Years of Poems and Spirits

I was really disturbed by what happened in Xin Jiang broke out. I thought of two friends (JY and JG) who had connections there but didn’t get anything more than what I could found on the Net.

However, what happened there really helped me to put together much of what I have learned in the last several years. Felt like being pounded by revelations  one after another. I miss Joel, so much so that I almost wrote a letter to him just to say Thanks.  His thoughts on belonging-dominance, on social capital, on social-integration all come together suddenly. It is a awe-inspiring feeling.

I tried to put my thoughts on paper but the draft is still in the unpublished bin. On the one hand, I felt I had so much to say, on the other,  I don’t know there is anything new to say. Joel told me so.

Then received a message from YSL. Strange thing is I never met him but felt comfortable enough to write him a long message .Whoever he works for, the work he’s done is outstanding. This message is perhaps the best I can do now. I am not unhappy with how it came out. This is a revised version -

My wife and I have been to Xin Jiang but never Tibet. We love the region, me in particular. What happened in Urumqi saddened me a great deal.

I wanted to blog what I thought but found it very difficult to put my thoughts on paper.  Beyond the obvious, there are still more questions to be answered. For example, according to the Uighur, what triggered the riot was an earlier incident in a toy factory in Guangdong, where a mob of Han killed several Uighur co-workers living in the next dorm. If you followed the original report, it was said that the Han mob was angered because a Han woman was assaulted by several drunk Uighur first.

To me, the story has all the trappings of a racial hate-crime. In other words, I strongly suspect that the assault story was a rumor spread by some Han worker who are not happy with the presence of the Uighur laborer. The fact that the toy factory had to hire Uighur from XJ, bypassing the vast labor pool in between, seems to suggest a very exploitative motivation.

If you look back history, when American capitalists expanded West ward, they hired a lot immigrants from Ireland and China as cheap laborers. Those poor immigrants instantly became targets of racial hatred once they arrived. Local laborers thought they were cheap, shameless union-breakers. The Chinese immigrants actually had the worst of it.

With regard to “woman being assaulted” story, it is an age old ruse to fan hatred. Before the Civil Rights movement, there was a long period in American South called Jim Crow era when the Blacks were often beaten or killed by the whites for trumped up charges. The worst of the charges was black man raping white woman. Some black were lynched (publicly beaten to death, see http://www.centropian.com/religion/issues/wright/lynch.jpg)

I am saying so not to excuse the brutality committed by the Uighur rioters. What they did not only was against the law, but also was against universal humanity. It is only fair to say that those rioters are barbarians.

However, EVERY society has that kind of people. That is human nature. Yet some societies are better at suppressing the thugs, others are not. That difference is an indicator of the maturity of a society. In a civic-minded, living-by-rule-of-law country, the thugs are dealt with by the society itself. Even at the worst moments, say during a conflict against another country/race, etc., a mature society is led by reason and law, not by emotion and fear. The weekend riot in Urumqi and the earlier incident in Guangdong just show how immature both Han and Uighur societies are.

This doesn’t mean we Chinese are stupid or incapable of managing our own lives (which gives the Chinese State a perfect reason to intervene). Towards the end of Man-Qing dynasty, during the Taiping Rebellion, the Imperial government was all but gone. The central State was not longer functioning. However, among all the regions suffered from the Taiping wars, some learned to organize and to protect self, others degenerated into total chaos. The difference is not in how they were governed by the CENTRAL government, but how they SELF governed.

Similarly, after the Sichuan earthquake, some government institutions were totally destroyed. But at the same time, large amount of supply were coming in and needed to be distributed properly. I have heard reports that in some villages, peasants started to form self-governing committees spontaneously. They adopted open and democratic practices that eventually served them well.

What I am trying to say is, just like every society has bad people, I believe every society has the instinct of organizing itself in a civic and just manner. Whether the instinct can turn into real action depends on the bond the society has amongst its members. Political scientists call this “social capital”. The Japanese and the Germans recovered from their disastrous past quickly and became not only prosperous but also just and stable. That is perhaps they are ethnically and culturally homogeneous. In other words, the bond that bind each of these societies together is blood and language.

But there are countries (very few) that are stable, just but not ethnically homogeneous. The U.S. is a good example. This is so not only because there is a strong central government, but also there are many equally strong civic organizations–the churches, the trade groups, unions, sports clubs, hubby groups, etc. People get to know each other through civic activities and they learn to live with other people–some maybe very different from themselves–through civil means: keep an open mind, ready to give-and-take. In this kind of environment, it is difficult to see extremism taking over collective behavior. In other words, the civic life in America is at the same time a citizenship training and a community police.

I enjoyed your production largely for the same reason. As I said in an earlier email, I like your work because you really captured a vibrant civic life in America, whether it is a rodeo show, a bike city or scullers practicing together–they all tell the story how people can come together, have fun and learn to be a member of a community.

In China, civic life, particularly civic life of large scale, is ruthlessly suppressed by the government. About 10 years ago, a group of urban laborers from Sichuan started a self-help group, called 打工妹之家 or something like that. It grew and grew, until one day the government forced them to have a 党支部 so it could be better managed. The Communist Party’s paranoia of any civic force, its deep mistrust of Chinese people is destroying the nation’s future. We don’t have citizens, we only have a collection of individuals who mistrust each other.

I can only speculate, if there is a true worker’s union in Guangdong, when the Han laborers didn’t like the fact that the management hired cheap labor from Xin Jiang, they might have gone through the union, instead of taking their anger to the Uighur. In Urumqi, if the Uighur could have their own community organizations, if they were truly represented in the political process, their unhappiness of large Han migration, of unfair resource allocation, of lack of business opportunities might have been voiced very differently. No to say having those civic organizations would have prevented everything from happening. But they would certainly have lessened the damage.

As you can see, I have much to say about this. I was as disturbed as much as you surely have been. But saying anything doesn’t really bring me any comfort. I feel very sad because on the one hand, history is screaming to anyone who’d listen: we don’t have to live this way (full of hatred and mistrust). On the other, people I care (both Han and Uighur) are killing each other as if not hearing anything.

I still remain hopeful, in part because I have seen some Chinese posting on the Net that people are shocked by the violence and started to question why. As I said, there is always something innately positive in any society. Maybe that is what we call Humanity.

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to write this out.

Keywords: 改革歷程，改革历程，prisoner of the state, zhao ziyang, 赵紫阳

赵紫阳 温家宝 1989 6.4 天安门

After some digging, finally got the Chinese version of Zhao Ziyang’s book. The text only PDF version is here (smaller size, easier to read too), and the book scan is here (not how I would normally do it but this is really an important book).

Very interesting book. Will definitely buy one once it is available on the market here.

The recount of what happened in May/Jun 1989 was fairly detailed but nothing came to me as a shock. What fascinated me the most was his reflection on the Reform period pre-June 1989. Despite a nagging feeling that his story might be a little self-serving, I found the following points very interesting -

• Zhao’s portrait of Deng: not the visionary “architect” of the Reform but more of a party senior who had a lot faith in the frontline guys he hand-picked. In other words, I didn’t see a lot places where Deng made the tough calls himself, rather he was largely behind Zhao on some key decisions.  But this relationship is largely confined in areas concerning economy Politically Deng was pretty clear from the start that the students needed to be put down.
• The senior leaders were very direct in their communications. Often I read about so-and-so openly criticized so-and-so in high-level meetings, or so-and-so made self-criticism after others pointed out his mistakes in front of other senior cadres, etc.  In other words, the fractional battle was intense yet quite open too
• On the one hand, Zhao was the tragic hero of the 1989. On the other, he was somewhat responsible for it. His price reform was clearly the culprit of mass discontent that led to the protests. He seemed to be quite aware of it and spent a lot pages/recordings to defend himself

Will add more once I am done with it …

Had a busy first half of June. Trying to keep up with John M’s work. Started with Marketfish last week. A lot uncertainty for sure: the startup’s future, my own performance as the data guy. But there is anything that still excites, it is knowledge discovery. So I am looking forward to the challenge.

Notes from the usual water hole:

NYKr 2009.5.4 issue, “Money Talks”: A glowing profile of Peter Orszag.

Overall impression: a wunderkind, a master of budgetary details with a keen sense of politics and a eye for public communications. The author seems to be framing the Obama administration in much the same way as the term “The Best and the Brightest” did to the Kennedy administration.

Some highlights:

• Orszag tried hard to refine his message after being grilled by Jon Stewart. Another example, when called upon to explain the difference in budget proposal from the Congress, said if not twins, “they are brothers that look an awful lot a like”
• Harry Reid called him not a resident bureaucrat but a political “natural”
• A product of New England elite who interned for Tom Daschle while he was on the bench in Senate

Key: “Orszag has turned the OMB into something of a behavioral economics think tank“  Is B.E. to Obama what the Supply-side was to Reagan, or the Keynesian Roosevelt?

Why the Obama era is so different from the Clinton era:

• New assumption: deficit and GDP – the government can live with deficit indefinitely (a depart from the core Clinton legacy) Healthcare reform is deficit reduction.
• Rahm Emanuel vs. Being B.T.U.-ed: how the W.H. screwed up Congressional allies with a half-baked legislative push
• Advisers: Orszag vs. Stiglitz – Norway resumed commercial whaling but negotiated the 93 Middle-East accord. Stiglitz proposed alternative to trade sanction: to boycott Winter Olympic. W. Christopher: “Joe, do you realize that you are equating the killing of four ninke whales with the invasion of Afghanistan?” “You know, you are right. How about we just boycott those events we won’t win?” (the story that made my day)

Follow up on the 1989.6.4 thought:

This blurb garnered a surprisingly many accolades (three), so I thought it is worth noting:

I come to believe 1989 as a tragedy made up of a collection of mistakes.  It should serve as a collective lesson for the Chinese nation. Undoubtedly, the suppression of memories (of the massacre)  deprived my people of a historical opportunity to look into ourselves  and to move beyond past mistakes. However, I think some of us are  missing the obvious here: the key lessons from 1989 have been learned.

… (the usual challenge to the false promise of nationalistic revolution)

If one looks at 1989 in this historical context, it became less destructive in the long run. In a way, together with the Cultural Revolution, 1989 successfully eliminated any remaining fantasy on revolution in Chinese political thought. It forcefully transformed an intensively political nation to one that is more focused on economic development. Even the new political life, dare I say, is in general less violence-prone than the old one: the ruling are more sensitive to the dissatisfaction from below. The ruled are forced into other, more peaceful ways to alter the political course.

Just Being Flippant:
NYT calls the 邓玉娇 case a “Civic-Minded Chinese Find a Voice Online” Apparently, the writer doesn’t know anything about China, nor does he know the basics of civic society. A true civic society is based on trust, on solid foundation of widespread civic association (social capital). What happens in China nowadays is akin to moral vigilantism.  In other words, what happened to 邓玉娇 and what happened to 王千源 is just two sides of the same coin. We Chinese are “Judgmental Bastards” (thanks, Jay Leno).

The State of Chinese Elite:

Didn’t know there is someone actually studying the Chinese intellectual elite (Merle Goldman).  Really like to read her work and ask her assessment/characterization of contemporary Chinese “elite”.

Two stories really pissed me off:

1. The 方静事件. Lisa C has an excellent writeup on her blog. A news anchorwoman was suddenly accused of espionage by a journalism professor. And one of her guest on the show, an admiral in the navy no less, joined the rumor war from his blog.
2. Another terrible translation incident:
   

   “费尔班德”、“林T·C”、“赫萨”，这串洋味十足的名字，其实对应的都是学术圈名 人：费正清、林同济、夏济安。… 最近，一篇署名“高山杉”的文章在网上引起热议，它把中央 编译出版社于2008年10月出版的清华大学历史系副主任王奇所著《中俄国界东段学术史研究：中国、俄国、西方学者视野中的中俄国界东段问题》一书中几十 处名字谬误公之于众。其中最荒唐不过的，当属蒋介石(Chiang Kai-shek)被改名为“常凯申”。

更有甚者，孟子被译成“门修斯”

Here is what I wrote Lisa C:

I am totally astounded by the free-wheeling-ness of some of the elites. They are considered as elites because they are supposed to be experts in what they do. And yet they would go so far off what they are paid to do and to chase a 15min fame. There is a profound lack of professionalism, don’t you think? Here whether it is Drudge or Page Six, they do tabloid but they do their job really well. How many times you see an American army general engage in this type of speculation? That is totally absurd.

More – what do those stories tell us? Some hypothesis:

1. People venture out their profession because they don’t feel fulfilled at their job. In other words, the journalism professor and the naval admiral don’t feel like they are being compensated for what they can fetch in an open market
2. Can a State’s capacity being measured by the competency of its elites? Is there an index can track that? Or is it even trackable? If it ever is, my hunch is that the two are pretty strongly correlated.

Watching Iran

Looks like a train wreck. So many commentators have mentioned June 4th in the same breath. It will really hurt to see another June 4th happen again.

So much conflicting information … as I am writing, my mind drifted back to the days when we were on horseback in Brazil … wished life could have less conflict, violence, more appreciation and above all stand still.

What I don’t like:

• A movement that is made up of relatively homogeneous demographics: urban, secular, students, Tehran only. Similar pattern also found in Beijing 1989, Venezuela, Bolivia and Thailand

What I like:

• Obama’s handling of the situation. Someone said the politicians like to grandstand in moments like this. True professionals know better and wait. No question Obama has resisted as far as he can
• I am reasonably convinced that the election is rigged. The outrage on the street is genuine (not something made up by the lefties here)

About This Blog:

After a lengthy discussion with the Boston couple, I suddenly realized that this blog is my alter ego.  No wonder all this mess …