China Notes: Superfluous Musings of a Chinese Historian

Is China Creating the World's Biggest Megacity?

2011-02-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

Emerging Super Megacity, or Urban Legend?

On January 24 of 2011, a story that originated with The Telegraph and repeated in a number of Western news sources, declared that China is planning to merge nine cities in the Pearl River Delta into the world's most humongous megacity with 42 million people: "The "Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One" scheme will create a 16,000 sq mile urban area that is 26 times larger geographically than Greater London, or twice the size of Wales."

On Jan. 28, 2011, however, Guo Yuewen (郭跃文), spokesman for the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (广东省委外宣办), categorically denied the truthfulness of this story at a news conference. Ma Xiangming (马向明), the chief planner at the Guangdong Rural and Urban Planning Institute and the principal source for The Telegraph news story, explained that the misunderstanding came from the foreign journalists' misinterpretation of the term "integration" (一体化). When he talked about the integration of the nine Pearl River Delta cities (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing), he meant functional integration, not political integration [ch]. One purpose for functional integration is to avoid duplication of services and wasting resources given the closeness of the nine cities; for example, if Guangzhou already has a tumor hospital, then there is no need for Shenzhen to build one. Building on the foundation of the rapid expansion of transportation infrastructure in the Delta, the region will in the near future be highly integrated in terms of medical services, environmental protection, and social services. Each of the cities will preserve its special characteristics and share in a division of labor, Ma added.

Nine in One?

Was it just a semantic misunderstanding, or was there more beneath the surface? If government services were to be highly integrated among the nine cities, will there not be a need for some higher level political unit to coordinate this division of labor, or will the Guangdong provincial government act in this capacity? It is also puzzling that The Telegraph story directly quoted Ma as saying: "It will not be [named] like Greater London or Greater Tokyo because there is no one city at the heart of this megalopolis ... We cannot just name it after one of the existing cities." Why is there a need for a new name (wouldn't Pearl River Delta do just fine?), if there were no megalopolis envisioned? Perhaps Ma was just expressing a personal opinion that the nine cities need to be merged for better coordination? Or perhaps this was yet another instance of linguistic confusion?

Regardless, there is no denial that this region of nine large cities is moving in the direction of greater functional integration, as already sketched in "Outline of the Plan for the Reform and Development of the Pearl River Delta [en] (珠江三角洲地区改革发展规划纲要) [ch]" released by the National Development and Reform Commission (国家发展和改革委员会) in December of 2008. Aside from the question of whether political integration was mentioned by Ma during his interview with The Telegraph, the newspaper's account of what he told the British reporters is consistent with Ma's later interview with the Chinese media denying the urban merger story and with the PRD development plan outline. According to The Telegraph:

Over the next six years, around 150 major infrastructure projects will mesh the transport, energy, water and telecommunications networks of the nine cities together, at a cost of some 2 trillion yuan (£190 billion). An express rail line will also connect the hub with nearby Hong Kong ...

Twenty-nine rail lines, totalling 3,100 miles, will be added, cutting rail journeys around the urban area to a maximum of one hour between different city centres. According to planners, phone bills could also fall by 85 per cent and hospitals and schools will be improved.

"Residents will be able to choose where to get their services and will use the internet to find out which hospital, for example, is less busy," said Mr Ma.

Pollution, a key problem in the Pearl River Delta because of its industrialisation, will also be addressed with a united policy, and the price of petrol and electricity could also be unified.

Moreover, even if the nine cities of the Pearl River Delta will not be merging politically, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are already megacities. At a government conference for the Pearl River Delta Reform and Development Plan on June 17, 2010, it was announced that Guangzhou's population had exceeded 14 million. According to Shen Dingli, professor of international relations at Fudan University, "Government data indicate that Shenzhen's population, 12 million in 2006, now stands at 14 million [in 2010], though a more detailed analysis argued that in 2004, Shenzhen already had a population of some 18 million."


Huang Huahua

Despite growing competition from other regions and rising labor costs, the Pearl River Delta remains a major manufacturing hub, "account[ing] for about 10 percent of China's gross domestic product." Guangdong Province, with the Pearl River Delta as its core, is China's richest province. On January 21, 2010, Governor Huang Huahua (黄华华) reported to the Guangdong People's Congress that Guangdong's GDP in 2010 is an estimated 4.5636 trillion yuan (about US$695 billion), doubling over the last five years. Guangdong has now surpassed in GDP three of the Four Little Dragons of East Asia: Singapore in 1998; Hong Kong in 2003; Taiwan in 2007. Guangdong's per capita income is now about $7,000 US. Imports and exports grew at an annual rate of 12.9% over the past five years, with total trade at 784.7 billion yuan in 2010 (about US$120 billion). Exports grew at 13.7% per annum over the same period, reaching a level of 453.2 billion yuan in 2010 (about US$69 billion). The province attracted US$90.6 billion in direct foreign investment during the five year period.

Nevertheless, Huang Huahua admitted that Guangdong still has a long way to go before it can fulfill the mission Deng Xiaoping charged it with: catching up with the Four Little Dragons. Even though Guangdong has surpassed Singapore in GDP back in 1998, it remains far behind Singapore in per capita income, social management, social order, and social morality.

Note on per capita GDP: Guangdong is no exception to gross regional income inequalities in China. Shenzhen and Guangzhou, with per capita GDP of US$13,754 and US$13,015 respectively in 2009 as estimated by the Korean trade and investment firm Kotra, are the two richest cities in China, and much above Guangdong's provincial average of $7,000.

Hou Yifan the Youngest Women's World Champion in Chess History

2010-12-31T15:46:00.000-08:00

16-year old Hou Yifan (侯逸凡), who was profiled in this blog as the Youngest Woman to Attain the Title of Chess Grandmaster Ever, has just won the 2010 Women's World Chess Championship in Hatay, Turkey, December 2-24, thereby becoming the youngest woman to become world champion in chess history.

Hou Yifan with World Chess Federation president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

Hou Yifan entered the 64-player knockout tournament as the third highest ranked woman player in the world, with an FIDE rating of 2602. As in the 2008 tournament, Hou faced in the semi-final round Humpy Koneru of India, the highest rated player in the tournament and number 2 among all women after Judit Polgar of Hungary. Again as in 2008 Hou prevailed over Koneru, and advanced to the final round against fellow countrywoman Ruan Lufei (阮露斐). Ruan had a surprisingly strong tournament performance, given her fourth rank among the Chinese women at the championship and her status as a full-time doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, leaving her less time to study chess than her competitors. To get to the final, Ruan had to fight exceptionally hard in every round, having to play a 2-game tiebreaker each time. In the third round she defeated world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia, who had gained the crown in 2008 by beating Hou Yifan in the final. In the final round, again Ruan tied the score against her opponent, leading to another tie-breaker. This time, however, Hou Yifan prevailed in tie-breaker, thus becoming the fourth Chinese women world champion of chess. Previous Chinese world champions were: Xie Jun (谢军), 1991-1996 and 1999-2001; Zhu Chen (诸宸), 2001-2004; and Xu Yuhua (许昱华), 2006 to 2008.

Ruan Lufei, Hou Yifan, & Zhao Xue

At Title Event, Asian Women Pursue World Domination, so states the title of Dylan Loeb McClain's New York Times article. McClain suggests that the Women's World Chess Championship "provided more evidence of a shift in the balance of power in the women’s game to Asia from Eastern Europe." The sport had been dominated by women players in Eastern Europe, particularly the Soviet Union and its successor states, including Georgia and Russia. At the 2010 championship, however, four of the quarter-finalists were from China, and two from India, leaving Kateryna Lahno of Ukraine as the only survivor from Eastern Europe. In the semi-final round, three Chinese women (Hou, Ruan, and Zhao Xue 赵雪) and Humpy Koneru of India were left.

During her interview by Southern Metropolis Daily (南方都市报) [ch], Hou Yifan stated that her idol is Xue Jun, for being successful both in chess and in life: Xie earned a Ph.D. in psychology, and has just been appointed vice-president of Capital Institute of Physical Education (首都体育学院) [ch]. Since age 13 Hou has been represented by Beijing Starz International Sports Management Co. (众辉体育), a global sports marketing and management company the clients of which include Yao Ming (姚明), Steve Nash, star snooker champion Ding Junhui (丁俊晖), and China's most successful male swimmer Zhang Lin (张琳). Since Hou decided to pursue a career in chess at age seven, her mother gave up her own career and moved with her from their home in Jiangsu to Shandong so that Yifan could study at a chess academy and then to Beijing when Yifan became the youngest member of the national team. Two years ago Hou's father also gave up his job and moved to Beijing so that the family could be together. Despite anticipated prize earnings and bonuses from the government and a foundation following her victory at the world championship, Hou Yifan and her family will still be unable to afford buying a house in Beijing.

Is Cantonese in Danger of Extinction? The Politics and Culture of Language Policy in China

2010-08-20T17:29:00.000-07:00

Cartoon showing a cadre removing
TV newscaster's Cantonese lips and
replacing them with Mandarin lips

When on July 5, 2010, Ji Keguang (纪可光), a deputy director of the Guangzhou (Canton) People's Political Consultative Conference (广州市政协), proposed replacing Cantonese with Mandarin on the composite (综合频道) and news channels (新闻频道) of Guangzhou Television, he unwittingly touched a raw nerve in many Cantonese and triggered a social protest movement that spilled over into the Special Administration Region of Hong Kong. A series of mass protests ensued that have uncertain future political and cultural consequences.

This proposal was perceived as a threat to the survival of Cantonese, which has already been put in doubt since at least the beginning of the new millennium. Two forces are at work that are undermining the linguistic primacy of Cantonese in Guangdong Province: government policy promoting Mandarin as the national language for nation building, and a heavy influx of non-Cantonese immigrants into the province.

Unity in Script but Diversity in Speech

The First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, the unifier of China back in the 3rd century BCE, was able to unify the writing scripts of the Warring States, but not their spoken languages [ch]. Although all dynasties since the Zhou had their official spoken languages, usage at best was limited to the bureaucratic stratum (hence the nomenclature Mandarin 官话). According to Prof. Yi Zhongtian (易中天) of Xiamen University, there are seven major dialect groups among the Han Chinese [ch], of which six were southern [Wu (吴); Xiang or Hunanese (湘); Gan (赣); Yue or Cantonese (粤); Min (闽)] and only one northern [Mandarin or Northern (Beifang 北方)]. The subdialects within the dialect groups number in the hundreds. However, some subdialects are mutually intelligible, e.g. the speeches of Southern Fujian (闽南语) and Chaozhou (潮州话). Moreover, the subdialects of the Mandarin group covers about 3/4s of Chinese-speaking regions in China, including Northern China, the Northwest, the Southwest, and Jianghuai (江淮) roughly encompassing the region between the Huai River and the Lower Yangzi in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces. Still, many subdialects within the same dialect group are mutually unintelligible or barely intelligible, and the linguistic subgroups "show marked linguistic and cultural diversity." As for the dialect groups, the differences between them are great enough that some have argued that they should be classified as languages in their own right.

Language Map of China

State Policy to Promote a Common Spoken Language

It was not until the founding of the Republic of China in the early 20th century that there was a concerted government effort to promote a common spoken language [ch] among the peoples of China. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Communist Party continued this state policy. In 1956 Mandarin was established as the official language, and top leaders like Zhou Enlai strongly advocated the national promotion of Mandarin for building central power and national unity. Still, during the Maoist era the popularization of Mandarin (now called Putonghua 普通话 or Common Speech) was limited, particularly in the rural areas. Many of the top government leaders, cadres, and school teachers lacked fluency in standard Mandarin. Because of limited geographical mobility, the masses had little need of speaking Mandarin. Some lower level cadres even believed that speaking Mandarin separated them from the masses.

Primary school student making speech
in front of banner with slogan
"Speak Mandarin, Be a Civilized Person"

A new wave of national promotion of Mandarin came with the onset of the Deng Xiaoping era. The 1982 Constitution specifically states in Article 19 that "The state promotes the nationwide use of Putonghua." In 1985 the popularization of Mandarin and writing reform campaigns were merged [ch] under the supervision of the State Council. In 1994 a national Mandarin proficiency exam was instituted for candidates applying for posts in government, broadcasting. Even though the government insisted that popularizing Mandarin was not directed at prohibiting the use of regional dialects, since the mid-1990s it has been aggressively promoting Mandarin in government offices, the broadcast media, and schools. Speaking Mandarin is equated with being civilized (文明) through slogans and school speech contests with the theme "Speak Mandarin, Be a Civilized Person (讲普通话，做文明人)." Local schools have been pushing the "Promoting Mandarin 8+8" (“推普8+8”) Campaign, requiring students from kindergarten through middle school to use Mandarin for 8 hours in school and 8 hours outside each day. The Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language [ch] (中华人民共和国国家通用语言文字法) was promulgated in 2001, requiring the use of Mandarin at official and public functions and limiting the use of Chinese dialects and minority languages under specified occasions, such as special official situations, officially approved television and radio stations, regional artistic genres (e.g. Cantonese opera), and research and teaching. Progressively local stations are prohibited from broadcasting in the local dialects.


Girl's poster: "Grandma, please speak Mandarin." Grandma (in Cantonese): "You got to be kidding!"

These developments have already sounded alarms among the Cantonese in Guangzhou before 2010. In a 2009 newspaper commentary entitled "Destroying Cantonese, Beginning in Kindergarten? (消灭粤语，从幼稚园做起？)," the writer complained that more and more primary school children could only speak Mandarin [ch]. Some of her friends spoke Cantonese to their husbands but Mandarin to their infant children. She attributed this to the policy of promoting Mandarin, the use of Mandarin as the instructional language in kindergarten, the employment of non-Cantonese nannies, and parental indifference. Would her generation squander the Cantonese cultural heritage bequeathed by their ancestors, she bemoaned? Why was it that she found Cantonese still commonly spoken in the overseas Chinese communities in Malaysia even though many Chinese Malaysians are third or fourth generation? Why did Cantonese enjoy a greater vitality in Hong Kong than in Guangzhou, despite Hong Kong's century of British rule? Will Cantonese only survive in overseas communities in the future? Ironically, the New York Times reported in 2009 that Mandarin is eclipsing Cantonese in New York's Chinatown. This July, the New York Times published a commentary by Hong Kong writer Verna Yu complaining that many Hong Kong parents were speaking in their less-than-perfect English to their infant children to prepare them for admission to prestigious international schools, with the result that those children could not speak their mother tongue at all. As Hong Kong writer Kent Ewing observed, "In the same way that many middle-class parents in Hong Kong, a former British colony, speak English to their children at home in the hope that it will advance their educational and career prospects, upwardly mobile Guangdong parents teach Putonghua to their offspring."

Besides the government's language policy and parental choice, another factor that posed a threat to regional dialects and minority languages is the increased mobility of the population, with loosened controls on migration and economic reform creating economic opportunities. The Pearl River Delta around Guangzhou, the first beneficiary of economic reform and the influx of overseas Chinese and foreign investment in the 1980s, has attracted a huge influx of immigrants from all over China, who of necessity turn to the use of Mandarin for communication. As much as 1/3 of the population of Guangdong Province are immigrant workers [ch].

Cantopop and Mandopop diva Faye Wong,
in Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express (1994)

Still, Cantonese might have been in a less perilous state than other regional dialects for several reasons. In the 1980s and 1990s, Hong Kong movies and pop music (Cantopop) in Cantonese were hugely popular in mainland China, and some Cantonese idioms have even made it into standard Mandarin usage (e.g maidan 埋单 in place of jiezhang 结账 for "please bring the bill"). A number of non-Cantonese have become big stars in Cantopop, for example Beijing native Faye Wong (王菲). Secondly, both because of the cultural influence of Hong Kong pop culture and the economic opportunities offered by the Pearl River Delta, there was a Cantonese fever (粤语热) [ch] in the late 1980s and 1990s. Many young people in the non-Cantonese speaking regions of Guangdong, as well as cities to the North including Shanghai and Beijing, were taking Cantonese classes so that they could seek employment in the Pearl River Delta or deal with Cantonese-speaking businessmen and customers from Hong Kong and Guangdong. The saying was that Northerners were coming south, while Cantonese dialect was going north (北方人南下，廣州話北上). Thirdly, because of the proximity of Hong Kong to the Pearl River Delta, the Chinese government has been fairly liberal in allowing Cantonese language programming in the Guangdong broadcast media, unlike other Chinese dialects but similar to the minority languages Tibetan, Mongolian and Uyghur which are allocated a fair number of television stations in their respective autonomous regions. The 9 channels of Guangzhou Television mostly broadcast in Cantonese. Back in 1988, the Film and Television Bureau (广电部) gave approval to the Pearl River and Guangzhou channels to broadcast in Cantonese [ch], as a counter to influence from the television stations of neighboring Hong Kong. The ratings of the Guangzhou Cantonese channels have now surpassed Asia Television's Hong Kong Channel (本港台), and are comparable to TVB's Jade Channel's (翡翠台).

Why then did Ji Keguang propose switching from Cantonese to Mandarin on two Guangzhou channels this July? His committee proposal's claim that the switch would boost ratings seemed tenuous, as a language switch by the Business Channel (经济频道) of Guangzhou Television to Mandarin in 2009 resulted in a precipitous drop in ratings, and its noontime newscast had to switch back to Cantonese in January of 2010. Moreover, the Guangzhou People's Political Consultative Conference had conducted an online survey before completing and submitting the proposal to Guangzhou mayor Wan Qingliang (万庆良). Over 30,000 people had responded to the survey, with 20% supporting Mandarin and 80% supporting Cantonese.

Guangzhou Opera House (广州歌剧院),
designed by Zaha Hadid, and opened May 2010

The overwhelming support of the online poll for Cantonese notwithstanding, Ji Keguang and other leaders and officials insisted that switching from Cantonese to Mandarin would allow the city to better meet the needs of the large numbers of non-Cantonese residents as well as outside visitors during the Asian Games in October, and also enable Guangzhou Television to be approved for national satellite programming. Alone of the five urban areas designated as national central cities (国家五大中心城市) by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (住房和城乡建设部) in February 2010, Guangzhou is not a direct-controlled municipality (直辖市), nor are its television stations on national satellite television (the other four cities are: Beijing; Shanghai; Tianjin; Chongqing). Getting on satellite television is befitting to Guangzhou for a city of its national stature and importance. According to Ji, the poll results indicated that the masses needed proper guidance to bring them around to the correct standpoint.

Not all members of the political and cultural elite agreed, however. Han Zhipeng (韩志鹏), a member of the Guangzhou People's Political Consultative Conference, argued against the proposal on the grounds that Cantonese is the mother tongue of the Cantonese people and the foundation of Cantonese culture, and that it is an important connection to the overseas Chinese, many of whom speak only Cantonese. In any event, meeting the needs of non-Cantonese residents and Asian Games visitors seem to be a specious reason, as there are plenty of television channels broadcasting in Mandarin they can turn on. Nor is it guaranteed that Guangzhou Television will be approved for satellite broadcasting if two of its main channels switch to Mandarin.

Although the proposal remained at that point just that, and Mayor Wan maintained an air of non-committal, many local residents in Guangzhou and Hong Kong became extremely agitated about a government policy they perceived as "Promoting Mandarin, Abolishing Cantonese (推普废粤)." A lively debate surfaced online, and a mass campaign to protect Cantonese (捍卫广东话) was mobilized over the Internet (see Chinese-language wikis on the campaign: 香港網絡大典: 撐粵語運動; 維基百科: 2010年廣州市民捍衛粵語行動).

The Rallies on July 11, July 25, and August 1, 2010

Guangzhou Youth Joining in
"I Sing Loudly for Cantonese (我为粤语大声唱),"
People's Park, July 11, 2010

A day care center teacher with the screen name Firefly (萤火虫), who had worked on cultural preservation and photographed buildings and relics of the vanishing old neighborhoods in Guangzhou, issued a call to meet on July 11, 2010, for a Cantonese songfest to demonstrate their support for Cantonese [ch]. Well over one hundred Guangzhou youth showed up [ch] at People's Park (人民公园), joining in singing three Cantonese standards (《海闊天空》、《半斤八兩》，《IQ博士》). Participants created the slogan "Cantonese, anchors ahoy! Mandarin, pack it up! 广东话起锚，煲冬瓜收皮" [ch] (in Cantonese, 煲冬瓜 or cooking winter melon is a homonym for 普通话 or Mandarin).

Guangzhou protester holding up poster
defending Cantonese against
the intrusion of Mandarin

This slogan/poster design is actually a spinoff of a political slogan/poster from a Hong Kong political campaign. In November of 2009, the Hong Kong government put together a proposal to broaden political participation in the 2012 elections of the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council, presumably as a move towards greater democracy and eventual universal suffrage. Before the package would be voted on by the Legislative Council in June of 2010, the Hong Kong government launched a publicity campaign to garner popular support. The slogan used was "Act Now" (起錨), or literally, "Anchors Ahoy." Opponents of the government proposal, who felt that it did not make real progress towards democracy and universal suffrage, parodied the government poster by transforming its slogan "Act Now (起錨)" into "All Wrong" (超錯) and "Collect Skin" (收皮), the latter phrase a Cantonese swearword meaning roughly "pack it up."

Animated parody of Hong Kong government poster
transforming "Act Now" (起錨) into "All Wrong" (超錯)
and "Collect Skin" (收皮)

Police trying to keep protesters in check,
Henanxi Subway Station, Guangzhou, July 25, 2010

On July 16 another call went out on the Internet for ten thousand people to gather outside the Henanxi Subway Station (河南西地铁站) at 5 p.m. on July 25 for a Big Movement to Support Cantonese Together (齐撑粤语大行动). On July 23 the municipal government declared this gathering illegal, and the original organizers tried to call it off. Nonetheless, around 2,000 people showed up shortly after 5 p.m. on July 25, singing Cantonese songs, holding high posters, and shouting slogans such as "Ji Keguang, Go to Hell (紀可光收皮)," "Mandarin, Pack It Up; Cantonese, Anchors Ahoy! (煲冬瓜收皮，廣州話起錨)," and "Long Live Cantonese" (廣州話萬歲)" [see eyewitness account by Hong Kong's inmediahk.net (香港獨立媒體網) with photos and videos (ch)]. Only with increasing numbers of police and security personnel arriving on the scene did the crowd begin to disperse after about 6:40 p.m.

Police scuffling with demonstrators, People's Park, Aug. 1, 2010

A second gathering was scheduled [ch] at People's Park on the following Sunday, August 1. At least two thousand demonstrators congregated at the park [ch] by 2:30 p.m., shouting slogans such as "Guangzhou natives speak Cantonese (广州人讲广州话)." They were confronted by large numbers of policemen, who began to close off the park entrances, allowing people to leave but not to enter. They scuffled with some demonstrators, arrested a number of them, and detained seven journalists and news photographers, six from Hong Kong media and one a Reuters reporter. With further reinforcements arriving, about a thousand policemen entered the park through the main gate at around 3 p.m., and forced everyone inside to leave. The demonstrators regrouped at the main gate, and proceeded to walk toward nearby Beijing Road Pedestrian Street (北京路步行街) to continue their demonstration. The police countered by forming a human barrier to prevent access to Beijing Road. By 4:30 p.m. most demonstrators were persuaded to disperse. Reportedly a number of protests took place at other locations in Guangzhou, including Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (中山纪念堂) and several university campuses.

Hong Kong protester holding poster with sign "I Love Cantonese;
I Don't Know How to Cook Winter Melon"
["Cook Winter Melon (煲冬瓜)" is a homonym for Mandarin (普通话)],
Aug. 1, 2010

On the same day, about 200 Hong Kong demonstrators held a parallel protest in support of Cantonese. They first gathered at Southhorn Playground in Wanchai District (灣仔修頓球場), and then walked to the Wanchai Police Headquarters and the office of the Hong Kong government. Hon Lin Shan (韓連山), an official with the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union (香港教育專業人員協會), stated: "We are here to echo the Guangzhou people's voices because we believe Guangzhou people are our brothers and sisters. If their freedom of choice is interfered with, sooner or later Hong Kong people's freedom of choice will be interfered with, because we are in the same country." Significantly, this was the first time that the people in Hong Kong expressed their concerns for an external political issue by holding a parallel protest simultaneously with the mainland protesters in Guangzhou. There is the realization that if the mainlanders do not enjoy democracy and freedom, then Hong Kongers too cannot enjoy them in the long run [ch].

State Response to Mass Protests

Even before the July 25 demonstration in the People's Park, the state responded on the public media to the burgeoning Internet campaign in defense of Cantonese. Vice-secretary Su Zhijia (苏志佳) of the Guangzhou City Party Committee (广州市委) stated on July 19 in an interview with the media that while the Guangzhou Netizens demonstrated a love of the Guangzhou and Guangdong (Lingnan) culture, the city party committee and the municipal government never had any intention to abolish Cantonese [ch] through the promotion of Mandarin (推普废粤). He reaffirmed that Cantonese is an important component of Lingnan culture, inseparable from its opera, music, food and other cultural assets. Since the preservation of local culture was an important aspect of the policy of the party committee and the municipal government, there was never any question of the abolition of Cantonese. Promotion of Mandarin and the preservation of Cantonese were not contradictory but complementary, Su asserted.

Guangzhou officials at press conference, July 28, 2010

On July 28, the City Party Committee and the municipal government held a press conference [ch], again emphasizing that there was never any official policy of promoting Mandarin to abolish Cantonese (推普废粤), and that it was a false and fabricated issue. Moreover, the party committee and the city government, in line with the desires of the masses, have been actively pursuing the preservation and the promotion of Lingnan culture, with many successes and accomplishments, for example in the promotion of Cantonese opera (粤剧). The People's Political Consultative Conference's 16 committee reports on the soft environment of the Asian Games, among which was the broadcast language proposal, were drafted with the participation of 8 democratic parties, 2 organizations, and 6 special committees. This process was thus a realization of "democratic politics under socialism with Chinese characteristics" (中国特色社会主义民主政治). The recommendations by the People's Political Consultative Conference were neither executive orders nor legal provisions; they were provided for the reference of the party committee and the city government, which would study the issues further and invite other opinions widely before "making a scientific decision" (科学决策).

Asian Games poster with slogan
"Welcoming the Asian Games, Creating a New Life"

The officials further emphasized that those who spread false rumors about the non-existent issue of the endangerment of Cantonese and those who congregated illegally for a mass meeting without official permit would be punished. Back on July 16, the police had discovered that someone had posted online the false message that a mass gathering for 10,000 people had been officially approved, and subsequently an out-of-towner surnamed Yu was arrested as the alleged culprit. As for the July 25 demonstration, the officials stated that the police, concerned about traffic safety, dispersed the crowd peacefully without incident. Finally, the officials emphasized that all Guangzhou citizens should work together to achieve the goal of "Welcoming the Asian Games, Creating a New Life (迎接亚运会，创造新生活) that provincial party secretary Wang Yang (汪洋) had espoused.

Wang Yang, Guangdong Party Secretary

At the meeting to mobilize the masses one hundred days before the Asian Games on August 4, Wang Yang, who is both the highest ranking official in Guangdong and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, reiterated that the abolition of Cantonese through promotion of Mandarin was a false issue. He thundered, "I myself am learning Cantonese. Who dares to abolish Cantonese? [ch] (我都在学广东话，谁敢废粤？)." Wang Yang warned that some discontented people with ulterior motives, including some terrorists, were plotting to disrupt the Asian Games [ch]. "We hope that every individual who loves Guangdong, every work unit and every citizen, be especially vigilant about being used, and prevent the destruction of the harmonious atmosphere of the Asian Games."

Sources of Popular Discontent Beyond Language Policy

Were the demonstrators overreacting or succumbing to the rhetoric of agitators, as government officials insinuated? To be sure, the broadcast language proposal was only under consideration, and, even if implemented, it would not result in the total disappearance of Cantonese from the television broadcasts. Nevertheless, the size and fervor of the pro-Cantonese movement were derived from well-founded fears that Cantonese was losing ground, and also from legitimate sources of popular dissatisfaction beyond the realms of language policy: collective concerns about the progressive disappearance of Cantonese culture and social dislocations resulting from massive urban renewal and construction.

A certificate for a "Three Good Student"
(三好学生)

Popular discontent had been building up before Ji Keguang's proposal, according to participants of the protests interviewed by Hong Kong's immediahk.net (香港獨立媒體網). Guangzhou's subway system had recently proposed the elimination of Cantonese announcements, and only backed off in face of mass opposition. As mentioned earlier, the schools have been instituting the "Promoting Mandarin 8+8" Campaign. Guangzhou middle schools are penalizing students for speaking Cantonese outside the classroom. Firefly recalled that even back when she attended primary school in the early 1990s, 1 point would be deducted from a student's conduct grade (操行分) each time she was caught speaking Cantonese. If one had been caught speaking Cantonese 20 times, one would lose all hopes of ever being designated as a "Three-Good Student" (三好学生), a commendation for excellence in morality, studies and physical fitness, which might later confer advantages in school admission and job assignments.

Qilou (骑楼): Cantonese architecture with the first floor
receding part way, and the upper floors hanging over
the sidewalk and supported by columns

Han Zhipeng, a member of the People's Political Consultative Conference who was opposed to the broadcast language proposal, believed that the main reason why the discussion of the language issue had been so excited and protracted was the fear of the local people that Cantonese culture was being endangered [ch]. As Guangzhou becomes more modernized, old streets representing Lingnan culture are disappearing, arcade buildings (骑楼) and big mansions in Xiguan (西关大屋) are replaced by apartment buildings, old teahouses are converted into modern restaurants, and many old traditional businesses have closed. Urban development and the demolition of old buildings and neighborhoods have accelerated with the coming Asian Games (similar to what happened in Beijing before the 2008 Olympics and Shanghai before Expo 2010).

En'ning Road residence of 73-year old Cantonese opera star
Ye Zhaobai (叶兆栢), and former residence of his father-in-law
and Cantonese opera and Hong Kong film star
Zhang Huoyou (张活游), slated for demolition

Particularly controversial is the urban government's plan to demolish and rebuild the neighborhood of En'ning Road [ch] (恩宁路), a historic area nicknamed Cantonese Opera Street (粤剧街), and containing old buildings and former residences of many famous people, including Cantonese opera stars He Feifan (何非凡) and Hong Xiannü (红线女), renowned architect Liang Sicheng (梁思成), and national anthem composer Nie Er (聂耳) (see Southern Metropolis Weekly's photo essay on En'ning Road) [ch]). Only three structures will be exempted from demolition: Bahe Huiguan or Cantonese Opera Guildhall (八和会馆), Luanyu Tang or Cantonese Opera Secondary Guildhall (鑾舆堂), and the home of Bruce Lee's father Li Haiquan (李小龙祖居).

Wooden door of the Cantonese Opera Guildhall,
only surviving part of the original building
destroyed by Japanese bombing in 1937

Besides the loss of cultural heritage, many residents are concerned about inadequate compensation and relocation to neighborhoods far from the city center, despite reportedly record rates of compensation [ch] set by the government — as high as 17,000 yuan per square meter in Liwan District (荔湾区). According to urban planning drawn up for 2010-20, demolitions of old buildings and relocations will impact about 600,000 people [ch] and cover an area of about 10.5 million square meters. More immediately, urban facelift in advance of the Asian Games, involving the building of more expressways, maintenance repair of existing main roads and the subway system, the improvement of key neighborhoods, and the beautification of buildings along the main arteries, has turned the city into a huge construction mess. On January 28, 2010, then mayor (and currently the secretary of Guangzhou Party Committee) Zhang Guangning (张广宁) apologized to the residents of Guangzhou, and promised reforms to ameliorate the situation. He admitted that in the last six months, the city had received some 600 complaints, including traffic jams and noise due to the construction work, the loss of revenue to merchants, poor construction workmanship, and damage to private property and burglaries committed by construction workers. While insisting that the number of cases of construction workers causing inconvenience and economic loss to Guangzhou residents was small relative to the scale of the urban renewal, Mayor Zhang admitted that the reputation of the municipal government had been blackened and that the enthusiasm of Guangzhou citizens for the Asian Games construction work had been dampened.

The Political, Social and Cultural Significance of the Pro-Cantonese Protests

Following the police crackdown on the August 1 demonstration and Secretary Wang Yang's stern warning about people taking care not to be used by agitators and terrorists, the pro-Cantonese movement went into a lull. Yet as indicated earlier, the causes of popular discontent were profound, and have not been adequately addressed by the authorities. Wang Yang's denial of any intention of abolishing Cantonese was met with some skepticism [ch]: only one month earlier he had told the Cantonese that now that they were rich, they needed to focus on becoming "enlightened" (教化), that is, broadening the use of Mandarin and elevating the cultural level among the people. He was only putting on a show now because of his concern that the pro-Cantonese protests would negatively impact the Asian Games and his political fortunes at the 18th Party Congress in 2012.

Confucius lecturing to his students in "elegant speech" (雅言)

The pro-Cantonese protests of 2010 were significant for several reasons. First of all, the protests were about not only linguistic preservation, but more broadly cultural preservation. Protesters, commentators, and government officials are agreed on one point: that Cantonese represents the heart of Lingnan culture. Furthermore, Cantonese is not just a medium of communication and expression of a regional culture, it is also a living linguistic fossil of what standard spoken Chinese was like one or two thousand years ago. According to Prof. Luo Kangning (罗康宁), Cantonese originated from ancient standard Chinese ("elegant speech" or Yayan 雅言) [ch] of the Central Plains that was used as the "Putonghua" of the Zhou Dynasty for court, literary and ritual occasions. "Elegant Speech" was first introduced to Guangdong in the Qin and the Han dynasties, serving as a means of common communication for the North Chinese immigrants from different regions and also for the indigenous tribes who had diverse languages and no written scripts. Maritime trade between the Central Plains and the south also facilitated the spread of the "elegant speech" of the north in the Lingnan region. The spoken language in the North began to diverge significantly from ancient Chinese when North China was occupied by successive waves of nomadic invaders from the 4th to the 6th centuries who brought their linguistic and cultural influences. Cantonese, however, did not undergo comparable changes because of the relative stability of the southern region. As a result, Cantonese remained phonetically much closer to ancient and middle Chinese than other dialect groups.

The mobilization of the masses in the pro-Cantonese movement was the sign of an emerging civil society. A July 28, 2010 commentary in Southern Weekend by Xiaoshu (笑蜀) optimistically projected a Guangzhou model of social action (广州模式) [ch] for the rest of the country to emulate. First, the participants acted in a rational and orderly manner. Second, the police did not overreact at the July 25 gathering, and there were no instances of a demonstrator being labeled as mentally ill, made to disappear, or thrown into a "black jail," as often happened in cases of police taking action against crowds of demonstrators or individual petitioners pleading for justice. Both demonstrators and policemen were engaged in rational interactions, perhaps creating new rules of the game under which the authorities allow space for peaceful demonstrations, instead of relying on coercive methods. As it turned out, the authorities took a much tougher stance in responding to the second rally on August 1. Except for three people who were accused of instigating the demonstration or creating a disturbance (two with alleged criminal records), the police released the rest of the people who were arrested at the rally. Nevertheless, people were sufficiently intimidated not to risk going to another public rally in the near future [ch], particularly after Wang Yang's warning on August 4. Still, some participants declared an intention to carry on the pro-Cantonese campaign through cultural activities, for example by volunteering for the Asian Games and then promoting Cantonese with visitors and athletes.


Panyu protesters on Nov. 23, 2009: man wearing gas mask holding poster stating "Oppose the Incineration of Garbage; Protect Green Panyu"

If Xiaoshu might have been a bit optimistic in declaring a new tolerant approach by the government facing protests and petitions, he is correct in seeing a vibrant civil society emerging in Guangzhou. As he pointed out, the pro-Cantonese rallies were preceded by other acts of peaceful mass mobilization, most notably when residents of Panyu District in Guangzhou protested on November 23, 2009 against the planned location of a garbage incinerator in their neighborhood (EastSouthWestNorth's translation of Southern Metropolis Daily story with numerous photos). Moreover, one noteworthy feature of the pro-Cantonese movement was that most participants were young people born after 1980 (a number of them were profiled by Southern Weekend [ch]). Coming from an Internet-savvy generation conscious of the concept of citizen rights, the post-80 generation now constitutes the nucleus of the emerging civil society in Guangzhou. Xiao Lao (小劳), the editor of the community Web site City of Rams Network (羊城网) [ch], says of his generation, "They have developed a sense of social responsibility [ch]. They are more capable of thinking for themselves than in the past. They are not a moronic or brain-dead generation. The Guangzhou natives (广州人) are different from people from other places. They know they are citizens (市民), not subjects (老百姓). They are a part of the city, and do not blindly obey orders. On topics they care about, they are free, tolerant, and rational. This is the spirit of the Cantonese of Guangzhou."

The post-80 generation of Guangzhou makes extensive use of online tools such as community sites, discussion forums, blogs, microblogs as well as multimedia. It is also familiar with political action and cultural expression in Hong Kong [ch]. Many Guangzhou residents tune in to Hong Kong television channels and even to some Hong Kong news and political Web sites, and are therefore familiar with political issues and activities in Hong Kong, such as the 2009 protests over the scheduled demolition of Choi Yuen Village (菜園村) [ch] in the New Territories to clear land for a high speed rail link between Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Political action in Hong Kong set an example for mainlanders, and the health of civil society in Hong Kong is vital to the future of civil society in China, Guangzhou in particular [ch].

This online poster inviting people to participate
in the July 11 sing-along
in support of Cantonese
uses traditional Chinese characters
and Cantonese colloquialisms

One example of how this familiarity with Hong Kong politics and culture impacted the Guangzhou movement, as mentioned above, is Guangzhou activists' transformation of the Hong Kong government's promotional poster and the opposition's parody into the poster with the slogan "Cantonese, anchors ahoy! Mandarin, pack it up!" It is also significant that the Guangzhou activists often made use of traditional Chinese characters used in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan: the Chinese government promotes the use of standard simplified characters together with the use of Mandarin, as encapsulated in the slogan "Popularize Mandarin, Write Standardized Characters (推广普通话，写规范汉字)." Furthermore, the Guangzhou activists often employed Cantonese colloquialisms in their slogans and online exchanges, which meant using special Cantonese characters not in the official standard character set.

"The Master Thief Who Crushed Guangdong"

The activists made extensive use of puns [e.g. Cook Winter Melon (煲冬瓜) and Mandarin (普通话)] as well as parodies. Third-year art student Wu Weihao (吴伟浩) created this example of cultural activism [ch] (image left) that was a huge hit on the Internet. The image is that of a giant hand crushing a number of stone rams, and is a reference to a foundation myth of the city of Guangzhou: during a time of famine five immortals rode atop five rams each carrying a stalk or rice grain which the immortals bequeathed to the local residents, who enjoyed prosperity and plenty henceforth and therefore the city was known as the City of Rams (羊城) or the City of Five Rams (五羊城). The rams in Wu's cartoon is thus a symbol for Cantonese culture under siege. The cartoon's title "The Master Thief Who Crushed Cantonese [Language and Culture] (碎粤神偷)" was phonetically identical to the title of a 2009 Hong Kong film Echoes of the Rainbow (歲月神偷), which was about a Hong Kong family dealing with changes in its social environment, with time as the metaphorical thief that stole many of the good things in life (literal translation of the Chinese title: "Time the Master Thief"). Winner of the Crystal Bear award at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival, Echoes of the Rainbow triggered a citizen's movement to save from demolition Wing Lee Street (永利街) in the Sheung Wan (上環) district, where the movie was made. The Hong Kong government decided in March of 2010 to remove Wing Lee Street from the list of neighborhoods for urban renewal and marked it for historic preservation. Wu chose the title "The Master Thief Who Crushed Cantonese [Language and Culture] (碎粤神偷)" for his cartoon because he felt that Guangzhou is confronting similar problems of loss of cultural heritage as Hong Kong is, as Echoes of the Rainbow (歲月神偷) reminds its audience.

"Smashing Cantonese"

The parody poster on the right is a further extension of Wu's cartoon, which was incorporated into its design center left. The layout of this poster was patterned on a movie poster for Echoes of the Rainbow. The image of the much-derided Ji Keguang was pasted into the center right section of the poster, as the star of a movie called "Smashing Cantonese (碎粤神偷)" (literal translation: The Master Thief Who Crushed Cantonese [Language and Culture]). A line to the left of the last two characters of the film title stated: "In the Guangzhou that is promoting Mandarin, Ji Keguang is the biggest petty thief." The director of the "film" was listed as Country Bumpkin [who Knows No Cantonese] (死捞头), while the Office for Demolitions and Relocations (拆迁办) was producer.

"Destroy the Four Olds, Establish a New Insanity"

In addition to Hong Kong popular culture as a source of artistic borrowing or inspiration, the Photoshopping of Cultural Revolution posters is another technique the activists employed. The poster on the left was adapted from a Cultural Revolution poster on "Destroying the Four Olds (破四旧)," a slogan of that era. In this poster, the revolutionary peasant with a pickaxe is in front of a red flag with the words "Crush Cantonese [Language and Culture]" (碎粤), his right hand stretching towards a ram (symbol of Guangzhou). The four olds were crossed out in red in the background: "Collective Memory (集体回忆), the Old City (旧城), Cantonese (粤语), and Old Guangzhou Natives (老广州人)."

Guangzhou native Xie Wenjun (谢文君) created the huge online video hit Vanishing Guangzhou (正在消失的羊城) [Video in Cantonese with Chinese subtitles] back in June 2010 as a graduation film for Beijing Film Academy (北京电影学院). Through online word of mouth Vanishing Guangzhou attracted hundreds of thousands of hits in just 20 days during the height of the pro-Cantonese movement, inspiring many youth to become actively involved in the preservation of Guangzhou culture [ch]. Xie's film opens with a question. What if you are a father of the generation born in the 1980s looking out at Guangzhou of 2012 from your 106th floor apartment, and seeing nothing but modern high rises all around? How will you be able to answer if you are questioned by your child about what Guangzhou was like in the old days? The film then explores old Guangzhou using a variety of techniques and source materials, ranging from interviews with neighborhood people and other concerned parties to yellowing photos to hand drawings to newsreel footage and feature film excerpts to rap videos. The narration makes the point that the post-80 generation involved in documenting cultural loss in Guangzhou is focused on cultural preservation, but for the residents of the endangered neighborhoods, it is the even more serious matter of the defense of rights (维权). Can there be a middle way that allows for modern development and also the preservation of culture and rights, the film asks? Because the situation confronted by Guangzhou is hardly unique in China, Xie's documentary resonated with many people from other parts of the country.

Hit Rap Video: "Everything is Being Dismantled; Cantonese Must Not be Dismantled!"

Rap廣州-《乜都拆，廣州話唔可以拆！》

The examples of Firefly and Xie Wenjun suggest that for many Guangzhou residents, the preservation of the tangible and intangible cultural assets of Lingnan is inseparable from the future survival of Cantonese. Indeed, many participants in the pro-Cantonese movement of the summer of 2010 had previously been actively engaged in the discovery and preservation of Guangzhou culture. They had mobilized online and formed small groups and discussion forums [ch], exploring different sections of the city, photographing and documenting old buildings and cultural relics, exchanging their impressions and opinions about cultural topics online.

"Guangzhou natives speak Cantonese;
if you don't understand Cantonese,
go back to the countryside"
(Cultural Revolution poster style)

Some of the more chauvinist pro-Cantonese protesters saw a clear division between Cantonese and non-Cantonese, and took up slogans such as "Guangzhou natives speak Cantonese; if you don't understand Cantonese, go back to the countryside (广州人讲广州话，听唔明就翻乡下)." Many local residents also felt that top officials, who were non-Cantonese outsiders appointed by the central government, were lacking in sympathy for Cantonese culture and concerns. Nevertheless, the majority of the activists did not reject non-Cantonese or the use of Mandarin per se; they were only asking for respect for local language and culture. Nor was this concern for Cantonese culture exclusively held by Cantonese natives. Some of the cultural small groups were formed by or composed of mainly non-Cantonese immigrants who have taken up an interest in local culture and learned to speak Cantonese. For example, the Discover Guangzhou (发现广州) Small Group, of which Firefly was a member, was formerly headed by a Hunanese whose screen name was White Horse (白马) and who spoke Cantonese fluently; most of its members were new residents of Guangzhou (新广州人).

Could discontent with cultural loss erupt into more militant political expressions? Historian Arthur Waldron notes, "to tamper with language is to play with fire ... It is one thing to have a grasp of Mandarin for official uses. It is something quite different to give up one's historical identity as a cultured southern Chinese in favor of the identity of Beijing. The reaction in Guangdong, which encompasses a region every bit as rich, international and sophisticated as Beijing or Shanghai (whose own language is also being lost in the flood of enforced Mandarin), may be a sign of things to come, as local cultures, now wealthy, self-sufficient, and proud prove unwilling to abandon the languages they learned from their parents and grandparents and insist rather that they receive the same respect as the centrally-mandated national language." In the short run, however, the post-80 generation of Guangzhou is avoiding incurring the full wrath of the coercive power of the state. Still, the emerging civil society in Guangzhou, in alliance with its brethren in Hong Kong, is likely to keep the flames of the cause of Cantonese cultural preservation and promotion alive.

Is North Korea the Model for China? Lessons from the 2010 World Cup

2010-07-31T14:48:00.000-07:00

The mystery team of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the North Korean national men's soccer team, attracted multitudinous fans in China. Chinese enthusiasm for the North Koreans was in stark contrast to their general disgust and disdain for their own national team.

North Korea's National Men's Soccer Team

How was it possible for North Korea, an impoverished and isolated nation of 23 million, to qualify for the 2010 World Cup, while a rapidly growing and open China with 1.3 billion people failed to do so? Debates about the performances of the North Korean team even entered the realm of political discourse in China, with many Chinese seeing in the North Korean experience a source of inspiration for reforming Chinese soccer and even Chinese society.

China's National Men's Soccer Team: A National Disgrace

Despite China's emergence as a sports superpower, as evidenced by its great success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, men's soccer had become a national disgrace. To be sure, the Chinese women's national soccer team had been relatively successful in international competitions, winning the gold medal in the Asian Games three times, making the final two at the 1996 FIFA Women's World Cup and the 1996 Olympics, and currently ranking 10th on the FIFA list. In contrast, the Chinese men's national soccer team, among Asia's best in the 1980s, now only ranked 78th on the FIFA list. In its only appearance at the World Cup in 2002, the team lost all three games and failed to score a single goal. While China's neighbors, Japan, North Korea and South Korea all qualified for the 2010 World Cup, the Chinese team failed to do so. Exasperated with the long string of failures by the national men's team, Chinese soccer fans have dubbed it the National Pigs (guozhu国豬), punning on the abbreviated name for the team (guozu国足).

National Pigs (国豬)

The Chinese soccer players' "bad habits of excessive drinking, visiting prostitutes or other decadent lifestyles were blamed [by some Chinese] as the major causes of their failures in big international competitions." Others argued that government policy was an important reason for the mediocrity of Chinese men's soccer: the state funneled money "to individual sports like gymnastics, swimming and diving, and to sports in which Chinese have traditionally excelled, like badminton and table tennis," in order to produce the greatest number of winners and medals. Sports ministry officials focused on investing in "promising sports prodigies with a quicker guarantee of victory." Still another reason cited is that few children and young people play soccer: schools now de-emphasize sports, cities lack soccer fields, and the popularity of soccer among young people has been eclipsed by basketball, which is boosted by Chinese NBA players like Yao Ming as role models and by the aggressive marketing of the NBA in China.

Li Chengpeng, Sports Journalist

Perhaps corruption is the single biggest factor. As Forbes journalist Gady Epstein observed, "Chinese men's soccer failed to qualify for the [2010] World Cup finals but is outscoring the rest of the world in one category: corruption." Leading sports journalist and soccer commentator Li Chengpeng (李承鹏) co-authored in 2009 "Inside Story of Chinese Soccer 中国足球内幕" [ch] which provided a detailed exposé of close ties between gambling syndicates and professional soccer in China, resulting in the widespread corruption of officials, referees, coaches and players. The throwing of games, the fixing of matches and deliberately blown calls became frequent occurrences in the Chinese primary league competitions since the 1990s. Players even had to pay bribes to be admitted into national teams. Many players, coaches and managers were involved in gambling. Some players and coaches were victims of physical violence due to their involvement in or opposition to gambling: the owner of one soccer club allegedly tried to bury alive one of his players for throwing games, and one soccer manager was marched out of his house with a gun to his head for refusing to condone gambling. As Li Chengpeng saw it, professional soccer in China is organized not as modern organizations in the mold of the NBA, but along the lines of the Chinese underworld.

A government crackdown since late 2009 has resulted in at least 20 arrests, including Nan Yong (南勇), the head of the Chinese Football Association (中国足球协会), and Lu Jun (陆俊), a former World Cup referee who had been dubbed the Golden Whistle (金哨) for impartial refereeing in contrast to the Black Whistles (黑哨).

Foreign experts too have pondered the question about China's failure to send a team to the World Cup. Forbes columnist Ray Tsuchiyama dismissed some common explanations. If China was handicapped by lack of urban practice space and lack of money for balls, what about "Brazilian children practic[ing] soccer with a can wrapped in streets filled with parked cars?" If corruption leads to inferior playing, then what about successful soccer powers such as Brazil, Italy, Nigeria and Russia that have had their fair share of scandals?

Along with other expert panelists to which the New York Times posed the question, "Where Are China’s Soccer Stars?", Tsuchiyama suggested that one of the most important factors may be the lack of grassroots organizations fostering enthusiasm and nurturing talent among Chinese children and youth: "The Chinese state-managed sports focus yields a huge number of medals in Olympic and other world competitions. But it has prevented the development of local sports autonomy — in particular, independent soccer clubs which form a foundation for training young players. In America, by contrast, parents, teachers, coaches and parents-as-coaches have had a tremendous impact over the past three decades on youth soccer development." Historian Xu Guoqi cited the lack of soccer moms among other reasons: "Too many factors contribute to China’s poor performance in soccer, including its political system, lack of a decent pool of soccer players, and Chinese parents’ overemphasis on book learning and academic examinations over everything else, soccer included ... Chinese enjoy watching soccer games, but few really want to play or have their children play soccer." Anthropologist Susan Brownell agreed the Chinese sport system "does not work well for sports in which stars emerge slowly from a wide participation base, where talent becomes apparent only as the athletes mature physically." Moreover, corruption arises because power is concentrated: the Chinese Football Administration responsible for administration and the Football Management Center responsible for managing corporate sponsorships and business affairs are both run by the same person. Rowan Simons, the chairman of China ClubFootball FC, concurred: "Football is a mass participation sport in which the best players may not emerge until their later teens. The simple truth is that China needs a system of community-based clubs that are run by the people for the people."

North Korea: The Miracle Team of the 1966 World Cup

North Korea Team Flag

Whatever the cause, the Chinese soccer fans had no national team to root for in the 2010 World Cup, and instead lavished their affection and support on the North Korean team. This was not the first time that North Korea participated in the World Cup. Nor was it the first time that its national soccer team was embraced by the people of a foreign country. North Korea last competed in the 1966 World Cup hosted by England, when it became the Cinderella team of the tournament. As recounted in the BBC documentary The Game of Their Lives [trailer], the qualification process became a subject of bitter political controversy when FIFA allocated a single slot for the countries of the African, Asian and Oceania zones. With the African countries and most Asian nations boycotting in protest, Australia played against North Korea for the slot. By stunning the Australians, North Korea qualified along with 10 teams from Europe, 4 teams from South America, and 1 team from North and Central America (Mexico).

The lack of diplomatic relations between North Korea and host country England posed political obstacles. The British Foreign Office could not deny visas to the North Koreans out of fear that England would then be stripped of being the host nation. It was reluctant to allow any display of national symbols by North Korea lest that would imply diplomatic recognition and set the precedent for demands by East Germany which England did not recognize. Eventually a compromise was reached: the North Koreans were allowed to display their flag, but their national anthem would only be played at the opening match between England and Uruguay and at the championship match (as it turned out, the North Korean anthem was never played).

North Koreans Celebrate Victory Over Italy

Although 1000 to 1 underdogs and with an average height of only 5" 5', the North Korean team achieved a miracle by advancing to the quarterfinals. After losing to the Soviets 3-0 in their first Group D match, the North Koreans squeaked out a tie with Chile by scoring a goal with two minutes to go. In their final group game on July 19, 1966, they managed to stun the highly touted Italians 1-0 with no. 7 Park Do-ik scoring the winning goal, thereby advancing to the quarterfinals (in 2002, South Korea would match this by beating Italy to reach the World Cup quarterfinals).

Li Chang-myung & Shin Yunk-kyoo Block Eusébio

By this point, the North Koreans with their active attacking style had won the hearts of the people of Middlesbrough, a town in Northeastern England where the team had been staying and playing. 3,000 Middlesbrough residents followed the North Korean team to Liverpool, where the quarterfinal game against Portugal would be played. The North Koreans started fast, scoring three goals in the first twenty minutes for a big lead, and it appeared that another miracle was in the offing. Alas, the Portuguese managed a comeback, with their legendary player Eusébio scoring four goals in response and Portugal winning in the end 5-3. The North Korean team returned home to a hero's welcome.

Surviving Members of the 1966 Team

In 2001, Director Daniel Gordon (who had been impressed by the North Koreans when as a kid his dad gave him a video of the North Korea-Italy match) and producer Nick Bonner received permission from the North Korean government to visit North Korea to make the documentary on the 1966 team, The Game of Their Lives. After completing the film in 2002, the filmmakers then secured permission from the governments of Britain and North Korea to bring the seven surviving members of the soccer team back to Middlesbrough for a memorable visit.

North Korea's Tortuous Path to Return to the World Cup

The North Korean national team took a tortuous path to return to the World Cup in 2010. For years it was rumored that the 1966 World Cup team was purged for womanizing before the game against Portugal. According to a history of North Korean soccer by blogger Joo Seong-ha, a North Korean defector who is now a reporter for the leading South Korean daily Dong-A Ilbo (translated by Ask a Korean: Part I, Part II, Part III), the team was indeed purged, not for falling for the "courtesan tactics" of the imperialists, but as innocent victims swept up in a 1967 political purge, the most prominent victims of which were no. 2 party leader Park Geum-cheol and party secretary Kim Do-man — Park and Kim had provided unconditional support to the national soccer team and claimed its success among their accomplishments. Eventually some members of the team were rehabilitated and returned to serve as coaches.

Nonetheless, the purge had set back progress in North Korean soccer for decades. An important step taken by the government to rebuild its national men's soccer team into an international competitive force was the 1991 hiring of a foreign coach, Hungarian Pal Csernai who had successful coaching experience in the German leagues. Csernai's first great success was a 2-1 victory at the unprecedented friendly match between his North Korean team and the U.S. team at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC on Oct. 19, 1991. The North Korean team made a creditable run to return to the World Cup by winning 7 of 8 games in the preliminaries in 1993, only to falter in the final qualifying stage in Doha, losing 4 of 5 games, the last to South Korea which advanced to the World Cup.

1966 Hero Park Do-ik as 2008 Olympic Torchbearer

With the return of Csernai directly from Doha to Munich, and the onset of the food crisis of the 1990s, the North Korean soccer program went through another difficult period. Nevertheless, a league system of 130 teams continued to function, and the age of selecting players to be groomed as future stars continued to be lowered to ensure the provision of adequate nutrition at a young age.

As reported by Chinese journalists Wang Wei (汪伟) and Wang Qian (王倩), after its failure in Doha in 1993, North Korea stayed away from international competition for the next 5 years [ch], while building a national training facility at Mt. Paektu, which would produce many of the future national stars. The North Korean national team made its first international reappearance at the 2001 Shanghai Invitational.

The internationalization of North Korean soccer accelerated with the failure of the national team to qualify for the 2006 World Cup [ch], after which Kim Jong-il decided to allow North Korean players to play for professional soccer clubs abroad, broaden their horizons, and raise their playing levels. Clubs in Asia and Europe took an interest in North Korean players, because of their work ethnic, low cost, and news value. From 2007 on, a number of national team players played professional soccer abroad, e.g. national team captain Hong Yong-jo in Russia and Kim Young-jun in China. Most national team players had competed in 30-40 games at A-level international tournaments [ch] before the 2010 World Cup, a few even close to 60. The collective international experience of the North Korean team was actually much more extensive than its Chinese counterpart.

Thus, despite the closed nature of North Korean society, soccer is its most open sector. Nevertheless, there were limits. Players abroad were accompanied by political commissars who handled translations and prevention of "the possibility of foreign hostile forces causing harm to the players" [ch]. North Korean players impressed foreign media as behaviorally reserved, emotionally restrained, resistant to exchanges with foreigners, and often holding the Quotations of Kim Il-sung.


North Korean Players Celebrate Qualifying for the World Cup

Unlike its 1966 predecessor with every player except the goalie on active attack, the North Korean national men's soccer team adopted a defensive style that earned it second place in Asia qualification round's Group B with 3 wins, 3 draws, 2 losses and 7 goals in 2009. At the last game on June 18, 2009, North Korea tied Saudi Arabia, thereby qualifying for the World Cup for the first time since 1966. The players were honored with a massive parade on their return to Pyongyang. Sixteen players received the honor of being named People's Athlete, the highest possible honor for athletes normally reserved for winners in the Olympics and the World Championships. Another three were named Contributing Athlete, usually awarded to winners of an Asia-wide competition.

The extravagant showering of honors on the national team player might be connected to the political significance that the North Korean government attached to the World Cup: North Korea watchers reported that, as the ailing Kim Jong-il was preparing for his son Kim Jong-un's succession, he had hoped that the success of the national men's soccer team could be attributed to Kim Jong-un, thereby "build[ing] support among military and workers' party elites for a transfer of power."

Still, with a world ranking of 105, the North Koreans were again a long shot to win the 2010 World Cup. Moreover, North Korea was seeded in Group G, the so-called Group of Death with 5-time champion Brazil, previous World Cup runner-up Portugal, and powerhouse Ivory Coast. Nevertheless, Son Kwang-ho, vice-president of the DPRK Football Association, was sanguine about North Korea's prospects, informing FourFourTwo reporter Neil Billingham on his visit to North Korea: “North Korea will win the World Cup ... it is because of the great support of our Dear Leader Kim Jong-il that our national team will make this great achievement.”

North Korea: Darling of Chinese Soccer Fans and the New Left

Chinese soccer commentator Li Chengpeng was not so sure. To him the North Korean model, relying on the revolutionary spirit of the people under the stern gaze of their leader Kim Jong-il, a military style of management, and training in a closed society, was irrational and unscientific. In response to many Chinese fans who demanded that he praise the North Korean team for its team spirit, he penned a highly sarcastic and satirical editorial "Good! North Korea, Seize the Crown! (好吧，朝鲜夺冠)" [ch]. In a more serious vein, Li did predict a narrow win by Brazil over North Korea in their opening match on June 15, 2010, not because he believed that the two teams were evenly matched or that the North Korean revolutionary spirit would prevail over the technical skills of the Brazilians, but because the Brazilian team would conserve its energy for the next round of the World Cup while the North Koreans would give their all under the watch of Kim Jong-il.

Felipe Melo (Brazil) vs. An Yong-hak (North Korea)

Indeed, Brazil won narrowly only by 2-1, an outcome that was considered to be a great spiritual victory by the North Koreans and their Chinese supporters, who took strong exception to Li Chengpeng's negative assessment of North Korea's chances. 13 of 15 papers that normally carried Li's commentary had refused to publish his "Good! North Korea, Seize the Crown!," probably because it was considered to be politically incorrect for denigrating a close ally of the Chinese government. But it was available on Li's blog and was widely republished online. Li's blog entry attracted close to 500,000 hits and over 3,000 comments, with over 70% critical of Li.

Chiek Tioté (Ivory Coast) vs. Hong Yong-jo (North Korea)

Many of these criticisms of Li and praises for the North Korean team were echoed by postings on the influential leftist commentary site Utopia (乌有之乡). This site reflects the perspectives of the New Left, whose proponents are highly critical of the market reforms that have been implemented in China since the 1980s for promoting social inequalities and injustice. Some leftists even look back to the Mao Zedong era as a time of material poverty but spiritual wealth, in comparison to the present time of material wealth but spiritual poverty. They see North Korea today approvingly as a reflection of Maoist China. Even before the World Cup, in January of 2010, Utopia hosted a screening of The Game of Their Lives [ch] (paired with South Korean film Peppermint Candy) in Beijing, at the discussion of which two leftist commentators and the audience were very positive about North Korea's political and social developments.

In the context of the World Cup and North Korea's narrow loss to Brazil, a representative posting on Utopia stated: "The game of soccer can best reflect the spirit of a nation and its inner qualities ... North Korean soccer demonstrates a simple principle. Material poverty cannot defeat a soccer team. It is spiritual poverty that is an incurable sickness. The soccer played by the Chinese players who have become rich is ugly to the extreme, while that of the North Korean players is blindingly brilliant ... Looking back in history our country has also gone through a period of material poverty but spiritual wealth. Regrettably this kind of period will not return. Of course it is better that material poverty not come back. But spiritual poverty may be scarier, as it makes the people disheartened and helpless."

Jong Tae-se, Striker for North Korea

One North Korean player who had gained the greatest admiration among Chinese soccer fans was Jong Tae-se, who is one of two zainichi players on the North Korean team. As of the end of 2008, there were 589,239 registered “zainichi,” “people of Korean descent born and raised in Japan,” mostly descendants of Koreans forcibly brought to Japan as laborers between 1910 and 1945 when Korea was a Japanese colony. As Ray Tsuchiyama points out, "To use a Korean name and Korean citizenship status in Japan means discrimination in education and employment, and difficulties in social interaction, including pre-marital checks and assumptions about ties to the criminal underworld. There are many ethnic Koreans who assimilated into Japanese society by taking Japanese citizenship and using Japanese names." Many more held on to their Korean identity in spite of, or because of, discrimination. Jong Tae-se was born in Nagoya and educated in pro-Pyongyang schools run by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. As a star player in Japan Professional Football League, Jong could have attained Japanese citizenship and possibly played on the national team of either Japan or South Korea. Instead he opted to play for North Korea, which had already courted him when he was a sophomore at Korea University in Tokyo (profile of campus in Chronicle of Higher Education).

Jong Tae-se in Tears

Because of his “charge-ahead and shoot” style atypical of Asian players, Jong Tae-Se was dubbed “People’s Wayne Rooney” by the Asian media, and has attracted a wide following among Koreans all over the world and also among other Asians. What particularly endeared him to Chinese fans, however, was his propensity to cry whenever the North Korean national anthem was played, which signified a fervent patriotism that was deemed lacking among the materialistically inclined Chinese players.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) vs. Jong Tae-se (North Korea)

Many Chinese fans remained faithful and declared their admiration of the indomitable spirit of the North Koreans even as they suffered lopsided defeats of 7-0 by Portugal (June 21, 2010) and 3-0 by the Ivory Coast (June 25, 2010), and failed to advance beyond the group stage. Li Chengpeng saw things differently: Portugal's rout of North Korea represented the total demolition of the latter's spiritual model. He asked the Chinese fans who clamored for modeling Chinese soccer on North Korean soccer: Why follow a model that China itself has gone through thirty years ago, when an athlete had to write his self-criticism after a mistake on the field, when he would be punished if he had an unauthorized interview with the foreign press, when he had to thank the great nation and leader whenever he crossed the finish line, and when national soccer team captain Dai Linjing (戴麟经) was persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution for having a bad class background?

Li agreed with the Utopia leftists that North Korea's present echoed the Maoist past in China, but drew different conclusions: "Don't let political faith give rise to illusions in sports or literature. Don't believe that if the great leader beckons and looks on, the country will become the champion. This is similar to some time ago when the leader of a particular country [meaning Mao Zedong during the Great Leap Forward] said that crop production must exceed 10,000 kilograms, that the country would surpass England and chase after America in 5 years. Subsequently millions upon millions of people smashed their cooking pots to smelt steel, and then millions upon millions of people starved."

Postscript

Kim Jong-hun, Coach of the North Korean Team

Why did the North Korean team lose so badly to Portugal and then the Ivory Coast after losing only 2-1 to Brazil? The euphoria of that narrow loss evidently led the North Korean government to optimistically abandon its normal policy and allow the live broadcast of the North Korea-Portugal game on June 21, 2010, probably the live broadcast ever of a sports event on North Korean television. According to the Chosun Ilbo citing Radio Free Asia, Kim Jong-il concluded that the team lost to Brazil because it focused only on defense in the second half. He then "gave orders for the team's defenders to be positioned forward and even specified where each defender should be standing in the field." The abandonment of a tight defense strategy, whether it was at Kim Jong-il's direction or whether it was a decision of coach Kim Jong-hun under extreme pressure to win on a live broadcast, proved disastrous. In its World Cup rematch with North Korea since that historic 1966 game, Portugal did not break through until after 29 minutes. The North Koreans, who had played well up to that point, collapsed completely, giving up six goals in the second half without scoring one themselves.

Parody: Jong Tae-se as Miner

Speculations that the North Korean team would be sent to the coal mines for its failure at the World Camp were rampant. In Chinese cyberspace, parodies (egao恶搞) based on mashups or Photoshopping existing images or videos were posted on this scenario: in one video, Jong Tae-se's weeping image was edited to show him wearing a coal miner's protective helmet and bemoaning his fate.

In reality, the two zainichi players on the North Korean team — Jong Tae-se and An Yong-hak — flew directly to Japan following the end of North Korea's run at the World Cup. On account of his strong play at the World Cup, Jong was signed by the German club VfL Bochum of the Bundeliga league in early July. The zainichi's North Korean teammates and coach might not have been so fortunate. Radio Free Asia reported that the team was summoned to appear on stage at a large auditorium at the Working People’s Culture Palace, and "subjected to a session of harsh ideological criticism" before more than 400 people for six hours. The players were criticized by other athletes and a sports commentator, and then forced to criticize their coach Kim Jong-hun for betraying heir-apparent Kim Jong-un. The players might have gotten off relatively lightly. Rumors circulated that Coach Kim might have been expelled from the Workers' Party or sent to do forced labor, for derailing plans to celebrate the World Cup as Young General Kim Jong-un's achievement.

In August of 2010, FIFA, the governing body for world soccer, launched an investigation into whether North Korea had punished some of the national team players and their coach. In a letter responding to FIFA's letter of inquiry, the North Korean Football Association stated that there was no truth to the allegations of humiliation of the players and their coach, and that the team was training as usual for the Asian Games. FIFA stated that it was "satisfied with the information received," and declared the matter closed.

(Last revised: September 25, 2010)

Barack Obama: America's Multicultural President & His Asian Connections

2008-12-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama has been hailed as America's first black president, and his candidacy and election have led some commentators to even proclaim America as a post-racial society, in which race no longer matters. But perhaps he should be better identified as America's most multicultural president, if not the first multicultural president, given his own living experiences in communities ranging from Honolulu to Jakarta to Chicago, and the extensive African and Asian connections in his immediate and extended families. As Time observes in detailing his family tree, "With roots in Kansas, Kenya and beyond, [Barack Obama] is a one-man melting pot."

Barack Obama's African Family, With Stepmother Kezia in Front of Him

The African and Midwestern roots of Obama's life are well known: his father Barack Obama Sr., a bright Kenyan villager who was one of the first Africans to attend the University of Hawaii and later pursued graduate studies in economics at Harvard; his extended family in Kenya through his father, including, among others, his stepmother Kezia who was Senior's first wife; his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who married and divorced two men from foreign cultures, "was a teen mother who later got a Ph.D. in anthropology," and helped build the microfinance program in Indonesia from 1988 to 1992; Ann's parents, Madelyn Payne and Stanley Dunham, who raised Obama in his mother's absence; Obama's community roots and work as community organizer, civil rights lawyer, law professor and state senator in Illinois; his immediate family composed of wife Michelle, and daughters Malia Ann and Natasha; and his brother-in-law Craig Robinson, the basketball head coach of the Oregon State Beavers.

Much less in the public consciousness are Obama's connections to Asia. Aside from his stepfather Lolo Soetoro and his half-sister Maya Soetoro who are from Indonesia, he has a half-brother-in-law Konrad Ng who is a Malaysian Canadian of Chinese ancestry, and an African half-brother Mark Ndesandjo, who is a businessman in Shenzhen, China.

Barack Obama, right, with his stepfather Lolo Soetoro, mother Ann Dunham, and half-sister Maya Soetoro

After Ann divorced Barack Obama Sr., who had returned to Kenya, she fell in love with another fellow student at the University of Hawaii, Lolo Soetoro. They married and moved to Lolo's native country Indonesia, where Barack Obama Jr. would live from 1967 to 1971, when he returned to Hawaii to be under the care of his grandparents and to attend Punahou School.

Obama recalls his stepfather as one who "possessed the good manners and easy grace of his people." When Obama returned home one day with "an egg-sized lump" after being hit by a rock in a fight, Lolo Soetoro taught him how to box.

[Then] the stepfather mused about the nature of things, and about what it took to survive in a difficult and dangerous world: "Men take advantage of weakness in other men. They're just like countries in that way. The strong man takes the weak man's land. He makes the weak man work in his fields. If the weak man's woman is pretty, the strong man will take her ... Which would you rather be?"

Obama told Newsweek's Jon Meacham: "I remember that very vividly, and my stepfather was a good man who gave me some things that were very helpful. One of the things that he gave me was a pretty hardheaded assessment of how the world works."

Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro credits Obama with driving her to excel: "He was always pushing me to sort of, at that point, exceed my own lazy inclinations. My mother and father divorced when I was 9, so I think he started giving me a great deal of guidance as a big brother. And he helped me find my voice and my passion and helped to work to offer a lot of guidance."

Maya met her future husband, Konrad Ng, while both were pursuing Ph.D. degrees at the University of Hawaii. Konrad's parents were originally from Sabah, Malaysia, who moved to Canada where Konrad was born in 1974. Konrad and Maya married in 2003, and have a four year old daughter Suhalia. Today Maya Soetoro-Ng, who has a Ph.D. in education from the University of Hawaii, teaches U.S. History, global studies and peace studies at La Pietra Hawaii School for Girls. Konrad Ng, holder of a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Hawaii, is an assistant professor in the Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawaii, where he teaches courses in the Critical Studies track.

Konrad Ng's Message in Support of Barack Obama

A Times of London story, pejoratively entitled "Barack Obama’s brother pushes Chinese imports on US," is probably the first media report on Mark Ndesandjo, the son of Barack Obama, Sr. and his third wife Ruth Nidesand, an American woman who now "runs the up-market Maduri kindergarten in Nairobi." Journalist Michael Sheridan points out that Obama and Ndesandjo have contrasting views towards their African heritage. Moreover, "while Obama chose to live in the glare of publicity, his half-brother submerged himself in the crowds of the most cosmopolitan city in China." (Thomas Crampton, a former correspondent with International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, has compiled the most extensive biographical information on Mark Ndesandjo.)

Mark Ndesandjo and His Business Partner and Close Friend Sui Zhengjun

Like Obama, Ndesandjo received an elite education in the United States, graduating from Brown University, and then earning an M.S. in physics from Stanford and an M.B.A. from Emory University. The half brothers met for the first time when Obama went to Kenya in 1988. While Obama celebrated his "rediscovery of his African inheritance," Ndesandjo dismissed Kenya as “just another poor African country” to which he felt little attachment, and also the notion of racial identity: “life’s hard enough without all that excess baggage.”

Obama and Ndesandjo's stands towards China are not consistent either. The financial meltdown has dominated the attention of the American public and the presidential candidates to the degree that the topic of U.S.-China relations, arguably the single most important issue in American foreign policy, has hardly surfaced at the presidential debates. However, during the campaign Obama has repeatedly charged China with trade measures that were detrimental to American workers: dumping goods; not opening their own markets; theft of intellectual property; undervalued currency. While stating his commitment to free trade, he also called for confronting China on its alleged unfair trade practices. Ndesandjo, on the other hand, has a company that provides services to Chinese companies to help them to export to the United States.

USC US-China Institute, "Election '08 and the Challenge of China," Part 8: Obama and China

After working at Lucent Technologies and Nortel, Ndesandjo went to Shenzhen in 2002 to teach English as a volunteer in a U.S.-China cultural exchange program, and fell in love with China so much that he settled and established roots in Shenzhen. He has developed fluency in Mandarin Chinese, and learned to write Chinese characters in cursive script with a brush. A self-taught pianist, Ndesandjo has taught orphan children how to play the piano at Shenzhen Social Welfare Center since 2002. He has recently married a Chinese woman from Henan province. With his friend and business partner Sui Zhengjun (隋政军), Ndesandjo founded a eatery chain called Cabin BBQ, with its first outlet in Shenzhen in 2003 and seven branches today. Their consulting firm, Worldnexus (天下), "has provided corporate communications and website design to Chinese firms seeking customers in English-speaking markets."

Mark Ndesandjo Teaching Orphans How to Play the Piano

Ndesandjo became the subject of considerable attention from the media towards the end of July after his fraternal connections to Obama became known, to the degree that he disappeared from public view，in order to avoid any negative impact on Obama's campaign. He was also approached by the wine producers of Shenyang Dragon Medical Co. Ltd., Liaoning Province to be their product spokesman, but he declined.

Chinese TV News Program on Mark Ndesandjo (in Cantonese), Showing Him Teaching Piano at an Orphanage and Doing Chinese Calligraphy

Pete Rouse, White House Senior Adviser-Designate

In addition to the Asian connections in Obama's family members, those in his staff and cabinet nominations may also be noted. At least two of his senior advisers have Asian American roots. Pete Rouse, Obama's Senate Chief of Staff, Co-chairman of the transition team and Senior Adviser-Designate in the White House, who "helped Obama find the delicate balance between being a rank-and-file senator and high-profile national figure," has a white father and a Japanese mother. Chris Lu (盧沛寧), Legislative Director of Obama’s Senate Office, Executive Director of his transition team and Cabinet Secretary-Designate of his White House staff, is a Chinese American classmate of Obama's at Harvard Law School, and responsible for his legislative work in congress.

Chris Lu, Cabinet Secretary-Designate of Obama's White House Staff

Eric Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs-Designate

Two distinguished Asian Americans have been nominated by Barack Obama for his cabinet. Eric Shinseki, nominee as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, was a four-star general serving as Army Chief of Staff who in February of 2003 recommended that the U.S. should deploy several hundred thousand troops "to ensure that it could maintain order and genuinely control Iraq's sizable territory and potentially fractious society after it ousted Saddam" Hussein, and was publicly rebuked by Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld. As James Fallows, journalist for The Atlantic Monthly points out, Shinseki is "the first Asian-American in a military-related cabinet position, not to mention a Japanese-American honored for lifelong military service on Pearl Harbor Day," and also "the man who was right, when Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, et al were so catastrophically wrong." The fact that "a Japanese-American patriot from Hawaii should receive this news [of his nomination] on December 7" was "karmic justice."

Fallows describes the nomination of Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy as "An even more impressive pick than Shinseki." According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, of which the Chinese American physicist is the Director, Chu is "is a Nobel laureate physicist and a Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California (UC), Berkeley. He is also one of the nation’s foremost and outspoken advocates for scientific solutions to the twin problems of global warming and the need for carbon-neutral renewable sources of energy." Fallows observes that Chu is a "scientific explainer-in-chief" who is "Modest, funny, and willing to explain the work of of a scientist in terms and images most people can understand." In Fallows' judgment, "policy politics," not "identity politics" or political loyalty or ideological purity, was the most important reason for the selection of both Shinseki and Chu. The fact that Barack Obama makes professional expertise the most important criterion for his personnel decisions, and that he comes from by far the most multicultural background of any president in U.S. history, is an encouraging harbinger for the future of our increasingly multicultural nation in an increasingly multipolar world.

"Conversations with History: Steven Chu, A Scientist's Random Walk," U.C. Berkeley, Feb. 13, 2004

Chinese Girl the Youngest Woman to Attain the Title of Chess Grandmaster Ever

2008-12-22T16:51:00.000-08:00

14-year old Chinese Hou Yifan (侯逸凡) has achieved another milestone in her brief but spectacular career in chess competitions this fall: the title of International Grandmaster with an Elo rating of 2578. At the age of 14 years and 6 months, she became the youngest woman to achieve the highest rank in chess, and is currently the youngest grandmaster of either sex.

Back in 1991, Hungarian sisters Zsuzsanna (Susan) Polgár and Judit Polgár became the third and fourth women to achieve the title of International Grandmaster, and the first women to do so by achieving it the regular way --- three grandmaster (GM) norms and an Elo rating over 2500. The previous two holders, Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, who competed in chess in women-only events at a time when men and women played in segregated tournaments and matches, had been awarded the GM title for the World Chess Federation (FIDE) under special circumstances. To this date FIDE maintains separate ratings and separate world championship cycles for women, who can earn norms for the Woman FIDE Master (WFM), Woman International Master (WIM), and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). However, the Polgár sisters, Susan, Sofia, and Judit broke the sexual barrier by competing in previously men-only events. Today, women routinely compete in open events and some have earned FIDE Master (FM), International Master (IM) and Grandmaster (GM) titles, which have more demanding norms than the women-only titles.

Judit Polgár gained her GM title at the age of 15 years and 4 months, thereby breaking the record for the youngest grandmaster, held previously by American Bobby Fischer, who had achieved the title at 15 years and 6 months back in 1958. Fischer subsequently defeated Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in 1972, thereby breaking the monopoly of the Soviets on the world chess championship, and becoming a Cold War hero and icon.

In 2002, Humpy Koneru of India became the youngest girl to gain the grandmaster title, beating Judit Polgár's record by 3 months. Now Koneru's own record has been broken by Hou Yifan by 7 months. However, the youngest person of either sex to attain the grandmaster title remains Sergey Karjakin of the Ukraine, who did so in 2002 at 12 years and 7 months.

Born Feb. 27, 1994 at Xinghua (兴化) in Jiangsu (江苏) Province, Hou Yifan demonstrated a precocious gift for chess at a very age[ch]. At the age of 6 she was sent to the Shandong Evening News Chess Academy (齐鲁晚报棋院). Hou's progress was rapid. She became a national master at age 8, national grandmaster at age 9, the youngest representative of a Chinese national team at age 10, and the world's youngest Woman Grandmaster at age 13. Among her competitive successes are: 1st place in the girl's under-10 section of the 2003 World Youth Championship; reached the final 16 in the 2006 Women's World Chess Championship at age 12; silver medal for fourth (reserve) board performance at the 2006 Chess Olympiad; youngest player to win the Chinese Women's Chess Championship at age 13 in 2007.

Hou Yifan in Kabardin Costume at Nalchik

Having already won her second China's women chess championship and attained two of the three required GM norms earlier in 2008, Hou Yifan competed in the Women's World Chess Championship, held at Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic in Russia, from August 28 to September 18. She reached the finals against Russia's Alexandra Kosteniuk, who has been dubbed as "the Anna Kournikova of chess," as she "has traded on her looks, modeling for fashion magazines like the European editions of Vogue and Marie Claire, and selling bikini-clad images of herself through her Web site."

Kosteniuk put the comparison with Kournikova to rest by winning her match with Hou 2 1/2 to 1 1/2, thereby becoming the 14th women's world champion. Despite this near miss at becoming world champion, Hou Yifan did achieve the third and final GM norm during the championship. "Kosteniuk said she was afraid of how strong Hou would become in a few years, and predicted that Hou would soon dominate women’s competitions."

Hou Yifan's success, however, is not a fluke. Her innate talent has been nurtured by a system that has made China into a formidable chess power in only a couple of decades, particularly in women's competitions. At the Shandong Evening News Chess Academy, she had trained under IM Tong Yuanming (童渊铭), who was national champion in 1993 and a renowned chess coach whose students have won scores of championships [ch] in world and national competitions. After Hou won a gold medal at the 2003 World Youth Championship, Tong introduced her to train with GM Ye Jiangchuan (叶江川), the chief coach of the Chinese national men's and women's teams since 2000.

Although China's number of titled players (85) is very small compared with several other countries (1844 for Russia, 1068 for Germany, 500 for the United States, 386 for Ukraine, and 371 for Hungary), its competitive strength is very high as measured by the average rating of the top 10 players. China's men ranked third in the world with an average rating of 2651 as compared to Russia's 2719 and Ukraine's 2690. China's women are top-ranked with an average rating of 2479 as compared with Russia's 2457 and Ukraine's 2428. It appears that China's chess system under the Chinese Chess Association (中国国际象棋协会) [ch] focuses on training a small number of internationally highly competitive players who can win medals and championships abroad rather than promoting the popularity of the game among the masses. If that is a correct assessment, then the situation for chess is similar to that for sports. "China's sports system is an elite programme that pools the best youngsters and trains them in athletic academies at various levels." As Jin Can, a sports researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, points out, "This `gold medal strategy' means every official, from the top level to the grass roots, focuses on producing only gold-medal-winning athletes. Only the sports directors who can train gold-winning athletes are good directors ... As a result, the officials care only about achieving good results. They don't care about promoting sport to the public ... There is a consensus among academics that the new strategy should promote mass participation in sports activities."

There is no denial however, that China has become a great chess power, particularly in women's competitions. In 1991, Xie Jun (谢军) broke the monopoly held by players from the former Soviet Union in the women's world championships since 1950 by defeating Georgia's Maya Chiburdanidze, who had held the title since 1978, in a title match. After losing the title to Susan Polgar of Hungary in 1996, Xie regained the title in 1999 and held it till 2001. Two other Chinese women have also become world champions: Zhu Chen (诸宸), who won the title in 2001 by defeating Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia (the current world champion) but did not defend her title in 2004 because of pregnancy; Xu Yuhua (许昱华), who won the title in 2006 with a victory in the finals over Russian IM Alisa Galliamova.

The Chinese women's team has been highly successful in the biennial Chess Olympiads, winning a medal in all competitions between 1990 and 2006: 4 golds, 1 silver, and 4 bronzes. The men's team has been less successful, winning a medal only in 2006 with a second place finish. China's performance at the 2008 Chess Olympiad in Dresden, however, was disappointing. Both the men's and women's teams were seeded no. 3, but finished no. 7 in the open section and no. 8 in the women's section respectively. Armenia won the open section, while Georgia broke the Chinese women's string of medals in the Olympiads and won the gold medal by defeating China 2 1/2 to 1 1/2 in the 10th round and Serbia 3 to 1 in the 11th round.

Xie Jun, World Champion, 1991-1996, 1999-2001

Zhu Chen, World Champion, 2001-2004

Xu Yuhua, World Champion, 2006-2008

Three-Peat for China: Chinese Dominance at the Olympics, the Paralympics, and the World Mind Sports Games

2008-12-22T16:44:00.000-08:00

Tang Dynasty Ladies, Opening Ceremony, Aug. 8, 2008

China's splendid performances and spectacular shows along with controversies about alleged underaged gymnasts and a lip-synching young singer at the Beijing Olympics have attracted worldwide attention. Although the United States won the most medals (36 gold, 38 silver and 36 bronze for a total of 110), the Chinese team had the most gold medals (51) to go along with 21 silver medals and 28 bronze medals.

Yang Wei (杨威), Gold Medalist in Men's All Around Gymnastics

Some Western commentators see the sports rivalry between China and the U.S. as "a competition between systems, between state-sponsored athletes and individualists, East and West, democracy and the single-party state." Michael Allen Gillespie of Duke University points out that in fact Americans brought home more gold medals than Chinese citizens. This is because in official counts a team medal is counted the same as an individual medal, whereas in the actual awarding of the medals, all 12 members of the U.S. basketball team, for example, get one gold medal each, while the Chinese winner of the men's table tennis singles gets just one medal. Because Americans do better in team sports such as basketball than the Chinese, the Americans actually hauled in more medals: by Gillespie's count, "Americans took home 118 gold medals, 99 silver medals and 76 bronze medals, while the Chinese took home 76 gold, 35 silver and 38 bronze medals. That is 293 total medals for the USA to 149 for China." For Gillespie America's superiority in team sports over China is no accident:

Voluntary cooperation has always been a hallmark of the American system, suffusing the lives of children and adults alike, an outstanding factor in our playrooms and in our boardrooms.

China, by contrast, has always put much less emphasis on voluntary cooperation than on hierarchical control and the obligation of those below to take directions from those above. Such discipline and obedience can produce individuals who become superb at repeating individual tasks, as in the diving competitions where the Chinese were outstanding, but it cannot produce the creativity and voluntary cooperation necessary to the successful operation of a team.

Dancers at Closing Ceremony, Aug. 24, 2008

Interestingly, many Chinese were not convinced that China's record number of Olympic medals mean that China is a great sports power. In an online poll on the portal 163.com on the question "Is China a great power in sports?", 4730 respondents said yes while 17,030 chose no. The naysayers pointed out that China is still weak in the most popular sports in the world, including basketball, soccer, and track and field. Moreover, many of the sports that China won gold medals are totally irrelevant to the daily lives of the people: for example, few people in China actually lift weights or row boats. Most importantly, some of the naysayers argued that "the number of gold medals implies a great investment on professional athletes training, but don’t necessarily mean adequate support for populace health and sports, namely enough stadiums, spaces, infrastructures built for common people."

Still, the shortcomings of the Chinese sports system notwithstanding, most people would argue that the Beijing Olympics was a great success for the host country and set a very high bar for future Olympics host cities beginning with London.

The Paralympics, which was held at Beijing following the Olympics from September 6 to 17, also commanded considerable global attention. The Paralympics had its origins as a program to rehabilitate British war veterans with spinal injuries, founded by neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttman in 1948. What began as sports competitions among patients of several hospitals coinciding with the London Olympics of 1948 evolved into the modern Parallel Olympics or Paralympics over time. The first Paralympics took place in Rome which was hosting the Olympics in 1960: Sir Ludwig Guttman brought 400 athletes in wheelchairs to compete there. The movement took a giant leap forward when South Korea, hosts of the Olympic Games in 1988, decided to hold a truly parallel Paralympics "staged on the same scale and lines as the Olympics." At the 2004 Athens Paralympics, a record 134 nations competed. China topped the tables for the first time, winning 63 gold medals, 46 silver medals and 32 bronze medals for a total of 141 medals.

Fireworks at the Opening Ceremony, Sept. 6,2008

The number of countries participating at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics was the largest ever: 12 more than at the Athens Paralympics. At the opening ceremony, "6,000 performers and 4,000 disabled athletes from 148 countries took part in [a three-hour spectacular show] in front of 91,000 ecstatic spectators."

Qi Shun (祁顺) of China Wins the Marathon T12 Race

China's performances at the Paralympics were even more successful than in the Olympics. 322 Chinese athletes competed in all 20 sports. China won a total of 211 medals (89 gold, 70 silver, 52 bronze), more than double the total medals won by runner-up Great Britain (102), with the United States just behind with 99 medals.

Thousand-handed Guanyin, Closing Ceremony, Paralympic Games, Sept. 17, 2008

Receiving little to no attention in the Western media is the 1st World Mind Sports Games (第一届世界智力运动会), also held in Beijing, from October 3 to October 18 of 2008. The International Mind Sports Association (IMSA), founded in 2005, includes 4 international federations among its members: World Chess Federation (FIDE), World Bridge Federation (WBF), World Draughts Federation (FMJD) and International Go Federation (IGF). According to IMSA's Web site, "The goal of IMSA was to gather different mind sports federations to pursue common aims and interests, to organize the World Mind Sport Games under the aegis of the General Association of International Sport Federations and further realize the inclusion of mind sports in the Olympic movement. In particular, the organization's long-term plans include running World Mind Sports Games by analogy with Olympics, which will be held in Olympic host cities shortly after Winter or Summer Games." The Beijing World Mind Sports Games is thus conceived as the inaugural event in the series.

According to World Bridge Federation President José Damiani, who is one of the signatories of the the founding declaration of IMSA, "We clearly consider ourselves a sport ... Our events are no different from physical sports. They are all sports." While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognizes the international bridge and chess federations, none of the mind sports are accepted as Olympic events. Nonetheless, IMSA hopes that eventually IOC can be persuaded to do so. Georgios Makropoulos, vice president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and another signatory of the founding declaration of IMSA, stated: "We hope that this event in Beijing will be so important and so big that the IOC will understand that they need us."

In fact, since the 1990s FIDE has been lobbying to gain the approval of chess as an Olympic event. Towards that goal drug tests were introduced in international chess tournaments in 2001, even though the World Anti-Doping Agency classifies chess as a "low risk sport," and it is highly unlikely that chess players can gain an edge by doping. The reason is that if chess were to become an Olympic event, it must submit to the anti-doping rules of the IOC. For the same reason the World Bridge Federation has also signed up to the World Anti-Doping Code, and at the 1st World Mind Sports Games contestants were subject to doping checks.

The 1st World Mind Sports Games featured five mind sports competitions: Bridge, Chess, Go, Draughts, and Xiangqi (Chinese Chess). 143 countries/regions and 2,763 competitors participated [ch]. The official logo "is a truelove knot which represents affinity, friendship, solidarity, communication, good luck as well as the traditional elements of China," with each sport represented by a color.

According to Xiao Min (晓敏), Assistant to the Head of the General Administration of Sport of China (国家体育总局), the World Mind Sports Games would fully actualize the theme of "harmonious development" (和谐发展) [ch] -- the harmonious development of mass sports and competitive sports, of physical sports and mind sports, and of Olympic events and non-Olympic events.

Peformance at the World Mind Sports Games' Opening Ceremony

The 1st World Mind Sports Games was again a great success for the Chinese team in total medal count, marking the third successive world sporting event that China has both hosted and finished on top. China ranked first with 12 gold medals, 8 silver medals and 6 bronze medals. Runner-up Russia had 4 gold medals, 1 silver medal and 3 bronze medals. South Korea and Ukraine, which tied for third place, each won 2 gold medals, 4 silver medals, and 3 bronze medals. The United States ranked no. 11, with just 1 gold medal and 1 bronze medal.

Go Player Gu Li (古力) Taking Oath as Representative of All Competitors at the Opening Ceremony, Oct. 3, 2008

The Chinese may have an advantage in Xiangqi, the Chinese version of chess, and indeed they won five gold medals and three silver medals in that category (Vietnam won one silver medal and two bronze medals, while Hong Kong took two bronze medals, and Australia was runner-up in the women's team competition). However, even if one discounts those medals in Xiangqi, the Chinese team is still comfortably ahead of second-ranked Russia in total medal count.

Zhao Ruquan (赵汝权) of Hong Kong, Bronze Medalist in the Men's Rapid Xiangqi Event, Playing against Ji Zhongqi (纪中启) of the U.S.

Where the Chinese fell flat on is draughts, the only category that they failed to win any medals. This category was dominated by competitors from countries that had been part of the Soviet Union who took 12 of 15 medals, with Russia winning two golds, one silver and one bronze. The United States' only gold medal at the World Mind Sports Games was won by Moscow-born Alex Moiseyev in Checkers (Mixed).

Bridge and chess are probably the two mind sports that have the broadest geographical distribution of players and competitors, and this is reflected in the diverse origins of medal winners in both categories. Bridge was the most successful category for Norway, accounting for five medals out of a total tally of six that Norwegians won at the 1st World Mind Sports Games, and also for Turkey, which won two gold medals, the only medals the Turks won at the Games. As for host China, the Chinese won one silver and two bronze medals in bridge.

Bu Xiangzhi of China, Gold Medalist in the Men's Individual Rapid Chess Event

Countries that had been part of the Soviet Union not unexpectedly did well in chess events, but their performances were nowhere as dominating as in draughts. Ukraine won 1 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze medals, which accounted for all but 2 of its overall medals. Russia managed 2 golds and 1 bronze. China was even more successful than Ukraine, winning 4 golds, 3 silvers and 2 bronzes. Chinese grandmaster Bu Xiangzhi (卜祥志) was the gold medalist in the men's individual rapid event. Teen phenom Hou Yifan (侯逸凡), who is the world's youngest grandmaster of chess at age 14 and whom I have profiled on this blog, won the bronze medal in the women's individual blitz. That event was won by Russia's Alexandra Kosteniuk, who defeated Hou at the finals match of the Women's World Chess Championship earlier this year. Hou Yifan also won the gold medal in the mixed pairs rapid event (with Ni Hua (倪华) as her partner). In addition, as team member she won the silver medal in the women's teams blitz event, and the gold medal in the women's teams rapid event.

Hou Yifan of China, Winner of Four Medals in Women's Chess Events

Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia, Winner of the Women's Individual Blitz Chess Event

From the perspective of the East Asian countries, Go (weiqi 围棋 in Chinese) is probably the most prestigious of the mind sports. Go is a board game that is deceptively simple in terms of its rules, and yet profound in its strategic possibilities. Not surprisingly, all the medals were won by East Asian competitors. Although the host team garnered a respectable 5 out of 18 total medals (3 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze), it was overshadowed by the South Korean team that won 2 golds,4 silvers and 3 bronzes (which accounted for all the medals won by South Korea at this event). Japan won bronze medals in both men's team and women's team events. Taiwan (which again has to compete under the name of Chinese Taipei at the insistence of the People's Republic of China) won its only medal: a silver in the pair Go event.

China's Gold-Medal Winning Women's Go Team against Great Britain

The Taiwan team was composed of Chou Chun-Hsun (周俊勳) [ch] and Hsieh Yi-Min (謝依旻) [ch]. 28-year old Chou Chun-Hsun, the finest professional Go player in Taiwan, was the winner of the LG Cup in 2007. Born in 1989, Hsieh Yi-Min was a Go prodigy who moved to Japan to enter a Go Academy at age 12 and became the youngest female to attain a professional rank (dan 段) at age 14 in Japan. She has already won 3 of the top 4 women's Go competitions in Japan by age 19. In the finals of the pair Go event, however, this formidable team was defeated by the China team of Huang Yizhong (黄奕中) and Fan Weijing (范蔚菁). Although both are first-class players, neither have achieved the very top ranks in Go. However, they have a personal chemistry as a team [ch], able to reach tacit agreement and tolerate the mistakes of the other.

Hsieh Yi-Min & Chou Chun-Hsun Accepting Their Silver Medals in the Pair Go Event, with the Chinese Taipei Flag Behind Them

But will the Beijing World Mind Sports Games be the first of a series that will follow the Summer or Winter Olympics and the Paralympics in the same host city? The question remains open. At the press conference concluding the event on October 18, 2008 [ch], World Bridge Federation President José Damiani praised the preparation and the implementation of the Games by the Chinese host and the achievements of the Games. He pointed out that even though mind sports cannot attract as big an audience as the Olympics or the World Cup Soccer, the five mind sports featured at the 1st World Mind Sports Games are sports with the greatest number of direct participants. In his words, "There are approximately one billion people who directly participate in these five sports. This is the biggest difference for the World Mind Sports Games; it has the highest rate of participation." However, Damiani also revealed that the location of the next World Mind Sports Games has not been determined, and that several candidate host cities as alternatives to London has been lined up. "We hope that we can come to an agreement with IOC, and that the Mind Sports Games can be linked to the Olympics like the Paralympics. But at this point we have still not received a response from IOC."

Businesswoman Zhang Huamei: China's First Licensed Private Entrepreneur in the Reform Era

2008-12-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

December of 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the era of economic reform in China. A pioneer is businesswoman Zhang Huamei (章华妹), who received her getihu license (个体工商户营业执照) from the Institute of Industry and Commerce in the city of Wenzhou (温州) in Zhejiang Province on December 21, 1980, and thus became the nation's first licensed private entrepreneur (个体户). Her story has been celebrated in the People's Daily, Sina.com, Zhejiang Commercial Network (浙商网), and other Chinese language news media.

Zhang Huamei holding her getihu license

Zhang is typical of the background of many of China's first small private businessmen in the first stages of economic reform, who took up commerce out of economic necessity because the government could not or would not find work for them. Many were youth awaiting employment (待业青年); others were newly released from prison.

As the youngest of seven siblings, Zhang Huamei had no hope of landing a regular position in a work unit (单位) -- a government or collective enterprise or institution, since each household was entitled to job placement for only one son or daughter by the state. With the encouragement of her parents, Zhang set up shop in a small room in her house adjacent to the street in the fall of 1979.

At that time people who held regular jobs in work units had social status and were entitled to social benefits such as low-cost housing and medical care. To go into business was considered to be shameful, and Zhang was shunned by her friends and schoolmates.

Business was not easy: in addition to social prejudice there was a lot of competition -- on Zhang's street more than ten families had also set up shop, following her example. Moreover, the Office to Strike at Speculators (打击投机倒把办公室) could accuse petty traders of engaging in speculation (投机倒把) and confiscate their goods. Nevertheless, by selling knitting needles, elastic bands, souvenir badges, toy watches and the like, Zhang Huamei was able to earn over 100 yuan each month, as compared to the typical monthly wages of 20 yuan for an employee of a state-run work unit.

As economic reform got underway, the Office to Strike at Speculators in Wenzhou was reorganized as the Institute of Industry and Commerce (工商所), charged with promoting commodity production and exchange. The Institute announced at the end of 1979 that licenses to legalize commercial activities would be issued. Zhang Huamei immediately applied. She finally received her license a year later, making her the first legally licensed businessman in China.

After Zhang married her neighbor Yu Xinguo (余新国) in 1982, she gave birth to a son and closed shop. Zhang resumed business in 1985, selling beads, the hot commodity of the period. She was so successful that in the following year, she entered the ranks of the 10,000-yuan household (万元户), the standard for the newly rich at that time.

Facing increasing competition as more and more Wenzhou natives entered the bead trade, Zhang Huamei switched to shoes in 1990. Unfortunately, due to her lack of knowledge about the shoe trade, over the next few years she lost her savings and even accumulated debts of tens of thousands of yuan.

After she sold off her remaining stock of shoes in Tianjian, Zhang Huamei returned to her old trade of selling garment accessories, and once again achieved success in business. Her Huamei Garment Accessories Ltd. (华妹服装辅料有限公司) today sells several millions of yuan of buttons, zippers and other garment accessories each year.

Zhang Huamei being interviewed by journalists

Today, as a single shop proprietor with five employees, Zhang Huamei is an ordinary businessman in a nation of many millionaires and billionaires. Yet, as Song Shengfeng (宋乘风), the official who issued her a getihu license back in 1980 pointed out, that license announced the end of an era and the beginning of a new one [ch]. The rise and fall and rise of Zhang Huamei as a businessman epitomize the era of economic reform [ch]. As Zhang reminiscences, just over one hundred individual proprietors in Wenzhou got licenses at about the same time as she did, and the process took a year. The number of individual proprietors in the nation surpassed 1 million at the end of 1981 and 10 million at the end of 1987. Many of those who jumped into the sea of commerce (下海经商) in that first wave became so successful that today they run companies and even conglomerates.

The growth of individual proprietorships reached a peak at the end of the 1990s, numbering 31.6 million in 1999. As a result of cutthroat competition and some enterprises neglecting product quality, the number declined to 25 million at the end of 2006, leading some to predict the demise of individual proprietorships. However, the number rose back up to 27.4 million units by the end of 2007. As of November 2008, there are 285,321 units in Wenzhou. The process to apply for a license at the Industry and Business Bureau (工商局) can be completed in a single day.

The global financial crisis has affected the Wenzhou economy adversely. Yet, entrepreneurs such as Zhang Huamei depend on the domestic market, and may ride out the storm better than those in regions that are export-oriented, such as the Pearl River Delta. She is hopeful that Wenzhou can overcome current difficulties.

MIT professor Yasheng Huang has pointed out that Zhejiang Province (where Wenzhou is located) offers a significantly different model of achieving economic wealth from that of its neighbors to the north, Jiangsu Province and Shanghai Municipality. Although all three administrative units are among the richest province-level units in China, in Huang's words, "Zhejiang is rich because it has grown faster; Jiangsu [and Shanghai] is rich because it has always been rich." In Jiangsu and Shanghai, "the reigning economic model is to court, woo, and placate foreign investors while imposing onerous regulatory and financial constraints on indigenous entrepreneurs." In contrast, "The Zhejiang model is characterized by a heavy reliance on private initiatives, a noninterventionist government style in the management of firms, and a supportive credit policy stance toward private companies. Probably the most famous product of the Zhejiang model is Wenzhou, a city in southern Zhejiang province that today accounts for a disproportionate share of rich entrepreneurs, asset owners, and China's manufacturing prowess." Prof. Huang is likely to share Zhang Huamei's guarded optimisim concerning the future of Wenzhou.

Women Martyrs and Icons in the Tibetan Riots and Olympic Torch Relay

2008-04-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

Chen Jia, One of Five Victims at Yishion

The March 2008 Tibetan riots and the troubled Olympic torch relays around the world have created Chinese women martyrs and icons promoted by the Chinese government and the Chinese public. On March 14, five women, four Han and one Tibetan, who worked at a well-known casual wear store called Yishion (以纯专卖店) in Lhasa's tourist district, were burned to death when they were trapped inside the store that had been set ablaze by Tibetan rioters. Moments before her death, 19-year old Chen Jia (陈佳) had just sent off an SMS [ch] to her father saying that there were killings outside the store, that they were hiding inside and that her family should stay indoors and not worry about her. Tibetan Cirenzhuoga (次仁卓嘎) had emigrated from the Shigatse (日喀则) region four years ago, and had only gone home once as she was sending most of her monthly salary of about 1,000 yuan to her family of 13. 19-year old He Xinxin (何欣欣), who had discontinued her college studies due to financial difficulties in 2006 and worked at a restaurant, had just started a new job at Yishion for not even one week. 24-year old Yang Dongmei (杨东梅), the oldest employee at Yishion, had recently started a serious relationship with a new boyfriend. 22-year old Liu Yan (刘燕) was originally from Fujian, but moved to Tibet last year after becoming engaged to a Lhasa-based soldier.

The Chinese government treated these five women in death as martyrs in support of its version of what happened on Maarch 14: supporters of the Dalai Lama instigated ethnic Tibetans to riot, kill, burn and loot shops owned by the Chinese. Meng Jianzhu (孟建柱), head of the Ministry of Public Security (公安部), visited Lhasa [ch] on March 23 and 24, to drive home this message, to investigate the destruction done by the rioters, and to convey to the different ethnicities of Tibet the heartfelt concerns of the Chinese Communist Party and its leadership for their well-being. He emphasized that the violent actions of the rioters involving a small minority of monks, not only resulted in loss of innocent lives and destruction of massive amount of property, violated the laws of China, but also exposed the deceitfulness of the Dalai Lama who had professed to advocate non-violence. Meng made it a point to visit Yishion, bowed before the five victims' portraits and laying a wreath. He then declared, "The government will lead people of all ethnicities to smash the Dalai clique's intentional and secret effort to separate the motherland and undermine Tibet's harmony and stability." The government of Tibet Autonomous Region promised compensation of 200,000 yuan to each of the families of the 18 victims of the March 14 riots. As of April 10, 15 families, including those of the five salesgirls at Yishion, had been compensated, with the remaining 3 families yet to be identified.

During the Olympic torch relays plagued by disruptions of pro-Tibet demonstrators and confrontations between them and Chinese demonstrators, an apolitical young Chinese woman, who said that she had not heard of the Tibetan Independence Movement before, rocketed to national fame as a defender of China's national honor. A 27-year old resident of Shanghai, Jin Jing (金晶) had suffered a malignant tumor in her leg when she was nine years old. Her leg had to be amputated, and she had to undergo a year of chemotherapy. But Jin Jing did not lose her zest in life. Inspired by the television hero Zorro who fought for justice with his rapier, she took up fencing. On July 13, 2001, the day when Beijng won the right to the 2008 Olympics, Jin Jing was chosen for Shanghai's wheelchair fencing team. She later became a member of China's national wheelchair fencing team, winning numerous medals individually and as a team member at various national and international competitions, including an individual bronze medal and a team silver medal at the 2002 FESPIC (Far East and South Pacific Games to Disability) in Busan, South Korea.

Jin Jing Protecting the Torch from Protesters

Too old to compete at the Beijing Paralympics, Jin Jing was selected by Lenovo, an official sponsor of the Beijing Olympics, to be an overseas torchbearer. On the Paris leg of the torch relay on April 7, she was the third torchbearer when she was confronted by several pro-Tibet protesters who tried to take away the Olympic torch from her. One protester lunged at Jin Jing's wheelchair and grabbed her hair, but she managed to turn away and shielded the torch with her body before her attacker was hauled away by the police. Jin Jing suffered scratches and a bruised leg, but completed her section of the relay smiling.

Jin Jing Holding the Olympic Torch

Acclaimed as the "smiling angel in the wheelchair (轮椅上的微笑天使)" and "the most beautiful torchbearer (最美火炬手)" by the Chinese news media and netizens, Jin Jing came home to a hero's welcome. "Since returning home to Shanghai, she has been treated as a superstar, mobbed by fans and reporters, racing from one public appearance to another." She said, "I don't think I did anything great, Any Chinese or Olympics-loving torchbearer would protect the torch under such circumstances."

However, another young Chinese woman, Grace Wang (王千源), who is a 20-year old freshman at Duke University, became the icon of a traitress in the eyes of the angry Chinese youth (愤青) who adopt a strongly nationalistic stance and brook no dissension from their view of the Tibetan unrest as the machinations of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan splittists. But to some Western observers as well as more rational Chinese, she is a defender of dialogue and tolerance.

Grace Wang's ordeal began when, on April 9, she ran into a dozen or so of students (mostly Americans) in a pro-Tibet vigil confronted by a much larger group of pro-China demonstrators of about one hundred. During the 2007 Christmas break when the dormitories and the dining halls were closed, Wang had been housed off-campus with four Tibetan students, who were the first Tibetans she had known and with whom she had developed a friendship and exchanged life experiences. In particular, Wang began to reflect about the spiritual aspects of life under the influence of her Tibetan friends who are devout Buddhists.

Grace Wang Addressing Chinese Demonstrators, with Pro-Tibet Activists in Background, Giving Unfortunate Impression that She is a Free Tibet Supporter

Knowing people in both the pro-Tibet group and the pro-China demonstrators who were engaged in a shouting match, Wang attempted to mediate between them and to get the leaders of both groups to talk to one another. In an effort to persuade the American leader of the pro-Tibetan group to speak to the Chinese group, she agreed to write "Free Tibet, Save Tibet" on his back, an action that would be interpreted by the angry Chinese youth as support of Tibetan independence. Her various efforts to get the two groups to listen to the other side and engage in rational discourse came to naught, and Chinese demonstrators started to shove the Tibetan demonstrators and curse her as well.

That night Wang wrote a message to the Duke Chinese Students and Scholars Association, pleading for mutual understanding and thinking before acting: “Take away your anger, and your heads will become clear, your minds will become sharper, and then your judgments correct” (消除怒气，头脑才会清晰，思维才能敏捷，决断才会正确).

In the following days she received numerous online and offline threats, and her U.S. phone number and address as well as her parents' address in her home town of Qingdao were published online. Wang received torrents of abuse online from Chinese in both China and overseas who believed her to be a supporter of Tibetan independence, with only a few openly expressing support for her. The first message in a long thread in the online forum Tianya (天涯社区) is typical: "That foreign toady face of yours will always be a shameless one to the Chinese people! (你这样的崇洋媚外的嘴脸是要永远被中国人民所不耻!)" Some netizens threatened to tear her to pieces if she were to return to China. Some doubted that she supported Tibetan independence, but was instead promoting herself in front of the Western students and Western media, or trying to get a green card. China Central Television (CCTV) has gotten into the act of villifying Grace Wang as well: on April 18, its Web site showed her picture along with a video of the Duke protests under the caption "The Ugliest Chinese Student Abroad (最丑陋留学生)."

Grace Wang (Photo by Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times)

Wang was placed under police protection and unable to resume her classes. Her parents' home in Qingdao was vandalized and her parents went into hiding. She is most worried about her family in China. According to Radio Free Asia's account of its Cantonese Service's interview with Grace Wang:

Wang doesn’t support Tibetan independence — she sees herself as a champion of human rights and free expression. “I think that Tibet is definitely a part of China. It is indivisible from China. This means that we must deal with Tibet and Tibetans as our brothers and compatriots,” she said.

“That means that we should use other methods than those used to deal with outsiders. You can use whatever methods you think expedient with outsiders, even very forceful methods. But with Tibetans we are dealing with our own relatives. There should be more reason and more relatedness in our dealings with them.”

On the angry youth phenomenon which is a major driving force in contemporary Chinese society, Grace Wang observed:

This very strange phenomenon of the angry youth among the Chinese today is a psychologically imbalanced manifestation, an abnormal patriotic way. But in reality it is definitely not patriotism.

Actually there are a lot of people in China who do not speak out and constitute the silent masses. They have the ability to observe and to think. Currently the people who observe and think with depth have not yet spoken. So floating on the surface is a layer of words spoken by those who are relatively agitated. [ch]

Wang hopes for a China that allows everyone to hear diverse political opinions and different voices. She is particularly concerned about tyranny, not just of the government, but also of the people. To her, those who assaulted her parents' home by writing big character posters, political slogans, and even spilling feces in front of their door are employing the tactics of the Cultural Revolution. What is terrifying is that this time it is the Cultural Revolution committed by the people (人民文革).

Ironically and ominously, even the "smiling angel in the wheelchair" became the target of vituperative invective by some angry youth. Angered by the assault on Jin Jing and other disruptions of the torch relay in Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's threat to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, an alleged support of the Free Tibet Movement by the French retail giant Carrefour (家乐福), Chinese netizens called for a boycott of Carrefour. Jin Jing, however, expressed reservations about such a boycott, since Carrefour's many Chinese employees would be hurt. In response, Jin Jing was called "Chinese traitor" (汉奸) and worse names by some angry netizens.

Last revised: May 3, 2008

"Lust, Caution," Mainland and Hong Kong Styles

2008-03-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

Ang Lee (李安)'s "Lust, Caution (色，戒)," winner of the Golden Lion award at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, attracted the attention of Chinese censors, angry youth, and curious film goers. Based on the short story of the same name by Eileen Chang (張愛玲), this film was set in Hong Kong and Shanghai during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945. Chang's story was in part based on her own experiences in wartime Shanghai and in Hong Kong, where she was a student at the University of Hong Kong from 1939 to 1941. Chang might also have drawn from her own unhappy marriage to Hu Lancheng (胡蘭成), a writer who was an incorrigible philanderer, served in the puppet government of Wang Jingwei (汪精衛) during the war, and was thus considered a traitor (漢奸) by the Chinese public. Finally, the story was partly inspired by an attempted assassination in 1940 of Ding Mocun (丁默邨), a spymaster in Wang Jingwei's collaborationist government, by Zheng Pingru (鄭苹如), a 22-year old woman of mixed Chinese-Japanese parentage who was an intelligence agent for the Nationalist Party (KMT). (See K. M. Lawson's fascinating analysis, "Ding Mocun, Lung Ying-tai and Lust, Caution.")

Zheng Pingru and Wong Chia Chi, Her Counterpart in "Lust, Caution," Acted by Tang Wei

In the film Wong Chia Chi (王佳芝), a student who has been recruited by the Nationalist Party's spy network, masquerades as a rich merchant's wife in order to seduce and assassinate Mr. Yee (易默成), a ruthless counter-intelligence official in the puppet government in Shanghai. The two becomes inextricably intertwined in a love affair, with each performing and playing a role in their love-making, Mr. Yee to test whether Chia Chi is a spy and Chia Chi to convince Mr. Yee of the authenticity of her emotions. The graphic and exhausting sex scenes earned the film much controversy even in the West, and an NC-17 rating in the United States where it premiered on September 28, 2007.

Eileen Chang, Student at University of Hong Kong; Tang Wei as Chia Chi, Student in Hong Kong

Before "Lust, Caution" could be released for the viewing by mainland Chinese audiences, it had to go through script changes and 6 edits before it was finally approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television or SARFT (国家广播电影电视总局). According to Fang Li, a leading film producer, China's film industry is the most backward industry in a rapidly growing market economy, thanks to the censors of SARFT, "a group of mostly elderly people who work in committee and invite critical comment on movies from different branches of government, from the Women’s Federation to provincial governments, all seeking to present their constituency in the best light and to avoid offense."

Tang Wei (Chia Chi) and Tony Leung (Mr. Yee) in "Lust, Caution"

While the cuts (which totalled 13 minutes) and script changes satisfied the censors sufficiently to allow the film to open in mainland China, they compromised the original intent of the director and simplified the film's emotional complexity and moral ambiguity. The differences between the mainland version and the overseas version are detailed by the EastSouthWestNorth blog. Aside from the expected cuts in the explicit sex scenes, which are in fact not gratuitous but central to the story, the important changes are:

The killing of Mr. Tsao was accomplished with one clean stab, rather than clumsily with eight stabs and Tsao falling down the stairs. The original edit show that killings are messy, and that the drama students who have plotted to carry out the political assassination of Mr. Yee, but have been uncovered and blackmailed by Mr. Tsao, are innocents in way over their heads. The censored version, however, sanitizes the killing and valorizes the students as budding heroic resistance fighters.

A scene with refugees dying in the streets of Shanghai was cut. Was the reason a concern that there are parallels between wartime Shanghai with the miserable living conditions of contemporary migrants to the cities?

Chia Chi's final lines in the jewelry store are changed in such a way that they indicate that she does not warn Mr. Yee to leave at once (as in the original version), but that Mr. Yee figures out on his own that he is being targeted. In place of the morally and psychologically conflicted Chia Chi torn between love and patriotism in the original version, the censored version makes the point that Chia Chi does not weaken in her resolve, and does not abandon the assassination of Mr. Yee, thereby becoming in effect a turncoat.

Joan Chen as Mrs. Yee in "Lust, Caution"

Even after the required cuts and changes, however, the film was subjected to a lot of attacks online and at salons. Both Ang Lee and Eileen Chang were denounced for allegedly denigrating Chinese resistance fighters, kowtowing to foreign aggression, and glorifying Chinese traitors during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War. China's nationalistic angry youth (愤青) took umbrage at "Lust, Caution." On Oct. 15, 2007, a group of Beijing students signed a petition [ch] to the new leadership that would be confirmed at the 17th national congress of the Chinese Communist Party. This document condemned the vulgar culture (滥俗文化) and the "pornographic, traitorous and poisonous" culture (“黄奸毒”文化) that have been promoted by the massive cultural invasion of foreign cultural products ranging from Hollywood blockbusters to junk films from Hong Kong and Taiwan to Japanese sex films and anime to Korean soap operas to American fast food. As a consequence, social morality has been utterly corrupted, the youth and children of China have been spiritually polluted to the degree that revolutionary ideals of service to the people have become virtually moribund, and people only look up to "successful" models of moneymakers who enrich themselves, but benefit neither the nation nor the people. Chen Kaige (陈凯歌)'s "The Promise" (无极) may be tolerated as an example of vulgar culture. But a product like "Lust, Caution" is the pinnacle of "pornographic, traitorous and poisonous" culture, turning a heroine who sacrificed her life in the cause of patriotic resistance into a prostitute and a socialite, and celebrating Chinese traitors (汉奸) who sold out the nation. The students demanded that the party leadership stop this spread of vulgar culture and "pornographic, traitorous and poisonous" culture and actively promote and disseminate the core values of the new socialist culture centered around the peasants and the proletariat.

Eileen Chang

This kind of attitude is not surprising among Chinese government censors and hot-headed Chinese youth, but it is disheartening that even some segments of the Chinese intelligentsia still employ the mentality and the rhetoric of the Cultural Revolution era. An example of the inflammatory and impassioned rhetoric that has been flung at "Lust, Caution" by intellectuals may be seen in a summary of the discussion of the film held at Peking University's Utopia Book Club (乌有之乡) on Nov. 11, 2007. The guest speakers were all members of the intelligentsia in academia and the mass media. Huang Jisu (黄纪苏), deputy editor at International Social Sciences, blasted the film as "a sexually transmitted skin disease" and "an insult to the good women of China." "While China has stood up, the ilks of Ang Lee are still kneeling" and embracing the leg of the West. Guo Songmin (郭松民), a freelance critic, called "Lust, Caution" "a big poisonous weed." Zhou Guojin (周国瑾), a movie director, went even further by classifying the film as a "Chinese traitor movie." Wang Xiaodong (王小东), a researcher at the Chinese Youth Research Center, shouted: "The ugly female Chinese traitor Eileen Chang wrote a story filled with dark and vile imagination in order to express her hatred against the beautiful heroine Zheng Pingru. So that was how "Lust, Caution" was created!" (More complete transcripts in Chinese of the discussion at this film salon and essays by Huang Jisu and Guo Songmin are available.)

Poster for Chen Kaige's "The Promise"

The Chinese public was not by any means unanimous in joining the condemnation of "Lust, Caution" as a work celebrating the negation of Chinese values. Even in a cut version which softened the complexities of the international edition, the psychological depth and humanistic portrayals of the film are appreciated by many. The Maoists of the past and and the leftist nationalists of the present prefer instead cultural works that sharply contrast the good and the bad characters and have a clear political message affirming the socialist revolutionary values. The leftist nationalist critics of "Lust, Caution" are certainly right to be concerned about the loss of morality in an increasingly commercial social environment, but their advocacy of a return to Maoist cultural standards takes an overly simplistic view of the allegedly corrosive effects of modern culture. If American popular culture is so insidious and harmful, how then would they explain the high level of volunteerism in American society, particularly among many young people who are committed to social service?

Still, many more people might have been attracted to the film by reports of its explicit and contortionary sex scenes, or by the fame of its Oscar-winning director, than by the intrinsic artistic merits of "Lust, Caution." Whatever the motivation of the attendees, "Lust, Caution" even in its censored version drew record audiences in China, raking in 90 million yuan or about $11.25 million in the first two weeks of its showing in China since its debut on November 1. Many Chinese, in an effort to see the forbidden scenes cut in the mainland version, downloaded the pirated overseas edition from domestic Web sites, despite warnings by security experts that the sites offering the downloads might be plagued with viruses. Dong Yanbin (董彦斌), a Ph.D. student at the China University of Political Science and Law, sued SARFT for failing to set up a ratings system that would allow adults to view an uncensored version. He also sued UME International Cineplex for infringing on his rights as a consumer by showing a cut version of the film.

Wang Lee Hom as Kuang Yu Min in "Lust, Caution"

Although no one else sought remedy through the court system (which in any case proved futile), many renewed long-standing calls for the institution of a ratings system so that adults can enjoy films with mature content. Among those who supported a ratings system are film director Jia Zhangke (賈樟柯), whose "Still Life" (三峽好人) won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in 2006, and veteran star actress Gong Li (鞏俐). SARFT, however, adamantly holds on to its long-standing position that "films not suitable for children are not suitable for adults, either."

In the last two months of 2007, thousands of mainland Chinese flocked to Hong Kong for the purpose of seeing an uncensored version of "Lust, Caution." The record numbers of tourists traveling to Hong Kong solely to see a movie signifies "the rise of a class of affluent urbanites in China’s rich eastern cities who have grown increasingly accustomed to ever more choice in their lives."

"Lust, Caution" has not generated emotionally charged responses in the United States as in China. It has, however, drawn generally negative or tepid reviews. Critic Raymond Zhou (周黎明) argues that American critics have misunderstood elements of the plot and overlooked the film's multiple layers: "Human emotions writ large can transcend boundaries. It is the niceties that cause cultural misunderstandings." For example, the American critics were preoccupied with the S&M and acrobatic elements of the sex scenes between Chia Chi and Mr. Yee, and missed their symbolic meanings altogether: "The scenes epitomize their relationship, from domination, to distortion, to harmony." Zhou also points out that the American critics overlooked the connections between "Lust, Caution" and Ang Lee's previous films, such as "Sense and Sensibility": ""Lust" is "sensibility" while "caution" is "sense." Both leads -- and even some supporting characters -- have to maintain a life of caution for self-survival. When they succumb to lust or passion, they pay the ultimate price." (See also Zhou's more detailed analysis in Chinese.)

Ang Lee Receiving Award for "Lust Caution" at the 2007 Golden Horse Awards in Taipei

Ang Lee himself has pointed out the connection between "Lust, Caution" and "Brokeback Mountain," which won not only the Best Director Oscar for Lee, but also his first Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in 2005. As Lee observes, both "Brokeback Mountain" and "Lust, Caution" "are based on stories by women in which sex, making love, is one intimate way to make connections ... 'Brokeback Mountain' is like paradise, the whole movie is like the loss of Eden . . . Something pure and unclear happened on Brokeback and they spend the next 20 years trying to go back [and] finally the tragedy comes. In "Lust, Caution," by contrast, the sex scenes here remind me of hell, [going] deeper and deeper toward hell."

Edison Chen as the Young Lau Kin Ming in "Infernal Affairs"

In early 2008, "Hong Kong's juiciest-ever sex scandal," involving the leaking and the online dissemination of some 1,300 photos of some of the Special Administrative Region's best known film industry celebrities engaged in explicit sex, sparked an even greater amount of voyeurism and controversy than Ang Lee's film. Dubbed Sexy Photos Gate (艷照門) by Chinese netizens, this cautionary tale unfolded when Edison Chen (陳冠希), a Canadian Chinese actor and singer who have become a heartthrob on the Hong Kong entertainment scene, took his pink PowerBook to a computer shop for repair. There one or more employees discovered a treasure trove of pictures of Chen in compromising positions with several women, including film star and singer Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝), Gillian Chung (鍾欣桐) of the Canto-pop duo Twins, former singer and model Bobo Chan (陳文媛), and Chen's current friend Vincy Yeung (楊永晴), who is the niece of Albert Yeung (楊受成), the founder of Emperor Entertainment Group (英皇娛樂集團), which represents Chen, Cheung and Chung. Someone posted a few photos online beginning Jan. 27. Then the initial trickle led to torrents of hundreds of photos released online in waves by persons unknown.

Bobo Chan

For weeks the unfolding scandal captivated people in the Chinese world, occupying the front pages of Hong Kong newspapers for 21 days and becoming a hot topic on mainland Chinese online forums (EastSouthWestNorth has extensive coverage of developments, media coverage and public reactions). In mainland China, which normally dealt more harshly with the dissemination of pornography online, for several weeks Internet sites and Web forms posted news and photos, as the police was preoccupied with the crisis precipitated by unusually heavy snow storms and placed the Sexy Photos Gate postings on the back burner [ch]. The photos had a wide circulation in China, with the popular Tianya forum getting 20 million hits per day. On February 20, however, the police announced that it "would "severely crack down on the criminal activities of manufacturing, selling and spreading discs of Hong Kong's celebrity photos and other pornography productions."

Twins, the Singing Duo of Gillian Chung (left) and Charlene Choi (right)

The public frenzy finally subsided after two of the principals made public apologies. After days in seclusion, Gillian Chung, flanked by her Twins partner Charlene Choi, made a brief appearance at a press conference on February 11, 2008. "I admit that I was naive and very silly, but I've grown up now. I want to thank my company, family and friends for their concern," she said.

Gillilan Chung's Public Apology for the Photo Scandal (in Cantonese), Feb. 11, 2008

After hiding in Canada, Edison Chen returned to Hong Kong. On February 21, 2008, Chen held a press conference, apologizing "to all the people for people for all the suffering that has been caused." He also announced: "I have decided to step away from the Hong Kong entertainment industry. I have decided to do this to give myself an opportunity to heal myself and search my soul." He would devote himself in the future to do volunteer and charity work, he said.

Edison Chen's Public Apology for the Photo Scandal, Feb. 21, 2008

Gillian Chung Bearing Gifts for Child Victims of the Sichuan Earthquake

Several people were arrested for copying and circulating sexually explicit pictures online. The professional futures and personal relations of the principals were seriously or even irreparably damaged. The ad endorsements of the stars were withdrawn by their sponsors, and their professional appearances were cancelled or curtailed. Among the companies which dropped or did not renew ad campaigns involving Edison Chen are Pepsi China, Standard Chartered Bank, Samsung, Levi’s and the Hong Kong Metro. Gillian Chung was the target of boycotts. She kept a low profile, but participated in a series of free performances in Beichuan (北川) for the victims of the devastating May 12 Sichuan earthquake in September. She returned to Beichuan on December 3, bringing food and warm clothes to the child victims of the earthquake. However, she was dropped from the cast of Chen Kaige's high profile film, "Forever Enthralled" (梅兰芳). Gillian Chung and Charlene Choi remain close friends, but it is unknown when their duo Twins will perform together again in public.

Cecilia Cheung in "Fly Me to Polaris"

Despite repeated divorce or separation rumors concerning Cecilia Cheung and her husband Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒), who is also a Hong Kong film star, the two have apparently reconciled and are still together as of the end of 2008 [ch]. Cheung is reportedly pregnant with their second child.

What had begun as a sex scandal evolved into a public debate in Hong Kong in the form of editorials, online discussions and public protests about related issues and developments, including the personal culpability and degree of contrition of the stars concerned, the right to privacy for celebrities, the social responsibilities of artistes, police abuse of power, fairness of the judicial system, and legal definitions of indecent and obscene materials. There was considerable public interest and debate in Taiwan and mainland China as well.

While some fans defended the privacy rights of the stars implicated in the scandal, others have questioned their morality and the judgment, and the sincerity of Gillian Chung and Edison Chen in their public apologies.

The heavy-handedness of the Hong Kong police came in for a great deal of criticism. More than one hundred detectives were assigned to the case. Nine people were arrested in a futile attempt to stem the flood of online postings, which quickly spread to overseas servers beyond the jurisdiction of the Hong Kong police. Oiwan Lam (林藹雲), editor of inmediahk.net (香港獨立媒體), a citizen-reporter Web site established in 2004, observed: "On the Internet there are a lot of nude pictures and sexy photos, but the police don’t bring charges except in the current case involving the singers."

Chung Yik-tin (鐘亦天), the first person to be arrested on January 31 for posting one single photo online four days earlier, was denied bail and held until February 15 when the the Obscene Articles Tribunal (淫審處) determined that the photo was "indecent" (不雅) rather than "obscene" (淫褻), and the police withdrew the charge of posting obscene articles against him. However, other suspects who had uploaded more photos than Chung were granted bail, prompting questions about the police's fairness in dealing with suspects. Moreover, why did the police go after people who posted the photos online, but failed to question Edison Chen, the original source of the photos, or ask the Canadian police or Interpol to question him after Chen fled to Canada?

Police Commissioner Tang King-shing (香港警務處處長鄧竟成) went so far as to declare on February 2, the 6th day of the scandal, that even possession of those photos might be illegal, depending on the number, which could indicate an intent to distribute. This created a great outcry about police infringement of the freedom of speech and promoting a climate of fear, as this stringent legal interpretation could mean that anyone possessing an unspecified number of photos that could be deemed obscene could be subject to HKD 1,000,000 in fines and 3 years in prison. On February 10, a group of protesters (230 people by police count and over 400 by the organizers' count) demonstrated, "arguing that, among other things, Hong Kong’s anti-pornography ordinance was too broad and too vague, and that this was a case of unequal treatment." Assistant Commissioner Vincent Wong Fook-chuen (助理處長黃福全) subsequently clarified that it was not against the law to share the photos with friends, but that it was illegal to publish them online so that strangers could view them.

Did the police deal with this case with great zeal because the case involved celebrities and because of the personal intercession of Albert Yeung, as some Hong Kongers charged? After all, Yeung had a great deal at stake both in terms of his business interests and personally, as the female stars were his clients whose image as virginal ingenues (玉女) was carefully cultivated by his company, and his niece was the girl friend of Edison Chen? Given that "Hong Kong on the surface is more prudish than Western countries and less tolerant of Hollywood-style antics," the commercial value of the actresses and Edison Chen was seriously damaged. Moreover, while Albert Yeung was allegedly connected to the Sun Yee On triad, he has "strong links to Chinese Communist Party figures who have the ear of the Hong Kong government which, for whatever reasons, prefers to ignore his brushes with the law and regard him as a useful and patriotic businessman."

Indeed, the alleged mob ties of Albert Yeung and his competitors at China Star Entertainment Group (中國星集團) have led to many speculations by Hong Kongers without factual substantiation. Was China Star behind the leaking of the photos to damage the reputation of Emperor Entertainment's stars, some of whom had defected from China Star? Did Edison Chen flee to Canada because of his fear that there might be a hit contract out on him?

Particularly substantive was the discussion of the stars' rights to privacy and social responsibilities. Some argued that because these stars were public figures (公眾人物), they had limited right to privacy and should take public responsibilities for their actions, while the public had the right to know. Cultural critic Liang Wendao (梁文道) [ch] countered that public figures should be divided into two categories: those with public powers, e.g. politicians and government officials; and those in which the public took a special interest, e.g. movie stars and celebrities. The first group had control over the use of public funds, and their actions could impact the entire society. Therefore their rights to privacy should be limited. For example, the public had the right to know their sources of income. The actions of the second group, on the other hand, might impact entertainment companies, advertising agencies, and their fans. But the welfare of the whole society would not be affected by what they did, and therefore the public's right to know should be limited. The private affairs of these public figures with no official authority should be their own business.

What about the social responsibilities of stars and artists who were models for particular social groups? For example, what about Gillian Chung, who was nurtured as a virginal ingenue (玉女) by her entertainment company, and the leakage of her intimate photos might well damage those preteen and teenage girls for whom she was their model? After all, according to a survey of about 400 middle school students [ch], 55% had circulated the sex photos among friends, 92% had discussed the incident with their friends, 74% had discussed it with their parents, and close to 30% found nude photos acceptable. Liang Wendao argues, however, that the responsibilities of celebrities should only pertain to their actions on public occasions [ch], not their private actions in the privacy of their homes and bedrooms. Gillian Chung might have been foolish to allow those photos of hers be taken, but she was not morally responsible for any possible damages that might be inflicted on preteen and teenage girls who saw her pictures, since she did not have the intention to make them public, and had the right to engage in consensual sexual acts in private.

(Epilogue)

Both "Lust, Caution" and Sexy Photos Gate entered the political discourse of Taiwan's presidential election in March unexpectedly. Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), the presidential candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was falling badly behind Nationalist Party candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) due to the DPP's corruption scandals and public fears that the DPP's tough stand in support of Taiwan independence might provoke China and damage Taiwan's security and economy. Hsieh, in an effort to fight for the youth vote, hired a heavy metal band as spokesman for his campaign, and posted a series of YouTube campaign ads. In one video, he made a pun regarding a sexual position in "Lust, Caution," and in another, he told a corny joke about the lessons of Sexy Photo Gate on the need to protect privacy. Ma won the election in a landslide victory.

Lin Chi-ling as Xiao Qiao in John Woo's "Red Cliff"

Beijing Daily (新京报) released in December a list of the 50 most beautiful people in China (中国最美50人) [ch], headed by Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) who had catapulted to stardom after her role in Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." The co-stars of Lee's "Lust, Caution," Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (梁朝偉) and Tang Wei (汤唯) were voted no. 2 and no. 19 respectively. Tang Wei, whose sensational debut in "Lust, Caution" made her a hot star, ranked 2 places ahead of Lin Chi-ling (林志玲), Taiwan's no. 1 supermodel who made her film debut in this year's blockbuster "Red Cliff" (赤壁), directed by John Woo (吳宇森) and starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as Zhou Yu (周瑜) and Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) as Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮). Gong Li (巩俐), who had ranked no. 1 two years ago and no. 3 last year, had fallen off the list completely, probably because she had recently chosen to take up Singapore citizenship, an action that provoked controversy and even charges of treason by Chinese netizens. As for Edison Chen, who ranked no. 34 last year, he did not make the list this time, no doubt because of his notoriety in connection with Sexy Photos Gate.

Perhaps Edison Chen should try to rebuild his career in North America where the notorious scandals and absurd escapades of its stars only serve to heighten public interest in them and make them ever more bankable. In November, E! Entertainment ranked him 15th on its “25 Sexiest Men of the World” 2008 list. As Mark Magnier of the Los Angeles Times observes: "As Paris Hilton and other Hollywood types can attest, sex sells and can super-charge careers. In Hong Kong, it can also end them, at least temporarily."

Christopher Nolan's blockbuster "The Dark Knight" will not be shown in China. It is speculated that the Chinese government objected to the film because: (1) Tainted Edison Chen had a cameo; (2) Hong Kong mobsters are among the cast of villains; and (3) Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent states, "Carbon fiber, .28 Caliber, made in China. If you want to kill a public servant you should buy American," thus conjuring up memories of "media reports of defective Chinese products from toys to milk powder and drywall to auto parts."

Last revised: December 29, 2008

Lhasa is Burning: Tibetan Unrest, Taiwan Election, & Beijing Olympics

2008-03-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

An earlier post points to how Kosovo's declaration of independence, followed by the extension of diplomatic recognition by a number of Western countries in February of 2008, stroked concerns in China, Russia and other countries with restive minorities and separatist movements. The unrest that broke out in Tibet in March of 2008 have magnified China's fears of ethnic separatism manifold, with repercussions on the presidential election in Taiwan, the Beijing Olympics, and China's relations with the world.

Lhasa Rioters, March 14, 2008 (Photo by Kadfly)

On March 10, 2008, the 49th anniversary of the abortive rebellion of the Tibetans against the Chinese Communist government followed by the flight of their leader the Dalai Lama into exile in India, Tibetan monks and laypeople mounted demonstrations in Lhasa. Continued unrest climaxed on March 14, when Tibetan protesters threw stones at the paramilitary People's Armed Police who fled the scene. The Tibetan mob first assaulted Chinese bystanders, then set fire to many Chinese and Hui Muslim shops before the police finally returned to central Lhasa to restore order. However, Tibetan protests and demonstrations broke out in other areas with heavy Tibetan populations for several days thereafter. Chinese official sources later claimed that 18 innocent people of Han, Hui and Tibetan ethnicity and 1 police officer were killed by the Tibetan mob on March 14, while the Tibetan government-in-exile asserted that the Chinese police and military killed over 140 Tibetans during the demonstrations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sees a linkage between Kosovo and Tibet, a view shared by the Chinese government and many people in China. Lavrov stated on March 17: " ... the situation in Kosovo is the most striking example of ethnic separatism ... Disturbances have also begun in other regions of the world. To encourage separatist tendencies, I believe, is immoral. You see what is happening in China's autonomous region of Tibet, the way the separatists are acting there." In this domino effects scenario, Western recognition of Kosovo as a sovereign nation has emboldened separatist movements elsewhere.

The outbreak of unrest in Tibet most definitely energized the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on the eve of the March 22 presidential election in Taiwan. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁)'s confrontational policy towards China, the stagnation of the Taiwan economy under 8 years of Chen's DPP administration, and corruption cases involving Chen himself, his wife, his son-in-law and other DPP officials have soured the Taiwan electorate on the DPP. The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) or Nationalist Party had won a landslide in the legislative elections on January 12, 2008, winning with its allies in the Pan-Blue Coalition 86 of 113 seats in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, leaving the DPP with only 27 seats. KMT's presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who campaigned on the platform of improving Taiwan's economy and its cross-strait relations with China, held a commanding lead in the polls over DPP's presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷). News of the Tibet unrest presented Frank Hsieh with an opening: he immediately declared that "Taiwan could become the next Tibet," playing on the fears of the Taiwanese about China. Ma countered by condemning China's suppression of the protests and even suggested that Taiwan might boycott the Beijing Olympics over the Tibet issue. Ma, however, denied any linkage between Tibet and Taiwan, on the ground that Taiwan, unlike Tibet, has never been under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. Still, many observers believed that the Tibetan unrest, coupled with some missteps by the KMT, closed the gap between the KMT and the DPP.

Much to the relief of China, however, Ma Ying-jeou won in a landslide with 58% of the vote on March 22. The economy and prospects for improved relations with China evidently loomed larger in the minds of the Taiwanese voters than the Tibet issue. A further encouraging sign for the future of cross-strait relations was the historic meeting at the Boao Forum for Asia (博鳌亚洲论坛) between Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) and Taiwanese Vice President-elect Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) on April 12, "the highest level meeting between officials of the two sides since 1949," when the Chinese Communist Party defeated the KMT in the Chinese Civil War.

Hu Jintao & Vincent Siew at 2008 Boao Forum

If Taiwan's relations with China are on the mend despite the Tibetan unrest, China's hopes for the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a triumphant celebration of China's coming-out party as a peacefully rising power are now in shambles. The March riots followed by the Chinese government's crackdown have focused world attention on Tibet, and emboldened activists who have long planned demonstrations to publicize the Tibetan cause. Western media have broadcast and published reports on Tibet that are largely unflattering to the Chinese government. "Free Tibet" activists have plagued the international Olympic torch relay by disrupting it at almost every stop, even attempting to grab and extinguish the torch on many occasions.

Long before the March 2008 riots, political activists have been taking advantage of the approach of the Olympics to call "unfavorable attention to China’s human-rights abuses at home and its unseemly collusion with other human-rights abusers in the world like Sudan." Actress Mia Farrow and her son Ronan Farrow have labeled the Beijing Games the "Genocide Olympics" in a March 28, 2007 editorial for The Wall Street Journal, accusing China of "bankrolling Darfur's genocide" by its investments in and trade with Sudan, and by its vetoing of "efforts by the U.S. and the U.K. to introduce peacekeepers to curtail the slaughter" in the Security Council. The Farrows and other political activists and groups saw Beijing's desire for a successful staging of the Olympics as "a lone point of leverage with a country that has otherwise been impervious to all criticism." They advocated shaming corporate sponsors of the Olympic Games and foreign artistic advisers to the Chinese government such as Steven Spielberg, and applying other tactics, including the threat of an Olympics boycott, to pressure Beijing into improving human rights at home, and using its influence to stop mass deaths and political repression in Sudan, Burma and other countries.

Four days after the Farrows' editorial, Steven Spielberg sent a letter to President Hu Jintao, "condemning the killings in Darfur and asking the Chinese government to use its influence in the region “to bring an end to the human suffering there.”" The Chinese government dispatched Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun (翟隽) as a special envoy to Sudan from April 6 to 9, 2007, during which he urged the Sudanese government to accept an UN peacekeeping force and toured three refugee camps.

Chinese Peacekeepers Departing for UN Mission to Sudan, Jan. 15, 2007

China's concern for its image abroad and emerging doubts about whether uncritical support of such widely condemned regimes as Sudan, North Korea and Burma best serves its foreign interests have prompted a shift in its foreign policy. As Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt and Andrew Small pointed out in a paper for the January-February 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs:

China is often accused of supporting a string of despots, nuclear proliferators, and genocidal regimes, shielding them from international pressure and thus reversing progress on human rights and humanitarian principles. But over the last two years, Beijing has been quietly overhauling its policies toward pariah states. It strongly denounced North Korea's nuclear test in October 2006 and took the lead, with the United States, in drafting a sweeping United Nations sanctions resolution against Pyongyang. Over the past year, it has voted to impose and then tighten sanctions on Iran, it has supported the deployment of a United Nations-African Union (UN-AU) force in Darfur, and it has condemned a brutal government crackdown in Burma (which the ruling junta renamed Myanmar in 1989). China is now willing to condition its diplomatic protection of pariah countries, forcing them to become more acceptable to the international community. And it is supporting -- in some cases even helping to create -- processes that chart a path to legitimacy for these states, such as the six-party talks on North Korea, thereby minimizing their exposure to coercive measures.

To be sure, there are limits to how far China will go to pressure those pariah states, since it still favors non-intervention in its relations with foreign countries, and ultimately acts to promote what it sees as in its best interests. Nonetheless, it has unquestionably become a much more responsible stake-holder in global politics.

Moreover, China has been unfairly attributed with an amount of power and influence it does not possess over sovereign dictatorial nations such as Burma and North Korea and unstable regimes such as Sudan, where the national crisis is much more complex and much larger than simply the massacre of African tribespeople by the Sudanese government and Arab militias in Darfur. In point of fact, China's economic stake in Burma and Sudan has been grossly exaggerated: according to the CIA Factbook, in 2006 Japan ranked no. 1 as Sudan's export partner with 38% as compared to China's share of 31% of Sudan's total exports, while China's share of 5.2% of Burma's exports was a distant third to Thailand's 48.8% and India's 12.7% share. Have the global activists agitated for Japan to pressure Sudan to end the killings in Darfur, and for Thailand and India to pressure Burma to stop political repression and free Aung San Ssu Kyi from house arrest? Have they properly acknowledged China's positive contributions as the facilitator of the 6-Party Talks in an effort to end the North Korean nuclear crisis?

On the contrary, the world activists have not been mollified by China's actions. Steven Spielberg withdrew as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympics on February 13, 2008, stating that he had been unsuccessful in getting President Hu to do more on the Sudan crisis for almost a year. Far earlier than the Darfur activists, international supporters of Free Tibet have been mobilizing to focus world attention on their cause by taking advantage of the impending Olympics. Doug Saunders of The Globe and Mail (Toronto) documents three young women from British Columbia who have spent the last seven years "organizing thousands of international volunteers and hundreds of Tibet-related organizations into a six-month campaign of stealth activism intended to humiliate China before an international audience." What Kate Woznow, Canadian National Coordinator of Students for a Free Tibet, Freya Putt, Olympics Campaign Coordinator of International Tibet Support Network, and Lhadon Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet have succeeded to do is to build on their experiences as student activists and historical precedents of protests at and boycotts of Olympics, and transformed a Free Tibet Movement from its "passive image typified by bumper stickers and drum circles" into a well-organized and sustained protest campaign.

Lhadon Tethong at Buddhist
Temple in Beijing in 2007

The Tibetan riots have further galvanized the campaign of the Free Tibet activists, and engaged the full attention of the world on Tibet. "As the torch makes its slow journey around the world ... before returning to China for its controversial trip through Tibet in May, the three Canadian women are working their BlackBerrys and laptops late into the night, ensuring that something dramatic will happen at each stop." They "are determined to have non-violent direct action in the heart of Beijing, inside the Games, every day."

Chinese and Westerners, influenced respectively by the divergent and selective reporting of the official Chinese media and the mainstream Western media, held diametrically opposed interpretations of what happened in Tibet in mid- to late March of 2008. Was the March 14 riot in Lhasa "a brutal, unprovoked attack against innocent civilians by Tibetan hoodlums bent on breaking China apart," and Chinese police action legitmate acts of peace preservation, as many Chinese believed? Or was the Lhasa riot "an eruption of anger provoked by harsh crackdowns on peaceful protests against authoritarian Chinese rule," as asserted by many Westerners? As Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN chief correspondent in Beijing and currently a media studies professor in Hong Kong, observed, "There are two alternate realities that are not connecting."

What is certain, however, is that China's image in the world took a nosedive, and Chinese relations with Western countries and some Asian neighbors worsened as Western media coverage was mostly negative, and the Olympic torch relay was repeatedly disrupted by protesters.

Even before the Tibetan riots, a WorldPublicOpinion.org poll "of three western and three Asian countries finds widespread criticism of Chinese policies toward Tibet." Large majorities of those polled in the United States (74%), France (75%), Britain (63%), and South Korea (84%) held critical views. 54% of Indonesians polled disapproved of China's Tibet policies, and only in India was opinion divided, with 37% critical of and 33% approving China's Tibet policies while 31% were neutral. Opinions of China became even more negative following the outbreak of unrest in Tibet. A Zogby interactive poll released on April 7, 2008 found that 70% of likely voters in the U.S. presidential election believed that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should not have awarded this summer's Olympic Games to Beijing on account of China's poor human rights record. "Europeans now see China -- not the US -- as the biggest threat to global security," Der Spiegel reports on a Harris poll conducted between March 27 and April 8. "35 percent of respondents in the five largest EU states see China as a bigger threat to world stability than any other state. Last year, that figure was 19 percent, and in 2006 it was only 12 percent. In contrast, the US has slipped back into second place, with 29 percent of the respondents viewing it as the biggest threat, down from 32 percent in 2007."

In response, Chinese around the world became increasingly agitated by the protests at the Olympic torch relays that at times turned violent, and by their perceptions of biased Western reporting on the Tibet issue and coordinated efforts to deny the Chinese their celebratory moment at the Olympics. Anger expressed verbally and on the Internet has escalated to mobilization of pro-China demonstrators at each stage of the Olympic torch relay, and even calls for a boycott of Carrefour(家乐福), the French retail giant and the largest foreign hypermarket chain in China, after pro-Tibet demonstrators at the Paris torch relay forced the flame to be extinguished at least 4 times and even violently assaulted Jin Jing (金晶), a disabled woman athlete who was one of the torch carriers.

Paralympic Fencer Jin Jing Attacked at Paris Torch Relay, April 7, 2008

Last revised: May 1, 2008

Kosovar Athletes in Guangzhou, American Musicians in Pyongyang: Politics, Sports, and Music

2008-02-27T14:47:00.001-08:00

Kosovo's declaration of independence on Feb. 17, 2008 and the subsequent recognition of Kosovo as a new nation by the United States and 20 other countries (as of Feb. 27, 2008) sent shock waves through many nations that have restive minorities with separatist movements. Wang Guangya, China's ambassador to the United Nations, immediately expressed "grave concerns,"warning that Kosovo's unilateral action may "rekindle conflicts and turbulences in the region, which in turn would cause serious humanitarian crisis and adversely impact the entire Balkan region and beyond." China, "which claims the island of Taiwan as a renegade province and faces sporadic unrest in Tibet and western Xinjiang, abhors any legal precedent for a territory making a unilateral proclamation of independence." When Taiwan immediately extended recognition to Kosovo, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a press release on Feb. 18, 2008, stating: "It is known to all that Taiwan, as a part of China, has no right and qualification at all to make the so-called recognition."

Ironically, the first international sporting event that Kosovo participates in since its declaration of independence is the 2008 World Team Table Tennis Championships (Feb. 24-Mar. 2) in Guangzhou, China. Kosovo has been a member of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) since 2003, and the Guangzhou tournament is its fourth appearance at the world championships. Some have conjured up memories of Ping-Pong diplomacy in 1971, when China's surprise invitation of the American table tennis team to visit the PRC signalled a thaw in Sino-American relations, and paved the way for Nixon's visit to China in 1972 and eventually the normalization of relations. However, the Kosovar team is unlikely to either facilitate a diplomatic breakthrough in securing China's recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation, or achieve success at the ping-pong tables. Its men's team is ranked no.114 and its women's team no.112 in the world. In contrast, the top-ranked Chinese host boasts the top 4 spots and 5 on the list of the top 10 male players, and the top 5 spots on the list of the top 10 woman players on the ITTF's most recent rankings on Feb. 4, 2008. Both Hong Kong and Taiwan also field teams in Division 1, while Macau competes in Division 4.

Because the PRC claims Taiwan as a province of China, and insists in its international relations on the One China principle and non-recognition of Taiwan (the Republic of China or ROC) as an independent country, Taiwan is forced to participate in international organizations and events, including the ITTF championships and the Olympic Games, under the name of Chinese Taipei. Even worse for Taiwan, countries wanting to have diplomatic ties with the PRC must sever relations with Taiwan. The number of countries recognizing Taiwan has been dwindling since 1971, when the PRC took the seat for China in the United Nations that had been occupied by the ROC. As the Chinese economy has been growing phenomenally in recent years, Taiwan's ability to buy and hold on to diplomatic relations with poor nations around the world through investment and assistance has been undermined by China's increasing success to compete with Taiwan through yuan diplomacy. The latest country to abandon Taiwan is Malawi, which cut ties with Taiwan after 41 years and established diplomatic relations with China on Dec. 27, 2008. Now only 23 countries, mostly small and impoverished nations in Latin America, Africa and the South Pacific, recognize Taiwan. Alas, Taiwan's effort to gain some diplomatic space by recognizing Kosovo has not been reciprocated, as least for the time being. Kosovo, for its part, does not include Taiwan on the list of nations that extended it recognition.

Attracting far more world attention than the Kosovar table tennis players competing in Guangzhou was the visit to North Korea by the New York Philharmonic from Feb. 25 to 27, an event that was compared to the Boston Symphony's tour of the Soviet Union in 1956 and the Philadelphia Orchestra's visit to China in 1973 during the era of Ping-pong diplomacy. The New York Philhamonic received a mysterious invitation from the North Korean government in August of 2007, and its visit to North Korea marked the largest contingent of Americans there since the Korean War of 1950-53 as well as the first major cultural exchange between the United States and North Korea. At the East Pyongyang Concert Hall on Feb. 26, 2008, the orchestra performed a concert consisted of the national anthems of North Korea and the United States, George Gershwin's "An American in Paris," Antonin Dvorak's "New World Symphony," and an encore of "Arirang," Korea's most popular and emblematic folk song, in front of an audience of 2,000 dignitaries. Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel quipped on the podium that someday someone might compose "Americans in Pyongyang." On Feb. 27, 2008, four string players of the Philharmonic joined four North Korean musicians to perform Mendelssohn's Octet, and Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel led led North Korea's State Symphony Orchestra in a run-through of the prelude to Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" and Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" fantasy-overture.

Was the New York Philharmonic visit a "a puppet show whose purpose is to lend legitimacy to a despicable regime," as arts critic Terry Teachout charged? Was the date of Feb. 26 set by Kim Jong-il deliberately so as to upstage the inauguration of new South Korean president Lee Myung-bak the day before, and to allow for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to go to Pyongyang directly from Lee's inauguration? Was the event "part of a continuum "of conflict and lessening of conflict" masterminded by Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, who no doubt saw the concert as "a perfect way to make the Americans happy for another few months"," as Brian Myers, Dean of International Studies at Dongseo University, noted? Or was it the sign of a thaw in U.S.-North Korean Relations, "evidence that North Korea "wants to improve policy with the US"," as agricultural specialist Edward Reed argued? Might "the concert ... break through years of tortuous talks aimed at getting North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program, a key step in the normalization of diplomatic relations," as former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, who was in attendance, asserted? Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that the Philharmonic vist "has been very successful art-diplomacy between the two nations," and that it has "contributed to good understanding between our two nations." Kim added, "It's quite sensitive to televise the performance of the U.S. national anthem. We are technically in a state of war, so actually it was a political breakthrough. It needs great political courage ... Courage of both nations. I learned and confirmed again that music can be communicated between people without interpreters."

However, optimism about any positive political outcomes from the New York Philharmonic visit may be misplaced. As journalist Donald Kirk pointed out in his article for Asia Times, Kim Jong-il himself did not show up for the Philharmonic concert, and, with the exception of Yang Hyong-sop, vice president of the presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, no top North Korean leaders were among the 1,500 North Koreans in the audience. Perhaps Kim Jong-il might have shown up had Rice come to Pyongyang instead of going directly to Beijing, which would make for another triumphant moment for Kim similar to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's attendance at the Mass Games with Kim in October of 2000. Kim Kye-gwan was also absent from the Philharmonic concert. He repeated to Amanpour North Korea's demands that the United States remove from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and lift sanctions, and also North Korea's desire to be provided with light wate reactors for its energy needs. In Kirk's view, "The New York Philharmonic performance in Pyongyang, far from turning into a celebration of fulfillment of the nuclear agreement, provided a great chance for North Korea to publicize its demands." Nam Sung-wook, North Koreanologist at Korea University, concurs: "while I think the U.S. orchestra playing in the North will improve relations at the uppermost tier and promote cultural exchange, I’m not sure the concert will contribute to the solution of the nuclear crisis ... [and be] a repeat of the 1970s ping-pong diplomacy with China and so many other such trips."

NY Philharmonic performs Arirang in North Korea

As cultural exchange, the Philharmonic visit was undoubtedly a success. In particular, the rendition of "Arirang" brought tears to the eyes of the normally staid North Korean audience, which clapped for more than five minutes and applauded and waved at the orchestra following the conclusion of the concert. Orchestra members too, particularly the eight musicians of Korean descent, reacted emotionally to the occasion. They stood up and waved back at the audience.

Following the concert, it was reported that legendary singer and guitarist Eric Clapton has been invited to perform in North Korea, despite its ban on rock and pop music. If Clapton accepts, he will be the first Western rock musician to perform in North Korea.

South Korean Band Shinhwa in North Korea

However, a number of South Korean pop and rock groups have already performed in North Korea, a cultural exchange made possible by South Korea's Sunshine Policy "aimed at achieving peace on the Korean Peninsula through reconciliation and cooperation with the North" and introduced by President Kim Dae Jung in 1998. Judging by the North Korean audience reactions to South Korean boy band Shinhwa performing in Pyongyang in 2006, which ranged from bemusement to incomprehension to outright hostility, it appears that the New York Philharmonic connected much better musically to the North Koreans than the South Korean pop and rock singers.

Cultural Hybridization: Chinese Carnival in Bavarian China and Sino-German Relations

2008-01-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

On "Crazy Thursday" at the beginning of each year since 1954, the Teutonic inhabitants of a charming medieval town in Germany celebrates the national day of Bavarian China (Bayrisch-China) by holding a Chinese Carnival. They parade in colorful Chinese costumes with an emperor presiding, and party into the morning hours.The emperor in his dragon carriage is saluted by his subjects with joyful cries of "Kille-Wau!"

Frenzy on the Podium in Front of City Hall, Crazy Thursday, 2006

Is this the figment of imagination of a feverish mind? No, it is a fascinating instance of cultural hybridization in a globalized world, and has recently received extensive coverage in Chinese language media [ch].

On January 31 of 2008, the townspeople of Dietfurt will once again celebrate "Crazy Thursday" (Unsinniger Donnerstag). Dietfurt on the Altmühl, the "Town of the seven valleys," is a small town of 2,800 people located in Bavaria, about an hour's drive from Munich and Nuremberg. The tradition of "Crazy Thursday" dated back to 1880, but the practice of dressing up in Chinese costume in parades began only in 1928. The celebration did not become a regular celebration of the national day of Bavarian China until 1954, when Egid Prock was elected as the first emperor, Ma-Ler-Gie. Since 2001, Fritz Koller, a hospital worker, has presided as Emperor Ko-Houang-Di 高皇帝.

Emperor Ko-Huang-Di Presiding Over Crazy Thursday, 2006

However, the association of Dietfurt with China, as manifested by not just the Chinese Carnival, but also by its alternate name of Bavarian China and its inhabitants calling themselves Chinese, appears to have dated much farther back in time. There were documents dated in the 1860s that referred to the town as "Chinatown" (Chinesenviertel) and the people as "Chinese" (Chinesen). In the central square of Dietfurt is a Chinese fountain, with a fat and squat Chinese mandarin with his arms outstretched and sprouting water. Near the fountain is a stone tablet with the inscription "Dietfurt, Bavarian China." There are even two versions of a national anthem of Bavarian China.

Chinese Fountain, Central Square of Dietfurt

How did this association of Dietfurt with China, culminating in the annual Chinese Carnival, come about? According to local lore, during medieval times the bishop of Eichstatt sent an agent to collect from Dietfurt when taxes were in arrears. The townspeople of Dietfurt thwarted the tax collector by barricading themselves inside their town walls. The collector reported back to the bishop, comparing the Dietfurters to the Chinese who shut themselves in with their Great Wall.

The Chinese media [ch], however, preferred a second explanation. Several hundred years ago Dietfurt traded with China, exchanging its silver and handicrafts for Chinese silk, porcelain and tea. The townspeople became fond of Chinese culture over time, and created their own version of Chinese festivities. It is unclear whether this account favored by the Chinese reports is based on local accounts, or whether it represents speculations by the Chinese. The latter may be more likely as the German Web sources make no mention of this version of how Dietfurt came to develop its association with China.

What is interesting, however, is that the first version emphasizes the insularity of the Chinese, while the second version signifies China's global connections and the allure of Chinese civilization for foreign peoples even in the distant past. The second version, therefore, is in keeping with the Chinese government's current goals of pursuing a peaceful rise and extending Chinese soft power in the global community.

The Chinese Carnival in Bavarian China has been known to the Chinese since the 1990s if not earlier: in 1997 a high-ranking delegation from Beijing visited Dietfurt during the Crazy Thursday celebrations. Why then the recent flurry of mainland Chinese media reports on Chinese Bavaria? Could it be, as one Taiwan source speculated, part of a concerted effort by the Chinese government to mend fences with Germany [ch] after relations took a nose dive following Chancellor Angela Merkel's Sept. 23, 2007 meeting with the Dalai Lama?

If so, then perhaps this picture of a Bavarian China lady [ch], wearing a Chinese costume displaying a design with the Olympic rings and a Chinese dragon, which features prominently in Chinese media coverage of Dietfurt, is symbolic of the desire of the Chinese for better relations with Germany and also a successful Olympic Games in Beijing.

Dietfurt Lady in Chinese Costume with Olympic & Dragon Motifs

Multimedia Supplement (German language sources only)

Dietfurt's official Web site has a lot of information and multimedia features on the town, including: Tourism Promotional Video with brief clip of Chinese Carnival (Quicktime): English; Chinese; Photo gallery of the emperors of Bavarian China since 1954

www.chinesenfasching.info: Bayrisch China feiert. Ein Faschingsfest das am Unsinnigen Donnerstag in ganze Stadt Dietfurt feiert

Fotogalerie aus Neumarkt Oberpfalz - Chinesenfasching

KBUMM: Dietfurt - ChinesenFasching

The 300 Billion Yuan Club and The Trillion Yuan Club

2008-01-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

The 300 Billion Yuan Club (3000亿俱乐部) consists of cities in China that have an annual GDP of 300 billion yuan (about US$40 billion) or more. The municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing are not included in the tabulation, as they are equivalent in administrative rank to provinces. The designation of a 300 Billion Yuan Club signifies both huge regional disparities in economic income, as well as the prevalent preoccupation in the Chinese government and media with the size of the GDP as the measurement of merit for a region and its political leaders. In an earlier post, I pointed to a movement under way to liberate the thought of the Chinese elite and masses from a slavish devotion to economic gigantism towards a spiritual renewal with more attention to civic participation and social concerns.

In 2006, the 6 cities on the 300 Billion Yuan Club [ch] are all located in the booming coastal provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wuxi, and Qingdao. In 2007, this exclusive club added 7 more cities: Foshan, Ningbo, Nanjing, Chengdu, Dongguan, Wuhan, and Dalian. Two of the new members are outside the coastal region: Wuhan and Chengdu.

Astonishingly, the GDP of any member of this club exceeds the GDP of any of the 5 poorest provinces in China: Gansu, Guizhou, Hainan, Qinghai, and Tibet. Top-ranked Guangzhou in the 300 Billion Yuan Club has a GDP that is almost ten times that of Qinghai Province!

The directly administered municipalities all have GDP's exceeding 300 billion yuan.
Beijing's estimated GDP in 2007 is about 900 billion yuan (US$124 billion). In 2006, Shanghai became the first municipality to exceed 1 trillion yuan in GDP (1.03 trillion yuan, or about US$129 billion). In comparison, in 2006 Chongqing has a GDP of 348.62 billion yuan (US$45.2 billion), while Tianjin has a GDP of 433.8 billion yuan (US$54.4 billion). The yardstick for measurement of economic achievement for province-level administrative units is the Trillion Yuan Club (GDP万亿俱乐部), and Shanghai is the only municipality to qualify as of this date (although Beijing is close). The members of this club are: Guangdong; Jiangsu; Shandong; Zhejiang; Henan; Hebei; Shanghai; Liaoning; Sichuan. The geographic distribution again indicates an overwhelming concentration of wealth in the coastal region.

Although Shanghai and the Lower Yangzi region have captured much of the limelight in Western coverage of China's economic progress in recent years, Guangdong (particularly the Pearl River Delta near Hong Kong and Macau) clearly still retains a leading position in the economic hierarchy in China. Guangdong ranks number 1 in the Trillion Yuan Club, while Guangzhou and Shenzhen hold the top two spots in the 300 Billion Yuan Club. In 2006 Guangzhou became the first city in mainland China to achieve a per capita GDP of US$10,000, threshhold for a developed economy by World Bank standards. In comparison, Beijing's per capita GDP is below US$8000 as of 2008, and Shanghai's per capita GDP was just below US$7,200 in 2006. It should be noted, however, that China's per capita GDP calculations include only the registered population (i.e. people with hukou and are permanent residents), but excludes the migrant population which is very sizable in cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai.

Among the new members of the 300 Billion Yuan Club are the Guangdong cities of Foshan and Dongguan. Both cities have grown at the annual rate of over 19% from 2004 to 2007. Particularly remarkable is the case of Dongguan, "once a sleepy town and now an industrial power in the making" since the late 1990s. Today it is a world leader in the production of toys, furniture, electronics and other commodities, and also home to one of the excesses of global consumerism, the world's largest mall, the South China Mall, which opened in 2005 with a gross leasable area of 7.1 million square feet.

South China Mall, World's Largest Mall

A New Wave of Liberation of Thought Under Way in China?

2008-01-21T15:34:00.000-08:00

China Times (Taiwan) [ch] reports that the phrase "liberation of thought"(思想解放) has been appearing with increasing frequency in the Chinese media, indicating that a new movement for the liberation of thought may be under way. Leading local officials who assumed their new posts after the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, including Yu Zhengsheng 俞正声, secretary of the CCP's Shanghai Municipal Committee, and Bo Xilai 薄熙来, secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee, have been bandying this phrase in their speeches.

Attracting the greatest amount of media attention, however, has been Wang Yang 汪洋, the secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee, who upon assuming his post immediately called for "a new round of liberation of thought" (新一轮思想解放) without fear of getting one's head chopped off (不怕杀头). In response, Ren Jiantao 任剑涛, the president of the College of Public Administration of Sun Yat-sen University, even revived the call for "Shenzhen to boldly plan a special political zone" (深圳应大胆筹划政治特区), voiced by former Guangdong party secretary Ren Zhongyi 任仲夷.

As party boss from 1980 to 1985, Ren Zhongyi led "the transformation that has today made Guangdong the richest part of China and the source of one third of the exports that constitute China’s growing footprint on the global economy." Ren, however, also became one of a handful of senior Communist cadres who strongly supported political reform, along with Li Rui 李锐, former private secretary to Mao Zedong, and Hu Jiwei 胡绩伟, former editor of the People’s Daily.

Ren Zhongyi accompanying Deng Xiaoping in attendance at Spring Festival celebration in Guangzhou, February 1984

In 2000, Ren Zhongyi wrote an editorial in Southern Daily, the official paper of the Guangzhou party committee, in which he subtly called for an end to the monopoly of power held by the Communist Party: "Improving the leadership of the party means establishing a system that can effectively supervise and constrain the party. . . . Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Communist Party is no exception to that rule. The Communist Party supervising itself is like having the left hand supervise the right hand. That just won't do. The party needs to be supervised not just by the party but by the people." One year before Ren's death in 2005, he went even further in an interview with a Guangdong magazine, “We cannot just set up special economic zones but must create special political zones as well. We must experiment by allowing the direct election of leaders at the county and city levels in certain areas, and then move on to provincial leaders.”

If Ren Jiantao's revival of Ren Zhongyi's call for special political zones is indicative of a new political wave, then Guangdong may once again be One Step Ahead in China (title of Ezra Vogel's book on Guangdong under reform in the 1980s).

A January 19, 2008 editorial on the liberation of thought [ch] in Guangzhou Evening News 羊城晚报 identifies 3 earlier phases of the liberation of thought after the Cultural Revolution. The first came in 1978, when a Guangming Daily editorial espousing "Practice is the Sole Criterion of Truth 实践是检验真理的唯一标准" set in motion an ideological debate that liberated the Chinese people from the dogmatism of Mao Zedong Thought, and paved the way for the return of Deng Xiaoping to power and the beginning of economic reform. The second phase came in 1992, when Deng Xiaoping's strong affirmation of economic reform on the Shenzhen model during his Southern Tour liberated the Chinese economy from the worship of the planned economy model. In 1997, the 15th National Party Congress endorsed the selling off of state-owned enterprises and the transition from socialist-style state ownership to a system of share-holding. This marked the liberation from the worship of the system of state ownership.

In his Jan. 12, 2008 speech [ch] at Guangzhou, Ren Jiantao pointed out that in thirty years of reform, economic achievements far outstripped social and political progress, and the focus on promotion of material well-being has been accompanied by spiritual impoverishment. Reform has depended only on the words and actions of a small number of the elite. To achieve a breakthrough against the limitations of reform, the Chinese people must liberate their thinking, become actively engaged in exercising their civic duties and responsibilities, and contribute towards the building of a civic society characterized by democracy, rule of law, and constitutionalism.

In a similar vein, the Guangzhou Evening News editorial [ch] calls for the liberation of the citizens and public servants of Guangdong from the blind worship of growth while paying little attention to its attendant costs. The leadership must free itself from single-minded focus on growth in per capita GDP to guide the cadres to consider how to contain or manage the negative impact of economic policy on the people's quality of life, including environmental costs, demand for social welfare, and growing crime rates.

This liberation of thought is consonant with the policies of the party leadership under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao to promote scientific development and social harmony. According to China Times [ch], the call for "a new round of liberation of thought" from the local leadership (the highest ranking of whom, including Wang Yang, Yu Zhengsheng and Bo Xilai, are also members of the Politburo of the Central Committee), is also echoed in some commentaries from the party center. For example, Shi Zhihong 施芝鸿, the vice-director of the Policy Research Office of the Central Committee (中央政策研究室), which is the principal think-tank of the Chinese Communist Party, penned a Jan. 5 2008 editorial in the Liberation Daily 解放日报, in which he identified the liberation of thought as one of the magical weapons (法宝) for developing socialism with Chinese characteristics. Given the special status of Liberation Daily among the party newspapers and the role of the Policy Research Office in drafting documents for the Central Committee, Shi's editorial is likely to be an authoritative statement from the center supporting initiatives from local party leaders in South China, in particular Guangdong Province.

According to Ren Jiantao [ch], Guangdong enjoys various advantages in striving towards a new breakthrough in reform in comparison to other provinces. Because of the proximity of the province to Hong Kong and Macau, the social psychology of the Cantonese is receptive to reform. Moreover, Guangdong has thirty years of achievements and experiences in reform to draw on, and possesses substantial economic wealth and resources. Indeed, Guangdong has the responsibility to be the leader in the next phase of reform in China.