Just got this courtesy of a fanfou feed: the Chinese government is sending “stability” teams to local governments to help maintain social stability. Of course, as this fanfou person pointed out, this year marks several sensitive anniversaries: uprising in Lhasa, 20th anniversary of June 4th, etc. The news reports even mention how impt this year is, in particular: 今年维护国家安全和社会稳定工作面临的任务繁重而艰巨.
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I was reading an essay on People.com.cn about another essay:
Here is what the People essay says about the original, which was written by aguy from one Zhou Tianyong, a scholar at the Party School*:
文章总结说，由于革命胜利后，党没有从一个工作中心为阶级斗争的“革命党”转变为一个工作中心为经济建设的执政党，对怎样搞社会主义经济建设并不熟悉，学习了苏联模式，而且在资源配置方式上实行了计划经济，生产资料所有制形式上采取了一大二公的国有制、城镇集体所有制和农村人民公社社队体制，在对外关系上走了自我封闭的道路，发展上倾斜于国防工业和重工业。其结果是劳动生产效率较低，科技人员和企业没有创新和技术进步的动力来源，技术进步缓慢，投资建设浪费较大，与整个世界各国经济社会发展的差距越来越大。可以这样评价：建国后的30年里，在全球经济社会发展的竞争中，我们走了弯路，延误了时机。
Which more or less says that after the revolution, instead of working right away on building up the economy and lifting people out of poverty, China embarked on this Soviet style planned economy, heavily biased in favor of defense and other heavy industries, and closed itself off from the rest of the world. And thus, as a result, China lagged further and further behind the rest of the world economy, and so, taken that way, the first thirty years after the revolution (49-79)–in terms of the world economy (that is, being part of the system), we have taken a circuitous route and wasted very precious time.
I suppose there is nothing new in this: this is how everyone thinks about it now. I mean, what young Shanghainese person would think that being part of the capitalist world-system was bad–it’s just a matter of finding a domestic economic system that guarantees 1. standard of living rises and more people are lifted from poverty and 2. that society remains stable. Which is why, as the old nostrum goes, China is not yet ready for democracy, or rather why it should avoid radical democratization, or more precisely, emulation of those mechanisms of democracy that liberal capitalist democracies favor, ie elections.
But still, to have things change in thirty years is fairly drastic and really does give one pause. THe ideological fig leaf is rotting “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. In truth everyone is just trying to steer the ship in a fairly safe and stable way. No one wants to rock the boat that much. NOt when there is this much at stake. That’s why you bailout banks and that’s why you go fro stimulus packages and that’s why you refrain from introducing elections into a country that doesn’t have that tradition in place. Of course, the problem is that we know that every choice that is made is made in the interest of someone–and that someone often believes that their interests take precedence over that of someone else–and so that is where the debate ought to come in, but that is, actually, the point of democracy. However situating that much energy and democratic energy at the grassroots level would, again, be possibly detrimental in China. Or not. Anyway while all of us debate and ponder various models of growth, our lives pass by–not to say that such ponderings are a waste, no, it’s more a reminder of how short our lives are compared to these magnificent macrohistorical backdrops that we can concoct and hold in our minds. Our minds can see the vast sweep of history, or hell, of the universe–but our bodies are obviously much more perishable.
*Party School. snicker, snicker.
Blogger and author Chen Xingzhi on Bokee talks about his experiences at the Chinese Communist Party School, where they study Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao Zedong, Deng, and Jiang Zemin. He is, of course, a Party Member and no doubt in some kind of leadership position. He spent four months as in the Party School, attending lectures, taking part in discussions, reading, writing reports, etc. This essay is a philosophical reflection on his experiences there, and I found out it to be one of the most moving things I’ve read, in Chinese, in a while. It gets to the heart of the political culture of the Party, but goes beyond that—that is, one reads it and realized how deep the problem is. I hope everyone gets a chance to read it, and if you read Chinese, I hope you read the original. I unreservedly recommend it.
The writer starts off with some light-hearted banter about how dead-boring some of the lecturers and their lectures are: (more…)
I was just reading this article from Ha’aretz about some of China’s major infrastructure projects in Israel, including the Carmel Tunnel. Interesting stuff, for example, a partial list of some of China’s more recent and more prominent projects:
“China’s presence in Israel as an infrastructure builder is new,” says Samuels. “In the past, China used to export mainly cheap labor to Israel. But in recent years Chinese companies have been realizing huge projects, including power stations, airports and railroads. A Chinese company built the subway in Tehran in the past decade. The CCECC is now building a 1,300-kilometer railroad along the entire length of Nigeria. Previously it won an $8-billion infrastructure tender in Algeria.”
Next time I take the tube in Tehran…I am going to be worried, very worried. No, but in all honesty, all this comes at a bit of a surprise because I had mostly heard of Chinese projects in Africa and the Middle East—but mostly relating to oil. Of course, the projects in West Africa and Sudan (in relation to Darfur crisis) have received the most press. But would have thought, huh—the subway in Tehran.
These two pictures, from Hunan province, have been making the rounds on the internet because of what it says on the banners: the first one says “谁不依法信访就打击谁” which means “whoever unlawfully petitions the government will be attacked” while the second one says “违法上访，坐牢罚款”, which means “illegal petitions will be result in jail sentences and fines”. There are, evidently, even more. It’s amusing, in a completely depressing way: there’s an inherent contradiction in telling people that there are both legal and illegal ways of having recourse to the law. For example, going to the provincial petition office, or even more sinfully, Beijing—that would be a loss of face for local government, and that’s exactly what operates behind the linguistic facade here—there are “laws”, but calling a spade a spade, they are really “rules” for well-behaved and docile citizens that can be, if necessary, be imposed by state force
Characters painted on walls and banners in prominent places have always been one of the government’s more friendly ways of reminding the people where the lines are. I’m reminded of the one-child policy banners and slogans, where people were told that they would be punished if they had more than one, etc. The not so subtle message, of course, is that the state can use the various and sometimes violent means of keeping the troublemakers and rabble-rousers down.
It makes me pessimistic to even think about it, because the distance between China and true social progress is not measured in what treaties it signs or what “ism” holds power, but in how the state perceives itself vis-a-vis the hoi polloi: as a deferential servant, or as its master. Of course, it’s never completely one or the other, even at its best or most abysmal—but as I am currently reading The Age of Revolution by Eric Hobsbawm, it strikes me the historical struggles of the Europeans, in the 19th c. and beyond—manifested in their (sometimes failed) revolutions, insurrections, and political mass movements—were precisely about this, about carving out this space for the people that the violent arms of the government could not reach. This is the practical, day-to-day meaning of the universalistic conception of rights—it’s our protection against the arbitrary violence that the king, emperor, and state can use against us.
Li Shufen, the girl whose mysterious and contested death was the cause of the Weng’an incident of June 28, has had yet another autopsy performed on her corpse, this time in front of her house where naturally, as is the case in China, it became a spectator event with people from around the village coming to take a gander. The issue with her death, and what sparked the anger that caused the mass violence on June 28, was the allegation that Li was raped and murdered, rather than suicidal, as eye-witnesses contend. The official story is still that she jumped off a bridge, into the river, and while her friends attempted to save her, they failed and she died. In previous autopsies they’d claimed that no evidence of sexual intercourse was discovered, thus discounting the rape aspect of the story. The results have not been released to the family yet.
Autopsies seem to me, to be pretty grim. They must have strong stomachs down there. Especially to see it done on someone that you knew, a family no less. Ugh.
These three peoplea female surnamed Wang, a man called Chen Guangquan and a man called Liu Yanchaowere there when Liu Shufen, the girl that died, was supposedly trying to jump off a bridge. If you’ve been following the news you know that the family of the deceased girl believed that she had been raped and killed by the son of a local official, and confronted the police about it. The girl’s uncle was beaten, which sparked the riots and the partial destruction of a government building. Now, to appease the people, a number of senior officials have been sacked, and the investigation into the girl’s death will be reopened.
The three teenagers gave a press conference in which they basically repeated their version of events: they had told her not to jump, one of them left, she then decided to jump anyway, one of the guys jumped in, could not rescue her, nearly drowned himself, and the other guy jumped in and saved him, but neither of them could ascertain the whereabouts of Liu.
I read another report where they said that during autopsies performed on Liu’s body that there was no sign that sexual intercourse, forced or otherwise, had taken place. Who knows. Of course, no one really knows what happened, and so it becomes more interesting for how it reveals the feelings of the masses
towards their government, especially since there were so many other grievances aside from the death
and the beatingthe local gov’t seems to have often used “rough-shod” methods to evict people and do whatever they wanted. A typical Chinese story, the only difference being that it was egregious enough
that the death and beating could incite mass violence.