Hidden Harmonies China Blog

"Human Rights Revisited" by melektaus, "What Does SOPA (and PIPA) Tell us About 'Freedom'?" by Allen

Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波), Google, Individualism vs Collectivism, Media Bias, Dalai Lama, Osama bin Laden, Ai Weiwei

(This Chinese New Year greeting came via raffiaflower, and I took the liberty in sharing it.  DeWang)

Various ways of writing '爱' - photo by raffiaflower at Huang Shan (黄山)

Every language has a word for love. But Chinese is probably the only language that has so many possible written variations of the emotion. This has been the way, even since before Qinshihuangdi unified China and imposed standardized measures, including the universal script. Yet the writing variations of the old kingdoms are still known today. In a park on the way to Huangshan (one of the five sacred mountains) I came across this stone tablet, with at least 50 versions of the word `love’ 爱! (picture attached) Sure beats Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s: How do I love thee!

What better way to offer Chinese New Year greetings but with plenty of love, in all its written expressions. Read more…

Today also happened to be the day before new year (除夕)in the lunar calendar. I would like to wish everybody a happy, healthy and prosperous dragon year. Instead of the usual heavy subject matter, I would like to talk about something more light hearted. I am in a holiday mood today so I will address some concern about the lack of creativity in TV broadcasting in China. Instead of using academic discussion I will simply provide a link to a hot TV series that has taken my sister by storm. She is the one that actually sent it to me. In fact she considered this love/history drama so good that it triumphed all works from Taiwan and HK (of course that’s her personal view).

The TV series is “步步惊心” or “步步驚心”loosely translated as “Startling by Each Step”, I know the translation is always so corny. It is about a modern girl who went back through time to the later reign of Qing Kangxi period. If you are familiar with this period, you will know the palace intrigue that took place. Although it is considered science fiction, the costume and cultural aspect is very accurate. The author of the original work is 桐华. She did an awesome work by inter-weaning love and politics into the story.

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This blog will be a continuation of the interesting dialogue started by Oli on human rights and China. I agree with Oli that Chinese culture does have considerable resources to take into account concerns raised by many human rights discourse. The value of human rights is universal and ancient. Many such values, though implicitly already there in Chinese culture, may be accounted within a modern Chinese cultural framework. Read more…

As you may know, there is a heated high-profile war being waged in the U.S. now over a new bill called SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act” in the House) and PIPA (“Protect Intellectual Property Act” in the Senate). The bills have been temporarily put on hold, but the issues highlighted by the controversies will not go away.

The purpose of the bills is to enable IP owners to target foreign-based websites from selling pirated movies, music and other products in the U.S. The bills have pitted entities with high stakes in IP such as Hollywood studios and drug companies against tech companies that will be target of any new law such as Google and Wikipedia. Earlier this week, the latter staged various forms of high-profile blackouts, with Chris Dodd of the Motion Picture Association of America responding accusing the tactics as Read more…

We are here to offer a balance that is sorely lacking in the mainstream Western press about all things ‘China’ and ‘Chinese.’ Some of you might have wondered how this endeavor is fairing as we approach our second year. Allen and I are grateful of the authors and those of you who come here to comment. This short post is a ‘thank you’ and an example of the real impact this is having in getting more balance out there. Read more…

At Chicago, a Chinese boy was brutally beaten by seven teens, including a girl who lured him into an alley where the beating took place. An article filed by NYDailyNews.com said, “Cops don’t believe the attack was racially motivated.” I will update this post as I learn more. WARNING: video is violent. Read more…

Debunking Myth of China exploiting Africa Again!

I have watched this debate much earlier but caught up in too many things to bring it to your attention. In order to go further it is advisable to watch an earlier talk given by professor Deborah Brautigam earlier on the same subject. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BZfDYnOLw5w

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After reading DeWang’s recent post on Dan Harris’ post titled “Chinese Students In America. It’s Bad Out There”, I couldn’t but help to saunter over to China LawBlog to have a look – and boy, was I in for a shock! Here is what appears to be an intelligent person – a practicing lawyer (ok, I may biased, maybe most lawyers aren’t that intelligent, after all) – spouting what looks to me to be hate epithets towards a specific group of people.

Dan started out the post by quoting from a MSNBC story on the skyrocketing number of Chinese students applying to study in American schools. But then without analyzing any aspect of the story, he turned around to say - hey, that got me thinking: I’ve heard many bad things about students from China, such as: Read more…

Zhang Weiwei was a translator to former Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping. We have a prior article (translated from Chinese) of his arguing there is a progression for which ‘democracy’ can be achieved, but more than that, China should borrow and adapt practices that are useful for China’s own conditions. In this interview (use this link if the embedded video below doesn’t show) with Al Jazeera (h/t Ray), Zhang provides a ‘Chinese’ response to strongly held notions in the West about “multi-party democracy,” explains how China is advancing her ‘model’ through localized experimentation, and details what he means by the ‘civilization state.’ (See also Martin Jacques.)

Ma Ying Jieu has won what has been a tough and closely watched election in Taiwan.  Emphasizing close relations with the mainland, Ma celebrated the victory as a victory for the people of Taiwan. The DPP, with charismatic (and “native Taiwanese”) Tsai, gave stoic (and “外省人”) Ma a much bigger challenge this time (characterization by my deep-green family-in-laws), losing to Ma by what looks like a 51.6 to 45.63 margin  (compared to the 58% to 42% margin in 2008). While the issue of independence has been much toned down this time, relations with the Mainland still dominated the election, with issues of the economy also a major issue.

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On November 29, 2011, the Washington Post cited on a page 1 story a study done at the Georgetown University that China’s nuclear arsenal was 10x as large U.S. government official (and experts) estimates. The study and the article drew a great deal of attention. The information was false. MIT Associate Professor of Political Science, M. Taylor Fravel, has done an excellent write up of this controversy, and his analysis also revealed exaggeration of Chinese troops bordering India. Read more…

Dan Harris over at China Law Blog made a bold post today relaying complaints students at the University of Washington have for their fellow international students from Mainland China. He qualified that the complaints were directed at students from China and not of students with Chinese ethnicity. He also qualified the students whom he got the complaints were “sophisticated, intelligent, and well-traveled.”

In this post, I’d like to address those complaints. Before I get into it though, I’d like to make several observations. Read more…

(On January 5, 2012, I sat down with Shaun Rein, founder and Managing Director of the China Market Research Group, to talk about China. He gave us his insights into major events of 2011. You may listen to the podcast or read the transcript below. Click on the play button or right-click on the link to save the podcast for local listening: link. In this hour-long interview, we touched on many topics: pollution, CNN and Christian Bale’s recent run-in with Chinese police, food safety, Weibo, and so on.)

DeWang:2011 was another eventful year for China. Just when her bullet train seems unstoppable, a fatal collision left the whole country in doubt. China achieved space docking, something only the U.S. and Russia have managed. Then there was Tiger Mom.

I have invited a real China expert to weigh in on these events and other events that mattered to China. What were the Chinese narratives? How did the Chinese feel about them? I couldn’t have found a better person to do this with. Read more…

U.S. Senate passed the “China currency manipulation bill” around October.  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/11/senate-passes-china-currency-manipulation-bill/

You can find the text here.  http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s1619/text

The action hints at Racism at its core, buried under layers of political procedural jargons.  A few points for thoughts. Read more…

Below are couple of shots taken at Lake Tahoe where I vacationed this past week. Generally, I was impressed with how environmentally conscience American society has become, and the pristine waters and clean beaches at the lake reminded me of that. Recycling is in full force. I recall back in the 80′s, recycling was still not a daily vocabulary. It is today. Read more…

As the new year approaches, we should take some time to reflect that 2012 is the 50^th anniversary of the Sino-Indian war of 1962. The war has shaped and will continue to shape the attitudes of people towards each other from two global nuclear (presently or soon to be) superpowers.

The war was not only interesting in itself but interesting in how current powers in the west and India have viewed it since. Tens if not hundreds of millions of Indians today continue to believe that China is blameworthy for it. They imbibe their media’s version of the events and the versions fed to them from their politicians past and present. Since India is an ally of the US, an important strategic partner in “containing” China, criticisms of India’s policies are often muted or events described to give India a favorable light and China is treated with the opposite response. Read more…

In an earlier comment I talked about the importance of “国家,” and having just watched this music video by Jacky Chan (成龙) in duet with MEI He (美和) paying homage to that same idea made my day. Without a strong enough country, there is no freedom.

Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid out the blueprint for U.S. foreign policy in pursuit of “Internet Freedom” around the world. As I stated in a prior post, I believed this is a way to ensure U.S. government can support political oppositions in countries around the world and to lend them a voice with propaganda on the Internet. Glenn Greenwald recently labeled U.S. hypocrisy on Internet Freedom “egregious and shameless,” while responding to Secretary Clinton’s December 8, 2011 speech at The Hague.
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I was invited to Jun Lu Performing Arts as a guest photographer for their year-end performance at Santa Clara University’s Mayer Theatre this past Sunday. It was titled, “龙的传人.” Jun Lu is an accomplished dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Her dancers brought cheers and thunderous applause from the audience. The theatre house manager at the end of the show commented this was the best dance show he has seen performed at Mayer. I’ll just say – I was dazzled. I kept wanting to put down my camera so I could take it all in!
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Around 2:15pm this afternoon, a ‘human rights’ protester fired a number of shots at the Chinese Consulate aiming for a security guard, according the the AP. Below is a brief AP report relayed on the Huffington Post:

“Shots fired at Chinese Consulate in LA, 1 arrested”
December 16, 2011 12:31 AM EST |

LOS ANGELES — Police said they have arrested a man in relation to a Thursday afternoon shooting outside the Chinese Consulate building in downtown Los Angeles. Read more…

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, where Japanese soldiers went on a rampage of rape and murder, targeting women and children alike, killing more than 300,000 Chinese during the brief few weeks when they took over Nanjing, then capital city of the nationalist government. The issue that is perhaps the most contentious between Japan and China is Japanese history text books largely having this tragedy swept under the carpet; vastly toned down without admission of guilt or completely ignored altogether. The Japanese impasse with the rest of her Asian neighbors is similarly over prevailing Japanese unrepentant attitudes towards her colonial past. Germany’s attitude and actions towards their WW2 past offer a big contrast. Read more…

The following analysis came via William Hooper at the Oligarch. Much of it resonates with me. It is in response to the latest politics between the U.K. and the European mainland where U.K. is decidedly against Germany’s and France’s efforts in dealing with the Euro financial crisis. Hooper’s characterization, eloquently, of U.K.’s latest actions is apt too, in my opinion, of the prevailing mindset in the U.S. mass media towards everyone else:

Once someone seriously looses sight of everything except their own self interest, they become a “wild beast” held in check only by “fear of punishment” not “shame”.

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(Below is an editorial by blogger 龙信明 countering an article published in the New York Times by Minxin Pei, who is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California. Indeed, why would Americans subject their college-age child to such aptitude? Or, rather, ineptitude.  DeWang)

Great Party, but Where’s the Communism?
Minxin Pei Proves that Freedom of Opinion is a Bad Thing

It is puzzling that apparently well-staffed Western media with an otherwise high standard of reporting, will seemingly ignore those same standards for the sake of what appears to be cheap propaganda.

Many articles on China contain no little or no news value but appear intended primarily to criticise, mock, ridicule, demonise and disparage, a country that hasn’t actually done anything to anybody. Read more…