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May 12

Major earthquake centered in Tibetan autonomous area

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:News | Tags:,
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A devastating earthquake has struck western Sichuan province. Early press reports are available here, and here; video from CCTV is here (Internet Explorer required). The earthquake’s epicenter is in Wenchuang county, which is part of the larger Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture.

The earthquake occurred at a very shallow depth, which accounts for the heavy damage, as well as people fleeing from swaying buildings in distant cities like Taipei, Shanghai, and Bangkok. To give some context for this scale: Chengdu’s distance from Shanghai is roughly similar to the distance of New York from Florida, Winnipeg from Quebec, Belfast from Rome.

Most of the damage and deaths appear to be located in Wenchuan county. Wenchung county is in the southern part of Aba (also known as Ngawa) prefecture. Wenchuan county has a population that is 46% Han, 34% Qiang, and 18% Tibetan. For Aba prefecture as a whole, 54% of the population is Tibetan, and 25% are Han. There were significant violent riots in Aba prefecture in March.

Premier Wen Jiabao is already on the ground in Sichuan province, and will direct the rescue operation personally. Road access has reportedly been cut off to the mountainous areas where the epicenter of the quake is; we won’t know full story for days.

UPDATE: Death count has crossed the 8000 boundary, and likely to climb higher. For those able to help, instructions for making donations to the Chinese Red Cross are listed below.

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May 12

Tibet: Answers to a reader’s questions

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:q&a | Tags:, ,
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A reader of our blog asked this question on a previous thread:

To Buxi and CLC:
Thanks for your replies. WRT Tibetan independence, some Tibetans seek it, presumably as they see it to be to their benefit. PRC opposes it, as they see it as a detriment. I would like to explore the second part. I’ve read the historical justifications for Tibet being within China, such as the territorial relationship dating back hundreds of years at least. There’s also the point that the PLA moved in to liberate Tibetan serfs and slaves. In moving forward, the principle of “One China” drives policy. My questions are the following:
1. If a majority of the residents of present day Tibet do not want to remain in China (I realize that is a major assumption, and the act of accurately determining that ie a referendum is not a realistic option for the CCP circa 2008), how does it benefit China to keep this territory in the fold? It’s like keeping a bad apple employee within a company: wouldn’t company performance, and the morale of remaining employees, improve by removing said bad apple, such that all who remain truly want to be there, and are willing to wholeheartedly contribute to the “business” of improving China?
2. “One China” is a euphemism I don’t understand. There was, is, and ever will be only one China. The question is what geographical parts you include. Does a region that at one time was considered part of China, need to forever remain so, for the present and future benefit of the whole?

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May 12

Western coverage begins to find balance

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:media | Tags:, ,
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In recent weeks, Western press coverage has substantially changed in tone from earlier, one-sided demonized versions.  One article today which, while still criticizing Beijing on human rights + Tibet issues, concludes there is another side of the Olympics story yet to be heard.

Telegraph: New China basks in golden glow of Olympics

May 12

Southern Weekly: New rules on “Release of Information”

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Transparency in government remains one of the major obstacles in China’s social and political reform. The Communist Party has publicly acknowledged the need for more transparency; only in the last 3-5 years has government offices at every level around the country begun to add press departments, issue press releases, and hold regularly press conferences. But this is only one step in government transparency.

The next little step might be the “Government Release of Information” regulation (中华人民共和国政府信息公开条例) issued by the State Council in January of 2007. This regulation went into effect on May 1st of this year, 2008. The regulation requires administrative government offices go through a formal process in terms of processing, analyzing, and finally releasing various types of information (including budgets, planning decisions, details on government expenditures, etc) to the public.

This article from the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly gives us some idea of how this regulation might change the way Chinese government offices does business.

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May 11

Enviroment of China: Challenges and Hope

Written by: admin | Filed under:Environment | Tags:, ,
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One of the most serious side effects of China’s unprecedented growth is the rapid degeneration of her environment, as it was recently covered by the NYT’s special series Choking on Growth.

James Fallows has a long feature article in the June issue of the Atlantic entitled “China’s Silver Lining,why soggy skies over Beijing represent the world’s great environmental opportunity.” The gist of it is that “China’s environmental situation is disastrous. And it is improving. Everyone knows about the first part. The second part if important too. ” The article is not available online yet and we will provide a link when it’s up.

I would also recommend readers who concerned on this issue checking out this excellent bilingual website China Dialogue.

As a side note: for people who plan to travel to Beijing, WSJ’s take on the World’s best Chinese food.

May 10

Wang Xizhe bashes Hong Kong Olympic protests

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis | Tags:, , ,
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Wang Xizhe is an active US-based Chinese dissident who’s spent many years in opposition to the Communist government. He is co-chairman and founder of the China Democracy Party. Wang is rarely mentioned in the English press in the West, although he’s very well known in the Chinese community. Many believe this is because he’s allegedly refused to accept financing from American and Taiwanese “sources”, in contrast to other more famous dissidents (at least to the West) like Wang Dan, Wei Jingsheng, Yang Jianli accused of doing precisely that.

Wang Xizhe continues to publish regularly, including this essay issued a few days ago, in which he criticizes Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who protested the Olympic torch.

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May 09

Tianya and Chinese online: A brief introduction

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis | Tags:,
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Many people probably know that the number of people going on line in China has just recently, officially, passed the number of people going online in the United States . (Many believe China passed the United States long ago, since hundreds of millions login through anonymous internet-cafes where they aren’t “counted”.) But many people might not understand what this really means from a practical impact point of view.

Perhaps due to cultural reasons, or perhaps due to political reasons, or perhaps just due to demographics… just as in the real world, life on the internet is substantially different in China from what it is in the United States. I want to introduce a few of these differences to the English-speaking world.

Tianya remains one of China’s most popular and famous message forum sites (and partly owned by Google). At any given time during the day, Tianya will have anywhere from 50,000 to 250,000 viewers. Interesting threads will stay active for years at a time, accumulating tens of thousands of replies. Active threads (like those following recent Olympics torch rallies) will build up thousands of replies within the matter of one or two days. Numerous, significant, nation-changing “movements” have come out of Tianya.

Details after the jump.

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May 09

The Butterfly Effect – How to Unite the Chinese

Written by: Brandon | Filed under:Analysis | Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
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– written by  Brandon

It has been the case for well over 2000 years that with a huge population and rich diversities in custom, cuisines, dialects, culture, religions, ethnicities, and political views, it’s always a challenge for any Chinese government to unit its people. However, recent events provided the Central Empire another silver bullet in its arsenal to achieve just that, the butterfly effect.

It takes a real expert to explain the effect in details. The short and layman version is that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear. In other words, a small disturbance might have huge and unintended consequences somewhere and somehow.

Examining what happened since middle of March will better illustrate my point.

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May 08

Massive crowds swamp torch in Shenzhen

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:News | Tags:
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The torch has successfully completed the run in Shenzhen, although there are stories of difficulties navigating the crowds. The torch might have even been extinguished and transported via bus along part of the route… something similar to what happened in Paris, but for precisely the opposite reason. Reportedly 8 million people were on the streets for the torch.

Here are early pictures:

UPDATE: There were also unsubstantiated rumors that the torch had been extinguished by “Chinese protesters” near Shenzhen’s “Window to the World” park. We will just have to wait for the video evidence promised by the Asia Sentinel blog. The video is now up, and it does not come close to delivering on earlier promises. It shows only an enthusiastic crowd of Chinese chanting “Go China”, surrounding someone carrying an extinguished torch on the way to a bus; considering the setting, this someone had probably already completed his torch run.

This eye-witness on Tianya reports a very different scene.

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May 08

Tibetan exiles reaction to Shenzhen talks, Olympic torch

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Lodi Gyari, one of the Dalai Lama’s special envoys sent to Shenzhen, has issued the statement below in reference to the recent talks in Shenzhen. Most of the statement is a reiteration of the exile government’s negotiating position, which few Chinese find acceptable in full. The idea that those directly involved in murder, vandalism, and assault on 3/14 can be released is ridiculous.

Beyond repeating its position, the suggestion of shared common ground and the positive ending is most interesting:

Despite major differences on important issues both sides demonstrated a willingness to seek common approaches in addressing the issues at hand. In this regard, each side made some concrete proposals, which can be part of the future agenda. As a result an understanding was reached to continue the formal round of discussions. A date for the seventh round will be finalised soon after mutual consultations.

We welcome the recent statement of President Hu Jintao that his government is “serious” about the dialogue and his acknowledging that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is being “conscientious and serious”.

Statement in full after the jump.

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May 08

Politics and the Beijing Olympics

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis, News | Tags:,
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The Christian Science Monitor has an article on the historical links between the Olympics and politics. It’s mostly a repetition of what other articles have said, but there are a few interesting quotes.

Similarities stop there, however, says Susan Brownell, a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, currently in Beijing studying Chinese preparations for the Olympics. In the Olympic education campaign that the authorities have been running from primary school level to university, she says, “the Communist party is almost never mentioned, and nor is socialism.”

This is something most Chinese recognize. The government hasn’t made these games about the Communist party; only foreign activists have done that. From our point of view, we are looking to celebrate our country’s remarkable progress over the past 30 years. These Olympics are Beijing’s Olympics, the Chinese people’s Olympics… not the Communist Party’s Olympics.

This is also precisely why there such genuine grassroots anger and frustration from average Chinese that our Olympics have been threatened and abused by overseas activists.

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May 08

Olympic torch on top of the world

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:News | Tags:,
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In a moment that made many Chinese proud, 21 Tibetan-Chinese, 8 Han-Chinese, and 1 Tujia-Chinese helped bring the 2008 Olympic Torch to top of the worlds’ highest peak.

The name of the peak in Tibetan is ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ (jo-mo glang-ma ri), which is often translated as “Great Mother” (literal translation as given in Chinese: “mother of Earth”). The first written recording of the peak comes from 1717, when a Beijing cartographer sent by the Qing Emperor Kangxi published it as part of an imperial map (皇舆全览图). The peak was marked on the map in the first half of the 18th century in Manchu and Hanyu as 朱母郎马阿林 (zhu mu lang ma a lin). The name of the peak in Chinese is now 珠穆朗玛峰 (zhu mu lang ma feng), transliterated into English as Mount Qomolangma.

British cartographers would first identify this peak nearly 150 years later, in 1847. But the name selected by the British Royal Geographical Society still dominates in the West today: Mount Everest, after British surveyor George Everest. Several years back, China encouraged the world to rename the peak’s name in English based on its original Tibetan name, but the Western world hasn’t followed. In English, they continue to refer to the mountain by the name of a Knight of the British Realm.

ADDED: AP wire report: “Tibetan woman holds Olympic flame atop Everest“

May 07

Wang Qianyuan and the Internet Lynch Mob

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis, News | Tags:, ,
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– written by Tang Buxi, May 7th 2008

The debate over the Internet lynch mob’s attack of Wang Qianyuan continues. Roland at ESWN brings us this exchange between one of Grace Wang’s supporters at Duke and members of the Chinese community. Grace Wang’s self-stated goal was to help the two sides “communicate”, but the final results show that hasn’t happened.

Unfortunately, many in the West continue to conflate the Internet mob’s behavior with Chinese nationalism at large. The truth is, the two are not directly related. As a proud Chinese nationalist who “defended” the Olympic Torch, I too am absolutely appalled by the Chinese Internet mob.

As far as Wang Qianyuan’s rough treatment being used to criticize those of us who love China… enough is enough. If the verbal attack on Wang Qianyuan suggests something is wrong with Chinese nationalism, then what does the physical attack on Jin Jing in Paris suggest? That something is fundamentally wrong with French liberalism?

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May 07

Olympic torch enjoying a smooth relay in China

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:News | Tags:
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This article is the positive (and in my opinion, non-political) message most Chinese would like the Olympics to represent. I can only hope that this sentiment wins out.

Crowds in Haikou were friendly to foreigners, showing little of the angry, anti-Western sentiments of recent weeks after protests in London, Paris and San Francisco that some Chinese saw as an attack against China and the Olympics.

“Welcome to China!” university students called out, some sporting face paint and tooting plastic horns as the convoy streamed by.

Others following the torch were celebrating that many in China have left the hard life behind after 30 years of free-market economic reforms.

In a dusty field outside the closing ceremony in Haikou, 64-year-old retiree Ren Anqing stood out from the young crowd in his old-style undershirt, shorts and sandals. “When I was young, I raised cows,” he said, smiling. “These kids? They have everything.”

Ren has a computer now so he can e-mail his son, who’s about to earn a doctorate after studies that included a year in Singapore — all unimaginable when his father was growing up.

“If I was young again in China? Wah!” Ren said, his smile getting wider. “That would be a great thing.”

And here’s a little French/Chinese Fraternité in Guangzhou:

More snapshots from the relay in Guangzhou, after the jump.

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May 06

The Creationist Myth of Chinese Nationalism

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis | Tags:, ,
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Written by Tang Buxi – May 6th, 2008

The LA Times follows in the footsteps of the New York Times in publishing an article discussing Chinese nationalism. See the LA Times article here , and previous NY Times editorial here.

These articles do insert some much-needed balance into the Western understanding of Chinese nationalism. The LA Times article is especially notable for offering a view that most Chinese would agree is mostly balanced. However, even in the excellent LA Times article, it seems the journalist buys into a persistent Western myth.

Myth: Chinese nationalism was recently created by the Communist Party.

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May 06

Two Chinese protests, two different reactions

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis, News | Tags:, , , , ,
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Written by Tang Buxi – May 5th, 2008

There were (at least) two significant protests on Sunday. Both involved Chinese people, and both were significant and interesting in their own ways. That’s where the similarities end.

Chinese Supporter in Manhattan - \

If you get your news primarily from the New York Times and other Western media, here’s what you saw, and here’s what you missed.

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May 06

The Chinese people and the Chinese government

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis | 19 Comments » newest

Written by Tang Buxi – May 5th, 2008

Over the past 4 weeks, we’ve seen the Chinese community world-wide rise up in protest. In the face of widespread criticism from the West, various segments of the community (including recently arrived students, fourth-generation Chinese immigrants, and even some “old generals” from the 1989 Tiananmen protests) have come together to fiercely and proudly reassert our Chinese identity. It was no small step; for the vast majority of us, this represented the first time we’ve ever waved the Chinese national flag, or participated in a political ‘movement’ of any kind.

I think it’s safe to assume that none of the critics of China wanted (or expected) this reaction from the Chinese public at large. So, what happened? Where did they miscalculate?

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May 06

Learning Chinese while having fun

Written by: admin | Filed under:culture | Tags:,
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Zon is a flash based interactive multiplayer online game for learning Chinese and Chinese culture. The project is co-sponsored by the Office of the Chinese Language Council International and Michigan State University. The game itself is still in early beta, but any efforts that makes learning fun is worthy to be applauded.
Zon: Chinese learning game

You can find the game play guide here.

May 03

Caijing Magazine: the challenges and opportunities of the Beijing Olympics

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:News | Tags:, , ,
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Written by Tang Buxi, May 4nd, 2008

Caijing is one of the best news magazines in China today. Its primary emphasis is on financial and economic issues, but it also touches upon social and political commentary. Its closest analogues might be the British Economist, or the American Wall Street Journal. I plan on making translated versions of Caijing articles a regular addition to this blog.

A feature article in this month’s issue discusses the challenges and opportunities behind the Beijing Olympics. The by-line reads:

The opportunities and challenges of the Olympics were always two sides of the same coin. Despite external pressures and internal worries, it’s not necessary, nor is it possible, to modify the direction of our future progress.
奥运会的机遇和挑战原本就是一枚硬币的正反面，没必要、更不能因为外部的打压和内部的疑虑，而改变我们前进的方向.

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May 03

American Jewish Groups Call For Olympics Boycott

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis, News | Tags:, , ,
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Written by Tang Buxi, May 2nd, 2008

This past week, leaders of the American Jewish community called upon Jewish athletes and tourists around the world, as well as U.S. President George Bush, to boycott the Beijing Olympics (more, more). They claim their activism is motivated by the Chinese governments’ relationship with Muslim nations like Syria and Iran, as well as claims of Chinese-funded genocide in Darfur. This wasn’t just an abstract media statement; I’ve seen personal evidence of grass-roots efforts from local Jewish communities calling on American Jews to support this boycott with more direct political action.

In recent years, discussion of Jews and Judism has become something of a “third rail” in the Western world. It’s a highly controversial issue that makes intelligent discussion nearly impossible, and certainly very dangerous. Touch the issue from the wrong angle, and you risk (intellectual death). This is understandable. Few peoples in recent memory have legitimately faced the risk of “genocide”, the violent extermination of an entire people on the basis of race and religion. In even trivial remarks, we can imagine the echoes of dangerous anti-Semitic extremism.

However, this is an important topic that can’t be left aside. I’m going to make an effort to explain why the American Jewish community’s stance on this is wrong, and why their policy might ultimately prove counter-productive.

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May 03

China and Genocide

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis | Tags:, , ,
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Written by Tang Buxi, May 2nd, 2008

The argument, as many have undoubtedly heard, is that China is essentially bank-rolling “genocide in Darfur” (see: American Jewish Groups Call For Olympics Boycott) . The term “genocide” itself is probably misused in this context, and it minimizes the true scale of the Nazi Germany Holocaust. There is undoubtedly a devastating civil war in Darfur, embroiling hundreds of thousands of civilians in tremendous misery. But it remains a very complicated issue, with numerous rebel movements (and not only the government) trying to disrupt the peace process by attacking peacekeepers.

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