The Two Sidneys
For much of the Maoist era China was closed off to the outside world, and foreigners comprised only the minutest fraction of the country's several hundred million strong population. Two of the best known foreigners present during the Mao era are Sidney Shapiro and Sidney Rittenberg, both Jewish-Americans who arrived in China even before the Communists prevailed in the 1946-49 Civil War.
Both men are still alive and still make themselves available to the media. Shapiro is 93, Rittenberg 86. Interestingly, each man strongly dislikes the other despite their uniquely dovetailed personal histories. This article goes into a bit more detail about the two, and provides an interesting glimpse into what laowai life was like at a very different time in China's history.
Can Iranian Politics Be Useful to China?
Iran is presently holding a presidential campaign, in which the current president finds himself trailing in the polls. Recent accounts indicate that opprobrium between the two camps- those of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his challenger Mir Hussein Moussavi- is high. The two men have been campaigning feverishly across the country, with one holding the support of Iran's large peasantry and the other favored by the country's urban elite.
Of course, the cynic in me must point out that the results of this election will ultimately bear little effect on Iranian policy. The country's Supreme Leader, Ali Khameini, remains firmly in power, just as he has been for the past 20 years. The President, despite claims to the contrary by paranoid elements of the West, wields little actual power.
Nonetheless, I think this demonstration of democracy- no matter how inconsequential- is a good exercise for Iran and an example of the country's vibrant civil society. The practice of having political debates aired in public seldom happens in most authoritarian regimes. I'm not suggesting that full-blown democracy is imminent in Iran. But if it were to happen, a democratic apparatus already exists. This is a good thing.
Could China emulate Iran's political system? The Communist Party has no desire to relinquish control, of course. But China could create an additional layer of government in which this version of democracy is practiced. The CCP Politburo can still vet candidates, hold ultimate power, and pull strings, but I think genuine political debate, difference, and passion would be a good thing for China. Too many intelligent Chinese people I know have told me that the country must unite behind its leadership and not question its wisdom. Maybe a bit of good-old fashioned disagreement would do the country a world of good.
Is China Complicit in The North Korea Journalist Case?
What is China's role in the horrifying story of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two US journalists who have been sentenced to 12 years in a hard labor camp for illegally entering North Korean territory?
The journalists insist they were on the Chinese side of the border, something that shouldn't really be a matter of dispute; the border is clearly demarcated by the Tumen River. If their account is true, then North Korean agents kidnapped them in a foreign country, raising questions of why China was unwilling or unable to protect individuals on its side of the border from foreign kidnapping.
How would China react, for instance, if North Korean agents were to capture Chinese citizens operating in Chinese territory? I doubt Beijing would take it well. Likewise, I imagine China would try to avoid a diplomatic mess by allowing citizens of third countries to be removed due to the paranoid whims of the Kim regime.
Most of the accounts I've read take the journalists at their word, believing their claim to have remained firmly on the Chinese side of the border. The North Koreans have been known for this sort of treachery before, after all, kidnapping both Japanese and South Korean nationals at various times over the past sixty years. Yet I have yet to see conclusive proof that Lee and Ling were indeed in China, and believe it to be entirely possible that the two, perhaps accidentally, were trespassing in North Korean territory.
If this latter case is true, then China's role in the affair isn't relevant. I suspect we won't find out; as outraged the US is over this ridiculous incarceration, there's little they can do to free the two journalists at this point. But the case does illustrate the balancing act China finds itself committed to over its relationship with the world's most isolated regime.
General Tso Never Ate His Own Chicken
Daniel Gross has a new business article up at Slate discussing the rise of KFC, Pizza Hut, and other Yum! Food brands in China. The article is OK on its merits- nothing really new to report- but what interests me is the article title: 'General Tso, Meet Colonel Sanders'.
Quite clearly, the author of the article heading- presumably not Gross himself- is making a reference to the martial nature of the two items. However, he has made one mistake: there is no General Tso's Chicken in China, as any American who has searched in vain for it here well knows.
Like chop suey, General Tso's Chicken (called General's Chicken elsewhere) is a purely laowai invention. While General Tso was a real person- according to the amusing Tso What?- his eponymous dish is about as Chinese as lutefisk.
Hu Jia Hurts Whose Feelings?
Hu Jia, an AIDS activist currently imprisoned in China for the crime of subversion, was recently awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament. The Chinese government was displeased, reverting in their criticism of the award to their usual tropes of "interference in domestic matters" and "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people".
The former critique is misguided (at best) but the latter is just ridiculous. How, exactly, could the feelings of 1.3 billion Chinese be hurt by this award? Hu by all accounts is a patriot in the best sense; he exposes the corruption, malfeasance, and inadequacies of his government. To my knowledge, he has never personally attacked Chinese people, has never resorted to violence, and has never caused the è€ç™¾å§“ any harm.
Descriptions of China as a totalitarian police state are overblown, but the government still demands utter fealty to the policies of the Communist Party. In fact, the concept of "patriotism" in China is still tied to party loyalty, regardless of how the said party governs. Hu Jia doesn't demand the violent overthrow of the government; he merely wants it to operate better. Rather than hurting the feelings of Chinese people, I suspect many who know of him regard him, silently, as something of a hero.
China: Having Its Cake And Eating It Too?
In an indignant and ultimately silly blog post comparing the Beijing Olympics to the Berlin Games in 1936, the usually excellent George Packer moans about China's inability to reform in the years since it won its bid in 2001. Writes Packer:
Don't accuse me of equating China with Nazi Germany, for I'm not€”but it's becoming clear that the I.O.C.'s decision to give the 2008 Olympics to Beijing is its worst call since 1936. Now that it's too late to turn around, China is busy breaking all its promises to improve human rights, allow uncensored coverage, or even€”for God's sake€”clean up the air in Beijing so that marathoners don't fall dead in the streets. I know we're supposed to say nice things about China as a rising power and welcome it to the world stage because anything else inflames Chinese nationalism. But the Chinese leadership wants to have it both ways: quick to criticize President Bush for interfering in China's sovereign affairs when he had the decency to meet Chinese dissidents this week, but eager to cash in on all the geo-political benefits that the Olympics will bring. China didn't even bother to abstain last month but instead vetoed sanctions against Robert Mugabe at the U.N. Unlike Germany in 1936, China is prettifying its streets without pretending to prettify its foreign policy.
Packer's no dummy, but honestly- did anyone really expect (aside from the naive IOC) that China would somehow begin to behave just because it got the Games? Like any living organism, governments only evolve when they face pressure to do so. The Olympics, as major an undertaking as they are, never threatened the legitimacy of the government. Also, what geo-political benefits does Packer imagine China receiving from the Olympics? China's status hasn't changed in the past seven years- it is still a rising (but minor) power with a booming economy, an authoritarian state that restricts individual liberties in favor of social harmony and political stability, and a nation whose foreign policy is mainly characterized by mercantilist schemes in countries the West avoids for "moral" reasons. It also is home to one-fifth of the global population, the majority of whom remain very poor.
I can see Packer's point: China does like to see itself as a integral part of the global community but gets snippy with every real or imagined slight against its sovereignty. But it is hardly alone in this respect. The U.S. (under Presidents Clinton and Bush) refused to sign onto the International Criminal Court or ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Russia uses heavy-handed tactics to influence political outcomes in its neighboring countries. Thailand and Cambodia narrowly avoided a war over a temple, for heaven's sake. Sovereign countries will always act in their own self-interest.
Plus, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld: everyone needs to just relax. The Olympics are an international sporting competition. The biggest one, of course, but still just a sporting competition. As I wrote yesterday, I cannot believe that had Berlin not hosted the '36 games World War Two would have been averted, nor would the Soviet Union still have existed today had the Olympics been elsewhere in 1980.
Packer flippantly hopes that the games go "a-flop". Why? What would that really accomplish? The Games mean a lot to a lot of people, not only the athletes but also the people in China and elsewhere who have worked very hard to make the Olympics successful. I, for one, will sit back and watch, reveling in good old fashioned sport competition.
Olympic Thoughts
I remember taking the above photo in Tiananmen Square during my first visit to Beijing in January 2005, back when the whole idea of promoting an Olympics less than six months after the previous one finished seemed more than a little ridiculous. Now, the Games are exactly a week away, and the energy and intensity of Chinese media coverage has been astonishing. Has the privilege of hosting the Games ever captured an entire nation with such fervor before?
Seven years ago, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the 2008 games to Beijing, hoping that by doing so the Chinese government would work toward improving human rights in the Middle Kingdom. This hasn't really happened. While China's economy continues to grow, its political situation remains largely stagnant. The news media is no freer than it was twenty years ago, even with the spread of the Internet. Repression of dissident minorities, if anything, has only increased in intensity. Single-party rule has not teetered, waned, or even questioned itself; the Communist Party remains in firm control of government and society. Pollution, which Beijing swore it would curb by the time the games arrived, still looms over the city (and country) as an ever-present reminder of China's dire environmental situation.
The IOC, naturally, feels somewhat disappointed. Barring an unforeseen development, the Games haven't had the political effect its stewards wished for, and if anything they'll merely serve as a vehicle for robust Chinese nationalism. I imagine the IOC will breathe a huge sigh of relief at the closing ceremonies and then turn their attention to the far more calming prospect of London in 2012.
I find it difficult to sympathize with the IOC's political hand-wringing. China is hardly the first authoritarian state to host the Olympics, after all. Nazi-controlled Germany hosted the 1936 Games in Berlin, and the Communist Soviet Union did so forty-four years later. Some have argued that the '36 games did nothing but propel the Third Reich on its terrible course, but is that really so? Isn't the enduring story from those Games Jesse Owens' victory in the 100-meter dash, disproving Hitler's notion of white supremacy? Did the 1980 games have any effect whatsoever on the subsequent collapse of the USSR? Methinks the crumbling centrally-planned economy and disastrous Afghanistan invasion may have had more to do with the end of Soviet rule than any athletic competition.
China, like it or not, has the world's largest population. It has never hosted the Games before. Its previous international competitions (such as the Asian Games) succeeded without any major problems. Putting aside the pollution issue, Beijing has prepared for the Games about as well as could be expected. And, as in the case in every previous Olympics, there will be moments of glorious achievement and moments of agonizing defeat. Which is the whole point, isn't it?
No Superpower Status for China?
Washington Post's China-hand John Pomfret argues, somewhat persuasively, that China's internal problems will prevent its rise to superpower status. While I don't agree with all of his points, Pomfret is spot-on in one aspect: the perception in the West of China as a menacing juggernaut overtaking the world remains vastly overstated.
Fallows on the Olympics
Excellent post by James Fallows articulating his thoughts about China and the Olympic Games.
Like Fallows, I want the Olympics to succeed, and for the most part I think it will. Yet China's public relations problems are largely self-inflicted* because it is trying to have it both ways: gain the respect and admiration of the world while maintaining its airtight control of the media and intolerance of dissent. This relates to a point I made earlier: development means far more than a booming GDP and brand-new skyscrapers. Or even the rights to hold the Games.
*For the record I hold no quarter for the idiotic boycott movement or for comments by Hollywood airheads like Sharon Stone.
Shaping Chinese Perceptions of the World
In conversations with Chinese friends, I often surprise them by saying that the vast majority of Americans (or British, Australian, etc.) lead lives that are not entirely different from their Chinese counterparts. Most of us, for example, never stray far from home due to financial or practical considerations. Many marry within their social group, often a classmate from high school or college. Many choose to enter the same industry as a parent or close relative, sometimes even within the same company. Some face familial pressure to marry and rear children at a relatively early age, and many Westerners feel trapped by circumstance.
Yet these Westerners, for obvious reasons, rarely spend time as expatriates in countries like China. As a result, the typical Westerner a Chinese person might meet cuts a very different profile from the norm in their home countries. From personal observation, these qualities describe quite a few of us laowai:
-Many foreigners come from comfortable to affluent backgrounds. As a result, few feel any need to contribute to the financial well-being of their families back home. In any case, salaries for most laowai in China are not high enough to be of much help in developed countries, anyway. Foreigners who work in Asia for financial reasons typically head for Korea or Japan where they can earn far more money. In my years in China, I have never met a single non-businessman who came here for the money.
-Most foreigners here are reasonably well-educated. Few lack a university degree, and those that do are usually in the process of obtaining one. After all, it is quite difficult finding work in China without at least a Bachelors.
-Many foreigners have extensive prior travel experience, and have often worked or lived in other countries before coming to China. Experienced travelers tend to be very independent by nature and not as tightly bound to the conventions and norms of their home country. A corollary to international experience is linguistic ability. Many of the expats I know speak at least one foreign language, even those from infamously monolingual countries such as the United States.
Certainly, few of us foreigners in China are entirely footloose and fancy-free; we have issues just like everyone else. I do believe, though, that as a whole we do not fit the profile of the "average" Westerner, and it is easy to see how the perception of Western life among Chinese people can become rather skewed.
A brief footnote for my Chinese readers: if you want to know what true Americana is, go to Las Vegas.