Reason Number 19 - Hegemony with Chinese Characteristics

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 37
In China, the ‘kowtow’ has long been the traditional form of obeisance on meeting the emperor. The ceremony involves crouching on one’s hands and knees and knocking the head against the floor, and a full performance of the ritual requires the giver to fall to his knees three times, each time knocking his head to the ground thrice.

Kowtowing to your immediate superior and those above theoretically ended when the Qing Dynasty fell in 1911. Occasionally you will see staff members at various hotels genuflect with less formality and depth, indicating a sense of the past still lives in China.

The idea that China is still the center of the world has reappeared in subtle ways, although perhaps subtlety is not the correct term to use when considering China’s approach to Taiwan – which is unification by any means, with force if necessary.

Today China has reached back into its traditions to create the ‘Taiwan kowtow,’ a kowtow with politics added to it, easily the one overriding political idea that consumes Chinese political cadres, as well as the public.

It appears that every single country’s leaders, freely elected or not, must mouth the golden words of the new Taiwan kowtow.

ChinaBounder comments:

Poor old Taiwan.

Taiwan is an example of what China could be. Taiwan, in its 36,000 square kilometers, has a hundred times more greatness in it than China does in its near ten million square kilometers.

In just 50 years Taiwan achieved what China, in 2000 years, never managed. Democracy. Freedom. A voice for the people!

Taiwan is to be honored. Taiwan, proud, strong independent. It is a great nation.

And it is most emphatically not part of China.

Now I’ve asked this question a thousand times and I’ve not yet met the Chinese citizen who is able to give me a coherent, logical answer.

The people of Taiwan choose their own leaders. Their own law. They have their own currency. Their own passport. In every yardstick by which a nation can be defined, Taiwan is a nation.

China, for all its childish huffing and puffing, has precisely zero control over Taiwan – save, of course, the only thing that Chinese politicians really understand – the threat of force. That’s all China’s got. That’s China’s one claim to Taiwan – be part of us or we will obliterate you to the last man woman and child.

And so by what measure, I ask my Chinese readers, can you claim Taiwan is part of China?

Now first of all, you can fuck off with your historical bullshit claims. History means precisely shit, and I have hashed this over so many times with indoctrinated Chinese people that I now am simply abrupt about it. Fuck history. It does not matter. Even if the ludicrous claims that Taiwan has ‘always’ been part of China were true, even if it could be proved Taiwan’s been part of China since the Han Dynasty it would matter precisely nothing. (And in any case, the truth is that China paid no attention at all to Taiwan for much of its history. There was a brief incursion in the early Qing, but even by the late Qing the government of China stated ‘Taiwan is beyond our dominions.’)

Because today is what matters. Right now is what matters. Right now China has zero control over Taiwan. And right now Taiwan has zero interest in coming back to China.

Indeed I guarantee – I guarantee – that there is not one single young Taiwanese citizen who wants the nation to be part of China. Not one.

And that’s the equation. It’s what the Taiwanese want today that matters.

I ask my Chinese readers: Why should the Taiwanese people be bound by ‘history’? Even if your preposterous version of history were true, why should the destiny of today’s Taiwanese people be decided by the actions of generations long dead? Why do they not have the right to choose their own path?

The only people who use ‘history’ as an argument are those who have no other argument to make.

It’s just the same with Tibet, guys. What matters is now. What matters is what the people who live in Taiwan and Tibet (and Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, those other nations China holds by force) want now.

And by fuck they don’t want to be part of China.

Of course one gets used to lies and bluster from China. That’s the way of it, and there are a dozen examples everywhere you look – as, for example, John Ray found out the other day. He’s a BBC journalist. He was in China, doing his job, reporting on activists from a group called ‘Students for a Free Tibet.’ The Chinese police, who were beating seven bells of shit out of these guys, as is fully to be expected, also had a crack at Mr. Ray, dragging him away, bundling him into a van, and forcibly restraining him there.

China, when it won the right to hold the Olympic games, said it would respect media freedom. That was, of course, a lie. When will the world realize it can expect little but lies from China’s leaders?

And so the lies and shit over Taiwan that spew from China are no real surprise, and nor is the ignorance of young Chinese people regarding Taiwan.

The real injustice here (for one cannot expect justice from China) is how the rest of the world treats Taiwan. Taiwan’s achievement in reaching democracy should be honored. It is magnificent. It is a triumph of the human spirit, and the people of Taiwan deserve the highest respect and praise for sticking to their democracy in the face of their thuggish and belligerent neighbor China.

Do they get that respect? Do they fuck. Most of the rest of the world has proven happy to turn its back on Taiwan, to pay lip-service to the objectionable twaddle of ‘One China,’ to fleer and jest at what Taiwan has achieved. The order of the day is ‘Fuck Taiwan’s democracy, keep the criminals in Beijing happy, for that’s where the money is.’ Yeah, when it comes to money, where are the West’s fine morals?

And yet despite all that, Taiwan remains proud. Taiwan remains strong. Taiwan remains a nation.

Good for the nation of Taiwan!

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 38

In April 2007, Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong met Germany’s Defense Minister, Franz Josef Jung, in Beijing. Jung said Germany would adhere to the one-China policy.

Perhaps Defense Minister Jung forgot that Germany’s reunification was accomplished by democracy, something at this point that only Taiwan has accomplished.

Again that month, Chinese Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu met the Dutch Foreign Minister, Maxime Verhagen, in The Hague. During the meeting, Verhagen reiterated the Dutch government’s continued adherence to the one-China policy.

In May 2007 Wu Bangguo, one of China’s most senior leaders, was in Warsaw, Poland, to discuss relations between the two countries and to collect the prerequisite Taiwan kowtow, meeting the speaker of the Polish parliament’s lower house, Ludwik Dorn

Dorn said that Poland’s position on the issues of Taiwan and Tibet will never change and that the Polish government and its people firmly oppose any secessionist activities in any forms.

A remarkable statement from a leader in a nation that suffered so much at the hands of so many totalitarian occupiers throughout its history. Poland only found its freedom through the democratic Solidarity movement which allowed it to break away from a communist regime and form a free nation – similar to some of Taiwan’s democratic intentions.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was again busy in this month, visiting his Canadian counterpart Peter Mackay. Foreign Minister Mackay said that the Canadian government would stick to the one-China policy and would not develop official ties with Taiwan.

While mouthing the required Party line kept his guests happy, perhaps Foreign Minister Mackay’s political party also gained votes from the vast number of Chinese who have made Canada their new home – unless of course some of their reasons for moving to Canada were to escape Chinese communism.

Soon after his election, French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy spoke with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Sarkozy said that Taiwan is an indispensable part of China, and France would firmly adhere to the one-China policy.

France’s famous national motto is ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité – ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.’

But not for Taiwan.

Taiwan has fought for and found its freedom. But Tibet and Xinjiang are still fighting. Don’t forget the fight. Whenever you get the chance to be on camera in China, make a ‘T’ sign for Tibet and an ‘X’ sign for Xinjiang. One day those nations will be as free from China as Taiwan already is.

Reason Number 18. The Mirror of Japan - The War of Apology

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 35
“Despite the signing of the 1972 ‘Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China’ which normalized relations between the two countries, for China, the ‘Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression,’ as the China-Japan war of 1937 to 1945 is called in China, has never truly come to an emotional closure. When China looks in the mirror of Japan, it sees an enemy, a country with which it is still fighting a war of apology.

And the one constant refrain of this emotional war is that Japan must ‘truthfully face up to history.’ The youth of Japan are declared ignorant about the need for reflection, and the youth of China therefore reflect only hatred.

How deep Chinese hatred of Japan goes was made clear in an editorial in People’s Daily in June 2007. Li Xuejiang, the newspaper’s chief resident reporter in the US, wrote that “The massacre of the Jews by the German Nazis during WWII was a trampling upon the human justice, and the issue about ‘sex slaves’ is an identical one and has no reason whatsoever to make it fade or weaken” [sic].

To equate one of the greatest tragedies in all human history – the Holocaust – with sex slavery, which, though a grave crime, is one that has been committed in almost every war ever fought – is simply obscene, and a deep insult to all Jewish people as well as many other nationals who suffered the horrors of the gas.

In making a link between the Japanese nation of today with Nazi Germany of the past, China simply distorts history and keeps hatred alive.”

ChinaBounder comments:

Ah, Japan. The one thing, above even Tibet and Xinjiang, which is guaranteed to provoke anger and misunderstanding from China.

Japan shows that just like many Chinese people don’t really understand the truth inside China, they don’t understand the truth outside China either.

I’ve written about Japan before, two years ago. In the time since then there has been a tiny glimmer recognition within the Communist Party that the policy it has held ever since the Tiananmen Square Massacre, of blaming Japan for everything, may be unwise. The force of nationalism, once created, is hard to kill. But this is a faint spark indeed, for Japan remains a whipping boy too tempting to ignore. And so the drumbeat of hate for Japan continues to sound, creating an endless supply of angry Chinese nationalists.

I really don’t think people who have never visited China have any understanding of just how deep this hatred runs. It’s not present in all people, not by a long way. But it’s certainly a significant part of life in China today.

The hatred that wells out of China in response to Japan is an ugly thing. I’ve met it in people who are otherwise calm and rational, and in people who are highly educated.

But one incident more than any other sticks in my mind.

It took place, naturally, in the classroom, for it is in the classroom that I have really learned the mind of modern China. It was a class of younger students, around 17 to 19 years old, and at the time I was working for one of the many private language schools in Shanghai rather than a university. A few of the students were keen to work, but most were rather lazy– they were that new breed of young Chinese student, the idle rich. Offspring of newly-wealthy parents, they had never had to want for anything, never had to do much work.

Most of them were too idle, too lazy, to get a good score in the all-important college entrance exam, and so their parents had sent them here to brush up on English before paying hefty amounts of money to have them educated overseas. For most of them, the outlay would have been a waste of time, since for sure these guys would not work any harder abroad than at home – but as few had the gumption to work hard enough to learn the language skills, it was a moot point. They’d never get the visa to leave China.

Anyhow, there was one chap, a rather conceited fellow, who spend most of the class slumped on the table asleep (though of course that could have just been because I was a shit teacher.) Generally I don’t let students do this – I give ‘em the old ‘If you want to be in my class, you have to pay attention’ routine. But it hadn’t worked with him.

One session, I got to talking about Japan, and attitudes in China to that nation. This particular student was, as usual, slumped on his desk. I asked the student next to him, ‘What do you think of Japan?’

This question obviously penetrated the fog of the sleeping guy’s oblivion, for he sat bolt upright, stated ‘I hate Japan. We should kill all Japanese. I want to kill them!’

And, that said, he settled his head back into his folded arms and slept out the rest of the lesson.

That’s what I think of when I think of China and Japan. Because while you can’t extrapolate a whole nation from a single individual, every individual carries something of the nation inside.

What Japan did to China was indeed a grave sin against humanity.

But often I think there are many young people in China who would love the chance to visit those same horrors on Japan.

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 36
“Giving a speech in September 2005 to mark the 60th anniversary of Japan’s surrender at the end of World War Two, Chinese President Hu Jintao said that ‘After the end of the war, many Japanese from all walks of life faced squarely the historical fact that Japanese militarists had launched the war of aggression against foreign countries and strongly denounced the atrocities Japanese aggressors had committed in China. Their conscience and courage are highly commendable.’

But the words do not stop there. Hu goes on to say that there are ‘…forces in Japan that have categorically denied the aggressive nature of the war Japan launched against China and the crimes it committed, and have tried their best to whitewash its militarist aggression and call back the spirit of those Class A war criminals who have been condemned by history.’

It is true that there are those in Japan who downplay or even extol its wartime past. Yet these are a minority voice, and a regrettable but unavoidable side-effect of living in a democratic nation. When citizens are allowed to voice their opinions freely, some of those opinions will be objectionable. But, short of direct hate speech, such freedoms must be honored. This is something China, in its War of Apology, and without democracy, simply cannot understand.

‘The past, if not forgotten, can serve as a guide for the future,’ said Hu. ‘By emphasizing the need to always remember the past, we do not mean to continue the hatred. Instead, we want to draw lessons from history and be forward-looking. Only by remembering the past and drawing lessons from it can one avoid the repetition of historical tragedies.’

But in what must rank as one of the most breathtakingly false, mendacious and hypocritical statements ever issued by any world leader, Hu said ‘History has eloquently proved that only when it adheres to the leadership of the CPC and the socialist road with Chinese characteristics can the Chinese nation create a brighter future.’

Exhaustive and meticulous research by Professor R. J. Rummel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Hawaii, suggests that between its founding in 1949 and 1987, the government of the People’s Republic of China was responsible for the death of more than 75 million of its own citizens.

75 million.

This is the leadership that, says Hu, history ‘eloquently’ proves leads to a ‘brighter future.’

The failings of the CPC are not open to inspection, like the failings of other governments in other powerful nations. To replace this inspection process, China showers blame on what it views at excesses from outside its borders.

Hatred should be based on facts, not half-truths, rumors and misinterpretations of historical conflict, now only teachable by history books written by the citizens of each country, each book containing prejudices the other country will never accept. Teaching children how they should act in future may be more valid than teaching them how they should be guided by historical mythology.”

What Japan did to China, China has done the peoples of its colonized territories. Don't forget - if you're on camera in China, make a 'T' for Tibet and an 'X' for Xinjiang.

Reason Number 17 - Faux Pop-Culture

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 33
“Mando-pop (Mandarin pop music) is characterized by softness. No hard edges are exposed where young people might cut themselves some independent thinking. No difficult subject matter interferes with the music from mesmerizing young minds.

The typical male mando-pop star is a designed metrosexual. Reasonably good looking, his hair, never long, is designed to gently fracture his face, the eyes possibly kohl shadowed. It is permissible to unbutton the shirt exposing an oiled, or sparkled hairless chest. Wiry thin, dressed in dark tones or blinding bright colors, the male mando-pop star whispers his song, never yelling, at least until the penultimate moment when all the girls will have their hearts stolen as the music in its crescendo closing requires our star to give it all he has.

In the audience hearts and glow sticks are all a flutter. One, possibly two well-mannered girls jump up on stage with bouquets of flowers. Our male star offers his cheek which the two girls shyly kiss, to the orgasmic cheer of the audience. Glow sticks flutter double time.

For the typical mando-pop female star, perfect in her makeup, dress and hair must be wistful, wishful and virginal. No sex allowed. That is reserved for Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese pop stars. If she can produce a tear, not during the song but when her adoring fans shriek her name through their glow sticks, a tear that she wipes away ever so gently with a single finger, then her concert will be considered a smash.

The songs are soft, breathy love ballads, almost spoken, and with the one essential quality that guarantees their success – they can be sung by anyone.

It is in the KTV parlors that a mando-pop’s star quality is manufactured. Hundreds of thousands of locations throughout China require the latest superstar efforts to be available for local singing fans, 15 to 25 years old, to duplicate the sounds of their favorites. If you can sell your songs to the KTV palaces, you are ensured stardom.

The kids can’t sing rock ‘n roll, so don’t bother making it. It’s just too Western for sensitive Chinese ears. And rock n’ roll just might tell the kids something they do not even want to hear.”

ChinaBounder comments:

So already that spectacular Olympic opening show is unraveling. The ‘firework footprint’ was faked, a hash-up of computer graphics – though to be fair it was totally obvious it was computer generated when it was played, and I am surprised anyone thought it would pass for real.

But today it was revealed that the little girl who gave a solo song was faking it too. This girl, Lin Miaoke, was a last-minute replacement for Yang Peiyi. Yang, it was planned, would sing the song live; and indeed the song that the world heard was sung by Yang. But Yang did not make it to the stage because – get this – her teeth were too crooked. And those crooked teeth apparently were a threat to China’s national dignity.

According to Chen Qigang, who was the music designer for the show, Yang was chosen for her perfect voice. But then some cocksucker from the Poltiburo came down “who gave us his opinion: It must change.”

China has changed - that’s what I’m often told. I say bollocks to that. China’s change is only superficial. All the shit surrounding the Olympics – the waste of money, the press-ganged thousands of performers, the poor thrown out of their homes and the rural workers thrown out of the city – the chest-beating, the boasting, the sheer mendacity of it. It’s all straight out of the CPC fuck-humanity copy book.

After all, what is this episode of insufficiently cute Yang Peiyi but the same old shit as no-longer-liked leaders being airbrushed out of photos?

Yang is seven years old. Imagine what a lifelong memory appearing in the opening ceremony would have been for her. And imagine what a memory it will be for her now. Imagine how she’ll feel about it.

This is more than just a story of China faking it to live up to some fairytale image of itself, a past that has been mythologized beyond far beyond reality. In fact it’s fucking despicable – Yang Peiyi has, in effect, been told that she looks so unattractive that she’d bring shame to her whole nation.

When China’s leaders can do that kind of shit to China’s children, how much of a fuck do you think they give for the rest of China’s citizens?

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 34
“While young Chinese people are fascinated with overseas culture, that culture is most often presented to them in a highly controlled fashion – Western Culture with Chinese Characteristics. It is a simplified, sanitized version of Western culture, with anything thought-provoking or challenging scrubbed out.

The huge success of the US TV show ‘American Idol’ led Chinese TV to invent its own version of the show, which it called ‘Super Girl’ (or, to give it its full name, ‘Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Super Girl Contest.’) Aired in 2005, this proved extremely popular, with more than 400 million people watching the final episode. The show, in all practical terms, copied the American production.

However, in 2007, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) issued ‘a list of rules to uphold high moral standards on a sequel.’ These rules said that the show ‘should include only “healthy and ethically inspiring” songs and try to avoid “gossip” about the contestants and scenes of fans screaming and wailing, or losing contestants in tears.’ In other words, less emotionally American.

The censors also ordered the title of the show to be changed, banning use of the word ‘super’ along with ‘girl’ (it became ‘Happy Boys’ Voice’ instead), restricted its running time to six weeks, and ‘decreed their hairstyles, clothes, fashion accessories, language and manners should be in line with the mainstream values.’ There was to be ‘No weirdness, no vulgarity, no low taste,’ and contestants from outside China were banned. Once again, Chinese culture was copying the West, yet Party bosses were dictating that culture should be a pale shadow of ‘Chinese characteristics.’

While Chinese people today are consumed by Western culture, the culture they actually receive is thus very carefully controlled. Chinese society appropriates Western culture without actually understanding what it means, sometimes producing a Western culture with Chinese characteristics / Chinese culture with Western characteristics hybrid.

Sadly, it is not only Chinese understanding of Western culture that is weak. It is now becoming true that Chinese people’s understanding of Chinese culture is also weakening. Young people tend to follow their peers in the chase to be popular. What is popular now in China has virtually nothing to do with Chinese history, traditions or culture. The result is a pseudo-culture environment leading eventually to a huge generation gap between children and their parents larger than anything that has ever existed in the West."

Remember that under all the fakery and manipulation that China has poured into the Olympics, its colonies still suffer. 'T' for Tibet and 'X' for Xinjiang.

Reason Number 16 – Mt. Rubbish

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 31
In the year 2000, China produced 100 million tons of rubbish. By 2004, this had risen to 190 million tons in its urban areas alone. By 2020, it is predicted that the nation will produce 400 million tons annually. The quantity, in millions of tons, cannot possibly be understood. So, to put it another way, in 2020 it is predicted that China will produce as much rubbish as all other countries in the world did in 1997. China’s mountain of waste must of course be added to the rest of the world’s rubbish, exacerbating its global impact.

While China’s richer cities can afford to build high-tech rubbish treatment plants, this is not an option for the many less wealthy cities in the nation. And even in the wealthier cities, there is strong opposition to paying rubbish disposal fees. In Shanghai, for example, a 2004 survey found that most people over 35 found it hard to accept the fees being levied for waste collection. Even those under 35 who were more accepting of fees only wanted to pay between 3 yuan (US$0.36) and 10 yuan (US$1.2) a month per household. The trouble is, the city government factors the price out at between 10 and 20 yuan a month for efficient waste collection.

ChinaBounder comments:

An odd concatenation of circumstances that the day after I should speculate about the murder of Chinese citizens overseas, a story breaks about two Chinese students in Newcastle upon Tyne, Zhou Qian and Yang Zhenxing, who were murdered. At least, those are the names Xinhua (which should be more reliable) gives them; other media, such as the Guardian, names them as ‘Xi Zhou’ and ‘Zhen Xing Yang.’

Reaction is, naturally, spreading through other Chinese students in the UK and would-be students still in China. Xinhua quotes one Xin Yang, studying in the same city, as saying that “he received some emails from China telling him that some of the students who are preparing to study in Newcastle have stopped their process, and are considering shifting to other cities or even countries for their overseas education.”

But I suspect that it will turn out that Zhou and Yang were murdered by another Chinese student.

I say this because reports indicate there was no sign of a break-in, and no sign of theft. Yang, say reports, was wearing nightclothes. This suggests (as police have said) that the unfortunate couple knew their killer.

And so I feel it is most likely the killer was a fellow Chinese citizen.

I say this because the Chinese student community is just that – Chinese. Chinese students overseas, overwhelmingly, do not mix in with locals. They hang out with other Chinese students – eat Chinese, speak Chinese, think Chinese. Indeed I saw exactly this today, when I met a couple of Chinese friends for lunch in a university town in the country where I now write. As I waited for my friends, various other Chinese students passed, all speaking Mandarin; and not one of them was accompanied by a person of a different nation. China all the way.

Indeed, the Daily Telegraph reports another student in Newcastle upon Tyne, ‘Ishaopeng Wu,’ as saying “I am very shocked, I cannot see if we should live in this area any more. It is a tough area, but convenient for the university. As Chinese students we do not have any affairs with other people. I want to know why this happened. Sometimes local children attack us, I don't know whether it is because we come from another country.”

This says it all. “We do not have any affairs with other people” – that’s exactly the attitude for most Chinese students. They are notably more insular than students from any other nation (except, perhaps, Japan, also a nation with seemingly little interest in interacting with other cultures).

But the rest of what Mr. Wu says is equally telling – “Sometimes local children attack us.” Xinhua, in their murder report, cover the same tack, quoting Xin Yang as saying “the security situation is ‘not satisfactory’ as quite a number of students have been harassed by local teenagers.”

I know this to be true; I have heard it time again from my Chinese friends overseas. While physical violence is rare, many have told me of other forms of abuse, from “Bloody Chinese, why don’t you go home?” to casual, belittling treatment in the regular course of the day.

Indeed, both the Guardian and the Telegraph show their casual attitude towards Chinese people by making such a hash of their names. ‘Ishaopeng Wu’ is, presumably, meant to be ‘Wu Shaopeng,’ and the Guardian (which, to be fair, is generally sensitive to Chinese culture) has made a mess of given names and family names.

The sad fact of it is that Britain remains a racist country. Most of the racism is of the casual, careless kind, devaluing or ignoring anyone who is not perceived as ‘British,’ but a certain slice of it is also straight-up abuse and even violence. And while the latter type of racism is worse, it is all deeply objectionable and morally repugnant.

Now I am not my country; I am not responsible for the actions of such fellow citizens, even as I condemn them wholly. To feel shame is the wrong emotion. I am not ashamed, because I am not guilty of it. To feel shame is to think with a group mind, and I reject that. I am not tarred with the racism of other Brits simply because I am a Brit. That is not how it works.

I say this because many commentators to this blog have whaled on Britain today for the sins of its past. Those sins are real, indeed; but the British people are not to blame. Their duty is to be aware of that past and know what it means. In the same way, today’s young Chinese are not to blame for the many crimes against humanity of the Communist Party, but they are to blame for being ignorant of it. And, likewise, today’s young Japanese are not to blame for the crimes of Japan in the past (even though many Chinese feel they are), but they are to blame for ignorance of it.

But the racism of many of my fellow Britons, be it overt or covert, is only part of the story.

Chinese students overseas are not, in fact, isolated because of racism. After all, their direct community, the student community, is explicitly anti-racist. Anyone who has spent any time on most any Western campus will know this – most (sure, not all) students pride themselves on their liberalism, their color-blindness. And the universities themselves take racism very seriously, and generally will be quick to punish students or staff guilty of it.

The problem is that Chinese students are simply not good at interacting with non-Chinese students. The reasons behind this are many and complex, a mix of education (that is, poor education that fails to teach social skills), pride, shyness, inflexibility, misunderstanding and much more besides. Culture plays a big role in it, on both sides of the gap – Western students misunderstand Chinese students and wrongly feel they are aloof and proud, and Chinese students simply do not understand the ways in which Western students socialize.

I’ll give a good example that crystallizes this. A close friend of mine, Zhou, from central China, has been studying in Europe for several years. Zhou enjoys life in Europe, and most of his friends are European. He does what all students going overseas should do – he integrates with the local community. Zhou’s friends are drawn from all over the world, though naturally most are European. And because he has this wide circle of non-Chinese friends, the Chinese students on his current campus look down on him. They think he is a snob. It’s a bizarre reaction.

This same friend told me recently that he was studying in his room one evening when there was a knock on the door, and he opened it to find a Chinese person outside. This person explained he’d recently arrived on campus and he had gone from door to door looking at names. And when he found a name that he recognized as Chinese (that is, Zhou’s name), he knocked on the door. He assumed that Zhou would be his friend merely by virtue of their shared Chineseness. Now if this chap had been smuggled into Europe as an illegal worker, alone, afraid, I could understand it. Yet he was highly educated, fluent in English and perfectly capable of integrating in the wider community. But, no; he chose to seek out Chineseness.

And that is why, so often, the Chinese community overseas remains isolated. Chinese people take their Chineseness with them, wherever they go, and seldom look beyond it, seldom add to it.

And that is also why, even though I fully accept Chinese students face a tough time studying in the West, this murder in Newcastle upon Tyne will most likely have been committed by a fellow Chinese student. And the motive will have been love or money.

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 32
"Today, China has around ten million junk collectors, who are, in truth, the only ‘green’ recyclers in the nation. They traverse the streets of China’s cities, often on tricycles ringing handbells. They collect bottles, glass, paper, cardboard, pots and pans, old electrical goods, clothing – in short, anything that has even the smallest cash value based on its recyclability. They are, in effect, recycling ‘road warriors.’

In May 2007 a new law came into force. The Regulation on Recycling Resources stipulated 'that scrap collectors should not only obtain a business license, but also register with their local commerce bureaus.' The reason these millions of people work as junk collectors is, of course, that they have only received the most basic (if any) education. Most of them are among the poorest levels of society. How can such disadvantaged people as these recycling road warriors be expected to enter into and negotiate the complex labyrinth of Chinese bureaucracy?

'If they’re driven out of business by strict enforcement of the regulation many scrap collectors would be left with nothing to do as most are from the countryside and have had little education or skills training' noted media. Collecting recyclable material on the roads and streets of China is not a career choice. It is, however, a logical choice brought about by desperation. The Chinese government, by restricting them, is pushing them down rather than helping them up, seemingly not realizing that the road warriors are the first soldiers of the Green Army."

So China faked the 'footprint fireworks' in the Olympic opening ceremony. Don't forget China's equally fake claims to 'own' Tibet and Xinjiang. 'T' and 'X' for those occupied nations, whenever you get the chance!

ChinaBounder Weekender -- Murder, East style, West style

I see another of my top ten Olympic predictions (number four) has come true – a protestor at the games, Christina Chan, tried to unfurl a Tibetan flag. Security goons covered her with a drop cloth and, when she refused to leave, simply carried her away. This incident took place in Hong Kong, not China – so much for China’s ‘One Country, Two Systems’ bullshit. And shame on Hong Kong for allowing this suppression of free speech to take place. Shame indeed.

But there’s one Olympic prediction I did not make – a visiting tourist will get murdered. I did – and still do – expect activists visiting China to get badly beaten by the thuggish ‘security’ services, and maybe a few life-threatening injuries as a result of that. But an outright murder did not make it to my list. Perhaps it should have, for China is a violent society, though the muzzled Chinese press downplays the true extent of the murder and carnage that is played out every day across the nation.

Even so – for the most part – white guys get a pass. Sure, we’re fair game for pickpockets and swindlers, but murder is less common. That’s partly because all Chinese citizens know that murdering a foreigner is far more serious than murdering a Chinese person. The murder of a Chinese citizen can be hushed up, but not so when a white guy gets it. The police, to whom the death of a Chinese citizen would be nothing much to worry about, would be far more vigilant in tracking down the killer of an overseas visitor.

That, at least, is how it works within China.

But when a Chinese citizen is murdered outside China, the reaction is totally different. And the murder of the American in Beijing this weekend has set me to thinking of this contrast.

The victim’s name was Todd Bachman. His daughter, Elisabeth, is a former Olympian in volleyball, and she is married to the current coach of the US volleyball team. Todd Bachman was stabbed to death while visiting the Drum Tower in Beijing, and his wife was seriously injured. His killer was a Chinese citizen who has been named as Tang Yongming, 47, a native of China’s southeastern Zhejiang Province. Tang killed himself after the murder.

George W. Bush said, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families… The United States government has offered to provide any assistance the family needs.” Clark Randt, the U.S. Ambassador, said the attack “appears to be a senseless act of violence.”

Andy Banachowski, head coach of the women's volleyball team at UCLA, where Elisabeth Bachman played, said “I am shocked and saddened by the news of the attack on Wiz (Elisabeth) Bachman’s parents, Todd and Barbara, in Bejiing.” The U.S. woman’s basketball coach, Anne Donovan, said “It’s just tragic.... I don’t know if there’s another word for it. We said a prayer for them in the locker room. I get goosebumps talking about it.”

U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth said, “It is impossible to describe the depth of our sadness and shock in this tragic hour... Our delegation comes to the Games as a family, and when one member of our family suffers a loss, we all grieve with them.”

Xinhua mentioned the murder. But it was not covered on the national television news.

What would happen if the table were turned, if a Chinese citizen was murdered by an American citizen in similar circumstances?

I think it’s pretty clear.

For though the murder of a citizen within China seldom matters much, as I wrote below, when any harm befalls a Chinese citizen outside China, then China goes crazy. The case of Bu Luowei was not an isolated incident. Consider, for example, the case of Zhao Yan. She was a Chinese businesswoman on a trip to America. Coming across the border from Canada after a trip to the Niagara Falls, one of the border guards ordered her to stop for an inspection, under the belief that she was smuggling drugs. Refusing his order to stop, she ran away.

The officer involved chased her, tackled her and sprayed her with pepper spray.

This event caused a major wave of protest all across China. The then-foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, telephoned Colin Powell, at the time the US Secretary of State, expressing “China’s strong demand that the US side do serious and thorough investigation on Zhao Yan’s suffrage in terms of human rights in the United States, during her stay there, and punish hard the wrongdoers concerned.” [sic]

Chinese media jumped into the fray, saying that “There has been a long list of US law-enforcing departments’ brutal execution, willfully trampling upon human rights. Some of them.... despise law and human rights are obviously affected and driven by US hegemony mentality and arrogance…Justice and truth must be upheld and those who trample upon law and human rights must be punished. Zhao Yan’s tragedy reminds the US government of self-warning and self-discipline in human rights issue, and also tells the world that the United States has no right at all to criticize other countries." [sic]

The homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, also had to eat crow, a Chinese-American trade group lodged a protest, and Zhao Yan sued the US government for US$10 million.

All that, for a single incident of a woman getting manhandled by an overzealous security officer – a beating is bad, sure, but in the end it’s still something you recover from.

Imagine, then, the anger in which China would erupt if one of its citizens was murdered.

America’s reaction to harm befalling one of its citizens abroad – sorrow and concern. A sympathetic, measured response.

China’s reaction to harm befalling one of its citizens abroad – anger, finger-pointing, point-scoring and politicking. Bile and nationalism.

And - given that the American team was booed at the opening ceremony - I wonder how many Chinese citizens felt secretly glad it was an American who died?



Respect to Christina Chan for standing up for the oppressed people of Tibet. I urge others to follow where she leads -- 'T' for Tibet and 'X' for Xinjiang.