Category: Older News Comments

What Chinese are talking about … fake news

You know that China is increasing pressure on every state it can bully.  The bullying is easiest when the victim state has a substantial share of its GDP connected to China, whether as exports or as Chinese FDI coming in.  Now come fake news stories published in China, quoting New Zealand politicians approving of Chinese policies on the Belt and Road initiative.  New Zealand is in a tough spot. 
 
It is one of the “five eyes” countries, those English speaking countries that share some cultural backgrounds and concepts of law and government.  Others are the US, England, Canada, and Australia.  These five share intelligence efforts in some detail.  The US agencies involved include the FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA).  Security issues – now, the Huawei 5G business, and related Chinese hacking and theft – are top priorities among the five eyes countries.  Even more than Australia, New Zealand is a western country in Asia. 
 
New Zealand is isolated.  It is more than 1300 miles from Sydney to Auckland and it cannot develop much stronger markets for agricultural goods elsewhere in the world.  China is its largest trading partner, followed by Australia.  Agricultural exports are about 27% of GDP, and food exports are about half of that. New Zealand signed a free trade agreement with China in 2008.
 
A good example of the position in which New Zealand finds itself is the relative lack of police response to the attacks on the home and office of Anne Marie Brady, a scholar at the University of Canterbury, who has written in detail about the means by which China is infecting media and politics and public opinion outside China.  I wrote about these attacks in two places in the last couple of months. It is suspected that the intruders, who have also left threatening phone messages, are some local version of chengguan, the Chinese hired thugs who terrorize street vendors, old ladies who don’t want to leave their homes in the way of demolition, and anyone in the way of growth and development.  A substantial contingent of chengguan were responsible for watching Chen Guangcheng for years before he escaped in 2012.   New Zealand police have found no evidence, it seems, and do not seem too alarmed by the attacks.  There seems no doubt that these despicable attacks are politically motivated.  Brady’s recent article is Magic Weapons: China’s political influence activities under Xi Jinping. 
 
What is New Zealand to do? 
 
 
4. Chinese pressure on New Zealand increasing
Fake OpEd on People’s Daily English site by former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley – Foreign Minister Winston Peters slams former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley after China Daily article appears – NZ Herald:
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has launched a stinging attack on former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley after an article appeared in China’s “People’s Daily” under her byline complimenting China on its reforms and the Belt and Road Initiative.
But Shipley did not write the piece, which appears under the Online opinion section. It is headlined “We need to listen to China” and carries Dame Jenny’s byline and on Tuesday night was the fourth best read piece on the website.
She was interviewed by the state-run newspaper in December for a feature article which has run already and was surprised to learn a new piece had been published under her name.

Some economic development issues are similar around the world.   An American local government, faced with declining tax base, ageing population, loss of markets, and little ability to change the course of history is faced with  tough choices.  New Zealand is in a similar spot, with respect to China and the English-speaking west.   But American local governments usually don’t have to deal with fake news stories planted by enemies in the town next door.

Url for the New Zealand Herald article –

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12205347&ref=clavis

Huawei – Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas

You know the meme – when you work with bad guys, you should expect to be labeled a bad guy. I mean no disrespect to the thousands of Chinese companies doing business across the world that manage to be profitable without intimate Chinese government relations.  But in our globalized, internet era, it is impossible for a high tech company, particularly one as fundamentally important to internet networks, to not be tarnished with the specter of theft of intellectual property and CCP internet control and monitoring of Chinese businesspeople, students, even foreigners.

Probably no one outside a small group of analysts has the actual evidence of real dirt on Huawei.  But that is the risk of being a national champion in China.  If the government is promoting you, then there must be a government interest in promoting you, beyond just “go team.”  This is simply Chinese practical reasoning.

But it seems that lying down with dogs is more than just a saying here.  In his extraordinary Sinocism news blog, Bill Bishop continues the Huawei stories.  From the February 9 edition, with no repetition in the stories (all should be clickable) –

1.  Huawei’s bad start to the Year of the Pig

Trump likely to sign executive order banning Chinese telecom equipment next week – POLITICO:

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order, banning Chinese telecom equipment from U.S. wireless networks before a major industry conference at the end of February, three sources told POLITICO.

The administration plans to release the directive, part of its broader effort to protect the U.S. from cyber threats, before MWC Barcelona, formerly known as Mobile World Congress, which takes place Feb. 25 to Feb. 28.

Mobile network operator’s body GSMA considers crisis meeting over Huawei | Reuters:

Mobile communications industry body GSMA has proposed its members discuss the possibility that Chinese network vendor Huawei [HWT.UL] is excluded from key markets, amid concerns such a development could set operators back by years…

GSMA Director General Mats Granryd has written to members proposing to put the debate around Huawei onto the agenda of its next board meeting, a spokesman for the federation told Reuters on Saturday.

The meeting will be held in late February on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress, the industry’s biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona.

Trump envoy urges Europe to ‘link arms’ against China – POLITICO:

Describing China’s influence as “malign,” Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, told POLITICO that his country and the EU should overcome their current trade tensions and join forces against the Chinese.

“We should … combine our mutual energies — we have a $40 trillion combined GDP, there is nothing on the planet that is more powerful than that — to meet China and check China in multiple respects: economically, from an intelligence standpoint, militarily,” he said in an interview.

“That’s where the EU and U.S. really should be linking arms,” Sondland continued, advocating for “a quick resolution that would move our trade relationship in the right direction so that we can both turn toward China, which is really the future problem in multiple respects.”

Huawei Deals for Tech Will Have Consequences, U.S. Warns EU – Bloomberg:

“There are no compelling reasons that I can see to do business with the Chinese, so long as they have the structure in place to reach in and manipulate or spy on their customers,” Ambassador Gordon Sondland, Trump’s envoy in Brussels, said Thursday in an interview. “Those who are charging ahead blindly and embracing the Chinese technology without regard to these concerns may find themselves in a disadvantage in dealing with us.”

Huawei representative rebukes US ambassador’s accusation, defends integrity and safety – China Daily:

“Recently, Huawei has been under constant attack by some countries and politicians. We are shocked, or sometimes feel amused, by those ungrounded and senseless allegations,” said Abraham Liu, Huawei’s vice-president for the European region and chief representative to the EU institutions.

“For example, yesterday, the US ambassador to the European Union, Mr (Gordon) Sondland, said (that) someone in Beijing (could) remotely run a certain car off the road on 5G network and kill the person that’s in it. This is an insult to people’s intelligence, let alone the technological experts across the world,” Liu said.

Chinese firm Huawei blocked from ‘sensitive state projects’ and 5G amid security concerns-The Sun:

New laws on foreign investment in the UK will block Chinese firm Huawei from sensitive state projects, The Sun can reveal… senior Cabinet ministers and Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill fear Huawei’s involvement in such critical infrastructure could jeopardise national security.

They are planning reforms to allow the Government to ban Chinese firms like Huawei from future involvement in “strategically significant” UK tech projects.

Huawei Says U.K. Software Issues Will Take Years to Fix – WSJ $$:

The telecom giant also said in a letter to the U.K. Parliament that its board of directors has signed off on a companywide overhaul of its software engineering, budgeting $2 billion over five years for the effort..

German ministers meeting to discuss how to deal with Huawei in 5G auction: source | Reuters:

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that Germany needed guarantees that Huawei would not hand over data to the Chinese state before the telecoms equipment supplier can participate in building its 5G network.

German newspaper Handelsblatt said Wednesday’s meeting would focus on whether a security catalog, prepared by the Federal Network Agency and the cyber defense agency (BSI), along with certification rules and a no-spy agreement with China, would be enough to ensure future 5G mobile networks are safe.

Norway’s PST warns against Huawei – Newsinenglish.no:

Justice Minister Tor Mikkel Wara of the Progress Party, who joined Bjørnland at Monday’s PST briefing, later announced that measures would be introduced to reduce the vulnerability of the Norwegian network. The goal is to hinder Norway’s large mobile operators Telenor, Telia and Ice from choosing equipment suppliers that could threaten the nation’s and their users’ security. Huawei is the prime target.

China hacked Norway’s Visma to steal client secrets: investigators | Reuters:

Hackers working on behalf of Chinese intelligence breached the network of Norwegian software firm Visma to steal secrets from its clients, cyber security researchers said, in what a company executive described as a potentially catastrophic attack.

The attack was part of what Western countries said in December is a global hacking campaign by China’s Ministry of State Security to steal intellectual property and corporate secrets, according to investigators at cyber security firm Recorded Future.

China says it is not a threat to Norway, denies cyber espionage | Reuters:

“China poses no threat to Norway’s security. It’s very ridiculous for the intelligence service of a country to make security assessment and attack China with pure hypothetical language,” the Chinese Embassy in Oslo said in a statement on its website.

Huawei Threatens Lawsuit Against Czech Republic After Security Warning – The New York Times:

The warning, which carries the force of law, requires all companies in the Czech Republic that are deemed critical to the nation’s health to perform a risk analysis that takes security concerns into account.

China denies ‘ridiculous’ spying allegations by Lithuania | AFP:

Earlier in the week, two Lithuanian intelligence agencies condemned China for an “increasingly aggressive” spy campaign, which they said included “attempts to recruit Lithuanian citizens”.

Darius Jauniskis, head of Lithuania’s State Security Department, said his agency was analysing the potential “threat” posed by Huawei, whose technology is being used to build the EU and Nato state’s new 5G telecommunications infrastructure.

Huawei offers to build cyber security center in Poland | Reuters:

Italy denies it will ban Huawei, ZTE from its 5G plans | Reuters:

Thailand launches Huawei 5G test bed, even as U.S. urges allies to bar Chinese gear | Reuters:

University of California Berkeley bans new research projects with Huawei after US indicts Chinese telecoms giant | South China Morning Post

Stanford halts research ties with Huawei amid surveillance controversy – The Stanford Daily

Vermont phone carriers in dispute over concerns about Chinese firm Huawei – VTDigger

 

2.  FBI raids Huawei’s San Diego offices

This is a damning story. One argument some defenders of Huawei have used is that the firm’s culture has changed since inception and while it committed an “original sin” of IP theft in its early years now that it is a global tech firm its behavior has changed. This story destroys that argument.

Huawei Sting Offers Rare Glimpse of U.S. Targeting Chinese Giant – Bloomberg:

Diamond glass could make your phone’s screen nearly unbreakable—and its inventor says the FBI enlisted him after Huawei tried to steal his secrets…

The first sign of trouble came two months later, in May, when Huawei missed the deadline to return the sample. Shurboff says his emails to Han requesting its immediate return were ignored. The following month, Han wrote that Huawei had been performing “standard” tests on the sample and included a photo showing a big scratch on its surface. Finally, a package from Huawei showed up at Gurnee on Aug. 2. ..

Shurboff says he knew there was no way the sample could have been damaged in shipping—all the pieces would still be there in the case. Instead, he believed that Huawei had tried to cut through the sample to gauge the thickness of its diamond film and to figure out how Akhan had engineered it. “My heart sank,” he says. “I thought, ‘Great, this multibillion-dollar company is coming after our technology. What are we going to do now?’”..

The FBI raided Huawei’s San Diego facility on the morning of Jan. 28. That evening, the two special agents and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kessler briefed Khan and Shurboff by phone. The agents described the scope of the search warrant in vague terms and instructed Khan and Shurboff to have no further contact with Huawei.

 ———-

It is an old truism that China tends to be tone deaf in dealing with foreigners, particularly on foreign policy issues.  So we find no small sense of irony in the story from Reuters last week Huawei Offers to Build Cyber-security Center in Poland – “China’s Huawei has offered to build a cyber security center in Poland where last month authorities arrested a Chinese employee of the telecommunications firm along with a former Polish security official on spying charges.”

One of the stories circulating in the past couple of years is that Huawei might have stolen some technology early in its life, but those days are over now, all is in the past, now we are in a new era.  Stories from the bad old days –  In 2002, Cisco Systems Inc. accused (Huawei) company of stealing source code for its routers. Motorola said in a 2010 lawsuit that Huawei had successfully turned some of its Chinese-born employees into informants. And in 2012 the U.S. House Intelligence Committee labeled Huawei a national security threat and urged the government and American businesses not to buy its products. Huawei denied all the claims. The Cisco and Motorola lawsuits ended with settlements.

For anyone still unsure of the extent of Huawei espionage or theft, there is this Bloomberg story – Huawei Sting Offers Rare Glimpse of the US Targeting a Chinese Giant.  This story is about a small American company creating a “diamond glass” computer screen that would be stronger than anything now on the market.  The diamond glass story is about an IP theft from last August.

The detention of Meng Wanzhou, originally on charges of violating economic sanctions against Iran by using a shell company to get around restrictions, now seems less of a political stunt.  From the Chinese foreign ministry – “For a long time, the U.S. has used state power to smear and attack certain Chinese companies in an attempt to stifle legitimate business operations … Behind that, there is strong political motivation and manipulation. We strongly urge the U.S. to stop unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies, including Huawei, and treat Chinese enterprises fairly and objectively.”

Un huh.  One can only hope that Huawei is not treated as “fairly and objectively” as Trump treated ZTE. 

Update on Peking U Ideological Battle

January, 2019 

In a recent post, The Ideology of Occupation, I described an ideological struggle being played out last month at Peking University, the combined Harvard-Yale of China.   Now, a followup on what has happened to the “Old Marxist” students who questioned the manner in which CCP has been providing leadership of the proletariat.  Spoiler – they are in jail.

Bill Bishop has the story at Sinocism – Seven Maoist Students Detained in Beijing After Talking to Foreign Media  Original story from Radio Free Asia.  A video was made by Peking student Zhang Ziwei immediately before he was himself detained –

“I’m Zhang Ziwei,” the recording says. “Six of my classmates have been detained already today, two of them just downstairs from where we live.”

“They were shoved into a car, shouting ‘call the police!,'” Zhang says, adding that he too is a target.

“Dark forces are conducting house-to-house searches right now,” he says. “They want to take me away too, just like they did to the others.”

It appears that the “Old Marxist” students have been not only defeated, but jailed. Their support for the Marxism of class struggle is out of date in the modern China of Xi Jinping. 

I am reminded of the climactic scene in the movie A Few Good Men in which Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) rages against the upstart attorney Lieutenant Kaffee (Tom Cruise).   In the setup, the Colonel is standing on the wall, battling the forces of evil, while Kaffee and his cohort stand for rule of law and honor to regulations and tradition, properly understood.  Jessup rages against Kaffee and colleagues for questioning the manner in which Jessup stands on the wall – You Can’t Handle the Truth.  You know the scene, and how it ends. Jessup claims a greater responsibility than Kaffee can imagine. So, too, at Peking U.  In this Peking University struggle, the New Marxists are the forces of modernity, standing on the wall and battling the forces of western imperialism and western thought and western concepts.   CCP will determine what socialism and Communism means, and there can only be one source of truth.  There is no questioning of the manner in which CCP provides leadership.  In the Chinese version of the movie,  Jessup would be exonerated and honored.  The “Old Marxist” students, representing the outdated western import of Marxism, can’t handle the truth. 

The Ideology of Occupation

January, 2019 

In the last couple of weeks, two student groups were battling at Peking university, one of China’s most prestigious institutions.  These were battles of words, not fists, but all the more intense for that.

Some might dismiss the conflict as a minor student skirmish over ideology. But the Chinese government reaction suggests that there is a lot more going on – that occupation by a ruling elite can have a light touch, except when it finds itself threatened.   Existential threats, even small ones, must be put down.

To be sure, the conflict at Peking was not a contest for student body president, or a fight over which gendered pronoun to use in addressing a classmate.  It was an ideological fight over who gets to interpret Marxism, and the fight illustrates the extent to which CCP, like every dynasty before it, can be understood as an occupying force.  SupChina has the story-  One Marxist student group is backed by the Party.  The other’s WeChat account is blocked

Source:  Socialist Worker – A Time of turmoil shaped Karl Marx’s ideas

One can understand this fight as that between “old” Marxists, who think the Party should be representing workers and farmers in class struggle, and “new” Marxists, who want the Party to continue its version of opening up and representing the major productive forces in the economy – like big businesses, the forces of capital, and – not coincidentally – the ruling elite.   The old Marxists are thinking first of the workers at the university – dining hall workers, cleaners, landscapers – but also the farmers left behind in the rush to modernize and make money.  The new Marxists represent the views of the university administration and CCP generally, and it is CCP that is in power in China. 

At Peking, the new Marxists, representing the Youth League and supported by faculty and the university administration, seem to have won the battle.   The social media of the old Marxists have been blocked, so they have no easy way of communicating with each other or with outside supporters, and individual students have been disappeared, expelled, beaten and arrested.   The university administration and the government have seen to it that doctrinal interpretation will remain with the rulers in power.

American campuses have long had such labor-oriented protests and disagreements, though mostly pitting students against university administration over wages and benefits for non-academic employees.  But the Peking conflict is one involving public speech, public writing, student organizing, and the fundamentals of Marxism.  A ruling elite that is willing to give superior students – the future of the Party, the literati – some leeway in discussion was finally stirred to action.   Finally, the hammer comes down.

Perry Link makes a similar point in The Anaconda in the Chandelier, which focuses on Chinese government censorship, but the analogy is the same.  What might be scarier than a big snake in a chandelier? The snake hides above, unseen and unrecognized, lying quietly until stirred, and then it can strike without warning.  Perry Link writes about elite preservation –  … repression remains an important problem, and its extent and methods are still poorly understood in the West. To appreciate it one must re-visit a dull but fundamental fact: the highest priority of the top leadership of the Communist Party remains, as in the past, not economic development, or a just society, or China’s international standing, or any other goal for the nation as a whole, but its own grip on power.

Chinese claim more than two thousand years of continuous dynastic rule, and we wonder how that could possibly be achieved.  Through dynastic changes and uprisings and invasions, why the return to the same system of governance – emperor and a small bureaucracy of literati overseeing a vast nation of farmers and traders.  The ruling house and bureaucracy – the occupying elite – was relatively small, even into late Qing times.  How could it be done?

There are several fascinating answers, but one that stands out is that the ruling elite generally kept a light touch on its occupation of the country.  By occupation, I don’t mean a military force – this is not Japan in 1930s China, or Britain in India or the US in the Philippines.  The elite needed sufficient taxes to pay for the imperial court and the bureaucracy, but beyond that, most governance and spending was local, with locally raised or extorted monies.   A single magistrate might be responsible for an area with 100,000 or more people, and his staff consisted of clerks and runners paid out of his own pocket or with fees for services provided – a fee for bringing paperwork inside the building for the review by the magistrate. 

A way of understanding this sort of occupation is Mancur Olson’s concept of the stationary bandit, described in his 1993 article  Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development.  A roving bandit sweeps in, steals what he can, and leaves.  Such a bandit is a short term profit maximizer.  A stationary bandit has incentives to steal less, so that he can remain to steal tomorrow.   A stationary bandit with dynastic pretensions is only providing for his offspring and family if he steals enough, but not too much, so the family business can be preserved.  In China, that model has worked on average for a couple of hundred years for each dynasty, before other conditions finally forced a change.   When the new rulers came in, they saw the identical incentives.   Chinese central government taxation was almost never excessive, nor were most central demands for corvee labor or restrictions on trade.  The literati, the bureaucracy, or what we might now call the “deep state,” had incentives to remain in power as well, and the two combined to do so. 

Economic historians Loren Brandt, Thomas Rawski, and Debin Ma argued in their article From Divergence to Convergence: Re-evaluating the History Behind  China’s Economic Boom that the stationary bandit model works pretty well for Chinese dynasties.   It is in that sense that we can see dynasties, and now CCP, as an occupying force.  CCP must remain the only source of power, the only source of truth.  Propaganda is marketing and defense for the Party, conducted in speeches, reports, news stories, editorials, electronic and social media.  Representation of the peasants –  the workers and farmers – is fine for political speeches, but let’s not get carried away.  In other words, don’t start believing your own press releases.  The CCP is an imperial elite in power, and intends to remain so.   Students at Peking are the next generation literati.  Remember?

Kent Deng at the London School of Economics argues for a historically stable triad among the three sets of actors – emperor, literati, and peasants.  Any two of the three could align with each other to force change in the third – Development and its Deadlock in Imperial China, 221 BC-1840 AD.

In the Peking University case, we can see the ruling elite aligning with some of the literati – the best of the best in Chinese universities – against those who would advance the cause of the peasants just a bit too far.   The old Marxists in this case want to talk about class struggle and working class allies.  That is a step too far for the occupying forces.  The rhetorical concept of the new Marxists, speaking to the old Marxists,  is “The workers are living so peacefully, stop bothering them,”  “Are you really being true friends to the workers? You’re just using the workers for your own purposes!”

The new Marxists understand the rule of power retention – “In order to study Marxism, the Chinese Communist Party must be embraced; opposing the Party means opposing Marxism.”  In other words, you old Marxists, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. 

The old Marxists aren’t really opposing the Party, but they are rocking the boat.  CCP has said many times that it will be the entity to determine what Chinese communism means.  The student old Marxists just don’t get the Lord Acton proviso – ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”   It may be corrupt, but it remains in power.

Single’s Day – Next Year in Xinjiang

A pair of sharply discordant messages about today’s China came across my desk today, and I was left scratching my head.  How are both these things part and parcel of China now?

One message came from a report from McKinsey that analyzed trends emerging from this year’s “Single’s Day” self-indulgent shopping mega-spree.

Source: https://investorsking.com/alibaba-singles-day-sales-hit-8-6-billion-first-hour/  and Visual China Group/Getty Images

The other message arose from an expanding cascade of reports about the growing repression of China’s Uighurs, and the ugly moral and spiritual vacuum — and the expanding nihilism — that are pervasively described in these reports.

External view of a Xinjiang “transformation through education” camp during construction  Source: Bitter Winter

The McKinsey analysis is at  What Single’s Day can tell us about how retail is changing in China.  Every year, this event is touted in the news and eagerly awaited by business and business analysts.  There is, in fact, a desperate feel to this buying and selling frenzy.  Yes, the deals are good, and suppliers have substantially increased sales every November 11.  But we should remember that this shopping is mostly for oneself – baby products, cosmetics and hair care – not gifts for others. The impulsive necessity of Singles Day shopping feels far greater than the value of the money saved.

McKinsey tells us that –

This year’s Singles Day (China’s shopping event on November 11, or “Double 11”) clocked in as the biggest shopping spree the world has ever seen. Consumers purchased $45 billion (314 billion renminbi) worth of goods and services in a 24-hour period. To put it in perspective, this is three times this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales combined, and more than 90 percent of it happened on mobile devices, compared with 34 percent mobile purchases on Cyber Monday.

The second part of my reading was a series of reports on the concentration camps in Xinjiang, housing hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and meant to cleanse them of their culture, religion, and language, better to make them into … well, maybe, good Singles Day shoppers.  Good luck with that.

One cannot read just one of these articles.  A sampling –

Internment camps make life more colorful,” says Xinjiang governor, from the Guardian.

And this one – videos – “transformation through education” camps, at Bitter Winter.

And then this timeline and analysis –  Re-education camps in China’s ‘no-rights zone’ for Muslims: What everyone needs to know by Lucas Niewenhuis, associate editor at SupChina.

Niewenhuis tells us –

– “Crimes” often have little or nothing to do with actual Islamic extremism, which is what China is supposedly trying to stamp out: BuzzFeed reported that “having a relative who has been convicted of a crime, having the wrong content on your cell phone…appearing too religious…having traveled abroad to a Muslim country, or having a relative who has traveled abroad” is enough to land Xinjiang residents in camps, but “viewing a foreign website, taking phone calls from relatives abroad, praying regularly” or even just “growing a beard” is enough to do it, according to the Associated Press.

– Punishments include torture, such as being chained up by wrists and ankles for hours or days, or being waterboarded, and conditions at the camps can be extremely unsanitary and crowded, witnesses have told the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

– Detainees are told to denounce Islam, and are forced to repeat Communist Party slogans and sing Red songs for hours every day.

And a few more –

Xinjiang Muslims Forced to Shave Off Beards  

Factories and Hospitals Turned into Internment Camps (Videos)

How to Hide Illegal Detentions? China Gets Creative  

 Yingye’er Re-education Camp Managed Like Prison (Video)

China is big and complicated, but I was trying to understand both of these stories.  I remembered Ci Jiwei, professor of philosophy at the University of Hong Kong.  In his recent book, Moral China in the Age of Reform (Cambridge University Press, 2014), he describes the kinds of freedom available in China now.  Economic freedom, the freedom to buy and sell, is as great as anywhere on earth.  What is missing, he says, is moral freedom, the ability to use freedom as a personal value in decision making.  This translates into the necessity of obeying one’s leader, even if the leader is corrupt or otherwise doing wrong, or inability to use one’s own judgment in decision-making.  Right and wrong in China is determined by leaders, not by an individual’s own moral sense.  And Ci Jiwei says that this inability, particularly in a modern China with exposure to western ideas like voting and protest, leads to a refocused intensity on providing material benefits as compensation for the inability to realize intangible ones like making moral choices as we think an adult would do.  Sort of shopping therapy.

 Ci –

This kind of nihilism means a moral and spiritual vacuum for which no amount of material prosperity can compensate.  What has been sorely lacking is not more material prosperity but more moral resources for giving meaning and more equality to such prosperity.  With the dearth of moral resources, it is no wonder that the nationwide quest for individual wealth and pleasure has acquired an otherwise baffling air of desperation, with so much newly mobilized or released energy having no other channels of expression …. Although this frantic quest has effectively diverted energy from deliberate challenges to the political system, it has done so, and is continuing to do so, at a huge cost to the moral health of China as a culture and a society (pp 56-57).

The CCP justification for intervening in Xinjiang is to promote social order – and preserve security for Belt-and-Road projects.  There have been protests, and violent incidents, over CCP refusal to let Muslims practice their religion.  China is afraid of in-China links to middle eastern terrorism, as was the Trump administration in its proposed ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries, and with about the same inflated expectation of real impact on society.  But we see that most Muslims in Xinjiang, as in America, are doing nothing but practicing their religion, hewing to a lifestyle, in fact using moral freedom to make choices about life and work and children and right from wrong.

And this is what is anathema to CCP.  So, in fact, my little toss-away line above is really what the Uighur suppression is all about.  If Uighurs could be transformed into good little shoppers, life would be more harmonious for CCP and for business.

I guess businesses should be careful in thinking that all the China news is business news, and international firms need to be on their toes all the time and hustle, and keep going faster, now, now, now. The Uighur stories are not under the radar by any means, but they could have far more to say about retail in China than Singles’ Day, if the Uighur repression and the world response to that repression become another significant part of the instability for the China economy and the Chinese consumer.  Suppose more American buyers, like Badger, began refusing shipments of clothes made by Uighur forced labor?  Suppose the crackdowns lead to more unrest elsewhere in China? There could be impact across China, even in Zhejiang, two thousand miles away.

Complicated, it is.

Update on threats to Anne-Marie Brady

… and an update  12-11-18 on the update.   A senior US official offers intelligence agency cooperation on Chinese interference in New Zealand, citing in particular the Anne-Marie Brady incidents.   And a closed circuit camera is now in her office, which  was broken into after publication of her research on CCP influence in New Zealand.  No word about protection for her home, her car, or her person. 

Back in September, I wrote about threats and break-ins directed at Anne-Marie Brady, a New Zealand scholar who has written about CCP influence in foreign affairs.  Her recent work is titled Magic Weapons – China’s political influence activities under Xi Jinping, an investigation of United Front activities such as media and university partnerships, “management” of overseas Chinese, and multimedia communications strategies to influence and co-opt foreign citizens and Chinese outside China. 

Brady’s office has been broken into twice, her home once, and her car burglarized.  Chinese media has attacked her, and there is no rationale for these attacks other than by persons hired by the Chinese government to intimidate.  The September piece is Intimidation Knows No Boundaries.  Brady has asked for protection for her person and property, and the New Zealand government has done nothing, with approval from Chinese media. 

Now an open letter to the New Zealand government has been prepared, requesting protection for Brady and support for open inquiry.  Brady is by no means the only scholar to face harassment or intimidation outside China, for their work on China.   From SupChina, Thursday, December 6 –

In October, Index on Censorship reported that “anonymous, threatening letters” were sent to residential addresses in the U.K., apparently with the aim of stopping “activities that the Chinese government disapproves of.” Recipients included family members of Tom Grundy, editor of Hong Kong Free Press.

The open letter is here.  Quoting –

These circumstances make it likely that this harassment campaign constitutes a response to her research on the CCP’s influence and an attempt to intimidate her into silence.

Radio New Zealand has reported on the issue, and the letter.

I have signed the letter.  Most everyone on the signature list is a better known journalist or scholar than I, but no one seems to have listed an affiliation inside China.   We will see what happens. 

What’s New is Old Again

on tangibles and intangibles in the trade conflict

Fake LV bag


Source:  Wondermika
(note – access to Chinese Constitution at this site is now forbidden)

From Caixin –

China Starts New Crackdown on Intellectual Property Theft After Xi-Trump Talks

Thirty-eight state agencies have announced that they will soon begin a coordinated campaign against IPR infringement

From Bloomberg, via Slashdot –

China has announced an array of punishments that could restrict companies’ access to borrowing and state-funding support over intellectual-property theft. … Bloomberg reports: China set out a total of 38 different punishments to be applied to IP violations, starting this month. The document, dated Nov. 21, was released Tuesday by the National Development and Reform Commission and signed by various government bodies, including the central bank and supreme court…. violators would be banned from issuing bonds or other financing tools, and participating in government procurement… also restricted from accessing government financial support, foreign trade, registering companies, auctioning land or trading properties. In addition, violators will be recorded on a list, and financial institutions will refer to that when lending or granting access to foreign exchange. Names will be posted on a government website. “This is an unprecedented regulation on IP violation in terms of the scope of the ministries and severity of the punishment,” said Xu Xinming, a researcher at the Center for Intellectual Property Studies at China University of Political Science and Law.

Admirable.  Thirty-eight agencies, thirty-eight punishments, and a coordinated effort within hours of the Xi-Trump non-agreement (the crackdown actually publicized in China before the Xi-Trump meeting).  When announcements of this extent come so rapidly, one may be pretty sure that nothing of consequence will happen.   IP theft is the only real issue in the trade war.  All else – deception or fraud in business dealings or failure to abide by (American) labor or environmental standards, are par for the course in international trade.  Not that they should not be addressed, but there are other ways – better negotiation on the part of American businesses with Chinese, or efforts by international NGO and multiple foreign governments on labor and the environment.   Trade wars do nothing to address those issues.

A Chinese program to address IP theft should encompass theft both in China and in the US.  The recent coordinated announcement has no value.  And there are multiple ways in which it has no value.

First, feigned compliance with rules from above is a standard operating procedure in Chinese governance, and has been for centuries.  A leader proposes, the officialdom disposes.  Officials responsible for implementation of any rules are responsible to their local Party leaders, not to Xi or to some sense of obligation to openness and fair dealing.

Second, provincial or local-level officials who do seek to vigorously comply with an actual rule put themselves at a disadvantage for promotion.  Increasing GDP is still a measure by which officials are rated for promotion, and hindering local business growth for the sake of discouraging IP theft from the foreign barbarians is hardly a good idea.  Businesses of any size, particularly the very large non-SOE businesses, are now required to have a CCP committee.  That Party leader will have a relatively high status within CCP.  No one can know the internal machinations of the discipline inspection bureau or the organization department, but it is by no means clear that a Party leader at a large business would cooperate with a national plan rather than a local colleague with local interests at heart. 

Third, remedies available within China are insufficient to address IP theft.  We should distinguish two broad kinds of theft – theft of tangible and intangible products or designs. 

On tangibles, the government has made efforts in the past few years to cut down on fakes sold on the street, on Alibaba, and in foreign countries.  There has been some success, but fakes are still easy to purchase everywhere in the world.  An equally damaging kind of tangible IP theft is the illegal production of goods beyond amounts contracted by the purchaser, which are then sold in China or elsewhere in the world, Africa or the –stans.  (Prices to the original western buyer can be held very low if additional copies can be sold elsewhere in the world for a lot more money. Contract to produce 100,000, make 200,000, sell the overage privately).  See from 2011 – China to crack down on fake iPhones and from 2015 – China to crack down on selling fake goods online   One should not doubt that we will see comparable articles in 2019 and beyond.  And theft need not be actually undertaken by a contracted supplier.  A cousin or closely related startup business would be sufficient. 

The thirty-eight agency announcement, signed by the central bank and the supreme court, is still not a credible promise of crackdown on theft.  In the absence of rule of law, with local courts controlled by CCP and subject to undue local business influence, local control will still dominate transactions.  In any case, there are penalties and there are remedies. The list of penalties in the article above sounds impressive – serious restrictions on obtaining loans or travel.  As always, the proof of this pudding will be in enforcement of agreed intentions.  I suggest that most penalties will continue to be confined to some payment of money for theft of sales, or return of molds.  Months or years later, while a case winds its way through the Chinese courts, some minor compensation for lost sales is small recompense.  Monetary remedies continue to be limited to some estimate of actual sales losses – no deterrent damage amount is assessed.  Theft by fake registration of copyright in China, or aggressive adverse copyright, will remain a problem.   Michael Jordan was able to win his  trademark dispute after a years-long battle over use of the Chinese characters for his name by an unrelated shoe manufacturer.  Jordan had the money and the time.

Steve Dickinson at China Law Blog, comments on the G-20 “agreement” –  As someone who has been involved with these sorts of China IP issues for decades, I view the odds at near zero that China will make significant and meaningful changes in their system on the issues that will be discussed.

With regard to intangibles, there is no advantage to China in restricting or punishing theft – military or scientific or commercial designs, or molecular design or software.  If Trump were to get China to agree to restrict or do away with “China 2025” – itself a ridiculous request – China could drop the marketing and continue with the practices.

Theft of intangibles is the key issue.  More than one Chinese researcher has been arrested in the US for theft of IP with intent to sell to a Chinese company.  See here, here, here.  Of local interest, one of those arrested was a student at IIT in Chicago.

Fourth, what punishment compensates for theft of intangibles?  Will Chinese scientists or company owners agree to return the designs or software?  That will work.  Siemens and ThyssenKrupp never even bothered to sue for theft of high speed train designs.  See Der Spiegel from 2006.

Non-tangible theft can be kept secret for a time, and in any case, a lawsuit will need to wind its way through Chinese courts, where western concepts of discovery and evidence are … well, foreign.  And lawsuits don’t work if politics intervenes, on either side.  Trump’s hard crackdown on ZTE for violation of Iran sanctions was substantially softened with a phone call from Mr. Xi.

None of this addresses other “Its China” problems, such as unequal enforcement of regulations or complete disinterest in pursuing a request from foreign business for licenses (See China Law Blog on driving out Mister Softee).  Other tactics include local favoritism in selecting contractors or refusing to pay for services rendered.   Several years ago, I tried rather hard to line up an American architect to work on urban planning projects for which the contract in China was already in hand.  I could generate no interest.  American architects had learned the lesson of supplying work and then going unpaid.

Posted in Legal News, cited at China Law Blog –

If, like us, you’ve been following the China Law Blog for many years, you can’t have missed the numerous warnings it gives about the futility of obtaining judgments against Chinese companies in foreign courts since Chinese courts will not enforce them unless they were granted by a court in one of the limited number of countries with which China has a bilateral enforcement treaty. Furthermore, even where a treaty does exist, as is the case with Hong Kong, it can be extremely difficult if not outright impossible to get a foreign judgment enforced in China.

This is from 2015, and Xi is proposing changes in the law.   But changes in law say nothing about changes in interpretation of the laws in court or later enforcement.  It is still, “good luck with that.”   You should take it as dispositive that Mr. Xi has said nothing about changing the way courts are operated or controlled.  And our own dear leader never asked. 

School’s Out – What Chinese are talking about … (2)

The cult of Xi – from the Little Red Book on Mao Zedong thought to the nightly quiz show on Xi Jinping thought 

extolling Mao with the little red book; and 

extolling Xi with the tv quiz show 

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-45728131   A nightly tv show features students vying to be the one who knows most about the life, speeches, and travels of the current dear leader and Marxism.  This is a game show,  but there are no prizes for winners.  That must be why tv ratings are so low. 

As you know, I have some acquaintances from the Chinese government, in several different provinces and in some state owned businesses and universities.  All have pretty good jobs, at mid-level or higher.  A few are moving beyond a middle mid-level, perhaps chu bu ji, to higher reaches ting bu ji, as party leaders in districts or counties or university departments. 

Over the last five years, many expressed concerns about the direction of current Chinese governance, in much the same way that Americans look askance at the machinations of the Republican party and the orange-haired baboon (hat tip to Brad DeLong for the descriptor).  A common theme in China is the return to the fears and terrors of the Cultural Revolution.  Most of my acquaintances were born in that era, and have stories from their parents and families and colleagues.  The disappearances, the arrests now for corruption on actions that until recently were standard operating procedure, the personality cult of Mr. Xi, the demands for ideological purity, the lack of procedural rules that makes accessories to crimes out of officials just doing what they are told to do, the double binds that crop up all too frequently – if I do this thing, it will be illegal;  if I don’t do this thing, my career will be over – all are chilling reminders.  I will detail some of these fears in a future post.

The new era affects CCP members in their most cherished place – their families and kids. 

Among the recent developments in the last couple of years is passport retention by the Discipline Inspection Bureau for all mid-levels.  Prior to about 2013, Chinese officials going abroad could use either of two passports – a government official passport, which was always held by the Human Resources Department of their workplace, or their own private passport, which individuals retained, as we would do in the US.  Now, even the private passports are being held by the Discipline Inspection Bureau jiwei for some midlevels and above in at least some places.  I am told this policy is active in Hubei Province; not sure where else as of October.  It was not in effect in Zhejiang in June.  And some of my acquaintances – more than a couple – are worried that they might be unable to get out of China in the future.  Travel to the US is much more restricted on the Chinese side, and this was the case before the US 2016 election.  Chinese with kids in college in the US no longer get automatic approval to go out to see their kid graduate, notwithstanding the further restrictions on students and their families from the American State Department.

So what to do?  This is not a matter of trying to get illegal gains out of China.  These concerns are being expressed by good public servants who wish to retain options for retirement or school choices for their kids. The government has made it more difficult to move money out of China.  For the past twenty years, that was the safety valve for wealthy families- buy the house in London or Sydney or New York or San Francisco or Vancouver or Seattle, let the wife and kids live there, and at some point, retirement or the need to get out, join them (the US has no extradition treaty with China).  In 2012, Lin Zhe, a professor from the CCP’s Central Party School and a member of the National People’s Congress, said that 1.18 million senior officials’ spouses and children had emigrated between 1995 and 2005.

There are still ways to get money out.  Now, getting the people out is becoming more risky on both ends.  It is reported that senior government officials (perhaps at the provincial vice minister level or higher) will no longer be able to send their children outside China for education. Secret order to bar students from going out  China Said to Issue Secret Order Barring Senior Officials’ Children From Studying in US   This article notes that –

At a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on July 24, Dan Blumenthal, director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), recommended that the U.S. government impose visa limitations on the children of the CCP elite as a means of economic pressure.

AEI is a fairly right wing organization, and in normal times there would be no reason to think that its recommendations about visa restrictions would be considered.  However, we are not in normal times.  Good thing that Xi Mingze was able to get out of Harvard by 2014.  Today, she might not have been able to go out, or to get in. 

One of the few known pictures of Xi Mingze from her time at Harvard.   Source: https://images.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Xi-daughter-Twitter.jpg

Among many other worries, ability to go out for education is a worry for some smart and thoughtful Chinese officials and business people and academics.   Good thing Canada is still available. 

What Chinese are talking about (1) – Shaolin Temple raises the red flag

I hope this will become an occasional post, based on what I hear on the ground. 

Shaolin Monks, originators of Kung Fu, Kneel to Chinese Government 
Shaolin Buddhist monks, the world famous monks of astounding feats of athletic skill, concentration, and mind over body, originators of the martial art of kung fu, have indicated their subservience to the Chinese government in a ceremony held at their home temple in Dengfeng County in Henan Province.  This is a first in 1500 years, that the monks would indicate political subservience.

All photos: http://english.sina.com/china/s/2018-08-28/detail-ihifuvpi1509972.shtml

August 28, 2018 – Beijing: Shaolin Temple raises the red flag  by Kirsty Needham  (China correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald)

Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of kung fu and famous home of the fighting monks, has raised the Chinese national flag for the first time in its 1500-year history.

A flag raising ceremony on Monday was attended by officials from the United Front Work Department, which oversees religious groups in China because of the Communist Party’s fear they may be a threat to its rule ….

The national flag would bring socialist core values into religious venues and “enhance national awareness” the temple said.    Shaolin temple raises the red flag

This is a surprising development for Chinese, who generally see Buddhism, and the Shaolin monks in particular, as sacrosanct.   Even in an era of crackdown on religion, on Tibetan Buddhism, this was unexpected, both for the brazenness of the demand from the United Front bureau and the willingness of the monks to acquiesce. 

From a South China Morning Post piece –

Red flag for Buddhists? Shaolin Temple ‘takes the lead’ in Chinese patriotism push

…  While the move was applauded by some, critics said it risked tainting religion with politics.

“As a Buddhist, this makes me feel uncomfortable,” one Weibo user wrote. “Before, I thought of religious faith as pure, but now it confuses me … With patriotism interfering with spiritual life, there is no space at all for individual thought. Is this what a harmonious society looks like?”

Another wrote: “The Buddha and Marx have shaken hands … Buddhism is meant to cultivate the mind, body and spirit – what has it got to do with politics? Haven’t the monks in the monastery renounced worldly living? I feel uncomfortable and just think that raising the national flag at the temple is simply not appropriate.”   SCMP – Red flag for Shaolin monksMonks and United Front officials watch the ceremony

The pressure on the Shaolin monks is likely related to two developments – first, the Shaolin monks have had their share of scandal, as they have become a global revenue generator from shows and demonstrations. The government will always take a strong interest in a historical cultural phenomenon that generates millions of dollars each year.  For more see Rise and fall of CEO monk.

Second, forcing the monks to raise the flag is a sign to all other religions in China, particularly Catholicism, that there is no greater force than CCP in the universe.  This has greater significance in light of the concurrent deal between the Vatican and the government to permit government involvement in selection of bishops in China.  This is anathema to many Chinese Catholics, in China and outside, but the Shaolin flag-raising emphasizes that CCP will brook no competitors for power.   (For more on the new era of crackdown on Christianity, see for example this South China Morning Post piece –   Christianity crackdown  (note – this link is now blocked or deleted) )

There is another aspect to the Shaolin development.  The Shaolin Buddhist monks do not owe allegiance to the Dalai Lama, but in the current environment in China, religious activities must be dealt with directly and forcefully.  The Dalai Lama does not cooperate, so pressure must be brought where it can.

There is ongoing fear in CCP that the current Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, will not name an heir, a new Dalai Lama, making Beijing scramble to figure out who will be a leader they can control.  This is the nature of the deal made recently between the Vatican and the Chinese government – the Vatican will choose to approve bishops preselected by CCP.  Beijing has in fact demanded that the current Dalai Lama, in exile, name a successor, otherwise, CCP will do so for Buddhists.  Even CCP is reluctant to take this move – atheistic CCP appointing a new head of Tibetan Buddhism.  From a 2004 Time Magazine interview with the current Dalai Lama –

The institution of the Dalai Lama, and whether it should continue or not, is up to the Tibetan people. If they feel it is not relevant, then it will cease and there will be no 15th Dalai Lama. But if I die today I think they will want another Dalai Lama. The purpose of reincarnation is to fulfill the previous [incarnation’s] life task. My life is outside Tibet, therefore my reincarnation will logically be found outside. But then, the next question: Will the Chinese accept this or not? China will not accept. The Chinese government most probably will appoint another Dalai Lama, like it did with the Panchen Lama. Then there will be two Dalai Lamas: one, the Dalai Lama of the Tibetan heart, and one that is officially appointed.

Alex Perry. “A Conversation with the Dalai Lama”. Time. October 18, 2004.

To further confound CCP, the Dalai Lama issued a statement in 2011 –

Bear in mind that, apart from the reincarnation recognized through such legitimate methods, no recognition or acceptance should be given to a candidate chosen for political ends by anyone, including those in the People’s Republic of China.  Retirement and Reincarnation Message

Checkmate, in advance.

 Short video about the flag raising ceremony –

 We have no king but Caesar?

The required Shaolin flag raising is, among other symbolic representations, a response to a Dalai Lama checkmate.  Hell hath no fury like a CCP scorned.

Health Care Crisis

Some of you have read prior posts here on health care, the good, the bad, and the unbelievable.   Now comes the New York Times with a feature on the Crisis in Health Care in China, focusing on the shabby treatment of doctors and patients in the medical system.  As I noted in Hospital Rules (see the Health, Education, Welfare tag adjacent, to the right), the system optimizes for neither patients nor practitioners. 

The video in the NYT piece shows a man making home-made drugs for his mother, who has stage 3 cancer.  She has insurance, but cannot get coverage for drugs that are far too expensive to buy commercially.  If her insurance works as I think it does, she would have to buy the drugs, pay for them, and then get part reimbursement by the insurance company at some later date. 

How Capitalism Ruined China’s Health Care System  By Jonah M. Kessel

From the NYT article –

China’s Health Care Crisis

On some mornings, Dr. Huang Dazhi, a general practitioner in Shanghai, rides his motorbike to a nursing home, where he treats about 40 patients a week. During lunchtime, he sprints back to his clinic to stock up on their medication and then heads back to the nursing home.  Afterward, he makes house calls to three or four people. On other days, he goes to his clinic, where he sees about 70 patients. At night, he doles out advice about high-blood-pressure medications and colds to his patients, who call him on his mobile phone.  For all this, Dr. Huang is paid about $1,340 a month — roughly the same he was making starting out as a specialist in internal medicine 12 years ago.

Doctors so poorly paid must find other ways to make money, and writing prescriptions is a principal means.  Doctors receive kickbacks from suppliers as a way to supplement income.  This is illegal, but without complete reform of the system, there is no way to end the practice.  The incentives are too great on all sides of the issue – suppliers, doctors, nurses, even patients.  The government has said it would crack down on the practice, but to little avail.  The government did fine GlaxoSmithKlein $500 million in 2014 for paying bribes to doctors and others.  Chinese pharma companies were noticeably absent from any prosecution in this regard.  NYT GlaxoSmithKlein fine  or if you do not have a NYT subscription, BBC GlaxoSmithKlein fine.  From my own experience in China, the system remains unchanged.  

Chinese have little respect for the medical system, and doctors are at the receiving end of patient anger.  It is common to read of doctors assaulted, even killed, by enraged patients, parents, or siblings. 

In this file photo, hospital staff walk past a security guard on duty in a hallway at the Beijing Friendship Hospital during a government supervised media tour on February 29, 2012.
In this file photo, hospital staff walk past a security guard on duty in a hallway at the Beijing Friendship Hospital during a government supervised media tour on February 29, 2012.   ED JONES—;AFP/Getty Images
 
A few more references –

http://time.com/4402311/china-attacks-doctors-medical-police-medicine-healthcare/

https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/in-violent-hospitals-chinas-doctors-can-become-patients

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/world/asia/china-attacks-doctors-hospitals.html

But overprescribed – and overly expensive – medications, battlefield conditions of treatment, and lack of training are an affront to even middle class Chinese who see excellent care for some, and a completely ignorant system otherwise.  As I mentioned in other pieces, it is frustrating to know that better treatment exists, and you cannot have it because someone else – maybe the woman who walked in after you – has superior guanxi.  When patient outcomes are less than desired, the frustration can boil over. 

Picking out a doctor to treat you, like picking a train back to the suburbs from downtown at 5:10 –

An electronic board at the entrance of Peking Union Hospital displays the number of doctors available and their specialty.  CreditGilles Sabrié for The New York Times

My own minor experience – when we were seeking to book a room – like in a hotel – at the Pregnant Women’s Hospital in Hangzhou, we were kept waiting outside a locked door on the patient floor for more than half an hour, while events unfolded inside. I knocked on the door several times, the guard at the door saw me, and simply ignored us.  The guard controlled access, and others were let in ahead of us.  My own frustration, boiling over, was relieved when I bolted through the door as another women was let in ahead of us.  At that point, there I stood, alone inside, with my wife and sister-in-law and a bunch of agape Chinese outside.   But, fait accompli – I was inside, I was a foreigner, and the only reasonable solution was to let the rest of my party into the floor so we could – check out the VIP room, as arranged previously, the room we were paying for. 

Oh – another personal experience -when our son was born, some medicine was handed to my sister-in-law, sleeping in the room with my wife and new born son.  She was instructed to put this medicine in my son’s eyes a couple of times a day.  (Nurses don’t administer medicine).  No suggestion that something was wrong, no discussion of adding this to Ben’s post natal care.  What was the medicine for?  I was not going to have someone put stuff in my kid’s eyes without knowing what it was for.  No one – not any of the nurses, not the head nurse – had an answer.  The medicine was prescribed by my wife’s doctor for our son.  Un-huh.  I declined, and told the nurse to take it away if she couldn’t provide a reason for its application.  “Oh, no, the package is already opened.  You must take it.”  (meaning, you must pay for it.)  Again I declined.  Much discussion and phone calls followed, which I am quite sure only took place because I was a foreigner.  Finally, a resolution to the impasse.  The hospital found another new mom who did not – or could not or would not – object to application of the medicine for her baby, even from an opened box.  We were relieved of responsibility.  No doubt the hospital gave the other new mom a discount on the meds that she never authorized or was told about.   But the system persevered – the system of mystery and control – and the system emerged victorious.