Liu Tienan humpty-dumptied / Diary

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Off the Horse

The term “severe violations of discipline” is a common euphemism for corruption, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) writes in its online edition today, in connection with an investigation against Liu Tienan (刘铁男), deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). I’m wondering if that definition of the violation term is 100 percent correct. There may be other severe kinds of violation of party discipline, too, and besides, if corruption constituted one of them, which top leader could keep his desk? Never been corrupt through all the decades?

The term as used by the SCMP doesn’t refer to Liu himself here, but to another vice-ministerial-level official brought down before, in the current anti-graft campaign. Usually, corruption seems to become a topic when too many opponents agree that one of their comrades must go.

But this story is somewhat different from the usual downfall tales: reportedly, it was a journalist, Luo Changping (罗昌平), deputy chief editor of Caijing magazine (财经杂志), who first investigated Liu’s record, and published his findings on December 6 last year, according to Asia Pacific Daily (APD). And Liu didn’t fall off the horse right away: he appeared at the Sino-Russian energy talks, at talks with the party secretary of Tibet, and on other occasions.

However, his name wouldn’t appear again in public reports after January 30, writes APD. By then, he had apparently been humpty-dumptied.

Luo Changping reportedly posted allegations against Liu on Sina Weibo, China’s most popular microblog platform. Microblogs are often the medium of choice for journalists when censorship would be likely on actual articles in papers or magazines, if printed or online.

[Update (May 14, 2013): In December, Caijing published an article accusing Liu Tienan's wife and son of illegal business dealings, according to the BBC.]

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Diary

Not too frequent dustclouds this spring, even though I saw two modest, tornado-shaped swirls moving across the plain top of the mountain (a mountain by local standards) next to here last week. I was on my way home at the time, and watched them moving.

Amost rainy – May 12, 2013, some three hours after sunrise

It was unpleasant to think about what drought and wind are doing to the topsoil, but it was a great sight at the same time. I kept watching the swirls for a few minutes, until they had reached a cornfied, above which they withered.

But this spring isn’t nearly as dry as the two previous ones. The garden looks good, and vegetables, potatos and young trees are all growing, nearly without irrigation.

The Weeks before June 4: Struggling for the Ideological Switch Stands

[Cont. April 23, 1911

Main Link: 1989 年 4 月 24 日 星期日

Li Tieying and Li Ximing both agree with Li Peng that strict measures should be taken against the students' movement. At 8.30 in the evening, Li Peng goes to see Yang Shangkun to analyse the situation. Yang also sees a changing trend and encourages Li Peng to see Deng Xiaoping. Li Peng asks Yang to join him in a visit to Deng, and Yang agrees. During the evening, as Li Peng reads many papers and adds  comments to them, and a flow of public-security bureau, security, education commission staff etc, concerning trends among the students in all places keeps coming in, by phone and cable.

Science and Technology Daily's entering into the forbidden area of coverage receives a great echo, and from the morning on, people call this paper to tell the staff that they had written in fair words. However, vice chief editor Sun Changjiang says that they haven't done something special, and just acted in accordance with professional ethics, in their effort to carry out their duty as the media. Their [Science and Technology Daily] coverage hadn’t been particularly good; rather, he believes, that of some other papers has been particularly bad. The event is authentic, and their attitude is sincere.

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Monday, April 24, 1989

Main Link: 1989 年 4 月 24 日 星期一 (same document)

In the morning, sixty-thousand students from some 38 colleges and universities such as Beijing University, Tsinghua University, People’s University (Renmin University) begin a strike. Some students gather within the universities, conduct sit-ins, demonstrations, put up posters, and others shout slogans like “join the strike quickly”, “no end to the strike without reaching our goals”, and “walk out on lessons and exams, not on learning”.

Some students give lectures on societal issues, put up propaganda sheets, propagate “April 20 massacre”, “crying-and-begging to the non-understanding government” information, and still others take to the streets and lanes, for fund-raising and to call on “all the city’s citizens to become active in strikes”. Students from Beijing University, Tsinghua University and People’s University maintain order, and dissuade students from taking part in lessons. Some university party secretaries point out in reports to the next-upper party level that the current situation, if it lasts, will be absolutely harmful, and that one has to fear that this could take still larger dimensions as May 4 is approaching. They express their hopes that the central committee and the municipal committee issue clear guidelines, policies and instructions to end the strikes as soon as possible.

At 14:40, student committees at Beijing University and other universities hold meetings at the May-4 squares on their campuses, with some eighty percent of students attending. They prepare activities to boycott official May-4 activities and to establish autonomous students unions in Beijing and students unions of national unity all over the country. Some papers report that student delegates from Nankai University,  Nanjing University, Fudan University, Guangzhou University and other universities are also attending. Nearly two-hundred students with red armbands are maintaining order. As several members of students committees publicly push and pull each other on stage in a quarrel twice, more than six-thousand students at the meeting are abuzz. The meeting ends at 16:00 in discord, without having made any decisions. Dozens of foreign reporters have been present and recorded the event. A press conference by the preparatory committee, scheduled for 7 p.m., is subsequently cancelled.

Beijing University posts the “Recommendations to the Preparatory Committee, signed by people from Beijing University” poster, suggesting to redraw the slogans and action principles in order to get public support. The slogans should oppose corruption and bureaucracy, actions should be carried out downtown, at broad daylight, so as to broaden their influence, unified action would be needed between the universities and colleges, preparations be made for a long-term struggle, and extensive contacts be built with people from intellectual and democratic circles.

There is also another poster, under the headline “five points”, about “guaranteeing basic human rights, releasing political criminals, opposing party supremacy, checks and balances by separation of the three powers, defining a democratic constitution” and other political positions.

More than twohundred Beijing University teachers jointly call for maintaining the principles of the thirteen universities to consult the students and to have a dialog with them. A similar call comes from the China University of Political Science and Law [Wu Renhua's university]. The Beijing Students Autonomous Federation (aka Capital Autonomous Federation of University Students) calls on every student to send ten letters to compatriots all over the country. Between two- and threehundred students are to be dispatched to fifteen large cities all over the nation, such as Tianjin, Jinan, Shenyang, Changsha, Chengdu, Xi’an, Lanzhou, Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou, Taiyuan, Shanghai, Nanjing and Wuhan  to deliver speeches and to make contacts.

A peaceful petition meeting at Tsinghua University started a peaceful demonstration within the campus, at eight in the morning, with about ten thousand students participating. It’s an orderly demonstration with a length reaching two kilometers.

The Tsinghua University Students Council puts forward four principles concerning the students’ strike:

1. to maintain the reasonable struggle and the peaceful petition
2. to maintain unity and the power of all that can be united
3. to adhere to the strike on lessons, not on learning
4. to make sure that cool heads prevail among the younger students.

Educational departments from all over the country give their reactions to the State Education Commission, expressing their hope that the situation at Beijing’s universities and colleges can be stabilized soon, as it would otherwise be difficult to control the situation at universities outside the capital.

In the evening, Ren Wanding, who was responsible for the “Human Rights Alliance” time of the Xidan Democracy Wall, speaks on Tian An Men Square. He says: “the people are destitute, robbers arise from everywhere, prices are soaring, and the national economy is in crisis. If the four cardinal principles don’t vanish from the constitution, they will keep hanging over the people’s interests.”

Ren Wanding has also been to the universities of Beijing to speak there, but without much response, as the students didn’t understand him, and because they felt that his views were radical. When Chen Xiaoping and I watched him speaking in front of the dormitory of the University of Political Science and Law, there was only a sparse audience. Both Chen and I felt saddened.

In the afternoon, Li Ximing and Chen Xitong report to National People’s Congress chairman Wan Li. Wan Li was Beijing’s vice mayor prior to the cultural revolution. He suggests that the politburo’s standing committee should analyse the situation in the evening, chaired by Li Peng.

[According to this account by Wu Renhua, this meeting was held on the evening of April 24. This source seems to suggest that this happened on April 23.]

The standing committee, chaired by Li Peng, believes that a variety of events are indicating that under the control and instigation of very few people,  a planned, organized anti-party, anti-socialist political struggle is arranged before their eyes. The decision is made to form a group tasked with stopping the unrest, and requires Beijing’s party and government to stabilize the situation quickly, by winning over the majority of the masses and by isolating the minority, and by calming down the unrest. Standing committe member Li Peng, Qiao Shi, Hu Qili, Yao Yilin, as well as  – with no voting rights – Yang Shangkun, Wan Li, central party secretary Rui Xingwen, Yan Mingfu, Wen Jiabao, (not standing) politburo members Tian Jiyun, Li Ximing, Song Ping, Ding Guangen as well as people in charge at the relevant departments are attending the meeting.

In the evening, Li Peng receives a phonecall from Deng Xiaoping‘s secretary Wang Ruilin, inviting Li Peng and Yang Shangkun to his home at ten a.m. next day for discussions.

The World Economic Herald, a weekly from Shanghai, normally scheduled to appear today, has six blocks of content from a memorial forum held in cooperation with the New Observer magazine (新观察) on April 19. The 25 participants spoke highly of Hu Yaobang’s humanness, as a person of democratic open-mindedness [or liberalism - 民主开明], and of deep humanity. Science and Technology Daily vice chief editor Sun Changjiang [see above, entering into the forbidden area of coverage], Guangming Daily‘s reporter Dai Qing, and Yan Jiaqi of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences political science institute state more clearly that Hu Yaobang was forced to resign, and that he died while being treated unfairly. 300,000 copies of the World Economic Herald were printed by Saturday, some of it already at the post offices, while the remainder is stored at the printing house. But when Shanghai’s municipal party committee is informed about some of the content, it orders the postal offices to stop the dispatch of the papers, and seals the remaining copies in the printing house off. In the afternoon, the CCP municipal committee has a meeting with World Economic Herald chief editor Qin Benli in the afternoon, telling him that what is said in the account of the forum is correct, but that, as May 4 comes nearer, they fear that this could stirr the students’ emotions, add to the pressure on the government, and express their hope that the more sensitive content will be removed. The World Economic Herald does not agree with the cuts and revisions.

At the time, the World Economic Review’s Beijing office is the meeting point for democratic and liberal personalities. The office director Zhang Weiguo has strong campaigning skills and is broadly connected. Because of having led the [memorial] forum and for other reasons, he will be arrested after the June-4 crackdown.

To be continued
Continued here »

Shortwave Log, Northern Germany, April 2013

If you want to listen to the BBC, Deutsche Welle or the Voice of America on shortwave in central Europe these days, the easiest way to do so is to listen to their broadcasts for Africa. These stations broadcast from places like Ascension Island in the southern Atlantic, and Deutsche Welle has kept one of its formerly five own relay stations abroad in operation, from Kigali, Rwanda. VoA also broadcasts from São Tomé and Príncipe, an island in the Gulf of Guinea.

Shortwave radio continues to be popular in Africa, but not with everyone. Robert Mugabe and his regime aren’t fond of it at all, and reportedly issued a ban on shortwave receivers earlier this year. SW Radio Africa, an independent Zimbabwe radio station broadcasting from London in the United Kingdom (you never know who writes the Wikipedia entries) also rents airtime on shortwave, on 4880 kHz from Meyerton shortwave station in South Africa’s Gauteng Province, and can usually be received easily in central Europe during the evening hours.

Meyerton shortwave station, South Africa, 1986 QSL card.

Shortwave broadcasts from Meyerton started in October 1965, according to Jerome S. Berg‘s Broadcasting on the Short Waves^*). It was soon named after Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (H. F. Verwoerd SW Station), a prime minister frequently referred to as the architect of Apartheid who was assassinated in 1966.

China might consider providing Harare with some advanced jamming technology, but this would probably complicate relations with other African countries – and maybe this form of development aid would also be a bit too costly.

My log list for April is short – I spent most of my spare time on gardening.

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Recent Logs

International Telecommunication Union letter codes used in the table underneath:
CUB – Cuba; IND – India, MNG – Mongolia;  RUS – Russia.

Languages (“L.”):
C – Chinese; E – English.

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kHz	Station	Ctry	L.	Day	Time GMT	S	I	O
7550	AIR Delhi	IND	E	April 4	20:45	5	5	4
15300	Vo Russia	RUS	C	April 19	10:45	3	5	4
15300	Vo Russia	RUS	C	April 19	11:00	3	5	4
7550	AIR Delhi	IND	E	April 22	18:20	5	5	4
6000	RHC Habana	CUB	E	April 23	04:00	x	x	x
12085	Vo Mongolia	MNG	C	April 24	10:14	3	5	3

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Note

^*) Jerome S. Berg: Broadcasting on the Short Waves, Jefferson NC, 2008, page 171.

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Related

» World Press Freedom Day, UNESCO, 2013
» Previous log, Febr/March 2013, April 1, 2013

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Deutsche Welle: Limbourg succeeds Bettermann

Deutsche Welle director Erik Bettermann will retire on September 30 this year. His successor will be Peter Limbourg, currently working in a leading position for German private mass media company ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG. DW broadcasting board chairman Valentin Schmidt announced the decision on March 15; the DW press release was written by the broadcaster’s spokesman Johannes Hoffmann. A press release in English is also available.

14 of the 17 board members voted “Yes”; one voted “No”, and two abstained, according to the German release.

Limbourg might count himself lucky, even if his job at Deutsche Welle, under growing budgetary constraints, won’t be an easy one. He is currently Senior Vice President for news and political information at ProSiebenSat 1, which sounds pompous, the Tagesspiegel (Berlin) wrote on March 15, but the hard truth was that information counted very little at his current employer. Information, the Tagesspiegel continues, counts all the more at Deutsche Welle.

On March 14, the Frankfurter Rundschau wrote that only four weeks earlier, Valentin Schmidt had still ruled out an early decision – that would have to wait until June. The search for candidates to succeed Bettermann hadn’t been completed, and the broadcasting board also wanted to wait and see how the candidates to date presented themselves. Applicants from within Deutsche Welle, among them Gerda Meuer, head of the DW academy (and once working for the German service of Radio Japan) weren’t even invited. By the end of February, only Limbourg had delivered a convincing presentation, and Limbourg it was.

In one respect, however, a trend described by Frankfurter Rundschau on February 17 made it into the vote: Limbourg was a journalist, rather than a politician. A complaint of unconstitutionality was pending at Germany’s federal constitutional court, critical of the oversized influence of political parties in the boards and commissions of German broadcasters, and apparently, the DW broadcasting board didn’t want to risk criticism in line with that complaint. The more, however, representatives of the churches were emerging. Valentin Schmidt, a 72-year-old evangelic Christian, is likely to be succeeded by a catholic prelate, Karl Jüsten, at the end of this year, wrote Frankfurter Rundschau. Both Limbourg and one of his most likely competitors (Stephan-Andreas Casdorff, who withdrew his candidacy before March 15) are catholic.

German chancellor Angela Merkel probably liked the emerging constellation, the Focus (Munich) speculated one day after Limbourg was chosen. Soon, the director and three out of his five sub-directors would be on a ticket of the Christian Democrats (the incumbent director, Erik Bettermann is a social democrat), and Karl Jüsten, the probable next chairman of the broadcasting board, was catholic and therefore close to Merkel’s Christian Democrats anyway.

Limbourg will be the first director at a public broadcaster who previously worked for privately-owned television.

Guanchazhe (Observer), a Shanghai-based website, quotes a scholar from Berlin as saying that the high-sounding election of the new DW director, as well as a low-key restoration of Feng Haiyin (apparently von Hein, a German) as head of Deutsche Welle’s Chinese department could bring about a new atmosphere, with some more objective reporting and less ideology in China-related reports (柏林的一名学者18日对记者表 示，“德国之音”选出新台长和冯海音重新担任中文部主任，可能会给该台涉华报道带来新风气，多-些客观报道，少一些意识形态).

Those who had suggested that Feng Haiyin was “close to the CCP” had apparently never listened to the DW broadcasts, scoffs Dream Tramp, a commenter in the thread. All his scripts were full of vicious attacks (说冯海音“亲共”，显然是没听过德国之声广播。他写的每一篇稿子都充满着对土共的恶毒攻击。). German media are more anti-communist than British or American media, suggests another.
Correct, replies Dream Tramp. And [the German media were] stupid at that. I’ve frequently heard them recklessly rushing at rumors – their professional level is far behind Britain’s and America’s.

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Related

» Interview with Wang Fengbo, Jan 26, 2012
» Negotiations with Politics, Dec 26, 2011

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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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Chinese Media Control: Three further Efforts

News from foreign (or outside-border) sources must no longer be used by Chinese press people without prior authorization, Radio Australia‘s Mandarin service quotes a notice from China’s SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television). Also part of a move to standardize editorial behavior are the management of news websites, and of blogging and microblogging – three further efforts combined. According to Radio Australia, editors and journalists are also told to get approval from their work units before registering with a microblogging platform (probably particularly before registering with Sina Weibo).

Reporters without Borders (RSF) published a statement on Wednesday, roundly condemning the SARFT directive. RSF believes that embarrassing revelations about China’s leaders in foreign media – particularly about the alledged fortunes acquired by former chief state councillor Wen Jiabao‘s and current party general secretary and state chairman Xi Jinping‘s families – had triggered the move.

Press and Blog Review: Perfectly Logical Chains

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1. Li Ruihuan: Modest and Scrupulous about every Detail

Main Link: “Just talking won’t do, we need to argue” – Li Ruihuan’s “Views and Statements” / 光讲事儿不行，得讲理儿” ——李瑞环的“看法”与“说法”

In spring 2013, permanent member of the 14th and 15th politburo standing committee and former Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference chairman Li Ruihuan has published his fourth book (four volumes) after retirement, “Views and Statements”, writes an intern at Nanfang Weekly who reviews the book. Renmin University (People’s University) president Chen Yulu is quoted as referring to it as authentic history and an encyclopedia of party and government work. The reviewer at Nanfang finds a perfectly logical chain in the opus, which begins with reform and opening up, and carries on with party construction (or building the party), the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, ethnic religion, propaganda and art, ideological and political work, urban construction, etc. Li had been scrupulous about every detail, he had issued 108 issues to deal with, and all had gone through the editorial team’s discussion. Obviously, the book also contains speeches.

Li Ruihuan’s approach had been democratic, Renmin University Publishing chief editor He Yaomin is quoted as saying – Li Ruihuan liked to let the editors discuss, looking on and listening. “He also spoke his views, but in case that he didn’t convince us, he’d let us return home and think things over again.”

Given the encyclopedic nature of the work, party secretary at the Central Institute of Socialism, Ye Xiaowen, was also part of the team of editors. Not missing are remarks about Li’s modest lifestyle, and his awareness of the importance of self-criticism, so as to be aware of problems early on.

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2. Village Teacher: It’s Now or Never

Main Link: One Explosion after another, and Obama still hasn’t pissed off? / 美国爆炸连连，奥巴马还不滚蛋吗？

A “Farmer Teacher from the Village” (农村老师) also made a statement this week, with a focus on international politics. Chances are that there was no editorial team around to assist him:

These are some of America’s most unlucky days, and this American president is good for nothing. Not only is he black, intelligent and self-confident, but also unable, and all he can do is to show off his eloquence. [...] This decade hasn’t been good for America in military, diplomatic and political terms, and the main reason is the election of a black president. Facts have shown that a black sheep cannot get along well with a bunch of bold lions. One could say that America has gradually become the most unsafe country, with one explosion after another, making Americans question Obama’s ability to govern. Indeed, as the Korean peninsula shows, Obama is one of the most incompetent presidents in American history, which is America’s nightmare, but China’s good luck. From the American president’s incompetence, greater benefits can be drawn, and China needs to do this. It needs to dispatch troops to fishing islands [this apparently refers to the Senkaku Islands in the first place], to make sense [of the fact that] American president Obama just relies on tricks. There is no need to fear this kind of president, but if this president is good for nothing, can we think of ourselves as stronger than him? We need no re-play of the Sino-Japanese War [of 1894/1895], I don’t want to see China sign another Shimonoseki Treaty in my lifetime, because that would be painful. Of course, big countries like China and America won’t simply go to war, but America’s decline is inevitable. They chose a useless president and gradually enter their own era of decline. If China doesn’t seize this opportunity to cripple America now, there will hardly be opportunities later. If in future, America becomes strong again, this won’t be good for China. I said early on that that black devil is useless, that his election is China’s opportunity, but there won’t be too many of such opportunities, [... - unable to translate this - JR.]
Therefore, with one explosion after another in America, why doesn’t Obama piss off? If he doesn’t piss off, the damage will only be America’s, and America will be more and more unluky, and China’s opportunities will get ever greater, but if the opportunity isn’t being seized, there will be a rude awakening.

Only one reader cared to comment so far, and offers some cooling analysis: A president can’t change America’s current situation in a moment.

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Related

» Make America collapse, Feb 14, 2010
» Stock Taking, Feb 8, 2013

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Press Review: Tomb-Sweeping Day, and Cemeteries to remember

Recent cases of avian flu are top stories on most of the Chinese press online. Xinhua (via Enorth, Tianjin) reports fourteen cases in mainland China, six of whom had died so far. Four of them died in Shanghai, among them a four-year-old child. A bulletin from Zhejiang Provincial Health Department is quoted as reporting one death today, and a 64-year-old farmer from Huzhou had died previously. Four avian flu cases had been reported from Jiangsu Province, and one from Anhui Province, according to Xinhua. The ministry of agriculture’s information office said late on Thursday that H7N9 viruses had been found during the examination of pigeons sent in by the Shanghai authorities. Much of the article’s emphasis is on prevention and control measures taken by the authorities.

Huanqiu Shibao republishes a photo from Guangzhou, (by China News Service, 中新社), with people bringing rice wine to their deceased relatives’ graves – April 4 was tomb-sweeping day.

In a more detailed article, Huanqiu Shibao mentions the forgotten graveyards and cemeteries, where few people go, be it because the places are too remote and not easy to reach, be it because of past historical taboos (历史“禁忌”).

These cemeteries lie deep in the mountains, near the Chengdu-Kunming railroad, in the mountain laps along the thousand-miles long Sino-Vietnamese border^*) a long distance from the Sino-Vietnamese border, on level ground of curved mountains, in a mostly ignored corner of Chongqing’s Shapingba Park, where young members of the railroad forces, young PLA soldiers and young members of the Red Guards are buried…

这些墓园静静地卧在大山深处成昆铁路的路基旁，千里中越边境一弯弯的山坳中，重庆沙坪坝公园不引人注意的角落里……里面长眠着年轻的铁道兵战士、年轻的解放军士兵和年轻的红卫兵少年……

The places were out of reach for many relatives, and some wouldn’t even know where their loved ones had been buried, writes Huanqiu. Denial of memory played a role, too:

We are really good at talking about successes, but often ignore the suffering behind success. We frequently discuss the wounds suffered in more than a hundred years, but tend to avoid the “stains” on history.

我们非常善于谈成就，但往往忽视了成就背后的苦难;我们也经常提起一百多年来遭遇的创伤，但也往往回避曾经的历史“污点”。

Self-reflection was required to avoid entering past pitfalls once again, writes Huanqiu. Obviously, moments of self-reflection should also assure the visitors to the forgotten cemetaries that the road that has been taken since was the correct path, according to the article, which seems to remain an uneasy one, not only because of the many ellipsis within.

The scenery of Arlington Cemetery in Washington D.C. should make [Chinese] people feel ashamed, writes Huanqiu. China had a tradition of faithful bones lying buried in the green hills [青山处处埋忠骨 - a reference to casualties of military conflicts and battles, apparently], but also one of paying attention to the great deceased.

Every life of a deceased has its proper value. Even when it is about the lives of the ignorant youths who died in the non-military struggles of the 1960s, each of their lives, on the path of this country’s history, left a bloody mark.

任何生命的逝去都有其应有的价值。即使是在1960年代末武斗中惨死的懵懂少年们，也都是每个生命在这个国家历史进程的刻度上留下的血的印记。

[.....]

Let’s conserve these cemeteries, let us not leave the regrets behind, and when visiting the dead, they can unhurriedly find their way home.

保护好这些墓园，不要再留有遗憾，当亡灵省亲的时候，他们可以很从容地找到回家的路。

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Note

^*) See Doppelkopf‘s comment

Related

» Bottom of a Dead Volcano, December 27, 2012
» June 4, 23rd Anniversary, June 4, 2012
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