The data was immediately published by the People’s Daily Chinese. A month later, it came out in the English version of the paper, and since then it has been making the rounds of the Western press, with the predictable apocalyptic spin.  Within China, however, the article has failed to spark any significant debate, even though the subject wasn’t censored. It is already positive that the authorities speak openly of this problem, but clearly a different approach is needed to raise awareness and find solutions.

With the help of my sister, pediatrician Dr. Madariaga, I have been comparing data from different primary sources outside and inside China. The CASS data coming from China official statistics turns out to be very consistent with previous outside sources, like the often quoted BMJ study. It is also the most pessimistic of all, and the most politically credible, as the patriotic CASS can hardly be accused of anti-CCP bias.

What follows is my analysis of the existing research from a different perspective. Not to do projections on the future, but to see what these numbers tell us of the Chinese today, and what solutions can be found. The results are shocking, read and judge by yourself:

The Story: A Very Common Occurrence

Today, almost 20% of the pregnancies that happen in China are manipulated using the simple method of ultrasound scan to determine gender, followed by abortion in case it is a female.

Most first time pregnancies are natural, with only a few percent points of manipulations. This makes sense, as the 2nd trimester abortions necessary for sex selection are not without risk for the mother’s reproductive capacity. Most families prefer to assure the first descendant, knowing that if it is a girl they will get a second go anyway.

However, about 50% of the first birth parents (the same 50% who had a girl?) decide to go for a second one. It is here that the gender manipulation happens massively. Around 30% of these families manipulated their pregnancy using the method described, with some provinces like Anhui showing a rate of up to 50% manipulations for second births.

This shows that sex selective abortion is not a minority problem practiced by a few rogue parents. It is a very common occurrence, with large parts of the population and the health sector taking part in it. In spite of the illegalization of ultrasound scans for sex detection in the 90s, it is obvious that a large part of the doctors are colluding with the public to ignore the law. In short, in most parts of China practicing sex selective abortion is extremely easy and extremely common. Practically anyone can do it.

Among these depressing results, here is a positive note: The very fact that the practice is so widespread would mean that government information campaigns can have a very important effect if they are done seriously. On the other hand, supervision and control campaigns are condemned to fail, although some particular measures might be applicable. More on this in “Conclusions” below.

The Numbers

Here is the basis data for the story above. I have used several research papers shown in references. In particular, the research done by the British Medical Journal in 2005 has been one of the most useful. Where possible, I have used the CASS paper because it is more recent, and the data (from the 2009 Statistical Yearbook) should be statistically sounder.

According to CASS, among the registered children below 4 years old, there were 123.26 males per 100 females. It is known that the expected value is around 105/100 females, therefore:

1– According to this ratio, there should be around 117 girls born with those 123 boys. 17 girls are missing, these are pregnancies that have been selectively aborted (about 7% of the total 240).

2- However, to get rid of that 7% of female fetuses, it means that around 14% of the pregnancies actually used ultrasound scans with the intention of aborting. Of this 14%, approx half were male and they proceeded, half were female and they aborted.

3- The ultrasound+abortion properly performed should give close to a 100% success. However, due to the illegality of the method and the lack of resources in many areas of China, I have introduced an efficiency E of 90%±10 to cover errors, cheats, late diagnostics, etc.

Following the steps above, we get the following general formula for the percentage of manipulated pregnancies N, where X is the male/100females ratio, and E is the success rate of sonography+abortion.

N = [(X*100/105 - 100)/(X*205/105)]*205/100E = [(X-105)/X]/E

With this simple formula we can estimate the number of manipulated pregnancies in the different cases provided by the BMJ study (this data is from 2005, for registered births. It is more conservative data than the CASS 0-4 year olds). Here are the numbers I obtain for different cases:

Confidence: Because of the different sources, it is hard to estimate overall confidence parameters. I have taken the following assumptions, and the intervals should be close to the 95% confidence range:

• Natural ratio is 105±2 with a very high confidence rate.
• The Statistical Yearbook table gives 2 decimals precision.
• The BMJ data gives confidence levels of 95%.
• I have taken the E as 90%±10, to cover even the most conservative case where there is a 100% efficiency in the system.

But more than the confidence numbers, the consistency of all the different sources over time strongly backs these results. The  interval on BMJ 1st birth makes this information hardly usable, but for the rest of the lines in the table, the results are significant beyond doubt. In particular, the 2000 census, the BMJ paper and the CASS all confirm main line: Almost 20% of the total pregnancies are gender manipulated.

Unregistered, Adopted, Infanticides and Others

One of the main objections that can be done to this data is that those 7% girls missing from the census 0-4 year olds are not all due to abortion, but to unregistered births (including infanticides, abandonments and children just kept out of the law). Certainly, some part of the N values I am giving corresponds to these occurrences, but it is so small as to be insignificant in the statistics.

Many children from unregistered births trickle back into the stats in the following years, as they register for immunization or schooling purposes. Surprisingly, in all the reference studies we see the sex ratios for 1-4 year olds (and even the 5-9yo) are higher than those of births, showing that late registrations tend to be more boys than girls. This causes the sex ratios at birth used in BMJ to be lower than the 0 to 4 year old values of CASS.

In a country like China it is inconceivable that significant numbers of people live their lives unregistered beyond childhood. To affect the statistics significantly, there would need to be millions of roaming “phantom” girls that have never been asked their IDs, and there would be at least some trace of this.

As for the murder/abandonment option, it simply does not make any ethical or practical sense for any Chinese familiy to do this today. If only because the ultrasound method is much better in any cost/risk calculation. This is the main reason to believe the ultrasound+abortion hypothesis accounts for the practical totality of my missing girls: it is by far the easiest way to do it for any Chinese family.

Sex Selection: How it happens

Form practicing specialists I obtained the information that at 15 weeks of pregnancy it is possible to determine the gender by ultrasound at almost 100% precision. Some research shows that this can be done even as early as 10 weeks, but let’s take the conservative assumption of 15 to account for the technological/legal situation in China. Even with this assumption, there is still largely the time to do a sex selective abortion.

In fact, according to this study by the WHO, virtually all 2nd trimester abortions in China are performed using medical methods. Induction with mifepristone and misoprostol for 10–16 weeks’ gestation, and intra-amniotic administration of ethacridine lactate for of >16 week’s gestation are routine methods in clinical practice in China.

So it is easy to figure out how this works. An ultrasound scan around week 15, followed by a drug induced abortion the same week, probably performed (and billed) by the same doctor for no more than 100$ the whole package. It is unlikely that doctors get much more than that, due to the available resources of the rural population, and the existence of competition. Virtually very hospital and consultation has ultrasound scans, and the numbers speak of a burgeoning sex selection industry.

Abortion in China: The holocaust

There are about 13 million abortions practiced in China every year, for a total of 18 million births. Almost 10% of the total abortions are motivated by gender selection.

Some Western “scientists” like to call this a holocaust of little girls, and they use it to expose the evil of the Chinese system. But we have to look at the problem more closely to understand how it happens, and why so many Chinese families are supposedly “evil”.

Nowadays abortion is freely available in China, and there are no defined time limits for access to the procedure. Sex selection is forbidden in theory, but in practice there is no way to know the motives of a person requesting an abortion. Certainly, sex selective abortion is a massive problem in the aggregate, but from the point of view of a single individual, it is not necessarily more “wrong” than other cases of abortion.

In fact, from a purely ethical point of view, it is not clear that most common reasons for abortion are any sounder than gender selection. Many Chinese peasants practicing this have serious economic and subsistence reasons to prefer a boy. How does this compare with other common cases, such as: because the time is not convenient, because the parents want to study, because they just couldn’t be asked to use contraception.

People with religious or ethical beliefs have all the right to call this a holocaust. But in all honesty they should include in the count most of the 13 million of Chinese abortions, as well as most of the abortions practiced in the West. Or is the destruction of a fetus any less wrong when its gender is not known?

It is about time China reduces its rate of abortions, but this is a different problem that has little to do with gender selection.

Why Prohibition is Completely Useless

The Chinese government forbid in the 90s the use of ultrasound for the purpose of gender assignment, in order to curb the growing trend of gender selection. In fact, it is the popularization of cheap ultrasound devices in the 90s, rather than the single child policy, which has been the main driver of the problem.

The problem with ultrasound scans is that they is an important diagnosis tool, and the devices themselves cannot be banned. As we have seen, abortions without a justified reason are not forbidden either. So what IS forbidden? Here is the reason why the law never worked and will never work: what is forbidden is to transmit information.

Information is famously the single most difficult thing to keep under control, and this is the basic element of information, a bit, boy or girl. It can be transmitted with the raising of an eyebrow. Considering the economic incentives, the large number of doctors who have access to the machines, the existing demand, the lack of a social conscience of the problem, the impossibility to prove the crime… one cannot imagine for a moment that this Prohibition can ever have any effect in China.

If the worrying trend shown in the graphs is going to be stopped, it will most certainly not be through prohibition. But see below are some alternative ideas that may work.

Conclusion and Some Ideas for the Government

Unfortunately, most of the articles published about this are concerned with either exposing CCP’s policies, or else drawing spectacular scenarios of the future. The goal of this post is just to analyze the existing research from a different perspective, looking at this serious problem from the side of its protagonists. This is part of my old quest to understand the Chinese people.

By looking at the other side of the problem, we have found some results that are shocking, even for Chinese readers. The reaction of disbelief I have seen in Shanghai friends, as well as the little debate existing on the internet even after an official source wrote about it, all illustrate the the low social awareness of this problem. I hope my results can be useful to increase this awareness, and in the meantime here is my little contribution to figure out effective policies:

1- Communication Campaigns: We have seen banning does not work, and no efforts by the central government is going to change this in the short term. On the other hand, because of the large proportions of the phenomenon in society, a vigorous information campaign is likely to have a strong effect amongst the least convinced of the “selectionist” parents and doctors. A massive long term campaign is needed, including films, adverts, sponsoring television characters, etc. to create a negative perception of gender selection. More importantly, the campaign should highlight the advantages of having a girl in China, which are rapidly growing as the gender imbalance makes females more demanded.

2- Abortion Controls: Nobody can know if the motivation behind an abortion is gender selection or not. But what is sure is that practically all gender selection abortions occur after the 12th (probably 15th) week. In the frame of a general move to lighten the restrictions of the single child policy, the introduction of restrictive conditions for late abortions would  have an important effect in dissuading sex selective behaviors, apart from avoiding risks for pregnant women and other misuses of abortion. This should be accompanied by campaigns to promote contraception to avoid a sudden spike in fertility.

I wish someone inside the Chinese Government reads these points and considers them urgently, for the sake of China and the World. And please, speak about it, let everyone be aware of the problem, encourage debate. Not censoring is already a good step, but active measures should be taken as well to promote discussion. This is a problem that can never be solved by the authorities alone. Involve the people!

If you have some other suggestions, or else some question/correction, please leave them in comments.

References

• China’s excess males, sex selective abortion, and one child policy: analysis of data from 2005 national intercensus survey – BMJ
• Sex Ratios at Birth in China – CEPED-CICRED-INED
• CASS 中国2011-2015年期间需要关注的人口问题 – 2010 Social Blue Paper
• CASS 2010 Blue Paper Index – 2010 Social Blue Paper
• The worldwide war on baby girls – The Economist
• Abortion Laws Around the Word – Pew Forum
• Sonographic early fetal gender assignment, by V Mazza – 2001
• Surgical vs medical methods for second-trimester induced abortion-WHO
• 1 in 5 marriage age Chinese men to remain bachelors… – People’s Daily
• Abortion statistics cause for concern – China Daily
• Statistics China – UNICEF

1. for a simple introduction to the problem of gender imbalance in China and its potential consequences you can read this article from the Economist

This little piece by historian Hong Zhenkuai has been taken down from the Southern Metropolis, but it has managed to escape the censors on some other sites. I liked the subtle way Hong criticizes the reigning CCP dynasty, and the cool Chinese rendering of “L’Etat c’est moi” as “朕即国家“.

Since I don’t have the time for Language Thursdays today, I have done this bit of translation work:

The French Bourbon king Louis XIV reportedly said “L’etat c’est moi” [1]. Even if all the World’s sovereigns love autocracy, few of them would say it so openly. Louis XIV ruled from 1643 to 1715, the same period as China’s Kangxi. Kangxi’s thought was probably not unlike “L’etat c’est moi”, but clearly he had more “wisdom with Chinese characteristics” than Louis XIV – he did a lot of “humane actions”, thus earning a reputation of humane Lord while still ruling as a dictator.

In the ideas of the Sovereign People, the sovereignty belongs to the people and it is not “L’Etat c’est moi” but rather “L’Etat is us“. Of course this kind of ideas only appeared after Louis XIV’s death. In his age there were not many in the World who could tell the difference between the notions of sovereign, government and State. In China, even if the pre-Qin philosopher Mencius said: “first the people, then the State then the  monarch”, in fact in the 2000+ years since the Qin and the Han, Patriotism has meant Loyalty to the Monarch, and these two concepts are muddled.

Only after the Western ideas arrived, some Chinese people started little by little to acquire a modern understanding of the notions of government, country and monarch. Among them Liang Qichao was first. He arrived to these conclusions during his experience in exile after the failure of the 1898 reforms.

Liang said that China was accumulating weakness, one of the causes being that the Chinese people could not distinguish between State and Dynasty, to the point that the patriotic spirit was not aimed at the right target[...] China has a long history, the Tang, Yu, Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, Chen, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing [2] are “all names of dynasties, not of States”. From the Yin named Shang, to the Ji named Zhou, to the Ying named Qin, to the Liu named Han, to the Li named Tang, to the Zhao named Song, to the Zhu named Ming, [3]; and also the Mongol Yuan and the Manchu Qing; all of them were family clans, not proper States. They were private operations run by a family clan and not a common asset of all the Chinese people. And yet the Chinese people frequently confuse Dynasty with State, as Liang Qichao said, and this is their big weakness.

Of the bad consequences of not differentiating between State and Dynasty, the most obvious is that Patriotism becomes Love for a Dynasty, or even Love for the Leader. Liang Qichao said: “Our long history shows, the famous officials and generals [...] [4].” Those characters in our long history, they killed people for one family clan, they did their hard efforts to acquire position and wealth, this has nothing to do with patriotism. But it was raised as a model of “patriotism” by each of the dynasties, and the people, since they cannot distinguish dynasty from State, they continue to praise and respect them. Truly lamentable.

A bit later than Liang, Chen DuXiu wrote a piece with title “Should we be patriotic or not?”, in the text it says: “To ask whether we should be patriotic or not, first we have to ask what is the State. Originally it is nothing but a group of people organized to resist the attacks of others from outside, and to harmonize the disputes of the people inside. Good people use it to defend against oppression outside and harmonize disputes inside, bad people use it to oppress the peoples both outside and inside. Therefore if someone asks: “should we be patriotic or not?” we will answer in a loud voice: “We love our country, the one that seeks happiness for the people, and not the one for which the people have to sacrifice”

The functions of a State, according to Chen DuXiu are: To defend against outside oppression, and to harmonize internal disputes. The former is towards the outside, the latter towards the inside. Harmonizing disputes is only the passive side, the State must also actively pursue public policies like preventing and providing relief against natural disasters.

The functions of a State should be performed by the government. If the government can do these functions, then the State is “seeking happiness for the people”; if not, then it becomes “the State for which the people sacrifice”. In human history the most common in practice is that the government cannot fulfill the State’s functions, or else it does them poorly. In this case it can appear that government equals no government. Or that government is even worse than no government.

Because of its geography China is a country where draughts and floods occur frequently. There are statistics that show that in the 2270 years before the Republic [pre-1911],there were 1392 officially reported draughts, and 1621 officially reported floods. It can be seen that every year there was some disaster. Because of this, one of the main functions of the Chinese government in the old times was to lead the defense against natural disasters, it can be said that this is one of the bases of the legitimacy of the government, and the emperors paid a lot of attention to these phenomena.

The emperor Qing even required the high officials in the provinces to timely inform of the rainfall, harvest, grain prices, etc. to understand the situation and so in case of a disaster to be able to offer immediate assistance and/or reduce the taxes in the affected regions. But looking at history, very often the people received no help. And in the case of large scale disasters, when the government could not offer assistance, the people had to face the risks and take action to survive. Like Li Zicheng who led the peasant revolt in the end of the Qing. His main actions where in Shaanxi and Henan, because there was a big draught there and the Ming government could not organize effective assistance. This force the victims to become roaming people, and ultimately a violent mob.

In any society there are some large tasks that involving many people, so there is no way any organization can do them other than the government. If the government cannot perform its responsibilities, the society becomes unruly, and the the public interest suffers. For example, food safety, public health, protection of the environment, this kind of affairs need to be taken charge of by the government.

In the development of human societies, this problem has been encountered for a long time: the people need the government but the government cannot live up to their expectations, protect them against outside menace or provide internal services. In many cases it even evolves into an organization that infringes on the people’s rights.

To make the government do its task diligently, the people needs to have the right to supervise the government, and the most effective way is to elect the government by voting. The people needs to understand what is common sense – that is, as Liang Qichao said, that the State is not the dynasty (government). The dynasty can be changed for the survival of the State. What the people should love is their country, and not the dynasty.

Hong Zhenkuai  Historian

1. meaning the State is me
2. it is cool how all the history of China fits in one single line of dynasties: 唐虞夏商周秦汉魏晋宋齐梁陈隋唐宋元明清, I guess we should add 国共 in the end, for the KMT and the CCP dynasties of the XX century
3. all these are the original surnames of the families that were behind each dynasty
4. follows rant against the old patriotic heroes, this is old Chinese someone help me translate: 试观二十四史所载，名臣名将，功业懿铄、声名彪炳者，舍翊助朝廷一姓之外，有所事事乎？其为我国民增一分之利益、完一分之义务乎？而全国人民顾啧啧焉称之曰：此我国之英雄也。夫以一姓之家奴走狗，而冒一国英雄之名，国家之辱，莫此甚也！乃至舍家奴走狗之外，而数千年几无可称道之人，国民之耻，更何如也！而我国四万万同胞，顾未尝以为辱焉，以为耻焉，则以误认朝廷为国家之理想，深入膏肓而不自知也。

Here is an update to yesterday’s review of Han Han, with some additional info about the Time nomination, which might be more important than it appears at first sight.

Then, if you stay till the end of this chapter, we will put on the yellow socks to analyze a bit more that terrible scourge of our times: the Ulterior Motives. This is for the benefit of all the puppet journalists and researchers who enjoy using that phrase, please pay attention.

The comments today come in the form of title-paragraphs, to allow for easy skimming:

1- The rules of the Time 100 are often misunderstood and heavily criticized, especially after internet star moot hacked the online poll last year and turned it into a joke. However, what you should keep in mind is that the internet poll only selects one of the members of the Time 100 list. That is, only the top person in the online poll makes it into the final official list, and in the position that Time editors decide. To be fair, it does make sense to include at least this one person from the poll, as it is representative of online mobilization power (when it is not hacked).

2- The fairness of the Time 100 is often put in doubt, and for good reason since ultimately it is nothing but the personal views of some magazine editors. And so what? The Peace Nobel is also an undemocratic selection by some random Norwegian wise men, and I would expect top Time magazine journalists to be better informed in World affairs than them. This is as fair as it gets for a list of influence.

3- The importance of the List: Like the Nobel, the list is important only because people give it importance. When it comes out it is read and commented by millions around the World. Many in America know Rain, the Korean star, just because he was voted high in the Time poll by a concentrated base of Korean fans. Now Rain is an international figure, what will happen if Han gets the same status? His independent view of China may be heard outside, and a full generation of Chinese people will have a channel to the World. This is a bit optimistic, I know, but there is a lot of potential if Han plays it well.

4- The chances of Han Han to win are very high if he really wants to. Supposing this year Time protects the poll against hackers, the number of votes necessary to win will not be much higher than 2 million. With an average of 1 million readers for any single post he writes, Han could easily mobilize enough people to storm the list if he campaigns for it. On the other hand, I am not sure he really wants to go that way. To be elected by others for a foreign listing is one thing, but to actively promote himself for it might raise future accusations of Ulterior Motives.

The Ulterior motives

And as promised above, here is my essay on Ulterior Motives. In case you are not aware, Ulterior Motives (usually translated from the Chinese 别有用心 or 别有用意) is a stock phrase that the Party and attached mouthpiece press uses to criticize people they don’t like. It has become so pervasive that it is like a CCP meme, similar to the famous classic “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people”. Most of the times, the “Ulterior” refers to American interests, and this hideous phrase is used to mobilize nationalistic feelings and pave the way for future charges of subversion.

This phrase wouldn’t be so revolting if it was only heard from Xinhua and the People’s Daily. After all, every government uses the patriotic trick to mobilize the masses, and lying is part of the routine of most politicians. But what is really disgusting of Ulterior Motives is that it has spread widely in society, to the point that even the work of intelligent people, like Lian Si, is polluted by it. Not to mention accomplished idiots like that guy who writes for the Shanghai Daily.

The allusion in “Ulterior Motives” is sickening because of the smug, self satisfied tone used to smear the victim, but it is more than that. It  is also low and cowardly, as it doesn’t dare to speak out the words.

So dear incompetent puppets, please listen up. If you are going to accuse someone of Ulterior Motives you should at least have the guts to specify what those motives are. “Ulterior” in general is meaningless, life is a complex phenomenon and all actions have multiple motivations. You need to list them out and offer some proof so that the reader can make up his mind.

To help you understand better, find here below 2 examples of how the Ulterior Motives are treated when you have what it takes to write it out. I will give you one from each side, to be completely fair:

1- The USA sent its Army to Irak to murder thousands of great innocent people for the main ulterior motives of serving its own political/economical interests AND to satisfy a base craving for revenge in a large part of the American public.

2- The CCP leaders imprisoned people like Liu XiaoBo or Xu Zhiyong for the main ulterior motives of eliminating any potential challenge to their own personal position of power and wealth.

So you see, it is easy to do. Either you go and mention what you are speaking about, or else just STFU. Unspoken accusations stink.

Han Han has been nominated for the Time’s most Influential People, and pushed by the millions of Chinese netizens, he is quickly ascending to a likely Number 1. Xujun Eberlein has done a good analysis of the situation, particularly the disgusting way that the People’s Daily and the Shanghai Daily are trying to downplay and oppose Han Han’s election – and ironically helping him to get more votes.

I found the article on Shanghai Daily revolting. The one on the PD is so obviously unprofessional that it’s harmless, after all this is not a real newspaper. But the ShD, what is wrong with these people? What orders are they following from above, to cast Han in this light? The critique by R. Zhou we commented last year was at least intelligent and it had a point, but this clown writing on the ShD sounds like a clueless mouthpiece at the service of the party.

First of all, regarding the books, everybody knows that Han is not doing great literature. For the outside World, his work is largely untranslatable and devoid of meaning, which explains why he is not known in the West. But even for the Chinese readers he has little to offer today. His most successful novel is a juvenile rant packed with High School inside jokes that are only funny for spotty teenagers. His initial critique of the education system was sharp and well-aimed, but since then he has failed to develop into an adult author.

And yet, it is not fair to judge Han for the books.  The publishing business in China is heavily controlled, and it would be impossible for him to publish anything real, now that his target has shifted to politics. Reading his blog it becomes obvious that it’s there that you find the true Han Han today, the books looking more and more like a filler to provide income or support his reputation.

As a blogger, Han is honest and talented, and I observe he is slowly moving from small-time cadre-picking and internet-meme recitation into valuable political commentary. Two of his recent posts can serve as example: this one where he goes against the very Chinese idea of trusting the higher authorities and blaming the local ones – a phenomenon he has unwittingly nourished himself. The second one, and my favourite up to now is this post translated by the CDT. His position regarding East and West is inspiring, and as far as I know it is a first in Han.

This Time nomination can be an inflection point. We could sense it coming, as these past months a few major Western papers covered Han prominently. After the initial faux pas last year it looks like he  has done his homework, but his position is complicated. He has to find a place to live between his previous teenager couldn’t care less attitude, and an open engagement with the West that would destroy him in China.

The uniqueness of Han Han as a  political critic is partly due to this positioning. He is the only major dissident that is clearly independent of Western ideological pressure as much as of the CCP’s. This, together with his very concentrated post-80s fan base, gives him enormous strength, and he is intelligent enough not to spoil it by crossing the line, instead pushing bravely on the limits. This is why the insinuation by that Shanghai Daily idiot that he may have “ulterior motives” [1] is cowardly and low, and it shows that the heavy propaganda machinery might be moving already.

The obvious reason why the media is sending bombs in Han’s direction is that the party is  nervous about him. He is uncontrollable and he is getting way too much power, now attracting foreign attention that he didn’t use to have. It will be tough to take him down when the time comes, because there is no evidence of  ”ulteriority” in his actions up to now. But the first accusations  are coming to the press, and there will be growing attempts to frame Han.

In conclusion, it is a great thing that Han has been nominated, and I am pretty confident that the Chinese netizens will vote him up to N1. From our side in the West, we should give him some more breathing space, and a lot more credit for what he is doing. He is pushing a line that few in his position would dare touch, and he has far more potential to be effective than all the dissidents working with the West.

As we already saw here, our media has a terrible habit of  demanding dead heroes for the Western public, and they will soon want more blood. But Han has always been a free man. Here is to hoping he’ll find his own way between the traps of the Party and the righteous Western establishment.

1. “ulterior motives” is the repugnant and tired phrase that the propaganda bureau uses to accuse dissidents that have some help from the West, attempting to mobilize nationalist sentiment against them, as we saw it also recently in my review of the books Ant Tribe

Well, for those who doubted, here you have the proof. Get the solid worldwide reputation of Google Inc. for non-evilness, add an American president that enjoys public support in almost every corner of the World, and you can assemble a Megaton soft bomb with the power to break through all the conventions of international politics. That is exactly what Google’s actions represent today, and for the time being they are obtaining the expected support outside of China.

While at first some observers interpreted the Hong Kong move as a face saving one, I think after Brin’s appeal to Obama today there is little doubt that this was not the case. What is probably even worse from the CCP’s perspective is the direct link set up today on Google HK to Drummond’s blog post in Chinese. Up to now only a few Chinese activists had bothered to read the message, now every single Google.cn user is sent there. Google is attempting to speak directly to the people of China, bypassing the channels of the government, how is that for a detonator?
This is the kind of action that only a company like Google could risk, and only a government like Obama’s could support without lifting suspicions all around the World. It is a completely new approach to international politics where a company now is not only pushing for political goals, but even addressing peoples and governments directly as an equal. Any company in the World acting like this would get a severe rebuke from its own government, but I doubt that this will be the case for Google.

It does not work like this

I have been quite negative about Google’s actions ever since this “New Approach” started in January. Unlike other critics, I don’t doubt the sincerity of Google’s leaders or the goodness of their objective. On the contrary, I am convinced that this is a deliberate personal move by Google’s leaders to do their real significant bit while they are still in time, before they lose full control of the corporation. With the growth of Google this is bound to happen soon, and both Page and Brin have announced the sale of a good chunk of their shares this year.

But my reasons to be against Google’s plan are much more simple than that. It is just that I think it will not work.

I readily admit that I might be wrong, indeed I hope so, this is a completely new approach and nobody has all the certainty. But from my observation of China in the last few years, I can’t see how the plan might work. The government will try to avoid a scene, and it is possible that for a while Google will remain unblocked. But sooner or later the CCP is going to have them pay for this, the door has been left wide open for another call to patriotism, and the consequences will be bad for the Chinese and for the internet.

A problem of principles

In fact, even if the outcome turns out to be good, I am not comfortable with the principle of Google’s actions. It is a principle of moral superiority, the old story of Western people going to different continents and killing as many as they could to save them from the wrong faith. It is based on the boundless Western hypocrisy that allows us even today to commit some of the worst crimes in the World while proudly walking under the banner of human rights.

Granted, Google’s bomb is a soft one and it does not kill people, my parallel only goes so far. But if we look at the recent history of China, we will see that the Chinese today are far better off than they were at any other time of  the last century, including when the West had power over them. And surprisingly enough, whatever freedom and progress the Chinese have today was not achieved through ultimatums or moralizing stances. On the contrary, it was achieved by the patient work of millions of Chinese who sincerely care about their country.

And those people didn’t manage it alone, together with them there are also thousands of foreigners like me who have been working here for years, helping China develop its technologies, teaching English to the Chinese, dealing with the authorities and getting our hands “dirty” with things like the Olympics or the Expo. Events that the righteous minds in the West thought they should have never been given to the Chinese, because they don’t share our true faith.

I am convinced that this is the right way to develop China and the rest of the World, helping them out on the daily hard work, and avoiding righteous heroes that take us nowhere. And in spite of all the times I have had to swallow my pride and take what came from the Chinese authorities, when I speak with most of the Chinese around me I don’t see suffering and oppression, but hope in the future. That is the best sign that we are doing it right. Let’s be patient.

This is the continuation of the previous post in the series, where we ended up rambling off the main topic and into a thick soup of political terms. Today I am back to impose some discipline. The article was meant to be about sex, and sex we will do. Just stick around for a few paragraphs of theory, or scroll right down to the examples if you prefer.

The question we considered last time was: why communist regimes, most of which have abolished religion at some point, are in fact among the most puritan countries regarding porn? Which can be otherwise formulated: why are Chinese commies so prudish? With the ever growing impulse of the porn censoring machine, this may well become one of the fundamental questions to understand modern China.

My take on the question

One obvious answer is that prudishness is not strictly related to religion, but rather to the character of a society and its leaders. You only need to see the thousands of starched black-suited cadres participating in the NPC, looking exactly like their CCP ancestors preserved in formol, to realize that the leadership of the party is overwhelmingly conservative. And it is perfectly normal that they should be conservative, since the main objective of the CCP today is harmony and maintaining the status quo.

But this short answer is not completely satisfying at least in two ways. First, the Chinese communists were already prudish long before 1949, according to first hand accounts of their life in Shaanxi. Besides, conservative people as described above are focused on following the path of their predecessors, they wouldn’t have such a problem with porn if it hadn’t been condemned by the party founders in the first place.

A better answer to my question is that, contrary to some common believe probably spread by Cold War propagandists in the West, communist was never about having sex in common. Instead, it is a very boring economic theory written by a German philosopher, more concerned with the proletariat and the means of production than with naked calisthenics.

When it came to its practical application, most communist countries soon realized that the theory required extreme levels of pressure and discipline on the “proletariat” to ensure it behaved according to plan. Sexual freedom and lewd behaviours have never fitted well with discipline, as Mao himself knew very well. Not only they divert energy from the revolution, but they also promote individualism and conflict among men. In fact, one might argue that a market phenomenon like porn will always be more comfortable with Smith’s Invisible Hand, wherever this hand might have used to wander in its free time.

In China in particular, the case for suppression of lewd behaviours was even stronger than in other communist regimes. This is because the old society that communists were set to destroy was characterized precisely by the exploitation of women by men, and of all by aristocrats and capitalists. From feet-binding to concubines, an important part of the injustice in pre-revolutionary China was directly caused by the lust of the powerful, as illustrated in works like Pearl Buck’s classic  ”The Good Earth“.

Maoism emphasized the “purity” of thought and criminalized those behaviours that were inevitably tied to the old society, both for practical discipline reasons and as a matter of necessary consistency with his rhetoric of liberation from the feudal society, especially in the early days. Some interesting anecdotes of Mao’s initial crackdown on prostitution after taking Beijing are told in the excellent “Peking Story” by David Kidd.

This legacy of communist policies has still a deep influence on the conservative minded cadres that rule the party today, and it will probably take a few more generations of leaders before the party changes its views on porn and “unhealthy” content in China.

Conclusion and some examples of Chinese Porn

One of the main reasons I needed to write this post is that the crackdown on porn doesn’t make much sense from a pure “follow the money” perspective. Porn, just like prostitution, is a huge parallel market, and like all shady businesses everywhere it is a great source of revenue for the powerful who protect it. The links between prostitution and the army are well known in China, and there should be strong economic motivations to establish similar links with online sex providers. I hope this post explains why this is not happening.

As I already clarified in part 1 of this series, I don’t really give a damn for the companies that run pornographic sites, and I am just as happy if they all get banned in China. I think Western netizens waste way too much effort in such basic pursuits as could be fulfilled better offline, to the point that porn has become the first commodity on the internet. For a self-confessed internetholic like me, it has always been a source of embarrassment when offline people link both concepts together.

Regarding the consequences of these restrictions on porn in China, some commentators suggest they lead to frustration and an increased obsession with erotic content on the internet. While this obsession is certainly there, I don’t see it is any worse than in the West. In fact, in many ways it seems healthier, judging by the email forwards I regularly get from my (male) colleagues. The pictures that are popular  in China often show a cute girl, fully or at least half dressed, smiling for the camera. In contrast, the ppts I receive from the West rarely involve just a girl, or even a human being. They tend to cover a range of sick scenarios that you surely do not want to explore clicking here.

But enough with the theory. Have you ever seen porn done with Real Characters?

Here I leave you with the most amazing examples of Chinese porn that have still not been banned from the internet!

Young lady performs blog job on fat headed man

A well endowed guy doing missionary in China

Close up of the action in figure 1…. gross!

.

And finally, to illustrate the social problems caused by the use of lewd content and the dissolute behaviours that necessarily follow, here is the little story of Mr. Ren. For those who don’t understand classical Chinese, the story tells how the man goes out with his young lover, while his wife is waiting at home wondering why he is so late:

Mr. Ren out with his lover.

.

And in the following chapter, we see the beneficial action of Chinese officials devotedly working for the revolution, selflessly monopolizing all the available lovers to ensure that married men return to their families, thereby preserving social harmony.

Mr. Ren happily reunited with his family again

.

I hope my little character stories will not hurt the feelings of the Chinese people too much. Now please scroll back up again and read the main part of the post. What do you think of the explanation? Alternative theories?

.

It looks like Charles over at the new China Divide blog has found a new source of clicks to revive the China blogging scene: debating the crackdown on pornography in China.

While I don’t usually support any kind of censorship, I have to say I couldn’t care less for the cause of porn in China. From what I have seen, sex peddlers are the most disgraceful, spammy, virus-ridden and generally useless sites of the internet, and they distract netizens from doing more important things like reading my blog. You can be sure that you won’t find me in the ranks of the protesters when those websites get banned.

There is however a more important problem with banning porn, and it is that the definition of the Chinese authorities goes way further than what we usually understand as pornography. It applies to some wonderful works of art, including films such as An Lee’s Lust and Caution, or this great TV serial and book by Liu Liu. It is used to marginalize some excellent artists like Tang Wei, and in general it contributes to further stifle the creativity of the Chinese literary and artistic scene.

To be sure, many times the banning of “unhealthy” content is just an excuse to get rid of dissidents or to justify protectionist policies. But generally speaking, when Chinese authorities act against porn it is out of a genuine ethical concern. And here is where I see a more interesting angle to the discussion, linking up to the question I asked last year in the post about TV serials and communist ethics: why are the commies so prudish?

From my experience living in various communist and ex-communist countries, I conclude that this is not a strictly Chinese phenomenon. In fact, it is not even a communist phenomenon, but rather a common characteristic of conservative people everywhere. I maintain that the reason why erotic content is banned in China is just that the CCP is an extremely conservative organization, and as all conservatives everywhere they abhor public displays of sex, even if in private they might think nothing of going to the brothel 5 times a week.

Why then, do conservatives tend to have this particular attitude in common towards sex? And in particular, why are communist regimes, all of which abolished religion, at the forefront of sex related puritanism?

The Red Conservatives

First of all, I want to add here a definition of conservatives, just to avoid having the whole discussion turn around the meaning of a word. Like most political terms, this one can have different meanings in different places. The meaning I use for this post is one that I think is most intuitive and understood internationally. From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Political attitude or ideology denoting a preference for institutions and practices that have evolved historically and are thus manifestations of continuity and stability. It was first expressed in the modern era through the works of Edmund Burke in reaction to the French Revolution, which Burke believed tarnished its ideals through its excesses. Conservatives believe that the implementation of change should be minimal and gradual; they appreciate history and are more realistic than idealistic.

In the case of communist countries like China it is always complicated to use the normal political terms of conservative/progressive, or right/left. The reason is that during 1949-1978 the paradigm was changed, and the old conservatives were exterminated. As a consequence, a  “new country” was created from zero, so for the purpose of Chinese political life, the “institutions and practices that have evolved historically” only count as defined in the history of the Communist Party. And the conservatives in China tend to be communist.

This phenomenon is hardly unique. It follows the logic of revolutionary movements everywhere obtaining mainstream power: their focus suddenly shifts from “changing the world” to “maintaining the status quo”, and conservative mindsets normally take control.

It is hardly necessary to explain this to anyone who has lived in China, but I have the feeling that some Americans still find it strange to call a communist regime “conservative”. If you think all this is just intellectual blabber, you are missing the point. The supporters of the CCP are genuinely conservative people and they behave exactly as you would expect from a conservative elsewhere.

From my conversations with some passionate young men in the CCP, and my long chats in the internet-less nights of North Korea, I have a reasonable understanding of what moves those convinced “communists”: they dislike foreign influence and they attach an absurd importance to nationality and ethnicity; they are averse to anything that sounds like free thinking or questioning of the old ideas; they like to marry traditional girls, pretty by the old canons, who don’t wear mini-skirts or speak too much in public; they don’t like homosexual people and they are quick to call “whore” when a girl behaves exactly like many men do.

The tragedy is that these conservative people will never be able to connect with their counterparts in America, because both sides are still bound by their own religious and Cold War rethoric. Someone should invent a party with the slogan like: Conservatives of the World, unite!

A soup of political terms

I am going to have to cut this here for today, because my new blogging policies don’t let me do more than 1000 words per post. We will continue in the next one, but before I finish I want to mention the very interesting problem of political terms in China.

Due to the reversal of paradigms mentioned above, there is still a good deal of confusion in the West about which English words should be used to name the different ideologies in a communist country. I am no scholar in Chinese politics, but from the books I have read on the subject (including academic works like Victor Shih’s) I get the impression that the terms are not standardized. The only book I have seen that attempts to do a taxonomy is the little manual: “What does China Think” by Mark Leonard.

I am hoping that someone will lend me a hand here and point me to some other resource where I can look this up. In the meantime, from what I remember of that book and my own initiative, the main denominations go as below:

Old Left: Hardliners in the CPP who want to revive Maoism. Contrary to the West, these lefties are actually very conservative people.

Old Right: Admirers of Taiwan and the KMT, practically invisible in the mainland today. I never met one, so not sure if they are conservative characters or not. I assume many members of the FLG would respond to this description.

New Left: Politicians like the Prime Minister Wen, who push for more social policies, equal distribution of the wealth, etc, within the rule of the CCP. The mindset is still conservative, but less than the Old Left.

New Right: Politicians, thinkers and some business sharks inspired in Deng Xiaoping’s “get rich first” who want to give priority to the coastal regions and build a ruthless capitalist system. They don’t have any mindset because they are too busy getting rich first, and they don’t care about political ideology as long as their cats catch mice.

Right Left: This is my own dysfunctional term to include people like Xu Zhiyong or Liu Xiaobo, as well as some within the CCP who call for political reform, democracy and civil rights. Many of them are not dissidents, but just brave party members who dare to raise their voice. These are the only ones that respond to the idea I have of “progressive” mindset.

What do you think of this terminology?

NOTE: This list is not meant to be taken as reference, but rather to invite participation, please do propose any term you want, or point me to some good read about modern Chinese politics. For those who came here to find some sex, please come back tomorrow when I will continue with the main subject of the post and I will attach SEXUALLY EXPLICIT IMAGES of Chinese. Have a nice day.

The Oriental Morning Post of Shanghai is doing a nice coverage of the annual NPC-CPPCC meetings. I liked today’s paper edition, which carries a couple of cute alpacas right next to a picture of Hu and the boys walking down the aisle from the CPPCC they’ve just inaugurated.

It is a long story for those that haven’t been watching, but these lovely animals on the top left have come to mean a rude invective in Chinese, and one wonders if there is not a young malicious editor in the paper doing the front page layout. Because I mean, the news that “Alpacas cost  5,000 EUR in the animal fair” is hardly top front page material today, is it?

Anyway, this time of the year has come again and here is the Double Rubber Stamps Fair, or 两会, invading all the Chinese media. Yesterday I even watched the inauguration on CCTV, heroically exercising my listening skills with what is arguably the most boring political event of the year. In case you missed it, imagine a massive Madame Tussauds with thousands of figures where every one of them looks exactly the same as the next and sits in the same position. Add to this a brief performance of the national hymn and there you go,  开幕了！

Even if it is widely recognized that the 两会 has little political power, and that important decisions are taken beforehand by other organs, the show is still important for China watchers, as many policies are announced at this time. In theory this is an act in which the People (through the regional representatives that attend the meetings) propose new ideas to the Government. In this spirit, other channels have been opened recently, like the internet chats of Wen Jiabao.

This year we even have what looks like an independent initiative by private newspapers and websites to change the hukou system. Although I am skeptical that the proposal will fly (some of the articles have already been censored) it is good to see that private initiative is alive and that there is still some bit left of independent journalism in China bold enough to unite and propose policy changes.

The Oriental Post also carries a little interview with one of the most thundering delegates of the 两会, Ms. Zhang Xiaomei. This delegate was very popular on the internet last year as an ultraprolific drafter of astounding proposals. Some netizens worry that this year, as all the delegates have been equipped with free laptops (with taxpayer money!) Zhang’s performance will be enhanced, and the number of thunders may even exceed that of the previous years.

Here are some of the famous proposals of Ms. Zhang, many of them look like what left wing, feminist groups would propose in Europe. It is understandable that many netizens are skeptical: it is all a show giving a fake impression of political freedom that is in fact inexistent. But my personal opinion is that, whatever the real intentions of Ms. Zhang and the thunder delegates, it is always positive that there are people with the initiative to propose different views. Absurd or not, this activity is certainly a more positive image than the submissive wax figures of the inaugural sessions.

As Xu Zhiyong stated yesterday, the Chinese people have a mission to accomplish. When the time comes, the existence of an active civil society will be precious for China, and initiatives like mentioned above are a good sign that the spirit is alive under the surface.

And that is all for the inauguration of the 两会 this year. More coverage if necessary after the final conclusive session.

CLARIFICATION: The inauguration I watched yesterday was only that of the CPPCC, the NPC has a separate inauguration on Friday which will be even more grandiose, as it is the largest one with all the regional delegations.  Don’t not miss that one!

In World politics time is measured in decades, and many will call the 00s the decade of China. It is just a simplification, these 10 years are nothing but part of a longer process started in 78, and probably still ongoing for another decade more. And yet, if we have to choose one event that marked the decade in World politics, like the end of the Cold War marked the 90s, the rise of China is the most reasonable choice. No other event is likely to be be more decisive in the history of the World.

In the first post of this Year End edition we proved that, within the general growing trend of the decade, 2008 was a peak for China’s presence in the World media, and 2009 has gone back to relatively normal levels. This peak cannot hide the general trend: that China is growing inexorably to become a World superpower and that it is already changing the power balance of humanity.

Measuring the Chinese decade

If we have to chose one single parameter to measure this rise, it is the economy that can give us the best clue. There is no point in going to the decimals when analyzing decade trends, so the calculation is simple: China has grown roughly 7% faster than Western countries in the last decade, and all seems to indicate that this will continue into the 10s.

The calculation* is straightforward:  1.07^10 = 2

At a rate of 7% differential a year, the size of China’s economy relative to the Western economies is doubling every decade. Today most estimates of GDP place China between 1/4 and 1/2 of the USA economy, depending if it is measured in nominal GDP or in PPP. This means that, if nothing else changes in the next decade, Chinese economy will be the biggest in the World anytime between 2020 and 2030.

The consequences of this calculation are enormous, and they are already operating today. That is because in politics we behave like in the stock market: decisions are made taking into account the foreseeable future rather than the present. China is already displacing the EU in World politics, even if it is a fraction of the European economy, even if it doesn’t want to be the protagonist. The media and the politicians are betting on the future value of China.

The Question of the Decade

Of course, nothing guarantees that the growth patterns of the 00s will continue in the 10s. There is one important school of thought that insists on the unsustainability of the Chinese system. They mention corruption, growing inequality, lack of civil rights and a civil society, repression of creativity and free market, the inability to build World class brands and a financial system in disarray, among other problems, to justify their prediction that sooner or later the Chinese economy is bound to crumble.

Those of us who live and work in China know that these problems are serious and very real, and that somewhere down the line there is bound to be a serious readjustment. And yet, the same predictions have been made regularly almost every year in the last three decades, and the collapse has not materialized.

The real question of this decade is When?

Will the Chinese economy stop growing before or after it has become a superpower as large as the USA? Will the Chinese seriously demand more rights and liberties before or after China has become a developed country? Will the economic and political readjustments be done progressively with the new generation of Chinese leaders, or will there be a dangerous explosion in this decade?

We don’t have the answers to this today, and you should not believe any China expert who claims to have them. All we can do is frame the question above, and watch out for early signs to answer it in the coming years.

There is however one statement we can make today. Looking at the World, it is obvious that many important players are already betting on the rise of China, and this view is gathering more support every year. As we have seen above, to the extent that the majority in the World believes in the superpower scenario, China is ALREADY a superpower. The political power comes years in advance of the GDP, and the new World order is already a fact today.

Photo: Eric Risberg

*This is an engineer’s calculation, the nightmare of any serious mathematician. And yet, most bridges we do are still standing, and when we speak of decade trends anything more accurate than this is a joke.

But of all I have read on the subject, the best information around is still to be found on the Shanghai Scrap blog. He reminds us that climate change is not and cannot be the first priority for the government and the people of China today. It is an "uptown" concern, completely foreign to those who are still worrying whether their drinking water contains lead, or whether they will need a gas mask to breathe the Beijing air tomorrow.

But back to the question: Did China really wreck the Copenhagen deal? In other words, was there really a deal ready to be signed and China unexpectedly rejected it, ruining the heroic efforts of the Western World led by president Obama?

What the hell happened in Copenhagen

Have you noticed that, when there is something really important in stake, governments organize summits as small as possible to get a meaningful deal, and only reluctantly they accept new participants in the G groups? The climate summits are just the opposite, everyone is invited, carbon footprint and all, the more the merrier. The World has become so multilateral today… especially when multilateralism is in our own interest.

Climate change is always a great subject for politicking, because the success in the negotiations or the problems arising from the failures will not be felt during the political life of the protagonists. It is one of those subjects where the only real measure of success is the perception of the home public immediately after the meeting. And clever politicians don’t let the opportunity pass to fabricate a good story.

For the Obama administration the objective of the negotiations can be summarized as: ensuring a deal is signed sufficiently meaningless to cause little problems with the industrial lobbies, and sufficiently powerful that the climate change enthusiasts are satisfied. Since this is obviously impossible, there is a plan B: ensure that whatever happens, it is somebody else’s fault. This is where China makes an excellent partner.

Partly for the reasons given in the Shanghai Scrap posts, and partly because it is not a democracy and it can control the information circulating internally, China is much less worried about the Copenhagen game than Obama. Free of internal pressure and faced with very mild international pressure, Chinese leaders will logically reject any deal that involves a sacrifice for their country. They will also neglect to give a coherent explanation in the language of the international media, offering a great target for post-Copenhagen accusations.

Now, I know Obama’s ambassador is not not an expert in China, but I can’t believe he was so incompetent to ignore the facts above. Obama himself was in China a month ago, and it is impossible that he didn’t know the obvious: that China was never going to sign an agreement forcing her to accept international inspectors with access to virtually every strategic industry, and with the power to expose to the World and to the Chinese public all the weaknesses of the Chinese system.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that China and US position was pre-arranged between Obama and Hu, but I think the American delegation, during and after the visit to China have been more intelligent than what most observers imagine.

Ever since the times of Kyoto, the US was at the head of the evil carbon emitters. Obama had to make a difference with his predecessor, and for the moment he has already worked a miracle: without making any major concession, the US have now become the World Champions of climate change policies.

In the meantime, the EU countries, the only ones that take this climate change thing seriously, are again pushed into the background because of their lack of credible leadership… and Obama, the clever American, has made the most of it for himself and for his country.

And in the meantime, the climate is changing…

One of the funniest accusations I have read in the media after the Copenhagen summit is that China has prevented the developed countries from signing a deal to limit their own emissions. This is so stupid that it could make it into a China Daily headline. How can China prevent the US/EU/Japan from signing a deal among themselves to reduce their own emissions?

No, seriously, if we are going to act against climate change, I would propose: what about reaching an agreement among the developed countries first, like we did for so many things before, and put it into practice even without China?

Yes, I know, to make a carbon reduction effective, all countries should participate. But the same could be said of the GATT/WTO and many other deals at the time, and this didn’t stop us from signing it and push China into it much later. Once the developed World is united, it is always much easier to lobby together for the respect of some standards, or to impose sanctions to non compliant countries.

But why do all that, when it is easy to content the public with less?

Exactly one year ago, on Christmas Day, I published this post about Liu’s Charter. I was critical with the initiative for many reasons: it contained contradictions, it was reactive rather than active, and it was not a Charter to unite all the Chinese. But most importantly, the way the document was drafted ensured that it had not a chance to fly.

The initiative was practically born dead, Charter was never a big subject in China even in early 09, it was the crisis and the stimulus that we watched at the time. The party had won the game from day one, so what point in bullying Liu now, one year later? Clearly, just to set an example to ensure that the rest of the signers will shut up, and to avoid new initiatives in the coming years. “Kill the chicken to scare the monkey”, the Chinese tradition says. And that is NOT justice, but a disgusting mafia trick.

Even if you don’t believe in democracy for China—even if you think (like I do) that the hypocritical governments of the West have no lessons to give here—even if the Charter was probably not the best way to attain the noble principles it professed. Even so, any decent person can see that a document like this should never be a reason for a man to be deprived of his freedom.

The party knows this, and it is again censoring and lying on the internet to hide its dirty deed from the people of China.

Now the story has been picked up by the CNN and it is making some noise. If we are lucky and it goes far enough, maybe even Obama will give us a memorable line. But it will not change anything, because all this is part of the deal with China. And the sentence is nothing more or less than what could be expected of the Chinese government today.

Liu knew this well, and he decided to go on in spite of it. That is because he is an idealist and a hero. He will be remembered.

More on this case here. Also, from my own blog: here, here and here.

These are the principles that 303 brave men published in China in 2008:

Freedom. Freedom is at the core of universal human values. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom in where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others, are the forms that freedom takes. Without freedom, China will always remain far from civilized ideals.

Human rights. Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China’s recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime’s disregard for human rights.

Equality. The integrity, dignity, and freedom of every person—regardless of social station, occupation, sex, economic condition, ethnicity, skin color, religion, or political belief—are the same as those of any other. Principles of equality before the law and equality of social, economic, cultural, civil, and political rights must be upheld.

Republicanism. Republicanism, which holds that power should be balanced among different branches of government and competing interests should be served, resembles the traditional Chinese political ideal of “fairness in all under heaven.” It allows different interest groups and social assemblies, and people with a variety of cultures and beliefs, to exercise democratic self-government and to deliberate in order to reach peaceful resolution of public questions on a basis of equal access to government and free and fair competition.

Democracy. The most fundamental principles of democracy are that the people are sovereign and the people select their government. Democracy has these characteristics: (1) Political power begins with the people and the legitimacy of a regime derives from the people. (2) Political power is exercised through choices that the people make. (3) The holders of major official posts in government at all levels are determined through periodic competitive elections. (4) While honoring the will of the majority, the fundamental dignity, freedom, and human rights of minorities are protected. In short, democracy is a modern means for achieving government truly “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Constitutional rule. Constitutional rule is rule through a legal system and legal regulations to implement principles that are spelled out in a constitution. It means protecting the freedom and the rights of citizens, limiting and defining the scope of legitimate government power, and providing the administrative apparatus necessary to serve these ends.

Laobaixing is a great word, not only because of its obvious etymology, but also because its connotations are quite different from our  “common people”. From what I have seen, in China everyone can be a Laobaixing depending which way the wind blows, and to look down on the Laobaixing is a mortal sin that you can only enjoy when nobody is watching. See below:

This is the protest I saw on one little Huaihai Road Lane a few months ago (56minus1 was faster to post it). Note the white protests banner, to mark the difference with the otherwise identical red propaganda ones. The banner said: “The relocation of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra to a new building seriously disturbs the people and destroys social harmony.” It disappeared very quickly and there was no way to find out what it was all about. This week I have witnessed chapter 2 of that protest:

The banner is now black like a pirate flag (excuse bad phone camera).The text is also more aggressive, it reads: “The propaganda department XX cheats everyone, doesn’t care if Laobaixing live or die”. I asked the guys who were keeping the banner but the menwei of the little lane nervously sent me away. Nearby there was a poster explaining the problem: the works of the Shanghai Orchestra building right behind the lane are causing vibrations and cracks on the walls. The next day when all was over I went back to witness the despair of the Laobaixing:

This is the little lane where the LBX live. And yes, that is a Maseratti. Stay tuned for the next episodes, we will keep following the plight of the dispossessed.