China’s reform and China’s rise have simultaneously been plunged into the deep end. These are two separate zones, not just one. They both are impacting the future of the Chinese people. We cannot attend to just one; both must be taken into account. China is groping for stones in the midst of the great river of human history. China was pushed into this river. There is no escape route from reform, nor is there an escape route from ascendance. The only way out is to move towards the other shore.

“Retweeted” 577 times and left with 487 comments as of May 14 (a few retweets have since disappeared), Hu’s post has its supporters and detractors. But as often happens on his Weibo, the detractors here are more vocal. Deng Bolun has translated select comments. Read the original post and all of the comments on Weibo.

PinchHim: What does “rise” mean? Is it the ability to face off with the U.S. military? Based on this standard, the 200-some small- and medium-sized countries never have and will never rise. They’ll never cross the river, will they? China’s rise won’t be marked by a military rise, but the rise of human rights. If there is no rise of human rights, China won’t withstand a single blow in a military face-off.
把掐他：“崛起”是什么意思？ 有能力与美国军事对峙才叫崛起？按照这个标准，世界上二百多个中小国家，从来没有，也不可能崛起，它们是不是永远过不了河了？中国的崛起，标志不是军事崛起，而是人权的崛起。没有人权的崛起，中国在任何军事对抗中都将是不堪一击的。

FutureOfFutureOfFreedom: The officials aren’t even willing to publicly announce their personal wealth. What’s the use of reform!
自由未来的未来：官员连个人财产都不敢公布，改革有嘛用！

SillyLittleWeasel: Groan. Editor Hu wants to outline an even scarier future for those of us who can’t afford to see a doctor or buy a house. He tells us, “You’re all very happy now.”
傻瓜阿狸：哼哼，胡编想给看不起病，买不起房的我们勾画一个更可怕的未来。告诉我们，你们现在很幸福。

DesertPoplarHy: What is the opposite shore like? Like North Korea or Taiwan?
沙漠胡杨hy：对岸是什么样的。是朝鲜还是台湾？

SunJianguoOk: Where is the opposite shore? What’s there? Does it have the human rights, freedom and constitutional democracy that other earthlings enjoy? Solid policy comes from deliberation; a country’s nature and fundamental structure are very important. Ours needs to be reconstructed. A foundation must be lain for long-term development. The one-party system is definitely not going to work. Peaceful, rational and good-intentioned competition must be allowed! Oppose civil war, palace coups, brutal in-fighting and disgusting internal conflict! China will go toward a civilized rebirth! With freedom lighting the way!
孙 建国ok：对岸在哪儿？对岸有什么？有地球人都有的人权，自由，宪政民主吗？具体的政策出于商讨，国家的性质与基本架构很重要，需要建立重构，以为未来长 远发展奠定基础。一党制肯定不行了，要允许和平理性善意的竞争！反对内战，宫廷政变，残酷内斗，恶性内讧！中国走向文明新生！自由照亮前路！

JiaoChengJun: I completely disagree with the notion that Chinese reform has gone into the “deep end.” The concept is vague, it confuses everyone. Just say it. Should China Westernize? Should it have a separation of powers? Should multiple parties rotate through power? Why are you so talkative?! You should just ask the people.
焦成君：非常不同意中国改革进入到什么‘深水区’的提法。概念模糊、让百姓糊涂。就直说吧，中国要不要全面西化、要不要三权分立、要不要多党轮替不就完了吗还啰嗦个啥！下面就该问问百姓吧。

UnmatchedHunger: Mr. Hu’s ass-kissing garbage talk. Two deep ends? Reform and rise don’t happen simultaneously? So-called logic and complexity are just fig leaves to coverall you  lackeys! Grope your mom’s stones and cross the river, there’s obviously a bridge!
盖世太饿：胡氏舔菊废话体。两个深水区？改革和崛起没有交集？所谓理性、复杂都你们这些狗奴才的遮羞布！摸你妈的石头过河，桥明明就在那！

MaoMaoLovesFreedom2010: The masses crossed the river long ago. It’s just you and your master that still pretend to be holding on to the river stones as a matter of life and death!
毛毛爱自由2010：人民群众早就过河了，就你和你主子还假装摸着石头死活不放手呢！

YuZhengzhi: The only way out is for the Chinese Communist Party to pocket its pride and stop making empty calls for “serving the people.” Instead it should accept accountability to the people by realizing competitive elections for People’s Congress representatives, then gradually establishing a civil society of freedom, democracy and rule of law.
余正之：唯一的出路就是中国共产党放下架子，不是空喊“为人民服务”这样的假话，而是接受人民的监督，先推进实现人大代表公开全民竞争选举，逐步建立自由、民主、法治的公民社会。

DukeOfHarmony: Sh*t, ten years into reform we were told we’re in the river, 20 years later we were told we’re still in the river, and 30 years on we’re still told we’re in the river. It’s getting deeper and deeper! If we keep going, won’t the entire population be “reformed” into the sea? How come we never make it to shore?
大公大同：靠，10年了告诉我们在河里，20年了告诉我们还在河里，30年了告诉我们仍然在河里，还越来越深！继续下去，是不是把全国人民“改革”进大海里啊？怎么老是上不了岸？

GraceLHY: Editor Hu’s style is my favorite. Every character is a Chinese character. Each sentence is disconnected from the next. He wrote 140 characters but said absolutely nothing. None of it resembles the Chinese language~
雍容LHY：胡总这种风格我最喜欢了，每个字都是汉字，每一句都和另一句没关系，写了140字还是啥都没说，全不像汉语~

Pekinggdq: The problem is you’ll never reach the other shore.
pekinggdq：问题是你永远到不了对岸.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Deng Bolun, Global Times, Hu xijin, sina weibo, weibo
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Mr. Wang, 57, is regarded as one of the most successful Chinese real estate tycoons. His $17 billion empire includes huge commercial property developments, five-star hotels, tourist resorts, a film and television production company and Asia’s largest cinema network.

Now, by paying $2.6 billion to acquire AMC, the Wanda Group is extending its reach globally. The deal, announced Sunday, is still subject to the approval of United States regulators, though there are no hints it will be blocked. The purchase signifies a new era for Mr. Wang and in China’s development. Companies here are moving away from low-cost manufacturing and going abroad in search of natural resources and global consumer brands, part of an effort to upgrade the nation’s economy.

…

Wanda is a private company in a nation dominated by state-owned enterprises. But the AMC deal is closely aligned with the Chinese government’s priorities, which include encouraging Chinese companies to “go global,” pushing an overhaul of Chinese media and entertainment properties and placing greater emphasis on consumer spending.

Policy makers in Beijing also want to bolster China’s “soft power” capabilities to extend its cultural influence internationally, and the film industry is considered one of the most promising avenues for doing so.

The article also notes that Wang got his start in Dalian, the coastal city where Bo Xilai kickstarted his political career, though Wang dismissed any notion that his ties to Bo would threaten Wanda. AMC’s chief executive hailed the proposed deal, which both sides claim will create the world’s largest cinema operator, as a “unique combination.” For the Los Angeles Times, Richard Verrier and David Pierson write that Wanda’s bid for AMC may spur other purchases by Chinese investors:

The deal announced Sunday — which pairs China’s biggest theater operator with the second-largest chain in the U.S. — marks the largest investment to date by a Chinese company in the U.S. entertainment industry. Most of the deal making has been Hollywood companies striking business deals in China.

But Wanda’s move to buy AMC could turn the traffic in the other direction, setting the stage for a string of similar moves by other Chinese investors looking to diversify and raise their global profile by scooping up blue-chip American entertainment properties. AMC is owned by Apollo Investment Fund, Carlyle Group and other investors who bought the company in 2004.

Some see parallels with the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Japanese companies acquired a number of prized U.S. assets, including Hollywood studios such as MCA-Universal and Columbia Pictures and crown jewels such as New York’s Rockefeller Center and California’s Pebble Beach golf course.

“More and more Chinese companies are going to try to come in and buy American businesses, just like Japanese companies did in the 1980s,” said Sean Yu, a Los Angeles-based executive director at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney who advises Chinese investors. “They want to increase their prestige and their reputation.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: AMC Entertainment, Bo Xilai, dalian, hollywood, soft power, Wanda Group, Wang Jianlin
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The improved ties have been highlighted by this week’s visit to Beijing by Israel’s military chief and a training mission to Israel by the Chinese paramilitary force that, among other things, polices the restive Tibetan and Muslim Uighur regions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to China in the coming weeks.

[...] Chen told the official China Daily that China “attaches importance to the ties with the Israeli military and is willing to make concerted efforts with the Israeli side to deepen pragmatic cooperation.”

In a statement released by the Israeli military, Gantz mentioned a commitment to developing the relationship, including “joint courses that are scheduled to take place.” It did not elaborate.

Such comments are a remarkable turnaround from just a few years ago, when ties deteriorated after the failed arms deals.

In recent years, China has often found itself in the middle of tensions between Israel and Iran, which has bought Chinese military technology despite objections from the U.S. and other countries. For more on this, see a previous CDT post, “Beijing Steers ‘Tricky Path’ With Iran.” Read more about Chinese relations with Israel via CDT.

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Bo, 24 years old, appeared at ease as shook the hands of faculty and walked across the platform during commencement for Harvard’s Kennedy School, where he earned his master’s in public policy during the ceremony at John F. Kennedy Memorial Park. Bo is the son of Bo Xilai, the ousted party chief of Chongqing, China, and his wife Gu Kailai, who is under suspicion in China over the killing of a British businessman.

After the ceremony, Bo, wearing a black gradation robe and crimson hood, declined to comment to The Wall Street Journal.

“I’d just like to have my own day today,” he said, as he walked with two friends and joined a group of others to chatting outside the commencement tent.

Slate’s William J. Dobson details the decade-long link between the Chinese Communist Party and Harvard University, looking beyond the educations of “princelings” such as Bo Guagua to call attention to a much less publicized but far more important training program for future party leaders:

A little more than 10 years ago, the Chinese Communist Party embarked on an ambitious effort to give its public officials the training, skills, and expertise they need to govern in the increasingly complex situations that test an authoritarian regime’s resilience. Carefully vetted officials—a selection of some of the regime’s rising stars—were sent abroad to study in specially designed programs at some of the world’s finest universities. The first crop was sent to Harvard. Today, Chinese authorities have expanded the program to include Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, the University of Tokyo, and others. A year ago I met with Lu Mai, the head of the China Development Research Foundation, who oversees the program. “This was a big decision,” he told me. “We have already sent more than 4,000 [officials]. I don’t know any other country that sends on that scale.”

The Harvard curriculum, specially designed for this program, resembles a midcareer executive course. Housed at the Kennedy School’s Ash Center—the same graduate school Bo Xilai’s son attended—Harvard faculty teach Chinese officials leadership, strategy, and public management. Some of the lectures are given by big-name Harvard professors, including Roger Porter and Joseph Nye. Although the classes are restricted to Chinese officials, these party members have ample opportunity to mix with the school’s faculty and general student body. Borrowing from the case-study method made famous at the university’s business school, the coursework zeroes in on specific topics such as U.S. policy and government, how the media operates, negotiation strategy, and even social media. The classroom work is supplemented by site visits to places like the Massachusetts State House, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and larger institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations. Besides its main leadership program, which lasts eight weeks, Harvard runs more tailored courses, too. One is focused on crisis management. Another is entirely devoted to the Shanghai municipal government. A new energy program will bring together executives from the China Southern Grid Power Corporation. “The goal is to help the Chinese government work in this environment of globalization,” says Lu. “To catch up.”

Harvard may be a competitive institution, but it’s nothing compared to being selected by the party’s Central Organization Department—the highly secretive body that is in charge of making all party appointments across China and chooses the handful of officials sent abroad to study each year. (The department’s work is done almost entirely in secret. It is housed in an unmarked building less than a mile from Tiananmen Square. A phone call from the Organization Department shows up on your phone as a string of zeroes.) The officials selected can vary: They include municipal officers, mayors, provincial governors, all the way up to central government vice ministers. It’s worth remembering that in a country as populous as China, even a very junior official can have a portfolio that affects millions of people. What they all have in common is that they distinguished themselves as comers. Lu sits proudly when he tells me more than half of the officials sent to Harvard receive a promotion not long after they return to their duties at home, although he admits, “We don’t know if it’s because of the training or because they are already so good. But we try to claim it is because of the training.”

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Post tags: Bo Guagua, Bo Xilai, chinese communist party, education, gu kailai, Harvard, princelings, scandal
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The ministry identified programs supporting renewable power, including wind and solar, in California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and California that violate World Trade Organization policies and trade treaties, according to a preliminary finding on the agency’s website today.

The finding comes a week after the U.S. Commerce Department announced tariffs as high as 250 percent on Chinese solar cells and is the latest salvo in a renewable-energy trade dispute, according to Theodore O’Neill, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities Inc. in New York.

“It’s a long, slow escalation of trade and currency wars as we race to the bottom,” O’Neill said today in an interview.
Chinese solar companies have criticized Commerce’s preliminary decision May 18 that they improperly benefit from government subsidies and sell solar cells below cost. At least four U.S. solar manufacturers filed for bankruptcy in the past year.

MarketWatch has more on the background of the dispute:

The U.S. Commerce Department last week announced a preliminary decision to impose 31% tariffs on several of China’s largest solar-panel companies that it had found guilty of dumping.

The Chinese government blasted the U.S. decision as “protectionist” and “unreasonable,” saying it provoked trade friction and would hurt both Chinese and U.S. companies as well as the clean energy sector.

The Ministry of Commerce didn’t say Thursday how it might respond to the U.S. trade violations it had uncovered.

Four Chinese solar companies plan to hold a news conference later Thursday to respond to the U.S. Commerce Department’s decision on tariffs, which followed U.S. antisubsidy tariffs of 3% to 5% on Chinese solar companies in March.

Read more about renewable energy in China, cooperation with the U.S. over environmental issues, and about U.S. trade with China, via CDT.

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Post tags: clean energy, renewable energy, U.S trade, U.S. environment
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The timing and the description of the Heywood case match all the details that have been released of the death, although the detective who called Lee from the Chongqing police did not disclose a name. “I don’t know who was the victim, who was the suspect,” said Lee, who added, “I don’t get involved in politics.”

Lee did not recall the exact date he received the phone call, but thought it was one week before Wang fled to the consulate. The blood sample never arrived in Connecticut.

However, it appears that Wang had had a preliminary test of the sample performed elsewhere. A businessman familiar with the case said that at the consulate, Wang offered the technical evidence from a test of the blood sample.

“The test confirmed the poisoning. There is physical evidence, a sample of flesh. The forensic evidence is very strong,” said the businessman, who asked not to be quoted by name.

The Telegraph’s Jon Swaine writes that the blood samples suggest that investigators may prove decisively that Neil Heywood was poisoned, a revelation that would have serious consequences for Gu Kailai, Bo Xilai or anyone else involved in the incident.

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Post tags: blood sample, Bo Xilai, forensics, gu kailai, murder, Neil Heywood, scandal
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Afghanistan is expected to gain full observer status.

Chinese vice foreign minister Cheng Guoping says their respective applications will be decided upon by consensus.

“The security and stability of Afghanistan bordering the region of SCO states is closely related to the affairs of SCO members. And Turkey as an important country in this region has good ties with SCO members. The admission of the two countries will help them and SCO states to jointly counter terrorism, separatism and extremism as well as drug trafficking and cross-border crime.” Cheng says.

Cheng notes this would be the first time the SCO has admitted a new observer since 2005, and a new dialogue partner since 2009.

Also on the agenda – and likely to steal the spotlight – at the upcoming summit is Iran. An SCO observer since 2005, Iran has been denied member status, as the SCO limits any state under UN sanctions from full membership. In the midst of an ongoing EU oil embargo, and after the US Senate’s recent approval of new sanctions against Iran (which China characteristically and vocally opposed), Iranian President Ahmadinejad will attend the upcoming Summit in Beijing. From Reuters:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit China in June for a security summit and discuss his country’s disputed nuclear programme with Chinese President Hu Jintao, a senior diplomat said on Wednesday, criticizing new sanctions aimed at Iran.

[...]Ahmadinejad’s visit to China takes on particular significance as China is a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and has resisted U.S. demands for sanctions on Iran.

Iran, OPEC’s second-largest producer, exports most of its 2.2 million barrels of oil per day to Asia, home to its four main customers: China, Japan, India and South Korea.

All four nations have cut back on their purchases, dissuaded by a previous package of U.S. financial sanctions due to take effect at the end of June as well as an EU oil embargo and a ban on shipping insurance, which take effect on July 1.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Afghanistan, central asia, India, Iran, Pakistan, shanghai cooperation organization, Yang Jiechi
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The speed with which China’s citizens have embraced all things digital is one sign that things are in motion in the country. But e-commerce, which has changed the balance of power between retailers and consumers, didn’t take off until the Chinese need for reassurance was satisfied. Even when transactions are arranged online, most purchases are completed in person, with shoppers examining the product and handing over their cash offline.

Chinese at all socioeconomic levels try to “win”—that is, climb the ladder of success—while working within the system, not against it. In Chinese consumer culture, there is a constant tension between self-protection and displaying status. This struggle explains the existence of two seemingly conflicting lines of development. On the one hand, we see stratospheric savings rates, extreme price sensitivity and aversion to credit-card interest payments. On the other, there is the Chinese fixation with luxury goods and a willingness to pay as much as 120% of one’s yearly income for a car.

Every day, the Chinese confront shredded social safety nets, a lack of institutions that protect individual wealth, contaminated food products and myriad other risks to home and health. The instinct of consumers to project status through material display is counterbalanced by conservative buying behavior. Protective benefits are the primary consideration for consumers. Even high-end paints must establish their lack of toxicity before touting the virtues of colorful self-expression. Safety is a big concern for all car buyers, at either end of the price spectrum.

Read more about advertising and consumerism in China via CDT.

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Post tags: advertising, consumerism, consumers, foreign companies
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Feeling the warm sun on his face, blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng relaxed in an outdoor playground with his family Sunday, basking in perfect spring weather—and not having to worry about being beaten or harassed for the first time in years.

Chen, his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two kids started a new life in a quiet, leafy Greenwich Village neighborhood full of university students sunbathing in grassy parks and yuppies walking their dogs. It’s a long way from their rural Shandong farmhouse—a virtual prison with blocked-up windows, surveillance cameras, and dozens of guards who threatened and beat would-be visitors ….

A TV-satellite truck has materialized outside Chen’s apartment block, which has also been staked out by reporters and photographers who scrambled when he appeared in the playground. (“It’s exciting. I’ve never heard so many police sirens as I did last night,” said one of Chen’s new neighbors about his arrival in the building.) But Chen didn’t want to grant media interviews on their first day in America. He and his wife are especially concerned about protecting the privacy of their 10-year-old son, Chen Kerui—who’d lived separately from his parents for several years so his father’s imprisonment and harassment wouldn’t disrupt his schooling—and their vivacious 6-year-old daughter, Chen Kesi, who succumbed to her jet lag by early evening. “She was fast asleep on the couch when I first arrived,” said one visitor, “but then she woke up and greeted me full of giggles.”

Speaking to WNYC’s Brian Lehrer, Jerome Cohen explained Chen’s likely course of study at New York University, his long term ambitions, and the negotiation process that brought the family to the US. Cohen also tactfully addressed the risk of Chen becoming a political pinball, and the question of how neatly his work against forced abortion and sterilisation might fit an American pro-life agenda. Chen, he said, “understands China’s need for birth control”, and was concerned primarily with civil liberties. “I don’t think,” he added, “we should associate Mr. Chen with one specific religious organization or with one particular political cause, however important it is.”

Giving his own views on China’s future direction, Cohen said that he is “very optimistic” for the long term and “fairly optimistic” for the medium term, but “quite pessimistic” about the immediate future.

Chen’s studies could begin as soon as next week, according to the South China Morning Post. How long they will continue, however, is unknown.

While in New York, Chen will study Chinese, American and international law. Lectures will be given in Chinese since Chen does not speak English. The programme was scheduled to last a year, but could go longer if necessary, Cohen said. “His study will probably begin next week or the week after,” Cohen said. “We will see when he is ready. There is no rush ….”

Cohen said Chen understood that few activists had had much success trying to influence domestic reform after leaving the country.

Nonetheless, Cohen said he believed Chen had a good chance of returning should he focus on legislation to protect the disabled. He noted that more Chinese activists had been pressing for legal reforms without being jailed, such as civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang .

The Guardian’s Tania Branigan reported that Chen may return to China in as little as a year:

The couple … will not be working towards degrees, [Cohen] added. “Maybe he’ll go back to China quickly at the end of the year, if things look good,” Cohen said. “Initially he’s going to put in a year of serious study and he’ll feel his way.”

Chen has said he wants to return to China at some point, although some activists and dissidents who have left have not been allowed back into the country. “The Chinese government has a long history of preventing the return of critics who have been abroad,” warned Nicholas Bequelin, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“Some parties involved in the negotiations are fairly confident Chen will be able to return … [But] it is not entirely clear what will happen.”

Another article at The Guardian illustrated what may be the worst case scenario, reporting the efforts of several Tiananmen-era dissidents to secure a safe return to China. They include student leader Wang Dan, who recently welcomed Chen to America and assured him that exile, thanks to the Internet, no longer imposed the same limitations as in the past.

It’s been almost 23 years since the optimism that gripped China during the seven-week Tiananmen protests was brutally swept away. Now, five exiled Tiananmen leaders have written an open letter calling on Beijing to allow them to return home in the spirit of human rights at a time when “China is undergoing profound changes”.

“I want to be able to visit my parents,” said Wang Dan in an email. “The Chinese government not allowing us to return is another continuous punishment ….”

While a number of dissidents have returned to China, the permission to do so comes attached with stipulations that most dissidents refuse to accept.

Xiang Xiaoji, now a lawyer in New York, explains: “I will never apologise for anything. What I did was right, and I will never promise to stop pushing for democracy in China. I will not accept their political conditions to return home,” Xiang says. “Besides, I’m not scared of a jail sentence. I’ve been in exile for 23 years, and I’m 55 now. I’ve never regretted what I did in the past, so why would I be scared of what I’ll do in the future?”

At TIME’s Global Spin blog, on the other hand, Austin Ramzy raised the possibility that media coverage of Chen’s saga, regardless of its tone, has sown the seeds of an influence that could weather a wintry exile:

… Chen is still not … widely known in China, but the past month’s coverage in domestic media has raised his profile. While many Chinese readers will agree with criticism of the U.S. role in protecting Chen for six days after he escaped from house arrest, they will also be curious to learn more about who he is. And his story is as compelling as the role of officials in Shandong is troubling. Even before Chen’s escape from house arrest, there was a grassroots effort to support him, and average citizens like former English teacher He Peirong found themselves drawn to his cause.

Earlier this spring I interviewed a migrant worker about a strike at the electronics factory where he was employed in Shenzhen. At the end of our discussion he said he knew that TIME had once interviewed the blind lawyer. “Blind lawyer?” I asked, shocked that a factory worker would know about a man who had been under one form of arrest or another since 2005. “Yes, you know, the blind lawyer Chen,” he replied, adding that he had been inspired by him and closely followed his case …. Chen’s influence may, as State media suggest, diminish during his exile. But not if they keep talking about him.

Also uncertain are the broader implications and lessons of Chen’s case. From the Associated Press:

Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, doubted that Chen’s case would start a trend. She pointed to exceptional factors — Chen is blind and had broken bones when he sought US help, while China was eager to ensure smooth talks with Clinton ….

But Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch said that — even if it is unlikely that droves of dissidents will seek shelter at the US embassy — the Chen case showed activists inside China the possibilities of pushing the government.

“I have trouble imagining that people who will have watched this saga unfold won’t in some ways feel empowered by it,” she said ….

Sharon Hom, executive director of Hong Kong- and New York-based group Human Rights in China, said the Chen case did not give simple answers on whether quiet or loud diplomacy works best with China as many factors — from international attention to Chinese netizen activism — had been factors.

At The Atlantic, James Fallows suggested that one lesson was not to rush too quickly to judgement based on incomplete information.

… [L]ooking back on the evolution of the administration’s foreign policy, I contended in my long story about Obama early this year that U.S. positioning toward China was actually one of the more chessmaster-like features of Obama’s overall policy. That is, love the current administration or hate it, you really should consider China-handling one of the more successful parts of its record ….

[The Chen Guangcheng] episode has so far turned out better than it easily might have. And the State Department and White House negotiators on the U.S. side, whatever mistakes or misjudgments they may have made, appear to have been something other than the feckless clowns portrayed in the first wave of press coverage, based on the question of whether they had sold Chen Guangcheng out.

… We naturally crave “what does it all mean?” “who screwed up?” “who won and lost?” certainty, but there are times when the immediately available answers to those questions are likely to be wrong. In our little part of our journo-sphere we will try to do our part by taking this lesson to heart.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chen Guangcheng, exiles, forced abortion, forced sterilization, human rights in china, human rights watch, James Fallows, Jerome cohen, new york city, news media, pu zhiqiang, State Department, Tiananmen, wang dan, White House
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No question, China has many problems. Years of one-sided investment-driven growth have created obvious excesses and overcapacity. A weaker global economy since the 2008 financial crisis and rapidly rising labor cost at home have slowed China’s vaunted export machine. Meanwhile, a massive housing bubble is slowly deflating, and the latest economic data is discouraging. Real growth in GDP slowed to an annualized rate of less than 7 percent in the first quarter of 2012, and April saw a sharp slowdown in industrial output, electricity production, bank lending, and property transactions. Is China’s legendary economy in serious trouble?

Not just yet. The odds are that China will navigate these shoals and continue to grow at a fairly rapid pace of around 7 percent a year for the remainder of the decade, overtaking the United States to become the world’s biggest economy around 2020. That’s a lot slower than the historical average of 10 percent, but still solid. Considerably less certain, however, is whether China’s secretive and corrupt Communist Party can make this growth equitable, inclusive, and fair. Rather than economic collapse, it’s far more likely that a decade from now China will have a strong economy but a deeply flawed and unstable society.

See also Tom Orlik’s guide to battling China bears at China Real Time Report, via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: economic slowdown, GDP growth, housing bubble, income inequality, social justice, social stability, United States
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall