Jul
30
Is Leni Riefenstahl somewhere in the building?
Only fools — i.e. the International Olympic Committee — bought into China’s promises guaranteeing press freedom during the Beijing Games. There was no reason to ever believe that the Chinese government intended to keep its word once it has the hosting rights secured.
Even as of today, about one week before the Games were to commence, internet access to some of the most basic sites such as Wikipedia is still restricted. While the “Great Firewall” might be removed temporarily around the press center and hotels housing the western media, do not expect such measures to be expanded or long-lasting.
As for the event itself, you will not see any highlights that involve anything political, according to the Sydney Morning Herald:
The other problem foreign media will have is that Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Co Ltd (BOB) is responsible on behalf of the Beijing organising committee for releasing footage of all aspects of the Games, except protests.
Depending on their budgets, Olympic rights holders can put their own cameras into venues but most of the world’s media will rely on the footage BOB provides. Asked this year whether BOB would film and immediately release footage of disputes or protests, a senior executive told the Herald that “Beijing Olympic Broadcasting will do its best to avoid it”. “Why would we [film and release protests]?” the executive said. “We are not a news organisation. We’re there to film the event.”
While it’s unclear whether China plans on making a sequel to “Olympia,” this much we know: At least the foreign press will have some access and freedom. If you’re a Chinese citizen watching this glorious event on your TV at home, you’re not going to see anything the state doesn’t want you to.
From the Chinese-language, Hong Kong-based Ming Pao:
Chinese authorities have ordered a 10-second broadcast delay to avoid “undesirable” incidents - such as protests or anti-Chinese slogans - being seen by the domestic masses.
The Chinese have learned well. They’ve now taken NBC’s “plausibly live” to a whole new level.
Jul
23
Chinese authorities have busied themselves the last couple of weeks in a last-ditch effort to clean up Beijing’s foul air. Factories are shut down temporarily. Cars are taken off the roads. Even smoking is now banned in many places.
The result is somewhat improved air quality. But to be fair, Beijing, usually under the overhang of a gray sky, is geographically challenged. Ringed by mountains on three sides and surrounded by industrial plants in nearby cities and provinces, polluted air tends to drift toward Beijing and make itself home.
All that central planning might buy Beijing enough tolerable breathing space to get through the Olympics. But if the Chinese government is actually serious about improving Beijing’s nasty air — instead of just putting on a show — a more sustained effort is required.
It can be done, though.
Taipei, the city where I was born and raised in and lived until my teenage years, has some of the same geographical handicaps that trouble Beijing. A land-locked basin with hills on all sides, Taipei was an air-pollution death trap. Indeed, my childhood memories were filled with gray skies and lung-busting bad air.
But things have changed quite dramatically over the past decade or so. Much to my amazement, Taipei is now one of the greenest cities in Asia. On a recent trip to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, about the only place that didn’t cause me to suffer an episodic coughing spell was Taipei.
And just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, it’s comforting to know other people were thinking of the same thing.
Beijing can learn much from Taipei’s transformation. And in some ways, it’s taking the same steps. The mass-transit projects, many of them completed recently, will help. Newly imposed environmental requirements for factories should have an impact, too.
But more important, this has to be more than just a quick-fix. Maybe Beijing’s citizens will like what they’re breathing now and do their part to mitigate air pollution. The government, meanwhile, has to decide whether it was making an investment in the future or merely paying hush money to get through the day.
I guess we’ll find out in the next decade or so.
Jul
22
China and Russia settled a territorial dispute Monday when Russia agreed to return Yinlong Island (known as Tarabarov Island in Russian) and half of Heixiazi Island (Bolshoi Ussuriysky) to China. The 67 square miles of territory are on the northeast border with China.
No doubt some would read this as China flexing its growing international muscle. After all, who’d thought Putin and Medvedev’s Russia would voluntarily cede its territories, no matter how small.
Besides, the sprouting Chinese presence in the Russian Far East, particularly in Vladivostock, has been viewed with ill ease by ordinary Russians. They’re not comforted by the fact that many Chinese continue to refer to the port city by its Mandarin name Haishenwai (海参崴), even though the erstwhile Manchu fishing village has not been under Chinese sovereignty since 1860.
For over a century, Chinese school children were taught that Vladivostock, and a good chunk of the Russian Far East, were given to Czarist Russia in the unequal treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860). Near the nadir of its existence, a weak Qing Dynasty, fearful of the superior guns and boats of the west, surrendered acres of its ancestral lands without a shot being fired.
As China grew in strength over the last quarter century, the Chinese sought to right some historical wrongs. Flush with cash, China also had the option of settling border disputes without the use of force. The framework of the agreement was first negotiated in 1991 and continued through 2004. On the surface, the Chinese seemed to be getting the better of the Russians.
While the Chinese were busy earning the all-important “face” for the benefit of an increasingly nationalistic populace, Russia got what it wanted, too. For the price of a few small islands on and around the Amur River, Russia got China — at least the PRC — to renounce all future claims in the Russian Far East.
But the real worrisome fact from this China-Russia peace fest was just that. Once bitter rivals who fought several border skirmishes along a frozen river, China and Russia, each with its own anti-West ambitions, are closer than ever. Joined by a common desire to check American hegemony, the former communist rivals are putting their differences aside.
Any wonder why these guys are getting along famously at U.N. Security Council meetings?
May
23
A Test of Heavenly Proportions
Filed Under 2008 Beijing Olympics, China
In the most vulnerable hour, China has looked its most sympathetic.
If the Chinese communist government failed miserably in its first test of the year, during the Tibet uprising and subsequent worldwide torch relay, then it’s getting at least a passing grade in its handling of the Sichuan earthquake tragedy. In some quarters, it’s getting rave reviews.
The adroit and deft management of such a humanitarian disaster has earned the Chinese government some breathing room. But it should not be surprising. If anything, Hu Jintao has shown during his tenure that he’s a quick study and much more in tune with the fast-changing nature of global public relations.
For starters, the quake came on the heels of Burma’s devastating cyclone, during which its military junta deservedly earned universal scorn. So whatever Beijing did was probably going to be viewed more favorably. But Hu was even smarter than that.
Understanding that the flow of information would be difficult to stop in such a chaotic environment, he instead allowed it to transmit relatively freely. The world got a rare unfiltered glimpse of sorrow and grief of a nation and its people and understandably lavished them with ample amounts of sympathy. And China’s surprising decision to swiftly allow foreign aid groups to reach the disaster area gave credence to the notion that its government took responsibility for the welfare of its citizens.
Rescue teams from Japan, South Korea and even Taiwan gained nearly immediate access to the disaster zone. Untold number of lives were perhaps saved because of this action. Contrast that with how Russia handled the sinking of the submarine Kursk in 2000, when Vladimir Putin let his sailors die on the sea floor instead of swallowing national pride to allow foreign help. In this case, China lost face hardly at all. Instead, it’s widely viewed as a shining example of a growing global village that thrives on mutual assistance.
The cynical among us might question the true motives of the Chinese government, but no one can question that the event was unplanned and the swift response was un-rehearsed. The Chinese view momentous events, like a massive earthquake, as heavenly intervention. In this context, the communist government shook to its core, but came out with the right answers.
Hu and his inner circle know that the groundswell of sympathy and support will not last forever, so they best take advantage of this goodwill and use it as a foundation to build more trust. There are indications that they will. Hu’s conciliatory gesture toward Taiwan, including the unearthing of the rarely invoked “1992 Consensus” was well received. His willingness to at least engage Dalai Lama’s representatives — whether it’s somewhat coerced or not — has helped to cool the Free Tibet fever.
So just where is China headed from here? That’s becoming more interesting and complex by the day. If anything, the earthquake may have ended the days when China sealed all outside contact at the first sign of internal distress. And with that as the new reality, China might be on the verge of yet another transformation.
For the better, we hope. Perhaps it’s a mandate from Heaven?
Apr
28
By 1986, Mr. Chi had indications that there might soon be a way for him to at least get in contact with the remnants of his family, if not reuniting with them. Through intermediaries, he was able to receive and send letters to his two now adult daughters. It was from the correspondence that he found out his wife had died in the 1960s, during the tumultuous times of the Cultural Revolution.
A few years went by, after a slowdown precipitated by the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the opportunity to visit China finally presented itself. Not having seen his family for more than 40 years now, Mr. Chi was determined to go at the first chance he got.
With Taiwan also relaxing its restrictions on contact with China, Mr. Chi finally made the trek back to his birthplace and ancestral home in 1993, nearly 50 years since he last set foot there. It was an emotional reunion. His two daughters, now in their 40s, both have been married and have children of their own. The living conditions in Yifeng was far from ideal, and Mr. Chi took steps to make sure they improve.
With a somewhat generous pension from the KMT and years of frugal living in Taiwan, Mr. Chi freely dispensed with his cash on his children and grandchildren. He helped to fund the building of two three-story concrete and stucco buildings as single-family homes for his two kids. And with his brother also taking part, they built a kindergarten — big enough to accommodate 100 local children — in yet another adjacent building.
He and my grandfather made a triumphant return to Yifeng in 1997 to see the fruits of their labor. Now both in their 80s, the journey from Taiwan was quite an ordeal. First, a 90-minute flight to Hong Kong. Then a long overnight train ride from Hong Kong, through Guangzhou, to Nanchang. From there, it was a four-hour car trip on mostly unpaved roads.
But Mr. Chi wasn’t going back. He had decided to come back to Yifeng and stay. He bid my grandfather goodbye, with both knowing that it would be the last time they’d see each other. My grandfather had made Taiwan his home, and to this day, he would not want to have anything to do with Communist China.
Since coming home to Yifeng, Mr. Chi learned many painful details of his family’s plight. His older brother, deciding to stay in China and hoping to ride things out, was summarily executed by the communists when they entered town. His ancestral home, a modest brick and masonry building with a small courtyard, was nearly demolished for being a reactionary element before being divvyed up and distributed to various communist party apparatchiks and other locals.
His extended family scattered about China for a time before finally returning home. A couple of his nephews spent years in re-education camps for sins of being a “landed elite.” Kids a generation down could not enroll in schools or get decent jobs because they were deemed class enemies and incapable of being “reformed.” Life was hard.
Things got better in the 1980s. Communist orthodoxy lived on in name only. To get rich was glorious, even for those previously blacklisted. Money opened doors, even if it came from the KMT, the communists’ sworn enemies for much of the 20th century.
Mr. Chi lived out another decade in the Yifeng house he built. He endured yet another tragedy when in 2007, one of his daughters died of breast cancer. He had to bury his hard-luck child in the hills not far from Yifeng — in a place he had reserved for himself.
I last visited him in 2006. He was nearly blind and very hard of hearing, but he was glad to see me. He was too frail to accompany me to the kindergarten down the street, yet I sensed that it was truly his pride and joy. I shared with him some photos of my own family, and a letter from my grandfather that I had promised to deliver discreetly.
Two year later, Mr. Chi finished a journey that was full of turbulence and turmoil. He lived in a time that saw China taking a dramatic leap from a insulated feudal society to a giant economic engine. He saw democracy sprout and flourish in Taiwan and withering, yet not dying, in mainland China. He bore witness to the transformation of the Sick Man of Asia, to emerging global superpower.
Yet, at the end of the day, the most important development in his life was being reunited with his family after half a century of separation. Despite all the heartbreaks and heartaches, that’s what made it worth living. It made him whole again.
I will miss you, er gon gon. R.I.P.
