New York City private schools have always been the province of the city’s young and wealthy, students whose home lives and educations can inspire both disdain and envy. But these students are the children of Shanghai real estate magnates, shipping giants, luxury hotel owners and doctors from coastal regions bordering the East China Sea. They are also part of a small, but growing, cadre of teenagers from wealthy families in China who are attending school in New York City.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, 638 Chinese students with visas attended high schools in the city in 2012, up from 114 five years earlier.

The influx has not been seamless. But the schools — particularly ones with lagging enrollment — have actively sought an international component and parents who can pay full tuition, even if that means accepting students who speak limited English. Chinese students and their parents have seen the schools as a way to gain an advantage on the thousands of students at home who apply to United States colleges every year. They are also availing themselves of a more well-rounded educational model than they find in China, including that decidedly American college application line-item: extracurricular activities.

[...] In September, Léman welcomed 27 Chinese students, about one-fifth of the high school population, and 10 students from other countries. 

[Source]

Similarly, many U.S. universities have found a partial answer to budget crises in students from wealthy Chinese families, and Chinese college students and the universities that host them have also met with challenges. Also see prior CDT coverage of Chinese students studying abroad.

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Post tags: Chinese students, education, high school, overseas Chinese students, study abroad, U.S. universities, wealth gap
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In March, she published her results; they will no doubt surprise Chua and her admirers. Children of parents whom Kim classified as “tiger” had lower academic achievement and attainment—and greater psychological maladjustment—and family alienation, than the kids of parents characterized as “supportive” or “easygoing.”

For Kim’s study, parents and children answered questions during the children’s adolescence about their parenting styles. The vast majority of parents were foreign-born in Hong Kong or southern China, with relatively low educational attainment and a median income of between $30,001 and $45,000 in each of the study’s three phases, spaced out equally over eight years. Three-quarters of their kids were American-born. The study controlled for socioeconomic status and sibling order and other potentially confounding factors.

[...]Kim also measured the outcomes for each of her categories. Supportive parents had the best developmental outcomes, as measured by academic achievement, educational attainment, family obligation (considered positive outcomes), academic pressure, depressive symptoms, and parent-child alienation (considered negative).Academic achievement and attainment were purely data-driven, while the latter four came from different assessments developed by academics over the years (the academic pressure rating is Kim’s own), which, while considered reliable, are inherently somewhat subjective. Children of easygoing parents were second in outcomes, while tiger moms produced kids who felt more alienated from their parents and experienced higher instances of depressive symptoms. They also had lower GPAs, despite feeling more academic pressure.[...]

[Source]

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Post tags: Amy Chua, Chinese-Americans, education, parenting, social research, tiger mom
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A failing student who offered his professor £5,000 in cash in an attempt to pass his degree has been jailed for 12 months.

[...]Li had been given a mark of 37% in his dissertation, short of the 40% needed to pass. Graves told him he could resubmit the 12,000-word essay, appeal against the mark or accept it and withdraw from the course.

But Li offered a fourth option, the court was told. He told Graves: “I am a businessman,” and placed £5,000 in cash on the table in front of him. “You can keep the money if you give me a pass mark and I won’t bother you again,” Li was alleged to have said.

Graves asked Li to leave but as the student put the money away, a replica handgun – loaded with six pellets – fell from his pocket to the floor, the court heard.

This case has brought back into the spotlight the mutual struggles between Chinese students and their hosts. Since 2000, the number of Chinese students abroad has been rapidly climbing, and last year China became the world’s top source of foreign students. International education has become a profitable industry both for schools seeking more foreign students, and for the agencies that help Chinese students gain acceptance to overseas schools, often by using shady tactics. While some advocate bilateral study abroad programs as a means to enhance strategic international relationships, others have characterized them as “ticking time bombs” that, due to cultural differences, could lead to crises. Indeed, cultural differences were cited by Li Yang’s lawyers in his defense, who noted that carrying large sums of cash is common in China. While covering the Li case (and other similar cases), the Global Times talked to lawyers and education professionals about playing the “cultural difference” card when caught breaking the rules:

However, there are factors that make bribery a more attractive choice in China. According to the criminal law, bribe-taking has a lower threshold before it constitutes a crime and a tougher punishment than bribery, which makes the legal costs smaller. At the same time, those found guilty of bribery can have their penalties reduced by providing evidence to law enforcers.

“On the other hand, those who offer bribes are often considered the weak party compared with the more powerful bribe-takers, and the public likes to see corrupt officials being punished – this eventually formed an attitude in society where using money or gifts in exchange for interests is not ‘bribery’ or crime, but a ‘favor,’” Guo Rui, a Beijing-based attorney, told the Global Times.

[...]There are many, however, who think this is no excuse. “Cultural difference is not a fig leaf of ignorance of the law or an excuse to evade responsibility,” said Xue Yong, assistant professor at Suffolk University in Boston, in his Sina column.

Last year, when a Chinese student studying in the U.S. was accused of sexual assault, his parents flew to the U.S. and allegedly attempted to bribe the accuser. In that case, witness tampering charges against the parents were dropped due to “cultural differences”.

For more on profits and problems in overseas educational programs, read director of Peking University High School’s international division Jiang Xueqin’s posts for The Diplomat, or see The Chronicle of Higher Education’s coverage of China. Also see prior CDT coverage of overseas Chinese students.

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While many countries lament their soaring college dropout rates, China may have just the opposite problem: Too many people finishing university. Some chalk this up to the success of China’s rigorous college entrance exam and family support systems. But others say the country’s universities have become too easy and are producing a glut of graduates that are saturating an already dismal job market.

[…] In 2011, the Beijing-based Mycos Institute released a study showing that only 3 percent of China’s university students drop out [compared with 54% in the U.S., 32% in the U.K., and 11% in Japan]. The Ministry of Education immediately refuted that “high rate” saying the true proportion was just 0.75 percent.

[…] An American teacher, who spoke on the condition he and his school not be named, taught at a well-known public university in Beijing from 2010 to 2011. When he tried to fail a student who never came to class once the entire semester and then skipped the final exam, he was rebuked by a higher-up. “The director basically gave me an ‘either you do it or we will do it’ type answer,” the teacher said. “I was also told to pass on this information to other teachers with the explanation that it got more confusing if we failed a student.  In fact, if a student failed another teacher’s class, and that teacher refused to change [the grade], they had another teacher change it. I had to do this multiple times. We would have a make-up test (usually five minutes) and I would give them a grade.”

Read more on China’s booming production of college graduates, the sacrifices their parents make for increasingly uncertain returns, and the resulting hunger for security that may sap the economy’s vitality in future, via CDT.

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“This is not a cost-cutting exercise […] It’s a direct result of our strategy to have production close to the core markets. This factory will not supply Europe or North America,” Lego spokesman Roar Rude Trangbaek said, adding that the Lego factory in China will be able to supply 70% to 80% of the Lego bricks sold in Asia in 2017.

[…] Currently, Lego sources a small portion of its Lego and Duplo bricks from Chinese suppliers as well as the majority of its electronic and textile components.

But the coming Lego factory in Jiaxing, about 100 kilometers from Shanghai, will be a complete factory, a replica of Lego’s four existing factories in Denmark, Mexico, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Lego’s total global sales reached $4.1 billion last year.

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Post tags: Denmark, education, factories, Jiaxing, manufacturing, toy industry, toys, Zhejiang
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Wu Yiebing has been going down coal shafts practically every workday of his life, wrestling an electric drill for $500 a month in the choking dust of claustrophobic tunnels, with one goal in mind: paying for his daughter’s education.

His wife, Cao Weiping, toils from dawn to sunset in orchards every day during apple season in May and June. She earns $12 a day tying little plastic bags one at a time around 3,000 young apples on trees, to protect them from insects. The rest of the year she works as a substitute store clerk, earning several dollars a day, all going toward their daughter’s education.

[…] Her parents’ sacrifices to educate their daughter explain how the country has managed to leap far ahead of the United States in producing college graduates over the last decade, with eight million Chinese now getting degrees annually from universities and community colleges.

But high education costs coincide with slower growth of the Chinese economy and surging unemployment among recent college graduates. Whether young people like Ms. Wu find jobs on graduation that allow them to earn a living, much less support their parents, could test China’s ability to maintain rapid economic growth and preserve political and social stability in the years ahead.

Reading the whole article is strongly recommended.

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Post tags: Ant Tribe, college entrance exam, college graduate joblessness, college students, education, job market, jobs, rural children, rural poor, rural urban divide, unemployment
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Fredrik Bergman ran into a problem when a client in Sweden tried to transfer files to his firm’s headquarters here: Each time, the firm lost its Web connection for an hour or so.

After several weeks of multiple outages a day, he says, the firm solved the puzzle: the files were named for the Swedish town of Falun, where the client was working. Mr. Bergman says his firm thinks the name triggered the filters China’s online censors use to block discussion of Falun Gong, a religious group long banned in China.

[…] The American Chamber of Commerce in China said last year that nearly three-quarters of about 300 businesses it surveyed said unstable Internet access impedes their efficiency. About 40% said China’s censorship efforts have a negative business impact.

[…] “The real question is whether the next administration is going to continue to roll back Internet availability to foreign firms,” [Shaun] Rein said. He said companies are unlikely to pull out of China in any case, but they likely will think twice about moves like shifting their regional headquarters to Beijing from places like Singapore and Hong Kong. “They will still invest in China,” he said. “It just depends on what scale.”

Though one China-based entrepreneur tells Mozur and Tejada that homegrown web companies have benefited from shelter against international competition, the overall cost of Internet controls on Chinese firms is likely to be even higher. From Andy Yee at openDemocracy:

This censorship regime is hurting China’s competitiveness in the internet age. Very often, it is commercial firms that bear the collateral damages. Online portals are frustrated about the energy and time wasted on outsourced censorship tasks from the propaganda department. Chinese web giant Tencent has to work hard to deal with censorship concerns connected with its globally popular chat app WeChat among international users, who are accustomed to sharing information freely. Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE, flagged by the US Congress as security threats on flimsy evidence, are victims of China’s perceived opacity. And investor uncertainty about censorship and over-regulation mean that market performance of Chinese internet companies will never achieve their potential.

More importantly, to the extent that web technologies become essential platforms for learning, collaboration and innovation, China runs serious risks of underachieving its information technology ambitions. Chinese talents are robbed of learning possibilities simply because many foreign websites and tools are blocked. According to a UNESCO report, some open educational resources are out of reach for students and educators in China because they are filtered by the Great Firewall.

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[...A]mid all of the challenges the U.S. and China face and the complex nature of our relationship, the 100,000 Strong Initiative brings a smile to the face of the most hardened interlocutor. The Initiative, launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010, has a very important goal: to enhance the U.S.-China strategic relationship through study abroad. The U.S. and China have many tense areas of negotiation, but both sides agree that people-to-people exchanges are a win-win.

[...] I believe strongly in these goals and so does the secretary, who last week hosted an event to celebrate the creation of the 100,000 Strong Foundation, a new nonprofit, nonpartisan organization borne out of the 100,000 Strong Initiative she launched to generate greater demand, promote diversity and encourage support for programs to study in China and learn Mandarin here at home.

[...] And these two global powers cannot work together unless we understand each other. Currently, there are 10 times more Chinese studying in the U.S. than there are Americans studying in China. And there are 600 times more Chinese who study English than Americans who study Mandarin. The number of young Chinese who are knowledgeable about American politics and popular culture is far greater than the number of young Americans who have even the faintest familiarity with how the Chinese live, do business and govern their society.

We must diversify as well as expand the number of Americans who know about China. As with other essential skills for succeeding in the global economy, opportunities to learn about China must be made available to a cross section of young Americans from every background and walk of life.

See more on U.S. relations via CDT.

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Post tags: Chinese and American exchange students, Chinese students, education, educational exchange, overseas Chinese students, study abroad, U.S. relations
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To the extent that China succeeds, its educational leap forward could have profound implications in a globalized economy in which a growing share of goods and services is traded across international borders. Increasingly, college graduates all over the world compete for similar work, and the boom in higher education in China is starting to put pressure on employment opportunities for college graduates elsewhere — including in the United States.

China’s current five-year plan, through 2015, focuses on seven national development priorities, many of them new industries that are in fashion among young college graduates in the West. They are alternative energy, energy efficiency, environmental protection, biotechnology, advanced information technologies, high-end equipment manufacturing and so-called new energy vehicles, like hybrid and all-electric cars.

“If they went to China for brawn, now they are going to China for brains,” said Denis F. Simon, one of the best-known management consultants specializing in Chinese business.

By quadrupling its output of college graduates in the past decade, China now produces eight million graduates a year from universities and community colleges. That is already far ahead of the United States in number — but not as a percentage. With only about one-fourth the number of China’s citizens, the United States each year produces three million college and junior college graduates.

Aside from producing students to become part of the global workforce, Chinese state media is pushing a ‘China Dream’ of starting a business rather than vying for spots in the civil service, Xinhua reports:

Tan Longchao, Ma Nan, Chen Zhe and Tang Ming opened a shop that sells native products at the end of 2011, after graduating from Beifang University of Nationalities in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

During the college graduation and recruitment period, some young Chinese have been inspired to pursue their dreams.

“After hearing about the Harbin story, I felt disappointed for the younger generation of our country. The four young men from Ningxia offer hope and I believe many youngsters will be inspired.” said a netizen named “Xiaobudian”.

On his blog, “Xiaodong” said, “I was hesitating about starting my own business but I know I will be halfway to success if I am brave enough to follow my dream.”

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Post tags: college students, education, higher education
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Around a third of the capital’s 20 million population are migrants, but many of their families become split by rules requiring their children to go to their “home” provinces — even if they have never lived there — sometimes for years, to study for and take the test, which varies by location.

[...] ”Either you let the country share in your education resources or you accept the reality that outsiders are stuck in your education gutter,” said Du Guowang, a 12-year Beijing resident from Inner Mongolia.

[...] But bigger cities are less willing to share residency or benefits, fearing doing so would burden their already strained resources and spur a new influx.

[...] Despite years of lobbying national and city education officials, the migrant parents in Beijing have received noncommittal answers — along with occasional warnings. Their website, where they posted their demands, stopped working recently.

Meanwhile, Chongqing has allowed migrant children to take gaokao in the city. Xinhua News Agency reports:

Chongqing is the latest metropolis to ease the household restriction on migrants attending gaokao, following Heilongjiang, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong and other provinces.

Outside the pilot regions, the exam restriction is still in place, although children of migrant workers can take the nine-year compulsory education (from elementary to high schools) without household restrictions.

[...] Wang Boqing, president of MyCOS, a Beijing-based higher education consulting and outcome evaluation company, said that the move would definitely boost equity of schooling but was more than that.

“It’s really about the rights of people. Migrant workers pay taxes and contribute to government revenues. So universities in cities where they work should be open to them, because these schools all receive funding from governments,” he said.

See also China to “Speed Up” Hukou System Reform, via CDT.

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While Tibetan’s survival seems relatively likely, a report at ChinaNews.com [zh] shows that other minority languages in China are in critical danger. From Bruce Humes’ translated highlights at Ethnic ChinaLit:

• Non-han languages: 55 officially designated “peoples” (民族) speak an estimated 130 languages

• Populations: one-half of non-Han languages are spoken by groups that number under 10,000 members, of which 20+ have 1,000 speakers or less

• Endangered languages: Manchu, Tatar, She, Hezhen can no longer be used for conversation; another 20 percent, such as Nu, Yilao, Pumi and Jinuo are approaching that state; and a total of 40 percent are in danger of extinction in the mid-term.

• Manchu: 11 million ethnic Manchus, but only 100 or so can speak fluently and less than a dozen read and write well.

Language decline and extinction is by no means limited to China: up to half of the 7,000 languages currently spoken may disappear by the end of the 21st Century, equivalent on average to three dying out each month. Technology has helped reverse the decline of some North American aboriginal languages, however, and Tibetan has also been bolstered by blogging and online organisation and resources. Monk, font designer and software developer Lobsang Monlam discussed these developments in an interview at Trace Foundation:

Compared with developed countries, the impact of digital technology on Tibetans is relatively small and not extensive. However, in comparison to smaller communities, the impact in only a few years has been great and the progress is remarkable. To preserve the Tibetan language, there must be an appropriate forum for its use, and we must use it accordingly. There also must be proper conditions for its use. I see this as particularly important inside Tibet.

[…] From a dharma practitioner’s point of view, I serve the Tibetan people by preserving the Tibetan language. Our cultural heritage is dependent on this language. As I work hard on these projects, my motivation is pure, which is very important here.

[…] The Tibetan language still lags behind in the digital technology sphere. We are still only utilizing 5% of Tibetan’s capacity with regards to digital technologies. The language can still only be used for word processing, on the Internet and a few other applications. We have need a comprehensive character, grammar and spell check software. We also need to develop software that reads Tibetan words properly; a computer operating system that can be used in Tibetan, and software to convert old Tibetan fonts to the Unicode system. I feel these projects are very important for the digitization of the Tibetan language. We also need Optical Character Recognition software for Tibetan, various databases in the Tibetan language, speech-to-text software for Tibetan, translation software between Tibetan and other languages, and translations of important websites to Tibetan; all this is also very vital for Tibetan language.

Tibetan Dechen Pemba of High Peaks Pure Earth contributed to this post.

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Post tags: blogging, cultural preservation, education, languages, Manchu, online organizing, Tibetan language
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Zhan Haite has been refused entry to a Shanghai high school because her hukou is from rural Jiangxi Province. She is petitioning for her right to an education.

The following examples of censorship instructions, issued to the media and/or Internet companies by various central (and sometimes local) government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.” CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

Central Propaganda Department: No media will report or comment on Zhan Quanxi and Zhan Haite in Shanghai engaging in so-called “rights defense” in the name of equal participation in the high school entrance exam and getting involved in conflicts with personnel. (December 11, 2012)

中宣部：对上海占全喜、占海特以平等参与中考为名进行所谓维权，与工作人员发生冲突，各媒体不报不评。

Central Propaganda Department: With the exception of Xinhua wire copy, media in all locales are not to republish, report, or comment on online rumors of a wave of complaints emerging from the Chongqing beat black campaign, questions about millions in assets from mafia deals, and other issues. (December 11, 2012)

中宣部：对网传重庆打黑出现申诉潮，千亿涉黑资产处置成疑等问题，除新华社通稿外，各地媒体不转载不报道不评论。

Central Propaganda Department: All levels of media must follow to the letter previous requests in reporting on issues involving central Party leaders. You may not use any other source but Xinhua wire copy. (December 11, 2012)

中宣部：各级媒体有关涉中央领导的报道严格执行此前要求，不能采用新华社通稿以外的任何消息。

Central Propaganda Department: With regards to reports about the Jinan municipal government building, all media must without exception employ Xinhua wire copy and cease voluntary reporting and commentary. (December 12, 2012)

中宣部：对济南市政府办公楼相关问题的报道，各媒体一律采用新华社通稿，不再自行报道评论。

The Long’ao Building, apparently second in size only to the Pentagon, is rumored to have cost over 4 billion yuan to construct [zh]. Authorities claim that no public funds were used.

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Chen shocked the world in April when he made a daring, next-to-impossible escape, climbing over the wall surrounding his house (breaking his foot in the process) and catching a ride some 350 miles to Beijing, where he took refuge in the U.S. Embassy. After a tense, days-long diplomatic standoff closely involving Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (No. 3), a deal was struck under which Chen would be allowed to travel to the United States to study. Now at New York University, Chen has embraced his new role as an evangelist for human rights, making the case that incremental change — one village or even one person at a time — can eventually transform a superpower. Against all odds, he remains optimistic, believing that China, taking a cue from Japan and South Korea, must “learn Eastern democracy.” He even thinks it’s inevitable: “Nobody can stop the progress of history,” he says.

An interview with Chen Guangcheng by Isaac Stone Fish accompanies the list. In it, Chen discusses how the central government allows abuses by local authorities—see Guizhou journalist Li Yuanlong’s detention last week for a recent example—and the chances of change or even revolution in China’s near future.

The central government definitely knew I was illegally detained at home. As for how the local authorities invented lies to frame me to put me in prison, as for how they persecuted my entire family, [the central government] didn’t necessarily know about the details. Yet now, six months later, I still haven’t seen the central government follow the country’s laws and keep its promise and investigate and deal with those officials who recklessly and illegally committed crimes.

Throughout Chinese history, has any emperor said they want to hand over power? Every emperor wants his power to last generation after generation. But can they? The Communist Party cannot monopolize all of the power in the country forever. This is a reality they must accept.

The possibility of China facing a revolution in 2013 is pretty big. This is something that the powers that be in China understand more than anyone else. It’s a pity that international society still does not understand this and has still not prepared. America should immediately start moving from dealing with China’s powers that be to dealing with the Chinese people. It definitely won’t be like 1989.

Chen does not appear to view the possibility of revolution with any great relish: when asked what the worst idea of the year is, he answered “violence”.

Controversial artist Ai Weiwei, still unable to leave China over a year after his 81-day detention in 2011, is ranked 26th:

[…] Ai has found ways to occupy his time. When one of his Twitter followers asked in May whether he was working on any new artwork, Ai tweeted back, “I am the artwork.” In April, he set up cameras throughout his house, providing a live feed on his website and to his 170,000 followers. (“Twitter is my city, my favorite city,” he told FP this year.) The authorities soon pressured him into removing the cameras, evidently preferring that they be the only ones to watch the rotund 55-year-old work on his computer and play with his cats.

But make no mistake — this performance art is deeply political. Throughout his career Ai has insisted that artists have a duty to humanity that outweighs the obligations of nationalism. Even declaring one’s opposition to “trafficking children, selling HIV-infected blood, [and] operating slave labor coal pits” is enough to get branded as “anti-China” in today’s political climate, Ai once noted on his blog, asking, “If we aren’t anti-China, are we still human?”

Foreign Policy also published a slideshow from Ai’s first North American retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., noting that “the artist was not in attendance.”

British singer Elton John added a concert dedication to Ai’s list of recent accolades on Sunday. While dismissing this “disrespectful” gesture, Global Times took the opportunity to critique Chen and Ai’s inclusion in the Foreign Policy list:

Western society is seriously biased against China. When US magazine Foreign Policy compiled a list of 100 global thinkers from around the world, the first Chinese on that list was blind activist Chen Guangcheng, and the second was Ai Weiwei. Even to Chinese people who have sympathy for these two people, this list may seem ridiculous.

In a diverse era, we don’t hold that the existence of people like Chen and Ai is unexpected in China. Also, we don’t believe that the impact they have brought should be denied completely.

The selection of Chen and Ai makes people wonder whether the word “thinker” in Chinese and English have different meanings. We can just say that some Westerners are increasingly unable to contain themselves over China’s rise. They cannot control China through normal means and they are more likely to rush their fences.

A more nuanced piece of Aiconoclasm came last week from Paul Gladston at Randian:

There are […] significant dangers in the upholding of Ai as our sole representative/mediator of artistic resistance to authority within China. While Ai’s bluntly confrontational and often bombastic stance can be readily digested within Western liberal-democratic contexts where romantic notions of heroic dissent in the face of overwhelming power still persist, it is by no means representative of the critical positioning of most other Chinese artists. Ai may have situated himself admirably behind enlightened westernized ideals of freedom and openness, but the sheer bluntness and reductive simplicity of his critical approach to authority have effectively foreclosed a more searching discussion of contemporary art within China as well as the complex, web of localized cultural, social, political and economic forces that surround its production and reception.

[…] Ai Weiwei is right in drawing our repeated attention to the debilitating injustices of totalitarian power within China. He is also right to upbraid western viewers for their inability to see past what are for them the pleasurable ambiguities of contemporary Chinese art. Less convincing, however, is Ai’s wholly reductive view of the critical possibilities of contemporary art in China. By insisting on his own stridently oppositional approach towards power as the only legitimate game in town, and because we are already highly familiar with that approach, [he] has misrepresented the contemporary Chinese artworld. One might add that Ai is also romanticizing the conditions of criticality in the West.

At 54 in the Foreign Policy list is Yu Jianrong, for his concise but detailed roadmap for reform.

In April, he released a succinct, two-phase plan he called a “10-Year Outline of China’s Social and Political Development.” Despite its bland title, Yu’s blueprint offers a timetable for Chinese reform that for once is as credible as it is ambitious. The plan puts dates and specifics to the task, advocating, for example, a stronger law on private property, the revealing of “information pertaining to government affairs” and “officials’ property,” and the abolition of “speech crimes,” after which China should “open up” the media and political parties. Yu’s short manifesto immediately caused a splash when he released it to his nearly 1.5 million followers on the popular microblogging site Sina Weibo (though the government has maintained a deafening silence). “We’ve already decided to change,” Yu explained in an interview. “The question is: In which direction do we change, and from where do we start?” Sweeping reform in this authoritarian land of 1.3 billion won’t be easy, but Yu’s plan is as good a place to begin as any. The era, he said, of crossing the river “by feeling the stones” is over.

China Media Project’s David Bandurski translated Yu’s plan in March. Soon afterwards, Didi Kirsten Tatlow described it at The International Herald Tribune, together with some criticism from Tsinghua University political scientist Liu Yu:

Master plans like Mr. Kang [Youwei]’s, or Mr. Yu’s are “unrealistic,” she said.

“All Chinese intellectuals, especially the men, they tend to blur the line with being an official and then they’re thinking, ‘How should I design a system for the country?’ and ‘How to make progress?’

“In the West there are intellectuals who make proposals on specific things, but in general they don’t make plans for the whole country,” she said.

What is needed instead, she believes, is a broad debate, among ordinary people.

“A good plan should involve the whole society,” she said. “There should be a big debate on where the country should be going.”

Yu’s nomination for best idea of 2012 is Mo Yan’s controversial selection for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Mo’s chief rival for the award, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, took 49th place on the Foreign Policy list as a consolation prize.

At 69 is environmentalist Ma Jun:

[…] A journalist turned environmentalist who founded the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, Ma applies scientific rigor to exposing such corporate violations (more than 90,000 to date), flagging everything from a small coal-tar factory improperly storing its dangerous waste to Apple suppliers poisoning workers with a toxic chemical used on touch screens — as well as local governments that flout environmental regulations across China. Dozens of major multinationals now consult Ma’s pollution readings when working with suppliers in China. And by documenting environmental violations that had long been obvious but were never compiled in a way the public could easily understand, Ma has given statistical ammunition to Chinese citizens trying to nudge the Communist Party into cleaning up its act.

Wang Jisi, “China’s most respected expert on the United States”, came in at 73:

[…] What does Wang want us to know? That the feel-good stories U.S. officials tell themselves about China’s global ascent are an elaborate form of denial. In an influential monograph co-authored by Brookings Institution senior fellow Kenneth Lieberthal, Wang this year described China’s actions on the world stage as rooted in the conclusion that “America will seek to constrain or even upset China’s rise.” Beijing’s view, he says, is that the United States is “heading for decline” and that China’s development model provides an “alternative to Western democracy and market economies.” The result? “[T]hese views make many Chinese political elites suspect that it is the United States,” Wang says, “that is ‘on the wrong side of history.’”

And at 83 is the Taiwanese-American former head of Google China, venture capitalist Kai-fu Lee:

In an article he published on his LinkedIn page in October, Lee named China’s narrowly focused school curriculum and the risk-averse nature of Chinese students, as well as the country’s chaotic Internet environment, among the reasons China hasn’t yet produced its own Mark Zuckerberg. That may be why he has also started a popular education website encouraging Chinese students to think more creatively. Although none of his companies has exploded yet, Lee’s ultimate contribution may be more fundamental: laying both the intellectual and financial groundwork for a revolution in the world’s largest online community.

Perhaps more significant to China for now than any of the above are Aung San Suu Kyi and Thein Sein, who top the list having begun to pilot the formerly reliable Chinese satellite of Myanmar (also known as Burma) into a more open and international orbit:

Aung San Suu Kyi, the soft-spoken, iconic political activist whom devotees call simply “the Lady,” may not seem like an obvious partner for Thein Sein, but she has become one by doing what few legends of her stature can: embracing the messy pragmatism of politics. Although Burma’s struggles are far from over — she has warned that international investment has been too rapid, and ethnic violence is escalating — the willingness of both the Lady and the general to embrace short-term compromise and foster long-term reconciliation in what was only recently one of the world’s most isolated countries is something to celebrate.

Fittingly, Aung San Suu Kyi finally was able to accept her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in June. She used the occasion to remind the world of those like her, who struggle in the most forlorn places: “To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity.” It is a sentiment still felt from Aleppo to Havana, Pyongyang to Tehran, but also, as Aung San Suu Kyi and Thein Sein have shown, one that doesn’t need to be permanent.

See more on Chen Guangcheng, Ai Weiwei, Yu Jianrong, Ma Jun, Wang Jisi, Kai-fu Lee and Myanmar/Burma at CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Apple, artistic freedom, artists, Burma, central government, Chen Guangcheng, contemporary art, contemporary artists, education, Global Times, Google, Haruki Murakami, Hillary Clinton, HIV, house arrest, IPE, Kaifu Lee, kenneth lieberthal, Li Yuanlong, local government, Ma Jun, mo yan, Myanmar, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel Prize, pollution, private property, reform, reformers, revolution, slave labor, surveillance, trafficking, transparency, wang jisi, year end lists 2012, Yu Jianrong
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Nearly everything has a price, parents and educators say, from school admissions and placement in top classes to leadership positions in Communist youth groups. Even front-row seats near the blackboard or a post as class monitor are up for sale.

Zhao Hua, a migrant from Hebei Province who owns a small electronics business here, said she was forced to deposit $4,800 into a bank account to enroll her daughter in a Beijing elementary school. At the bank, she said, she was stunned to encounter officials from the district education committee armed with a list of students and how much each family had to pay. Later, school officials made her sign a document saying the fee was a voluntary “donation.”

“Of course I knew it was illegal,” she said. “But if you don’t pay, your child will go nowhere.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bribery, corruption, education
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FT Chinese’s Zhang Lifen asks the Weibo public what they would like to ask the Party Congress representatives.

The Chinese Communist Party 18th Party Congress begins tomorrow. Today (Wednesday) at 4:30 p.m. I will attend an “18 Big” news conference for Chinese and foreign journalists in the Golden Hall at the Great Hall of the People. Yesterday evening, I posted a weibo soliciting questions from Chinese people from all walks of life. I received nearly 600 replies, touching on all kinds of issues regarding political and economic reform during China’s social transformation, national welfare and the livelihood of the people, which may serve as a reference of Chinese popular will before the congress of the ruling party. Below are a selection of the questions posed by the public.

OldmanNotUseless: This old fellow has a question: How much are the annual membership fees paid by the 80-million-plus Party members nationwide? Could the total income and expenditure be made public during the congress?

老夫尚未朽：老夫有一问题：全国八千多万党员每年度共缴纳多少党费？总计收入与支出可否在会期公布？

VastUniverseWorld: Disclose officials’ personal finances, round up criminals and the corrupt and start a democratic system! The whole country wants just these three things!

苍茫天地人间: 官员公开财产，围捕贪腐罪犯，进入民主制度！全国人民就这三条！

ForeignFriendV: When will we have multi-party elections for the Politburo Standing Committee and president? At least catch up with Vietnam.

外国友人V：政治局常委和总书记何时能实现差额选举，最起码赶上越南的水平。

ShenzhenHugang: One question: How do eliminate corruption in a one-party system?

深圳胡纲：问一个，如何在一党制下消除腐败？

LiAn_NaDu: Can we not get domestic news from foreign media?

李安_纳度：能不能不从外媒得知国内新闻？

Llqrjl: I have an academic question: How do you learn to bullshit without blushing?

黄金镖：我问个学术性的，说瞎话不脸红是怎么锻炼出来的？

Chengqingui: When will we change parties? When will we have a referendum?

啸傲昨天：什么时候换党，什么时候全民公投啊。

Lanfenglin: My question is what the peasants should do whose life savings are not enough to buy homes for their sons to settle down in the cities. Is their life of hard work obliterated by inflation? Or who is stealing it?

芝林工作了：问一下那些一辈子为了让儿子在城市里留下攒钱买房子到最后还买不起的农民怎么办？他们一辈子辛勤的劳动被物价的上涨给抹杀了？又是被谁窃取了？

LindaNeil: The threshold for individual income tax should be raised and the price of land should be lowered. This will cause housing prices to fall.

LindaNeil：个税基数应该再调高，土地价低点，房价就降点。

macrocrazier: When will political reform go forward?

macrocrazier：政治改革何时进行？

XuShaolin: So I’ll only ask this once and it’s not a complicated political reform question. I just want to ask why you had to close the morning markets near some residential neighborhoods for a meeting. Can’t you hear how loudly the old folks are cursing over this? If you treat ordinary people like thieves, what’s the point of holding this kind of meeting anyway?

老徐时评: 那我就问一次。也不问什么高深的政改问题了，只问问开个会为啥要把一些小区附近的早市关了？可听到那些大爷大妈骂得多难听。像防贼一样防百姓，开这种会还有什么意义吗？

WitheredCucumber: As a Party member, I hope our Party activities won’t disturb the lives of the people who are outside the Party, and I don’t want the funding for our activities to come from tax payers outside the Party. Can these these two hopes be fulfilled?

霜打的黄瓜：作为党员，希望我党的活动不要干扰党外民众的正常生活，也不希望活动经费来自非党员纳税人，这两点可能实现吗？

Hongyu79: Could we increase education spending, and especially ensure proper compensation of teachers in rural areas? A little tip: fine corrupt officials and invest the money into education in their jurisdictions.

城北书生：能否大力度加大教育投入，尤其是农村地区的师资待遇能否得到有力保障？小建议：把罚没贪腐官员的钱款资产专门用于该地区的教育投入。

Lya402: The question I want to address is that people are demanding reform of the political system, but it cannot be pushed through if we do not have freedom of speech. I want to ask: What specific plans do the new leaders have in terms of allowing freedom of speech?

雷村人：我想问的是，政治体制改革民间呼声很高，问题是没有言论自由的开放是无法推进政治体制改革的。 请问，在言论自由开放方面，新一届班子有什么具体打算？

WangKaiyueA: I want to ask if there will be any substantial actions in reform, and how those naked senior Party members and government officials will be dealt with.

王凯悦A：我想问关于改革这届有何实质举措 关于党内政府高层裸官问题政府怎么处理？

SkirtChaserVSWildKid: How much did you spend on this meeting?

裙下之臣VS野孩子：开个会，花了多少钱？

WangYuanchengr: When will officials disclose their personal finances??

王元成知青农民工：官员财产公示啥时搞？？

FlyGerry: A question for the press spokesperson: How many people in your family live in the U.S.?

gd老男孩：请问新闻发言人，您家里有几口人在美国？

DingYoucai: What “-ism” is in place today? Is it state capitalism, or crony capitalism, or what? How are we going to push political reform?

丁友才：现在是什么主义？是国家资本主义，还是权贵资本主义？还是什么？怎样推进政治改革？

Tiangengg: Pay attention to workers laid off by state-owned enterprises and the pension problem.

天根gg：关注国企下岗工人的生存及养老金问题。

NongZaiTianya: Where is the Party leading the country and the people? Any plans? Any goals?

农在天涯：党将把国家、民族引向何方？如何规划的？我们的目标?

WatersideCampanula: The agenda and timetable for judicial independence, please?

在水一方风铃草：请问司法独立的时间表?

Laofang001: How can you give the people true freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association?

SP老方：如何真正使人民获得言论、游行及结社等自由？

ZhouBuchen: When will the billions of peasants truly have equal health care?

木匠周不沉：亿万农民何时有真正的平等医疗福利！！！

WanderDrunkDream: When will the taxi window cranks be reinstalled? I feel carsick.

漂泊醉梦：出租车窗户的手摇啥时候装回去？我晕车。

FreedomState789: A quick question: what’s the standard for the conference meals? Could you broadcast it on TV?

自由的境界789：问个小问题：大会的宴用标准是啥？能拍个视频播放一下吗？

SettingSunLightsRoad: I’m asking where my ballot is. Who is representing me?

夕阳照路：问下我的选票呢？哪去了？谁代表我了？

Mryehaiyan: Will you continue to use “serve the people” and “public servant” as your slogans? Who does “the people” specifically refer to? Do you feel pressured?

叶海燕先生: 依然会用为人民服务及公仆宣传用语吗?人民具体是指什么人？压力大吗?

Maobaochun: Remove the Internet block.

慕容水火：网络屏蔽解除。

NationalAnthemSlave: When will one-party rule end?

唱国歌的奴隶：一党执政到何时?

Hongliholly: Nothing to ask, ’cause the answer will be fake anyway.

hongliholly：没什么可问的，反正答案也是假的

Daxue0755: You tell the spokesperson: Actually, we know everything. If you don’t believe it, just ask me.

daxue0755：你跟发言人说，其实我们什么都知道，不信，你问我。

Anzai: The questions we want to ask are the ones you don’t dare to ask; the questions you want to ask are the ones we have no interest in!

安仔：我们想问的你都不敢问，你想问的我们都没兴趣！

Translated by Mengyu Dong.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, CCP, education, Financial Times, freedom of speech, health care, leadership transition, netizens, Politburo Standing Committee, political reform, state capitalism, state-owned enterprises, Vietnam, weibo
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