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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Song Luzheng: “Those Southern newspaper commentators” and Deutsche Welle

Song Luzheng (宋鲁郑) occasionally revisits the case of Deutsche Welle‘s (Voice of Germany’s) Chinese department. He did so in November 2011, and again this month. Maybe he addressed the issue sometimes in between, too. For sure, he regularly addresses the issue of Western media and freedom of information.

I don’t know if Song is a journalist in the first place. He lives in Paris, is the Paris Culture Salon’s secretary general and the Shandong Provincial Overseas Exchange Council’s executive director.

I didn’t find Song’s article in November 2011 trustworthy, and the one he wrote this month seems to reveal an unpleasant character. That “certain Southern newspaper” he refers to (see blockquote underneath)  is most probably meant to be Southern Weekly, aka “Southern Weekend” (南方周末), and the paper’s staff’s conflict with Guangdong’s propaganda chief Tuo Zhen. His recent article was published by the Shanghai-based Guancha website. In this article, Song praises the four former Deutsche-Welle employees, and curses “those Southern newspaper commentators”.

[...]

It has to be said that Wang Fengbo [and his colleagues] are much more courageous than those so-called commentators at a certain southern newspaper, and stand on a higher moral ground. Because they were removed, in this kid of public-opinion environment, they had no chance to get the understanding or sympathy of German mainstream society. They are without a living, even their subsistence has become a problem. On different occasions, Wang Fengbo has discussed the issues at Deutsche Welle’s Chinese department with many German journalist colleagues and scholars, but most of them believe that what they [Wang and his former Deutsche-Welle colleagues] say is just a story from Arabian Nights, which can’t possibly happen in Germany.
[Song seems to quote one of the former Deutsche-Welle editors, but he doesn't do so explicitly.]
Rather, between the lines, many people believe that we actually had a pro-CCP tendency, or that at least, we didn’t abide the [Deutsche Welle, apparently] leaders, that we were like prickly kids who earned what they deserved, as this lead to getting expelled.
Those gentlemen from some Southern newspaper on the other hand can capitalize on getting praise from Western media and financial aid, they become global celebrities, and their undertakings and lives rise to new heights!

[...]

不得不说的是，王凤波他们应该比南方某报的那些所谓评论员要勇敢得多，更站有道德高地。因为他们一旦被开除，在这样的舆论环境下，根本无法得到德国 主流社会的理解和同情，生活无着，甚至生存都成了问题。王凤波等当事者在不同的场合和不少德国记者同行及学者谈过德国之声中文部的问题，但是他们当中的大 部分人觉得他们说的简直是天方夜谭，在德国不可能发生。相反，很多人话里话外还认为是我们的确有“亲共”的倾向，或者至少不服从领导，爱挑刺闹事儿，是自 作自受，导致被开除。而南方某报诸君，则可以凭此资本得到西方的赏识和大力资助，成为全球知名人士，事业和人生反而更上层楼！

Initially a big story in China, neither the “Zhang-Danhong affair” nor the case of the four members of Deutsche Welle’s Chinese department who lost their jobs since 2010 get into the headlines in China anymore. But they aren’t completely out of the news, either.

Song carefully weaves his message into the general line of CCP propaganda: Western media act in their countries’ national interest, he writes.

This term is used by Chinese editorialists and academics in the context of national interests which include nothing about human rights, in a context of soft power, which helps a country to achieve its strategic goals in its international relationships, and enhances its national interest, but may also be used by Chinese dissidents. He Qinglian, for example, suggests that the CCP propaganda narrative about America using human right criticism as a tool to pursue its national interests was deeply rooted in China now, but that the contrary was the case – America was rather selling benefits in terms of national interest, than earning them.

But what would the German national interest be? In the CCP’s view, and in Song Luzheng’s, too, I guess, Deutsche Welle shouldn’t have dared to expel members of the Chinese department – not out of respect for individual rights, but out of respect “for China”. From a CCP point of view, human rights don’t matter in this context. That’s why their mouthpieces can easily come to the conclusion that human rights don’t matter in other countries’ national interests either.

It all depends what national interest is actually about, and it’s hard to see how the expulsion of Wang Fengbo, Zhu Hong, Qi Li and Wang Xueding should have been in the national interest. No German I know who has looked at the material which is publicly available felt that it was in the interest of a German individual – as a journalist, employee, or what have you – to be treated this way. If a country’s common peoples’ interests are equivalent to its national interest, Deutsche Welle made a number of very bad decisions.

But it may be understandable that Song Luzheng can’t see that.

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Related

» When your Employer suspects…, Febr 18, 2012
» For the World to Hear, Aug 3, 2010

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Gatekeepers of Information: When Democracy begins to Rot

Aaron Swartz, the American coder, hacker, and internet activist who took his own life last week after two years of – possibly political – prosecution – would have needed critical solidarity. There is no need to believe in people like him, but there is a need to see their rights, and to see the infringements on their rights. There are many of Mr. Swartz’ kind, and most of them go unnoticed. When I wrote about Deutsche Welle‘s Chinese service, and published this interview, I kept in mind that while the judicial system doesn’t always amount to justice, the main problem – probably – is general apathy.

I see a parallel between Mr. Swartz’ case, and China – and I think I can afford to point this out without being considered a CCP apologist. Obvious abuse of state power (if in a legal sense, remains to be seen, but clearly abuse in an ethical sense) leads to flaring tempers both in America and in China. It is a universal experience – most people can relate to it in one way or another. But those moments are rare.

One news agency in Germany – an agency with an official church background – published a long report, with a lot of verification in favor of the four Deutsche-Welle journalists that had been sacked. Apparently, not one single paper or broadcaster in Germany cared to air it. One regional radio station had it on their website for a limited period – they announced in advance that it was only temporarily online. I haven’t seen it anywhere else. I’m imagining how news-and-analysis people put their eggheads together and write smart articles when things like these go on in China. In a democratic country? No, never! News that is in the public interest will always see the light of day! Truth does not burn in the fire or drown in the water!

Noone seemed to demand coverage about the four sacked journalists, either. The report was apparently available to all the German press, in a common database. So there is no reason to believe that the press people were unaware of the story. Unfortunately, the newsagency didn’t put the story online. Maybe that would have helped. Maybe.

Their problem there at the press, as I interpret it: their industrial-relations and journalist issues ware a sensitive issue all over the commercial (and publicly-owned) media. Hence no interest in covering it.

As long as the big papers don’t cover a story, it won’t have happened. The traditional media are still the gate-keepers for politically relevant information. That’s where questions about the “4th estate” need to be asked. They may address many issues and flaws, but to address ones own doesn’t come easily.

There are a few “beacons” in public awareness, like Julian Assange or Bradley Manning. Their merits – and mistakes, in my view -, would need to be debated extensively, rather than simply be praised or condemned. People like them seem to serve as some post-modern kinds of Jesuses-on-the-cross. People pay their respects to them as they do to Brian, as he hangs on the cross in that great Monty-Python movie, and then go back to their routines.

That kills every issue. When “Jesus” is in charge, you don’t need to do anything. When Assange and Manning are saints, you can’t live up to their example anyway. Only a society that is prepared to look into the shades of grey, to judge, and to decide what to do, can become a more fair society.

It is right to mourn Mr. Swartz. But the main question is: how to handle the issue? It’s a question to society. To get either careerist or politicized prosecutors fired – guys who were apparently not obliged to prosecute, but did it anyway -, would be a beginning. It wouldn’t only be an achievement for those who make it into the headlines, but also for the many who go unnoticed, in their neighborhoods, and nationwide. Power needs to learn to respect the “common people”.

That’s why I maintain that the main difference between China and most Western country isn’t about human rights. It is about totalitarianism. Our press isn’t controlled centrally, but business (and, at times, political) principles control it anyway. We can speak out, provided that what we say is backed by evidence, but too many people who matter won’t speak out. That’s when things start going into the wrong direction, even in democratic countries. Democracy is nothing static. It can rot, if it isn’t defended against adversaries from within (who frequently like to present themselves as democracy’s greatest champions).

Here is another problem: networking. It’s another field where Western countries are becoming more similar to China. The law is becoming unpredictable here, given the technicalities. You can twist every paragraph – or any well-paid lawyer can – until it fits the interests of the powerful. Much will depend on your connections. Not only in China.

Still too vague? OK – let’s talk Turkey: when torture becomes something a public intellectual can advocate in a European paper without becoming a pariah in his own established network, things are going wrong.

If our fundamental rights matter as much to us as our economic prospects do, it’s time to go from mourning to action, however small. Just as meditation is a skill one needs to learn, awareness for the small, but important things one can do in the real world, can be learned, too.

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Related

» Shredding a Principle, Aug 16, 2012
» When your Employer suspects…, Feb 18, 2012

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Jin Yinan: The Fundamental Difference

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1. Translation

Published by People’s Daily Online (人民网) twelve days ago, as part of an interview and discussion series:

People’s Daily Online, January 5, 2013 (Reporter: Huang Zijuan) PLA National Defense University Strategic Research Institute director General, professor Jin Yinan, was recently a guest at People’s Daily Online’s “National Defense Culture Examples” interview series, discussing issues of “strategy cultures and modern defense” with netizens and exchanging views with them.

人民网北京1月5日电 （记者 黄子娟）近日，国防大学战略研究所所长金一南教授做客人民网“国防文化系列访谈”，就“战略文化与现代国防”的话题与网友交流。

When discussing Sino-American strategic cultural differences, Jin Yinan said that Sino-American strategic cultural differences were very big. Rabindranath Tagore had once said that conflicts and conquest [or subjugation] were quintessential in the spirit of Western nationalism, and its core was definitely not about cooperation. National interest as permanently defined by America was the core of its strategic culture, mainly:
1. safeguarding global freedom of action for America, to go whereever it wanted to, without anyone being in a position to stop them
2. Making sure that major strategic resources and markets would be acquired. This includes oil, natural gas, and all kinds of resources America needs
3. holding back hostile and opposing forces, and controlling key regions.

在谈到中美战略文化的区别时，金一南表示，中美的战略文化差别很大。泰戈尔曾经说过，冲突与征服是西方民族主义精神的精髓，它的核心绝不是合作。美国界定的永久性的国家利益就是它的战略文化的核心，主要体现为：第一，确保美国的全球的行动自由，想去哪去哪，谁也不能阻挡我；第二，确保获得重要的战略资源和重要的市场。包括石油、天然气以及各种各样美国所需要的资源；第三，阻止敌对力量，控制关键区域。

Jin Yinan said that here, the fundamental strategic interest defined by America had no ideological color, and its defined lasting national interests included nothing about human rights either. The core was America’s interest, whichever way it could be achieved. This was mainly through control, conquest [or subjugation], to talk again if conquest didn’t work, to cooperate, to make unilateral gains when feasible, and to enter win-win when unilateral gains weren’t achievable. This was the biggest difference between China’s and American strategic cultures.

金一南说，这里面，美国界定的根本战略利益追求，没有意识形态的色彩，而且它制定的永久性的国家利益也不包含人权这么一说，核心是美国的利益，这个利益怎么实现，主要是通过控制、征服，征服不了再谈判、合作，能单赢就单赢，实在不能单赢只好双赢，这是中美的战略思维差别很大的地方。

Remarks

Appropriating Rabindranath Tagore in the context of delivering damning assessments of America’s “strategic culture”, and beautifying implications about China’s, may amount to subjugation, too. Here is how Isaiah Berlin  (quoted by Amartya Sen) described Tagore’s view of political liberty:

Tagore stood fast on the narrow causeway, and did not betray his vision of the difficult truth. He condemned romantic overattachment to the past, what he called the tying of India to the past “like a sacrificial goat tethered to a post,” and he accused men who displayed it – they seemed to him reactionary – of not knowing what true political freedom was, pointing out that it is from English thinkers and English books that the very notion of political liberty was derived. But against cosmopolitanism he maintained that the English stood on their own feet, and so must Indians. In 1917 he once more denounced the danger of ‘leaving everything to the unalterable will of the Master,’ be he brahmin or Englishman.

Tagore’s criticism, used by General Jin in his strategy-culture discussion, was part of India’s struggle against British colonialism. But – as Amartya Sen (2001) sees it – while Tagore consistently and growingly sharply criticized British administration over India, his criticism was less noticed than that of other opponents of Britain’s colonial rule:

This point – Tagore’s criticism – is often missed, since he made a special effort to dissociate his criticism of the Raj from any denigration of British—or Western—people and culture.

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Related

» Espionage, not Corruption, NTDTV, Aug 31, 2011
» Discussion leaked, Taipei Times, Aug 30, 2011
» Strategic Culture, Jeffrey S. Lantis via asrudiancenter, Nov 4, 2008

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2012 in Review (3): the Declining Sphere and the Dizzy Gatekeepers

I’m not sure what same old mug’s game means. Probably something like der gleiche Scheiß wie immer. That’s what King Tubby writes about the Sino-English gulag, i. e. the English-language China blogosphere, as the phenomenon has been dubbed sometime in the past decade or so.

While Shepherds watched: Once a beautiful landscape, now closely nannied.

It hasn’t always been that bad. I don’t know about the pre-2008 years, as me and this blog were latecomers to the sphere, but the run-up to the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing was probably the last stormy heatwave that went through the sphere. And its best times were even before that, because once upon a time, the sphere or gulag wasn’t even firewalled by the CCP, foreign authors and readers within China dwelled on fragrant meadows there, playfully bopping each others with sunflowers (posts) and dandelions (comments). Not that I can tell (I wasn’t there), but that’s how the memories of the initiated come across these days.

Anyway – the past four years were interesting times, too, even if in less paradisiacal ways. Heck – the Chinese propaganda department even cared to recruit one of the American leaders of the English-language China-blogosphere! All of a sudden, floppy hats crowded the once graceful sphere.

Social management set in, too. The bozhus (blog wardens) took all kinds of approaches, and again, in an earlier post, King Tubby describes some of them. He failed to cite mine, however (just as he usually fails to link here, even if he mentions yours truly): show your feelings to trolls – show them exactly the disdain they deserve, but stay polite while doing so.

Which means that you will hardly get any comments. But what appears to be a nonstarter in most blog wardens’ view, is a perfectly harmonious and happiness tool in mine. In all these four years of blogging, I only had to censor one comment – one which baselessly insulted an academic from Norway. On the other hand, whenever comments do come in here, chances are that they are informative.

But some decline in the sphere is natural. You can call JR a “cold warrior” as much as you like (btw, what I said was that by semi-official Chinese standards, my attitude towards the Chinese Communist Party would be cold-warlike. Anyway – that’s how the internet works, and how the names stick). But: JR usually listens when others speak.

It is legitimate to write about people and a topic, rather than to interact with them. It is just as legitimate to emphasize that one wants to keep discussions in English, rather than in Chinese. One has to bear in mind, however, that most Chinese people either can’t speak or write English, or feel too embarrassed even about potential flaws in their language skills to speak out. Don’t get surprised then if the other side of the story gets told by “overseas Chinese” people who moved their ass into America, to sing the praise of the Chinese Communist Party from the land of the free, rather than immersing themselves into the great rejuvenation of the motherland.

It wouldn’t need to be that way. There is an interface world between the “sphere” and its topic, i. e. China. It’s pretty much the Chinese-language Western blogosphere. And while a Westerner may not last in a Chinese propaganda unit forever, the same can be true the other way round. There is a Chinese-language intersection towards the West, just as there is the foreigner sphere towards China. They hardly ever meet.

Fools Mountain / Hidden Harmonies was one attempt to bridge the divide – initially, anyway. But it was doomed, probably because it quickly ended up as a blog version of the “Global Times”  – only angrier, and from a particularly challenged or mortified American-Chinese perspective. A more promising try is – or was – Doppelpod. One problem (but not necessarily the only one): they write only in German. It basically seems to be a project between a German lecturer, and some Chinese students. But the German-speaking world between the bigger camps of glowing CCP admirers and “cold warriors” like yours truly appeared to be to small to lead to threads with a sustainable commenting frequency there. Last time Doppelpod posted was on November 14th this year.

But even with an English or Chinese version, they may not have attracted the critical number of readers or commenters it would take to make it a real Western-Chinese forum.

But wait – there’s a tax-funded solution. A gatekeeper in the “information overload”, as Deutsche Welle director Eric Bettermann was quoted on the Goethe-Institute’s website. That was in 2011. Bettermann reportedly also

leveled clear criticism at Web 2.0, which in some states has proven itself to be “virtually a job machine for government approved opinion controllers”. Presumably he was alluding to developments such as those in China, where the state leadership has discovered the Internet as a tool of domination.

If the role of a gatekeeper and a scout in the information jungle was Bettermann’s vision of Deutsche Welle’s role, he probably hasn’t arrived there yet. Nor has RFE/RL. And at least as far as the Western world is concerned, China Radio International’s audience seems to be limited to a small congregation of “early Christians” – you have to be a real believer to listen to “People in the Know” on a regular basis.

It’s certainly not where the world meets.

But then, it probably isn’t where the world wants to meet. And the sphere isn’t the place to be for too many people either.

The world of work is. That’s were Chinese and Westerners interact. They have to, because they are paid for it. That’s what makes those places interactive anyway.

The world of academia, too. Maybe that’s the only place where Chinese and Westerners interact because they want to. As King Tubby says, even if in a somewhat different context, maybe:

Quite a lot of shared content with different top and bottom commentary. All in all, a pretty depressing picture. I also suspect that many folk simply overestimate the importance of the China English digital world.

The digital world still isn’t the real world. The only thing that could have connected the two – in the early stages of the digital parallel universe – are the digital world’s wannabe gatekeepers. But they are struggling now. They may have the power to silence people in the real world, but they can’t build the world in accordance with their wishes either. They, too, are just part of many different spheres – and if the importance of the China English digital world is simply overestimated, so is the gatekeepers’.

And that’s good, isn’t it? Let’s not complain too much about the fragmentary state of the spheres. Hegemony would be the ugly alternative to it.

Happy new year.

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Related

» 2012 in Review (2): nothing trivial, Dec 30, 2012
» The same thing, everyday, Dec 15, 2012

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The BoZhu Interviews: Germany’s and Japan’s post-war image -

Tai De about war crimes, popular narratives, foreignness, and soft power

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« Previous Interview: MKL, July 13, 2012

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The following is a spontaneous, unplanned BoZhu interview with Tai De, a civil servant from Verden. It’s actually the second interview with him, after a more general one about his blog, about a year ago.

Tai De studied history. His pattern of thought is that of a historian – but he wants me to write a word of warning in advance: he is no particular “expert” on Japan or on the Far East.

Our interview – originally rather a discussion – came up this afternoon after I listened to the memories of William Shawcross, son of the British chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, on Radio Australia‘s shortwave service this afternoon.

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Q: When listening to Anglo-American media, I’m getting the impression that we (Germans) get away with a much more positive image despite the Nazi crimes and WW2, than them (the Japanese). What’s your impression?

A: Quite so.

Q: Do you have an explanation for that?

A: I don’t think there’s that one explanation which can say it all.

Q: To start with something: do the Americans or British see Germans as part of the family? Sort of distant relatives? Like: “Yes, they committed heinous crimes, but …”

A: The outset after the war was the same after VE day and VA day, in terms of geostrategic interest – America needed West Germany, and America needed Japan. Britain didn’t mind an anti-Soviet bulwark in central or Europe either. I can’t generalize Anglo-American perceptions of either Germans or Japanese people. But as far as my favourite trash history novelist is concerned, …

Q: … Alexander Kent, …

A: … you can sense his attitude towards the Japanese – I think I can, anyway. I may be wrong, of course.

Q: German gentleman criminals, Japanese low-class criminals?

A: Oh, he definitely doesn’t get trapped in that kind of concept. But there’s that Japanese foreignness. And there’s that incredible Japanese brutality against allied prisoners of war – and the brutality of their warfare.

Q: German crimes were no smaller, were they?

A: No, they weren’t smaller. The German war was a war of extermination.  The industrialized annihilation of millions of people. But when it comes to our international image, a lot of that brutal German energy was directed against Germans, not Americans or British people.  The annihilation of Jews in particular, but other minorities, too. And communists, social democrats, also very blanketly.  As far as Alexander Kent is concerned, you also see a clear division of roles, in Germany’s case. The basically good – and very brave – Wehrmacht or navy officer on the one hand, and the coward, brutal, lower-class Gestapo policeman or SS man on the other. You don’t have that difference when it comes to the depiction of Japan. There’s no “Samurai”, no gentleman warrior. And if there was a “Samurai” depiction, it would have to be the kind of perpetrator who’d behead American or British POW from the platform of a truck, just by holding his sword out while passing rows of POWs on their death march.
Mind you, that’s not necessarily an accurate depiction of a Japanese soldier – but it’s become a picture of symbolic power. There were British and American pilots murdered by Germans, too, but not that systematically. And not that – how can I put this? – the war in Europe didn’t become that personal. Not between unoccupied countries and Germans, anyway.

Q: Were Allied prisoners of war traumatized? Did they face more brutality than what they would have expected from the Japanese?

A: Maybe not before the first atrocities – against non-Asians, I should add – became known. But initially, yes. I can’t tell how familiar they were with the way the Japanese forces treated Asians – but they probably didn’t expect that their service people would be treated similarly – that civilians with their forces would be forced into prostitution, for example.

Q: Japanese brutality spelled foreignness?

A: That’s one side of it, I think. And the other is the decades after the war. I mentioned the Samurai. But there was no such positive Japanese symbol, at least not in the Western narrative. Very different from the way Germany was depicted. And that’s a matter of symbolic gestures. Maybe Japan did make gestures, but not of the kind America, Australia, or Britain would easily understand. Emperor Hirohito looks quite good in some of their narratives, as a man who assumes “responsibility” for Japan’s crimes. But that was immediately after the end of the hostilities. The Japanese were under huge objective pressure then. But later on, after the pressure had eased, they never managed to do something highly symbolic – not in a Western sense, anyway.

Q: Like Willy Brandt dropping to his knees before the Warsaw Ghetto Monument?

A: Exactly. I’m not saying that Willy Brandt changed everything – but he had a huge effect on our national image abroad. For one, he hadn’t been involved – he had actually been underground in Norway during the war. But he was a German. “A symbol for a different Germany”, as they say.
He didn’t do because of his personal record. I don’t know what exactly made him kneel – all I know is that he made an allusion later, when reacting to criticism from the BILD-Zeitung, stuff like “one must only kneel before God”. He only reacted in private, and one of his ministers recalled it in 1992, after Brandt’s death. Brandt said that those journalists had no idea before whom he had kneeled.
But when it comes to Japan…  if there was resistance among the Japanese during the war – and I suppose there was – we may never know about these people.

Talking about Willy Brandt – there was his Neue Ostpolitik, too, for the obvious reason that Germany was divided. The Ostpolitik was a symbol of hope – not only for Germans, by the way, but for all of Europe – and it was really powerful. With really honest intentions – and skills – the social democrats and the liberals in Germany made the best of it. They turned our calamities into moral strength. You write a lot about soft power, don’t you? That was soft power. Brandt was about soft power. Olof Palme, too, in his own way, from Sweden. German partition was a price Germany had to pay – that division of our country. Territorial losses, too. In Asia, it was – and still is – Korea who has to live with partition. Not Japan. That could matter, too.

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Related

» Nanking Massacre, Wikipedia, acc. Dec 14, 2012
» Lev Kopelev: No Easy Solution, April 11, 2009
» All BoZhu Interviews

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Xi Jinping’s First Time: Promoting a General, Resisting Western Hopes, and (maybe) Heeding Hu’s Advice

What led me to the following speculation – and translation – is a post on a Sincere Soldier‘s (至诚大兵) People’s Daily blog, on the promotion of Wei Fenghe (魏凤和), by Xi Jinping, the CCP’s Central Military Commission. It was published on November 24 (Saturday).

I’m not quite sure what makes Wei Fenghe‘s promotion so unusual (if there is anything that does), but People’s Daily appeared to see a need to explain Wei’s  promotion from middle general (中将军) to senior general (上将军), not least in the light of other former middle generals who had had to wait longer for their promotion than Wei. To provide such explanation seems to be the job of Sincere Soldier, the “blogger” on the People’s Daily platform.

Some comment from other media (before we are getting back to Sincere Soldier):

Promoting senior military officers is one of the two most effective ways for a civilian party leader to consolidate his control over the world’s biggest fighting force. The other is increasing military spending to improve soldiers’ welfare,

the South China Morning Post (SCMP) explained, also last Saturday.

“The coming of Xi’s era is far earlier than expected by most of the outside world,” Lin said. “The authorisation of Wei’s promotion signifies the kicking off of his time in charge of the military, although the process is going as expected”, the SCMP quoted Taiwan’s former deputy defense minister Lin Chong-pin, within the same article on Saturday.

Another issue that Sincere Soldier addresses can be found in New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV’s) comment on Lei Fenghe’s promotion:

According to the constitution, the chairman of the Central Military Commission is the head of the National Central Military Commission and also the head of the national military. Xi Jinping has been recently promoted as the Chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission. However, Hu Jintao is still Chairman of the national Central Military Commission. Commentator Xia Xiaoqiang: “Hu Jintao hopes that Xi Jinping improves authority in the military by promoting an army general. This will help maintain the stability of the CCP regime in a whole. [...] The CCP doesn’t care about whether or not it abides by the Constitution. In front of the law, the Party has the final say.”

“Sincere Soldier”, the People’s Daily blogger, seems to see an issue there, although – obviously – in a different light. Read for yourselves.

Links within the following blockquotes added during translation – JR.

Main Link: Sincere Soldier’s blogpost

According to China Military Online, the Central Military Commission (CMC) held a solemn ceremony for the promotion to a senior general’s rank at the 8-1 building in Beijing today. CMC chairman Xi Jinping promoted CMC member and Second Artillery Corps member Wei Fenghe to the rank of a senior general.

中新网11月23日电据中国军网记者频道报道，中央军委今天在北京八一大楼隆重举行晋升上将军衔仪式。中央军委主席习近平向晋升上将军衔的中央军委委员、第二炮兵司令员魏凤和同志颁发命令状。

This is the first time that Xi Jinping signed a promotion to a senior general’s rank after becoming CMC chairman, which led to particular interest among observers. What does this first signature reveal about the construction of our military? Please read my straightforward analysis as a sincere serviceman.

这是习近平担任中央军委主席后首次签署命令晋升上将，格外引人注目。习近平担任中央军委主席后首次签署命令晋升上将，究竟凸显了我军建设的那些重要信息呢？请看至诚大兵我的五点分析式揭秘：

(1) It shows that the People’s Liberation Army resolutely obeys Chairman Xi’s command. That Xi Jinping signs the first promotion to the rank of a senior general is intended to demonstrate, to insiders and outsiders, the People’s Liberation Army resolve to obey CMC chairman Xi’s commands. To listen to the party’s commands is the core and the spirit of the People’s Liberation Army’s good tradition. After Xi Jinping took the CMC chairmanship, the People’s Liberation Army, above all, needed to uphold the party’s absolute leadership of the armed forces, the forces’ political political qualification, its absolute loyalty and reliability, to resist [by this ceremony] the West’s hopes for a “nationalization of the military forces“.

一、表明解放军坚决听从中央军委习近平主席的指挥。习近平担任中央军委主席后首次签署命令晋升上将，意在向军内外展示解放军坚决听从中央军委习主席指挥的决心。听党的指挥，是解放军优良传统的核心和精髓。习近平担任军委主席之后，解放军最首要的就是保持党对军队的绝对领导，政治合格，绝对忠诚可靠，用行动抵制西方希望的“军队国家化”。

Hu Jintao, not so Mursi – for copyright reasions, I’m not including a  photo here, but it can be found there.

(2) It shows once more the nobility and sterling integrity of Hu Jintao’s withdrawal. Hu Jintao considered the overall development and on his own initiative relinquished his service as CMC chairman. The way Hu Jintao, on the extended meeting of the CMC, introduced Xi Jinping as a man who was qualified to chair the CMC reflected the high degree to which the handover was made on a foundation of trust. However, Hu Jintao remains in charge of the People’s Republic of China’s Central Military Commission^*), and to step down from this service will require confirmation from next year’s National People’s Congress (NPC). The way in which the new CMC chairman Xi Jinping signed and announced the promotion by writ once again reflected Hu Jintao’s nobility and sterling integrity and his great trust in Xi Jinping, the profoundness of his mind, which avoided the possibility of a “crash” from the promotion.

二、表明胡锦涛全退高风亮节的新延续。胡锦涛从事业发展全局考虑，主动提出不再担任中央军委主席职务。胡锦涛在军委扩大会议上，向与会人员介绍习近平是合格的中央军委主席，体现了两位军委主席的移交是建立在高度信赖的基础之上。然而，胡锦涛仍然担负着中华人民共和国军委主席的职务，这个职务的卸却需要明年全国人大的确认。此时晋升上将军衔，由新任军委主席习近平签署和颁发命令状，再次体现了胡锦涛主席的高风亮节和对习近平的高度信赖，其博大胸怀避免了可能的晋升上将“撞车”。

(3) The solemnity of the occasion showed a great emphasis on the Second Artillery Corps’ importance. [...]

三、特殊隆重表明对二炮部队重要性的高度重视。[今年7月30日的建军节前，中央军委才举行过晋升上将军衔仪式，一年内这样简短时间间隔内，再次举行晋升上将军衔仪式，这是我军1988年恢复军衔制以来的首次，这次晋升魏凤和上将军衔非常特殊与隆重。这个特殊性凸显了以习近平为主席的中央军委对解放军二炮部队重要性的高度重视，体现了二炮在未来的对敌斗争及至军事作战行动中均可替代的重要作用，也体现了中央军委对二炮广大官兵的期待与关怀。]

(4) It shows that Chairman Xi Jinping grasps the construction of the armed forces in accordance with the army regulations. [...]

四、表明习近平主席按照军队条例条令抓部队建设。[按照解放军《军官军衔条例》的规定，中央军委副主席、中央军委委员、总参谋长、总政治部主任的职务编制军衔为(陆军)上将，正大军区职的职务编制为上将或中将。虽魏凤中将军衔仅只4年，然而习近平主席签署命令并现场颁发命令状，晋升魏凤和为上将，表明军队建设与国防建设的正规化，必须从制度建设着手，军委主席照样要按照《军官军衔条例》等军队条例条令的规定抓部队建设。]

Wei Fenghe’s promotion to senior general’s rank will be conducive to our military troops’ organizational command and to related activities. An army officer’s promotion to senior general’s rank is a very solemn and serious event. If we go by Ma Xiaotian and Liu Yuan as examples, they both held ranks as middle generals for nine years. [ Unsafe translation: Based on the records of service, there are above-board military-region middle generals with longer terms as middle generals than Wei Fenghe to be chosen. However, Chairman Xi Jinping signed the order and announced Wei Fenghe's promotion in the same place also lets Wei exercise complementary tasks as CMC member and the command of the Second Artillery Corps.] Wei Fenghe’s promotion will be conducive to the Second Artillery Corps’ organizational command and to related activities. Wei Fenghe’s duties and positions, besides commanding the Second Artillery Corps, will – depending on the situation – require the command of the Corps, corresponding public activities and foreign activities, and Wei Fenghe’s promotion is conducive to the troops’ organizational command and to the related activities.

五、魏凤和晋升上将有利于我军部队组织指挥和相关活动。军官晋升上将军衔，是非常隆重与严肃的大事。以目前的马晓天、刘源上将为例，他俩都分别在中将位置上停留了9年时间。如果论资历，显然目前比魏凤和中将任职时间长的正大军区职人选还有。然而习近平主席签署命令并现场颁发命令状，晋升魏凤和为上将，还有让魏凤和军衔与其军委委员和二炮司令员职务相匹配的考虑。魏凤和晋升上将有利于二炮部队组织指挥和相关活动。魏凤和的职务与职位，除了指挥二炮部队外，必要时需要指挥二炮外的全军部队，而且还将担负相应的公务活动以及外事活动，魏凤和晋升上将有利于部队组织指挥和相关活动。

The “People’s Liberation Army” would be under the CCP’s command either way, but the Communist Party’s immediate command (shortcutting state supervision and command) doesn’t go without saying. The above People’s Daily blogpost, by suggesting that PLA nationalization would only fulfill “Western” hopes, blanketly counts Chinese proponents of such nationalization into a “Western” camp.

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Note

^*) Uaually, both the party’s and the state CMC’s are identical in membership.

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Blogging Break: Plus ca change, plus c’est Deng (or Franco)

If KT takes a break from blogging, why shouldn’t JR? I’m thinking of a duration of ten days or so – but if Jiang Zemin leaves this world, or Deng Xiaoping rises from the dead, or whatever kind of colossal thing occurs, JR will be here to make sense of it for you.

foggy day

A look back on the CCP’s 18th national congress: Felix Lee, a correspondent for Germany’s green-leaning daily taz, runs a China blog at a German weekly, Die Zeit. He’s usually very positive about, as we like to say, “China” – certainly from my perspective, but such optimism might sometimes give way to Welsh rats. His latest blogpost refers to Zhang Dejiang and Liu Yunshan as the new pigheads in the politbureau (Die neuen Betonköpfe im Politbüro).

And expectations towards reformers like Wang Yang had been too high. After all, even Wen Jiabao never had his way with more inner-party democracy, during his ten-year tenure.

Well, in fact, Wen Jiabao had his way with very few things (and I’m not sure that I can remember any, now).

I don’t know where many China watchers took their optimism from. The party had documented its schedule very clearly, in fall 2011. Now, I’m not saying that I could have predicted the composition of the 18th politbureau – but whoever would have entered the standing committee, would have had to stick to the line. If Wang Yang had entered the standing committee, it would have meant that he isn’t that reformist after all, or that he’s prepared to become less so.

But of course, Felix Lee doesn’t consider China’s future hopeless. After all, society is changing bigtime, he writes. Three controversial industrial projects had been thwarted by citizens this year, he writes.

Then again, you can discuss industrial plants with anyone, anyway – even with Zhang Dejiang. To object to them is no principal contradiction (主要矛盾).

The party published their line, Hu Jintao re-iterated it a few weeks later, but most correspondents seemed to take that lightly, or as some funny little theater. As if the document had been written (and agreed to by outgoing and incoming dictators) for fun, or out of boredom.

Hint (and, granted, no imperative logical connection): a year earlier, in September 2010, Wen Jiabao had made his last serious foray on those pig-headed fortifications: he talked to journalists from Hong Kong and Macau, about the need for political reforms. That was in New York, apparently. People’s Daily disagreed. Wen insisted. Half a year, there was the cultural decision.

Same with other concepts, such as social management. There weren’t a few Zhou Yongkang‘s sitting around a table and picking that stuff out of their nose.

Either, too many correspondents in China have no sense for political trends, or they don’t report their real assessment, because they wouldn’t sell. Or maybe something else I can’t imagine right now.

Either way: “staff issues” within the CCP are, in my view, hopelessly overemphasized in our press. Yes, it’s a dictatorship. Yes, it’s a totalitarian system. But it’s a collective oligarchy leadership – pragmatic, maybe, but not unideological.

What interested me during the run-up to the 18th national congress was how the system tried to shape their citizens’ perception of their (local) realities. Some of the derivatives from the State Information Office’s publicity work prescriptions were – just my impression – written somewhat tongue-in-cheek by cheesed-off journalists who had to work with those guidelines. But that, too, shapes reality. It shows the small man who he is, and who they are. Dictators aren’t out with baseball bats to hit you every day. Quite obviously, harmony is cheaper.

bright day

That’s the year that was, I suppose, in terms of China and politics. The American fiscal cliff is moving to the fore, and so is the Euro crisis. Talking about baseball bats, democratic governments seem to know how to use them, too. Henryk M. Broder, not a great friend of demonstrators, I believe, but no great friend of the European project either, contrasted two European “events” on Thursday: Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for justice, basic rights and citizenship, celebrated “a historic day” for womens’ rights in listed companies: by 2020, 40 percent of board seats would have to be for women. Patrician daughters will be delighted to hear that, of course. But some of Ms Reding’s smaller sisters were protesting in Madrid, about very different worries.

Clubbing is so much fun, isn’t it? Maybe Deng is already back from the dead. And if you see Francisco Franco dining and sniffing snow in some hip Madrid institution, don’t be too surprised. Chances are that he’s always been with us.