Exiled Tibetans from around the world are gathering in Dharamsala for their largest political conference in nearly 60 years. The Dalai Lama has called for the six-day meeting, which begins Monday, after failing to make progress in negotiations with China. The Tibetan spiritual leader has promised to let everything be on the table and not to make any major pronouncements during the conference

This thread is an open invitation for people - including (actually, especially) exiled Tibetans - to provide updates for us here regarding the meeting throughout the week.  If our Tibetan friends (such as Lobsang, Tensin, skylight, The Trapped!, and others) do contribute, please welcome them in the spirit of peace and open dialogue - even if many of us may not agree on history, facts, ideology, or visions for our future.

I personally will not contribute much to this thread - partly because I am here to listen, not to comment - and partly because I will be travelling to Taiwan (visiting family and friends) and Yunnan (as a tourist) over the next 2-3 weeks.

The Max Planck Society in Germany recently released an issue of its research magazine with a theme “Focus China”. The editorial office wanted something Chinese on its cover and the result was the one shown above. However, that Chinese text is really an advertisement for a club of an adult nature. It is also most likely from either Hong Kong or Taiwan instead of the mainland China because of the classical Chinese characters used and its up-and-down, right-to-left arrangement.

The magazine sent out an explanation/apology after, I imagine, some interesting feedback. The cover, meanwhile, has been updated online.

The cover of the most recent German-language edition of MaxPlanckForschung (3/2008) depicts a Chinese text which had been chosen by our editorial office in order to symbolically illustrate the magazine’s focus on “China”. Unfortunately, it has now transpired that this text contains inappropriate content of a suggestive nature. Prior to publication, the editorial office had consulted a German sinologist for a translation of the relevant text. The sinologist concluded that the text in question depicted classical Chinese characters in an non-controversial context. To our sincere regret, however, it has now emerged that the text contains deeper levels of meaning, which are not immediately accessible to a non-native speaker.

By publishing this text we did in no way intend to cause any offence or embarrassment to our Chinese readers. The editors of MaxPlanckResearch sincerely regret this unfortunate error and would like to offer an unreserved apology to all of their Chinese readers for any upset or distress they may have caused.

In the global economy, China would specialize in making high volume, low cost products in return for high value technology and services from the West.  The profit that China makes would be recycled back to the West (especially the U.S.) in the form of loans / credits.  Despite the recent global financial crisis, I do not expect this basic pattern to change any time soon.

However, the time for some change may be afoot.  For one thing, many economists in the West now seem to be more willing to acknowledge that the Chinese economic growth may be sustainable for the long term.  Even the Economist has been showing more confidence and optimism for China as of late.

In a recent article, for example, the Economist reported:

WHEN Deng Xiaoping set China on the road of economic reforms in 1978, Western economists argued that “Only capitalism can save China.” Exactly 30 years later, some pundits are claiming that “Only China can save capitalism.” Most rich economies are now facing recession. But if China, the world’s third-biggest economy, can manage to sustain reasonably robust growth, it will help to cushion global output. A massive stimulus package of 4 trillion yuan (nearly $600 billion) announced by the government on November 9th was therefore widely cheered at home and abroad.

…

The eye-popping 4 trillion yuan stimulus package unveiled by China’s State Council this week is to be spent over the next two years. It amounts to 14% of this year’s estimated GDP and, in dollar terms, is four times as big as America’s fiscal stimulus earlier this year. The total increase in spending, if genuine, would surely represent the biggest two-year stimulus (outside wartime) by any government in history.

The package includes public works, social welfare and tax reform. The main spending areas are public housing for poor households; infrastructure projects such as railways, roads, airports and the power grid; speeding up rebuilding after the May earthquake; and increased spending on health and education. A reform of the VAT system will allow firms to deduct purchases of fixed assets, reducing companies’ tax bills by an estimated 120 billion yuan (4% of 2007 industrial profits). This should encourage firms to upgrade their capital equipment. The government also plans to boost rural incomes by raising the minimum purchase price of grain as well as increasing subsidies for farmers, and promises plumper social-security benefits for low-income groups.

…

Normally at international meetings China is accused of two things: its economy is too dependent on exports, while domestic spending is too feeble; and the yuan is grossly undervalued. Mr Hu will now be able to argue that China is doing its best to support domestic demand.

Although China’s planned fiscal expansion is still vague, it promises, if it is implemented and it works, to save the economy from a hard landing. And if stronger domestic demand sucks in more imports of raw materials and infrastructure-building machinery, that is the best way China can help the rest of the world.

But despite China’s increasing economic clout and relevance, the relationships between China and the West is still not balanced.  As a recent ATimes article pointed out:

[Global r]ecovery requires a great change in direction of capital flows. For the past decade, poor people in the developing world have financed the consumption of rich people in America. America has borrowed nearly $1 trillion a year, mostly from the developing world, and used these funds to import consumer goods and buy homes at low interest rates. The result is a solvency crisis of the American household, which shows up as a solvency crisis for financial institutions. If we reckon the retirement needs of households as a liability, the household sector is as good as bankrupt.

…

China’s economic problem is the inverse of America’s: China has achieved fast rates of growth at the expense of huge disparities between the prosperous coast and the backward interior, as well as excessive dependence on foreign markets. China’s policy response to the economic crisis is far more radical than Washington’s. Rather than attempting to patch up the situation and restore the status quo ante, China plans to spend nearly a fifth of its gross domestic product on an internal stimulus focused on infrastructure in its interior. Severe execution risk attends the Chinese proposal, and markets remain to be convinced.

…

The trouble in the world economy has been that a rich Chinese won’t lend money to a poor Chinese, unless the poor Chinese first moves to America. China bought American mortgages, including poor-quality assets dressed up as high-quality assets, because China does not have the financial, legal and administrative capacity as well as the trust to write sufficient mortgage business at home. China’s efforts to spend a fifth of its GDP on infrastructure face enormous problems of governance. In the United States, voters most approve most public spending at the local level, and the federal system provides checks and balances against abuse of public funds. Emerging economies must rely on the probity of a small number of officials with enormous power, a far less effective check against corruption.

China can use America’s help in shifting its economy towards the internal market. Ironically, American officials have been trying to persuade China to import the American financial model for years, and the collapse of the American model has made the prospect less attractive. But it is a very good moment for China to bring in American banks, and start up a consumer lending market. The failures of the American consumer market do not wipe out a century of banking experience in evaluating and securitizing consumer loans. To help import the American model, China should be given the opportunity to purchase major American institutions in return. Citicorp, for example, could be bought today for about $50 billion or Capital One for $13 billion.

America remains the most technologically advanced economy in the world. China needs American high technology. In many instances, America restricts the sale of technology to China due to security concerns.

The United States should offer China a general reduction in restrictions on imports of American technology and acquisition of American companies, in return for a treaty linking Chinese and American security interests.

How can China and U.S. develop a more equal relationship?  What would a more equal economic relationship look like?  What would a more equal political relationship look like?

The authors for the ATimes article above suggested a comprehensive treaty that would include:

1. A system of royalties for technology transfers and guarantees against pirating.
2. Freedom for Chinese companies to acquire American companies, including financial institutions.
3. Agreement on a common stance towards rogue states, nuclear arms proliferation, terrorism and other issues of mutual concern, covering such issues as Pakistan, Sudan, Iran and other areas of past diplomatic conflict.
4. An agreement on strategic arms deployment in Asia.
5. A roadmap for China’s democratization.
6. Environmental and energy-efficiency goals.
7. Stabilization of China’s yuan against the dollar to support free capital flows between the US and China.

What do people think?

Personally, I think most of these look relevant and fair enough, but #4 seems kind of ambiguous, and# 5 seems downright condescending of China’s current political legitimacy.

I’d be interested in everyone’s thoughts.

]]> http://blog.foolsmountain.com/2008/11/16/time-for-an-equal-economic-partnership-between-the-us-and-china/feed/ http://blog.foolsmountain.com/2008/11/14/tibet-turning-over-a-new-page/ http://blog.foolsmountain.com/2008/11/14/tibet-turning-over-a-new-page/#comments Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:08:55 +0000 Allen http://blog.foolsmountain.com/?p=1837 I’ve been resisting writing anything on Tibet recently because I think we’ve had more than our shares.  But I think the time may be right on this board for one small, limited discussion.

In case you have missed it, the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama met last week for a ninth round of talks since 2002.

The Dalai Lama made some news in the week leading up to the meeting making statements such as he has “given up” on the talks.

The response from the Chinese government last week confirmed the Dalai Lama’s prognosis of the negotiations.  In a report from Xin Hua, Zhu Weiqun, executive vice minister of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, stated that “[t]he unification of the motherland, territorial integrity and the national dignity are the greatest interests of the Chinese people. We will never make a concession.”

“The Dalai Lama said on many occasions that when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entered Tibet, Tibet was an independent country and now Tibet is still an independent country, which was illegally occupied.  But by denying China’s sovereignty over Tibet, the Dalai Lama is seeking a legal basis for his activities of ‘Tibet independence’, ’semi-independence and ‘independence in a disguised form’,” Zhu stated.

I personally am relieved about the impasse.  I always knew the calls for continued “talks” earlier this year was more theatrics than anything substantive.  The exiles lobbied Western governments to pressure the Chinese government to agree to continue negotiate against all reasons, hoping the limelight of the Olympics would give them one last leverage.

Now that the Olympics spotlight is over, even the Dalai Lama concedes there is not much more point in continuing.

Given the clarification now that, barring an about-face in political stance by the Dalai Lama, the current Dalai Lama will not play any role in the further development of Tibet, how will the hand of the current secular government in Tibet be freed in its governance of Tibet?  How might the hand of the current government be constrained?

On the flipside, the Dalai Lama has called for a meeting next week for exiles to congregate to discuss the future of Tibet - where all options allegedly will be on the table.  What should the exiles do?  Prepare to settle in the West and/or India for the long term?  Call for full independence?  Form a terrorist organization?  Form a “democractically elected” exile government?

2008 by all accounts would be a big year.  Not only would it be the year of the Olympics, but it would also mark the 30 year anniversary of Deng’s economic reforms.

The year however started with a series of disasters, featuring a series of freakish snow storms over the Chinese New Year as well as riots in Lhasa in March.  In the advent of the much maligned Torch Relay, there were even doubts about the prospects of Beijing successfully hosting the much anticipated Olympic Games.

But the Sichuan Earthquake changed everything.  The way the country - and Chinese from all over the world - came together to help the victims of Sichuan and surrounding areas in the quake’s aftermath made many realize that the Chinese People only have themselves to prove and to answer.

The Six Month anniversary of the Sichuan Earthquake is being marked by somber and quiet reflection over a great tragedy as well as … I think … an appreciation of the hidden strength of the Chinese people.

We Chinese as a nation may still have some ways to go to be where we want to be.  But we are comforted by the fact that if we work together, we will inevitably reach our goal and in the process make the world a better place.

Below are excerpts of a report from Xin Hua News about the opening of a memorial park commemorating the earthquake:

The first memorial park to the 87,000 dead and missing from China’s May 12 earthquake opened on Wednesday in the southwestern Sichuan Province.

The Y-shaped park, spanning almost 50 square kilometers in the countryside of Qingchuan County, is centered on a huge rock erected on the ruins of Donghekou Village and inscribed with “2008–5.12–14:28″, the exact date and time of the 8-magnitude quake.

Many landforms resulting from the earthquake can be found in the park, such as landslides, cracks, faults and folds.

Thousands of survivors from Qingchuan and elsewhere attended the opening ceremony on Wednesday morning to pay their respects.

“My mother often wakes up screaming at night, She cannot accept the fact even now,” villager Yang Haiqiong said of her mother Jiang Wanqiong. They lost 10 family members in the quake, and only five survived.

Donghekou Village was completely buried under landslides, with more than 780 people dead.

Another huge rock in the park was painted with a red large Chinese character for “xie” (Thanks), and villager He Xianmei was seen cleaning the rock with a white towel on Wednesday morning.

“The xie character expresses our great gratitude to everyone who helped us. No dirt should be seen on it,” he said.

“It also tells us survivors to care for each other and live well in the rest of our lives.”

The quake centered in Wenchuan County left more than 69,000 people dead, 374,000 injured, 18,000 missing and millions homeless.

More than 31,000 aftershocks have been reported since, with the strongest measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale.

In terms of the intensity and scope of destruction, the May 12 quake is believed to have surpassed the 7.8-magnitude quake in 1976 in Tangshan, northern Hebei Province, which claimed more than 240,000 lives.

Here are some pictures collected from various sources.

[Show as slideshow]

The party line has put a lid on any meaningful research of Mao and the Cultural Revolution for the sake of stability. The CCP has kept silence not only on Mao’s anniversaries but also in the face of significant historical misinformation and distortion occurred in a widely publicized book on Mao by Zhang Rong and his husband, even though the book has been widely publicized in the world, even though the world’s well-known China scholars on the subject have pointed out the book’s serious flaws. However, the issue is still probably among the most inflammable, hotly contended (in private or on Internet), bitterly dividing people of all walks today. The often debated political topics such as the legitimacy of the regime or the political reform and path to democracy would invariably boil done to or evolve into the question of how to view the legacy of Mao and CR. We simply cannot avoid this subject forever if the country is to move forward despite the party’s expedient policy of shutting up all opinions and the painful memories of the time under Mao preserved by too many. It makes the open and fair study of the subject even more imperative as today more and more people, the downtrodden in particular, have had a strong nostalgic feeling toward Mao and his time (we often ignore that their experiences of and attitude toward Mao years and CR tend to be dramatically different from that of the intellectual elites and the privileged few whose sufferings and opinions have been successfully voiced in Chinese fictions, movies, TV dramas, and best-selling books in English in past three decades).

The prevailing views on the subject of Mao and CR have been either condemnation or blind exaltation. The article by Cui I recommended here is an unusually cool minded, balanced and well researched study. Not a simplistic negation or affirmation, it provides convincing and controversially inspiring and provocative analysis and arguments to thoughtful questions: What’s the real motivation and reason for Mao to mobilize the entire population in a cultural revolution against his own comrades inside the party establishment? Why did millions of people answer his call and enjoy their rights in the time of Grant Democracy with genuine enthusiasm and passion? Where did it go wrong in the process? What’s the relationship between Mao’s theory of CR (and other issues of Chinese revolution) and the orthodox Marxist doctrine? And more significantly perhaps, is it possible for us, in a dialectic process of creative appropriation, to learn something from the Grant Democracy of CR, a genuine and spectacular democratic practice evolving into a colloquial tragedy, to benefit China’s democratization in the 21st century? The author argues that the failure of the Grand Democracy practiced by the millions during the CR under Mao does not mean that the people do not deserve a democracy at this magnitude, vigor and intensity. He must have all the burning and appalling issues in mind, such as the injustice done to the miners, migrant workers, peasants, and ordinary people intensified in past decades due to lack of effective democracy and public monitoring system. It’s really tempting to think that, if properly managed, the “four big” (大鸣, 大放, 大辩论, 大字报) may well be useful tools for the voiceless and powerless to protect their rights and deal with the long ingrained problems of corruption, bureaucracy and all forms of abusive of power inside the ruling class in China.

I am not sure if the readers of FM are ready for the subject of Mao and CR (I remember once Buxi ruminated on the possibility of a thread on Mao sometime). We may not agree with Cui, but he certainly makes the gain and loss of Mao and his theory of the CR a strong case and and thus deserves our attention.

Admin’s note: snow’s original title includes A good article to recommend: On the Gain and Loss of Mao’s Theory of Cultural Revolution and the Rebuilding of “Modernity” . It refers to this Chinese article 崔之元：毛泽东文革理论的得失与“现代性”的重建（旧文）. It’s too long so I removed it and put a copy of this article in the Chinese section.

[Update] Here are some details of the Chinese stimulus plan, as reported in Chinese news media.

The Chinese premier Wen chaired a State Council meeting on November 5, with an agenda focused on expanding domestic consumption and smooth economic growth. The meeting concluded that a flexible yet cautious macro economic policy was needed due to the threats from the increasingly serious global financial crisis. The country will focus on ten areas of development.

1. Accelerate housing development for disadvantaged populations by increasing government support for low-incoming housing, accelerating redevelopment in communities of shacks, building permanent residence for nomadic population, expanding trial programs of overhauling dangerous buildings in rural areas.
2. Accelerate rural infrastructure development by increasing efforts at bio-gas, safe drinking water and rural road developments, improving rural power network, accelerating major water use projects such as the south-north water transfer project, reinforcing dangerous reservoir dams, strengthening large scale irrigation systems, and expanding poverty alleviation and development efforts.
3. Accelerate major infrastructure developments such as railroad, highway and airports by focusing on a number of passenger and coal transport lines and railroads in the western China, improving the highway network, building airports in central and western China, and accelerating urban power network overhaul.
4. Accelerate development of medical, cultural and educational fields by strengthening medical service at community level, speeding up rural school building overhaul in central and western China, and promoting development of special education schools in those areas.
5. Enhance ecological environment development by building more urban sewage and garbage treatment facilities, speeding up control and treatment of water pollution, strengthening protection of forest resources, and supporting key energy saving and emission reduction projects.
6. Accelerate innovation and structural adjustment by supporting high-tech industry development, improving manufacturing technologies, and supporting development of the service sector.
7. Accelerate various reconstruction projects in the areas affected by the Sichuan earthquake.
8. Increase the income of urban and rural residents by raising the minimum grain purchasing prices next year, increasing various agricultural subsidies, improving social security services for low-income groups, increasing subsidies for insurances, and continuing increase the level of basic pensions provided to retirees and subsistence allowances standards for qualifying citizens.
9. Implement value-added tax reform and restructuring in all industries and in all regions to encourage technical improvement and retooling in enterprises and to reduce burdens on them by 120 Billion RMB.
10. Increase financial sector support to the economic growth by lifting restrictions on loans provided by commercial banks, expanding credit by reasonable scale, strengthening loan support for major projects, agricutural work, median and small enterprises, mergers and acquisitions, and cultivate consumer consumption credit growth.

China has developed an exciting indie music scene throughout the country. Though strongest in Beijing, excellent bands have appeared in Shanghai, Guangzhou and other parts of the country. Though there is a huge pop music industry with many very popular singers, these are acts that are less known but have developed a core following among the young. I’d like to introduce you to a few bands and hear about others you know that you can share with us. Follow the links to their myspace sites and the songs will usually play automatically. For the Neocha site which is in China, you need to click on the “play” button. I’ve included descriptions of each band either from the web or from my own knowledge.

I’ve been very impressed with many of these bands. Though currently most Chinese bands are overly derivative, that is to be expected when developing a music scene. Lately, there are more and more unique bands combining Chinese influences within western genres to create new and exciting sounds. If you want to hear more from any of these bands, you should be able to find different tracks on YouTube.

Cold Fairyland, a Shanghai band, is one of the most creative and skilled progressive rock bands in China. Their style combines Eastern melodies and rhythms with Western symphonic rock. While the fusion part is easy to describe the music itself is not. Composer/arranger/keyboardist and Pipa master Lin Di has been playing pipa since she was 4 years old. The band has a mix of cello/pipa/keyboards/bass/drums and electric guitar.

http://www.myspace.com/coldfairyland

Hugely popular with both musical hipsters, for the brilliance of their compositions and performances, and with rock and roll party animals, for their wild, out of control pop frenzy, Hedgehog’s music is totally approachable and totally unique. Percussionist and vocalist Atom(子健) is a tiny girl who just barely peeps over the top of her drum kit but who bangs out explosive rhythms like a monster possessed. Bassist Box(博宣), the person responsible for keeping the band in line, punches out the tight bass lines that hold the songs together while seeming lost in oblivion. Guitarist and vocalist ZO(子健) slashes out huge waves of chords that seemed to fit perfectly within the songs yet at the same time tear them apart — while jumping, twirling, staggering and even falling over several times during his performances without letting up for the slightest pause. Hedgehog is a classic power trio with three of the best performers in Beijing on their respective instruments, but it is their song-writing skills that make this band more than just a great performance band and one of the most important in China.

http://www.neocha.com/HedgeHog

Hong Kong’s PixelToy was formed by Ho Shan and lead singer Candy Wu in the summer of 2001. The two music lovers studied in the same university, and discovered in a conversation that they shared the same taste in music so much that they had to form their own band. They invited a friend to be a guitarist and participated in the annual “Teenage Band Competition” organized by Warehouse, in which they won the “Best Adapted Song” Award and started to be noticed. PixelToy has since become a patron in performances in schools or indie music scenes.

http://www.myspace.com/pixeltoymusic

From Beijing … Sulumi + iLoop have been making left-field electronic
music for China’s premiere electronic label Shanshui records. From dub
to breakcore, these bad boys now annihilate crowds with live 8-bit music
made with vintage Nintendo Game-boy machines.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=25461268

The indie band Crystal Rubic came into being in June, 2004 in the city of Hefei of Anhui province in China. They try different styles, including folk, dream pop, trip hop, brit pop,electronica… The vocal and song writer Vera was invited to Beijing by Pocket music magazine to give performance in last October.

http://www.myspace.com/crystalrubic

IGO was formed in 2006 as a Synth Pop duo. The band members are JJay (vocals, songwriting, programming) and B6 (electronics, programming, visual and music production). JJay originally came from Beijing and formed a few post punk bands during the years he studied in Shanghai. After he got a master degree of science in US, he came back to Shanghai and met with B6 in 2004. As the most famous DJ in Shanghai, B6 played frequently in the major nightclubs of Shanghai and quickly built up a solid following. B6 is also an electronic music producer, and has published multiple compositions, including the background music for a Nike advertisement. He is also the founder of Neocha.com, one of the largest internet platforms for youth indie-culture in China. With totally different background, but shared passion for Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk and Royksopp, they decided to form a band.

http://www.myspace.com/igoigo

Sa Ding Ding is a Chinese folk singer and songwriter. She is of mixed Han and Mongolian ancestry, and sings in languages including Mandarin, Sanskrit, Tibetan, a near-extinct tongue Laghu, as well an imaginary self created language to evoke the emotions in her songs. She also plays traditional instruments such as the guzheng and matouqin (horse-head fiddle).

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=90932367

R3 is a band residing in Shanghai but with members from Brisbane and China. Their music is a combination of industrial, electronica and trip hop.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=8660252

Finally, we all know Wang Fei (Faye Wong) as an enormously successful Chinese pop singer. But many don’t know that she also sang on the Scottish band “The Cocteau Twins” Milk and Honey CD. She had covered two of their songs and they loved her voice, so asked her to sing with them. Since they were one of her favorite bands, she gladly accepted. The song is called “Serpentskirt” and is a favorite of mine. They never performed it  together live so this video is the closest I can get.

In today’s China, the government talks about promoting a nationalistic spirit; the idea of being “Chinese” not only for the 90% who are Han but covering all minorities. However, it has been widely reported that in minority areas and provinces, the two cultures have virtually no interaction. Even people who work together on a daily basis rarely socialize outside of work. The cultures are different; the Han work hard and put in very long hours, feeling that less effort indicates a lazy attitude. They value the “prosperous” life and enjoy the trappings of success. Many minorities see that same work ethic creating a poor quality of life and want little part of that culture. They prefer to live their lives as their culture has lived for centuries. The Muslim minorities center their life around religion while the Han are nominally atheist. On quite a few occasions I’ve had Han tell me that minorities such as the Uyghurs are “not like us; not Chinese”.

During the Olympic ceremony, children dressed in the different minority costumes paraded around the stadium. Later it was revealed that the children were all Han Chinese. Since cost was no object and it would have been easy to use minority children, this was a conscious choice made by the organizers. My guess is that the actual minorities watching at home did not feel a sense of “inclusiveness”.

How can the Chinese government create a greater sense of unity; of making “Chinese” more than being Han? How can the government develop a more inclusive society? These days, leadership selection is behind closed doors and considered a “state secret” that if reported before the selection is made, is considered a crime. Is that style of governing conducive to minority participation? Or will there need to be changes that take the current opaque selection method and allow a more transparent way of choosing its leaders? Is it simply a matter of government structure or will more need to be done to integrate the society in business, education and social programs? Does China need to develop its own standards of “affirmative action”? Or will the “autonomous regions” need to become more autonomous than they currently are?

P.S. I want to say that I do feel for McCain.  He is a great man and would have made a great president.  But symbolism can matter.  And unfortunately for McCain, an Obama presidency simply symbolizes “change” a lot more congently than a McCain presidency this time around…

Assuming I am right for purposes of this discussion, the Chinese government may however still have its work cut out.  For example an important aspect of building a “peaceful and harmonious society,” given China’s vast ethnic,religious, and cultural diversity, no doubt involves the government to tolerate, if not outright embrace, China’s myriad ethnic and religious subgroups.

Can the Chinese government deliver?

The world’s current infatuation with and hyper sensitivity to ethnic and religious identities do not bode well.  Take the experience of “democratic India” as an example.

In an interesting article in the New York Times on the ethno-religious strife that has been flaring up across India, the Times reported:

With national elections only months away, India is reeling from a rash of spiteful religious and ethnic clashes, prompting many in this country to ask why their vibrant, pluralistic democracy tends to encourage, rather than avert, the cruelty of neighbor against neighbor.

Tensions are growing in several corners of the country. The latest dispute was set off in Mumbai last week, when an upstart nativist party claiming to represent Marathas, the dominant ethnic group in the state, pounced on Indians who had come from elsewhere to apply for jobs at Indian Railways.

…

Clashes between Hindus and Christians [also has] continued to sweep through eastern Orissa State. In northeastern Assam State, indigenous Bodos fought with Bengali-speaking Muslims, leaving more than 50 people dead.

All the while, Indian cities remained skittish after a spate of terrorist attacks blamed largely on Islamic militants. Other factors include the longstanding Kashmir insurgency in the north and Maoist guerrillas across central India.

The Hindustan Times recently carried a map of India, splattered with red stains to mark current trouble spots. Many more would have to be added in the two weeks since the map was published. In mid-October, speaking to the wishfully named National Integration Council, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called the rash of violence “an assault on our composite culture.”

He added, “An atmosphere of hatred and violence is being artificially generated.”

How can the world’s largest democracy fail to prevent such a fury of intolerance?

Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist and social critic, said that India was a democracy in a far more limited sense than many Indians cared to recognize. In spite of its lively and largely transparent elections, he said, some of the other basic pillars of democracy, including tolerance and respect for the rule of law, were fragile at best.

Perhaps, he went on to suggest, India was gradually becoming less democratic, as a variety of small, factionalized political parties vied to mobilize their caste and ethnic constituencies. National elections are expected to be held next spring, and five state elections are scheduled for November.

“Some amount of virulent, strident rhetoric, as well as violence, is becoming a deepening part of the democratic culture,” Mr. Nandy said. He described it as an inevitable danger of all large, pluralistic democracies. After all, he said, the Ku Klux Klan survives in the United States. And look at the increasingly aggressive campaign messages in the American presidential race, Mr. Nandy said.

…

“The role of democracy in preventing community-based violence depends on the ability of universalist political processes to subdue the poisonous fanaticism of divisive communal thinking,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “Much will depend on the vigor of democratic politics, not just the existence of democratic institutions.”

…

Vivek Gautam, known as Vicky, this evening’s Ravana, sat on a chair with his legs splayed, his hirsute and heavy girth pouring over a shimmering black nylon dhoti at his waist. He ruminated over the troubles of the times, saying it was in keeping with what Hindu legend called the Kalayuga, or the dark age.

“It is just the start of the Kalayuga,” he warned. “Once it reaches its climax you cannot imagine what it will be like. There will be no friendships, no relationships, not even between fathers and sons, only crime.”

Ravana’s cellphone trilled. As for the strife now erupting across his country, he said cryptically, “Our own people are betraying us.”

It is unfortunate that India has not been able to avert the type of ethnic and religious based fanaticism that has ripped many other societies apart.  As the article noted, even in a democratic, human-rights conforming societies like India, “preventing community-based violence depends on the ability of universalist political processes to subdue the poisonous fanaticism of divisive communal thinking. … Much will depend on the vigor of democratic politics, not just the existence of democratic institutions.”

Where has India gone wrong?  How can she strengthen her social and political fibers to foster tolerance and unity?

Like India, China too is a mega pluralistic cultural society with many religions as well as ethnicity.  In that sense, India’s experience should not be easily dismissed out of hand.

Is the violence in India merely result of economic underdevelopment - i.e. an expression of frustration with poverty and economic helplessness?   Or is India’s experience symptomatic of something deeper and more disturbing?

For example, are the conflicts and violence part of a deeper ethnic and religious divide being fanned and exploited by a surging tide of global ethnic and religious fanaticism?

Given China’s non-democratic government, is China more prone or less prone to a similar fate?  To what extent can economic developments be used to embrace (rather than highlight) ethnic and religious differences?

And finally, in what ways can Western-style “human rights” be tapped (in a way that is not being tapped in India) to promote peace and stability?

First, it is unlikely now to publish any contribution on state-run or commercial websites in China once “sensitive words” are identified in your writing. Some blog-hosting sites practice self-censorship so strictly that I even couldn’t post a composition by a junior high school student.

Second, the highly controversial true-name registration system has actually been adopted by more websites in China. Recently when I tried to register with Tianya Community website, I was required to provide my mobile phone number, my ID card number or my true name to activate my account. Since in China all mobile phone users have already been demanded to register with true names, Tianya website is in fact imposing the controversial true-name registration system.

Third, some foreign websites, including those of Radio France International, have been blocked again after the Beijing Olympics drew to an end. Meanwhile, although other foreign websites remain approachable in China, some of their touchy contents are actually not accessible.

It seems to me that China has sent out contradictious signals regarding the online public opinion. On the one hand, the national leaders such as Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao stressed repeatedly that they need to hear the voice of the people; on the other hand, the authorities have continuously enhanced the surveillance of the Internet, which will definitely scare away some web users.

(by BI Yantao, China)

This post was submitted by BI Yantao.

Despite Beijing’s history of sound relations with Republican presidents from the United States, recent polls shows popular opinion is bucking the trend, with “hip and unconventional” Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama an “overwhelming hit” with ordinary Chinese.

The results of the online poll, conducted on the China Daily website by the US Embassy in Beijing, gave Obama a much greater lead over his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, with the support of 75% of Chinese polled. Despite Obama’s tough rhetoric on China’s human rights record and other issues.

…

“Perhaps his age, energy and even complexion, which signify the American dream, are more appealing to the Chinese,” Song Zhiyuan, who analyzed the survey, told the China Daily.

Rebecca Zhu, a 29-year-old bank employee, agreed. “No Chinese leader is that young,” she said. “Obama is attractive because he is hip and unconventional. He has even used e-mails to advance his campaign.”

The media has been awash with commentaries predicting a new, more sensitive America, vastly different from the country led by current President George W Bush, should Obama win. The popular notion in China that the US is out to impose Western ideals on the world, would also take a hit with the election of a man of African descent.

….

“I want to see if a black American could become the president,” Xu Kai, 23, who works for a real estate company in Wuxi, Jiangsu province told the China Daily. He added that by electing Obama the Americans could prove the US is not just a country for white people.

…

McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has adopted a tough stance on national security, promising to create “a strong military in a dangerous world”. His pledge to commit more troops to Iraq has not been well received in Beijing.

China was angered by the US Defense Department’s recent desicion to sell Taiwan US$6.46 billion worth of weapons, and while John McCain and Obama both endorsed the deal, McCain also said the administration should grant Taiwan’s request for submarines and F-16 fighter jets.

…

However, the choice is not as clear cut as it first appears. Obama’s criticism of China’s trade practices and his demand that China “play by the international rules” have irked the Chinese leadership, which fears regular admonishments over its human rights records from a Democratic president.

Obama in April called for Bush to boycott the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing in August, saying he would only go to Beijing if he saw progress between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama.

Obama has also threatened to impose trade sanctions due to concerns over the yawning trade surplus, currency manipulation and intellectual property rights violations. In his first major foreign policy address of his presidential campaign, in April 2007, Obama said, “[O]bviously China is rising, and it’s not going away. They’re neither our enemy nor our friend.”

Yu Honglan, a 47-year-old office cleaner from Beijing, told the China Daily that she was was nonplussed by the surveys and not too interested in the US elections, to be held November 4.

“No matter who becomes the US president, he will not have much to do with my life. I’m concerned about something else - that their falling economy may affect us.”

It’s amazing to see how much the Chinese are falling for Obama! To be honest, I had thought the Chinese would be more nonchalant.

After all, we have all come to realize that U.S.-China relations have become too important to be held hostage by the personality of any single political leader.

And … both McCain and Obama has had made critical, somewhat disturbing comments about China.

The world is certain going through some interesting though uncertain times. So at this critical juncture, it is great to see that both the Chinese and the American people seem to share similarly optimistic and hopeful visions about the future!

Two different ways of seeing the world

I was in Europe for the last time the week of the “Meltdown Monday”, the one when the Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. Quite scary, but the news didn’t seem so surprising for anyone. Ever since the beginning of the year most people had seen the crisis coming. On the Spanish beaches, there were less tourists to be seen this summer, and the variable rate mortgages were getting stiffer for all. The governments that were not in electoral campaign had profusely announced what was to come.

That same week, during a congress in Lyon, the American guest from the marketing consultancy came out to the stand and presented the prospects of our industry up to 2010. He had a very professional looking PowerPoint with some colourful graphs that vaguely reminded me of the slides in a waterpark. The delegates from the rest of the countries looked bored, and only we - New Delhi, Kuala, Shanghai - were hurriedly taking notes. Nobody had shown us that back home.

The whole atmosphere I encountered in Europe was in stark contrast with what I had seen and what I am living still today in China. The crisis has not yet touched this country. The taxi drivers at the airport, who usually know a good deal of economics, don’t even mention the word crisis. On the corporate side, the contrast is even bigger. Most of my local clients, who take a WSJ for breakfast every morning, are not only not worried, but they actually look at the future with renewed optimism. They know that a big crisis (危机) is also a big opportunity(机会). In an intuitive language like Chinese, the two words share one single character.

The Great Wall of China

The prevailing thought here seems to be that of the Great Wall of China: Confident and proud of their financial system which has resisted the negative western influence, Chinese at all levels are convinced that the crisis will not hit them hard. To reassure them, there is the precedent of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which devastated the Asian tigers’ economies and left China, the only country strong enough to ignore the western blunderer IMF, mostly unscathed.

The media here have already been speaking about the crisis for a while, but always as an external problem, and with a generally positive outlook. The official Chinese press is prudent as usual, but the general idea still seems to be that China shall be the word’s bastion of stability against the irresponsible western financial devices. Thus the official discourse goes: Growth to slow down mildy, there will be some restructuring to boost the domestic markets, and we will come out stronger in the end. And in everyone’s mind is the opportunity for Chinese companies to go out shopping for deals in capital thirsty western counterparts.

Of course, Chinese are aware that international markets are the weak link, as a large part of the GDP is made up of exports to western countries and FDI. But they count on two factors to ensure the minimum of vital growth required by the system. On one hand, the massive ongoing investments in infrastructure that expand their tentacles day after day to each end of the country. On the other hand, they bet on the development of Asian markets to counter the descent in Western demand.

In view of all this, the new priorities of the technocrats, as they explained last week in our industry briefing in Beijing, are: 1- Develop the markets to find a way out for Chinese production, and 2- Take advantage at the worst of the crisis to go out and acquire foreign companies, and achieve through these means the creation of truly global corporations, with an access to know-how and technology which is much more direct than that obtained from FDI.

The Great Wall of China, the myth that for millennia has defined the Chinese people, is born again in the realm of finance. And, shielded behind it, the sons of the Dragon hope to regain the glory of past times.

A weak point in the Wall

There are however some signs indicating that Beijing’s plans might not work out so cleanly. In the first place, although the Chinese financial system, entirely controlled by the government, has indeed remained more conservative and than the western one, this does not make it in itself an efficient system. A series of failed investments in the near past, such as Blackstone or Bear Sterns are good examples. And the opacity typical of the large Chinese banks, heavily influenced by the Communist Party, is not precisely the best guarantee of success.

It should be noted, as well, that the very foundations of the Great Wall, the massive reserves of foreign-currency held by the Chinese government, may not be the solution for every problem. Most people in China fail to understand that the foreign-exchange reserves are not free assets, and cannot be used freely by the government without seriously affecting its monetary policy, or rather, as professor Michael Pettis calls it, its currency regime. Indeed, until the domestic market is strong enough, China will be forced to keep the RMB as low as possible to keep up with the exports, which will completely condition the freedom of its policies.

Looking at the markets, already several observers have started to note the fall in sales of Chinese companies. It is very doubtful that the Asian Markets can grow sufficiently quickly to absorb the growing Chinese manufacturing output. In the end of the day, Asian markets mean India and Russia, the only two countries with a critical mass to match Chinese needs. They are both strangled by serious structural problems to be able to respond quickly enough to China’s needs. And the hesitating actions taken for land reform to increase the consumption of peasants might be a good idea in the long term, but it sounds very optimistic to bet on domestic consumption in the short term.

Add to this that Chinese economy, in spite of being in the middle of a development miracle, has severe structural problems, partly derived from its political system, as commenter Will Hutton brilliantly puts forward in his book “The Writing on the Wall”.The lack of a “soft” infrastructure, as he calls the ensemble of characteristics of a civil society that are necessary for the proper functioning of a market economy, makes China a very vulnerable system. It is symptomatic, for example, the total lack of internationally recognized brands, or the many cases of mismanagement, such as the recent case of baby milk contamination.

Beijing taken

But there is a much more worrying aspect, which derives precisely from the Great Wall effect. Historically, the Great Wall of China has not been effective to prevent barbarian invasions, and in a way it has often had the opposite effect. The Han people, protected by their Wall, had a tendency to feel invulnerable and live with their back to the North. In 1644, when the Manchus crossed Shanhaiguan, they took the Chinese by surprise. Beijing fell very quickly (to internal rebels in the frst place), and the last of the Han emperors was left with no choice but to hang himself from a Pagoda tree at the Jingshan Hill, right behind his forbidden city. This is History. But it is a story that has too often repeated itself in China, and which can revive under a new shape in the XXI century.

It is well known, and the economic miracle of the last 30 years is a proof of it, that Chinese economy is guided by a corps of well trained technocrats who know very well their subject. And undoubtedly Zhongnanhai must have a Plan B readily prepared for contingencies. But it seems clear that, as much as they might want to prepare, if the crisis hits hard in China, the scope of reaction of the system is very limited by its own structure and its own people.

Indeed, the great majority of Chinese workers, unlike their western counterparts, are ill prepared to face a crisis, let alone to understand it. Ever since the end of the Cultural Revolution, they have only known 30 years straight of growth. The Chinese people has kept silence since the summer of 89, when Deng and the Red Army made them understand that getting rich comes first. Since then they have accepted injustice, inequality and corruption in exchange for national pride and a notable increase in material conditions. The day the system fails to deliver, due to unemployment, inflation, or other crisis effects, the pact of silence shall be broken.

Unlike our governments, the Chinese Communist Party will be unable to shield itself behind an international economic situation that its own people do not understand. And all its legitimacy, based on economic development and on the dubious legacy of Mao, can vanish overnight. China needs a minimum annual growth to employ the massive wave of peasants that are migrating to its cities, the biggest migration in the history of humanity, as the topic usually goes in China comment books. The leaders know this very well, and the 7.5% of annual growth that they set as a goal in the 11^th Five Year Plan is probably about the minimum they estimate for the whole formula to add up.

It the Wall falls in these circumstances, as in the Ming period, the psychological effect could be devastating. And when the forces of the hundreds of millions are unleashed, the bureaucrats in Beijing might have no other way left than the one of the (political) Jingshan hill.

Possible outcomes

We might be right now at a turning point in the process of development of modern China, which will seriously impact the course of history in the XXI century. This year 2008, the one of the 30 anniversary of the beginning of Deng’s reform, marked by a series of disasters, and rounded off by the spectacular success of the Olympic Games, might well be the year in which everything changes. In the Chinese tradition, natural disasters, and earthquakes in particular, have long been omen of political change. The last serious earthquake was, precisely, in 1976.

Whatever happens, whether the Chinese Wall resists or not, the international crisis shall precipitate many changes in China, and in the rest of the world we shall do well to keep a watchful eye on these events, because they shall have a major impact on our own lives.

If the Wall resists, Westerners will be forced to admit the validity of the Chinese economic system. Chinese capital shall go out to the world. Taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the crisis, Chinese economy may take in a very short period of time a decisive leap, and under the solid supervision of a regime legitimize by its success, it can spectacularly accelerate its progression to become a superpower. In a very short period of time, the most optimistic of predictions for China can become true.

If the Wall should collapse, on the other hand, Chinese economy may suffer a rapid decline, with almost immediate social and political consequences that may drag the rest of the world into a crisis that could go beyond the purely economic. The outcome in this case is much less predictable, and only mutual understanding and tolerance among the peoples of the world will avoid disastrous results.

So is the crisis hitting us or not?

The greatest economists have historically failed to predict crises, and are rather better at analyzing the problem a posteriori, finding out that it was all very clear after all. Crises are by definition unpredictable, so the point of this blog is not to guess whether or not the Great Wall of China shall resist this time the barbarians.

Instead, my conclusion is that, whatever the outcome, the role of China in the world can change radically following the international crisis. Most western media are, as usual, too busy following each other like a flock of chickens into the news of the day, from the Euro-Asian summit to the Moscow pact, and are, at the time of writing, blinded by the sudden surge of events in the western stock exchange. Suddenly, something will happen one of these days and they will all flock back into China with their copy-pasting machines, like they did at the time of the Tibet riots.

In the meantime, China blogs provide a good platform for both Chinese and western participants to keep a watchful eye on the Crisis and the Wall.

_______________________________________________

NOTE:

Hi, this is the initial entry I just posted on my new Chinayouren English blog, at http://chinayouren.com/eng. It is a blog where I intend to speak about the Crisis and other things of China.

I would like to publish it on FM, to try to get some feedback and also to try to connect with the English speaking chinablogging community.

Thanks, Chinayouren

This post was submitted by chinayouren.

The joke goes as follows (and is copied from a translation posted at U.K. forum)

One day, a plain-looking man came with a pretty-looking OL (Office Lady) to the Louis Vuitton store in Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island. He chose an LV bag worth HKD 65,000 (£5000) for the OL.

When it came time to pay, the man took out a checkbook and wrote out a check. The salesperson was hesitant because the couple hadn’t shopped there before.

The man discerned what the salesperson was thinking and he said calmly: “I sense that you are concerned that this check may bounce, right? Today is Saturday and the banks are closed. Let me suggest that I leave the check and the handbag here. When the check clears on Monday, you can deliver the handbag to this lady. How about that?

The salesperson was reassured and gladly accepted the suggestion. In addition, he waived the delivery charges. He promised that he would personally make sure that this gets done.

On Monday, the salesperson took the check to the bank. The check bounced! The irate salesperson called up the client, who told him: “What is the big deal? Neither you nor I have suffered any loss. Last Saturday night, I went to bed with that girl already! Oh, by the way, I thank you for your cooperation.”

Moral of the story:

This story reveals the nature of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. When people have high hopes for huge future returns, they lower their guard about the potential risks. This pretty girl thought that the HKD 65,000 LV bag was going to come home on Monday, and so she lowered her guard. Therefore, she believed that her investment in the ‘one night stand’ was worth it even though it was based upon huge and highly uncertain risks. Investment companies are great with packaging high return (but high risk) deals. The Chinese stock speculators are like this pretty woman. As such, they deserve to lose money. Without people like these, how are people going to make money from the stock market? As for the media and the stock analysts, they often play the role of the LV salesperson.

This joke was also posted at a popular Chinese forum, where a follow up comment simply stated:

The story would fit the reality even better if that girl has AIDS and the sneaky man didn’t use protection.