Foreigners, and the Social Insurance System in China

There has been some talk about foreigners having to contribute to China’s social insurance system in recent months, but the proof of the pudding is the eating. It seems that by now, at least some local governments are beginning to implement mandatory contributions.

Matthew Stinson, in a post for Rectified Name, refers to Shanghai and Suzhou as places where contributions, at least by and for foreigners working at training centers, are now being paid. Tianjin, where Stinson lives, seems to become another such place. Stinson discusses both some of the arrangement’s background and details, and comes up with some thoughts about how it may, or may not, work.

Income distribution and social insurance have become prominent issues in China, not least as the country is facing challenging demographic trends. Part of deepening reform and opening further, as described by the CCP central committee’s cultural decision, is the promotion of cultural units’ human resources and income allocation, and social insurance systems’ reform. And allocation and social insurance issues go far beyond “culture” (if one wants to reject the idea that to the CCP, everything is “cultural”. Social insurance is a regular item on the State Council’s agenda (at least according to its published records), and social management (社会管理), supported not least by an improved identity card system (身份证制度), may help governments and Yang Rui to sort out the illegally uninsured “foreign trash”.

For sure, from a mere fiscal point of view, mandatory social insurance fees paid by foreigners, despite the drawbacks mentioned on Rectified Name, would provide some badly needed means to turn rural social insurance funding into something substantial.

That said, if social insurance fees were paid by migrant workers – and their bosses, obviously -, it would spell improvement on a very different scale. In such a (unrealistic) case, Li Keqiang, China’s likely chief state councillor, could issue problem-solving instructions Wen Jiabao, even at his best, could only dream of.

Victoria Nuland: Let’s Put it That Way

Daily news briefing, State Department, May 24

QUESTION: On China, you must have heard the new State Department directive to the Confucius Institute in the U.S. Could you explain to us, what is the purpose of this new directive?

MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, let me say that, as you know, the U.S. greatly values its people-to-people exchange with China. This was one of the centerpieces of the Secretary’s participation in the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. She had a separate people-to-people exchange with State Councilor Liu and they got a chance to meet some American students and some Chinese students, and it was a great event.

This is also not about the Confucius Institutes themselves. It is simply about whether the right visa status was applied in these cases. When you have a J-1 education visa, there are two categories. There are J-1 visas if you are in kindergarten through high school, and there is a different category of J-1 visas if you are at university.

And there was some muddling and messing up, so – in these cases – so we’re going to sort these out. Nobody’s going to have to leave the country. It’s all going to get cleared up. But there was some confusion on the front end, so we’re going to fix it.

QUESTION: But in the directive, it said on all the current affected exchange visitors, they have to leave before June 30 this year. Is that the case?

MS. NULAND: My understanding is that we’re going to do our best to fix this without having anybody have to leave.

QUESTION: And finally –

MS. NULAND: That is my understanding.

QUESTION: — are you concerned about the Confucius Institute’s expansion in the U.S. as the –

MS. NULAND: Are we concerned about?

QUESTION: The Confucius Institute’s expansion in the U.S. as the strongest Chinese soft power?

MS. NULAND: No. This is something that we support. It’s part of the people-to-people understanding. We just want to make sure that the visa categories are correct.

Okay.

QUESTION: Can you speak to the timing of why now? Was it – was that in conjunction to this problem being across all of the Confucius Institutes, the J-1 confusion?

MS. NULAND: I can’t speak to why this came up now. I think that we – as I understood it this morning, we became aware that this wasn’t just one case or two cases, that there was a – sort of a mess-up in the processing in general. So we need to fix that.

QUESTION: What was the mess-up?

QUESTION: Can you characterize the mess-up? Yeah.

MS. NULAND: That in fact, folks who are participating and teaching in programs that were K-12 were given university-style J-1s, and the other way around.

QUESTION: So –

QUESTION: And whose problem with that?

MS. NULAND: I can’t speak to how the mess-up occurred, but we’re going to fix it.

QUESTION: Well, who issues the visas? I mean, it’s – the State Department issues visas, right?

MS. NULAND: Right. So whether there was some confusion on the front end with the sponsors as to which programs individual teachers were being brought for, or whether there was some changing after they arrived, I really can’t speak to that. But we’re going to clean it up so that everybody’s in the right visa category.

QUESTION: So you –

QUESTION: You don’t expect anyone to have to leave the country?

MS. NULAND: My understanding was we’re going to do our best to fix this so that nobody has to leave.

QUESTION: And just so we’re clear, you don’t think, then, that the mistake was on the State Department’s end? Do you think it’s possible that it was on the end of the people who applied or the intermediaries?

MS. NULAND: I just can’t speak to that, and I can’t speak to whether this was uniform in any way or whether there were various problems.

QUESTION: And you can’t speak to it because you don’t know –

MS. NULAND: Correct.

QUESTION: — or because you know and you don’t want to say?

MS. NULAND: Because we have to investigate it and figure it out.

Okay.

QUESTION: Can you talk about how many visas were impacted by the problem?

MS. NULAND: I don’t have that either.

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: May I ask you for what kind of meetings, when you say that you are working on this issue? I heard that some of the Confucius Institutions have come and had meetings with the assistant secretary already talking about this. So could you tell us more about what kind of works has been doing to avoid – make sure people don’t have to leave the country by the end of June?

MS. NULAND: Yeah. My understanding is that at the current moment, we’re trying to size the problem, we’re trying to figure out how many people are affected, and then we’re going to – and we’re in the process of reissuing instructions that are a little bit clearer and a little bit more easy to manage. Let’s put it that way.

QUESTION: Okay. And may I also say that we know that in the past couple of months, a few members in the Congress expressed their dissatisfaction and question about the operation of Confucius Institutes in the U.S. So I wonder, when you were doing this – before you released this direction about the J-1 visa, did you have any contact with those members in the Congress?

MS. NULAND: Well, I’m sure that, as we always do on all matters, we’re in dialogue with Congress. But this is a matter not about any of that; it’s a matter about whether people are in the right visa category for where they are teaching.

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Related

» State Department directive, May 24, 2012

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China’s Long Arm: Uyghurs deported from Malaysia / Dalai Lama can visit South Africa “any time he wants”

When there’s a problem, a good CCP cadre puts pen to paper – to have Uyghur “criminals” deported back to China from Malaysia, for example.

Malaysian authorities defended the deportation Tuesday, saying that the 11 Chinese nationals who were sent back were part of a human trafficking ring,

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on August 23. Now, two members of U.S. Congress,

Republican Representative Chris Smith and Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China which looks at Beijing’s policies, also urged Malaysia not to deport five Uighur asylum-seekers still in custody,

reports AFP.

UN refugeee agency UNHCR had tried to meet the eleven Uyghur men prior to their deportation to China, as well as the five still in Malaysian custody, but had been denied access to them by the Malaysian authorities.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Yante Ismail said the agency had sought access to all 16 Uyghurs. She said the five in detention had all previously applied for refugee status with the agency.

“We very much regret that the 11 individuals were deported without the opportunity for us to have access to them,” she said in a statement.

[...]

Human Rights Watch said other countries such as Thailand and Pakistan had recently deported Uyghurs back to China, adding that it revealed “the bullying hand of China.”

In its report on August 23, RFA quotes an unnamed Uyghur student in Kuala Lumpur as saying that the deportation of eleven Uyghurs then had been based on false documentation provided by Chinese authorities

Smearing Uyghurs abroad with “criminal charges” and to try to either get hold of them or impede on their activities that way would be no new approach in China’s policies on Uyghurs overseas. Even Uyghurs who are no Chinese nationals are may face difficulties when travelling abroad. Dolkun Isa, a German citizen of Uyghur descent, was denied entry by South Korean authorities two years ago, and arrested at Seoul airport on arrival. According to a Gesellschaft für Bedrohte Völker (GfbV, Göttingen, Germany) press release in September 2009, the only information he was given was that he was being held in custody on an Interpol warrant. After he had been held for two days, he was released, but had to return to Germany without having entered South Korea.

Compared with ethnic Uyghurs who have been deported to China more recently, he could still count himself lucky – to deport him to the place where he was most urgently “wanted” was no option, as he held a German passport. But for the secretary of the World Uyghur Congress, China’s “long arm” has become palpable.

For Rebiya Kadeer, the World Uyghur Congress’ chairwoman, too. Taiwan denied her entry shortly after Dolkun Isa’s case in South Korea. “For the national security of the country, we forbid Rebiya Kadeer to enter Taiwan”, minister of the interior Jiang Yi-hua (江宜樺) informed the public.

International arrest warrants, documents Dolkar Isa was held for in South Korea, and at least partly the justification for Taiwan’s government to deny Rebiya Kadeer entry to Taiwan, have become a highly politicized instrument within international judicial cooperation.

A member of another ethnic minority, the Dalai Lama, may not yet be “wanted” by Beijing. But how freely – or not – he can move internationally, may turn out again soon, as the South African authorities are processing his visa request. Archbishop Desmond Tutu celebrates his 80th birthday in Cape Town on October 7 and has invited Tibet’s spiritual leader.

In March 2009, not even a joint invitation by Tutu and former presidents Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk would secure the Dalai Lama’s entry to South Africa. “We would not do anything to upset the relationship we have with China”, an unnamed South African official was quoted as saying back then.

But less than two months later, South Africa’s – then newly appointed – International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said that the Dalai Lama could now visit the country whenever he wanted.

She is still in office. If her words carry weight will be known, soon.

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Related

» Vergessen von der Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 6, 2011
» Sweden: Uighur sentenced for syping, NY Times, March 8, 2010

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Taiwan: Trüpel Chops a Chicken

This post is a follow-up to president Ma’s reaction on a confidential WHO document which instructs the organization’s officials to refer to Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, and the European Parliament’s Taiwan resolution, scheduled to be passed on Wednesday.

"In Tibet, it's very interesting" (click on the picture for video)

Several European Parliament and German Federal Parliament members visited Taiwan recently.

InTaiwan quotes former Estonian foreign minister Kristiina Ojuland as follows:

“In long term perspective the One-China policy is not and cannot be in the interest of the EU.”

While Ojuland shamelessly messed with China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, EU Parliament member Helga Trüpel (Moers/Bremen, Germany) showed what we will be capable of, if the Chinese should go too far:

she providently chopped a chicken (the English language), in order to scare the monkeys (the Chinese).

I guess the Americans can decommission most of their Pacific Fleet now.

China “Slaps Ma in the Face”

Taiwan’s president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) reacted to the emergence of an alleged confidential World Health Organization (WHO) document or memorandum which would belittle or dwarf ( 矮化, ǎi huà) Taiwan, as it refers to the republic as a “Chinese province” (中國台灣省). On a press conference at the presidential office on Tuesday afternoon (local time), Ma said that the WHO had clearly been under Chinese pressure (顯然受制於中共的壓力). He had asked the ministry of foreign affairs (MOFA) to lodge a protest with the WHO: “My country cannot accept this kind of unfair, unreasonable and discriminatory (不一; discriminatory may be too strong a translation, you might also try not uniform) approach”. The MOFA had been instructed to protest against any further belittlement of that kind without delay, said Ma.

Addressing China, he pointed out that in his 2008 inaugural speech, he had said that Taiwan wanted security, prosperity, but also dignity, and that only if Taiwan wasn’t being isolated [further] within the international community, cross-strait relations could develop steadily (2008年就職演說當中曾明白指出，台灣要安全、要繁榮、更要尊嚴，唯有台灣在國際社會不被繼續孤立，兩岸關係才能穩健發展). The efforts, and some achievements, of the past three years, should be cherished, further trust needed to be built, and the current move to hurt the feelings of the Taiwanese people was “extremely unfavorable” (用這種方式來傷害台灣人民的感情，對兩岸都是極為不利), said Ma.

The WHO document reportedly instructs the organization’s officials to refer to Taiwan as Taiwan Province of China if the issue arises. The revelation comes at a sensitive time for Ma as his administration prepares to send its third delegation to the annual WHA (World Health Assembly) meeting next Monday, writes the Taipei Times. The Taiwanese delegation was to take part in the assembly under the name of “Chinese Taipei”, which is a label frequently used by Taiwan when involved internationally, including sports events.

The Taipei Times article of Tuesday quotes several statements from the oppositional Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which suggest that Ma’s policy of improving ties with China had failed:

“What this shows is that Taiwan’s official designation at the WHO is as a province of China and nothing else. All these other names are a sham,” said DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲), who released the memo to the media.

DPP chairwoman and presidential nominee Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is quoted as saying that

“If this becomes Taiwan’s method of participating in international organizations, it will have a deep impact on our country’s global position and international space.”

A DPP statement called the news a “slap in the face” for the Ma administration, according to the Taipei Times.

Legislative and presidential elections are scheduled for January 14, 2012. So far, Ma reportedly has a reputation of being “able to talk to China” – but the question is now emerging if China would also listen when Ma speaks. Even without the apparent blow the WHO document will deal him, perceptions were  growing that Ma’s economic policies, including a cross-strait pact on free trade signed last June, benefit large corporations more than ordinary folk, the Economist suggested late in April.

Ma feels the heat – after addressing the WHO and China at Tuesday’s press conference, he attacked the DPP: in the eight years it had ruled [from 2000 to 2008],

what have you achieved for Taiwan, on the international stage? Internationally, we went nowhere [during your rule] (在 国际 舞台 为 台湾 争取 到 什么? 民进党 执政” 我们 在 国际 上 走不出 去”).

While Taiwan had  indeed been referred to as Chinese Taipei (中國，台灣) in 2005, but contacts never exceeded a directorial level. Taiwan had been referred to either as Taipei or as  中華台北 (zhōnghuá táiběi – zhonghua is more acceptable to many Taiwanese than zhongguo, as the latter term invokes the PR China rather than Chinese nationality more generally), and the number of countries and territories which had granted Taiwanese citizens visa-free entry had grown by sixty, to 113 countries, during his presidency. Ma:

I’d like to ask everyone: which political party has done better in safeguarding our sovereignty and dignity? (我 要 请问 大家, 哪 一个 政党 对于 维护 主权, 维护 尊严 做 的 更好?)

The president urged for unity (團結, tuánjié) and pragmatism (但一定要用務實有效方法). No slogans should be used to anaesthetize the people (麻醉人民, mázuì rénmín).

Ma has probably scored at least some points in Europe – the European Parliament is set to pass a resolution on Wednesday (May 11) that would support Taiwan’s participation in major international organizations – and it will reportedly mention the 15 Taiwan-China agreements signed in the past three years to promote bilateral rapprochement and engagement (including ECFA) favorably.

But the European Parliament had been Taiwan-friendly before. In 2004, then president Chen Shui-bian (DPP) had been invited to speak there, and it was apparently resistance from national governments, prompted by fear of China’s anger, which limited the speech to a video-linked occasion.

Beijing certainly wants “improved relations” with Taiwan, too – but at its own terms, rather than at Ma Ying-jeou’s.

Rebiya Kadeer: Taiwan is a Free Country

Rebiya Kadeer has been on a three-year blacklist in Taiwan for some time, as Guts United Taiwan (GUT), an organization which blends the promotion of movies, music, and political goals, reportedly found out last week after inviting the exiled Uyghur leader to attend screenings of the Ten Conditions of Love (愛的十個條件) documentary.

KMT: Beware of the Muzzymonster

Kadeer’s daughter, Raela Tosh, is currently in Taipei. On Sunday, she told a news conference that her mother, who was barred from visiting Taiwan for three years last year, believes she will be allowed to visit Taiwan some day because it is a free country. Tosh said that she wanted to help Taiwanese people understand that the seemingly peaceful scenes seen in Xinjiang were false.

AFP writes that a decision by the Taiwanese ministry of the interior (MOI) to deny Rebiya Kadeer entry was made in September last year.

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Related
Richard McGregor “perversely flattered”, The Australian, July 19, 2010
Ma Zhaoxu: Very Thought-Provoking Question, Nov 2, 2009
Vitaly A. Rubin (1976): Thoughts do not Die, Nov 29, 2008

Good Ganbu: One Country, 1.5 Systems

Good Ganbu: zero tolerance for hostile dancing troupes

Comrades:

Tung Chee-hwa is a good patriot, but his work when in charge of harmonizing Hong Kong was only forty-seven per cent good, and fifty-three per cent bad. He completely botched our most important Trojan Horse piece of patriotic legislation in Hong Kong. Some people in that city actually still believe that they are living in a political system whichwould be different from China’s only real system!

If Comrade Chee-hwa Mr Tung had been only somewhat more deft, the HK government authorities wouldn’t need to face foreign imperialists’ false allegations now, and there would be no lawsuit by those Falun-Gong snake-ghosts against the HK authorities.

You are too afraid of making yourselves unpopular, Comrades. We old ganbus on the other hand always did what needed to be done, whenever the motherland was threatened by any hostile dancing troupes. So here are my recommendations. They are written in the spirit of our revered Comrade Mao Zedong, and they are just as simple as his good old rules:

No subversive dancing in Hong Kong

1. Make it clear to the world and to the splittist and subversive elements in Hong Kong that there is only one country, and 1.5 systems (0.2 for Hong Kong, and 0.3 for Macau, the latter of which deserves to be rewarded for being nothing but a decent, apolitical gambling joint.

2. Once Taiwan is reunited with the motherland, it will get an (initial) 0.2 per cent system (to be reduced later), Macau will retain its 0.3 per cent system (provided that they will never make any use of it, of course), and Hong Kong will be left with an 0.0 per cent system, which is to say we will take full control of everything there. After all, that’s what a Communist Party is here for!

3. Scrap that Article 23 project. We’ll do as we please, anyway.

Meantime, I and my old comrades suggest that you encourage the performance of dancing troupes that are more suitable in raising the peoples’ patriotism in Hong Kong, and their feelings of friendship with our real friends.

Take a shot of courage, Comrades, and SHIKEZHUNBEIZHE !

The Good Ganbu

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Related
Hong Kong and the Falun Gong Drama, WSJ, Febr 1, 2010
“Don’t Startle Beijing”, January 7, 2010
HK: How to Corrupt an Open Society, August 29, 2009
Shen Yun, something creepy, The Guardian, Febr 25, 2008

Development, beyond the Blame Game

The Leaders and the Lead

An article like this one by Germany’s weekly Der Spiegel, about The Arrogance of China’s Leadership, would have been unthinkable two years ago. And the way Beijing reacts to sovereign decisions of other countries like Japan suggests that business with China isn’t simply business. Neither the Dalai Lama nor Rebiya Kadeer are travelling from China – America and India respectively let them travel, and Japan allows them in. It is a matter between India, Japan, and the United States. To believe that Beijing would stop anywhere when it comes to control global politics is naive. Their claim to control our governments’ visa policies doesn’t stem from their worries in Tibet or Xinjiang. People in China would actually be less aware of Tibet’s or Xinjiang’s figureheads in exile if the foreign ministry stopped making a fuss of them. Control and prestige are the issues, not harmony at home.
When dealing with China’s dictators, and with companies under their rule, everything is political. Therefore, awareness outside China is good, and therefore, news articles which help to raise awareness are often helpful.

But they aren’t good enough. What we will need in addition, and based on the awareness, is a public debate about our relations with a totalitarian government, and a new public debate about the relations between ourselves and our elites at home – in Europe, in America, in Africa, and elsewhere.

On Saturday, an elder statesman made a case for that matter. On the basis of its WTO membership, Taiwan could discuss free-trade agreements with countries other than China, former president Lee Teng-hui told a group of students in Taipei County. He expressed regret that corporations “rushed to China to make money”, closing factories in Taiwan, causing income inequalities which made the Taiwanese “unable to stand together”.

And not only the Taiwanese. Too many people elsewhere in the world are taking it for granted that democracy will inevitably take root in countries like China, and – worse – too many people are taking it for granted that democracy will last where it has become an established form of government. It is easy to forget that democracy was struggled and fought for here, too, and that it is still far out of reach for many people elsewhere. Where democracy is a form of government, it was hard to achieve, brave men and women made huge sacrifices for it, and it won’t stay around if we simply take it for granted.

Some of the criticism of Ma Ying-jeou‘s government from abroad is fairly cheap. The BBC‘s Stephen Sackur demonstrated in 2006 just how cheap it can be.

Sackur: Let me put it this way: we know that China is suppressing freedom of speech.
Ma: Yes.
Sackur: They are closing down newspapers, they don’t allow, for example, BBC Online to be seen inside China, we know that, according to Amnesty International, dozens of people are still in prison as a result of the events in Tian An Men Square, over fifteen, sixteen years ago. We know also that in August 2005, one journalist working in China was arrested, now faces charges of spying for — Taiwan! Amnesty International express deep concern about that. Are you telling me that China, and the Chinese authorities, are people that you can do business with?
Ma: Well, I think Great Britain also do business with China. Could you do business with China when they do all these human rights violations?
Sackur: But with due respect, we don’t have 780 missiles pointed at our island!
Ma: No matter if they are hostile to you or not, they are having some human rights violations you disagree with. But Great Britain still trade with them, and recognise them. They don’t recognise Taiwan.

Ma’s valid points back then – made before he formally decided to run for Taiwan’s presidency – shouldn’t be an excuse for either a wrong policy by his government on China now, or for a failure to explain it plausibly to a wary public. But Taiwan is only the most striking case study for a democratically elected government’s questionable efforts to “engage China”. Most countries – and not only Western countries – could find a sustainable policy on China from a much more comfortable position than Taiwan.

The willingness of our elites to do business with Beijing at the CCP’s terms stems from a good portion of dullness, and callousness. After all, a CEO isn’t there to save the world – he needs to provide convincing quarterly figures. And quite a number of his constituency in terms of operating profit are shareholders from the middle or lower class who applaud wary news articles, but who still won’t settle with anything less than what the corporations can possibly obtain – in whichever market.

But there is also something that should divide some of our elite, and the “common people”. While making money is certainly in everyone’s interest, business or political leaders’ love for the virtues of decisive authoritarianism over shilly-shallying democratic debate is only in the interest of a few.

Every Country is a Developing Country

There is homework for us to do, far beyond the homelike (even if sometimes useful) practise of criticising China. The “Chinese model” – in fact the model of a ruling minority and a frequently manipulated or cowed Chinese majority – won’t be quite the threat to democratically-minded people, if they, as Lee Teng-hui has put it,  “stand together”, or, to put it less defensively, if we cherish and practise what we have. And if we, including Taiwan, don’t allow Beijing to intimidate us.

There is no statistic about how many Germans, for example, are wary about China’s economic success, rather than about its political system. Such statistics would be pretty useless anyway. Imgaine the questionnaires:

1) Do you love your country’s business with China? (Y) (N)
2) If you don’t, is it
a) because you are concerned about adding to the clout of its political system?
b) because we will have to work harder once again to remain competitive?

Don’t hold your breath for honest answers yet. They will require the understanding that we must continue to educate ourselves.

A public that educates itself – and controls its own leaders efficiently – doesn’t need to fear Chinese evils. It doesn’t even have to fear Chinese virtues – their industriousness, for example. An informed public can find appropriate ways that would neither give in to China on manipulated terms, nor try to deny the country its rightful place – a place no different from any other country – in the global economy.

We could prove that last point in the ways we do business ourselves, with countries which are in a more vulnerable position than our own. With Ghana, for example. Its oil reserves have raised both hopes and fears among the Ghanaians – hopes to profit from it, and fears to become nigerianized.

The right offer at the right time can do much more than all kinds of  development aid. We are all developing countries.

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Related
Why Taiwan must back PRC dissidents, Taiwan News, April 19, 2010
What helps – or hurts – Development, April 8, 2010
Democracy: the Insecure Sovereign, January 21, 2010