By David Bandurski — With a new administration in Washington, more attention has turned to America’s international relationships and to possible mood changes in foreign policy. As could be expected, there is enlivened discussion about the nature of the U.S.-China relationship, although this has so far turned mostly to such prickly economic issues as trade protectionism and currency manipulation. [Frontpage Image: Top-ranking Chinese general Liu Yazhou, who has in the past voiced more moderate views on the United States].
The U.S.-China relationship is of course a long and complicated one, and we won’t presume to tackle it head on here [Click here for more recent news coverage of the issue].

[ABOVE: U.S. guided-missile cruisers pass through Hong Kong on a scheduled deployment in June 2008, image from Voxeros available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

Our point is simple — to share just a couple of more moderate and good-humored takes on America and its relationship with China. To that end, we selected two articles from among a roster of pieces shared recently among Chinese journalists and academics through e-mail and the Internet on the eve of Obama’s inauguration.
The idea, according to the journalist who compiled the articles, was to promote an “objective, fair and true assessment” of U.S.-China relations. We do not mean to suggest, however, that these are somehow representative.
The first is a 2005 article by Liu Yazhou (刘亚洲), a top-ranking Chinese general who has often in the past voiced more moderate views on a range of issues, including democracy, U.S.-China relations and tensions over Taiwan. Li is a prominent “princeling” (太子党), or influential scion of a high official, and a lieutenant general in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force.
In the essay below, Liu analyzes the “threat” that the United States poses to China as well as the relationship between American policy making and the American character. The essay is humorous at points, as when the senior military official confesses to frequently wearing a pair of stars-and-stripes underpants, “a kind of psychological release and satisfaction.”
The second piece is by writer and poet Liu Shahe (流沙河), an elder man of letters who was denounced as a rightist in the 1950s. In his talk, Liu reflects on U.S.-China relations going back to the Boxer Rebellion, and draws on his personal experiences as a boy in the 1930s.

What Is It That Truly Makes America Scary?
By Liu Yazhou
So what is it that really makes America scary? While the United States has the world’s most powerful military, and the most advanced technology, I don’t find these frightening at all. I understand that its stealth airplanes go back and forth freely over China, but there’s nothing frightening about this either. These are not the things that make America scary.
In 1972 I was studying at Wuhan University and taking political science courses there. I remember one of my politics professors saying: “America is in decay, a moldering specimen of a capitalist nation, its sun already setting, its life ebbing away.” I, a student from the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers University, decked out in my military uniform, stood right up and challenged him: “Teacher, I believe what you have just said is wrong. While the U.S. is not like China, where it’s 8 or 9 a.m. and the sun is just coming up, it’s not at sunset, but rather at high noon.”
The teacher’s face went white, and he spoke falteringly. “You, how can a student dare say such a thing!” He did not even bother to ask why I had said what I did, but came straight out with this word “dare.”
There was yet another way to approach this question, I thought. America was made up of thousands upon thousands of people who felt no great love for their motherlands, but who all loved America very much. While many [Chinese] leaders at the time had harsh words for America, they were all packing their sons and daughters off to America. How stark was the contrast!
But the more you talk about it, what is it exactly that makes America so scary?
Personally, I think there are three things. First of all, America’s meritocratic system cannot be underestimated. Its leadership system, and its mechanisms of competitive election, are sufficient to ensure that policy makers come from the intellectual elite. The tragedy of China is that from the heights of the state to the lows of the individual work unit, in the vast majority of cases, those with ideas do not make decisions and those who make decisions have no ideas. If you have a decent head on your shoulders there is no place at the table for you. In America it is exactly the opposite — a pyramid structure sends the intellectual elite to the top.
And so, in the first place, Americans don’t make mistakes; second, they make few mistakes; and third, when they do make mistakes they can correct these quickly. [In China] we make mistakes in the first place; second, we make mistakes often; and third, when we make mistakes it is almost impossible to correct them. Using just one tiny little Taiwan, America has managed to hold China down for half a century . . . One Taiwan has transformed the climate of international politics in East Asia.
What I worry about most is that China’s strategic framework for development in the new century might become distorted by Taiwan. In these times, the importance of territory is vastly diminished for the strength of nationalities, and the pursuit of territory has given way to the pursuit of national power and influence (国势). Americans harbor territorial demands toward no country. America does not trouble itself with the question of territory. All of its actions in the twentieth century were about creating power (造势). What does it mean to create power? Aside from economic strength, this is about popular morale (民心)! Nations bolstered with popular sentiment achieve cohesive power. If territory is lost it can be returned. But if popular sentiment is not with you, the territory you do have will undoubtedly be lost. Some national leaders see only one step ahead. America often thinks ten steps ahead when it takes action. It is because of this fact that every major global crisis since the Second World War has strengthened America’s position.
If we let America lead us by the nose, we stand a chance of throwing away all of our strategic capital. I stress again and again that America’s strategic center will not shift to Asia, but this does not mean that it will not envelop China. Many of my comrades see only the ways in which America surrounds China militarily. Many see only the gap in technological and military might separating America and China. They overlook the fact that on larger strategies, particularly on the level of foreign relations, there is an imbalance far more serious than that of arms. Our foreign policy toward America has tactics but no framework, specifics but nothing comprehensive. After the 9.11 attacks, America moved quickly within the space of two months to secure Afghanistan, pushing up to China from the western flank. Meanwhile, military pressure from Japan, Taiwan and India has not flagged. It may seem that we gained some advantages from the events of 9.11, but these will likely dissipate in the space of two years.
I believe our country has been strategically contained in a completely different way. It is not about military affairs. It surpasses military affairs.
Look at the way that, over the last several years, the social fabrics of countries surrounding us have been transformed, becoming so-called “democratic” nations [NOTE: In the original the second character of “democracy” is replaced with an “X” to elude automated censorship mechanisms]. Russia and Mongolia have changed. Kazakhstan has changed. Add to this South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia, and then Taiwan. This threat to our country is far more fierce than that posed by military might. Military threats are effective only in the short term, while being enveloped by so-called “democratic” nations has a lasting impact. And then there is America’s energy and tolerance (大气与宽容). If you you go to Europe and then to America, you will discover a significant difference. On European mornings the streets are empty, but American mornings teem with people going about their exercises, and this is something you might see all day long. I have a theory, and that is that exercise is a measure of character. Exercise reflects the vigor of a culture. Whether or not a nation has vitality can be measured by how many of its people engage in active exercise.
Americans can take their national flag and wear it as underpants. When I was in America I bought a pair of stars and stripes underwear for myself. I wear them often. I wear them as an act of scorn, a way of letting off steam, a kind of psychological release and satisfaction. For Americans wearing them is a kind of joke. The act is fundamentally different. Americans can set fire to their own flag on the streets. Dai Xu (戴旭), an author and friend, once said: “If a nation can burn even its own flag, what possible reason can you then have for burning it?”
Third, there is [America’s] great strength of spirit and morality. This is the scariest of all. September 11 was a disaster. When disaster struck, the physical body was the first to fall, but the soul stood. When some people meet with calamity, their bodies stand but their spirits give up. Three things happened during 9.11 that allow us to see the strength of Americans.
The first thing happened in the time just after the [first] plane struck the World Trade Center, as the flames spread and at the most critical juncture. As those in the buildings fled through the emergency exits, the scene was not particularly chaotic. People traveled down, and the firefighters pushed their way up. They yielded to one another and there was no conflict whatsoever. When women and children or the blind came through, people naturally made way for them, letting them through first. Even a small pet dog was let through. If a nation’s spirit is not strong to a certain degree, there’s simply no way its people can behave in this way. Facing death with such calmness, if that is not saintliness it at least approaches saintliness.
The second thing happened on day two after 9.11, as the world discovered that this was the work of Arab terrorists [NOTE: This is a literal translation of the Chinese, 阿拉伯恐怖分子]. Many Arab businesses were attacked by angry Americans. A number of Arab businessmen were also attacked. At this moment, a large number of Americans organized themselves and gathered at Arab restaurants and businesses to stand guard for them. They patrolled Arab neighborhoods to prevent further harm. What kind of spirit is that!
The tradition of revenge has been handed down to us from ancient times. I live in Chengdu. After Deng Ai (邓艾) [of the Three Kingdoms Period] destroyed Chengdu, Pang De‘s (庞德) son murdered everyone in Guan Yu‘s (关羽) family, young and old. The blood of revenge stains the books of history.
The third thing [demonstrating the strength of Americans] was the crash in Pennsylvania of a 767 meant [by terrorists] to crash into the White House. Passengers struggled with terrorists onboard, and this is why the plane crashed [rather than struck its target]. Because they knew at the time that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been struck, they decided that they could not stand idly by, that they must struggle to the death with the terrorists. Even at such a moment, they did something else: they decided to determine by vote whether they would do battle with the terrorists. Even at such a crossroads of life and death [they thought], I cannot impose my will on others. Eventually, all agreed, and only then did they enter into struggle. What is democracy? That is democracy. The idea of democracy has already sunk into their very life and spirit, it is in their blood and in their bones.
Who would rise if such a people as this did not rise? If people such as this do not rule the world, then who will rule the world? I often think to myself: perhaps it is most appropriate that the world’s most advanced weaponry, most advanced science and technology, and the greatest military should be in the hands of people such as this. Is this not better than such power in the hands of Japan, or in the hands of Libya, or in the hands of the Iraqi people? Even if it were in our own hands, there is no way of knowing what we would do. This nation, America, holds many successful lessons, and it behooves us to study and learn from them.
August 2, 2005

A partial translation follows of a lecture by poet Liu Shahe on the U.S.-China relationship:

American’s Are Our Best Friends
(A lecture by Liu Shahe)
My friends (hearty applause), I’m a much older fart than everyone seated here. I’m 74 years old this year. I can’t really talk about any “ideas” (思想). But because I’m much older than the rest of you, I’ve been through historical episodes such as the War of Resistance Against Japan that you never experienced, and this is where you and I are really different. I come today simply to talk about two things with everyone . . .
. . . My second story is also something I saw with my very own eyes. I want to tell everyone: Americans are our best friends. China’s greatest friends in the whole world are Americans. The year after the eight armies entered Beijing in 1900 [during the Boxer Rebellion], when eight nations received Boxer indemnities (庚子赔款), there was only one country that did not use this money for its own ends, and that was America. Later, through various channels, the money was given back. One of these channels was the Boxer Indemnity Overseas Study Program (庚款留学生). Another was the subsidizing of our universities. I want to let all of you know that during the war of resistance [against Japan] there was in Shanxi a so-called “Mingxian Academy” (铭贤学院) that was established in my neck of the woods. The school was connected to America’s Oberlin College, and Oberlin had a “Shanxi Fund” that was established by the U.S. government using Boxer Indemnities. The “Shanxi Fund” monies were used to support the Mingxian Academy, and this was the case from its founding in the 1930s onwards. As the front of the war of resistance advanced thousands of miles to my hometown, and one of our biggest landlords, a certain Mr. Zeng, voluntarily vacated his fort and offered it on loan to the academy. So this was how the school came to be. After the changeover in political power, the school became the “Shanxi Agricultural College” (山西农学院). And finally, after relations worsened with the U.S., the annual funds stopped flowing. At the time no explanation at all was given. We simply said on our side: “Ours is a nation of revolution, and no one wants this stinking imperialist money of yours!” So this money was cut off for decades after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
In the early days of economic reform and opening, Oberlin College’s “Shanxi Fund” dispatched a representative, a young man just 27 years of age, to mainland China to speak with Chinese government representatives. When they asked what business he had, he said he wanted to know whether the Mingxian Academy still existed. He was told by everyone that this Mingxian Academy had been moved back to Shanxi since the foundation of the P.R.C., and that the “Shanxi Engineering College” and “Shanxi Agricultural College” had been set up in its place. Later, this young man sought out a number of old teachers to find out whether or not this was true. Once he had sussed things out, he left without a word. Some time passed and finally the American side sent some representatives in an official capacity. They said that those people [in charge of] the original Mingxian Academy, now referred to as the “Shanxi Engineering College” and the “Shanxi Agricultural College,” were entitled to a substantial portion of funds.
You can imagine just how interested these officials of ours were when they heard the word “funds” (sound of laughter). They sought the party leaders from the engineering and agricultural colleges straight away, and representatives from all the work units showed up — party secretaries, presidents. But they didn’t bother to get in touch with a single flesh-and-blood person from the Mingxian Academy. The [American] representatives from the “Shanxi Fund” said, look, everyone here is a government official, but we want to see people from the Mingxian Academy. What to do? What to do? So at last they thought of this old rightist from the Shanxi Agricultural College who had once been at the Mingxian Academy, and they went and got this old guy, who was making ends meet by cleaning out toilets, and said, look, we need you to come along with us and walk at the head of the delegation. Finally, they saw someone they recognized, so from that time on 200,000 U.S. dollars came each year without fail, half for the agricultural college and half for the engineering college. In this way, everyone eventually realized how it was. After power changed hands [in China], this money stopped flowing, but the Americans didn’t touch a penny of those funds. All of it was socked away, even collecting interest all those decades, and now they can give away 200,000 a year to each of these colleges.
This is a story a friend of mine who studied at Mingxian Academy told me. I wept when he first told me (applause). Of the eight foreign powers [that received indemnities], no other nation behaved in this way. Two of these countries were the worst. The first was Japan, which took our indemnities and turned around and bought military weaponry with them. The second was Russia, which acted with impudence and greed. Not long ago, I read a Chinese memoir written by someone who went to America in the Late Qing. At the time, when the American president met with this foreign minister, he said there are two countries that have designs about invading you – one is Japan and the other is Russia. We feel sympathy for you, this great nation that has been cheated, he said, and we hope you will grow stronger. A strong China suits the interests of America . . .
When the war of resistance against Japan broke out I had just begun primary school. By the time I entered middle school, the war had already entered its finally stage, also its most difficult stage. The year I was 13 years old I went with some of my classmates to the American military airfield. Like the adults there, I offered my labor. We all ate . . . and there were eight people to each table. There was just one small bowl [on each table] of shredded carrot without a hint of oil. And this is how we went through a whole week doing repairs on the airstrip. Our thought then was that if we didn’t put in an effort our country would perish. Because our teachers had said to us from our first days that we must not become the slaves of a destroyed state (亡国奴), that if we became slaves of a destroyed state we would be like the Koreans, who had to stand at attention and bow whenever they saw Japanese . . . We knew from a young age that we should love our own country. At the time, whether it was the Kuomingtang government or our teachers, when anyone talked about loving one’s country they did not use the word “patriotism” (爱国主义). You know, when love of one’s country (爱国) becomes patriotism it becomes a kind of doctrine. And doctrine is absent of feeling (applause). Our teachers said we should “love our country.” [Poet] Xu Guangzhong (余光中) once said to me that love of one’s country was an emotion, not an “ism”. I’ve been restricted by this emotion ever since I was a child.
So eventually this airstrip was repaired. As a student I remember seeing watching with my own eyes from the courtyard of our house as the American pilots took off on bombing raids to Tokyo . . .
I’d also like to talk about the goodness of Americans. We Chinese were poor, we lacked self-respect, and we didn’t pull ourselves together. So many of us Chinese would go and steal items from the American airfield, but the Americans never once sought us out. Every day after dusk in our village, the black market stalls overflowed with military stuff that had been taken. Army-issued leather boots and belts and jackets and canned foods – they were all hot. We even stole cans of peanut butter. And toilet paper. All of it was stolen on that side and sold on this side. Never once did the American military look into this matter. That’s something no other country would be capable of.

RELATED READINGS:
“Bumpy Road Ahead for US-China Relations,” UCLA International Institute, February 3, 2009.
“A Mystery in Beijing: Who Runs the Military?” International Herald Tribune, June 22, 2007
“A Young Turk in China’s Establishment: The Military Writings of Liu Yazhou,” China Brief (Asia Foundation), via AsiaMedia, September 13, 2005.
“China President Moves to Rein in Military,” Malaysia Star, July 27, 2005.
[Posted by David Bandurski, February 3, 2009, 12:30pm HK ]

By David Bandurski — When I saw a story reported at Berkeley’s China Digital Times today (thanks to ESWN for the link) about a Beijing internet censorship official who has become the latest target of a “flesh search” by angry Chinese netizens, this took me right back to September 2007, when I was prying into the role of the Beijing Association of Online Media (BAOM).

[ABOVE: Postings on “What kind of party member is Chen Hua?” fill up a Baidu search page today.]

By that time, I had spent weeks poring through a series of reports that had quietly emerged on the association’s official website. While BAOM was an ostensible industry association, boasting membership by the likes of Intel, Nokia and MySpace China, the reports confirmed what others were telling me — that it was taking on an active and direct internet censorship role.
The reports outlined violations at Beijing-based internet sites that had been reported by the association’s own team of “volunteers.” In addition to “indecent content” or content “violating social mores,” the reports listed so-called threats to social stability and violations of the Four Basic Principles. Clearly, this industry association was taking on a traditional censorship role and enforcing the party’s propaganda discipline.
When I approached a well-known Chinese professor of communications, listed as one of BAOM’s board members, about who ran things at the association and might be able to answer questions about their “anti-pornography” work, he suggested I get in touch with Chen Hua, the Beijing propaganda official now facing scrutiny by Chinese internet users.
Calls to Chen Hua went unanswered for days, and I left several messages with singularly unhelpful personnel at the office number listed on the BAOM website. But Chen finally answered my request for an interview via e-mail. I sensed that he was putting me on an indefinite back burner, but the e-mail itself was sufficiently illuminating, revealing Chen’s dubious dual roles:

I am happy to receive your letter, and I thank you for your interest in this topic. I’m really very busy lately, but I’ll consider how I can provide information and get back to you.
Regards,
Chen Hua
Beijing Municipal Internet
Information Administrative Bureau
Beijing Association of Online Media

“Pulling the Strings of China’s Internet,” the final result of my probings into BAOM, can be read at the Far Eastern Economic Review site.
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 23, 2009, 12:17pm HK]

By Emma Lupano — Just one week after the arrest in Beijing of Li Min, a CCTV journalist accused of taking bribes while covering a story in Shanxi, Chinese media reported last week that Guan Jian, another Beijing journalist, had been “taken away” by the police in early December while on a reporting stint to the same province. [Frontpage Image: “Locked and Chained” by Darwin Bell available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
It is still not clear precisely what circumstances led to the arrest of Guan, a journalist from Network News (网络报). Accounts in Chinese media say the journalist went to Shanxi province to investigate a local real estate company.
Media reports have said that Guan Jian was spirited away from a hotel lobby where he was waiting on the afternoon of December 1, when five men forced the reporter into a silver Volkswagen Touareg. Evidence of the “kidnapping,” as some called it, came as hotel video surveillance footage was made public by The Beijing News on December 15.
The day after the footage became national news, one of Guan’s co-workers, Li Chuyi, wrote on his weblog that Guan had been found. A partial translation of the blog post can be found at ESWN. Here is a portion:

At 3pm on December 15, 2008, I received a telephone call from the family of Guan Jian. At 12:32pm, a man claiming to be with the Hebei province Zhangjiakou city police department economic crime investigation squad used Guan Jian’s mobile phone to call them. The man said that Guan Jian was taken away by Zhangjiakou police at 6pm on December 1 from the Jinjiang Star Hotel and is presently criminally detained by the Zhangjiakou police. The man asked the family to bring some money and medicine over. When asked why, the man said that the medicine was for Guan Jian’s coronary heart ailment, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, while the money was for improving Guan Jian’s living conditions at the detention center. Why was Guan Jian taken away? What crime did he commit? Why did they notify the family fourteen days later? The Zhangjiakou policeman refused to answer any of these questions. At 5pm, I contacted the Zhangjiakou city police department economic crime investigation squad on behalf of my work unit. I asked about Guan Jian’s present condition, the reason why he was detained and why they waited so long before informing the family. A police officer named Tian gave unfriendly answers such as “It is not convenient to say,” “It was necessary for the case,” “We informed Guan Jian’s family at noon today.”

Li Chuyi argued that police from Zhangjiakou had violated China’s Criminal Law, which requires notification of local police (in this case, Taiyuan) in the event of cross-jurisdictional arrests, and also specifies that family members be notified within 24 hours of the arrest. Zhangjiakou police have since admitted that they arrested the reporter in Taiyuan.
After initial coverage by The Beijing News, scores of Chinese newspapers followed up on the story and many editorial pages questioned the tactics used by Hebei police to arrest Guan Jian.
One of the first commentaries came from Wang Gangqiao (王刚桥), an academic, in The Beijing News on December 16. A partial translation follows:

“Detention by law is OK, but secret arrest is not”
Guan Jian, a journalist from Beijing’s Network News mysteriously disappeared in Shanxi province while carrying out reporting in the region. According to surveillance video from the hotel [where the detention occurred], Guan Jian was taken away on December 1 at around 6pm by five people who restrained his arms and forced him into a Volkswagen Touareg. . .
This news left people astonished. Guan Jian has been missing for half a month already, and it was a week ago that his family went to Shanxi province to complain to police. The police opened a case file and launched an investigation, making a preliminary determination that the reporter was “missing.” Shanxi authorities, the victim’s family and his employer put great effort and resources into tracking down this missing person — then we learn out of the blue that the “missing person” was led away by police. Even those with little or not background in the administration of justice would ask to obvious questions: why didn’t police inform the family about the arrest? Even though police authorities in Shanxi said yesterday that Zhangjiakou police made contact with Taiyuan police before taking Guan Jian away, why was it that Guan’s family received no explanation before this? And what are the crimes for which Guan is begin “taken away”? Is his being “taken away” a matter of “summons” (拘传) or of “detention” (拘留)?
The arrest of a journalist in Taiyuan by Zhangjiakou police has bewildered the public, and the police should give the public, including Guan Jian and his family, a single reasonable explanation. If the “taking away” of the suspect was not conducted according to laws and regulations, then those specific police personnel responsible should face proper legal consequences . . . The police cannot arrest people in secret, because justice without procedure is not justice at all.

A December 16 editorial in Kunming’s Spring City Evening News by Nuo Song (傩送) used the Guan Jian case to discuss the social role and plight of journalists working in China today. The editorial accused “certain government authorities” of leaving reporters on their one in the fight against injustice:

“Journalist cannot bear on their weak shoulder the entire burden of social justice”
Cases of journalists facing violence have become nothing new in recent years. According to survey conducted by China Youth Daily, journalists rank third on a list of most dangerous professions [in China], falling just behind police and miners. With successive versions of “[outside] police entering Beijing to seize journalists” arising from Liaoning and Shanxi provinces, editorial pages at many media have explored the question: how do we protect journalists’ legal right to carry out reporting? And now, with [reporter] Guan Jian missing, people are once again asking: how do we ensure that the bodily safety of journalists is not violated in the process of carrying out reporting?
But this write cares even more about another question. Namely, who is it that puts journalists in harm’s way?
We live in an age in which journalists are “all powerful.” Journalists aren’t just lookouts on the prow, reporters of the truth, or capable detectives — many dark aspects of our society receive the attention of the government only after journalists have revealed them, and we can see this in the Loufan (娄烦) landslide incident and the Sanlu milk powder scandal. Journalists have become the courageous front-line soldiers in the battle to expose social ills, and this is a very dignified thing. But what is regrettable is that they don’t have the hand-to-hand combat skills of 007, and once they are set upon by dark forces they can only surrender to them.
There are many journalists who, like Guan Jian, exceed the call of duty and go beyond the range of their capabilities, and thereby court danger. In many ways this “going beyond” on the part of journalists owes to the fact that certain government authorities are remiss in their duties.
Looking at the case of Guan Jian’s “disappearance”, we can see at least these two major failings [on the part of the government]. First of all, [while a people’s congress official is reportedly linked to Guan’s detention] the position of deputy director of a local people’s congress means the official in question counts as a national public servant (国家公职人员), and according to the Law on Public Servants, civil servants must not engage in business activities and must not hold positions within companies or profit-making entities. When this deputy director of the local people’s congress took office and was simultaneously a corporate executive at a real estate company, did the local government not know about this, or just pretend not to see?
Secondly, if a Shanxi [real estate] company is suspected of having acted against regulations, should it be necessary to rely on a Beijing journalist traveling thousands of kilometres away to investigate the case? What are the local branches of the national government and the judiciary departments doing exactly? . . .

FURTHER READINGS:
“Chinese reporter chasing corruption claims disappears“, Reuters, December 16, 2008
“Guan Jian’s case needs procedural justice“, Xi’an Evening News, December 17, 2008
“How can they notify family members of the journalist’s arrest 14 days after the fact?“, Chengdu Evening News, December 17, 2008
ON THE LI MIN CASE:
“Shanxi prosecutor goes to Beijing to arrest CCTV’s female reporter“, People’s Daily Online, December 8, 2008
“CCTV Reporter’s Arrest Causes a Stir“, Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2008
[Posted by Emma Lupano, December 22, 2008, 2:53pm HK]

By David Bandurski — When Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered a speech Thursday morning in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to honor the thirtieth anniversary of economic reforms in the country, his words pointed to a leftward shift in Chinese politics — a possible reaction in part against the recent Charter 08, a manifesto signed by prominent Chinese intellectuals calling for broad political reform.
According to our preliminary analysis of Hu’s speech, more left-trending keywords like “socialism”, “Marx” and the “Four Basic Principles” were prominent in Thursday’s speech — noticeably more so than in Hu’s 17th Congress address last year.
Here are a few keywords whose overall use Thursday surpassed that of Hu’s 17th National Congress speech, which was in fact 10,000 words longer than Thursday’s 18,000 words.

[SWCC = “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”]

More moderate terms, such as “democratic politics” and “intraparty democracy” were less prominent.
Perhaps more importantly, a number of erstwhile Jiang Zemin terms made an unexpected return.
Toward the beginning of his speech, Hu Jintao resurrected the Jiang-era notion of “westernization and separatism”, the idea that hostile Western forces aim to co-opt Chinese and weaken China by exploiting territorial tensions (Taiwan, Tibet, etc.).
In another section of his speech, dealing with institutional reforms as a guarantee for further development, Hu Jintao resurrected the xenophobic Jiang-era phrase “[We must] never copy,” referring to the political and economic models of the West.
Terms we were on the lookout for ahead of last year’s 17th National Congress but which never materialized, including “constitutionalism”, “civil society” and “citizen’s rights”, were absent from Thursday’s speech as well.
FURTHER READING:
“Wuyouzhixiang PK Wen Jiabao,” ESWN, December 21, 2008
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 20, 2008, 1:09am HK]

By David Bandurski — Today is the 30th birthday of economic reforms in China. And as a tribute to both sides in the ongoing debate in China over the spirit of reforms, we share with readers two recent writings on the subject. [Frontpage Photo: “Great Candles” by BodHack available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
In the December issue of the Chinese journal Yanhuang Chunqiu, writer Yang Min argues that the successes of China’s reform era owe not to unique “Chinese characteristics,” but rather to China’s adoption of universal values that are a product of the human cultural experience.
“The secret to China’s miracle lies not in its differences from the world, but rather in its affinities,” Yang writes.
Yang’s article has ruffled the feathers of Chinese leftists at the socialist website Utopia, which offered its own rebuttal of the essay on December 8.

[Screenshot of Yanhuang Chunqiu online, Deng Xiaoping appears with American President Jimmy Carter on a visit to the U.S. from January 29 to February 4, 1979]

Portions of the Yanhuang Chunqiu and Utopia articles follow:

“Reform and Opening and Universal Values”
By Yang Min (杨民)
China can boast major accomplishments in its 30 years of reform. This is especially true for the economy, with average annual GDP growth of 9.8 percent, urban and rural incomes rising 40 and 30 times respectively between 1978 and 2008, Chinese GDP accounting for five percent of the world’s total in 2007, up from just one percent in 1978, and China’s portion of global foreign trade rising from less than one percent to eight percent. Such a massive economy, with such rapid growth over such an extended period of time — this is something that has not been seen in recent history, what has been widely labeled as “China’s miracle.” The very life of this miracle and of economic reforms is inseparable from universal values.
The secret to China’s miracle lies not in its differences from the world, but rather in its affinities.
There is a popular wisdom that says that says that “China’s miracle” is the product of China’s having taken a path that is different from that of other countries and regions, that it has arisen not from “copying” but from “unique Chinese characteristics” (中国特色). There are even a number of investors and speculators outside China who have bet on the unique merits [of China], researching the so-called “Chinese mode” (中国模式), or “Beijing Consensus” (北京共识). These terms are not entirely without merit. From a certain perspective it is safe to say that the modernization drives of all nations are unique in one way or another, and this means China’s modernization necessarily has its own Chinese characteristics.
It may be true that a number of Chinese characteristics are preconditions and assurances of China’s rise, such as the upholding of the leadership of the CCP, the system of centralization (举国体制), etc. However, it is not enough to have these “special characteristics” alone, these “differences” or “non-imitations,” because we have upheld the leadership of the CCP and the system of centralization since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. If it were true that we could create a “Chinese miracle” by relying only on these “Chinese characteristics,” on these “differences” we have with other countries, then China would not have gone to the brink of economic collapse prior to reforms, and tens of millions of people would not have died in the tragedy of the Great Leap Forward.
Clearly, in searching for the secret of “China’s miracle,” we must look not only to China’s supposed differences with the rest of the world, but more to the point to the differences between China today and China in the past. It is not hard to come to the realization in what created “China’s miracle” was reform and opening, was the introduction of the market economy, of democracy, freedom, rule of law, human rights and other concepts that are universal values. Progress in our society over the last 30 years is inseparable from reform and opening and the practice of universal values in China. Of course you can also say that “reform and opening” is a Chinese characteristic, but what exactly is this special characteristic? At its base, the special characteristic is the study and borrowing from developed nations of civilized ideas that have universal value.
Therefore, “China’s rise” actually relies upon things that are “the same,” and represents the success of “the drawing of lessons from other countries” (拿来主义). It is principally the success of “sameness,” and not the success of “difference.” We can say that these 30 years of reform and opening represent the success of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and that they represent also the flowering in China of human culture imbued with universal values . . .
When we look back on the past 30 years, we see that China’s opening and reform began with the process of opening. Opening drove reform, and reform drove development. From the economy to society, successful reforms relied at every step on the study of the methods of advanced nations.
The Cultural Revolution was a major disaster for China. But what direction should [China] take in turning away from the Cultural Revolution? Deng Xiaoping, one of the century’s greats, clearly recognized the most effective path: opening to the outside world. In 1978, he not only went himself to the United States, Japan and other developed nations, but he also sent a hundred or so observation groups out into the world to seek the secrets of rapid development in developed nations. Very quickly, a consensus emerged throughout the CCP: Western nations were more advanced than us, and there were many cultural traits that deserved our study. National isolation was a dead-end. China must open its doors to the outside world.
Opening meant not just a geographical opening of the doors to the nation, nor did it carry a purely economic meaning about trade with other nations. More importantly, it meant tearing down the bulwarks the sealed China’s value system off and opposed [incursion]. It meant moving toward a more equal and rational vision that could allow the acceptance of all of humanity’s cultural assets with an attitude of tolerance and study. The most important asset was the adoption of the market economy.
In November 1979, when Deng Xiaoping met with the head of the editorial committee for America’s Encyclopedia Britannica, Frank Gibney Jr., and others, he pointed out that: “It is an error to hold that the market economy belongs only to capitalist societies” . . . “Why can’t socialism do the market economy?” . . . “Socialism can also do the market economy.” Deng Xiaoping’s meaning in these statements was clear, and that is that the market economy has universal value. In the southern dialogues (南方谈话) of 1992, he again emphasized that planning and the market were both economic tools, not core differences between socialism and capitalism . . .
The ideological debate has never abated over whether the market economy is surnamed “Socialism” or surnamed “Capitalism,” but in actual practice the marketization of the economic sector was staunchly carried out from the beginning of reform and opening.
The core value of the market economy is freedom. Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen, who has been called the “conscience of economics,” has drawn a number of salient results from his substantial experience analyzing many developing nations: Freedom is the core value of the market economy, and development means the expansion of freedoms; freedom is the primary goal of development, and also an indispensable tool toward promoting development.
China’s 30 years of reform offer the best possible annotation for Sen’s theories.
In the days of the planned economy, control was our sole “talisman,” and it permeated every aspect of people’s lives . . . Everything was to be controlled, and nothing was free. Lack of political freedoms [in that time] go without saying, and 800 million Chinese had only a single mind . . . It was the same economically. It wasn’t just that the top leadership decided what factories were to produce — they even decided what farmers would plant in the fields. They even talked such nonsense as, “We want only socialist grass, and we don’t want capitalist seedlings” (宁要社会主义的草，不要资本主义的苗). Under such controls, what impetus could people possibly have to produce, and is it any wonder that people starved?

The following is a rebuttal of Yang Min’s piece at the website Utopia:

“Yanhuang Chunqiu’s Mythologizing on Universal Values Is Actually a Capitalist Restoration“— criticizing Yang Min’s “Reform and Opening and Universal Values”
The December edition of Yanhuang Chunqiu published an article by Yang Min called “Reform and Opening and Universal Values,” which prattles on in an attempt to deify universal values, saying they are connected “as life to death” to [China’s] reform and opening . . . Why does this Yang insist on elevating universal values? From head to tail, the fine print of Yang’s article clearly exposes his evil goal beyond any doubt — a capitalist restoration.
First of all, it opposes the Marxist doctrine of class struggle, promoting bourgeois universal values, carrying out theoretical propaganda for a capitalist restoration.
Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out in “Losing our Fantasies, Preparing for Struggle” (丢掉幻想，准备斗争) that: “In class struggle, some classes are victorious while others are annihilated. This is history, the history of civilization for thousands of years.” . . . Democracy, freedom, human rights, and even the market economy all have class nature. These universal values that are said to transcend class are merely tricks used by the apologists of capitalism to deceive others and promote capitalist values or push the restoration of the capitalist system.
Yang’s article says that when we look back over the last 30 years “successful reforms, whether economic or social, have all taken their cues from the methods of advanced nations.” Who are these advanced nations? They are “the United States, Japan and other developed nations.” We have [Yang says] studied the universal values of these advanced capitalist nations.
The reactionaries in America, Japan and Europe often throw around the big clubs of democracy, freedom and human rights to attack our country and interfere with our domestic politics. As though only they really talk about democracy and freedom, and respect human rights. This is thoroughly a fabrication. Under the veil of democratizing the Middle East, American imperialism invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and now threatens Iran. American general elections are merely a matter of choosing between the Democratic and Republican parties . . . Human rights has ever been a plaything of the bourgeois classes, and capitalism had its start by exploiting and enslaving the black man. Over the last century and more, so many lives have been taken by the wars and incursions of capitalism, and the exploitation now continues as it always has. Look at the new social classes in our own country. We have illegal mine bosses, and brick kiln operators [who enslave workers], factory bosses who exploit the blood and sweat of the workers . . . These bourgeois intellectuals in our country, including Yang Min, are for the revival of capitalism, for a reversion to capitalism, for a joining up with global capitalism, and they speak with the same accents as the reactionaries of America and Japan, welcoming attacks on Chinese socialism.
Not only this, but they carry out irrational attacks against those of us comrades who have not forgotten the class struggle and who continue to uphold Marxism . . .
Yang’s article praises the economic theories of liberalism, holding that “the core value of the market economy is freedom.” He is swept off his feet by Amartya Sen, and admires his [notion that] “freedom is the core value of the market economy, and development means the expanding freedoms; freedom is the primary objective of development, and an indispensable tool in promoting development.” Yang’s article also says that China’s 30 years of reform are the best annotation for Sen’s theories . . .
But the economic crises that the capitalist world has suffered over the past century stem from the disorderly, unplanned and uncontrolled free competition of the capitalist market economy.

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 18, 2008, 11:47am HK]

By David Bandurski — Hong Kong’s Yazhou Zhoukan has reported that the Chinese journal Yanhuang Chunqiu, which has lately faced pressure from authorities, is now officially out of the woods [more from ESWN here]. The Hong Kong weekly also reports that the group behind the action against Yanhuang Chunqiu was the propaganda department’s news commentary group (NCG), or yueping zu (中宣部阅评组). Sound familiar?
When Freezing Point, the weekly supplement of China Youth Daily, was shut down in January 2006, the action also stemmed from a criticism issued by the NCG.
In his open letter protesting the move, Freezing Point editor Li Datong (李大同) openly mentioned the NCG’s role, calling the group a “sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of China’s media.” [Here is Roland Soong’s translation of Li Datong’s open letter, in which he renders yueping zu as “Criticism Group”].
In a separate open letter protesting the shutdown of Freezing Point, former party officials and newspaper bosses called for the disbanding of the NCG.
If what Yazhou Zhoukan is now reporting is true, the NCG is alive and well as an informal organ of post-facto censorship. But the Yanhuang Chunqiu affair has played out very differently from what we saw two years ago, and this might suggest some measure of change to the group’s role and influence.
Little is actually known about the secretive NCG. But for a taste of who they are, we point readers to several of our own past writings on the group.
“China’s Shadow Censor Commissars,” published in the March 2006 edition of Far Eastern Economic Review [subscription only], gives an overview of the NCG and their role since the 1990s and their part in the shutdown of Freezing Point.
“Garden of Falsehood,” published in the Spring 2008 edition of Index on Censorship, includes examples of (sometimes comical) NCG criticisms.
For readers of Chinese, we recommend Qian Gang’s essay, “From Liu Binyan to Freezing Point” (从宾雁到冰点), which tells the story of how celebrated journalist Liu Binyan (刘宾雁) was “struggled against” (揪斗) as a right-roader at the outset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966.
As Liu Binyan sat across from his accusers, his most vicious critic was none other than Liu Zuyu (刘祖禹), the leftist propaganda official who sat at the helm of the NCG when the group targeted Freezing Point forty years later.

“Liu Binyan! You must toss aside this guise of yours and honestly face the fact that you are guilty of opposing the CCP and opposing socialism!”
This “most vicious” Liu Zuyu is today head of the Central Propaganda Department’s News Commentary Group.

Word went round in 2007 that Liu Zuyu was no longer a member of the NCG, but little birds now tell us he is back.
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 16, 2008, 1:53pm HK]

By David Bandurski — We are now just one week away from the official anniversary of 30 years of economic reform in China, and more voices are speaking up about the nation’s future. Earlier this week, more than 300 intellectuals, lawyers, business people and human rights defenders signed an open letter, “Charter 08,” that said “the decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional” [English translation by Perry Link here]. [Frontpage: Beijing government building by “Buck82” available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
There is no question that “Charter 08,” which calls for separation of powers (ever a tinderbox term in China), legislative democracy and a new Chinese constitution, will infuriate Chinese leaders already on high alert for a series of sensitive anniversaries this year and next. And there are reports already that dissident Liu Xiaobo has been detained for his role in drafting the letter.
But the party’s own prominent scholars are stepping into the spotlight too.
This week, a number of newspapers ran an interview with Yu Keping (俞可平), a liberal party scholar who serves as director of the Central Translation Bureau, a CCP think tank, and is an outspoken proponent of democracy.
Yu has said in the past that China is evolving toward “its own unique form of democracy.” [See ESWN’s translation of Yu’s essay, “Democracy is a Good Thing“].
China News Service coverage of Yu Keping’s comments on the fight against official corruption appeared in several major papers, including Guangzhou’s New Express and Southern Metropolis Daily.

[ABOVE: Yesterday’s coverage of Yu Keping’s remarks in Southern Metropolis Daily.]

In the China News Service article, Yu Keping argues that as China looks ahead to further reforms “one important area of breakthrough will have to be government corruption.” Specifically, Yu takes issue with the present one-dimensional focus on monitoring of officials in the present anti-corruption regime, which fails to take into account the need for more fundamental change to institutions.
A partial translation follows:

Professor Yu Keping (俞可平), director of the Central Translation Bureau, who became a familiar name at home and overseas for his article, “Democracy is a Good Thing,” has said amidst the 30th anniversary of the Open Door Policy that reforms in China have reached a critical point that demands a “breakthrough.” In an interview with our reporter recently, Yu Keping said he believed that one important area of breakthrough will have to be government corruption.
“. . . According to China’s traditional culture, corruption is acceptable in all but two areas — the first is teaching, the second is medicine. These two areas have been seen as representing the conscience of society. Regrettably, these two areas have already begun to degenerate. The reasons for this, aside from personal factors, stem primarily from the social environment, and particularly from the serious problem of official corruption. Government officials play an especially important role in China, defining the direction of society as a whole. It is inevitable that this kind of environment [of official corruption] should affect the educational and medical sectors.”
Yu Keping, who in past research has expressed optimism on the question of corruption, has now begun to consider anew the serious nature of government corruption [in China], and he hopes to lead people away form some misconceptions about corruption and the monitoring of power.
Yu Keping pointed out in particular that as soon as discussion in academia and in the media turns to the fight against corruption these days, the topic inevitably turns to the question of power monitoring. While this view is basically correct, he says, it is incomplete.
“Practically speaking, the party and the government have already paid sufficient attention to the monitoring of power in recent years, and many inspection mechanisms have been established from the central government down to the local governments . . . a whole series of [discipline] inspection mechanisms have taken the stage one after another. I can be said that no country has, like us, been so expansive and so specific in the making of regulations, so that we even have a special rule for the entertainment of guests with public money, specifying only “four dishes and one soup.” Aside from this punishments can’t be said to be too light — how many corrupt officials have been killed or locked away? There has been no shortage of awards for clean officials, and anti-corruption education has been emphasized every year, every month, every day even. We’ve done so much and reaped results, but why is the corruption problem still so serious? This requires that we do some earnest self-examination. I believe we need some breakthroughs on the question of corruption. This includes both conceptual and institutional breakthroughs. ”
If compensation is sufficient, why does corruption persist?
Yu Keping believes that officials are already compensated adequately, but corruption persists nevertheless, and the numbers are more and more stupefying. What do they need with so much money? “There are many reasons for official corruption. Some people are corrupt in their natures . . . but this kind of corrupt official is extremely rare. Another two types of official corruption should be given our utmost attention: the first is the keeping of mistresses, and the second is [corruption lavished on the] sons and daughters [of officials]. According to authoritative media reports, 95 percent of all corrupt officials have mistresses. In fact, they would more accurately be called “second wives” or “third wives.” These relationships are not romantic but rather pure instances of the exchange of sex and power. These “mistresses” are not after love but after money. Aside from this, a number of corrupt officials send their sons and daughters overseas to study, even buying homes and cars for them, and this requires a great deal of money.”
Therefore, Yu Keping said, “If we only emphasize the monitoring of power in fighting corruption . . . then the results will be limited. As we improve our capacity for monitoring power, we need to go beyond power monitoring in seeking points of breakthrough. As the central party leadership has emphasized, in fighting corruption we need to begin by getting to the root of the problem, particularly the issues of the selection and appointment of officials, restraints on power, responsibility systems for cadres, and transparency in government affairs,” building a system of clean governance.
On the issue of cadre responsibility systems (干部责任体制) as they currently stand, Yu Keping said he believed that creating responsibility systems (干部问责制) marked a point of real progress in our building of a responsible government. But some responsibility systems, [he said], needed to be reformed. For example, we have these systems called “the first person responsible system” (第一责任人负责制) and “the single vote rejection system” (一票否决制), which as systems sound well and good, but which are inherently insufficient. This is a bit like “political contracting” (政治承包). If you make the official in the top post take on all of the responsibility [for a given problem], whatever the problem is, then you must also give him the appropriate degree of power. Absolute responsibility requires absolute power. And absolute power by definition surpasses all monitoring. So the problem that arises is this: if you let him take on absolute responsibility, then you must give him absolute power, but absolute power will inevitably result in a failure of monitoring and supervision. If you want to effectively monitor officials in top posts (一把手) you cannot give them absolute power, but if you do not give them absolute power, you cannot let him take on total responsibility.

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 11, 2008, 11:37am HK]