Xinjiang 4-23 “Terrorist Attack”: Important Instructions from Beijing, Lack of Compassion from Washington

The incident in Bachu County / Selibuya (Kashgar Prefecture) on April 23 which reportedly led to the deaths of 21 people, including 15 police officers and officials, is closely monitored by the central party and state leadership, according to Chinese state media quoted by the BBC‘s Mandarin website on Friday. A Huanqiu Shibao report, also of Friday, is quoted as saying that the CCP central committee attached great importance to the incident and that secretary-general Xi Jinping had issued important instructions and requirements concerning the handling of the case, its aftermath, and the safeguarding of stability in Xinjiang. Six suspects reportedly died, and eight were arrested.

Foreign journalists were allowed to travel to the region but frequently faced intimidation and harassment when attempting to verify news of ethnic rioting or organised violence against government authorities, the BBC’s Beijing correspondent Celia Hatton wrote in a report published last Wednesday, and a report from the BBC’s China correspondent Damian Grammaticas, published on Friday, seems to confirm that local authorities tend to interfere, as Grammaticas and his team were ordered to leave Selibuya.

Tianshan Net, a website run by the propaganda department of the CCP’s Xinjiang branch, and frequently quoted by official and non-official Chinese media in the 4-23 context, reports today that in the wake of the 4-23 [April 23] serious violent terrorist incidents, a ceremony to honor the meritorious was held at the Science and Culture Square Conference Center in Kashgar at noon local time today. Three advanced collectives (including the Selibuya party committee) and 91 advanced individuals had been commended. (天山网喀什讯（记者李敏摄影报道）4月29日上午12:00，自治区处置“4.23”严重暴力恐怖案件有功人员表彰大会在喀什市科技文化广场喀什噶尔会议厅召开。大会对巴楚县色力布亚镇党委等3个先进集体和阿布拉江•克热木、谢武中等91名先进个人予以表彰。) The fifteen party and government comrades who had sacrificed their lives were posthumously awarded titles as outstanding party members and anti-terrorism warriors during the ceremony, writes Tianshan. (自治区党委、政府追授在处置“4.23”严重暴力恐怖案件中牺牲的15名同志为优秀共产党员、反恐勇士称号。) Nur Bekri and other leading regional officials attended the ceremony.

On Friday, Tianshan Net republished a Huanqiu Shibao report criticizing America for showing no compassion in the wake of the incident, quoting a U.S. state department spokesman’s demands for a transparent investigation. The criticism was based on Beijing’s foreign-ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying‘s statement on Thursday, who had stated dissatisfaction with Washington’s lack of compassion (无同情心).

Sina.com (in English) suggested a moral link between the recent Boston Marathon bombings and the incident in Xinjiang, and also quoted Hua Chunying from her Thursday press conference.

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Related

» Due process protections, BBC News, April 25, 2013

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Herrschaftswissen: Free or not, but “Engineered”

Wikileaks may have been useful in making some of the (Western or Arab) governments’ inside workings a bit more transparent – but it seems to me that what has been published by them doesn’t outweigh what is published by government themselves, or by their advisers, or by the mainstream press. We could have every government archive at our disposal, and would still face the problem of finding out what matters, and the problems of interpretation.

The Genius leads the spectators: engineering of consent in its early stages.

In this post, I will try to describe two examples of Herrschaftswissen, and one (rather old) example of methodology. A talk (not an article) on Wikipedia about enlightenment in Western secular tradition translates Herrschaftswissen as knowledge restricted to the rulers. I’m not sure if this should count as an exact translation, or just as a rough one.

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Example 1: David Cameron’s “Muscular Liberalism”

In February 2011, British prime minister David Cameron addressed the Munich Security Conference, an annual conference on international security policy held in Bavaria’s capital. It is an example of how politics and mainstream media work hand in hand – it was founded by a publisher in 1962, and that publisher was succeeded by a former high-ranking government bureaucrat in 1998.

In his speech, Cameron focused on radicalization among Muslims in many European countries. There isn’t much in the speech itself that I would object to, but what I view critically is the context of the speech.

While Cameron was focused on radical Islamists in Europe, the “Arab Spring” was in full swing. Cameron gave his talk on the eve of the outbreak of the Syrian civil war – a war described by the BBC‘s Jim Muir as a proxy struggle between the US-led western world and al-Qaeda international.

The West’s undertaking could also be described as a struggle to discern moderate and radically Islamist forces among the opposition fordes in Syria – a struggle European governments are facing at home, too. But that’s a problem the West could have spared itself. If Western governments (and their Arab and Turkish allies) succeeded in toppling Syria’s Baath regime and install a “moderate” new regime, chances are that the new regimes human rights record would be no better than that of the Baath party. Governments who encourage and support radicalism in mainly Muslim countries are hardly qualified to encourage moderation among Muslims in their own countries.

A few days ago, the European Union’s Counter-terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove told told the BBC that among the estimated 500 European citizens who were currently fighting in Syria, but most likely many of them will be radicalised there, will be trained.

When you want to undermine Islamist radicalization at home, the West’s strategy on Syria doesn’t look too reasonable. Those who Cameron purportedly wants to win over know very well how ambivalent muscular liberalism is about terrorism, when it is about practise, rather than about talk.

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Example 2. Trust in the CCP’s Central Committee

“Unity” is one of the supreme banners of the Chinese Communist Party. The downfall of Chongqing’s party chief Bo Xilai, only eight months ahead of the 18th National Congress of the CCP, came at a sensitive time. But if the power struggle about Bo Xilai was unpleasant or embarrassing already, the “visit” (or rather the tempoary getaway) of Chongqing’s Public Security Bureau head to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in February 2012 should count as a PR disaster for the CCP.

The Chinese press had to pick up the pieces in the guidance of public opinion. Huanqiu Shibao, a CCP-owned but rather popularar Chinese paper, applied a mix of natural science (China’s rapid development is like a living body’s development, and there may always be some particulars we haven’t been familiar with) and orthodoxy (In China’s society of numerous and complicated voices, trust in the party’s central committee has become reason for society in its entirety). There was, Huanqiu elaborated, no contradiction between emancipation of mind and trust in the party’s central committee:

It is exactly for the diversity, for having several options, that we truly discover that trusting the party’s central committee, implementing the party’s road map, is more reliable than any other method other people may teach us, and more able to create the conditions that make the country and the individual develop.

This sounds like muscular socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Both Cameron and Chinese propaganda emphasize unity when it comes to fundamentals. The fundamentals are very different from each other, but the tools they are using to justify and legitimize their dominance are quite similar. However, Camaron’s game is easier to play than the CCP’s. When Chinese media openly bash dissidents, they risk getting unusually unharmonious responses from their recipients. When Cameron addresses radical Islamism, he will get his share of criticism, too, but that is nothing uncharacteristic in the British media.

And despite some inevitable criticism, when a European leader singles out radicalization among Muslims, chances are that the mainstream will respond rather favorably.

The problem for European politicians is that the political class is lacking the high degree of legitimacy – in view of the public – that it (reportedly) used to have. Or, as the Economist‘s Bagehot observed, the pomp of Margaret Thatcher‘s funeral met with shallow public interest. Even Mrs Thatcher’s enemies trusted that her motives were sincere, argues the Economist, but now all politicians are distrusted.

Not just among radical or not so radical Muslims. But if you pick a frequently disliked minority as Cameron does, you may still strike a chord with an increasingly resentful majority.

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3. Engineering of Consent

In 1955, an American public-relations counsel, Edward L. Bernays, wrote an article, summarizing what he referred to as the engineering of consent. Bernays didn’t necessarily invent it, but at the time when he wrote about it, he had probably been among the most successful thinkers about and propagandists and practitioners of the concept for decades. The engineering of consent should under no circumstances [...] supersede or displace the functions of the educational system, either formal or informal, Bernays wrote, in bringing about understanding by the people as a basis for their action. Rather, engineering of consent supplemented the educational process.

But in the previous paragraphs, Bernays had also written that

[..] it is sometimes impossible to reach joint decisions based on an understanding of facts by all the people. The average American adult has only six years of schooling behind him. With pressing crises and decisions to be faced, a leader frequently cannot wait for the people to arrive at an even general understanding. In certain cases, democratic leaders must play their part in leading the public through the engineering of consent to socially constructive goals and values. This role imposes upon them the obligation to use the educational processes, as well as other available techniques, to bring about as complete an understanding as possible.

Bernay’s essay leaves it essentially to the adopters how to make use of the toolkit he provided. Given that the tools are highly effective, it is obvious that they aren’t only used when the gap between public understanding and necessity (problem-solving) can’t be bridged in time, but whenever opportunists finds the engineering useful. Or, to put it more catchy: the dumber a policy, the dumber the public needs to be, and all the more, engineering of consent needs to supersede education.

Both democratically-elected and totalitarian politicians appear to be keen adopters, and it would be for the public itself to become more informed, to judge if the actons of politicians are in the public interest, or if they are not.

But the opposite is the case. While many European middlebrows regard the political class and their techniques as ethically rotten or even detest them for the manipulation, they are themselves adopters of spin-doctoring, too. Many blogs,  comments and other expressions of (political) opinion seem to apply the means and methods used by the political class to make their case. There seems to be an ambivalence among the ruled about the desire to belong to the political class, and to refute it.

Not to mention Wikileaks. Wikileaks doesn’t “educate”, either.

In that regard, the average Chinese netizen appears to be more aware of the manipulation he or she is subjected too, than the Western subject to the same PR technology – Chinese awareness states itself in terms like “we’ve been harmonized” [by Chinese authorities or media]. Or, when Huanqiu Shibao wrote in 2012 that opinion poll results published by American Gallup  showed that during the preceding three years, among the five BRIC states’ population, the Brazilians and Chinese had been most satisfied with their living standards, and only the Chinese felt during three successive years that the living standard had continuously improved, a commenter laconically replied that he had been satisfied (in a passive-voice sense) by the Americans. In certain ways, the experience of living under a totalitarian government seems to stimulate clear-sightedness.

Bernays reportedly liked to close his speeches and talks with an invariable summary: And everybody is happy.

There may not be a great future for public happiness. But quite probably, there is one for the engineering of consent.

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Related

» Battle of Opinion, Feb 13, 2013

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Xi Jinping, out of Town: Huanqiu Shibao quotes “Western Media” (i. e. Deutsche Welle)

China and Russia are most important strategic partners, the BBC quotes CCP secretary general and Chinese state chairman Xi Jinping, who has started a tour of Russia, Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of Congo today. While in Africa, Russia will remain on his agenda on foreign relations, too – Xi will attend the fifth Brics summit from March 26 to 27 in South Africa.

Fenghuang (Hong Kong) coverage of Xi’s arrival in Moscow here »

According to the Voice of Russia (VoR), one of the aims in advancing the two countries’ partnership is to boost mutual trade turnover to 100 billion dollars by 2015. Energy issues, local economic cooperation and social events, including a meeting with students of the Lomonosov State University are on the agenda, according to VoR. According to the broadcaster, China has become Russia’s largest trade partner for the second year in a row.

Xi is scheduled to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin, prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, Federation Council chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko, Duma (parliament) chairman Sergey Naryshkin “and other leaders”, as well as friends from all ways of life in Russia, writes Xinhua newsagency. He will also deliver a speech at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and meet Russian sinologists, according to Xinhua. International affairs aren’t ranking high in the descriptive Xinhua article, but Russian president is quoted from a telephone record with Xi of March 14 as saying that Russian-Chinese relations were among the important factors of safeguarding world peace and stability, and carrying particular significance.

Huanqiu Shibao quotes a Russian deputy foreign minister as describing Xi’s visit to Russia as a “major event” in the two countries’ relationship. The deputy foreign minister added that Moscow had made careful preparations for the visit. Western media said that Xi’s choice of Russia as his first foreign destination was “no surprise” (“不意外”), writes Huanqiu. One after another, Western media believed that the intentions behind China’s arrangements made people wonder.

“Are China and Russia going to sign big energy contracts?” “Is Beijing turning back to the [old] strategic center of gravity with Moscow” to respond to the shift of America’s strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region?” The guesses and speculations by Western analysts, with seven mouths and eight tongues (七嘴八舌), look as if they were x-raying Sino-Russian relations.

俄副外长里亚布科夫21日用“两国交往中的大事件”形容这次访问，并称莫斯科已为迎接习主席做好万全准备。西方媒体大多对中国国家主席上任后首先访俄“不 意外”，同时纷纷认为北京的安排用意极深，耐人琢磨。“中俄要签能源大单？”“北京要用‘战略重心重返莫斯科’回应‘战略重心重返亚太’的美国？”西方分 析家七嘴八舌的猜测就像在给中俄关系做X光检测。

As for Xi Jinping’s visit to Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of Congo, after his stay in Russia, and the “Sino-African approaches” (“中非走近”), following the “Sino-Russian embrace”, have gone hot in Western public opinion. “Westerners are tossing lots of question marks, but essentially, their curiosity is only about one thing. That is how big a country China will be in the next ten years”, says Chinese scholar Jin Canrong.

由于习主席访俄后将访问坦桑尼亚、南非和刚果(布) ，“中非走近”已尾随着“中俄拥抱”在西方舆论中迅速变热。“西方人抛出的问号很多，但实质上他们的好奇只有一个。那就是未来十年，中国会做一个怎样的大国。”中国学者金灿荣说。

In fact, Germany’s former foreign broadcaster and current media platform Deutsche Welle (DW) describes Xi’s visit to Russia as his unsurprising international debut. Deutsche Welle also quotes Gu Xuewu of the University of Bonn with pretty much the remarks about deepening military cooperation in the face of the US “pivot to Asia” that had been noted by Huanqiu Shibao’s “Western media” review.

However, much of what the DW article says is simply not quoteable for Huanqiu Shibao: fair weather friends, unsentimental partnership of convenience, or a trip to Moscow that was was symbolic in nature. Not to mention the demographic development in the Far East, viewed by the Russian side with unease.

And obviously, Huanqiu provides no link to the DW article – nor do they mention the old enemy broadcaster as their online source.

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Related

» VoR Chinese frequencies, swldxbulgaria, March 14, 2013
» CRI Russian frequencies, swldxbulgaria, March 14, 2013
» No Bullying, July 19, 2012
» Now Africa’s largest trading partner, BBC, May 22, 2012
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Huanqiu Shibao: Why the Retired Pope’s “China Dream” remained unachieved (2) – the British did it, too

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« Previous (first) part of translation, plus some remarks.

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Subtitle: The Vatican’s continues to keep “Diplomatic Relations” with Taiwan and interferes in China’s domestic Catholicism
梵蒂冈与台湾保持“外交关系”，干涉中国国内的天主教

Main Link: Why the Retired Pope’s “China Dream” remained unachieved, Huanqiu Shibao, March 5, 2013

Links within blockquotes added during translation.

After the opium war, foreign missionaries, under the protection of powers’ gunboats and unequal treaties, entered China one after another, built churches and proselytize “freely”. Some of the missionaries, in violation of the rules of the God who had sent them to save “Chinese souls”, acted in full complicity with aggressive powers. Dressed in the coats of religion, they did many bad things, seriously damaging the image of the Christian religion, and giving rise to the Chinese people’s indignation.

鸦片战争之后，外国传教士在西方列强的炮舰和不平等条约庇护下，纷纷进入中国，建造教堂，“自由”传教。其中有些传教士违背了上帝派他们来拯救中国人民“灵魂”的旨意，充当了列强侵略中国的帮凶。他们披着宗教外衣，做了不少坏事，严重损毁了基督教的形象，引起中国人民愤慨。

After the establishment of the PRC, the Vatican refused recognition and crudely interfered in Chinese internal political affairs. In 1952, China suspended [or broke off - 中断] all official relations with the Vatican, banned Catholic churches, condemning their conspiracy with the forces of imperialism’s attempts to subvert New China. — The Vatican officially recognized Taiwan. The huge number of patriotic Catholics resolutely took the road of the independently and autonomously-run church. Our country established the “Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association“, the “Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China”, and others. These organizations were acknowledged by the government, government-funded, and also accepted governmental administration. Their fundamental purpose is to love religion and to love the country, to obey the law, and “to love both God and the country”.

中华人民共和国成立，梵蒂冈拒不承认并对中国内政进行粗暴干涉。1952年中国中断了与梵蒂冈所有官方关系，取缔了天主教堂，谴责其串通帝国主义势力企图颠覆新中国……梵蒂冈正式承认了台湾。中国广大爱国天主教徒决心走独立自主办教会的道路。我国先后建立了“天主教爱国会”、“基督教三自爱国会”等。这些组织得到政府承认、政府资助、也接受政府的行政管理。其根本宗旨是爱教爱国、遵纪守法，“既爱上帝，也爱国家”。

The “Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association was established in 1958. In 1982, the “Bishops Conference of Catholic Church in China” was established as Chinese Catholic regional leadership institution. Most importantly, the “Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association” has the right to independently appoint bishops. The “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” purpose is: self-governance, self-support and self-propagation, principles of independence and autonomy in its operations, guiding the entire country’s Christians to love religion and to love the country, to glorify God, to abide by the constitution, to carry forward the noble morality and practices, etc.. In fact, as early as during the 1rst World War, British Anglican priest Ài Lún [obviously an English name, but unknown to me], relating to the “New Testament”, called for the independence of churches from all countries, issuing the “Three-Self” position. China is a secular country, all religions have always been administrated in accordance with the law, and received legal protection.

“中国天主教爱国会”于1958年成立。1982年组建“中国天主教主教团”，为中国天主教各教区的领导机构。最重要的是“中国天主教爱国会”有独立任命主教的权力。“基督教三自爱国会”的宗旨是：自治、自养、自传，独立自主自办教会的原则，带领全国基督徒爱国爱教、荣神益人，遵守宪法，弘扬高尚的道德风尚等。实际上，早在一次世界大战期间，英国圣公会教士艾伦就诉诸《新约》而呼吁各国教会独立，提出“三自”主张。中国是一个世俗国家，各种宗教历来都是依法管理，受到法律保护。

Some people may ask: does China have the right to autonomously administer the churches? Yes, of course it has. Anglicanism is the obvious example. England’s rejuvenating and wise Queen Elizabeth I.’s father Henry VIII. (1491 – 1547), dissatisfied with the Roman Pope’s refused permission to divorce his Spanish wife (she didn’t give birth to a child, which could have led to the throne succession rights to his Spanish adversaries), he angrily had England break away from the Roman church and established England’s own national church, the “Church of England” or “Anglican Church”. This is the origin of the Church of England. The English kings and queens were made the top leaders of the church. To this day, the British Queen keeps the title of “Protector of the Christian Faith” [actual title: Defender of the Faith].

有人会问：中国有办理教会的自主权吗？当然可以。英国国教就是明显例证。英国兴国明君—女王伊丽莎白一世的父亲亨利八世（Henry Ⅷ,1491—1547）因为不满罗马教皇不批准他与其西班牙妻子离婚（因为她没有生育，英国王位的继承权可能旁落到其对手西班牙王室的手中），他一气之下，使英国脱离了罗马教会，组建了英国自己的民族教会，即“英格兰圣公会”或“安立甘教会”。这就是英国国教（Church of England）的来历。英国国王把自己封为教会的最高领导人。迄今，英国女王伊丽莎白二世还保留着“基督教保护者”头衔。

The Vatican even hopes to include the religious churches of a country with diplomatic relations into the Vatican’s “Confucian orthodoxy” system, with the Pope [unitarily - 统一] appointing that country’s bishops in all dioceses, and setting the methods by which they should lead and administer [the dioceses]. This leads to contradictions with Chinese Catholicism’s current “three-self” principles which are hard to dispel. The Vatican firmly opposes the “three-self” and acknowledges the Taiwanese government, and excommunicates the Catholic bishops acknowledged by the Chinese government.

而梵蒂冈则更希望将缔交国的天主教会纳入梵蒂冈的“道统”体系，既由教皇统一任命该国各教区的主教，规定其领导和管理方式。这和中国天主教目前的“三自”原则有难以消解的矛盾。梵蒂冈坚决反对“三自”，并承认台湾政府，将获得中国政府承认的主教开除出教会。

To be continued.

Huanqiu Shibao: Why the Retired Pope’s “China Dream” remained unachieved (1)

Catholicism isn’t a big religion in China, but there seem to be several millions of Catholic Christians – organized inside or outside the official “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association”.

This topic is unchartered territory to me, and mistakes in the following translation(s) are not unlikely. This is a translation of the first chapter of a topical page on Huanqiu Shibao. I haven’t made up my mind yet if I should translate the remaining chapters, too. But it seems to be an attractive topic, also in the light of soft-power issues — JR

[Observation: there seems to be a rather thoughtful - by Huanqiu Shibao commenter standards, that is - discussion going on in the thread underneath the topical page.]

[Links within blockquotes added during translation.]

Main Link: Why the Retired Pope’s “China Dream” remained unachieved – 退位教皇为何没圆“中国梦”, Huanqiu Shibao, March 5, 2013

Introduction: On February 28, 2013, in the evening, Roman Pope Benedict XVI formally relinquished the papal duties, thus becoming the first “retiring” Pope in 600 years. It is also the fifth “retiring” Pope in history. Benedict XVI, during his “reign” of six years, tried to improve Chinese-Vatican relations and to establish diplomatic relations with China, but up to his “retirement”, this hadn’t been achieved. What are the origins of this City of Shang Di‘s relations with China?

导语：2013年2月28日晚间，罗马教皇本笃十六世正式卸下教皇职务，成为600年来首个“退位”的教皇，也是历史上第五个“退位”的教皇。教皇宣布辞职后引发的舆论震动一直在全世界激荡。本笃十六世“在位”时曾试图改善中梵关系，与中国建交，但直到“退位”仍未实现。梵蒂冈这个“上帝之城”与中国之间到底是怎样的关系渊源？

In 1582, xx years into the reign of Emperor Ming Wanli, Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci was sent to Macau to learn Chinese. In 1583, he founded a Catholic missionary base in Zhaoqing to introduce mathematics, geometry mechanics and similar science to the Chinese people. He studied China’s “Four Books and Five Classics”, went deep into the study of Chinese traditional culture, wore the Han Chinese clothing and said that to be a missionary, one had “to do as the Romans do”. Ricci came to Beijing in 1601, he was in charge of the construction of the Xuanwumen Church, and died in Beijing in 1610. Ricci was a brilliant man of wide learning, and a pioneer of Chinese-Western cultural exchange.

1582年（明万历10年），意大利人、耶稣会会士利玛窦被派到澳门学习汉语。1583年他在肇庆创立第一个天主教传教点，向中国人介绍数学、几何学和力学等科学知识。他苦读中国的《四书》《五经》，深入研究中国传统文化，穿汉服，提出传教要“入乡随俗”，使用汉语举行宗教仪式，为基督教在中国传播奠定了基础。利玛窦于1601年来到北京，1605年主持建造了宣武门大教堂，1610年死于北京。利玛窦博学多才，是中西文化交流的先驱。

After the introduction of Catholicism into China, the so-called “disputes about the rites” (“礼仪之争”) broke out within Catholicism, with the focus on how to translate the appellation of “God” into Chinese, and how to deal with traditional Chinese traditional custom. Ricci believed that the appelation of “God”, besides using the term “Lord of Heaven/God” (天主), “Heaven” or “Shang Di” were also options, and that Chinese believers could retain traditional ancestoral and religious worship. But the Spanish Dominican missionaries and Franciscan missionaries believed that ancestoral and religious worship was idolatry and violated “biblical” rules. They thus sent people to the Holy See in Rome to complain about Ricci’s Jesuits there.

天主教传入中国之后，天主教内部产生了所谓“礼仪之争”，争论的焦点是如何翻译“神”的称谓和如何对待中国传统习俗。利玛窦认为，对于“神”的称谓，除了用“天主”之外，亦可称“天”或“上帝”并且同意中国信徒保留祭祖和祭孔的传统习俗。而西班牙多明我会传教士和方济各会传教士则认为，祭祖、祭孔属于偶像崇拜，违反《圣经》规定并派人到罗马教廷控告以利玛窦为首的耶稣会。

In 1700 (39 years into the reign of Qing Emperor Kangxi), Kangxi entered the rites dispute and declared ancestoral worship (祭祖) and memorial ceremonies of Confucius (祭孔) weren’t parts of traditional Chinese traditional customs, and no religious activities. In 1704, Pope Clement XI publicly ordered the prohibition of ancestoral worship and memorial ceremonies of Confucius among followers of Catholicism, as well as the use of “Shangdi” and “Heaven” as other terms for “Lord of Heaven/God” (天主). He sent an envoy to China for talks. When papal special envoy Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon (铎罗) declared in 1706 that his mission to China was to ban ancestoral worship and memorial ceremonies of Confucius among Chinese Catholics, Emperor Kangxi was furious, believing that this move spelled interference in Chinese customs. He sent people to bring Maillard into a temporary residence in Nanjing and ordered the expulsion of missionaries who opposed Chinese rites, and also sent envoys to Rome for talks. In 1707, Maillard, in disregard of Kangxi’s decree, announced the papal ban. Therefore, Kangxi ordered Maillard to be taken to Macau to be held under house arrest there, and issued a decree: “tell the Westerners (西洋人) that from now on, if they don’t respect Matteo Ricci’s rules, they will not be allowed to reside in China and will be sent home.”

1700年（清康熙39年）康熙皇帝介入了礼仪之争，声明祭祖祭孔属于中国传统习俗，不属于宗教活动。1704年教皇克雷芒十一世公然下令，禁止中国教徒举行祭祖、祭孔等活动，禁止把“上帝”和“天”作为“天主”的别称并派特使来华谈判。1706年教皇特使铎罗声言，他来华的使命是禁止中国教徒祭祖、祭孔。康熙皇帝得知后大怒，认为此举属于干涉中国习俗，派人将铎罗送往南京暂住并下令驱逐反对中国礼仪的传教士，同时派使节前往罗马谈判。1707年，铎罗无视康熙的旨意，在南京宣布教皇禁令。于是，康熙下令把铎罗押往澳门软禁并降旨称：“谕众西洋人，自今以后，若不遵利玛窦之规矩，断不准在中国住，必逐回去。”

In 1715, Pope Clement XI reiterated the ban of 1645 – offenders [against the ban] would be punished for heresy (以异端论处). Kangxi was furious, ordering the arrest of the missionaries and a ban on missionizing. In 1719, the Pope sent a delegation to Beijing for talks again, but Kangxi refused a meeting and rebuked them: “You Westerners don’t understand Chinese writing, so how can you discuss the rights or wrongs of Chinese reason” (尔西洋人不解中国文字，如何妄议中国道理之是非) and “in future, Westerners must not proselityze in China, all of which will be prohibited” (以后不必西洋人在中国传教，禁止可也). Kangxi therefore ordered the expulsion of the guests. Rome’s Pope was forced to make concessions, and in 1720, he announced the “Eight Permissions”.^*) [The permissions] agreed to [the legitimacy of] non-religious Chinese rites. Kangxi ordered that only missionaries who were prepared to respect traditonal Chinese rites should reside in China, and banned overt missionary work. It wasn’t before 1939 that the Holy See in Rome revoked all bans on rites, thus bringing the dispute, which had lasted for more than 300 years, to an end. From this, it can be seen that the so-called “disputes about the rites” were completely caused by the Roman Popes’ ignorance of China.

1715年，教皇克雷芒十一世重申1645年的禁令，违者以异端论处。康熙大怒，下令拘捕传教士并禁止传教。1719年，教皇又派使团来北京谈判，康熙拒不接见并斥责说：“尔西洋人不解中国文字，如何妄议中国道理之是非”，“以后不必西洋人在中国传教，禁止可也。”于是康熙下令逐客。罗马教皇被迫让步，于1720年宣布“八项准许”。同意中国信徒举行非宗教性的中国礼仪。康熙下令只准许尊重中国礼仪的传教士居留中国并禁止公开传教。一直到1939年，罗马教廷才撤销了有关礼仪的一切禁令，为这场持续了300多年的争论画上了句号。由此可见，所谓“礼仪之争”，完全是由于罗马教皇对中国的无知造成的。

Continued here »

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Note

^*) According to other versions, it wasn’t the Pope who announced these “eight permissions”, but the delegate, John-Ambrose Mezzabarba. The “Eight Permissions” weren’t long-lived, and apparently overturned by Pope Benedict XIV, in 1742.

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Related

Hao Jinli, 1916 – 2011, March 28, 2011

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Conspiracies and Control: no Detailed Plans for Currency War yet, but let’s attack Arrogant Abe

American, European and Japanese efforts to spark growth could devolve into a currency war, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), on Wednesday, interpreted remarks by Gao Xiqing, president of China’s CIC sovereign-wealth fund. Japan should not use its neighbors as a “garbage bin”, Gao was quoted. The WSJ’s Lingling Wei suggests that [t]he focus on Japan and the yen has taken some heat off Beijing, long accused by critics of artificially holding down the value of the yuan, Wei wrote in an additional article on Wednesday. Gao said that [o]ur job is to preserve the value of the hard-earned savings of the Chinese people.

Ever since the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694, behind almost every big global change, there had been the shadow of international finance and capital, Fu Bilan (付碧莲), a regular contributor to (or regularly republished by) People’s Daily online, mused in an article published by PD online on Wednesday:

They master a country’s lifeline and hold a country’s political fate in their hands. By inciting political incidents, inducing economic crisis, they control the flow directions and the distribution of the world’s wealth. It can be said that a history of global finance is the history of a conspiracy of seeking domination over the wealth of humankind.
自1694年英格兰银行成立以来的300多年间，几乎每一场世界重大变故背后，都能看到国际金融资本势力的身影。他们通过左右一国的经济命脉掌握国家的政治命运。通过煽动政治事件、诱发经济危机，控制着世界财富的流向与分配。可以说，一部世界金融史，就是一部谋求主宰人类财富的阴谋史。

China’s central bank is well prepared to react to a currency war, adds Fu. However, a currency war could be avoided. The latest G-20 meeting had drawn a few lines, such as restricting monetary policies to domestic functions. The G-20 meeting had also expressed the hope that monetary policies would not lead to competitive devaluation. But either way, China had taken responsive preparations to meet with any realities of quantative easing (量化宽松) that might occur abroad.

And of course, Fu Bilan hopes for some guiding policy decisions from the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress – both of who are currently holding their annual plenary meetings.

The – pretty long – article is much more technical than what these short excerpts might suggest, but I can’t help feeling that some of its paragraphs were written in celebration of the life of Hugo Chavez. The world of finance is evil, of course – with the exception of China‘s world of finance.

However, there also seems to be a reluctance to discuss what measures China’s monetary-policy planners have in mind to react to a currency war. One of China’s deputy central bank directors, Yi Gang (易纲), was quoted on Sunday with remarks about taking realities of quantative easing on the part of foreign central banks into account, but no details were mentioned then, either.

For the time being, the wargames, at least in the press, seem to focus on multinational institutions, and the obvious target, again, is Japan:

Japan’s prime minister Abe shamelessly delcared that a Japanese national should routinely be appointed as the post of the Asian Development Bank’s first director. China should team up with ASEAN and other countries to smash their fond dream.
日本首相安倍大言不惭，宣称亚行行长一职应按惯例由日本人续任，中国应该联合东盟及其他国家打破其美梦。

China’s nationalist Huanqiu Shibao didn’t even have to think this latest little conspiracy in international finance up – they are quoting “The Sun” (太陽報) from Hong Kong.

Patriotism won’t provide you with detailed plans for a currency war. But it helps to kill time until it arrives.

Huanqiu Shibao on “Ulterior Motives” in Southern Weekly Conflict

Main Link: Global Times: Lay Off Supporting Southern Weekend, Or Else

There’s a blog – kind of a bridge blog, if you like – which deserves a lot more attention. In November 2011, China Copyright and Media translated the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party’s Decision on Deepening Cultural Structural Reform (I could have saved myself a lot of time if I had come across their translation earlier).

Fortunately, I did save myself the time to translate a Huanqiu Shibao editorial on the Southern Weekly / Southern Weekend standoffs with the local propaganda department. They’ve got a translation or rendition of that, too – been online since January 8 this year – including the original commentary in Chinese.  China Copyright and Media  includes posts about Chinese legislation, as well, but obviously, I can’t judge their quality. It’s not my department.

Soft power: the land where the Bananas bloom

So, if you want translations from the real Chinese press – beyond the English-language mouthpieces from China Daily to the “Global Times” which are stuff from a parallel universe, made by the CCP propaganda department for foreigners -, read JR’s China Blog, for example.

But read there, too. There are updates every few days, and sometimes several times a day.

The translator finds a lot of rotten points in the Huanqiu article. But this may not be what matters to Huanqiu, to the China-Daily Group, or to the propaganda department. They can’t overlook many domestic online comments in their threads which are highly critical of their approach.

Song Luzheng, an overseas Chinese journalist or official in Paris, follows the same line as does Huanqiu Shibao, in many of his articles, particularly about the freedom of the press. Some of the readers he – probably – hopes to reach are Chinese readers who are disillusioned former admirerers of “Western” values. There seems to have been a trend since 2008, the botched “Sacred-torch” ralleye in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics which has changed the atmosphere in favor of Song Luzheng, Huanqiu Shibao, et al.

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Related

» Readers’ Reactions: I will Endure, May 3, 2012
» Oh Rule of Law, April 11, 2012

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Bo Xilai: no Trial today

“It is definitely not happening today”, a court official outside the People’s Intermediate Court building in Guiyang told reporters on Monday, according to Reuters. , denying that Bo Xilai‘s “trial” would open there on January 28. The official, who didn’t give her name, thus denied reports to the contrary.

Meantime, Huanqiu Shibao – and/or the “Global Times” – quotes “a source close to the top judicial authorities” as saying that Bo’s “trial” could be held after the sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) which will probably be held in March.

Despite the court official’s denial, hundreds of Chinese and foreign reporters are still waiting in front of the court building in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, reports the BBC‘s Chinese service.

Bo Xilai’s wife, Gu Kailai, had been “tried” in Hefei, Anhui Province, in August last year. She was found guilty of of murder in the death of British businessman Neil Heywood.

Bo Xilai is accused of “abuse of power and corruption”.

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Update, 03:15 UTC

The BBC (Mandarin) report apparently referred to the English-language “Global Times”. Chinese-language Huanqiu Shibao re-published the report (in English) at 01:21 UTC.

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