Politics

posts on political issues relevant to Greater China

HK pro-democracy leaders jailed

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Source: NYT (11/18/24)
Dozens of Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Leaders Are Jailed Up to 10 Years
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The 45 defendants, including Joshua Wong, were at the forefront of the opposition movement crushed by Beijing. Many had already been in jail for years.
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

Ventus Lau is one of 45 activists and politicians who was sentenced in the city’s biggest national security trial. His girlfriend, Emilia Wong, a gender rights activist, talks about the impact his case has had on their relationship. Credit…Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Anywhere else, it wouldn’t have been controversial: a public vote by pro-democracy activists trying to strengthen their hand in legislative elections, to decide who should run. More than 600,000 people took part in the peaceful, unofficial poll.

But this was Hong Kong, just after the imposition of a national security law by Beijing, and officials had warned that even a straw poll would be taken as defiance.

On Tuesday, the price of defying Beijing was made clear. Forty-five former politicians and activists who had organized or taken part in the 2020 primary by the opposition camp were sentenced by a Hong Kong court to prison, including for as long as 10 years. Continue reading HK pro-democracy leaders jailed →

How Trump divides Chinese who aspire to democracy

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Source: NYT (11/11/24)
How Trump Divides Chinese Who Aspire to Democracy
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A new HBO documentary about opposition to autocrats says a lot about the complex politics the president-elect inspires for people fleeing countries.
By Li Yuan

Rosa María Payá and Nanfu Wang sitting side by side in a dark theater looking straight ahead, each with one hand resting on her mouth.

Rosa María Payá, left, and Nanfu Wang met at a film festival in 2016 and found they were kindred spirits. Ms. Wang’s new film, “Night Is Not Eternal,” portrays Ms. Payá, a Cuban activist who fights for democracy in her home country. Credit…HBO

The long and loud campaign of Donald J. Trump, and now his re-election as president, have prompted deep divisions among many Chinese who advocate for democracy.

Wang Lixiong, a Beijing-based author, has been imprisoned and surveilled for his critical writings about China. The day before the election, he posted on X that Mr. Trump’s political alliance with the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk was worrying: “A Trump presidency combined with Musk’s influence may become a singularity that backfires on democracy.” People responded by condemning him, leaving hateful comments, including ones that wished him death.

Luo Yufeng, an online influencer who moved to New York more than a decade ago and posts about the possibilities that freedom brings, has also received abhorrent comments on her X account. She had been posting about her support for Mr. Trump, saying she opposed President Biden’s immigration policies.

On social media and around dinner tables, businesspeople, intellectuals and scholars I know who have fought side by side for democracy in China since the 1980s have been fighting one another over Mr. Trump. I have adopted a policy for gatherings with friends at my dining table in New York: No talk of American politics when we are eating.

I have been thinking a lot about China, democracy and Mr. Trump recently because of “Night Is Not Eternal,” a documentary by Nanfu Wang, a Chinese-born filmmaker I first met over a year ago. The film, which will debut on HBO on Nov. 19, is a moving portrayal of a Cuban activist, Rosa María Payá, who fights for democracy in her home country. Continue reading How Trump divides Chinese who aspire to democracy →

Labor activist Han Dongfang refuses to back down

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Source: NYT (11/10/24)
Once China’s ‘Worst Nightmare,’ Labor Activist Refuses to Back Down
Neither jail nor exile to Hong Kong have stopped Han Dongfang, a former Tiananmen Square protest leader, from championing workers’ rights. “If you’re born stubborn, you go everywhere stubborn.”
By Alexandra Stevenson, Reporting from Hong Kong

Han Dongfang, wearing a short-sleeved shirt, jeans and glasses, sits by a window with a potted plant behind him. His dark hair is almost to his shoulders.

Han Dongfang is one of China’s last remaining labor rights activists not in hiding. Credit…Anthony Kwan for The New York Times

Han Dongfang was just another dot in a sea of agitated university students during the mass protests in Tiananmen Square 35 years ago when he suddenly jumped onto a monument to speak.

“Democracy is about who decides our salaries,” Mr. Han, now 61, recalled shouting out to the crowd from the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Beijing. “Workers should be able to take part in the decision.”

It was one of the first times during the protests that anyone had mentioned workers. And it marked the beginning of Mr. Han’s three-decade fight for their rights in China, a struggle that was almost brought to an immediate halt.

On June 4, 1989, just weeks after Mr. Han began his speeches, the People’s Liberation Army fired on pro-democracy protesters in the square, putting a bloody end to the democracy movement and free speech in China.

The crushing response also disbanded the labor union he had helped to create during the protests — the first and only independent union since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. After Mr. Han was placed on a “most wanted” list, he turned himself in to face prison, where he served 22 months. Continue reading Labor activist Han Dongfang refuses to back down →

China’s latest security target: Halloween partygoers

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Source: NYT (10/29/24)
China’s Latest Security Target: Halloween Partygoers
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Last year, the Shanghai government said Halloween celebrations were a sign of “cultural tolerance.” This year, the police rounded up people in costume
By Vivian Wang and Muyi Xiao (Vivian Wang reported from Beijing)

Social media videos verified by The New York Times showed police in Shanghai escorting away people dressed in costumes. CreditCredit…

The police escorted the Buddha down the street, one officer steering him with both hands. They hurried a giant poop emoji out of a cheering dance circle in a public park. They also pounced on Donald J. Trump with a bandaged ear, and pushed a Kim Kardashian look-alike, in a tight black dress and pearls, into a police van, while she turned and waved to a crowd of onlookers.

The authorities in Shanghai were on high alert this past weekend, against a pressing threat: Halloween.

Officials there clamped down on Halloween celebrations this year, after many young people turned last year’s festivities into a rare public outlet for political or social criticism. People had poured into the streets dressed up as Covid testing workers, to mock the three years of lockdowns they had just endured; they plastered themselves in job advertisements, amid a weak employment market; they cross-dressed, seizing the opportunity to express L.G.B.T.Q. identities without being stigmatized. Continue reading China’s latest security target: Halloween partygoers →

Laura Murphy on Uyghur forced labor

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Laura Murphy’s powerful lecture on Uyghur forced labor, given on Sep 30, 2024, is now available on Global Cornell?s YouTube channel:

Fighting Uyghur Forced Labor: Government, Researchers, Industry, and Civil Society. By Laura T. Murphy, Policy Advisor, Department of Homeland Security, and Professor of Human Rights, Sheffield Hallam University.

Laura Murphy discussed the current situation for Uyghurs in forced labor in China, as well as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the landmark forced labor legislation that prohibits goods made in the Uyghur Region of China from import into the United States — including the effects of the law after two years of implementation.

Sincerely,
Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiskesjo@cornell.edu>

Copycats are no joke

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Source: China Media Project (10/21/24)
For State Media, Copycats are No Joke
The recent case of a counterfeit article erroneously sourced to the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party has the authorities crying foul. But the real culprit is their claim to a monopoly on the truth.
By Alex Colville

Earlier this month, the People’s Daily astonished millions of online readers in China by weighing in on a petty dispute between two celebrities. The article, which accused an actress of grabbing publicity by slandering her ex-boyfriend, was an odd change of character for the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece. Speculation raged about what this aberration could mean.

There was just one problem — the article was a complete fake. And within hours, a new question loomed: How did this happen?

In fact, convincing as it was — with an apparently genuine People’s Daily Online URL, look and layout — the piece wasn’t written by People’s Daily at all. The next day, the media group weighed in to disavow the article, saying it was a “copycat” (套牌) that had cloned its news pages. It went on to say this was not an isolated incident, and voiced concern that the impersonation of official news outlets, apparently a rather widespread phenomenon, could “trigger a crisis of trust” in the country’s Party-run news outlets.

In fact, the issue has little or nothing to do with trust — and everything to do with power. The lesson: monopolize access to speech and information, and those eager to be heard will find a way to borrow your privilege. Continue reading Copycats are no joke →

Wang Huning, the man who shaped Xi

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Source: NYT (10/26/24)
The Man Who Shaped China’s Strongman Rule Has a New Job: Winning Taiwan
Xi Jinping’s top adviser, Wang Huning, is credited with shaping the authoritarianism that steered China’s rise. But can he influence Taiwan?
By Chris Buckley (Chris Buckley spoke to over a dozen people familiar with Wang Huning and read many of his papers and books)

Wang Huning in 2022. Credit…Tingshu Wang/Reuters

When Xi Jinping held the first-ever talks in Beijing with a former president of Taiwan, seeking to press the island closer to unification, a bookish-looking official stood out for his ease around China’s leader.

While others treated Mr. Xi with stiff formality, the official, Wang Huning, spoke confidently in his presence and sat next to him during the meeting, said Chiu Kun-hsuan, a member of the delegation that accompanied Ma Ying-jeou, the former Taiwanese president.

The scene gave a glimpse of one of the most important, yet little understood, relationships in China: between Mr. Xi, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, and Mr. Wang, the ruling Communist Party’s most influential ideological adviser in decades.

“He has the top leader’s full trust,” Professor Chiu, an emeritus scholar at National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, said of Mr. Wang. “Wang Huning’s influence has been in ideology, but now in China under Xi Jinping, ideology connects everything.”

Given the opaque nature of Chinese politics, the world often fixates on Mr. Xi, who since taking power in 2012 has centralized control and surrounded himself with loyalists, making it hard to know whose views he most values. In his circle, Mr. Wang stands out for rising to the top despite never having led a province or city, and for advising three successive Chinese leaders across three decades — a rare feat of adaptability and survival. Continue reading Wang Huning, the man who shaped Xi →

Crackdown on online puns

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Source: The Guardian (10/23/24)
China cracks down on ‘uncivilised’ online puns used to discuss sensitive topics
Campaign targets wordplay and memes that are often used by people to get around censorship controls
By  in Taipei

A woman prepares to load the Weibo app on her smartphone.

Chinese internet regulators are cracking down on puns and wordplay that could be used to discuss sensitive topics. Photograph: Richard Levine/Alamy

China’s internet regulators have launched a campaign cracking down on puns and homophones, one of the last remaining ways for citizens to safely discuss sensitive subjects without recriminations or censorship.

The “clear and bright” campaign is targeting “irregular and uncivilised” language online, particularly jokes, memes, and wordplay, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the ministry of education announced this month.

“For some time, various internet jargons and memes have appeared frequently, leaving people more and more confused,” said an editorial by the Communist party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily.

“They also form a hidden erosion on the daily communication and ideological values ​​of minors, which can easily lead to adverse consequences.”

China’s online spaces are strictly monitored and censored. Some sensitive topics and terms are strictly banned, such as references to the Tiananmen massacre, or criticism of President Xi Jinping. Insulting individuals or China generally is also frowned upon. Continue reading Crackdown on online puns →

China’s annexations in the Himalayas

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China’s annexations in the Himalayas are proceeding apace, with a lot more emphasis on using brute force. In recent days, lot of reports on China’s new encroachments in Nepal, including this from Japan Times.

And now these, on China’s continuing land-grabbing program in Bhutan:

“Forceful Diplomacy: China’s Cross-Border Villages in Bhutan.” Turquoise Roof (October 15, 2024).

And also from Turqoise Roof, TIMELAPSE VIDEOS – CHINA’S CROSS-BORDER VILLAGES IN BHUTAN.

“The Politics of China’s Land Appropriation in Bhutan,” by Robert Barnett. The Diplomat (Oct. 15, 2024).
China has built 22 villages and settlements within Bhutan’s customary borders. And there is no sign that Bhutan can do anything about it – or that Beijing will face any costs.

Sincerely,

Magnus Fiskesjö, magnus.fiskesjo@cornell.edu

Is This My Country?

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Source: NYT (10/14/24)
Killing of Japanese Boy Leaves Chinese Asking: Is This My Country?
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Angry at what they view as China’s state-led xenophobia, taught in schools and prevalent online, some people are taking action, even at personal risk.
By Li Yuan

In an illustration, a spoked wheel consisting of hundreds of surrealistic eyeballs, open mouths and arms carrying knives, hammers and bricks rolls toward a group of people bearing flowers at a makeshift memorial.

Credit…Dongyan Xu

A Japanese boy was stabbed on his way to school in China on Sept. 18. That’s the date, in 1931, when Japan invaded China.

The child, who was 10 years old, was pronounced dead the next morning. The police arrested a 44-year-old man at the scene who they said had confessed to the attack. Japan’s leaders demanded answers. The Chinese government, calling the attack an “isolated incident,” told Japan to calm down and stop “politicizing” the killing.

Some Chinese people believe the boy was a victim of surging anti-Japanese sentiment fueled by China’s government with a virulent nationalism that is taught in schools and reflected online and in state media.

The evening the boy died, more than 50 Chinese attended a candlelight vigil in Tokyo and issued a statement: “The longstanding extreme nationalism and anti-Japanese education in China have misled some people’s perception of Japan, enabling ignorance and wrongdoing. We are committed to changing this troubling situation.”

Then, a week after his death, young activists, mostly in China but also some outside the country, started a memorial campaign. According to Chinese folklore, the souls of the deceased come back to visit their families after seven days before leaving for heaven.

“As Chinese citizens, we do not wish to grow up in a land of hatred,” the activists said in a statement co-signed by more than 200 people. Continue reading Is This My Country? →

Soundless saturation / quietly nourishing

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Source: China Media Project (9/18/24)
Soundless Saturation / Quietly Nourishing 润物无声
By Alex Colville

An idiom inspired by a classic Tang Dynasty poem is now a modifier commonly used in the official political speech of the CCP to refer to the need to innovate the party’s communication of its political and social agendas — ultimately making them more palatable, and more easily accepted.

As major state-run media, online influencers and propaganda pundits gathered in Shanghai in August 2024 for a conference on how to best innovate international communication, the event’s theme drew on a Chinese idiom, or chengyu (成语), with its origins in classical Chinese poetry. “Soundless Saturation” (润物无声), the four characters splashed across the conference’s promotional poster, a map of the globe faintly visible behind.

This evocative phrase, which could also be translated “quietly nourishing,” references an early spring drizzle falling gently over the world. It is a colorful phrase that now describes the drive by the Chinese Communist Party leadership for more innovative and evocative deployment of state propaganda themes both domestically and internationally. The phrase expresses a trend in CCP thinking about the need for more subtle and effective means to disseminate and inculcate the party’s thoughts and agendas. Continue reading Soundless saturation / quietly nourishing →

Song Binbin dies at 77

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Source: NYT (10/1/24)
Song Binbin, Poster Woman for Mao’s Bloody Upheaval, Dies at 77
She was said to have been involved in the first killing of an educator during the Cultural Revolution, drawing official praise. She later apologized for her actions.
By Trip Gabriel

A black and white photo of Mao and a young woman smiling at each other as she places an armband around his sleeve. Behind them a young man films the event with a hand-held camera. Glimpses of a crowd can be seen below.

As a student leader of the militant Red Guards, Song Binbin was selected to pin an armband around the sleeve of Mao Zedong in a ceremony in 1966 in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Credit…Apic/Getty Images

Song Binbin, a student leader of China’s Red Guards who in 1966 was embroiled in the beating death of her high school principal, one of the most notorious killings of the Cultural Revolution — and who publicly apologized for her actions almost a half-century later — died on Sept. 16. She was 77.

Her death was reported by a brother, Song Kehuang, on the Chinese app WeChat, saying she had died in the United States. He provided no other details.

News of her death set off renewed debate on Chinese social media about the adequacy of Ms. Song’s tearful apology in 2014, as well as the Communist Party’s failure to acknowledge the true toll of the Cultural Revolution, the decade-long rampage that Mao Zedong unleashed in the 1960s, claiming more than one million lives, and that remains a heavily censored topic in China.

A daughter of a prominent general in the People’s Liberation Army, Ms. Song was enrolled at Beijing Normal University Girls High School when she and classmates responded to Mao’s call for young people to turn against intellectuals, educators and others who supposedly held bourgeois values.

On Aug. 5, 1966, students attacked Bian Zhongyun, a 50-year-old mother of four who headed the school. She was kicked and beaten with sticks spiked with nails. After passing out, she was thrown onto a garbage cart and left to die. Continue reading Song Binbin dies at 77 →

Sedition in Hong Kong

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Source: NYT (9/27/24)
This Is What Can Land You in Jail for Sedition in Hong Kong
Three men were the first to be convicted under the city’s recently expanded national security law, which has greatly curtailed political speech.
By David Pierson and Tiffany May

Visitors in a museum look at a screen where Xi Jinping is speaking in front of microphones.

Visitors watching a video of Xi Jinping at the National Security Exhibition in Hong Kong Museum of History in August. Credit…Anthony Kwan for The New York Times

Wearing a T-shirt with a protest slogan.

Scrawling pro-democracy graffiti on public bus seats.

Criticizing Xi Jinping on social media.

Three men in Hong Kong were sentenced to prison last week for these acts of protest, which in another era probably would have drawn little notice — showing the power of a newly expanded national security law aimed at muzzling dissent.

The rulings, rendered over two days by a judge whom Hong Kong’s leader handpicked, highlight the political transformation that has taken place here.

A financial center and a city accustomed to freedom of political expression, Hong Kong now more closely resembles mainland China, where criticism of the ruling Communist Party is rarely, if ever, tolerated. Continue reading Sedition in Hong Kong →

Ye to perform in Hainan

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Source: NYT (9/15/24)
China’s Censors Are Letting Ye Perform There. His Fans Are Amazed
The provocative artist once known as Kanye West has received approval that was denied to Maroon 5 and Bon Jovi. China’s economic woes might be why.
By Vivian Wang, Reporting from Beijing

Ye, in a black jacket, stands onstage against a black background amid vapor or smoke.

Ye onstage in Inglewood, Calif., in March. Credit…Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times, via Getty Images

When the news broke that Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, would be performing in China on Sunday, the elation of many of his fans was mixed with another emotion: confusion.

Why would the notoriously prickly Chinese government let in the notoriously provocative Ye? Why was the listening party, as Ye calls his shows, taking place not in Beijing or Shanghai, but in Hainan, an obscure island province?

Under a trending hashtag on the social media site Weibo on the subject, one popular comment read simply “How?” alongside an exploding-head emoji.

The answer may lie in China’s struggling economy. Since China reopened its borders after three years of coronavirus lockdowns, the government has been trying to stimulate consumer spending and promote tourism.

“Vigorously introducing new types of performances desired by young people, and concerts from international singers with super internet traffic, is the outline for future high-quality development,” the government of Haikou, the city hosting the listening party, posted on its website on Thursday.

But it is unclear whether the appearance by Ye — who would be perhaps the highest-profile Western artist to perform in mainland China since the pandemic — is part of a broader loosening or an exception. Continue reading Ye to perform in Hainan →

‘Garbage time of history’ (1)

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Source: NYT (9/13/24)
Dejected Social Media Users Call ‘Garbage Time’ Over China’s Ailing Economy
The sports term refers to a time during a game when defeat becomes inevitable. Officialdom is warning against using it to take veiled jabs at the country’s political and economic system.
By Yan Zhuang

Tall buildings rise behind intersecting overpasses. In the foreground, two men in office attire walk past bicycles and motor bikes.

Beijing’s central business district. Credit…Vincent Thian/Associated Press

In basketball and other sports, “garbage time” refers to the lackluster period near the end of a game when one team is so far ahead that a comeback is impossible. Teams sub out their best players, and the contest limps toward its inevitable conclusion.

In China, where the internet is heavily censored, a handful of writers have repurposed “garbage time” to indirectly describe the country’s perceived decline. This summer, as the youth unemployment rate soared above 17 percent, the term became a popular shorthand on Chinese social media for describing a sense of hopelessness around the ailing economy.

Commentaries about garbage times of history, some written under pseudonyms, began appearing last year in blog posts and as opinion essays on respected Chinese news sites. They examined past regimes and dynasties and were broadly understood to be thinly veiled critiques of China’s political and economic system. They landed as discussion of the economy — even misplaced praise for the ruling Communist Party’s economic policies — was getting more sensitive. Continue reading ‘Garbage time of history’ (1) →