Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Article 5: Young Chinese abroad launch Internet attacks against Western press over Tibet unrestThe Associated Press. March 30, 2008
BEIJING: Armed with nationalism and the Internet, young Chinese abroad have launched a wave of attacks accusing Western media of bias in reporting on unrest in Tibet and defending Beijing's crackdown. The outpouring of emotion is unprecedented in scale and force. China's rising international status and Beijing's success in portraying the violence as being motivated by Tibetan separatists has emboldened students and others to express views that are unpopular in their host countries, experts said. From YouTube videos to Facebook to Web sites created to criticize news reporting, the message is emphatic: Western media are irresponsible and Tibet will never be independent. "To all you bandwagon jumpers who know nothing about chinese history and to all you bashers, let me give you some solid FACTS why Tibet was, is and always will be a part of China," says the opening statement of a video on YouTube that the site says was viewed nearly 2 million times by Saturday. The protests, led by monks, began peacefully on March 10, the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. They erupted in violence on March 14. The Chinese government says 22 people have died, while Tibetans abroad put the death toll at 140. The unrest has cast a harsh light on China just as it prepares for the Beijing Olympics. Foreign governments have called for restraint and for independent monitors to ensure human rights are respected. "Imagine everyday you open the news and it's all saying bad and biased words towards your motherland: crackdown, killing, burning," Liu Yang, a graduate student in biology at the University of Chicago, said in an e-mail. "I don't understand, they struggle for press freedom and fairness, but why would they lose their conscience now?" she wrote. "Isn't the media independent, instead of being a mouthpiece?" College professors and several students agreed the sentiment wasn't confined to just a few fervent patriots. "Most of my friends here hold similar views," said Kevin He, a doctoral candidate who is president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at UCLA. "I have been talking about this issue with people from other organizations across the North America. They pretty much share the same opinions." In China, the news has raised less fuss, due in part to media controls that keep most Chinese from seeing reports aside from the entirely state-controlled press. The fact that Chinese students in the West are unsympathetic to Tibetans should be no surprise, said Barry Sautman, a social scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "The fact that they're living and studying and maybe working in the U.S. or any other part of the West doesn't make them feel they should adopt the prevailing viewpoint, because it doesn't necessarily correspond with what they know about China and the Chinese," he said. One student involved with a pro-Beijing Facebook group said he has struggled to battle misconceptions about his native country. "I do believe I should represent China whenever I can and defend my country ... but it is disheartening sometimes because many people simply do not listen," said Chris Yao, who administers a group called "Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China," inspired by
the YouTube video. "Ever got angry from CNN news reports over the Tibet issue?" says a note on the page. "Well, let me tell you, you are not the only one!" The students and Chinese media have offered a handful of examples of what they say is bias among Western journalists. One Web site, http://www.anti-cnn.com, complained that several news outlets showed photos of police in Nepal scuffling with protesters and misidentified the security forces as Chinese. It accused U.S.-based CNN of improperly cropping a photo of Chinese military vehicles on its Web site to remove Tibetan rioters who were pelting the trucks with rocks. CNN insisted it has reported impartially. "CNN refutes all allegations by bloggers that it distorts its coverage of the events in Tibet to portray either side in a more favourable light," the network said in a statement. The photo of military vehicles "was used wholly appropriately," the statement said. It said there should be no confusion because the image was captioned, "Tibetans throw stones at army vehicles on a street in the capital Lhasa."Yao, 22, is a Chinese-born computer engineering student at Canada's Simon Fraser University. He has lived in the United States and Canada since age 10 but says his loyalties lie with China. He plans to return after graduation.
Chay Teng's Commentary: This article is more about the Western media's/the West's portrayal of China, rather than the Tibet issue. Many times, the West have slammed China on some of its policies. While I may not necessarily agree with China's policies, I have to say that the West may be overly critical and sometimes, even hypocritical. The fact is that culturally and socially, East and West have grown to be quite different. So whatever the West make of China, they should perhaps step back and think about the situations, influences and circumstances that make the government react the way they do and not criticise just because what the Chinese government does does not correspond with what they think is right. After all, just because one party is right does not mean that the other party is wrong. There is more than one way to deal with any issue. Labels: international relations, posted by chay teng, Social, transnational issues
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Article 4: China's leaders rediscover ConfucianismBy Daniel A. Bell. International Herald Tribune. Sept 14, 2006
BEIJING: Marxism no longer serves as Chinese society's guiding ideology. But that doesn't mean the end of ideology. Western experts hope liberal democracy will fill the void, but they will have "joined Karl Marx," as the Chinese used to say, before that happens. In China, the moral vacuum is being filled by Christian sects, Falun Gong and extreme forms of nationalism. But the government considers that such alternatives threaten the hard-won peace and stability that underpins China's development, so it has encouraged the revival of Confucianism. Like most ideologies, however, Confucianism can be a double-edged sword. "Confucius said, 'Harmony is something to be cherished,'" President Hu Jintao noted in February 2005. A few months later, he instructed China's party cadres to build a "harmonious society." Echoing Confucian themes, Hu said China should promote such values as honesty and unity, as well as forge a closer relationship between the people and the government. The teaching curriculum for secondary schools now includes teaching of the Confucian classics, and several experimental schools have been set up that focus largely on the classics. Abroad, the government has been promoting Confucianism via branches of the Confucius Institute, a Chinese language and culture center similar to France's Alliance Française and Germany's Goethe Institute. For the government, the promotion of Confucian values has several advantages. Domestically, the affirmation of harmony is meant to reflect the ruling party's concern for all classes. Threatened by rural discontent - according to official figures, there were 87,000 illegal disturbances last year - the government realizes that it needs to do more for those bearing the brunt of China's development. Internationally, the call for peace and harmony is meant to disarm fears about China's rapid rise. How does Confucianism resonate in society at large? At some level, especially regarding family ethics, Confucian values still inform ways of life. Filial piety, for example, is still widely endorsed and practiced: Adult children have a legal obligation to care for their elderly parents. Many intellectuals have turned to Confucianism to make sense of such social practices and to think of ways of dealing with China's current moral and political predicament. But their interpretations of Confucianism often diverge from official ones. Perhaps the most influential contemporary Confucian thinker is Jiang Qing, author of "Political Confucianism," in which he argues that for contemporary China, political Confucianism is more appropriate than Western-style liberal democracy. Jiang could not develop the institutional implications in that book. In a Taiwanese publication, however, he puts forward an interesting proposal for a legislature that includes representatives of Confucian elites, of elites entrusted with the task of cultural continuity, and of the people. In an article widely distributed on the Web, he argues for the establishment of Confucianism as a state religion (as with state religions in Britain and Sweden, other religions would not be prohibited). Intellectuals have also been applying Confucianism to foreign policy. Confucians favor rule by moral example and oppose the use of force to promote morality. Hence, Confucian intellectuals were severely critical of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But here, too, interpretations of Confucianism may diverge from official ones. The idea that Taiwan should be reintegrated into the mainland by being threatened with invasion and bloodshed is far removed from Confucian ideals. Perhaps the biggest challenge to the government is the Confucian emphasis on meritocracy. The Confucian view is that political leaders should be the most talented and public-spirited members of the community, and the process of choosing such leaders should be meritocratic, meaning that there should be equal opportunity for the best to rise the top. Historically, Confucian meritocracy was implemented by means of examinations, and there have been proposals to revive and update Confucian examinations for contemporary China. Again, there is an obvious challenge to the government: Objectively measured performance on an exam, rather than party loyalty, would determine who occupies what government post.If Confucianism shapes China's future, it won't look like Western-style liberal democracy, but neither will it look like the status quo.
Chay Teng's Commentary: Confucian teachings do promote and encourage meritocracy, in which appointments are bestowed on the best person for it and is not based on nepotism or wealth, etc. However, China's governmental system has been unofficially 'plagued' by patronage and this meant that the most qualified person may not necessarily get the appointment. And it does not help that there are many, many officials who are corrupt. The Chinese government could perhaps use this Confucian teaching to move China to a social democratic system. Labels: confucianism, government, posted by chay teng, Social
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Article 3: Faking it: Piracy poses headache for OlympicsBy Hamish McKenzieFor CNN HONG KONG, China (CNN) --
At a stall in a crowded street market in Mong Kok, one of Hong Kong's many busy shopping districts, a vendor with a quick whip of his hands produces from behind a plywood wall a set of Beijing Olympics key rings. They are perfect rubber replicas of the five Olympics mascots: the Fuwas. "Have you been looking for this stuff for long?" he asks the buyer. He asks for good reason: fake Olympics merchandise is becoming increasingly scarce in Hong Kong. Until the end of May, there was more to be had as opportunistic salesmen targeted tourists in an area famous for cheap knock-offs. But then the police swooped in, seizing the illicit goods and effectively freezing the supply, local vendors say. The swoop came as part of a China-wide crackdown against fake Olympics goods and the people who sell them. In raids on markets in Hong Kong districts such as Wan Chai, Yau Ma Tei, and Mong Kok on May 30 and 31, customs officers seized 350 pieces of counterfeit Olympics goods, including key-rings, watches, caps, badges, and stickers, worth about HK$7,000 ($895). The vendors aren't taking it lightly. This is a central government issue. The Hong Kong customs department says it is increasing its vigilance in combating the sale of Olympics-related counterfeit products. "Apart from stepped-up monitoring of the market, Hong Kong Customs has been conducting repeated and intensive raids against such counterfeiting activities," said Edmond Cheng, head of intellectual property investigation operations, in a written statement to CNN.com. "As a result, the situation is firmly under control." Since 2004, Chinese authorities have uncovered more than 1,500 cases of violations involving Beijing Olympic slogans, logos, and other trademarks, according to the English-language newspaper China Daily. In 2004 and 2005, such cases involved fake goods worth 14.8 million yuan ($1.9 million), resulting in fines of 8.38 million yuan ($1.1 million), the newspaper reported. Figures were unavailable for 2006 and the first half of this year. It is not difficult to judge the authenticity of an official piece of Olympics merchandise. The security features on an "anti-counterfeiting label" include a 3mm-wide hologram window bearing the Games emblem; the words "Beijing 2008" visible only under certain lighting; and an embossed design. The message is clear: Olympics merchandise is a no-go zone for counterfeiters. That could be something to do with the money involved. The 2004 Athens Games generated $61.5 million in revenues from the sale of licensed Olympics merchandise, according to a report by the International Olympic Committee. Olympic host cities are entitled to between 10 percent and 15 percent of the royalties, according to a report from the China Daily. The crackdown is indicative of Beijing's "selective enforcement", says Oded Shenkar, a professor at Ohio State University and author of "The Chinese Century." "In a way, it's a reminder that when they want to they can enforce, but sometimes they don't want to," Shenkar says. Piracy benefits China's economy by providing jobs and a cheap way to quickly catch up with modern technology, Shenkar says. "Piracy provides them with a certain advantage, at least for now," he says. "They do realize that at some point they will need to crack down in order to create innovation in the system." This past April the United States filed a formal piracy complaint against China at the World Trade Organization, arguing that China's inadequate protection of intellectual property rights was costing the U.S. dearly and putting consumers around the world at risk. The U.S. Commerce Department estimates piracy and counterfeiting costs that country between $200 billion-$250 billion a year. China is a major culprit, costing the United States an estimated $24 billion through sales of pirated goods, the department says. On April 26, World Intellectual Property Day, cities across China demonstrated the country's commitment to quashing piracy by staging public exhibitions and destroying pirated goods. Yet, says Shenkar, China's government treats intellectual property issues the same as any other issue: they are subject to bargaining. So, if the United States pushes hard for China to take action and there is something to be gained by doing so, the government will make a highly visible concession. For instance, a year after China banned "naked computers" -- new computers without pre-installed operating systems -- Bill Gates announced major Microsoft investment in the country and offered $3 software packages for poor Chinese students. Expect more of the same, says Shenkar. "You're going to see some temporary, high visibility crackdowns." That being said, it would be extremely difficult to crack down on all cases of piracy, says James McGregor, CEO of China research and advisory firm JL McGregor and Company. "China's like piracy on steroids," McGregor says. Tackling the piracy industry -- which likely provides thousands of jobs in retail and manufacturing -- would take enormous political and personal effort. Instead, the government has to pick its shots, says McGregor, and Olympics merchandise is an obvious target. Meanwhile, by targeting violations of Chinese-owned trademarks, the authorities can be seen to be vigilant while protecting China's internal economy. "It's the Olympics. It's international. It's China's coming-out party. It's China's face," McGregor says. "Who wants to put on the Olympics and be looked at as the low-class pirate country that steals everyone else's trademarks?"
Labels: Beijing Olympics, Economy, intellectual property, posted by chay teng
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Article 2: Human rights questions remain for ChinaBy Niall FraserFor CNN HONG KONG,
China (CNN) -- With a year to go before the 2008 Olympics get under way, questions linger over China's efforts to improve its human rights record. Observers and pressure groups have criticized the efforts of the Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since Beijing won the bid in 2001, rejecting assertions by both that the Games will lead to lasting positive change in the world's most populous nation. After praising Beijing's preparations as "excellent across the board," the IOC official charged with overseeing Beijing's preparations, Hein Verbruggen, sparked further anger from advocacy groups with his recent comments that, "...the way the Games are being used as a platform for groups with political and social agendas is often regrettable.'' The International Federation for Human Rights claimed his remarks will "embolden'' hard-line elements within the Chinese Communist Party to ignore international pressure over human rights promises. But the IOC says, there is a widespread misconception that a list of "human rights promises'' was ever sought by the IOC in the first place. "There were some declarations made by senior Chinese leaders in Beijing who raised the human-rights question proactively and talked about how the Games would be part of the process to help human rights development," says IOC's director of communications Giselle Davies,. "But that was never a [piece of] criteria on which the IOC judged and assessed Beijing's bid. "The IOC decision is not made in a political or social context. It is very much based around what is a coming together at a sporting event and everything for which that can be a catalyst for," Davies adds. And that, she believes, is a force for good. "The IOC fundamentally believes that the world will look back and see the Games as a key moment along a period of change and development for good in China," she says. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has sharply criticized Beijing. On Thursday, the organization said China's government has failed to live up to pre-Olympics promises of greater human rights freedoms and has instead clamped down on domestic activists and journalists, according to reports from The Associated Press. "The government seems afraid that its own citizens will embarrass it by speaking out about political and social problems, but China's leaders apparently don't realize authoritarian crackdowns are even more embarrassing," Brad Adams, Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement carried by the AP On first glance it would appear Beijing is sensitive to certain international concerns. In June, Chinese officials and the IOC moved quickly to launch an investigation into allegations by the advocacy group Playfair 2008 that four official souvenir makers were using child labor. Earlier that month, Beijing took the landmark step of allowing the mother of a victim of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown to mark the anniversary of his death publicly. But others believe that since 2001 there has been a tightening of controls on political dissent and freedom of speech, as Beijing has sought to contain the social and political fall-out from the country's breakneck economic development. The IOC says, for example, that the Olympic Games has led to improvements in China's labor system in which workers endure long hours in harsh conditions for less than the legal minimum wage. Han Dongfang, the Hong Kong-based labor rights activist for the China Labour Bulletin organization, which monitors workers' rights in China, insists "It's about markets and it's about cheap labor ... Labor rights have become worse over the past few years.'' He says that any real change in China can only come from the inside as a result of pressure from workers and the development of free trade unions and the right to collective bargaining -- and not from international pressure. "The Chinese leadership does not care about international pressure. It is not China who is knocking at the door of the international community looking for favors -- it is the other way around,'' Han says. The IOC says "enormous'' progress has been made in terms of the freedom the news media will have to report on the Olympics, following the 2001 pledge by the secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee Wang Wei. "We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China," he said at the time. Not so, says veteran China scholar Willy Wo Lap Lam, author of the recently published "Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era." "The police and secret police departments in every city have lists of dissidents and 'dangerous' people who are not supposed to talk to the western media," Lam says. "So, instead of following these Western reporters around, the police will simply post more 'guards' outside the dwellings of 'suspect' people in each city and county. They will ensure they can't talk or work with western journalists.'' Professor Joseph Cheng of Hong Kong's City University agrees with Lam. "China's only concern as far as the Olympics is concerned is to showcase itself to the international community. To this end it will treat foreign journalists and visitors very well - but all the troublemakers will 'disappear'," he says. "Twenty years ago they put trouble-makers under harsh house arrest or worse. Today, they give them a holiday. Either way, they won't be speaking to foreign journalists.'' Lam adds that any pledges Beijing did actually make does not necessarily mean human rights will improve. "The main pledges made by Beijing are clearing up the environment and curbing traffic jams. Both of these are achievable through draconian methods," Lam says. Furthermore, while the world-at-large may be expecting an Olympics-led metamorphosis, the reality is very different, he says. "Beijing will not relax controls over dissidents, NGOs as well as 'agitators' for Tibet or Xinjiang. There will be tighter surveillance of potential troublemakers," Lam says. "The South Korean Olympics in 1988 marked the beginning of genuine political liberalization. For China, it is a very different story. The Chinese Communist Party sees the Games as an opportunity to show the world China's great achievements in the economy and infrastructure and to demonstrate their diplomatic clout. Internally, the Games will help the Party foster 'internal cohesiveness' using national pride to justify the Party's ruling status. "No Chinese Communist Party leader wants to use the Games as a juncture to push forward reforms.''
Labels: Beijing Olympics, Economy, intellectual property, posted by chay teng, Social
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Sunday, March 30, 2008
Article 1: When Mao Meets Youtube
Moisés Naím
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 4:21 PM ET Nov 10, 2007
You can always count on the Olympics for drama. Next summer's Games in Beijing will produce powerful stories and riveting television. But much of the action this time will occur outside the stadiums: in the streets, where Chinese police will clash with activists from around the world. These clashes promise to be spectacular and well documented—by protesters' camera phones, if not by professional news crews. Given that, the next Olympics will offer more than another opportunity to test the limits of human athletic performance. They will also test China's ability to thwart a nebulous swarm of foreign activists who will be well-armed with BlackBerrys. A police state organized according to 20th-century principles will meet 21st-century global politics; Mao will meet YouTube.
Like the athletes, the China's government and the activists from around the world are already training hard for the showdown. Beijing, which will spend a total of $40 billion on the Games, has, according to the Associated Press, already begun its "broadest intelligence-collection drive [ever] against foreign activist groups." Xinhua, China's official news agency, has reported that Zhou Yongkang, the minister of Public Security, has ordered the police next summer to "strictly guard against and strike hard at hostile forces at home and abroad."
Meanwhile, planning by these "hostile forces"—the activists—is well underway. A Prague-based nongovermental organization that calls itself Olympic Watch has been hard at work since 2001 crafting various ways to use the Games to challenge China's policies on freedom of speech, the death penalty, Tibet, religious freedom and forced-labor camps. Darfur campaigners have started using the term "Genocide Olympics" to pressure Beijing to stop supporting Sudan's government. And the recent upheaval in Burma has led some activists to coin the term "Saffron Olympics" in order to underline China's support for the murderous Burmese junta and its massacre of unknown numbers of saffron-clad monks.
Such efforts will only intensify as next summer approaches. Once the Games begin, a huge tide of foreigners will flood Beijing, making it extremely difficult for authorities to spot the activists among them—to pick out the old lady from Denmark who has traveled to Beijing with her church group to protest China's abortion policies, or the young, seemingly innocuous Australian couple who are actually members of a militant environmental organization.
It's fair to say that Beijing probably had no idea what it was getting into when it first applied to host the Olympics in 2000. After all, the world—and China's place in it—has changed substantially since then. Seven years ago, Chinese companies had not yet become such big investors in pariah states; it was only in 2004, for example, that China surpassed Iran to become Sudan's largest military supplier. China's environmental degradation was also far less of a global concern in the early years of this decade. The same goes for its cheap currency and its often hazardous consumer products. And China's aggressive trade practices have gained renewed scrutiny in recent years as the global economy has slowed down.
Another change in the intervening years has raised the stakes still further: the boom in Chinese cell-phone users, whose numbers have risen from 140 million in 2001 to more than 600 million today. As for Chinese Internet users, their ranks have soared dramatically—from 17 million in 2000 to 162 million today. Blogs, chat rooms, social networks and other online communities have all exploded. And YouTube, which didn't even exist three years ago (let alone in 2000) has amplified the dangers posed by Web-enabled camera phones to authoritarian regimes. No PR campaign will change this reality. China's government therefore cannot hope to keep the battles with protesters—if they occur—from being beamed around the world.That said, Beijing does have one other option: it could agree to some of the protesters' demands. Indeed, slowly, modestly, China's government has already begun to do so. Beijing has, for example, finally begun nudging Sudan to accept international peacekeepers (including a Chinese contingent) in Darfur. That said, there is no way that Beijing will be able to come to terms with all the activists, many of whom seek to alter the very nature of the regime and the political and economic system on which it is based. It's therefore almost inevitable that China's leaders will ultimately opt for a crackdown. And it's all but guaranteed that China's centralized government—which is not used to confronting well-organized, media-savvy foreigners who work through highly decentralized, international, nongovernmental organizations that know how to mobilize public opinion—will find the experience profoundly frustrating. The 2008 Olympics, in other words, promise to provide a great spectacle. And the whole world will be watching.
Chay Teng's Commentary:
When I read this, I had the image of Beijing as a freshman, snappily dressed and ready to impress on the first day of school. But instead of impressing, he/she gets bullied by all the bigger guys, who think that just because they're stronger, are smarter and always right. I'm quite anxious of how this will go for Beijing and China. I hope the government will be able to cope with the potential unrest that could occur and manage to make the 2008 Olympics a great success.
Labels: international relations, posted by chay teng
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