There has been a lot of coverage in the U.S. media lately about America’s Asia ‘pivot.’ In particular, U.S. seems to be taking sides with Vietnam and Philippines in their disputes with China.
The U.S. relationships with these two countries are nothing but complex. When the Philippines was colonized by the Spanish, the U.S. took sides with the Philippines to oust Spain. Little did the Filipinos knew they would have to fight the Americans in yet another attempt to gain freedom. Filipinos estimated 1+ million were killed as a result of that war. The story in Vietnam was not that dissimilar. The Vietnamese were fighting to end French aggression. After the French withdrew, the United States went in on the grounds of stopping Communism from spreading. From the North Vietnamese perspective, it was a new imperialist, and they were fighting yet again for their freedom. Again, with millions dead. Read more…
‘So solidly built into our consciousness is the concept that China is conducting a rapacious and belligerent foreign policy, that whenever a dispute arises in which China is involved, she is instantly assumed to have provoked it.’
— Felix Greene, 1965.
When a superpower is engaging in full hegemonic and supercilious display, another country with slowly increasing economic clout and rising international status can raise apprehension. When countries are used to a bigger country that is settled for some years in a bullying position, someone starting to come close to that bully’s level of power, however remotely, has the potential to raise various concerns.
This rise is often wrongly construed as a zero-sum game – the newcomer challenging the bully’s position. In such a case, the existing bully, in its efforts to manipulate popular conceptions about the comparatively-unknown newcomer, will (hypocritically) spread the myth that the newcomer is, and always has been, overtly aggressive. If this myth-making and spreading is successful, even to a small extent, it can negate the effect that the newcomer might have in compensating for or balancing the bully’s hegemony and its hubris. The newcomer’s assurances about its peaceful rise will then be dismissed as deception. The focal point of the bully’s containment policy will be to encourage and manipulate various types of pawns against the newcomer. If such pawns already exist, then they will be fostered and strengthened, and in case they don’t, new ones will be created (Or as Stephen Walt terms it, “a competition for allies”).
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.
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.)
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. Read more…
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”.
(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…
Former U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, in a televised Republican primary debate told Americans he would reach out to the 500 million Chinese Internet users; to lead them towards change which would ultimately “take China down.” Video below has been circulating in China. It contains what Huntsman said captioned in Chinese. I want to share reader silentchinese‘s response.
Former CIA agent of 20 years, turned historian, Dr. Michael Scheuer, recently discussed his views with Russia Today about America and the Muslim world. U.S. political leaders should absolutely heed what he had to say. The only disagreement I have with Scheuer is his view that the U.S. is inextricable in her feud with the Middle East. The U.S. and the West have the might to help strengthen the U.N., and to sincerely uphold international law. When that happens, the world at large will be much more willing to stand behind U.N. in whatever steps it takes to resolve the feud between the West and the Muslim world. That is the way out of the feud.
With Obama meeting other East Asian countries in Hawaii these few days, the “American re-engagement with Asia” story is all of a sudden in vogue again. This new way of thinking actually started with President Obama’s promise couple of years ago to double America’s exports in the not too distant future. The goal itself is worthy and is an excellent way to channel America’s energy. Unfortunately, the simple gist of that U.S. ‘re-engagement’ has instead been couched by the U.S. media into some sort of militaristic furtherance, with a suspicious eye casted at China. Such ploy is to dramatize and sell ads (and, sure, by politicians to garner votes). I am happy that the Obama administration still publicly reaffirms the idea that a richer China bodes well for American exporters, because that is the simple truth. Ask Intel, Apple, GM, and Caterpillar. Read more…
Remember the 1990s and early 2000s hunt for WMD in Iraq headed by the former director-general of the IAEA, Hans Blix? No WMD has been found, but during that period, the propaganda within the NATO countries arguing for war ultimately led to the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Now, fast forward to 2011. I get the sinking feeling we are witnessing the repeat of that. Remember the supposed plot by Iran to hire some Mexicans to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. just few weeks ago? And now the IAEA report? Given the headlines in the NATO countries, does it really matter what the real truth is? Patrick Hayes from spiked summed up the sentiment, as expressed in this China Daily opinion column comic, rather well: Read more…
The west loves to criticize China for its lack of freedom of expression. I personally think that this is a serious problem for China (though not the most serious problem facing the society which I consider problems with social justice and the environment). But the west has serious issues with freedom of expression as well.
Does all Chinese dialect group have the same representation in politics historically? The question first appeared to me when I read Li Guangyao’s 李光耀(Lee Kuan Yew) autobiography, The Singapore Story and From Third World to First: The Singapore Story. He mentioned that Hakka is disproportionately represented in politics in Singapore and other Chinese communities. At the writing of the book, the political leader of mainland China is Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平, who is a Hakka, so is Li Denghui 李登辉 from Taiwan, Martin Lee 李柱銘 from Hong Kong and of course Lee Kuan Yew himself is a Hakka.
I’d like to extend DeWang’s last post on the possible role of China in the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict with a more generalized discussion of what China’s role should be in international affairs in the future.
China seems to be taking a more active approach in engaging with the world’s conflicts and affairs and other pressing issues and I think this is the right way to go. It has increased its role in the UN and provided peacekeeping troops. It has also taken up an active role in establishing law in jurisprudential debates, making its side’s perspective more known and defending the interests of other developing nations. By being more active here, it makes its own viewpoint and interests known to the world instead of being passive recipients of the rules that continue to govern the world. China has been more actively involved with disputes, economic, social, cultural, environmental, etc. Read more…
A story published a few days ago in the LA Times talked about an Israeli organization, Shavei Israel, which helped a few Keifeng Jews to make Aliyah (immigrate to Israel). It quoted a few Kaifeng Jews having made the trip as saying how Israel is superior to China. Consider the title of the article: Read more…
Video below is a gruesome hit-and-run of a two year-old toddler by two vans in Foshan, Guangdong Province. What is worse is the more than a dozen passers-by simply letting her lying on the street bleeding and not calling for help. This tragedy has gripped the nation; it is all over the news. The two drivers have been arrested. Prior to that, one of the drivers was reported thinking about offering money and not turning himself in. A Chinese netizen lamented:
当一个幼小的生命被明码标价的时候，人性就变得一文不值了
When you put a price tag on a young person’s life, then human nature has become worthless.
What is the worst thing you could say or write about someone? Maybe alleging that they are a murderer. Perhaps it is labeling them a child molester. Both these accusations, when used without factual merit, constitute serious slander or libel. But what is the worst thing you could say about a group of people, a nation or ethnic group?
During the Middle Ages in Europe, Blood Libel was used to devastating effect towards harming and justifying the persecution of Jews.
October 10th is the National Day of the Republic of China. It is celebrated in both Taiwan and the Mainland as an event that liberated China from the grip of feudal rule.
As you may have known, recently the US assassinated two of its own citizens in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Say what you will about these two but the actions taken by the government of assassination without trial certainly is an extreme if not wholly unconstitutional measure as witnessed by some constitutional lawyers and experts. It may also violate international law. Read more…
The recent “goodwill” game on August 18th between the Chinese basketball team the Bayi Rockets and the American college team the Georgetown Hoyas will unfortunately go down in history as an infamous case of unsportsman-like conduct. But the coverage of the game by the American press will also go down as an exemplary case of unabashed bias and sinophobic bigotry.
Even in the US’s long history of yellow(peril) journalism against China, coverage of this game is a salient example of lack of balance and outright prejudice against China and its people. Read more…
The recent Occupy Wall Street movement across the U.S. may be weighing in your minds. I couldn’t help but draw the parallel to the 1989 Tiananmen protest. With the unemployment in America stuck at 9.1%, pressure on society is gradually mounting. Many young Americans are starting to doubt their future. This sentiment is not that different than the students in China when they went out to Tiananmen uncertain what a decade-long privatization would bring them – as the iron rice bowl was apparently no longer guaranteed. Read more…
I was recently browsing a collection of Adrian Fisk‘s portraits of ordinary Chinese people holding up placards expressing their thoughts. The photo of LUO ZhengChui caught my attention. She is a 30 year-old farmer in Yunnan Province.
Her message (with couple of wrong Chinese characters) roughly translates to:
After watching television, I have many ideas, but no way of realizing them.
Many people might feel sad while looking at this image. After all, it seems she is not very educated. She is obviously poor (compared to developed country standards). From her writing, one gets the impression she feels trapped; not for lacking of ideas or for not wanting something better for herself. Read more…
As long as those groups keep espousing that narrowed minded racist view, they would have no support from people outside their respective ethnicity. And even those bigots are nothing but a minute minority much like Anders Breivik. Just imagine what the US govn’t would do to its citizens who do not consider themselves citizens and want to run an ethnic cleansing program of uprooting others they considered not one of their own? To top it off, these groups only raison d’etre seems to come from foreign funding. When those funding are gone, so would they. (Ray)
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