You can serve lousy food, provided that your guests aren’t used to anything better, or because you are their boss and they can’t choose. In either case, it will help when you serve that stuff in a cozy environment. Your guests can make themselves at home – mum cooks as badly as ever.
The same is true for “Huanqiu Shibao, the Chinese sister paper of the English-language “Global Times”. On July 21, they missed (probably sarcastically) a more innovative Western propaganda approach.
“America draws allies into political manipulation”,
Huanqiu Shibao, July 21
Several academics, the paper said, had stated in interviews that the U.S. and their allies, after failed campaigns concerning Hong Kong, Taiwan, or human rights, had now come up with accusations that China was behind cyber attacks. That was the Guizhou donkey’s weak trick.
Once upon a time, there were no donkeys in Guizhou. Nobody knew what a donkey was. Some day, a man took a donkey to Guizhou. He left it at the foot of a mountain. A tiger in the mountains saw the donkey from afar, heard it braying, and thought: “where does this monster come from? It looks awesome, and I’ll better keep a distance1
Some time passed during which the tiger saw the donkey walk to and fro and bray once in a while. Now the tiger thought: “pretty big pet, I don’t know what it can do, but let me see!”
The tiger approached the donkey unnoticed and touched it. The donkey became angry: “why the hell do you touch me?” Then he kicked with his hooves and missed the tiger two or three times. That’s how the tiger realized: “this donkey*) can’t do anything but kick, he can’t do anything!”
So he opened his mouth to eat the donkey, but the terrified donkey shouted: “don’t get any closer, I can kick you!”
“Kicking people is all you can do,” laughed the tiger, “but I can eat people!” No sooner said than done.
That was turned into a proverb, describing how people manage with makeshift methods that aren’t special. In short: “the donkey’s skills are poor”!
In Chinese, that writes 黔驢技窮 (黔驴技穷, qiánlǘjìqióng), and qián, another word for Guizhou (maybe not exactly the same territory as what it is now), can also be found in a more classical version of the story (Chinese and English there).
So why does “Huanqiu Shibao” use this proverb?
a) “Huanqiu Shibao” skills are poor – they can’t do any better.
b) You mustn’t try to say anything better when it can be said in four characters.
c) It’s cozy (see introduction). No matter how stupid the message is, readers will remember Granny’s bedtime stories and find it trustworthy. They may even feel sort of tiger.
Dear guests, dear friends, hello everyone! First, I would like to convey my sincere best wishes to this forum‘s opening and pay tribute to and thank people from all walks of life who have, for a long time, dedicated their efforts to Sino-American relations. I would also like to thank Dr. Henry Kissinger for supporting this forum. Every time I have a discussion with him, it makes me feel his deep strategic reflections about the world and Sino-American relations.
Today‘s forum is absolutely important, because at just this time, the new corona pneumonia epidemic continues to rage and wreak global havoc, all countries and peoples lives are under serious threat, the global economy is getting caught in a deep recession, global cooperation suffers powerful counter-currents, unilateral bullying behavior is rampant, and the international system is facing the risks of disorder.
Still more alarming is that Sino-American relations, which are among the world‘s most important bilateral ones, are also facing the most serious challenges since the establishment of diplomatic relations. Some people on the American side, because of ideological prejudice, spare no efforts to make China an opponent or even an enemy, thinking about all kinds of ways to contain China‘s development, and unscrupulously obstruct relations between China and America. During the next steps, the decision about whether or not this huge ship of Sino-American relations which has been sailing for more than fourty years now will stay its correct course isn‘t only closely connected to the interests of these two countries‘ peoples‘ interests, but concerns the world‘s and humankind‘s common future.
How can Sino-American relations bring order out of chaos, return to the right track, and truly achieve long-term healthy and stable development? I would like to focus on three points:
Firstly, neither China nor America should be trying to change the other, but jointly explore the road of peaceful coexistence of different systems and civilizations.
Every country‘s road is based on the experience it has accumulated in terms of its cultural tradition and history. China stays on the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics which corresponds with China‘s national situation and needs. It is the choice of the Chinese people itself. The achievements testify that this road has not only made 1.4 billion Chiese people leave poverty and backwardness behind them, but also made the Chinese nation make another major contribution to the cause of human progress. International polling institutions‘ repeated opinion polls have shown that the Chinese people‘s support for the Chinese Communist Party and government is among the strongest rates worldwide. There isn‘t any force in a position to reject other countries‘ chosen paths, and no country will change its system in accordance with the likes or dislikes of others. Ultimately, system and path, they may be right or wrong, must be decided by a country‘s own people.
In recent years, there have been certain views saying that the success of China‘s path created a shock or threat against the West. This way of putting things is neither factual, nor do we acknowledge it. China, a product of 5,000 years of civilization, has never had the genes of invasion of expansion, we do not copy foreign countries‘ models, we do not export China‘s model, and never require other countries to copy China‘s ways of doing things. In the words of a Chinese sage 2,500 years ago, “all things can coexist without harming each other, and roads proceed in parallel without running counter to each other.” This is the philosophy of how Easterners conduct themselves in society, and until today, it continues to enlighten people.
Americans, too, have always sought for equality, tolerance and pluralism. This world shouldn‘t be seen in colors of black and white, and institutional differences should not lead to zero-sum games. China won‘t and can‘t become another America. The right attitude is to respect one another, mutual appreciation, mutual learning, and mutual success. Ever since reform and opening up, China has learned a lot from the experience of developed countries, just as some of China‘s successful work methods have helped many countries to solve their problems of the moment. In this richly colorful world, China and America, even with different social systems, don‘t need to run counter to one another at all. They can coexist peacefully.
Secondly, China‘s policy toward America hasn‘t changed. Based on goodwill and sincerity, we still want to develop Sino-American relations further.
第二，中国的对美政策没有变化，我们仍愿本着善意和诚意发展中美关系。
In the wake of China‘s development, some American friends have growing misgivings about China or become even wary of it. I would like to reiterate that China has never intended to challenge America or to replace it, nor to get into comprehensive antagonism with America. What we care about most is the welfare of our own country‘s people, what we attach most importance to is to bring bout the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and our greatest expectation is world peace and stability. To this end, China‘s America policy maintains a high degree of stability and continuity with no desire to clash with America or to get into confrontation with it, and with a desire for mututal respect and mutually profitable cooperation [aka win-win], building a relationship with America on the keynotes of coordination, cooperation and stability.
To achieve this goal, there is a need for China and America to advance by meeting half-way1), each of them respecting international law and rules, and to open an equal dialog and consultations. America shouldn‘t hope to nearly run amok to encircle, block and intercept China on the one hand, create rumors and slander China with almost no bottomline, interfere with China‘s internal affairs without any restraint, and on the other hand expect, and on the other hand demand that china would understand and support America in bilateral and global affairs. China, as an independent sovereign country, has the right to protect its sovereignty, security and development interests. It has the right to safeguard the fruits earned by the Chinese people‘s hard work, and to reject any bullying and unfairness against China.
Thirdly, we must view the historical experience of Sino-American relations correctly and adhere to the road of dialog and cooperation.
第三，要正确看待中美关系发展的历史经验，坚持走对话合作之路。
Recently, some people in America have said that the policy of being in touch2) with China has been a failure. And that America has been at a disadvantage. This way of putting things doesn‘t respect history and isn not in accordance with the facts.
China and America were allies, fighting shoulder to shoulder, in World War 2. In the last century‘s 70s, the two sides opened the great door of diplomatic relations again, under the premise of respecting each other‘s different systems. The dialog and cooperation between the two countries has lasted until today, merging the political wisdom and unremittent efforts of several generations of people, and reflect the intrinsic patterns and inevitable trends in the development of the two countries‘ relations.
Ever since the establishment of diplomatic relations 40 years ago, China and America have amply given play to their complementary advantages, and they have formed an amalgamated mutually beneficial community. China‘s success has drawn benefit from open cooperation with every country in the world including America, and China‘s development has provided America with force for sustained growth and huge markets. From handling regional hotspots to counter-terrorism and nonproliferation, from reacting to the international financial crisis to epidemic control, Sino-American cooperation has been beneficial to both sides, and to the great global cause.
There are people who say that Sino-American relations are not what they were in the past, but this does not mean that history can be ignored and a new separate kitchen be set up. Even less would it mean that the reality can be ignored and ties be cut forcibly. Instead, we should connect the past and the future3), and keep up with the times. Everyone may notice that despite the current epidemic shock, 74 percent of American companies in China still state plans to expand their investments in China, that 191 farmers‘ organizations, in a joint letter to the American president, have called for continued implementation of the phase-one economic and trade agreement, that many American universities publicly support strengthened Sino-American educational exchange, that the leaders of many countries also call on China and America to strengthen dialog, and to avoid confrontation and division. These are voices China and America should listen to, and even more so the direction of the two countries‘ efforts.
Dear friends, Chairman Xi Jinping has emphasized this many times: we have a thousand reasons to do a good job with Sino-American relations, and not one reason to bungle them. As long as both sides have the vigorous desire to improve and develop Sino-American relations, we will be able to get Sino-American relations out of the predicament and put them back onto the right track. I will put forward three suggestions for everyone‘s reference:
One is to activate and open up all dialog channels. Currently, America‘s China policy is based on strategic misjudgement because of lacking factual evidence, full of emotional steam being let off and McCarthy-style bigotry. America‘s completely unfounded suspicion and jealousy of China have reached a stage where bows in a cup are considered snakes and where every tree looks like an enemy soldier. Almost every Chinese investment seems to embody political goals, every overseas student seems to come with an espionage background, and every cooperation proposal seems to have special designs. If America lacks self-confidence, openness and tolerance like this, the artificial kinds of “China threats” are likely to become “self-realized prophecies”.
Only exchange can stop lies, only dialog can avoid misjudgment. Discrediting others is no proof of one‘s own innocence, and invariable fault-finding doesn‘t solve any problems. I would like to reiterate that China‘s great door to dialog is wide open. As long as America is willing, we can always resume and reopen dialog mechanisms on all levels and in every field. Any issue can be put on the table for discussion, and any disagreement be appropriately handled through dialog. At the same time, as long as America sets no limits, we are also willing to actively promote exchange and interaction between all departments, in every place and every field of our two countries, for mutual understanding and acknowledgment between the peoples of our two countries.
Another point is to sort out and to agree to a list of contacts. All issues between China and America are mutually interwoven, tangled and complicated. The two sides can sit down and smooth out the problems one by one and establish three lists. The first one is about cooperation, with clear-cut items where China and America must and can cooperate in bilateral and global matters. The longer the list becomes, the better it is, and it should not be interfered by other issues. The second one is a dialogue list, with problems that both sides wish to resolve despite differences, to be incorporated into the existing dialog mechanisms and platforms. The third is a control list, with a smaller number of issues on which agreement is difficult to reach, to be used as a control list of issues to be sought common ground upon, while holding back differences, to reduce, to the maximum possible extent, the shocks and damage they can do to the bilateral relationship. As for the three lists, think tanks from both countries can do research on them in advance.
The third is to focus on and to unfold anti-epidemic cooperation. Nothing is more valuable than life, and nothing is more urgent than to save people. We feel deeply for the adversities suffered by the American people, and large quantities of urgently needed medical treatment goods have been supplied to America. As we are facing the epidemic, cooperation must come first. We are willing to share epidemic-control information and experience with America, and unfold still more extensive and thorough communication on diagnosis and treatment plans, vaccine research, and economic recovery. But America should immediately stop the politicization of the epidemic and the virus-labeling, and it should work together with China to promote global anti-epidemic cooperation to rescue more lives worldwide and to shoulder the international responsibility as two major powers should.
Dear friends, there is a saying in China: “The power of action advances knowledge, and deepening knowledge advances your achievements.“4) With extremely important bilateral relations worldwide, Chinese-American relations must send more positive messages and release more positive energy. Hopefully, America will build a more objective and cool-headed cognition of China, and establish a more reasonable and pragmatic China policy. Doing so is in line with the fundamental interests of the Chinese and American peoples, and also in tune with every country‘s expectations toward both China and America.
1) According to this Twitter discussion, it should be “meeting half-way”, but that may not be carved in stone either. 2) More frequently referred to as engagement policy among Americans 3) Also used by Deng Xiaoping in 1981: 我国正处在继往开来的重要历史时期 4) It may appear as if China‘s Great Leader appears only once in Wang‘s speech, but that isn‘t so. See footnote 7 there – 『行之力则知愈进，知之深则行愈达』is a classical quote, but also one used by Xi Jinping in 2018.
Using bronze as a mirror, you can wear your clothes and your hat properly; using the ancient times as a mirror, you know rise and fall; by using people as a mirror, you understand success and failure.
Warning: the following translation from a classic is just my guesswork – if you copy that for your homework, the mistakes will be your fault, not mine. Links within blockquotes added during translation.
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Frugal New Year: the Xi Style
The year of the dog is upon us, and it must be a dog’s life if you are a cadre in the Xi Jinping era. That’s what you might believe, anyway, if you read secretary general Xi Jinping’s spiritual nourishment for comrades. After all, in a totalitarian society, administration, legislation, crackdowns and Something Understood all need to come from the same source.
People’s Daily has published three instalments of Xi Jinping thought. The first: go and visit the poor, and ask about their suffering, find solutions to the problems and dump the worries. The second: have an affectionate reunion with your family, as a good family style promotes virtue.
The emperor said: “Shun made the lacquer, Yu gave us the embroideries, but the remonstrances never seem to end. How can small things be evil?”
Suiliang said: “ornate artwork harms the peasantry, and embroidery hurts the working women. What begins lavishly, will indeed move towards danger. It doesn’t end at lacquerware, it takes gold, too. It doesn’t end there, but jade will be required, too. Those who remonstrate do not want to see things pass the point of no return.”
If my impression of the Chinese texts is basically correct, Xi seems to present himself as someone who speaks truth to power – which is corny at best, and quite probably populist. The latter, anyway, is a tool lavishly handed around among the Davos jetset more recently, and it probably works fine, especially at the grass-roots level, with people who routinely delude themselves.
Footnote: when it comes to education on the ground, education of the public appears to be anything but imperceptible, as The Capital in the Northreported in January.
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Central Europe (1): After the “Czech Reversal”
The China Digital Times has an article by a Czech academic, describing Chinese influence in Eastern Europe (although the Czech Republic is hardly “eastern” European), and more particularly about a “China Energy Fund Committee” (CEFC). Czech president Miloš Zeman, who is quoted there with some of his characteristically tasteless remarks (about Chinese eyes, before he changed his mind), has explicit opinions about journalism, too.
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Central Europe (2): German Mittelstand’s Main Thing
If the German Mittelstand can’t be found in China, it’s probably because they are investing and selling in the Visegrád countries, and beyond. the Handelsblatt‘s English-language edition has a critical assessment of Mittelstand companies role in Central Europe, quoting an apolitical German trade functionary to prove its point:
Ultimately, politics is not that important for businesspeople. Order books are full: That’s the main thing.
Obviously, German politicians (and journalists, for that matter) aren’t nearly as sanguine, and following US President Trump’s attendence at a Three Seas Initiative summit in July 2017, the Economisteven recorded Teutonic tremors:
Germany is already concerned about China’s “16+1” initiative with central and eastern European states, a series of investment projects that the Chinese expect will build influence in the region. The Germans are also putting pressure on the Polish government over its illiberal attacks on independent newspapers, judges and NGOs. And they are fending off Polish criticisms that their proposed “Nord Stream 2” gas pipeline from Russia to Germany will make Europe more dependent on Russia.
But the Mittelstand shows no such unease. In fact, smaller and medium-sized companies often feel easier about countries that are closer to Germany, both regionally and culturally – it takes less time to travel, less time spent abroad, less worries about intercultural competence (or its absence), and less worries about market barriers or technology theft.
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Hualien, Taiwan
Most people will have heard and read about the earthquake that caused deaths and injuries, especially in Hualien, on Tuesday.
The following is a translation of his editorial published on October 21, the fourth day of the CCP’s 19th national congress. Links within blockquotes added during translation.
The 19th national congress report1) has come up with the major judgment that “socialism with Chinese characteristics is entering a new era”. The words of the “new era” appeared 36 times in secretary general Xi Jinping’s three-and-a-half-hours report. This is a historic turning point, and we are its fortunate witnesses.
According to secretary general Xi Jinping’s discourse, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered into a new era, which is “the new historic direction” of China’s development. Entering the new era, Chinese society’s major contradictions have changed into contradictions between the continuously growing needs of the people for a beautiful life, and unbalanced and insufficient development.
For 200 years since 1840, the Chinese nations has gone through one-hundred years of deliverance, one-hundred years of rejuvenation, centering around the question as to how free China from an environment where it had been “the sick man of Asia”, been trampled upon, and been bullied and humiliated. The China of the not-too-distant past ate every medicine and every ideology to save itself, but turning to any doctor one could find only led to the outcome of “remaining unacclimatized”.
With the sound of gunfire, from the October Revolution came Marxism. China’s communists combined China’s national conditions, led the new democratic revolution, and finally tied a knot for deliverance, and solved the problem. To solve the problem of Chinese people taking beatings, Mao Zedong announced from Tian’anmen Tower that “from now on, the Chinese people has stood up”.
The Mao Zedong era solved the problem of Chinese people taking beatings, and the Deng Xiaoping era solved the problem of Chinese people going hungry. Singapore’s “Lianhe Zaobao” said in a commentary that “socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, which means that the Chinese nation has come from standing up and getting rich to the great leap of getting strong”.
“Cheerful singing shall replace mournful sighs, smiling faces shall replace tearful faces, prosperity shall replace poverty. Health shall replace pain and difficulties, wisdom shall replace ignorance, fraternal love shall replace enmity and murder, happiness of life shall replace grief, radiant and enchanting gardens shall replace wasteland” … These words from martyr Fang Zhimins “Lovely China” essay, the new era of a “lovely China”, has arrived now. Fang Zhimin, too, may now carry a smile on his face in the world of the dead.
There are many interpretations of how the Chinese nation has come from national peril to national rejuvenation. The main principle is that the fate of the nation and the individual are intimately interlinked. During the miserable decade of a century, without a country there was no home2). When the country is strong, I am strong, when the motherland is prosperous, I am prosperous. History has shown time and again that only with the Communist Party, China can be rescued, and only with the Communist Party, China can develop.
History is a mirror. The pendulum has swung back for the motherland. Heaven is not going to throw down meat pies. Rather, this is the outcome of our forefathers and our own efforts. I am proud because I am a witness, a participant, and a beneficiary of reform and opening up, and of the motherland’s great advance. Several years from here, when facing my offspring, I can proudly say that I took part in the motherlands power and prosperity, I wasn’t a bystander!
All the great achievements are the results of continued struggle, all the great causes need to push on, building bridges between earlier and later stages. Each generation carries its generational mission, and we bravely assume our own mission. Don’t forget from where you started, accomplish your misson, always walk with the Party, let the youthful dream fly in the vivid practice of achieving the Chinese dream, and struggle diligently for the future of the motherland!
I wish I could borrow another five-hundred years to see if China achieves the stars and the seas. Give a shoutout for the new era, fire yourselves up for China! (Wang Dehua)
真想向天再借五百年，看看那会的中华是否实现星辰大海。为新时代打call，为中国加油!（王德华）
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Notes
1) “report” refers to the 3.5 hours speech by Xi Jinping 2) a pun of “guojia”, which is a combination of “country”/”state”, and “family”/”home”.
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The following is a translation of an article published by the “People’s Daily”, online and in its printed edition, on February 14 this year, by an author named Zhao Zhenyu (赵振宇). Links within blockquotes added during translation.
“A leading cadre’s time of reign is limited, and even more limited is the time he works in the same place. As leading cadres, we must, in the spirit of strife from dawn to dusk, cherish time just the more, make use of this limited time, to do practical and good things for the masses.” During the past few days, when I reviewed secretary general Xi Jinping’s discussion of time, I felt the style of pragmatic and careful work again, and experienced again the time civilization, which is indispensible to the era of pursuing the Chinese dream.
The seasons come and go, untouched by the words that try to describe them. In the beginning, time was an abstract concept, and something hard to grasp. When the forefathers of humankind began to record things by tying knots, measuring time was still something people strived to understand and to master, and became a criterion of civilisational expansion and progress. Of course, in history, people from ancient times formed an awareness of time under the impression of “work from sunrise and to rest after the sunset”, and they developed an attitude that appreciated time, by “attributing little value to a jade ring, but great importance to a single ray of light”. They were careful “not to miss the farming season, so as to reap the harvest in due course”. Time culture, with its connotations of understanding and cherishing time and respecting punctuality, reminds us to scientifically master time, and to effectively use time.
No blossoming dream can occur without irrigation, and no civilizational advancement can do without the helping hand of time. Time pushes ahead without turning back, and any waste of time amounts to affecting a society’s civilization negatively. Time is the material that forms life, and wasting other peoples’ time means nothing less than scheming murder. In particular, it is the context of “infinite time” and “finiteness of life” that magnifies the value of time and the significance of struggle. That’s why Marx said that all savings ultimately amounted to saving time. As we enter the modern era of milliseconds and microseconds, the architectures-dream value of time becomes yet more apparent. Only by conserving time culture and renovating the notion of time, can we surge forward to enrich human life, and gallop into the realms of dreams.
“dit dit dit … Beijing time is x hours.” On December 15, 1970, the National Time Service Center began to broadcast Beijing standard time to the nation on shortwave. From that time on, this familiar timecheck became a reference for peoples’ coming and going. Achieving the goals of the struggles for the Chinese dream and of the “two two-hundreds”, on this brave march forward and the center’s*) strategic dispositons and reform guidelines equally depend on synchronization by Beijing time. All regions, all departments, and all units, in the process of reform and development, are united in action, in unanimous efforts. Connection with the center*) by synchronization and example guarantee that our ideology and our actions serve as rules, and only this enables the entire nation’s chessboard implementation of cooperation, to rise to the cohesive effect of “pearls falling into a jade plate”.
From the venturing cry of “ten thousand years are too long, seize the day, seize the hour” to the firm exploration of “Development is the unyielding argument”, and to the magnificent journey of “reform does not stall, opening up does not stop”, time culture on the national level has amply broken new ground of meaning. We must continue to cultivate this kind of time consciousness. In reality, there is no action of reform and development without a time frame. When it comes to structural reform of production capacities and supply, it is true that resisting forces remain strong, and policies to enable access to pure resources, clean energy etc. comes at high costs, but if we can’t resolutely and decisively implement reform, we may lose the exceptionally favourable opportunity of economic transformation. As for realizing the key issue of moderate prosperity, to seize the opportunity that time provides us with, from an insightful position, is exactly the best attitude to welcome the future.
As the times are changing, the dream advances. [Reference to the lunar calendar.] In the new growth ring of the years, our energetic mood shows promise, the struggle forges ahead, and they will certainly carve beautiful memories that won’t drag the mission and the era.
There is noWeltinnenpolitikyet, but there are cross-civilizational trends.
The City of Red Songs
There would be no second chance. Gerhard Schröder, former chancellor of Germany, was in a hurry in June 2011, on the sidelines of a forum in southwestern China’s metropolis of Chongqing. He was therefore lacking the time to attend one of the red-song nights that were customary there. But he still pleased his interlocutors with a German proverb: Where people sing, you can settle down – wicked people sing no songs.
In full, the red-songs custom advocated by Chongqing’s party chief Bo Xilai was Singing revolutionary songs, Reading classic books, telling stories and spreading mottos. There would be nine more months of that before Bo Xilai was toppled by his CCP comrades.
A Hudongarticle explained the activity at the time. It was a mass concept, started in Chongqing in 2008, which was greeted with enthusiasm there, and elsewhere in China. The concept wasn’t outdated, because
if a country and a nation have no correct thought and advanced culture, it will lose its backbone. The current deep changes of the economic system, the structure of society, and the profound adjustment of interest patterns must be reflected in the ideological field. There is diversity in peoples’ minds, and although the mainstream is positive and healthy, while some peoples’ material life conditions have improved, spiritual life is somewhat empty. To change that condition, and to ensure a safe passing of the torch in the cause of the party and the country, the red flag must be righteously upheld, the ideology of Marxism must be consolidated in its guiding position within the ideological field, and the attractiveness and the cohesive power of socialist ideology must be strengthened.
一个国家和民族没有正确的思想、先进的文化，就会失掉主心骨。当前，经济体制深刻变革、社会结构深刻变动、利益格局深刻调整，必然反映到意识形态领域。人们的思想日趋多元多变多样，虽然主流积极健康向上，但一些人物质生活改善了，精神生活却有些空虚。为了彻底改变这种状况，保证党和国家的事业薪火相传，必须理直气壮地举红旗，不断巩固马克思主义在意识形态领域的指导地位，增强社会主义意识形态的吸引力和凝聚力。[Links within these lines omitted.]
According to the HuDong article, CCP politbureau member and Chongqing party secretaryBo Xilai (薄熙来) had deplored the phenomenon of young people who sang decadent songs (唱 .. 靡靡之音, chàng mímí zhī yīn), who were reading “fast-food” kinds of literature (读 .. 快餐文化, dú kuàicān wénhuà), told “low and vulgar stories” (讲 .. 低俗故事, jiǎng dīsú gùshì), and “spread pornographic or dull scripts/pieces” (传 .. 黄段子、灰段子, chuán huáng duànzi, huī duànzi).
So, apparently, there were dirty songs, too. Maybe things weren’t as simple as Schröder had believed. At least one reader and forum commenter of China’s Huanqiu Shibao didn’t trust Schröder’s expertise and wrote:
The “Chongqing Model” was controversial, at least in the perceivable medial public of China. The party elite wasn’t entirely in love with Bo’s pretentious neo-Maoism. A vice president of Law School at China University of Political Science and Law was quoted by the English-language party mouthpiece “Global Times”:
There have been 104,000 “Red Song Concerts” in Chongqing, with 80 million participants. It cost 1,500 yuan ($231) per person for onsite renting and costume expenses, 210 million yuan in total. Adding in the offwork compensation and transportation the final cost is 270 billion [sic – probably means million – JR] yuan. Why don’t they use the money for health insurance?
Bo Xilai’s “Populism”, 2007 – 2012
At the grassroots, however, Bo’s leadership style appears to have worked (maybe it still does). The Chongqing Model wasn’t just about folklore, red or otherwise.
Wen Qiang was put to death following the rejection in May by China’s Supreme Court of an appeal of his conviction on charges including bribery, shielding criminal gangs, rape and inability to account for millions of dollars in cash and assets, according to Xinhua news agency. Xinhua didn’t say how Mr. Wen was executed.
Punching black crime and uprooting vice (拳打黑除恶) was the name of the campaign that cost Wen his life – according to the historical records as Bo would have it, he and his police chief Wang Lijun not only battled against gangs, but infiltrated cadres, too.
The now defunct website Chinageeks published an English translation of Zhang Wen, a former chief editor of the Xinhua magazine Globe:
Bo Xilai and the “northeast tiger” Wang Lijun entered Chongqing and started a war and began a “battling corruption and evil” movement that has gradually begun to spread nationwide and worldwide. This action is in line with the people’s wishes, and at the same time, also in line with what central authorities wish.
At first, the public opinion was very one-sided; no one could find any fault with Bo. The controversy and difference of opinions came with the case of Li Zhuang. Proponents of the democratic rule of law questioned and criticized the legality of Chongqing [court] proceedings, but Bo Xilai’s supporters hold that punishing lawyers who defend “bad people” is appropriate.
Bo Xilai’s wife Gu Kailai is a high-level lawyer who has been working for many years. The two have been together for many years and Bo himself was once the head of the Ministry of Commerce, and thus often negotiated international legal issues with foreign opponents. Because of this, Bo Xilai should have a solid conception and knowledge of the law.
But in the end, in the Li Zhuang case, the organs of justice in Chongqing left a bad impression that they might violate legal procedures. Precisely because of this, some people’s opinions on Bo Xilai changed dramatically. I myself once wrote an essay expressing pity that Bo Xilai hadn’t turned out to be the sort of high-quality modern politician [we had hoped].
Chongqing was a small pond for a big fish – Bo Xilai appeared to have hoped for a permanent seat in the CCP’s central politburo, but landed the job as party secretary of Chongqing instead. Chongqing wasn’t an insignificant city, but it was far from where central Chinese power was. Only an alernate politburo membership linked him to Beijing. From 2008, his Maoist song events raised nationwide attention, and even beyond China – Henry Kissinger apparently leapt at the chance Schröder had missed.
In 2011, Bo Xilai started his second campaign for a permanent seat at the CCP’s top table. While the Economistfound Bo’s style refreshing, it noted nervously that
The region’s party chief, Bo Xilai, is campaigning for a place on the Politburo Standing Committee in next year’s leadership shuffle. He looks likely to succeed. Like every other Chinese politician since 1949, he avoids stating his ambitions openly, but his courting of the media and his attempts to woo the public leave no one in any doubt. Mr Bo’s upfront style is a radical departure from the backroom politicking that has long been the hallmark of Communist rule and would seem like a refreshing change, were it not that some of his supporters see him as the Vladimir Putin of China. Mr Bo is a populist with an iron fist. He has waged the biggest crackdown on mafia-style gangs in his country in recent years. He has also been trying to foster a mini-cult of Mao, perhaps in an effort to appeal to those who are disillusioned with China’s cut-throat capitalism.
Bo didn’t appear to aim for the top job as secretary general, the Economist noted, as that position appeared to have been reserved for Xi Jinping. Indeed, Xi succeeded Hu Jintao as party secretary general in autumn 2012, and as state chairman in March 2013.
Bo Xilai’s plans didn’t work that smoothly. In November 2011, a British citizen, Neil Heywood, died in a hotel in Chongqing. Given that Chinese courts don’t work independently from the party, the circumstances of his death can’t be considered resolved. A Chinese court found Gu Kailai, Bo Xilai’s wife, guilty of killing Heywood, and after only one day in court, she got a suspended death sentence.
The BBC‘s China editor Carrie Gracietried to shed light on the circumstances of Bo Xilai’s rise and fall, and the role Heywood’s death played in the latter, but didn’t find too many interlocutors. Instead, she presented a Rocky Horror Picture Show of elite power struggles with Chinese characteristics. Bo Xilai as the avenger of the common man, a crashing, media-savvy scourge of organized crime, who addressed the public directly, without party media filtering. That hadn’t happened since Mao’s days – “think Donald Trump”.
With support from local police chief Wang Lijun, who fancied leading roles in martial-arts television, too, Bo had exercised a regime that labeled opponents as mafiosi and not only jailed them, but expropriated them too, in favor of Chongqing’s budgets.
It isn’t contested that Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun prosecuted the real or supposed gangsters’ advocates, too, with questionable means. Gracie quotes one of these advocates, Li Zhuang (see above, Zhang Wen’s criticism of Bo Xilai), as Li describes how he was arrested by Wang Lijun personally:
The scene was so over-the-top, loads of police cars surrounding the plane, riot police in helmets and camouflage, armed with submachine guns. I asked, “Why the big show? Is it Obama’s state visit or are you capturing Osama Bin Laden?”
We were surrounded by a huge scrum of reporters. He wanted to show his authority on camera. He was in a trench coat, hands in his pockets. He said: “Li Zhuang, we meet again.”
There were admirers of Bo and Wang, there were critics and enemies, and there were people who detested the two. But at the grassroots, the fans appeared to be numerous. According to Gracie, there are still many.
Making inconvenient lawyers disappear was no unique feature of Bo Xilai, however. The party leadership with Xi Jinping at the core has been proving for years that to them, the rule of law is a theroretical nicety they may or may not care about.
Gracie reduces the causes of conflict between the noisy polit-soloist Bo Xilai and the basically “collectivist” leadership in Beijing on a personal rivalry between princeling Bo and princeling Xi.
Certainly, top politicians’ egos can hardly be overestimated, and when they are Chinese, ostentatious modesty shouldn’t fool anyone.
But Xi alone wouldn’t have gotten Bo under control. Neither with the sudden Neil-Heywood scandal – that became known as the Wang-Lijun incident in China after the police chief fled into the next US consulate and being passed on to the central authorities from there (but only after having spilled the beans). Nor otherwise.
The question suggests itself if Bo Xilai’s career wasn’t finished in summer 2011 anyway, given wide-spread disapproval among the party elite, of his egotistic leadership style in Chongqing.
“Unity is strength” was one of the “red songs” Bo Xilai had them sing in Chongqing (above: October 8, 2009). But it wasn’t only the Xi faction that saw a lack of just that on Bo’s part. Bo was putting himself forward, and that had been a taboo during all the post-Mao years.
He didn’t denigrate his leading comrades – appearances like that of Donald Trump as a campaigner, cursing fellow members of his political class, would have been inconceivable. But putting himself into the limelight (and casting it away from others) amounted to the same thing, by Chinese standards. Besides, given his anti-corruption renown, sanctimonious as it may have been, could have threatened his “comrades”. A tribun within their ranks – that couldn’t work.
Xi Jinping and his predecessor Hu Jintao are said to be rivals. But within the Hu camp, Bo’s populism didn’t seem to resonate either. On the contrary: Wen Jiabao, chief state councillor (aka “prime minister”) during the Hu Jintao era, had been a tireless, even if unsuccessful, advocate of political reform, way beyond economics or technology.
At a press conference in March 2012, after the closing ceremony of the annual “parliament” plenary sessions, Wen warned that China wasn’t immune against another cultural revolution. That John Garnaut, an Australian correspondent in Beijing, got the opportunity to talk with Hu Dehua, one of Hu Yaobang’s sons, may also count as an indication that the comparatively liberal factions in the party leadership were at least as sick of Bo Xilai’s revolutionary operas, as were the Xi supporters.
Garnaut, two weeks after Wen’s press conference, in an indirect account of his conversation with Hu Dehua*):
Hu Dehua told his father how pessimistic he felt about his country’s future. Hu Yaobang agreed that the methods and ideologies of the 1987 anti-liberalization movement came straight from the Cultural Revolution. But he told his son to gain some historical perspective, and reminded him that Chinese people were not joining in the elite power games as they had 20 years before. He called the anti-liberalization campaign a “medium-sized cultural revolution” and warned that a small cultural revolution would no doubt follow, Hu Dehua told me. As society developed, Hu Yaobang told his son, the middle and little cultural revolutions would gradually fade from history’s stage.
From there, everything went fast. Still in March, Bo was dismissed as Chongqing’s party chief. He also lost his alternate membership in the politburo. In summer 2012, his wife Gu Kailai got her commuted death sentence, and in September 2013, Bo was sentenced to life in prison – based on the usual charges for unrigged politicians: corruption.
To assess Bo Xilai’s political heritage objectively. The CCP may be beyond the era when beaten opponents were airbrushed from all photos and records. But the question about how publicly or privately-owned China’s economy should be might impose itself with any questions about Bo Xilai, and the now seven-member standing committee of the politburo can’t use such questions.
A political scientist of Beijing University, He Weifang (贺卫方), hinted at problems in assessing the Chongqing Model’s performance, from 2007 to 2012:
It is generally believed that the so-called “Chongqing Model” is mainly shaped by three aspects: “red culture” on the political level, “targeted actions against dark and evil forces in Chongqing“, and the reduction of the income gaps between the poor and the rich. The most criticized aspects are the former two, although there is support for the two of them in Chongqing and elsewhere. The third aspect isn’t that controversial. However, all data published concerning the efficiency of the measures taken to narrow the income gap are actually issued by the Chongqing authorities, and therefore lacking neutral assessment. Also, we can see that the whole process is strongly government-led, whose focus isn’t on creating a market logic of equal opportunities. If this approach will or will not lead to mistakes in financial policies, including the rural land policies‘ impartiality, is also questionable. And then there are concerns about life today being lead on future earnings, short-term inputs being made to curry favor with the public, which may come at high future costs.
If Bo Xilai was a populist, one of Donald Trump’s kind, or Putin’s, or Neil Farage’s, or whoever, one has to ask oneself how much influence he has maintained over Chinese politics to this day. After all, populists like Geert Wilders aren’t ineffective, merely because they can’t lay their hands on the imperial regalia.
When looking at European populism – that’s only a snapshot, of course -, one can get the impression that populists may not be elected, but they do leave marks on politics, from Merkel’s Willkommenskultur back to the traditional Christian Democrats’ policies, and Britain’s Brexit, implemented not by its original proponents, but by Theresa May, who had used to be a lukewarm supporter of Britain’s EU membership.
Populism is hardly ever the common peoples’ business, but that of the elites. The battles are fought within the political class, as observed by Hu Yaobang in the late 1980s. That is about as true in Europe. However, these battles within the superstructure may create or intensify certain trends in the public mood – and once policies have moved sufficiently into the “populist” direction, the support for these parties wanes, and the electorate turns back to the long-established parties. After all, Joe Blow doesn’t want to look like an extremist.
What could be beginning to show in China is a comparatively strong Maoist component in propaganda, as long as this doesn’t come at the cost of China’s privileged, and as long as this doesn’t require substantial reallocation of means or wealth to poor classes of population, or laggard regions. But whenever the name “Bo Xilai” should appear in any token event, the exorcists will be just around the corner.
The following is a translation of a People’s Daily article, republished on Enorth (Tianjin) on Saturday morning local time. The article appears to be a combination of an event, and more or less verbatim quotes from a speech by Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People on the occasion. There is no clear distinction between what Xi Jinping said, and what is added by the (unnamed) commentator or commentators (人民日報評論員, as stated by another republishing website).
According to Guanchazhe, a magazine and website from Shanghai, the ceremony described underneath took place on Wednesday, with Xi Jinping awarding commemorative medals to Chinese and foreign war veterans or veterans’ family people, and delivering an important speech (发表重要讲话, a conventional term to express appreciation and attention for the words of top leaders). Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli reportedly attended the event.
At the solemn moment of commemorating the 70th anniversary of China’s war of resistance against Japan and the world’s victory over fascism, the motorcade with the veterans of the war of resistance, the martyrs’ sons and daughters, the former frontline exemplary persons, escorted by guards on motorcycles, first received the reverence of the motherland and the people, on Tian An Men Square. At the Great Hall of the People, State Chairman Xi Jinping awarded veterans, comrades and high-ranking veterans of the war of resistance with the People’s Republic of China’s War-of-Resistance 70-years Commemorative Medal. The whole nation, from the leadership to the masses, cherished the memory of the martyrs in the war of resistance who fought bloody battles, sung the praise of the great war-of-resistance spirit, standing together and expanding towards the great power of the nation’s rejuvenation.
“A nation that is hopeful cannot be without heroes, and a promising country cannot be without pioneers.” Secretary-general Xi Jinping looked back at the hard and bitter war of resistance against Japan, the unremitting and continuous struggle of the Chinese people ever since the opium wars, and how the Chinese nation moved from the darkness into the light, from humiliation to a position of prosperity and strength, inspiring a people of hundreds of millions to move forward along a road marked with the heroes’ footprints, with the confidence to achieve the Chinese dream.
The people uphold their own heroes, the motherland needs her own heroes. Stilling the hunger only by eating tree bark and cotton batting, Yang Jingyu, as he was told to surrender, sternly replied: “no need to say more, just open fire.” Zhang Zhizhong fought to the last moment, “determined to die for the country and the people, just as the sea isn’t clear and stone won’t rot, there won’t be the slightest change.” The eight-hundred heroes of the Sihang Warehouse, “without instructions or command, rather died than retreated”, The 82 Liu Lao Zhuang Lian soldiers fought to the end, all heroically sacrificing themselves for the country … At the Chinese nation’s most dangerous hour, thousands upon thousands of heroes at the war of resistance casted themselves into death, spilled their blood, in a heroic spirit that conquered mountains and rivers, they lifted the hearts of millions of people to awaken the nation to the resistance against foreign aggression. The deeds of their heros will forever remain in history, and their awe-inspiring righteousness will illuminate the centuries.
The heroes come from the people, and the people nurture the heroes. How many mothers, in the fourteen years of the war of resistance, gave their sons to the battlefield, how many common people gave all they had for the country to resist the enemy. This is the ocean of the people’s war which trapped and destroyed the enemy, these are thousands after thousands of heroic sons and daughters who, with their flesh and blood, saved the nation, a Great Wall of defense for the nation’s dignity, and wrote, for a shaken world to read, chapters and pieces of patriotism. “No matter if they directly partipated in the war or if they assisted from the back area, all Chinese people who threw themselves into the war of resistance against Japan are war heroes, they are all national heroes.”
To engrave history in our hearts and to cherish the memory of the martyrs is to inherit the great spirit shown by the heroes. In those years, countless heroes in the war of resistance saw the fall and rise of the world, with a sense of duty from patriotic feelings, faced death without fear, with national integry that would rather die than surrender, [the heroes] defied brutal depression, they fought to the end with sublime heroism, they unyieldingly, firmly and indomitably kept their confidence in victory, casting the great spirit of the war of resistance. Today, we advocate the heroes, learn from the heroes, so that we will advance and enrich that spirit, so that we will defend peace on a new historic journey, so that we will unlock the future, and fulfill our countless heroes’ unfinished hopes to revitalize the Chinese nation.
Great times summon great spirit, a sublime cause requires ambitious minds. To recall how the Eighth Army smashed the Japanese army in the Huangtuling battles, when the writer Wei Wei wrote that “on the battlefield, it was clear to see that two different kinds of spirits measured their strengths against each other. One was the Japanese ‘warrior’s way’ spirit; the other was the Red Army’s revolutionary purpose, finding out whose determination was greater, and who of the two would prevail.” In a blood-and-fire, life-and-death struggle with the aggressor, the spirit of resistance against Japan was hardened into steel, and encouraged the Chinese people to win the first complete victory over foreign invaders in modern times. Today, as we carry out a new great struggle with many historical characteristics, we also need heroes, and a heroic spirit for the new era.
To engrave in our hearts all the things the heroes did for the Chinese nation and the Chinese people, to advocate the heroes, to defend the heroes, to learn from the heroes, to care for the heroes, to advocate the great spirit of patriotism, to advocate the great spirit of the war of resistance against Japan, we can certainly lay the cornerstone of confidence, revive the ability to struggle, to be united with one mind in the struggle for national rejuvenation, to create the Chinese nation’s new splendor.
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