SFSU kills Confucius Institute Program

In May, 2019, San Francisco State University (SFSU) announced it was closing its Confucius Institute program that had been in operation since 2005.

Closure was not due to concerns about academic freedom, freedom of speech, or even any suspicion of ulterior motives on the part of the teachers sent from China. In the SFSU case, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019 denied federal funds for an intensive Chinese language programs if a university also hosted a Confucius Institute, and SFSU has an excellent DOD funded language program.

Sure, DOD can kill Confucius Institutes. But DOD has nothing on me. I helped kill another SFSU Chinese program ten years earlier. That was not on the basis of politics, but solely academic rigor.

In 2010, Chinese and American universities were near their peak desire for joint exchange and degree granting programs. Many of the best US schools – Harvard, Yale, Stanford – had programs in China, for both American and Chinese students. Second tier American schools were eagerly establishing joint programs or 2×2 programs (two years in school in China, two years in the US, perhaps resulting in a highly valuable American degree).

In this frenetic academic lovefest, San Francisco State University (SFSU) approached Zhejiang University of Science and Technology (ZUST) about a joint undergraduate civil engineering program. An administrative official from SFSU – I don’t remember who – came to ZUST to promote the as-yet not completely defined program. He spoke in Chinese to our students – “Two years at ZUST, two years at SFSU, possibly a joint degree, possibly a SFSU degree. A valuable exchange program in any case.” He made a convincing case.

The fit was pretty good on paper. ZUST had a new undergrad civil engineering program taught all in English, for both Chinese and foreign students. There were about 35 students in the first year, with more to come.

SFSU had a large Asian student population, so it was accustomed to dealing with foreign students. Foreign students paid full tuition. There were a number of Chinese civil engineering faculty, so language problems could be minimized. The SFSU civil engineering program was internationally accredited by ABET (Accreditation Bureau for Engineering and Technology). No Chinese undergrad program in civil engineering was internationally accredited, so a joint degree would look mighty fine for a ZUST graduate looking to work outside China.

Even in 2010, there was extensive reporting of academic problems with Chinese students in exchange programs. Yale cancelled its ecology and evolutionary biology program with Tsinghua in Beijing, after extensive plagiarism by Chinese students. Everyone understood that Chinese learning, even in the best schools, was dominated by repetition and attention only to the book.

SFSU wanted to make sure ZUST students could do the work. An SFSU core requirement was – still is – a course in American history. I was a foreigner, so I was tapped to teach.

The ZUST administrators told me I should teach the course “American style”- to me, that meant quizzes and homework and writing and, above all, no cheating. I told the civil engineering dean that was a mistake. I knew the quality of the students from prior courses, and cheating was rampant. The school reiterated – “yes, just like you would in America.” Reluctantly, I said yes.

There is a saying in China about universities in China compared with those in the US – “in China, it is difficult to get into the university, but once there, everyone graduates; in the US, it is easy to get into the university, and easy to flunk out.”

No need to belabor the details. We had a standard textbook, the Eric Foner Give Me Liberty! with quizzes and very short – five page – writing requirements. The English listening, speaking, and writing abilities of the Chinese students were adequate. Their cultural preparation was not.

First off, no more than one or two of the eighteen Chinese students purchased the textbook. It was expensive by Chinese standards – about $40 – but in the US, students would be buying six or eight of those each semester. The twenty or so Chinese students were also roommates – they probably occupied a total of four or five dorm rooms – so joint studying would be possible, although tough. But not possible for two students to read the book at one time. They were unaccustomed to homework, written short answer questions from the chapter covered that week. Most tried to copy the homework in class or right before class. We had a quiz every week on the chapter – ten or fifteen minutes, to see if they had read – anything. Most had read something, probably just looked at the powerpoints, but the cheating in the quizzes was blatant. I tore up some quiz papers when students were looking at their phones and writing answers. There were a lot of low grades on quizzes.

Paper submittals were very disappointing. I spent more than one entire class – 135 minutes – on how to write – five paragraph essay, formatting and references, APA style. References and citations were a … let us say, foreign … concept. Students had powerpoint notes, other notes from me, and examples. I emphasized the importance of good references and avoiding plagiarism. This was not a completely wasted effort. But mostly. Papers came back in two or three different color fonts, with different size fonts, with the plagiarized sections often in one of the unique colors or sizes so there was no need to do any checking. I didn’t know whether to feel discouraged or insulted that the plagiarism was so poorly done.

References were often simply to “Baidu” the popular online source in China. This was like using “Google” as a reference. To be fair, Baidu did not provide good citations for its published materials, and there were few other sources for the students to use. The library was useless as a source for materials in any language. Students had no access whatsoever to academic journals. All blocked.

But they needed to know how to write an acceptable five page paper, even as engineering students. A couple of the Chinese students got the idea. A few more of the foreign students did. I allowed students to rewrite papers after my comments. Some did so. Most did not.

I point out again that these were not problems with English language. These were cultural differences, and unwillingness to make the changes necessary if they were to venture, as is said in China, outside.

With the plagiarism, refusal to correct the plagiarism, cheating, and general mopery, we had a lot of failures in the course. About two-thirds of the class.

I had earnest meetings with several levels of faculty and administrators and deans. They had warnings before and during the course. But I had given them what they wanted.

The civil engineering students learned the wisdom of the second part of the saying about universities in the US, without having to actually attend school in the US and spend thousands of dollars for nothing. No civil engineering student applied for the 2+2 program with SFSU. The program died a natural death before it ever went live.

I think I did good work on the SFSU program. Curiously though, no one ever thanked me. Sometimes, teaching is a thankless job.

Money Talks in the Clash of Civilizations

What else would you expect?

You remember Samuel Huntington’s article in Foreign Affairs in 1993 –

The central axis of world politics in the future is likely to be, in Kishore Mahbubani’s phrase, the conflict between “the West and the Rest” and the responses of non-Western civilizations to Western power and values…. The third alternative is to attempt to “balance” the West by developing economic and military power and cooperating with other non-Western societies against the West, while preserving indigenous values and institutions; in short, to modernize but not to Westernize.

Take a look at the three maps below.

The first is Huntington’s civilization categories.

The second maps countries that signed letters to the United Nations Human Rights Council in opposition to and in support of China’s ethnic cleansing policies in Xinjiang.

The third maps countries with substantial debt to China, as a per cent of national GDP.

The First Map – Huntington’s Civilizations

The Clash of Civilizations according to Huntington (1996), as presented in his book.Formerly-archived Geography of War, course at Middlebury College.

The Second Map – Uighurs – Which Side are you on?

Many sources confirm that up to 1.5 million Uighurs in Xinjiang are in concentration camps, with the goal of erasing their native Muslim culture and transforming them into good Chinese citizens.

From SupChina – An extraordinary event in human rights diplomacy happened in the last week: Two unprecedented letters to the president of the UN Human Rights Council were signed by dozens of countries expressing either support for or condemnation of China’s treatment of Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang region.

Photo credit: A visual representation of countries that signed letters to the UN Human Rights Council against and in defense of China’s ethnic policies in the Xinjiang region. Map made by Reddit user Hamena95

Twenty-two countries signed the letter of condemnation. They are in blue in the map above.

The Chinese government responded with a letter of its own. Reuters reports that 37 countries joined the Chinese response, commending China’s remarkable achievements in human rights. Such counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures as have been undertaken in Xinjiang are to be applauded. Those nations are in red in the map above.

What stands out is the US failure to condemn Chinese actions, although we understand that to be attributable to the views of our current dear leader. The US dropped out of the Human Rights council in 2018.

What also stands out is the failure of any of the Islamic world to condemn Chinese actions against Muslims in Xinjiang. A number of countries, notably Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Algeria signed on to the Chinese response to the original condemnation. And notice the support for China in Africa where China is doing infrastructure and resource deals, and Russia.

It is easy to see Huntington’s cultural clash in the current US-China conflict. Individualism v collectivism. World hegemon v rising competitor. Modernity and traditionalism. Its surprising how quickly the world alliances have formed. In the third map, we begin to see why.

The Third Map – Debt and Loyalty

The third map is from a new working paper on Chinese foreign lending by Sebastian Horn, Carmen Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch. They identified nearly 2000 foreign loans and 3000 grants to more than 150 countries totaling about $530 billion from 1949 to 2017. This is apart from purchases of foreign bonds.

As of 2018, the Chinese government holds more than five trillion dollars of debt of the rest of the world, equal to about six per cent of world GDP. As I have noted elsewhere, this lending is mostly to low-income developing countries (LIDC), oil exporters, and countries in the path of the OBOR projects.

From Ives Smith at Naked Capitalism – China: The Covert Credit Superpower –

The regions most indebted to China are Far East Asia and Central Asia, including highly exposed, small economies that are in geographic proximity to China such as Laos, Cambodia and the Kyrgyz Republic …. Next come Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, as well as some parts of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. The debt flows to Eastern Europe are smaller, when measured as a share of debtor country GDP, but the amounts of credit to Europe have been growing substantially over the past five years.

Note the similarities in maps two and three.

Notably, no Islamic nation condemned China for its treatment of Muslims. Islamic northern Africa and much of the middle east and the –stans are recipients of substantial Chinese lending. Even India has failed to condemn China.

No middle eastern or southern Africa country joined in the condemnation. Several southern African countries have more than 25% of their GDP in debt owed to China.

Nearly all South American countries have more than 5% of GDP owed to China. None joined in signing of the letter.

Notably absent from the original UN letter were Italy, Greece, Turkey and all of eastern Europe, all recipients of large amounts of Chinese loans or expected beneficiaries of the OBOR.

Signatories to the UN condemnation letter were the “west” including Scandinavia and Japan and all the English speaking nations except the US.

Civilizations, repression, and debt

Samuel Huntington described about ten cultures in his 1994 book. The big three civilizations he described were the west, the Islamic world, and Sinic, mainly China. He described potential alliances of these with other civilizations – Russia with China, the Islamic world with China, based on similar thinking about the importance of history and desire to maintain distinction from the west. Huntington’s categories are broad, and not without critics.

Critics of the clash theory have pointed out that significant parts of the Islamic or Sinic world have modernized, particularly leadership and business interests. And any one nation, any one civilization, is far too complex to be accounted for in Huntington’s model. The populist uprisings in the US and Britain and Europe certainly point away from modernism.

Well, ok. The world is big and complicated. Capitalism is no friend to democracy. Huntington did not see a “winner” in the world civilizational struggle in his 1993 Foreign Affairs article.

But it sure looks as if money speaks much louder than human rights talk, and Huntington was clearly onto something, way back in 1993.

For those of you want a bit more data, below is a listing of countries in Africa that have –

Signed on to the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative)
Supported China on Xinjiang
Supported China in the 2016 South China Sea arbitration
Received more than $500 million in loans from China in the period 2000-2017

This is from Sinocism –

The clash is looking less like a clash than a fait accompli. And money is the root of … something.

Give Me Liberty! in Hangzhou

There is a saying – with guanxi, you can do anything. Without guanxi, you can do nothing. Sometimes, with guanxi, you can get Liberty! in China. A story about ordering textbooks in China.

In 2009, I began teaching fulltime at Zhejiang University of Science and Technology (ZUST) in Hangzhou. I had a joint appointment with the business school and the engineering school. For the business students, I was to teach micro and macro economics; for the engineers, courses in urban and environmental planning. My students were a mix of Chinese and foreign students, mostly from Africa, a few from the middle east and Indonesia.

This was the era when Chinese schools were looking to form cooperative relationships with school in the US, England, Germany. In the fall of 2010, the president of San Francisco State University came to ZUST and delivered a promotional talk – in Chinese – to my engineering students. The proposal that had been worked out was a 2+2 deal – two successful years of study at ZUST could lead to two, possibly three, years at SFSU and a joint bachelor’s degree in engineering.

This was an excellent opportunity for ZUST students, since a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in China was not worth much outside of China. With the possible exception of one program at Tsinghua, no Chinese engineering bachelor’s degree programs were internationally accredited. This meant that a graduate could not apply to take the professional engineering exam in most of the world without substantial additional study or years of practice. There was no guarantee that the SFSU joint program would receive accreditation, but there was certainly a chance. Basic courses in math and science would be taught in China. The more substantive courses would be in the US. This was not unlike a junior college transfer program into a major American university.

SFSU wanted a couple of core courses taught at ZUST – an American history course and an American politics course. My background is in civil engineering, urban planning and policy, economics and organization. But I spoke English and looked American, so I was tabbed at the instructor. As they say, what could possibly go wrong?

No other teacher at ZUST had ever taken, much less taught, American history. It might be fair to say that this was the first time such a course had ever been taught in Zhejiang Province. It was a historical first.

These were still heady days of openness in the second half of the Hu Jintao administration. I was at ZUST because I had just finished six years of teaching midlevel CCP officials in a graduate program in public administration at IIT in Chicago. I wanted to see what teaching in China would be like, so I went. The director of the international program at ZUST was a student of mine in Chicago. She was smart, open, and interested in making deals with foreign schools and foreign teachers. It is fair to say that I was the face of the foreign program at ZUST at a time when such programs were much desired.

Textbook selection was going to be a challenge. In the US, book ordering need not be more complicated than an instructor sending book details to the ordering department of the school, and a few days or weeks later the book shows up in the school bookstore. Students buy the book, and the course is in business.

I knew that would not be the process at ZUST. There was a book ordering department, but of course that was mostly for Chinese books. There were a few American books used – most notably, the Greg Mankiw Fundamentals of Economics books, but those were published legally in China, so the Mankiw books had already been vetted for content.

The course was to be American history since 1865. No other details provided to me. There were many book from which to choose, and Eric Foner had written more than twenty of them. His Give Me Liberty! is still the most used American history survey course text in the US. For the instructor, the teacher’s edition provided powerpoints, which would save me dozens of hours of work (no one teaches in China without powerpoints). The book was also used at SFSU. I chose the Foner book.

I emailed my book choice to my former IIT student, the head of the international program at ZUST, now my colleague. If she had been drinking tea when she saw my email order, she probably would have done a spit-take. Give Me What?

These were heady days of openness, but come on, there are limits. Give Me History would have been ok.

My former student was the head of the international program, but she was not the No. 1 – that was the Party leader, who was ultimately responsible for all my actions. She could not speak much English, and could certainly not read the book, so vetting fell to my former student.

This is where the guanxi worked. We were teacher and student in Chicago, and we had many chances to talk. She saw me as at least reasonably trustworthy – I was not going to be running down China in the classroom. Give Me Liberty! was the SFSU book. The whole point of the course was to expose these Chinese students to American style courses and teaching so they had a chance to go to the US in their third year.

But still. We had meetings. My former student had to look up the book online, and read what she could from the W.W. Norton website. She had to convince herself that the book was ok, just an unfortunate title. I had to promise her that there were no passages suggesting that China or CCP were implicated in the bombing at Pearl Harbor or responsible for the Great Depression, and that destruction of CCP was not an integral part of American history since 1865. She took me at my word.

There was a more serious vetting process on the ZUST side than I know. My former student was putting herself on the line, and her Party leader, in ordering such a book. She could not order the book herself – that had to be done by someone in the civil engineering department, and that woman was putting her reputation and that of her dean on the line as well. I had more than half a dozen meetings with various of the parties. I sent long emails, with text of my discussions with the WW Norton rep in the US. I don’t know if there were provincial education bureau discussions before the book order could be placed, but I would not be surprised. Liberty was not a censored word, but it wasn’t on everyone’s lips, either. If something went south with the book or me or the course, the jobs of several people could be on the line.

Then there was the money. Students are supposed to pay for books. In the US, the book sold for about $46 at the time, about 300 yuan. Three hundred yuan was the book allowance for one ZUST student for an entire semester. We could not order CD copies – those would have been illegal to ship and WW Norton would not send them anyway- as the rep told me, they didn’t have good IP protection in China. We could not order used copies – Chinese only wanted new, and could only order from the publisher in any case. Illegal copying was still common in China, but the school did not want to engage in that itself, so ordering one copy was out. A real world example – the Mankiw Fundamentals book was about 790 pages. The book printed legally in China was sold for 79 yuan (about $12). In the US, the book cost over $100. But photocopying in China cost 0.1 yuan per page. You do the math. The school was going to have to buy the books, about 9000 yuan, and eat the cost. That was a couple of months salary for some teachers.

I could have put together notes, and taught without a book. But Chinese teachers are expected to use a book (presumably so it can be vetted, and so the school has some assurance that the teacher is at minimum reading something to the students). For my course, a book was most certainly going to be necessary.

There were time constraints. Shipping on a boat would take about six weeks to get to ZUST, and this was after whatever approvals and vetting were needed outside of ZUST. WW Norton did have a relationship with one of the required Chinese book importing companies, so paper copies of the book could be sent to China. But time was getting short. We had been having the meetings and email discussions all through the spring, the school closes down in the summer, and I needed the books by about August 1.

I thought perhaps I could just order the books myself from W.W. Norton in the US – thirty or so copies, wrap them up, put them on a boat, they would arrive in six weeks or so. But that wouldn’t work. The Chinese government still controlled book ordering. Books could only be ordered through one of the designated import agents. If my thirty books had just shown up at Shanghai port, they would have been seized and tossed.

I gave the school a deadline – I needed the books ordered by July 10. My guanxi with my former student worked. Give Me Liberty! was ordered by ZUST. The books got delivered, and we used them – or I should say, the books were in the bookstore. Only a few students purchased the book.

ZUST did not repeat the course. Very few – perhaps none – of the Chinese students wanted to pay the American tuition to SFSU, and they did not respond well to an “American-style” course, with quizzes and exams and papers to write. The students got a taste of liberty, taught American style, and judged it wanting.

I ordered other books from America for other courses. None of those were the existential crisis of ordering Give Me Liberty! in English, for use with Chinese students, with such a provocative title. When the course was over, the unsold books were delivered to me in my apartment. Perhaps they are still there. Anyone interested, contact me. I’m at liberty to make a deal.

浙江科技学院教材预订表

院、部、(盖章) 建筑工程学院院教学主管（签名）：教研所所长（签名）：联系电话：填表日期： 2011 年 6 月日

序号

课程名称

Course name

教材名称

Textbook name

主编姓名

author

出版社

Press name

版次

version

书号

ISBN

价格

price

使用对象

预订数(册)

Order volume

库存

合计

征订人

签名

使用

时间

备注

学生

student

教师

teacher

American

History Since 1865

Give Me Liberty!

Foner

WW Norton

2^nd Edition Volume 2 Paper

ISBN 978-0-393-93256-0

$37.00

William D. Markle

“

Norton Media Library

WW Norton

CD-Rom

free

William D. Markle

“

Instructors Manual and Test Bank

Valerie Adams

WW Norton

CD-Rom

William D. Markle

“

Studentt Study Guide

WW Norton

pdf

free

William D. Markle

注：一份送教务处教材中心，，一份系部留存.

Brief Note on the Trade Shootout

It is no surprise to anyone familiar with Chinese thinking on foreign policy or negotiating practice that China is balking at changing its laws to reflect what the American negotiators apparently thought had been previously agreed. From the Reuters article –

In each of the seven chapters of the draft trade deal, China had deleted its commitments to change laws to resolve core complaints that caused the United States to launch a trade war: Theft of U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets; forced technology transfers; competition policy; access to financial services; and currency manipulation.

One can marvel at American stupidity, if that is what is involved; or simply invoke the negotiating principle that no items are agreed to until all items are agreed to. One can call it Chinese perfidy, but that would simply imply that the Americans are so uninformed about Chinese negotiating tactics that they should not be in the same room with their counterparties at all. To paraphrase Harold Washington on politics, trade negotiations ain’t beanbag.

So let’s get past the propaganda and posturing. This below is what no negotiating is going to change. It is at the heart of some American thinking on the trade battle.

This is from Dan Harris at China Law Blog, the best China business advisory online – Doing Business Overseas? Have you Checked Your Trademarks?

From time to time when we write something here with which a reader disagrees, we get a comment or an email accusing us of scare-mongering…. If I can scare a few more companies into not losing their trademarks I will have achieved my goal.

… stealing a brand name is a lot easier (and usually a lot more profitable) than stealing a product design. Our international IP lawyers deal with probably three trademark theft cases for every one design case.

…

Why does any of this matter?

It matters because if someone beats you to registering “your” trademark and you are having products made with that trademark on it, the person or company who owns “your” trademark can stop you from manufacturing your product or exporting the product with the trademark on it. The The trademark owner can also register its mark with its own country’s customs authorities and then have customs seize the trademarked product at the port, preventing your shipment from leaving the country in which it was made. This is a particularly nasty surprise in those cases where the foreign buyer has already paid for the product.

Who is going to register your trademarks? It is typically someone you know, like someone tied to your factory, one of your competitors or even a disgruntled employee. One of our China lawyers loves to talk about what happened a few years ago when he gave a series of lectures in China on how to protect your brand and product when manufacturing in China. After the talks, he went to dinner with a group of foreign company production managers who talked of how they had for years been urging the foreign companies for whom they worked to register their trademark. The foreign companies consistently refused, claiming such registrations were a waste of money. These production managers then told our China lawyer the following:

We are going to form our own trading company. We will register all the important trademarks of our employers in China in the name of that trading company. When we get fired, we will register “their” marks with China customs and completely shut down their Chinese operations. It will serve them right for being so stupid and lazy.

Now just for the record, the laws in many countries would not allow these employees to get away with this, but the mere fact they were plotting this ought to scare many of you. In my view, your bigger threats to register your brand name where you manufacture is someone tied in with your manufacturer (they do this so they can stop you from going to someone else) and your competitors (they do this so they can stop you).

Note though that these operation managers did not say they were going to steal their employer’s product design…. But this small expense might give them considerable power over their former bosses.

Is a law or regulation negotiated at the central government level going to put a stop to what is legal, if unethical, in China? No agreement in law or regulation will stop this sort of practice, if for no other reason than China is big and law and regulation are heavily decentralized. Forget Mr. Xi’s language about rule of law and forget the pronouncements from the new Foreign Investment Law and forget the new National Supervision Commission combining government and CCP regulation of conduct.

There is one, and only one, issue in the trade shootout, and that is IP theft, whether theft by cyber or by hand. By this point in 2019, after decades of dealing with Chinese companies, everything else is attributable to American naivete and some assumptions about beanbag.

The culture of lying and deception in business should be well understood by now. As I always say, this means no disrespect to those Chinese business owners who manage to conduct business honorably, whether one uses Confucian or western standards of conduct. The Silver Rule is fundamentally no different than the Golden Rule – treat others as you would want to be treated. Sunzi and San shi liu ji are about deceiving an enemy. Business partners in the west are not usually thought of as enemies.

As I wrote in No Way Out from the Middle Kingdom –

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?

Caveat emptor, especially in China. Perhaps an urgent note to our dear leader and his negotiators would be useful.

Negotiating Harmony – Conflict and Governance in the New Age

This paper was published in the Journal of the Zhejiang Province School of Administration (otherwise known as Party School) in 2015.

So far as I know, it is the only original contribution by a foreign author to this Journal. Since the Journal is from CCP in Zhejiang, one of the wealthiest and most sophisticated provinces in China, it is as well respected as a CCP journal can be.

The paper is way too long for a blog read. I outline a way for CCP to provide meaningful voice to populations angry over land thefts, pollution problems, and corruption. Among other suggestions, a ready-in-waiting conflict resolution organization, structured at the provincial level, could be brought to bear on incidents of mass protest. A stand-still agreement is necessary to force parties to negotiate. This is one way to provide voice to Chinese people in the absence of democracy.

This is a theoretical paper, although no one in China would describe it that way. A bit too clear and direct. The paper was presented at a conference at Zhejiang Business and Financial University in 2015, although my presentation was kept apart from those of other presenters. I gave a more or less private briefing to about 30 faculty and students – either to inoculate others from dangerous ideas or provide me with a rapt audience. Probably both are true. The presentation was in the school’s Party conference room.

Negotiating Harmony – Conflict and Governance in the New Age

William D. Markle, Ph.D.

Zhejiang University of Science and Technology

Hangzhou

March, 2014

Version 2 – May 15, 2014

Contact:

wdmarkle@aol.com

15988832937

Abstract

A fundamental question of the times is whether the economic and political reform necessary to continued growth in the Chinese economy can be accomplished within the existing political system. This article briefly reviews the literature on complex systems, as applied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the demands for a new method of addressing fundamental conflict – mass protest – over land rights changes and environmental problems. The author suggests that use of conflict resolution skills and a defined public participation program, conducted at the provincial level, can be of use to the CCP in adapting to the new society.

Introduction

Stability and harmony 和谐 hé xié are key words for public administration in China, as they have been for more than a thousand years. Nevertheless, for more than sixty years, the concepts of stability and harmony could be trumped by economic development, in whatever form that took – land reclaiming, expressway construction, development zone clearing, or apartment and factory construction.

That era is over. For many reasons, including overinvestment, bank balance sheet problems, a rising middle class that demands attention, and social media that make communication instant and definitive, it is no longer possible for government at any level in China to ignore stability and harmony as important principles of governance.

As is well-known to readers of this journal, both environmental problems and land conversions are a significant source of instability. One has to only consult China Daily, or most any western newspaper or magazine, to get weekly examples. Most recently, last October, Xiage township in Zhejiang provides an embarrassing example, or Gangnan County in Wenzhou, in 2012.

This article is not directed at providing advice for policy makers on compensation, or removal procedures. This article argues for a more sophisticated approach to public involvement in public decision-making that can reduce the potential for, and severity of, mass protest. Specifically, public participation training, in schools and training institutes, should include courses in conflict resolution and negotiation. The public officials for whom this training is critical are those working in urban planning, environmental analysis, civil engineering, and public administration.

In addition to conflict resolution training, it is important to develop a structured dispute resolution system within government, for use in local land conversion, land use, and pollution conflicts.

There are five suggestions for consideration as part of greater use of rule of law, openness, and the reform agenda of the Xi Jinping era.

The five suggestions are –

1.Training in conflict resolution for undergraduates in urban planning and environmental programs

2. Similar training for graduate programs in public administration and at institutes

3. Empower professional staff in decision-making, and publish environmental evaluation reports and demand conformance to a time frame

4. Create a defined provincial level procedure for conflict resolution, triggered without excessive delay or petition

5. Process and professionals in conflict resolution to report to provincial authorities

Public Participation, Conflict, and Demand for Change

Public participation techniques are well understood in China, at least at some levels. Design of public participation in environmental assessment in China has been discussed by Wang and Chen (2006), Horsley (2009), Wang (2006), Zhang (2012), and Tang (2007), among others.

As long ago as 2006, Pan Yue, the vice minister of the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), linked environmental changes to increased public participation –

In China, environmental protection is an increasingly pressing issue. Not only are pollution and ecological degradation becoming ever more serious, but also people are more and more unsatisfied about the situation. The speed with which we are polluting the environment far outstrips our efforts to clean it up. Why is this? China has a large population but few resources, and our production and consumption methods are too out of date. But at the root of the problem lies a more significant cause — the lack of public participation in China. (Yue, 2006)

Wen Jiabao made protection of land use rights in land conversion a theme of the later years of his premiership. In an article in Qiushi –

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has called for farmers’ land rights to be protected and criticized a widespread policy of moving villagers into apartment blocks so their land can be merged into larger blocs or developed.

State-backed land grabs are a cause of deep tension across China. Ten days of protests over confiscated farmland and the death of a protest organizer in Wukan in booming Guangdong province in December drew widespread attention as a rebuff to the stability-obsessed government.

In an essay for influential magazine Qiushi, or Seeking Truth, Wen said “rural residents enjoy the legal rights of land contracts, land use and collective income distribution,” whether they stayed in the countryside or migrated to cities for work, according to a summary published by the Xinhua news agency on Sunday. (Reuters, January 15, 2012)

And as recently as last October, Xi Jinping urged officials to resolve conflicts according to the rule of law, reminding officials of the “Fengqiao experience” in 1963, in Zhuji. The Fengqiao experience suggests that people should be enabled to resolve conflicts among themselves without having to refer disputes to higher level authorities.

Improvements to process and participation in decision making about the built environment are laudable. But too often, such public participation fails because it is done at the wrong time or at the wrong level of analysis, or with wrong intentions. Seven years after Hu Jintao promised

To ensure scientific and democratic decision- making, we will improve the information and intellectual support for it, increase its transparency and expand public participation. In principle, public hearings must be held for the formulation of laws, regulations and policies that bear closely on the interests of the public…. We will improve the open administrative system in various areas and increase transparency in government work, thus enhancing the people’s trust in the government (Hu, 2007)

we know that the environmental protection process and land conversion process in China fail to protect. In a short piece in Global Times, quoted in Qiushi, Yan reports that the draft changes to the environmental protection process were unlikely to protect Chinese or the environment. (Yan, 2012). And at times, the environmental protection bureau itself displays the problem with both regulating and collecting fines for violations of regulations – the economic moral hazard problem in Haimen City, in Nantong, in Jiangsu. (WSJ, February 1, 2013)

And even though environmental protection is moving closer to the top of the national agenda, there is still reluctance on the part of powerful departments to consider environmental projection when proposed by the environmental protection bureau –

Strong and influential government agencies such as the planning commissions (jiwei), economic commissions (jingwei), and the construction commissions (jianwei) and industrial and commercial authorities are known to be reluctant to endorse and enforce stringent environmental measures for fear that they might slow down economic growth. (Wing Hung Lo and Leung, 2007)

We are concerned here not with administrative rule making, or mediation in Chinese village life, or strike resolution, but with the use of public participation ideas in resolving conflicts in land transfers and the built environment. These are the areas of most significant individual and group conflict in China, which according to research by Sun Liping at Tsinghua, reached 180,000 per year in 2010 (Fung, 2012).

The topic is not new to the CCP. At Fujian School of Administration, Wang Liping has held a class that points not to improvements in governance, administration, or communication techniques, but to violence –

To help illustrate his point that forceful demolition can lead to violence, Wang shows a slide of a farmer in Hubei Province who used a home-made cannon to drive away a demolition team in order to protect his land. The class falls quiet. (Fung, 2012)

In what follows, I want to describe the CCP as a system of organization, and make the point that the CCP has demonstrated in the past, and must continue to demonstrate, that is an adaptive system, that can use flexibility to respond to challenge. Then, discuss governance and public administration in China, and note that conflict resolution has not been part of professional training.

CCP as a Complex Adaptive System

The unique political and governance structure in China has facilitated economic growth for 30 years. During that time, the CCP has shown itself to have remarkable flexibility in adapting to new conditions – restructuring SOE in the mid-1990s, banks in the late 1990s, opening to the world in trade and gradually expanding the scope of the private sector. All accomplished within a single party state system, with hierarchical but still extremely decentralized control. How is decentralized control possible?

Despite the decentralized nature of government in China, we can characterize government and political organizations as part of a single complex system. A definition of relationships and interactions that are complex –

They are complex in that they are dynamic networks of interactions, and their relationships are not aggregations of the individual static entities. They are adaptive; in that the individual and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to the change-initiating micro-event or collection of events (Mitelton-Kelly, 2003)

There are an uncountable number of parts, interacting both closely and at a distance, with varying levels of force and reaction over time. It is really impossible to describe any policy change, any administrative change in such a system, as a linked set of linear commands, coming from a central authority to subordinate groups, which understand and obey. The rational and hierarchical models of Max Weber or Henri Fayol certainly do not apply.

Within this hierarchy, we can characterize the CCP as a relatively adaptive system, in the terms of Boisot and Child (1999) –

systems that have to match in a nontrivial way the complexity of their environment (Ross Ashby 1954, Wiener 1961), either to achieve an appropriate measure of fit with it or to secure for themselves a degree of autonomy with respect to whatever constraints it might impose (Varela et al. 1991).

Within the system, there are feedback loops, and non-constant levels of action and reaction between agents. And a system that remains in existence for a significant period of time, responding to change from outside, must be minimally adaptive to the environment. The adaptation requires the system to interpret, or understand, pressures being applied from outside. How can a complex system adapt? We can think of the hedgehog and fox essay, by Isaiah Berlin – “the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” (Berlin, 1953). An adaptive, interpretive system can be a hedgehog or a fox.

Adaptive, interpretative systems have two quite distinct ways of handling the complexity that underlies the variety:

(a) They can either reduce it through getting to understand it and acting on it directly. That is, they elicit the most appropriate single representation of that variety and summon up an adapted response to match it. Such a strategy leads to specialization informed by relevant codification and abstraction of the phenomenon.

(b) Or they can absorb it through the creation of options and risk-hedging strategies. That is, they can hold multiple and sometimes conflicting representations of environmental variety, retaining in their behavioural repertoire a range of responses, each of which operates at a lower level of specialization. This approach develops behavioural plasticity. There may be less goodness of fit between any given response and the state of nature to which it needs to be matched, but the range of environmental contingencies that an organism can deal with in this way is greater than in a regime of specialization. It may endeavor to enhance its capability to deal with a wider range of environmental contingencies …

In plainer English, an adaptive interpretive system can develop a single response, informed by judgment, and specialize; or, the system can become more sophisticated, and develop a variety of responses that are then more suitable for individual conditions. There can be a single system response to the same challenge – always do This, or That; or, be adaptive in the individual circumstance.

A key characteristic of adaptive systems is the ability to undergo substantial change, without collapse or failure.

The decentralized complex system can survive because it can adapt.

That CCP absorptive adaptive model now needs to be called upon again, as China addresses the problems of corruption and

environmental pollution and land reclaiming. This is a public administration problem of the first order. Existing public administration theories allow for more effective solutions to conflict than have been used in China in the past.

New Public Management – Models and Practice

The term New Public Management (NPM) refers to a view of governance that tries to incorporate consideration of “markets, managers, and measurement” as a way of improving performance and accountability (Ferlie, 1996). Although NPM was a popular emerging paradigm in public administration in the US, and then in China, the number of published articles on NPM has certainly faded in recent years. And there is no particular reason to force Chinese public administration practice into a western theoretical construct. But the lessons – treating citizens as customers, providing information, and lessening the gap between citizens and administrators – do continue in China.

As part of the New Public Management focus, there is increasing attention to what is referred to as “governance.” Governance refers, in part, to the set of traditions and practices by which laws are implemented. In essence, governance refers to both quality of governing and reasonableness of policy. Are rules for society reasonable, and understandable by those to whom the rules are applied, and is there a sense of fairness in the application? New public management, and governance techniques, are applied to daily effectiveness of organizations in cities in China. But the implementation process in built environment projects remains a public administration problem in the world, but particularly in China.

Practice

The Chinese government has learned to respond to the wishes of the people, in some cases better than in others. In general, one expects that the higher the level of government, the more sophisticated the leadership, the less tied for promotion to enhanced local GDP, the more willing leaders will be to listen to the local view.

Zhejiang Province is a key example. Rich, experienced, open to the world, and innovative, Zhejiang has long been in the forefront of administrative reform in China. The Zhejiang model of land reform, allowing for transfers of development rights (TDR) within and between local governments, is well known (Wang, Tao, and Tong, 2009). And more recently, Haining has been selected as a pilot for land reform, allowing mortgages of village property and sales of farmer land to those outside the village; and Wenzhou has established a “rural property rights service center, that in theory allows sales of village land to citizens from within the county.

As far back as 1995, the Yantai Service Promise System, in Shandong Province “drawing on the New Public Management approach to administration,” represented a serious attempt to make the bureaucracy more customer oriented and professional (Foster, 2006). Fifteen government departments were required to provide service delivery promises to citizens, and the local government leaders appeared to consider citizen complaints and survey results quite seriously in individual leader evaluations.

A version of the Yantai system was begun in Jinhua in 1996,

and in Wenzhou, in 2003. Other cities – Beijing, Guangzhou, and others – have implemented more open communications with citizens, and provided a survey mechanism to review the performance of government departments.

In addition to openness in administrative matters, there are public officials willing to experiment. In Shaoxing, a communications model has been used to defuse conflict between a real estate developer and neighborhood residents. This model used intervention by the urban planning authorities to pro-actively address concerns, rather than ignoring them or waiting for conflict to reach a higher level of intensity (Zhou, 2008, unpublished).

But these laudable experiments in communication are still focused on administrative actions and service delivery. We are concerned here with projects, not programs, that constitute once-in-a-lifetime events for most citizens and farmers.

More commonly, however, we have seen examples of local mass protests, real conflict, being resolved by provincial or higher government leaders, stepping in at the critical moment to undo the Gordian knot of development and its externalities. Witness environmental and land transfer conflicts in Wuhan (Provincial Party leader steps in to resolve); Dalian (City leaders vow to close paraxylene plant, and move it); Ningbo (city officials decide to cancel paraxylene plant); Shiyang (Deputy Director of local Development and Reform Commission and former City Party leader meet with protesters); and many other places.

There are problems with this high tension, high conflict model, however.

Governance has two components – leadership and administration. Both exercise power, and both need to demonstrate legitimacy for a sense of fairness. China, with its focus on relationship and Party loyalty, has tended to solve public conflicts in governance through application of leadership, rather than administrative techniques. At the last moment, or too often, after the last moment (someone is killed, or worldwide media attention is obtained) a top leader, from the city or province – possibly from a central organization – steps in to mediate or construct a solution.

But solution to conflict through application of leadership should be the least attractive option for the CCP and the government. For reasons that are as apparent in the west as they are in China, using leadership as a solution mechanism puts leaders in uncomfortable positions, often between parties with equally good claims to authority and justice, and forces a solution that could be more sophisticated in form if left to negotiation at a lower level of authority. Moreover, governance by leadership almost necessarily takes place after local dissatisfaction has risen to the level of local mass protest, once positions have hardened, interests are damaged, and trust in government is weakened. Governance by leadership is a high-cost strategy. It is responding, rather than anticipating, and tends to put the government in a negative position.

Leadership, moreover, takes on new dimensions as the demands of the economy and the culture change. Leadership that once meant making command decisions now must be collaborative, and collaborative not only with a few subordinates and leaders, but collaborative with the general public, who demand more and better from leaders.

What to do, now? The customary answer is training, for both leaders and for administrative staff. Government leadership, management, and administrative technical skills can be, and are, taught. But skills in implementation, particularly as regards dealing with the public –how to do what is desired – remain generally untaught. For most environmental and land decisions, “decide, announce, defend” remains the dominant implementation model. The government decides on policy or program, announces a decision, and then is forced to defend that decision before an angry and aroused public. But a changing environment demands changing nature of training that can utilize a different, more sophisticated model. And the new era of development in China requires an implementation model that takes public participation into account, and in a manner more respectful of public wishes.

Public Communications and Public Participation

The term public participation gongzhong canyu, 公众参与 can have many meanings, and many ways of implementing.

There are many ideas in the “toolkit” of public participation –

Obtaining information from the government

Complaints or petitions to the government

Deliberative democracy experiments

Public meetings or hearings

“Field investigations”

Expert analysis

Online activism

Street protests and demonstrations

Public participation refers to the public’s involvement in government decision making, whether regulation or rule-making (zhiding tiaoli, guizhang, 制定条例,规章or administrative xingzheng juece, 行政决策 (Horsley, 2009). This is the definition most of interest in discussing ways of lessening public protest and improving citizens’ lives. But this list of public participation techniques is too limited. It does not address the response to conflict in the streets, moving to destruction of property and prestige.

A local government can provide information, and take complaints, and have public meetings, and conduct expert analysis of a project well in advance of construction, and still face mass protest at perceive injustice. One can make the argument that with “correct” dissemination of information to the public, and properly scheduled public meetings, and serious attempts at obtaining expert opinion, there should be no need for additional public participation techniques. The facts on the ground, however, suggest that the “correct” processes are seldom followed, and the result is the demand for public participation tools that help to resolve conflict. The suggestion here is that skills in conflict resolution, including negotiation, should be part of the public participation toolkit.

To be effective, and considered just by all participants, public

participation must be timely – that is, it must take place before spending commitments are made, certainly before construction begins; information with which to analyze proposals must be provided; and it must be understood as being useful – public participation that is “public relations” rather than public involvement is designed to result in loss of respect for, and trust in, government.

Above all, public participation must demonstrate respect for the views of the public, whether informed or not, and allow a “seat at the table” in decision making. This is where the conflict resolution skills are necessary.

Rather than the decide-announce-defend model noted above, a

more sophisticated model for public participation is discuss-decide-announce, in which community concerns are made part of the decision-making process, rather than trying to address them at the end of a process when commitments may already be made and it is too late to develop anything but anger and resentment and protest. Public participation needs to be more than press agentry, or one way dissemination of information, or even two-way communication that is widely asymmetric in power relations.

A government that can only communicate in these ways is not a government that is confident of its role, and not a government that inspires trust.

Trust can only come from communication, and that in an honest manner. Otherwise, communication is one-way and is public relations, not public participation.

In design of a public participation system, there are three dimensions to keep in mind. What is the scope of participation – will the public be permitted to protest, or petition, but without meaningful response, or will the public be considered as a partner in decision-making? What is the method of communication – press releases and announcements, or face-to-face discussion, with decision-making to come later? What is the extent of authority of the government participants? Are they both responsible for decisions and authorized to make changes? If not, then the public is going to be at a significant disadvantage in any discussion. Why talk with people who cannot do anything? (Feng, 2006).

It is important to keep these three dimensions in mind when considering public participation models for China.

– Scope of participation – must include all parties affected;

– Mode of communication – must be timely, and useful; special

efforts to communicate, and provide technical advisors for the

public, as needed;

– Extent of authority – participation must respect the public,

acknowledging that not all interests – even government interests- can be equally satisfied.

Public participation in physical project review is different from administrative reviews. Administrative actions generally do not involve threats, or perceived threats, to life, health, or livelihood; construction projects and land takings often do. So we are faced with conflict, rather than simple evaluation; and public participation in conflict resolution is a far different skill than participation in surveys of prior performance.

One of the teachers within the Chinese Academy of Governance system, Zhong Kaibin, has echoed the demand for better results from leaders, in practice of public management –

The fourth area is related to China’s transformation from a public administration system based on personal will and charisma to one that is increasingly based on rule of law, which has been recognized as necessary for a modern state government. This transformation, however, requires an independent judicial system and genuine public participation process. (Xue and Zhong, 2012)

The existence of government schools of administration, as well as public administration programs within universities, speak to the need for professional education and continuous learning. There are now more than 100 MPA programs in universities and Party schools across China (Wu and He, 2009).

Notably, there seems to be increasing attention in Chinese MPA programs on public communications; negotiation, however, is a topic reserved to business (MBA) programs. Public communications seems to be focused on public speaking and putting one’s best foot forward, as it were, rather than addressing conflict.

A review of public administration programs at Zhejiang University, Fudan, and Shanghai Jiaotong confirms that there do not seem to be required or elective courses in conflict resolution or negotiation within public administration programs, at either the undergraduate or graduate level. There does appear to be a negotiation course and a conflict resolution course within the Tsinghua Master’s in Public Administration Program, but both are 1 credit courses, not required and apparently not considered important topics for education.

But the “first line” responders to community or village conflict are usually administrative staff, in urban planning, environmental analysis, or civil engineering. This is reasonable. But these professionals receive no training in conflict resolution, or in negotiation. The question remains as to how much authority such professionals have, in the face of serious conflict. But they are the first contacts the public sees. To reduce the spread of conflict, it is important that these “first responders” have some training in reducing conflict. This is recommendation No. 1.

1.Training in conflict resolution for undergraduates in urban planning and environmental programs

These are officials with the most direct understanding of issues on all sides of a conflict, and the most technical ability to address problems.

A review of university catalogs in urban planning, civil engineering, and environmental planning suggest that there are no required courses in conflict resolution or negotiation.

The content of such courses can vary. International undergraduate business programs already incorporate negotiation courses – examples are Fudan University and Zhejiang University of Science and Technology (ZUST). These courses will tend to focus on business disputes rather than government-citizen conflicts, but negotiation skills can be similar in both cases.

But the public management programs – the School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiaotong University is an example – do not have a required negotiation or conflict resolution course. Within public administration programs in China, negotiation or dispute resolution does not appear on course listings. The Chinese Academy of Governance does not seem to offer such courses, either.

In any case, the current negotiation courses taught in China tend to focus on business negotiation, in which both sides are fundamentally hoping to achieve the same goal – a profitable outcome. But most disputes with village people in China are of conflictual nature, in which power distribution is clearly unequal, one side is reluctant to acknowledge the legitimate interests of the other side, and on one side there are often people willing to take to violence

to protect perceived threats to their lives, livelihood, and health.

Public administration programs, both within universities and within the schools of administration, should have a required course. There is not a more important piece of training that leads to hé xié than conflict resolution skills. And current public officials in districts, townships, counties, and cities need such assistance as the first line responders to conflict.

Where should such training take place? My suggestion is that the natural location is within the undergraduate or graduate urban planning programs at universities, and within environmental planning programs, and in the CCP schools of administration. So, suggestion number 2:

2. Similar conflict resolution and negotiation training in graduate programs in public administration and at institutes

Community Empowerment – Exit and Voice

Citizens have two active potential responses to undesired local conditions – they can choose to leave, moving somewhere else where conditions might be better; or express their unhappiness. We refer to these as exit and voice. Among the two responses to conflict – voice, and exit – Chinese generally do not have the choice to exit – to leave the village or the neighborhood. Voice is their means of resolving conflict. Voice can be discussion, at one end of a communications spectrum, or it can be violent disruption, at the other. Violence appears when trust is lost. Discussion, on the other hand, requires trust. The classic description of exit and voice is by Albert Hirschman (1970). Voice and exit both work in both the marketplace and in governance.

The classical work of Tiebout suggests that individuals and businesses make a location decision partly on the mix of public resources available in different locations, and the prices (taxes) at which they are offered. If the cost benefit analysis of public services and taxes paid changes for the worse, as defined by the individual, the individual or business is inclined to move, to a location with a preferable mix. This is obviously the “exit” choice.

The “voice” choice in provision of government services includes complaint, letters, media attention, and street protest.

But more significant than street protest, more than complaint and media attention, is the work of community organizing and community empowerment in the US.

Community organizing involves creation of a stronger sense of community in poor and under-served communities, through meetings and public information and creation of a sense of ownership and power, with which to confront the government. The goal is to win attention, resources, and a “seat at the bargaining table” – forcing government to pay attention to an organized community that is difficult or impossible to ignore, when individuals could safely be ignored.

It is fair to say that the seat at the table – the ability to negotiate – is the desire of community organizing everywhere. In the US, the organizing work of Saul Alinsky and his followers became so powerful that the Chicago local government created a Department of Neighborhoods in 1981, to specifically hear the “voice of the neighborhoods.” The concept of listening to the people, in a way not provided by representative government (aldermen, mayors) or by individual media, constituted a huge change in the way neighborhoods were understood in American government. In some cases, local governments now provide annual funds to community organizations that may oppose projects of the same local government. This can create organized opposition. But it does provide a way for information to flow up to the decision makers.

Why would local government do this? The short answer is that governments in the US do not want to see mass protests or significant organizing against what might otherwise be government policies or projects. Smart governments want to be ahead of public opinion, not always responding to conflict. If a “seat at the table” is the goal of community organizing, after protest and resulting media attention, then it may be possible to provide the seat without the prior conflict. Making community part of the decision-making process makes for good politics and, in the American sense, good governing.

It is probably a bridge too far to suggest that governments in China provide funding for a citizen movement. But conflict that is not addressed, except in the extreme, does not foster trust in government, and people who perceive themselves to be wronged do not forget. At the same time, there is no negative response more

feared in harmony-seeking China than the organized mass public protest. Where should voice be expressed?

These are critical issues for China now, and in the next ten years. It is no longer sufficient to promise a better world at some undetermined time in the future, when the socialist state is fully achieved. And, it is no longer sufficient for government to take action without responsible acknowledgement of the interests of the people.

In negotiations of all kinds, we talk about having to address two different kinds of needs – those that are tangible, and those that are intangible. In business, we suggest that one party not agree too quickly to an otherwise acceptable offer, or make a concession too fast. We want the other side to feel that offers and counteroffers are taken seriously. It is understood that the intangible interests – in being treated seriously, in having positions considered fairly – are as important as tangible results. In neighborhood and village conflicts, people have interests in a clean environment, and in fair land transfers. These are tangible. The intangible is being treated with respect, before, during, and after conflict. It is no longer sufficient to offer the solution, without the expressed, and intentional, voice of the people being heard. People have interests in clean air; but they also have interests in being respected, which requires being heard, and is a form of justice – respect for the individual.

Barriers to Public Participation and a Solution

Public participation in environmental impact assessment is required by law in China (Zhang, et.al., 2012). But despite ten years of required public involvement, the number of protests over land seizures and environmental problems, violent and otherwise, continues to grow. The list of weaknesses in environmental assessment in China is well known. Zhang et al., quoting Zhao, 2010 –

there are some limitations in current EIA public participation mechanism. First of all, the extent of public participation is limited. Relatively small percentage of projects is subject to the compulsory public participation requirement. On the other hand, the timing and duration of engaging the public is rather short. The way in which the public is defined and selected also brings bias to the true public participation. Secondly, the access to information is limited. Although progress has been made to increase public access to environmental information, there are still uncertainties regarding what to disclose and how much to disclose, and concerns of potential social unrest if too much information is disclosed. Thirdly, the public has limited impacts on the final decision-making. The power of all the parties is out of balance among project proponents, EIA institutions and the public. In addition, the voice of environmental NGOs in China is still relatively weak (Zhao, 2010).

Despite the widespread dissemination of policies regarding public input, implementation remains generally poor, as evidenced by the size and number of mass protests.

Why is implementation poor? There are several reasons. One is political, or, shall we say, reflects a public choice perspective – leaders who see an advantage from not serving the public interest.

There is no doubt that political obstacles can easily prevent useful implementation of the participation process. Low level officials can easily circumvent regulations from above, and to the extent bad information does not flow up the chain of communications, upper level executives may not know about problems until the problems are well advanced in severity and complexity.

So one reason for poor quality of implementation can be found in corruption – local officials trying to collect economic rents for themselves, and deceiving the public in the practice. This is a serious problem, and must be addressed at the highest levels of the Party.

On the government administration side, another issue is low levels of information made available to the public, or information made available in inconvenient form or at inconvenient times. In China as in the US, a conflict resolution system will only work as well as the commitment to honest voice and openness 信息公开 xìnxīgōngkāi

There are also citizen reasons for not engaging with government in conflicts. Low willingness to engage can come from four causes.

– a traditional reluctance in China to engage in public affairs;

– lack of awareness of proposals, and a means of response (no

non-government data or information sources are available, petitions have no value)

– fear of reprisals

– costs to protest, including ineffectiveness of past efforts

Frustration with the process is cited by Ma, Webber, and Finlayson (2008), from Eastern Horizon. Respondents to a survey on the failed sealing of a waste storage facility were asked what they thought of public hearings generally. While about 40% of the respondents thought that public hearings were useful,

nearly 59% of respondents chose the answer that public hearings were ‘not useful, public opinions are rarely adopted’. In other words, most people thought that hearings were not useful and/or that public opinion was rarely heeded.

Tradition

There may be a more traditional reluctance to engage with government in China than in the west. That is possible. But the intense use of forms of communication – petitions, lawsuits, complaints, trips to Beijing as part of xinfang techniques – suggests that even if there is a tradition of acceptance, that tradition does not impede Chinese from attempting to make their grievances known. This does not appear to be a reasonable argument for lack of public participation, particularly in this new era.

Data and Means

There are many ways in which public information can be obtained prior to land takings or construction projects are begun, and all of those are in use now in China, in different places in different times. As with many regulations and programs in China, problems lie not in the form but in the substance of the work. The laws exist, the desire to enforce does not.

There are already systems in place to prevent illegal or undesirable conversions of land (Heurlin, 2007).

There remains a problem of evaluation of data. Emissions data, or controls on pollution, are beyond the ability of most citizens to evaluate. How to provide adequate representation for citizens in conflict?

In politics, we sometimes argue that a government needs a loyal opposition to provide better policy, better monitoring of results, and better outcomes for the society. This article does not argue for an opposition; but it does argue for a government ombudsman, or review process, or voice in consideration of the public interest, largely construed. No such voice exists now.

There are many ways in which a public voice can be provided. In China, given recent history, it is important that any system of providing additional voice be located away from local officials, and that the system clearly provide for – perhaps, require – additional delay in construction and land transfer. Delay is always to the benefit of voice. Delay is always detrimental to those who want to avoid the law.

An honest search for harmony in “built environment” disputes requires that first-line responders in conflict be empowered to provide data, including any environmental reports. But before environmental reports are completed, front line officials should be able to provide data and help citizens and peasants understand what has been provided. So, suggestion number 3 –

3. Empower professional staff in decision-making, and publish environmental evaluation reports and demand conformance to a time frame

Fears

To address public fears regarding public participation, including threats of reprisal from government leaders, it is necessary to locate a conflict resolution or negotiation program at a level of government sufficiently removed from the local level to allow for some public trust in the process. As noted in an village aphorism,

“the Center is our benefactor, the province is our relative, the county is a good person, the township is an evil person and the village is our enemy” (Michelson, 2008)

At the same time, the way to reduce corruption at the local level – village, township, county – is to empower the public to communicate with leaders above that level. I suggest a conflict resolution or negotiation process as that method of communication, once past the petition stage.

So, recommendation number 4 –

4. Process and professionals in conflict resolution to report to provincial authorities

Costs

Another reason for lack of participation is the understanding that protest has costs, short term and long, in several forms. Heurlin calls this the “Peasant’s Dilemma.” There are costs in lost time, from productive activities in farming or factories, as well as real dangers in being detained, beaten, or murdered. See Huerlin (2005), Lichbach (1994), Javeline (2003), Whyte (2010), and many others.

It is important for the government to encourage additional use of public participation measures by the public, as a way of deflecting anger and conflict that rises to the level of collective protest. The costs, real and perceived, of public participation to the individual peasant are high – costs in lost time, lost wages, potential reprisals. As a result, anger and resentment fester, and instead of being defused over time, rises to the level of organized protest as a last resort, when the costs of non-protest become too high to bear.

There are systems in place that have been designed to address conflict that cannot be ameliorated at the local level – specifically, the petition system. But even with recent proposed changes to the petition system, it is unlikely that this system will work to the advantage of citizens and peasants, unless there are additional procedural delays and steps required in the development process.

So, suggestion number 5 –

5. Create a defined procedure for conflict resolution, triggered without excessive delay or petition, coming from provincial authority.

It is necessary to construct a dispute resolution system that is administered at the provincial level or above, with a funding source that does not depend on city or lower revenues, with trained conflict resolution experts, or trained mediators, who have power to bring about solution. Robert Emerson made a similar suggestion in Disputes in Public Bureaucracies (1999), cited in Michelson (2008).

The benefit of such a system is that it provides the voice demanded by villagers and citizens. This, per Whyte and others, is a demand for procedural justice, not distributive justice, and can substantially enhance the position of the Party. Other measures to enhance distributive justice – greater democracy, independent courts, even hukou reform – are far more difficult for the CCP to accept. Corruption policies are good; but it is doubtful whether even the most rigorous corruption regimes can reach to the lowest levels of governance, where most mass protests arise.

If administrative officials in urban planning or another technical department are to have authority to resolve conflict, they must report to leaders sufficiently high in the CCP ranks to overrule or counteract actions by local officials. And, of course, the technical staff should be relatively protected from the lure of corruption. The suggestion is that each province have an urban planning staff, perhaps from the Development and Reform Commission, whose job it is to assist local technical staff in resolving conflict. Such an official should have the ability to call a standstill to development in the face of conflict – much as the banking regulators were able to call a halt to actions regarding Zhongdan Investment Credit Guarantee Co. Ltd., in Beijing in 2012. Standstill will put a halt to pressured response from villagers, force scrutiny onto local officials, and do much to restore some element of trust in government. (Chovanec, 2012)

An argument can be made that active use of conflict resolution skills – particularly negotiation skills – is contrary to Party polices and goals, of remaining as the leader of the people. And government plans and expertise are far beyond anything that is reasonable for the public to obtain – technical skills in planning, real estate, evaluation, budgeting, and mitigation of damages. Consulting – in an honest, open fashion – could be viewed as government weakness. Leaders should lead.

The contrary is true. Leaders who are secure in their power are unafraid to ask for assistance. There are different sources of power and types of power. Coercion, threats, and force are ways of exercising power. But Antonio Gramsci, in Selections from the Prison Notebooks, used the centaur – half man, half beast – image from Machiavelli to describe the different characteristics of power. More traditional power, violence and threats, are the beast half; but capitalist relations demand the more human side of domination, the thinking, consensual source of power. That is certainly where China is now, and will be. Use of consensual means of power does not take away from leadership or authority; it expands it.

Additions to Required Process

In addition to training for government officials, it is necessary to provide a structured public participation program for units of government. Such a program has several elements –

Requirement for submission of the public record of public hearings and public participation meeting to relevant city and provincial bureaus before a land conversion and transfer can take place
Additional procedural requirements for existing public participation in environmental reviews.
Any public hearing or meeting record regarding land conversion or construction of “significant public projects” must be signed by a provincial or city representative, who was in attendance at the meetings. This should help remove principal-agent problems among village or other local leaders.

Triggering of a required conflict resolution program – when protests submitted reach a particular level – and publicized – then a conflict resolution system must be employed.
Publishing of environmental reviews in time for public consideration
provide technical assistance to the public to help in understanding of technical details of proposals

Benefits to CCP of a defined negotiation process

What are the benefits to the CCP of better conflict resolution skills in the development of projects and transfer of land? Here is a list, not in any particular order of importance.

Retain Government Authority

Conflict resolution skills, used proactively, puts the government in charge of change. Mass protest by definition means that the public perceives that its interests are not being served, and is a failure of change management. Asking questions at the beginning is far easier than offering concessions in a media charged atmosphere, later.

Keep Conflict Local

It is important for the CCP to keep protests local. Negotiation and consultation before implementation is one of the best ways to do that. Citizens in Dalian are unconcerned about negotiations on a paraxylene plant in Ningbo; but they are concerned when the objections rise to the level of mass protest. As an adaptive complex system, the CCP allows local solutions to local problems. That is still true with use of better public participation techniques, but conflict resolution skills and negotiation skills add to the “toolkit” of local solutions. China is not at the point in development or law in which national laws can be effectively enforced. Local solutions to local problems are a satisfactory substitute.

Keep Leaders out of Local Processes

Use of planners in planning departments, or officials in environmental departments fits with a traditional Chinese approach – adaptive, not like western approaches, which are more complexity reducing (using law and regulations), Chinese approaches would be more complexity absorbing (harmony and guanxi)). In any case, leaders should be kept out of the process as much as possible.

Reduce Costs of Governance

Mass protest is far more costly to the government and CCP than to villagers or citizens. By the time conflict reaches the stage of mass protest, the cost to organizing at the village level is small, and the cost to leaders in terms of trust and image is very high. In this era, information is relatively easy to obtain, voice, as expressed through social media, is cheap. A small expense in time and money at the beginning of a project will seem very inexpensive when compared with the costs of dealing with protest later.

Remove Threat of Reprisals

Consultation and negotiation at the beginning removes threats of reprisal from local officials to citizens; which enhances trust in government and creates working relationships. There have also been cases of threats by the public of revealing confidential information about leaders, as a way of forcing upper level action against local leaders. While providing information about corrupt leaders is good, extortion is not.

Strengthen Party Discipline Process

Use of a defined conflict resolution process provides additional evaluation information for both discipline inspection and the organization departments. How well can leaders serve the public interest?

Increased Party Legitimacy and Flexibility

Allow local solutions for local problems – including response to petitions, and reduce the use of “extra-legal” actions – chengguan – that stifle protest and decrease legitimacy

Novel idea – Strength Through Openness

Real power is shown in not having to use it. See sun tzu- “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting” sun tzu 孙子 writing in The Art of War孙子兵法, Sūnzǐ Bīngfǎ.

Provide Administrative Clarity

As in Yantai – provide a defined system for protest, rather than the ad hoc system now in place. This alone, if done in an open and honest way, should provide greater trust in government.

Rationalize Land Use Procedures

Even though several provinces, including Zhejiang, have announced plans to reform rural land use and sales, there remains the problem of how to plan for future uses below the county level. If peasants are going to be provided with stronger land use rights, then a stronger system of adjudicating those rights must be in place. A conflict resolution system provides a means of doing that, without having to resort to court actions which may be influenced by local officials in any case.

Improve the Business Climate

Increased use of conflict resolution or negotiation skills, in advance of significant conflict, improves the business climate by bringing difficult issues – land conversion, pollution – to the leadership at the beginning, when solutions may be possible, rather than later when solutions may be impossible and government legitimacy is lessened.

There may be additional costs to using better public participation skills. Costs may be in simple delay, or significant costs in pollution equipment or additional compensation to farmers. It seems difficult to argue against such spending, however.

Allow Regional Solutions

At the same time as local solutions – within the township, or village – to local problems are enhanced, there may be a need to consider more regional solutions to larger problems. The pollution impacts from a steel factory, or a coal burning power plant, are regional. An honest public participation process allows for consideration of who should be “at the table” in discussion of regional issues, and a structured conflict resolution process is a way to do that.

Improve Evaluation of Cadres

The Organization Department zu zhi bu already takes into account more than simple GDP growth in the evaluation of leaders for future positions. The absence of conflict is another measure. This can be enhanced by existence of a defined public participation program that reduces conflict. Use of the techniques is not a negative for leaders; it should be considered a positive development, demonstrating consideration of public needs in addition to business needs.

Reduce Corruption – An honest public participation program acts to reduce corruption, since it raises issues of conflict before a project is implemented, and allows the public to ask the question that all too often goes unanswered in China – “why?”

Removes Pressure from Leaders for Special Privilege

The honest leader can find himself in a difficult position when pressured by powerful business owners or other government officials to approve a project to which the leader has objections. The ability to use a structured public participation program, required by law or local practice, allows the leader to “put more moving parts” into the machine of project approval. Significant opposition by the public cannot be ignored.

Address Democratic Issues

At its most fundamental, democracy is a system for providing voice to the public. Democracy with Chinese characteristics will certainly not look like American democracy. But additional voice for the public in China, particularly on those projects in which they are most interested and have the most stake is a good step in the direction of Singapore, which certainly is not democratic but allows voice.

Serve the People

An honest public participation program serves the needs of the people, both locally and regionally. The program will require additional data and analysis, which may not be available to the public in government channels; but that is a small cost to pay for the benefits of providing more harmony.

There are many ways to provide additional voice to the Chinese people. A China that wishes to lead, not only in economics but in public approbation, should do better on government effectiveness. A dispute resolution system is necessary, feasible, and Chinese. It is the manifestation of harmony with Chinese characteristics.

References

Ali, R., Olden, K., & Xu, S. (2008). Community-based participatory

research: A vehicle to promote public engagement for

environmental health in China. Environmental Health

Perspectives 116,10. 1281-1284.

Au L. & Bai, R. (2012, 11-1) Resistance in China today. Solidarity.

Retrieved from http://www.solidarity-us.org

Balla, S. & Zhou, L. (2013). Online consultation and citizen

feedback in Chinese policymaking. Journal of Current Chinese

Affairs, 42,3. 101-120.

Berlin, I. (1953). The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s

View of History, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Boisot, M. & Child, J. (1999). Organizations as adaptive systems

in complex environments: The case of China. Organization

Science, 10, 3. 237-252

Chin, R. & Benne, K.D., (1976). General strategies for effecting

changes in human systems. In Bennis, W. G., Benne, K. D., and

Chin, R., (eds.), The Planning of Change (3^rd ed.) New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Chovanec, P. (2012) China’s financial system: No guarantees.

Seeking Alpha. Retrieved January 1, 2014 from

http://seekingalpha.com/article/603021-china-s-financial- system-no-guarantees

Christianen, T., Lisheng, D., & Painter, M. (2008). Administrative

reform in China’s central government − How much “learning

from the west”? International Review of Administrative

Sciences 74,3. 351-371. DOI: 10.1177/0020852308095308

Ferlie, E., Ashburner, L., Fitzgerald, L., & Pettigrew, A. (1996). New

Public Management in Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gregory, R., Ohlson, D., & Arvai, J. Deconstructing adaptive

management: Criteria for applications to environmental

management . Ecological Applications, 16, 6. 2411-2425.

Foster, K. Improving municipal governance in China – Yantai’s 

pathbreaking experiment in administrative reform. Modern

China, 32:2. 221-250

Fung, A. (2006). Varieties of participation in complex governance.

Public Administration Review, (December, Special Issue) 66-75.

Heurlin, C., and Whiting, S. (2007). Villagers against

the state: The politics of land seizures in rural China.

Conference Papers — American Political Science Association.

2007 Annual Meeting.

Hirschman, A. (1970). Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press.

Hood, C. (1991). A Public Management for All Seasons. Public Administration, 69. 3-19.

Hornby, L. (2012, 1-15). Chinese Premier Wen takes aim at land

seizures. quoting Qiushi. Retrieved from

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE80E0K620120115

Horsley, J. (2013). Public participation in the people’s

republic: Developing a more participatory governance model in

China. Retrieved from www.law.

yale.edu/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/CL-PP-

PP_in_the__PRC _FINAL_91609.pdf

Horsley, J. (2010). The development of public participation

in the people’s republic of China in Leib, E. & He, B.

(eds.), The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China.

Palgrave Macmillan.

Horsley, J. (2006). Public participation and the democratization of

Chinese governance, in Yang Zhong and Shipin Hua, (eds.),

Political Civilization and Modernization: The Political Context of China’s Reform. World Scientific Press.

Hu J. (2007). Hold High the Great Banner of Socialism with Chinese

Characteristics and Strive for New Victories in Building a

Moderately Prosperous Society in all. Report to the 17th

National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Retrieved

from http://www.china.org.cn/english/congress/229611.htm

Jackson, M. (2009) Fifty years of systems thinking for

management. Journal of the Operations Research Society, 60

supplement 1. s24-s32.

Kazer, W., & and Zhang, K. (2013, February 1). China’s

environmental protection racket. Wall Street Journal.

Retrieved from

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/02/01/chinas- environmental-protection-racket/?mod=WSJBlog&utm_s

Ma, J., Webber, M., & Finlayson, B. (2009).

On sealing a lakebed: mass media and environmental

democratisation in China. Environmental Science and Policy, 12. 71-83.

Michaelson, E. (2008). Justice from above or below? Popular strategies for resolving grievances in rural China. China Quarterly, 193. 43-64.

Mitleton-Kelly, E. (2003). Ten principles of complexity & enabling

infrastructures. In: Mitleton-Kelly, Eve, (ed.) Complex Systems

and Evolutionary Perspectives of Organisations: the Application

of Complexity Theory to Organisations. Elsevier, 23-50.

O’Brian, K. & Li, L. (2006). Rightful Resistance: Contentious

Politics in Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sriramesh, K., & Vercic, Dejan, eds. (2003) The Global Public

Relations Handbook. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates.

Shu F. (2012, 2-9) A national conundrum. Global Times. Retrieved

from http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/695272.shtml

Taylor, M., De Guerre, D., Gavin, J. & Kass, R. (2002) Graduate

Leadership Education for Dynamic Human Systems.

Management Learning 33:5 349-369.

Wang, A. (2013). The Search for sustainable legitimacy:

environmental law and bureaucracy in China.. Harvard

Environmental Law Review, 37. 365-440

Wang, Z., & Chen, X. (2006). The design of public participation in

environmental impact assessments. Aquatic Ecosystem Health

and Management, 9,1. 93–97. DOI:

10.1080/14634980500535776

Wing Hung Lo, C., & Leung, Sai Wing (2000). Environmental

agency and public opinion in Guangzhou: the limits of a

popular approach to environmental governance. China

Quarterly, 163. 677-704.

Wang, H., Tao, R., & Tong, J. (2009). Trading land development

rights under a planned land use system: The “Zhejiang Model”

China & World Economy, 17,1. 66-82.

Whyte M. (2010). Fair versus unfair: How do Chinese citizens view current Inequalities?. In Oi JC, Rozelle S, & Zhou X (eds.) Growing

Pains: Tensions and Opportunity in China’s Transformation.

Stanford: Shorenstein Center. 305-332.

Whyte, M. (2011). Myth of the social volcano: Popular responses to rising inequality in China. In: Kirby W. (ed.) The

People’s Republic of China at 60. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Asia Center.

World Bank. (nd). Worldwide governance indicators. Retrieved

From http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.aspx#faq-2

Wu, J. & Gao, X. (2009). Citizen-participation

performance evaluation for local governments in mainland

China  – The state of practice, analytical framework and

research agenda .

中国公共管理评论 Chinese Public Administration Review. 6, 1-2.

Wu X., & He J. (2009). Paradigm shift in public

administration: Implications for teaching in professional

training programs. Public Administration Review, 4. 521-528.

Xue, L., & Zhong K. (2012). Domestic reform and global

integration: public administration reform in China over the last

30 years . International Review of Administrative Sciences

78,2. 284-304 DOI: 10.1177/0020852312438784

Xinhua. (2013, October 11). China’s Xi stresses conflict resolution

through rule of law. Global Times. Retrieved from

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/817246.shtml#.Ulmy8yTdj-k

Yan S. (2012, 9-27). Experts say proposed environmental

protection laws fail to protect. Global Times. Retrieved from

http://english.qstheory.cn/law/201209/t20120927_183990.htm

Yue P. (2006). The environment needs public participation. China

Dialogue, 5 December. Retrieved from

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/604-the-environment-needs-public- participation

Zhang Y., Liu, X., Yu, Y., Bian, G., Yu L., & Long, Y. (2012).

Challenge of Public Participation in China’s EIA Practice.

Proceedings from ‘IAIA12 Conference Proceedings’ Energy

Future The Role of Impact Assessment 32nd Annual Meeting of

the International Association for Impact Assessment 27 May- 1

June. Centro de Congresso da Alfândega, Porto – Portugal

Zhao, Y. (2010). Public participation in China’s EIA regime:

rhetoric or reality? Journal of Environmental Law, 22,1. 89-

123

Zhou, Z. (2011). Public participation in government

performance measurement in China:  a critical review and

prospects. China Public Administration Review, 6:3/4. 1-12

Life in School – and Beyond

November, 2009

note: This was written more than ten years ago, when I began teaching full time in China. Some slight editing and updating. My students were all undergrads in business, marketing, civil engineering, or urban planning. These notes are early observations on student life at ZUST in Hangzhou. I can’t say this email feels inaccurate years later. Life goes on, in and out of school, but the beat goes on, too – stress upon stress, and not stress of one’s own making. Smoking and environmental cancer are big contributors to early death. But stress is also an environmental constant.

The middle class Chinese diet is full of the stuff that doctors in the US tell us we should eat- lots of fish, lots of vegetables, fruit, a little liquor (ok, maybe not a little), a little meat, nuts, grains. But adult Chinese die at about the same rate as Americans, and now, from mostly the same causes – heart, and cancer. Why don’t Chinese people live forever?

One reason is stress. When life is about guanxi (relationship and who you know), then official lines of responsibility mean little. The official lines do matter, but what is more important is the friendships established over a life of school, and work, and after-work events, and weekend trips, and friend-of-a-friend contacts. So it is possible to get many things done that could not get done otherwise, because you Know People. Sort of like being related with the government in any American city. Or, better, being the one high school senior who knows the name of the maintenance guy who can open the gym a little early so the tables for the dance can be delivered on Friday night, instead of waiting for Saturday morning.

Stress Relief in Dalian

A Chinese government friend and I were driving to a museum in Dalian when she got stopped by the police. They were conducting a city sticker search- you know, the annual sticker you buy for $75 or $100 from the local government. Same in Dalian. Her car was brand new- I mean, a couple of days old. She did not have the sticker, since the car dealer is supposed to handle that, and the sticker comes a week or two later. She had the paperwork showing the car was new, and the sticker was applied for, and true to police form (anywhere, I think) they still gave her a ticket for no sticker.

She was miffed. She decided to fight City Hall, instead of just paying the $15 (which I would have done, all day long, and I guess most people in China would have done, also). She didn’t know anyone in the police department- no direct guanxi there- but her job was sufficiently large that when she went to the police station, the guardians of not letting people see the Chief did not want to mess with her. So she got to see the Chief, and pleaded her case, and got the ticket dismissed. She got to see the Chief, she said, when other people would not have gotten that far. Two lessons here- guanxi is based not just on who you know, but also who you are, and does this sound too different from how any American city works? Stress relief is possible, some times and for some little things. But a ticket is just ordinary annoyance stress. Much of Chinese school and business life is pressure, pressure, pressure, all the time.

Relationships can make projects easier, but at a cost

It is possible to get a ticket fixed in Chicago, too (so I have heard). What may be different in China is how extensive the guanxi networks are, and the willingness of everyone to use them as needed. Just like in Chicago politics, you can’t be using your Chinaman for every little thing, and you can’t pull the race card, or whatever trump you have, at every instance. But the networks are the life blood of Chinese government, and business also. Anyone who thinks rule of law in China is just a couple of court cases or law changes in Beijing away from implementation should think again about what 5,000 years of history means. Networks are as deeply ingrained in China as my disgust with Tony Cuccinello for sending Sherm Lollar, the archetype of slow running catchers, home from first base on a double by Al Smith in the second game of the 1959 World Series, and Lollar was out by – oh, about 85 feet- and the White Sox lost that game that they could have won, and they could have gone to Los Angeles 2-0 instead of 1-1, which would have changed the outcome of the series, and life forever after. That ingrained.

In China, the proper power relations can get things done – real estate projects, infrastructure projects that require cooperation across governments, business perks. But along with the ability to get things done comes the stress at relationship maintenance. How many dinners, how much late night drinking, how many hongbao, how much self-denial and relationship sucking up do you need?

Think of the second string baseball catcher, who plays, but not that often, and the team trades for a young catcher who can hit and has gotten a lot of press. Or the number 3 member of the girls’ in-group at high school, and the new girl shows up who is prettier, has more money, a bigger smile, and a more winning way with numbers 1 and 2. Think Mean Girls – The New Queen Bee. New Queen Bee Stress is constant. There is an ex-queen bee, too. What is your strategy in these situations? As the second string catcher, do you talk to the manager more, or the team leader, or just try to play harder, when you do play? What will you do if they put you to third string, or cut you? As the number 3 member of the girls’ group, do you try to get more time alone with number 1, or find some other group to belong to, or just hope the group can expand to four people? You have to keep up the network, or the network will leave you behind. And that means phone calls, and little gifts, and remembrances, and doing for others before they do for you. This is the part that would keep me digging ditches on some farm in China.

You do not have one boss, or one leader. There are usually two or three, and they need not agree. The Confucian model of respect for authority means that you must do what your leader asks, and you don’t object.

So when your leader calls, and asks you to do something, you cannot say no. You may be able to find someone else to carry out the task, but that is your obligation to find. And when the teacher assigns homework, no one says, wait a minute, we all have a test tomorrow. We must do it.

It starts in primary school – or before …

One of my colleagues was worried about his daughter. She is seven, in first grade. His daughter refuses to go to school, and cries every day about going. The reason given is that she must complete 100 addition problems before she can engage with the rest of the class. The daughter is a smart enough kid, but she is wilting under the pressure from the teachers. Teachers pass the stress on to parents, who get blamed by teachers if kids fail to keep up. And, it is China – none of this, “well, you tried your best, you can do better next time” American soft soap. If you aren’t keeping up, you are told so, and berated in front of all your classmates. “Why can’t you do better?” And none of this throwing money at programs for kids who fall behind in class. Teachers will publicly berate parents for not monitoring homework, and not requiring extra work at home. Parental responsibility, seemingly a … well, foreign – concept in the US.

At home in Hangzhou, we have a little kid audio toy, a letter, animal sound, and addition machine that we bought in China. On the addition segment, the kid is asked to push a button for the correct answer. In the US, an incorrect answer is indicated by a raspberry, or a plink or a quick low note. On our machine, a voice tells the kid in Chinese, you are very stupid.

The stress starts in primary school, and extends into high school. The later primary and high school day is generally in the range of ten to twelve hours, from about 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. There is time included for phys ed, and lunch, and certainly art and music. Chinese high school students, at good schools, are well-rounded. And in college, they learn to sing, and dance, perform, and do art. Maybe not well, but they know the concept. Once, we had that idea in the US – you know, humanities.

I have visited a couple of Chinese high schools, and talked with a number of kids, sons or daughters of friends. My sample size is too small to generalize too much, but let me tell you what I saw. At the No. 2 high school in Fushun, in Liaoning Province, the school building is new and clean and has a big closed campus, with tennis courts and basketball courts and outdoor performance areas and lots of nice landscaping. This is a residential school, which means that most high school students live in the dorms, and only a few are day students, who are picked up and dropped off each day.

The hallway are pasted with big portraits and lists of accomplishments of political leaders and scientists and giants of philosophy. Yes, Mao and Confucius and others (that, pointedly, I do not know), but also Plato and Aristotle and Bell and Einstein and Edison and Fermi and US presidents and Franklin and Kant and Hobbes and Freud. High school. In China. And these students know who these people are, and when they lived, and what they did.

Everybody learns English, starting at various times but generally about age 7. I have seen the English workbooks for high school students and for college students. The high school workbooks, in English, rival what I would expect to see in English in the US. Participles and mood and future perfect and obscure terms and phrases. Long passages to decipher and get the meaning. The college workbooks are harder. Long passages in technical fields, economics or engineering, to decipher, along with differences between US English and foreign English. I am teaching three courses right now- a negotiation course, an economics course, and an environmental course- in English, of course, and the student level of understanding is pretty good. But the technical terms in these three courses are a little daunting for American students, and the only way for Chinese students to keep up is to study, all the time.

… and continues in college …

I just now talked with one of my students, a third year student in marketing. She would like to do fashion design, but as she says, “I cannot do that.” She has obligations to her parents and to the school, now, and to the society. Students in college in China select a major in their first year – or have it selected for them – and stay in that major for four years. There is one chance to switch majors, at the end of first year, but only if you are in the top 15% of your class and the program to which you want to switch will take you. How many majors did you have in college?

Ms. Liu is a smart kid, and her English is very good (although she thinks it is not) and the other students look to her for interpretations in Chinese but also for information about other happenings at school. She is always prepared.

I asked if she had ever been unprepared for an exam in college. “Yes,” she said, in her freshman microeconomics class. “How did you do?” “I got a B,” she said, ashamed. A whole country of Type A people.

But lots of them don’t want to be Type A people. They know that going to university in China is a big privilege, and the society is investing a lot in them, and “from those to whom much is given, much is expected.” But Ms. Liu does not feel free to change her major to fashion design, and she feels that she now has no motivation to do the things that she must do. Now these are not unfamiliar complaints to any of us, and it is easy to use one student as a metaphor for millions. Ms. Liu will certainly do fine, and she will snap out of her funk.

But the story is one I hear repeated over and over again, not only from students but from faculty and government officials and people in business. The sense of obligation to the group, or the greater good, is important and useful to building a society – we have seen that in the last thirty years.

Costs of obligation are passed on to parents, students, employees

But I don’t doubt that the stress, expressed in the form of heart conditions, and blood pressure, depression and lack of motivation are one reason why Chinese do not outlive Americans. When Americans work sixteen hours a day, 7 days a week, they do it because they want to, or because they know it is a temporary condition – get this project completed, and we can go back to normal. But in China, it is a constant sword of cultural obligation hanging over everyone’s head. It is the constant, I must do it. (2019 update – it is now common for companies in the US to demand that some employees be available 24/7 for texts and emails. That is certainly Chinese. But there is now a movement in the US for the “right to disconnect” during a good part of the day. That will certainly not be Chinese).

I have a friend, a Ph.D. from my school here, who is spending nine months at a school in Houston. She is unhappy about her living arrangements, and feels trapped by the situation, and not able – culturally – to do anything about it. She is on a nine-month sabbatical, in school and supposed to be learning some things, but she is in the US and one thing I know is that she should be having some fun. She is not, and all because, as she says, I must do it wo bi xu zuo. An American friend of mine recently returned to the US from a six-month academic fellowship in Scotland. I don’t think he wore a hair shirt for six months.

college and beyond …

Lots of Chinese students apply to college or graduate school in the US. A lot of the Chinese government students I have had in Chicago have a leader, or a friend, with a son or daughter who is 12 or 17 and wants advice about admissions. So far, so good. But too often the parents have given the student a high bar – “if you cannot get into Harvard, or MIT, or Stanford, then your life is a failure, and you are a failure to your parents and family and nation,” or something to that effect.

Now there are parents like that in the US. But I think there are more in China, and not just because of the population difference. This is the meritocracy gone mad, the sense that the perfect is in fact the enemy of the good, and individual achievement and wishes matter less than societal approval and the ability to find a job that will make a lot of money.

Amy Chua, the NYU law professor, is the poster woman for parental stress, passed on to her kids. As a law professor at a major American university, she is not going to display a laid back, devil-may-care attitude. But her Tiger Mother book is a call to arms for parents whose approach to parenting does not intentionally impose severe stress on their kids. It is no doubt true that parental encouragement, even stress, can make kids better at whatever task is demanded, and usually the long term effects seem inconsequential. The question is always for whom the kids are being pressured – for their own long term benefit, or that of the face and glory of the parents? Even for Amy Chua, the answer to that question is not so clear.

And lots of Chinese students do end up in the US, or Australia, or England, or Germany, at small schools and big schools that are not ranked in the top 20 schools in the nation. And everyone seems to survive that diminished status. But the stress and shame are not good things, for the kid, or the family, or China. The suicide rate for Chinese students is far higher than that for American students.

Students- at least at my university- have between 35 and 40 class periods a week, at 45 minutes a pop, so about 25 to 30 classroom hours a week. This is the demand for 10 or 12 courses per semester. On top of that is homework, of which there is quite a lot. Papers and tests and assignments, just as in any college course. I have told you before that fun does not seem to be in the course catalog. I still think that is true. College students seem tired in the US also, but here the extent of sleeping in class (not so much in mine, I am happy to point out) is remarkable. And there seems a general sense- not universal, of course – of simply walking through the motions.

That is supported by ideas about entrance to schools in the US and China. Faculty here tell me that in the US, it is easy to get into college and easy to flunk out. In China, they tell me, it is hard to get in, but once in, you are assured of graduating. College is almost like the reward for the intense work in high school (30 class hours per week, and no sleep, and lots of stress. All effort is focused on the Gaokao, the one-time only college entrance exam taken in senior year. Midway through junior year – “only 335 days until the gaokao!”).

I don’t mean that there are no students playing basketball, or tennis, or ping pong, or singing in the singing contest. All students here just had two days off so freshmen could participate in the annual sports day, which is kind of like the senior class games weekend. Everybody goes to the stadium and there are vendors and student cheering sections and flag waving for some group’s favorite student athlete, and 110 meter hurdles and sprints and broad jumps and other events. China is full of contradictions, so I can’t claim definitive knowledge. But this is what I see, and what I sense.

the system grinds away, through adulthood

Students like Ms. Liu pick a major to study in their freshman year, and for the next four years, the students in that major take all their classes together, study together, and live together in the same dorm and with each other. Four college girls in a room about the size of your bedroom, with their clothes and books. For some students, the school picks the major for them, and that major is where nearly all of them stay for four years. So when Chinese people come to America, and say that they have a college friend to see, they are going to see more than someone they were buddies with for a year or two. These are the lifelong, guanxi networks operating, at long distance and years apart. When was the last time you spoke with your college roommate? One of my government official-students from IIT in Chicago, someone who was in Chicago in 2004, called me from Nanjing. He is at a training seminar for a week, far from his home in Shenyang. He was going to get on a bus, travel for four hours to see me, and take the bus back to Nanjing for more training. While I am flattered that I have such an impact on people, I am sobered by the idea that someone would think such a thing thinkable. But guanxi, and networks, and respect for authority, including teachers, runs deep.

Two days ago I attended the alumni reunion, in Hangzhou, of all the CCP government officials from Zhejiang Province who have been to IIT in the last 6 years. A lot of people came- my guess is over a hundred and fifty. There was the big screen repeating slide show, pics of government officials at IIT, when they were in college, and maybe more recently. And below one of the repeating slides was the reminder, We Are Family. This is not just some pop music line, or a marketing campaign. Far more than in any fundamentalist family in the US, here the family is the primary unit in society. And family extends to CCP as well. The government students in Chicago had a leader then, and he is still a leader in their minds, with lesser status over time obviously, but still a person of respect and honor. Another leader to honor, among the two or three or four that everyone has already. The beat goes on, for good and ill, in everyone’s heads, all the time.

The National Day Singing Competition

Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, September, 2009

note: this post is from 2009, a few weeks after I came to ZUST to teach full time and I was still awed by most everything. As it turns out, there were no more singing day competitions. This one was part of the celebrations of 60 years since the founding of the PRC. Still, an impressive event.

One of the emcees wore a black tuxedo with diamond – I wanted to say rhinestone- studs along the collar and piping. The other wore a white tux with black piping. The women emcees wore serious prom type dresses, or serious I-am-a-grownup-take-me-out-dancing dresses- a slinky reflective gold long dress for one, a more demure white for the other.

The rhinestone reference kept running through my head because the between performances music was the theme song from Ponderosa.

This was the annual singing competition between departments at ZUST. Each school department- economics, marketing, civil engineering- puts together a group of about 50 students, generally about half and half by gender, and practices for weeks before the big night. So for days before tonight, it was like walking past the music building at Northwestern, and hearing beautiful voices floating out from classrooms. Except these were 50 voices, and lots of the men sounded like men- deep voices and big and almost scary.

I am not going to keep you in suspense. I am pleased to report that for the 5th year in a row (?), the computer science students beat every other department, including the architects (who came in second this year).

Every department has money in their budget for clothes for the singing competition. The standards vary a little, but generally tuxedos for the boys, fancy dresses for the girls, and all the same for each department.

The competition started about 6:00, and ran until 8:00. Each department did one number, generally a song built around love of country or home. One was about the Qiantang River, in Hangzhou, as having come from very far away, and being the mother of all Chinese. Another was about someone climbing a tree, and when I asked for clarification, I got back a finger pointing at a dictionary entry, “guerilla,” and I didn’t want any further clarification. But it is still not clear.

Every department sounded as if they had practiced for a long time. The men were forceful, the women sweet and a nice counterpart to the men. Everyone on stage- this was on a temporary staired stage in front of the library entrance- sang, and loud. No one looked embarrassed or too cool to sing. It was a competition.

There were stage lights, a lot of them, and videos, and a couple of the groups had small sparklers or fireworks as part of their song and a couple of the groups had some slight choreography, as much as they could do while standing on temporary stands under hot lights outside in big clothes. The judges sat at tables in front of the stand, and hundreds of students were behind the judges, standing on small chairs and on planters at the library entrance. The library has a six story covered entryway between two buildings, so we were shielded from the light rain and there was plenty of room for hundreds, and the voices carried. I could hear the groups clearly from my apartment, across the lake from the library and a good quarter mile away. Somewhere, someone was selling or handing out t shirts inscribed with “music has no borders” and “nations without foreigners.”

At the end, after the awards, the winning group came back for an encore and brought in the front row another twenty or so students in ethnic costumes, mostly from the west of China, and an American student from NYC who I know, and one of the German students who is in my urban economics class. The song was about love of country, and everybody sang.

So for Scott, and Jim, now you understand how the Chinese government IIT students have such wonderful voices, and use them, and how they can put on such performances for spring festival. They have been doing it every year since they were small, and they practice, and they believe in the value of it. So much for individualism and do your own thing. One of my students in the urban economics course said she had heard some things about the development of economies, from slavery to feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism. But, she said, socialism did not have enough money to do good things for people, and capitalism helps. But she was worried that capitalism might harm the socialism in China. I said that was a good question, but that no country was purely capitalist or socialist. In the US, we have a socialized safety net for health care for the elderly and poor, for people who get hurt on the job, for retirees, for housing for poor people, and for schooling. China does not have any of those in a nationally uniform way. But they can really sing, and when they get together to do something, it works. I read an article yesterday expressing fears about the China future- you know, economic stimulus and corruption and too much infrastructure spending and no democracy. One of the comments to the article provided the usual “it’s all a sham, and it will collapse any day now” view. Another commentator noted that in his experience, the people who claim the sham argument have invariably never been to China. Or heard them sing, organized, for fun, in a competition just for themselves.

I wish Rachel were here. She would have loved it.

An Evening in Middle Class Life

October, 2009

There is a pattern in the west of seizing on negative China stories as definitive proof than revolution, or collapse, or the Second Coming are just around the corner. Debt and moral vacuum and lack of trust and cheating. But China is a big country, with a big middle class that is vested in ongoing stability. This is just a dinner story from ten years ago, with government friends from Hangzhou and Shaoxing. This is just middle class people relaxing and enjoying the holiday.

This story is also about middle class CCP members, and such an observation seems sorely overlooked in most discussions of China’s future. I have no systematic data, but my educated guess is that a Venn diagram of Chinese middle class – however you wish to define them – would show great overlap with CCP membership. There are about 90 million CCP members. With some dual member households, let’s speculate that comes to 60 million households. These are the people holding nearly all government jobs, heading up non-government organizations, teaching in high schools and universities, and owning many small and large businesses. Let’s give those 60 million households one child and a grandparent or two, or four, and that is roughly the same as the size of the middle class. CCP is the middle class, and when writers talk about emerging democracy and civil society and middle class demands for voice, we should remember who we are talking about. The CCP is the bourgeoisie.

I went to dinner last night at Jennifer’s apartment, with Stone, and James, and Morgan, and Shelly from Shaoxing. Alice was there too. Jennifer and her husband and son live in one of the new developments on Zijinghua Road, just past the xixi wetland national park and about fifteen minutes from ZUST. Like many or most new developments in China, this one is gated, with a seven foot high wall at the perimeter. There are problems with burglary in china, not so much robbery, but historically towns and developments of all kinds have been enclosed, in a cellular pattern, so gated communities now are partly for security but also a historic design legacy. Since this is a pretty fancy development, and mostly for government people, there are two uniformed guards at the gates, who check for who you are visiting and act as building doormen for the residents- get this package, give directions to your aunt when she comes visiting, tell the plumber where to go to find your apartment when he comes to fix the toilet.

Like most any new development, this one is very big. I don’t know the number of buildings- I will say, thirty- a mix of four story walkups with others, surrounding a driveway that curls around behind buildings and leads to an underground garage, as well as a fair amount of parking at grade level adjacent to the buildings. The landscaping is pretty, bamboo and rocks and other green stuff, not as extensive as at some projects where there is no at grade parking, but still thoughtful. There is a community building which has a dining room and a party room, and a slightly raised agora, with stone and landscaping that serves as a meeting point – “meet me at the agora in ten minutes.” Buildings are close together- the driveway is really one way, except in a couple of places where it doubles back on itself, and the feeling is that of close-knit, though expensive, community. In the short two way driveway from the gate to the buildings, there are eight or ten small stores on each side of the street, on the first floor of the first two buildings. A fruit stand, a dry cleaner, a grocery store with a few more essentials, I think an insurance office. Think self-contained and walkable and low stress and low key. The world is outside and tense, not far away, but inside, the tension melts. At least that is what I saw.

Jennifer’s family has the top floor and the fifth floor finished attic, really another entire floor, of a four story walkup. The apartment has all the tricked out stuff typical of an middle American family with a ten year old boy. The big screen tv set to video games of wii tennis, or baseball, or badminton. Soccer ball in the corner, which we used a little in the dining room. (I can beat the ten year old, no problem). Plastic basketball net set up facing out from the middle of the railing on the stairway to the fifth floor, at about six feet high. The kid is a good shot from behind the dining room table, but it is his court. And he seldom has to drive past somebody twice his size, so I was able to hold my own.

Stone, who is an administrator at a college about an hour away from ZUST but still in Hangzhou (east of the river and the Hi-Tech Zone) picked me up at school. When we walked in to Jennifer’s apartment everybody there was already making dumplings. Alice joined in, and this was her entre to the Hangzhou group from one year later at IIT. You know that many city governments send people to IIT each year, some from the same departments each year, but the group loyalty is to the group that comprises your year, not the group from your city. So Shelly, from the same year as Jennifer in Chicago, was Alice’s contact to get invited to this dinner. But Alice was making dumplings with everybody else, and chatting away, and this is one way to get accepted into the group. If I were crude, I would say it was sort of like dogs sniffing to see if the new person acceptable. Everybody laughed at my attempts at dumpling making, which was fine. Some of theirs, notably some of the guys, were not too great either, but my job is to be the clumsy foreigner.

Jennifer’s inlaws cooked dinner. In a way I have seen repeated many times, the parents cook, behind the closed parting doors to the kitchen, which are standard because so much Chinese cooking involves oil, and frying, and fish, but do not join us for dinner. Dinner the usual- big cherries, not from China, but probably from Australia, maybe US, she said. (Prices on cherries are down a little from the peak of spring festival. At the peak, they were 65 rmb a pound, she said, which even if she meant a kilo, is still pretty expensive). Everyone said they missed the prices on cherries in the US. Big strawberries. Little shrimps, which are easy to eat if you pull off the heads and the rest of the shell comes away easily. Chinese are able to dismantle the shells in their mouths with their tongues, which must under different circumstances be a great comfort to Chinese women. A fruit like a grape, but with a tough skin that must be peeled, but is good. Of course, the dumplings we all made, by the dozens, when we got to the apartment, and is a source of much community building. A shared food making experience that everyone’s ancestors did. Dumplings are what you eat at the beginning and end of an event, so this was standard end of spring festival fare. Also, since it was Lantern Festival day (eve, actually), we had fish balls, which are not nearly so repulsive as they sound. A little sweetened dough with a little bit of tasty fish wrapped inside the ball, cooked for a moment. Cabbage and mushrooms, and chicken feet and …. corned beef. Also specially treated pork, that Jennifer confessed to buying frozen, because it is better than she could make herself, but was tasty with a dark sauce and lots of darker meat. Alice brought a flagon, I think is the word, of Shaoxing rice wine, which is only from Shaoxing, and is famous, and is tender and drinkable without being sweet or killer in aftereffect, and is the head fake drink that Linda, one of our government students in Chicago, sometimes drinks to get through the nights of business dinners and drinking (One Third Coke, Two Thirds Sprite) in Shenyang, a thousand miles away. When she is not surreptitiously mixing coke and sprite.

Fireworks on National Day

After dinner, the ten of us or so went downstairs to the agora. Morgan had brought several boxes of fireworks, and tonight was the last night to set off fireworks during the spring festival. Morgan and Stone were in charge of placement of the skyrockets and firecracker strings. They placed some, held others in reserve. Several of us took turns lighting the rockets, which were bursting in air just like in the song. Not too high, maybe three or four stories, but pretty and loud and smoky and fun. We stood around, talked, some other people stopped with their two year olds, and watched, others went about their business. The other apartment buildings were not more than 30 or 40 yards away, but no one was yelling out the window or calling the cops or fussing at us. Given the age of Jennifer and Morgan and the other students, you have to think of our parents at age 35 or 40, in the backyard with the neighbors, shooting off fireworks in 1955 or 1960. Everybody the same age, everybody the same situation, including having parents live with them, everybody pretty happy to be where they are, everybody happy to let someone else be happy. It is true that fireworks in china are part of the culture, and it certainly is true that I do not see a lot of what I am looking at, but I am telling you what I did see. There is a lot of paper and mess to clean up after a fireworks display, but we did not have to worry about that, presumably because the cleaning people would be there in an hour or tomorrow morning to take care. It is part of the deal. They would do a good job on the cleaning, because that was their job.

A digression- there is a lot of writing and observation about how difficult it is to get Chinese to work. Response to instructions is literal, and no one does more than minimally acceptable. The Chinese version of the Russian, “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” I see some of the literalness in students, and some of the mule mentality – “we will work if you beat us” thing. Maybe the positive side of that description is that people respond to incentives, and maybe the literal instruction is “pick up every visible scrap of paper you see,” but I have a hard time reconciling the mule mentality with the cleanliness of the agora as I know it will be tomorrow. Maybe having to work is a great incentive- the cleaning people are never twenty or thirty years old, but look to be seventy. Though they might only be forty.

The evening stroll

After the fireworks, we walked toward the front gate, Jennifer chatting with a couple of neighbors on the way. it is fascinating to see Jennifer this way. In Chicago, she was the academic monitor of the Zhejiang students – the person in charge of making sure schoolwork got done and serving as liaison with the school faculty. My image of her was always this nice, not overdressed, but nicely dressed and together but tightly wound woman with a friendly but still Chinese seriousness about her. Like she understood everything, just her range was intentionally limited. Anyway, here she is in slightly faded jeans that are a little worn, and a floppy grey sweatshirt, and tennis shoes, and she looks relaxed and happy and the entire group of us is just a bunch of friends going for a walk after dinner and fireworks. No agenda, no face, no guards. I kid Jennifer that my one hope in China is that some night I take her out to some jazz club on Nanshan Road, and by the end of the night see her dancing on the table. But with this Jennifer, the one last night, that does not have to be the hope anymore. This is hostess Jennifer, and mom Jennifer, and daughter Jennifer, and wife Jennifer, and friend and colleague Jennifer, and the package is so much more interesting than the IIT academic monitor Jennifer.

We walked a few blocks down Zijinghua Road, to Wen’er Road and Xichen Square, name of a neighborhood and a retail district. There is a big department store I have been to a couple of times, and next to it is the actual square. Nothing too fancy, just a fifteen foot tall sculpture to the moon month goddess, and a flat square surrounded on two sides by apartments and one by the department store. The department store has a pizza hut and KFC on the first floor, and both are crowded. This is Saturday night, so the KFC is busy. That means that there are five lines of customers to place orders, each line four or five people deep. Not because the busload of tourists from Naperville just arrived. This is everyday busy. Upstairs from the KFC and Pizza Hut is the strategically located health club.

We stopped and got ice cream at KFC for Jennifer’s son and his buddy, and walked over to the square, which was fitted out with a bunch of displays, all about celebrating New Year’s year of the tiger and spring festival. There were stands selling huge amounts of cheap Chinese junk- the same stuff we buy at street fairs and at the beach- the colored trinkets that spin, or blow in the wind, or pop up and down, or just look pretty, or colored light sticks. We thought there would be fireworks at the square, and maybe there were later, but we left after about 45 minutes and a bunch of pictures of us together in front of the big plastic and paper tiger than moved its head and body on a small motor. We could have stayed, but I think Alice and Shelly had to get back to Shaoxing, which is about 90 minutes away, and Alice had kept her driver the whole time in Hangzhou, so she wanted to give him a break and let him get home to Shaoxing before midnight.

We walked back to Jennifer’s apartment, past her son’s grade school, and past several other restaurants and apartment buildings. It was a beautiful February night, about centigrade 10 or 12 degrees, so you needed a jacket, but no scarf or gloves or hat. There were lots of people out, and stores were all open, and traffic moved, and couples walked by holding hands, and couples were out with their kid, and if you tell me that the entire chinese economy is a ponzi scheme, and will collapse next week, well, you have to account for the incredible normality of daily life. I suppose we could be sitting in the eye of the hurricane, but the burden of proof is going to have to be on the extreme skeptics. Can there be slowdowns in growth? Can real estate prices drop some, and construction take a tumble, along with local government revenues? Can there be news stories about why didn’t we see this coming, and who do we blame, and what do we do now? Can the PBOC have to step in and recapitalize some banks? Can the central government have to restructure fiscal relationships with the provinces, to bail out provincial and city developments? Can a mountain of debt be a problem for China, too? I just don’t think Xichen Square is going away, nor the KFC, nor Jennifer’s apartment complex or lifestyle. Michigan Avenue is still there, and stores are still open, and I bet the beach will be crowded on a hot day in July, when I come back. We have very tough times ahead in the US, but I don’t think we are going to look like 1932, and there can be tough times ahead in China, but most everybody will weather the storm. There is a big differences among a financial crisis, an economic crisis, and a depression. There is froth in the financial and real estate markets in China, and that will lead to a tough financial crisis and a minor economic crisis at some point, but it will be contained, because of the ability of the government to act and because past growth, real estate excepted, has been based on realities, not hyperbole. Yes, the infrastructure may be too advanced to suit the economy (an argument I have heard made by some macroeconomists, and which I get but I think is wildly academic in this case), and there will be some empty office buildings, maybe a lot of empty office buildings, and the apartments are empty because Chinese are long term investors, so the crisis from a drop in apartment prices will be confined to developers mid project and to a few individuals who will need the cash, but their units will be snapped up quickly, and the office space crisis will be limited to the owners, some of which are SOE, who will be bailed out, and when the economic conditions change, the migrant farmers can go back to the farms in the rural provinces, where the government is already building infrastructure and encouraging FDI, and some loosening of investment laws will unleash the next wave of consumer-driven investing and spending in China, so some power shifts will take place. (Another digression – I disagree now with these early speculations about the Chinese macroeconomy. That is another story. I leave these observations as they were made in 2009 to remind myself of how radically different my own views are now.)

I know, I know- I am seeing Jennifer’s China, not the China of 800,000,000 peasants, but the people in Xichen Square are not all of Jennifer’s lifestyle, but they are there anyway, and the Chinese Dream is well and alive throughout China, I think, so the government has a couple of generations to make good on its promises, riots and disruptions and google and corruption on land taking and blocking of facebook and persecution of activists figured in. This is by no means a perfect society, Jennifer’s lifestyle notwithstanding, but it is not fragile and not going to hell in a handbasket. It is 5,000 years old, with pretty much everyone the same culture, and zero history of democracy, and a cultural expectation that the government will provide, which it gladly does, cynically if you wish, to keep the powers that be the powers that be. With the legal ability to protest, and strike, and democracy, and far worse metropolitan conditions relatively than in China, and far worse economic prospects for the next decade, the government in the US seems able to buy off those damaged by the crisis with some references to capitalism and free markets and hope and making sure everyone is tuned in to American Idol or the next blonde teenager disappearance national crisis. Somebody ask Lubet what he thinks about the status of protest in the US now, compared with that in 1968. And the Chinese government is very well practiced at controlling protest.

A Note on City Size and Political Economy

Among the China superlatives that we have heard for the last two decades is the fantastic growth in city size – Pudong in Shanghai from fishing and farming villages to the world’s most recognizable skyline; similarly for Shenzhen, Guangdong, and literally dozens of places most of us have never heard of.

Source: Lujiazui 2016.jpg

The US has ten or eleven cities now with a population of at least one million; China has scores, and many of them growing from seemingly nothing. China has about four times the population of the US, but far more than four times the number of larger-than-1,000,000 population cities – by 2018, well over a hundred. 100 cities bigger than Liverpool. What gives? We think we understand the concept of growing economies, and the concept of city growth; but how can these superlatives be so? A couple of ideas, and some clarification on terms –

1. urbanization is not only a global phenomenon, it is a modern economy phenomenon – farm-to-factory increased densities of cities a great deal in the Industrial Revolution, but the modern service-oriented economy demands (and allows for) even much greater densities of people, and, moreover, pulls people into the biggest and most diverse cities at a higher rate than in past decades. There are scale effects – the biggest and most successful tend to get even bigger. (We will ignore the ancient forces that created megacities of a thousand or two thousand years ago – Kaifeng (largest city in the world early in the Song Dynasty, with a population of about 600,000) and Hangzhou, the largest city in the world in the late Song and Yuan dynasties, and into the early Ming, and Rome, about a million population until the collapse; and after the collapse of Rome, no place in western or northern Europe until London, about 1700)

List of Cities in China List of Largest European Cities in History

There was a time in China when manufacturing was conducted each within its own walled danwei, and inside the urban area. Each danwei had its own housing, entertainment areas, and shopping. Each danwei was the Chinese version of Pullman, the ideal city created by George Pullman in the 1880s) Pullman, Chicago This was the Maoist era when land had no value. In the opening and reform under Deng, land began to have realizable value. In the last three decades, Chinese local governments have undertaken policies to encourage or force manufacturing to relocate to the outskirts, opening large swaths of urban land to development of housing and offices and shopping. This is American suburbanization of industry conducted at pace and at a time when necessary manufacturing access to river transport had long past. So, a frenzied catching up. Think of the demand for oil, before and after invention of the internal combustion engine. The oil just laid around for millions of years, before it suddenly achieved value.

2. government fiscal policy matters – After Mao, Chinese cities became the focus of development. “If we want development, we want cities to grow.” China supported cities and helped them grow. “Stadtluft macht frei,” the old saying about the medieval urban place, that “city air makes one free,” was true in China in both senses – that of opportunity for the individual and relative independence of the place from domineering control by a greater unit of government. In the US, cities were strangled by federal policy, administrative law, and political fragmentation. The strangulation continues today – Chinese laugh at our inability to build tunnels under the Hudson, fix subways or airports, or let cities grow. Among cities in China, as in the US, there is the rough and tumble of leader and administrative negotiation over infrastructure expansion and competition for location of business and facilities. A difference is that in China, there is always a leader with enough power to say yes, and then all the pieces fall into place, and development can happen. In the US, with heavily fragmented political power buttressed by rule of law, everyone has the power to say “no,” and no one has the power to say “yes,” and force implementation. Delay is built in to American growth in a way that does not exist in China. The political fragmentation that starves American cities in favor of its suburbs doesn’t exist when the political boundaries of cities in China are so much greater than boundaries in America.

3. definitions matter – This is the most important distinction between American and Chinese cities for understanding the proliferation of huge Chinese cities. Briefly, counties in the US are generally larger than cities, and counties are contiguous across the US – one moves from one county into another. In China, counties are subunits of cities and cities are contiguous – one moves from Hangzhou (city) to Jiaxing (city). In the US, cities are generally quite small – Chicago is only 225 square miles (590 square kilometers) and New York is only 302 square miles (784 square kilometers). The surrounding suburban area dwarfs central city area.

Every city in China has a substantial rural area – even Beijing and Shanghai. A city in China can have mountains and large lakes, in addition to farm land. As you know, there are no mountains or farmland in New York or Chicago. There are historical reasons for the large area of subprovincial and prefecture-level cities, but another reason for concentration of people and development is the historical government fear over food security. By law, and enforced pretty fiercely, each province must maintain at least 84% of its land in rural, or let us say, non-urban development land. This regulation is passed on to cities under the province’s jurisdiction. The Land Bureau in each city receives an allocation of land each year that can be converted to construction land; without the allocation from the central government and the province, no additional land conversion can take place. Some of you know about the truly enormous fill-in-the-ocean projects in some Chinese cities – Dongtou County in Wenzhou is one example, but there are others. This project calls for filling in hundreds of square miles of ocean, creating land for development. Why? Wenzhou is a fast growing city (despite the overbuilding of the last decade) and it is surrounded by hills and mountains that make expansion impossible. So, a solution- create more land.

With unitary government – all power derives from Beijing – it is feasible, and relatively common, for cities to merge and become one administrative place, and for formerly rural counties to become districts of cities. So areas of cities and population totals are a bit less reliable than those in the US, since change in areas and even definitions is more frequent. I encountered problems establishing a population for Hangzhou, a place I know pretty well. For example, Xiaoshan was a county-level city, an independent unit of government (sort of). In 2001, it became a district of Hangzhou, and Xiaoshan as a separate city disappeared. The population and the area of Hangzhou increased substantially. Similarly for the Yuhang district of Hangzhou – merged into Hangzhou in 2001, and Lin’an in 2017. Population and area can grow substantially just by administrative fiat.

4. comparing apples with apples – What makes sense from a political science or administrative perspective is to compare roughly similar sized areas. Hangzhou has a population of 8.7 million, about the same as New York, and three times that of Chicago. But Hangzhou is 16,847 square kilometers; New York is 784; Chicago is 590. What is roughly comparable in area with Hangzhou is the metropolitan planning area of Chicago, including seven or ten counties. The seven counties of northeastern Illinois still have some farmland, and are about 10,387 square kilometers – that is Chicago plus all the land around its satellite cities – Waukegan, Elgin, Aurora, Joliet, Gary. And still, Hangzhou is substantially larger, at 16,847 square kilometers. The population of that larger Chicago planning area is 9.5 million for the seven counties.

5. examples, using area and population –

Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang province, and one of the most economically developed cities in China. Dalian, in Liaoning province, is a rarity in China – a city that is better known than its provincial capital, Shenyang. Dalian, too, is a growing city. I pick these two places because I know them reasonably well, and they are certainly characteristic of the size relations in Chinese cities. See the table below. Data is from published sources, wiki and Chinese government estimates, but I make no claims to precision. The urban population of Hangzhou (means what?) is said to be about 5.6 million in the 2010 Census; Shenyang, about 5.7 million, Shanghai 20.2, and Dalian, 3.9. For “urban,” my own preference is to use the districts of a city, as inexact as that may be. Some comparisons –

Place Area, km²Population, x 10⁶Population density, per km²

Liaoning Province 145,900 43.9 300

Zhejiang Province 101,800 55.6 550

Illinois State 150,000 12.8 89.4

New York State 141,300 19.9 159

Note that Liaoning and Zhejiang are of roughly similar size as the States of Illinois and New York. Here you see the roughly 4x greater population in China. Zhejiang has significantly larger GDP than Liaoning; New York, more than Illinois

Shenyang 12,980 8.3 (2010) 640

– urban districts 571 3.8 6,655

Shenyang

Dalian 13,237 6.7 (2010) 532

– urban districts 550 2.1 (2015 est.) 7,721

Dalian

Hangzhou 16,847 9.4 (2017 estimate) 570

– urban districts 706 3.7 5,240

Hangzhou

List of Cities in China by Population and Built-up Area

Shanghai 6,341 24.0 (2017 est.) 3,800

Shanghai

note – these data define Shanghai as only urban, which is not the case from casual observation. Better data would show Shanghai urban area as much more dense than indicated above.

New York 784 8.7 10,400

Shanghai is close to twenty times the size of New York City in area, with about three times the population.

Cook County 4,230 5.2 2,129

City of Chicago 590 2.7 4,594

Chicago planning area 10,387 9.5 seven counties

The “urban districts” of Hangzhou are reported at 706 km², and 3.7 million people. I know the Yuhang district quite well, and that is not included in the urban district data. Yuhang is now quite densely built-up suburban, with the main offices for Alibaba and many other companies, and thousands of new apartments. So, as always, data is only … data.

But one can see that the urban and suburban part of Hangzhou (districts) is much closer to the size of Chicago, and much closer in population. The population densities of the urban districts of Shenyang, Dalian, Hangzhou, and even Shanghai are reasonably close to those for New York and Chicago. Again, some liberal allowances are needed for interpretation of the data.

6. for decades, political career advancement was partly determined by GDP advancement – Chinese have always valued cities as seats of power, in a way that Americans have not. Without exception – I think – the provincial capital is the largest city by population in any province. Political power is united with economic power. Compare with American state capitals. After Deng, and opening up, the advancement of political careers depended in part upon achieving a target rate of GDP growth in the province, city, county, or district. In addition to feeling modern economic pressures, leaders in China competed to grow their own economies, and growth was most easily defined by real estate growth. So, the pressures to urbanize in a country with no history of suburban trains-to-downtown to permit office sector workers to live far from their jobs. Concentration was important for GDP growth as well as for satisfying the needs of a modern economy. (Don’t get me started on short term v long term GDP growth, or the impact of excessive bad debts. Careers are made or lost in five years).

7. GDP growth is easy when you have determined goals and the power to achieve them – as a last note, I want to point out that the development goals in American urban planning and Chinese urban planning were at one point broadly similar – to provide for more people, more GDP generated, more taxes paid locally. There have always been local exceptions, and quality of life is more of a concern in planning now in the US than was the case thirty or forty years ago, and certainly more of a concern than is currently the case in China. But let me leave you with an understanding of how easy it can be to achieve GDP growth, if one has the power to control land and location of people and businesses and the growth goal is quantifiable.

As you might know, the National Development and Reform Commission, the economic planning arm of the central government, establishes a target GDP growth for each year in the Five Year Plan. Five Year Plans That national growth rate is then allocated, with some give and take, to individual provinces, and from provinces to cities. A mayor of a city understands what his targets are, and he has five years in which to perform, at which time he is judged on performance and suitability for advancement in governance.

With a target of X% growth per year, how can one accomplish such a task? Quite simple, really. Every piece of the built environment – housing, offices, factories, subways, expressways, universities, hospitals, airports, ports, even recreational facilities – has some estimated cost of construction. While urban planning in China can be quite detailed and sophisticated, planning and implementation are distinct. If one needs to achieve Y billions of yuan in growth, representing X% GDP growth, all one need do is add up the potential projects, create some new projects if needed, and get started on building. Not so hard when you control all the land, the developers and contractors and lenders are mostly state owned businesses with goals similar to your own, and there is little to no power to oppose what is decreed. Lead, follow, or get out of the way is a known sentiment in China.

If you have made it to the end of this piece, I hope you have the idea that while China is densely populated, the densities are not so far from those in normal urban areas in the US. Much of the city growth in China in the last three decades is the result of policies to encourage urbanization, city consolidation, and the ability of governments to focus development in ways absolutely unavailable in the US. Nothing mysterious here – just a different set of policies and priorities. I tell my Chinese friends that Hangzhou is like Chicago; and Shanghai is like New York, except that there are more Chinese in New York. Always good for a laugh.

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

China Reflections

Tag: Not In Kansas Anymore

SFSU kills Confucius Institute Program

Money Talks in the Clash of Civilizations

Give Me Liberty! in Hangzhou

Brief Note on the Trade Shootout

Negotiating Harmony – Conflict and Governance in the New Age

Life in School – and Beyond

November, 2009

The National Day Singing Competition

Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, September, 2009

An Evening in Middle Class Life

October, 2009

A Note on City Size and Political Economy

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