Phrasebook: yǐ gǔ wéi jìng

以铜为镜，可以正衣冠；以古为镜，可以知兴替，以人为镜，可以明得失。

唐太宗 (李世民, 598年－649年)

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.

Emperor Taizong of Tang

Aka 以史为鉴 (yǐ shǐ wéi jiàn).

Blog and Press Review: Frugal New Year

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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.

For the third instalment, the sermon turns to the New Book of Tang:
奢靡之始，危亡之渐 (which means something like “what begins lavishly will move towards danger”, I suppose).

I can only find the Chinese original [no English edition] of the  New Book of Tang online, and there, in chapter 105, Chu Suiliang, an advisor with morals, tells his surprised sovereign the meaning of things that only appear to be innocent at first glance:

帝尝怪：“舜造漆器，禹雕其俎，谏者十馀不止，小物何必尔邪？”遂良曰：“雕琢害力农，纂绣伤女工，奢靡之始，危亡之渐也。漆器不止，必金为之，金又不止，必玉为之，故谏者救其源，不使得开。及夫横流，则无复事矣。”帝咨美之。

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.

Roar back, if you still dare, fly or tiger.

Xi Jinping probably found a lot to copy from Ronald Reagan. His May 4 speech in 2013 resembled Reagan’s endless-opportunities speech in 1984. While frequently considered risk averse when it comes to reform, optimism, a “determination … to educate his audience” and “unobtrusive and imperceptible moral influence” (OK – it depends on how much corniness you’ve grown up with) are features Xi’s propaganda style seems to share with the late US president’s.

Footnote: when it comes to education on the ground, education of the public appears to be anything but imperceptible, as The Capital in the North reported 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 Economist even 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.

But the place should be known for its beauty, too. There’s a travel blog about the Taroko Gorge, apparently written by a Singaporean, with some practical advice which  should be quite up to date (based on a visit in November 2016). That, plus some history.

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The Spy Radio that anyone can hear

No, that’s not the BBC. They’ve only produced a video about numbers stations.

But what’s the fun in them if anyone can listen? I want some numbers of my own.

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Related

Budapest Guidelines, in Chinese and in English, Nov 2017

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19th CCP National Congress Editorial: “A Smile in the World of the Dead”

According to Huanqiu Shibao, Wang Dehua (王德华) is an internet public sentiment analyst. He is also a regular columnist for the paper.

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.

Main Link: Give a shoutout for the new era, fire yourselves up for China!

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.

十九大报告作出“中国特色社会主义进入新时代”重大判断。“新时代”一词，在习总书记约三个半小时的报告中一共出现36次。这是历史性的转折点，我们是幸运的见证者。

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.

按照习总书记的论述，中国特色社会主义进入新时代，这是中国发展“新的历史方位”;进入新时代，中国社会主要矛盾已经转化为人民日益增长的美好生活需要和不平衡不充分的发展之间的矛盾。

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”.

从1840年以来的近200年历史，中华民族经历百年救亡、百年复兴;核心是怎么把中华民族的命运，从过去那种“东亚病夫”、任人宰割、任人欺凌的环境中解脱出来。近代中国为了救中国，什么药方都吃过，什么主义都试过，但是病急乱投医的结果是“水土不服”。

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”.

十月革命一声炮响，送来了马克思主义。中国共产党人结合中国国情，领导新民主主义革命，最后给救亡的命题打了一个结，作了一个了断。中国人解决挨打的问题，是毛泽东在天安门城楼上发出的那一声“中国人民从此站起来了。”

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”.

毛泽东时代，解决了中国人的挨打问题;邓小平时代，解决了中国人的挨饿的问题。新加坡联合早报评论称，“中国特色社会主义进入新时代，意味着中华民族“迎来了从站起来、富起来到强起来的伟大飞跃”。

“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.

“欢歌将代替了悲叹，笑脸将代替了哭脸，富裕将代替了贫穷。康健将代替了疾苦，智慧将代替了愚昧，友爱将代替了仇杀，生之快乐将代替了死之悲哀，明媚的花园，将代替凄凉的荒地”……方志敏烈士在《可爱的中国》一文中描绘的“可爱的中国”的“新时代”已经到来，他也可以含笑于九泉了。

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.

中华民族从民族危亡到国家复兴，无不深刻诠释一个道理，国家的命运从来与个人的命运息息相关。在那个悲惨的年代，没有国哪有家;祖国强，我强;祖国富，我富。历史一再证明，只有共产党才能救中国，才能发展中国。

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!

历史是一面镜子。祖国30年河东，30年河西。“30年”河东变成河西，天上不会掉下馅饼，是父辈和我们奋斗出来的。我骄傲，因为我是改革开放和祖国腾飞的见证者、参与者，也是受益者。若干年后，当我面对子孙的时候，我可以自豪的说，祖国的强盛我参与了，我不是旁观者!

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!

一切伟大的成就都是接续奋斗的结果，一切伟大的事业都需要在继往开来中推进。 一代有一代人的使命，我们要勇敢地承担起自己的使命。不忘初心，方得始终，始终跟党走，在实现中国梦的生动实践中放飞青春梦想，为祖国的明天努力奋斗!

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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Political Time Check (Febr 2017): “Synchronized Efforts”

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.

Main link: “Time Culture – Galloping into the Realms of Dreams”

“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.

“一个领导干部，在位的时间是有限的，在一个地方工作的时间更有限。我们每一个领导干部都要以‘只争朝夕’的精神，倍加珍惜在位的时间，充分利用这有限的时间，多为群众办实事、办好事。”近日重温习近平总书记关于时间的谈话，再次感受到务实、精细的工作作风，体会到逐梦时代不可或缺的时间文明。

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.

天不言而四时行，时间最初是一个抽象而难以把握的概念。从人类先祖结绳记事开始，定量化的时间才被逐渐认识和掌握，成为文明拓进的一个向度。当然在历史上，古人很早就形成了“日出而作，日入而息”的时间意识，形成了“贱尺璧而重寸阴”的惜时态度，形成了“不违农时，谷不可胜食也”的守时观念。以识时、惜时、守时为内涵的时间文明，提醒我们科学把握时间、有效利用时间。

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.

一切梦想的花开，都离不开时间的浇灌，一切文明的进阶，都离不开时间的助力。时间总是不可逆转地向前推进，对时间的浪费，不啻对社会文明的怠慢甚至贻误。时间是组成生命的材料，浪费别人的时间无异于谋财害命。尤其在“无限的时间”与“有限的生命”的语境下，更凸显出时间的宝贵、奋斗的意义。所以马克思说，一切节约归根到底都是时间的节约。当时代的车轮驶入以毫秒、微秒计时的现代社会，时间的筑梦价值更加显现。涵养时间文明，刷新时间观念，我们才能激荡出彩人生、驰骋梦想国度。

“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”.

“嘀嘀嘀……北京时间×点整。”1970年12月15日，国家授时中心开始向全国进行短波广播标准的北京时间。从那时起，这个耳熟能详的报时声成为人们出入起居的时间参照。实现中国梦、实现“两个一百年”的奋斗目标，在这条奋进之路上，中央的战略部署和改革方针，同样是我们需要不断对表的北京时间。各地区、各部门、各单位，在改革发展中同中央步调一致、力度一致，一以贯之地与中央对表、看齐，确保我们的思想与行动都以此为准，才能产生“全国上下一盘棋”的落实合力，起到“大珠小珠落玉盘”的聚合效果。

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.

从“一万年太久，只争朝夕”的创业呐喊，到“发展才是硬道理”的坚定探索，再到“改革不停顿、开放不止步”的壮丽征程，国家层面时间文明充满开拓进取意味。今天，我们仍然需要培育这样的时间意识。现实中，各项改革发展举措，莫不有时间窗口。去产能、去库存等供给侧结构性改革任务固然阻力重重，置备污染净化设备、普及清洁能源等治霾之策固然成本高企，但我们现在如果不能毅然决然地落实改革，就可能丧失经济转型的绝佳时机。对冲刺在实现全面小康关键一程上的中国而言，把握时间给予的机遇，正是眺望前路、迎向未来的最好姿态。

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.

时序更替，梦想前行。农历丁酉年是鸡年，雄鸡司晨昭示时光宝贵，闻鸡起舞激扬勤奋精神。在新的时间年轮里，我们奋发有为、拼搏进取，一定能刻写下不负使命不负时代的美好回忆。

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Note

^*) the central committee and/or the central government – probably the central committee in this context

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Related

Strategic inflection point, A. S. Grove, 1996, 1999
Grundrisse (in English), Karl Marx, 1857 – 61

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Populism in China (1): The Downfall of Bo Xilai

There is no Weltinnenpolitik yet, 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 Hudong article 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 secretary Bo 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:

OK, listen [to the red songs], you won’t comprehend them anyway. It will be as if you were listening to folk songs.

听吧，反正听不懂，就当听民歌了

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.

Chongqing (Sichuan province) residents set off firecrackers today, celebrating the execution of the provincial-level city’s former chief justice Wen Qiang (文强), cqnews.net reported in July 2010. The Wall Street Journal explained:

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 Economist found 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 Gracie tried 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.

Is there a Chongqing Heritage?

At first glance, Bo Xilai’s “populism” or “Maoism” is finished. But Bo counted as a champion of many Chinese from the political left. A comment in German weekly Die Zeit, in September 2013, saw the verdict against Bo as a signal from the top that resistance against economic reform was futile.

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.

答：一般认为，所谓的重庆模式主要由三方面内容构成：政治层面上的红色文化，执法层面上的“打黑除恶”以及民生方面的缩小贫富差距。最受诟病的是前两者，虽然在重庆和其他地方，似乎也有一些人人对于“唱红”和“打黑”表达支持。第三方面内容相对较少争议。不过，那些举措究竟对于缩小贫富差距产生了怎样的效果，目前得到的信息都是由重庆当局发布的，缺少中立的评估。另外，我们可以看到整个过程是在政府强势主导下进行的，其重点并非创造机会均等的市场逻辑。这种做法是否会带来财政决策中的失误，包括重庆所推行的农村土地政策的公正性，都是大可怀疑的。还有寅吃卯粮的隐忧，短期内的高投入讨好了民众，但是却需要未来付出巨大的代价。

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.

When Xi Jinping announced China’s new role as a guardian of free trade at the Davos forum in January, German Handelsblatt China correspondent Stephan Scheuer hailed the party and state leader’s “dressing-down for populists”. In Davos, Xi had become “a pioneer of fair-minded globalization”.

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.

Xi Jinping: Commemorating the War, Expanding the Picture

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.

Main link: Carry forward the Spirit

Links within blockquotes added during translation — JR

A heroic spirit between Heaven and Earth, inspiring the Ages with Awe

天地英雄气，千秋尚凛然

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.

在纪念中国人民抗日战争暨世界反法西斯战争胜利70周年的庄严时刻，天安门广场上，抗战老兵、英烈子女、抗战支前模范的乘车方队在摩托车护卫下最先接受祖国和人民的敬礼；人民大会堂，国家主席习近平向抗战老战士、老同志、抗战将领等颁发中国人民抗日战争胜利70周年纪念章。举国上下，人们缅怀浴血奋战的抗战英烈，讴歌伟大的抗战精神，凝聚起迈向民族复兴的伟大力量。

“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.

“一个有希望的民族不能没有英雄，一个有前途的国家不能没有先锋。”习近平总书记回望艰苦卓绝的抗日战争，追溯鸦片战争以后中国人民的不懈抗争和持续奋斗，道出了中华民族从黑暗走向光明、从屈辱走向富强的力量所在，鼓舞起亿万人民沿着英雄足迹前进、实现中国梦的必胜信心。

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.

人民崇尚自己的英雄，祖国需要自己的英雄。以树皮棉花果腹的杨靖宇面对敌人的劝降，凛然回答：“不必多说，开枪吧。”张自忠战斗到最后一刻，“为国家民族死之决心，海不清，石不烂，决不半点改变”。四行仓库八百壮士“没有命令，死也不退”，新四军“刘老庄连”82名官兵血战到底，全部壮烈殉国……在中华民族最危险的时候，千千万万抗战英雄抛头颅、洒热血，书写了气壮山河的英雄史诗，唤起了万众一心、共御外侮的民族觉醒。他们的英雄事迹永载史册，他们的浩然正气光照千秋。

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.”

英雄来自人民，人民哺育英雄。十四年抗战，多少母亲送儿上战场，多少百姓毁家纾难御敌寇，是人民战争的汪洋大海陷敌于灭顶之灾，是千千万万的英雄儿女以血肉之躯筑起拯救民族危亡、捍卫民族尊严的钢铁长城，谱写下惊天地、泣鬼神的爱国主义篇章。“无论是正面战场还是敌后战场，无论是直接参战还是后方支援，所有投身中国人民抗日战争中的人们，都是抗战英雄，都是民族英雄。”

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.

铭记历史、缅怀先烈，为的是传承英雄身上展现的伟大精神。当年，无数抗战英雄以天下兴亡、匹夫有责的爱国情怀，视死如归、宁死不屈的民族气节，不畏强暴、血战到底的英雄气概，百折不挠、坚忍不拔的必胜信念，铸就了伟大的抗战精神。今天，我们崇尚英雄、学习英雄，就是要弘扬这种精神，在新的历史征程上守卫和平、开创未来，实现无数先贤英烈振兴中华的未竟夙愿。

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.

伟大时代呼唤伟大精神，崇高事业需要精神引领。追忆八路军击溃日军的黄土岭之战，作家魏巍曾这样写道：“在战场上看得很清楚，这是两种精神在较量：一种是日本人的‘武士道’精神，一种是老红军的革命意志，看看究竟谁更顽强，谁压倒谁。”在同侵略者殊死搏斗的血火淬炼中，抗战精神百炼成钢，激励中国人民取得了近代以来抗击外敌入侵的第一次完全胜利。今天，我们正在进行具有许多新的历史特点的伟大斗争，同样需要英雄，需要新时代的英雄精神。

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.

铭记一切为中华民族和中国人民作出贡献的英雄们，崇尚英雄，捍卫英雄，学习英雄，关爱英雄，弘扬伟大的爱国主义精神，弘扬伟大的抗战精神，我们就一定能筑牢信仰的基石、振奋精神的力量，戮力同心为民族复兴而奋斗，创造中华民族的新辉煌。

Original title: Carry Forward the Spirit cast by the Heroes of the War of Resistance

原标题:弘扬英雄铸就的抗战精神

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Related

» Open the Skies for the Young, May 5, 2013
» PRC stands Towering, Mar 18, 2013

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Some of this Week’s Links: Heroes and Ultra-Vulgar Butchers

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1. “All of them are Heroes” – a Soundbyte and its Story

A Hong Kong television station had a small scoop of sorts, or so it seems to feel to both the station, and to Xinhua. They [update: the HK tv station, that is] conducted an apparent surprise interview with Chinese chief state councillor Li Keqiang. This is how Xinhua reported the encounter, apparently on the same day.

According to the Weibo channel of Xinhua newsagency’s Xinhua Viewpoint program, chief state councillor Li Keqiang, on a visit to the injured at Tianjin Taida Hospital, was abruptly approached by a Hong Kong journalist who, using his cell-phone camera, asked minute questions about “unlisted firefighters”. The chief state councillor interrupted his walk and said that the active-service and non-active-service rescuers had all received training, were all fully aware that the fireground was dangerous, but had all left the danger to themselves. Their sacrifices are saddening us. All of them are heroes, and there are no “unlisted” heroes!

据新华社“新华视点”微博报道，李克强总理16日在天津泰达医院看望伤者时，一名香港记者突然冲过来用手机拍摄并追问“编外消防员”问题。总理停下脚步说，参加施救的现役和非现役消防人员都受过培训，他们明知火场有危险，但把危险留给自己。他们的牺牲让我们痛心。他们都是英雄，英雄没有“编外”！

Unlisted apparently refers to contract firefighters.

The Nanfang also gave a description of the interview, and linked to the tv station’s video (edited or not, can’t judge that) of it. There seems to be nothing extraordinary about the interview by international standards, and the crucial soundbyte – that all of them are heroes, and there are no unlisted heros – comes at 1′ 14”. Li Keqiang also thanked the reporter “for asking this question and showing your concern for the injured”.

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2. “Drawing Profits from selling Ranks and Titles (in Zhongmou)

Some estimates say that the number of rights lawyers has grown from just a handful to […] over a thousand, Yaxue Cao and Yaqiu Wang write in a China Change post published on Wednesday. Going through a July-19 article by China News Service (CNS, 中国新闻社), linked to from the China Change article, you might get the impressoin that corruption charges may not only be politically motivated when brought against party flies or tigers, but they are also weapons in efforts to smear dissidents’ reputation. That may look pretty obvious anyway, but I’ve only become aware of it when reading

For the foreign, language-learning reader, the profitable thing about official lampoons like the one from CNS is that they usually come with some proverbs or classical references. It makes an – otherwise possibly unpleasant – treatise catchy, and helps to create the impression that the propaganda were handed out by trustworthy people.

A short taster from the CNS article:

According to police information, Zhou Shifeng, Wang Yu and other persons formed criminal gangs with Fengrui Law Office as a platform. Since July 2012, they have plotted in more than forty cases and incidents, waving sensational flags about “rights”, “the public good”, etc., seizing the opportunity of becoming famous and of drawing profits from Zhongmou.

根据警方的通报，以北京市锋锐律师事务所为平台，周世锋、王宇等人组成的犯罪团伙，自2012年7月以来，先后组织策划40余起案事件，打着“维权”“公益”等旗号炒作，借机出名，从中牟取利益。

Liu Sixin, administrative assistant at said law office, explains that Zhou Sifeng usually likes to recruit three kinds of people: those who dare to speak out, those who dare to act, and those who dare to hype issues, like “ultra-vulgar butcher” Wu Gan and Zhou himself. The second kind is people who hail from the petitional system and from the media, such as Huang Liqun, Xie Yuandong, etc.. And then there are so-called “die-hard” lawyers like Wang Yu, Wang Quanzhang who like to be defenders in sensitive incidents.

该所行政助理刘四新介绍，周世锋一般喜欢招揽3种人，第一种是敢说、敢干、敢炒作的，像“超级低俗屠夫”吴淦和他；第二种是原来在司法、信访系统以及媒体干过的人，像黄力群、谢远东等；还有就是像王宇、王全璋这种所谓的“死磕”律师，喜欢代理一些敏感事件。

The China Change post lists forteen rights lawyers and their stories.

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3. Farting Snakes

And to end on a super-vulgar note today: did you know that a snake has an ass?

Now you know. Happy weekend.
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Updates/Related

» Crackdown intensifies, CS Monitor, July 13, 2015

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