Renting foreigners to do business and gain more face — typical in China! I remember a ‘Canadian’ fashion show with models from Brazil, Russia and other Eastern European countries… and a couple of Canucks.
Renting foreigners to do business and gain more face — typical in China! I remember a ‘Canadian’ fashion show with models from Brazil, Russia and other Eastern European countries… and a couple of Canucks.
So I’ll rant instead about how no one in power will give a shit about Liu Xiaobo beyond making a few noises — if at all — and it’ll be business as usual with China. Happy Christmas!
Neil and I were checking out Ocean Terminal and we walked by Waterstone’s. I spotted China Cuckoo in the window display (I think the technical term is ‘front of store’) as we passed and I did a double-take.
“Mark Kitto… I know that name… that’s the guy who did the magazine!”
We made what’s called a beeline, and I got a look at one of the two remaining copies in stock.
I repeatedly make promises to stop buying books — I was at two BookCrossing events last week and picked up ten used books, but I really couldn’t resist getting China Cuckoo. This is the man who blazed the trail and made it possible for all of us crazy foreigners (who like to push shit uphill) to publish expatriate-focused magazines in China.
I’m fairly convinced that I corresponded with him over email when the shit hit the fan with What’s On Xiamen back in 2004 because I needed some advice and he was very nice. And that was before he got forced out of That’s… because he’d been too successful.
I hope book sales since publication have already covered his advance and my small contribution (by way of purchasing China Cuckoo for full RRP in Waterstone’s and not on Amazon) has gone towards his royalty earnings.
(Read the Danwei interview with Mark Kitto when China Cuckoo was first published. Especially about the ‘self-important brigade’, the main reason I couldn’t wait to leave China in the end.)
While we were having coffee in Costa, I took the opportunity to dip into the book a wee bit, and I think I’m going to enjoy China Cuckoo.
Experts are forecasting that China will become a major player in wine production. Here’s hoping Chinese wines start to taste less horrific by then.
Chinese ambassador warns of backlash:
The ambassador warned that negative media coverage and the protests that have dogged the Olympic torch relay were damaging the west’s image in China.
“Many who had romantic views of the west are very disappointed at the media’s attempt to demonise China. We all know demonisation feeds a counter-reaction,” she said. “Many complain about China not allowing enough access to the media. In China, the view is that the western media need to earn respect.”
Don’t you love political leaders who ignore reality? Sweetheart, from my experience of living in China, Chinese people don’t have a truly romanticised view of ‘the West’. They just see it as an opportunity to get out of China, make some money, and return (if they don’t manage to get citizenship) to live a more comfortable life.
And there’s that “If I repeat the lie enough, it will become fact” effort of claiming how happy most Tibetans are to be overrun by Han Chinese. I’m ethnically Han Chinese and I know this is complete bullshit.
See also Made in China. We should all be more frugal anyway, whatever our political stance. In my fantasy world, the best way for China to move forward, both politically and economically, is to be split into several smaller, more manageable, independent countries — the place is simply too big to be run in a remotely effective manner, hence the ridiculously crappy state it’s in. I can’t quite see the CCP going for that, though.
One place the Tibetan flag no longer flies is in the window of a bed shop in the English city of Sheffield. Its owner is a Tibetan sympathiser, who displayed the flag last month. Two young Chinese, apparently students, visited and made threats. That night his windows were smashed. A celebration supposed to mark China’s emergence as a friendly global power has made some people think for the first time that its rise is something to fear.
Only if they start seriously bullying big businesses from developed countries, I reckon, will governments start to worry about what China’s rise really means.
I know I’ve moved further and further to the bedevilled ol’ Right when it comes to certain issues*, but when it comes to politics, I’m as Lefty as a left-handed person who works in a left-handed company**. So I say, boycott the Olympic Games!
It’s fucking wrong that more developed countries are so dependent on cheap labour and the promise of a billion-plus market to sell their goods that they are essentially giving China a free pass to do whatever they want, with a few grudging noises about the niggly little issue known as human rights***. Tut-tutting at Hu Jintao and the Chinese government doesn’t cut the mustard. They’re fucking presiding over a huge country, do you think they would have manoeuvred into that position if they’d been intimidated by a few admonitory words?
We need to hit China where it hurts — don’t show them any face.
I want people, whoever they are and whatever position they’re in, to stand up against institutional cruelty and evil simply because it’s in their own interest to do so (in recognition that people are instinctively selfish, or is that self-preserving). There should be personal consequences for supporting, say, Coca-Cola, Atos Origin, GE, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, Lenovo, Manulife, McDonalds, Omega, Panasonic, Samsung, Visa, Volkswagen, Adidas, Air China, UPS, Haier, Budweiser, Tsingtao, BHP, TechnoGym, Staples, PWC, and Schenker Logistics, among others, so the opportunity cost of using these branded products and services is too high.
If a high-profile Olympic athlete chose to withdraw from the competition, more might follow suit, turning the competition into a complete farce — but I know that’s not going to happen, personal glory and a lifetime of lucrative product spokesperson contracts is too great a temptation to ignore.
So, fired up as I am, I know that governments of supposedly more developed countries will continue to rubber stamp China through this latest psychological milestone of terrible behaviour becoming acceptable, and our pot of water will get just that little warmer after this summer.
* Frankly, I think it’s perfectly in keeping with my believing strongly in anarchism but recognising the practical impossibility of a happy anarchistic society.
** I actually do. Strange statistical anomaly.
*** Real human rights, not complacent litigious people looking to avoid a speeding ticket.
Trial of Chinese activist begins:
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, when asked to comment on his case at a news conference at the close of parliament, said issues like this would be handled according to the law.
“As for critics’ view that China is trying to increase its efforts to arrest dissidents ahead the Olympic Games, I think all these accusations are unfounded,” he said.
He’s 100% abso-fucking-lutely right. The CCP always been harsh on political activists (in fact, they’ve been worse in the past), it’s only been recently that mainstream Western media have been making lots of noise about it.
On balance, their treatment of political prisoners has probably improved, most probably due to global scrutiny! And they probably hope everyone will lose interest after the Olympics.
Updated to add: I’m thinking the Olympics will go through mostly unscathed and China will be allowed to go on doing what it’s doing (with noises made by other governments but no action being taken) as long as it doesn’t start fucking with global trade.