Yang Jiechi's Statement to Press on Resuming Human Rights Dialogue with U.S.

Today's Washington Post has a report of a statement by the Chinese Foreign Minister on resuming human rights dialogue with the USA (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022600903.html?hpid=topnews)

Here is an excerpt from it:
"China declared Tuesday that it is willing to resume a long-stalled human rights dialogue with the United States, apparently seeking to improve its image before this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi made the announcement at the close of talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who passed through Beijing after attending the inauguration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul on Monday.
Yang, a former ambassador to Washington, appeared to direct his announcement to U.S. reporters accompanying Rice.
"We are willing to resume the human rights dialogue," he said, reading from notes. "The Chinese people enjoy the full extent of human rights and religious freedom. We are willing to have exchanges and interactions with the United States and other countries on human rights on a basis of mutual respect, equality and noninterference in internal affairs."
Rice, in a later briefing, welcomed the Chinese gesture and said U.S. diplomats would seek to pin down a date for restarting the dialogue as soon as possible. "That is something we've been trying to do for some time," she added.
China suspended participation in the regular U.S.-China human rights dialogue in 2004 after the United States sponsored a resolution at the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission urging condemnation of China's record. Chinese officials construed that move as interference in their country's affairs and a display of hostility that made further formal dialogue impossible.
President Hu Jintao indicated to President Bush during a visit to Washington two years later that he was willing in principle to resume the dialogue, according to U.S. reports. But in practice, Chinese officials evaded U.S. attempts to get the discussions started again."

Comment: Based on my study of the bilateral dialogues that China has had with various countries, the observation that "Chinese officials evaded U.S. attempts to get the discussions started again" is well-based. This is because the USA is not prepared to go along with the Chinese agenda to use the human rights dialogues as a foreign policy initiative whose purpose is to counter Western attempts to make the Chinese Party-State accountable for its failure to comply with China's commitments to the UN to extend the universal entitlement to human rights to Chinese citizens. Yang's assertion that "the Chinese people enjoy the full extent of human rights and religious freedom," does not bode well for any meaningful dialogue because this statement is so blatantly absurd. This lack of sincere intention to genuinely address China's human rights issues is regrettably confirmed in that there has been no mention of the Chinese Government request to resume the human rights dialogue with the US in any of the reports of Secretary of State Rice's visit to China in any of the Mainland Chinese TV news or newspaper reports that I have seen so far.

Yahoo Fax to Condoleezza Rice and Yahoo Human Rights Fund for Cyber-Dissidents

WASHINGTON (AP) — Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Jerry Yang wants U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to help get two Chinese journalists out of prison — where they've been since Yahoo complied with Chinese investigators.

Yang's request, faxed to Rice on Thursday morning, is the company's latest effort to undo damage set off when Yahoo cooperated with Chinese authorities and disclosed information about the online activities of the two journalists.

U.S. lawmakers and human rights advocates have accused it of collaborating with an oppressive regime and the Internet company recently settled a lawsuit with families of the journalists, who were each sentenced to 10-year prison terms for allegedly leaking state secrets and political writings.

Yahoo also helped establish a human rights fund to provide humanitarian and legal aid to dissidents who have been imprisoned for expressing their views online.

Full report can be found at: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iUGDBG-d7HqWPkUPG050pmPYDEvAD8UV0HB00

Comment by me: Corporate damage control, but welcome anyway.

A related subsequent news report: " Yahoo Sued Again by Chinese Dissidents" can be found at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcfd6fxz_386hq476ncw

Excerpt from Reuters report on Central Party School Report on Reform of China's Political System

Elite China think-tank issues political reform blueprint

Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:27pm EST

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - China risks dangerous instability unless it embraces democratic reforms to limit the power of the ruling Communist Party, foster competitive voting and rein in censors, the Party's top think-tank has warned in a new report.

The "comprehensive political system reform plan" by scholars at the Central Party School in Beijing argues for steady liberalization that its authors say can build a "modern civil society" by 2020 and "mature democracy and rule of law" in later decades.

The cost of delaying this course could be economic disarray and worsening corruption and public discontent, they write in "Storming the Fortress: A Research Report on China 's Political System Reform after the 17th Party Congress".

"Citizens' steadily rising democratic consciousness and the grave corruption among Party and government officials make it increasing urgent to press ahead with demands for political system reform," the report states. "The backwardness of the political system is affecting economic development."

The report was finished in October, just after the Party's twice-a-decade congress ended and gave President Hu Jintao five more years as party chief. But it is only now appearing in some Beijing bookstores.

This is no manifesto for outright democracy. The authors say the Party must keep overall control and "elite" decision-making will help China achieve lasting economic prosperity by pushing past obstacles to economic reform.

But the 366-page report give a strikingly detailed blueprint of how some elite advisers see political relaxation unfolding, with three phases of reform in the next 12 years, including restricting the Party's powers and expanding the rights of citizens, reporters, religious believers and lawmakers.

"Until now political reform has been scattered and inconsequential," Wang Guixiu, a professor at the Party School not involved in the study, told Reuters. "Real political reform needs a substantive plan of action, and there are some scholars and officials who believe that's what is needed now."

Full text of the Reuters report can be found at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcfd6fxz_374d84s9zhh.

Related report in the Chinese language can be found at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcfd6fxz_378d48xgkcg

An account of my visit to the Central Party School in September 2007 can be found here: http://charlesburton.blogspot.com/2007/10/engaging-on-human-rights-at-central.html

About the Chinese Government's Claim that It Does No Spying of Any Kind Ever

The Washington Post reported Tuesday (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/12/AR2008021200316_pf.html) that a Defense Department analyst and a former engineer for Boeing Co. were accused Monday in separate spy cases with helping deliver military secrets to the Chinese government, the Justice Department said. Additionally, two immigrants from China and Taiwan accused of working with the defense analyst were arrested after an FBI raid Monday morning on a New Orleans home where one of them lived. The two cases ---based in Alexandria, Va., and Los Angeles --- have no connection, and investigators said it was merely a coincidence that charges would be brought against both on the same day.

The response of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao is reported as follows: "So-called talk that China runs spying activities in the United States is totally fictitious and has ulterior motives. We demand the U.S. side abandon its Cold War thinking and stop its gratuitous criticism of China. I think everyone is weary of this kind of farce, and it should end" . . . The United States should "do more to help bilateral trust and friendship between the peoples of both nations."

So the Chinese Government's "official" position is that the Chinese Government does no spying of any kind ever. I don't know why they make this claim. Better to say nothing than bring shame on themselves by making up an absurd statement that suggests the foreigners are so foolish as to believe it.


An interesting related artcle in the February 15 Washington Post entitled: "Even Spies Embrace China's Free Market: U.S. Says Some Tech Theives aer Entrepreneurs, Not Government Agents" can be found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/14/AR2008021403550_pf.html

Apology for Anti-Rightist Campaign and Cultural Revolution Wrongs?

Yesterday the Xinhua News Agency published an article in The China Daily entitled " Rudd says sorry to the stolen generation" about the Australian Prime Minister's apology to his nation's aboriginal peoples (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-02/13/content_6450311.htm). Here is an excerpt:
CANBERRA -- Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said sorry to the stolen generations in a public speech Wednesday morning in the parliament.
"We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations, this blemished chapter in our nation's history," Rudd said.
"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians," the apology says.
"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
"To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
"And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry," the prime minister said in an emotional speech.
Rudd said a new page in Australia's history can now be written.
"We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians," he said.

I subsequently received a poignant message from a close friend in China who suffered badly with his factory and property owning family after 1949 and in the Anti-Rightist Campaign and in the Cultural Revolution. He is now an older gentleman living in the PRC in retirement. He wrote me in English as follows:

"Will there be a righteous Chinese communist leader in future who would say a heart-felt SORRY to tens of millions of Chinese nationals and their left-behind families who were wronged by the wronged policies over the past tens of years in the CCP's history?"

Excerpt from London Times Report on Suit by Chinese Citizen Over Search Engine Censorship

A former Chinese university professor who was dismissed after he founded a democratic opposition party, plans to sue Yahoo! and Google in the United States for blocking his name from search results in China.

Guo Quan, an expert on classical Chinese literature and the 1937 Nanjing massacre of Chinese civilians by Japanese troops, last week issued an open letter pledging to bring a lawsuit against Google after he discovered that his name had been excised in searches of its google.cn portal in China.

He told The Times that he had now found that the Chinese Yahoo! site had also blocked his name and he planned to bring actions against both companies. Mr Guo said: “Since January 1 a lot of friends told me that websites with my name had been closed. They told me it's impossible to search for my information on Google and Yahoo!”

It is not the first incidence of censorship of foreign internet portals operating in China. Google came in for widespread criticism and accusations of colluding when it became known that its search engine in China had been configured to filter out words that are effectively banned in China, such as Tibet independence, Dalai Lama and democracy.

Google and other foreign internet service providers defend their actions, saying that they are acting in accordance with Chinese law and the conditions of doing business in China. The country's carefully patrolled internet firewall slows, blocks or disrupts users trying to access uncensored foreign websites. Mr Guo said that he could not sue Google or Yahoo! in China since they have no formal legal identity, but he would press his lawsuits against the parent companies in the United States. “They have infringed my right to my name, and also the rights of anyone called Guo Quan because you can find no information for this name.

Full story available at: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3319051.ece

Visa fraud at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing

There is a report by Geoff York in this morning's Globe and Mail about allegations that lung x-rays submitted to the Canadian Embassy in Beijing in support of an immigration application had been switched. Evidently the applicant, like a high proportion of the Chinese population, carried indications of tuberculosis on his lungs, so a "clean" x-ray of healthier lungs was substituted. Actually I believe that the false x-rays issue is greatly overshadowed by the pervasive problem of forged documents attesting to bank deposits, diplomas, and professional qualifications that support successful applications for entry into Canada. The Embassy really lacks the capacity to adequately counter this problem and so may tend to downplay its seriousness.

Rough Translation of report in Singtao Daily that Proves Me Wrong on Canadian Government China Engagement Intensity

Liberal Party Attacks the Conservative Party for Ruining Canada-China Relations

by Singtao Daily Reporter, Mary Yang; January 17, 2008.
The recent statement by the Chinese Ambassador to Canada, Lu Shumin, has led the Federal Liberal Party to focus on worsening Canada-China relations. But the Conservative Party has responded by pointing to the genuine accomplishments that demonstrate the progress that Canada-China relations have made.
Last Thursday, Lu Shumin, in a talk to members of the Canada-China Friendship Association, said that "unfortunate developments" had led to a cooling in Canada-China relations. More and more Chinese people have developed a negative impression of Canada. This is not good news. It leads to progressive weakening in Canada-China relations. It is damaging for both countries. The Ambassador called for narrowing the differences between the two countries. If that is not possible, then seek common ground while agreeing to disagree on the rest. "If we mutually respect each other, then we can achieve very great progress."
The Federal Liberal Party issued a statement on Wednesday. Foreign Affairs Critic, Bob Rae, stated that Lu Shumin's talk demonstrates that Canada-China relations are tense. "For a diplomat to make such an unusual frank comment, clearly indicates that no matter how much the Conservative Party tries to pretend that all is well, bilateral relations between Canada and China have been severally damaged."
He further pointed out, the Conservative Party's ineffective China policy has been at a cost to the people of Canada as well as to the people of China. He cited the example of Ottawa's long delay in failing to implement an Approved Destination Status agreement as an example.
Neil Hrab, spokesman for Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Bernier, indicated to the Singtao Daily that since the Conservative Party came to power, Cabinet Ministers have visited China 8 times and that Prime Minister Harper had a very constructive meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the G-8 Summit Meeting. Over the period of Liberal Party Government Canada-China Trade levels stalled with no forward movement, but it is increasing is double digits now. in 2007, Canada's commodity exports to China increased by 29%. Canada-China relations need frank and open dialogue, so that our nation can make genuine achievements that reflect Canadian values and interests.
Canadian scholar, Charles Burton says that that the Liberal Party is simply using this as a means to attack the Conservative Party, as Lu Shumin has made this sort of statement in the past. Burton indicates that that this is simply Lu Shumin attempting to protect China's interests, as its authorities would prefer that human rights not be a central issue in relations between Canada and China. Bilateral relations have not worsened in the grave way that the Liberal Party tries to make out. When the Liberal Party was in power, Canada also raised human rights with the Chinese.
(original Chinese can be found at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcfd6fxz_350hcbhkxzt)


Comment: In my my op-ed piece for Embassy: Canada's Foreign Policy Newsletter entitled "A 'Principled' Approach, Quiet Diplomacy and the Prime Minister's Message to Beijing" published November 14th, 2007 (http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcfd6fxz_302hmjr59) I wrote that "intensity of engagement with China will likely be lessened in years ahead." The statement above by Neil Hrab clearly puts the lie to this. I had evidently misread the implications of a statement on foreign policy made last October in the House of Commons entitled "The Americas as a Priority." Further suggesting that I am happily wrong about this, in a speech at the University of Alberta on January 18, 2008, Secretary of State Helena Guergis said "we are committed to sustained high level engagement. Since our government came to office, there have been eight ministerial visits to China, including two visits by the Minister of International Trade David Emerson, who just returned from a visit to China and Mongolia last week."
Of course I do not think that Ambassador Lu's idea that we "seek common ground while agreeing to disagree on the rest" is such a good approach. I think that we show more mutual respect if we are honest with each other about all of our concerns. I don't think it is helpful to either side to take human rights off the agenda on an "agree to disagree" basis, as much as the Chinese authorities might thank Canada for doing that.

News Item: "Psychologists treat China's stranded at rail stations"

Thu Jan 31, 4:55 AM ET

Railway passengers stranded by snow in east China's Zhejiang province are receiving counseling from psychologists in the crowded station waiting hall, state media said on Thursday.

Snow, sleet and ice blanketing much of central, eastern and southern China have killed dozens, cut power and hobbled transport ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts on Wednesday, leaving millions stranded at railway stations.

The municipal government of Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang, had set up a team of 16 psychologists to provide "crisis intervention counseling to anxious travelers" waiting to go home, Xinhua news agency said.

"Weariness and anxiety could lead to the malfunction of people's immune system and result in psychological problems," Zhao Guoqiu, a psychologist who heads the team, was quoted as saying.

"It is very necessary to provide psychological help to the stranded who are always under great pressure."

He told passengers it was useless to cry and instead encouraged them to turn to other means of transport to get home. "Listening, smiles and patience are all effective measures to calm them."

Chen Wendou, a passenger heading for central Hubei province, said she was greatly relieved after talking with Zhao.

"After several nights waiting in the cold waiting hall, I was at the verge of collapse," he was quoted as saying.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080131/lf_nm_life/china_weather_counselling_dc_1&printer=1;_ylt=ArADXnlalttlPGxbLshcXEqGWo14

Comment: Reports are that there are 800,000 people trapped at the Railway Station and bus stations in Guangzhou alone. I have received 2 e-mails over the past couple of days from people who have been caught in the bedlam in Guangzhou. Chinese New Year is often the only time that young migrant workers get to visit their families left back home in their native place all year. There are millions of children in rural villages anticipating the Festival and seeing their absent parents who work in cities.

Kim Jong-il's Meeting with Head of Chinese Communist Party Central Committee's International Liaison Department

N.Korea's Kim says will stick to disarmament deal
By Chris Buckley Wed Jan 30, 10:00 PM ET
North Korea is committed to a nuclear disarmament pact and disagreements stalling its progress can be overcome, reclusive leader Kim Jong-il told a Chinese official, Chinese state media said on Thursday.
Moving to denuclearize North Korea, whose October 2006 nuclear test alarmed the United States and its regional allies South Korea and Japan, is a priority for U.S. President George W. Bush in his last year in office.
Kim met the head of the Chinese Communist Party's international liaison department, Wang Jiarui, on Wednesday and received a message from Chinese President Hu Jintao, Xinhua news agency said.


Comment: I am not so much interested in what Mr. Kim said as in who the Chinese authorities sent to speak with him. Seems from this report that the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee is an important player for China in high level foreign policy


The full report can be found at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcfd6fxz_360vwc7h6cb

Project Proposal:: "Cross-national Comparison of Canada's China Policy and Recommendations for Future Policy and Programming"

The goals of Canada's foreign policy with China are to promote Canada's prosperity through trade and investment and the intake of high-quality Chinese immigrants. And to encourage China to fulfil its multilateral treaty obligations to the UN, WTO and other transnational bodies in areas of security, human rights, environment, intellectual property rights and myriad other aspects. All of Canada's federal political parties are in accord that these define Canada's national interest in China.

Over the past decade there have been increasing indications that Canada's China policy has been falling short. Canada's share of China's import market has been declining relative to other nations such as Australia, the UK, France and the United States. In some years our imports to China have declined in absolute terms. While high commodity prices have improved our trade statistics, Canada has not been selling greater volumes of raw materials into China. But our trade deficit with China has grown at a very high rate. Year by year, the Canadian economy becomes more and more dependent on Chinese inputs, including investment in Canada, and Canada is affected by China's very large foreign currency reserves including major holdings in U.S. dollars. At the same time numbers of Chinese citizens applying to enter Canada have been declining. There is also dissatisfaction with China's implementation of international obligations to free trade and market access, intellectual property protection, the environment, and China's commitment to uphold the principles of the International Declaration on Human Rights and associated UN Covenants, most of which the Chinese Government has ratified.

A reasonable hypothesis to explain Canada's relative foreign policy failings with regard to China could be that as China has been transforming rapidly in all aspects of economy and society that Canada's approach to China has been relatively stagnant and so our China programming less and less relevant to Chinese conditions and less and less effective in fulfilling Canada's interest in China. For that reason it would be worthwhile doing a comparative study of Australia, the UK, France and the United States' China policy to see how Canada's China policy fares against that of nations with similar interests in China.

More specifically examining Canada-China bilateral relations as structured by DFAIT into functional areas, the following research issues can be raised:
Political and Economic Relations: Is Canada's policy of rotating diplomats across regions and across areas of speciality working at cross purposes to Canada's need to have sophisticated Canada-specific political and economic analyses at the disposal of Government? Is Canada's political engagement with China on human rights able to be effective? Can Canada be as effective as other nations who encourage specialization and a career pattern that would alternate between the China desk at home and Mandarin-speaking postings abroad?
Trade: Do our trade commissioners have the resources and expertise to fulfil their mandate? Is the Canada-China Business Council (currently headed by a former Canadian Minister of International Trade) able to adequately supplement the Embassy Trade Section? Should we be pursuing a free trade deal with China along the lines of Australia's?
Immigration: Is the process of application to travel to Canada perceived as less efficient and more humiliating than applications to other nations? Are the criteria for selection across categories leading to higher rejection rate than to other comparable countries? Can Canada address concerns of Chinese authorities with regard to refugee determination processes to allow for "Approved Destination Status" which would lead to massive increase in Chinese tourism to Canada?
Development: Presently Canada's bilateral development program is overseen by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and is limited to two areas; human rights, good governance and democratic development; and environmental sustainability. The Government of Canada plans to set up a Canadian Institute for Democracy in 2009 that, according to the report on Democratic Development tabled by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in June of last year, will encourage more people-to-people (via Canadian NGOs) contact. Is the CIDA program in China effective?
Culture: Does Canada's educational cultural and public affairs programming in China serve Canadian interests effectively?

The objective of this study is to provide policy advice on how to effectively realize Canada's interests in Canada's relations with China. The methodology would be first of all to survey existing literature on Canada's foreign policy to China and compare with Australia, the UK, France and the United States' China policy. This literature is rather weak, so I would use the same methodology as for my earlier report on human rights programming,which would be to meet with stakeholders in the Chinese Communist Party and Government as well as with senior diplomats of the embassies in Beijing of the nations being examined. Then to meet with stakeholders and senior government and opposition party people in Ottawa.

Basd on my earlier report's reception, I anticipate that this report would be influential in Canada and abroad.

Liberal Party China Policy Press Release

From: "Liberal Media/Medias liberaux" a>
To: "Liberal Media/Medias liberaux" .c
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 2:04 PM
Subject: NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release January 16, 2008

Chinese Ambassador Confirms Strained Canada-China Relationship

OTTAWA- Chinese Ambassador Lu Shumin's recent comments expressing concern about Canada-China relations illustrate how strained they have become under the Conservative government, Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae said today.

"China's ambassador to Canada was recently publicly quoted as saying 'any more undermining of our decades-old relationship will not serve Canada or China'," said Mr. Rae. "This unusually candid language for a diplomat should make it abundantly clear that, despite assurances from the Conservative government that things are fine, relations between our two countries have become dangerously strained."

Mr. Rae was referring to last Thursday's remarks by Mr. Lu Shumin at a meeting of the Ottawa chapter of the Canada-China Friendship Society. The ambassador commented that the Chinese people's deteriorating opinion of Canada is "not good news" and suggested that, "we may not see eye to eye but we can make tremendous progress by both respecting each other."

Mr. Rae explained these comments come after two years of diplomatic missteps and the consistent use of aggressive and undiplomatic language by the Prime Minister and members of the Conservative cabinet.

"From the initial snubbing of China's ambassador by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter McKay to undiplomatic comments from the Prime Minister and his ministers on China, this government's handling of China-Canada relations have been amateurish and have put domestic media sound bites ahead of constructive and effective diplomacy," said Mr. Rae.

"Reports of disagreements within the Conservative cabinet about its China policy and the reluctance of several of Mr. Harper's ministers to pursue closer ties have delivered precisely the wrong message to the Chinese government."

Bryon Wilfert, Liberal Associate Foreign Affairs Critic, said the previous Liberal government understood the importance of the Canada-China relationship and that constructive engagement with the government of China is the best way to promote Canadian values and trade.

"The previous Liberal government strengthened our partnership with China through numerous personal meetings and high level delegations," said Mr. Wilfert. "We formed the Canada-China Joint Committee on Human Rights (CCJCR) as a forum for promoting Canada's commitment to human rights in China and later the Canada-China Strategic Working Group (CCSWG) to further trade and diplomatic cooperation between our two countries.

"It is unfortunate that Prime Minister Harper has cancelled the successful Team Canada Trade missions to China, failed to engage in the previously annual meetings of the CCJCR since coming to power two years ago and backed away from the CCSWG."

Mr. Rae explained that both Canadians and Chinese are paying the price for the Conservative government's incompetence on the China file.

"Whether it is the Conservative government's inability the negotiate an agreement to allow Chinese tour groups to come to Canada or the erosion of Canada's traditional active and constructive role in working with the Chinese government to expand their adoption of human rights, the Conservative government's mishandling of this relationship is tragic,"
said Mr. Rae. "The Harper government's lack of nuance in its approach to China is dangerous and diminishes Canada's ability to deal with important issues like trade and international human rights."

-30-

Contact:

Liberal Party of Canada Press Office Elizabeth Whiting
613-783-8405

Office of Hon. Bryon Wilfert
905-709-5905




My Comment: I am unclear of the basis for the Ambassador's statement about "the Chinese people's deteriorating opinion of Canada", but I agree with him emphatically that ""we may not see eye to eye but we can make tremendous progress by both respecting each other."

Comment on Mr. Emerson's Speech to the Canada-China Business Council

This morning the Globe and Mail has an article by about the speech by David Emerson, Canadian Minister of International Trade to the Canada-China Trade Council on January 10. It is entitled: "Emerson opts not to 'lecture' on rights to Chinese." "The Globe's Beijing correspondent, Geoff York, writes: "A year after pledging to carry "Canadian values" to China, a senior federal cabinet minister says he omitted any mention of human rights from his latest speech in Beijing because he didn't want to 'lecture' his audience" (http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcfd6fxz_346crr64qc8).

It will be interesting to see if this return to "quiet diplomacy" with China on human rights is rewarded by granting Canada "Approved Destination Status" which would allow Chinese tourists to visit Canada, or by the release of Huseyin Celil.

Lack of Explanation for Why the Latest Issue of Newsweek Is Barred from Distribution in China

Jonathan Ansfield writes:

The year-end edition of Newsweek, a China cover entitled "China Now", includes a Fareed Zakaria think piece on the "superpower's" fragile side, excerpts from The China Diary of George H.W. Bush, and a personal history by Beijing bureau chief Melinda Liu spanning her three decades covering the country. In the international edition, there's also a short profile positing what (if anything) the liberal legacy of Party elder Xi Zhongxun might or might not say about his son Xi Jinping, now China's presumptive leader-in-waiting.

Something inside the magazine - it's not clear what - has offended Beijing. The China National Publications Import & Export Corporation (CNPIEC), which normally distributes the international edition to authorized newsstands catering to foreigners - five-star hotels, Friendship stores - has not released the current issue for sale. Copies of the magazine did reach subscribers. But due to its "sensitive contents" CNPIEC held up the rest on orders from the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), according to what a member of the sales and marketing department at CNPIEC told a program director at CCTV, who tipped off this reporter.

=============

It's not uncommon, of course, for official gatekeepers of imported titles to shut out individual issues over an off-putting piece. When this reporter contacted the CNPIEC sales department (6506-1315) to try to confirm the director's info, the woman who answered was gruff and felt no need to elaborate. "If it's not there, it's not there," she said. "I have no explanation to offer you." She questioned whether the contents of the magazine could be read on the Web in China. As usual, they could. "Well, if it's on the Web, isn't that good enough'" Click.

Full text of this article available at:
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/12/where_is_china_now_good_questions_jonathan_ansfield.php


Comment by me: What I find interesting is not so much the banning of a western news magazine. This is nothing unusual in China. But I do find the embarrassed response of the censor when asked for clarification intriguing. In the past one typically got a vigorously defiant answer denouncing hostile Western forces promulgating "anti-China" (fan hua) "slander." Seems that the Newsweek issue has been banned for revealing some truth or other that the authorities find too threatening to ignore, but which they dare not denounce explicitly. The régime's new attitude of defensiveness in the face of criticism indicates internal weakness. This is worrying and could be a harbinger of bad times ahead.
I seem to be picking up on something of a pattern here.

Response to E-mail Correspondent Explaining Circumstances of My Being at University in China in the 1970s

The circumstances of my attending Fudan were that when Canada and China established diplomatic relations in 1970, our foreign minister at the time, Mitchell Sharp, and Premier Zhou Enlai signed an agreement to send 10 students to each other's universities every year. I was on that program. The current Chinese ambassador to Canada, Lu Shumin, was one of those who came to Canada. At the time Fudan had only 13 foreign students --- conditions were quite bad for us at the time compared to universities in the America and Europe due to crowded living condition. no heat or running hot water (or even fans in the heat of summer). rationing, poverty, xenophobic and "class struggle" politics etc. I had a very good experience anyway. The guys in my class were mostly already 30 years-old and took good care to protect me from political hassles. For example when I would listen to the Voice of America Jazz Hour at night, they would report that I was listening to "our nation's radio broadcasts late into the night using headphones to improve my Chinese language ability and general knowledge of China" We always had to consult before they made their reports to make sure that they did not get into trouble if I was up to something bad --- which I was all the time by the standards of that repressive time --- seems we got away with it in the end. I am told by someone who later got access to my file that I was perceived as a model foreigner by the president's office, albeit a bit dimwitted (bu congming was how this was evidently expressed in the file).

Now most of those classmates are in Beijing and evidently much richer than me, but I am not sure where all the money comes from.

But the class keeps in close contact even after all these years which is very much cherished by me.

Sadness at the Death of Benazir Bhutto

When I was a student at Cambridge University, Benazir Bhutto was at Oxford, and well-known to us as president of the Oxford Union. She was an outstanding member of our student cohort of those days in the mid-1970s. For reasons I cannot quite sort out, I feel quite affected by her untimely and tragic death earlier today.

Article about Problem of Lack of Accountability for Red Guard Atrocities

This article is worth checking out:

On Mao’s 114th Birthday, Past Catches Up to Former Red Guard Leader

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=be87ff6c4b1b6142feb076155e09c5ba


Comment by me: Now 40 years later, it is not just the former Red Guards who are guilty of convenient forgetting. Even more seriously it is now evident that the Communist Party cadres who persecuted intellectuals in the Cultural Revolution will never be made accountable for what they did. After "rehabilitation" in the late-'70s and early- '80s the people who suffered confinement, physical abuse and loss of property, while cleared of all the false charges against them, returned to work units where the cadres complicit in their terrible ordeal continued with their careers as if nothing had happened. Many of these cadres later achieved considerable wealth after "opening and reform."

I have a lot of detailed information about the horrendous things that happened at Fudan University at that time as my teachers (including my thesis supervisor, Yan Beiming, the "#1 target for attack at Fudan") having just returned to campus from exile as farmers and manual labourers and prison talked long and with remarkable dispassion about what had happened to them in 1966 and thereafter. It was very apparent to me that they were still suffering from something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder to varying degrees in those years. This may have been the reason for their obsessive detailing of their Cultural Revolution experience to an outsider like me.

Whenever I return to the Fudan campus the shadows of memory of those terrible times haunt in a way that is almost palpable.

The young students on that campus today know little or nothing about this past.


Please read the comments on this posting below.

Deaths by Disappointment in Shanghai?

I called Beijing this morning to speak with one of my room-mates from my student days at Fudan University . I wanted to get an up-date on the condition of one of our classmates who is currently being treated for liver cancer. Seeing as I have one of those "unlimited long distance to China" cheap 'phone plans now, we got to talking at length and the subject turned to prematurely deceased members of our class. He said: "You notice how all of them are natives of Shanghai? It is the culture there. There is so much pressure on Shanghai people to be a success. They die early because of disappointment."

I am not sure if this claim would stand the test of a social scientific survey. Another explanation is that the water in Shanghai has always had a bad flavour that one suspects indicates something unhealthy about it.

But my college room-mate`s theory for why our classmates from Shanghai evidently tend to die younger than those from other regions did give me pause for thought.

Prime Minister of Australia Speaks Chinese Very Well

Here is a link to an interview with the Prime Minister of Australia broadcast on Central China TV:

http://ummyeah.com/page/_Prime _Minister_Kevin_Rudd_On_China _Central_Tv

This may be a harbinger of a future age when most foreign leaders will have Chinese as their first foreign language.

Ultimate Beneficiaries Speak in Euphemisms

Selection from article with this title published by Howard French in the International Herald Tribune on November 30, 2007 entitled "The thuggery behind the harmonious facade"

"In cities where huge urban redevelopment projects are underway, places like Shanghai, for example, residents who resist forced relocation without anything resembling due process are known to have been summoned to the police headquarters and retained there just long enough for the wrecking crews to knock down their homes in their absence.

Those who protest too much are often simply carted off to teach them a lesson.

Alternately, in another favored tactic, relatives are threatened that if their family member continues to be a nuisance, there could be consequences for others in the family.

Worse still is the contracting out of enforcement to genuine thugs. Here we're talking about local toughs who are deputed to take care of a "bad element," or suppress a demonstration using their fists or a few lengths of pipe. One could cite many examples, like Lu Banglie, who was badly beaten two years ago at Taishi, in Guangdong Province, when he brought a Western reporter with him to investigate the rigging of a village election.

This tactic, which seems to be spreading in China, has the advantage of deniability, since the police are usually careful to remain out of sight while heads are cracked.

Practices like these sometimes draw comparisons to the Wild West, but the more apt parallels belong to old-fashioned dictatorships like the Haiti of Papa Doc, with his notorious Tonton Macoutes.

. . .

Chinese leaders relish stability above all, and an image of harmony and of enlightened modernity. But like their ceaselessly renewed battles against official corruption, the likelihood of reining in contemporary thuggishness seems remote. This is because the very officials who speak in euphemisms when addressing it are its ultimate beneficiaries."