Damage to ROK ship consistent with torpedo hit

Here's some more pure wonky awesomeness from the Arms Control Wonk: IDing the likely cause of the sinking of ROK Navy Ship Cheonan a day before the ROK government.

You have much to learn young grasshopper . . .

Awesome quote from the Arms Control Wonk:

"The value of any briefing on China is inversely proportional to the number of Sun Tzu quotes in the briefing."

It's high time that people realised that quoting Sun Tzu is not a replacement for knowing how things are done in modern-day China.

Hong Kong has no referendums, so don't vote in the referendums we are having in Hong Kong . . .

Or such seems to be the basic message coming from Beijing's men in Hong Kong at the moment, at least according to the excellent Big Lychee Blog. The only problem with the HK government's position on the by-elections which have been called to as a "defacto referendum on democracy" is that it doesn't make that much sense:

After encouraging people for years to take part in, and therefore legitimize, our rigged election system, it would look odd for Sir Bow-Tie and his colleagues to implicitly urge us all to stay away. It would raise concerns that civil servants of all levels, who are sworn to implement government policy, could be pressurized into not voting or penalized if they exercise their right to do so. Most of all, how many of us will be tempted to go along to the polling station if Donald indicates that he would prefer us not to?

China's Military Growth to Slow

Amidst all the talk there has been lately about the growth of China into a world-bestriding superpower, signs are appearing that even China has limits. Money quote:

Mr. Li said that the government has always tried to limit military spending and had “set the defense spending at a reasonable level to ensure the balance between national defense and economic development.”

The legislature must approve the government’s 2010 budget at its session this month, but the vote is a formality.

A budget report submitted to the legislature said the government had earmarked about $77.9 billion for the military in 2010, an increase of about $5.4 billion from actual spending last year.

Basically, even if you buy the narrative of the Chinese stimulus package rescuing the Chinese economy, rather than perhaps merely creating more capacity in industries which are already in over-capacity, you cannot deny that the Chinese government's spending means cuts in other places. Growth in Chinese military spending has been in double digits since 1989, outstripping economic growth most years. The reasoning behind this is simple - since the CCP no longer exercises the kind of thought-control over the population that it was able to pre-1979, it now relies on the military as its guarantor of power should the populace turn against them as it did in the year of the Tiananmen protests. For this reason the needs of the military became paramount.

Of course, Chinese military spending still lags that of the US, China's most powerful potential adversary, by a considerable amount - even by the most exaggerated estimates it is still less than a quarter of American spending. This was less assuring when China's military spending was roughly doubling every 4-5 years, but if this trend continue perhaps China's potential adversaries can rest easy. China, of course, maintains its threat of invading Taiwan, and at various times over the last few years has rattled sabres on its borders in the Himalayas, in the South China Sea, and in the East China sea. Nor is Chinese military supremacy in the region anything more than delayed by this announcement. All the same, it does give breathing space.

Just a quick heads-up: Global Times to speak truth to power?

A reporter on the English-language version of the Global Times (the sister paper of the ultra-nationalist Chinese-language paper of the same name, both of which are printed under the auspices of CCP-mouthpiece People's Daily) has been tweeting about a new editorial stance for the paper's coverage of the "two meetings" being introduced tomorrow, with almost every subject being opened up for discussion, in fact . .

"老总提到报道唯一的禁区是国家领导人的私生活。"

"The boss said that the only subject on which we cannot report is the personal issues of the leadership.

There's been a lot of false dawns in the progress of freedom of speech in China To my mind the freeing up of freedom of speech in a government-operated English-language newspaper may not actually add up to much, but then I may be wrong . . . .

The failure of the mass movement

Okay, no, this is not about China, at least not about anything which is happening in China at the moment. In fact it's about conservative political movements in the west. In 2008 Barack Obama swept to power at the head of a grass-roots political movement in which much of the most effective content was generated by the participants themselves. Ever since then right-of-centre groups have been trying to get in on the act, but, speaking as a confirmed Thatcherite, I really wish they wouldn't.

The problem is that by their very nature right-of-centre parties do not come to power with genuinely radical plans for change. Even the most revolutionary of British political movements of the past 50 years - the Thatcher government - did not come in in 1979 with grand plans for change and only started to implement large-scale reform after the 1983 election. In most eras and at most times, Conservative parties promise a break from the legislative and political turbulence offered by left-of-centre parties. It is therefore difficult for a right-wing party to attract the kind of head of steam that a left-wing party can, and instead the content of the campaign is likely to be generated by the party faithful, a group seperate and apart from the mass of the population which the party wishes to attract.

The result is that instead of "Change we can believe in" we get mush which is likely to make people more likely to favour the opposition, not less. Here's an example:



The other posters aren't much better.

Just 'cause

Amazing footage shot by an enthusiast of a cross-wind landing at Hong Kong's old Kai Tak airport shortly before it was closed down and replaced by the new (and far less heart-attack-inducing to land at) Chep Lap Kok airport -

Modern Heavyweight Boxing Sucks

The conclusion of one sedentary sports fan on the heavyweight-hitters of today:

I have always thought that the Klitchkos get bad press, in the main, because they're intelligent, educated, good-looking Ukrainians who carry around Phd.s and world championship belts, winning a lot of fights simply by being better than the other guy.

This is, I feel, certainly a valid point.They are, however, the first fighters I saw to use the tactic of hitting their opponent's lead arm so as to nullify the jab. Sure; they look for the right through the middle to follow, but this makes for a lot of pawing and a spectacle not unlike two 6 year old girls having a mild tiff.

Where is Hu Jintao's laojia?

[a picture of the Taizhou Tower, not representative of an otherwise beautiful city]


Of all the idiotic political movements of 2009, none was more silly than the 'Birther' movement which erupted in the US following the election of Barack Obama, son of a Kenya-born father and a Kansan mother. Whatever doubts people might legitimately have held about Barack Obama's eligibility to fulfil the role of president have been fully laid to rest by the Obama campaign's release of his birth certificate, yet the movement persists, and may have even grown, at least until the obviously-barmy Orly Taitz reared her air-filled head.

But suppose we had no real idea of where Barack Obama was actually born and different parts of America competed to be his home? Wouldn't this be a conspiracy theorists paradise? But this is what appears to have happened with the current president of China, Hu Jintao.

First, let us see what the official biography on the People's Daily website says:

Hu Jintao, a native of Jixi, Anhui Province, was born in December 1942. He joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in April 1964 and began to work in July 1965 after he graduated from the Water Conservancy Engineering Department of Tsinghua University, where he had a major in the study of hub hydropower stations.

Jixi, of course, is one of the poorer counties of Anhui, which is one of the poorer provinces of China. A very proletarian upbringing then - but wait, there's more - here's what the government of Taizhou, Jiangsu province says to say about the man they claim as their own:

This great man, one of the most influential in the world, is one of China’s most known faces. Currently, Hu Jintao is the Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China, holding the titles of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2002, President of the People's Republic of China since 2003, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2004.

Born in Anhui province, 1942, Hu Jintao moved to Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, during his early years. At this time, he moved into the home of close relatives and studied. Schools of Taizhou, where Hu Jintao once studied, ate, read, played, and became the great man he is today are open to visitation.

So, Hu was born in Anhui but grew up in Taizhou - a city close to my heart ever since I visited it back in 2004 on a day trip, trying to make a bit of money on the side whilst I studied Chinese in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province. I had been told that all they wanted was for me to have my photo taken in front of a school as proof that they had foreign teachers working there (a source of pride in Chinese schools even now). Instead, on showing up at the school (Taizhou Community College if I remember correctly) I was welcomed by a large crowd, with banners proudly welcoming the English "professor" who had come to visit - that being me! I then had to give an off-the-cuff speech to a crowd of hundreds, getting a standing applause when I praised the somewhat-ugly Taizhou tower. Sitting down to dinner latter my hosts proudly proclaimed that Taizhou was the laojia of Hu Jintao, the then newly-appointed President. Laojia is often translated as 'hometown', but its meaning is somewhat deeper than that which most English speakers would attach to that term, as it includes an allegiance to the place which can be passed on to the children of people born in that place even if born and raised elsewhere.

I exclaimed surprise, saying that I though he came from Anhui province, but my hosts said that Taizhou was his real home and place of birth, pointing to the rumour that Hu had secretly visited the city to take part in his father's funeral, and that he only claimed to come from Jixi because it was a poorer place, granting a kind of proletarian cool which Taizhou could not deliver. So is Taizhou his home then? Not so fast - here's what the anti-government China Affairs website has to say:

祖籍地和生长地与江泽民惊人相似，祖籍安徽绩溪的胡锦涛，1942年12月生
于上海，成长于江苏的泰州。

With an ancestral home and place of residence surprisingly similar to Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, of Anhui extraction, was born in Decemeber 1942 in Shanghai and grew up in Taizhou, Jiangsu province

Of course, there's no knowing what China Affairs' source is for that, but this website makes the same claim. Similarly, there is no knowing who it was who wrote on Hu Jintao's Wikipedia page that he was born in Shangyan, Taishan, Shandong province and where they got that information from. So where was Hu Jintao born? Perhaps someone should check his birth certificate?

Pretty much everything you ever suspected about CCP control of the internet is true.

[Cross posted at GongShangFa]

Such is my conclusion after reading China Digital Times' translation of notes taken at a SCIO (State Council Information Office) training session attended by Peng Bo , Deputy Chief of the State Council Information Office Internet Affairs Bureau. Let's do a run down:

1) Government-driven discrimination against foreign companies out of fear of foreign influence -

Commercial websites must understand that it is the government that protects the development of domestic websites. If the Chinese internet didn’t have Xinlang, then Yahoo would have free rein; if there was no Baidu, then Google would have free rein; if there was no QQ, then MSN would have free rein. All of this is because the government is intentionally fostering domestic enterprises.

2) Attempts by the Chinese government to censor and control the effect of Obama's visit -

Criticize Sina for not thinking politically; when reporting on Obama’s visit to China, they played without authorization a video of Obama speaking in Shanghai.

The most important part of Obama’s visit to China was his speech in Shanghai. The format of this speech was different than the speech format used by past U.S. presidents when visiting China. It was specially designed by the U.S. government to enlarge Obama’s personal influence.

Before Obama visited China, America and China negotiated that websites and television stations would broadcast the event. China accepted their request; however, live television coverage was to be limited to Shanghai area television stations.

These measures were implemented to accord with the central government’s desire that people become enthused about China-U.S. relations rather than be enthused about Obama.

Providing a video of Obama’s speech without authorization was done for Sina’s commercial interest and was not done for the nation’s interest. In order to gain a little, a lot was lost.

3) Government censorship of overseas news reports felt not to be 'correct' (i.e., not negative) -

Criticize Netease for going after sensational stories and not doing a good job of directing public opinion. [Neatease's] international news headlines are always things like “New York Mayor Bloomberg Receives Annual Salary of $1”, “Black American Becomes Mayor”, “American Youth Becomes Mayor”. These headlines are sensationalist and cast aspersions [on the Chinese government]. [Netease] has set the wrong direction for public opinion and has not properly fulfilled its role as a guide [of public opinion]

Note the fact that positive foreign news is felt to be critical of the Chinese government. This was reinforced by Li Wufeng, Bureau Chief of the State Council Information Office Internet Affairs Bureau, in his talk at the same training session:

2. Currently, the online republishing of news stories has the following major problems:

2.1 Republishing articles from small papers and publications, even republishing articles from the foreign press.

2.2 The online news phenomenon of “news laundering” [i.e., getting a domestic publication to print news from a banned source and then quoting it] is still serious. Sometimes standard news sources do not even carry the story [that the republishing source claimed the standard news source published].

2.3 Intentionally posting unpermitted content on interactive interfaces (forums, blogs).

2.4 Small newspapers and websites republish each others’ stories, creating media hype. For example, the Deng Yujiao [official killed by waitress defending herself against rape] incident and the Hangzhou street race [well connected young man uses influence to escape serious charges related to hit-and-run killing] case.

Assuming these notes accurately reflect what was said at the training session, this is pure dynamite. It shows that the government's influencing, censorship and 'net nannying' of the Chinese internet is pervasive, and driven by a paranoid view of the media, both foreign and domestic. I 'm looking forward to reading the translated notes from the other official's talks.

'Treasure hunters' tour world in search of looted articles

The NY Times today had an interesting article about a group of Chinese 'treasure hunters' who have been visiting museums in the United States searching for articles taken from the Yuanming Yuan, or Summer Palace, of the Chinese emperor by British and French soldiers in 1860. The palace was torched in revenge for the torture and killing of diplomats and prisoners of war, and its destruction remains a symbol of the 'hundred years of shame' during which China was subject to internal turmoil and external aggression.

However, these 'treasure hunters' have faced criticism of their own:

"The United States scouting tour — visits to England, France and Japan will come early next year — quickly turned into a spectacle sponsored by a Chinese liquor company. As for the eight-member delegation, a closer look revealed that most either were employed by the Chinese media or were from the palace museum’s propaganda department.

“These days even building a toilet at Yuanmingyuan would be front-page news in People’s Daily,” said Liu Yang, a researcher who joined the trip."

"Although the Chinese public broadly supports recovering such items, a few critics have suggested that the campaign merely distracts from the continued destruction of historic buildings and archaeological sites across the country. A government survey released this month found that 23,600 registered relics had disappeared in recent years because of theft or illicit sales, while tens of thousands of culturally significant sites had been plowed under for development.

What’s more, said Wu Zuolai, a professor at the China Academy of Art, the obsession with Yuanmingyuan ignores the plunder of older sites that are more artistically significant.

“Chinese history did not start with the Qing Dynasty,” he said. “This treasure hunting trip is just a political show. The media portray it as patriotic, but it’s just spreading hate.”"

There can be no doubt that the Opium War was a war of aggression fought for economic gain. There is also no doubt that the burning of the Yuanming Yuan was an unjustifiable act of vandalism. This said however, it happened almost 150 years ago, and is hardly the worst disaster to befall China in its history. The fact that billions of dollars worth of property was confiscated in 1949 from 'landlord' owners without compensation, and without even the slightest chance of the Chinese government compensating the surviving dispossessed and their families now, shows a selective view as to what constitutes a historical injustice.

Facts of which we were unaware

This latest Seton Hall University of Law report carried by the Andrew Sullivan blog on the death of three Guantanamo inmates back in 2006, which I had at the time truly believed were suicides, is both deeply depressing and shockingly disturbing:

There is no explanation of how each of the detainees, much less all three, could have done the following: braided a noose by tearing up his sheets and/or clothing, made a mannequin of himself so it would appear to the guards he was asleep in his cell, hung sheets to block vision into the cell—a violation of Standard Operating Procedures, tied his feet together, tied his hands together, hung the noose from the metal mesh of ii the cell wall and/or ceiling, climbed up on to the sink, put the noose around his neck and released his weight to result in death by strangulation, hanged until dead and hung for at least two hours completely unnoticed by guards.

This happened in an extra-legal prison run by my home country's biggest ally. And nobody will be called to account for it.

"The inane meanderings of a petty little fascist . . . ."

[Cross posted at GongShangFa]

Such was going to be the conclusion of the piece I had just written on Raymond Zhou's indescribably vile (not to mention homophobic) passive-aggressive assault on Chinese wild-boy and subversive author/blogger Han Han. Unfortunately for me, but, dear readers, fortunately for you, before I could click on the button marked "publish" I saw this excellent translation of a Hecaitou post by ESWN over at ULN's place. Money quote:

There is nothing surprising about this nonsense from Raymond Zhou. But we have to be wary of the open hostility displayed in his open letter. The western media were made out to be evil people who want to shove every Chinese people into the fire pit. At the same time, he tied those who dared to fight for the rights of people onto the chariots of the evil western media:

Or you can bribe government censors to shut down your blog for a month. Have them launch a wide-ranging campaign against you. Organize students nationwide to denounce you. The shortest cut to Western credibility, I must add, is to get yourself thrown in jail. Until that happens, you are simply another "willing participant".

What does that mean? My interpretation is that: Those whose blogs were shut down, those who were criticized by a mass mobilization and those who were sent to prison did so in order to get a page in TIME and win the approval of the western media. It has been a long time since that I have not read any such cold-blooded words. If Raymond Zhou has the guts, he should provide a name list of such people and tell the public: Did these people think that "the quickest way to gain the approval of the western media" was to go to jail? Does Raymond Zhou not want Han Han to any more western media interviews? Does Raymond Zhou not want Han Han to blog about social injustices any more?

Absolutely to the point. Han Han has not yet replied, nor does it seem likely that he will, or even needs to. Hecaitou said it all.

Seven Signs That You May Be A China Noob

With every year since China's reform and opening started in 1978 more and more foreign visitors have made the trip to experience the mysteries of the middle kingdom. Unfortunately, some new and inexperienced travellers seem to be in a mighty hurry to make total idiots of themselves. Fortunately for the FOARP, his days as a China newbie are buried back in the prehistory of The Time Before Blogs, but others are putting themselves at risk of severe future embarrassment should their noobish blog posts ever come to light. Here's the seven top symptoms of this Sinological syndrome so that you can be forewarned and forearmed:

1) Insisting on using 汉字 ("Chinese words") in every 句话 ("sentence") in a lame effort to show what a 中国通 ("China hand") you are.

Verdict:

You might as well just tattoo "傻屄" on your head.

2) Ever getting at all involved in what the term 'laowai' means.

Verdict:

If you argue either that the term is purely racist under all circumstances or that it is a sign of respect then you, my friend, are a laowiseass. The first can be countered by simply pointing out that plenty of wives married to white boys refer to their spouses as laowai, the second by even a second's worth of thinking - is "meiguolao" a respectful term for Americans?

3) Writing articles whose main premise is that China is not Wyomissing Hills, Pennsylvania.

Verdict:

Congratulations on being able to read a map. When people either lay into or overly praise China based solely on criteria which have nothing to do with conditions there you have to think that such articles have much more to do with where the writer came from than about where they are.

4) Writing commentary which basically boils down to "OMG! Chinese girls are so hot/girly/feminine/easy/whatever"

Verdict:

Our expat sisters are happily immune to this one, but unfortunately their much more numerous expat brethren are not. Once again, this seems to be much more about where the writer is coming from than about China.

5) Referring wisely to the concept of Guanxi.

Verdict:

Write "'Guanxi' = connections" ten times and get lost. This kind of commentary is strictly for noobs, everyone else knows that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

6) Making general statements about the Chinese people and culture.

Verdict:

There are very few generally true statements starting with the words "All foreigners are . . . ", and only marginally more which begin with the words "All Chinese people are . . . .". This doesn't stop people making them, but it should stop you from repeating either the excessively condemnatory language you hear in some quarters or the excessively laudatory language you hear in others. Here's a tip: before you write such a thing (e.g. "Chinese people are very conservative/modest/arrogant etc.") just stop and ask yourself whether a 20 minute walk through the average Chinese neighbourhood wouldn't turn up something directly contradicting that statement.

7) Compiling lists of things you like/don't like

Verdict:

Ooops!