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 Their support for the Marxism of class struggle is out of date in the modern China of Xi Jinping.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 The “Old Marxist” students, representing the outdated western import of Marxism, can’t handle the truth.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.

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.

No Way Out, 2 Understanding the Chinese Constitution, the New Citizens Movement, and Document No. 9

The New Citizens Movement should not have been a big deal – a loosely organized group of activists campaigning against corruption and for “constitutionally protected rights” in China. Xu Zhiyong, a PhD from the Peking University Law School, was one of the leaders.

Xu Zhiyong, shortly before arrest Xu Zhiyong speaking at a meeting in Beijing in March, 2013, shortly before his arrest

And since Xi Jinping has made anticorruption a key part of purifying the CCP and the Chinese people, one might think that such a citizen’s movement would be welcomed. A group advocating for what is already in the Chinese Constitution – equality before the law, the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly – should be innocuous.

One would be wrong. One must remember the fundamental rule of any authoritarian government – the leader determines the truth, the leader determines right and wrong, and only the leader can lead the people. Any attempt by citizens to “contribute,” particularly if organized, can only be anathema. Any organization – any civil society organization – that intends to compete with the government must be destroyed as an enemy of the state. There cannot be any organization that intends to stand between the state and the individual.

When Xi came to power, some western observers questioned whether Xi would be a reformer, continuing more or less down the path opened by Deng Xiaoping. The answer by now, in 2018, is certainly clear – CCP members talk (not openly) about a return to the days of the Cultural Revolution, when fear and terror worked among colleagues, friends, and family members to expose the slightest hint of political deviation from Mao Zedong Thought. Students recording and reporting on teachers, Chill and fear in the classroom, colleagues evening old scores by reporting someone to the jiwei, without evidence. (This latter was in my direct experience. More on that in a future post).

But the Xi path might have been clear when Xi gave his first speech to the press, following his election at the end of the 18^th Party Congress in November, 2012 Xi’s first speech after elevation. He outlined his agenda in stamping out corruption and taking China to a leadership position internationally. No one – not even CCP members – knew then how the agenda would be implemented. Now we all know.

The crackdown on any dissension from the path of Xi began with arrests of the New Citizens Movement leaders, in April, 2013. Simultaneously came the infamous Document No. 9, a warning from the CCP Central Committee General Office to CCP members about the seven deadly western sins seeking to destroy CCP and China. This document, only available for a short time online before being “harmonized,” as they say, telegraphed the entire Xi Jinping crackdown on speech, civil society, a free press, and freedom of assembly. It is not subtle.

As you know, there have been many detentions and prison sentences for human rights lawyers, dissidents, artists, academics, and anyone expressing dissatisfaction, or worse, with CCP and the CCP path as defined by Xi Jinping. A couple more examples, after the destruction of the New Citizens Movement –

In July, 2015 Wang Yu, a commercial attorney turned civil rights advocate, was seized. She had been representing six schoolgirls who were abused by a school principal. Wang Yu The seven minute video at this site is worth watching. Wang Yu interview Her son, Bao Zhuoxuan, was not permitted to leave Tianjin last year (2017) to attend college in Australia. The government told her son that he was a national security threat, and mutilated his passport Family responsibility This is just like ancient China – one guilty person convicts the whole family. After a forced confession of her sins, Wang will remain under surveillance for years, with little or no access to friends and family, perhaps the rest of her life.

Wang Yu Source: New York Times

I have CCP colleagues, or friends of colleagues in China, who are bereft at the moral quandary they now find themselves in. They are forbidden to tell the truth, or say what they think – they know the truth, or what is right, or what is the law; and they are required to obey to do otherwise.

What I want to do in this post is (briefly) review three documents – the Chinese Constitution, the advocacy of the New Citizen’s Movement, and the threats of Document No. 9. This is a blog, not an essay, so I will let the reader do most of the work here. But the reading is not long, and the distinctions clear. The role of the New Citizens Movement, and others like it, in stimulating repression is quite clear. It is as if Document No. 9 is responding directly to the perceived threat of the New Citizen’s Movement, even though the New Citizen Movement is not calling for anything that isn’t already in the Chinese Constitution.

First, the Chinese Constitution, occasionally modified but generally intact since the 1982 major rewriting. Chapter II describes the fundamental rights and duties of citizens –

Article 33 All persons holding the nationality of the People’s Republic of China are citizens of the People’s Republic of China.

All citizens of the People’s Republic of China are equal before the law.

The State respects and preserves human rights …

Article 34 All citizens of the People’s Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of ethnic status, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education, property status or length of residence, except persons deprived of political rights according to law.

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 Freedom of the person of citizens of the People’s Republic of China is inviolable.

No citizen may be arrested except with the approval or by decision of a people’s procuratorate or by decision of a people’s court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ.

Unlawful detention or deprivation or restriction of citizens’ freedom of the person by other means is prohibited, and unlawful search of the person of citizens is prohibited. …

Article 40 Freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens of the People’s Republic of China are protected by law. No organization or individual may, on any ground, infringe upon citizens’ freedom and privacy of correspondence, except in cases where, to meet the needs of State security or of criminal investigation, public security or procuratorial organs are permitted to censor correspondence in accordance with the procedures prescribed by law.

Article 41 Citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions regarding any State organ or functionary. Citizens have the right to make to relevant State organs complaints or charges against, or exposures of, any State organ or functionary for violation of law or dereliction of duty; but fabrication or distortion of facts for purposes of libel or false incrimination is prohibited.

Wow. Sounds pretty reasonable.

Second, the mission of the New Citizen’s Movement, as described by Xu Zhiyong in May of 2012, concurrent with the rise of Xi. Following this one-sentence mission statement are several paragraphs describing what individual Chinese can do to further the movement. To us, nothing sounds very subversive –

The goal of the New Citizens’ Movement is a free China ruled by democracy and law, a just and happy civil society with “freedom, righteousness, love” as the new national spirit. Xu Zhiyong’s controversial essay

To push forward the New Citizens’ Movement, the New Citizen can:

Disseminate the New Citizen Spirit: Explain the “freedom, righteousness, and love” of the New Citizen Spirit by way of online posts, street fliers, t-shirt slogans, and any other method of spreading the New Citizen Spirit. The New Citizen Spirit must appear on the Internet, flourish in the streets, and, most of all, take root in the deepest part in our hearts.

Practice New Citizen Responsibility: Promise to practice New Citizen Responsibility, stand fast to New Citizen behavioral standards, reject corruption in one’s life, reject the practice of seeking private gain at the expense of the public, be loyal to good conscience and do not actively do evil, do good service for society, and mutually supervise one another to carry out this promise. The New Citizen Spirit is the spirit of commitment, sacrificing one’s profit to be an example, to maintain good conscience and righteousness, up until righteousness exists all over the Chinese nation.

Use the “Citizen” sign or other identifying methods: Citizens design their own “Citizen” insignias, and strengthen their own Citizen status and self-affirmation by wearing the insignias in everyday life.

Participate in civic life: Hold regular mealtime talks, discuss current political situation, pay close attention to people’s livelihood, care for public service as well as public policy, help the weak, serve society, promulgate fairness and justice. Every place has a group of modern citizens. Everybody needs to group together for society to progress. Unity begins with acquaintance.

Unite to share labor and coordinate work. Repost messages, file lawsuits, photograph everyday injustices, wear t-shirts with slogans, witness everyday events [specifically referring to the phenomenon of standing in a circle around someone causing a scene to witness it], participate or openly refuse to participate in elections, transcribe [things that you see happen], hold gatherings or marches or demonstrations, do performance art, and use other methods in order to jointly promote citizens’ rights movements and citizens’ non-cooperation campaigns—such as assets reporting, openness of information, opposition to corruption, opposition to housing registration stratification, freedom of beliefs, freedom of speech, and the right of election. Practice the New Citizen Spirit in action. Citizens’ power grows in the citizens’ movement.

Xu Zhiyong and other leaders of the New Citizens Movement were arrested in 2013 and sentenced to prison. Xu was released last year, in 2017. China Change offered a translation of his “return from captivity” post in September of 2018. Xu Zhiyong returns A short YouTube video explains his plans, now that he has been released from prison – Xu Zhiyong video on plans

The New Citizen Movement promoted following the language of the Chinese Constitution (see above) although not many Chinese have ever seen their constitution or knew that it existed. But now you can understand why “constitutionalism” was denounced by CCP as dangerous. Following the rule of law (as suggested in the Chinese Constitution) would mean that CCP members were subject to the same laws as ordinary citizens, and that just could not be permitted. And read the New Citizen Movement tasks listed above. The denunciations of western evils in Document No. 9 – free speech, free press, civil society – are all right there in the New Citizens Movement manifesto. With Document No. 9, it is as if Xi Jinping is responding to the New Citizens’ Movement directly.

It didn’t help that Xu was also promoting transparency about the fabulous family wealth of Wen Jiabao and Xi Jinping, reported by the New York Times and Bloomberg, respectively, in the summer and fall of 2012. Today, the NYT and Bloomberg are both still banned in China.

Third, the infamous Document No. 9 – Compare the goals of the New Citizens Movement, and their program of advocacy, with the warnings in the now infamous Document No. 9 (below), from the spring of 2013, warning CCP members against any tolerance of the western evils attempting to destroy China. The New Citizens’ Movement was by no means the only civil society group working for change in China, but you can see clearly the relationship between the goals and advocacy of direct action by the NCM and the warnings in Document No. 9. The document warns against

“constitutionalism, civil society, “nihilistic” views of history, “universal values,” and the promotion of “the West’s view of media.” It also called on Party members to strengthen their resistance to “infiltration” by outside ideas, renew their commitment to work “in the ideological sphere,” and to handle with renewed vigilance all ideas, institutions, and people deemed threatening to unilateral Party rule.” (Introduction at China File translation)

Document No. 9 appeared on April 22, 2013, a few months after the NCM manifesto and a few months after the ascension of Xi Jinping, before being deleted internally. I edit the following language from Document No. 9 liberally, providing only pertinent language on all seven of the deadly western sins, but the entirely is available at The Infamous Document No. 9

The document is addressed to leaders, including those in the Party Committees of private businesses, probably at a senior mid-level ranking or higher. Members are warned to resist and oppose –

Promoting Western Constitutional Democracy: An attempt to undermine the current leadership and the socialism with Chinese characteristics system of governance.
Promoting “universal values” in an attempt to weaken the theoretical foundations of the Party’s leadership.

…

The goal of espousing “universal values” is to claim that the West’s value system defies time and space, transcends nation and class, and applies to all humanity.

This is mainly expressed in the following ways: [The people who espouse universal values] believe Western freedom, democracy, and human rights are universal and eternal. This is evident in their distortion of the Party’s own promotion of democracy, freedom, equality, justice, rule of law, and other such values; their claim that the CCP’s acceptance of universal values is a victory for universal values,” that “the West’s values are the prevailing norm for all human civilization,” that “only when China accepts Western values will it have a future,” and that “Reform and Opening is just a process of gradually accepting universal rights.”

Promoting civil society in an attempt to dismantle the ruling party’s social foundation.

…

Promoting civil society and Western-style theories of governance, they claim that building a civil society in China is a precondition for the protection of individual rights and forms the basis for the realization of constitutional democracy. Viewing civil society as a magic bullet for advancing social management at the local level, they have launched all kinds of so-called citizen’s movements.

Advocates of civil society want to squeeze the Party out of leadership of the masses at the local level, even setting the Party against the masses, to the point that their advocacy is becoming a serious form of political opposition.

Promoting Neoliberalism, attempting to change China’s Basic Economic System.
Promoting the West’s idea of journalism, challenging China’s principle that the media and publishing system should be subject to Party discipline.

…

Defining the media as “society’s public instrument” and as the “Fourth Estate;” attacking the Marxist view of news and promote the “free flow of information on the Internet;” slandering our country’s efforts to improve Internet management by calling them a crackdown on the Internet; claiming that the media is not governed by the rule of law but by the arbitrary will of the leadership; and calling for China to promulgate a Media Law based on Western principles. [Some people] also claim that China restricts freedom of the press and bang on about abolishing propaganda departments. The ultimate goal of advocating the West’s view of the media is to hawk the principle of abstract and absolute freedom of press, oppose the Party’s leadership in the media, and gouge an opening through which to infiltrate our ideology.

Promoting historical nihilism, trying to undermine the history of the CCP and of New China.
Questioning Reform and Opening and the socialist nature of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

…

These mistaken views and ideas exist in great numbers in overseas media and reactionary publications. They penetrate China through the Internet and underground channels and they are disseminated on domestic Internet forums, blogs, and microblogs, They also appear in public lectures, seminars, university classrooms, class discussion forums, civilian study groups, and individual publications. If we allow any of these ideas to spread, they will disturb people’s existing consensus on important issues like which flag to raise, which road to take, which goals to pursue, etc., and this will disrupt our nation’s stable progress on reform and development.

Western anti-China forces and internal “dissidents” are still actively trying to infiltrate China’s ideological sphere and challenge our mainstream ideology. Some of their latest major efforts include: Some people have disseminated open letters and declarations and have organized petition-signings to vocalize requests for political reforms, improvement of human rights, release of “political prisoners,” “reversing the verdict on ‘6/4’[the Tiananmen Massacre],” and other such political demands; they have made a fuss over asset disclosure by officials, fighting corruption with the Internet, media supervision of government, and other sensitive hot-button issues, all of which stoke dissatisfaction with the Party and government. Western embassies, consulates, media operations, and NGOs operating inside China under various covers are spreading Western ideas and values and are cultivating so-called “anti-government forces.” Cooking up anti-government publications overseas. Within China’s borders, some private organizations are creating reactionary underground publications, and still others are filming documentaries on sensitive subject matter, disseminating political rumors, and defaming the party and the national leadership.

Quite a mandate.

I described the quandary for American businesses in No Way Out. But that is a quandary about profits and operations. For CCP members, and rights lawyers, and journalists, and academics, and dissidents, the quandary is much more personal, about moral choices and family preservation, and threats to life and livelihood. It is No Way Out at a different level of salience.

A little more on attorney detentions, disappearances, prison terms, threats, and torture –

Arrest of more than 200 civil rights lawyers followed in July, 2015 (the 709 incident). 200 lawyers detained – the 709 incident

Party’s Over

October 9, 2018

The crackdown on expression hardens for CCP and anyone in government, even if not CCP

Jiayun Feng, reporting in SupChina jeremy@supchina.com –

New Party rules to govern members’ online behavior

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is set to implement some new regulations for its members to monitor how they behave on the internet.

The new set of revised discipline rules was released by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on September 26, and is set to take effect on October 1. Party members are required to be hyperconscious about what they post on digital platforms, such as the popular messaging app WeChat.

Chinese artist who posted funny image of President Xi Jinping facing five years in prison as authorities crackdown on dissent in the arts. Independent, May 28, 2015

Source: The Independent – Chinese Artist Detained

These discipline rules are meant to be more stringent than anything coming out of the Party Central Office in the last four years. But there is foreshadowing of these rules, as there often is in China. In 2013, the infamous Document No. 9 specified seven rules for CCP members to observe, including forbidding any discussion of free speech, civil society, free press, and – notably, here – any negative comments about CCP or Party history (Mao, famine, Tian’anmen, et.al.) From the Jiayun Feng piece –

According to the updated regulations, members could face expulsion from the Party if they make inappropriate remarks online. These include the endorsement of bourgeois liberalization, opposition to the Party’s policy of reform and opening up, groundless criticism of the Party’s major policies that will potentially undermine the organization’s unity, defamation of national heroes and models, and slander of the Party and state leaders. The invention or spreading of rumors regarding politics might also lead to various degrees of punishment.

My own sources suggest that the rules taking effect on October 1 will be implemented severely within universities. In the run-up to the current rules, over the last couple of months, my contacts tell stories about a university Party leader who quit his job rather than be subject to speech discipline. In another university instance, a faculty member who teaches comparative politics was left in a conundrum – she cannot say anything good about anything foreign. When she objected, she was summarily removed from her teaching job and assigned to the library – a permanent demotion. A PhD professor now stacks books, likely for the rest of her career.

Teachers are now observed, surreptitiously, either by provincial or central government jiwei, the discipline inspection bureau. My students often recorded my lectures; now, that recording of Chinese teachers can be used against them in disciplinary proceedings. In another despicable development, I have direct stories of person-to-person comments at an informal dinner, later leading to punishment. Who do you trust?

For obvious reasons, I cannot name names in these articles, and I am reluctant to even name provinces, given the environment. There was a time, back in the good old days prior to 2012, when one could conceive of the arc of history bending in the direction of greater openness in China. In general, my CCP friends were happy about the direction of change. No more.

In the past, personal exchanges on WeChat could include comments on government policy, good and bad. Now, those will be forbidden, under penalty of losing one’s job, expulsion from the Party, or at least “punishment,” which could include demotion or passover for promotion. This assumes that the government can and will listen in on WeChat messages.

The crackdown is getting far more serious. I told foreign students in 2014 to advise carefully potential future students, about whether they wanted to endure the petty disruptions and censorship that was China then. (See the prior post here). Now, the disruptions and threats are at the point where some Chinese teachers, CCP members, would rather quit their jobs than be subject to the terror of the jiwei (discipline inspection bureau). In the case of the comparative politics professor, the dean of her school and the party leader of her school were both disciplined for not controlling what she said in the classroom.

In the last year, I know of three separate incidents, two in Wuhan and one in Tianjin, in which university professors were fired (in one case, the professor reportedly kept his job after begging on his knees) for comments made in class that disturbed the local jiwei (discipline inspection) unit. Either jiwei personnel or students with an axe to grind or guanxi to gain were listening in on the class.

Consider that these new rules are part and parcel of the social credit score, which has been discussed much in the last year. If friends of yours make negative comments, not in your presence, that may reduce your own social credit score. Who will want to collaborate with another faculty member who is impure in thought?

In related developments, the National Radio and Television Administration will now forbid any foreign tv shows to be broadcast in prime time, and foreign content will be limited to 30% of the time on streaming sites. China limits foreign tv shows and streaming.

This reminds me – a liitle bit – of the level of terror in East Germany, or Stalin’s USSR, when family members informed on each other and friends informed on friends. In China, this was last done in the Cultural Revolution. Tellingly, many CCP members have been saying for years that the reign of Xi Jinping reminds them of nothing so much as it does the Cultural Revolution. Of course, now, truly, no one could say that.

I am reminded of the Paul Simon line in Sounds of Silence – “people talking without speaking.” Then, it was hearing without listening. Now, it is what we call “performative declamation” rather than communication – speech acts as performance, without intent to communicate anything of meaning. Those of you with CCP members in your wechat circle will now get only pablum as commentary.

All one need do to understand this system is read Orwell’s 1984, which describes official language perfectly. CCP members are now caught in the doublethink trap. For the most part, CCP members, particularly university teachers, are smart people. But one must now say what is correct, rather than what one knows to be true –

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.

George Orwell. 1984. Book 1, Chapter 3.

One’s speech must conform to the Truth as dictated. And truthfully, it is not too difficult for even thoughtful and smart CCP members to spout the Party line. They learned the style of speech long ago, but its use was becoming limited until 2012. Another name for this type of speech is New China Newspeak, a term popularized by renowned China scholar Geremie Barme. New China Newspeak describes a form of bureaucratic and political speech that uses history, scientific and technical jargon, vernacular references, economics, Chinese victimhood, and moral judgment to argue – seemingly interminably – for the Chinese government perspective as the only rational perspective. New China Newspeak is not always long-winded, but it is repetitious.

See Geremie Barme. New China Newspeak The China Story. Australian Centre on China in the World. August 2, 2012.

Katherine Morton provides an example in The Rights and Responsibilities of Disagreement (The China Story, September 21, 2014) She refers to the “Hall of the Unified Voice” that she experienced while teaching a group of Chinese and foreign students in Turin, Italy, in 2013. When one Chinese student ventured a comment on the Chinese Dream, each Chinese student then felt compelled to comment as well, with vacuous – and similar – statements that were a form of verbal posturing rather than attempt at introducing ideas or stimulating debate. She describes –

an example of ‘group think’ aimed at presenting a united front in the face of independent thinking. It’s just this kind of knee-jerk solidarity that also vouchsafes the individual against the ever-present threat of being reported to the authorities back home.

The current crackdown on expression is part and parcel of this old historical style of speaking and writing. Sophisticated speakers are good at this, but it takes practice. One should begin learning with repetition – war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

I have a longer essay on Performative Declamation in the book section of the China Reflections blog. It needs a little editing – right now, too much “performative declamation.” But perhaps worth part of a look.

No Way Out from the Middle Kingdom

You remember the movie, with Kevin Kostner as the exemplary US Navy officer-special assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Gene Hackman). The plot twists around search for a purported Russian spy in the US, codenamed Yuri, who has been able to infiltrate the Navy at the highest levels. Following several plot twists, Kostner is ultimately left with no way out – he cannot be seen in public, as he will be implicated in a murder; and he does not want to return to his homeland, which he has not seen for at least twenty years. He has no safe place to go, and no way out of his predicament.

No doubt some American businesses are in a similar predicament now, with regard to their manufacturing or distribution or licensing deals in China. Conditions have been getting more difficult for foreign businesses, particularly American businesses, for years before the tirades coming from the current occupant of the White House. Seagate closed its factory in Suzhou in 2017. Panasonic ceased all manufacturing in China in 2015. And Home Depot, L’Oreal, Revlon, and Best Buy. Microsoft moved its two China plants to Vietnam in 2015.

Xi Jinping has worked hard to promote the home advantage for Chinese companies – in 2015, Starbucks was accused by the government and the Chinese media of gouging Chinese customers Starbucks China Pricing Similar charges were leveled against Apple China’s anti-Apple campaign and Yum Brands and Hewlett- Packard. In all cases, Chinese responded to the government with a large raspberry. For Starbucks and Apple, they cited the safety of the coffee and the attractiveness of the iPhone.

Those were minor skirmishes that any big company must get used to. Now companies of all sizes find themselves in the middle of a war, a trade war, conducted with spite and malice on both sides, and no clear end game. Tariffs are a tool, but the Chinese government has many other tools that can be more effective against any one company.

The tools are essentially enforcement of existing laws in a biased manner, enforcement of regulations made up on the spot, threats, and support for local businesses acting in an entirely extra-legal manner.

Differential enforcement of law and application of “special” law is a well-known tactic in the US, for persecution of blacks and other minorities. But in the US, there can be appeal to other avenues within the society – media, lawsuits, popular support, social media, engaging with legislators or regulators. These avenues are obviously restricted or non-existent for most American businesses in China – Starbucks and Apple being two that can generate widespread popular support.

But most American businesses in China are small to medium sized and without local guanxi. Those businesses trying to get factories, molds, money, and personnel out of China may be subject to a whole other level of persecution. By the way, I focus on manufacturing industries because foreign service businesses – retail, banking, finance, health care, education, real estate, insurance, media and entertainment – are highly restricted or forbidden in China. To date, foreign service businesses are not much of a factor in trade. Yes, Walmart and many chain retailers in shopping malls; but these are big companies with sufficient legal and financial wherewithal to withstand some ups and downs in the market, and American IP, personnel, and equipment are not at stake.

Dan Harris, at Harris/Bricken law firm, writes China Law Blog, by far the most useful general law blog about doing business in China. Over the years, he and co-authors have explained difficulties of doing business in China, with examples and clearly written language that provides both useful information and blatant warnings about the dark side of doing business there.

Now, Harris has reposted some of his most dire warnings, based on what he is hearing from businesses in 2018 in China and seeking to get out –

How to Leave China AND Survive September 23, 2018

The money paragraphs from this article –

Way back in 2013, in The Single Best Way To Avoid Being Taken Hostage In China, we wrote of how Chinese companies and individuals often take hostages in an effort to collect on alleged debts or to protest employee layoffs or the closing of a China facility:

As the article states, “it is not rare in China for managers to be held by workers demanding back pay or other benefits, often from their Chinese owners, though occasionally also involving foreign bosses.”

My law firm’s advice every single time to our clients who are laying off workers in China or closing a facility in China or allegedly owing money in China is to stay outside China for all negotiations. One only needs to be a regular reader of our blog to know that we took this position long ago and have never waffled:

If you are in a debt dispute with a Chinese company, the best thing to do is not go to China at all.
If you must go to China, think about using a bodyguard or two and think very carefully about where you stay and where you go. Most importantly, be very careful with whom you meet.
Consider preemptively suing the alleged creditor somewhere so that you can very plausibly claim that you have been seized not because you owe a debt, but out of retaliation for having sued someone. If you are going to sue, carry proof of your lawsuit with you at all times while you are in China.

By this point many of you are probably wondering why I am writing about debt when the issue is leaving China. My answer is very simple: once the news goes out that you will be leaving China, alleged creditors will come out of the woodwork. The tax authorities will come up with taxes that you owe. Your landlord will explain why you owe it way more than you thought you did. Your suppliers will send you bills for items they never actually gave you. Your employees will demand all sorts of severance. I am not saying these sorts of things always happen, but I am saying that they often do and you need to be prepared for it.

No way out is not too strong an image. Whatever the merits of the current US complaints about Chinese business practices – and there are plenty of valid complaints, including IP theft, preferential treatment for local companies, and subsidies for exporters – China-US IP battle – the US companies love the profits earned in China, and so are between a rock and a hard place. For some companies, mostly the consumer facing companies like Starbucks or KFC, there is growing competition, but a measure of public support. CCP members drink coffee and eat KFC ice cream, too. B to B companies are out of sight, out of mind, a perfect mental location for the excesses of law or regulation that are simply another way to cheat or extort from the foreigners.

Try this post – China Factory Scams: Their Time is Ripe By Steve Dickinson on September 9, 2018

Think about it this way – is there another major American trading partner where one need fear being kidnapped over a real or imagined payment dispute? Is there another American major trading partner for which the best trade advisories scream, danger, danger, danger?

In the movie No Way Out, we don’t know what happens to Kevin Kostner. But his Russian contact is right – “Let him go. He will be back. Where else can he go?” In the tariff war, we can’t tell right now what will happen. The US has a theoretical advantage in buying more than it is selling to China, and China will soon run out of US imports to tariff; but Mr. Xi doesn’t have to stand for reelection, and Chinese, even modern Chinese, are accustomed to conceding to power. Neither Mr. Xi nor the orange haired baboon can concede without losing substantial face. The uncertainty on all sides is palpable, and uncertainty in operations is deadly scary for manufacturing businesses. (Ask any business in England right now). The American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) says that almost half of 430 member companies surveyed expect a strong negative impact from the tariff war AmCham – more pain ahead. (note – this link is now blocked or deleted) Even though American businesses are developing strategies to move operations to Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, or Malaysia, it will be difficult to reproduce the infrastructure and organizational experience of having spent years in China. But at some point, companies will have to abandon the lure of profits when the cost and uncertainty become too great. China is trying to soft-pedal its formal response to the orange-haired baboon, but the indirect penalties may soon become intolerable.

High tech industries in the US face a related set of problems. In addition to traditional IP theft, Chinese companies are now innovative enough on their own to challenge world competitors, and the China market for high tech – business and consumer – is the biggest in the world. Large government subsidies and huge attractive packages for individual scientists who relocate to China are the norm. Chinese students educated in STEM fields in the US are now likely to return to China where opportunities are greater. Money alone does not drive innovation, but it is certainly a catalyst. Now American companies are feeling pressure to partner with Chinese companies on research, even as the threat of IP theft continues (even if less now than before) and loss of researcher talent continues. How to respond in this new environment, particularly one in which malice aforethought is salient? An MIT Sloan School of Management report from June of this year describes the conundrum – Changing Face of Innovation in China (limited access with sign-in). The Sloan recommendations for foreign companies in China may be all that can be done – hire more Chinese locally, learn to file patents faster in China, and “Engage in cutting-edge innovation in China when returns exceed global risks.” I’m not sure what this means, but the Sloan report described it this way –

This requires both an aggressive global innovation strategy (for example, doubling down on promising R&D projects outside China and speeding up R&D outside China) and a complementary business strategy (for example, strategically patenting, engaging in more mergers and acquisitions in China and abroad, seeking greater support from home governments, and possibly shifting away from product lines increasingly dominated by Chinese companies).

Ok.

Obviously, tariffs and different locations within China affect industries differently. For me, I expect those indirect costs – the unfair application of regulations and paperwork and extra-legal harassment as tools of trade war – to push a sizable chunk of American manufacturing out of China. Not major companies, but many smaller companies, looking at the short and medium term, will need to negotiate a way out. In the latest AmCham survey, 25% of American respondents said they had moved or are planning to move capacity out of China – and this survey was conducted a year ago. At that time, businesses cited labor costs, IP theft, and a “more challenging regulatory environment” as the reasons for relocation. Forty-five per cent reported flat or declining revenue in China, and only 64% reporting a profit, the lowest percentage in five years. Now comes the trade war. AmCham – businesses leaving China (note – this link is now blocked or deleted) Larger companies may choose to reinvest elsewhere, but they too will have to bear the brunt of both sides – tariffs on imports to the US and tariffs on imports and punishment from China. The greater the role that public stockholders play in company valuation, the more difficult it will be for American companies to find a way out. Potential loss of profits and the sunk costs of capacity will be hard for stockholders to bear. But no way out can only be a short term solution. For some firms, as for Kostner in the movie, returning home – or at least, leaving China – may be the only way out.

Intimidation Knows No Boundaries

This direct threat to a New Zealand academic – her office and home invaded – is part of the intimidation pattern – transition from hard power to soft power to sharp power. CCP is always watching. In this case, Anne Marie Brady has studied Chinese politics, and recently wrote a report describing Chinese government infiltration in New Zealand politics, education, and media.

So, another story of direct threat to an academic, this time in New Zealand, by person or persons unknown. The unknown perps are generally understood to be a Chinese government-promoted foreign version of chengguan – the plainclothes thugs hired informally by Chinese local governments to maintain street order, help evict farmers, provide household imprisonment services, threaten dissidents, and occasionally beat up or murder government objects of disaffection. In this case, Anne Marie Brady wrote a detailed research report, titled Magic Weapons, describing the means by which Beijing intends to (surreptitiously) influence domestic and foreign policy in foreign countries using the United Front vehicles. From the Magic Weapons article –

After more than 30 years of this work, there are few overseas Chinese associations able to completely evade “guidance” — other than those affiliated with the religious group Falungong, Taiwan independence, pro-independence Tibetans and Uighurs, independent Chinese religious groups outside party-state controlled religions, and the democracy movement—and even these are subject to being infiltrated by informers and a target for united front work.

As in the Cold War years, united front work not only serves foreign policy goals, but can sometimes be used as a cover for intelligence activities.

The Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Public Security, PLA Joint Staff Headquarters’ Third Department, Xinhua News Service, the United Front Work Department, International Liaison Department, are the main, but not the only, PRC party-state agencies who recruit foreign, especially ethnic Chinese, agents for the purpose of collecting intelligence.

In 2014, one former spy said that the Third Department had at least 200,000 agents abroad.

Some Chinese community associations act as fronts for Chinese mafia who engage in illegal gambling; human trafficking; extortion; and money laundering. As a leaked 1997 report by Canada’s RCMP-SIS noted, these organizations also frequently have connections with China’s party-state intelligence organizations.

The crisis of 1989 resulted in the CCP government stepping up foreign persuasion efforts (外宣) aimed at the non-ethnic-Chinese public too. As they had done in the past, in this the Chinese government drew on the help of high level “friends of China” —foreign political figures such as the USA’s Henry Kissinger, to repair China’s relations with the USA and other Western democracies. In 1991 the State Council Information Office was set up to better promote China’s policies to the outside world. Reflecting the fact that it is both a party and a state body, its other Chinese-only nameplate is the Office of Foreign Propaganda, 外宣办. Soon after, China Central Television (CCTV) launched its first English language channel. China gradually expanded its external influence activities under CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin (1989-2002). While these activities failed to ameliorate negative global public opinion towards the Chinese government and its policies, efforts to promote a positive image of China’s economic policies had much more success.

John Burge, the notorious Chicago police commander who oversaw torture and intimidation in arrests, had nothing on the chengguan in the way of despicable behavior.

https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/06/can-chinas-hated-local-police-reform-their-image/277202/

Source:Bystanders surround a street vendor beaten by the chengguan, China’s municipal police force (Sohu/Fair Use) in Yueran Zhang. Can China’s Hated Local Police Reform Their Image? Atlantic, June 25, 2013.

From the New Zealand Herald, quoted in the South China Morning Post (!) –

According to The New Zealand Herald, Brady said her office on campus was broken into in December, and her home burgled last week, with computers, phones and USB storage devices stolen while other obvious valuables were overlooked.

Brady said the latest burglary was preceded by an anonymous letter threatening “pushback” against opponents of Beijing’s interests, with the warning: “You are next.”

And the intimidation is not a new story. China has always blocked entry to China of scholars and writers it found to speak or write too honestly. Minxin Pei, Andrew Nathan, and Perry Link are examples. And –

Intimidation of foreign journalists in China in 2011 (actually, rather a constant) Intimidation

And – Kevin Carrico, who was monitored in both the US and in Australia Inside Higher Ed – Monitoring and Scrutiny of Foreign Professors This Inside Higher Ed story is worth reading.

And you all know of the threat to Cambridge University Press and other academic publishers regarding demands to censor journals.

Foreigners in China, of course, have always been subject to scrutiny and more. In recent weeks, Christopher Balding (teaching at the Shenzhen Branch of Peking University graduate school of business) has left China Balding Out He writes, “China has reached a point where I do not feel safe being a professor and discussing even the economy, business, and financial markets.” He was threatened in 2015, as was I, although his experience was more extreme than mine. His office at school was broken into, his apartment also, and he was quite sure his phone was being tapped.

On to this most recent story in the New York Times –

Break-ins of Home and Office of New Zealand Academic

Fingers Point to China After Break-Ins Target New Zealand Professor

…

Ms. Brady’s recent paper, “Magic Weapons,” was published last September. It identified categories of political-influence activities by China in Western democracies, laid out what Ms. Brady said was the Chinese Communist Party’s blueprint for conducting such activities worldwide, and examined New Zealand as a case study of Chinese influence across most spheres of public life.

When Ms. Brady returned home on the day of the burglary, bed covers were rumpled and papers strewn about, but her husband’s laptop was left untouched. She said that it appeared to be a “psychological operation” and the latest in a series of incidents targeting her over her work. She said her computer’s hard drive had been tampered with when she was previously in China, and that Communist Party officials questioned people she spoke with there.

Before the February burglary, she said, she received a letter warning her she would be attacked …..

Do read the original paper, Magic Weapons China’s Political Influence Activities Under Xi Jinping

This story is also reported by Bill Bishop today at Axios China