Yes, but my point being that these are active strains in certain sectors of society, rather than all-pervasive. There are other, competing strains that are just as active. And of course, real world society is rather complex and I’m sure there are plenty who agree on principle with what he said, but find him a bit too extreme. Yang Rui seems to be of the kind who reject all their ideological opponents as grovelling to the West when in fact an awful lot of them just want a little more of Mr D. and Mr S. but are otherwise quite happy with their Chinese identity. Hence my comparison with the more xenophobic strands in NZ, Aus, France and the UK.

“clearly urbane enough ”

I dunno, I never saw that in him, and his Weibo nonsense seems to have simply highlighted what always seemed to be lurking under the surface. Reading James Fallows’ post on the subject made me think that all the urbane cosmopolitanism was just an attempt to get guests on Dialogue comfortable and settled in so Yang could then go bludgeoning them with the (extreme reactionary nationalist end of the) Party line.

“Yang’s comments, while inflammatory and exaggerated, are unremarkable. Many Chinese people would probably agree with him, and the practice of media personalities demonizing foreign nationals is hardly exclusive to China.”

“…has always been a reliable spokesman for Chinese conventional wisdom.”

You seem to be portraying Yang as presenting very middle of the road views. I don’t know Lou Dobbs, but with his little outburst on Weibo he seems to be playing the Winston Peters, Pauline Hanson, Front National, English Defence League role. Sure, he presented the views of a certain segment of the population in his Weibo outburst, and in Dialogue he does push the line of a certain faction in the Party, but he hardly speaks for the majority. It was interesting to read all the comments by other Chinese to his Weibo post mocking or abusing him for his xenophobic paranoia.

Did you see YJ and Brendan’s posts on this at Rectified.Name? Very interesting, particularly YJ’s take on the issue.

In any event, until he is on foreign soil it’s way too early to say what is going to happen.

The way I see it, letting Chen leave is a win for the Chinese central government. Exile is irrelevance. He really won’t be able to stir up too much trouble for the central government from abroad. It’s also a win for the US administration as they can intimate to the voters that Obama is clearly standing up for human rights and democracy by helping out a Chinese dissident.

For Chen, exile would mean freedom and safety. It might not be good for him, though, in that exile is irrelevance. But he’d be able to go about his life knowing he and his family are safe. That’s always a plus.

The only clear loser I see here is the local government in his hometown. Freedom for Chen means potential exposure of their crimes and brutality in their enforcement of the family planning policy (remember, forced sterilisation is not a central government policy but overzealous local officials way overstepping the mark – local officials are often little better than thugs who just happen to have possession of local government stamps) and therefore potential punishment.

So the only potential problems I see for Chen studying abroad are:
1: Not being given an offer to study at a foreign university or being denied a visa. Given how many universities there are in the US and the potential political bonus for a president seeking reelection, I doubt that’ll be a problem, though.
2: Local officials in his hometown denying him a passport if he doesn’t currently hold one or somehow using the Entry-Exit system (evermore nationally networked) to put him on a blacklist to be turned back at the border. Once he’s out of China, presumably in the US, being denied a passport renewal wouldn’t be an issue as he could claim asylum – his reasons to fear political persecution are very well documented and easily googleable.
3: Central government deciding for whatever reason that they’d prefer to keep him in China under control. I don’t see this as being likely, because his beef is a purely local issue. He hasn’t been challenging the central government at all – at least not until he sought refuge in the US embassy, implying that China is incapable of or unwilling to ensure his safety.

Also, I wouldn’t rule out his having any support in the Chinese populace. I’ve seen a surprising amount posted to Weibo – with the usual euphemisms to evade the censors, of course – and as you well know, the Chinese are not so naive or gullible as to swallow whatever dead rat GAPP or the propaganda boyos decide to order the newspapers to publish.

Which reminds me, just yesterday I was chatting with a Chinese colleague about events on [ahem] May 35. He said he was in a hutong in Beijing at the time hearing gunfire for the first time ever, and that was when he learned the English term ‘bare-faced lies’. Memories are preserved and passed on and information has a way of sneaking around firewalls and censors and Party officials – heh, often passed on by those very Party officials.

Shoot me an e-mail if you wish.

It would be illogical for me to assume that because you write a blog post you also ‘understand the utility of discussing issues openly in a public forum’ and that pointing out your faulty deductions within your blog posts would be accepted by you. No, instead you call it ‘incivil’ because you invented an offense in my response thereby validating how such an assumption on my part would incorrect. My larger point, Matt, was that Sonenshine (and anyone reading your post about the selection) can say the same about your post – that it was ‘incivil’ – and the only difference between mine and yours is that they would be right about your post.

I understand where you’re coming from, and in spite of the incivility of your response I feel it’s worthy of some sort of response.

Your points seem to be:

- I’m an elitist by trying to have a discussion about elitism
- Because I don’t have “evidence” that Sonenshine’s reputation is unfit to be our graduation speaker, then I shouldn’t have offered my opinion on the subject at all
- The selection of speaker one way or another ranks low on the list of things that affect SIPA’s prestige
- That we haven’t made a sacrifice by coming to SIPA (something I glean by your use of quotation marks around the word)
- Discussing the post publicly somehow undermines the school’s reputation, and I should have somehow kept my thoughts “within SIPA’s walls”
- Sonenshine should be spared the embarrassment of us having this discussion.

Let me tackle these, in reverse order:

- Sonenshine, as an accomplished journalist, likely understands the utility of discussing issues openly in a public forum, and isn’t overly concerned what a 31 year-old graduate student thinks about her selection as graduation speaker. No, I don’t have “proof” of this but I suspect that she isn’t losing any sleep over my article.

- I completely disagree that this discussion should be kept within SIPA’s walls. My post was about elitism and whether having a sense of entitlement is justified, concepts which have an application far beyond SIPA walls. In China, students are often recruited to universities with the promise that they would have a certain degree on their graduating diploma, only to discover upon graduation that they do not. Should their complaints have remained within university walls? Or does the notion that you don’t always get what you pay for in higher education resonate more widely? I suspect the latter is true. Universities encourage us to be forthright with our opinions and to debate things; why should this be any different?

- I realize that you and others find it ridiculous that going to SIPA represents a sacrifice in any way, considering that we willingly accepted SIPA’s offer for admission. But consider this- many of us are going to be in serious debt as a consequence of going to SIPA- in some cases up to $140,000. When you factor in the opportunity costs of not working for two years, that figure may approach up to $300,000. That’s a lot of money. I’m confident that in the long run my investment into SIPA will pay off, and even if it doesn’t I’m still happy that I came. But it definitely entailed a (fairly obvious) sacrifice.

- My opinion on Sonenshine’s worthiness to be our graduation speaker was simply that: my opinion. I was asked by Communique to provide it, and because I found the subject matter interesting and noteworthy I was happy to do so. I’m fully aware that others- yourself included- feel that Sonenshine is more than worthy. I disagree, but that’s a legitimate claim

(Though I do wonder how many people at SIPA thought to themselves: “you know who I want for speaker? Tara Sonenshine” before the selection was announced.)

My argument here is simply about elitism and having a sense of entitlement. I don’t think anyone supports having rigid, clearly-defined standards for graduation speakers.

- I’m surprised that my “cheap diner food” analogy confused you. I just re-read it and consider it to be fairly clear. I believe that Sonenshine is a second-rate choice for graduation speaker, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy her speech or the graduation because of it. It simply leaves me with the sense that the administration could have and should have done better. That’s all.