Politics

posts on political issues relevant to Greater China

Taking feminist battle to the streets

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Source: NYT (4/5/15)
Taking Feminist Battle to China’s Streets, and Landing in Jail
By ANDREW JACOBS

Wei Tingting, right, outside a court in Beijing where the first case in China involving so-called conversion therapy was being held in July. Ms. Wei is one of five women’s rights activists sitting in jail, accused of provoking social instability.CreditNg Han Guan/Associated Press

BEIJING — The young Chinese feminists shaved their heads to protest inequality in higher education and stormed men’s restrooms to highlight the indignities women face in their prolonged waits at public toilets.

To publicize domestic violence, two prominent activists, Li Tingting and Wei Tingting, put on white wedding gowns, splashed them with red paint and marched through one of the capital’s most popular tourist districts chanting, “Yes to love, no to violence.”

Media-savvy, fearless and well-connected to feminists outside China, the young activists over the last three years have taken their righteous indignation to the streets, pioneering a brand of guerrilla theater familiar in the West but largely unheard-of in this authoritarian nation.

Now five of them — core members of China’s new feminist movement — sit in jail, accused of provoking social instability. One of the women, Wu Rongrong, 30, an AIDS activist, is said to be ailing after the police withheld the medication she takes for hepatitis. Another, Wang Man, 33, a gender researcher, was said to have had a mild heart attack while in custody. Continue reading Taking feminist battle to the streets →

Little Red App

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Source: Sinosphere, NYT (4/3/15)
Xi Jinping’s Sayings Now Available in ‘Little Red App’
By AUSTIN RAMZY

xi wenji

President Xi Jinping of China is the model of a modern multimedia leader. He has appeared in cartoons, been praised in song, had his travels tracked by a very dedicated Weibo account, and had his book on governance translated into at least nine languages.

So an app was obviously next.

Created by a website run by the Central Party School of the Communist Party, the new, free app offers intensive lessons on Mr. Xi. It has 12 features including texts of his speeches and books, news reports, analyses from experts and a map that traces his travels.

“Everyone who uses this app can find their own interests,” Chen Jiancai, an editor with the app, told The Beijing News. Continue reading Little Red App →

China urged to confront its own history (1)

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In 1990 Fang Lizhi wrote “The Chinese Amnesia” (translated by Perry Link). It was relevant then; it is more relevant now.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1990/sep/27/the-chinese-amnesia/

“… once each decade, the true face of history is thoroughly erased from the memory of Chinese society. This is the objective of the Chinese Communist policy of “Forgetting History.” In an effort to coerce all of society into a continuing forgetfulness, the policy requires that any detail of history that is not in the interests of the Chinese Communists cannot be expressed in any speech, book, document, or other medium.”

Joe Alvaro <jjalvaro-c@my.cityu.edu.hk>

China urged to confront its own history

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Source: Sinosphere, NYT (3/3/15)
China Is Urged to Confront Its Own History
By Dan Levin

At center, Son Sen, the Khmer Rouge defense minister, with Chinese advisers in 1977.

At center, Son Sen, the Khmer Rouge defense minister, with Chinese advisers in 1977.Credit Documentation Center of Cambodia archives

The tour guide outside the bloodstained classrooms of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, the high school in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh transformed into a prison and torture center by the Khmer Rouge, paused to ask whether any tourists in the group were from China. Visibly relieved when no hands were raised, he went on to describe the enabling role that Beijing played in the Khmer Rouge’s murderous rampage that claimed the lives of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians beginning in 1975.

Later, he explained why he asked whether there were Chinese among his audience. “They get very angry when I say it was because of China that Pol Pot was able to kill so many people,” he said with evident frustration. “They claim it’s not true, and then say ‘We are friends now. Do not talk about the past.’”

Continue reading China urged to confront its own history →

Chinese netizens weaponized (2)

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So this is behind all those warnings about malicious java script that kept me from using my Sina blog for the past few days! Thought it was a naughty post on my side from two days before (http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_68d111990102vp9n.html). Had had trouble accessing my site some time ago, too. Anyway, nice to know I haven’t been noticed all that much.

Martin Winter <dujuan99@gmail.com>

Supporters of detained feminists petition

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Source: Sinosphere, NYT (4/1/15):
Supporters of Detained Feminists in China Petition for Their Release
By Didi Kirsten Tatlow

A person in front of a post box on Tuesday prepares to mail a copy of a petition calling on the Chinese government to release five detained feminists.

A person in front of a post box on Tuesday prepares to mail a copy of a petition calling on the Chinese government to release five detained feminists.Credit Courtesy of Lu Jun

The supporters in China of five feminists who were detained in early March are continuing to agitate on their behalf, despite intimidation and the censorship of online discussion by the authorities.

On Tuesday, the feminists’ supporters mailed a petition that they said more than 1,100 people had signed — including men and women, students and employees — to public security and other state offices, calling for the women’s release. The petition also demanded that the authorities carry on the work for which the women were detained by issuing warnings against sexual harassment in public transport. The five women — Li Tingting, Wang Man, Wei Tingting, Wu Rongrong and Zheng Churan — were taken into custody on March 6 and 7 as they were preparing to mark International Women’s Day on March 8 by distributing stickers and leaflets protesting molestation in buses and subways.

Continue reading Supporters of detained feminists petition →

Chinese netizens weaponized (1)

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Hobbes on DDos (no nations are excluded):

“Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace.”

The Leviathan,  Chapter XIII, Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning their Felicity and Misery

Sean Macdonald <smacdon2005@gmail.com>

Beyond Ai Weiwei

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From: Bill Goldman <billgoldman@mac.com>
Source: The New Yorker (3/27/15)

Beyond Ai Weiwei: How China’s Artists Handle Politics (or Avoid Them)
BY CHRISTOPHER BEAM

"Red White Black Grey” (2015), by Huang Rui. CREDIT COURTESY STUDIO OF HUANG RUI

“Red White Black Grey” (2015), by Huang Rui. CREDIT COURTESY STUDIO OF HUANG RUI

In a gallery in Hong Kong’s Chai Wan district last week, during the city’s third annual installment of the international Art Basel fair, the Beijing-based artist Huang Rui introduced a new live work called “Red Black White Grey.” At the start of the performance, four affectless women walked onstage wearing trench coats, then disrobed one by one as Huang, who is sixty-three, slathered their bodies with black and then white paint. He directed them to lie down on a canvas that looked like four Hong Kong flags, in configurations that by the end spelled out “1997,” the year in which sovereignty over the territory transferred from the U.K. to China, and “2047,” the year that Hong Kong is slated to merge completely with the mainland. As the soundtrack’s drums and electric violin built to a furious climax, the women put their coats back on and the artist painted single digits on the front of each jacket, to form “2015.” The music stopped, and the audience applauded. Continue reading Beyond Ai Weiwei →

Research on censorship of foreign tv shows?

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Dear MCLC,

I know the topic of film censorship and editing has been tackled but I wonder if there are researchers on the scripted television shows that are being distributed by private Chinese internet Portals. A few days ago I watched a US episode of Madame Secretary on the Youku platform. During a scene involving the main character who was going through a PTSD panic attack episode and the character of the Chinese ambassador there were a couple obvious cuts to the scene which were likely negative statements about China.

During the middle of sentences the cut were made. They did not cut the whole scene but the cut portion was obvious. Since the show was available several hours after it was aired in Nanjing I was wondering what the process was for this. If someone is studying and had move information on this kind of relationship with media on the imported television platform, I would be interested in it.

I would also be interested if content describing tracking techniques of the government more than popularity was related to the blackballing of the Good Wife TV show a year ago.

Thanks,

warm regards,

Simon Laing <slaing4@gmail.com>

The coming Chinese crackup (11)

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Perhaps it doesn’t qualify as a proverb, but search engines return plenty of hits for the phrase applied in a concrete sense to such things as fruit, nuts, baked goods, or shellfish.  A contrast between internal and external conditions lends itself readily to this four-character format, and though I can’t cite anyone but Prof. Shambaugh for that use of this phrase, in Chapter 47 of Hu Fayun’s 如焉 the words 内紧外松 are applied to the deceptive appearance of normality that prevailed in the early phases of the SARS epidemic.

A. E. Clark <aec@raggedbanner.com>

The coming Chinese crackup (10)

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May I untimely point out that, as a Chinese language tutor and student of Chinese literature, I simply can’t believe there was/is/would be a proverb of “waiying, neiruan” (外硬内软) in the language? Based on Dr. Shambaugh’s following sentences, I guess what he meant to say is “jinyuqiwai, baixuqizhong” (金玉其外，败絮其中)–the outside is good jade but the inside is only rotten materials, literally–which is a quite common, if not banal, moral-political rhetoric for the majority of the population in China, no matter how self-contradictory it may bring to the article.

Wish this may help.

Sun, Yi  <yiyucca@hotmail.com>

Hackers attack GreatFire.org

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Source: Sinosphere, NYT (3/20/15)
Hackers Attack GreatFire.org, a Workaround for Websites Censored in China
By PATRICK BOEHLER

Computer users in an Internet<strong></strong> cafe in Beijing.

Computer users in an Internet cafe in Beijing.Credit How Hwee Young/European Pressphoto Agency

For years, a group of anonymous activists known as GreatFire.org has monitored online censorship in China, provided access to blocked websites and collected messages deleted by censors.

This week, unidentified hackers have tried to put an end to those activists’ efforts with an unprecedented attack. In a post to its blog Thursday, GreatFire.org said it has experienced a massive so-called denial of service attack. Continue reading Hackers attack GreatFire.org →

No room for western values in Chinese education (13)

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On the campaign to weed out “Western” books from Chinese universities, I thought people on this list would be interested in Duowei News of March 17: http://china.dwnews.com/news/2015-03-17/59641642.html

Summary: The article is headlined “Yang Guiren talking the talk and walking the walk: Beijing higher education institutions investigate teaching materials from outside the border”, and says there has been a systematic survey of Western textbooks, so as to weed out those that promote Western ideas, and strengthen the control of others (presumably those that are Western but that do not convey any Western values, maybe in mathematics or something?). The survey, according to unnamed “professors at the universities,” began when forms were sent out to Beijing universities after March 9, asking them to identify and quantify any such books and return the forms by March 11. The forms had 13 questions including on how the school handled imported original books (purchase, photocopying, etc.); question 12 asks the professor filling it out whether there have ever been, “since 2012,” any instances of a professor himself assigning foreign original books without institutional approval, and if so, how this was handled and punished by the university.

The report also comes with a cartoon with a university professor having his head suddenly grabbed and mouth covered by a bodiless brown hand reaching out from the inside the screen behind him, to silence him, while his textbooks, entitled “Constitutional politics” and “Democracy” are falling off his desk onto the floor, seemingly suggesting what may be the more precise targets of the campaign. The students in the classroom seem aghast, but they are wearing zi gan wu (自干五) headbands — someone else can better translate the term, but as I understand it this refers to a kind of “fifty-centers” (petty online propagandists paid small sums by the police to add comments online) who are not even paid but do it anyway, so, without a salary, they have to “bring their own food” (zi dai gan liang = zi gan). Continue reading No room for western values in Chinese education (13) →

The coming Chinese crackup (9)

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Source: Sinosphere, NYT (3/15/15)
Q. and A.: David Shambaugh on the Risks to Chinese Communist Rule
By CHRIS BUCKLEY

Chinese paramilitary officers marching on Tiananmen Square before the opening session of the National People’s Congress on March 5.

Chinese paramilitary officers marching on Tiananmen Square before the opening session of the National People’s Congress on March 5.Credit How Hwee Young/European Pressphoto Agency

David Shambaugh, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, is one of the United States’ most prominent experts on contemporary China. He has also been prominent in China. His books have been translated and published there, and his views cited in the state media. He was profiled by the overseas edition of People’s Daily, and in January researchers at the China Foreign Affairs University, which comes under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, named him the second-most influential China expert in the United States, behind David M. Lampton at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

David Shambaugh

David ShambaughCredit Courtesy of David Shambaugh

Hence the intense debate ignited by Prof. Shambaugh’s recent essay in The Wall Street Journal, where he argued that the “endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun” and the Communist Party’s possible “demise is likely to be protracted, messy and violent.” Some experts have endorsed his view that China’s outward order and prosperity mask profound risks for the ruling party. Others have argued that the party is more robust, politically and economically, than Prof. Shambaugh asserts. In an interview, he answered some questions raised by his essay:

Continue reading The coming Chinese crackup (9) →

The coming Chinese crackup (8)

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I would like to draw attention to an interview “Why Beijing’s Troubles Could Get a Lot of Worse” that came out in December 2014.

Anne Stevenson-Yang has lived in China since 1985. She provides a convincing statement of her assessment of the economic and political situation in China, from the perspective of a macro-economist. Her views tend to converge with those of David Shambaugh. Here is a quotation from the part of the interview that deals with Mr. Xi’s anti-corruption campaign:

“As for Xi’s much-ballyhooed anticorruption campaign inside China, it offends me that international media depict it as a good-governance effort. What’s really going on is an old-style party purge reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s with quota-driven arrests, summary trials, mysterious disappearances, and suicides, which has already entrapped, by our calculations, 100,000 party operatives and others. The intent is not moral purification by the Xi administration but instead the elimination of political enemies and other claimants to the economy’s spoils.”

Leihua Weng <leihua.weng@gmail.com>