Democratization in China

The Washington Post has a nice article ("With Chen Guangcheng news on Twitter, China’s censors lost control") about the role of Twitter and other Internet media on the case of the blind activist Chen Guangcheng.

In both the case of Chen Guangcheng and the previous upheaval about the arrest of Chongqing Party boss Bo Xilai the Internet was the first place where the news spread and many new facts first came to light on the Internet:

When Chen was driven from the U.S. Embassy to a nearby hospital and made a telephone call from the van to The Washington Post, the news broke first on Twitter. It was Chen’s friend Zeng Jinyan, another activist, who first informed the world via Twitter that Chen had been left alone by U.S. officials at the hospital and was afraid. Zeng also tweeted that thugs in Shandong province, where Chen is from, had threatened to beat his wife to death, and that Chen wanted to leave China for the United States.

And the next day, Zeng broadcast on Twitter that she was being followed by plainclothes police and had been placed under house arrest. She even warned journalists not to try calling her.

A particularly dramatic moment came Thursday when Chen — isolated in his Beijing hospital room but with a cellphone at hand — called into a U.S. House of Representatives hearing on the handling of his case and expressed concern for his family left behind in Shandong.

All these new technological options are nice. Yet I believe that the most important factor in what is happening in China is that as the country grows richer people demand different things from their leaders.

Chinese-American antagonism

The NY Times has an article ("Chinese Insider Offers Rare Glimpse of U.S.-China Frictions"). It is written by someone who has access to high circles in both China and the US. He sees in China an increasing attitude that their country should be the next number one in the world. America's antagonistic policy certainly hasn't contributed much.

What led to World Wars I and II was the British and French unease with the rise of Germany. As Germany had a bigger population and its economy was growing faster it was destined to become the most powerful. That led to containment policies that led to distrust, antagonism and in the end to war.

Now we see America making the same mistakes regarding the rise of China. Instead of stressing international law and cooperation - what would open the door for a peaceful transition - it is doing the opposite. In the case of Libya and Syria it is openly thrashing international law. There was nothing wrong with the US stationing a few soldiers in Australia. But there was a lot wrong with the way it was advertised as a containment policy towards China.

If the US wants to prevent China from becoming no.1 its priority should be to get united once again around a common goal. Unfortunately there is no sign of that. All the hate talk only serves to distract the population from the increasing inequality and dubious deregulation.

Google's miscalculation in China

Google keeps challenging China with its threat to withdraw. I am amazed what they want to achieve with that. As far as I can see China is following a very nationalistic economic policy at the moment aimed at acquiring technology and they will be very happy when Google leaves and makes place for Chinese companies. It saves them the trouble of harassment.

China is nowadays following a policy of “indigenous innovation” that will require government procurement to favour products that include Chinese intellectual property. The policy is still a proposal but some local government are already implementing it. A good example was the recent transfer of the production by Wärtsilä - a ship propeller- and auxiliary-engine factory - from the Netherlands to China (more elaborate information is unfortunately only in Dutch). Pressure from China was hereby explicitly mentioned as one of the reasons.

All this makes me look incredulously at Google. My estimate is that even if China agrees with them on the need for a more free access to information they will wait until Google has left before they implement it.


Postscript: China has moderated its “indigenous innovation” poicy. The article sees a pattern: "Over the past decade, the government launched several initiatives aimed at strengthening local companies and bolstering government control, but watered them down after an outcry from the foreign business community."

The appeasement of China

When one studies the runup towards World War II the appeasement of Germany plays an important part. It was not just Munich 1938: on many prior ocassions (like the remilitarisation of the Rhineland) Germany had imposed its will with fait accompli's and military threats. In many cases Germany was just ondoing unfair provisions of the Versailles Treaty. Yet the effect was the same: Germany became used to getting its way unilaterally and became overconfident.

In China we see now a similar pattern. Everybody knows that China will have to do something about its trade surplus and its undervalued renminbi. Yet Obama (just as Bush before him) are too timid to say it openly. Instead they let themselves be lectured again and again by arrogant Chinese leaders. At the end of his last visit to China Obama even signed a common declaration that was widely seen a kowtowing to China's ambitions for regional hegomony.

The price of this indulgence is becoming higher and higher. The world economy is getting seriously out of balance and may end up in a crisis. China's leaders become more and more bold in their demands. Their recent noise about the Dalai Lama's visit to the Tamang region in India was the most striking example. And when one reads posts by Chinese on the internet it becomes clear that the problem is much wider. Many of them are extremely nationalist and quite a few threaten with war if China doesn't get its way.

One can only hope that it doesn't take too long before mr. Obama finally realizes that he can keep giving in to China forever because it will only lead to a steady increase of their demands. And this concerns not only the US: Other countries face the same problem with China.

Barbarian China

The way China is suppressing Tibet and its culture is well known. Just as the way it is trying to assimilate its population by the way of promoting massive immigration from China. Unfortunately there are many other countries trying to assimilate minorities.

What makes China unique is that it is pressing for the annexation of Tawang under the pretext that it is Tibetan and Tibet is part of China. It means that China is pressing for the acquisition of more territory with the intent of erasing its culture and marginalizing its population. How barbarian can you get?

An US hand in Xinjiang?

According to F. William Engdahl at Global Research the US might have something to do with the Uygur riots in Xinjiang. He points to NED funding of the main Uygur organizations in the US. I find his arguments a bit weak: it concerns 200,000 dollar. But Global Research has a good reputation so it is certainly worth paying attention to.

But what to think of the riots? China traditionally has relied on assimilating its minorities. In places like Urumqi, where the Chinese have the majority that seems to work reasonably well. But in the south-west of Xinjiang where there are few Chinese (and no oil to seduce them to come) that doesn't work. It were people from the south-west who made the riots. But even when assimilation works there is discrimination. All the good jobs go to the Chinese and Chinese employers don't want to do anything with Uygurs who they often see as terrorists. A final factor is the scripture. You have to learn Chinese scripture from your childhood - otherwise you will never really learn it and you very easily forget it characters. This means that the Uygurs are functionally illiterate for Chinese society and are condemned to jobs that require little or no literacy. China has tried to remedy this by introducing a law in 2002 that forces the Uygur to have education in Chinese. Obviously that will generate its own problems - specially for the Uygurs in remote regions who can't pick up some Chinese words on the streets. It doesn't help either that China is nervous about religion.

I would like it if the Chinese gave the Uygurs and Tibetans their freedom. But - given the minerals, oil and national pride involved - am pessimistic about that. Assimilating those people - as China's government wants - will be a hard struggle.
Since 2002 China has introduced that Uygur children will be educated in Chinese. It will help with the language, but on other fronts it may work alienating.

With massive immigration China is trying to make the Uygurs and Tibetans minorities in their own area. It may work for China in the short run. But on the long run it may hurt China just as the fate of the Indians keeps damaging the reputation of the US.

Some newspapers talk about the Xinjiang as if it would endanger the unity of China. I don't believe so. 10 million Uygurs and 5 Million Tibetans are nothing in a country of 1.3 Billion. When China has fallen apart in the past it was always because the central government was weak and provincial rulers made themselves (semi-)independent. Ethnic divisions didn't play a role in that. China does have have different ethnic groups and languages among the Han Chinese and that has occassionally led to war, but those occasions were rare.

Postscript 1: The NY Times has an article about Chinese immigrants in Xinjiang. They live in a kind of army city that has also defense purposes.