The China Hand

Avatar, that (CounterRevolutionary) Confucian Parable?!

2010-01-19T17:07:23Z

This year's Golden Globe winner, Avatar, is stirring up some surprising debate and discussion among China watchers who are wondering why Beijing has pulled the 2D version from 1600 theaters around the country—swapping it out (to the delight, no doubt, of Chinese filmgoers) for a thrilling state-sanctioned biography of Confucius.

New York magazine quotes the Hong Kong newspaper Apply Daily, which alleges that propaganda officials were worried that 1) Avatar was stealing too many viewers from Chinese films and 2) the film, which describes the plight of the Na'avi, an intelligent people threatened with eviction by an evil military-industrial machine, was drawing too much attention to the sensitive issues of forced evictions in China.

Meanwhile, the China watching community has been abuzz about the subject in private emails, discussing the film's Chinese ramifications. Several scholars suggest that Beijing might actually see the film as a Chinese parable, about the Confucian-era struggle between the Legalists (read: the government), who believed in strengthening the power of the ruler, and Taoists (read: the innocent Chinese citizenry) who were more in tune with nature and less obsessed with calculations of profit and loss and big plans.

The Chinese leaders, Legalist by bent as they steamroll ahead with development at any cost, might not be so happy that the Taoists (read: the Na'avi) come off triumphant. Maybe. But it still seems more likely that the Chinese government just doesn't like the idea of an innocent people rising up against evil, rapacious government. There are many thousands of protests every year by Chinese property owners and residents who have been evicted by evil, greedy companies and corrupt local officials. At least China's film audiences now get to see the hunky Chow Yun Fat as Confucius.

PS: Thanks to readers, who pointed out my earlier mistake: Please note that China has only pulled the film from 1600 theaters, and the movie is still a big hit in China.

Chinese Censorship 2.0

2010-01-14T15:03:07Z

Kaiser Kuo: As cool as he looks

The discussions of Google's decision to stop kowtowing to Beijing after its gmail accounts were hacked from accounts based in China continue. In a fascinating Lowy Institute interview with Kaiser Kuo, Beijing-based American Ogilvy executive who has years of experience working in China’s online world, Kuo points out that Chinese censorship has evolved into a 2.0 version.

Five years ago, Kuo points out, China's censors blocked foreign sites like Time magazine or the New York Times to keep foreign news and analysis of Chinese affairs out. Instead, censors now focus on internal social media websites because of their potential to spread rumors and help people organize. These days, the government is much more concerned about Chinese bloggers and chatter.

What does it mean? Yes, Chinese citizens are becoming more nationalistic and proud, but economic and social freedoms have also made them much harder to control. The Internet—with or without Google—may actually outrun even the best of China's censors.

Being Less Evil in China

2010-01-13T20:41:56Z

Outside Google’s Beijing headquarters
Photo: René Vandergoten, China Digital Times

One of the scariest things about China’s censorship of the Internet and other media is that the government has effectively erased whole chapters of Chinese history. Many—and I dare say, most—20-somethings in China, for example, know little about the turmoil and violence of the Cultural Revolution, and virtually nothing about the bloody massacre of democracy protesters near Tiananmen Square in 1989.

But no amount of censorship can totally wipe away a nation’s conscience. The announcement that Google gmail accounts were attacked by Chinese hackers, leading Google to reconsider its presence in China, has led to an outpouring of Twitter commentary by Chinese praising the internet company for doing the right thing—finally. @xuxiaoxuxiao pretty much sums up the Chinese Twitter response so far: “Respect Google for: 1 Doing what you should, even if it’s not easy 2. Protecting your heart and your clients .”

A group of daring Chinese netizens even laid flowers at the Google office in Beijing, and Chinese bloggers also praised Google for finally ending its cooperation with Chinese government censors. (Google's history in China is shameful: To get into the country, Google agreed in 2006 to delete banned topics—Tiananmen, Tibet, etc—from search results.) See this video of Chinese bloggers, taken by Guardian correspondent.

So why does any of this matter? As Rebecca McKinnon, a Chinese internet expert, writes, "This censored environment makes it easier for the Chinese government to lie to its people, steal from them, turn a blind eye when they are poisoned with tainted foodstuffs and cover up their children's deaths due to substandard building codes." It also allows people to forget history. And if we don't learn from the mistakes of our past, what's to prevent them from happening again?

China's Growing Corruption

2009-12-31T11:00:04Z

I’ve been thinking a lot about the 11-year sentence the Chinese authorities gave to Liu Xiaobo, China’s only true public intellectual, wondering why it is that Beijing should be so frightened of one man who dares to speak truth to power. For more than 20 years, Liu, a bookish literary critic, has spoken out for democratic reforms and rule of law in China, writing essays and scripting petitions to the authorities demanding an end to one-party rule and the release of political prisoners. China’s consumption-obsessed citizens pay little notice. So why does Beijing care?

Then I read the recent Wall Street Journal report of a nationwide crackdown on organized crime, and it dawned on me that from the leadership’s perspective, China is just this side of “luan,” or chaos. Indeed, with no rule of law—after all, how can you have rule of law if there is no independent judiciary and the Communist Party is unassailable?—corruption is out of control. So much so that criminal networks of Party bosses, gangsters, murderers and sheisters have organized to run prostitution, loan-sharking, bribery, and tax evasion conspiracies. Protests are on the rise. The leaders may feel they are an inch away from losing control of the country.

But what the leaders don’t seem to understand is that crackdowns and slogans won’t ever solve their problems. The Chinese middle class are increasingly educated; they will start wanting more than just money. Beijing Film Academy professor Cui Weiping has been collecting commentary on the Liu case from intellectuals in China, and the consensus is resounding: the sentence defies the Chinese constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech. Without political reform, China is doomed to growing corruption, which has already eroded social morality, and ultimately will destabilize the country. I understand China’s focus on economic development and the “greater good.” But at the dawn of a new decade, the question is, without the other part—individual rights and rule of law—the country may get rich, but at what cost?

China Contest Winner: Nuorilang Waterfall

2009-12-22T19:25:44Z

Congratulations to Lindsay, who guessed correctly that the gorgeous waterfall in China, edited by Guang Guo, published by Abbeville Press, is called the Nuorilang Waterfall in China's Jiuzhaigou Valley. A perfect gift for Chinese New Year's!

I've posted another magnificent image above—no free book this time, but let me know where you think it is!

I'm impressed: you readers really know China. All the guesses posted were correct. I lived in Beijing for three years, speak Chinese, and spent 12 more years in Asia, but I didn't know where it was. Time for me to get out there and do some China trekking!

The contest has inspired me: I would like you all to send me thoughts about your favorite UNKNOWN spots in China. Maybe we have the beginnings of another contest?

China Contest: Guess This Location And Win

2009-12-15T20:55:50Z

OK, China people, here's the question you need to answer to win the world's most gorgeous China photography book: WHERE ARE YOU?

If you can identify the location of this stunning image, taken from a new China photography book called China, edited by Guang Guo, published by Abbeville Press, you will be entered for a chance to win for the ultimate China lover's Christmas present: a free copy of the book, which is priced at $235. (Through December 31, Abbeville is offering the introductory rate of $185.) Each book includes a signed and numbered print, as well.

This is not just any book. The images, most of which are photographed by a Chinese photographer named Ming Tan, are breathtaking—artistic, unseen shots of both iconic and obscure destinations.

And if you don't win this contest, then use this code, chinahand, at checkout on the Abbeville site (order the book here) to receive a 30 percent discount. The discount is good until February 14, which is Chinese New Year's!

Copenhagen and the Girl in the Shenzhen Factory

2009-12-10T17:44:06Z

Imagine you are a 22-year old Chinese girl, working in an electronics factory in the Shenzhen industrial zone. This is your big chance: you have made it out of your impoverished village, and maybe, just maybe, if you keep working your shifts for long enough, you will earn enough money to send your child to college. Your only hope in achieving that dream is that China’s economy keeps growing rapidly.

What does this have to do with the climate change negotiations underway in Copenhagen? A lot. Because when it comes down to it, this is a fight about the right to a better life. While there is no question China and the U.S. both need to reduce carbon emissions dramatically if we want to avoid planetary catastrophe, I have a lot of sympathy for China’s position. The US says it won’t subsidize China’s efforts to curb greenhouse emissions. In response, according to an article in today’s South China Morning Post, Chinese negotiators—in high posturing mode— accused developed nations of making "empty promises" and putting impossible demands on their developing counterparts.

]]> the discussion, expressing sympathy for China's view: why does that girl in the factory have less of a right to a better life than any worker in the U.S.? And let's keep in mind: on a list of countries by carbon emissions per capita, Qatar is number 1, the US is number 9 and China is number 96. A BBC survey just out shows that Chinese are more concerned about climate change than Americans: 57 percent of Chinese think climate change is a very serious problem, while only 45 percent of Americans think so.

There is, of course, another side of the argument about China's climate change position: you may come to different conclusions if you visit Shanghai. I strongly urge you to go now to witness historic—breathtaking—change. This is the other China, the one that no longer really counts as developing. The city is reclaiming its former grandeur, with glittering restaurants, clubs, and hotels cropping up everywhere. At luxury shopping malls, you can see Shanghainese dropping thousands of dollars on designer-name clothing.

The bottom line: ultimately we in the developed world, be it in New York or Shanghai, all need to start consuming less if we are to solve the climate change crisis. But let's not forget about that girl in the Shenzhen factory.

Dr. Zhang and the Blowtorch

2009-12-07T19:01:38Z

Photo: migrainechick / CC BY 2.0

A New York City Chinatown Diary

I follow Dr. Zhang down an outdoor, steep staircase to the basement, where I find two more massage chairs and two cots. I’m feeling quite alone at this point—the woman at the desk has disappeared—not sure that I am liking this experience so far. But it seems too late to bail. “The opera singer, the opera singer…” I keep repeating in my mind. The doctor tells me to lie down and take off my shoes. That sounds innocent enough, so I do as he says as he washes his hands.

I nervously ask him if this will hurt. Not much, he says, which doesn’t help much. He chatters away in Chinese, telling me about his technique, about how he studied with his father as a young boy in Wuhan, how his father told him to follow the Communist Party but never to join. As he distracts me, he inserts eight needles, forcefully but with absolute precision.

]]>
Dr. Zhang lights what sounds like a blowtorch behind my head. This can’t be good. Again, visions of James Bond are dancing through my head. He is lighting, it turns out, a clump of grass called “Ai,” which smells exactly like marijuana and apparently has curative qualities. He waves a wand with this burning hemp around the needles, then heats each on with the embers. I feel a further tightening, but it is soothing. I close my eyes, as Dr. Zhang plays some Peking opera and begins to sing along.

After the acupuncture and a rigorous backrub during which he pounds and digs excruciatingly at several pressure points below my shoulder blades, Dr. Zhang pronounces that he is done. He has spent exactly two hours on me. The bill is $50—cash only, no receipts. I feel a weird rush of energy as I walk back to the F train along Chinatown’s dark streets. I think my jaw feels—about 20 percent better. I am definitely going back.

Related Reading:
Paging Dr. Zhang: A New York City Chinatown Diary
But Dr. Zhang, Where's James Bond? A New York City Chinatown Diary

But Dr. Zhang, Where's James Bond?

2009-12-04T17:54:12Z

A New York City Chinatown Diary

I feel like I’m in a James Bond movie: any moment, black-suited Chinese gangsters are going to pop out from behind the curtain. In my mind I keep repeating my new mantra, “the opera singer trusts him, the opera singer trusts him.” There seems to be no sign of medical degree or history on any certificate on the wall. But that’s the way it is with Chinese medicine: you go to Chinese doctors through word of mouth. And so here I am.

]]>
But I am a Chinese medicine virgin. Dr. Zhang appears, wearing a corduroy padded jacket, and recoils for a moment, startled that a blonde American is sitting in his “office.” He speaks not a word of English, so in my best Chinese, which does not include the words for TMJ, I explain to him that I’m having trouble with my jaw bone and muscle.

He feels my pulse on each arm with three fingers, explaining that each finger is sensing a different pulse and different organs. “You’re having trouble with digestion,” he says. Um, no… “And your kidneys are weak.” Never knew that. “And you are having trouble sleeping,” he offers, hopefully. Actually, if there’s anything wrong in that department, it might be that I sleep too much. So far that’s 0 for 3. He tells me I will need seven treatments, and that the first visit will improve my jaw by perhaps by 20 percent.

“All right, I’m ready to treat you,” says Dr. Zhang, heading for the front door. Where are we going?

Related Reading:
Paging Dr. Zhang: A New York City Chinatown Diary

Paging Dr. Zhang

2009-12-03T21:27:58Z

Photo: moriza/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

A New York City Chinatown Diary

The East Broadway stop on the F train is deep in the heart of New York’s Chinatown. This is a different world from touristy Chinatown, along Canal Street half a mile away, where Nigerian and Chinese hawkers tout knockoff handbags and sunglasses to ogling visitors from Wichita. Here, stepping out of the subway station, I am the only non-Chinese person in sight. The tenement streets are ramshackle, dark, and greasy, a result of too many bags of leaking garbage. I pass a group of Chinese high school kids and several harried women laden with groceries. In one smoky hallway, I spot tough-looking Chinese guys sitting at a card table playing mahjong.

]]>
I pass by the Double Happiness Travel Agency, the Lucky Bakery, and a fish shop with water streaming along the sidewalk and all manner of sea creature, from squid to lobster and bass, crabs and sea cucumber (big black sea slugs) lying in varying states of freshness or decay on beds of ice. I turn onto Henry Street, which is distinctly quieter; at 5pm, the narrow road is getting dark. I find my destination, number 44.

This is not a clinic, it turns out, but a traditional medicine shop outfitted with two massage chairs covered in pink toweling, acupuncture charts and various Chinese newspaper articles taped to the walls. A Chinese woman sitting behind a desk calls the doctor: “Your guest is here,” she says in Chinese.

To find out what Dr. Zhang did to me, read my next post!

Next: But Dr. Zhang, Where is James Bond?

Robbing Graves in China

2009-12-01T16:50:11Z

Photo: Mark Leong for the book, The Last Days of Old Beijing
The China Beat blog

The heritage destruction business is booming in China, right along with the rest of the economy—a result of reckless building and smuggling. We're talking grave robbing here, and it's a ruthless business, involving gangsters and government and police collusion.

According to a report in the Beijing Morning Post yesterday, more than 20,000 cultural heritage sites have been wiped out on the mainland since the 1980s, victims of the country's unprecedented development. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported on the piece, which is well worth a read. I am including some excerpts here:

Quoting Shan Jixiang , director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Beijing Morning Post reported yesterday that more than 23,600 heritage sites had disappeared since the second national culture heritage census between 1981 and 1985. "This isn't what we have expected," Shan said.

Professor Li Jianmin, an archaeologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said conservation authorities had little influence over regional governments, which often put development ahead of heritage conservation. The professor also pointed to an increase in theft of relics since the 1980s. It has become a lucrative business and given rise to a black market. He said that police in some places colluded with the thieves, who were often allowed to go free after paying officers a fine.

On the conservation front, a more than 100-metre section of the Great Wall in the Daqing Mountain area of Inner Mongolia was destroyed in October by a gold mining company in Hohhot despite five orders from municipal heritage conservation authorities, according to mainland media reports."

The state-sanctioned destruction is evident when you walk around the streets of Beijing. A few years ago, the grey hutong walls were slapped with the character "chai"—demolish—and you could see old folks wandering around, preparing to say goodbye to their old neighborhoods. Now most of those hutongs are gone. Modern, non-descript buildings are going up in their place. An entire imperial culture obliterated, just like that.

The news isn't all bad, though. A growing number of Chinese are concerned about saving heritage. He Shuzhong, who founded the Beijing Cultural Protection Center in 2003, is leading efforts to save historic sites all over China, including Beijing's disappearing (almost gone) hutongs, or traditional lanes, imperial-era courtyard homes, and the politically sensitive Uighur town of Kashgar. He says he gets calls every day from citizens all around the country, asking for help in protecting their heritage sites.

]]>

SNL: Right on, China!

2009-11-23T22:54:20Z

The comics on Saturday Night Live got it right this week, when they portrayed an enraged Chinese President Hu Jintao demanding to get his money back at a press conference with President Barack Obama. The skit was crude, but it was spot on in highlighting just how dramatically the U.S.-China relationship has changed. After all, with some $800 billion in U.S. treasuries, China owns a good chunk of our economy. We'd better get used to dealing with the Chinese as equals.

]]> Park Hyatt in Pudong on the 79th-93rd floors of the Shanghai World Financial Center is about the coolest hotel I've ever stayed at—all slate, wood, earth tones, and toilet seats that move. Talk about a view: the entire European Bund, and all of Shanghai, is laid out before you.)

Obama gets that a newly confident China deserves some "face," and he gave it. China experts are beginning to give him credit for playing a smart strategic game, avoiding the public lecturing that other U.S. presidents have subjected China to. Despite a stiff press conference, the two leaders issued an astounding, multi-page list of areas of cooperation. "It was paradoxical," Richard Baum, professor of Chinese politics at UCLA, told the London Telegraph. "The press conference confirmed every low expectation we had for the meeting, but when I saw the statement, I said, 'Wait a minute, are we talking about the same event?' It is the most extensive document in 20 years, maybe ever."

As for Shanghai's new confidence, please stay tuned: I will be reporting on my trip in an upcoming issue of Condé Nast Traveler.

Mystery of the Missing Front Page

2009-11-19T18:40:49Z

I was reading my World Herald Chinese newspaper coming up from my acupuncturist in Chinatown when I stumbled onto a fascinating story: It turns out President Obama gave one, and only one interview to the Chinese press while he was in China, to the independent-minded Southern Weekend—a paper that is so daring that several of its editors have been fired over the years by the Ministry of Propaganda.

According to the World Herald report, which includes the contents of the interview, the central authorities forced the paper to hold the story for a day, and prevented from publishing it on page one. But when I got to my office I discovered that China blogs are atwitter about the disappearing interview. Several western journalists in Beijing received their papers as usual, but mysteriously without the front page. Weirdly, the full paper was available at newsstands in Beijing and Shanghai. But the online version of the newspaper skips directly from page A1 to page A3, skipping the interview on page A2.

What’s going on? One postal clerk interviewed by the Wall Street Journal says the kerfuffle is nothing more than an air transport issue—that on big news days, the paper gets shipped without page one. Indeed, the interview contains nothing particularly explosive. The newsiest bit is that Obama says the US may be willing to reconsider the issue of high-tech exports to China. Mostly, he is underscoring the overall message of his trip: that the US is ready to treat China as an equal partner. “We hope to see China develop onto the international stage,” Obama says. “A wiser and more confident China will shoulder more responsibilities.”

So what happened to the interview? Is it possible that the central government, more than anything, was annoyed and jealous that Southern Weekend got the scoop? Obama was certainly sending a message by giving the gutsy newspaper, which has a history of enterprising reporting that sometimes enrages the Chinese censors. That’s the way at least one Chinese-language newspaper views it: Chinatown’s World Herald published a screaming headline that says: “Obama promotes freedom of the press.”

Obama Did Not 'Blow It' in China: Here's Why

2009-11-19T15:19:50Z

The debate continues about whether or not Obama blew it in China by being too conciliatory and not holding Chinese leaders’ feet to the fire on human rights.

First point: Obama made some pretty sharp remarks about human rights when he addressed the hand-picked crowd of Communist Youth League members in Shanghai.

Second point: Obama needs to establish a strong working relationship with China (after all, the country practically owns the US economy), and he has some damage to repair after years of bullying by the Bush administration. On that score, he seems to have done well. "The Sino-U.S. Joint Statement is as worthy as gold," trumpeted the state-run 21st Century Business Herald while the Beijing Post said it set "a good example for many other bilateral relations."

Third point: Smart China watchers understand that bullying doesn’t work with the Chinese, who are still crippled by the humiliation they suffered at the hands of western colonial powers in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Robert Barnett, the director of Modern Tibet Studies at Columbia University and someone for whom I have ultimate respect as a moral thinker, agrees.

“The challenge for Western powers, former or actual colonizers, is to convey criticism of another state without appearing to insult it,” he writes on Room for Debate, a New York Times blog. “Especially with China, any perceived bullying will be used to extract a concession before allowing cooperation on other issues.”

Related Stories
A roundup of coverage on the Shanghai Town Hall on the Shanghaist illustrates just how many different ways news outlets are parsing Obama's China trip

Did Obama Get Rolled in China?

2009-11-18T16:35:12Z

Obama street art, Shanghai
Photo: guanmu / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

How did Barack Obama allow himself to get rolled by the Chinese in Beijing? Or did he? Let’s not forget that there are two games being played at once here.

One is the public performance, for the Chinese and American audiences. That one didn’t go so well, as the grim-faced Obama was denied access to the Chinese public through TV and the media—meeting the people only at a stage-managed Town Hall with Communist Youth League members in Shanghai. Thirty percent of the students interviewed by the New York Times in Shanghai didn’t even know that Obama had just addressed their colleagues.

]]> face," in the form of respect that country has been desperate for ever since the 19th century Opium Wars.

The Times argued this morning that Obama could have remade America’s image among regular Chinese in an instant by showing up on a public basketball court for some hoops. But the Chinese leaders would have seen that as grandstanding—something Obama was determined not to do. And it’s not as if the Chinese public aren’t already fascinated by his proletarian, man-of-the-people ways: In a November 11 Internet poll, Chinese said that the second most memorable thing about Obama, after his Nobel Prize, is the fact that he paid for his own burger at a Washington restaurant.

Obama is in this game for the long term, and he’s determined to set the tone right with the world’s new rising power. That's probably a smart thing. Politics is a brutal business, though. It’s possible that Obama may actually be getting it right in Beijing, but in fact lose in the end. For America’s no-longer-new president, the optics are looking so bad that if he doesn’t do something to boost his standing at home, he may not be able to see this two-tiered game out to the end.

Related Stories:
Read about the Chinese conception of "face" in Condé Nast Traveler's Etiquette 101 series.