The Public Security Bureau wants to clean out the foreign trash: To arrest foreign thugs and protect innocent girls, they need to concentrate on the disaster zones in [student district] Wudaokou and [drinking district] Sanlitun. Cut off the foreign snake heads. People who can’t find jobs in the U.S. and Europe come to China to grab our money, engage in human trafficking and spread deceitful lies to encourage emigration. Foreign spies seek out Chinese girls to mask their espionage and pretend to be tourists while compiling maps and GPS data for Japan, Korea and the West. We kicked out that foreign bitch and closed Al-Jazeera’s Beijing bureau. We should shut up those who demonize China and send them packing.*

There are a lot of things I want to say about this, and most of them are swear words². However, you’ve probably got some creative epithets of your own swirling in your mind at this point, so let’s move on to some slightly more constructive avenues of discussion.

On Integrity

On reading this post, the first emotion that struck me — after anger, that is — was extreme regret. I have taped two episodes of CCTV Dialogue with Yang Rui, although the first one was never aired³, and now I really wish that I hadn’t. Of course, I had no way of knowing that nearly a year later, he’d be spewing such hateful nonsense, but I wish there was a way to delete myself from the program retroactively.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Yang was quite rude to me when the cameras were off before and after my appearances on Dialogue. At the time, I chocked it up to the ego that comes with being a professional television anchor⁴. In retrospect I wonder if perhaps there was something more going on.

Either way though, I want to make it clear that what I regret is the association with him, not my appearance on CCTV in general. In the past, certain people have suggested foreigners who appear in or work for state media — myself included — lack integrity. I think that is nonsense. Although I long ago stopped writing occasional op-ed pieces for the Global Times and I have no intention of ever appearing on CCTV again, I don’t think having done either of those things has damaged my integrity. In both instances, I spoke honestly and directly in defense of my own viewpoints, and eschewed self-censorship⁵. I don’t regret anything I wrote or said⁶, and I don’t think appearing in State media is tacit support of the Party or the Party line if what you’re saying is just as critical as what you’d say to any Western media outlet. Nor do I think taking their money to write content that discredits their editorials and their bosses is doing them any financial favors.

Some may disagree with me on this, and I do understand that point of view. But if I have a chance to go on State media and criticize the response to the Wenzhou train crash, I think that’s just as valuable, perhaps more valuable, than only sharing my criticism here.⁷

On Soft Power

It’s interesting that this outburst came from Yang Rui, who is in some ways one of the faces of China’s soft power push. Dialogue is an English-language program, which means it is targeted at foreigners in China and abroad by default. The fact that its host (one of them, anyway) is apparently a racist xenophobe is probably indicative of how successful China’s soft power push is likely to be.

But beyond that, it is rather incredible that someone who has been talking to foreigners for years — indeed, someone who is supposed to be one of China’s representatives to foreigners — apparently knows so little about us that he actually believes crazy shit like this:

Foreigners who can’t find a job in their home country come to China and get involved in illegal business activities such as human trafficking and espionage; they also like to distribute lies which discredit China to persuade locals to move abroad. A lot of them look for Chinese women to live with as a disguise to further their espionage efforts. They pretend to be tourists traveling around the country while actually helping Japan and Korea make maps and collect GPS data for military purposes.

It’s so shocking, in fact, that some have wondered if this isn’t satire. I suppose it could be, but if so, Yang seems content to let people continue to think he was being serious; he has updated his Weibo numerous times since that post but none of the updates suggest he was kidding, and some of them suggest he definitely wasn’t. Plus, he doesn’t really seem like the sort for that kind of sarcasm.

If this were any other country, there would be rampant speculation that Yang Rui was about to lose his job. But this is China, and I think we all know that he won’t. That being a rabidly xenophobic (and apparently extremely stupid) person doesn’t disqualify you from holding a post that is dedicated entirely to dealing with foreigners is as strong a sign as any that China has no real interest in soft power. Or perhaps is just utterly incapable of implementing it.

Xenophobia and Weibo Responses

Yang’s comments come at a particularly sensitive time for foreigners, many of whom are concerned about their safety after a British scumbag and a Russian idiot have stirred up a lot of nationalist, anti-foreign sentiment online (all foreigners are the same, so we’re all guilty by association). Probably related is the crackdown on illegal foreigners in Beijing that Yang was commenting on. This crackdown is perfectly fair in theory — every country has immigration laws and the right to enforce them — but the language and imagery that’s being used to promote it is sort of concerning, as is the idea that foreigners will now be required to carry their papers at all times⁸ and submit to random checks. Suddenly, Beijing is feeling a bit like Arizona (that’s not a good thing).

Anyway, the response to Yang Rui’s rant is comparatively heartening. Although there are some commenters who agree with him, there are many who don’t, and as usual, their sarcastic condemnations of his idiocy bring warmth to my twisted foreign heart. Some examples:

Host Yang, you haven’t gone far enough! We should bring back all the officials’ wives and children from overseas to help build the motherland, we must not allow them to be polluted by foreign trash, yes, and also we should close the borders/forbid international travel, so that there is no contact with overseas forces.

There is a reason fewer and fewer people are watching TV…

Yes, and we should close down all the TV channels that speak foreign languages! [Yang works for CCTV English]

At first I thought that it was just Mr. Yang’s English [abilities] that were disappointing, but now I see there are many disappointing things about him.

The fact that this CCTV host isn’t writing editorials for the Beijing Daily is truly a waste of talent.

Isn’t your daughter studying in the US?

Haha, so Yang Rui is really this big a dumbass. A dumbass pretending to be cool but actually a Boxer.

So this is the quality of CCTV? Anyway, where did you study your English? Do the people there think about you this way?

I want to ask, can you speak Chinese? How can someone so incoherent become a TV host…

This is exactly how the Boxer Rebellion started…

Of course, there are also comments in there that are serious and seriously disturbing. But it’s heartening to see that the sane people still seem to outnumber the racist xenophobes.

Stay safe, everyone.

ADDENDUM: This is probably obvious from the post itself, but I would strongly suggest that foreigners boycott CCTV Dialogue and decline any future invitations to appear on the program. There are numerous other ways to interact with the Chinese media; there is no need to support the efforts of a man who so clearly has nothing but hatred for foreigners.

*Note: I have switched out the Global Times translation for the better translation offered by the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time blog. (Click that link for their full post on Yang).

1. by which I mean not on Twitter
2. I seriously considered titling this post ‘Yang Rui Can Go Fuck Himself’
3. I never heard why, but I was speaking pretty candidly about the Wenzhou crash and I suspect that may have had something to do with it
4. albeit on a show that I don’t think anyone has ever watched a full episode of
5. which is why much of my work fell afoul of ACTUAL censorship
6. At least not for political reasons. I regret a few of my Global Times columns just because they were bad writing, but that’s a separate issue.
7. That said, as previously stated, I’m done with Dialogue and probably CCTV as a whole.
8. technically this has been legally true for a long time, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of it being enforced, and there’s no reason to enforce it because it’s pretty ridiculous

In an article written at the Human Rights in China Biweekly (translated below), Wu Gan (twitter: @tufuwugan, “Super Vulgar Butcher”) extensively analyses “tea drinking” and suggests strategies on dealing with it for aspiring citizens. Wu is a prominent Chinese rights activist and netizen reporter, well known for his sense of justice, enthusiasm and resourcefulness. He actively supported Deng Yujiao and the Three Netizens of Fujian, and was involved in the citizenship investigation into the death of Zhejiang village head Qian Yunhui.

Translation: The Tea Drinkers’ Guide

In a land without freedom, “tea drinking” is the only way to become a real citizen. “Tea drinking” usually refers to interviews by the police because of your civic actions or speeches. In fact, no tea or even no water is served for most of the time. I think that overcoming the fear over “tea drinking” is very important in the process of fighting against the dictatorship machine in China. Personally, I’ve been through the evolution from being fearful of to being accustomed to “tea drinking”. I intend to share this guideline to other people who will soon face “tea drinking”. Of course, this is only my personal opinion. Personal experience and the specific circumstance will make each case unique.

In “tea drinking”, the public security agents you face will be from either the Bureau of Internal Security Protection (guobao) or the National Security Bureau (guoan). Guoan will be involved in cases linked to foreign countries, while guobao deal with internal affairs. Guobao are usually more visible, while guoan maintain a low profile. While they execute orders from the dictatorship machine, they are all human beings, and we can classify them into three types:

（1）The brutal type: Such kind of people are of low quality and may have psychological problems. They abuse their power to sustain violence and have no respect for human nature. They use persecution and violence to prove their existence and authority, and derive pleasure and satisfaction from it.

（2）The understanding type: They know their work is disgraceful, and understand the nature of the dictatorship machine, and that the machine will not last long. Therefore, they will not take the initiative to do evil, but will only execute orders, just for a living.

（3）The robotic type: They are hopelessly brainwashed, and have thinking no different from that of the dictatorship machine. They think what they are doing is right, and even consider their work as honorable.

In “tea drinking”, it is either they visit you or they force you to their place. The main objectives are to warn you and create fear, forcing you to abandon your civic actions. They will also teach you political lessons and brainwash you with ideas they think are correct, such as “you live your own life, why are you doing these things?”, “now the country is rising, you need to trust the government and the party”, “these social problems are very normal during reforms, the party will be able to resolve them”, “so and so is an enemy of the party, you need to be aware, don’t be close to him”, “there is deep water behind that event, foreign elements are out there, don’t be utilized by them”, “if you don’t listen, we will not be so kind next time”, “you need to think for your family”, etc. Sometimes, notes will be taken and detailed questions will be asked about the ins and outs of a case. You may even be asked to sign a confession.

I’ve talked about what “tea drinking” is and the types of people you may face. Now I turn to things you need to be aware of.

As you cannot escape from the dictatorship machine, all you can do is to dance with the wolves. You need to go through “tea drinking” before you can become a real citizen, and that takes wisdom and preparations. I advise you to do the following:

（1）Make sure you can afford what you are doing, and be prepared for harassment, house arrest, “tea drinking”, labor camp or even imprisonment.

（2）When you fight for civil rights, it is important to be transparent, open and just.

（3）Be prepared in case you lose your freedom after “tea drinking”. Think about ways you can release information, seek legal assistance, and keep in touch with your family and the outside world.

Things to note during “tea drinking”:

（1）Be well mannered. Don’t show your fear. Don’t fall into their trap and be agitated in face of violence and insults.

（2）When asked about yourself, only tell your own part and not someone else’s. Act as if you are a fool. “Couldn’t remember clearly”, “I forgot”, “not sure about that” and “don’t understand” are all good excuses.

（3）Tell them what you are doing is open, just, and for all to see, and that you have made preparation for possible consequences.

（4）Try not to form personal enmity. Tell them that you have decided to go ahead and will bear the consequences, and ask them not to confuse public and private matters. Some sort of contract spirit is needed.

（5）Don’t insult, confront or humiliate them, online or otherwise, unless they did the same to you.

（6）If you form a personal enmity, you might want to investigate him privately. I personally have no objection to righteous blood revenge.

（7）Don’t believe what they say, and don’t try to convince them. And, very importantly, bear in mind that there is nothing they cannot do.

（8）Whether or not to sign a confession depends on the situation. Sometimes, you can sign it to end all the unnecessary entanglements. These confessions are for them to please their bosses. Confessions signed under threat are not binding and there is no need to comply with them.

（9）The best way to interfere in public affairs is to do so from another place in order to avoid troubles caused by local interests.

（10）Sometimes they will contact your employers, relatives and friends to create pressure on you. This is the most difficult thing to deal with and you have to face it. Let the people around you know what you are doing, and let them know you are doing something open and righteous. It is difficult to get their support, but you have to fight for their understanding and respect. This can ease the pressure on you.

When you are on the path to citizenship, you are either “drinking tea”, or on the way to it. When everyone is not afraid of “tea drinking” but treats it as an honor, we can say our society is progressing.

Chan herself has told reporters she’s not authorized to comment, but I’m sure she will be glad to see the attention Al-Jazeera English’s expulsion is already getting. And we may also take some small consolation in the fact that she herself is apparently moving on to some pretty cool things and will remain with Al-Jazeera English.

That said, the expulsion of Chan and Al-Jazeera is a despicable act of cowardice on the part of China’s government. Although no particular reason was given, this section of the FCCC’s statement provides some clues as to the motivation behind denying Chan’s visa:

Chinese officials had expressed anger at a documentary the channel aired last November. Melissa Chan did not even play a part in making that documentary. They have also expressed unhappiness with the general editorial content on Al Jazeera English and accused Ms Chan of violating rules and regulations that they have not specified.

So Al-Jazeera’s crimes include airing a documentary that China didn’t like — not one that was factually incorrect, mind you, just one they didn’t like — and violating unspecified rules and regulations. Neither of these are good reasons to expel anyone from any country, but the latter is particularly concerning because it seems to be an increasingly common tactic used by the Chinese government to attempt to bully foreign reporters and keep them from covering certain stories. In 2011, for example, some reporters who covered the “Jasmine Revolution” protests were told that they had broken the law by failing to obtain prior permission to report there. Journalists outside Chaoyang Hospital reporting on the Chen Guangcheng case were recently told the same thing.

In fact, China’s regulations on foreign reporters contain no such requirement as far as I can see (original Chinese version). To conduct an interview or reporting, foreign reporters must have the prior consent of anyone they’re interviewing — which is common sense — but there is no requirement that they must apply to anyone else for permission to cover anything.

Of course, the fact that Chinese authorities are apparently operating outside the framework of their own laws will not be news to anyone, least of all anyone who followed Chan’s excellent coverage of China during her five years here (that link leads to just a small portion of it). She served as a voice for the voiceless, often putting herself in dangerous positions to get stories of injustice out in the open.

And that’s ultimately exactly why she — and Al-Jazeera English in general — won’t be allowed to continue reporting in China. Al-Jazeera was giving a voice to people the Chinese government doesn’t want heard — prisoners, petitioners, and regular people from all walks of life who had stories they wanted told. In doing this, it really was operating no differently than other foreign media outlets, or even domestic media outlets (especially the gutsier ones like the Caixin and Southern Media publications). That is, after all, what journalists are supposed to do. As George Orwell once wrote:

Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations.

Of course, there will be some people who will attempt to justify Al-Jazeera English’s expulsion by saying the network was too negative. There will even be people who say that the network is just a piece of the larger Western conspiracy to smear China¹. I find the idea that a media organization should attempt to orchestrate some artificial “balance” between positive and negative stories patently ridiculous², but even if you believe that, it’s beside the point here.

Because the truth is that kicking Melissa out of China is just the Chinese government taking the easy way out. The coward’s way out. Chan wasn’t reporting about how the government needed to be overthrown; for the most part, her negative reports concerned specific local problems that probably could have been resolved if the central government put much effort into attempting a resolution. Black jails, for example, have been a stain on China’s reputation for years, and both foreign and domestic media have reported on the issue before. I find it impossible to believe that if the government were truly interested in closing black jails in Beijing, it would be incapable of doing so. The government could close all the black jails in Beijing if it wanted. But it’s easier to attack the people who report about it; put pressure on the domestic reporters (or just censor their stories) and threaten or expel the foreign ones. Solving the problem would be harder.

This is an approach we’ve seen over and over again, most recently with the Chinese government’s recent exhortations that the US Embassy must take steps to prevent Chinese citizens from entering its consulates, as if that were the real problem. Chen Guangcheng and Wang Lijun ran to US consulates because, although they came from entirely different backgrounds, both men had no faith in the ability of China’s government to protect them. If China wanted to prevent citizens from fleeing to the US embassy, it might start by reforming its own byzantine petition system, which almost never resolves petitioners’ problems and is responsible for the existence of the aforementioned black jails. But reforming the petition system would be really hard. Writing editorials condemning the US for interfering in China’s internal affairs? That’s really easy.

China’s government is not alone in its pursuit of the easy short-term non-solution over the difficult long-term real solution, but the specifics do make China’s case particularly disheartening. Chan is the first journalist to be expelled from China since 1998 — although China has been expelling journalists since at least the 1980s — but given the way journalists covering the Chen Guangcheng case have been treated³ one wonders if she will be the only reporter forced out this year.

In any event, the expulsion of Al-Jazeera English is depressing and ominous, and it will negatively impact the reporting atmosphere in China. I had the good fortune get to know Melissa a little bit before her expulsion, and China is worse off without her coverage. Her removal is an embarrassment, the childish retribution of a government it seems is perpetually more concerned with silencing problems than with solving them.

1. an especially ridiculous claim given that Al-Jazeera is decidedly not Western and still considered the terrorist network by many ill-informed people in the US.
2. among other things, whether a story is positive or not depends largely on who you ask
3. Cordoned off, press credentials and IDs photographed, dozens called in and accused of breaking the law, etc.

Note: To be fair, I’m not entirely sure the men in this video are chengguan (city management officials), as the video isn’t clear enough to read anything on their uniforms, but they seem to be performing the duties of chengguan and are identified as chengguan in the comments, so let’s just assume they are.

Nothing about this is surprising, of course, but it’s worth noting the the ridiculousness of this kind of “enforcement strategy,” which happens all across China with alarming frequency. Chengguan are tasked with keeping the city’s streets clean and ensuring that vendors are in the proper places, with the proper permits. Frequently, they’re not, and I do understand China’s desire to regulate this (in theory), but the practice often leaves much to be desired.

The kind of enforcement we see in this video doesn’t solve any problems. All it does is create problems. Where previously there was a calm woman on the street selling fruit, now there is an angry woman on the street, a small crowd of onlookers, and a huge mess because the chengguan decided to dump her fruit all over the sidewalk. The chengguan have effectively turned what was a regular street in China into a mess of emotion and spilled fruit. What has society gained from this?

Nothing, obviously. The chengguan don’t even gain anything personally, aside from the minimal ego boost that comes from bullying people you have some power over. It is a needless show of force, the desperate demonstration of an insecure bully who is terrified that if the people’s fear ever subsides for a moment they’re going to see just how pathetic he really is.

(Another sign of the times: in the video comments, some commenters have pointed out that these guys are actually quite restrained for chengguan; they may have stomped and dumped out her baskets, but at least they didn’t physically attack her. Disturbingly, this is enough to pass for ‘restraint’ these days.)

Translation: Fujian Man Sentenced for Filming Secret Military Plane

Mr. Huang, a disabled man from Yongtai, didn’t listen to the warnings of passers-by, and filmed and uploaded video of a military aircraft at the Jixu airport. Little did he know he was violating the law. Several days ago, the Yongtai Country Court found Huang guilty of intentionally leaking national secrets and sentenced him to one year and two months in prison, with a suspended sentence of 1.5 years.

In August of 2009, Huang was driving his cart to Cangshan district, to visit his son who was working in Huangshan. As he drove past Yixu airfield, he got curious, and used a digital camera to film an Yixu road sign, the airfield, and several military planes. As he was filming, a pedestrian warned him: “You can’t film that, they’ll arrest you,” but Huang didn’t care, and kept filming, in total filming for over one minute.

After he returned to Yongtai, he put the video onto his public [QQ, probably] space online, and titled the video: “On the way to Huangshan, Fuzhou, I passed Yixu airport military planes, and got very excited seeing them up close, because it was my first time seeing a plane, so I filmed them…” He also wrote: “I am not a spy!” Before it was deleted by the relevant organs, this video was viewed more than 15,000 times.

This video was appraised by the Air Force’s Fuzhou secrecy committee, and found three classified items and three secret items, constituting serious breaches of national and military security.

The Yongtai Court held that the accused Mr. Huang had violated regulations in the Protecting National Secrets Law, as he clearly knew that his video of Yixu airport related to classified military secrets, yet he still distributed it via the internet, which is serious enough to be considered intentional dissemination of state secrets. In light of his confession, his expression of regret, and his disability, the court handed down the aforementioned sentence.

Comments

Now, it goes without saying that Mr. Huang certainly had some opportunities to avoid his predicament here, but I still find it ridiculous. Warnings from a random pedestrian or no, was it so irrational for Huang to assume that secret military vehicles might be kept somewhere that isn’t visible to anyone passing by on the road? Might the authorities at least have posted a sign that said “No Photography” or something? Railroading some poor farmer who got excited at seeing army planes seems like a poor way to protect national security. I’m not a general² or anything, but if those planes were important military secrets, maybe they should be hidden? If a disabled man can stumble across them on his way to somewhere totally different, how secret could they really be?

The story reminds me of my own most recent brush with this kind of illogical mentality. Several weeks ago, I went to one of the Beijing offices that deals with petitioners to get a pickup shot for our film. It’s totally tangential, and I just needed a shot of the building, from the street, for a couple seconds — just enough to show that the place exists. Predictably, though, my footage was spiced up by a plainclothes officer who came running over and explained to me that I couldn’t take any pictures of the building because it was a national organ, and therefore a secret.

Of course I’m grateful that he was kind enough to turn that boring footage into something a bit more interesting, but the logic behind this baffles me. We’re talking about a gigantic building with a clear sign labeling what it is in the middle of one of the most populous cities on earth. It’s clearly labeled in online maps. It has its own official website. What damage could an exterior photograph of the building possibly do?

That’s not the point, of course. It’s all about control, not logic.

1. Apologies, I don’t remember where I first saw it, probably via someone on Twitter
2. Yes, my name is Custer, har har shut up.

A full English translation of this video can be found here, and I recommend you read all of it, but here is the relevant section:

I remember when they humiliated me last August in the Cultural Revolutionary style, they told me, you said in your video that 30 million yuan was spent on (your house arrest), that was the 2008 figure — now the amount is more than double that and that’s not even including bribery money for officials in Beijing. Some of the hired guards have complained that they make so little since most of the money has gone to others.

It’s been a great opportunity for all of them to make money. As I understand, the township gives team leaders money to hire guards and each guard is supposed to get 100 yuan per day. Those team leaders tell potential hires that they get only 90 of the 100 yuan. Since most farmers get 50 to 60 yuan working in the field, and the guard job is considered safe and comfortable with meals included, of course people are willing to take it. In just one team, with more than 20 guards, the team leader gets 200 yuan extra per day. How corrupt is that?

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that corruption was involved, of course, but from what Chen describes it sounds as though part of the motivation for Chen and family’s detention could be economic. Or, to be more specific, part of the motivation for Chen’s continued detention could be economic. I imagine the initial decision to keep him under house arrest was motivated primarily by petty vindictiveness, but from Chen’s description, it seems his detention has created an economy of sorts in his small village and beyond.

This is Dongshigu, the village where Chen and his family live. As you can see (note the scale in the map) it is quite small, and surrounded by farmland. As Chen himself notes, his imprisonment has created hundreds of well-paying jobs for local villagers, not to mention plenty of opportunities to make money on the side (I’m sure all those guards get hungry). As Chen also explains, anyone above the bottom of the guard organization is probably making additional money on the side by skimming from the money that’s handed down to pay the guards.

In other words, there’s an economic impetus for many people in the village participate in and perpetuate the imprisonment of the Chen family. And in a small farming village, the difference between 50 RMB a day and 90 RMB a day can be enormous. It’s no surprise the Linyi authorities haven’t had any trouble finding guards or — as far as I’m aware — met much resistance from villagers in the surrounding area.

But the village economy is small potatoes (figuratively) compared to what it sounds like the Linyi officials have done at higher levels. Within the Linyi budget, it seems the folks tasked with “maintaining stability” have been able to draw huge amounts of money to fund the Chen family’s continued imprisonment, and it’s doubtful anyone there is interested in seeing that budget shrink again. So, in addition to the legal risks associated with releasing Chen Guangcheng, many officials may also be worried releasing Chen would result in massive cuts to the local stability maintenance budget. With the exception of Ron Swanson, who is fictional, government officials in any country tend to want to maintain or increase the funding for their departments, and the only way security officials in Linyi can do that is if they continue to hold Chen Guangcheng.

Moreover, from Chen’s description of what his captors have said, it certainly sounds like Linyi officials are paying bribes to higher officials in Beijing to turn a blind eye, and that puts them in a rather dangerous position. Anytime they decide to stop paying those bribes, they risk some disgruntled Beijing official actually doing something about Chen’s detention as revenge for having cut off the flow of cash into his pocket. And even if they were to release Chen’s family first and then stop sending the bribe money, there’s no guarantee Beijing officials wouldn’t be annoyed, and no reason why Linyi couldn’t still be held responsible.

Of course, there are even stronger political reasons for Linyi officials to detain Chen and his family, and for the central government to pretend they don’t know what’s happening (which I expect they will continue to do). But it seems that Chen’s detention has also become a way for some officials in Linyi and Beijing to line their pockets, and that could be just as difficult a hurdle to overcome as the politics.

All of this raises an interesting question: what happens now that Chen is free? In the short term, it certainly seems Linyi is doubling-down on its extralegal detention strategy, as members of Chen’s family seem to remain under close guard. But in the longer term, things are less clear. With Chen free, continuing to hold his innocent family may become a significant a political liability, and the advantages to restricting their freedom when Chen is already speaking freely about his imprisonment and treatment seem minimal. Chen’s escape will most certainly shift the political benefit/risk balance in holding his family, and that’s something Linyi officials are probably already wondering about.

That said, Chen’s escape doesn’t do much of anything to change the economic situation. A lot of people from farmers all the way up to high level local and national officials stand to lose significant sources of income if the Chen security detail is downsized or eliminated completely. How much of a factor will that play in Linyi officials’ decision making if Beijing doesn’t decide to step in and make the decision for them? It’s hard to say.

On a somewhat related note: I strongly encourage everyone to follow the stories of Chen’s family, especially Chen Kegui, and the activists who helped him escape, especially He Peirong, who has not been on Twitter or Gchat since yesterday morning and is apparently under arrest in Nanjing.

The news of Chen’s escape is fantastic, and it’s important to note here that since Chen was released from prison years ago, there’s nothing illegal about this “escape”. The fact is that Chen and his family were being held illegally, and talk of Chen’s “escape” implies he’s guilty of some crime or evading the law in a way that might be misleading. But Chen is free, reportedly, and that’s a good thing. It should have been true years ago.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Chen’s family, who are mostly incommunicado. Most concerning is the story of Chen Kegui, Guangcheng’s nephew. Yaxue Cao has written an excellent post and interviewed Chen for Seeing Red in China, so I highly recommend you read his full remarks there, but the short version of the story is this: Last night, thugs who did not identify themselves as police burst into Kegui’s home and began beating people. Kegui grabbed two kitchen knives to defend himself with, and probably after slashing some of them, scared the assailants away. Then, terrified, he called the police to turn himself in. While he was waiting for the police, he spoke with Yaxue Cao, and described his situation as clear-cut self defense. (If you speak Chinese, I highly recommend listening to the audio recording of this conversation).

Chillingly, the local government has since released this short news bulletin on the incident, via the Yi’nan County People’s Government Public Information Net:

On April 26, Dongshigu village resident Chen Kegui injured local government officials and staff workers with knives. At present, Chen Kegui has fled, the injured parties are being treated, and the local public security organs are on the hunt for Chen Kegui. The relevant parties will be dealt with according to the law.

That’s the entire report. Unsurprisingly, it mentions nothing of Chen Kegui’s motivations, or that the incident occurred within Chen’s home, which the cadres had entered violently and without warrants. Mentions of this report seem to be being deleted from Sina Weibo, but that likely doesn’t mean much. These will likely be deleted soon, but comments are pouring in on Sohu’s reposting of this story, and they seem overwhelmingly skeptical of the government’s official story, and very supportive of Chen Kegui:

Why would he stab them, why would a commoner want to go stab them, release the facts.

How can you not mention Chen Guangcheng? Please release the location and motive for this incident.

Why would he stab them? Please reveal the truth….

Too bad he didn’t stab them to death.

News items need to have some key elements. A news story like this, without head or tail [missing important details], is obviously covering something up, there’s no way for people to believe it. Does everyone believe in rumors? Because from the completeness of this story, it looks like most rumors are much more thorough than the official reports.

Sohu, please leave the comments up so that the officials in Shandong can see: the people [Chinese people] aren’t that easy to trick.

You’d better release the truth soon, or everyone will just hop the wall [circumvent the GFW] and find out even more truth, and that would be bad!

Is this [Chen Kegui] the hero of legend?

Good, stab these dogfucking rural cadres to death.

Well done citizen, I support you.

You [Chen Kegui] must stay safe. The common people won’t rat you out. These cadres are a band of tyrant thugs.

This is a true hero! The people support you!

Although this shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone, it’s clear from the report that the local government has already deemed that Chen’s actions were not in self-defense. It’s also probable that they’re lying about Chen Kegui having fled, as Chen himself says he called the police and was waiting for them while talking to Yaxue Cao. (And, indeed, fugitives intending to flee arrest don’t generally stop for half an hour to give phone interviews).

So, help from the local government is out of the question. Without intervention by some higher authority, Chen Kegui has no hope for justice. And Chen Guangcheng’s other family members may not be much better off, as they remain in Dongshigu village and reporters and activists haven’t been able to get in touch with them.

Will a higher authority intervene? Chen Guangcheng has already posted a video appeal to Premier Wen Jiabao on Youtube, and it has even been making the rounds on Chinese social media sites, although copies of the video are deleted swiftly when they’re discovered. But if the past ten years have taught us anything, it’s that Wen Jiabao talks a good game when it comes to political and legal reform, but he doesn’t do much of anything.

I will be following this situation as closely as possible in the coming days and weeks, and I strongly urge members of the foreign press as well as foreign diplomats to look into the case of Chen Kegui and find out what is happening to the other members of Chen Guangcheng’s family. The media spotlight will not necessarily help, but if the Linyi government is allowed to pursue its own interests in the Chen Kegui case without any sort of oversight, Chen is well and truly screwed.

(Side note: Now might be as good a time as any to remind readers that American film company Relativity Media has cooperated with Linyi officials, despite full knowledge of Chen Guangcheng’s situation, to film the buddy comedy 21 and Over in Linyi. Relativity Media should absolutely be held accountable for its cooperation with these people.)

• The AP initially reported that the two students were in a $60,000 BMW when they were shot.
• The Chinese internet explodes with condemnations and assertions that they deserved to be murdered, that their parents were probably corrupt officials anyway, etc.
• Some net users point out that the car they were in was used, and while it can cost as much as $60,000 new, this particular model was from 2003 and had been purchased used for about $10,000. The AP updates its story.
• The AP reporter (Greg Risling) is criticized, some of his private correspondance is published online, etc.

Now, there are a bunch of distracting side issues here. Some people feel Risling shouldn’t have even mentioned the make of the car the victims were in in the first place. Then there’s the highly questionable ethics of some of Rislings critics, including a Columbia Journalism School student named Angela Bao who published private correspondance with Risling despite Risling’s express statement in his first email that she did not have permission to do so.

But in the larger picture, that should all be irrelevant. What Risling’s critics are actually upset about — and rightfully so — is that the family of these victims is being criticized and cursed unfairly. Some blame Risling’s article for implicitly suggesting victims were richer than they probably are, and thus inspiring this public backlash against their families. But that is entirely missing the point. Would it be acceptable to curse the families of the murder victims if they really had been wealthy? Obviously not. The AP certainly committed a regrettable error in initially publishing the $60,000 number¹, but the problem here is not with the AP, it’s with the Chinese people who believe rich people deserve to be murdered.

That people with money should be murdered is, of course, a completely indefensible position, but it’s not too difficult to understand. In fact, I don’t think anyone who has lived in China any time over the past few years is surprised at all by the fact that many people have this response. Money and corruption have become inexorably linked in the minds of many here, and luxury cars have become an especially potent symbol of oppression because they seem to keep running over poor people.

China’s wealthy are moving abroad in droves, and I have a feeling it’s not all about food safety and better education systems. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for China’s wealthy, many of whom really are involved in corruption, but when the court of public opinion is suggesting that owning a $60,000 car is enough to justify the murder of your children, well, why stay in that environment when you don’t have to?

But the problem isn’t the money or the nice cars, or even the fact that the nice cars seem to keep running over children. The problem is justice. The problem is that when a tragedy like the one I just linked occurs, the public has no faith whatsoever that justice will be served. And why should they when it often isn’t? If a case becomes high-profile enough (like the infamous “Li Gang” incident) the courts may be pressured into setting down some actual jail time, but everyone knows that if you have enough money or the right connections, almost anyone’s life is for sale. Or, to put it another way: if Bo Xilai’s wife felt sure she would get away with murdering a wealthy citizen of the United Kingdom (allegedly)², what chance does the poor victim of a hit-and-run traffic accident have for justice?

The thirst for justice is evident as misdirected anger in the initial public response to the USC shootings, and it’s also evident in the reaction to this recent case in which a Chinese student in the US raped a landlord, and following his arrest, his parents attempted to bribe the victim to get her to reverse her testimony. The parents were, of course, arrested, and if you read through the comments, you will see that the online response to this news is almost unbridled joy and schadenfreude. There is a huge appetite for “corrupt people get their just desserts” stories because there are so few of them here.

In the wake of the USC case, if you’re criticizing the AP or the victim’s families, you’re missing the forest for the trees. The real problem in America is that there was a homicide, and it needs to be solved so the killer can be taken off the streets for good. The real problem in China is that the widening income gap goes down extra hard when it’s taken with the knowledge that the wealthy have more rights than you do. In fact, with enough money, they probably have the right to kill you.

That’s a problem that has to be solved if China is to avoid outbursts of class warfare, and I’m not talking about Fox News’s red herrings, I’m talking about actual violence. In the past few years there have already been a few hit-and-run cases that resulted in mass incidents a sort. Recall, for example, the 2010 incident in which a man stuck a pedestrian and then got out of the car and beat him, shouting, “I’ve got money, I’d rather just beat you to death and pay the compensation!” Soon enough, he found himself locked in his car, surrounded by a mob of angry people.

In that particular case, he got lucky — he was rescued by police, and he hadn’t actually beaten his victim to death. But you’ve got to wonder, what might have happened if the victim had died on the scene before police arrived? What if the victim had been a child? If this were to happen tomorrow and the police were a little slower to arrive?

If people aren’t confident that justice will be served by the system, it’s only a matter of time until someone decides to take it into their own hands on the street.

1. although it later ran a follow-up, also by Risling, that corrects the error
2. Frankly, she probably could have gotten away with it if her husband wasn’t such a thorn in the side of Zhongnanhai

Before we begin, it’s worth noting that the HuffPo piece fails to mention that Wang Wen is an editor for the Global Times. It does specify that he’s an editor for a major paper, but conspicuously fails to mention that the paper in question is the State-owned Global Times. That seems questionable — doesn’t someone working for the government have a vested interest in its perpetuation, and isn’t that a conflict of interest worth noting? — but let’s move on.

The piece begins with a rundown of the recent coup rumors and a regurgitation of the Party line: China is not the Middle East, there will be no Chinese Arab Spring, the Chinese people want stability, etc. Nothing you haven’t read before a hundred times. But then there’s this:

In my discussions with those in Beijing’s elite circles I find a wide range of opinions. Some are resentful of Bo’s removal and even feel betrayed. Some are euphoric as they see the central government has finally made the right decision. Regardless of the seeming intensity of their views, no one wants to take to the streets. On the contrary, they seem all worried that such a controversial event might drive others onto the streets. In China, without the instigation of the elites, it is impossible for ordinary people to have the channel and willingness for meaningful political protests. As for the Chinese elites, the memory of the Tiananmen Square incident 22 years ago is still fresh in their minds. Radicalism, in the name of any political ideal, has no appeal in reality.

You may want to stop and read this sentence again: “In China, without the instigation of the elites, it is impossible for ordinary people to have the channel and willingness for meaningful political protests.” Absurd classism aside, apparently Wang didn’t get the memo about the protests in Wukan, which were sustained and quite successful despite the lack of patronage from any of Beijing’s elites, or any elites at all. Yet I feel certain they would consider their protests — and the outcome — quite meaningful.

I think Wang is right that intellectuals¹, at least, might be necessary at some point for another Tiananmen-like massive-scale protest to occur. And he’s right that ideals alone aren’t going to get people on the streets. That said, what has that got to do with anything? It wasn’t ideals that sparked the protests in ’89 either, it was the death of Hu Yaobang. By all accounts, the actual protests started rather organically among students², not as the result of some call to arms from elites. In fact, the strongest early call-to-arms came from the Party itself in the form of the April 26 People’s Daily editorial, which paradoxically attracted more people (including elites) to the cause. The idea that large-scale protests must be organized and channeled by China’s elites is absurd.

Moreover, I’m not sure what the fact that China isn’t about to see large-scale political protests is meant to prove. It’s as much a reflection of the effectiveness of China’s authoritarian controls as it is a reflection of the national mood.

However divisive people’s opinions are, there is one thing they have in common: they all put their hope in the Party to solve problems facing Chinese society. China’s one-party governance structure has matured to a state in which groups with intensely opposing views and interests fight to influence the Party, not to subvert its rule. What they all want is reform that would favor their positions, not revolution that could overturn the entire system. Many aggressively vent their dissatisfaction and satirize the government. There are even many incidents of mass clashes. Yet even the most dissatisfied take their grievances to the authority of the central leadership for redress. It is a reality that can be counterintuitive to the eyes of an outside observer.

What a shock — the people in power don’t want to destroy the system! If Li bothered to talk to any of the non-elite regular people, he might have discovered a different story. In most cases, he certainly wouldn’t have found that the common people are on the verge of overthrowing the government — that’s not what I’m suggesting. But for everyone I’ve talked to who puts all their hope in the Party to solve China’s problems, there’s someone who has completely lost hope in the Party to do anything other than bulldoze houses and drink baijiu. And, of course, most people lie somewhere in between those two extremes. The idea that all Chinese people put all their hope in the Party to solve China’s problems is an absurd fantasy.

Wang is right that the Party is not facing an imminent physical threat of overthrow — there is no mass movement or revolt coming. What it is facing is increasing cynicism, dissatisfaction, and despair. Wang writes, “…yet even the most dissatisfied take their grievances to the authority of the central leadership for redress,” but he wisely leaves it at that. This is probably because he knows discussing the results of that process wouldn’t help his argument much. Yes, almost anyone in China with a serious grievance will attempt to bring it to the central leadership for redress, and when they do, they tend to be met with utter indifference, if not violent repression (see: black jails, etc.).

Based on the parents we’ve spoken to for our film, as well as other former petitioners I’ve spoken with for other projects, the process of petitioning is precisely how faith in the central leadership gets killed. People go into the process thinking theirs is a local injustice the central government is unaware of and doesn’t allow. Generally speaking, they come away with the knowledge that what happened to them is happening in many other places, and that the central government is not at all interested in hearing what they have to say.

Moving on, Wang’s essay seems to alternate between what I’d consider to be a few pretty reasonable points and bizarre lapses into near self-parody.

China in the early 21st century is not dissimilar to the U.S. during its Progressive era of the early 20th century. We see a society frequently plagued by chaos and bad news, which has the effect of making people feel hopeless. Yet reality prevails just like it did in America then. Just like the young and growing America weathered its ills 100 years ago and developed, China will, too, enter a new period of long-term prosperity and stability.

Yes, because if there’s anything the Progressive Era in the US is famous for, it’s being followed by long-term prosperity and stability (You know, except for the Great Depression and those two World Wars).

As a matter of fact, those who are familiar with Chinese history might have noticed that political struggles, even at the highest-level, have become increasingly less a matter of “life and death.” Compared with what befell losers in previous political struggles, such as Lin Biao, whose forced defection resulted in a plane crash that killed him and his family 41 years ago, today’s political infighting is much more moderate. Chinese people, as all peoples, like honest and upright officials. They hope that good political leaders end well, and even the not so good ones do not get destroyed completely. I’d like to wish the same for contemporary China that has created the miracle of leading 1.3 billion people out of poverty in one generation.

Well, I’m sure Bo Xilai is grateful that he hasn’t been taken for any plane rides (yet). But the piece ends with a ridiculous straw-man implication — that anyone who doesn’t agree with Wang wants to see China destroyed completely — and a dramatic overstatement. China’s economic policy deserves plenty of credit for lifting most of the population from poverty, of course, but it has taken a little more than a generation, and there are still more than 100 million Chinese living in poverty. I doubt Wang ran into any of them on his survey of Beijing elites, but they do exist, and it is troubling that people like this seem so willing to pretend that 100,000,000+ people don’t exist whenever their existence would be inconvenient for the argument.

It’s especially galling because it’s not like anyone could fault China for only raising 1.2 billion people from poverty in the last 30+ years. That’s still pretty good! I’m not sure why it’s necessary to exaggerate or to suggest that anyone who disagrees with you wants to see China “destroyed completely.” This sort of thing is par for the course in the Global Times, but it is sad to see it creeping into the outside world, especially when it’s not disclosed that the author works in an upper-level position at a state-owned company and almost certainly has personal ties to the Party he is so adamantly defending.

1. It’s worth noting that the Global Times and other Party-line folks frequently disparage China’s intellectual elite as being out-of-touch with the common people precisely because they DO express interest in fairly radical political change, but Wang seems to have flipped that on its head here because it fits his argument better.
2. students attending elite universities, yes, but that doesn’t make them elites

The Beijing municipal government has already announced plans to improve the quality of the city’s air by covering 100,000 sq m of roofs with greenery by the end of this year. “Plants and water have been proven to be one of the most effective measures to degrade and dilute PM2.5,” says Tan Tianying, president of Beijing Green Roof Association.

Plus, as you can see from the image I stole from the China Daily, it also looks good. And if the government is serious about it, it certainly has the resources to implement it on a scale and with a speed that could make green roofs a new trademark of Beijing. It could clear up the air and make many sections of our fair city look a bit less oppressively Soviet. It’s win-win. In fact, about the only thing I dislike about this plan is that green is not a verb.

But, alas, there are some issues with this plan that are not grammatical:

@chinahearsay @ChinaGeeks Greening rooftops is more a question of water than $$$. BJ and TJ turning northern 河北 into a desert.

— Jim Gourley (@rudenoon) April 3, 2012

Alas, he’s not wrong. Seemingly by most accounts, China (and the rest of the world) are heading towards serious water shortages and Beijing is such a dry city that an awful lot of water would have to be pumped up to the roofs to maintain gardens for any period of time.

Still, there’s got to be a way to do this. Personally, I’d be willing to cut down on my water consumption by doing things like washing clothes less if the tradeoff was a cooler Beijing with cleaner air and more trees to look at. So here’s hoping this goes well and the government can find some way to expand it without destroying Hebei or making the consumption of water illegal.

My apologies for the lack of updates of late. I’ve been quite busy with work and the film, and most of what’s been going on in Chinese politics has been covered so well and so quickly elsewhere that I haven’t much to add, anyway. Most of my Chinese internet-type reporting is now going to Tech in Asia. That said, I will try to keep this site updated more frequently!