Tag: Cultural Hegemony

Occupying the UN

– What a Community of Common Destiny will look like

Around 2005, our Chinese government students in Chicago were quite interested in our notions of NGOs. They had a tough time with NGOs like community organizations that received most or all of their funding from the local government, and then sometimes took positions directly opposed to local government proposals. In Chinese terms, WTF?

When they learned that community organizations were legal entities with an elected board of directors, they were flummoxed. Who voted? Who allowed them to vote? Who could be a candidate? How could an organization be legitimate without government sponsorship?

Back then, up to about 2015, foreign NGOs were operating in China. There were government-sponsored NGOs as well. Now, only government sponsored NGO remain. If there are foreign NGOs, they are required to have a government sponsor. Since then China has learned to create dozens of government-sponsored NGOs to push its interests while hoping that no one looks too deeply at funding sources or Party affiliation of NGO leaders.

This sort of bamboozle-ment is far more dangerous than any IP theft or business cheating or balloon brouhahas. I have argued elsewhere that one can view Chinese as a people occupied by CCP. Xi wishes to occupy international organizations as well. It is surprising the extent to which China has succeeded in that occupation. The Wall Street Journal has a good analysis from 2020 –  How China is Taking Over International Organizations – One Vote at a Time.

Xi Jinping has repeatedly envisioned an international system with the U.N. “at its core.” What the U.N. says matters a lot to the Chinese government.

Now comes CCP in response to questions from the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR). The CCP response – and those of its favorite home-grown NGOs – will obfuscate, lie, and ignore the long list of human right violations, including disappearances, tortures, murders, and threats compiled each year by legitimate non-profits like the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). Such organizations are a nasty bump in the road to the world of common future.

From William Nee at The Diplomat –  How China Tries to Bamboozle the United Nations –

Next week in Geneva, on February 15-16, the Chinese government will be testing the international community again – specifically the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) Beijing will seek to defend its compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its record in protecting these rights since the last review in 2014.

And while there certainly has been some progress in the past nine years, the Chinese party-state will seek to present a happy, alternative reality that denies many indisputable facts.

For the upcoming CESCR review, at least 23 GONGOs or other entities tied to the party-state submitted reports to the Committee as “civil society organizations” – compared with just four such submissions for the 2014 CESCR review.  Like fake Luis Vuitton bags at a bootleg market, these fake NGOs flood the market and diminish the value of the real products. Committee members waste valuable time reading their reports, listening to their interventions, and trying to decipher which NGOs are real and which are fake.

Xi probably doesn’t need to worry too much about the UN Committee’s vote. One of the Committee members is Shen Yongxiang, who holds a position as vice president of the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS), a key government sponsored organization for external propaganda on human rights issues for the party-state.

This is the Chinese position paper from 2022 on questions posed by the UN Committee –

https://docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=4slQ6QSmlBEDzFEovLCuW%2BALqOml1btoJd4YxREVF2UN4vziaSAUkFDI34ZtyU3KXNNLaFLn0IOUatJ1Bw2ba5VIjvXw9WPUFRvijSEpx6h%2F%2F%2BVkB4mrg%2F%2BK1aOIso4e

Back around 2005 I thought the interest of our Chinese government students in NGOs was principally academic. Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps they had a much more instrumental interest. I thought we taught them well. But then again – the concept of an NGO is that it is independent of government – a non-governmental organization. I guess we failed at teaching that. Civil society as we know it is not coming to China anytime soon.


N.B. I am reminded that the terms civil, and civil society, can be difficult to render in Chinese.

Richard Madsen tells us

In contemporary Chinese, for example, there are no fewer than four words that are used to translate the civil in civil society. Alternatively, Chinese intellectuals today call civil society shimin shehui, which literally means “city-people’s society”; or gongmin shehui, “citizens’ society”; or minjian shehui, “people-based society”; or wenming shehui, “civilized society.” These are all attempts to name phenomena and to articulate aspirations that have arisen in an urbanizing East Asia linked to a global market economy.

Richard Madsen. Confucian Conceptions of Civil Society. Chapter 1 in Confucian Political Ethics, edited by Daniel A. Bell (2007), p 3. Available at http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8573.pdf 

Perhaps we should lower our expectations for CCP performance in international organizations. After all, we wish to be civil.

Politically Correct Biblical Language

Ya know, it gets harder and harder to distinguish right wing America from CCP. 

A couple of weeks ago, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law encouraging students to monitor and report on teachers who might be supporting “socialism factories” in universities. The recording of lectures could be used in lawsuits against schools or teachers for their … ahh … incorrect views.

Where else do students monitor the language and thinking of teachers?  In Mr. Xi’s China, of course. I wrote a bit about that here Monkey See Monkey Do.

Again, it seems the right wing in America is drawing inspiration from Mr. Xi in China.

First – from late last year, we have the story from China of rewriting the Bible to conform with CCP teachings about supremacy of law over all, including religion and morality.

You know the story of the woman accused of adultery, the crowd wanting to (legally) stone her, and Jesus saving her from death.  John 7:53-8:11 – “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” and then when no one offered to cast the first stone, “Then neither do I condemn you…. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

In the new revised CCP edition of the Bible, the passage now states “When the crowd disappeared, Jesus stoned the sinner to death saying, “I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead.”  Jesus as implementing the law to the fullest extent.  Talk about a mandate of heaven. 

This new CCP revised edition comes from the University of Electronic Science and Technology Press, responsible for updating the Standard English Version of the Bible. The textbook aims to teach “professional ethics and law” to the students of secondary vocational schools.  Needless to say, Christians in China are upset about the change.  Only CCP can publish or approve bibles. 

A 2021 story from Salon cites research by Samuel Perry, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, referring to changes make in the English Standard Version of the Bible to make the language more politically correct or at least more palatable – Whitewashing Evangelical Scripture: The Case of Slavery and Antisemitism in the English Standard Version.

“Slavery” and references to “the Jews” are seen as a bit too old school. Best to use more PC terms and ideas. From the Salon piece –

In revisions from 2001 through 2016, Perry shows, the word “slave” first gains a footnote, then moves to the footnote and then disappears entirely — in some contexts, like Colossians 3:22, though not others — to be replaced by the word “bondservant,” which could be described as a politically correct euphemism. A similar strategy is used to handle antisemitic language as well ….

To be fair, every Bible has to address issues of translation and interpretation. But the ESV is marketed mostly to evangelicals. The ESV is supposed to resist inserting politically correct language into the Bible. Word changes and notations take place frequently, often with footnotes and explanations. But Perry shows that the changes to eliminate references to slavery and offenses of “the Jews” against Jesus and the apostles seem to be done with more attention to modern context than to faithfulness to original intent. 

Perry describes New English Version changes over a period of time from 2001, so perhaps its not fair to see CCP as doing anything not already done in Bible publishing in the US. But politically correct language is not only in CCP – and not only in the American English Standard Version.

But it may become difficult to figure out whose politically correct language should be believed. CCP? GOP? ESV? Anybody speak Aramaic? Where are the imprimatur and nihil obstat when you need them?

Everything old is new again – Inner Mongolia

If you’ve gotten tired of depressing news from Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong, there is a new oppression to watch in Inner Mongolia. As in the other provinces comprising mostly non-Han people, the new policy requires forced language change and erasing of traditional culture.

It’s a new oppression with an old mode of operation, same as used in the other provinces – forced acculturation, sterilizations, threats to school kids and old people and everyone else, threats of loss of job for parents whose kids don’t conform, disappearances and torture and jail sentences for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles,” the usual charge against dissidents, lawyers, writers, journalists, and activists of any stripe who fail to meet CCP standards of obeisance.

Also included are the standard threats, disappearances, and roughing up for foreign journalists reporting on local events.  Alice Su, Beijing Bureau Chief for the LA Times, is the latest victim, presumably while researching her article in the Times China cracks down on Inner Mongolian minority fighting for its mother tongue.

It is remarkable how well CCP follows prescriptions outlined in 1984 and Animal Farm.  Double-think is a prerequisite. An example – we know from the Chinese Constitution that all nationalities are equal …

Article 4. All nationalities in the People’s Republic of China are equal. The state protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and develops the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among all of China’s nationalities. Discrimination against and oppression of any nationality are prohibited; any acts that undermine the unity of the nationalities or instigate their secession are prohibited. The state helps the areas inhabited by minority nationalities speed up their economic and cultural development in accordance with the peculiarities and needs of the different minority nationalities. Regional autonomy is practised in areas where people of minority nationalities live in compact communities; in these areas organs of self- government are established for the exercise of the right of autonomy. All the national autonomous areas are inalienable parts of the People’s Republic of China. The people of all nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages, and to preserve or reform their own ways and customs.

 … but quite clearly, some nationalities are more equal than others.

From Alice Su’s article –

“All ethnic groups must embrace tightly like the seeds of a pomegranate,” read a slogan from Chinese President Xi Jinping printed in Mandarin on the wall.

So we are in the realm of doublethink already, if Mongolians are being forced to abandon their language and culture.  But the Constitution always has an out – read article 4 above, again, and note – . The state helps the areas inhabited by minority nationalities speed up their economic and cultural development in accordance with the peculiarities and needs of the different minority nationalities.  Sort of in the same realm as, “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

Alice Su, again –

Bao said her grandson had to come back to class because his parents’ workplaces threatened to fire them otherwise. “We had no choice,” she said. “We want our grandson to go to school, of course, but not to forget his mother tongue.”

“It’s too outrageous,” her husband added. “What century are we living in? They’ve snatched away our rights.”

Now you might think promotion of “rights” in China is a western concept that would make one subject to arrest.  But remember these sections from the Constitution –

Article 35. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Article 36. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion. The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.

Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the People’s Republic of China is inviolable.

The people of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia have equal rights with other Chinese.  Its just that … well, you know.  Animal Farm. 

Bill Bishop at Sinocism has more.  Before we get too high-hat about this, the US has its own terrible history with racial and ethnic minorities.  But when Chinese media and foreign representatives go on about conditions in the US, remember that most of the time the American government has worked to protect rights of minorities.  The Chinese government works to define their rights away.  Too often, we forget that with rights come responsibilities.  In China, the responsibilities include those of obeying CCP. 

Macroaggressions

From America Online – Several billionaires have recently criticized the wealth tax proposal of presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). And fellow lawmaker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has come to her aid.   AOC: ‘Y’all, the billionaires are asking for a safe space’

But perhaps the billionaires threatened with having to pay taxes almost like the rest of us have learned how to do political threats from their experience with China. 

China can threaten the NBA based on a single vague tweet from an otherwise obscure NBA general manager.  A China so afraid of a tweet is a China willing to transform a nonaggression into a macroaggression, and needs special care and handling from the world.  Perhaps CCP doesn’t get sufficient love from its family at home. 

China is clearly looking for a safe space in the world.  The Chinese mentality is that China is constantly under attack from the barbarians, whether it is xiongnu in the north two thousand years ago or the western barbarians whose sinister plans to destroy CCP and China were exposed in 2013 by Mr. Xi in Document No. 9. 

And maybe China has learned from the NBA – the best defense is a good offense. 

So China has created a safe space for itself by threatening multinational corporations everywhere, and by caving to the tantrum the multinationals have temporarily created a safe space in which to do business until the next unfortunate lower level employee tweet, or some corporate employee’s kid in Kansas draws a map in school showing Taiwan as an independent country. 

Now the companies and their owners are seeking a safe space from the horror of paying more in taxes in the US. 

CCP has a safe space.  The billionaires have a temporary safe space in China, and now seek a safe space from AOC in the US.  The US Congress – at least the Senate – has a safe space behind the orange haired baboon.

What would be a safe space for the rest of us, concerned not only about taxes but free expression?

Attached, a list – soon to be outdated – of multinationals which don’t remember first they came for the socialists.  From Lucas Niewenhuis at Supchina, All the International brands that have apologized to China.

The definitive list of international companies that have issued apologies to maintain their market access in China in recent years. Plus, a record of the even more widespread phenomenon of self-censorship for the Chinese market.

Read the whole list.  Fun and shame, at the same time.

PS – Remember that China creates a safe space for multinationals only temporarily.  Foreigners can be had in more sophisticated ways than blocking markets.  I wrote about this in IP Theft – No More Worries and Steve Dickinson at ChinaLawBlog follows up his prior posts with this below.  Anything encoded by a foreign company – patent information, employee information, market information, customers, clients, revenues – will be available – without asking – to CCP.  

China’s New Cryptography Law: Still No Place to Hide

….

So in the end, inviting foreign providers and users of cryptography is just a trap for the unwary. Once data crosses the Chinese border on a network, 100% of that data will be 100% available to the Chinese government and the CCP. Cryptography may work well to prevent access by the public, but all this data will be an open book to the PRC government.

This then raises major issues for U.S. and other country entities that are relying on end to end encryption in China as an exception to U.S. export control rules. Under China’s new system, end to end encryption will no longer exist in China and for this reason this exemption from U.S. export controls will no longer be effective. As the U.S. expands the scope of technology subject to export controls, the risks for foreign companies will become progressively more significant.

No place for a multinational to hide – at least in China. Safe space is always in the eyes of the aggrieved. 

Soft power? We don’t need no stinking soft power.

Update at August 28 – the affronts to human dignity, scholarship, free speech, trade fairness and personal expression now seem to come on a daily basis.  China under Mr. Xi is really carving a new international image, and it is neither “peaceful rise” nor “responsible stakeholder in the community of nations.” 

You’ve read some of the Hong Kong stories, in the media and below, and the disruptions and violence and threats coming from Chinese students in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US  when confronted with others speaking their minds.  You’ve read about the billionaires, activists, lawyers and missionaries who have been disappeared in the mainland.  As described in the Guardian, “China feels emboldened to place literally anyone under arbitrary and secret detention, regardless of citizenship. It is now long overdue for the world to stand up.”  Family members of those the CCP wants, for whatever purposes, are at significant risk, both inside China and outside. I had some fears for my wife and son when they were in China a few weeks ago.  I am unsure of my own potential for detention when I return to China.  In July, the Swedish Supreme Court ruled against extradition to China of a sought-after former official, based on threat of human rights violations if he were to be returned.

These are all on top of the old stories, from the last ten years or more, of American businessmen being kidnapped in China over real or imagined disputes with Chinese businesses.

The government has long pressured western businesses to conform to CCP political thought, at the risk of losing access to the Chinese market.  You remember the demands that hotels and airlines stop referring to Taiwan as a country. Then luxury brands like Versace and Coach faced the same demands, and folded immediately.  Now, we have the government demanding resignation of a Hong Kong airline CEO  – and getting it – over participation by Cathay Pacific employees in the Hong Kong protests.  Cathay Pacific is Hong Kong’s best known local business in international markets.  You can expect more pressure from the government over actions of foreign businesses, and you can expect more compliance. The government has said it will enforce a “social credit score” on foreign companies in China.  Expect the blacklisting to be used when a companies employees or related entities fail to conform – not to government, but to CCP – requirements.  This is despicable behavior by the government, and potentially dangerous to companies and their employees.

About a week ago, in Shenzhen, the government seized a Hong Konger who works for the British consulate in Hong Kong, thus confirming the worst fears of Hong Kongers about the extradition treaty that was the original proximate cause for the protests.  Simon Cheng was returning to Hong Kong when he apparently was seized on the train late at night. 

In the last couple of months, a Hong Kong 2014 umbrella protest leader, Nathan Law, has been singled out by Chinese student groups at Yale, and targeted with death threats. From ChinaFile on the messages sent to Nathan Law –  “I will wait for you at school and you have no escape. Gun shooting will start—American style.”

Let there be no mistake – there is no peaceful rise, CCP expects to dominate international relations as well as business and markets, free speech and rights of assembly are under attack throughout the world, and capitalism is no friend to democracy when profits are at stake.  We tend to ignore the Americans, Canadians, Australians being held in China under any form of false charges, to be used as warnings or bargaining chips. More stories are here and warnings to Americans from the US State Department are here.  The 2017 book The Peoples Republic of the Disappeared documents some of the stories of Chinese and foreigners held for no good reason. 

There seems no good outcome in the current Hong Kong protests.  About the best the world can expect is an updated version of the rallying cry from the War of Texas Independence – Remember Hong Kong.   May it be remembered as a rallying cry for free speech and a free press and free assembly and rule of law in Australia, and New Zealand, and Greece, and all of Africa, and South America, and southeast Asia. 

The old post from August 1 –

 You remember the bandits in Treasure of the Sierra Madre – the bandit horde, pretending to be Federales, descending on Humphrey Bogart and fellow prospectors.  “Badges?  We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges.  I don’t have to show you no stinking badges.” The famous lines were uttered by Gold Hat, head of the bandits, when Fred C. Dobbs (Bogart) asked for their badges.   Hong Kong was the soft power model, the badge of Chinese “peaceful rise.”  Mainland students and Confucius Institutes were supposed to be the badge of Chinese soft power in the world.  But no more, as we see in Hong Kong, in Australian and New Zealand universities, and indeed, universities throughout the world.

I kept thinking of that scene as I watched Hong Kongers resist the violence of the banditos, this time in the form of white-shirted thugs from Triad gangs, and the local police.   And then, watching mainland Chinese students attack Hong Kong sympathizers at Queenland University in Australia and Auckland University in New Zealand.

Watch the videos from Hong Kong –

Please stop beating us!

Hong Kong police use violence on protesters, not on thugs

In Australia and New Zealand …

In Australia, a Chinese diplomat applauded patriotic behavior from mainland students in disrupting a peaceful protest at University of Queensland.  As reported, the attack was coordinated, quite possibly by the local CSSA (Chinese Students and Scholars Association).  You can hear the beginning of the Chinese national anthem playing in the background of the Queensland attack.  Watch the video at twitter.

The New York Times reports– The Chinese nationalists disrupting pro-Hong Kong democracy rallies at the University of Queensland arrived 300 strong, with a speaker to blast China’s national anthem. They deferred to a leader in a pink shirt. And their tactics included violence.

Threats to Australian students via social media have continued, including death threats.  Similar violence took place last week at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Bill Bishop at Sinocism suggests that expulsion might be beneficial to PRC students who can’t abide exercise of free speech – In the case of PRC students (expulsion) could be quite beneficial, as there are pressures from within the PRC student community, and its CCP minders, to be aggressive in the face of any perceived slights, and if you are not then you run the risk of being seen as insufficiently loyal and patriotic.  

Western universities have though that mainland Chinese students will see freedom at work, and have their lives transformed.  For some that is true.  But now, some mainland Chinese are out to transform their hosts.  The Confucius Institutes were supposed to be the vanguard of Chinese soft power in the world.  Now, they are suspected – in at least some cases, legitimately – of being a conduit for United Front activities.

In 2016, Xi Jinping issued what now seem to be orders to Chinese students abroad to serve their country, and the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a directive calling for a “contact network” connecting “the motherland, embassies and consulates, overseas student groups, and the broad number of students abroad” and ensuring that they will “always follow the Party.”

In Canada and the US …

You remember the death threats earlier this year to the Tibetan-Canadian student elected as student union president at the University of Toronto University of Toronto.   She now has a safety plan with the university police, letting them know where she is, hour by hour.  You remember the uproar  at McMaster University in Canada when a Uighur activist was scheduled to speak.  Mainland Chinese students sought advice from the Chinese consulate about how to proceed in their protests.  You remember the large protests in 2017 at the University of California at San Diego. Mainland students reportedly sought advice from the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles before condemning the university for naming as commencement speaker the Dalai Lama.  There are many such stories, including demands from the Chinese government that Uighur students return to China immediately, using their parents as potential hostages.

Hong Kong as the new model of Chinese power …

The “peaceful rise” touted by Deng Xiaoping, and the soft power projection from the Confucius Institutes worldwide is no more.  In Tibet, in Xinjiang, on the mainland in prisons where human rights lawyers and activists rot, in Canada, now in Hong Kong, and Australia, and New Zealand, the gloves have come off on soft power.  In Hong Kong, the protests have not yet turned deadly.  But Christy Leung, Hong Kong student at Queensland, made the point –

“People in Hong Kong are risking their lives. The threats we faced last week are nothing compared to them. We have to stand up. With them.”  

For Hong Kongers, it is more than a movie.  They are risking their lives.  They all know about June 4, even if mainland students do not.  

For western students, and teachers, and universities generally, lives are not likely at risk.  But the very concept of the university – let us say, seeking truth from facts, and speaking truth to power- is at risk.  The soft power glove is revealing the clenched fist beneath.

Shuang Yin Win-Win

Another update at July 24, 2019 – Boris Johnson became Prime Minister today.  From the South China Morning Post –


Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister-designate, said his government would be very “pro-China”, in an interview with a Hong Kong-based Chinese-language broadcaster shortly before he was chosen to succeed Theresa May on Tuesday…

Speaking to Phoenix TV, Johnson backed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s infrastructure-based Belt and Road Initiative and said his government would maintain an open market for Chinese investors in Britain.

Crash out is now scheduled for October 31 – Halloween in the US, when goblins arrive. 

Update at June, 2019 – the March, 2019 crash-out has been delayed, but that does not apply to earnest Britain-China cooperation – Sino-UK dialogue yields dozens of outcomes.

The 10th China-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue has just concluded in London.  China will help Britain in its soon-to-be developing country status by offering openings in financial and banking services, among many other programs to help British companies.  From the short article –

Christopher Bovis, a professor of international business law at the University of Hull, said this round of dialogue signified the importance of the future of Sino-UK trade relations, with an emphasis on large infrastructure projects and financial services.

“Both economic sectors will benefit enormously from Chinese investment in the UK, and China is expected to reciprocate with more market access to its evolving economy,” he said.

Funny, I didn’t hear much support from Britain for Hong Kong protesters in the recent extradition law conflict.

 ——–

______

Shuang Yin  Win-Win    February, 2019

Now that a crash-out Brexit seems all but assured, where will Britain turn for trade deals?  The kind of relationship that the British government wanted – like that of Canada or Norway with the EU – takes years to negotiate, under favorable circumstances.  There has been discussion for more than ten years that the special relationship between the US and Britain – forged from the mid-19th century and cemented between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill in World War II – is no longer so compelling.  The EU without Britain is still a huge and attractive market for US trade in both directions.

As of March 29, 2019 – in a bit more than a month – there will be hundreds of treaties and agreements to negotiate, suddenly, quickly, and in great detail.  Some agreements will probably get done – ability of British truck drivers to deliver goods through the Chunnel into EU turf, and ability of airplanes to take off from Heathrow bound for destinations in Europe using parts and crew that, without certification by the EU, would be not allowed.

But where can Britain turn for trade deals, quickly, without years of complicated negotiations?  What large trading partner is willing to set aside the details of complex agreements when mercantile interests, not to mention future geopolitical support, are at stake?  What large trading partner can act quickly, based on personal leadership from a president or prime minister or general secretary?

In October, 2015, a few months before the Brexit vote, Xi Jinping visited the UK, and  demonstrated his prescience –

“The UK has stated that it will be the Western country that is most open to China,” Xi told Reuters ahead of his first visit to the country as president.

“This is a visionary and strategic choice that fully meets Britain’s own long-term interest.”

UK Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking on CCTV, China’s state broadcaster, said the visit would mark a “golden era” in the two countries’ relationship.


Among items looted from the Summer Palace in 1860 – a blue and gold cloisonné “chimera”—a mythic animal with a lion’s body and dragon’s head.  The Garden of Perfect Brightness – Visualizing Cultures, MIT    Could the chimera’s lion’s head be compatible with the British Lion?  


Source: Tracy Ducasse, creative commons license

Politically, China has always been willing to play a long game for economic access, political favor, and “special relationships.”   But in 2015, I don’t think Mr. Xi was expecting such a quick return on the investment in his state visit.

Even in 2015, Britain said little about China’s incursions into the South China Sea.  A bit unusual for the country that used to rule the waves, and administered Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and many more.  Britain has said little or nothing about Chinese cyberthreats or IP theft.  Britain was one of the first countries to join the Chinese counterpart to the IMF, the Asian Infastructure Investment Bank. 

In tourism, entertainment, and education, England has become a premier destination for Chinese. A 2015 story from CNN – London has become a favorite destination for young couples to take wedding photos and Chinese viewers are captivated in the millions by shows like “Sherlock Holmes” and “Downton Abbey” … Affluent Chinese parents are sending their children to British schools after some of the most notable names in British education have established campuses in China.

Since 2012, I have written quite a few recommendations for Chinese students to study for a master’s degree in England, at Nottingham, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Manchester.  Only one for a student wishing to study in the US.

China in England to date

China has a one-third interest in England’s first nuclear power plant in three decades, has substantial investments in the Heathrow and Manchester airports, two premier league soccer clubs, and in London’s tallest building.   The UK has been the top EU destination for foreign investment, and is China’s second largest trade partner in Europe.  Huawei is a top supplier to British Telecom, with apparently few qualms on the British side.  Huawei has told British lawmakers that it wants five years to correct identified problems that it denies having in any case.  Ok.   In May, 2016,  London was granted the right to do RMB trade closings  and Chinese government bonds can now be issued in London.   The RMB is now included in the IMF basket of currencies used for calculation of special drawing rights, which can be freely traded for currencies of member countries.  Some big Chinese banks, like China Construction Bank and the Bank of China, have adopted London as their European financial center, although that could easily change.  The nuclear plant deal at Hinkley Point will give two state owned Chinese companies a one-third stake in ownership, with Chinese involvement expected in two future nuclear plants, including a Chinese-designed reactor. 

China in England going forward

Better for China, and worse for negotiators in Britain, is that China will still want strong relations with the EU and will no longer see England as the easy backdoor to the rest of Europe.  In particular, British based banks and investment firms will be representing only Britain, not the rest of Europe.  With regard to the RMB clearinghouse function, Britain will provide access to a market of 65 million people rather than the EU 500 million people.

As the UK economy deteriorates, so will the value of Chinese investments in England, but so will the ability of Britain to strike hard bargains anywhere.  British companies in China have been optimistic about the fallout from Brexit.  But to the extent their concerns are with IP theft or cyberthreats, internet access, or unequal trade practices, they should not expect much support coming from London.  Britain will become a less expensive country in which to invest, British goods will become cheaper in China, but British companies selling in China will find a tougher road.  The British companies are not known for doing well in heavily competitive markets like China.  Supporters of democracy and free speech in Hong Kong should not expect any more moral support from Britain.

Britain will need trade deals quickly, China will not, and in such a balance England should expect to give a little more on political support for Chinese foreign policies and trade policies, despite the early reticence of Mrs. May to Chinese deals.  China will see a weak Britain, the former colonialist, opium supplier and burner of the Summer Palace (yuanmingyuan, Garden of Perfect Brightness) in 1860.  There will be artifacts from the looting of the Summer Palace that China will want returned, but there will be more important concessions demanded.  China will want Britain as a partner in establishing China as the global standard-setter in media relations, internet availability, business practices, finance, and foreign trade.  China might be able to get a good part of that agenda.

win-win

For China, the timing is perfect.  The US will need to consider carefully its special relationship with a Britain that has Huawei internet tools and supports Chinese trade and financial practices.  With Europe worried about the nearer threat from the east, in Russia, China may be able to strike better deals in the remaining EU as well. 

Even without a firm trade deal, China will be ready to help Britain as much as it is to China’s benefit.  Britain, after all, will be another developing economy in need of assistance, and win-win is always the Chinese mantra in such deals.  A win for China in England, perhaps a win for China in the EU, perhaps a win for China in the UN and other international forums.  In 2019 – 70 years after the creation of “new China” – we may see a new Britain as well. 

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.

Shibboleth

October 2007 and Spring, 2015 

The first time was in 2007, in Dalian, one of my favorite cities.

One of my students – government officials from China – was showing me her hometown, and we were late night driving from Dalian to our next stop that would take me to the airport in the morning.

She was not driving.  Her driver did that, so we had plenty of time to talk.  And there were two other of my students in the van, and we moved from topic to topic about China and the US and national monuments and American history and  9-11 and terrorism in China and the US.   And I said that the 9-11 terrorists missed the most important target – the Statue of Liberty.

The government officials had just spent a year in Chicago, learning about markets and government management in the US, and many of them had become personal friends and they had just returned to their home, and I was visiting.  A lot of them were sad to leave Chicago. They had had a year of new experiences and fun and learning on the government’s dime, and they were going back to pressure and anxiety.

But like a lot of people in China, my government students were looking at American schools for their kids and openness and a life free of the kind of stress they were all returning to.

And I talked about the history of the Statue of Liberty.  From France. And in New York Harbor, facing southeast, to Europe.  And the Emma Lazarus.

And we were hurtling through the night, 10,000 kilometers from home, all of us nostalgic, me a little homesick, talking softly even in the warmth among friends, and the word just poured out.

Give me your tired, your poor

(Friends, from different backgrounds)

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

(And now different lives facing us tomorrow)

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore

(Nostalgia, wanting to turn back the clock)

Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, to me

(And for some, even with serious jobs and bright futures, muffled anxiety and a wish that might become a reality again, someday)

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

I could go back, they could not.   Tomorrow, I could get on a plane, and they could not.   They had lives, good ones, great ones, family, friends, future, security, money.   But I could go, and they absolutely could not. 

The sign, the password to the plane was American.   As in,  I am an American.   And I could go back to a place where, once inside, there was no password, no test, no badge of admission to the school or the city hall, no code of arms or card or letter of introduction that gave me benefits and not the other guy. 

And it was impossible not to tear up at that moment.   Ten thousand kilometers from home, among friends who were staying home, not reluctantly but inevitably, but everyone in the car felt a tug.

Believe me, you should try it sometime.

Everyone in China has a password or a loyalty test or shibboleth to master.  Not a phrase, or a card.  But access always requires a password.  Somebody knows somebody.  In China, it is like Milt Rakove said, we don’t want nobody nobody sent.

And the second time.  In the fall of 2014, and into 2015, the Chinese government was cracking down hard on foreign web sites, and foreign email addresses, and almost anything that was foreign.  Foreign businesses targeted for investigations, foreign products assailed. 

In the new shopping mall ten minutes from our home, there was – for reasons unknown – a 25 foot statue of liberty, complete, for about two years. A new shopping mall for modern Chinese, with modern ideas. 

In spring of 2015, it disappeared.   Times are reminiscent – for some Chinese – of 1966, the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.  The hammer is coming down everywhere – on foreigners, on Chinese.   And it was time to … come home.

One of my computers had already been fried by the government – no internet access at all anymore, anytime.   And my undergrad foreign students were in danger of failing a course because papers they emailed to me had been blocked by the Chinese government, and I could not email them in return to say whether I had received their paper or not. 

I had a CD set of the tv show West Wing, and I was watching episode 8 of season 2.  Now you know the writing and acting in West Wing was just about the best ever done on television, so finding a heart-string pulling scene is not tough.

And the story was about 96 Chinese Christians who had stowed away in a shipping container, six weeks on the ocean, 13 dying en route, to get to America and freedom from religious persecution.  

I was listening to President Bartlet practice the Thanksgiving proclamation –

Well over three and a half centuries ago, strengthened by faith and bound by a common desire for liberty, a small band of pilgrims sought out a place in the new world …

and a pause…  

… where they could worship according to their own beliefs …

and a pause…  

… Now therefore, I, Josiah Bartlet, President of the United States by virtue of the authority and laws invested in me do hereby proclaim this to be a national day of Thanksgiving.

 And then, to his aide Josh Lyman –

Let me tell you something … we can be the world’s policeman, we can be the world’s bank, the world’s factory, the world’s farm … what does it mean if we’re not also …. 

 Almost breaking up –

They made it to the new world, Josh …

You know what I get to do now?   I get to proclaim a national day of  thanksgiving….

To avoid an international incident, Bartlet, with some assistance from a remarkably lax guard at the stowaways temporary holding rooms, provided an entre to another new world where there was no password or loyalty test needed.  He convinced himself of the sincerity of their faith by using a shibboleth, giving 83 people access to a place where they no longer needed one.

And we do wish that life could imitate art.

Go ahead, watch the two clips.

Happy You and Me Party

December 2009 

Chinese people all seem to have hidden talents.  Sing, dance, do calligraphy, perform something.   For a long time, I saw this in my Chinese government friends, and I thought, well, these are the best and the brightest, so they are smart and talented people.  But the arts cultivation is wider than that.

So now I see I was wrong.   My college students- who are not yet in the government- put on a Happy You and Me Party for all the foreign students and teachers about two weeks before Christmas.   The event was sponsored by the school, and the International Chinese Students Organization.   The ICSO students serve as the go-to helpers for foreigners- take us shopping in a school bus on Saturdays, so we can buy regular American (or German) junk food, instead of Chinese junk food, and help with recharging phones with money and related problems.

This was clearly the holiday party, but it was not called a Christmas party.   I don’t think that was any cultural sensitivity to not everyone in the US or Germany or Russia or Kazakhstan being Christian.   Chinese are generally surprised to learn that Jews are not Christians.    I don’t know what they think of Muslims.   I think the sensitivity is to the Chinese government, not wanting to promote a religious event.  So, Happy You and Me Party.

But this really was the Christmas Party.  There were two small fake green trees (Walgreen’s, about $6.99) about three feet tall, and bags of decorations that we used to decorate the trees.   There were about fifty Chinese students, and at the peak probably about twenty or twenty five foreigners, mostly Germans with a few Americans and Russians, and some kids from Zambia and Ghana.   I was surprised that not all the foreigners were there.  They missed a nice event.   Lots and lots of blown up balloons, and beer and juice and fruit, bananas and oranges and cantaloupe.   Everybody, of course, taking pictures.   Oh, yeah.  We all wore red Santa hats.

One of the students monitored the computer, with Christmas songs and other American sort of classic music (Edelweis is a song that every Chinese person knows, in English and Chinese, and probably also in German). 

One of the students acted as the emcee, and she was good at getting everybody to jump in and get in the spirit of the evening.  The big deal, for me, was the games.   Chinese really do like to do things in groups, and they are expert at group party games that get everyone involved.   Our games were fun, a little tame,  but here is what we did.   Everybody got into groups of six, hugging.  On a signal, individuals in the groups had to re-form into  groups of seven.  Or nine.  Or five.   Anyone left out of a group, or any group that was unable to count, received – my favorite Chinese word- a punishment  cheng  fa.   Punishments, in this case, were all the same.   Losers had to sit down on a chair with a blown up balloon on the seat, and the balloon would break, and everybody would laugh or giggle.  And the game would go on.

Next game was a couples contest thing, but randomly selected couples.   One of each pair had a cardboard Santa mask covering the face, and was given a stick, sort of a walking stick, but thinner and lighter.   Each couple stood side by side,  their inner legs taped together so they had to move in unison.   Everybody else gathered around the two couples, with dozens of balloons on the ground in the middle of the circle.  The concept was for the seeing member of the couple to direct the other, with the mask and the stick, to break balloons.   Whichever couple broke the most,  in the time allowed, got off without a punishment.   The losing couple had to do something, dance, hop on one foot, sing.   Each member of the losing couple drew their punishment from folded pieces of paper in a jar.   One guy had to kiss the girl, which in any sort of normal universe should not have been a problem.  Among Chinese college freshmen and sophomores, this was almost like having to get past girl cooties to get the guy to do it.   Everybody was giggling and embarrassed, and the girl ran away before she was induced to come back.   The guy, the goof, finally kissed her keeping the piece of paper between their lips.   How in the world did this country end up with 1.3 billion people?   Some punishment.

Next game was a pass the water in the Dixie cup game.  Two teams, about eight to ten people on a team, everybody puts a Dixie cup (ok, probably not a Dixie cup.  A southern China, cup, then.)   between their lips, with the bottom ridge of the cup between their lips.  Concept is to pour water from person to person,  one cup to another, no hands, obviously, without spilling much.  Winning group was the one with the most water in the bucket at the end.   Losers, of course, received a punishment.

These are just three examples.  There are plenty of other games I have seen, ways to create a fun evening for small groups of twenty or fifty, without spending money, as tame or as risqué as you wish, and as part of the punishments people have to use their skills in singing, dancing, doing pantomime, or memorizing numbers or passages.   Everybody participates, everybody has a good time, and it beats the hell out of sitting around drinking and watching tv.  Fun in groups. Everybody learns to sing, and dance, or do something.  If for no other reason, it is punishment.