we know what we're doing, and understand that we are dealing from a position of strength. And at the same time, to all our traditional allies [Japan, Korea, etc], we wanted to reinforce their sense of comfort that our relationship with China won't be at their expense."
About the Town Hall meeting in Shanghai: Why was it "censored" rather than streamed to anyone who wanted to see it in China?
It's not just me. Two colleagues with different perspectives -- from each other's, and sometimes from my own -- marvel at how badly the mainstream American press distorted the picture of what happened during Barack Obama's just-ended tour of Asia.
First, Howard French -- long of the NYT, now of the Columbia Journalism School, friend of mine in both Tokyo and Shanghai. He has a new online Q-and-A with the Columbia Journalism Review, here, in which he says that the traveling press covered Obama's meetings with Asian officials as if this were a bunch of stops in a presidential campaign tour, and as a result missed or misrepresented what was going on. Read the whole thing, but here are two samples:
From the set-up to the interview, by Alexandra Fenwick:
"In almost every analysis of the trip, Chinese officials were portrayed as optimistic and newly emboldened to stand up to American interests and Obama was cast in the role of the meek debtor, standing with hat in hand. The line is that little was achieved and Obama was stifled, literally by state television and figuratively by the Chinese upper hand in the power dynamic."
Howard French goes on to say that these assumptions were flat wrong. He offers many explanations, including this:
"I find that the Washington reporters tend to be typically the most subject to this instant scorekeeping. This is part of the game of Washington reporting. They're at the bleeding edge of this phenomenon that I think is distressing in terms of the approach of the press to serious questions. Everything is shot through this prism of short-term political calculation as opposed to thinking seriously about stuff. You can't be an expert on every question, and so you're part of the Washington press corps and if you're really good and really diligent, you're going to be expert maybe in a few things and one of those things might not be China."
If you have seen Howard French's coverage over the years, including the five years he was based in Shanghai, you will know that no sane reader has ever put him in the category of "soft" on the Chinese leadership or China's faults. Yet his wonderment and exasperation at what he reads is palpable.
Tish Durkin, who has written for the Atlantic from Iraq and elsewhere, arrived in China recently. The subhead on her new column for The Week gets across the point:
"Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese
people managed a clearer view of Obama's visit than the US media did."
While I'm at it, here's one more: a story quoting the new US Ambassador to China, former Republican governor of Utah Jon Huntsman (a Mandarin speaker), to exactly the same effect.
"Washington's ambassador to Beijing hit out on Friday at negative US media coverage of President Barack Obama's visit to China, saying it failed to take into account important progress on many issues...
"The trip was the top news story in China, drawing strong interest from the mainland public who, surveys suggest, are largely positive in their view of the American president.
"However, much of the US media coverage was strongly negative, accusing Obama of failing to gain concessions on key issues such as Iran's nuclear programme and climate change, as well as being weak on human rights."
"I attended all those meetings that President Obama had with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao," Huntsman said, referring to the Chinese president and premier. "I've got to say some of the reporting I saw afterward was off the mark. I saw sweeping comments about things that apparently weren't talked about, when they were discussed in great detail in the meetings," he said.
I wasn't in touch with Howard French or Tish Durkin (to say nothing of Amb. Jon Huntsman) before we all expressed the same amazed and negative reaction at the way our colleagues had missed the main point of what just happened in America's relations with a very important part of the world. We're all familiar with one "crisis of the press," the business collapse. This is a different kind of crisis, though it makes the business crisis worse: the distortion of reality by compressing every complex issue into the narrative of the DC-based "horse race." As you can tell, this really bothers me.
November 20, 2009
Manufactured failure: press coverage of Obama in Asia
I have what I think is some interesting new info coming on this front over the weekend; stay tuned, starting Saturday afternoon. For the moment, two more installments in my argument, previously here and here, that Barack Obama's recent swing through Asia was a relative success, and certainly nothing like the disaster that most U.S. coverage implied.
Installment one: me talking with Bob Garfield of NPR's On The Media just now, about why American fantasies of an omnipotent, rising China may have distorted American press reaction to what Obama said and did.
Installment two: the before-and-after analyses from a private client newsletter by Damien Ma, Divya Reddy, and Nicholas Consonery of the Eurasia Group, reinforcing the idea that what actually happened on the trip was almost exactly what informed observers expected to happen, and not some humiliating disappointment.
November 11, just before the trip:
"President Barack Obama's first visit to China on 16 November will produce positive rhetoric, but achieve little on a range of issues from North Korea to economic rebalancing. Washington and Beijing will continue to highlight areas of mutual cooperation and interests, but domestic political agendas will pose serious constraints on the extent of near-term progress....
"Little to be expected on economic rebalancing and trade... Obama will likely raise the currency issue as part of a broader economic rebalancing framework. But the Chinese will continue to reject greater emphasis on the rebalancing issue, because Beijing interprets it as Washington shifting more of the blame on China for the global recession....
"No bilateral agreement will be reached on emissions reduction targets that might precipitate an ambitious global climate change treaty next month in Copenhagen. Obama's more modest task is to prevent China from aligning too closely with the G77 developing country bloc in global negotiations, although he has limited bargaining chips to encourage cooperation from China." [emphasis mine]
November 20 (today), post-action assessment, which boils down to, it went just as expected, and maybe a little better:
"President Barack Obama's first visit to China met the modest expectations set by the White House, making some progress on creating a more expansive relationship and on clean energy and climate change cooperation...Obama appears to have effectively reassured Beijing that the US does not intend to contain China's rise, creating a framework for mutual assurance that could augur a more mature relationship in the longer term.
"The US-China presidential summit involved a genuine attempt by both sides to push toward closer cooperation -- producing a robust joint statement that highlighted a range of common interests. In particular, Obama's first visit to China saw deliverables on clean energy and climate change cooperation, as expected. By dampening Copenhagen expectations in Singapore, Obama avoided a potential collision with China at next month's meeting... But Chinese domestic politics prevented Beijing from publicly discussing contentious issues such as currency and economic rebalancing during the trip...
"While policy disagreements and trade frictions will continue in the near term, Obama took an important step with a very public reassurance for Beijing that the US does not seek to contain China's rise. Beijing's receptiveness to this appeal indicates the intent of both countries to reduce the mutual distrust that has colored aspects of the relationship -- from currency, military engagement, and Taiwan to human rights and climate change. The Obama administration's more public approach, if successful, can promote longer term stability by engaging China on a broad range of issues within the context of a more mature and pragmatic relationship -- and in preventing specific, contentious issues from defining the relationship."
Why bring this up? Because it's bad all around when American press coverage makes people feel that perfectly predictable results constitute a shameful failure for the country and its leadership. More on this theme tomorrow.
He has just done a followup on his own site, about some preceding Chinese and Western exercises in the same spirit. Very much worth reading, here, along with this post on a related theme.
Update: To be clear about it, any suggestion from the discussions above that Patrick Chovanec's map was in some way "unoriginal" is entirely unwarranted, from my point of view. The concept that big, monolithic "China" is better understood as a variety of diverse sub-units is a well-established, even obvious one. The plus of Chovanec's presentation is the execution, which makes the point interesting and accessible for people in a new way. And as he points out on his own site, in his initial (very long!) submission to the Atlantic, he catalogued a variety of previous efforts in this same direction. That history would have fit well into a long, print version of his analysis, but not so well into the kind of interactive online feature we have presented. So, congratulations to him for making an important concept interesting and vivid for readers.
"Relating to comments on the Shanghai town hall, enough of the parsing of what he said on issues and how he said them, I think the most significant sentence was "That's why I'm pleased to announce that the United States will dramatically expand the number of our students who study in China to 100,000." Even without details (per year (I hope) or over what period, college and/or high school students, how funded, etc), I am surprised you have not remarked on it (and that the NY Times did not even report it). It is of major significance."
Good point. I did noticed this while listening to the speech, but have not yet tracked back to see exactly how, when, and through what institutions this will occur. It's worth following up -- as I will, soon. But in the meantime, it's welcome news.
On Obama's Asian diplomacy -- #1
First of several updates on the fly:
On reflection, I still stick with my initial reaction to the Shanghai Town Meeting appearance, rather than being won over by the on-scene complaints of my Shanghai friend Adam Minter as described here. If you combine Obama's opening statement (White House version here), with his answers to the questions about the Great Firewall, it seems to me that he said just about as much on censorship and liberties as a visiting dignitary could say, in the circumstances.
I mean, seriously -- consider what he said in the opening statement. He talked about America's founding documents and the long struggle to match American reality to their promises. Then he said:
"Those documents put forward a simple vision of human affairs, and they
enshrine several core principles -- that all men and women are created
equal, and possess certain fundamental rights; that government should
reflect the will of the people and respond to their wishes; that
commerce should be open, information freely accessible; and that laws,
and not simply men, should guarantee the administration of justice....
"And that is why America will always speak out for these core principles
around the world. We do not seek to impose any system of government
on any other nation, but we also don't believe that the principles that
we stand for are unique to our nation. These freedoms of expression
and worship -- of access to information and political participation --
we believe are universal rights. They should be available to all
people, including ethnic and religious minorities -- whether they are
in the United States, China, or any nation. Indeed, it is that respect
for universal rights that guides America's openness to other countries;
our respect for different cultures; our commitment to international
law; and our faith in the future.
The Chinese students in the audience were smart. They understood what he was saying. In the circumstances, how much more obvious did he need to be? Those circumstances included: Obama's being in China for his first official visit; his knowing (as he must have, from his briefings) that the big Chinese bugaboo is "outside interference" from foreigners telling them what to do; and his knowing that he had business on many fronts ahead of him in Beijing. Even in those circumstances he clearly said: America believes that openness and liberties are not quaint American practices but are in fact universal and should be available to everyone, including in China. In domestic American politics, Obama has been known for doing his work with the scalpel rather than the sledgehammer. How much less deft would we like him to be on a foreign visit?
Similarly with his answer about censorship and the Great Firewall:
"I am a big believer in technology and I'm a big believer in openness
when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely
information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then
citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments
accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates
new ideas. It encourages creativity.
"And so I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use.
I'm a big supporter of non-censorship. This is part of the tradition
of the United States that I discussed before, and I recognize that
different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in
the United States, the fact that we have free Internet -- or
unrestricted Internet access is a source of strength, and I think
should be encouraged."
"I'm a big supporter of non-censorship" is ungainly. But what's wrong with the statement as a whole?
Foreign leaders do not typically go to other countries and frontally criticize the way those places they're run -- at least not if they're smart, or serious. For instance, when Hugo Chavez made his famous "I smell the devil!" crack after following G.W. Bush to the podium at the U.N., this was not a sign of his wanting to do business with America. Yes, you got Chavez's point, in all its gross clownishness. Who could miss Obama's point in Shanghai? Would we welcome a French or German prime minister coming to a US town meeting in the Bush years, shortly before a negotiating session at the White House, and saying, "Of course we condemn waterboarding, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib"? I condemn those things too, but is that the shrewdest thing for a foreign president to say while here?
More later, but I thought the words stand up well and got across the intended message.
What "green collaboration" might mean in practice
As I never tire of mentioning, the big opportunity -- and challenge -- of the Obama Administration's interaction with China is finding ways for the countries to work together on climate, energy, and pollution issues. The countries are two of the main sources of the problem, as the two leading emitters in the world. And they're two of the main sources of solutions, China with its manufacturing ability and the U.S. with (we hope!) its R&D.
I am not equipped to judge how the slew of clean-energy initiatives prepared for approval at the Hu-Obama meeting will turn out in practice -- which ones are serious, which ones are for show. That's what I'll be asking my expert friends in the next while. But if you were wondering what US-China "cooperation" might mean in practice, here's a list of seven joint initiatives, announced today in Beijing. Convenient summary highlight below, with links that open up fact-sheet PDFs:
I'll be asking my experts which of these is most plausible. Let's hope the answers begin, "Well, quite a few of them are... "
November 16, 2009
Further on local reaction to Obama's Shanghai town hall (updated)
After my real-time late-night note a few hours ago saying that I thought things had gone OK for Obama in Shanghai, I wake up to see this report from my friend Adam Minter, on the scene in Shanghai, about ways in which Obama's answers seemed disappointing from the local perspective:
"Obama's performance this afternoon reminded me of nothing so much as an
overly coached American businessman on his first trip to China, so
concerned about what he should or should not say that he forgets what
he wanted to say in the first place."
I dunno. I understand the pattern Minter is talking about, and I'll watch the session again with that in mind. His account is worth reading for his assessment and for many amusing logistics details about the event. Adam Minter also did our dispatch on "Obama mania in China" over the weekend. UPDATE: Chris Good has more of the full transcript of Obama's talk, which shows that especially in the opening remarks he made about as explicit an argument in favor of liberties and freedom of expression as one can expect in the circumstances.
Related China/US rhetoric point: in two recent items, here and here, I tried to explain what a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman could have been thinking when comparing Chairman Mao to Abraham Lincoln, the Tibetan serfs whom Mao "freed" from the lamas as being similar to the black slaves whom Lincoln freed, etc. A reader's reponse:
"I agree with you on Chinese officials' lack of skills in
communication and persuasion (part of this is due to political inward-looking,
as you said, but the other part is cultural---Confucius said "a gentleman should
be modest in speech but quick in action", and so eloquence in public speech,
oration, etc, is never highly valued in Chinese tradition.)
"With regards to Qin Gang's [the foreign ministry spokesman] comment on Obama,
Tibet, and slavery, however, I think he (as well as many other Chinese
people) is genuinely thinking that the Chinese and American cases
are comparable, or genuinely believe there are some valid points in Chinese
views on Tibet that westerners tend to ignore, and they want to bring these
points to the fore. I know you are a big Obama fan and obviously not a
fan of Mao or Hu Jintao, but I think no one is really making personal
comparisons. Now, Qin Gang's view (and the Chinese view) might be
wrong---by the way you didn't explain why it's wrong on your blog---but it does
not mean he cannot express his view. Why shouldn't Qin or any other Chinese
official express their genuine opinion (be it right or wrong), but pander
to Western thinking or adapt their expressions to suit Western ears?
"To me Qin's comment does not reflect a Chinese
communication problem, but rather the vast difference between Chinese
thinking and Western thinking on Tibet (after all, most westerners want to
believe Seven Years in Tibet while most Chinese do not). Not that China does not
have communication problems---the problems abound---but this is not a good
example."
This is a useful opportunity for clarification. I agree with the writer that most Chinese officials (and, in my experience, most Chinese people) sincerely believe the Mao=Lincoln point. That's exactly what I said in the original post. The "communications problem" would be the failure to recognize that people outside the country generally don't think that way and will view the argument as bizarre at best. So Qin's holding the view does not illustrate the tin-ear problem I'm talking about; the question is why he said it that way to outsiders. Someone whose job is to address a foreign audience needs to know something about foreign assumptions, reactions, and so on. American politicians routinely say to home audiences, "This is God's country" and similar thoughts amounting to "We are better than the foreigners." But a State Department person who said those things to visiting reporters would be foolish or tin-eared. It's what Qin said, not what he thought, that's illustrates the problem.
Obama's town hall in Shanghai just now
I got up to watch the live stream on the White House site, out of nostalgia for my Shanghai days.
No very shocking questions from the students, though some had swathed edges to them: What about harmonious relations and arms sales with Taiwan? Obama doesn't answer about arms sales but does, carefully, about the harmonious relations. What about the Great Firewall and free access to info? Obama explains why free exchange of info makes leaders do a better job, even if he doesn't like the criticism some times. What about the risk that an intentionally- and historically-diverse nation like the US will misunderstand the situation of countries with different histories and makeups? Obama gives a defense and celebration of diversity, in his country and in his family. And says that he doesn't use Twitter.
Tomorrow's chore is a omnibus wrap-up on several recent Obama pronouncements, from the Ft. Hood eulogy to the Japan and China speeches. Main impression here is that he did well -- charming the students in the room itself, though almost any president can do that through the sheer magnetism of the office, but also talking in ways that will play well to Chinese sensibilities without saying a word that would go over wrong back home. Listening to him, I am not 100% sure that Obama has spent a lot of time conversing with non-native speakers of English. There is a different way you learn to talk: not condescending or stripped down, but more direct and less allusive. (For example, you wouldn't say "allusive." And I wouldn't say "swathed" in the paragraph above, to indicate questions that had a kind of protective wrapping to blunt their edge. I'd say something like, "The questions from the students were polite, but some had a slight edge.") People without experience doing this either talk in needlessly complex ways or talk in an insultingly clumsy oogah-boogah style. Sometimes Obama sounded as if he knew this approach; sometimes, as if he thought he was talking to a domestic audience.
It was also heartening for me to see these students, who resembled those I'd dealt with over the years -- and the truest moment of all came with the final question, where a student asked him frankly what was the right educational background that could lead to a Nobel prize. Now back to bed and more tomorrow.
November 15, 2009
Were you possibly wondering...
... about that picture on the front page of today's NYT, showing a little shop in Beijing with Obama-related memorabilia in honor of the president's visit? There's a prominent hand-lettered Chinese sign in the upper left-hand part of the picture. Wonder if it says, "Welcome President Obama"? Or, "Resolutely support the development of mutually-respectful relations between China and America"? Or, "Strongly resist splittism"? Or some other topical greeting?
Actually, no. It says "Help wanted -- shopgirl." [ 招店員(女) ] Nice to see the practical-mindedness of the Chinese business class shining through. And a welcome indication that retail sector hiring is underway!
"Nine Nations of China"
Even if President Obama weren't getting to China just now, it would be worth checking out the illustrated feature "Nine Nations of China," by Patrick Chovanec, which has just gone up on our site. Given the visit, it's all the more timely.
I've mentioned time and again over the years how the big, unified- and imposing-seeming "China" of American imagination should really be thought of as a billion-plus individuals, tens of thousands of contending companies and small businesses, dozens of provincial or regional-loyalty groups, and lots of other subdivisions. In some circumstances, this agglomeration can act as one big, momentarily-unified "country" - especially when the national dignity is thought to be under attack from overseas. In most other cases, the big country of "China" is really a fluid congeries of interests and ambitions.
Patrick Chovanec -- who teaches in Beijing, and whom I knew there -- has provided another way to think about how China is organized and divided. You can see it here. Congrats to him and to Jennie Rothenberg Gritz and Anup Kaphle of the Atlantic's web site for putting it together.
More on Mao, Lincoln, the lamas, etc
I mentioned yesterday the oddity of a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman welcoming Barack Obama to China with a triple-backflip metaphor linking Chairman Mao to Abraham Lincoln, since both Lincoln and Mao fought against secessionist rebels. From a reader with experience in China and America this response:
"Thank you for pointing
out the strange logic of the foreign ministry spokesman in this bizarre
lecture to President Obama. I have been living in the U.S. for twenty
years and as a citizen for the last ten, but i often can't help feel
ashamed often by remarks like these.
"I know I shouldn't, but I lived my
first 26 years in this great country [China] after all. What a shame it is
represented by such cynical officials. I say cynical because I think
they often know better than what they say. They say it that way because
it is not only safe but potentially profitable politically. They don't
really care about the effect of their remarks globally. Their audience
is inside the ministry and the government. I once had lunch with [a very prominent government official], while he was [in an important position] in the Washington embassy. He
said when he wrote reports to the ministry, he needed to know what the
ministry's opinion was so he would not be too out of line.
"Maybe this
is true for all bureaucracies, but it is practiced to such a degree for
so long in China that it is one of its most deep-rooted diseases. Reading the histories of Qing and Republic of China, once sees many
examples of how officials often opted for the politically safe path at
the expense of national interests. Today, one also sees the same
practice in dealing with tough political issues such as ethnic tension. Because harsh measures and blaming the "splittists" is always safe and
potentially rewarding for their careers, they become the only chosen
policy options, even when that create more problems for the county in
the future and draw international scolding."
Let me say that this rings 100% true to my observation of the situation. Individuals are often very sophisticated about outside realities; the system keeps their attention directed inward.
My discussion of this and related Obama/China questions this afternoon on All Things Considered, with Guy Raz, here.
November 14, 2009
James Lilley
I was sorry to hear that James Lilley has died in Washington, at age 81.
Lilley, who was born in Qingdao and mainly lived in China until age 12, was a very important figure in the modern US-China rapprochement. He was a career CIA agent who served as CIA station chief in Beijing during George H. W. Bush's time as chief of mission there (before the US and China established formal relations). He is the only person to have been ambassador both to the Republic of China on Taiwan and to the People's Republic, in Beijing, which is a convenient shorthand for his maintaining a long-term balance between the positive and the negative aspects of relations between the US and China. He kept working to expand the positive and cooperative potential between the countries, without forgetting or suppressing the areas in which they disagree. This was most notable after the Tiananmen crackdowns 20 years ago, when he was on duty as ambassador in Beijing and forcefully criticized the repression (and offered protection to the dissident physicist Fang Lizhi).
Frontline interview with Lilley from 2004, about the Wen Ho Lee case and related US-Chinese nuclear and military tensions here. Very recent interview with the China Daily (which goes easy on his intelligence backgrond) here. Statement yesterday on his death by Hillary Clinton here. I did not know him well but met or interviewed him half a dozen times over the past twenty years in Korea (where he was also ambassador) and in Washington. He was personally gracious and a skillful public servant.
Here's why the China trip matters
Nearly thirty years after he left office, the most important achievement of Jimmy Carter's time as president was his cementing the relationship with China that had begun under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. (Second-most important: Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt. Third: showing that it was possible, at least for a while, to increase the energy efficiency of cars, buildings, power generation, and industry within the US.)
Thirty years from now, the most important aspect of Barack Obama's interaction with China will be whether the two countries, together, can do anything about environmental and climate issues. If they can, in 2039 we'll look back on this as something like the Silent Spring/Clean Air Act moment in American history, which began a change toward broad environmental improvement. If they can't....
Today the Asia Society's "China Green" project ran a full-page ad in the New York Times -- good to see support for the print media! -- and launched another online display dramatizing why such cooperation matters. This one is called On Thinner Ice and documents the accelerating disappearance of the glaciers on the Tibetan plateau that feed nearly all the major rivers of Asia. (Previous Asia Society displays on this topic here.) Sample clip from the display:
For an earlier project by Michael Zhao of "China Green," documenting air quality in Beijing in the year leading up to the Olympics, see this discussion and the Olympic-air site, here. A week ago, according to the BejingAir Twitter feed (background here and here) the city's air quality was in the almost-unbelievable "hazardous" range. My friends in Beijing say that the skies are fresh and blue today, hours before Obama's arrival. Good! Every non-polluted day is a victory. But let's hope the two sides concentrate on cleaning up for the long run.
November 13, 2009
Those silver-tongued spokesmen in Beijing
I have marveled many times (eg a year ago in the magazine here) at the lack of savvy Chinese government spokesmen often display when presenting their country's case and face to the world. Locus classicus #1 is the description of the Dalai Lama as a "jackal in a Buddhist monk's robes," as a government official once called him. Number Two was the handling of "authorized" protests at the Beijing Olympics last year. Anyone could apply to protest any domestic or international issue -- but the authorities rejected all such requests and locked up some Chinese people who applied.*
Now we may have candidate #3, in the form of the welcome offered yesterday by Qin Gang, the official spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, to President Obama on the eve of his visit to China. Qin observed that Obama should be especially appreciative of China's need to quash "splittist" factions in Tibet and elsewhere. Why? Because Obama's race should give him a particularly acute sympathy to the plight of enslaved peoples. From the Reuters story (additional press comment from the FT here and China's Global Times here):
"He is a black president, and he understands the slavery abolition movement and Lincoln's major significance for that movement," said Qin.
"Lincoln played an incomparable role in protecting the national unity and territorial integrity of the United States."...China's stance [in opposing Tibetan "splittists" was like Lincoln's, Qin said.] "Thus on this issue we hope that President Obama, more than any other foreign leader, can better, more deeply grasp China's stance on protecting national sovereignty and territorial integrity," said Qin.
What is Qin talking about? This whole concept makes little sense from an outside perspective unless you recognize two taken-for-granted parts of the argument, from the Chinese point of view:
Black slaves in the South, before the arrival of the Union armies = Tibetan peasants under the lamas' rule, before the arrival of Mao's forces;
Lincoln with his steadfast insistence that the Union not be sundered = Mao and his successors with their steadfast insistence that the PRC not be "split."
The truth of the first equation is assumed by people at all levels of Han Chinese society, and is reinforced by exhibits like the one I mentioned here.
The truth of the second is a top-level tenet of Chinese government strategy. Maintain internal order; prevent "splittism" (whether in Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, or elsewhere); and develop the economy -- with those three propositions, you can predict quite a bit of what the government will do.
If you were going to argue a case to an audience inside China, you would do well to be aware of those assumptions in the listeners' minds. But if -- as with the Foreign Ministry spokesmen -- you were making a case to the world at large, you would do well to realize that Americans won't automatically think "Oh, yes, Abraham Lincoln was just like Hu Jintao" or "Oh, those Tibetan lamas were just like Simon Legree." The main point again is the tin-ear touch, the failure to recognize how these arguments will come across outside the People's Republic.
Here's hoping that we've seen an atypically awkward beginning to what will be a successful trip. FWIW, yesterday on Tom Ashbrook's On Point program, from WBUR in Boston, I discussed Obama's Asian trip along with Susan Shirk of UCSD and Shen Dingli of Fudan in Shanghai. The program is here. ___ * For Chinese readers, a reminder: the point of my article is that the
reality of modern China is much more varied, open, and flexible than
the spokesmen manage to convey. So we have an official PR apparatus
that generally succeeds in making the country look less appealing than it really is.
November 12, 2009
Doing Business in China: Legalese (updated)
Nearing the end of our Doing Business in China clips, here's the story of a Western businessman who went to the Chinese courts for relief -- and got it. Larger point involves the uneven way that "rule of law" applies in China. Some place, yes; many places, no; but the number of "yes" zones is increasing.
UPDATE: In introducing the previous clip, I said that there was one sentence in it I completely disagreed with, while all the rest rang true. In case you were wondering, it was the sentence saying that in Shanghai and Beijing, "it is hard to find someone who doesn't speak English." If you define "Shanghai and Beijing" as meaning, "inside a five-star international hotel in Shanghai or Beijing, among the staff trained to deal with foreign guests, when the first team is on duty," that statement is exactly right! Otherwise....The statement appears around time 1:20, so you can put it in context and see the source.
November 10, 2009
Doing Business in China: Lost in Translation
Ah, the mysteries of language. This little clip, next in the Doing Business in China series, actually does a nice job of introducing some of the tangles and intricacies of the "what language are people speaking, when they say they're speaking English?" question. There is exactly one sentence in this clip, from an interviewee, that I completely disagree with. Will let you guess which one it is. The rest all rings true, even when people contradict one another and themselves.
November 9, 2009
The other shoe drops at Caijing
According to Ian Johnson in the WSJ just now, Hu Shuli, the founder and editor of Caijing magazine in China, has finally resigned, along with her deputy Wang Shuo. This is Hu, at the magazine's big annual conference last year in Beijing. (I didn't take this picture but was at the event. Update: WSJ story now has co-byline with Sky Canaves.)
At Johnson explains in his story, tension at Caijing had been rising for some time. Also see previous links, including to Evan Osnos's profile of Hu in the New Yorker, here. The reason this news matters is that Caijing, a business/finance magazine that had in its 11 years become the main vehicle for independent reporting and criticism of all sorts, has been the very important exception to the rule about the strictures and limits on the Chinese domestic press. "Yes, the press is subject to tight controls, but at Caijing..." For instance, during the SARS outbreak in 2003, Caijing played an important role in questioning the government's story that everything was under control. (Disclosure: one of my sons was an intern at the magazine then.)
The potential silver lining, in character for the irrepressible Hu Shuli, is that she is apparently already planning to launch a new magazine. More to come on this topic, but news of the change itself is worth noting.
"I was sorry to hear about her passing. Four years ago, after reading her book, I wrote to her and she invited me over to her apartment near the Washington Cathedral. I was just finishing up Chinese language training in DC and was about to be posted to Shanghai. I was surprised by how lively and sharp she was. She was 90 but appeared to be 70. She was very well informed about life in Shanghai even though she had been gone for decades. When I asked her if she would ever return she said she had been invited by the Chinese government but she would never return to be used for propaganda purposes. Besides, she said, it would be too painful. She loved Washington.
"After living in Shanghai a couple of years I wrote to her and shared with her my view that Shanghai was a relentlessly materialistic city. She replied that she had been told by her friends that it had become a city without a soul. I offered to send her photos of the places she described in her book but she asked me not to. She didn't want to look back."
From another reader, in response to my comment that over the years I had recognized Nien Cheng several times on the street in northwest DC but had never felt as I should interrupt her to say hello and say that I had been moved by her book:
"I did have the pleasure of meeting Nien Cheng and having a pleasant chat with her in her apartment in Washington. She sent several Christmas cards to me over the years. And yes, she was an elegant lady. You've got that right. It will have to be one of those things you always regret (and we all have them) because I can assure you, she would have appreciated your comment about how much you liked her book. She would not have minded at all. She would have been deeply touched by you telling her so. She exhibited surprise that anyone still remembered her book after so many years when I told her that very thing. But being a person of faith, myself, I would like to tell you that I sincerely believe she is in a place where she knows how you feel. She was a Christian of strong faith. So hold your memories of seeing her dear to your heart. I only got to see her once."
November 5, 2009
Nien Cheng
My wife just alerted me to something I had missed in the paper today: news that Nien Cheng had died in Washington this week, at 94.
Life and Death in Shanghai, her memoir of her life in China in the pre-Communist era, and then her daughter's murder and her own imprisonment and torture by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, was one of the first notable accounts of those years and remains a powerful work of modern non-fiction. Although it has been two decades since I read it, many of the scenes are still vivid. Soon after it was published in 1987, my wife and I were in Shanghai and traced the neighborhoods she had described.
Nien Cheng never returned to mainland China after she got out in 1980, and over the past twenty years she lived mainly in Washington DC. Several times while walking my wife or I had the amazing-each-time experience of passing on the sidewalk a tiny, increasingly frail, but elegant Chinese woman whom we knew to be her. I never dared to say hello or thank her for writing the book, which I now regret all the more. None of her family is left, but her book will endure.
You can probably guess the answer to the question above, explored in this next clip from the Doing Business in China series. But I do love the way this clip gets to the answer, via both its pre-Communist era documentary and movie footage and also its exploration of special role of the "Shanghai woman." I think you will see what I mean.
November 3, 2009
Doing Business in China: An Eastern Perspective
This clip is about numbers, and the varying ways to make sense of them in China. At one extreme the power of numbers is of obvious and unignorable importance. The opening scene of the clip, on a winter day in Shanghai, give a glimpse of the sea-of-people effect of many Chinese cities. On the other hand, neither Shanghai nor Beijing nor any other city in the mainland seems as densely packed as either Tokyo or Hong Kong. The difference with mainland China is that there are so many multi-million person cities across so huge a landmass, plus plenty of well-populated rural areas too.
At the same time, just about any number concerning China is an approximation, from economic growth rates to literacy or environmental readings, or anything else. This clip mainly talks about the implications of that rough-and-ready statistical approach for businesses, but it has international and political implications too.
October 29, 2009
Background on Nook v. Kindle
A person who was involved in Barnes & Noble's launch of the Nook sends this info about its positioning relative to the Kindle and other potential competitors. This person naturally has a bias in favor of the Nook, but this is interesting as a view onto B&N's thinking.
"Nook advantages "- More open with ePub, Android OS, and lending "- My guess is Amazon will copy lending "- In store WiFi. Users can go in stores and access lots of content from entire books to free publications. Len Riggio, founder and CEO of B&N fought to have comfortable seating in the stores and has prevailed against naysayers thought it would waste valuable space. I think you'll see even more space allotted to this. There's lots of space devoted to music that will be replaced with nook areas. "- The color touch display really brings the ease of use to ebooks much as Apple did with iPhones. "- Much larger bookstore that includes Google books "- Holding. Easier to grip with a contoured and soft touch back. Works equally well for right and left handed."
Again, this comes from an interested party, but it's worth bearing in mind as the product hits the market.
October 28, 2009
Health-related follow up: can Asians drink? (UPDATED)
The latest installment of the Doing Business in China series talked about the ritual of drinking-to-the-point-of-drunkness in formal Chinese "business" gatherings. This doesn't always happen, but it happens enough to be a factor in professional life. In my experience, it was even more common in the provinces than in the big cities, and most likely in "getting to know you" dinners involving big delegations. Now a reader in Philadelphia writes with a question about the practice:
"I read your post on Doing Business in China, and I wondered to what extent the prevalence of alcohol in after-hours business gatherings is complicated by the alcohol flush reaction common to so many people of East Asian descent. I am an American of Chinese descent with this particular genetic variation and I find that the unpleasant side effects of alcohol consumption interfere with any desire to drink until intoxication. Given the frequency of this condition, do business people in China simply accept the situation as normal or is there a demurral from overconsumption, where someone may take one drink as a courtesy and then decline politely thereafter, so as to avoid such intoxicating effects?"
The issue here involves an enzyme called acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, or ALDH2. It is part of the metabolic chain for breaking down alcohol, and people who lack it are subject to a kind of "alcohol poisoning." Their face and/or neck turns red, they sweat, they flush and may pass out. Interestingly (and to the best of my understanding), the anti-alcoholism drug Antabuse, which is supposed to make drinking so unpleasant that people are forced to swear off, works by mimicking the effect of a blocked ALDH2 enzyme.
Caucasians rarely lack this enzyme, but as many as half the people do among some East Asian and North Asian population groups -- Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Mongolians, many Native American groups in the US and Canada. (I don't know about Africans, South Asians, etc.) So at a drinking party in China, you'll typically see some faces turn bright red after a couple of sips.
How do people who have this problem cope? Obviously it depends, but I've seen two main patterns. Some people politely avoid the baijiu or similar high-proof spirits. They stick to tea or hot water or soft drinks. Others plunge right ahead, as if getting drunk is the point (to promote a shared dropping of inhibitions). It's tough work but must be done. Whenever I felt sorry for myself at these rituals, I realized that there were people who were facing even greater challenges. 干杯 - Ganbei!
UPDATE: thanks to reader M.L. a map from a paper in the Annals of Human Genetics showing with dark shade the prevalence of the genetic problem in question. Centered farther south in China than I would have guessed. Mongolia not very much affected. As for adjoining areas, M.L. reports "Central Asians - and I can back this up from direct observation, especially in former Soviet Central Asia, most certainly do not seem to be afflicted with any symptoms of alcohol allergies."
October 27, 2009
Doing Business in China: Drinks and Deals
Ah, drinking in China as part of business negotiations. Where to start... This next installment of the Doing Business in China series is a beginning. It really is true that the purpose of many "business" dinners is for everyone, Chinese and foreign, to become drunk (often on Chinese Baijiu, 白酒, vodka-ish raw spirit). In becoming drunk and lowering defenses, people prove their mutual trust, or something. In any case, it's real. Note the appearance of Chinese beer, on which I often commented during my time of residence, starting about time 0:11. Main point: this sounds like a joke or cliche but actually makes a difference.
This is heartwarming! (From Shaanxi to Carnegie Hall)
This summer I mentioned the mesmerizing experience of hearing lao qiang, "Old Songs," in a middle-of-nowhere rural theater in Shaanxi province in China. The patriarch and star of the troupe I saw was Zhang Ximin, more or less a traditional Chinese counterpart to BB King:
Today I see in the New York Times that he and Zhang Family Band were at Carnegie Hall over the weekend! That's Zhang Ximin in the red shirt in the NYT's picture, below.
This should support some new version of the "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" joke, but I can't think of one at the moment.
The pictures below are from an extremely powerful exhibition by Lu Guang (卢广), a Chinese photographer, about pollution and its effects in his home country. His photos have just won a major prize from the Asia Society. While not all of China looks like what he has depicted, I have seen things exactly like what is shown in these photos, and so has anyone else who has traveled outside the big cities or visited factories and mines. Two samples from Lu Guang's work: a power plant in Inner Mongolia, then a migrant laborer in the coal regions of Shanxi province.
These are pictures to bear in mind the next time you read a "China is an unstoppable superpower with an ability to solve all problems" story; it's worth emphasizing, as I have here and elsewhere, that there is tremendous pressure within China to change course environmentally for the survival of its own people.
Many pending messages in the queue with more info about the measurable health effects, for foreigners and Chinese citizens, of China's environmental situation. Will get to them in due course. Thanks to many people who have sent in notes about the Lu Guang photos.
October 22, 2009
Doing Business in China: A Piece of the Pie
Next in Doing Business in China: the pizza wars! Early in our stay in Shanghai, my wife and I tried to stop in to the Pizza Hut just north of People's Square -- and were turned away, by a head waiter whose face was barely visible beneath his gigantic sombrero. We didn't have reservations, on this routine weekday night -- what were we thinking in trying to get in? This is one illustration of the social and business complications of the pizza business in China, which has been good for Pizza Hut and very rough for Domino's. This segment narrated by Emily Chang, series co-host.
October 21, 2009
I love the English-language Chinese press (chap. 17,825)
An article now buzzing around the China-hand blogosphere: multi-shot photo feature on "Most beautiful Chinese female soldier" from the People's Daily today.
For later discussion: why the PLA often seems less fearsome inside China than when described in Western news reports. Bonus photo collage after the jump.
First-hand experience with Chinese air, pro and con
Following this item yesterday, about this article in the current issue on the health effects of living in China, good-news and bad-news reports from American friends with long experience in Asia.
First, the bad news.
"I check the BeijingAir Twitter every time I'm headed there for work. I thought I'd report an anecdote from a friend who has worked in China since the 1970s and lived there for many years (though moved back partly to raise children in a more healthy environment!). She had MRIs performed on her lungs some time ago and they indicated significant scarring and other damage, despite the fact that she has never been a smoker. She has never complained of any symptoms or health problems but clearly some damage was done."
FWIW, I heard similar stories from a variety of people who had been in and out of China since the 1980s, but I don't know of any systematic data. Maybe I'll have another data point two weeks from now, when my appointment with my own doctor for a welcome-home physical exam finally rolls around. Only has taken three months to get on his schedule! Good thing we don't have Canadian-style socialized medicine in this country, what with its long waiting lists and rationing-by-delay etc.
Now, the better news:
"We were back in China for a couple of weeks this past summer to visit my former students in Beijing and then to travel in Hunan for a week or so. I think the air has improved. It was mostly blue skies, even in Beijing, which I rarely saw when we lived there for 10 months in 2003-04. I think you are right to conclude that expats do get over the problems once they leave. At least we haven't had lasting health problems -- at least not yet."
As a side note, based on my experience anyone who wants to visit Beijing in particular should go in October. Even though the current BeijingAir Twitter reading is deep into the "unhealthy" zone, this seems reliably the nicest time of the year.
October 20, 2009
The air over there
In the new issue of the magazine (subscribe!) I have a short article about a topic I discussed constantly with Chinese and foreign friends over the past few years: how dangerous it is, really, just to live in China. To breathe the air, drink the water, eat the food. Won't spoil the suspense about conclusions in the article itself. But the note below is from a reader whose experience is similar to mine:
"I just returned to the US after a four-year tour in Shanghai. I major reason for returning was that I knew that living over there was terrible for my health. I always told myself that I couldn't live in that poor environment for five years. Aside from the terrible air quality, I did four stints in hospitals for food poisoning.
"But since I have been back, I have found that recovery has been easier than expected. I am now running about four to six miles four times a week. I think it may have been like living at high altitudes - you body gets used to being deprived of oxygen and becomes more efficient.
"Plus, just having the space and good weather adds to the motivation. As I am sure you know."
For perspective, here is today's real-time air pollution map for the US, emphasizing the dangerous small-particulate pollution (PM2.5) plus ozone (O3). Green "good" areas have readings below 50; the yellow "moderate" areas are 51-100; and the little spot of orange "unsafe for sensitive groups" air, near Pittsburgh, is 101-150. Maybe they're reopening the steel works? Most times when I look at this map, it's virtually all green.
Meanwhile, readings earlier today from Beijing, taken by the clandestine "Beijing Air" monitoring station I describe in the article:
The point is that the Chinese readings would be in the red "unhealthy" (151-200) or magenta "very unhealthy" (201-300) zones if they were mapped. Like anyone in Beijing, I've breathed my way through a large number of purple "hazardous" days, with readings over 300.
For the benefit of Chinese readers, let me say for the millionth time that to stress this comparison is not to put down China's successes, underestimate the difficulties of dealing with these problems, deny that a high-pollution phase is part of every move toward industrialization, etc. China's situation is tough, and a lot of forces within the country are working to improve it, as laid out at length here. Instead it's worth emphasizing that the people of China themselves are the ones with most at stake in improving its environment. And because of global effects of climate, as I've also said a million times, it's crucial for the US and China, the two biggest-emitting countries, to work together on energy and pollution issues. Indeed, this is the historically most important business for the two countries to take up.
In the meantime, it's a nice day in DC, so like my correspondent I'll plan to take another run.
Doing Business in China: From Supply Chains to Supply Networks
Next up in the Doing Business in China series: a clip that gives a brief look at one of several central, and complex, parts of the US-China business interaction. This clip has some worthwhile shots of the insides of several Chinese factories -- a relatively new one, and a ponderous old state-owned metal works.
It also introduces an aspect of the "outsourcing" wave that I discussed two years ago in "China Makes, the World Takes": that factories in China, serving US and other foreign customers, are providing a lot of jobs for Chinese laborers, but are also providing a majority of the profits, plus most of the associated design, marketing, R&D, etc jobs elsewhere, especially in the US. The furniture company featured here had never done production inside the US: it was a pure startup, with factories in China and design/marketing/management in the US, to serve a mainly US market. The ramifications of this overall division of labor, and how it might change in the future, obviously go beyond the bounds of this clip (and are considered in the series as a whole, in my book, etc). But this is an opening look.
October 15, 2009
Doing Business in China: Keeping Employees Happy
Next up in the Doing Business in China series: a look at an issue whose importance may come as a surprise to people who have not worked in the country. This is the challenge of keeping Chinese employees, once they have become skilled in factory or white-collar procedures. Among other things it mentions why "Spring Festival," aka Chinese New Year, is the moment of greatest turnover, as workers go to their home villages and then often shop around for new jobs when they return to factory centers. Plus, another cameo by Kaifu Lee!
October 13, 2009
Festival of links, part 1
Before an impending "real," as opposed to false-alarm, absence from this site for a while, because of impending "real" writing, a variety of links about things I've meant to mention. Two now, two or three later in the day.
- Everyone on the China-media beat is aware of the turmoil at Caijing, a unique and important magazine in China. The title means "Finance and Economics"; an English site is here. (Disclosure: one of my sons worked there right out of college, during the SARS epidemic, and I know many of the staff.) Caijing has become a powerhouse in both the business and the journalistic sense. It publishes thick issues and holds big, influential conferences -- but it has also been a crucial leader in real business/financial reporting and exposes of financial chicanery, corruption, pollution, and other topics usually hard for the Chinese press to cover. Evan Osnos, who wrote a New Yorker profile of the founder and sparkplug of the magazine, Hu Shuli, has an update on the turmoil here. Other info from the FT here, from the AP here, from the WSJ (subscription wall) here, from the Guardian here, from the NYT here, and from Yahoo news here. None of this is good news.
- In their respective parts of the Atlantic's site, my colleagues Corby Kummer and Megan McArdle make opposite cases about the effects of New York City's calorie-labeling law. McArdle says it hasn't done any good; Kummer argues that it has already done something and, over time, will undoubtedly do much more. Read and judge for yourself, but one part of Kummer's argument seems obviously true and worth underscoring. He stresses (as did the authors of the original study) that calorie labels -- like mileage labels on cars or electric-consumption labels on appliances -- can make a difference even if customers don't think they're paying attention to them. As the original study said:
"Calorie labeling could result in changes that do not rely primarily on alterations in consumers' food choices. Menu
labeling regulations may encourage chain restaurants to offer more
nutritious or otherwise improved menu offerings, which could be
profoundly influential. [italics Kummer's] Public health experts have
shown that creating "default" incentives to improve well-being is
essential to improving public health. By indirectly influencing
restaurants to offer more lower-calorie items, menu labeling
regulations could help encourage such default options for consumers."
As Kummer added:
"Yuppie avatar Starbucks immediately
changed its default milk from whole to 2 percent, so it wouldn't have
to admit that a Frappuccino could amount to practically as many
calories as you should eat in a whole day... Just this week, [a NYC official] told me... Burger King began a new ad campaign
telling how customers could eat a full meal for 650 calories or less.
McDonalds took .7 ounces and 70 calories out of its standard portion of
french fries. Dunkin Donuts introduced an egg-white breakfast. KFC put grilled skinless chicken on its menu--not something anyone expected to see at KFC."
Again, decide for yourself, but this corresponds to effects I've seen in other areas over the years. Labeling and disclosure in itself has an influence, in encouraging organizations to offer more of what they think will look "good" and less of what looks "bad."
Doing Business in China: What is Communism?
I love this clip, once again from the Doing Business in China series. In particular I love the initial interviews with business people, average folk, Communist Party members, etc. about what this thing called "communism" (共产主义, Gongchan zhuyi) might possibly be. You'll see what I mean. And again this rings true to my daily experience there over the years.
October 8, 2009
Doing Business in China: Kissing in Public
All I'll say about this clip, next in the Doing Business in China series, is that I did in fact frequently patronize the Haagen-Dazs stores shown in Shanghai to get presents of ice cream for my wife. The clip explains why this makes me a romantic-hearted person. The fashion show at the end also gives a little glimpse of why it can seem, well, incomplete to refer to modern China as only a grim land of sweatshops, or a culture under careful control by the central government, et cetera.
October 6, 2009
Doing Business in China: Battling Pirates
Next in the Doing Business in China series: a look at the morass of intellectual property protection, plus ways that some foreign companies have tried to cope with it. I'm not entirely sure, but I think that the opening scenes, in which CDs of operating systems and similar big-ticket software items are being sold for a dollar or two, were taken in front of the same high-tech mall in Shenzhen that I wrote about in 2007.
This clip is also notable for the cameo appearances by Kaifu Lee, a very attention-getting figure in the Chinese technology business. During the early filming for this series, he was Microsoft's man in China -- working, as the clip explains, to build relationships that would keep other companies and government ministries from simply stealing Microsoft products. By later stages of the filming, he was directing Google's operations in China. Very recently, he left to form his own VC firm. This clip concentrates on what he did with Microsoft; the whole series covers other companies' answers to the piracy problem.
October 5, 2009
Press items roundup
- TNR/McCaughey watch. As mentioned here numerous times, starting 14 years ago, The New Republic made Elizabeth McCaughey a public figure in 1994 and has been trying to mitigate the damage ever since. Concluding installment, under the circle-closing headline "No Exit" [also the title of McCaughey's original article], from Michelle Cottle here.
- Unknown gigantic cities watch. In my story last year about the surprisingly intense struggles within China to improve environmental protection, I mentioned a visit to Zibo, a coal-and-ceramics center in Shandong province. Zibo is one of countless cities in China that few outsiders have heard of but that are larger than, say, Chicago or Milan. The always interesting Moving Cities site, a Beijing-based effort to document urban design in fast growing cities, recently took a trip to Zibo to show what it looks like. Description and four photo essays about Zibo can be found here. (Note: for me, the Javascript on this site always stalled with Firefox. Worked OK with IE, Chrome, and Safari.)
Downtown view, with housing from the 1980s onward -- horizontal black bar is part of the site's convention for presenting photos:
On the way into town:
Alley that I've walked down myself, with pre-1980s housing:
- Problems of the press watch. I am grateful to Jake Seliger, of The Story's Story site, for a retrospective of my 1996 book Breaking the News. He makes the discouraging but, I think, accurate point that the arguments and criticisms from back in that era are all truer now. I have thought several times about revising or updating the book but have held back for two reasons. One is the shark-like instinct that it's worth always moving ahead to new territory. The other, that the central points to make remain the same; the details would differ and be more depressing.
October 2, 2009
The big parade
As I mentioned in real time while watching the 60th anniversary festivities from Beijing on middle-of-the-night Chinese language TV, the whole event was a surprising relief. It had been shaping up ahead of time as a mammoth and imposing display of military hardware. The hardware and missiles were there -- but there was, to put it mildly, a lot of other stuff too.
As anyone watching in real time can attest, the appearance of this troupe was the first time that Hu Jintao, from the reviewing stand, broke into anything that looked like a relaxed expression:
What this picture (by Diego Azubel / European Pressphoto Agency) tragically doesn't convey is that members of scarlet-miniskirted division were actually goose-stepping.
A wonderful video summary from Dan Chung and Xiaoli Wang, of the Guardian, below, boils the many hours of the parade into four minutes -- and conveys the dramatic shift from tanks-and-missiles, to Mardi Gras/County Fair, at about time 1:55 of the clip.
Two other nice summaries: a live blog from the WSJ's China staff here; and a comparison of the parade to the movie Hangover here.
Here's one of the groups that came soon after the tanks. As I say, I'm relieved to see this chaos diversity, which reflects some of the wild range of Chinese life. Congrats to all involved.
October 1, 2009
Doing Business in China: As Good as Their Word
Next up in the Doing Business in China series, a look at the implications of the heavily freighted term guanxi -- 关系, usually rendered in English as "relationship" and often thought by Westerners to indicate the shadier senses of that term. As the interviewees in this clip indicate, the emphasis on guanxi has evolved in response to China's particular circumstances -- especially, the centuries-long absence of an effective legal system. In the video series as a whole, we talk about the ways in which it persists, and doesn't, in modern China.
September 30, 2009
I take it back
Have been watching live coverage of the 60th anniversary festivities from Beijing for the last two hours (on the local Chinese-language TV station in DC). Nice blue-sky day in town! Yes, they had the giant and threatening-seeming military displays I mentioned earlier.
But they were intermixed among mass pageantry of every imaginable campy Rose Parade-type variety. For each deployment of tanks, there has been a Farmers' Coop float. For each regiment of goosestepping female soldiers, all exactly the same height and with skirts exactly the same length, there has been a group of Clean Energy workers, accompanying a display of wind turbines and solar panels -- or a group of athletes from the Phys Ed university. Plus some pompom group whose ID on the screen I couldn't understand, and miscellaneous other celebrations. And a float from each province or region, with waving local beauties! This is becoming truer to the randomness of China as I think of it. Happy 60th birthday.
Beijing, 3am
Well, we're going to see a lot of these shots in the next 24 hours out of Beijing, as the 60th anniversary celebrations for the founding of the People's Republic take place. This is from a reader looking down Xidawang Lu, not far from our former home, at 3am local time October 1-- a few minutes ago as I write.
This item, "China's Looming PR Disaster," at the Interpreter site from the Lowy Institute in Sydney, makes the point I've made frequently (including once on a live Chinese government TV show in Beijing) since the plans for a gala military parade were announced this spring: In showcasing endless seas of Chinese soldiers and weaponry, the regime may make itself look stronger to its people -- at the cost of looking threatening to everyone else. (Versions of this argument here and here.) As Alistair Thornton says on the Interpreter site:
"I have a sinking feeling that this could turn out to be the worst PR
stunt of all time. To me, it screams, 'Hey! You in the West! How's the
recession? We just nailed 9% growth. Scared of a rising China? Check
out all of our tanks and never-seen-before missiles'. It's not really
the vibe you want to give off in the midst of unprecedented shifts in
geopolitical power."
But the other obvious point is that all politics is local, in China as well as anywhere else, and impressing the home crowd will always outweigh the hand-wringing concerns from the diplomats. So, the show begins. I will leave most further photos to the news services, but thought it was worth kicking off the observations with this pic.
September 29, 2009
Local boys make good, China version
In an article this spring about China's recovery from the world slowdown, I mentioned a visit to the BYD company in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, where a materials-science PhD named Wang Chuanfu was leading the development of advanced battery powered cars.
On that trip I also visited the nice-but-nothing-fancy dorm-style
quarters where Wang and the rest of the BYD management lived. Here's
the punchline from that article (with a shot of Wang from the press
conference in December announcing his new cars):
"The company's official goal is to be the biggest automaker in China by
2015, and the biggest in the world by 2025. Wang's unveiling of the car
in Shenzhen coincided with U.S. congressional debate about emergency
aid to GM and Chrysler. I asked Wang if he had any tips for the U.S.
companies. He is a quiet, nerdish man who seemed to blanch as he heard
the question translated. "For 100 years, nothing has changed in
Detroit," he finally said (through the interpreter). "I think they need
to reconsider their product lines."
Now, according to this report, Wang has become the richest man in China, thanks to a rise in BYD stock and a stake from Warren Buffett. That is a volatile distinction, with people's fortunes rising and falling, but impressive as an up-from-nothing manufacturing success story.
And in this article in 2007, I discussed the amazing Chinese "reality" show Win in China, which was a kind of super-capitalist version of The Apprentice. One of the finalists in the show was an earthy, non-college-grad character named Zhou Yu and generally known as the "Lone Wolf." Ole Schell, who has made a great new documentary about Win In China, has just posted an online report about the Wolf and his lingerie factory in Shandong province. Congrats all around.
The moment of truth on the show, as the Wolf dutifully claps for the just-announced winner, Song "Social Conscience" Wenming, who raises his hands in victory.
Doing Business in China: Porcelain Skin
Next installment in the Doing Business in China series: a look at the cosmetics business in China, in particular the very strong market for skin-whitening creams.
The desirability of "porcelain skin" in China -- like the analogous light-skin beauty images in Japan, the Philippines, much of Southeast Asia, much of India, and much of everyplace else -- has a variety of origins, largely in the tangled realm of basic color prejudice. In this clip we look briefly at a more straightforward source: the association in Chinese history between dark, tanned skin and a manual-labor, agricultural background -- which made untanned, light skin a marker of privilege and status. In practical terms this has significant business implications for cosmetics firms, as the clip suggests.
A nice offhand allusion in the NYT
The third paragraph of Sharon LaFraniere's story today in the NYT, about the Chinese government's obsessive over-preparation for the 60th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People's Republic, on October 1 (background on the celebrations here):
"China's government at times resembles an exasperated parent trying to
rein in a pack of rebellious children. Its edicts are persistently
flouted by censor-dodging Internet users, wayward local officials and
rioting Uighurs."
Two things strike me about this. First, it's good to see correspondents flat-out saying how things look to them, rather than having to rely on "Some observers say" or "Mr. X of YY think tank observes..." Second, this little context-setting aside is so much more realistic than the standard Western press references to a big, omniscient, all-powerful Chinese regime effortlessly working its will on the populace, whether in a good way by installing green technology or in a bad way by squashing dissent.
Over the past three years, I've emphasized maybe a million times how diverse, churning, individual-minded, and generally resistant to control much of today's China seems. If I were writing LaFraniere's sentence myself, I'd say "often resembles" rather than "at times resembles," and I'd replace the reference to the Uighur uprising (an exceptional, real emergency) with something about one billion rule-evading ordinary citizens. But this is a worthy step toward a sane perspective on China -- worth bearing in mind as we prepare to see the (deceptively) precise and orderly displays on October 1.
Photo from the NYT about the kind of precise pageantry we'll be treated to. Don't be misled.
September 27, 2009
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, Besuboru dept
Update: Just after posting the item below I learned of the death of William Safire, who for three decades wrote the NYT Mag's language column, among his voluminous other works. Sorry for a querulous-seeming note under the circumstances. On the other hand, this is the kind of distinction that Safire himself reveled in. My condolences to his family. ___
There is a big risk in writing items on the lines of: "Everybody thinks X, but everybody's wrong. Actually Y is correct." The risk is that, as the corrector, you can be wrong yourself. I know! I've been there before, and no doubt will be again.
Unfortunately, I think that the estimable Jack Rosenthal of the NYT, in today's "Language" column in the magazine, is there too. Most of the column is devoted to correcting widely-practiced misuses of "phantonym" terms -- "disinterested" to mean bored (wrong) rather than impartial (right), etc. I'm with him on all of these! Then he adds this multilingual note:
"The Japanese love besuboru, reflecting the phonetic phenomenon of lallation, reversing "r" and "l." "
Not really. Rather, in keeping with my opening note of caution: to the best of my knowledge and experience, this is incorrect. Japanese fans of the Hiroshima Carp or the Nippon Ham Fighters do indeed refer to the sport as either besoboru or, more formally, 野球, yakyu. But they don't say besoboru because they are switching Ls and Rs. They say it because the Japanese language does not have the L sound. Where English speakers would use either L or R, the Japanese language has only R.*
Therefore when Japanese people speak English, they often have trouble with Ls and may even "lallate," mixing up Ls and Rs. Much as English speakers, raised in a language with no gender, often mix up le/la or der/die/das in gendered languages like French or German. But when they're speaking Japanese, they say besoboru because that's the way their language works. (And if Rosenthal meant that the change wasn't caused by lallation but simply illustrated the use of an R where there had been an L -- OK. But it's still a bad illustration, since both Ls and Rs in English will become Rs in Japanese. Saying that it illustrates lallation implies that Rs would become Ls in Japanese -- Balaku Obama, etc. That doesn't happen.)
OTOH, a very nice homage to one of my long-time Atlantic friends and colleagues in the Cox-Rathvon acrostic in the same magazine today, and a lot of unusually elegant clues. Check it out. ___ * Primer on Japanese sound system here and here. As anyone who has studied the language knows, its syllabary has the ra / ri / ru / re / ro sequence of R sounds, but nothing involving Ls.
Foreign words are often brought directly into Japanese and and converted to Japanese phonetics -- in contrast to Chinese, where the concept behind the foreign word is often re-rendered in Chinese. Thus "computer" is konpyuta (コンピュータ) in Japanese, but dian nao, "electric brain," (电脑), in Chinese. And thus in China I had a whole invented Chinese name with little relation to my original name, whereas in Japan, within the limits of Japanese sounds, my last name became ファローズ, Fuarohzu.
September 25, 2009
Weight, class, and Wal-Mart
From a friend in Boston, a note that gives an extended version of a theme in many responses I've received. Background here and here. Charts and data on this point shortly. The argument here -- that, along with smoking, obesity has become a class-bound marker and problem in America -- is hardly surprising, but the power of the connection is what many people emphasize.
"i wonder if your seeing fewer overweight people than you expected when you got back to the states might be, at least in part, a function of class. this is a point i'm somewhat uncomfortable making, but it shouldn't be ignored. people who, just as a for instance, run and listen to npr and read (not to mention write for) the atlantic are both likelier to be fit and likelier to associate with people of the same ilk. (as a nation, we've not only gotten fatter but also, as you know, much less likely to mix with people who don't share our educational or cultural background.)
"i remember walking through harvard yard back in 1986 during the university's celebration of its 350th anniversary. the place was awash in alums, and there was something noticeably different about most of these people. it wasn't that they were expensively dressed or looked like preppies, i realized. it's that almost everyone was so *trim.* none of these people would likely be found shopping in wal-mart, where waistlines look a lot different.
"as an aside: i've long thought it would be an interesting commentary on the stratification in this society to have political candidates asked during a debate if they'd ever shopped at a wal-mart. i have to think that very few could honestly answer yes--and the higher the office the fewer the yeses. to think that a democracy's leadership class should have no connection (other than owning stock--or, in hillary clinton's case, being once on its board) to the biggest corporation in the country, how strange! back when the biggest corporation was gm or exxon, even the wealthiest people likely had *some* dealings with it, even only being chauffered in a cadillac."
To answer the last question: I'm not a political candidate, but I have not only shopped in W-Ms around the US but have also been to many outlets inside China. That's a story on its own -- the one in Shanghai has whole pig carcasses suspended by hooks right inside the front door, and tanks full of live carp, which the shopper-housewives let flop around on the floor to see which ones look best for the evening's dinner. No one will ever convince me that W-M doesn't know how to globalize/localize.
But I digress. To sharpen my friend's question: a candidate should be asked when was the most recent time he or she enjoyed Every Day Low Prices.
Reactions on Chinese tires
In this item two days ago, I mentioned that most of the mainstream economics press had gone (predictably) berserk in overreacting to the shock-horror nightmare of the Obama administration's tariff on imported Chinese tires.
First point: I neglected to mention the honorable exception of Andrew Peaple, reporting in the WSJ and playing down "Oh no! Smoot Hawley!" hysteria from the start. The online version of his initial story:
"WSJA(9/15) Heard On The Street: Tires, Chickens, Common Sense
(From THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA)
By Andrew Peaple
"Fought over the likes of bras and bananas, trade wars always give off a whiff of the absurd.
"With a measure of good sense, a spat between the U.S. and China
involving tires and chickens won't devolve into a trade war as well."
Unfortunately, the version of the story that is now online has a much more alarmist headline, though the common-sense content of the article itself is still the same. Here's the new headline:
Next, from someone with on-scene experience, making a point left out of most of the reflexive, "Oh no! Smoot Hawley!" original coverage
"I was a senior International Trade consultant with 2 major firms in China 2003-2007. Approximately one third of the over 100 projects I managed during that four year period involved assisting foreign companies (US, EU, some Japanese) in defending themselves against either investigations by, or anti-competitive practices perpetrated by, the Chinese Customs authorities.
"I believe that I can safely say that without fail, each project of this type that I was involved in was predicated by a distortion or willful misunderstanding of both Chinese and WTO/WCO trade law and operational norms by the Customs authorities. Nor were these actions limited to provincial backwaters (though the most egregious did take place there); many of our projects involved Shanghai or Beijing Customs entry ports. Practices such as demanding improper HTS classification of goods (HTS classification determines applicable duty rate) or arbitrary valuation of goods (the Customs declared value upon which duty and VAT are assessed) are practiced daily throughout the country and cost foreign companies substantial amounts.
"I very seldom see this issue addressed in any article concerning China trade and thought I would bring it to your attention."
Main point: this is a far more complicated issue, with a far longer and more tangled history, than 95% of the western-press reaction would indicate. I urge everyone to keep up with this "China Financial Markets site before expressing heated opinions on the subject.
Update: there's actually no material after the jump; original posting included some background notes, by mistake. But our system retains the "continue reading" link even with nothing there any more.
I will never do this systematically, so I'll keep jotting them down at random. As I repatriate, I notice:
- Not as many very fat large Americans as I was expecting. Am I looking in the wrong places? So propagandized into thinking that all of my countrymen are obese that expectations are off? Something gone wrong with my visual judgment? Something gone right with public health? I don't know. Just telling you what I have (not) seen.
- In a number of airports the past few days. I can't help noticing the moronic, utterly rote and meaningless announcements that begin, "The Department of Homeland Security has determined that the threat level is Orange. Please be alert..." The way you can tell that I'm still not fully acclimated is that I notice the announcements at all. For everyone else, they are 100% white noise. Is there a stupider aspect of national policy at the moment than these formulaic "threat level" announcements, which are always orange and which give no useful info whatsoever? Okay, I'm sure there's something stupider, but for rhetorical purposes I'll say that I can't think of one right now.
- When I am king: I will outlaw "wheelie"- style rollable bags for carry-on luggage. Wheels and a handle on a big, heavy suitcase meant to be checked? Perfectly reasonable. But if you're going to carry something onto the plane, the law should require you actually to carry the thing, all the way to your seat. Why do I care? The wheelie triples or quadruples the floor space occupied by any one person, and the people tugging them don't look behind. I get my revenge by kicking the bags as they're being dragged across my path and tripping me. Then I act like it was an "accident."
- But even before that I will outlaw: leafblowers. God in heaven, do I hate that noise. Unfortunately, the neighborhood abounds in households that love hiring crews for the all-out leafblower experience -- they stagger their days, so it happens pretty much nonstop. I realize that the Beijing approach (below) is probably not practical in the U.S. But, hey, I actually have used a rake in my time. Part of the new Clean Energy policy for America?
As is obvious, I'm auditioning for Andy Rooney's role as public crank.
If you're in Princeton this afternoon....
... go hear Zhang Yue, the environmentalist-mogul who was the subject of my story "Mr. Zhang Builds His Dream Town," give a talk at the university. Time and place details here.
Zhang Yue, in sunglasses, when I first visited "Broad Town," his surrealistic factory town in Changsha, Hunan province. More pictures and narrated slideshow here.
September 23, 2009
About those Chinese tires
I keep putting this off, so before it finally disappears into the mists of time, here is a bullet-point summary of what I would have said at greater length when the Chinese tire tariff first arose.
1) There is not now, and there never was, a serious possibility that this would escalate into some sweeping, self-intensifying, global-recovery-threatening "trade war." The many publications and commentators who raised their hands in "Oh no! It's Smoot Hawley again!" horror need to calm down -- and to have their tendency toward over-reaction noted for the record. Yes, I'm talking about you, Economist magazine cover-designers (last week's cover image, below), but you had tons of company.
There is too much going on, on too many other fronts, involving affairs of incomparably greater consequence between China and America, for this to have been more than a contained, specific dispute -- contained in both duration and sweep. This was clear at the time and should have buffered the shock-horror tone of the stories. Why this matters: because of the boy-who-cried-wolf principle. There are issues between China and the outside world in which a small disagreement could spiral into a very dangerous confrontation. Many of these involve Taiwan, for reasons to be spelled out another time. But tire tariffs, agree with them or not, were never going to set off a global economic confrontation.
2) Larger point about the nature of this reaction, by analogy to Al Sharpton. Not to pick on him, but why did Sharpton's reputation as a careful, precise commentator on national affairs suffer during the 1980s? Especially after the unfortunate Brawley case? I would say it was the magical combination of predictability, exaggeration, and tendentiousness. His reaction to any news event was predictable (it was always about racism); it was exaggerated (it was always really terrible racism); and it was tendentious, in being uninterested in the details of the specific case. On the other hand, he was witty! I often think of the bad, non-witty side of the Sharpton of that era when I see the mainstream reaction to any trade dispute. It's predictable (oh no! Trade war!); exaggerated (oh no! Smoot Hawley!); and tendentious, in not being interested in any contextual point other than the evils of unions and protectionism.
3) What's the context that does matter? Usefully, two people with whom I often disagree on trade questions -- the former editor of the Economist, Bill Emmott, and Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post -- have both pointed out that there is a more important issue here than whether one agrees on the merits of the tire decision. They both criticize the decision -- but as the headline on Samuelson's column puts it, "Bad Policy, Right Message." (My own view would be: Maybe bad policy, certainly right message.)
The right message concerns the historic transformation of the Chinese economy that began a year ago, when demand from its biggest overseas customer, the United States, dried up all at once. This story, which I wrote from China six months ago, discussed the magnitude of the adjustments China was trying to make -- and also emphasized the parallel that Michael Pettis, an economist at Peking University, drew between China's situation in 2009 and America's 80 years earlier. The details are laid out in that article, but the main point was this: Like America in the 1920s, China in the 2000s had been the dominant "global surplus" country, manufacturing and selling to everyone else and piling up big surpluses. When customers suddenly stopped buying -- America's because of the Great Depression, China's because of this recent freezeup -- the surplus countries lost disproportionately many jobs, because they'd had more than "their share" to begin with. That happened to America in the 1930s, and it is happening to China now.
This kind of loss is painful for any country under any regime. In terms of human suffering, it's all the worse for China, since so many of the displaced workers are so hard-pressed to begin with. In the long run, everyone agrees that both the Chinese and the U.S. economies need serious adjustment: the US toward more savings and investment, China toward more domestic consumption and less reliance on export markets, so that its own, still-poor population can enjoy more of the fruits of their own labor. But in the short run, the adjustment is difficult -- for each country. And the drama that Pettis foresaw six months ago, and which provides the proper background to the tire dispute, is the Chinese government's (natural) attempt to resist the inevitable and keep its trade surplus up as long as it can.
That's the significance of stories like this, which I've mentioned (eg here and here) over the months.
This is not at all a matter of "blaming" China. Moralizing has no place in these sorts of economic adjustments -- whether we're talking about the Chinese government's currency-management to keep the RMB's value artificially low (details here), or the US imposition of tire tariffs. The real question is how the economies can manage the complementary adjustments each of them has to make, with minimal damage to their own populations and to world business as a whole. These are big, woolly, complicated, world-historical processes underway. There are a lot of useful things to say about them -- not including "Oh no! Trade war!"
Doing Business in China: The Elusive Chinese Internet
Next up in the Doing Business in China series: what to make of the positive and negative effects of China's embrace of the internet. My Atlantic article about the subject last year is here; previous entries about the series here. This clip, and the related parts of the series, go into some of the related and subsequent developments.
September 21, 2009
I love this on so many levels
It turns out that the "Chinese site" with dramatic photos of rehearsals for the 60th anniversary commemorations in Beijing on October 1, which I mentioned this morning, is a straight-ahead, flat-out, unblushing rip-off of this "The Big Picture" feature three days ago from the Boston Globe's site. I don't see any mention of the Globe on the Chinese site, either in English or what I think is the Chinese version (Boshidun Huanqiu - 波士顿 环球 ?).
I should have guessed. (Why would a Chinese site have bothered to include translated English captions? Why was there a semi-edgy photo of a lone man and a tank?) My reflexes must be going. I'll have to re-sharpen them with a visit soon. Thanks to C. Wang and others for the heads-up. Apologies to the Globe.
Book list: Repeat After Me
Rachel DeWoskin's Foreign Babes in Beijing -- a memoir of her unlikely career as a vampy soap opera star on Chinese TV in the 1990s -- is deservedly on the list of books that expats in China tell new arrivals they should read for a pop-culture feel of the place. My own reaction, when newly arrived, here.
DeWoskin's new book, Repeat After Me, is different: novel rather than memoir, set half in New York and half in Beijing rather than all on-scene in China. But the voice and nervous/sassy sensibility are similar, and similarly memorable. When I was reading it this summer, I marked a few passages that made me miss Beijing (no small achievement, just after I'd left) or that rang particularly true. The book's not at hand at the moment, so I'll just say: a book worth finding out about for yourself.
The 60th anniversary celebration is almost here!
From this Chinese site, with English translation, some appropriately amazing pictures of the preparations and practice runs for the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, on October 1. (Previous mention here.) A few samples:
Nightime practice drill last month.
Tank practice parade two days ago
An unintentionally evocative picture of a lone man and a tank.
And a photo of a women's militia unit that is more in the spirit of the way I usually saw soldiers (and people in general) carrying themselves in China.
This should be interesting. Very sorry I won't be there to see it in person. (Thanks to various readers in China.)
September 19, 2009
Harmonic convergence dept: frogs, China Daily, etc
I realize this may be more interesting to me than to the public at large, but: Somehow I feel fulfilled to find my favorite newspaper, the China Daily, taking my favorite factually-erroneous cliche, the boiling frog, and putting it to excellent and unexpected use. Today's China Daily illustrates the frog problem -- but, for once, in an accurate way! As the water is getting hotter, the little froggies are jumping right out. Just like in real life, except for the tiny backpacks. (Parachutes?)
The editorial is about universities in Australia making things "hot" (get it?? ho-ho!) for international transfer students, including those from China. Great headline too: Well done all around. Let's learn from Asia! Thanks to numerous informants.
_____ Harmonic convergence part deux: Article six years ago in another of my favorite publications, Legal Affairs, that melds boiling frogs and slippery slopes in a less factually scrupulous way.
September 18, 2009
Why the China Daily will always be my favorite newspaper
I miss the joy of opening it each morning so much!
Full story here; earnest Onion-worthy comments here; thanks to Shanghaiist, here.
September 17, 2009
DVD series: The World's Factory
Next up in the Doing Business in China series (previous entries here): a look at China's factories.
What I like about this segment (not including the load of industrial goo slathered on my hair by a well-meaning Shanghai stylist just before filming, but I digress) is its emphasis on the elements other than cheap labor that have been crucial to China's manufacturing success. Yes, $10-a-day factory wages give Chinese producers a big edge. As I explained in the magazine two years ago, they also affect the way the whole production process is planned and laid out. Eg: Some functions that would always be mechanized in the US, Japan, or Europe are done by hand in China, because the cost of the machines isn't worth it. This has its disadvantages, yet it also can allow Chinese factories to switch from product to product much faster than a more "modern" facility could.
But there are a lot of places with much cheaper wage rates than China now. The Chinese advantage over such places -- Cambodia, Bangladesh, much of Africa -- is the combination of relatively cheap labor and absolutely superb production infrastructure. Ports, industrial zones, highways headed to airports, whatever else it takes. This clip mentions the issue; the whole series goes into it at some length, and gives you an idea of what these factories look like on the inside.
September 14, 2009
DVD Series: Carrots in the Washing Machine
Here's the third clip from the Doing Business in China series; previous ones here. All the clips are my favorites, but this one is a particular favorite. It's a look at one of the big unknown issues for China's commercial future: whether, how, and when its companies can rise out of the pure low-cost commodity-supplier role to have valuable brand names of their own.
The starting point is the "white goods" manufacturer Haier, which absolutely dominates the Chinese domestic market for washers, fridges, and so on and is becoming better known world wide. The segment title refers to one of its breakthrough innovations. Bonus in this clip: a cameo of Kai-Fu Lee, who once directed Microsoft's research labs in Beijing, and who until last week headed Google's offices in China, before resigning to set up his own VC firm. I first met him when I worked at Microsoft ten years ago and saw him frequently in China. More later; enjoy this clip for now.
September 12, 2009
Another traveler to Yunnan
In my story in the current issue about Xizhou, a small but historically prosperous and architecturally rich village in far southern China, I mention the cautionary example of the city of Lijiang. In the 1990s, Lijiang was also small and charming. Now, most foreign visitors instantly recognize it as a combination of Atlantic City, a discount mall, and a turnpike rest stop. The Chinese domestic tourism industry, which is developing very fast, is in the stage where it is processing huge numbers of necessarily low-end travelers. As sites become popular, many of them end up looking like Lijiang. That's the fate the friends of Xizhou are trying to avoid.
Kevin Kelly, "Senior Maverick" at Wired, has traveled widely in Asia, including to both Lijiang and Xizhou. That's his picture of "old" Lijiang, to the left. His account:
"Every regular visitor to China has their own story of headsnapping change. Mine has to do with Lijiang. I
first visited Lijiang in the mid 90s on a month-long trip with my two
daughters who were 8 and 10 at the time. Lijiang was our starting point
for an excursion into the north beyond what is now called Shangrila
(Zhongdian back then) into the Tibetan areas around Litang. I've spent
a lot of time in the Himalaya and so was quite taken by Lijiang. It
seemed to have everything a Shangrila was supposed to -- views, climate,
music, and a strong unique, even isolated, culture. One could see how
the fantasy began there. I wanted to return with my wife and son
someday.
If you thought the Olympic opening ceremony was impressive...
... just wait for the parades and public ceremonies in Beijing on October 1, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
For the past few months I've heard from university contacts in China about students being marshaled for long drill sessions before the massed exercises for the 60th anniversary celebrations. Courtesy of Glenn Mott, this slide show (text in Chinese) of soldiers, police, and others getting ready for the big day. Eg, soldiers being checked with tape measures and plumb lines to be sure they're standing straight.
More pictures in the same vein, from Sohu, here -- for instance:
I can't emphasize enough how much this is not the way most Chinese life seems most of the time. The main mental pictures I recall are people doing their own thing, in their own way, with only reluctant and enforced attention to the "rules." But, as with the Olympics, it is certainly the face that official China wants to present -- even if the effect is to make foreigners unrealistically alarmed about a big, single-minded, perfectly-organized Rising China emerging to crush all in its path. Since so many of the people working in unison on October 1 will be actual soldiers carrying weapons, the international fluster effect will be all the greater. Check out the two minute video here (sometimes slow to load) from the 50th Anniversary commemorations ten years ago, for the general idea.
If I were a US defense contractor, I'd show that video at every Congressional hearing about the "Chinese threat." But since, as always, the Chinese government cares a million times more about looking strong, successful, and in control to its own people than about whatever foreigners might think, we'll soon see endless waves of goosestepping soldiers. Then life will get back to normal.
September 11, 2009
From the magazine: Field of dreams in China
The new issue of the Atlantic is worth reading cover to cover -- and IMHO better read on paper than on line. For sometime soon: talking systematically about what kind of material is best read, scanned, absorbed, enjoyed in what kinds of media - handheld, computer screen, "real" print, Kindle-style reader, and so on.
For the moment, a mention of my own very short article in this issue: a profile of an American family that has ended up in one of the most beautiful parts of China, trying -- against considerable odds -- to put together a coalition of local residents, Communist party officials, businesses, and NGOs to preserve traditional Chinese culture against the onslaught of kitsch-style development otherwise transforming the country's look. Their adopted home town is Xizhou, in the lush, southerly Yunnan province, and this is one view of their "Linden Centre," with local kids biking by.
More on Brian and Jeanee Linden and their ambitions here, and a four-minute narrated slideshow of the town, the center, the family, and the challenge is below (or here). That is Brian Linden, who first became known in China 25 years ago when cast in a movie about a famous and tragic US-Chinese interaction, in blue jeans and white shirt in the opening shot below.
September 10, 2009
Two quick updates: flu in China, 64-bit code
Flu: Over the months, I have frequently remarked on the difference between the Chinese government's approach to H1N1/swine flu and that of many other countries. Difference in brief: the Chinese government has applied sweeping quarantine measures to try to keep the disease out of the country and then to limit its spread; many other countries have viewed the spread as more or less unavoidable and have tried to cope with the consequences.
(Photo from this previous post, about visiting Americans quarantined in Shanghai.) In all countries the emerging view seems to be: the flu has not been that dangerous so far, during this atypical, spring time emergence (in the Northern Hemisphere). But it might be a more serious problem when it comes back in new form during the regular flu season, as the weather gets cold.
A reader who has recently been in Beijing writes to make a point I have heard from a number of health professionals too:
"I'm not an immunologist or anything remotely close. But I wonder if China is actually hurting themselves by so aggressively stopping the spread of H1N1. The current incarnation of H1N1 seems to be less lethal than the variants that we normally deal with. Wouldn't it be better to let this variety of H1N1 spread so that people build up immunity to this mild version of H1N1 and then if H1N1 becomes more lethal they will already have some immunity?
"By the way, while I was at university this summer in Beijing, a student living on the sixth floor of a dorm became ill with H1N1 and the police came with buses and removed about 60 people from that floor."
The argument from the Chinese authorities is that in a big, poor country with a shaky public health network, they have no choice but to fight a new disease with everything they've got. Memories of the under-reaction to SARS in 2003 also have a Hurricane Katrina-style "let's not make that mistake again" effect. Given the inconvenience many people, Chinese and foreign, have already suffered in the name of flu control, I hope the hyper-aggressive early response to the flu doesn't backfire.
64-bit code: Last week, I declared a moratorium on discussion of "huge pages" in Apple's operating systems. (Hey, it was interesting at the time.) The reply below, for nerds only, qualifies in the spirit of fair-response. A reader writes:
"I have nothing to add to the "huge pages" discussion. I promise.
"But I would like address Mr. [Ken] Broomfield's closing statement which, I believe, is misleading:
Here is the second in the series of "Doing Business in China" clips. As I have argued many many times, most recently here, the first step toward sanity in dealing with "China" is to recognize that there are dozens, hundreds, perhaps tens of thousands of separate realities all lumped together under that one label. This clip eases us into that concept by talking about the first big division -- between the modern, urban China we mainly hear about in the outside world, and the very different place where most Chinese citizens actually live. Click "play" for more....
Remaining holiday-festival updates, #9 - 999, all in one place
Labor Day weekend has, sigh, reached its close, and with it the feeling of summer. To clear out the list of update topics for this weekend-long festival:
- #9Striking gold in China. I mentioned previously my skeptical response to the story of Americans showing up in China and suddenly finding great jobs. Seems that this was pretty much the response by the expat community in China too. See this and this from last month -- plus after the jump, a reply today from someone who showed up a year ago in China and has put the "Chinese streets are paved with gold" hypothesis to the test.
- #10Is China (unfortunately) starting to learn from the TSA? Secondly after the jump, an account of a new wrinkle in Chinese airport security: having passengers take off their shoes, just like in the U.S. Not sure whether this is a local aberration or the beginning of a new policy. - #999 President Obama speaks to the schoolchildren. I was all in favor of this earnest buckle-down, back-to-school pitch until I saw the way the presentation ended. Sigh. And that brings us to the end of this holiday weekend special! _____
Festival of updates #8: Chinese/US attitudes on race, flu
These are both big, complicated topics, but to catch up on recent developments in each:
- I mentioned many times last year that there seemed to be less excitement about Barack Obama's rise in China than in, say, Europe or Africa, and that this was due at least partly to racial attitudes.* Many Chinese people with experience in America appreciate the centrality of black-white relations in the story of America's development. For instance, in a profile of Gao Xiqing, who directs the Chinese government's vast investments in the U.S., I mentioned that he has a small portrait of Martin Luther King over his desk in Beijing. (Gao went to law school at Duke.) But in my experience, many ordinary people with little exposure outside China freely expressed anti-black racial attitudes. During the 2008 primary season, this turned up as a kind of puzzlement about whether a black candidate could plausibly have the skill, sophistication, knowledge, work habits, etc to stand up to veteran opponents like Hillary Clinton or John McCain.
That's the context in which to read the stories about the hard times faced by a (beautiful) young Chinese model-aspirant whose mother is a Han Chinese from Shanghai and whose father was a black American. The girl, Lou Jing, is at right, and her mother at center in this picture:
Stories from last week here, in the Straits Times in Singapore (thanks, C. Tan), and from the Shanghaiist site here. A summary (in English) of some of the harsh Chinese on-line chatter at this site, which was also the source of the picture. Discussion of parallel situations in Korea here. The ChinaSmack site, which translates a lot of blog material into English, is said to have a discussion here, but for whatever reason I can't get it to load.
UPDATE: The China Smack link did finally come up, which has a lot of trenchant material, including what is claimed to be a statement by Lou Jing herself, plus this additional and additionally charming photo:
To be clear about the context: this is not a "blame China" episode but rather one of many illustrations of the differences in day by day social realities and perceived versus ignored sources of tension in particular societies. That's all to say about it for now.
- In the same "varying realities" vein, I mentioned repeatedly through this spring how H1N1/swine flu was being taken as a huge public-health emergency in China, leading to extraordinary gestures of what most foreigners considered heavy-handed security-theater. But inside China, the prevalent perception was that the government was taking all necessary and proper steps -- while the US was being self-indulgently and irresponsibly lax, letting infected people roam free to spread disease wherever they went. I'm judging this by what I saw in the Chinese press and by the voluminous complaint messages I received from Chinese readers.
That is the context for this item by James Areddy of the WSJ last week, concerning an inflight-video on a Chinese airline flight explaining what a "shame" it is that flu virus has been spreading from America. As Areddy points out, the video refers to mei zhou -- 美洲, "the Americas" -- as the source of infection, rather than mei guo, 美国, "America." So maybe it's Mexico-US-Canada NAFTA-solidarity in blame. On the other hand, the English subtitles say "America." In any case, interesting as a reminder of difference in attitudes. This will matter more, of course, if the flu comes back in a more lethal form this fall. (Photo by Areddy from his item:)
___ * In part, it also reflected the long-standing Chinese assumption that Democrats will be tougher than Republicans on trade policy, and the preference for sticking with known figures in US politics. Hillary Clinton was much better known to the Chinese public and officialdom than Obama was, and thus she seemed the safer bet from their point of view.
September 6, 2009
Festival of updates #7: NYT hit-and-miss
Catching up on one NYT item that rang exactly (and surprisingly) true, and another with a different effect:
Sounds true to me: A "good news" item that stayed on the "most popular" list for a very long time. Its news was that years and years of running can actually protect and strengthen your knees, rather than inevitably pulverize and destroy them. I am here as a one-man long-term-longitudinal study to say: yessir!
Except for the past three years-of-smog in China -- lest we forget: Easter Day, 2009, in Beijing, shown at left -- I have been running many times a week for many decades. I shudder for various reasons to realize that I ran my first Boston Marathon 40 years ago. As the body-odometer has gotten into the tens of thousands of miles, I've logged problems with: Achilles tendon (too often -- hmmm, I wonder if there should be some term for a point of chronic weakness); hamstrings or calf muscles (periodically, including now); shin splints or ankle issues (rarely); etc. But knees, which I'd always been warned would be used up by running? No problems, at all. (As opposed to my dad -- who played college football and for the next 60 years coped with trick knees.) Now that actual medical research has confirmed that this is the expected result rather than a fluke, my knees feel even better. So can yours!
On the other hand: we have this story last month, which suggested that if young Americans couldn't find jobs at home, all they had to do was move to China and they'd shortcut into positions of responsibility. I'm here to say: Well, sort of.
Is China exciting enough that people should go there? It sure is. Can young people with no background in China or Chinese find work quickly? Probably so -- if they're willing to teach English. (And can get a visa -- whole different topic.) And if they stay and learn the language, lots of other opportunities often do turn up. Really, for Westerners in their 20s it's hard to think of a better investment of a few years than going to China, learning what it's like, becoming comfortable with Chinese ways and Chinese people, facing its discouraging realities but also sharing its sense of possibility.
But the idea that many non-trained grads will find "good" jobs -- eg, ones where the Chinese employer regularly pays them? Or that it's realistic to go from zero to "highly proficient" in Chinese language in a short time? Or that young foreigners will be insulated from the, ummm, idiosyncrasies of typical Chinese accounting and business practices? Those all seem a stretch. This kind of "land of gold!" account of today's China has a touching parallel to the "gold mountain!" accounts of prospects in America that have historically drawn Chinese migrants across the Pacific. Both are accurate in spirit, but potentially misleading on details.
September 4, 2009
Festival of updates #2: China business!
Recently I mentioned an enjoyable discussion session at the Motley Fool, which is available in this podcast. Today there was a followup analysis here,
at the Fool's site. The low-road reason I mention it is that it's very complimentary about my assessment of life and business in
China. But there's a high-road reason too, which involves an aspect of making sense of China
that, IMHO, needs to be stressed again and again, even if you've
already stressed it a lot -- as I certainly have.
This aspect,
which indeed can never be stressed strongly enough, concerns the chaos,
diversity, internal contradiction, unknowability, and general "many
different countries and cultures coexisting under one name" nature of
today's China. It's harder to keep track of such a confusing
reality than it would be to say, "We must be afraid of China" or "The
Chinese want XXXX" or "With its new power, China will do YYYY." But it
is certainly more interesting and stimulating to embrace all this
contradictory reality than to stick to a monolithic view of one big, "rising," potentially menacing power. It is also much truer to life. In any case, I am glad
to see the Motley Fool analyst underscoring this point. And I think the author of this item, Sean Sun, has added a very interesting born-in-China perspective. As he says:
"I was born in China and raised in its countryside in a small,
mountainous village. I've worn a suit and tie in tier-1 metropolises,
donned hard hats in tier-2 and 3 cities, and marveled at the rapid
growth in rural areas like my hometown. When someone wants to ask me
about China, I ask: Which one?"
Worth reading, as part of your holiday weekend fare.
September 2, 2009
My visit to the Motley Fool
A week ago, when for unrelated house-reconstruction reasons I was comatose from no sleep, I had a very enjoyable hour-long visit with the staff of the Motley Fool, at their stylish HQ in Alexandria, Va. This was part of their Motley Fool Conversation series. A podcast of the result is available here. I realize that I may have been snarkier-sounding about the future of Twitter than reasoned analysis would support. But, hey, I was only half awake! And it was at the Motley Fool. Most of the talk was about China, with side notes about Microsoft, speechwriting, the Future of the Atlantic, and so on.
Seriously, most TV and radio talk shows could take useful interviewing tips from these guys. A very enjoyable exchange, at least from my point of view.
September 1, 2009
The Real China
Starting this week and through the fall, the Atlantic's site will have a series of clips from the DVD series "Doing Business in China" in which I was involved before moving back to the United States. I'll have more to say shortly about the background of the project, and what I view as its potential importance. For now I'll just say thanks to: Bob Schapiro and Dovar Chen, who figured out how to get the original and quite startling video footage inside Chinese factories, bureaucracies, stores, etc over the past few years; Joe Nocera of the New York Times, who appears on the films in "what it all means" discussions with me after each segment; and Emily Chang, on-camera co-host. I'll also mention that when we were filming some of the narration in Shanghai, it was hot and humid beyond all belief, and we were standing in direct sun on a rooftop. More to come, and I will say that I learned a lot about China through the process of working on this project.
1) Demonstrating the mathematical theorem that TSA+Google Ads = unintended comedy, reader Andrew Hall shows what happened when he clicked on the trailer for the Hilary Swank / Amelia Earhart film:
In case you can't read it, the pop-up ad says: "Homeland Security: Become a TSA Scanner by Earning Your Degree in Homeland Security." I hope it's a joke -- I mean, including the "Degree in Homeland Security." But I fear it is not. FWIW, my pop-up ads on the same trailer were all for the WaWa grocery store chain.
2) I said that the Grace McGuire story had a happy ending. After TSA security-theater threatened to close down her reconstruction of an Amelia Earhart-type plane, the pre-approved crew from a San Diego museum had taken over the task. A reader begs to differ:
"Happy ending..." you say, at the end of today's piece.
But probably not for the "....variety of craftsmen and suppliers who happened to come up with the right part for the plane...." not to mention the likely large number of simple voluntary workers on such a project.
Case in point: My 76 year old mother, who is the non-flying secretary of her local EAA [Experimental Aircraft Association] chapter, was a volunteer member of a group which recently completed the restoration of a Viet Namese era artillery spotter plane. She, and the other 60 and 70 something year-olds who restored that Piper took great pleasure and pride in what they did, and the results - in fact, they're planning to do another plane in the not-too distant future. What a shame it will be if their ability to make some contribution, and derive a sense of satisfaction and worth from the effort, is prevented by the TSA's bureaucratic nonsense.
3) Just because it's both China-related and aviation-themed, here's a YouTube video of China's first all-electric plane, the Yuneec. (Say it out loud. Hardee-har!) Kind of odd video, but looks like fun -- it's at a California airport I know well. And, to bring things back to a TSA theme, never once in my many, many trips through Chinese airports did I have to take off my shoes. I mean, except on flights back to the U.S. Let us learn from a 5,000-year-old culture to the east. (More here. Thanks to Ted Pearlman.)
As a conservative, I did not vote for President Obama. Nonetheless, it's my hope that some of the sillier things instituted by the Bush Administration would get thrown out.
Why hasn't the Obama Administration acted to clean up the public image of TSA? Specifically, why hasn't TSA stopped making people take off their shoes? It's the silly tip of the iceberg of silly security theatre.
I'd think that the President would win himself a lot of independent votes by getting rid of this rather ridiculous measure. Have any ideas as to why it hasn't happened?
August 23, 2009
Xu Zhiyong released
Just over a month ago, a well-known Chinese legal reformer named Xu Zhiyong was taken from his house in Beijing at 5am and moved to a detention facility. Background reports here and here, which emphasize that Xu, far from being some overthrow-the-government voice of radicalism, had been dedicated to defending the rights of Chinese citizens within China's own legal system. His best-known recent case was on behalf of parents of children who died or were harmed during the tainted-milk scandal last year.
This morning comes news that he has just been released, though under the threat of follow-up prosecution. That would probably involve (trumped-up, in the view of the outside world) charges of "tax evasion," probably based on support that the Yale Law School has given to Xu's Open Constitution Initiative (Gong Meng, 公盟) project. See here and here, with details sketchy but the main fact of his release established. Later on, more about the implications of the case -- including the disappearance of Xu's assistant, as reported here in the Guardian. For now, it is better to have Xu Zhiyong out of jail than in.
August 11, 2009
"Black, and very, very lucky."
I have had my disagreements with Niall Ferguson, as chronicled several times -- here, here, here, and here. But I had thought they were simply on the merits -- how to interpret the financial and strategic tensions between China and America, whether there was any serious historical parallel to be drawn between the rising China of Hu Jintao and the rising Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm. (Ferguson said Yes; I said No.)
Everything about such discussions is conditioned by Ferguson's constant reminders that he is a professional academic historian and therefore deserves deference for whatever historical connections he sees. This morning in the Financial Times he once again shows off the insight that professional training can bring. The essay on American politics begins:
President Barack Obama reminds me of Felix the Cat. One of the
best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, Felix was not only black.
He was also very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th
president of the US as he takes a well-earned summer break after just
over six months in the world's biggest and toughest job.
Hu Jintao is Kaiser Wilhelm; Obama is a black cartoon cat. I look forward to Ferguson's discussing this over a beer with his Harvard colleague Henry Louis Gates.
August 7, 2009
If you're in Seattle-land
I will be on KUOW's Weekday program today, 9am-10am PDT, talking with Steve Scher about (guess!) China. I was supposed to do this one week ago, but had such a paralyzing case of laryngitis, based on having yelled over the noise of jet engines at the Oshkosh air show earlier that week, that I couldn't say a word and had to bail out.
Update: audio of show is available here. It was a lot of fun. Got to talk about my visit to the Shanghai Skin Diseases and Sexually Transmitted Diseases clinic, as a patient.
Side note: again I notice as a recent arrival on American shores the value that NPR public-affairs talk shows around the country bring. When I lived in Seattle, I often listened to Scher's show -- or to Michael Krasny's Forum on KQED when I was living in Berkeley, or Larry Mantle's AirTalk on KPCC when I was visiting my parents in southern California, or Kathleen Dunn on Wisconsin Public Radio when I'm in that part of the country. And of course in many cities you can hear Tom Ashbrook's On Point from WBUR in Boston and Diane Rehm on WAMU in DC. I'll stop with the list before getting into the risk of "offense by omission"; the point, again, is that at a moment of justified concern about the chaos and deterioration of the media, it's worth noting that this particular kind of program -- locally-run NPR talk shows -- is an area of increasing quality and strength.
August 6, 2009
A reminder that we've left Beijing
I open the front door this afternoon, at our recently re-occupied house inside the District of Columbia barely three miles from the White House, and I see:
And my first thought is: this is not what you'd see three miles from Zhongnanhai [seat of power] in Beijing. Actually, that was my second thought. The first one was, "where is the camera?" -- and the deer were blase enough to stick around while I got it.
Yes, yes, I know that deer are the new rats of American cities, graceful but nonetheless troublesome supersized vermin. Still, the stark difference in circumstances of daily life in the two capitals -- the background sights, the routine nuisances and pleasures that shape consciousness -- makes it remarkable that officials of the two governments can communicate about issues as well as they do. Here is what I would see when I walked out my front door in Beijing, about as far from Zhongnanhai as my DC house is from Pennsylvania Avenue:
Yes, sure, I could find something similar in a three-mile radius of the White House too. But you couldn't find anything in Beijing like a deer-filled front yard. (I have seen people in Chinese cities trapping ducks and pigeons to eat. How long would venison on the hoof last?) I put up these pictures mainly for the benefit of readers in China. It is hard to convey to people who have lived only in one of the two countries how different everything about daily life can feel in the other. I'm still in that fleeting stage where I notice. But that will pass.
August 1, 2009
More on the detained Chinese lawyer
Not being on-scene in Beijing, I don't have fresh info myself. But as a reference for anyone wanting to follow the case of Xu Zhiyong, the Chinese civil-rights lawyer who was taken from his home at 5am last week and has not been heard from since, here are some relevant sites:
- China Digital Times summary of the event and coverage; - CDT on the recent crackdown on other legal-aid groups; - Evan Osnos dispatch for the New Yorker on "Where is Xu Zhiyong?" - The Chinese Media Project story; - Xu's personal blog, in Chinese; - Blog account in Chinese of tax charges against Xu and his response; - English version of similar response; - English account by one of Xu's colleagues, Teng Biao, of his own "kidnapping" by the police.
Check those sites for updates. The minor point that comes through these accounts is the excuse for the arrest of Xu. His legal-defense center, the Open Constitution Initiative, had been receiving support and grants from Yale Law School -- one of many instances of Western legal groups working to expand the rule of law in China. The authorities have found a way to declare that this support was improperly reported for tax purposes.
The major point that comes through is that Xu and his colleagues are the farthest thing from overthrow-the-system radical subversives. On the contrary: he files suit in Chinese courts, he bases his claims for protection on the Chinese constitution, and he has even been a successful candidate in a local election. (China has elections at the local level.) He is what real radicals would dismiss as a "liberal" and "inside-the-system reformer," but now his and similar efforts are beyond the pale.
Over the 20 years since Tiananmen Square, and certainly during the three years I could observe first-hand there, rule of law and civil liberties made a steady if uneven expansion in China. This and related recent crackdowns are a setback, whose significance we can judge depending on what happens next.
Consistent with the policy that the US should view China as a partner and friend in the many areas where collaboration is necessary and fruitful, but should speak up for its own values when they differ from Chinese government practice, US officials should say that they are watching this case. Not interfering in Chinese affairs, not telling the Chinese government what to do -- but watching, to see how the government respects its own citizens' rights.
July 30, 2009
Important and negative Chinese human rights development
I am remiss in not mentioning the news from earlier today that Xu Zhiyong, a prominent citizens-defense lawyer in China, was taken from his home at 5 am in Beijing and has not been seen since. Xu has been a major figure in a group called the Open Constitution Initiative, or Gong Meng (公盟), and is well known for representing groups and individuals against corporations and the state. For instance, last year he represented families whose children had been poisoned during the Sanlu tainted-milk scandal.
The official rationale for taking Xu is that he was suspected of income-tax irregularities. This claim is not believed anywhere outside the public-prosecutor's office and probably not by many inside it. A number of similar legal-rights organizations have been closed in the last few days and other lawyers detained. As one Chinese associate of Xu's wrote me today,
Ever since the first indictments came, I have feared something like this would happen, but to know they actually detained Dr. Xu, a highly respected lawyer and a people's representative of Haidian District [the northwest university/tech district of Beijing], just as they do to any other petitioner is just shocking. This means that nobody is safe from random detainment, or free from the fear of it.
Stories about the case here, here, and here, and statement from the Chinese Human Rights Defenders organization here (in Chinese here). If this had happened two days ago, during the generally upbeat "Strategic and Economic Dialogue," US officials could not decently have avoided commenting on it directly to their Chinese counterparts. They should say something publicly now.
This whole crackdown is being presented inside China as part of the tightening necessary before the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic this fall. What a commemoration.
July 28, 2009
Smoot-Hawley redux watch
Several months ago in this Atlantic story, I explained what some economists thought was the biggest danger in the Chinese government's response to the world business collapse. Obviously the Chinese government had to do something to offset the tens of millions of layoffs happening all at once. Its predicament was in a way like America's at the start of the Great Depression: having had an abnormally large share of the world's manufacturing jobs and export earnings when times were good, it had more of them to lose when demand crashed. But China's situation was worse, because it is so much poorer than America was, and because exports represented a bigger share of its employment base.
So China had to do something. The danger, as with the US recovery measures now, came from the long-term implications of the necessary short-term damage-staunching measures. And here the main fears were: (a) that the government would try to maintain its huge trade surplus (through subsidies, Smoot-Hawleyesque trade barriers, "buy Chinese" rules, etc) even as foreigners were forced to cut back on their buying, thereby triggering understandable resentment and retaliation; (b) that its stimulus efforts would aggravate trade-imbalance problems in the future, since so much was devoted to new productive capacity which could further glut world markets; and (c) that the stimulus would lead to a big destabilizing bubble, since a lot of it was propelled by China's version of sub-prime loans. (Ie, shaky, under-collateralized, dubiously repayable loans to sweetheart or shady companies).
These are problems to keep watching, and toward that end, two worthwhile resources: The first is this essay by R. Taggart Murphy, longtime investment banker in Japan and now a finance professor there. (The link opens a Word .DOC file for download.) Murphy -- for the record, a friend from my Japan days -- compares China's nascent attempt to prop up its trade surplus to what Japan did in the 1970s. He says:
"If the parallels continue with the 1970s, what might we expect? First, hostility directed away from the United States and towards China. ... Once your economy is so large that whatever you do affects global economic architecture, the "free rider" option [of permanent trade surplus] begins to close. If you manage your economy in such a way as to maximize exports and trade surpluses at a time when global growth is sluggish or non-existent, you are willy-nilly forcing other countries to run trade deficits. What happens if they refuse to go along?"
He suggests some cautionary answers to that last question. Also, we have yet another illuminating item from Guanghua School of Management's Michael Pettis, about the pitfalls built into the stimulus package. Here. Worth reading as a complement to this week's "Strategic and Economic Dialogue."
July 25, 2009
Well, I have a new favorite newspaper
Move over, China Daily. I don't know how long The Onion can keep up its running version of how it will look after acquisition by the Yu Wan Mei fish salvage company (鱼完美, yu wan mei, "perfect fish"). Background on the sale here.
But as long as it lasts, it is a tour de force. I suspect that some veteran of the China Daily or allied Chinese "information" organs in English must have defected to the Onion and guided this exercise. It's as good an imitation of the original as are the standard Onion "area man" versions of American news.
Original (these are real China Daily headlines):
Improved version:
My general policy is: if something is already On The Internet, no need for me to mention it too, unless it is in some cranny where many people might overlook it. But the artistry here forces an exception to the policy. After the jump, an early indication of the Onion's prowess in the "learning from China" field.
UPDATE: It is worth going to the Opinion page, as illustrated below, and clicking on the "Internet allows free exchange" story.
Before disappearing offline last week, I posted a number of items from Uighur, Han, and foreign observers in XInjiang during the ethnic violence there. Alistair Thornton, a young researcher / scholar I knew in Beijing, has just returned from Urumqi (largest city in Xinjiang) and posted a number of photos of the way it has looked recently. They are on the always-interesting "The Interpreter" site of the Lowy Institute in Australia. Here's one; more, and narrative, at the site.
July 15, 2009
Let a thousand flowers bloom again, Atlantic style
Here is a genuine strength of the community assembled at the Atlantic. We all take our work and the issues we're exploring seriously -- but we don't agree always or even a lot of the time about important issues. The closest thing to an across-the-board outlook was during last year's presidential election, when only a couple of people on the staff were rooting hard for the McCain-Palin ticket. But before the Iraq war, there was a really deep split, with our then-editor and many prominent writers strongly in favor of the war, and our then-managing editor and many others strongly against. Those differences were apparent -- I think in a useful way -- to anyone reading the magazine in those days and seeing the different perspectives argued out. Right now there are real differences on economic-policy matters, various aspects of foreign policy from Afghanistan to the Middle East to China, the futures of the Republican and Democratic parties, defense issues, and a lot of other specific points.
I mention this as a strength of the organization internally and also, I think, a virtue from the reader's point of view. The real differences but also real sense of community and respect can encourage people to explain and argue-out their positions more carefully rather than just assuming agreement. It's like "not Red States or Blue States but the United States of the Atlantic Monthly"!
In that spirit of respectful disagreement with a colleague and friend, let me say that Robert Kaplan's "we" does not speak for the whole magazine's staff when he says just now about China:
For years we had perceived China as a state galloping ever forward, en
route to peer competitor status with the United States and its
military. We forgot that foreign and defense policy emanates from a
country's domestic conditions, and that if its domestic conditions are
less than harmonious, its policy toward the outside world, too, may be
less than robust. In other words, China's rise cannot be taken for
granted. To wit, China is also grinding away at its environmental base.
Its water table is diminishing, along with the nutrients in its soil.
But the regime cannot afford to slow down its economic growth for fear
of a popular eruption far broader than what we just saw in Xinjiang....Remember, nothing is destiny.
The limits on China's "galloping" rise and the "nothing is destiny" perspective on its future are points I've tried to convey so often that many readers may be going crazy from the repetition. (Eg here or here or here.) In a sense the heart of my disagreement with Niall Ferguson at the Aspen Ideas Festival was his seeming confidence that anything at all could be assumed as certain about China's future -- either the rise that seemed inevitable to some people until recently, or the breakup with the U.S. and the outside world that he says is now certain to come. That's my disagreement with Bob Kaplan's statement of previous views on China: "we" may have seen things that way, but "I" most certainly didn't.
Arguing for uncertainty, or for many possible futures that will in fact be shaped by real choices by real human beings, may seem weak and unsatisfying. On the other hand: it conforms to the facts, and, at least as important, it focuses attention on the difference that "we" can make through our choices, wise or foolish, about China policy and other matters from economic interaction to environmental protection. And by "we" I mean political leaders and the politically-interested community in the United States, and China, and around the world.
July 13, 2009
A Uighur speaks about pork
After I posted this picture from Shannon Kirwin, three days ago, of a help-wanted notice at a restaurant in Kashgar that said "Han Chinese only," one response ran through the vast majority of messages from readers in China. It is the argument I quoted here. "Uighurs are Muslim," many correspondents said. "Chinese restaurants serve pork. It would be an insult to the Uighurs to suggest that they apply."
I had my own guesses about the response, but I asked another correspondent who (to the best of my knowledge) is a Muslim Uighur who reads Chinese. I asked: would Uighurs in Kashgar view the sign as a favor to them? Here is the reply I just received, with some addenda from the same correspondent after the jump.
"Han Chinese only" simply is a discrimination. Uyghurs are desperate
to have jobs and long have been complaining about "Han Chinese only"
requirements. Uyghurs don't eat pork, but "Handling pork" doesn't mean
eating pork. That ad includes not only chef position but also
waiter/waitress and supervisor positions, which don't require to taste
the food. In fact, I've seen many Uyghur
students both in United States, Europe and Japan work as
waiters/waitresses. They don't eat pork and bacon, but happily perform
the task. They have no problem with carrying the plates, and cleaning
them.
"The job ads I've sent to you earlier [quoted after the jump here, and very much worth re-checking] was posted on Kashgar
Teacher's College web site. One of them is about "Dean of College"
position, which also has "Han Chinese Only" requirement . The other ad
is about several positions, including computer instructor and lab
assistant position. Most of them have "Han Chinese Only"
requirements, which explain that an Uyghur can not apply for the jobs even if
she/he has the similar educational background and skill set to her/his
Chinese counterpart, simply beacuse she/he is Uyghur.
"Postal service is a government institution in China. "Postal Hotel" [the one with the "Han only" sign] is Postal service owned company. The Kashgar Teacher's College is, an
institution which has has more than of half of the student population
is Uyghur, also a government owned
institution. If the job ads by government institutions are so
discriminative, the situation in private chinese companies is anybody's
guess."
Full Aspen session, Fallows v Ferguson, now posted
In several posts from Aspen (here, here, and here) I mentioned my "full and frank" discussion, as the diplomats would say, with Niall Ferguson over the future of Chinese and American interactions. Main summary of our disagreements is, again, here.
A streaming video of the whole session is available now, here. My memories of it are clear enough that I don't think I need another immersion. But if you missed it and/or are interested, it's now online.
On Uighurs, Han, and general racial attitudes in China
Three more views on racial attitudes and tensions in China, following this and previous dispatches. From a foreigner with experience in China:
Regarding the "no Uighurs" sign, that type of thing is pretty common in China. Many advertisements for foreign English teachers will include something like "Whites only" or a "Looking for Caucasian teachers" sentence somewhere in the text. Additionally, many a native speaker have flown from their country to China only to find upon arrival that regardless of the applicant's qualifications, the job could only be performed by a white person. At these times the Chinese are usually polite and a little embarrassed (most Chinese are very nice people and mean no harm), but they will remain very firm in their conviction that a person with darker skin than theirs could not possibly make a good teacher.
I have experienced this on a number of occasions. But after living in China for a while I realized that what we would consider racism in the West is simply a deeply ingrained cultural characteristic of mainland Chinese people. White skin (the Chinese like to consider themselves white) and or being a Han (the dominant ethnic group) means a person is good. Dark skin or not being Han means a person is inferior (and more likely to be a bad guy/a thief/incompetent etc.). It does not equal KKK style hatred. It does not even mean a Han Chinese wouldn't be friends with a person from India or Africa. It simply means that if a person is non-white or a member of certain Chinese minorities, they simply are to be considered less smart, less competent and less trustworthy than the average white person or Han. [Ed note: This accords with my observation, with the caveat that I have observed this all as a middle aged white guy. Early discussion of Obama in China fit this pattern -- but changed after he took office.]
On a lighter note, the Chinese are not inflexible and when exposed to nice people of color they usually will change their minds quickly. [Agree, as with Obama.] However, the tendency towards ethnic and racial chauvinism is a current running through Chinese culture that is unlikely to change in any meaningful way anytime soon. "Truths" are rarely challenged here.
From a person with a Chinese name:
Your mentioning the sign ["Han Chinese only"] in Xinjiang provides half the question. It's
pretty obvious why the Uighurs are angry, but that doesn't explain why
Han Chinese in Xinjiang are angry. I think that if you see this simply
as a majority group trying to crush a minority group, then you miss the
fact that the average Han Chinese in Xinjiang probably feels as
oppressed and repressed as the Uighurs, and since they are competing
for the same pool of jobs. Just because you are Han Chinese doesn't
mean that you are going to be in the Politburo.
As mentioned earlier (eg here), America's participation in the
impending Shanghai Expo 2010 has been in question, because of disputes
and uncertainties about who would design, build, and (especially) pay for the US
pavilion. Likely consequence was much shame and embarrassment for the U.S. and loss of face for its would-be Chinese hosts. Left: Haibao, beloved mascot of the Expo, in Wild West
Americana gear -- from this gallery of Haibao in an assortment of folkloric outfits.
On Friday a deal was struck to finance and move ahead with the pavilion. Official announcement here, from the site of the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai. Update on Adam Minter's Shanghai Scrap site, which has been following the action, here. More news to come on various sponsors, supporters, and consequences. Phew!
By all reports. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton played a crucial role in making sure the Expo bid happened. Here we see the victorious team: Sec. Clinton (left); Jose H. Villarreal, the newly appointed U.S. Commissioner General to the 2010 World Exposition (right), who worked hard to put a deal together after his appointment on July 1; and Haibao (center). Another excuse to get back to Shanghai...
Atlantic interview with Eric Schmidt
As part of the series of shortish interviews of big shots by Atlantic staffers at the Aspen Ideas Festival, our they-never-sleep web team has posted this Q-and-A between me and Eric Schmidt of Google:
July 11, 2009
Weekend Xinjiang / Uighur / 愤青 update, #2
More from the mailbag:
1) A reader with a Chinese name points out another aspect of the story --
the extreme reaction inside Turkey, where the "reality" of events
appears to be as one-sided as it has been portrayed within China:
"Have you noticed the reaction in Turkey? Here's what appeared in today's two big papers.
"The nationalist Hurriyet reported
the riot "has claimed the lives of hundreds of ethnic Uighur Turks."
The other big daily reports the released breakdown of the death toll
but as background reported the retaliatory attacks by Han against
Uighurs but did not mention Uighur attacks against Han. And the Prime
Minister stepped in to declare that the riot was "almost genocide."
"I'm amazed that despite the free flow of information, open
parts of the world can still live in different universes. A reader in
London will read an article in The Times about the "butchered" Han
family while on the same day a Turkish reader will read about the
massacre of Uighurs."
The point about separate
fact-universes is one of the sobering marvels of the modern info-age.
It's true within the United States, as discussed long ago here;
and it's true between countries, as China, Turkey, and the rest of the
world all digest different versions of the Xinjiang "truth." Main
point: the internet, mobile phones, and other info technology, far from
eliminating the country-by-country differences in information and
belief, in some ways may increase them, as each little info-sphere is
able to reinforce its own view of the world.
2) From reader Yuan Song:
"To be frank, I'm astonished to see such a big post [the "Han Chinese only"] sign, explicit, yet cold. If I were a Uighur that could read Chinese, I would have felt so insulted. Last time, one of my Canadian friends told me he that when he traveled in Austria, he saw an advertisement to let room saying "no Jewish or Northern Italians" (I forgot the original German word he used that actually means people from Northern Italy.) My Canadian friend was obviously very much annoyed by that advertisement. So was I. Then I had worsening impression of Austria after that.
"Anyway, thanks a lot for giving me more insights in the situations in Xinjiang. I've never been there personally. The fact that I, being a native Chinese, rely on this source of information to understand Xinjiang, is funny, though. The Chinese media should have done better job. I don't know whether you have heard of Phoenix TV, a mandarin TV station. They have good reputation for giving objective and insight reports on different issues. [Agree]
"Are you from US? I heard in US, there is a law that guarantees the proportion of employees from different ethnic groups hired by each employer should resemble that of the whole society. Is it true?"
3) A reader with a Chinese name points out that the real news is not
the "Han Chinese only" aspect of the sign but rather the "ages 18-30 only"
part. The reader says:
"And, because the problem is bigger, discrimination against
minority (and favoritism toward minority, as adding grade points to
minority for "Gao Kao" [the nationwide university admissions exam]) is not actually that unique, or big,
a problem.
In response to three previous posts (here, here, and here), a series of reactions and updates. First, from a reader with a Chinese name*, a measured discussion of some of the reasons behind the frequently thin-skinned, defensive, 愤青 (fenqing, "angry youth") reaction from China to critical comments from abroad:
"You discussed Chinese people's "tone of response to outside criticism"
in recent posts. I agree that many Chinese people do not react well
to outside criticisms, and that's certainly something worth their
self-reflection. But around this particular event-time, it would be
helpful to put these people's emotions within the context of many
foreign media's portraits of the unrest in Xinjiang:
"1. Initial western media reports tend to gave readers/viewers the
impression that most of the dead must have been Uighur demonstrators
killed in police gunfire (this might have been most western
journalists' assumption, as Christian Science Monitor's Peter Ford
conceded). And when it was later discovered that actually most of the
dead were Han Chinese (often murdered brutally), many western media
reports only mentioned this crucial fact in passing (often buried deep
in the middle of their reports), or simply ignored it (e.g., NBC's July
10th Nightly News). The impact of such portraits on the public opinion
in the West is clear: numerous people on Twitter, perhaps the majority
of the commentators in the first couple of days, condemned the
perceived Chinese police's slaughtering or even genocide of Uighurs.
Wouldn't an ordinary Chinese person get emotional over such media
portraits and the resulted public perception?
The NYT online has a very nice graphic just now showing the parts of China with significant "minority" population. Minority, in this sense, means one of the 55 recognized groups other than Han Chinese that together make up about 8 percent of the country's population. The screen shot below is not the default version of the graphic, which shows all counties in China with at least 10 percent minority population. Instead it's the version that shows counties where at least half the people are something other than Han.
In a sense the map is misleading, in the same way "Red State / Blue State" electoral maps are misleading about real division of opinion within the United States. The big western areas marked as Tibetan or Uighur are rugged territory that is very lightly populated (think Alaska, Nevada), compared with the dense, mainly-Han areas of the east. For instance, the ethnic Tibetan areas are shown as covering not just Tibet proper but also parts of the neighboring provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu (in all of which places I have been to Tibetan villages). But the total ethnic-Tibetan proportion of China's population is something under one percent. Still, the graph gives an idea of the control issues China has with some of its minority groups.
After the jump, three responses on the 愤青 -- fenqing, "angry youth" -- tone of response to outside criticism I mentioned earlier.
A few hours ago I posted a picture from Kashgar of a Help Wanted ad that concluded, "Han Chinese only." Recently I've received a wave of messages, mainly from readers with Chinese names, similar in content to the one below. (In fairness, not all have been this huffy in tone*):
I came cross your website and read the article "No Uighurs Need Apply" written by Shannon Kirwin [ie, quoting S.K.], hinting the unfair treatment of Uighurs by Han. It showed how ignorant she and your web editors are, because you don't even know that Muslims don't touch any pork while Hans do. In addition it'd be a humiliation and insult to Muslims if you ask them to work in Han kitchens. I think it's typical that you Westerners are so unfairly to spread twisted information around the world, while smiling to your local Han friends.
Now, at the level of simple, cold logic, there are some obvious responses to this argument. If observant Uighur Muslims don't want to work with pork, then they're not going to apply for the jobsanyway. So why bother to say they can't? Or: maybe not all Uighurs are observant Muslims or even Muslim at all, and perhaps they'd like the job. Or: maybe there are other ethnic groups in the area who are not Han but would still be happy to work with pork. Why rule them out? Or: maybe some of the jobs listed, as supervisors, don't involve touching food at all. What about those? And so on.
But to me the responses are more interesting on two other, sociological levels. One is the theme that runs through much internal Chinese discussion of relations with its minority groups: that whatever is going on is obviously and overwhelmingly for the minority's own good. In the case of the Kashgar restaurant, sparing Muslims the sacrilege of dealing with pork. In the case of a Beijing exhibit on the history of Tibet I mentioned last year, bringing modern prosperity to a backward people. In this context, it doesn't make sense to ask, "Well, what if the Uighur wanted to work in the restaurant?" or "What if the Tibetans wanted to choose a different path," since the benefits to them are so plain. This attitude is obviously not confined to China: it typifies America's attitude toward its minority groups at many points in our history. But the attitude is more broadly shared and less internally-debated in China now than many other places.
(Beijing exhibit photo, showing a Tibetan woman grateful to have a modern fridge full of beer.)
The other theme this illustrates is the much-discussed readiness of the Chinese "netizen" population to take offense at foreign criticism. Being away from China even for a few weeks, I am aware of how this reaction can be mis-read in the outside world. Day by day over the past few years in China, I've been in a sea of highly varied, tremendously individualistic, and generally very good-humored and approachable people. This touchy, net-based tone did not at all characterize the daily life I observed anywhere in the country -- very much including interactions with foreigners. But it is part of the mix in China's dealings with the outside world, especially when "foreign criticism" comes up. ____ * It is possible in the case of this note that I have fallen for an elaborate hoax. The sender's email address contains the initials "LOL" repeated twice with numbers in between, and his or her listed Chinese name is 笑生, which also has a jokey connotation. So who knows. Many of the other notes seemed quite serious.
"No Uighurs Need Apply"
From Shannon Kirwin of Beijing, this photo of a "Help Wanted" sign outside the Postal Hotel (邮政宾馆) in Kashgar in China's Xinjiang region a few days ago. Click for larger.
Here's the significance of the sign: It's an advertisement for restaurant staff at the hotel, in roles from cooks to supervisors. Kashgar, of course, is a historic trading town on the extreme western frontier of China, much closer to Lahore, Kabul, and New Delhi than to Beijing. The original population there would be of Uighur or other Turkic ethnicity, rather than Han Chinese. But the last line of the advertisement says, "This offer is for Han Chinese (汉族) only, ages 18-30."
Shannon Kirwin writes,
"I completely agreed with Glenn Mott's analysis of the riots as a
variation of the same race riots we have experienced in the US. In
large part the frustration with the Chinese regime that many Uighurs
expressed to us throughout our travels in Xinjiang seemed to stem from
everyday insults and degradations such as the one pictured here. We
were also told by people in several different cities that there is an
unofficial policy of denying ethnic Uighurs passports until they reach
retirement age, particularly if they are applying to visit Mecca.
"Just to describe the scene a little more, the hotel, the 邮政宾馆, is
located on a major street corner that is a neighborhood gathering spot
for fruit peddlers, motorcycle taxi drivers, and residents. The sign
is enormous and impossible to miss."
July 9, 2009
Cornucopia of updates #7: Great Firewall
Everyone on the China beat already knows this, but for bystanders curious about how China's internet-filtering system adjusts to breaking news, see this report from China Digital Times. It's an intercepted (and, to me, legitimate-sounding) new memo from state propaganda authorities about the items that search-engine companies must block from their results. The memo is of course in Chinese, with CDT's translation. Brief samples:
以下关键词请屏蔽无结果，不设相关搜索，今日(8日)19时生效。
Please screen out the following keywords, no relevant search results. Effective starting 7 pm today [July 8, 2009].....
"冲突 汉维""维冲突 汉族" "维族冲突 汉族" "维族冲突 汉人" "维族冲突 汉族人" "维族冲突汉族同胞""维狗冲突 汉族"
"维族狗冲突 汉族" "维族狗冲突 汉人" "维族狗冲突 汉族人" "维狗冲突 汉族同胞" "维族狗冲突汉族同胞" "新疆人冲突 汉族"
"新疆人冲突 汉人" "新疆人冲突 汉族人" "新疆人冲突 汉族同胞""新疆狗冲突 汉族" "维族狗冲突汉人" "新疆狗冲突 汉族人"
"新疆狗冲突 汉族同胞"
"conflict, Han and Uighur" "Conflict, Han and Uighur people" "Conflict, Han and Xinjiang people"
"Conflict, Xinjiang dogs and Han compatriots" "Conflict, Xinjiang people and Han compatriots"
For background on the Great Firewall, try here. In some other update, it will be worth talking about the Chinese government's press strategy during this emergency, which so far is strikingly different from past practice. During the Tibet turmoil early last year, the government tried its best to keep foreign reporters and outsiders in general away from the action. This time, it is conducting press tours of Xinjiang for foreigners. Rapid-adaptation to changing circumstances has been a hallmark of Chinese economic policy but not so much of its international diplomatic stance. We'll see how big a change this is.
July 8, 2009
Cornucopia of updates #4: Xinjiang
Following this selection yesterday of pictures of Uighur students in Xinjiang.
- On why this eruption, violent as it and its suppression have been, is unlikely to shake the government's control of or support in China, my friend Russell Leigh Moses of Beijing, in this op-ed in the NYT today, makes the right points and presents a convincing argument. Gist:
"The state apparatus has become dizzy with success in dealing with
unrest. This gives little hope that further mass outbreaks will not be
violently crushed. It also demonstrates that social upheaval will not
pave the way to democracy. The party is too strong and confident to
allow change from below."
The contrast between the Chinese state's continued ineptness in appealing to international opinion and its very effective control of opinion and knowledge within China is worth remembering at all times, and especially during crises like this. From the outside, these may look like challenges to the survival of the regime. From the inside, to most people in China, they're new occasions for national fortitude and solidarity.
- On the roots of the conflict, Glenn Mott of the Hearst Corporation (also a friend), who has been in Beijing as a Fulbright lecturer at Tsinghua University, sends this report:
"What we saw this week should be familiar to us as Americans. This was a race riot, not a political insurrection. It is what a young Chinese engineer I had lunch with today called an ethnic "brawl" with Uighurs and Hans throwing rocks over the heads of police in between. We should notice there is progress at the central government level--foreign journalists are in fact being given some access to Urumqi--though social networks have been cut, and Xinhua is carefully editing for fullest grim effect on the Eastern Chinese psyche.
"But with no public space in the media to cultivate a civil society, to debate and discuss grievances, and none on the horizon, the Han and Uighur of Xinjiang are caught in a hopeless deficit for information about each other's grievances. This is the same all over China (between developers and farmers, and between local government and petitioners, for instance) lacking a public space for civil discourse, lacking rule of law, lacking release and resolution except in private conversations and ultimately, into the streets they go."
He attached a recent photo of the storied Uighur trading city of Kashgar, which is being razed so it can be rebuilt in a "safer" way.
- On fiction-list suggestions, I have mentioned many times this past year a spy-thriller novel by the British writer Charles Cumming, called Typhoon. It is about a Uighur uprising in Xinjiang -- in the novel's case, abetted by outside agents. I will have serious/non-fiction reading tips later, but this is the most relevant thriller.
- On general introduction to the Uighurs and their situation, this brief video by the Stanley Foundation has a lot of useful information, including an interview with Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur emigree blamed by the Chinese government for much of the upheaval. It also includes an interview with a very tired-looking me after a trip to Xinjiang.
- On America's stake in Xinjiang, it is a lasting error and embarrassment that after 9/11 the U.S. won Chinese government support by agreeing that Uighur separatists -- formally, the East Turkestan Liberation Organization -- should be seen as part of the world terrorist threat. After all, they are Muslims.
Uighur faces
Tomorrow, more on the substance of the racial violence in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in northwest China. For the moment, small glimpses of what some people there look like.
Three of the students below are ethnic Uighurs -- ethnically Central Asian, generally Muslim, raised speaking a Turkic language rather than Mandarin -- on the first day of class in the fall of 2007 at 新疆大学, Xinjiang University in Urumqi. They had come from remote parts of Xinjiang and, when my wife and I saw them, were buying "Mandarin as second language" textbooks in the university book store. The man on the right of the picture, a Han Chinese, was their teacher.
The Uighur father on the right below, who wore the same expression of wistful pride my wife and I did when we took our children to college, had come a long distance from the countryside to bring his daughter, on the left, for her first day at the big-city university. He is holding the math and Mandarin textbooks he has just bought for her.
The racial tension was palpable when we traveled around Xinjiang. More on the consequences soon. After the jump, several other pictures from Xinjiang U.
One more viewing tip on the 'Chimerica' tape (updated)
As a reminder: sooner or later the full video of the "Chimerica" discussion between Niall Ferguson and me, this week at the Aspen Ideas Festival, will be posted at the Aspen site. (Previous mentions here and here.) If you see or read the full version, you will note that an absolutely fundamental premise in the argument (Ferguson's) for the inevitable collision of US and Chinese interests is that the Chinese leadership has recently lost all faith in the U.S. economy and the U.S. dollar and is determined to move away from the dollar as an international currency.
You will note too that statements by Chinese officials, taken strictly at face value, are the main pieces of evidence for this contention. In that regard, this latest statement by a senior Chinese official deserves notice: -------- My argument, as you'll see, is that China and the United States will continue to disagree over countless issues but are too thoroughly connected to be pushed by the current world economic crisis toward what Ferguson declares a "divorce." If a real separation occurs, it would probably be over Taiwan or some other non-routine-economic issue.
Bear this statement from He Yafei (genuine influential official) in mind when you hear "academic discussions" about moves away from the dollar. And, as I've mentioned many times, if you're looking for an "academic" perspective on the Chinese economy and US-Chinese tensions that is based on its actual realities rather than sweeping generalizations, start here. ____ UPDATE: Thanks to Andy Rothman of CLSA in Shanghai for the reminder that one week ago, Zhou Xiaochuan, the People's Bank of China governor who touched off original speculation about China's move away from dollar holdings, declared that China would be making no sudden moves to change its currency holdings. Why this matters: the "impending breakup" thesis depends crucially on the idea that China is quickly and unstoppably undoing its links to the U.S. economy and U.S. holdings.
July 5, 2009
More Chimerica, Ferguson, Fallows, Kaiser Wilhelm, etc
Apparently it will still be a while until full videos of various Aspen Ideas Festival sessions go on line, as opposed to the selected clips now available (see the right side of this page). So because it may not be apparent from the short video of my discussion with Niall Ferguson, or from David Brooks' very fair-minded column about the discussion, or from my previous item on it, here is a little more about what was discussed and where I think the differences lay.
1. The main part of my "side" of the argument that was necessarily
left out of a 750-word summary of a 90-minute discussion, but that I've tried to express in all the articles I've written from China over the past three years, is that anything is possible when
it comes to developments inside China and also relations between China
and the outside world.
For instance, when one questioner asked for "scenarios" about China's political evolution, Ferguson replied that "all my Chinese graduate students at Harvard" gave him the same scenario: that there was no huge appetite for a democratic shift in China now, economics came first, etc. I said that I could imagine countless possible scenarios: internal disaster because of environmental or other emergencies; another Tiananmen-like internal crackdown that alienated the outside world but reflected the government's belief that domestic control mattered more than outside approval; a nationalistic backlash triggered by something like last year's foreign protests against the Olympic torch relay; a Taiwan-related emergency; even rising middle-class pressure for democratic openings. Whatever. These are all conceivable. What seems to me most likely, however, is what we've seen since the early Clinton years: continued US-Chinese engagement in a deeply connected but often contentious way.
This is in contrast to Ferguson's argument that the "Chimerica" bloc had been the indispensable basis of the world economy until recently, but now was headed for inevitable breakup because of economic troubles inside the US and political developments inside China.
2. The specific part of Ferguson's view I most strongly resist is his assertion of close, cautionary parallels between Germany's rise in the years leading up to World War I and China's rise now.
Historical patterns and analogies are obviously essential and instructive. But just as obviously, it's crucial to recognize the differences as well as the similarities in different stages of history. This was the central argument of the wonderful "Lessons" of the Past: Uses and Misuses of History in American Foreign Policy, by Ernest May, a favorite professor of mine in college and afterwards who sadly died this year. Another valuable work by another Harvard professor is Richard Neustadt's Thinking in Time: The Use of History by Decision-Makers. As May pointed out in his book, when LBJ and his confidants thought only of Munich, Chamberlain, and Hitler when hearing about Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh, they mis-assessed their adversaries and badly hurt themselves. We've seen the same mistake more recently in the pre-Iraq war assertions that because it was a mistake to delay a military confrontation with Hitler's Germany, the same principle applied to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
A systematic examination of the similarities and differences between the Kaiser's Germany and Hu Jintao's China would be an interesting exercise. As I run through them informally, it strikes me that for every similarity (relatively rising economy, naval-force expansion) you can think of at least ten differences (scale, overall stage of economic development, geographical points of tension with existing powers, religion and ideology, recent military history, environmental and other possible constraints on growth, etc).
The real point is: The fact that Germany's rise was followed by a disastrous-for-all-parties world war is worth remembering. But to assert that this means that China and America are necessarily or even probably headed for a showdown is just assertion.
3. More than assertion, it is dangerous assertion. Even historians -- or especially historians -- recognize that world events are shaped in part by deep economic, demographic, and technical trends, but only in part. Real human beings make real decisions that have real effects. (Cf: LBJ in 1964, Bush-Cheney in 2001, JFK-Khrushchev in 1962, etc.) If we recognize that a collision with China is possible, but only one of several possibilities, then we act so as to reduce that possibility and increase the probability of better outcomes. If we think breakup is inevitable, as Ferguson is arguing, then the odds of a collision in fact occurring become higher than they would otherwise be. (Because each side interprets the other's moves in the darkest way and responds in kind.)
4. As will be seen when the tape goes up, Ferguson's opening remarks included repeated references to what "the Chinese think" and "the Chinese want" and "the Chinese will demand." My opening comment was how treacherous it was to say that "the Chinese" do or think or want anything, since in practice the place often behaves like 20 separate countries and countless regional factions and many self-interested businesses and a billion-strong individuals. This is related to the previous point, in that any analysis that starts with the idea of one big, coherent Chinese entity is both more alarming than other understandings -- and, in my view, less realistic.
5. Although I didn't address this part of Ferguson's analysis directly, he pointed out -- correctly -- that China's export machine has been profoundly affected by the collapse in surplus US demand. But Ferguson's conclusion, that this means the end of "Chimerica," seems to me far less convincing or nuanced than, say, the running analysis by Michael Pettis of Peking University. His web site is here; he was among the analysts I quoted in this article about what the economic downturn will mean for "Chimerica."
There's more, but this will do till the tape appears!
July 3, 2009
Fallows v Ferguson at Aspen (updated)
David Brooks' column in the NYT this morning describes a discussion I had with Niall Ferguson, of "Chimerica," two days ago at Aspen. In its brief space the column gives a fair sampling of the terms of argument and tone of the discussion. A video of the thing itself is here, as part of the Ideas Festival's video archive. Right at the moment, the video doesn't load for me, but I assume that's a temporary glitch.
For now, I'll say that the discussion speaks for itself -- and perhaps that it may also illustrate two different ways of approaching and assessing evidence, and two different styles of presentation and argument. My experience in graduate school in England makes me think that among other things we might be seeing here a comparison of two national styles of discourse, Oxford-style debate versus Yank-style. But probably it's just the difference between two individuals.
UPDATE: At the moment I am not at a computer that will load the video of the session. But I hear from my trusty correspondents that, rather than being the whole hour-plus discussion, it's actually a 3:41 clip. The contentious part, as described in David Brooks' column, begins at about 2:30. FWIW.
June 30, 2009
Toe back into the online pool
Travel* + time zones + away from internet + jet lag = no web activity. It's a mathematical axiom known since the time of Euclid. But before sleeping off the latest long-haul trip and rejoining the crack, round-the-clock Atlantic Monthly web team reporting on the Aspen Ideas Festival effective in a few hours, two notes from opposite ends of the world.
From China: Three months ago I mentioned that an "unofficial site" in Beijing was providing hourly Twitter readings on the air pollution element that is most threatening to health but is either not measured or not reported by the Chinese government itself. I knew then but did not say that the "unofficial" site was actually on the roof of the U.S. embassy in Beijing. I did not say it because friends at the embassy said that calling attention to it could seem provocative or thumbing-the-nose at Chinese authorities and could jeopardize the whole undertaking. A tremendous amount of "unofficial" activity goes on in China, under the hallowed principle of "one eye open, one eye shut." As long as the authorities' noses weren't rubbed in the flouting of rules, many things were possible.
For better or worse, and perhaps with different guidance from embassy officials, Time magazine's blog recently revealed that the site was on the embassy roof. And just now my favorite paper, the China Daily, has picked up the story. In the short run, I see that it has kicked Twitter followers for the service well up above previous levels. I hope the readings continue -- and, of course, that they eventually show healthier air.
From America: There are lots of things my wife and I will miss about China, and lots of things that are a relief to escape. I will chronicle them systematically at some point. Here's one brief "I miss China" item for the moment: Jeez is it a pain to return to the culture of tipping. I hated the haggling in Chinese markets and preferred to shop where there were simple price tags -- and the item was worth it to me, or it was not. So too did I hate this episode on arrival in Aspen today:
We got off an airplane and got into a van headed for the conference headquarters. We climb out at the HQ, and the driver stands in our path and announces, "Your transportation is covered by the conference, but you are perfectly free to tip." I guess he could tell we had been away.
I know and respect the little signs saying "Gratuities appreciated" on, say, the shuttle buses taking you to airport car-rental lots. I understand the ritual supplement at restaurants, and am always "generous" in that regard. Same with hotel maids, and so on. I have worked in tip-receiving jobs. But this episode just made me think: there has to be a better way.
I rummaged through my pockets that were still full of Chinese RMB and finally found a $5 bill. I gave it to him and thought: I do not believe that countries with a tipping culture end up having a fairer distribution of income than ones (like China) where tipping is unusual and can even seem insulting. They just end up delivering the money in a way that is more demeaning all around. The driver can't have enjoyed this exercise. I know I didn't. Please! Just add the money to the fare -- or the restaurant check or the hotel bill -- rather than having all of commercial life colored by the haggling / hostile-servile on one end / guilty-paternalistic on the other end institution of the tip. Ok, Ok, we can deal with the environmental crisis and health-care reform before that. But this is a place where the Chinese (and the Japanese and in many cases the Aussies and others) have it right. ___ * Explanation of travel oddities: We left Beijing two weeks ago today; spent 72 hours in the US; were out of the country again; and are back, today, for the duration.
June 24, 2009
More on Chinese lack of interest in Iran
A reader makes a point (following this post) about why the Iranian drama seems so much less compelling from inside China than it does in much of the West. There is more, well, John Bull-esque swagger to this note than I'd probably have if making the point myself. But I basically agree with this perspective. It's not all government info-control and censorship.
"I think it's good to keep in mind that Chinese folks tend to have a certain antediluvian sense of detachment when it comes to foreign affairs, sort of almost pre-war British John Bull-esque isolationist vintage. They just don't care particularly about what happens in foreign countries. They really couldn't give a whistle if a foreign country is communist or democratic or whatever. They just want to be left alone to make their wages and buy their house and cars.
"And I think that detachment is probably much more powerful than any silly, heavy-handed government innuendo and propaganda, at the end of the day. Everyone paid more attention to Europe and America, that's true, but Europe and America are important and rich and to be emulated in their wealth; toward the developing world, the feeling is sort of a disinterested bemusement from the average man-in-the-street.
"So I think the best way to view the Iran coverage in China is, frankly, to ignore it. Government press might have (really stupid) agendas to pursue in relation to this, fighting the colour revolutions and so on, but the average man couldn't care less. And it's quite exactly the same thing when that clown Hugo Chavez is feted in the Chinese press; he's viewed more as a curiosity than as some glorious David, hero of the Developing World-cum-Israelites.
"And I personally think that, for China at least, this is not an unhealthy attitude. Splendid (Sino-)Isolation ought be cause for relief for the rest of the world.
"....Another thing I forgot, and this is I think how someone used to describe the pre-war British, is that the Chinese generally find foreigners funny. Not serious, not genuinely dangerous, not heroic and considerable (as an European might for MLK, or an American for Thatcher or both for Mandala), but nice and funny in a harmless sort of way."
Again, while the writer is deliberately heading into campy-Orientalism by the end of the note, and while a billion-person country has exceptions to any generalization (I know Chinese people who quite clearly are inspired by Martin Luther King, or Gandhi, or Isaac Newton, or John Dewey, or....) the basic point rings true to me. Including the "not unhealthy" part -- worth bearing in mind when you hear the next "China as master of the world" scare-lecture.
June 22, 2009
Iran in China
I have been out of China for a week and away from internet contact most of that time, including the last day-plus. So I am behind the curve on the Iranian drama in general, and the way it's playing in China in particular. But in response to a number of requests for tips on how to judge the reaction of China's officialdom, media (controlled by officialdom), and populace, here are some guidelines.
1) Never underestimate the ability of the Chinese media to steer attention toward -- or away from -- stories both domestic and foreign. Over the past six weeks, as H1N1/swine flu has been waning as a front-line concern in most countries, it has been end-of-days news inside China. And right now -- Monday evening, June 22, China time -- when Iran's fate is dominant news in much of the world, it's a second- or third-tier item in the official Chinese media. The current front page of People Daily (in Chinese, here) has Iran as a fairly minor news item. English version of People's Daily Online, here, currenty shows the same understated play.
2) It is worth remembering that the elements of the Iranian story that give it such drama and importance in much of the world are less automatically resonant in China. One part of the narrative -- a massed populace standing up against state power -- is obviously anathema to Chinese authorities. And many of the other themes are also less immediate and compelling to ordinary people in China than they would be in North America, Europe, or parts of the Islamic world. To most Westerners, everything about this story matters. It involves a people's struggle to make their voices heard; it follows other "color revolutions" in former Soviet territories and indeed popular movements for democracy and rule of law in Asia and Latin America from the 1980s onwards; it potentially marks a crucial moment in the evolution of modern Islamic society; it can have war-and-peace implications for US foreign policy and Israeli actions; and so on. Ordinary members of the Western viewing audience feel a connection to these themes. I assert that they seem more distant to ordinary people in China -- even if the themes were featured on the news. People's own problems, and their business problems, and the country's problems, are enough to worry about.
3) The Chinese publications that are explicitly aimed at foreign readers, the redoubtable China Daily and its new complement Global Times, have taken a predictable but still interesting line. Right now the China Daily is, like the People's Daily, underplaying the story altogether. The new Global Times, generally seen as taking an edgier and more adventurous approach to advancing telling China's "soft power" presentation of its official perspective worldwide, went with this as its lead item today:
The themes of "outside interference" and "victimization by Western powers" are comfortable, reflexive positions for the Chinese government's foreign policy establishment to take, so are the natural positions here.
4) I don't think anyone in the foreign media has any clear idea of what the Chinese leadership really is thinking about Iran and its implications.
5) I have lacked online time to follow up on the Chinese blog world but welcome submissions by readers, which I will share.
Political education
Several days ago I posted an account of the distorting effect of the "political" component of Chinese higher ed -- essentially, the need to parrot back parts of Marxist analysis and the dictums of past leaders. This is apart from all the other concerns about the incentives and emphases of the educational and testing system itself, as thrashed out in many postings here.
[For application of political nostrums in an amusing way, see Simon Lewis's recent violent-noir novel Bad Traffic, about a regular non-English-speaking tough-guy Chinese cop who finds himself in England trying to track down his missing daughter. In the middle of gun fights or when wincing after blows to the head, he steadies himself by reciting boilerplate from his political classes. "His ears rang from the [gun] blast and that din added to a sense that he had stepped outside time. He hauled his mind back into the present. The contradiction between the working class and the peasant class in socialist society is resolved by the method of collectivization..."]
Now, from a young Chinese person who has recently graduated from college in Beijing and is headed to grad school in the US, a startling account of another sort of political effect on higher education: the levee en masse of university students to participate in political ceremonies, notably those in October commemorating the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.
ALL freshmen of our school are mandated to join the 60 Anniversary
National Day parade. They will be taken to a special training ground
set up outside of Beijing where training will continue from early July
(after final exams) till Oct. 1st. Those who are tall and fit will be
selected to march; those who are not selected will have to be trained
as volunteers. Students are threatened by their Party Advisers with not
being able to graduate if refuse to join the National Day parade.
As chronicled in the months leading up to last summer's Olympics, the air in Beijing was alarmingly dense and opaque as the Games drew near. In the end, it remained bad right through the opening ceremonies and the first full day of competition. Then, a powerful cold front blew through from the northwest, with clear, dry air behind it. And for the rest of the competition, and indeed much of the ten months since that time, the air has seemed far better than before. For day by day photos of Beijing's sky before and after the Games, see this wonderful site by Michael Zhao of the Asia Society. For sample shots of recent "Paradise Beijing" circumstances, see here.
Thus in this context of overall improvement, two recent reports are sobering. The first, by Tini Tran of the Associated Press, says that a joint US-Chinese governmental study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, has concluded that the air during the Beijing Olympics was far dirtier and unhealthier than in other recent Games. The Yahoo news version of the story is here; unfortunately, it contains no links to the scientific study itself, which I don't yet see on the Env Sci &Tech journal's site. [Update: study now on line here.] Among the study's findings, according to the AP:
Researchers found that particulate air pollution
did drop by about one-third during the two-week Olympic period. But
coarser particulate matter, PM 10, exceeded levels the WHO considers
safe about 81 percent of the time, while the smaller particulate
pollution PM 2.5, which can cause more serious health consequences,
exceeded WHO guidelines 100 percent of the time.
The second development is the ongoing failure of the Chinese government to report any readings of, and perhaps even to measure, the PM 2.5 small-particulate level in its big cities' air. This matters because the smaller particles, which go deep into the alveoli, are more damaging to the lungs than the larger ones (background and links here) -- and because, by many accounts, their level in Beijing is once again rising. Earlier this week, the readings from a non-Chinese PM 2.5 monitoring station (background here) again reached the "hazardous" level, as had happened several times previously this spring. Glenn Mott sent me this photo taken at Tsinghua University during the "hazardous" day.
Minor conclusion: perhaps one more indication that China's manufacturing economy is recovering, with factories and power plants up and running again? Major theme: if you needed more convincing that environmental and climate issues in China are a first-order challenge for the world as a whole, perhaps this will help. (Background in the magazine here.)
June 18, 2009
Sigh, out of range again
I am no longer based in China, but am not yet actually based anyplace else. So this might be the last dispatch for the next week, and it's on the fly from yet another airport wi-fi site. Sketchy for-the-record remarks:
1) After 60+ hours in America (and on the way out again): Life is so abundant! Even in a downturn -- and, yes, in Washington, not Flint. Everything looks so comfortable and lush! The air is so clean! (Today's reading in Beijing: "Hazardous.") And the cell phone coverage is so crappy! I can barely recall a moment in China when I was out of signal range. Today alone in Washington, half a dozen dropped calls. Yes, yes, I know the reasons for this. But the difference is impressive.
1A) Bad part of my character as revealed by travel (part 2,847): When approached by spare-change panhandlers I have to bite my tongue to avoid giving the "do you know what people put up with in China?" speech. Yes, yes, I know why this is wrong.
2) Positive aviation development of the week: flight of a new all-electric plane, here.
3) Negative journalistic development of the week: the Washington Post's insane decision to fire its media-political blogger Dan Froomkin. (I know Froomkin only through his work, not personally.) We all have heard the reasons that the press is under pressure by forces not of its making. This is an example of a self-inflicted wound. Are papers like the Post under suspicion for being too insidery and old-media-y? How does it make sense get rid of an independent minded, new media, presumably not-that-expensive, non-Washington-cliquey voice on politics and the media and leave... well, the full opinion and media lineup the Post is sticking with? Some people tell me that it's a mistake to say that the Post's editorial page (and the weight of its op-ed lineup) has "become" neo-con and establishment-minded under its current editor, Fred Hiatt; the argument is that this is the Post's long tradition, which its anti-Nixon crusade concealed. I don't know. But I would have liked to have heard the argument about why Froomkin was the necessary next person to cut. More later.
4) "There will always be a China" anecdote of the day. This comes from a Chinese friend I know and trust but, for this person's own sake, will not identify. My friend asked a CCTV producer (whose name I also know) about the mystery I mentioned last week: what on earth the weird ... thing on top of the otherwise-clean CCTV tower was. Reminder:
Here is the report from my friend, recounting a conversation with the producer:
Me [my friend]: Do you know what that huge round thing protruding on the top of the main CCTV building is? Producer: What? Me: It looks like either a misshaped radar or a helicopter landing pad... Producer: Why are you asking? Me: Just curious. Producer: Well, don't be curious. You know it's a very sensitive period here at CCTV, because of Fang Jing's "spy-gate" incident. Don't ask such sensitive questions. Me: Why is it sensitive? That huge thing is right there on the very top of your landmark. Everyone could see it, even from far away. You've never thought about what it is? Nobody asks about it? Producer: No... No one. Seriously, stop asking about it!
Words to live by. With that, I leave you to my Atlantic colleagues for a week.
June 17, 2009
If you've been wondering about BiggieSu
His Beijing quarantine saga, previously mentioned here and here, has now come to its end. May have been a nuisance for him, but highly entertaining for the reading public -- especially with this taxonomy of "The Seven People You'll Meet in Hotel Quarantine." Full chronicles here.
After two dispatches, I received no further updates from the Chinese-American person being quarantined in Shanghai (and whose mother apparently developed H1N1.) I am assuming that all is well there and the person decided that more attention would be a minus rather than a plus.
On leaving Beijing airport a day and a half ago, my wife and I found that all the government officials we encountered -- security screeners, passport stampers, general standing-around staff -- wore medical-type masks over their faces and in many cases surgical-style gloves, testament to constant vigilance against the dreaded flu. On arrival 13 hours later in the US, we saw a little sign in front of the US immigration desk, saying that if we felt feverish or fluish, it would be a good idea to avoid close contact with other people -- but that was that. I have a theory about what the resolute Chinese government response to this so-far-not-very-powerful disease says about "security theater" in the Chinese context. But that's for later.
June 15, 2009
The next time you're in Shaanxi....
Do whatever you can to hear the Lao Qiang -- 老腔, "Old Tunes" --
musical performance held in the small city at the foot of China's most
famous mountain-climbing tourist site, Hua Shan (roughly, "Mt. China" sorry, right character- 华 - wrong etymology).
Most forms of traditional Chinese singing, Beijing opera and the like, are easier for Westerners to "admire" than to "enjoy." When I learned that I'd be spending a couple of hours hearing songs from a 2000-year-old tradition, I was preparing myself for a bout of "admiration." In fact, it was tremendously enjoyable, and I was sorry only that the program (flyer to the left) had to come to an end.
The lore of Lao Qiang is that these are songs from old-time rivermen, which have been passed down through the eons by a select few families. Heirs of those families are the current stars of the performing troupe -- notably the Wang family, whose head is the older performer in the first photo below, and the Zhang family, whose Zhang Ximin is the riveting, hard-to-take-your-eyes-off lead singer and string player -- the dark haired man in the second photo. According to the program, these performers spend their days as regular farmers, and practice and perform at night. Who knows about that; but as performers they're great.
Wang Zhenzhong (王振中) above; Zhang Ximin (张喜民) below.
The troupe:
If the music has a Western equivalent, I would say it is something like "Muleskinner blues." Lusty, rhythmic, loud, fun. More on the topic here, here, and here in English, here, here, and here in Chinese. Of course the brief clips don't really do it justice. See it yourself.
Reverse angle equity, and 再见北京
Several thousand times over the past 18 months I've posted shots out the back window of our apartment in Beijing, as ways of illustrating the air quality, or lack thereof, in the big city. For instance, this one back in March:
For the record, here's how the same scene looks from the opposite direction. This is a shot back toward our apartment window, which is almost exactly in the middle of the frame, taken from a pedestrian walkway over a big road just murkily visible in the shot above. The low, reddish-colored, Mao-era building in the foreground of the second view is the same one in the bottom center of the first.
And as we leave the apartment for the last time (I'm scheduling this post for the minute we get in the taxi for the airport), a clearer-sky view out the back from this past weekend. In this view it's possible to see the overpass, and a lot more -- including the arched bridge over the canal shown two days ago. Unfortunately, today the air is back to blear.
再见北京
June 14, 2009
Updates: education, quarantine
As mentioned two days ago, Mike Su was taken off to quarantine in Beijing after someone on his flight from America turned out to be sick. Today Su has posted a richly (and fancifully) illustrated account of "Life in the Big House" at his quarantine hotel. .
And from another foreigner who has been teaching English in a rural area:
Apropos of the thread about the Chinese testing system, several of our very best students earned very high marks in the English section of the recent 'further study' battery that determines whether or not a student may continue their higher education. In spite of their excellent performance in their major subject, they are crippled in their attempt to attend any Chinese college or university for post graduate work because they were a few points deficient in the politics portion of the examination.
No matter how well one does in other parts of the test, failure to pass the politics (read 'indoctrination certification') portion disqualifies a student from any further education except under very diminished circumstances. Imagine the flowing tears and heartbreak surrounding graduation 2009. Even our Chinese colleagues are incensed.
That grinding sound you hear is enamel coming off my teeth.
I have examples of the content of these "political" courses, which are among the most visible holdovers of Marxism in today's China, but not available right now. More later.
June 13, 2009
Our wacky government, chapter 21,472 (updated!)
A friend preparing to enter the foreign service was looking through the official list of "hardship" posts and the extra pay that goes with them. Some are obvious -- Kabul! I have no idea what embassy life is like there, but 35% seems only reasonable.
Same presumably true of Iraq, no matter how much "calmer" things may be getting there.
But... China?
Yeah, yeah, I've griped about pollution and traffic in Beijing, and
maybe 10% is fair, all things considered. (Hey, Atlantic head office,
just a hint!) But half again as much "hardship" to be in Shanghai???
Paris of the Orient, and all of that? And while Shenyang has its bleak
side and Wuhan and Nanjing are two of the famous "Three Furnaces of China," it's intriguing that they should be seen as constituting nearly as much hardship as Kabul. Maybe just a reminder of the oddities
that come when you try to quantify things that really aren't similar. (Hardship in Kabul: actual risk to life and limb. Hardship in Shanghai: making do with REEB beer.) On the other hand, we
have a friend soon heading off for several years' diplomatic service in
Wuhan. As far as we're concerned, she deserves every cent.
UPDATE: Many FSOs and other public employees have written in to say that "hardship pay" is only part of the story. There is also "danger pay," which obviously is higher in a place like Kabul than one like Wuhan, and other supplements. One representative note:
I'd like to point out that the hardship differential is not designed to compensate Foreign Service Officers for dangerous duty. The hardship differential is paid for a variety of reasons: if the duty location is heavily polluted, or if it is very isolated, or if it is in a very poor area and amenities are hard to come by, and so forth. It's basically an incentive for FSOs to bid on tours in places where life will be very uncomfortable. I don't know about the air in Beijing, though I've heard it's very bad; I do know about the air in Cairo, which is so bad that it does the damage of smoking several packs of cigarettes a day. Hardship pay basically compensates FSOs in places like Cairo for sacrificing their health to serve their country.
Hardship pay is separate from danger pay, which is paid for tours where life and limb are risked. There are also COLAs for tours in countries where cost of living would be very high; this could be a tour in a very wealthy country, where everything costs an arm or a leg, or in a country where a terrible exchange rate wipes out a good chunk of every pay check, or in a country where everything has to be imported and therefore costs a fortune. There is also separation pay, which an FSO can receive for an unaccompanied tour that entails
separation from one's family. An FSO could, in theory, earn multiple compensations for going on a poor, isolated, polluted, dangerous tour.
Sorry to tell only part of the story the first time through. By the way, this is an interesting little illustration of the weaknesses and also strengths of online reportage. For the print version of the magazine, I would never have published something without calling around to several people to say: OK, let's hear more about this foreign-pay schedule. What's the rationale? What else is involved? And whether or not I'd done that that, Sue Parilla or Yvonne Rolzhausen or some other member of our crack fact-checking team would have done it too. So, this kind of chart without the extra info would not have made it into the magazine.
On the other hand, in print I would never have had the chance to hear from people around the world within minutes of pushing the "save" button -- and make a correction as soon as I saw their comments when I next got email. Different media, different roles, different vulnerabilities and strengths.
OK, one mystery solved (updated)
I mentioned last night my puzzlement about why and how the dramatic new CCTV tower, whose entire point was the stark simplicity of its design (by Rem Koolhaas), had been junked up by an inexplicable and unignorable wart on its roof line. This is in keeping with the theme of last month's Atlantic article, about the tendency of many projects here to turn out almost right.
I am grateful to readers who wrote in suggesting that it was a window-washing platform, which would move along rails around the perimeter (no, it's always in the same place); or perhaps a giant satellite dish (no, as is obvious from other views).
The dispositive comment came from Jim Gourley, who reminded me that he had pointed out last year on his Rudenoon blog that it was indeed a helipad; that something similar had been in the works for a long time; but that the original idea was for something much more contained and concealed that would do less to destroy the overall look of the structure, as has now occurred. From his Flickr picture of the earlier plans:
And Jeremy Goldkorn, of Danwei, had pointed out just before the Olympics began that "The iconic new CCTV building designed by Rem
Koolhaas has had its clean lines ruined by the addition of a helicopter
landing pad on the roof." Now I know. If only there were ever any helicopters in sight above Chinese cities.... (Separate topic.)
To round out the CCTV theme, a very nice FT story by Kathrin Hille quotes Tong Bing, a Chinese journalism professor, on what's wrong with the (state-controlled) network's mainstream news show:
"Currently, the programme has three parts: political
leaders' activities for the first ten minutes, other news for second
ten minutes, and international news for last ten minutes," said Mr
Tong. "During the first part, people tend to watch commercials. They
use the second part to go to the toilet. Only for the third part will
they come back to listen."
(Thanks to D. Lippman)
Update: via Micah Sittig, info that Tong Bing's observation is a cleaned up version of a standard joke. For rendering of the joke in Chinese, see comments #24 and #29 at this site. English version, per Sittig, "Evening News classic summary. First 10 minutes: the (national) leaders are busy; middle 10 minutes: the Chinese people are prospering; last 10 minutes: the rest of the world is living in chaos and hardship." Commenter #29 points out that he often amuses himself on foreign travels observing said chaos and hardship.
June 12, 2009
Journal of the plague year, #2
A second-day installment from the Chinese-American person now quarantined in Shanghai. First installment here. In this episode, a family member who has just been to the United States is diagnosed with... the H1N1 flu! Some additional thoughts from inside the quarantine site at the end of the dispatch.
My mom was on all the major news outlets yesterday... "Woman has been diagnosed as a confirmed case ..." She had a slight cold which she caught at [a
college graduation ceremony she just attended in the US] but was all
better by the time she got on the plane. She had no fever, no cough, no
physical symptoms of the flu. However, during one of the numerous times
they measured her temperature while she was in quarantine, she was
found to have a "fever" of 0.2C above normal.
Previously in the Paradise Beijing series: here, here, and here.
Most accurate air-quality reading today: not "dangerous for sensitive groups" or "hazardous," but "good"! Temperatures balmy, winds light, skies clear. Time for a final run along the canal.
Looking east, toward the Fourth Ring Road and beyond:
Looking west, in toward the Second Ring Road (same bridge, from different sides, in both shots):
Fishermen, bicyclers, drunks and idlers, young romantics, and school kids were out enjoying the paradise too. Carpe diem, as we say in Beijing.
For tales of another flu quarantinee
Those of you who follow Twitter feeds can sign up for reports from Mike Su, aka Biggiesu, whose site is here and who just now was taken off to quarantine in Beijing. We'll see how his experience compares with that of the other quarantined correspondent in Shanghai. (Thanks to A. Lih)
Departing questions
When I first arrived in China, I wrote an Atlantic article about various mysteries I hoped to explore. I've learned about some, still puzzled about others. Keep reading for further hypotheses!
But more mysteries arise as I near departure. One involves the famous CCTV tower, which has been going up a a few blocks from our apartment during the three years we've been in China and the past 18 months we've been in Beijing. Here's how it is supposed to look, in a MOMA pre-construction, heroically glamorous rendering as seen more or less from where we live.
Precious little seems to have happened to the building over the past 18 months (setting aside the fire that destroyed the adjoining Mandarin Oriental hotel in February). A year ago at this time, we thought there was a race to get it ready before the Olympics. Nope. Through all this time, my wife and I have constantly wondered what was going on with the very top of the building. Here's how the roof line actually looks as of today, starting with a long shot from the south:
Closer southerly view:
And, long shot from the Sanlitun area in the north:
For a long time, we thought hoped this was some kind of construction staging pad. But the rooftop cranes came and went, and this thing stayed. Helipad? Who knows. But I wonder whether this was quite what Rem Koolhaas had in mind when he drew the tower's stark, dramatic lines. It has, umm, a somewhat noticeable effect on the building's profile. Another reason to come back soon and see how it, like so many other parts of China, looks when it's "done."
June 11, 2009
Journal of the plague year (Shanghai edition)
An extraordinary statement from someone now being quarantined in Shanghai is below and after the jump. First, a bit of context:
The World Health Organization has of course now declared H1N1 a "pandemic," while emphasizing that its effects so far are mild. You can look long and hard at the WHO's main site about the disease (nerds will note that the site's URL retains its original basename "swineflu" rather than the less porcophobic current term) without seeing any recommendations for widespread quarantine programs or closing of national borders etc.
To put the disease's toll in perspective: of the 30,000 cases reported so far all around the world, about 150 people appear to have died from this variant of flu. And in many "though not all" of these cases, according to the WHO, the victims had "underlying chronic conditions." For comparison: since the time I woke up this morning, about 150 people have died of tuberculosis in China alone.* Estimates vary, but "normal" seasonal flu typically kills around 1,000 people per day worldwide.
[*TB math: According to the UN,
China's average annual death rate from tuberculosis is about 15 per
100,000 population. For a Chinese population of 1.3 billion, that would
mean about 195,000 TB deaths per year, or about 535 per day.]
Of course any new disease strain raises new concerns about potential mutations. And of course a big, poor country like China has different public health considerations than, say, Switzerland might. But bear in mind the dimensions of this current disease threat relative to other real concerns while reading this account from earlier this week, by a person currently quarantined in Shanghai. The writer is originally Chinese but now with U.S. citizenship. It is quite long, but you will not regret reading to the very end. It begins:
When I landed in Shanghai on Saturday afternoon, a team of medical
officials wearing white bio-hazard suites boarded the plane with heat
wands and measured everyone's temperature. All passengers were required
to remain in their seats while they went around to each individual to
check them for physical symptoms of H1N1. These measures had become
standard protocol in China due to fears of a H1N1 outbreak. We all
passed the inspection and were let off of the plane. I thought I was
free to enjoy my two weeks in China.
I'm aware of a ton of loose threads to be gathered up (about Air France updates, Obama's speaking style, urban design in China, design in software, boiled frogs, you name it). Soon.
But three years in China have now come down to three days; the movers arrive in nine hours; and I've happily spent my last reporting day -- at least of this stint in China -- in an uplifting fashion, at a tiny airport outside Beijing on a spectacular blue-sky day. Its managers and organizers have the dream of bringing convenient flight to remote communities across China.
I like the many dreamers and visionaries I have met in China, so I liked these people. And I liked that, in addition to their legacy aircraft (first pic), they were building their fleet with the same Cirrus airplanes I had known in the United States.
Legacy fleet:
Cirrus SR-22 (with Cirrus's man in China, Scott Jiang):
Back to packing. Loose ends soon.
June 10, 2009
This does not bode well
Front page of yesterday's China Daily, my favorite newspaper, echoing stories throughout the Chinese press (for instance, here, in the English version of the leading economics magazine Caijing). I am referring to the "Exporters get sops" story.
For the background on why this spells trouble, check out this Atlantic article from two months ago, on the risks of China's trying to defend its trade surplus when demand is collapsing around the world. After the jump, a relevant excerpt from the article. More tomorrow, in between last-minute packing and other imperatives. ______
Two ads right next to each other at Beijing's Capital Airport on Monday night, part of an ongoing "Fly more" campaign.
First, this one:
About ten feet away, this one:
How I convert this into an "are you used to China?" test: 1) You have to not wonder, "what does this mean at all???" Ie, "leaping depend on vision." 2) You have to not wonder, "how could they have noticed an English grammar problem in one but not bothered to fix it in the other?" [The one-character difference in the Chinese versions has nothing to do with the one-letter difference in the English renditions.]
I just thought, "Huh, look at that," rather than wondering why, what, or how. I guess I'm finally acclimated.
June 7, 2009
Last two about June 4
Numerous previous items (here, here, here, here, and others) have addressed the Chinese government's success in erasing June 4, 1989, from the collective memory of their country's next generation. Two more accounts, both from foreigners who have recently raised the issue with young Chinese people, and each of which shows some of the drama associated with the issue here.
First, from someone now teaching in a major manufacturing city in China. (Yes, I know, this really narrows it down.):
Today [several days ago], a few other foreigners and I were looking at an MSNBC retrospective (miraculously, not blocked) of the important day that happened recently, and just of reveling in the amazing photos and videos with lots of "wows" and stunned silences.
A 23-year old Chinese girl we know very well was sitting next to us and peered over, and said, "What's that? What's going on?" We tried to dissuade her; since in many ways it's not in her or our best interest for her to see, but she forced herself into our huddle and was looking, and noticed all the Chinese people wearing headbands, the blood, the violence, the shouting at the police, and so on. So she started asking, shocked by the fact that this had to be somewhere in her homeland, "What is this!? What's going on!? Who are these people?! Where is this?!" She was just awestruck and horrified.
So we told her the whole story from the W perspective, making diplomatic but honest allowances since most of us don't truly believe that "things" are generally that bad at all; certainly not here and now. But she just listened to us, staring at the videos and pictures, and none of us could see her face, which was bowed intently at the computer screen and veiled by her long hair. All of a sudden, she started weeping. Just weeping. She had had no idea that it had ever happened.
It can be really hard to live here, but it's something like this that makes me love this country and these people, especially here in my city of residence. Where others might see darkness, sadness and ignorance, it's often possible to see hope, beauty in the struggle, and real, unedited life.
The second account:
I am currently living in Shanghai, a recent US college graduate and
English teacher (born in '84). I have a Chinese girlfriend (born in
'89), and since we began dating some months back I have mentioned TAM
to her a few times.
I left the city this morning for a long-planned reporting trip 600 miles to the southwest, in Shaanxi province. As I implied yesterday, I was glad to have the option to leave Beijing. But updates I have received from various sources fall into these categories:
1) Several people have written to say that the going was surprisingly easy. For instance, this account from a Chinese-American man in his 20s whom I know in Beijing:
We were tourists and took many many photos, even asking the
plainclothed police who were keeping their eye on us to take one or
two. We didn't get hassled; in fact, aside from the ridiculous numbers
of cops, obvious and otherwise, there seemed to be no difference from
when I was there two weeks ago, showing friends around. Time: 8am.
Persons: myself, another Chinese-American, and two white guys. Just
wanted to add that data point to your blog, especially in light of the
note of caution you posted.
2) For fully authorized foreign TV news crews, the problem of the day was not so much frontal confrontations with security officials as -- well, you have to see the pictures to believe it. The Shanghaiist site has a roundup of photos and videos of the ever-so-suave "umbrella trick" as practiced on news crews from CNN, BBC, and AFP. This is the kind of thing that makes you hold your head and say: Rising major power in the world?
3) Speaking of the CNN/BBC blackout difference I mentioned previously, it's possible that our apartment house is getting its BBC feed through some outside-normal-systems satellite connection. I hear from other people in China that the normal, authorized (ie, subject-to-censoring) foreign satellite feed cut off CNN, BBC, as well as French TV 5 at all the predictable points.
4) My wife, lacking the excuse of travel to Shaanxi, and equipped with the multiple tools a woman can use to alter her appearance from one day to the next, went back to Tiananmen Square today looking like a different person from the one whose presence the authorities had noted the previous night. Her report on the day's activities is here and after the jump.
I went to the square at noontime, expecting to see pretty much what we
saw last night: the square off limits, people walking along the
roadside or staring at the flag and Mao's giant portrait.
I am guessing that you will see no real-time TV reports from the Tiananmen Square area today, and little or no photography. This is based on personal experience there last night, China time, which also leads to personal advice for anyone in Beijing thinking of going there today.
During my time in Beijing over the past year and a half, I've often seen the square itself totally closed off to visitors, as it is at the moment. There are always plenty of security forces around -- soldiers in green uniforms, various kinds of police in blue uniforms, and "plainclothes" forces who are pretty easy to pick out, like strapping young men in buzz cuts all wearing similar-looking "leisure" clothes. But I have not seen before anything like the situation at the moment.
There are more representatives in all categories -- soldiers, police, obvious plainclothesmen -- than I recall seeing even during the Tibet violence in early 2008 or through the Olympic games. Also many people whom you would normally classify as fruit vendors, tourists from the Chinese provinces, youngish white collar workers male and female, and skateboarder-looking characters wearing cargo shorts and with fauxhawk haircuts, were last night walking up and down the sidewalks with their eyes constantly on visitors and drifting up next to people who were holding conversations.
The way to avoid their attention is keep moving briskly along the sidewalk rather than stopping as if you think there is something particular to look at in the square today. The way to draw it is to stop and look around, to pay attention to the security forces themselves, or to have a camera in your hand. If the camera comes out, it may be pointed at one of the scenic highlights in the center of the square. A nighttime glamour shot of the Great Hall of the People, taken from across the Square with a glowing Monument to the People's Heroes in the middle ground (and no actual people in the square) is within bounds. This is how it looked last night:
A view down toward Mao's Mausoleum, again across an emptied square, is also OK.
But to point a camera in any direction not shown in these shots is to ask for immediate trouble. In particular if security forces in any of the categories above are in the field of view. I say this with first-hand certainty, based on experiences I will describe later when I am living someplace else.
Two other, related notes: As reported yesterday, CNN is still blacked out whenever words like "In China today...." or "Twenty years ago in Bei...." come across the airwaves. Whereas BBC TV is airing uncensored footage of tanks in the square twenty years ago and repeatedly using the phrase "Tiananmen massacre." And just as I type, the admirable Quentin Somerville of the BBC is talking, live from Beijing, about the "ruthlessness at the heart of the Communist government." (And just this second, in a Borges-worthy moment, Somerville said that international coverage was being blacked out across China -- so I got to see him saying that I was not able to see him. Still, the general point is true.)
Second note: Hillary Clinton's official "Message on the Twentieth Anniversary of Tiananmen Square," here, was necessary, appropriate, properly phrased, and -- even though it will have no effect inside China -- exactly the right thing to have done. More on this theme shortly.
Back to practicalities: if you in Beijing and are near the square, be careful. Seriously.
June 2, 2009
June 4 news coverage update
As many people have reported, Twitter has been blacked out in China for the past few days (also, I hear, Flickr and Hotmail), apparently for June 4-related reasons.
BBC TV, weirdly and perhaps temporarily, is being let through loud and clear with quite startling and gruesome footage of tanks rolling into Tiananmen Square 20 years ago this evening, plus an interview with one family whose child was shot dead that day, plus with the photographer who took the immortal "tank man" picture.
CNN, on the other hand, goes black-screen for several-minute periods, starting a few seconds after the words "In Beijing twenty years ago..." or "At Tianan...." The censors are just fast enough, or slow enough, to reveal what they are doing -- very much like last year, during the violence in Tibet, when you'd see an opening shot of Lhasa followed by black screen.
As nearly always in Chinese government management of the media, the apparent logic of these steps is hard to figure out. (a) Why hard-line on CNN and tolerance for BBC, which is one click away via the TV remote? (b) Why bother with English-language foreign media at all, since 99% of anyone who might be watching them already knows what happened 20 years ago? Memory-control has worked remarkably well inside China with Chinese language media. I have no explanation for the censors' decisions, just reporting the situation as of early June 3 in Beijing.
If you want to compare speculation with analysis...
...a good place to start would be with these two recent entries from writers within the Washington Post family, both trying to explain what China is, is not, and might someday be doing about North Korea.
For analysis, you would turn to John Pomfret, who actually knows quite a bit about China (as shown most clearly in his book Chinese Lessons). In an entry last week on his Pomfret's China site, he explained how the nutty regime in North Korea looks from the Chinese perspective, and how much power the Chinese actually have -- and lack.
For speculation -- really, paranoid hysteria -- you would turn to his colleague Anne Applebaum, who has just asserted in Slate that China is encouraging the North Koreans to keep testing nuclear weapons and thereby create an international crisis. She says, after entertaining several explanatory hypotheses:
Personally, I favor another scenario, equally speculative: Perhaps the
North Koreans have stepped up their war rhetoric and war preparations
because China wants them to do so. I can't prove that this was the case--no one else can prove any of his
theories about North Korea, in fact--but I can look at the evidence...
The "evidence" she lists will seem crude to the point of caricature to anyone with any familiarity with China. Even such familiarity as would come reading her colleague Pomfret's work. She ends with the flat-out statement:
North Korea is a puppet state, and the Chinese are the puppeteers. They
could end this farce tomorrow. If they haven't done so yet, there must
be a reason.
Many of the reasons -- other than deliberate Chinese war-mongering -- are precisely what Pomfret explains.
I'm not generally looking for fights with people, so why bother to mention this? The minor reason is that since the topic is the same and both writers are necessarily working with imperfect information about North Korea, it's a particularly stark illustration of the difference between informed analysis, explaining its steps of logic, and simply spinning out a snappy "hey, this could be interesting!" idea with minimal effort to reality-check.
The major reason is that this is dangerous. This is the kind of cocksure, half-informed assumption of the most threatening and moralistic interpretation of world events that has led to grief in our recent history. Applebaum herself has laudably cautioned against this view when it comes to Iran. A third member of the Post family, the columnist David Ignatius (disclosure: long-time friend of mine) has published a great new novel, The Increment, which among other themes concerns the danger of talking yourself into this view of the world. It's another worthy candidate for Ms. Applebaum's reading list.
Two more about June 4
In response to previous "lost memory" dispatches -- here, here, and here -- two more notes I thought worth sharing, the first from a Chinese person I know and the second from an American teaching in China.
The Chinese person was of grade-school age in 1989. He wrote in response to this plea from another Chinese person recently put under house arrest:
First and foremost, to hear a student-aged person saying "don't give up freedom" and read Yuhua's op-ed on NYT are like reading romanticizing of that history. What i read in these, call me detached or cynical, are their own sentiments and emotions unrelated to what actually happened 20 years ago, rather than true and fair understanding of it, which is what i want to read and remember. I don't deny those people have their own faith and dreams, sometimes glorious. But celebrating their faith and dreams through memorization of that history is absurd. Feels like ripping the history of its true meaning and rewriting it for one's own sake. And this is a lot worse than forgetting or misreading history.
Second, I don't understand why the (managed or controlled) oblivion of that part of history should be such a big event. There are tons of other events in modern China history that we don't know or remember. So why single out this particular part of history? Was it because of the fact that death occurred to thousands of unarmed students? Well, if that's case, we should lament a thousand times for those died during the great famine, political movements and culture revolution, not to mention the millions killed during the civil war. I can clearly remember that we were taught during high school that in each of the great campaigns in the civil war, tens of thousands of enemies were killed. Great military successes. But we were never taught in the same book that those were also human beings, killed in that large number and then forgotten (I guess they were probably not part of "the people" Yuhua was talking about). I don't mean to be sarcastic or cold-blooded about this. What i want to say is that our history is never short of such carnage episodes and since we have forgotten or ignored so much of it, why pick this out in particular and romanticize it. Only to make it sound very very very absurd!
After the jump, the dispatch from the foreign teacher:
It appears that Alex Wang, of the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing, must have stayed last month in the same part of the Green Lake View Hotel in Kunming that my wife and I recently occupied. Because the "look at all the solar panels!" pictures he took from the hotel window and posted recently on the NRDC Greenlaw site are amazingly similar to those I showed two days ago. If you're traveling to Kunming and want to get in on the fun, I suggest asking for room 2008 at the hotel -- also known as the "view that will impress foreigners worried about the environment" suite.
It turns out that the solar-paneled rooftops of Kunming are about as well known a feature of the city as are gabled rooftops for Paris. As one reader with a Chinese name wrote:
Your latest post of the roof with solar-thermal heating device in Kunming is a typical picture of Chinese city, especially of those second or third-tier cities. People in these cities mostly live in the apartments built in the last two decades. Solar heating device became extremely popular around 2000, for its cheapness, and governments then don't care about its impact on the outlook of the city,ie,barely any regulation.
He also pointed to this Greenpeace report on the city of Dezhou, in Shandong province, where many solar panels are manufactured -- and used. Also, this recent Danwei.org post that includes a Greenpeace video about the city. Les toits de Dezhou:
After the jump, a note from a non-Chinese person about the larger life bargain that solar-thermal water systems imply. ___
Not all young Chinese people are unaware of or indifferent to the events of twenty years ago in Beijing. Late last night I heard from one such person, roughly in the student age bracket, who had just been put under house arrest for the next week, until the "sensitive" anniversary period is over. The message I received today via mobile phone/SMS, before communication ended, was this:
Could you please blog, "Chinese people, don't give up on freedom, ever."
It is heartbreaking and, in a way, shaming for outsiders to realize how little they can do directly to affect the government's handling of cases like these. I would only hurt this person's prospects by saying more about specifics. But this is where my thoughts will be in the next week.
Lost memory of June 4, update #1
I mentioned yesterday that a system-wide silence about what happened in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago this week has left many young Chinese completely ignorant of that stage in their country's history. I meant this not as an original observation -- the phenomenon is widely discussed here by outsiders and by Chinese people who are aware of the events, plus in the NYT op-ed by Yu Hua I cited -- but as reinforcement of a point that might not be so familiar in the rest of the world.
Of many reactions that have come in on the lost-memory theme, I will quote a representative two. The first is from a Chinese person now based at a university in the United States. After the jump, a roundup of references and links on the topic.
From the academic in America:
Chinese government is embarassed by the incident 20 years ago. It is never a glorious thing to shoot at your own citizens. So it keeps silent on the issue.
But I don't think this is the main reason to students' indifference. There are plenty of resources about this on the internet. This is a staple topic in Chinese internet discussion forums, usually with great vehemence on both pro and anti government sides. The main reason I think is there was not really any support among general population for overthrowing of communist government even back in 1989. There was not any strike. (If there had been a general strike, the communist government would probably have fallen).
The general population watched the events unfolding in Beijing before June 4th warily but also with amusement. Unlike the participants in the demonstration, for the "silent majority", the events happening in those few months are far from the defining event in their lives. It is no great surprise people in China don't attach much importance to them.
And for most of young people, they don't have a lot of grievances against the government. People have lots of personal freedom as long as they don't touch politics. As for those political-minded, the communist party is always eager to recruit them. There are ample economic opportunities to absorb their mind and energy. They don't identify with the students 20 years ago the same way young people in US don't identify themselves with protesters during the Vietnam War. ___
From an organization holding a conference I plan to attend in Beijing starting tomorrow, whose sessions have been scheduled for a government-run meeting site:
Change of Venue Due
to the concerns of the H1N1 virus, the Chinese government has banned
gatherings of groups larger than 50 people at all government
facilities. Due to this new circumstance, we are no longer able to host
the forum at the [xxxxx]. We
have now changed the venue to the [xxxx] Hotel. The schedule of the forum will
remain the same, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have
caused you.
I have no independent information about whether, when, by whom, and with what geographic extent such an order might have been issued. And of course it's hardly the first time I've heard of a last-minute change of site (or cancellation) for a long-scheduled gathering in China, for reasons having nothing to do with flu.
Whatever the back story here, to me the announcement is an interesting historical document concerning the management of public opinion in China during the current flu episode -- and the success of the government in making any measure, no matter how hazily connected to systematic public health reasoning, seem part of a resolute effort to protect the Chinese people against lax standards elsewhere, notably including the United States. No other countries are imposing quarantine rules as strict as China's? So much more to the credit of the government protecting us here!! Yes, Americans too are familiar with such "security theater" -- just not when it comes to flu. And I can't help remembering that in recent hours I passed through airports in Kunming and Beijing, "government facilities" in both cases, where tens of thousands of people were gathered. So far we all survived.
Win in China screening - Tuesday in NYC
Reminder (earlier notice here): If you're in New York this Tuesday evening, June 2, consider checking out the screening at the Asia Society of a new documentary on the Chinese reality TV show for budding entrepreneurs, Win in China. Screening details here; my 2007 article about the show here.
At the main web site for the film, here, you can see a short trailer. I was going to embed a playable link to the trailer, but the opening image on the embed is a headshot of me being interviewed about the show, and that seemed too weird. So here's a different static shot from the trailer, below. It depicts one of the PK phases of the show, for "Player Kill." See my article, and presumably the film, for explanation of PK and much else.
May 30, 2009
Lost memory of Tiananmen
As I write, at the equivalent of 11pm Saturday night in New York -- 11am Sunday morning in Beijing -- links to three of the four NYT essays about the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square are broken. (The page with links to the four essays is here: as of this moment, items #2, #3, and #4 are instead linked to essays about the recession from three months ago.)
I am sure that will be fixed soon. A quick note about the one essay that is readable at the moment, this one from Yu Hua, the author of Brothers. He says he is writing about the event for the first time ever in order to emphasize two points:
The first is that the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests amounted to a
one-time release of the Chinese people's political passions, later
replaced by a zeal for making money. The second is that after the
summer of 1989 the incident vanished from the Chinese news media. As a
result, few young Chinese know anything about it.
The first point is continually thrashed out in all articles about the current state of China's economic and political evolution. For the moment I want to underscore the accuracy of the second.
I have spent a lot of time over the past three years with Chinese university students. They know a lot about the world, and about American history, and about certain periods in their own country's past. Virtually everyone can recite chapter and verse of the Japanese cruelties in China from the 1930s onward, or the 100 Years of Humiliation, or the long background of Chinese engagement with Tibet. Through their own family's experiences, many have heard of the trauma of the Cultural Revolution years and the starvation and hardship of the Great Leap Forward. But you can't assume they will ever have heard of what happened in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago. For a minority of people in China, the upcoming date of June 4 has tremendous significance. For most young people, it's just another day.
What do you notice in this view of Kunming?
This morning, looking north out the window of the Green Lake View ( Cui Yi Hu*) hotel in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province in southern China:
Click above for larger, detailed view. Or, see this closeup of the building nearest the hotel:
Clue, in case you didn't spot it yourself: Every roof as far as you can see has solar-thermal panels for hot water heating. More to come shortly on China's general environmental/climate situation, but I think this vista is different from that in many US cities -- among other details you might notice, in the prevalence of the panels. __ * Originally thought we'd stayed in the Green Lake, Cui Hu. On correction from higher authority, ie my wife, I realize it was the Green Lake View, Cui Yi.
May 26, 2009
Beijing construction triptych #3: Opposite House
The Atlantic's latest issue has a brief article by me about a very unusual new hotel in Beijing called the Opposite House. For details -- get the magazine!
Here are a few amateur shots of what makes the place a noticeable exception among the other fancy Western hotels that have sprung up all over Beijing. Giant version of a traditional Chinese medicine chest, with (mainly) workable drawers, in the atrium:
Scando-Japanese minimalism in the rooms -- I mean, "studios":
Enormous woven-metal drape or sail hanging from the upper stories down through the atrium:
There are genuine, professional photos in the magazine, and this brings me to my real point. Seriously, you should read articles like this in the magazine itself, not on line.
Some written material is merely "text" and can be absorbed equally well regardless of medium. I've claimed that I like reading novels just as much on a Kindle as in printed form. All that matters is a novel is the words. But some material is designed for something other than a computer screen, and is best absorbed from printed pages, with illustrations and thought-through layout. Most of what's in a good magazine is in this category. Long, narrative articles are simply better to read on a sequence of pages, with illustrations and margins and call-out text, than as clicked-through screens.
I'm saying: subscribe to our magazine because you'll enjoy it more that way. And: subscribe because you should! Anyone who worries about the "crisis of the press" has a chance to do something about it for two bucks a month.
Herdict: now, in Arabic and Chinese!
Several months ago I mentioned a new web site from Harvard's Berkman Center called "Herdict," which allows people around the world to pool information about web sites being blocked.
For instance: late last year, I suddenly found that I couldn't reach the New York Times web site from my apartment in Beijing without using a VPN, and I heard from a friend in Shanghai that she was having trouble too. We didn't know if it was a problem on the Times's end, coincidental problems with our local connections, some other unknown issue -- or a conscious crackdown in China. As it emerged, Chinese officials had imposed a nationwide blackout on the NYT site. But it took a while to determine what was going on.
Herdict is meant to be a quick, crowdsourced way of reporting such developments -- and it has recently come out with Chinese and Arabic language versions of its site. It looks as if it's getting more traffic than the last time I checked a few months ago, but it could use more participants to produce finer-grained reports. Even now it's a quick way for people in, say, China to figure out that if they're having problems reaching YouTube, Blogger, China Digital Times, or Huffington Post, the fault lies not with them but with the Great Firewall. A useful tool.
May 24, 2009
Back to the gaokao....
... following this discussion of Chinese education, Chinese management and research styles, and whether there is a "creativity" problem for people trained in China. Main theme so far about the gaokao, or 高考 -- the standardized, nationwide, make-or-break test for university admission: no one likes it, but many Chinese people feel that it is fairer than any likely alternative.
Today, two dispatches. First, a short one from a young Irish high-tech entrepreneur now working in the United States. Then, a long one from a foreigner teaching at a mainland Chinese university.
From the young Irish technologist:
Am enjoying posts on the gaokao. As it happens, the Irish education system functions virtually identically. The "Leaving Certificate" is taken by every Irish student in their final year. It consists of three core subjects (English, math, a language), plus three tertiary subjects; your results in each subject add up to a single score (max of 600); this score is the sole determinant of undergraduate college admission. There's much hand-wringing over students' foreign-language abilities--or lack thereof--even after years of study. It's often criticized for excessive emphasis on rote learning. And it is ultimately brutally fair: students rank courses in order of preference, and a computer program fills them by allocating places to successively lower-scoring students.
Despite the similarities, I've never heard accusations of a lack of creativity in students... and having gone through school in Ireland and college in the US, I can't say I noticed much difference in creativity or critical thinking. All of which may mean that the Chinese education system (or at least its superficial attributes) are not the problem.
(As it happens, I never sat the Leaving Cert, so I don't have direct experience with it. Unlike the gaokao, you can't sit it early, so I dropped out of school and taught myself the A Levels (British equivalent) instead. Also, I guess I should qualify the US/Ireland comparison. At college, the students were certainly smarter on average, but I don't think they were relatively more creative.)
From the teacher:
I'm another foreign university English teacher in China. I'm currently
in Yantai, Shandong Province. I'm an experienced teacher from the U.S.
and I've been in China for almost three years. One of my standard
classroom practices is to pose a general question and ask for
responses. I find that after a couple of weeks, when the students have
gotten used to me, most of them are willing to risk raising their hands
and offering their opinions.
One of my regular discussion subjects is the students' experiences so
far with the Chinese educational system. More than any other, this one
is greeted with groans and rolled eyes.
First picture: Google satellite view of the I-10 / I-405 intersection on the west side of Los Angeles. This is where the Santa Monica freeway meets the San Diego freeway, an extremely busy piece of thoroughfare. The only airline flight I've ever missed in my life was because of a jam at this very intersection -- my mother was driving me to LAX for a flight back to college after my first year's Christmas break, and we sat for two hours on one of the connectors shown below. (Part #1 of the Beijing construction triptych here.)
Next picture: the Guomao intersection in Beijing, where Jianguo Lu meets the East Third Ring Road. Our apartment building is just off screen on the lower right corner of the picture; subway entrances are on the other three corners but not on ours:
From my point of view, main difference between these intersections: no sane person would try to cross I-10/I-405 on foot. But many tens of thousands of pedestrians, including me, have to cross the Guomao intersection every day.
... that this issue is still with us, three clips from web-based environment sites, all taken within a few-minute span.
1) Real time map of particulate pollution across the US. This map shows PM2.5, the smallest particulates which are most damaging to the lungs:
2) EPA explanation of what the color-coding means.
3) What today's real-time monitoring of PM2.5 in Beijing shows. (Background here.) Note that the EPA charts have no reading or category for levels above 300, like the current 311 in Beijing.
Substantive update on anti-pollution efforts in China coming shortly, following this item a week ago. For now, think I will skip the gym today.
May 22, 2009
Now I truly feel like Mr. Beijing
I know people who've lived here for decades, for their entire lives, and have not had the full immersion in Beijing-ology that I have recently been exposed to: an air journey from Nanyuan Airport!
"Thirteen kilometers south of Tian'anmen, deep in Fentgai district, likes the purgatory of Beijing air travel: Nanyuan Airport. Only travelers with frightening karmic debt end up here -- and all clients of China United Airlines, formerly a military carrier, which bases its operations at Nanyuan."
Probably I have the karmic debt, and for sure I was traveling on CUA -- but I found the experience weirdly charming. It was like a little trip back into the Beijing I first saw in the 1980s: an airport in the middle of a rural neighborhood, trees all around the runways, little hutongs and five-story Mao-era apartments just outside the airport fence. Few intrusions of modernity, like: taxicabs with meters (you bargain) or the for-sissies effect of translated signage. This is definitely not the new Beijing Capital Airport. (Below, my fellow travelers for Linyi, headed toward our CUA airplane on the tarmac at Nanyuan. Linyi, in Shandong province, is another of those Chinese cities few foreigners have heard of but is larger than nearly any city in the US.)
I'll take my nostalgia wherever I can find it. This was an unexpected dose.
Beijing construction triptych #1: Mandarin Oriental
Three and half months ago, during the climax of the Spring Festival/Chinese New Year fireworks insanity bacchanalia, the nearly-completed Mandarin Oriental Beijing hotel, designed by Rem Koolhaas, was engulfed in flames. It soon emerged that fireworks on the nearby CCTV tower, also by Koolhaas, had been the source. (Reuters photo of the fire, Feb 9)
The fire and its aftermath will make a great book topic for someone (not me), because of all the intriguing "this is modern China!" strands involved. The climax of architectural ambition / hubris in Beijing. News media intrigue about exploring the cause of the fire. Backlash against CCTV, for whom the complex (including famous odd-shaped tower) is being built. Many, many other subplots -- as suggested eg here.
What strikes me at the moment is that the building stands untouched, looking months later just as it did when the ashes cooled. Two days ago, looking east from about half a mile away, across the Third Ring Road:
Sometimes structures in big Chinese cities appear -- or disappear -- practically overnight. Other times, they sit for a very long period in limbo. I'm not sure of all the reasons why the hotel has this frozen-in-time aspect, but it's startling whenever I see it.
May 21, 2009
For you fans of Chinese reality-TV
In the spring of 2007 I wrote about a campy / idealistic Chinese reality show called Win In China, which was designed to select, train, and motivate future entrepreneurs. The film maker Ole Schell has produced a documentary about the program and its aftermath, which will be shown at the Asia Society in New York on Tuesday evening, June 2. Details here.
I haven't seen the film, though I was one of the "what it all means" interviewees, but I watched Ole Schell getting lots of background footage as the show was underway. I think this should be very interesting. Make your Gotham travel plans accordingly!
May 20, 2009
Compare and contrast: "quarantine" in the US and China
Below on the left, the image from the recent diary of a (perfectly healthy) AP correspondent who, with his wife, ended up in Chinese quarantine for a week, simply because their plane had stopped at a Mexican airport. Starting on the right, an account from a reader in the US who has an actual swine flu patient in her house. The eccentricities of each country's approach are on display here -- along with, as discussed earlier, the reasons why China's reaction might understandably differ from America's or Europe's. The reader begins:
"In striking contrast to the story of quarantine in China, I am here in
Illinois with a house guest with the swine flu, and only the vaguest
instructions about avoiding spreading the infection. The young woman
came down with the flu Monday morning, after not feeling great on
Sunday. Since her health insurance is an HMO from another part of the
country, it took several phone calls to insurance companies, doctors,
etc., to get an appointment - not that the current round of health care
reform is likely to address this ridiculous bureaucracy, but that's
another topic.
You should, of course, start by reading my description of the casino economy as it was fully opening up two years ago, here and here.
But on the remote chance that's not enough, it is surprisingly interesting to get the email updates from an operation called "Destination Macau." At first glance I thought it was just another local-booster site. But here is a representative passage from the latest newsletter:
"If a president of most companies we know were to stand up in public, after having recently posted a solid rise in quarterly earnings amid a bearish economic environment, and announce he is looking to cut nearly a quarter of his workforce, his audience might be forgiven a gasp of astonishment. Not when that president runs the Las Vegas Sands Corp.
"This week, the company's recently installed president, Mike Leven, announced in Las Vegas that he was going to cut another 3,000 to 4,000 jobs at the Macau subsidiary, taking the total workforce to around 13,000-14,000 from its current level of around 17,500, and down from a high that once scraped the 20,000 mark. This is despite the fact that the Venetian Macao posted a 10 per cent rise in first-quarter EBITDA and continues to hoover up the city's visitor market... Job cuts and the redrawing of organization charts seem to have become routine at Macau's most profitable gaming concessionaire as it struggles under the weight of a massive debt load.
"Needless to say, the Venetian Macao is not a happy camp for an expatriate to be in at the moment. Given that locals are protected by divine right to employment in an election year, every Filipino, Nepalese, Malaysian, Singaporean and, yes, American and Australian that walks the floors of LVS's Macau properties can be forgiven their long faces...
"A black joke doing the rounds yesterday was that all of these cuts could be made without having to go beneath the vice-president level."
For specialized tastes only, but engagingly done.
About corruption, meritocracy, and "fairness" in Chinese life
A recent "Red-diaper perspective" on Chinese schooling and the nationwide "gaokao" admissions tests said that distortions in Chinese education were related to the nervousness of a Chinese elite that was not sure it could pass its advantages on to its children. Here, from another Chinese reader, is a dissent. Climax of the argument below; full text after the jump.
The anonymous reader blamed that China
gaokao system is brutal. I got news for him: The reality in China is
brutal. A population of 1.4 Billion makes any resource and opportunity
extremely scarce. This is why a fair system is so important: if you
deny the poor the educational opportunity to climb the social ladder by
reserving the precious slots in elite school for those who have, the
next thing will be that the poor overthrow the elite class physically,
as it happened several times in Chinese history.
The article notes that mainland China had a large number of entries and won many
minor prizes. But it had no real successes -- and the question
was why.
The three overall grand-prize winners were all young women from
American high schools, shown here. For individual best-in-category prizes -- 18
total according to People's Daily, 19 total according to Intel -- all
but one went to American students. That one exception was from Taiwan.
What's the problem? The article discussed some obvious barriers -- language, resources -- but quoted a number of Chinese authorities saying that the real problem lay in the way Chinese schools taught people to think for themselves -- or, didn't. Too much emphasis on rote, detail, and following procedures; too little encouragement to reflect about the process of discovery. An analysis very similar to what we originally heard from a foreigner. I do not pretend to be able to follow arguments in the Chinese press with any nuance. I offer this (tipped from a contact at Intel, then labored-through by me) as evidence of a parallel, and obviously authorized, Chinese-language discussion, and as a resource for any Chinese reader who might have missed it.
May 18, 2009
Very interesting flu-quarantine diary
Will Weissert, an AP correspondent based in Havana, traveled with his wife to China for a wedding -- and ended up spending a week in quarantine. His account of the quarantine, here and with pictures beginning here, is very interesting on the nuts and bolts of how the system works. It's not a complaint, though there are some complaining details. Mainly a chronicle, with details I hadn't seen elsewhere.
Here is his wife in the quarantine-hotel room, as Chinese officials take notes on her condition.
And here is the intro to his account of how they ended up in this situation:
My wife and I are in perfect health, but after flying to China
for my college friend's wedding we're being quarantined in a remote
hotel for seven days. The reason: Our flight from our home in Havana included a layover in Cancun, and China is taking no chances with swine flu.
Never
mind that we were in Cancun for only two hours, that we didn't leave
the airport and that Mexican doctors with electronic thermometers
checked us for fever on arrival and departure. Never mind that when our
Continental Airlines flight from Newark
touched down in Shanghai, we and everyone else on board were not
allowed to leave our seats until health workers clamored aboard and
pointed a blue beam at our foreheads to take our temperatures.
The Mexican
stamps in our passports -- my wife is Chilean, I'm American -- are enough
for authorities to pull us out of line at immigration and send us to a
medical room where attendants in white lab coats take our temperature yet again and give us surgical masks...
After 3 1/2 hours, a man in uniform -- speaking by phone with a
communist official everyone calls "the leader" -- announces we will be
confined to a hotel room for seven days.
We say we'll simply fly back home. He tells us that isn't possible.
Worth reading the rest. (Thanks to Daniel Lippman.)
Cross cultural exchange
Above-the-fold picture on China Daily special weekly business supplement. Caption says:
"The official dance troupe of the Dallas Cowboys (a US National Football League team) perform with local elderly at a downtown park in Shanghai."
How it looked on the page:
In the circumstances, the "local elderly" don't look that bad! Must be the morning tai chi.
More Chinese education! Or, is it really "Chinese"?
Previously in our series, the complaint has been that the Chinese school system pushes students too hard and in too rote-memorization a way, leaving the victors undeniably tough but maybe drained of their spark and inventiveness. Along the way, many contrary views and debates about the role of the Chinese nationwide university-admission exam, the gaokao.
Now, two bits of testimony more or less on China's behalf. First, from a Westerner now teaching in Japan, who says that these problems are hardly confined to China. Then from an American (of Chinese ancestry) about an American counterpart to gaokao-style training.
First, the Westerner teaching at a university in Japan.
China, Eastern Europe, Japan, it's all the same story. No, it's not a legacy of Communism. The saying here in Japan is similar to the one mentioned by the teacher in Eastern Europe: "The nail that sticks out, gets hammered down."
I cannot get my students to voice an opinion for love nor money. They do not want to call attention to themselves; stand out from the crowd, or be different in any way. This is the Japanese way. If, by chance, they do have an opinion, they keep it to themselves.
As a result, they are totally incapable of creative/critical thinking or problem solving abilities.
US no-show at Shanghai Expo: the hows and whys (updated)
Last month Adam Minter of ShanghaiScrap, did our initial Atlantic report on the looming self-inflicted embarrassment of America's no-show status at the 2010 Shanghai Expo / World's Fair.
The strands of the story are tangled, to put it mildly, and have been hard to follow in scattered press reports. So Minter's latest detailed backgrounder is very useful in explaining how things reached this point, why it matters, and what if anything could be done. Among the points he clarifies, in a list of problems that have affected the proposed US pavilion:
A. Cost. Shanghai Expo 2010's [one of the US contenders] $61 million pavilion
budget - down from an earlier $84 million budget - is inordinately
expensive, and surely the most expensive national pavilion after the
elaborate Chinese design. "For that kind of money [$61 million]," an
experienced American businessman in Shanghai told me. "You could build
a thirty-story residential tower on that site and still have money left
over. But these people want that money for a two story pavilion." In
comparison, Germany's elaborate pavilion design is projected to cost US$40.8 million; Norway's elegant structure,
a comparatively minor US$22 million. And even those might be
overpriced. At the Beijing 2008 Olympics, major commercial pavilions
were built for around $1000 per square meter - that is, less than US$5
million. So far, Shanghai Expo 2010, Inc., has failed to provide a
detailed public accounting of how it plans to spend its proposed US$61
million, leading to wild and unsubstantiated speculation among
experienced China hands in Shanghai.
[UPDATE: I hear from informed sources that there is some controversy about the importance of whole cost issue, with some other pavilions costing more than this US figure -- and the real question being whether the US can spend this much money in a sensible way with so little time to go. More details as they come in.]
One image of the proposed US structure Minter is referring to, from this site:
Full set of images of other countries' structures here. One example I like from that site: the Israeli pavilion, with components of the Whispering Garden, the Hall of Light, and the Hall of Innovations. Israel is a tiny country and this is a relatively small structure, but FWIW Israeli's entire budget for the expo, including construction, is $6 million.
And here is Italy's (no budget listed). The story is worth following.
Europe, America, China respond to the flu
From Kevin Miller, of the University of Michigan, an observation on why the differing European, American, and Chinese approaches to the current spread of flu might be explained by the respective health threats the areas face:
I have
a colleague, a native German, who went to Germany last week and
reported that the general attitude was that Americans were being
crazily hysterical about this. It makes sense to me that a) the Chinese
are really being hysterical, b) Germans are calm, and c) we're
somewhere in between.
If you look at the medical safety net in
each country, this makes perfect sense (plus the big worry that this
could combine with bird flu, which they have in China. H1N1 seems to be
easy to catch but rarely serious; bird flu is hard to catch but often
fatal; flu viruses seem good at swapping DNA within host nuclei. If the
same person had both bird flu and H1N1, this could lead to something
really bad).
Lots of fascinating testimony has piled up, on the topic previously covered here. (Gaokao = nationwide university-admission exam in China.) Will parcel it out soon. Here is one from a reader who wishes not to be named. I have omitted only a few comments about people who have written before, using their real names. He starts with his bona fides:
I have been following the discussion on your blog, on the subject of
Chinese gaokao, with interest. Now, before I go on, I feel compelled to
state the facts: I had taken the SAT, and received 2400 on it (Yes, one of the less than few hundred a year ones with this
result. It is utterly insane in my opinion.) So, I do want to make it
clear that this isn't a loser's rant against meritocracy.
If you're thinking about coming to China from the US, you should know that visa rules have recently tightened up dramatically, as they did before the Olympics last year. Here's why.
Inside China, the detected flu cases have doubled, from one person to two, and the quarantine-and-tracking efforts are stepping up. Newspaper charts have shown the infected people's progress through the country and reported the efforts to find and quarantine everyone who was, say, riding in the same railroad car. A report I saw this morning said that most of the people who had been on the same Beijing-Jinan train with Victim #2 were still "at large."
[Reader R. Skinner points out the inventive West-to-East rendering of the Toronto->Vancouver-> Beijing flight.] Meanwhile, in mail from Chinese readers and in Chinese and English news sources I've seen more and more frequent mentions of the need to crack down on the "real" source of the problem: the United States. Both of the infected people had, after all, come on flights originating in the US (flights from Mexico having been cancelled for quite a while.) Eg this lead editorial in yesterday's Global Times, the new state run voice to the outside world.
I am at a computer for about 90 seconds until late tonight, but: the reported selection of Utah's Republican governor Jon Huntsman Jr as the Obama Administration's new ambassador to China is an interesting and surprising choice -- and at face value, a shrewd one. Huntsman is reportedly fluent in Mandarin, based on his time as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan; has an adopted Chinese daughter (plus another from India, in addition to biological children); is experienced in Asia, as a boy-ambassador to Singapore (at age 32) during the first Bush administration; and -- so I gather -- is on the modern-science as opposed to the flat-earth side of the debate about the environmental + climate issues that constitute the most important impending business between the US and China. More later, but on first impression a clever choice from American-interest point of view (completely apart from what it means for internal party politics in the US). Will also give the Chinese leadership something to think about: why the new Democratic president has appointed a rising Republican politician. Sign of bipartisan US views toward China? Etc?
Subject to revision if there is something important I don't know about Huntsman and his record!
May 15, 2009
Not sure exactly which Chinese people Paul Krugman met...
... before writing his column today in the NYT, but:
While his conclusion -- that China has to be part of global efforts to control carbon emissions -- is obviously correct and important, his premise -- that no one in China admits this -- does not square with my observation over these past three years.* As it happens, I spent this very day at a conference in Beijing where the first five presentations I heard were about emissions-reductions and sustainability in one specific domestic industry. (Also, I wrote in the magazine, a year ago, about Chinese people and organizations making similar efforts in a variety of other fields.)
If blunt-instrument outside pressure like this column makes it more likely that Chinese authorities will keep making progress, then as a pure matter of power-politics I say: fine. But my guess and observation is that it is just as likely to get their back up -- and encourage the ever-present victimization mentality that makes it less rather than more likely that Chinese authorities will behave "responsibly" on the international stage.
As I've written a million times (most recently here and here and generally here), arguably the most important thing that will happen on Barack Obama's watch is reaching an agreement with China -- or not -- on environmental and climate issues. We'll see what's the best means toward that end. _____ * Krugman says:
"Each time I raised the issue during my visit, I was met with outraged
declarations that it was unfair to expect China to limit its use of
fossil fuels. After all, they declared, the West faced no similar
constraints during its development; while China may be the world's
largest source of carbon-dioxide emissions, its per-capita emissions
are still far below American levels; and anyway, the great bulk of the
global warming that has already happened is due not to China but to the
past carbon emissions of today's wealthy nations. And they're right...But that unfairness doesn't change the fact that letting China
match the West's past profligacy would doom the Earth as we know it."
I've heard that Chinese response too many times to count. But it's mainly a throat-clearing prelude to talking-turkey discussions about what the country will and can do, and under what circumstances.
May 14, 2009
In defense of the 高考: Chinese, foreigners rally to its support!
Yesterday, two reader-arguments (here and here) that the gaokao or 高考, the standardized, nationwide college-admissions exam for students in China, plays a central role in the parts of Chinese education that people inside and outside the country dislike. (On that larger debate, here.)
Since then, a flood of correspondence from people generally offering a "Yes, but..." defense of the gaokao. Yes, it's not connected to "real" education. Yes, it makes students' lives hell. Yes... But: it has other advantages. Or, the obvious alternatives would be even worse -- especially given widespread Chinese fear that any more "subjective" system would certainly be rigged.
Here is a sampling. Judge for yourself -- and be convinced, at least, that allocating educational opportunity in a country with the scale and extremes of China is a complicated business.
1. From a reader in China:
I just read your posts on the nationwide college-admissions exam, the
gaokao. While I agreed that this system did focus too much on
memorizing books and exam preparation, it cannot be replaced for the
current sociaty. The advantage of this universal exam system is
relative fairness.
Yes, there are much unfairness in the exam system, i.e. Beijing and Shanghai got too many quotas for the colleges entries, minority groups got extra points, and some can get in based on their privilege and wealth. However, this system is the most fair and practical one compared to all other alternative systems. The American system including essays, reference letters, community service experiences...all too subjective and easy to manipulate in China. The privileged ones will benefit even more from American system and squeeze the poor talented ones out of the best schools.
I am all for a reformed education system to promote innovation. But the first thing the education should achieve is fairness: the best students can be selected to get the best education.
2) From Ella Shengru Zhou, a Chinese student who has just finished college in Beijing and will enroll in a Harvard graduate school this fall. She has worked with me as a interpreter and assistant.
Officially done with my college study today, I feel I just have to say
something about the discussion on China's education. I don't think gao
kao is the problem in China's education.
From Joshua Davis, a foreigner teaching English in China, a further critique of the nationwide college-admissions exam, the gaokao, following this one earlier today by another foreign teacher. These are worth noting less for the novelty of the complaint (objecting to the effects of the test on Chinese education is like objecting to the effects of money on American politics) than for giving examples of how central and powerful the test's effects are. Mr. Davis writes:
Earlier this year, I decided that one of the things that stifles creativity in China more than anything else was high school. All Chinese students are required to take an all inclusive,
end-all, be-all exam at the end of their high school careers called the
Gao Kao.. If I can remember from the top of my head, this test includes
physics, biology, math, politics, Chinese, English, history, geography,
and maybe 3 or 4 others.
Because this is the only grade that actually matters in high school,
it's the sole determiner for students going on to college. There is no
college essay, interviews, etc. The only thing that matters is the gao
kao.
From Benjamin, a foreign teacher who recounts what his Chinese students don't like about their educational experience. The big focus here is the 高考, or gaokao, the nationwide college entrance exam that, as in some other Asian countries, is the make or break moment for many life prospects. Americans think their kids are stressed by the SAT. Hah!
The ripple effects of the gaokao (and its Japanese and Korean counterparts) are a familiar theme in complaints about Asian school systems. But after the jump, Benjamin gets his students to explain what a better Chinese school system would look like. He writes:
Having taught English here for the past year, mostly to recent high
school and college graduates (and a few primary and middle school
students), I have had countless opportunities to hear what Chinese
students have to say about their educational system.
They don't like it that much, and it goes beyond ideas about
critical thinking and creativity. They have said that they find it a
very stifling experience, filled with long days focused on boring books
and lectures with rote assignments to ensure that they've memorized the
essential facts (and pre-decided interpretations) and mastered the
essential skills.
Expats in China: NOT being called in for health checks (updated)
Yesterday I posted a report from a teacher in Hangzhou who, along with other foreigners on the staff, was being called in for special health checks as part of anti-flu precautions. The teacher wondered whether this was a Hangzhou localism or a wider policy.
Since then I have received no reports of special health checks for foreigners, and many comments to the effect that "all is routine here." So it appears to be a one-city or even one-school policy. Worth noting.
Update: Have heard from one teacher in Suzhou about health checks there too (not far from Hangzhou, so maybe....) and an expat in Beijing about getting temperature checked on the way into his apartment building gym. Adding: "(lucky they didn't take it one the way out. Would have been quarantined for sure. Or perhaps shipped out to a morgue)."
May 12
News and events in China today are dominated by commemorations of the Sichuan earthquake of May 12, 2008.
In that spirit, here is a link to a video released today by Afterquake, a project by Abigail Washburn and Dave Liang, American musicians living in China, to document and assist the recovery effort.
I think most people will find the video affecting but not depressing. It certainly makes clear why this event so dominated the country's consciousness last year. The only thing the post-earthquake scenes don't convey is how vast the devastated area was. You could drive for hours, far away from the epicenter, and still see crushed buildings and shaken-down mountains like those depicted here.
Further links: Sichuan Quake Relief charity Additional site on Vimeo for English version of video Sites for Chinese version of video on Tudou and Youku SexyBeijing.TV, whose Luke Mines shot and edited the video
May 11, 2009
Here it comes: more on Chinese & non-Chinese education!
From a Chinese person teaching in America; then an American teaching somewhere else; and finally the man who kicked the whole thing off, Randy Pollock himself. (Previously here.)
First, from a Chinese reader:
I had a pretty low opinion on Chinese education when I was in China. Certain subjects such as history and Marxist philosophy are just crammed in without any critical discussion. But when I came to US and worked as TA for a top state university, I changed my mind a bit. Almost none of my students (first-year economics) are interested in understanding the materials critically. Most of them are just looking for a good grade. Also the math preparation some of my students received are so inadequate, I doubt they would be able to graduate from high school in China, not mentioning entering a top university. My classmate told me a story that one of his student could not do 7*7 by hand. From what I read in newspapers about quality of inner city schools in US, the situation may be even worse than I see. So the conspiracy theory one of your reader talked about that the poor quality of rural area schools is set on purpose by Chinese government to keep people ignorant is far-fetched. Compared with some of the public schools in US where so much resource are spent with so few results, I think the education system in China is not so bad.
I don't think Nobel Prize is a valid measure to compare different education systems. Most of the best scientific talents in China are attracted to US, studying and working here. This alone can make any comparison meaningless. Also scientific research in US was weak till 20th century. I remember reading Schumpeter's discussion about why there were so few first-rate American economists till very late in the 19th century, his explanation was that the best talents in US were attracted to entrepreneurial adventures in a fast growing economy. Similar things may be happening in China right now.
Next, from an American expat:
I've been reading your series on Chinese education because it so greatly resembles my daily life as an English teacher. The thing is, I don't teach in China, I teach in a Eastern European country.
For expats in China: being called for health checks?
A foreign teacher in Hangzhou writes with a question:
I was informed this past Friday by my school's Foreign Affairs Dept. that we should report our "health status" by 3 pm daily. Only the foreign teachers have been asked to report their health (whatever that means, we are still not really sure) according to my Chinese colleagues. I was wondering if you had A. heard any other reports of such behavior and B. Does this indicate that the virus is in Hangzhou? (It doesn't seem likely if Chinese teachers aren't also being "checked") Or is this just another example of over-response (since none of us have been out of the country in over a month)?
I have not heard of or experienced anything like this, and my default explanation for regional variations is that it's a great big country with lots of different things going on. But if anyone has experienced something similar, let me know and I'll collate results. Meanwhile, stay healthy!
May 10, 2009
While I'm at it, a Chinese and an American view on Chinese education
Recently we've had Chinese and non-Chinese perspectives on Chinese schools (background here). For balance, a Chinese and a non-Chinese view in the same post!
Reasons I'm offering such long first-hand testimony: (1) no one has to read it! (2) many things about life in China -- and yes, life in other places -- are conveyed not in theoretical summaries but in accumulations of day by day experiences, like those recounted here. Several more still in the queue. Also, bear in mind that the foreigners writing in are ones who generally came to Chinese schools to "do something good." They're not here for the big bucks or the easy life but because they thought it would be valuable as well as interesting to be part of China's development at this stage.
First, from a foreigner now teaching in China:
The articles that you have featured are focused largely on University
students in China. I teach English in the public middle schools (what
we call grades 6, 7, and 8). The problems in Chinese education show in
the University students, but to fix them you need to look at what's
happening with students who are much younger.
First, from reader Terry Foecke. After the jump, from a non-Chinese person currently teaching in a Chinese school who doesn't want his (or her) name to be used. I'm not planning to run every letter that comes in -- lots have -- but these are very representative of views from non-Chinese people working inside Chinese schools or companies and valuable in that way. They also resonate with Randy Pollock's LA Times op-ed about his business students.
Foecke writes:
My connection with these effects is through working with second- and third-tier Chinese suppliers to US-based companies. My job was to improve the production process (mostly electroplating, with some heat treating and stamping/machining) enough to assure consistent results.
After a personal run-in period, I finally got it through my head that even my own (Chinese) engineers were extremely reluctant to deliver bad news. Furthermore, their definition of "bad news" was far broader than I could have imagined. This leads to a lively chase when Step 1 is "Identify Problem(s).
We did our best work when we had a late night and stopped for their kind of Chinese meal.
From Jiang Qian, an overseas Chinese physicist trained at Harvard, about the "is Chinese education any good?" theme introduced here and here. The LA Times article, by Randy Pollock, that started this discussion talked consistently about "critical and creative" thinking as being the weak spots of the Chinese system; Jiang Qian's criticism is mostly about the "critical" part. Still an interesting complement. More on the way.
I do not doubt that some reform in the educational system de-emphasizing rote learning would be helpful, nor do I deny that there are anxieties among Chinese educators in promoting "creativity" or "critical thinking."
But just to point to the other side of the story, I would like to suggest that it is not clear whether "liberal art", or anything being taught in school, can improve "critical thinking". In fact, as [an attached article] points out, "critical thinking" is not a skill like reading or carpentry that can be taught, but rather something attached to a specific set of knowledge. And the American schools' efforts to actively promote "critical thinking" have at best a mixed track record.
Given the torments that await those who try to bring cheese into China (see here, here, here, and here), it is with mixed emotions that I see the banner ad now running on many parts of the Atlantic's site, including mine.
Elements of the emotional mix: Honor, in being associated with such fine cheese! Tantalized despair, in knowing it's out of my own reach. Gratitude, in seeing such a precise advertiser/ medium matchup. And exhortation, that all of you who are able to do so go out and buy Comte Cheese. I'd be doing it if I could...
May 8, 2009
Clash of the titans: Harvard v. China
Several replies queued up to the post yesterday about problems with Chinese education. Leading off: Jerome Doolittle of the Bad Attitudes site -- a novelist, a former writing instructor at Harvard, and long ago my colleague on the Jimmy Carter speechwriting staff. Here is his response to Randy Pollock's observation that when he asked his class in China to brainstorm about a problem, they all answered the same way:
Some years ago I assigned my class of Harvard freshman a paper describing the college they would create if they had unlimited money. I did my best to convince them to take a zero-based budgeting approach: to reinvent the whole notion of "college" from the ground up. Of the 30 papers I got back, 29 described something that looked very much like Harvard, except a little farther out of town. The single exception came from an Alabama girl whose paper began, "My idea of the perfect college would be to spend four years in bed with Aldous Huxley."
So I had at least one live one, which is more than Randy Pollock had. But not by much. The Harvard admissions office seems to be just about as effective as its Chinese counterparts at screening out the undesirably creative.
I think Doolittle is missing a chance as a successful lecturer on the university circuit here in China. He could draw big crowds on the theme of "Catching up with Harvard: Almost there!" To wax earnest for a moment, it's worth being clear that the complaint by Pollock and others concerns the educational system, as opposed to the students themselves. As is well known around the world, many of them flourish when they get a chance someplace else. More to come.
Last month Adam Minter, of the wonderful Shanghai Scrap site, reported for the Atlantic.com about the ongoing follies surrounding the U.S. exhibit at the Shanghai Expo 2010 (aka World's Fair) that starts less than a year from now. Short version of the story: this is sizing up as a big embarrassment for the United States.
He is back today with an update on the strange process that is leading to the loss of face. Worth checking out -- and figuring out how to correct, soon.
Left, Haibao Classic, symbol of Expo 2010. Right, American Haibao, who due to U.S. fumbling may tragically not have a chance to appear at the Expo.
FAQ: Does Haibao look like Gumby? Though with a different color, and a cowlick on the opposite side? A: Yes, so maybe there's a kind of residual US presence or influence even if the US Pavilion doesn't get built.
UPDATE: Check out the comments thread on Adam Minter's post, especially #s 9 and 10. In brief, Minter outed someone boosting one of the participants -- from an IP address registered to the US State Department.
May 7, 2009
Three related articles about education and values in China
My internet circumstances at the moment (on the road, Shandong province) don't permit more than a list of three links, but: Anyone who is interested in the implications of China's educational system for China's future and for the rest of the world should read these three articles, ideally in one sitting.
First, "China's Boxed Itself In," an op-ed by Randy Pollock two days ago in the Los Angeles Times.
Then, "Cry for Freedom," a nearly full-page illustrated feature by Gong Yidong in China Daily this morning.
American press reports about Chinese education tend to have a 70/30 split. The 70% is: Oh my, China is producing a billion engineers a year! They are sure to take over the world! Woe is us. Why can't we learn from them? The 30% is: Chinese education is terrible and it means that Chinese organizations will never truly "innovate." Woe is them.
Obviously both are oversimplifications, but read these articles and consider which is a grosser distortion of the truth. More to say later. Also bear in mind (as a reminder for the zillionth time) that China Daily is the state controlled voice to the outside world, and two long, related articles with the same somewhat edgy theme don't appear on the same day by accident.
May 6, 2009
Paradise Beijing, late spring edition (updated)
Looking north from Jianguomen intersection, today at noon. Air not that great, but trees in full leaf and a strong, warm wind on the face. Feels good to be outside.
Uh-oh! On coming back home, I find signs of trouble in paradise. The real-time metering of the most dangerous form of small-particulate pollution, here, has a result I'd rather not see. Maybe the moral is the same as in an earlier tale of destruction of Paradise. There are some questions better not asked. The warm wind still feels good to me.UPDATE!!! on re-reading the fine print, the maxed-out code for the air-quality reading indicates "electric fault" with the meter. Never mind! I'll start re-enjoying the day. [Alarming bogus chart now removed]
May 5, 2009
One more on China, India, and the Western media
In two previous posts, here and here, overseas Chinese readers have presented very different views on whether Western press outlets were ganging up against China, and whether India was by comparison getting a free ride.
As a worthy complement to these arguments, an email from reader Shreeharsh Kelkar, giving an overseas Indian perspective:
I was pleasantly surprised to read the email you published from an
overseas Chinese citizen who thinks the western media treats China
unfairly and that he would like to see China being treated the way
India gets treated. As an Indian who lives in the US, I have many many
Indian friends who complain that the media here only talks about the
poverty in India, that they emphasize only what's wrong with the
country and not what's going right with it, that they talk only of the
poor and not of the middle class. Etc, etc.
I think both these complaints -- the Chinese and the Indian -- are, in some sense, two sides of the same coin.
First they came for the Mexicans. Then, the Canadians...
I awake* to find numerous dispatches from Canadian and Canandian-friendly sources pointing out that a group of students from Canada has been placed in quarantine in China strictly because of their nationality -- not because they've come from flu-infected areas or fit any other rational criterion for quarantine. This is happening in the northeastern** city of Changchun, a regional industrial hub with a population about the size of New York's. According to the CBC account,
Chinese officials in Changchun pulled the group aside after their
plane landed in the northeastern city on Saturday, according to Martin
Deslauriers, a Quebecer who is part of the language exchange group.
An official came on board and asked all the Canadian passengers to present themselves, Deslauriers said. Health officials then took them to a room at the airport to have
their temperatures taken, he said. No one in his group had a fever, but
they were still informed they would be placed in quarantine, he said.
And there they'll be for seven days. The story suggested that some students were disgruntled but others were considering it as much an adventure as an ordeal.
Policy point: At one level, this is as arbitrary as the more widespread quarantining of Mexican passport holders, discussed in many posts here -- and more obviously nutty. Canadians? Is it because they come from someplace close to Mexico? If so, isn't there some other big country right in between those two? What about all its citizens? Therefore, by this train of reasoning, the case shows the unprincipled power of the Chinese state etc.
But I am more struck by the additional element of illustrating how uneven, inexplicable, and anything-but-thorough the application of that power can be. For one thing, this appears to be policy free-lancing on the part of the local authorities. The story quoted its student interviewee thus: "Deslauriers said the students have been told by officials that the
quarantine is a provincial measure and not part of a national plan by
the Chinese government."
And, it's a "quarantine" that appears to be in the tradition of "quarantine theater," like the "security theater" so familiar at airports around the world. The students have to stay inside the hotel -- but apparently the staff that serves them comes and goes normally! Now, if any of those staff members held a Canadian passport... I hope everyone keeps feeling fine.
___ * Although there is a coals-to-Newcastle superfluity in linking to anything on Andrew Sullivan's site, the video he posted today exactly depicts how every day of my life begins. This is a lot of the reason I have avoided holding "normal" jobs. ** China's northeastern region -- known in Chinese as 东北, or "EastNorth" -- is the part of the country that first came under Japanese control in the 1930s when it was known to the outside world as Manchuria. Within China today, Manchuria is not an in-favor term; 东北 is the way to go.
More on the Western media and "beating up" on China
Provoked in part by China's reaction to the world flu threat, a rich flow of responses about the country's sensitivity to outside criticism, its responsibilities as a major world power, the current state of its public morals, and the rest. In response to this recent message asking for greater Western "understanding" of China and saying that outsiders go much easier on Indian than on China, an eloquent reply from Xiaoxiao Huang:
I am also an overseas Chinese, but I don't share the sentiment the
Chinese reader has shown in his two messages to you. I'd like to share
with you my opinion of his take on the role of the media, and China's
human rights issue.
I am always suspicious of the whole concept of a united "Western Media"
against China as if Fox News, Le Monde, and Süddeutsche Zeitung were
controlled by a multi-national Central Propaganda Department. As a
Communications major, my understanding of the news media is that they
should truthfully report and inform to the best of their knowledge. It
is not the job of the Western media (or media of any origin) to
"encourage" and babysit a foreign country. Maybe it's time that the
Chinese try getting used to the fact that every Western country is
"unique" as well, some of them believe in things that we do not
believe, and it's OK.
There's no mention in the English-language story (from state-controlled China Daily) of Mexicans being placed in quarantine just because they're Mexican, as in today's WSJ story and previously here.
As best I make out the Chinese language People's Daily version, it has a lot more details about the quarantine but nothing (that I saw) on the Mexican-citizen front. The ChinaSMACK blog, which translates fascinating and sometimes hair-raising posts from Chinese language blogs, has a lot of Chinese people expressing support for a very tough line.
The
China Daily special coverage does include a quote from a Chinese citizen saying "no
one is moaning about being quarantined, everyone knows it is
necessary." It also says that the relief flight to take stranded
Chinese citizens back home from Mexico, announced yesterday, has been
cancelled because of trouble reaching "landing agreements" with Mexican
airport authorities. I wonder why that could be.
May 3, 2009
WSJ on detention of Mexicans in Beijing
Andrew Browne, the WSJ's Beijing bureau chief, has a powerful story just now with names and details of Mexicans being detained and quarantined in China because they are Mexican, not because they've necessarily been in Mexico recently or exposed to flu patients. He has names, details, and quotes about cases like those I mentioned on Saturday:
Gustavo Carrillo, a 36-year-old manager of a Mexican technology
company in China who lives in Beijing, was taken off his Continental
Airlines plane Saturday and rushed into quarantine at a Beijing hotel.
He had traveled to the U.S. from China on a business trip and hadn't
visited Mexico.
Mr. Carrillo said health officials took the temperatures of other
passengers after the plane landed, but didn't check his after they saw
his Mexican passport. Instead, they led him down the aisle past gawking
passengers. "It was embarrassing and humiliating," he said.
And:
According to accounts from Mexicans in the hotel, Mexican travelers
arriving on various flights from Mexico and the U.S. were singled out
by health officials who boarded the aircraft wearing white protective
suits, masks and rubber gloves. They led away Mexican passport holders.
Several travelers said Chinese television camera crews surprised them
at the doors of their aircraft as they emerged. They said the filming
continued through the windows of an isolation ward at the Beijing Ditan
infectious diseases hospital.
"We felt like we were in a zoo," said Angel Yamil Silum, a
27-year-old business student, who arrived in Beijing with his
girlfriend Saturday en route to Bangkok for a holiday, and ended up at
Ditan and then the Guo Men Hotel.
Again, China has every reason to be careful about this disease, given the memory of SARS. I've assumed this was a panicky overreaction by local officials, which would be corrected once calmer heads prevailed. The calmer-heads stage does not seem to have started yet.
More on public health, PR, and China's role in the world
From a reader with a Chinese surname, in response to my suggestion that Chinese officials stick to scientific data, rather than claims about national dignity, when discussing public health issues like the current flu situation:
"Western journalists are accustomed to the shrewd answers from their own politicians facing offensive/aggressive questions. It's well known that they, the western politicians, are afraid of negative reports for their own political skins. Therefore you may also assume that Chinese officials should behave the same way, if they ever want to be accepted by the western world.
"Unfortunately, I have to say that three years stationing in China has not made you thinking like a Chinese. For most Chinese officials, their reaction toward negative western media reports is mostly about domestic consumption. They have to be resolute and principled when it comes to rebutting the 'western defamations' driven by 'ulterior motives'. It's not only about national pride, but has more to do with not being perceived by Chinese people as weak and not being able to stand up to hostile westerners. This may help you better understand why nationalism is so useful for communist government."
This rings true, and reinforces a point I made several months ago about why the voices of official China -- the government and its spokesmen -- were often so inept in presenting their case to the outside world, even though many individual Chinese people could be quite sophisticated and skillful. As this reader suggests, the root cause is that the system here is mainly inward-looking.
The complications of addressing both internal and external audiences is hardly unique to China. American politics provides examples of this every day. Same with Japan, where bone-headed politicians often play to domestic right-wingers by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, not knowing or caring that this drives people crazy here in China.
But at the moment, the internal/external problem is particularly acute for China, because its scale and foreign interactions are so great and its officials' awareness of how things sound to foreign ears seems so limited. For instance, I don't even think they would recognize the irony of hearing that their current detention of Mexican passport holders, whether they have been to Mexico recently or not, might "hurt the feelings of the Mexican people."
UPDATE: After the jump, a further note just received from the same reader ______
Lots of local news here about the plight of Chinese nationals who were left stranded in Mexico when China Eastern airlines cancelled its direct Mexico-China flights. Fortunately for them, a special China Southern Airlines (CSA) flight will be in the air within hours, to rescue them and bring them home! English version of the Xinhua story here.
One Boeing 777-200 plane of CSA will leave Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, at 9 p.m. Sunday for Los Angeles before flying to Mexico to repatriate 120 or so passengers there, said a CSA spokesman....It is expected these group of passengers will be in the Pudong Airport in Shanghai at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Somehow the stories don't mention whether these repatriated travelers, who after all have been in Mexico itself, will taken straight into quarantine when they return, alongside people being held for observation because they have Mexican passports. Or, whether an Aeromexico evacuation flight might be arranged for those stranded Mexicans.
Mexican government protests detentions in China
Via Reuters, this official protest about the detentions in mainland China (as mentioned here last night) and the sealing off of hundreds of people in a hotel in Hong Kong.
The apparent waning of worldwide panic about the virus's lethality and ease of transmission probably means that we'll see fewer stories about over-reaction as the days go on. As always, it is instructive to see the way governments and institutions react in time of stress.
May 2, 2009
Flu news from China: Mexican citizens being detained
This is developing news here in Beijing about treatment of those who hold Mexican passports. It is based on first-hand reports from people I trust:
- A family of tourists -- two parents; a son age 8; and daughters ages 6 and 4 -- were staying in a five-star Beijing hotel. Like all foreigners in China, they had presented their passports for inspection on arrival. Their passports were from Mexico. At 4 am last night they heard a pounding on the door. Public-security officials asked them to come to the hospital for a few quick tests. In fact they were taken to a hospital and not allowed to leave. They received no drugs or treatment of any sort and were placed in a room where the beds and sheets still bore the marks of the previous ill and bleeding patients. They managed to contact Mexican officials by phone -- which was the first the Mexican government had heard of their situation. There is no indication that they are sick. They were assured that they would be treated as well as "any Chinese citizen." (!) This evening, another family of three has been taken from a hotel because they are Mexican.
- As international flights arrive in Beijing, from any destination, passengers are being asked to show their passports before the plane comes to the terminal. Those with Mexican passports are not allowed to enter the city. They have been taken to a hotel for quarantine and are still there. Some 40 to 50 people are now being detained in this way. To be clear, this is not being applied to people who've recently been to Mexico, or who are showing signs of disease, or who have been exposed in some other way. It has been purely a matter of whether they are Mexican citizens.
- A Mexican official in Guangzhou booked a round trip flight to Cambodia. On arriving back from Cambodia (ie, a million miles away from Mexico), he too has been detained, on the basis of his passport.
You can understand why China is nervous, given its dense urban populations and its experience with SARS. You can understand quarantines based on recent presence in a diseased area or possible exposure to diseased people. You can comprehend why direct flights between Mexico and China have for now been called off.
But there is no decent reason for quarantine and detention based solely on nationality. To the best of my information, this blanket quarantine of Mexican citizens is not being applied anyplace else on earth. Let's hope this is a panicky mistake by Chinese and Beijing-area officials and will soon be reversed. It is also worth recognizing the overall aplomb and openness that the Mexican government has been showing in handling the flu outbreak.
April 30, 2009
PR wizardry on display
Where did the swine H1N1 flu virus come from? I certainly don't know, and I gather that epidemiologists are not yet entirely sure. Maybe the US? Maybe Mexico? Maybe someplace else? But for the official health ministry in China to treat the question as a matter of national dignity.... Sigh. It is a reminder of the point raised here, and of the ways in which the government is still learning the basics of expressing itself to the outside world.
(The Chinese-language version of the story, here courtesy of Danwei, seems to have a similar tone -- as best I can make out. This is the Chinese version of the stalwart concluding quote: "对此, 我们坚决反对.")
After the handling of SARS in 2003 and of the "blue ear" pig virus two years ago, who could possibly doubt assurances coming from the Ministry of Health?
Here's free PR advice from an actual foreign media person: All nations get defensive and try to make things look good for themselves -- as the Mexican governor could well have been doing. But go easy on terms like "driven by ulterior motives" and "ruin China's image" when you're dealing with a scientific matter. Especially if you're representing the Ministry of Health! Just stick to facts and say you're eager to help fellow scientists in other countries get to the bottom of this case. (And the Chinese government is giving $5 million to Mexico to help in anti-flu efforts, which is commendable.) But, please do keep saying "resolutely opposed" ("坚决反对"). Something will go out of the world when that kind of starchiness is lost.
April 29, 2009
Three scenes from the subway (includes subversive panda content)
Life under ground, in three acts.
1. The subversive pandas go soft-power. For illustrations of their previous quasi-menace, check here, here, and here. Now, a love-bombing campaign, as seen at the Jianguomen station today:
It's all part of an ad campaign to boost tourism to Sichuan province, homeland of the pandas and of course the site of last year's earthquake.
2. What is inside those mysterious blue anti-bomb pots? Not very much, it turns out. (Background here.) At an undisclosed location, I found one of them sitting propped open. Inside there appears to be a miniature cargo net, to cradle whatever suspect item is placed there. Otherwise it's just a big metal ball. I feel safer now. (You're looking down from the top in this picture, to see an inch-thick metal lid tilted open, and the reddish metal interior.)
3. Is 'Prison Break' big in China? It is very, very big! The star Wentworth Miller -- "Michael Scofield" -- is absolutely enormous, dominating a skyline view of Shanghai in an ad for the Chevy Cruze.
That's the rocket ship-shaped Tomorrow Square building, eponym for my latest book, on the far left side.
GM looks sexier here than it may at the moment in the US -- Buick is still a dominant, tres chic brand.
Political PS: security is ratcheting up in Beijing, as we move toward a 20-year anniversary that is 36 days from today. A subway cop came over looking hostile when he saw me taking pictures of the 'Prison Break' ads. Relying on the widespread Chinese assumption that I am in fact the 43rd president of the United States, I explained reassuringly that I was interested in the posters because they were of "my friend in the United States." It was too complicated to explain the real connection -- which is that Miller's father was my classmate in graduate school.
April 28, 2009
More good news about Chinese maps
Over the eons I have grumbled about map-consciousness in China, but -- always constructive! -- I have also suggested one good online and one good printed resource. Now, thanks to reader Michael Mikita, here's another great online possibility, edushi.com. It's all Chinese language -- hey, this is China -- but it offers very useful satellite views, normal map views, and "3-D" views of many major cities.
Here is a 3-D view of my current cozy neighborhood in Beijing. The orange tags are bus stops; the blue shows an entrance to the Guomao subway station. The doses of greenery are highly imaginative; a ground-level view of the same intersection follows.
How that intersection really looks, including one of the green zones:
And where we used to live in Shanghai, with actual areas of green:
Artistic license aside, it's another useful tool, which covers a large number of Chinese cities (list, in Chinese, here).
April 27, 2009
On language schools and weirdo ads
Recently I mentioned "weirdo language school ads" with an apparent bondage theme, and quoted a reader who had taught English in Japan and offered some psycho-sexual interpretation of the ads. Two updates:
First, the latest entry in this category, from a billboard in Beijing yesterday. Speaking personally, nothing could give me greater confidence in the quality of English language instruction than the slogan, "Talenty English, Talenty Education."
(Yes, "Talenty" appears to be the name of the school, but I'm not sure that helps.)
Second, a letter I received from an official of the Gaba Eikaiwa (English conversation) school in Japan. He objects to the way the school's reputation was characterized by the reader I quoted. In the spirit of fair reply, his letter follows:
Dear Mr. Fallows,
I happened to recently read your blog of April 14th 2009, entitled "More on weirdo language school ads (updated)". As the person in charge of recruiting new instructors at Gaba language school, I was somewhat disturbed by the several inaccuracies referenced as "testimony from a 'former English teacher in Japan". I would like to bring these to your attention.
Firstly let me mention that the ad pictured is not reflective of current Gaba advertising. It was a poster that last ran over 6 years ago. Current Gaba advertising is significantly different in theme. Please see the J-peg attachment of our current advertising as a sample. While the ad certainly was "unique" and I won't quibble with the fact that some might even find it 'weird', I would hope that the fact that this ad is from 2002/2003 could be mentioned somewhere in the copy.
Here is Gaba's current ad, featuring its "Man to Man" (マン ツー マン) teaching approach. Underneath that, as a reminder, the previous ad; then, after the jump, the rest of the letter:
Tech and cultural followups on that Air China flight
Two days ago I mentioned the strange results when an Air China flight headed for Beijing was instead diverted to Tianjin. To anyone who receives these posts by email, the results must have seemed even stranger than they were. Because of a glitch in our web set-up, only the first third of the post went out, omitting everything in the "after the jump" section. Sorry! The full version is available here. (Hint: if you saw the picture of a crash involving a "bread box" taxi, you saw the whole thing.)
Several people who were blessed in receiving the full report challenged its main hypothesis -- which, in a nutshell, was that the Chinese traveling public had learned not to waste energy getting furious about things that were entirely out of their control. Two reactions below.
From reader David:
I enjoyed your post about Chinese having "the serenity to accept the
things [they] can't change," though your hypothesis may need some honing.
A few years ago I was on a plane that landed in Zhengzhou due to a cracked
windshield. We were stuck in Zhengzhou for over 12 hours - including a time in
the middle when we were bussed to a hotel - and the entire time the passengers
berated the Air China reps for not being able to provide information as to when
we would be leaving except that we would not have to wait overnight. At times the
Air China reps were essentially surrounded by a scrum of passengers all yelling
until finally at about 4am we were able to get back on the plane.
I've seen airport rage in the States but never with that kind of herd
mentality, though I do appreciate the fact that Chinese seem to be able to yell
and create a disturbance without actually being all that mad down inside. There
were moments of levity among the passengers in between the rage. Perhaps the
facts in my experience were different enough to give the passengers the sense
that they could control the outcome of the situation whether true or not. Also,
the youtube of the Hong Kong woman going apeshit when she missed her plane
comes to mind. [More about the Hong Kong episode here.]
Next, PT Black, of Shanghai, sends a long and interesting report with a political edge. It begins this way:
Your comments about the delayed flight from SZ to BJ strike a nerve,
though, because just last week I had a very different experience flying
from Chengdu to Shanghai, also on Air China.
It continues after the jump. If you don't see anything more, it means that our RSS system is still messed up. Hope not! ____
If you like maps -- well, you'll be in the same predicament in China as if you like really flavorful beer. The country has countless virtues, but a passionate modern map-making culture is not yet among them. Maps are often out of date; or out of scale; or deliberately hazy on state-security grounds. For instance, try to find a map of Beijing that includes the big military airport on the west side of town. Below is Google's satellite view of the area just west of the Fourth Ring Road; below that, the very same part of the city in Google's "map" view, which resembles what is shown on most available local maps. See if you notice any slight difference.
Same area, "map" view:
There is often also a quixotic relationship between the "real" location of a site and its depiction on paper. It's all part of the grand adventure. And I still am waiting for the first time I see a Beijing taxi driver pull out a book of maps. (I've seen them used in Shanghai.)
But if you do like maps, you will very much enjoy the highly-detailed map cards in the "Beijing By Foot" package produced by Immersion Guides. They're clear, they're accurate, they are well explained and thought-out to lead you through a series of walking tours of the city. As cities go, this is not a great one for pedestrians, but this guide makes the best of it.
It was thanks to the guides that my wife and I had our "Paradise Beijing" outing a few weeks ago. Enjoy-- and this is the "even better news" promised above. (Previously in the "Back to Beijing" series here and here.)
Somehow I find this droll
Two bottles of water on the dresser in my favorite hotel, the Sheraton Four Points Shenzhen (elegized here and here) earlier this week. I see that the awkward-labeling problems I often complain about in China can occur when only a single language is involved. Click for larger if you don't see the joke.
Although I suppose a language issue might be involved here, in that very few of the local Chinese staff stocking the rooms would be likely to notice the labels and say, "What the hell?" Actually I hope they never notice; this is kind of charming.
April 24, 2009
Back to Beijing #2 (better news, Air China dept)
Twenty-plus years ago, traveling around China by air was anything but a peace-of-mind experience. The planes were mainly leftover Soviet junkers; the amenities were sparse; the general atmosphere called to mind Indiana Jones.
I've done a lot of crisscrossing of China by airlines these past few years, on carriers as big and established as Air China and as exotic as Spring Airlines and Deer. (Note for the uninitiated: never, ever get Air China and China Airlines mixed up. The first is the flag carrier of the People's Republic of China. The second is from the Republic of China, aka Taiwan.) Flights going out of either Beijing or Shanghai are usually late, but that's hardly unique to China. Overall, it's less stressful than the standard airport/airline experience in the US.
Last night, my wife and I were taking an evening flight from Shenzhen to Beijing. Departure 6pm, scheduled arrival 9:15. As we got close to Beijing, the ride became very bumpy, and then a bright light illuminated the whole cabin, simultaneous with a big BOOM. A bolt of lightning had hit the wing! Attention-getting but not necessarily dangerous: planes are designed to handle this, I explained to my wife and surrounding folk, in my most patronizing "let the pilot tell you" mode.
Then my wife noticed on the "your plane in flight" GPS map that we seemed to be heading away from Beijing and toward Tianjin, near the coast. I was warming up for another patronizing "let's settle down" reply, when the attendant came on and said that because "weather in Beijing is bad" (literally "天气在北京不好") we were indeed headed for Tianjin.
From an aviation point of view, what happened after that was more or less normal. The plane landed in Tianjin, maybe 75 miles from Beijing, the standard diversion site in situations like these. I had dreaded the idea of everyone being offloaded there and bused back to Beijing, along a notoriously jam-packed and dangerous road. Instead, periodically the attendants and then the captain came on the radio to say that we were going to wait things out and eventually fly back.
For the record, transcript here of long interview conducted by recent Harvard graduate Jennifer Ying Lan, for The Beijinger. Questions terse and clearly phrased! Answers, as transcribed verbatim... not so much. Includes only extant snapshot of my bus ride through Xinjiang with 50 retirees from Nanjing Steel plus my wife. Those were the days.
April 21, 2009
JG Ballard in Shanghai
J.G. Ballard's death this past weekend is sad news for many reasons, among them that the most lasting image he will have left of himself was as a child. I was never that interested in his bleak, "Ballardian" speculative fiction, but Empire of the Sun, based on his life as a boy captive of the Japanese in Shanghai, was a beautiful and heartbreaking book, converted by Steven Spielberg into an appropriately beautiful movie.
I read the book just before my first visit to Shanghai in 1986, and saw the movie the following year after another trip to the city. In those days the foreign "concession" mansions of Shanghai, in which expat families like the Ballards had lived before the Japanese arrived in 1937, were mainly derelict. Some stood vacant; some were occupied by numerous families, one per room; some had been converted to Party or government offices. Now, two decades later, some have been razed to make way for apartments or office blocks, some have been spiffed up and gentrified into high-rent lodging, some have been converted into shops or restaurants.
In the 1980s my wife and I were not able to figure out which house had been Ballard's -- nor the one where Nien Cheng lived during the Cultural Revolution horrors described in Life and Death in Shanghai. But we know now, thanks to a tour guided by Shanghai history expert Patrick Cranley, that Ballard's childhood home at 31A Amherst Avenue has reappeared, on Pan Yu Road, as the fancy "SH 508 Restaurant." This is how it looked, inside and out, last month (note high-rise in the background, on site of former mansion):
The attic where he played as a boy, now a private dining room:
A main dining room. Note big-screen TV on the wall, de rigeur for high-end Chinese dining parties. In rear of room, clothed in unplanned conformance with room's color scheme, is my wife.
For an extensive and fascinating account of one Ballard fan's search for the author's boyhood home, complete with maps, satellite views, and much better pictures of the way it looks today, check here. RIP.
April 20, 2009
Torture from Afar
Since the time the torture memoranda were released last week, I've been in parts of rural China where most people would have a hard time naming the current US president, let alone expressing a view about how he should handle those who endorsed a policy of torture or who carried it out. Now that I'm returning to big-city China, I see that the memoranda are inside-page news in the region's papers. This is so even in Hong Kong, where the editors can judge it on normal "news" grounds and not with whatever complications go into mainland Chinese reporting of the issue.
Nonetheless I contend that a full process of American self-examination and accountability will make a tremendous long-term difference in international views of the United States. Even among those who at the moment don't know that there is any controversy going on within the United States.
For as annoyed as foreigners may get with America and Americans, there have been two saving graces in the world's opinions of our country. One has been its permeability. Anywhere you go, someone has an uncle or cousin in America. The other, less openly stated, has been a belief that at some point there are rules in America. Long periods may pass when the rules are ignored. Big boys may bend the rules in their favor. Some offenses are never made right. And so on. But in the end, the American system is supposed to recognize injustice and respond -- including with public accountability for even the mightiest figures. It has this in common with the British and some other systems -- which is what Gandhi relied on in knowing he could "shame" the Brits. For all the increases in liberty within China over the last generation, this is a striking difference with the world's currently-rising power. No one expects China's current leadership to conduct a "truth commission" about the Cultural Revolution or Tiananmen. But people finally expect America to apply its own rules, even against its own people. Fulfilling that expectation is not sufficient for restoring America's image international standing. But it is necessary.
So even though most of the world's population has no idea of what is in the torture memos or of what will happen because of them, in the long run the Administration's decisions will have a significant worldwide effect. Being true to the world's idea of America does not (in my opinion) crucially turn on prosecuting individual CIA or military interrogators. Instead it depends on full clarifying disclosure of the reasoning that led to these practices -- thus, maximum disclosure of the memos -- and full examination of the decisions that public officials made.
At this point I don't think it's sensible to talk about legal sanctions for Administration officials from George W. Bush on down. But the historical record of what he approved, and what Dick Cheney recommended, what David Addington egged on, and what John Yoo and (sitting Federal Judge) Jay Bybee and others rationalized, should be established in unambiguous detail. For this, some American version of a "Truth Commission" is probably the best solution. Many other countries would not bother. America -- to be true to itself -- must. This will matter in the world's eyes. More important, it will matter to us.
April 16, 2009
Harmonic convergence, Yunnan tea style
On this day, April 16, in Atlantic web-land: - Ezekiel Emanuel announces that Yunnan tea is his new favorite drink; - Corby Kummer agrees; - Andrew Sullivan takes note; and - I wake up before dawn for a flight to Yunnan itself (time zones being what they are, it's already April 17 here). We're a tight-knit team; we all do our part. I'll look for some tea.
April 15, 2009
China v. Japan: the packed-train factor
Superficially Japan and China are similar; in nuance and operating details they're generally opposites, as illustrated previously here. Kathy Kriger, whom I knew in Tokyo twenty years ago and who now lives in Casablanca (where she runs, no joke, Rick's Cafe), reminds me about an important difference: What happens inside a packed train.
Japan's subways are flat-out more intensely crowded than anything I've seen in China. In Tokyo, uniformed and white-gloved "packers" are normal. The Beijing and Shanghai subways are merely "self-packed," with people crowding their way in but without that extra ratchet-up of density that only trained, professional packers can provide. In Tokyo I lived through the scene below more often than I want to recall. (Photo from Encarta.)
Clearest sign that the photo was taken in Japan rather than China: Not the packers but the next car-load of passengers, waiting punctiliously in line!
As I recently mentioned, a very-crowded Beijing subway provides the opportunity for petty theft. In Japan, it's more like petty... petting. Kriger says:
That brought back a flood of memories from Tokyo's train and
subway commutes. My most vivid were from when I lived a year in
Yokohama and commuted into Tokyo first on the JNR Negishi-sen, the blue
train. The worst was the morning, crammed in and unable to move -
invariably forced to look over the shoulder of a guy immersed in a
porno comic book. When it got too much I got out and boarded the next
train. But robbery was never a problem, ever.
My favorite story was
forgetting my purse on the upper rack exiting in Yokohama from the
Yokosuka line enroute to Yokosuka - the end of the line - and going
there the next morning to retrieve my handbag and sign a form verifying
that everything was still there.
We women didn't fear
the pick pocketers so much as those who rode the trains to take
advantage of the crowded conditions to let their hands wander. I think
it might have been Jean Pearce [a local writer] who recounted a story when an outraged
American woman, accosted on a crowded subway, grabbed the offending
hand, raised it and said in Japanese, "Whose hand is this?
The porno-comic factor was such an omnipresent aspect of Japanese public life that it drove my wife from a slow boil into outright constant rage against adult males in general, including the one who happened to be living in the same house. As for the "whose hand is this?" factor, that was so common that there is a standard term for it in Japanese (chikan, or in hiragana ちかん) and signs outside crowded stations warning "beware of subway gropers." I don't think I ever saw a sign in Japan warning against pickpockets. More here.
From reader Sherry S in Paris: Posters there show ads similar to Wall Street English (with the tongue, reminder below).
From numerous readers in Japan: Ubiquitous posters there for the GABA language school very similar to the English First ads in China (bondage theme). GABA below, EF reminder under that.
From numerous professional and amateur semiologists: generally worried comments about what the imagery of these ads says about the stereotyped relationships between Asian women and Western men. I'm not going near that for the moment. But here is a reminder that the target audience for these ads is in fact young Asian people, largely women. I look forward to dissertations on this topic -- and on the subtle but clear difference in affect between the Westerners shown in the Chinese vs the Japanese tied/chained-together ads. Thanks to, among others, Landon Thorpe and Jed Schmidt, and to this "Eikawa Wonderland" site for the GABA pic.
UPDATE: below and after the jump, testimony from a former English teacher in Japan about why the lashed-together imagery of the ad was shrewd target marketing:
I worked in Japan a few years ago for the now defunct Nova Corp, and Nova had an extremely strict non-fraternization
policy, which was a key selling point. Nervous moms would sign their
daughter up, safe in the knowledge that the wouldn't have to worry
about little gaijin [foreign] babies a year down the line.
As mentioned recently, the skies have been ocher in Beijing these last few days. Thanks to a tech source I've recently discovered, I now know that the conditions are actually way more dangerous than I thought. Gee, great.
The official Chinese government air pollution readings, found most conveniently in the right hand column here, give daily average air-quality info for many big Chinese cities. The main pollutant measured in these figures is -- to the best of my understanding -- "PM 10," which covers relatively "large" particulate matter. These are particles of up to 10 micrometers in diameter, including some large enough to darken the air and what would normally be called "dust."
What the Chinese authorities don't seem to report routinely is PM2.5. These are very fine particles, of up to 2.5 microns in diameter, which may not darken the air but are more dangerous to the lungs, precisely because they don't get filtered out in the nose or throat and instead get down deep into the alveoli. The US EPA does feature PM2.5 in its particulate measures of US air quality -- for instance, the real-time map here.
None of this is new, including the PM10 / PM2.5 omission in Chinese monitoring. What is new to me is that an unofficial monitoring station in Beijing puts out, via Twitter, hourly measures of PM2.5 readings. And after checking out the readings for earlier today I say... gacckkk, ccougghhhhh, haccckkkk.... In the columns below we have: date and time; PM2.5 reading for that time; Air Quality Index on the US scale (321 in the first one); air quality classification on US scale; and average figures for the day.
Note that the US classification system, here, does not even allow for readings above the 300 range, which it lumps together as "hazardous." As I check the real-time map just now, virtually every reporting city in the US has an AQI reading below 50 ("good"), and one or two miscreants are around 70. The reading through most of today where I live has been above 300. Hmmmmm.
Action plan for me: I decided to skip going to the gym for a breathe-hard workout today. Action plan for US and China: no joke, working on environmental, climate, and energy matters is the most important thing that will happen during this new U.S. Administration. More on this front when I catch my breath. __ Note: to avoid causing problems for some people inside China, I have slightly changed this posting from an earlier version. Anyone who notices the difference, please keep it to yourself.
Brilliant advertising imagery? Or.....
Two current Beijing subway ad campaigns for two well-known English schools, Wall Street English and English First. (Sorry for subway glare+reflection in both pics):
Both are a little strange, but to me the first one is strange/eyecatching, whereas the second is closer to strange/creepy. The theme of the second, bondage-toned ad is having a 24-hour always on-call private English teacher. On the other hand, this campaign seems to have been running for years in subway, taxis, billboards, etc, and the English First school is a big success. So I guess it must work with the target demographic, which does not include me.
April 12, 2009
Shanghai Expo and looming US embarrassment
Of course everything on the Atlantic's site is great. Or almost everything. But in case you missed it, be sure to read Adam Minter's dispatch from Shanghai about a looming potential big (and avoidable) embarrassment for the United States.
The campy mascot of next year's Shanghai World's Fair -- 海宝, Haibao, "Treasure of the Sea" -- is all over Shanghai these days, somewhat belying its self-image as suavest place in China.
But Haibao will wear a frown, and so will Uncle Sam, if the U.S. screws this up. Check out Adam's report for more.
I kind of like Haibao. That could be because I'm not living in Shanghai any more and so don't see him all the time. Or maybe it is because, like me, he has strong Scottish heritage.
In a similar spirit of tasteful international goodwill, El Haibao:
Seriously, it's a consequential issue that is barely on the radar screen in America but certainly will be noticed here where a billion people live. Congrats on this story.
April 11, 2009
Happy Easter from Beijing
The view at 11 am on this springtime Sunday morning:
It was glorious just one week ago, and in the six+ months since the Olympic games, skies have generally been far clearer than in the previous six months. The economic slowdown / factory shutdown / decline in electricity use (and therefore combustion of coal to create power) has to have been part of the answer. Maybe this is an early sign that the Chinese economy is indeed coming back? Green shoots in an ironic brown guise? In any case joyous Easter wherever you are.
More on petty crime
Thanks to many who wrote in after my recent brush with a pickpocket gang in the Beijing Metro. Main themes that emerge:
- There's a lot of this going on in China, as in fact was predicted in the wake of recent large-scale factory and construction layoffs.
- There's always been a lot of this going on all around the world. From reader Pietro, who has lived in Europe, Africa, and North America:
There's more artistry in Africa. Once I stopped to take a look at a group of people surrounding a poor old man lying senseless on the pavement. My sadness was compounded by the feeling, seconds later, that his friends had consoled themselves with my wallet. Artsy setting, soft touch. Times have changed.
- The particular tactic I mentioned is time honored: confederates who create extra jamming and confusion in already-jammed circumstances, while the legerdemain artists do the snatching.
- Below and after the jump, an account from Charles Dukes, a Texan now of Beijing, about similar encounters.
- Legal sequelae: Within the few hours after we canceled our credit cards, someone tried to use them (and was turned down, with different cards) at what seems to be a fine-art dealership, for big ticket purchases. Nobody on that subway car particularly looked like an art hound, but who knows.
Dukes's account begins:
In the days before there was a huge highway called Xizhimenwai, there was a wonderful two lane street with bike lanes.
A friend and I got on the 360 bus to go to Xiang Shan.
Somewhere past the Beijing Zoo, I noticed a little guy standing at the stop waiting for a bus. I don't know why he caught my eye, but he did.
Yesterday, in the morning rush hour, I was puzzled by the presence of three fully-tricked-out SWAT team members carrying automatic weapons at the Dongdan station on Beijing's line 1.
Today, in the afternoon rush hour, I could have used the stern hand of the law. At 5:30 pm, the eastbound line 1 between Jianguomen and Guomao was so crammed with humanity that it brought to mind the glory days of the Tokyo subway when we lived there. There is a distinct feeling of having pressure on every surface of the body that I associate mainly with rush hour Asian-capital subways. I don't particular fear it (or love it), but it's part of the sensory package of Tokyo, and of Beijing's lines 1 and 2.
Then, as the train rolled into Guomao, most of this vast throng wanted to get off, including me. All were yelling at once, including me,下车! 下车! -- xia che!xia che! (getting off! getting off!) -- and had to push through a band of young country-looking men who stood inside the car right in front of the door. I finally popped out on the other side of them, as if from a rugby scrum, reaching the platform as the car's doors were closing behind me. At that second, with human pressure suddenly removed from all sides of my body, I instantly realized that my wallet wasn't there. I was wearing a business suit, with my wallet in a place it wouldn't have left by accident. There had been a distinctly manhandled sensation in fighting through the line at the door.
A planned routine by the squadron that was forcing all debarking passengers to clambor through them? Something that had happened earlier when my arms were pinned against my side? Who knows, and there is no point in wondering. Until you've seen a thronged Chinese subway station at rush hour, with a departing train pulling out, you don't realize the futility of trying to locate a culprit.
Immediately start calling the credit card companies in the U.S. Cancel the first one, no problem. The second, a Bank of America Visa card, "And we're showing that your most recent charge was for $5.16 at a Starbucks in Beijing." "Well, no...." "Yes, it was at 6:05 am" -- "That's 6:05pm here, which was ten minutes ago..." Now if only Beijing didn't have a couple hundred Starbucks outlets, I'd be on the guy like a hawk.
A subway pickpocket who then goes to Starbucks? This is an unpredictable place. And apart from the nuisance, it could have been worse. Not my passport. Not a lot of cash. Nothing of real sentimental value (apart from my FAA pilot's certificate! And my United 1K card, earned through many bitter trips back and forth to California last year). As my wife just said, consolingly, "It could have been your Kindle!"
I remember offering her support in similar loving tones when she was knocked down and injured (but not permanently) a few months ago by a motorbike that was going full speed the wrong way down a freeway-like, eight-lane, one-way section of the major thoroughfare Jianguo Lu. Silly her: she was looking in the direction the rest of the traffic was coming from. Land of adventure.
Bomb security: Israel v China
After seeing yesterday's picture of the "Suspect Bomb Container" in the Beijing Metro (previously here), reader Alex wrote:
In Israel there are thousands of explosion containers, but they are just holes in the ground, roughly one foot deep, lined with some metallic or plastic sheet. The Hebrew name is "bor bitahon" (you'd pronounce it "Bawr Bee-tuh-HONE") literally "security hole".
The logic would be that the good Earth will do the job of containing a significant proportion of the impact, with people feeling just a tremor. (A Chinese metal box could be blown to dangerous flying smithereens if the explosion is loud enough.)
The Israeli version is also cheaper if you must deploy it everywhere, including schools, malls, streets, parks, etc.
Probably the other important difference is that Israel has a serious bomb threat to worry about and so can't just fool around with "security theater."
April 8, 2009
What is this?? (SWAT team in the subway dept)
8:10 am, April 8, Dongdan 东单 metro station in Beijing: at the exit turnstiles, three black-uniformed troops, with "SWAT" written across their backs in English, holding big, genuine automatic weapons. Considerately, they pointed their rifles at the ground.
??
I'm used to rent-a-cop style Metro security officers; I'm used to PLA soldiers standing guard around the embassies; I'm used to various uniformed but feckless traffic-"control" agents; I'm used to policemen listening patiently as the antagonists in a fender-bender grow hoarse yelling at each other. But actual soldiers with machine guns? What is this? I thought a photo would be ill-advised.
On the other hand, and still on the security theme, Kevin Miller, of the University of Michigan, submits a photo of another of the mystery bomb-disposal containers I mentioned recently. Conveniently, his had a label in English.
It's not wholly legible in that shot, but the label says "Suspect Bomb Container." Even gives a url, www.jwgk.com, with lots of interesting info in Chinese and, to a limited degree, in English:
Now I feel better informed. Though I confess I still don't understand what practical purpose these might serve. As another correspondent pointed out, when he felt daring enough to try to crank one open -- as if to stow a suspected bomb -- it took minutes and minutes to do so. Maybe it's part of the economic stimulus plan. We've seen similar "homeland security" efforts in the US.
April 6, 2009
Write your own caption dept
From the main-floor display room at the Chinese Military Museum in Beijing this weekend. More on this fascinating venue shortly.
April 5, 2009
Paradise Beijing, springtime edition
Nicest day in months -- clear skies, temperature in the low 70s, glorious Sunday of a holiday weekend, forsythia and cherry trees breaking into bloom. Everyone turns out to enjoy it, which means a lot of people.
A subset of everyone walking across a bridge toward the cherry blossom grove in Yuyuantan Park, near the Military Museum on the west side of town:
Smaller subset of everyone, under the cherry trees:
Pedal boats and row boats on the park's lake (click for larger):
Thrill-ride speedboats on the nearby canal:
It's actually not all work all the time in China. Autumn 2008 edition of Paradise Beijing here.
That tricky old language barrier (China, Tibet, and France)
As I so often say, my favorite newspaper is the (state-controlled) China Daily. It's possible that the French ambassador in Beijing, Herve Ladsous, now has a different view.
Ladsous was the star of yesterday's newspaper, thanks to his observation in a China Daily interview that Tibet had been a "slave society" before the arrival of Mao's liberators 60 years ago. Below, the lead story on the front page, and the lead paragraphs in that story:
The front page:
The story:
The man himself, as shown in the China Daily:
Such observations would be heartily welcomed by officials and many citizens in China. That Tibetans lived as slaves under the lamas is one of the Three Unappreciated Truths about Tibet, as propounded by the Chinese government and endorsed by most of the public. The other two: that Tibet has since ancient times been an acknowledged and inseparable part of China; and that the Dalai Lama, despite having gulled naive foreigners into thinking him a "spiritual" figure, is actually a cunning "splittist" bent on breaking up the Chinese state.
Was this simply...what is the mot juste? Oh, yes, kow-towing by the government of France, in awareness of how many fences it has to mend in China? The complaints on the Chinese side are numerous but mainly seem to involve Tibet (eg, protests in Paris against the Olympic torch relay, mainly about Tibet; Sarkozy's initial claim that he would boycott the Olympics, and his recent meeting with the "splittist" leader). Carrefour, Airbus, and other big French names have felt the heat of Chinese popular ill will.
So perhaps the French representative had gotten the signal to truckle make nice? I wondered when I saw the story -- and also saw no related item at the sites of Le Monde or Figaro, nor at Agence France-Presse. But it appears -- zut! -- that it was all a misunderstanding, accidental or otherwise. Just now, France-Info has posted an item in which the Ambassador says that the story "did not reflect the tone of the interview" and that "this was not the first time that China Daily" has misrepresented a discussion. I will try to deal with the disillusionment.
April 4, 2009
This is puerile, but it made me laugh
Just catching up with the April 1 story in the English-language Taipei Times, about the shocking revelation that Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, the two pandas mainland China had sent to Taiwan as a good-will gesture, were actually fakes. Clip from story below.
The Onion-worthy part of the story, IMHO, is the setup for discovering the fraud. Unlike real pandas, this pair was extremely randy ("children screamed and parents became irate"). When zookeepers tried to maintain order ("whenever the moaning from the panda enclosure gets too loud we gotta go in there and hose 'em down with cold water") the painted-on panda markings wore off, revealing the truth. Many similar nice touches. See for yourself: online version here, full page PDF here, followup here and here. Thanks to Daniel Lippman.
Last summer, Mr. Sane Thinking About All Things Security Related, Bruce Schneier, offered this perspective on electronic attacks originating in China. His view rings completely true to what I have seen of Chinese tech culture. Highlights:
These hacker groups seem not to be working for the Chinese government. They don't seem to be coordinated by the Chinese military. They're basically young, male, patriotic Chinese citizens, trying to demonstrate that they're just as good as everyone else. As well as the American networks the media likes to talk about, their targets also include pro-Tibet, pro-Taiwan, Falun Gong and pro-Uyghur sites.
The hackers are in this for two reasons: fame and glory, and an attempt to make a living. The fame and glory comes from their nationalistic goals. Some of these hackers are heroes in China....And the money comes from several sources. The groups sell owned computers, malware services, and data they steal on the black market. They sell hacker tools and videos to others wanting to play. They even sell T-shirts, hats and other merchandise on their Web sites.
Schneier points out that the probably non-governmental origin of this threat should moderate fear of a concentrated Chinese military plot -- but doesn't make the objective situation any better:
If anything, the fact that these groups aren't being run by the Chinese government makes the problem worse. Without central political coordination, they're likely to take more risks, do more stupid things and generally ignore the political fallout of their actions.
Schneier also has an update on the current controversy at his main site. For the strongest albeit circumstantial argument that the government or military might have been involved, see this post on Ars Technica. Its main point is that the list of sites known to have been attacked seems more selective and strategically chosen than one would suspect from a bunch of hackers. That's possible. But for now, the evidence still seems to me to support the hacker hypothesis. (Also: this site from the US Air Force's Air University has a number of useful links about US and foreign approaches to electronic info-warfare.)
What should we make of this Chinese cyber-spy story?
Yesterday's story in the New York Times about "GhostNet," the Chinese-based computer spying network that has apparently penetrated some 1,295 computers in more than 100 countries around the world, obviously raises this big question: Was the Chinese government behind it, or not? Three of the four servers that hosted GhostNet were apparently inside China (the fourth was in California), and many of the targets were involved one way or another in Free-Tibet activities or other causes opposed by the Chinese government. Wouldn't it have to have been the ChiComs?
Maybe, maybe not. I've now read (thanks to a stop-by at free WiFi site masquerading as a McDonald's) the 53-page report from the University of Toronto team that used clever reverse-engineering tools to penetrate "GhostNet" and monitor it from within. The report, in the Scribd format that deserves discussion itself some other time, is available here.
The U Toronto researchers are, in my view, properly agnostic about who is ultimately responsible for this malware operation. On the one hand, they point out that "China is actively developing an operational capacity in cyberspace.... Chinese cyber warfare doctrine is well developed, and significant resources have been invested by the People's Liberation Army and security services in developing defensive and offensive capabilities." But on the other hand,
"Attributing all Chinese malware to deliberate or targeted intelligence gathering operations by the Chinese state is wrong and misleading... The most significant actors in cyberspace are not states.... In China, the authorities most likely perceive individual attackers [ie, teenagers in internet cafes] as convenient instruments of national power."
For anyone technically inclined, the report is full of fascinating crime-procedural type details about the way the investigation unfolded and what the GhostNet system revealed once the moles from Toronto had made their way inside.
My guess is that the "convenient instruments" hypothesis will eventually prove to be true (versus the "centrally controlled plot" scenario), if the "truth" of the case is ever fully determined. For reasons the Toronto report lays out, the episode looks more like the effort of groups of clever young hackers than a concentrated project of the People Liberation Army cyberwar division. But no one knows for certain, and further information about the case is definitely worth following. As are this new report on "The Snooping Dragon" by computer scientists at the Cambridge University in England and the University of Illinois, and this very good Wired blog item. One more thing to worry about be interested in.
Outflanking the cheese beagles
Barring some truly startling new development, this will be the final dispatch about the beagle-enhanced war on cheese that Chinese customs and immigration officials are waging at the spiffy new Terminal Three of Beijing's Capital Airport. For the early chronicles of this war, start here.
A frequent and experienced visitor to China, who prefers to remain anonymous, has found a way to avoid the hostilities. The secret is to come into Beijing aboard Northwest, Continental, Korean, Aeroflot, or one of the other airlines whose international flights land not at Terminal Three but at PEK's plain old unmodernized Terminal Two. My travel expert reports:
I just flew into Beijing on the evening Northwest flight Monday night. They still use the old terminal, and there were no dogs nor, for that matter, anyone looking at luggage, just a guard at the door to keep the people outside from coming in to meet their friends.
So at least for now, that's probably the way to bring in your contraband.
The writer is a distinguished academic. Good to see book-learnin' being put to practical use.
March 24, 2009
Springtime comes to Beijing.... (updated)
... and the barbed wire is in bloom!
In the Sanlitun embassy district all along Dongzhimenwai Dajie, teams of PLA soldiers spent Tuesday afternoon augmenting drab, old, rusty single-strand barbed wire with generous loops of bright new green protective strands. In photo below, the old barbed wire is the lonely brownish line at top, with the new wire coiling below it.
Yes, yes, I know that the embassy area in* much of Washington DC is more fortress-like than this. No pictures of PLA troops actually installing the wires, since I have learned the hard way that pointing a camera at people in green PLA uniforms is a poor idea.
By the way, are there any little cozy street scenes in Beijing, like those I recently mentioned seeing in Shanghai? Yes indeed, and this embassy area -- protected from development, full of trees and low-rise buildings -- has many of them. Looking east on Dongzhimenwai Daijie toward the Agricultural Exhibit Center (with the flags).
On the other hand, when you get down to where those flags are, this is what you see.
More to come on the urban architecture issue shortly. Thanks to many dozens of readers for thoughtful replies. ___ * Update: this was imprecise. What I meant to note was that Washington DC itself has become unrecognizably fortress-like over the past eight years -- a point worth remembering when mentioning fortifications anywhere else. The embassy district itself along Mass Ave in DC is not particularly embunkered, though.
March 23, 2009
I feel like an idiot, but... [UPDATED]
... can some Beijing person tell me what on earth this thing is?
I see it from time to time in the Beijing subway. (This picture is from the Tuanjiehu station on line 10 today.) It's about three feet tall and has the general look of a bomb-disposal robot. Today was the first time I had a camera on hand and didn't see any subway officials around, and so felt free to take some pictures. Side view:
Free Atlantic subscription for the first person to send me an (accurate) answer. Sorry, there are so many things that leave me puzzled.
UPDATE: Contest over and problem solved! Thanks to two near-simultaneous entries, each of them a winner, I now understand that this is indeed an anti-explosive device! In the words of one winner, "The big blue iron ball-like thing you saw in the subway is an anti-explosion device - when the police find explosives, they can put them inside this ball-thing. It's designed to keep the explosion safely inside." I feel safer already. Thanks to all. (One of the winners was the famous Chinese blogger Isaac Mao; the other, source of the description, is Harvard-bound Beijing area university student Ella Shengru Zhou.)
March 22, 2009
Things everyone in China knows, but...
... that few people outside have really taken in. Here I'm talking strictly about the communications-and-internet front. They were neatly summarized by Andrew Lih, in a recent SXSW panel that was in turn reported on CNReviews.com. His principles, with my marginalia [in brackets like this] below:
No one uses voicemail. When some one calls you on your mobile phone, you generally pick it up. Mobile calls take precedence over face-to-face conversation, which is generally interrupted by a call. [Too many times to count, I have seen people take mobile-phone calls while giving a speech or presiding at a meeting. It's the norm, not something rude.]
China uses SMS more intensively. SMS may have become entrenched because of the low cost of sending text messages. The first thing Chinese do in the morning is check their IM first, not their email. [Though, this assumes they turned off the phone at night!]
Instant messaging, combined with SMS, is a hugely popular means of communication. China's leading IM platform, QQ (Company: Tencent (HK:0700)), has 350 mm users-over 50 times the audience of Twitter! [Two days ago on the Beijing subway, I counted 25 people in the same car as me all typing out or reading text messages and only two actually talking on the phone. Also, you're never out of mobile-phone coverage in China -- on subways, in elevators, wherever. Discussion of reasons some other time.]
Only 56% of all Chinese internet users have email addresses. [If you want to reach a busy American, you send email to the Blackberry. That gets you nowhere here.]
Ownership of PCs is much lower, especially in 2nd and 3rd tier cities, where heavy PC usage is at Internet cafes.
Unlike the West, where e-commerce was Web 1.0 and social media is Web 2.0, China's internet usage started as a social phenomenon first and is just now moving to more utilitarian purposes.
Lih is a friend in Beijing; was a major guide/informant for the Atlantic piece I wrote about the Great Firewall; and is author of a much-anticipated book The Wikipedia Revolution, which I have ordered and look forward to reading.
March 20, 2009
Harmonic convergence! Two of my obsessions in one place!
At last, my interests in (a) innovative small-airplane technology, and (b) the evolution of China's economy, come together in one bit of news.
According to Aero-News.Net, in this dispatch, the next owner of the assets, technology, designs, etc of the defunct Eclipse Aviation company could be -- the Chinese government. Rather, the state-run Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, CACC, which is in charge of the country's ambitions to have a counterpart to Boeing and Airbus.
Now, if we could only work in a beer, boiled-frog, or USB-related angle, I would have the world's most completely satisfying news item. And even with just the China+aviation elements, it's fascinating in its implications.
March 19, 2009
Also on the brighter side: better news on Chinese cheese
No, not that the beagle-enhanced war on cheese has been called off.
Rather, a reminder of one valuable inside-the-country source, Yellow Valley Cheese. When we lived in Shanghai we often bought wheels of Yellow Valley's Gouda-style cheeses, like those depicted on the company's web site, below. Indeed the picture on the left, with all the cheeses lined up, very closely resembles what we saw in our store in Shanghai.
The company's founder, the Dutch agriculturalist Marc de Ruiter
-- I assume this is him, in Mr. Cheese pose from the site -- says they're available in many places in Beijing and elsewhere,
though I haven't noticed them at our local haunt. (Jenny Lou at Jianwai Soho.) His cheeses aren't
cheap, but they are very good. My favorites were the cumin and
onion-and-garlic varieties.
De Ruiter places great stress on his
company's organic-farming and fair-trade policies. I hadn't known about the online order site, which I will now try. Go to hell, sniffer beagles. I can work around you.
Shanghai, Beijing, and the face of Chinese cities
This is an incomplete, opening entry on a subject that's increasingly on my mind: who is responsible for the look and feel of today's enormous, expanding Chinese cities, and who is happy and unhappy about their emerging character.
Two reasons it's on my mind at the moment: - Spent several days again in Shanghai, my former home, after being away for eight months; - Recently went to the top of Beijing's first true skyscraper, the newly-opened Park Hyatt hotel, and saw the city from an entirely different perspective while on the building's 65th floor.
This is not a "which do you like better?" discussion, which I've learned to finesse in a way that is both politic and true. Having now spent an equal amount of time based in each city, my wife and I have learned to appreciate the virtues of both. Their virtues are different, as Chicago's are from LA's, but are both real. (In short: we've learned more from being in Beijing, and we enjoyed the texture of daily life more in Shanghai. We feel fortunate to have lived in each place.)
Rather the question is why the look and feel of Beijing seem so clearly to represent the direction Chinese cities are heading. To oversimplify what this means: although Shanghai probably contains more people than Beijing, it feels smaller. The roads are narrower, they're more likely to bend or twist, the city unfolds on a smaller scale of neighborhoods and courtyards and little houses. Beijing is bigger and squarer and broader and more grandly imposing. To illustrate: a photo of the intersection outside our building in Beijing, followed by a place we were walking ten days ago in Shanghai.
Crossing the street at the Guomao intersection, as I do when leaving my apartment each day in Beijing:
Looking across a street in the French Concession district of Shanghai:
Yes, yes, I could have chosen pictures of each city that looked more like the other -- a little hutong in Beijing, an elevated highway in Shanghai. But anybody who has been in both cities recognizes the difference in tone and scale. This view southward from the Park Hyatt's 65th floor China Bar -- which really is the first time this view of Beijing has ever been available (since airplanes almost never fly overhead) -- gives more of the idea.
A few more pictures, and the question they suggest to me, after the jump.
In my story about the Chinese economy in the latest Atlantic, I say, "You never know which statistics to believe in China, but in January a local official in Dongguan told me..." The never-know problem is a real challenge here, and a reason to view any number concerning China with skepticism.
Part of the problem arises from what we might call a "transparency" issue. The government has committed itself to a growth rate of at least 8 per cent this year. Whatever else happens, it is safe to assume that at year's end the reported growth rate will be about 8 per cent. Part of the problem is the sheer impossibility of really knowing what is going on in so vast a country containing such geographic, economic, and social extremes. Is China's population closer to 1.3 billion -- or 1.4 billion? It's a difference of 100 million, and I don't think anyone knows for sure.
And for foreigners there's a particular problem of having your usual standards of judgment mismatched to China's scale. I have been in cities that looked middling-size. Based on the street grid and downtown area, I would have estimated the population at maybe 100,000 -- then I'm told that two million people live there. (True? I don't know.) Every reporter in China knows about the government statistics reporting 60,000 to 70,000 mass disturbances throughout the country each year. Could that possibly be true? Two hundred a day? It doesn't seem plausible, but I see the figure quoted all the time.
Very late in the process of writing my latest article, I saw a release from the government-controlled Xinhua news agency, saying that coal mining fatalities had declined to a total of over 90,000 in 2008. Could that possibly be true? Two hundred and fifty people per day? So I double-checked with Xinhua, and so did our fact-checker, and that was the number the government was officially putting out. As a result, one passage in my story said:
So if China's rise is not undone by the risks that have been evident for years--pollution, water shortage, corruption, the widening rich-poor social gap, safety standards so primitive that on average more than 250 people die each day in coal-mine accidents--might China prove vulnerable to Soviet-style discontent born of a slowing economy?... My guess is No. [And on to the main argument of the article.]
Twelve days later, Xinhua put out this correction.
In the corrected version, ninety thousand people had died in accidents of all sorts in China last year, not just in coal mines. The coal mine fatality rate was more like nine per day, not 250. I was out of China when this correction was posted, and I didn't see it until just now. (You don't routinely go back to sources you've already checked, to see if they've happened to change their figures.) If I'd seen it immediately we could have made a change just before our issue went to the printer, but I probably wouldn't have seen it even if I were sitting in Beijing.
I regret the error, though I am glad for the differential 240 coal miners per day, and wanted to take the initiative in putting the revised number on the record. The larger points about workplace safety -- and the resilience of the Chinese economy, and the shakiness of statistics -- remain.
First signs of an upturn?
As I've mentioned several times (eg here and here), the air in Beijing has seemed much better in the six months since the Olympics ended than in the incredibly murky six months before. Seasonal difference? Probably. Unusual prevalence of strong, cleansing winds from the northwest? Important too. Residual effect of some Olympic-caused restrictions on pollution sites and traffic? Perhaps.
But the general slowdown in factory and powerplant activity during those same six months has to have played a part.
So, is the economy picking up again? View out the window, Guomao area of Beijing looking south, on March 18, 2009, at noon China time, a relatively balmy day:
For a different kind of discussion about when and whether things will turn around for China, I have this story in the current issue of the magazine.
March 17, 2009
Cheese-beagle update
Apparently I had more to worry about than I thought. The man who sat beside me on the flight from San Francisco to Beijing had to wait a little longer than I did for his bags to appear. While I was thinking "Drat! No Chinese customs agency baggage-sniffing beagles! I could have sneaked in some cheese and other stuff" he was observing things I couldn't see. From his email just now:
Apropos the cheese beagle...no more than 2 minutes after you left baggage claim yesterday the little fellow came sniffing up your track... he left carousel 40 with a rather hang-dog look! No fun at flight 889 for him!
I believe this marks the end of my cheese-beagle chronicles. To commemorate this moment, a LA Times picture of some American sniffer-beagles. The Chinese ones look pretty similar but don't wear the little nylon coats, which remind me of the windbreakers saying "FBI" or "SHERIFF" that you see on cops in TV reality shows.
March 16, 2009
Well, this is weirdly annoying! (cheese-and-beagles dept)
I was so intimidated by the mounting reports of a crackdown on cheese-smugglers at Chinese airports that I decided not to risk it on today's SFO-PEK flight. Even though it will be three or four months before my wife and I next visit a cheese-producing land. No point getting on the officials' radar.
So just now, I collect my bags at Beijing Capital Airport, relieved not to have torrents of smuggler-sweat pouring down my face out of worry that the sniffer-beagles will detect outlaw cheese, and..... there are no damned dogs in sight! And hardly a customs inspector. Come on! If I had known this, think of the kilos of Gruyere and Caerphilly and Ricotta Salata and various blue cheeses and Mozarella and you name it I could be lugging home right now.
My friend Eamonn Fingleton has often emphasized the importance of "selective enforcement" in the Chinese government's management of internal affairs. If you never know when a certain rule will be enforced, you self-protectively act as if it might be enforced, just to be safe. There are countless examples (previous discussion here). Will a certain kind of protest be tolerated this week -- or punished? Since you don't know, you don't take the risk. Are copyright laws being enforced today? What about tax laws -- or visa rules? "Selective" enforcement suggests that the authorities turn the enforcement on and off strategically to regulate behavior. "Sporadic" enforcement suggests random ups and downs, Brownian Motion-style, depending on regional variation and individual mood and sheer chance. My default explanation for most things here is randomness and individual whim, but the result is the same.
Several readers offered hypotheses for the anti-cheese crackdown -- when it's in effect. Here's a strong contender:
Perhaps the ban on cheese is in retaliation against some nations that banned import of Chinese milk products during the melamine scandal. It doesn't hurt anybody much because the Chinese people find cheese revolting (I am told) so they don't miss it, and the cheese exporting nations don't export much to China anyway, so they don't get hurt either. Only the cheese eating, beer quaffing expats get hurt unless they can thwart the beagle.
March 14, 2009
The war against cheese is on
Yesterday I mentioned rumors of a new anti-cheese crackdown at China's ports of entry. Now this chilling confirmation from a reader:
I also live in Beijing, and, like you, I tend to bring back cheese with me from my trips out of the country. But recently, while traveling back from Spain right after Chinese New Year, I, too, encountered the beagle brigade. Having never seen them before we weren't sure if they were after drugs or food, but when one came to our cart as we waited for our luggage at the carousel and sat down, we knew it was a "food beagle". The agent asked us if we had "food", to which I ventured a meek "yes, a bit", and he asked to see our bag. As it happens, all that we had at that point was our carry on baggage and one suitcase, with our remaining suitcase--the one containing several kilos of ham, chorizo, and cheese--revolved around the carousel, but among our carry ons was a duty free bad from Barcelona airport that contained one wheel of cheese and some turron. The agent confiscated the cheese without a word of explanation, and then asked if there was anything else. We volunteered the turron, but that was not an issue, and then he asked me to open my camera bag. When that proved to have no contraband they moved on, we grabbed the remaining suitcase off the carousel and high-tailed it out of there. But before we got too far, a Chinese guy who had seen the episode told us that there is now a ban on importing dairy products, though why that was the case--and why the agent did not explain it to us--is a mystery.
I have heard stories about other people bringing cheese who had their kids play with the beagle to distract it, and I know of someone else who managed to bring in quite a bit of NZ cheese a few weeks ago, so implementation of the new rule is--surprise!!--sporadic.
The crucial word here is of course "mystery." (Second-crucial word is "sporadic.") Maybe China could be cracking down on imported dairy products because of its own recent tainted-milk scandals. Except, that would make no sense at all. (So, your own country's milk supply is questionable, and the rest of the world makes this stuff in abundance and without quality problems; plus, you have a gigantic trade surplus. So.... suddenly it's important to keep foreign cheese out??) In any case, I will scratch off "load up on cheese!" from the last-minute list of items to cram into the suitcase on my way to the airport. Coffee is still on the list, though. And if only good beer came in freeze-dried form....
Contraband cheese and other random jet-lagged notes from the road
1) In addition to the other advertised virtues of a three-day visit to San Francisco -- interesting conference, successful visa renewal, family-reunification, etc -- also got to see this evening a special screening of Kevin Rafferty's fabulous documentary movie, "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29." Rafferty previously made very good political documentaries like Feed and Atomic Cafe. Even if you have no interest whatsoever in the subject matter -- no interest in Harvard, no interest in Yale, no interest in football, no interest in the year 1968 when the game was played - I predict that you will find this narrative gripping. Really high-class story telling and human portraiture. Among other benefits: fodder for wondering whether Tommy Lee Jones (lineman on the Harvard team) is poetic or merely hostile/aphasic. Also: the name Michael Bouscaren will not leave your mind once you have seen this film. Similarly J.P. Goldsmith -- but in his case, in a good way.
2) Huzzah and welcome to the Atlantic Food Channel! It is produced by the renowned Corby Kummer, known to the world as an expert food-and-living writer but known to me as the person who has edited my articles at the Atlantic lo these last 25+ years. A fascinating array of articles for its launch -- and I say this as the most non-foodie member of the Atlantic's staff.
3) First impression of the vaunted Kindle 2: it needs a cover, and (unlike the Kindle Classic) it doesn't come with one. ("Needs" = to keep the screen from being scratched when you're toting it around.) I ordered the cheapest one available and will report back on all things Kindle-related.
4) Latest China-related travel tip: Word from the home office in Beijing is that the customs authorites at PEK airport have launched a new crackdown on contraband.... cheese. My wife and I always lug cheese back when we're coming to China from any other country, because practically everywhere else there is a better, cheaper selection. But now, apparently, the luggage-sniffing beagles at the airport are trying to sniff out any cheese secreted in a suitcase, and vacuum-packs or triple-plastic-bag wrapping are no protection. WTF!?!? But there is no point tempting fate. So we'll go cheeseless for another while, and hope that the beagles are not looking for ground coffee.
5) Media notes: interview this morning with KQED here, and on All Things Considered here. That is all.
-
Got my Chinese visa renewed! These things are never a gimme, and the
outcome isn't always easy to predict by what we might call logical
factors. Eg: last summer's rash of visa denials at just the time
Beijing was "inviting the world" for the Olympics. Tale of my original
visa woes included in this article.
Lesson of experience: if you're applying in the US, stick with the LA
and San Francisco consulates. Hyper-busy, which has its drawbacks
(bring a book! bring two!) but means that the questioning when you get
to the window often boils down to "will you pay extra for rush
processing?" Suggested answer: yes.
- For those in the KQED/SF listening area, I will be on the "Forum" show tomorrow (Friday, March 13) morning from 9am-10am PDT, talking about this new Atlantic article about China's economic travails.
- When I have regained
come closer to sanity, which thanks to the PEK-SFO flight is likely to
be around 3am local time, I will try properly to register the
excitement at the array of interesting software on display at the David
Allen / GTD Summit, plus some
architectural compare-and-contrast thoughts about the three cities
I've seen in the past four days: Shanghai, Beijing, and SF. That's for
later. Now, zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
March 12, 2009
Technology as friend of tradition! (Chinese language dept.)
People inside China already know about this, and people outside may not care. But because there are points of general intellectual interest involved, a word about discussions within China about possibly changing its system for writing Chinese characters.
No, not getting rid of them altogether and instead using an alphabet -- a pipedream for reformers from time to time, and something with too many complex implications to get into right now.
Rather, undoing one of the big "reforms" rammed through under Chairman Mao: the replacement of many hundreds of characters with streamlined, "simplified" forms. Joel Martinsen of Danwei.org has an excellent primer on the whole subject here. (Other Wikipedia history here and here.) To illustrate what the difference looks like, here is the simple word "telephone" (dianhua in Mandarin) as written first in "traditional" and then in "simplified" forms. In each case it is written with the character for "electricity" followed by the one for "talk," so a telephone is "electric talk," as a computer is "electric brain" (diannao).
Here is "telephone" as written in traditional characters -- which are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and some other parts of the Chinese-speaking world outside of the mainland:
And here is the same word, with the "same" characters, in the simplified form used on the mainlaind:
The argument for simplified writing is analogous to various crusades to "rationalize" English spelling -- so u can rite in a kwik and e-z way The simplified versions are obviously simpler to write, with fewer strokes. But there are many objections, enumerated at astonishing length here, which boil down to:
1) The new characters violate tradition. Written English had been in very great flux until the standardization of printing about two centuries ago. (We can barely read Chaucer, and students require glosses for Shakespeare.) Written, traditional Chinese characters had been the great element of continuity for a much longer time -- at least for the people who could read them. Now they've been upturned -- although partisans of simplified characters claim that they're based on a time-honored hand-written form.
2) The new characters are graceless and ugly. The characters below mean the same thing, guangchang, or "Square," as in People's Square, Tomorrow Square, or Tiananmen Square -- a name I dare use because it's on the street maps in Beijng. Those on left are traditional. On the right, streamlined and simplified. It's like the difference between "through" and "thru." (old to the left, new to the right)
3) The new characters are easier to write but harder to understand. A nonobvious point but an important one. Consider the English word pronounced "for." When spoken, it could be ambiguous. When written, it's immediately obvious whether we mean for, four, or fore. Same with "right" -- potentially confusing when heard, immediately obvious when read as right, write, wright, or rite. And -- strangely -- characters have a counterpart to this problem, made worse by simplification. (This is not even getting into the related but different topic of words pronounced the same and distinguishable mainly by their characters-- as if the for/four/fore problem came up all the time.)
The two characters below, which mean "east" on the left and "happy" or "enjoyment" on the right, are very easy to tell apart in traditional form (ignore the little dots on the side; part of my home-made effort to illustrate the characters.) :
Here is how much more similar the two of them look when simplified -- again "east" on the left and "happy" on the right:
The "extra information" in the traditional characters is what made them more cumbersome to write, but also easier to tell apart. (Again, think right/write/rite/wright: suppose they were all spelled rite!) Now, here is the interesting part:
Increasingly, Chinese people don't actually have to write (rite? right?) out these characters by hand. More and more, they key them in with mobile phones or at computers. And when they do that, it's just as easy to "write" a traditional-style, complex, information-dense character as a streamlined new one. (Reason: you key in clues about the character, either its pronunciation or its root form, and then click to choose the one you want.) So -- according to current arguments -- the technology of computers and mobile phones could actually revive an important, quasi-antique style of writing.
Much more on the debate here and here. In practical terms, my bet is that nothing will change. But if you're interested in language or the relationship between technology and styles of thought, it has to be interesting. Or so I contend.
March 10, 2009
Two brief media notes about Tibet
Like most other people, I don't know for sure what is going on in Tibet, and in ethnic-Tibetan regions in nearby provinces (Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, etc) right now. It does look ominous. For the moment, here are two semi-surprising media notes, as of Wednesday morning, March 11, Beijing time:
1) CNN and BBC are just now running extensive reports on crackdowns and extra Chinese troops being set to Tibet and Tibetan ethnic areas. Plus, historical footage of Chinese soldiers "liberating" Tibet 50 years ago. The surprising aspect: the transmissions are not being blocked or cut off, as happened routinely last year with far less sensitive material. Even footage of an old interview with the Dalai Lama is coming right across the airwaves. Oversight? New strategy? Just too busy? Don't care what people hear in English? Impossible to say.
2) The official Chinese media usually take the sledgehammer approach when explaining China's Tibet policy to the outside world. "Jackal in a Buddhist monk's robes" as an epithet for the Dalai Lama, etc. But yesterday's editorial in my favorite newspaper, the China Daily, instead tried... the light touch! The editorial, in the form of an open letter to the D.L, was mock reverent (rather than blusteringly condemnatory), consistently addressing him as "Your Holiness" and asking him if he would be so kind as to explain various mysteries and problems. It began this way:
Full text, again, here. A new approach? An aberration? Something that will be shelved now that the D.L. has taken a much harsher, "hell on earth" tone? I don't know. We all will watch.
March 9, 2009
Two more on Chas Freeman and China
I realize that there's no point in getting into an endless endorsement-competition to see how many authorities can be lined up for and against the embattled Chas Freeman, nominee-apparent as head of the National Intelligence Council.
But anyone who has seen a Washington scandal get rolling understands the almost unstoppable momentum when one "revelation" follows another and you wait breathlessly to see what the next one will be -- and when the "embattled" victim will finally give in. That is very much how it looked for Freeman when -- on top of the original complaints about his views on Israel -- apparently-damaging new information about his views on China popped up.
To put a brake on the momentum, and to give a chance for deliberation about a man's reputation and a president's ability to get the range of advice he wants, I think it is worth reinforcing the idea that the people who know Freeman and China policy best think the complaints about him on this front are a crock. That was the point of the previous post with the views of Sidney Rittenberg and Jerome A. Cohen. Here, the views of the China scholar John Frankenstein of Brooklyn College, and the Beijing-based blogger and writer (and rock musician) Kaiser Kuo:
John Frankenstein:
I have known Chas Freeman ever since we were
next door neighbors at the State Dept's Chinese language School in
Taiwan over 35 years ago. (At the time he was studying Hong Lou Meng;
most of us were struggling with Hong Qi) He's damn smart, speaks his
mind, dedicated to the best interests of the United States, and has
little tolerance for bullshit. I cannot think of a better choice for
NIC chairman than Chas.
Kaiser Kuo, in an entry two years ago from his Ich Bin Ein Beijinger blog, reported details from a speech Freeman gave on the importance of independent-minded intelligence analysis, especially as it applied to China. According to the transcript Kuo quoted, Freeman said:
To deal effectively with China, Americans need to understand it in terms of its own complexities and authentic aspirations. This is unlikely to be achieved by officials engaged in writing narrowly focused and highly tendentious reports mandated by Congress to justify the single-issue agendas of our military-industrial complex or, for that matter, our humanitarian-industrial complex. Nor can it be accomplished by analysts stir-frying intelligence to suit the political appetites of those they work for....
Predictions about China based on a priori reasoning, ideologically
induced delusions, hearsay, conjecture, or mirror-imaging have been
frequent and numerous. They have racked up a remarkable record of
unreliability. To cite a few relevant examples: contrary to repeated
forecasts, the many imperfections of China's legal system have neither
prevented it from developing a vigorous market economy nor inhibited
foreign investment -- of which China continues to attract more than any
other country, including our own. China's failure to democratize and
its continuing censorship of its media, including the Internet, have
not stifled its economic progress or capacity to innovate, which are
increasingly impressive. China's perverse practices with respect to
human rights have not cost China's Communist Party or its government
their legitimacy. On the contrary, polling data suggests that Chinese
have a very much higher regard for their political leaders and
government than Americans currently do for ours.
The second paragraph, with Freeman's observations of China, rings almost all* true to me -- based on living here for nearly three years. The first paragraph, about the importance of truly independent-minded intelligence analysis, commends him for the job rather than disqualifies him. So let's slow down, stop the stampede, and -- since we're talking about a "non-confirmable" post that is presumably within the president's discretion -- look for actual proof that Freeman's views on other topics are so extreme, deep-held, and unreasonable that he should be banned from further service as a bigot or pariah. It doesn't look to me as if such proof is there. ___ * Exception, for later discussion: I think there is more tension/contradiction between the Chinese government's determination to control the media and public discussion, on the one hand, and its desire to foster an innovative economy, on the other, than Freeman suggests here. Also, his comments about the relative popularity of US and Chinese officials was made during the late GW Bush era, not Obama's time. But all that is for another time -- and is certainly not a reason to think he should be banned from public office.
Chas Freeman and China
For the record here are two interesting statements on Chas Freeman and his fitness for public office, by people deeply familiar with the China-related part of his experience and outlook. Quick points of context:
- I don't think anyone seriously contends that Freeman's views on China are the central reason for the opposition to him. As Andrew Sullivan convincingly (IHMO) demonstrated, the real argument, for better or worse, concerns his views on Israel.
- On the other hand, his most often-quoted view about China -- that the regime erred mainly in waiting too long to crack down on the Tiananmen Square demonstrations -- has added to the argument that he is a doctrinaire "realist" who has no time for ideals of any sort.
- The two people whose views I quote below have absolutely unquestionable standing to speak on this subject. One is Sidney Rittenberg, who first went to China with the US Army in 1945 and ended up spending 35 years there, 16 of them in solitary confinement for alleged espionage and disloyalty to the Mao regime. The other is Jerome A. Cohen, of NYU Law School and Paul Weiss, who has been tireless in his efforts for legal reform in China and was instrumental in freeing John Downey, who had been held in Chinese prison for two decades after the Korean War.
Both of them strongly support the expansion of individual liberties and civil society in China. Both of them strongly support Chas Freeman and his candidacy for his now-disupted job.
After the jump, a long email Rittenberg sent me today about Freeman. Here, comments each of them made on a private China-related discussion group, quoted with their permission. Read these and ask yourself: based at least on the China part of his background, does this sound like a man so far beyond the range of reasonable opinion that he must be prevented from holding appointive office?
Rittenberg:
To my knowledge--and from personal experience--Chas Freeman as DCM
[Deputy Chief of Mission, #2 to the Ambassador] in Beijing was a stalwart supporter of human rights who helped many
individuals in need. Not political bluster,but intelligent and
courageous action. He is strong in both wisdom and integrity.
Cohen:
Chas Freeman is one of the most brilliant,
analytical, balanced and skeptical people I have known in the last four
decades. I first knew him as a young State Dept China-watcher and was so
impressed I persuaded State to stake him to a year at Harvard Law School
so he could finish his JD and hone his skills in international law. Chas
had left HLS after two bored, ho-hum years to join the Foreign Service,
but when he returned he took full advantage of the opportunity and, if
memory serves, had a perfect third year record. I have not been close to
him since that time but we have occasionally crossed paths and I always
benefited from and enjoyed the experience.
Chas is a keen observer, a wicked
wit and a fearless critic. It is ludicrous to portray him as a "panda
hugger" who endorses the slaughter of June 4 or someone who can be
seduced by Saudi enticements. As far as I know, he has always been fiercely
independent, and an enemy of "group think", and I will be glad
to have him analyzing Israeli politics and policies as well as other problems.
In 1973, when Chas was helping to establish the pre-Embassy U.S. "liaison
office" in Beijing, a time when the Cultural Revolution led PRC officials
to obscure their titles from foreigners by identifying themselves as "responsible
member of the department concerned," Chas had his own name cards printed
in Chinese and English bestowing the same sobriquet on himself.
I congratulate
Admiral Blair on selecting Chas to be "responsible member of the department
concerned" and certainly will think less of President Obama and his
advisors if they back down.
I've mentioned once or twice, or maybe fifty times, my wonderment at the contrast between the sophistication with which Chinese officialdom can address domestic audiences and sensitivities, and the comic-if-it-weren't tragic cluelessness of many official efforts to explain China's views and "feelings" to the outside, non-Chinese-speaking world.
I don't have time for a full presentation-and-gloss at the moment, but see if this recent item, which I found while leafing through back copies of my favorite newspaper, the China Daily, rings any bells. It was about the nomination of Gary Locke, former governor of Washington, as US Commerce Secretary, and it featured "inside" analysis from an experienced Chinese diplomat:
Story as it looked on the page, showing the local Chinese angle:
Near the end, the experts step in, displaying their perfect ear for the nuances of the way race is lived and discussed in Obama-era USA. Analytical conclusion of the story, from someone with that indispensable on-the-ground knowledge of America:
Ah, the talents with the yellow skin. In a similar development, the new issue of the local That's Shanghai magazine has a rundown of events for the Shanghai International Literary Festival, including a talk I'm giving at 3pm today. Most of the items list the writer and the name of his or her most recent book. In my case, that proved to be awkward -- since the title, Postcards from Tomorrow Square, includes the now-sensitive word "Square," which officials feel might stir up emotions about unpleasant events that happened twenty years ago this June in another Square. I am not kidding (and I'm also not just guessing about this). A friend has suggested that perhaps the Tomorrow Square building, 明天广场, in central Shanghai -- right on People's Square, as it happens -- will have to have its nameplate removed during the sensitive period ahead. It is sometimes unbelievable but never dull here.
The building formerly known as Tomorrow Square. Maybe everyone will agree not to notice it:
February 24, 2009
美国欢迎您!
Or, more simply, "America welcomes you!" The China Daily, beloved staple of my life in China these last few years, has just opened its US edition! Huzzah!
Where, in today's downcast news environment, are we going to find headlines like this except in the China Daily?
To understand why I love this paper so much, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and passim. Or put down that copy of The Onion and see for yourself. Welcome!
For the record, a review I'm very grateful for
In Blogcritics, by Xujun Eberlein, about Postcards from Tomorrow Square, a review whose first two or three paragraphs capture what I've been trying to do. I know it's not seemly to point out one's own good reviews, but this one meant a lot to me and I note it for the record. (Reprinted in China Beat here.) In the same vein, gratitude to Fareed Zakaria for a generous mention of the book on yesterday's GPS show.
Ok, I've got this out of my system now. Back to the F-22 etc.
February 23, 2009
Chinese viewers' guide to the Oscars! (updated)
In my earlier report, I should have noted that it's for the benefit of the billion-strong local viewership that the Chinese broadcast of the Academy Awards is being tape-delayed some 12 hours, until airtime 10:30 tonight on CCTV-6. Bigger home audience than if it were shown live during the working day! And, of course, it takes a little while to add the Chinese subtitles and... how do we put this ... to harmonize* the program for domestic tastes.
It would be unfair and surprise-spoiling to use my crystal ball (aka The Internets) to predict the Best Actor-etc winners. But I confidently make this prediction about harmonization:
In the version of the Oscars shown in the US a few hours ago, Steven Spielberg got a lot of face time announcing the nominees and winners in the Best Picture category. This is the same Spielberg who one year ago very publicly backed out of planning the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics, in protest of China's policies in Darfur. ("I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual.") The eventual opening ceremony, under China's own Zhang Yimou, hardly lacked in spectacle -- but people here remember! My prediction: whatever CGI magic can be applied to make a presenter disappear from a presentation ceremony will be employed on Mr. Spielberg. This gives me an excuse to stay up tonight and find out if I am right.
(From Reuters: the face they won't see) _____ * "Harmonization" = in local lingo, closing down or censoring web sites, publications, or broadcasts to avoid the spread of unwelcome views. Especially important for Oscar ceremonies, because who knows what these crazy Hollywood people will say.
Update: I'll never know. Wasn't at a place that had CCTV-6 during the show. Update #2: According to Nathan Jackson of Shanghai,
My wife and I watched the Oscars on CCTV6 last night and Spielberg indeed had his entire appearance cut. You can hear his voice for about 1 second, but the whole introduction of nominees is very crudely cut out of the show. Sean Penn also had a few cuts to his speech
Even more on US-China climate cooperation
It can seem odd when something you've been expecting for years actually starts to occur.* Since practically the first discussion I had in China in mid-2006, I've been hearing that the US and China "had to" or "would soon" work together to deal with energy/environment issues, given that they are now the two most-polluting countries in the world. With the change of Administration in the US, it does indeed seem to be happening. At least, talk about it is happening -- including from Hillary Clinton, on her visit here this weekend -- with specifics on what the countries should do next.
(Subtle reminder of why this would be useful: a recent view of Beijing:)
I've previously mentioned the Asia Society/Pew and Brookings proposals for US-Chinese cooperation. Here is another one, from the National Resources Defense Council, which has been doing environmental work in and with China for a long time. As a bonus, here is the summary of its 9-point action plan:
1. Engage in serious bilateral meetings on climate change and address the key sticking points to reaching meaningful agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009 2. Establish a US-China forum on climate change strategies that promote green jobs and economic recovery 3. Mobilize the untapped potential of energy efficiency 4. Assist in the deployment of renewable energy sources and technologies 5. Promote low-carbon, high-efficiency vehicles, fuels, transportation systems, and community development 6. Expand research and investment on carbon capture and storage technology 7. Improve greenhouse gas emissions monitoring and data transparency 8. Conduct co-benefit analysis on GHG [Greenhouse Gas] emissions controls 9. Invest in regular exchanges and sharing of expertise to improve enforcement of environmental law and energy efficiency standards.
The full report spells out steps toward each of these goals. Like the others, worth reading and putting into action sometime soon. _____ * And I'm not even talking about the long-predicted current financial meltdown.
February 20, 2009
More on China-US climate issues, more on F-22
- About China and the US cooperating on environmental/climate issues:
Yesterday I mentioned this detailed and valuable report from the Asia Society and Pew. It turns out that Brookings has just done something similar. Summary here, with links to PDF versions in both English and Chinese. Transcript of event unveiling the report here. I haven't studied the report carefully, but anything in this vein has to be a plus.
- About Mark Bowden and the F-22:
Yesterday I said that I enjoyed Mark Bowden's current article but disagreed with its implied endorsement of the F-22 fighter plane. It turns out that Sam Roggeveen, of the Lowy Institute's "The Interpreter" site in Sydney, has already taken up this topic and gotten a reply from Mark. Roggeveen's initial critique here; Mark Bowden's response here. I should note that, like Roggeveen, I did a double-take at the sentence in the original article saying that at least five other countries were now flying planes that matched or bettered the F-15. For context on that point, it's worth looking here. Also, this Reuters story from three months ago talks about the real-world difficulties in maintaining the "stealth" systems for radar-evasion that are supposed to be one of the F-22's main virtues.
February 19, 2009
The US, China, and saving the world
Anyone who has looked seriously into China's environmental and energy-use emergencies ends up thinking, saying, or merely hoping that the US and China will work together urgently on these fronts. That would be good for China because it needs all the help it can get to avoid poisoning its own people. It would be good for America and everyone else because China's approach to carbon-emissions control will largely determine whether the world has any chance of dealing with climate problems.
Or to put things in a cheerier way, precisely because so many Chinese farms, factories, power plants, and buildings are now so inefficiently run*, there are more opportunities to make big environmental improvements here than practically anywhere else. (My contribution to this school of thought in this article.)
Everybody understands this point in the abstract. Now there's a useful new guide to what it might mean in very particular detail. For many months a scientific/technical task force run jointly by the Asia Society's Center on the US-China Relations and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change has worked on specific recommendations, which were unveiled last week. Press release is here; overview here; PDF of the report in English here; in Chinese here. Introductory video, with overview rather than specifics, below.
Promising Kremlinology note: the co-chair of the project was Steven Chu, who stepped down from that role only because he had been nominated (and now confirmed) as the new US Secretary of Energy. The report is very much worth checking out -- and, in my view, worth supporting and implementing.
___
* Chinese farms and factories "inefficient"? Yes, very much so -- as I explain at length in my Atlantic article. Their output is often inexpensive, mainly because Chinese labor rates have been so cheap. But, as is typical for developing countries, they tend to be wasteful in their use of energy and other inputs. Chinese office buildings take much more energy to heat and cool than Western ones, because the insulation is so poor. Farmers often use more water and chemicals per bushel of yield than in advanced countries. Out-of-date Chinese factories use more fuel and create more pollution per unit of output than in Europe, Japan, or the US. This profligacy helps explains why the air is so murky in China, but it also illustrates the opportunity for big, relatively easy gains through efficiency here.
February 18, 2009
Winter wonderland Beijing
Back "home" after quite a long trip away. The city has a new look for our arrival. 北京欢迎我们! * Many backed-up items to touch on in the next day or so.
____
* "Beijing welcomes us!" Anyone who has been within 500 miles of the city during the past Olympic year has heard the song and slogan 北京欢迎你, Beijing huanying ni, "Beijing welcomes you." YouTube video of the official welcoming song here. The ever-so-familiar signature refrain begins about 1:15 into this 6:50 video, presented initially with the song stylings of Jackie Chan. The whole thing is actually worth watching as a time capsule of the super-confident, everything's-great atmosphere that prevailed here only six months ago. Yes, this is a government happy-talk presentation but at the time it didn't seem so distant from the general public mood.
February 11, 2009
Just to round out the CCTV fire theme
As mentioned earlier, the devastating fire in Beijing two days ago was indeed caused by fireworks and firecrackers on the final night of the Spring Festival / Chinese New Year celebrations. For positional reference, the building that burned down is behind, and mostly obscured by, the distinctive asymmetrical CCTV tower in the two shots below:
On a nice day last fall (edge of hotel barely visible behind left leg of CCTV tower): On the second day of the Olympics (hotel just visible behind and to the left of CCTV tower; this was before the air cleared up on the following day, thanks to a powerful cold front that moved through from Mongolia):
Night of the fire, photo from UK Telegraph (this view from east; others from the south):
People in and interested in China already know this, but for those who don't: Danwei.org has one-stop shopping for links and explanations about the cause of the fire, and coverage inside China, here. Similarly with the current set of links and headlines on EastSouthWestNorth, here.
Apart from the disaster/tragedy itself, the interesting aspects are: that the perils of the fireworks and firecrackers are more than a joke (it might be hard to believe that they set off a major building fire if you haven't seen how much ordnance is set off; it's all too plausible if you have); that people responsible appear to have been CCTV employees; and that the whole subsequent matter of investigating, publicizing, making sense of, and drawing omens from an unignorable spectacle involving the country's leading propaganda/communication outlet and the city's most distinctive new landmark will say a lot about the emotional and political state of China right now. (Update: interesting LA Times story, which I see before me in paper version here in the LAX airport, here.)
February 10, 2009
Placeholder on recent news
As mentioned recently, for me this has been a period of extraordinary family and personal complication, ongoing for a few more days. Items for the web-site to do list, perhaps tomorrow:
* The fire at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in China: if we'd been in our apartment in Beijing last night, we would have in fact been outside the apartment, watching what was happening a quarter-mile up the street near the new CCTV tower. Last year, on the final night of Chinese New Year, my wife remarked that it was a miracle that the city hadn't gone up in flame. (To explain: this fire happened on the final night of this year's CNY.)
* Obama's first press conference, which I thought extremely accomplished in ways obvious and subtle. The answer that most repays careful study is the response to an economic question from our former Atlantic colleague Chuck Todd (transcript here, search for "Chuck.") Impressive aspect, about which more later: the premise of the question was -- no offense, Chuck -- somewhat confused. Obama addresses the confusion in the first paragraph of response and then has a conciliatory loopback to make an additional useful point.
* Introduction of Kindle 2. I think my wife will enjoy the Kindle 1 that is about to be hers.
* This NYT story about a change in emphasis at Newsweek, based on the recognition that weekly news magazines simply cannot compete in delivering "breaking news" to their readers.
The venerable newsweekly's ingrained role of obligatory coverage of
the week's big events will be abandoned once and for all, executives
say.
"There's a phrase in the culture, 'we need to take note of,'
'we need to weigh in on,' " said Newsweek's editor, Jon Meacham.
"That's going away. If we don't have something original to say, we
won't. The drill of chasing the week's news to add a couple of
hard-fought new details is not sustainable."
Ah, the battles over exactly that principle ten+ years ago at the weakest of the news magazines, US News. More later on this too.
* An impressively brave post by my friend Steve Clemons about a quite startling change in the leadership of the Japan Society of New York. Twenty-plus years ago, when I first went on a Japan Society fellowship for a stay in Japan (as many journalists have done since then), it would have been inconceivable that a just-retired Japanese government official (and former Mitsubishi exec) would be in charge of this American organization, for reasons that Steve Clemons clearly lays out. Although the Japan Society is not quite the same lobbying organization that AIPAC is, it would be like having an Israeli government official head that organization. This is truly startling.
* And, later, a wrapup on the real action for me of the last few days: final visit for family reasons to my home town. The moving vans arrive tomorrow to take the last shipment from my parents' house. Onward.
February 6, 2009
Update on Chinese coverage of dam/earthquake connection
Last night I mentioned the NYT story suggesting that a dam recently built near a major fault line in China could possibly have triggered the devastating Sichuan earthquake last May. I said I would like to see how -- if at all -- the story was being covered and interpreted inside China. (I'm still away.)
One fascinating early answer comes from the Mutant Palm site in this post. The headline of the Chinese press report it quotes (and translates) gives the general idea:
Foreign Media Stir Up Trouble, Speculate "Sichuan Earthquake was Man-Made"
Original version of that headline:
Full Chinese report (in Chinese) here. Even from afar it will be interesting to watch this develop.
I wish I were in China at this moment...
... to see first-hand how this story is being covered and reacted to:
The suffering after the Sichuan earthquake was so widespread and horrific, and the impression of rapid, heroic, all-out response was so important to the government, that the episode really had a "9/11"-style role in popular imagination. The Chinese people standing as one to help the victims of Wenchuan and other devastated cities; premier Wen Jiabao flying directly to the disaster site that very afternoon to oversee recovery efforts; People's Liberation Army detachments flooding in from every province to haul rubble out of school yards and pull survivors to safety -- this is what the Chinese public heard, saw, and was reminded of after the earthquake and ever since.*
The idea that the disaster could somehow have been induced, invited, or worsened by governmental action -- well, no one knows how this idea will be debated or allowed to spread in China, but the consequences could be profound. This is a placeholder note to say: watch this story carefully. ____ * A new chapter in Postcards from Tomorrow Square, called "After the Earthquake," is about the different ways the disaster affected several villages in Sichuan province.
Meet Mr. China!
Several times I've written in the Atlantic about the Irish businessman Liam Casey, who in the past few years has built an outsourcing empire in the southern Chinese manufacturing center of Shenzhen. (Original Atlantic article here. Slideshow including snapshots of Casey here.)
In these articles I gave Casey the jokey honorific "Mr. China," derived from Tim Clissold's hilarious book of the same name. The title is a campy way of indicating the person most in touch with the Chinese trends of this exact moment.
BBC Radio 4 has just posted a 28-minute interview with Casey, called "The Remarkable Mr. China." They make you work to get at the interview: at least from outside the UK, you have to listen within the next seven days, before it disappears, and it is compatible only with RealPlayer.* Nonetheless, if you've been asking yourself, "Hmmm, I wonder what it would be like to talk with Mr. China down in Shenzhen," you now have a chance to satisfy your curiosity. Thanks to Hillel Schwartz for tip.
Mr. China (right) shopping for art in Shenzhen's famed Dafen factory art district last year:
* You can download RealPlayer free from links at the BBC site, but as anyone who has tried it knows, its installation is very aggressive and can easily make RP more of an in-your-face presence in your life than you intend. With careful configuration you can tame it and hear this interview.
February 5, 2009
Edging back into connectivity: Kennedy Library Forum
Ten days ago, in what seems a different lifetime, I was at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston for one of its "Kennedy Library Forum" presentations. Dr. Lincoln Chen, founder of Harvard's Global Equity Initiative, led an hour-long discussion about China and America (just before he went to the airport for a trip to China himself), followed by half an hour of Q-and-A from the audience.
I enjoyed his questions a lot, plus the general direction the discussion took. Minnesota Public Radio has a webcast of the program here. I believe that Boston's own WBUR will eventually do so here as well. FWIW.
January 29, 2009
This better be worth it!
The thriller novel Typhoon, which I tried in vain to track down while I was in China (the tale of this quixotic search, thrilling enough in itself, is laid out here , here, and here), is now on hand, shipped by Amazon Canada to Washington DC. It is shown below, in pillowed presentation mode appropriate to the difficulty of finding it.
That leaves two associated mysteries to figure out. One: since the word "China" does not appear on the front or back cover of the book, and since the cover illustration of Hong Kong might at worst seem to suggest a natural-disaster weather story, how could the Chinese customs officials have figured out that this was a "sensitive" book that they had to intercept -- if that is indeed what happened to it?
The other mystery, of course: is it any good? Stay tuned.
January 28, 2009
A project I'm proud of
Attentive viewers of this site and readers of the latest issue of the magazine will have noticed ads for a new series of DVD's called On the Frontlines: Doing Business in China. Here is the back story.
I have a certain forelock-tugging reluctance to sell, sell, sell when it comes to my own personal products and projects. Just ask my publishers! But about team efforts I feel no such diffidence. On the contrary: I think this magazine is great, and I'll say so as often as I can to anyone I can. And I think that this video series, which is the product of many peoples' labor and creativity, is very, very good and worth a serious look.
A video journalist named Bob Schapiro, with his associates Dovar Chen and others, had worked for years getting on-camera interviews with many Chinese officials, industrialists, workers, analysts, etc about the current situation of the country. About two years ago I met them in Shanghai, when they were continuing their reporting and I was one of their B-roll interviewees.
Later, as they put the series together, I saw some of the early cuts and was genuinely impressed with what they'd been able to see and record and present on screen. I happily accepted an offer to be involved in further shaping of the series and to be one of the on-camera hosts (along with the young journalist and performer Emily Chang). Joe Nocera, my long-time friend from the Washington Monthly and Texas Monthly who is now the king of the business journalists, eventually joined the project to provide talk-show type analysis after each segment, in on-camera discussions with me.
What I particularly like about the series is that it shows people, places, and things -- inside factories, inside Chinese companies, workers from remote areas -- that are hard for most Westerners to see, and that finally leave a different impression if you actually see them as opposed to reading about them (even in the best magazines). It also shows you a little bit of the hosts: mainly, you're seeing real Chinese people in action.
This is very much a team effort. I'll have more to say about it periodically. The Atlantic is a partner in presenting it, and I have the same enthusiasm for it as for other projects under our label. The main site is here; a few previews and trailers are here. If you enter a "member code" Atl-Fallows there is a $50 discount. What a deal! Seriously, I learned things about parts of China I hadn't seen by working on the project, and I think others will find it informative too.
January 27, 2009
Adjusting a mistuned policy: what a thought! (Public diplomacy with China dept)
In talking about Timothy Geithner's warnings on Chinese "currency manipulation" several days ago, my main criticism involved proportion.
Yes, the dollar/RMB exchange rate is one important element of US-Chinese interactions. But even if we're talking only about economic issues, it is not (in my view) the most important among them. And as soon as we think about the vast range of political, strategic, scientific, cultural and other ways in which the two countries will affect each other, it falls far down the list. I bet that from later historians' perspectives, whether the two countries can successfully grapple with climate/environmental/energy issues will matter most about their dealings in these next few years.
So why would the Administration choose to kick things off by talking about currency wars -- and nothing else?
Two positive developments today. One is a column by Rebecca MacKinnon which lays out very clearly why it is worth thinking about proportion and public opinion even in China, where the media are still heavily controlled and no national policy is subject to popular vote. She has a lot to say, in the form of a "Dear President Obama"-style open letter, but here's the gist:
if you really want to take U.S.-China relations to a new strategic
level that rises above the day-to-day issues, you need to find new ways
to engage the Chinese people themselves -- not just their government....The point is that while these people are not citizens of a democracy,
they are by no means an undifferentiated mass of brainwashed drones.
The other is a set of comments to reporters by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (first time I have typed those five words), in which she provided exactly the proportion missing in earlier remarks. The gist here, via Centrist Vector:
Twenty-plus years ago, Tom Ashbrook and I were both in Japan, reporting on its ups and eventual downs. He did so for the Boston Globe, I for an outstanding literary-political monthly founded in 1857. He has since been a high-tech entrepreneur, author of a book (which I really liked) about that high-tech adventure, and now a successful WBUR/NPR radio host. I was on his On Point program today, talking about, in part, a compare-and-contrast between Japan and China plus other topics. Webcast here.
I fear that the Tom Waits-like effects on my voice of 30+ months of breathing l'air Chinois are becoming more evident each time I open my mouth. Oh well. Finally I have an excuse to start smoking.* ____ * Just a little joke. The one thing my parents said they absolutely, completely, unconditionally would not allow would be for their kids to smoke. My dad brought up this point one evening after he had, by chance, spent the entire day at the office telling one patient after another that the cough they'd been having or that tickle in their throat was actually lung- or throat-cancer. And he was a normal internist, not an oncologist! It impressed me.
Beijing Birthday in NYC, Boston, DC
I have gone out of my way to mention (eg here and here) how much I have enjoyed and learned from Howie Snyder's hour-long documentary My Beijing Birthday. The premise sounds a little odd -- Chinese-speaking guy from Brooklyn goes to stand-up comedy school in Beijing with little Chinese kids -- but it is engrossing and instructive.
It's not yet in general release, but showings are coming up on the East Coast on these days: January 29-30 in New York, Feb 2-4 in Boston, Feb 6 in Washington DC.
Times, places, and details after the jump. Very much worth checking out.
Broader point about Geithner, Obama, China, and "manipulation"
Here's what increasingly bothers me about the recent flap over Timothy Geithner's "currency manipulation" criticism of China. I am showing this in "extract" format below not because I am quoting someone else because I am quoting the thought that has been running around in my head:
Because Barack Obama has been so knowing-sounding and aware of complexities on so many issues, it's natural to assume that he and his team will display the same sophistication when it comes to dealing with China. But in reality, virtually nothing that the President or his appointees has said or done on the subject has shown much sophistication at all. I made this point at various stages in the campaign. But as time goes on you inevitably start wondering: If these people are so smart, when will they get around to acting smart about the country whose cooperation they need more than any other's to avoid true financial catastrophe?
Now, the reasoning behind that assertion:
- During the campaign, Obama did not (to my knowledge) give a speech about relations with China, unlike his major addresses on his European tour or his speech about Israel when at AIPAC. Fine: it wasn't a big, direct in the campaign. What he did say was pretty much confined to "I won't buy poisonous Christmas toys for my kids" in early campaign debates. Meanwhile, his web site did have an all-points China policy, noting the various ways in which the countries cooperate and compete.
- Since the election, there has been one indirect but important signal of the new Administration thinking creatively about how to handle China. That is the nomination of Steven Chu as energy secretary.This was significant not because Chu's parents were immigrants from China (though that was huge and celebrated news inside China) but instead because in recent years Chu has been deeply involved in efforts to work out US-Chinese collaboration on environmental and climate-change issues. Anyone who has thought about this problem understands that if America and China are not both seriously committed to dealing with this issue, it's not going to be dealt with.
- The all-star economic team we're relying on to avoid true financial/economic catastrophe will need to work with China on just about every aspect of this plan. China has been the main buyer of Treasury notes (as you might possibly have heard). It has its own domestic economic emergency to deal with, and the tools it chooses in responding to that crisis will either ease or aggravate other countries' problems.
- Yet what is the most famous thing we've heard about China from any member of the Administration since the time the transition began? This, as reported in the China Daily:
As I argued here recently, China's management of the RMB's value (as opposed to the huffy and hyperbolic term "manipulation") is one part of the economic snarl that the US, China, Europeans, and others need to contend with. And it could become a more important and more dangerous part, if the Chinese authorities decide for their own reasons that they will try to push the RMB's value back down again, after letting it rise for years. (For details, here.)
But at the moment the exchange rate is not the most important element of US-China relations, even the financial aspect of those relations. And it most certainly is not the only element in US-China relations, which is the impression the Chinese readership and leadership could get from recent Obama Administration signals. This would be as if the only thing Obama had said about Mexico so far was, "Stop flooding us with illegal immigrants." It may seem unsporting, but it's worth pointing out that the reason Geithner's tax problems are being overlooked is that his expertise is thought to be so necessary in dealing with China among others.
So where does this lead? Mainly to a hope that the Administration will start recognizing all the different elements of this important relationship -- good and bad, financial and otherwise, business and academic, scientific and purely personal, ones where the US needs to adjust its policy (after the Bush years) and ones where China does too.
There are lots and lots of areas where Chinese government policies deserve criticism. (For a recent example, ridiculous censorship policies.) But there are many other where it deserves support -- and most of all there are areas where the US simply needs China's cooperation for its own and the world's survival. So: less gum-flapping about "manipulation," and more serious recognition of the thousand other issues where, no joke, the two countries really do need each other. Save the harsh criticism for the questions that really deserve it.
January 24, 2009
Un-$%&%ing-believable! (China's censoring of Obama's speech, cont.)
I mentioned yesterday that even though the censors at China's CCTV apparently panicked in real time, and cut off coverage of Barack Obama's inaugural address when he started talking about "dissent" and "communism," the editors of People's Daily, with more time and calm to reflect, had provided a full, translated version of the speech -- including this touchy passage:
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not
just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and
enduring convictions.
(Reminder: China is still officially ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, even though much of its economy runs on wide-open market principles.)
I just got a note from Donald Clarke, a law professor at George Washington University in DC, acting on a tip from David Kelly, of the China Research Center at University of Technology Sydney, asking whether I was certain about the link I had provided, here. Because he had checked the People's Daily version -- and he didn't see any mention of the struggle against communism.
So I went back and checked -- and he's right! The same link to the same page with the same official translation of Obama's speech is virtually the same as the original, except that someone carefully removed the word "communism." ("Dissent" is still in there.) Here's the play by play:
1) Sentence in Obama's speech:
"Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not
just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and
enduring convictions."
2) Version in People's Daily yesterday, which (as best I can judge) is a pretty faithful rendering of Obama's statement. I should note that I directly cut-and-pasted this from the PD site, as an indication that it actually was there at some point:
回想起先辈们从容地面对法西斯主义和共产主义的时候，并不仅靠导弹和坦克，还靠强健的联盟和持久的信念
3) Same sentence from the same translation at the same site today, with no notice of any change:
回想起先辈们从容地面对法西斯主义的时候，并不仅靠导弹和坦克，还靠强健的联盟和持久的信念。
And what's the difference? The disappearance of these five characters, 和共产主义, meaning "and communism." So now Obama talks only about the victory over fascism and about no other foe.
Which in turn means: in calm deliberation, after initially deciding the Chinese readership could stand to hear an American president talk about struggles over fascism and communism, the editors went back a day later, altered the translation, and gave no indication that they were doing so. (Update. Alternative hypothesis suggested to me: someone at PD "accidentally did the right thing" by translating the whole speech; then this "error" was corrected as soon as people in charge realized what had happened.)
If I had the time right now to call up the internet way-back machine and get the version of People's Daily from yesterday, I could prove that 24 hours ago it included the now-missing five characters. But, again, the indirect proof is that the part I quoted yesterday was cut-and-pasted directly from what the People's Daily was showing at the time.
To repeat: un-$#$#()&$-believable -- in the insecurity, the hamhandedness, and the immaturity this reveals.
Take my wife - please!
Anyone who knows anything whatsoever about China can stop reading here. _____
OK, now that the rest of us are alone, here's a hint about a lame but popular Henny Youngman-style joke you may be exposed to and perhaps puzzled by in coming days.
The new Chinese year begins on January 26. My own wife, still in Beijing (and to whom this item's headline very definitely does not apply -- I miss you!), reports that the deafening and insanity-inducing joyous and celebratory firecracker explosions are already underway.
The current year is the Year of the Rat, and the coming one is the Year of the Ox (or cow or bull or what have you.) No matter what it's called in English, in Chinese the bovine animal in question is written 牛 and pronounced niu.
Thus if you get cards or emails from your Chinese friends saying "Happy Niu Year!" you can join in the hearty laughter at a good bilingual pun. This is a little tip in the interests of cross-national harmony and fellow feeling. 新年快乐 to one and all.
January 23, 2009
Interesting extra twist on "censoring" Obama in China
As noted several times earlier (here and here), the CCTV authorities in charge of the live broadcast of Barack Obama's inaugural address apparently got flustered when they started hearing him talk about "dissent" and "confronting communism," and cut away from live coverage.
Now (thanks to several friends who have pointed this out), the official People's Daily has carried a Chinese translation of the speech that includes even the "sensitive" parts. Chinese version here.
I am not capable of judging the refinement of this translation. But I can see that it carries the two passages that caused problems for the broadcasters. Details after the jump.
Moral? First, as mentioned so many times before here and in the Atlantic, the uncertainty about what will be allowed or forbidden is itself an important control tool. If you never know when you might be crossing the line, you end up being extra-careful (which may have been the mentality of the people inside CCTV). Second, and also familiar to readers here, this is a reminder that China itself and even the ruling Chinese Communist Party is full of countless contradictory views, factional and ideological differences, individuals who see things their own way, etc.
And, finally, something about the difficulties this kind of ruling system has in making decisions quickly, before checking what the "proper" response is supposed to be. I won't bother with a long list of similar examples, but I'm struck that while Chinese business and many Chinese individuals are amazing fast-reacting and adaptable, the political structure is much less so.
Usually journalists are in the position of being told that they have lamentably "oversimplified" or "hyped" their discussion of topics -- and told this by the real policy experts in academia or think tanks or specialized government agencies. Often enough, the accusation is true. Part of journalism's basic function is to explain, in simpler (and often necessarily less nuanced) terms, what the real experts are trying to say. If they do that well enough, they can reach people who would never sit still for the full, rococo, expert version and give them a better understanding of important ideas and problems than they would otherwise have.
But now we've got a situation where a journalist (moi-meme) is listening to a renowned expert and wondering, Can he possibly believe that things are as simple and bald as what he's just said?
The expert in question is our old friend Timothy Geithner, who when he was not being grilled about his tax problems today was saying (in his written answer to questions) that China is "manipulating" its currency. Oh my. Where do we start with this.
- That the Chinese government manages the value of the RMB against the US dollar and other currencies is not an accusation but an observation of universally-accepted plain fact. Until about three years ago, the RMB's value was flat-out pegged against that of the dollar, at a rate of just over 8:1. Was that "manipulation"? Yes, in the same sense that the yen was for years "manipulated" at a steady rate against the dollar, or perhaps in the sense that the US "manipulates" its national borders by controlling them. Here's the basic pattern of the dollar's value against the RMB from mid-2003 to mid 2008 (via Yahoo Finance), with the big change to a "managed float" happening in the middle of 2005. It went from more than 8 RMB to a dollar, to less than 7, during this period:
(Update note: There is no Y-axis scale on the left side of this chart, because I couldn't find a chart with a scale at the time. But as noted above, the chart shows a decline from about 8.2 RMB/$1 to about 6.8/1 -- so the dollar lost about 1/5th of its value against the RMB, not 90% as this truncated chart might suggest. Still, the main point is the change from the absolute peg of the pre-2005 years to the managed float since then.)
So, to the completely obvious extent that the Chinese government was manipulating (ie, fixing) the value of the RMB before 2005, they're manipulating it less now. Obviously they are preventing it from rising as fast as it would in an entirely uncontrolled market exchange, but again that's hardly secret from anyone on earth.
- Is the Chinese suppression of the RMB's value a fundamental reason Americans don't sell more goods there? It makes a difference but -- as I argued at very great length in this article two years ago, it's nothing close to being the main reason. Wage rates, Chinese infrastructure, US fiscal patterns, and a lot of other factors play a huge part. Details too exhaustive to go into here.
- Is the Chinese determination to control the RMB's value within a set band an important factor in current world financial patterns? In this article I argued that it was, but in the non-obvious way of directing the fruits of China's labor disproportionately into foreign investment rather than higher living standings for its own people. That is, "manipulating" the currency has been an important part of subsidizing US living standards in recent years. Details in the piece.
- Could a Chinese government attempt to protect its own recently-ravaged manufacturing work force by pushing the RMB's value back down -- after many years of letting it drift higher -- cause problems for the rest of the world? Yes indeed -- as explained in this very valuable post by the Beijing-based financial authority Michael Pettis. So they should be strongly discouraged from doing so.
- Do we think that the Chinese authorities who have put some $2 trillion into US assets will respond blandly to being labeled manipulators -- or to a policy that would effectively devalue the investments they've already made here? If Americans think that, they're naive -- in my view, based on this interview with a man at the center of Chinese decision making.
I lack the energy to go any further down this list, and this is enough to make the point. These are just a tiny few of the factors that go into any US government consideration of how the RMB/dollar relationship affects the economies of both countries. And to boil it down to the bald assertion that "China is manipulating its currency" ignores, vulgarizes, and misconstrues a lot more than it clarifies.
Oh well. My personal pledge: as many cheery things as possible to say about our future Treasury Secretary from this point on. We all have a stake in his success -- including the "manipulative" Chinese!
A little more on the Chinese censorship of Obama's speech
Maybe it's the jet lag. Maybe it's the culture shock of being back in DC for the first time in a year. Maybe it's my inborn crabbiness. Whatever the source, I find myself more more incredulous with each passing hour that Chinese media authorities could have thought it as necessary or smart to censor live coverage of an event being watched intently in every other corner of the world: the inaugural address of America's first black president and current champion orator.
I have been trying to think: in what other country might this occur? Burma, perhaps. North Korea, no doubt. Perhaps other tinhorn states. But a real, important, powerful, rich country that in many ways (eg, finance) is America's most important partner? It is almost literally incredible.
It's all the more surprising because of something that might not be obvious to the average US viewer. I have met a lot of Chinese people in the last few years, in lots of stations of life. Big shots, farmers, dissidents, factory workers, party bosses. And I cannot think of a single one of them who would have been put off his or her feed by hearing a new American president talk about the virtues of dissent or America's struggle against Communism. Even if they don't agree with those sentiments themselves (and many would agree), all of them know that this is the way Americans talk and think. How on earth could it seem threatening to hear an American president talk about basic American beliefs?
Here is the "there must be an explanation" explanation. As I tried to explain in this recent article in the Atlantic, the people in charge of China's propaganda apparatus are among the least worldly and most rigid-minded people in the entire country, with absolutely the least feel for how people in other countries might react or think. So apparently some of these ignoramuses considered it a good and prudent idea to cut off Obama -- even if the vast majority of their fellow citizens would consider such paranoia to be extreme and bizarre. Also, within a part of the government where orthodoxy is everything, an official takes no risks by being too hard-line, but could get in trouble by being too permissive. Still; it is an incident whose importance may grow as time goes on. They couldn't even stand to hear Barack Obama speak!
After the jump, in the same spirit as the previous post, a couple of interesting reactions on this theme from people in and around China. Maybe this will all make sense to me when I catch up on my sleep. ____
Marker for later comment: Chinese censorship of Obama's speech
During 48+ hours on US soil during this visit, I've had several flashes of the realization that I have been more affected by the preceding 2.5 years in China than I thought. For instance: if I were still sitting watching CCTV in Beijing, I would have taken it for granted if certain live dispatches from the US or Europe suddenly disappeared from the screen, because an interviewee had unexpectedly made a "sensitive" point.
But from within the US on this trip, I realize that it's actually quite incredible that Chinese broadcast authorities-- representing the world's most populous nation, the one whose relations with the U.S. will make a huge difference to the entire world's future, the country that presented itself to all other countries as a full, major, mature power with its Olympic games -- would pull the plug on live coverage of Barack Obama's inaugural address just because Obama began talking about the virtues of dissent.
Obama apparently also erred by mentioning America's struggle against
communism -- sensitive because, even though much of China seems more
openly market-minded than the United States, it is still officially
ruled by the Chinese Communist Party.
Account from Danwei.org here. My first reaction is, Jeeesh!! Can a big country really act in this tinhorn way? And my second reaction is the depressing realization that I would barely have noticed if I were still on scene.
More on the nuances of this shortly. In the meantime, this is connected to the phenomenon I discussed here. Also, read the comments on that Danwei site. (Plus this.) They bring it all back!
January 15, 2009
Year end pensees: more on security
OK, we're already 4% of the way into the new year of 2009. But there are still 10 or 11 days left in the current Chinese Year of the Earthen Rat, before we welcome the auspicious Year of the Golden Ox. So if I hurry I can get through my list of topics worthy of year end wrap-up. (Previously here, here, here and here.) This time, on security:
- Most important remaining symbolic change: getting rid of the abhorrently un-American, odiously Teutono/Soviet term "Homeland Security," and replacing it with something less Gestapo-sounding. Here is one suggestion: "Civil Security." The Integrative Center for [groan] Homeland Security at Texas A&M has a video on its site in which the director, David McIntyre, argues that "civil security" is both a better concept and a better name. Video is a little over seven minutes long, "civil society" discussion is in last minute and a half. Entire site worth inspecting.
- Latest evidence of the primacy of "security theater" over real security: this assessment of how many lives the U.S. can save and how much havoc it can prevent for each million dollars the TSA spends on air marshals -- versus using the money to harden cockpit doors or take other steps. About air marshals the study says:
An assessment of the Federal Air Marshal Service suggests that the annual cost is $180 million per life saved. This is greatly in excess of the regulatory safety goal of $1-$10 million per life saved. As such, the air marshal program would seem to fail a cost-benefit analysis.
More about TSA security theater on an ongoing basis from the Reason Foundation's Airport Policy and Security newsletter, from Bruce Schneier passim, and of course from the Atlantic's loci classici, here and here.
- Security theater takes a holiday in Beijing. Until just before the Olympics, there was no bag-check before you went into a subway station. Then airport-style bag-screening machines were installed at all the stations -- and six months later they are still there. They constitute an imperfect security shield, to put it mildly. Passengers themselves aren't checked at all, so you could get onto the subway with anything you wanted packed under a gigantic winter overcoat.(Picture below shows my standard Beijing winter attire, minus the mufflers, sweaters, big hat, long underwear, etc.)
Now, and heart-warmingly, the people running the system act as if they know it's just for show. Of the last 20 or so trips I've made on the subway, I've skipped putting my bag through the machine about half the times. Once it was because the security station was unattended; twice, because the person who was supposed to look at the x-ray screen was sleeping. The rest, because the attendants just waved me on or didn't give me a second glance. Everyone involved is acting as if this has become a nice public-employment project.
- My own personal act of (legal) Don't Tread on Me-ism, for when I move back to the US and resurrect my flying career. This article, by Dave Hirschman on the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) site, describes the change in the flying environment in Washington over these past seven years. Essentially it's become illegal for most anything except airliners or police helicopters to fly within about 30 miles of the capital - roughly as if cars and trucks could no longer operate anywhere in downtown DC. ( More here and here.) That's perfectly normal in China, where you practically never see flying craft except at big airports. For the US, it's a change. There is an exception, which involves going through Secret Service screening to obtain the right to fly as "close" to the seat of government as College Park, Maryland, whose very nice little historic airport is barely staying in business. As a little symbolic assertion of freedom, I'll go through the screening process when I get back.
(Further on pointless "security" measures involving small airplanes here, here, here, and here. For another time, full explanation of why these won't work.)
There is one more security theme that I'll also save for a separate post. It has to do with the potentially destructive and dangerous conception of "security" that President Bush harped on in his final press conference. Will try to do that while I can still refer to him as "the President" rather than "former President" GW Bush.
January 14, 2009
Will $6 billion solve the Chinese PR problem?
I've written several times, in this article and and this book and various posts like this and this, about the strange difficulty Chinese institutions face when dealing with the outside world. Individual Chinese people get along very well overseas, at least in my experience. But companies and public institutions often act as if they have no clue about how foreigners think, reason, or react. The twin symbols of this difficulty are signs and brochures rendered into an "English" no foreigner can make sense of, and the official agitprop statements, from "jackal in a Buddhist monk's robes" to "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people" that undermine rather than advance their intended cause.
My job is not to help Chinese organizations advance their intended causes. But it doesn't help anybody, as I argue in the book and article, if China's clumsy public diplomacy makes the country seem more menacing, opaque, hyper-controlled, and overall bad than it really is. For another time: how different the experience of living and traveling here is from what you'd expect by just reading about the place, and generally how much better.
Thus my fascination with the much examined news this week that the Chinese authorities plan to spend 45 billion RMB, or well over $6 billion, on a new effort to explain China to the world. The original stories were in the (non-government-controlled) South China Morning Post, of Hong Kong. They're for subscribers only, so I won't link to them. (By the way, for about $1 per week, a SCMP subscription is a bargain for people interested in China.) An account in the ZhongnanhaiBlog site has many details. It also has a bracing critique of the whole idea that money is the main cause of the government's difficulties in explaining itself. Cam MacMurchy of the ZhongnanhaiBlog says:
The problem isn't lack of TV channels or media outlets that present
China's case to foreigners, it's the lack of any media outlets that
present China's case well. If Xinhua's new TV endeavor is
run in the same manner CCTV is, with the same group of life-long
communist party members in bad suits calling the shots, it will be
doomed to failure. In fact, I'd go one step further: any mainland Chinese run media outlet will be taken less seriously as long as general media controls are in place.
The post also contains (rare) good news for English-speaking journalists: these Chinese media outlets are going on a hiring spree! At least someone is sure to benefit from this plan.
January 13, 2009
Penultimate words on 'Typhoon'
What have we learned from this episode? (Background, about the difficulty of tracking down a book with possibly "sensitive" anti-Chinese content, here and here.)
1. I argued earlier that the disappearance of a copy of this book in the Chinese mail was more likely inadvertence or error than anything else. That's my default explanation for most of what happens in life, and most of what happens in China. But I got this contrary testimony from an official of a large international manufacturing firm, who is based in Shenzhen:
As for the book Typhoon, I am almost positive it was the customs people who took it. I used to order books online from Hong Kong and shipped to me in Shenzhen. Sometimes the shipment never arrived even though the store assured me it was shipped. A few times they made another shipment that also never made it to me. The coincidence is the shipments were 'lost' any time a book with some type of negative China history or thought was being discussed (i.e a book written in the west about the Boxer Rebellion).
I think what happens is the customs people open the box, have basic English so understand a little about the book's topic, then decide it might be controversial and seize the shipment. Since they don't want any arguments they don't bother to notify anyone. Just <poof> and it's gone.
Could be! As with other kinds of Chinese control mechanisms, the uncertainty about what's happening makes the controls weirdly all the more effective. (For how this works with the Internet, here.)
2. Why this book, from this author? From Kevin Chambers, of the West Peavine blog, a hypothesis that it has to do with this article, by the book's author in the Guardian last year, about Chinese-Uighur tensions. I say: Maybe. Both this hypothesis and the previous one assume that Chinese customs officials are busily reading the English-language press and matching "sensitive" views to incoming shipments. But, again, it's possible.
3. About why some used books are on the market for prices from $75 to $247.87, this hypothesis from Tim Rossiter:
I've been listing used CDs on Amazon recently. I've found that there are some CDs that Amazon doesn't have in stock, yet are not rare by any means. If Amazon doesn't stock it and no one has listed a used one, someone will come along and list a used one for a ridiculous price to see if anyone bites. I think some of the larger used CD dealers may even have this kind of pricing automated.
My guess is that you're seeing the same type of thing with your book.
I've learned time and again over these last two and a half years in China not to rule out any explanation. Any or all of these theories could be true.
As advertised, these will be the penultimate words on the topic from me. For-real final words after I've actually read the book.
January 12, 2009
'Typhoon' mystery partly explained
Thanks to all who wrote in with suggestions about why the elusive book Typhoon had apparently vanished into a black hole rather than reaching me in China, and what I might do about that. Among the things I have learned in the last few hours are:
- It's on sale at the moment at the Hong Kong Book Centre on Des Voeux Road;
- It's will be available six weeks from now, as a £7.99* paperback, direct from Penguin Books in the UK;
- It can be found in various overpriced hardcover versions, and not-yet-available paperbacks, via this Bookfinder site (and some others);
- Amazon.de will have the German paperback edition late next month too (hardback out of stock);
- It's been selling well in hardcover at Filigranes, a leading bookstore in Brussels;
- Large-print and audio editions are available from this site in England, for £17.95 and up; and (in addition to other reports)...
- It's in stock, and cheaper than any of the alternative in-stock sources, from Amazon.ca in Canada, for the equivalent of $18.62 USD.
So what have we learned here? That it doesn't make sense to try to have books shipped to China (expensive and uncertain). That Amazon.ca is probably the way to go, unless I want to wait six weeks. And that -- while I am grateful for many offers from people to mule the thing in on their next visit to Beijing -- it makes most sense to order one and have it shipped from Canada to the US, then pick it up on my next trip not too long from now.
Also, a consensus hypothesis that the UK hardcover publishers sold more books than they expected; that they didn't have a further press run -- especially as paperback date drew near; and that they have been lethargic about producing a US edition. What I learned when working in the White House decades ago is that blunder, misunderstanding, or miscalculation is usually the explanation for things, as opposed to hyper-sophisticated secret plans. That's probably why this book is so hard to find, as opposed to a deliberate suppression scheme.
What's left to the realm of mystery: whether the book I originally ordered just got lost or was detained; why the publishers didn't try to sell more hardbacks after the initial batch sold out; and why on earth the used copies on Amazon are listed at $75 up to $247.87.
Most important mystery: whether after all this, the damned book will be any good. At least I can count on being able to answer this question at some point.
Sincere thanks to all who volunteered their tips, info, and help. ____ * Yes, since previous post on this topic have found the right symbols for Pound and Euro.
A marketing mystery I cannot understand
This is a small thing, but intriguing (to me) because of the various strands it potentially connects. Background:
This past June, I heard about a new spy thriller called Typhoon, by the well-established UK writer Charles Cumming. It was set in China, so I put it into my "here's another way to learn about the country" mental in-basket. Its fictional time frame was the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. Since that was the real-world time frame in which I then lived, it moved up on my mental "books I should read soon" list.
Better still, the plot apparently involved something I'd been reading and thinking about, and which was an important ongoing theme in internal Chinese news coverage: the possibility of separatist or disruptive activities by the Muslim Uighur population of China's far-northwestern Xinjiang region. The Chinese press portrayed this as the main "terrorist" threat to the Olympics, justifying tight security measures. In the novel, apparently the CIA was working with the Uighurs to stir things up. Hmmmm!
Could I buy this at a book store in Beijing? Not likely -- less for censorship reasons than because of the limited number of books that ever make their way here. So I checked online. I didn't find it from any of the normal US sources. But it was being published in England first, and Amazon.co.uk had it in stock.
I ordered a copy: 9.99 pounds for the book, 7.98 pounds for postage, and that when the pound was worth about $2. Part of the cost of expatriation. Order confirmed, book shipped to Beijing. And then... it never arrived.
Amazon.uk said it had indeed sent the book. The Royal Mail tracing service seemed to confirm that fact. Yet on the Chinese end, nothing got here. Hmmm again. But this is not so unusual with mail in and out of China. Things just get lost
Amazon.uk issued a full refund. Gracious of them. And I thought, I'll get this the next time I travel to the outside world.
So I went to America that autumn -- and still didn't find the book in any US stores or sites. Had no trips planned to England, so didn't try to pick it up there. For family reasons, kept going back to the US every few weeks. Kept checking. Never saw it.
Today I thought: let's find this book! And now I see it in stock on the Amazon.uk site for 42 pounds (ok, 41.99) and two copies on the main US Amazon site for either $75 or $247.87. What the hell???
I'm almost curious enough to buy the book at these inflated prices to get a clue about what is going on. Almost. But I can't help wondering why this book's marketing history is so odd.
Why, despite generally positive comments and reviews, has it seemingly vanished from circulation? Why, unlike numerous other books by the same author, did it never successfully cross the Atlantic to be published in the US? Why on earth are re-sellers now offering it for 4x to 10x its original price? None of this makes apparent sense.
I am very skeptical that mailroom censors would have kept the book from reaching me in Beijing. Far more obviously "sensitive" printed matter - in English - comes into the country every day. I had been reading the highly controversial Jon Halliday-Jung Chang Mao biography on one interminable Newark-Beijing flight. I absentmindedly kept it in my hand as I walked through the customs and immigration gates in Beijing. No one gave it a second glance. (General point: the authorities don't really care what non-Chinese citizens are reading in languages other than Chinese. More here.) Casual screwup is the more likely explanation.
But the book's fate in the English-language markets is puzzling to me. Has it been, in some way, suppressed? Did US or UK officials somehow signal that it would make trouble if left on the market? That's hard to imagine, but other explanations seem farfetched too. If anyone has the book and can offer a hypothesis, I'd be glad to hear it. And I'll buy it from you on my next trip home, for something less than $247.87.
January 7, 2009
I thought it got easier to breathe back there in August!
As attentive readers may recall, the air in Beijing through the six months before the Olympic games was almost unbelievably horrible. Lest we forget: this was the view out my window in mid-June, which was not that different from how it had been day upon day through the spring and early summer.
But even as I was wheezing my way around town and truly getting depressed by no view of sun and sky (and being told by a doctor that I should stop smoking, when I'd never started), I was reporting in the Atlantic on plans to get things cleaned up by the time of the Olympics. The first two days of the Games looked pretty bleak -- but then a line of thunderstorms moved through, and the air looked far better, and the environmental threat to the Games was averted.
Since then, the air in Beijing has seemed better -- not all of the time, God knows, but more than before. How much of the improvement is due to factories being shut down because of the recession? (They must have been running 40 hours a day in the spring, given how bad things were then.) How much because of typically strong late-fall winds blowing in from the northwest? How much an actual long-term change? I don't know.
But, courtesy of a tip from an engineer at NASA, here is new evidence that all the anti-pollution steps taken because of the Olympics really did make a difference in air-quality measures in August -- and, it seems, some of the time since then.
The NASA map below will make more sense if you read the full report, here. Highlight version: the deep red west of Shanghai and north of Hong Kong (where Shenzhen and Dongguan are), plus through the central coal-and-factory belt in places like Shanxi province, is a bad sign. The light green around Beijing is relatively good! (The red zone on the coast just east of Beijing is the city of Tianjin.)
As the NASA report says of Beijing's special Olympic anti-pollution rules:
During the two months when restrictions were in place, the levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) -- a noxious gas resulting from fossil fuel combustion (primarily in cars, trucks, and power plants) -- plunged nearly 50 percent. Likewise, levels of carbon monoxide (CO) fell about 20 percent.
Why does this matter? Because it shows that corrective steps can improve even the most hopeless-seeming environmental disasters.
It's worth trying to do something, rather than just hunkering down in bed and trying to
take very, very shallow breaths -- my strategy in the months from April
to July.
In other words, Yes We Can.
January 6, 2009
Brief media notes
For the record:
Interview about Chinese economy and my new Postcards book, Saturday All Things Considered, here.
Excerpt from the book in the indispensable Danwei.org, here.
Fresh Air interview, recorded in the unconscious 3am zone in Beijing, scheduled for broadcast today, link as available.
It is 4am in Beijing as I type. For good and sufficient reason*, I had to be at a radio studio downtown from 2:30 to 3:30am. When that session was over I went out on the street to find a cab. It is so, umm, crisp in Beijing that I went out with knit cap pulled down practically to my eyebrows, muffler wrapped from my neck up to bottom of my eyes, plus assorted huge overcoats, gloves, thermal underwear, etc. Speak to me not of the joys of winter.
Find a taxi; climb into the front seat, the comradely thing to do in Australia and China alike. Pull off my knit cap and undo the muffler. Driver turns to me, starts to chuckle, and gives a little salute.
No, this is not the Obama-honoring salute I encountered so recently in (balmy) Indonesia. No, not at all. Zongtong Bushi! "President Bush!" Hardee har har. As mentioned previously, to most citizens of China I am apparently indistinguishable from Xiao Bushi, "Little Bush." I do not reply, "Chairman Mao!" or "President Hu!"
Instead I collect myself and make a pun: Wo bushi Bushi! I'm not Bush! It does no good. He salutes again as I get out of the cab.
Somehow I hope this is good for the soul. _____ * Taping of Fresh Air interview, presumably for broadcast on Tuesday.
UPDATE: Via Tim Dorsett, a reminder that he more likely was saying Bushi zongtong, Bushi zongtong, Bushi zongtong than the opposite word order. But when he said them over and over, I could hear it either way!
Tibetan glaciers: impressive videos
The most obvious environmental problem in China is air pollution, as I have from time to time -- OK, maybe five million times -- mentioned in this space. But environmental experts consistently stress that the most consequential problems are the related issues of CO2 output, climate change, and water supply. (On Chinese environmental issues in general, here is one article by me and one very valuable blog site.)
The Asia Society's "China Green" project has just posted a riveting and sobering series of videos on how climate change is affecting the once-vast glacier fields of the Tibetan Plateau that are in turn the source of nearly all the major rivers of Asia: Yellow and Yangtze in China, Mekong and Salween in Southeast Asia, Brahmaputra and Ganges in India, Indus in Pakistan, and others. This is an introductory three-minute trailer:
There is a lot more, and a lot that's more dramatic, at the project's main site, here. I recommend spending a minute with the interactive opening-page splash shot, which allows you to run your mouse over a photo of Mt. Everest and watch how its surrounding glaciers have changed from 1921 to 2008.
This past August, during the Beijing Olympics, Michael Zhao of the Asia Society posted a wonderful series of daily shots of air-quality conditions in Beijing in the months leading up to the Games. They showed, among other things, the minimal correlation between what was officially a "blue sky day" and how the sky really looked. (The photo-chronicle is ongoing.) Zhao has also put together the Glacier project and really is demonstrating the potential of online video to dramatize public issues everyone "knows about" but has a hard time visualizing. Making these issues vivid is a necessary though not sufficient step to getting something done about them.
UPDATE: Have swapped a version with English subtitles for the previous Chinese-subtitled trailer. Ever considerate!
December 31, 2008
Year-end pensee series: charity
Like many other people who pay taxes in the US, I am using some of the waning hours of the year to think what worthwhile causes I should be sure to remember (ie, give money to) during the 2008 Tax Year.
There are more candidates than anyone could cover, but here is a note about one that has been important to my wife and me. Several months ago I wrote an article about the Yellow Sheep River/"West China Story" project, which is designed to help poor rural children in China's arid, remote western regions, especially the girls, earn the money they need to stay in school and have a chance to escape the impoverishment to which they would otherwise be fated. For $130 a year, donors can cover one student's expenses for the year -- and in return the students must write regular accounts of the lives, their families, their studies, and their dreams on web sites their schools create.
My wife and I have met students like those our donations have supported, and everything about the project makes us respectful of what it is trying to do. (The kids below are ethnic Tibetans, at a school in Gansu province.)
I mention this now in part to remind people of one more deserving cause (and of the fact that, even during the hard times now besetting the US and the world, there are people for whom $130 will make a bigger difference than it does to most Americans). But also I wanted to mention one quirk of the online contribution process for this fund.
If you log onto the English language donation site for West China Story, you'll see a notice that contributions from US taxpayers will be tax-deductible only if handled by Give2Asia.org, which in return takes a 9.85% cut. That seemed punitive enough to stop me for a minute, and make me consider just continuing contributions in non-tax-deductible Chinese RMB cash when I'm back in Beijing. But on examination. Give2Asia appears not to be some usurious counterpart to payday check-cashing leeches but instead an operation run by the Asia Foundation to manage contributions to small organizations in Asia. Its existence is one of many illustrations of how complicated it can be to manage efforts, including charitable ones, across national borders.
In the long run, I hope this middleman cut can be avoided. But as 2008 draws to an end, I willingly used the service to support another cohort of students. This cause may not mean as much to your family as it does to mine, but perhaps it will make you think of similar efforts closer to your own heart.
December 30, 2008
Selamat Tahun Baru!
Or Happy New Year, as they put it in the Indonesian language I have been hearing around me for the past week. That week has coincided with enforced separation from the mighty Internet -- not a bad way to spend time with one's family! -- which in turn leaves me behind on various year-end updates still to come.
But I can't let this day pass, nor this moment of online connection, without mentioning that my new book Postcards from Tomorrow Square goes on sale today, with official pub date early next month. Random House's catalog listings here. Random House's e-book format is here, and Amazon's Kindle format is here. A very nice set of quotes, for which I'm grateful, here.
I won't make a habit of book promo, but I include this link to an email Q-and-A that Kate Merkel-Hess, of the influential blog The China Beat, conducted with me about the book and the general process of writing about China. She evoked from me an admission I'd long managed to avoid:
Ahah! You have cruelly revealed the trademarked secret of everything I've ever written for the magazine!
Further details and secrets at the China Beat site. Further promised year-end updates on software, hardware, the press, and China in this space very soon. New Year's greetings for now.
December 22, 2008
Oh, never mind (NYT.com blackout dept)
NYTimes.com is working fine for me once more, and I hear from friends in varied corners of China that it's up and running across the country, after three or four days of (apparent) nationwide blackout. Background here and here, with links to other stories. Who can explain. As I mentioned earlier, it's the miracle and mystery of Christmas.
December 21, 2008
Atlantic readers: once again ahead of the news!
Thomas Friedman tells us in his column today about the art village of Dafen, and how it has been affected by the housing collapse in the US:
I had no idea that many of those oil paintings
that hang in hotel rooms and starter homes across America are actually produced
by just one Chinese village, Dafen, north of Hong Kong. And I had no idea that
Dafen's artist colony -- the world's leading center for mass-produced artwork
and knockoffs of masterpieces -- had been devastated by the bursting of the U.S.
housing bubble. I should have, though.
True to the Atlantic's motto -- "this year's news, last year!" -- our own readers knew all about Dafen exactly 12 months ago, for example here, here, and here, plus a very good Feb, 2007 Chicago Tribune story by Evan Osnos here. The "village," by the way, would be considered a real city any place but China. Here is one of my favorite artists there, responsible for much of the varied work around him (many more pics at the links above):
No larger point here, just glad to see Dafen make the big time. It's also an interesting counterpoint to Adam Minter's recent observations about the changing ecology of the news.
Last words on NYT.com block in China
With apologies in advance for the self-referential quality* of what I'm about to say, I recommend this recent entry by fellow Atlantic Monthly contributor Adam Minter on his ShanghaiScrap blog. He makes a point that is obvious once you think about it, but which I hadn't seen laid out quite this clearly anywhere else:
The point is that a nationwide firewall-block on the NYTimes.com site, if that is indeed what's happening, is not simply questionable as a PR strategy for the Chinese government. It also emphasizes how much the information ecology has changed.
The NYT is, in my view, indispensable as a source of reported news around the world. One of the big and really alarming trends of 2008 is the hugely-accelerating economic pressure on organizations like the NYT that support reporting rather than pure opinionizing. But as Minter details, blocking this flagship site means a lot less than it used to -- and a lot less than the censoring authorities may assume -- no matter how good a job the NYT's team is doing, because of the rise of reported blogs:
What's curious to me - in fact, what's astounding to me - is that the
Chinese authorities either haven't picked up on this phenomenon, or
they don't care. Instead, they are doing what Chinese officials always
do: focusing their attention on the entity with the most prestige.
Quite honestly, I think most Chinese officials would have a hard time
believing that the rather rag-tag unwashed mass of (for the most part)
young, male, poorly compensated bloggers could actually drive news
coverage.
* The self-referential part is that Adam Minter originally sent this as an email to me, which I encouraged him to spread more generally. I hope you agree that it's worth reading.
December 20, 2008
NYTimes.com in China: Sunday morning update
1) For me, back in Beijing, the main NYT site is fully blocked, if I'm using the plain Chinese internet without a VPN or other burnishment.
2) Anyone who really wants to can find what's on that site -- with a VPN, by going through the International Herald Tribune site, by trying mobile.nytimes.com from a hand-held device, or with one of the tech workarounds mentioned here yesterday.
3) Without the relatively fast, informal-but-informative polling made possible by the internet, it would have been harder to establish that this was happening all over the vast country all at once. So thanks for writing in.
INTELLECTUAL RIGOR BONUS POINT 3A) As a matter of logic, one cannot be absolutely certain that this is a purposeful, country-wide blackout. Conceivably there is some other technological or accidental explanation. I consider this extremely unlikely, given: that the same computer that won't load the pages while using a normal connection loads them instantly when a VPN is turned on; that the pattern is reported in every corner of the country, from Urumqi to Dalian to Zhuhai and points in between; and that it involves a site about which the government has complained before and that has recently carried some sensitive items. But logically, we cannot exclude the possibility that it's all an accident.
4) While the porous nature of the current NYT block is consistent with past Great Firewall practice, the motivation for this episode remains unclear at the tactical level and puzzling at the strategic. I won't review the tactical possibilities, some of which were mentioned earlier. The real question concerns the strategy.
As i argued last month in the Atlantic, China's official PR machinery often succeeds mainly in making the country seem far more closed-off, impenetrable, defensive, and difficult to deal with than it actually is most places most of the time. By that logic, what exactly will China gain through this episode? The vast majority of Chinese net users would never look at NYTimes.com anyway -- it's in the wrong language. Those who really want to see what's on there can find a way to do so, despite the block. And how confident, open-minded, rules-abiding, modern and so on will the episode make the Chinese government look in other countries' eyes? Governments everywhere are annoyed by the press, but a mark of being in the big leagues is viewing press criticism as a necessary annoyance. This just is strange.
December 19, 2008
Tech followups on NYTimes.com blockage in China (updated)
On December 19, the NYTimes.com site was apparently blocked all across China. For the sake of completeness, these followups.
1) Could the problem be related to a recent physical break in three of the four main internet cables connecting Asia to North America? (As reported here and elsewhere.) Maybe -- but at face value that wouldn't seem to explain why the NYTimes.com site loads at normal speeds when you're using a VPN but times-out when you try it through the plain, old, Great Firewall-screened Chinese internet. It also wouldn't explain why most other international sites seem to behave normally.
When the main undersea cable off Taiwan was cut in an earthquake nearly two years ago, you knew it immediately. Internet traffic in most parts of Asia was either interrupted altogether or brought to 300-baud dialup modem speeds. But maybe this recent break somehow contributes to the NYT problem?
2) After the jump, tech details on an important point I didn't mention: Consistent with hit-or-miss, far-from-airtight nature of Great Firewall censorship, even when the site www.nytimes.com is blocked, http://nytimes.com is not. Go figure. Also, various mobile web devices seem to be able to reach any site they want.
3) I mentioned yesterday that exactly one person, from Guangdong province, had written to say that he could reach the NYT site with no problem. I heard from him again just now. Today his connection is blocked. The change in my situation is the reverse. I started having NYT problems last night -- but at the moment, it's working fine, even with the VPN turned off. It's the mystery and miracle of Christmas. Tech details below.
UPDATE: From a friend who knows the nuances of high-level Communist Party maneuvering far better than I do, this hypothesis about what's going on:
I suspect that while the reason behind this blocking is not yet clear, the process--and thereby the motivation--might be a bit less obscure. That is, given that consensus drives policy decisions here, it is very likely that different parts of the bureaucracy weighed in and officials each had a gripe with the NYT coverage of some or another issue. Collectively, they were able to push through a directive to block it.
The people here overseeing foreign journalists also know that there will soon be a new contingent manning the desks of the NYT bureau here. Those officials want to send a clear signal that they expect more positive ("objective") coverage of China.
I suppose all will be revealed in due time. Or maybe never. _______
Poll results are: NYTimes.com is being blocked throughout China (updated)
There seems to be no question: the New York Times web site is being firewalled right now all across China.
Exactly one person wrote me, from Shunde in Guangdong province, to say that he had no problem getting to www.nytimes.com and following links from the main page.
A second person wrote, from Beijing, to say that his connection was also working - and then wrote back a few minutes later to say, sorry, he forget he had the VPN turned on. Without the VPN, the site was blocked.
All the other replies (of slightly over 100) reported either that the home page wouldn't load at all, or that it loaded but that all of the links were blocked. As explained earlier, both of these are typical of the way the Great Firewall operates.
I got "blocked-connection" reports from people in the far west, in Urumqi; in the south, from Zhuhai and Shenzhen and Dongguan and Guangzhou; from the north and northeast, in Shenyang and Dalian and Changchun; and from all the other big cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan, Chengdu, Xian, Qingdao, Nanjing, Changsha, Hangzhou, Suzhou) and a bunch of smaller ones like Baoding and Ya'an.
Hypotheses:
Is the site blocked because of this big story today by Jim Yardley, about the economic perils China faces after 30 years of growth? Maybe .... but I have heard far worse prospects routinely discussed here at conferences, on Chinese TV shows, and by Chinese government officials in recent weeks. So that doesn't seem to make sense.
Is it blocked because of this story, by Edward Wong, reporting on the death sentences issued for two Uighurs convicted of killing 17 people in an attack on a police/military station in the far nothwestern town of Kashgar just before the Olympics? This could well be the problem. The threat of separatism in the mainly-Muslim northwestern Xinjiang region is an extremely sensitive topic in China. As Wong points out, his story carries several details of the action that differ from official Chinese government accounts.
Or is it blocked because of this unbelievably fatuous passage in yesterday's column by David Brooks: "Chinese people work hard because they grew up in a culture built around
rice farming. Tending a rice paddy required working up to 3,000 hours a
year, and it left a cultural legacy that prizes industriousness." Yes, culture matters; and yes, the structure of Chinese education, family patterns, and still-dominant agricultural life makes a difference in how people behave (not to mention the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, the years under Mao, the one-child policy, and so on). But to write something like that with a straight face suggests that one has never seen actual Chinese people at work (or ostentatiously not working) or thought about how many factors account for the wild variations in work ethic, purposefulness, scholastic aptitude, basic honesty, devotion to duty, etc among people who all supposedly share the rice paddy legacy. I would give some credit to the Chinese firewall minders if exasperation with this sort of talk were the reason for the shutdown. In fairness to Brooks, in the column he might have just been paraphrasing an argument by Malcolm Gladwell.
Or is it being blocked for some other reason?
I don't know. But this is a more heavy-handed step than I remember seeing in the past two and a half years.
Anyone who really wants to, can get around this barrier. Via proxy server or VPN; by going to the International Herald Tribune's site, which carries many of the same stories but is not blocked; through other news aggregators; by just waiting for the policy to change. But something is going on. (And, as also explained in the earlier Great Firewall article, the goal of interfering with the internet is not to make the barrier air-tight. It's simply to make finding unauthorized information enough of a nuisance that most Chinese people won't bother.)
I'm left with one other mystery: why my own connection in
Beijing has been working just fine, even when I don't use the VPN. Hmmmm. UPDATE: Mystery solved. As of midnight Friday China time, now I can't reach NYTimes.com without a VPN either. The home page loads but all the links time out. I am one with the masses!
Thanks to all who answered.
Poll will close on NYT.com China survey at 9pm China time
Strong pattern emerging in the reports; will tabulate and announce results shortly after 9pm China time December 19, 8am Eastern Standard Time for the US. Survey instructions here.
Poll among readers in China: is NYTimes.com now blocked?
Even without using my VPN, I've had no trouble reaching NYTimes.com or similar Western news sites in recent days from Shenzhen or Beijing. And that's from my same old apartment-house ISP in Beijing that is subject to all the standard Great Firewall strictures. (For chapter and verse on how the Great Firewall works, go here.)
But today I heard from one reader in Chengdu, another in a different part of Beijing, and another in Guangzhou that they were suddenly not able to reach the NYT site. Very few things in China happen in a consistent, everywhere-at-once way. But I am curious about whether something larger is underway.
If you're within Chinese territory could you try NYTimes.com without using a proxy or VPN and see whether you can get through? If you send me a note, via the "email me" feature on this site, and tell me what city you're in and whether you got through, I'll post the accumulated results when there are enough to show some pattern. All I'm looking for is: "Xian, YES" if you CAN get through, or "Shenyang, NO" if you can't. I won't reply to those messages but will tally them up and report later. Thanks!
UPDATE: I have already heard from several people that the main page of the NYT comes up but the links are disabled. (This is consistent with one of the patterns of GFW blocking I mentioned in an article on the topic.) So could you click a link, too, to see if it works? I have gotten a lot more "NO" replies, indicating problems, than YESes so far.
December 18, 2008
One more, then giving this topic a rest
New-looking part of the Shenzhen International Airport, over a door that would lead people into a staff-only zone. Yesterday.
Literally, the Chinese could be rendered as: "Traveler, halt!" Or, to sound less Teutonic, "Travelers, stop!" But if you'd asked a native speaker you'd probably just end up with the simple "No entry."
My reaction to this and innumerable similar signs in China has become sympathy rather than anything else (frustration, mirth, etc). All the fiddling with computerized translation programs, all the paging through English textbooks, all of whatever other effort came up with "The traveler halts," for a result whose oddities could so easily have been avoided. Oh well. The airport itself is nice. Other topics shortly.
December 16, 2008
Amazing slop (updated)
I'm on record as thinking it Colonel Blimpish for native speakers of English to make fun of other people's mistakes in our language -- above all when we're doing it on their soil, and when our command of their language is less than total. Odds are any college-educated Chinese person I meet will be much better in English than I am in Chinese. After all, English was one of their mandatory subjects through school and in their college-entrance exams. Not quite the same for me with Chinese. (But let's try some French! Or Latin! Or Esperanto! Or Japanese!) So not once in talking with such a person have I been other than grateful for such English as they know.
On the other hand, I repeatedly marvel at the blitheness with which Chinese organizations put things in English designed for foreign readers without having even a minimally-literate native speaker give it a quick look. (Background again here and more broadly here.)
Today's case study: promotional map, conveniently in English for foreign investors and tourists, which I just received from a fancy Chinese resort I won't otherwise identify:
Sigh. My kingdom for an "e."
Update: George Bradt of Shanghai reports that the city's hockey rink has ramp marked "Sloppy Passage," for the convenience of wheelchair-bound patrons. Update #2: Via Micah Sittig, photo of the ramp, with its full name "Disabled Sloppy Passage," here.
December 15, 2008
Every day brings a surprise
You may have read that the Chinese company BYD made big news today in unveiling the first plug-in electric car, ahead of Japanese and US competitors.
More on the substance of that another day.
You may not have imagined how the presentation began, this morning in Shenzhen. Life is interesting. (Click for larger.) The US lounge-singer industry may need to start looking over its shoulder at China, along with the automakers.
The performers in a pensive moment:
December 12, 2008
Festival of followups
1) About today's Beijing haze (previously here). Part of it was cloud! The blear lifted slightly later in the day. Still, it strained common conceptions of a "blue sky" day.
2) About those bogus Sarkozy posters (previously here), still taken at face value in many parts of American blog land. I mentioned, thanks to a tip, one clue that they were fake: what they said in French. Reader William Vambenepe pointed out another: what they said in English!
Under French law, foreign phrases in such ads must have a French translation. Thus the absence of Oui, nous pouvons! under "Yes we can!" might have been a hint that they were not authorized posters from the president of the Republic.
3) About adventures in Chinese mis-translation into English (too many previous mentions to list). Thanks to the many, many readers who passed along this example of a translation mishap going the other way. It's the now-notorious case of the Max Planck Forschung in Germany using the text of an ad from a south-China strip club to illustrate the cover of a special issue on China. Embarrassing!
... that Beijing had a record-high number of "blue sky" days in 2008, including a long stretch during and after the Olympics when the air really was marvelously clear and clean.
The bad news is that today counts as one of the "blue sky" days, since the pollution index is 96, just below the blue-sky cutoff of 100. Ten am, December 12, 2008:
Maybe it's just fog. And, I can see the sun:
For the big-picture perspective on serious Chinese efforts to improve the situation, please see here.
Subversive pandas are back
When last seen, two months ago, the ambiguously subversive pandas of Sichuan Province's tourism-promotion campaign were talking about.... something, as a way of encouraging Chinese travelers to come see them in their western homeland.
Discussion of what "More Freedom, More Happiness" might and might not mean here and here.
In the last two or three days, the Tourist Promotion Pandas of Sichuan have come back -- I've seen four or five different posters in subway stations. All similar in look and typeface, different in slogan. Only this evening did I have a camera on hand to record one of them. The message this time (Jianguomen station) is more straightforward -- and, according to me, is just about the same in English and Chinese. But the panda on the bottom right still has that strange, unreadable, possibly-menacing expression as in the original poster.
It's been a very long and very cold day. More in the future on other poster pandas -- and probably tomorrow on the startling development of China showing a surge in its trade surplus just as all of its customer-economies are collapsing.
Last word anyone ever need speak on 'hurt feelings'
This hilarious analysis and map, courtesy of Danwei.org, of the times and places when the "feelings of the Chinese people" have been hurt. (Background here and here.)
Danwei's map of the offending countries, marked in black. For explanation, see the post.
December 10, 2008
Beijing Metro
Recently I took my 200th trip on the Beijing Metro. I know because I used up the fourth 100RMB charge on my Metro card, below. (Rides are for now 2RMB apiece, about 28 cents, regardless of distance.) Actually, the 200th ride since the metro finished its switch from paper tickets to magnetic cards early this year.
The card, like its owner, is beginning to show the wear and tear of life in the big city. That's its peeling-off plastic covering in the upper right corner. But, having complained every now and then about certain imperfections of urban life in Beijing, let me take this opportunity to remark on what a miraculous change the rapidly-expanding metro has wrought in a very short time.
As recently as the middle of last year, the subway system didn't go many places -- and could be ferociously crowded when it went there. (I am thinking mainly of Line 1 at rush hour, as locals will know.) Here's how the route system looked when we arrived:
The map below shows the working system as of now -- the interesting detail being that lines 5, 8, and 10 have come into operation on our (brief) watch here in Beijing. They are the magenta, green, and light blue lines, respectively. (Also, the "airport express," the diagonal red line heading to the northeast.) Line 10 in particular is nothing less than a godsend. My wife and I live in the "Central Business District" at the Guomao intersection, right at the place where the horizontal red line crosses the vertical light-blue line on the map above. Before line 10 opened in July, getting to two other main parts of town I visit many times per week -- the "Kempinski"/Sanlitun/Gongti area two miles or so straight north, and the university/high-tech "Haidian" district several miles to the northwest -- could be done only by driving (bus or taxi), and through traffic so unpredictably horrible that you had to allow an hour or two if you wanted to be there on time. Now the Kempinski-etc area is a few quick stops north on Line 10, and the far northwest Peking U /Tsinghua U /Google/ Microsoft areas involve just one change of subway lines. That still takes 45 minutes -- but it's dependable, and you're not sitting in a taxi worrying.
And more is underway. Here is the route plan for three-plus years from now, with a lot of cross-town and zig-zag routes that will make a huge difference in land travel:
What's my point? First, recognizing something good that's happened in a city about which I and many others often complain. And second: Wonder if infrastructure and public-transport improvements can make a difference in basic livability? Yes they can.
More on "hurt feelings"
I mentioned recently that I'd had developed a perverse alertness to the phrase "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people." For me, hearing it is like letting scalding hot water run over a poison ivy rash. It is painful and yet somehow.... satisfying.
The Shanghai-based author and consultant Paul French, who has been here much longer and heard the phrase much more often than I have, sends a note putting it in practical and historical context:
For me that has always acted as a full stop in a conversation or negotiation. When the other side says that to do something (concede invariably) would hurt the feelings of the Chinese people (i.e. building that supermarket and refusing to pay as much as I want you to for the land would hurt the feelings of the Chinese people) it's a way of saying - thus far and no further.... That phrase really is the point at which no more negotiation is possible. I can't think of an equivalent phrase in English or American/European business-political etiquette.
But you got me wondering if the hurting of feelings predated 1949. Seems not - can't find it anywhere in KMT pronouncements nor did Sun Yat Sen use the phrase in 1911 or the students during May 4th 1919. Indeed this week is the anniversary of China declaring war on Japan, Germany and Italy in 1941 and their formal declaration of war on the Axis was quite well written actually - http://chinarhyming.blogspot.com/ -- and no talk of hurt feelings.
Offered gratis, to PhD candidates in search of a worthy topic: the linguistic, historical, ideological, and cultural aspects of the emergence of "hurting the feelings" as a major theme in international relations. Just give French, and me, a line in the Acknowledgments.
December 9, 2008
I guess it wasn't all cloud
I mentioned yesterday that, after a spell of very cold and very clear days in Beijing, the ferociously cleansing wind from the northwest had abated and the dark laden air had returned, held in place by an inversion layer. As a reminder, the view out my window yesterday at 10am:
I rounded off the post with a chipper hope that all I was seeing was cloud.
Apparently not.
Thanks to Michael Standaert's China Notebook report, with a link to this official daily Chinese government pollution-reading site, the air pollut
Lilley, who was born in Qingdao and mainly lived in China until age 12, was a very important figure in the modern US-China rapprochement. He was a career CIA agent who served as CIA station chief in Beijing during George H. W. Bush's time as chief of mission there (before the US and China established formal relations). He is the only person to have been ambassador both to the Republic of China on Taiwan and to the People's Republic, in Beijing, which is a convenient shorthand for his maintaining a long-term balance between the positive and the negative aspects of relations between the US and China. He kept working to expand the positive and cooperative potential between the countries, without forgetting or suppressing the areas in which they disagree. This was most notable after the Tiananmen crackdowns 20 years ago, when he was on duty as ambassador in Beijing and forcefully criticized the repression (and offered protection to the dissident physicist 
Literally, the Chinese could be rendered as: "Traveler, halt!" Or, to sound less Teutonic, "Travelers, stop!" But if you'd asked a native speaker you'd probably just end up with the simple "No entry." 
