China, Schmidt and Cohen write, is “the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information” as well as “the most sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies. In a world that is becoming increasingly digital, the willingness of China’s government and state companies to use cyber crime gives the country an economic and political edge, they say.

[…] But for all the advantages China gains from its approach to the Internet, Schmidt and Cohen still seem to think its hollow political center is unsustainable. “This mix of active citizens armed with technological devices and tight government control is exceptionally volatile,” they write, warning this could lead to “widespread instability.”

In the longer run, China will see “some kind of revolution in the coming decades,” they write.

In a separate post, Gara takes a broader overview of the book’s contents, including real-name registration, “automated and machine-precise” haircuts, and the view that “we’re already living in an age of state-led cyber war, even if most of us aren’t aware of it.” See also Schmidt’s daughter Sophie’s account of their recent trip to North Korea.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: books, cyberutopianism, cyberwar, Eric Schmidt, Google, hacking, real name registration, revolution
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AT 10.40pm on March 20th 1913 a young man who represented one possible future for China stood on the platform at Shanghai railway station, waiting with friends to board a train to Beijing. Song Jiaoren—30 years old, sporting a Western suit and a wisp of a moustache—had just brilliantly led his new political party, the Nationalists, to overwhelming success in parliamentary elections, the country’s first attempt at democracy after two millennia of imperial rule. He was in line to become China’s first democratically elected prime minister, and to help draft a new constitution for the Republic of China.

[…] But an assassin’s bullet prevented him from trying. Armed with a Browning revolver, an unemployed ex-soldier in black military garb fired a single slug into his back and fled. Song was taken to a nearby hospital, where a bullet was removed from his abdomen. He knew death was near, and in the last political act of his life he dictated a telegram to his chief adversary, President Yuan Shikai […]: “I die with deep regret. I humbly hope that your Excellency will champion honesty, propagate justice, and promote democracy…”

Song died on March 22nd. China’s best chance of democracy may have died with him.

[…] But what if Song had lived? How close did China come to forging a democracy 100 years ago? Was Song’s dream of a liberal revolution doomed? How far did an assassin’s bullet change China’s destiny—just as the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo soon afterwards changed Europe’s?

See more from The Economist’s special double issue at Economist.com.

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Post tags: assassination, democracy, history, Nationalist Party, Nationalists, Republic of China, revolution, The Economist
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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.

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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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While there was no abundance of foreigners in China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, foreign members of the CCP were even less common. Soon after publishing a 1967 editorial in the People’s Daily (“中国文化大革命打开了通向共产主义的航道” [China's Great Cultural Revolution Opens the Path to Communism]) lauding the ideological foundations of the Cultural Revolution, Rittenberg was imprisoned for the remainder of the movement (his second lengthy stint in Chinese prison), and was finally released in 1977. In 1980 he moved back to the US, and has since counseled American companies on how to do business in China, taught Chinese studies at Pacific Lutheran University, and written an autobiography.

The Revolutionary, a film documenting this unique story, recently premiered at Seattle’s International Film Festival. The film’s official trailer provides a few excerpts of Rittenberg speaking about Mao, the Cultural Revolution, and his time in prison:

Click here to view the embedded video.

A review from People’s World describes the film and tells more of Rittenberg’s story:

“The Revolutionary” is a “talking head” documentary that doesn’t suffer from a lack of action, thanks to Rittenberg’s funny, affable, self-deprecating style, his honesty, and his ability as a storyteller to simultaneously enthrall, amuse, and educate. Rittenberg is open about mistakes he made, and “owns” his own shortcomings and bad decisions. He’s further humanized by his long abiding relationship with his wife, Yulin.

The film’s main visual appeal comes from vintage “socialist realist” propaganda posters from the Mao era, and photos of Rittenberg with Mao and other Chinese Communist Party leaders. The film’s narrative of Rittenberg’s China experience is balanced and well put together.

[...]Besides being a riveting entertainment, “The Revolutionary” is valuable for its insights on the revolutionary process, the importance of maintaining civil rights, and the prospects for progress in the current era.

The film’s website is compiling a list of reviews from the media and from China experts. Visit KUOW Seattle’s website to hear a recent interview with Rittenberg discussing his long relationship with China and his political views (he is asked what the young, leftist Rittenberg would think about Rittenberg the business consultant). Also, see prior CDT coverage of Rittenberg on China’s changes.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cultural Revolution, documentaries, film festivals, foreigners in China, Mao Zedong, revolution, Sidney Rittenberg
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The goal of the Xinhai Revolution, for its leaders, was to establish a democratic republic in China. Working out how to celebrate the centenary of the revolution on October 10, 2011 has not been easy. The republican ideal has been achieved, but in most of the Chinese world, democracy has not. Only the Republic of China (ROC, or Taiwan) and Singapore have full democracy. Hong Kong has a free press, rule of law, and limited elections. The Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) has virtually no democracy, despite the many rights and freedoms listed in the constitution.

The PRC and the ROC relate to each other well with a tacit agreement for ‘mutual non-recognition and mutual non-denial’, i.e. a tacit agreement to continue the status quo. But this strategy cannot extend to celebrating the Xinhai Revolution.

The PRC’s democratic deficit makes it difficult to celebrate the democratic aspect of the revolution. Instead, the planned celebrations are cultural events, conferences, the opening of museums, and the unveiling of statues. Recognition will be given to the overseas Chinese who supported the revolutionaries. The most spectacular production is a movie starring Jackie Chan as Huang Xing, one of the revolutionary leaders, and Joan Chen as the Empress Dowager, which will open on the anniversary.

The ROC is playing the democracy card. A series of events – conferences, rock concerts, a peace bell, and a mass bike ride around Taiwan – are planned to present the ROC as the pioneer of Chinese democracy. The ROC’s message is that the road to democracy need not be violent or threatening.

A recent article in The Economist mentions the worries that went along with planning a celebration of revolutionary activity on the mainland:

China and Taiwan have long disputed each others’ claims to be the heir of the 1911 revolution. Sun Yat-sen, regarded as the revolution’s leader, is officially revered on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. As usual around the time of the anniversary, a giant portrait of him was erected on October 1st in Tiananmen Square, opposite that of Mao Zedong (both wearing Sun suits, as they were known before their rebranding in Mao’s day). But the Communist Party’s efforts to play up the occasion have revealed its nervousness.

[...]In recent months, upheaval in the Arab world has made officials even more nervous. In April they banned a symposium on the revolution planned by students at several leading universities in Beijing. A website advertising the event said that it aimed to look not only at “inspirational revolutionary victories” but also at things “hidden deeper” concerning democracy.

[...]But the authorities are not letting their political worries spoil a spending opportunity. In Wuhan, where the revolution began, they announced plans to splurge 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) on 1911-related exhibitions and on a makeover for the city. The Manchu emperor abdicated in February 1912, ending over 2,000 years of dynastic rule. Officials in Wuhan, and elsewhere, have been keeping quiet about the orgy of violence against Manchus that accompanied the upheaval (see article).

Beijing did more than just give the city of Wuhan a makeover.  From NYTimes.com:

In Wuhan, the birthplace of the 1911 uprising, police were directed to reinforce their patrols between Aug. 27 and Oct. 10. Apart from the several thousand officers conducting patrols each day, 100 paramilitary police and 200 special police armed with submachine guns have been assigned to street duty. A quarter of a million surveillance cameras watch every corner 24 hours a day — all in the name of “creating a peaceful environment for the centennial.”

In Beijing, President Hu Jintao used the celebration as an opportunity to speak about cross strait reunification. From China Daily:

President Hu Jintao called on people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits to work together for national rejuvenation as the country marked the 100th anniversary on Sunday of the revolution that overthrew imperial rule.

Addressing a commemoration of the 1911 Revolution, Hu said that national rejuvenation, a cherished goal of Dr Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries, should be the common aspiration on both sides of the Straits.

Peaceful national reunification best serves the fundamental interests of all Chinese people including Taiwan compatriots, he said.

“We should … end cross-Straits antagonism, heal wounds of the past and work together to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Hu said.

The article continues to speak of China’s peaceful intent:

Wang Chaoguang, a researcher with the Institute of Modern History under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Hu’s speech showed that China is a peace-loving country.

China cherishes peace more than any other country because it was nearly torn apart by the turbulence of violence, he said.

“Those who worry about China’s growing strength and regard us as a threat are wrong.”

The Wall Street Journal reports the rhetoric on the other side of the Strait:

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou used the occasion of an important and politically sensitive date in Chinese history to call on China to embrace democracy, as Taiwan’s opposition ratchets up criticism of his closeness to Beijing ahead of elections early next year.

Taiwanese reports focus elsewhere. An article from the Taipei Times covering Hu’s speech about reunification brings into question the CCP’s interpretation of history regarding the fall of the Qing:

[...]the party’s version of the fall of the dynasty has been challenged by critics who say the chaotic chain of coups and insurrections that toppled the corrupt empire and subsequent violent faction conflicts and invasion by Japan are a reminder of the need for democratic reform in the present.

China again faces a dangerous confluence of official corruption, volatile public discontent and stalled reform, Zhou Ruijin (周瑞金), the former deputy editor-in-chief of the People’s Daily newspaper, said in a recent essay about the 1911 revolution.

[...]“For us, China’s Xinhai Revolution is still not dead history, it still has a strong resonance with present-day realities,” said Lei Yi, a historian at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “A key lesson of the revolution is that the country’s fate depends on whether the rulers make the right choices about advancing reforms. Above all, there’s still the issue that a modern China needs a modern form of government — constitutional government.”

From Taiwan’s The China Post:

Beijing believes it is heir to Sun [Yat-sen]‘s legacy and argues that a dramatic rise in living standards during the past 30 years of economic reform is the fruit of his revolution.

But the ideological battle between the Nationalists and Communists continues over whether the Xinhai Revolution ushered in a truly republican form of government in China.

For in depth analysis of the implications of the Xinhai Revolution, see the Asia Pacific Memo’s 100 Years After the Xinhai Revolution series.

To read more about Jackie Chan’s big screen portrayal of the Xinhai Revolution, see China Daily.

Also see this list of a UC Irvine reading group’s links concerning the revolution from The China Beat.

Fans of The Wire check out The Wire Guide to the Xinhai Revolution via Jottings from the Granite Studio.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anniversary, qing dynasty, revolution, unification
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Despite Gaddafi’s fate remaining unknown, his era has undoubtedly come to an end. However, there are reasons to remain cautious, or at least not too optimistic, about the country’s future as no one has any illusions about the tremendous difficulties ahead.

The fact is that a new era is yet to come, due to the current power vacuum and a newly unfolding power struggle.

Currently, the big question is how long the transitional period will last in the crisis-torn North African country now that the Gaddafi regime is gone.

The answer to this largely lies with the rebels themselves. Now the common goal of toppling Gaddafi’s rule in Libya has been achieved, can the rebel camp maintain its unity, establish a new cause, strike a sustainable power balance and secure national reconciliation? For the hastily formed National Transitional Council (NTC), it will be an extremely complicated and arduous mission to establish a national political structure that includes a parliament, various levels of governments, an army and police force.

The Global Times, under the headline “Libya media spectacle gives way to reality“, claimed that the country had become a “mess” for which the West should take responsibility, while simultaneously attributing the collapse of the regime to the will of the people and playing down the importance of Western intervention.

Gaddafi’s fate has told the world two things. First, never underestimate the power of the people. The Libyan civil war resulted from Gaddafi losing the support of his people, particularly those in the east. The spread of the Arab Spring and the help of Western governments were unlikely to have a deep impact without the support of the people.

The second lesson to learn from Gaddafi’s demise is that a weak country cannot easily control its own fate. It cannot escape the will of the major powers.

If Gaddafi had woken up to public demands earlier and pushed reforms through before the West decided to remove him, he might have avoided a civil war and taken Libya down a different path. Now, Libya’s future lies in the hands of the West.

… Overthrowing Gaddafi is entertainment for the media, but talk of rebuilding is not. The West has to take responsibility for clearing up its mess in Libya .

There are too many places in the world that need to be rebuilt right now. Afghanistan and Iraq are already headaches, and Egypt is added to the list. The West is going through economic hardship now, and it is doubtful whether it can stand the Libyan burden?

In a blog post translated by China Media Project, Yang Hengjun dismissed such comparisons with Iraq:

Talking about the whereabouts of Gadhafi recalls the time when Saddam Hussein was found hiding away in a hole, and some people wondered why he would subject himself to such humiliation. What had happened to all of those lofty sentiments about leading the country in opposing America and the West? Was he not willing to sacrifice himself for his righteous cause? How is it these tyrants are all the same? And in talking about Iraq, we can’t help but remember the words we’ve seen on so many websites in China lately: “We’re concerned that Libya might become another Iraq . . . ”

“Another Iraq”? This definitely means seeing Iraq as a negative example. After the American invasion of Iraq there certainly was a time of chaos and killing, but was that not because the dictator Saddam was unwilling to give up his absolute rule and continued to put up a resistance? Try asking the Iraqi people: How many of you are unwilling to make these sacrifices and would rather return to the era of Saddam Hussein? Was there less mass murder and chaos in Iraq under Saddam than there is now …?

When we hear international media reporting again and again on continued chaos and violence in Iraq, however, and when see Iraqis saying on the television that times aren’t as good as they once were, this in fact shows us the biggest difference between Iraq in the time of Saddam and Iraq today. In the Saddam era, did we ever see Iraqis looking into the lens of international media and daring to express their dissatisfaction with political leaders? Those who see Iraq as a textbook of bad examples should look at North Korea, which the American military never has managed to topple. Are the people there harmonious? Are there no killings? Is there no chaos?

A preview of the Global Times’ argument was available in weibo posts by its editor-in-chief, included in Jeremy Goldkorn’s survey of Chinese reactions at Danwei earlier in the week:

The Global Times, a tabloid that often takes an anti-Western stance has not yet published an editorial on the conflict but probably will do soon, judging from editor-in-chief Hu Xijin’s comments on his Weibo microblog. Here is one of them in translation (original here):

In today’s world of negotiation and compromise, Libya has a revolution even more bloody than those of the last century to change the country: this is unreasonable with respect to history.

In this “final battle” for Tripoli, Gaddafi has already been forced into the position of either dying while fighting, or ending up being hanged.

When Western countries can help Libya to make choices, they always help them to make the choice with the highest cost.

Goldkorn went on to describe reactions to a Global Times poll, according to which only 12% believed Gaddafi’s fall could lead to stability in Libya. CNN’s Business 360 blog, meanwhile, collected an array of other views from Sina Weibo:

@FanZaisWorld says: “Lessons learned from Gadhafi’s downfall: (1) never point the gun at your own citizens; (2) never neglect your citizens and have drastic wealth discrepancy; (3) never disregard widespread global values to enforce unpopular governance.”

@JingZhongFengYing: “The Western nations are finally about to make Libya their colony! Libya’s oil will continuously flow into the barrels of the corporate giants in the West! These thieves are stealing in the name of justice! The opposition forces in Libya have become traitors to their country in their battle against the regime.”

@Yanglichuan: “Gadhafi is over. MoFA (China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs) commented, we respect the choice of the Libya people. What if Gadhafi continues to rule the country? MoFA will say the same thing, and China will have its state-run enterprises go back in Libya to find more oil…..This is the most primitive materialism.”

@shanghaixintuofufan: “There is no forever friend but only forever interest. Bye bye our ‘old friend Gaddafi’.”

@Rainliuxing：”After Gaddafi surely comes Syria. There are not many ‘old friends’ left for China.”

Demonstrating that Global Times was not alone in taking the opportunity to cast recriminations, CNN chose the headline “China, Libya’s fair-weather friend”, alluding to China’s scramble to ensure that its oil and other interests outlived the falling regime. China has suggested that the new rulers’ cooperation in the resumption of its oil drilling would be in both parties’ interests. From Reuters:

“China’s investment in Libya, especially its oil investment, is one aspect of mutual economic cooperation between China and Libya, and this cooperation is in the mutual interest of both the people of China and Libya,” the deputy head of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce trade department, Wen Zhongliang, told a news conference.

Wen was answering a question about an official at the Libyan rebel oil firm, AGOCO, who said on Monday that Russian and Chinese firms may lose out on oil contracts for failing to support the rebellion against long-time leader Gaddafi.

“We hope after a return to stability in Libya, Libya will continue to protect the interests and rights of Chinese investors and we hope to continue investment and economic cooperation with Libya in the future,” said Wen ….

Rebel leaders promised last week to honour China’s business contracts in the country and requested China’s help in rebuilding Libya once they ended Gaddafi’s rule, Xinhua reported earlier.

Hoping, no doubt, to secure its role in the reconstruction, China has argued for a UN-led international effort. From Business Insider:

In a phone call with U.S. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the U.N. should lead redevelopment in Libya, rather than NATO, according to Reuters. China is “willing to work alongside the United Nations to promote a rapid stabilization in Libya and a swift course towards reconciliation and reconstruction,” Yang said in a ministry release.

China’s Ministry of Commerce also weighed in: “We hope to play an active role in rebuilding Libya in the future, together with the international community,” spokesman Shen Danyang told a news conference in Beijing.

In a U.N.-led reconstruction program, where contracts might go to the highest bidder, China would benefit greatly. China has money to spend, it knows how to work cheap and it has a huge demand for energy.

China, India and Russia have yet to officially recognize the rebels, however, which may jeopardize their future economic cooperation. From The Wall Street Journal:

Global powers who took chilly positions toward Libya’s insurgents–such as China, Russia or India–will have trouble getting new oil contracts in the future, a spokesman for a rebel-controlled company said this week.

He was speaking as fighters opposing the regime of Col. Moammar Gadhafi entered the capital Tripoli over the weekend. Though Gadhafi himself is still nowhere to be found, the development triggered hopes foreign oil companies may be closer to return to Libya after pulling out in February.

Speaking to Dow Jones over the phone, a spokesman for the Arabian Gulf Oil Co. said “for countries that took hostile positions toward the TNC [rebel Transitional National Council], it will be difficult in the future to get new concessions,” citing India, China and Russia. The spokesman said the TNC “will honor existing contracts.”

But being unable to develop new resources in the country that holds Africa’s largest oil and gas reserves would be a setback for these countries. Unlike the U.S. and European nations, which supported the rebels, the three only had a fledgling presence in Libya prior to the war.

China received 11% of Libya’s oil production in 2010 out of 1.8 million barrels of oil a day produced in the North African nation last year.

China has been a supporter of Gaddafi in the past, and earlier this year Gaddafi cited the Chinese government’s suppression of Tiananmen protests as a model in dealing with Libyan rebels. From the Washington Post:

In a frenzied February speech in which he vowed to wipe out rebels like “cockroaches,” Moammar Gaddafi held up China’s 1989 military assault on Tiananmen Square as an example of how to deal with popular unrest.

“Students in Beijing protested for days near a Coca-Cola sign,” he said. “Then the tanks came and crushed them.”

China’s ruling Communist Party, usually quick to publicize tributes from foreign leaders, banned all reference to the Libyan leader’s tirade in the Chinese media and blacked out foreign television coverage of his praise for the “Tiananmen solution.”

Today, the fortified Tripoli compound where Gaddafi declared his intention of mimicking China’s methods is overrun by rebels. And Beijing is scrambling to distance itself from a leader who lauded its approach to dissent and awarded Chinese companies billions of dollars in contracts — but who has for years also embarrassed, unsettled and sometimes defied the Chinese leadership.

Though often in sync with Gaddafi’s diatribes against Western “imperialism” and eager for a piece of Libya’s massive oil and gas reserves, Beijing has long looked askance at his erratic government, which flirted with Taiwan, criticized China for “colonial” behavior in Africa and frustrated the expansion plans of a big state-owned Chinese petroleum company.

From The Globe and Mail:

“China is now encountering the complications of its non-interference policy,” said Patrick Chovanec, associate professor in Beijing’s Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management. “China has a presence in a lot of countries that are seen as potentially politically unstable and yet it has this policy of supporting that status quo…When things are uncertain, it puts China in a very uncomfortable position.”

Beijing had been in fact been in touch with the rebels for some time, maintaining contact with both sides; Mustafa Abdel Jalil, leader of the rebel National Transitional Council, visited China in June, while a high-ranking Chinese diplomat visited the opposition stronghold of Benghazi the following month. This hedging of bets was noted in an Asia Today video report on China’s preparations for a post-Gaddafi Libya:

Also at The Wall Street Journal, Ben Simpfendorfer suggested that the change may in fact be to China’s advantage:

For China, specifically, the risks and opportunities have always been greater. Libya is China’s 11th largest oil supplier. But the Libyan regime had also turned more hostile towards China in recent years. Sure, China had 35,000 workers in the country. Yet the regime has publicly accused China of colonialism and rejected a bid by China National Petroleum Corporation in 2009 to buy the Libyan energy assets of Verenex, a Canadian oil company.

So regime change in Libya might offer China new opportunities. With that in mind, the fact China’s Ambassador to Egypt was in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi last month was an important statement of intent. And Chinese language reports at the time emphasized that he was there to meet with both the Transitional National Council and Chinese companies (who would like to get paid for old contracts, as well as winning new deals).

Perhaps the bigger risk for China, and the rest of Asia, is what regime change in Libya means for stability in the wider Middle East. The Arab Spring appeared to flagging a few months ago, as Libya’s opposition suffered setbacks even as Syria’s regime dug-in. But Ghaddafi’s fall, as well as recent televised scenes of former Egyptian President Mubarak behind bars, will give new impetus to the Middle East’s revolutionaries.

China Daily reported on Tuesday that staff at the Libyan embassy in Beijing replaced the national flag used under Gaddafi with its predecessor, the Kingdom of Libya flag favoured by the rebel National Transition Council.

While Global Times accused the global media of indulging in a “free-for-all”, and reducing the conflict to a form of entertainment, the situation of the 35 foreign journalists trapped in Tripoli’s Rixos hotel focused attention on the dangers of reporting there. Among them were five reporters from China’s own CCTV, who were safely evacuated along with the others on Wednesday. Their video from inside the Rixos had been subtitled and widely redistributed by CNN, providing a glimpse of the situation inside the hotel alongside Twitter postings by CNN’s Matthew Chance:

Xinhua also recounted the arduous journey its reporters had to make even to reach Tripoli:

A crowded border crossing. Numerous wrecked tanks. Charred trucks. Flattened buildings. Guarded checkpoints. Then, finally, Tripoli, rocked by gunfire and explosions.

That was what a group of Xinhua reporters had just seen on their trip from the Tunisia-Libya border to the Libyan capital, a 400-km odyssey across the desert of western Libya after a 300-km detour through Tunisia.

Due to the UN’s no-fly zone over Libya, it was utterly impossible for the reporters to take a commercial flight into Tripoli. Meanwhile, traveling from the rebel-held eastern port city of Benghazi to Tripoli was also nearly impossible, given that the road between the two cities had been riddled with landmines and ships were mostly being used to transport fighters and war supplies.

Under such circumstances, a viable option for the reporters was to enter the war-stricken North African country via its border with Tunisia. Yet because Tunisia had closed the main Ras El Jedir border crossing, the only way left was to make a detour of hundreds of kilometers and cross the Dehiba border post, which was controlled by Libyan rebels ….

For the foreign reporters covering the Libya conflict, the stress and hardships they had to endure were only temporary and therefore endurable. But for the Libyans, who were still facing an uncertain future and the arduous task of repairing their ravaged homes and hearts, it was hell.

Sources:

The birth of free Libya – The Economist
Don’t rush to celebrate the post-Gaddafi era – Xinhua
Libya media spectacle gives way to reality – Global Times
Qaddafi ‘s imminent fall – some views from China – Danwei
China, Libya’s fair-weather friend – Business 360 – CNN.com
China urges Libya to protect investments – Reuters
China Swoops In To Claim Lucrative Libyan Infrastructure Deals – Business Insider
Libya Rebel Oil Official Says China, Russia Will Have Trouble Getting New Deals – WSJ.com
Libya policy a balancing act for China – The Washington Post
Why China may regret its support for Gadhafi – The Globe and Mail
What Does Gadhafi’s Fall Mean For Asia? – Dispatch – WSJ
Stuck inside the Rixos hotel – CNN.com
Xinhua reporters’ journey through war-ravaged Libya – Xinhua
Flag changes at Libyan embassy in Beijing – chinadaily.com.cn

Victoria Wu contributed to this post.

© samuel wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CCTV, Global Times, Libya, NATO, oil, revolution, UN, Xinhua
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A Chinese blogger first posed the query to President Obama’s chief Asia expert during a videoconference from the White House Situation Room with eight Mainland bloggers.

“In my view, many Chinese netizens and intellectuals believe that China’s future is Tunisia-ization,” noted the Beijing-based blogger, 2Keqi, in the web chat with Jeffrey Bader, the National Security Council’s senior director for Asian affairs. “Does the American government make this same assessment and does it have a policy plan” in the event that China takes such a turbulent path?

Bader and another official, Ben Rhodes, deputy NSC adviser for strategic communications, declined to answer directly, instead repeating the administration’s oft-stated position about the importance of human rights and the need to let people “realize their own aspirations.”

The question came up again last Friday at the White House press briefing, posed to press secretary Robert Gibbs – who similarly declined to engage.

But at a time when many Americans have come to view China – with its double-digit economic growth and huge investments in infrastructure and energy technologies – in terms of the challenges it poses to the United States’ position as the world’s pre-eminent economic power, many here see the country’s closed political system as unsustainable and a key vulnerability restricting its leaders’ grand ambition.

Evan Osnos, who lived in Cairo before his current post in Beijing, also broaches the topic on his New Yorker blog:

Should the Chinese regime be worried that the next Tahrir Square may be Tiananmen Square? My experience in both places tells me that the answer is no. I had an apartment in Cairo for two years before I moved to China in 2005, and I happened to be back in Egypt a year ago for vacation. Trying to pinpoint the level of discontent in a society is a difficult exercise. (Trying to measure contentment is no easier; when P.R. firm Edelman produced a poll suggesting that eighty-eight per cent of the Chinese people “trust” their government, even a strictly regulated Chinese newspaper couldn’t let that go unexamined, and it promptly poked holes in the findings.) But, in Egypt, frustration and rage always lay just beneath the surface. Until last week the dominant national characteristic was sclerosis. It was a nation in suspended animation, with an infrastructure, economy, and leadership that had not measurably improved in more than thirty years. For all of China’s problems these days, the simple fact is that the dominant sensation in China is the polar opposite of that in Egypt: China is a place of constant, dizzying, churning change. The results are hardly distributed equally, by any means, and a slice of the population has benefited unfairly through corruption and injustice. But, at the obvious risk of oversimplification, the lives of average Chinese citizens continue to improve fast enough that they see no reason to upturn the system.

So should the Chinese regime rest easy as long as the economy improves? Not exactly. As Fareed Zakaria rightly points out, Egypt and Tunisia were vulnerable to unrest not because their economies were ailing, but precisely because their economies had improved in recent years, which only accentuated how far the economic gains were outpacing political liberalization.

A post by Christina Larson on the Foreign Policy blog, titled, “Could China be next? No,” answers the question more definitively.

Not surprisingly, Xinhua reports that Beijing hopes Egypt will restore order “at an early date.” And the Global Times (English) argues that color revolutions do not really create democracy.

Nicholas Kristof, who covered the Tiananmen Square protests for the New York Times, is now in Egypt and is tweeting his observations.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Egypt, political reform, revolution
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Anything is possible, I suppose, but the very idea of Chinese activists being so inspired by the riots in Egypt that they’d try to implement the same tactics in China is so absurd it’s laughable.

The only renowned activist in China who’s been pushing for democratic reforms is named Liu Xiaobo, and he’s sitting alone in a jail cell. And most Chinese people believe that’s where he belongs. Not only did he never garner anything like mainstream popular support, he’s considered a “criminal” and a “traitor” by most Chinese citizens who, unfortunately, only know of Liu through the government-owned Chinese media. The Chinese are in no mood to follow anti-government activists into the streets to battle the army and the police.

Most Chinese, as we’ve said here many times, have little to no interest in democratic reforms. The vocal few who do quickly become marginalized or silenced altogether. A major factor behind both the Tunisian and Egyptian conflagrations was poverty and massive unemployment. Recent explosions in the price of food helped bring these crises to a head ….

China has done a far better job than Egypt and Tunisia in terms of keeping people employed and placated. Its public works projects and subsidies of Chinese businesses have helped keep unemployment in check and, unlike in Tunisia, the mood in China (at least when I was there last a few months ago) was wildly optimistic. Tunisia and Egypt are poor, China is rich. Massive riots are virtually unthinkable. Today’s Chinese have little appetite for chaos.

ChinaGeeks’ Charles Custer responds:

Certainly, Beijing is not Cairo. But protesters in Cairo weren’t following some famous pro-democracy activist into the streets, so I’m not sure Liu Xiaobo is an apt comparison to draw here. People in China may consider Liu a criminal, but the Prime Minister just encouraged more people to come out and air their complaints about the government, the idea that Chinese people might act more or less on their own isn’t absurd.

And while I haven’t followed Egypt closely before today, I don’t think China has done as great a job placating everyone in the last few months as you seem to suggest. Inflation is still a problem everyone is pissed about, but the widening gap between rich and poor might be equally explosive. And Qian Yunhui, or the 77 RMB lady, are just the most recent examples that Chinese people are more cynical than ever before about the government.

I would be shocked to see massive anti-government protests calling for a new government like the ones in Cairo. But I wouldn’t be too surprised to see another “Li Gang” incident spark some real unrest about inflation, housing prices and the wealth gap, given the right circumstances.

The article and comments thread as a whole are recommended reading.

See also: China Blocks ‘Egypt’ on Microblogging Service, and the original question from the White House press conference, together with Gibbs’ response:

Q: Can I ask you about China? It seems like a leap, and geographically it is, and culturally it is, but when President Hu was here there was a lot of discussion about human rights and about the need as you become more powerful to consider elements of free society or rule of law. Does the U.S. believe — or do you think that China should be concerned in any way about what’s happening in Egypt? Or do you think it’s — they’re such completely different societies and that this is mostly an Arab-Muslim thing at this point?

MR. GIBBS: Let me make sure I understand. Are you talking about our posture toward China or —

Q: No, I’m talking about the notion of citizens around the world in societies with —

MR. GIBBS: Let me —

Q: — that don’t feel are open enough deciding to take to the streets?

MR. GIBBS: I think that — again, I think it would be — if I’m not going to generalize across a region, I probably shouldn’t generalize across several regions.

Q: I just want to know about one country, not —

MR. GIBBS: No, no, I understand. But to discuss this as it relates to one other country would be to do — would be to dip my toe into the pool of generalization, which I’m certainly not going to do.

I will say this. Again, I think the issues that the President talked with President Hu of China about and the issues with which President Hu told all of you that there was work to be done, that is the case regardless of what happens in any other country in the world. And the President has expressed his concerns about that, and I think you saw those concerns quite honestly expressed by President Hu.

This comes 31 minutes into the video (transcript here).

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Egypt, food prices, inflation, Liu Xiaobo, revolution, unemployment
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The Epoch Times, an international publication run by Chinese exiles harshly opposed to the People’s Republic government, ran a synopsis Oct. 15 of its ongoing coverage of the rural conflict in Taishi, a village in Guangdong now occupied by police following protests against municipal corruption. This story says much about current political dynamics in the People’s Republic of China, but it is slightly ironic that that Epoch Times insists on casting it in anti-Communist rhetoric. The facts make abundantly clear that China’s current rulers are now Communist in name only”the underlying conflict here concerns the privatization of village agricultural lands for the garish real-estate developments of the burgeoning nouveau riche elite.

© Elena Favilli for China Digital Times (CDT), 2005. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: democracy, lu banglie, revolution, social unrest, Taishi
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There is a very widespread perception that street protests are just the first step in a continuum that leads inexorably to riots and ultimately revolution. But this is misleading, because there is a huge qualitative difference between protests and revolution. Revolution requires more than just an urge to change things; it needs a direction, where to lead the change. And it is precisely here – the direction of change – where there is the most confusion, both within China and without.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2005. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: poverty, revolution, social unrest
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The recent democratic revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kirgizstan sent small tremors through China’s leadership. To avoid its own “color revolution” Beijing is now quietly cracking down on those who would dare to show dissent. Its primary target? China’s civil society.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2005. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: civil society, color revolutions, foreign ngos, NGOs, revolution
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Chinese security agencies are tightening their controls over foreign non-government organisations operating in the country, fearing they are a cover for efforts to overthrow communist rule.

Over the past two years, Beijing has watched with growing anxiety the overthrow of authoritarian regimes led by Soviet-era strongmen in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan by people-power opposition movements.

(...)
Read the rest of China keeps a nervous eye on colour revolutions – Hamish McDonald (77 words)

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2005. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: foreign charities, foreign ngos, NGOs, revolution
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