Thursday, June 26, 2008
China Watching- Old Style
China Hand was trained in the old school of China watching, our sources were summaries of mainland magazines, newspapers and radio, interviews with refugees, documents which came out via Taiwan, and glimpses of China from occasional, and highly controlled, visitors.
We would bend over photos from the People's Daily noting the positioning to check the very strict hierarchy, who was in with Mao and who was out. Towards the end of this era we did have access to intellectuals who had taught in China, but even they were either very guarded in their comments or unreasonably upbeat. Particularly those who believed they had a degree of access were loath ever to be publically critical so as not to threaten that access. Most discussion was strongly divided between the blindly pro-Chinese "Friends of China" (including myself) and the rabidly anti-Chinese, anti-communist zealots.
Particularly amusing at the Australian National University where I studied where two great Australian protagonists frequently clashed - Stephen FitzGerald, the former Ambassador turned academic & China Consultant, and Belgian sinologist Pierre Ryckmans (pen-name Simon Leys). FitzGerald had linked his star to the Chinese revolution and so was also in the position of having to deny many of the excesses whilst Ryckmans, who had been a diplomat in China in the 60's was the passionate opponent.
I never knew what informed Ryckmans, but his criticism appeared to come from a Continental leftist position rather like Antonioni - that China's authoritarian communism was giving the world socialist movement a bad name. Educated a catholic he might have been taking a doctrinaire catholic anti-communist line (one authoritarian system condemning another), or it might have come from a deep love of China's classical culture, with which he was undoubtedly familiar.
Whatever it was that motivated him he was a passionate opponent and employed a scathing satirical style, titling one book - The Invisible Clothes of Chairman Mao. I was present for one great confrontation held under the auspices of the ANU's Contemporary China Centre headed by Audrey Donnithorne. Dr FitzGerald was lined up to present a paper on the popular support for the Chinese government and the lack of an organized underground opposition (a paper which was never published). Present amongst Canberra's august China watching community was a leading Taiwanese academic and China watcher (whose name escapes me momentarily).
Before the seminar began and while we were waiting for Dr FitzGerld to arrive, this academic leaned across the table to Ryckans and whispered, sotto voce, "I've just heard from Taipei, the authors of the 'Li Yi Zhe Manifesto' have just been executed in Guangzhou". Back in '76 three Chinese had allegedly authored a document which I recall from memory denounced Beijing's government as fascist (an accusation I was later to hear from a Chinese exchange student well before the fall of the 'Gang of Four'). They had been detained by the government but the rumour of their execution was classic Taiwanese dis-information. Ryckmans took the bait however and while he allowed FitzGerald to speak without interruption, at the end he jumped to his feet, inarticulate with rage at the patent apologia, and stuttered that he was too furious to make a full rebuttutal but that it could come shortly in written form and he stormed out. The seminar broke up in confusion.
If it had been the Taiwanese academic's plan to prod Ryckmans into a stirring rebuttal and denunciation of the FitzGerald gloss, then it failed, in fact he had disarmed the famous cold war warrior. Just as FitzGerald failed to put his paper into academic form (how could he?) Ryckmans similarly failed to reply in an academic forum, chosing instead to publish it in the Sydney Morning Herald.
China Hand was fortunate to move to China soon after and was able to form his own views of China and indulge in the enthralling world of 'xiaodao xiaoxi' local rumours and gossip. This leader is sleeping with this singer, that one was sleeping with a top tennis player etc. This leader's son is a gangster. Another one is corrupt. All equally unreliable as our so-called academic treatise, but a natural reaction to politics played out behind closed doors.
Another amusing thing about Beijing in those early days of the 'Open Door' was to see the way that journalists and diplomats were courted by a shady group who proported to represent 'liberal' forces in the government, and who kept up a continual flow of stories about how the so-called, and probably mythical 'liberal faction' was just about to get the upper hand in politics. This group seemed to be limited either in number or inspiration because they all seemed to retail the same 'hard luck', or horror stories of persecution to the uncritical journalists. This fact was underlined when one of the journalists wrote a'tell all' story which appeared to reveal a lot about his informants. All the other journalists immedately protested that he had stolen their stories and compromised their contacts. In the days when everyone interacting with foreigners was closely monitored, it is hard to imagine that any 'amatuers' had not been caught and turned by the omnipresent securities forces. I thought the journalists naive to think they were getting the real inside picture from their informants.
Even the girls who mixed with foreigners were often arrested by the 'gong'anju' but then encouraged to continue their liaison and report regularly to them about the foreigner's activities, contacts with out locals, and thoughts about China.
Well they were the days. China has changed a lot and it hasn't changed at all as all old hands like to say. I'm sure Simon Leys could say it better in French. So it was recently that I watched with interest the comings and goings during the Sichuan Earthquake. Premier Wen's immediate appearance in Sichuan was a stroke of media genius. His concern and tears were no doubt genuine, his urgings to 'trust the party, trust your government' patent propaganda. Every night we sat down to a new story with Wen holding hands with old men or women, or young children and tearfully urging them not to lose hope and to trust the government to look after them. There was not a dry eye in the surrounding group, even the cynical local cadres couldn't help a tear or two.
After several days in of overwhelming coverage Wen was suddenly replaced by Hu who no doubt felt threatened by Wen's extraordinary elevation to Hero-Sage-God status ( remember Xia King Yu who passed his home three times during a flood mitigation exercise but was too busy to go in? These are the type of images that I guess the party were hoping people would recall). After Hu had spent an appropriate time there (albeit image more stoic - more the busy but efficient overseer than comforter) he was replaced by deputy prime minister Li Keqiang.
All the time my busy, old China hand mind was screaming 'where is the president-designate? Where is Xi Jinping?'. This was an occasion to give leaders in waiting favourable profile but Xi was been kept out of the lime-light. Was he kept back in Beijing to ensure discipline there?
Conventional wisdom has it that Li was Hu's favourite for the position of president while Xi was being pushed by those who listened to former president Jiang Zemin. Respected China watcher Frank Ching from Hong Kong did not support this particular bit of China Watching speculation, but the concensus was for the former opinion.
Well it seems that Xi must have been chafing at the bit. He has just been given a 'high profile' international trip as consolation. North Korea, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Yeman and Qatar, immediately followed by another 'hi-profile' tour of Hong kong and Macao. Not exactly in the international top ten of powerful nations. So my old China hand mind is racing. Is Hu holding Xi back to try and get Li Keqiang the higher profile? I will continue to watch this space.
China Hand was trained in the old school of China watching, our sources were summaries of mainland magazines, newspapers and radio, interviews with refugees, documents which came out via Taiwan, and glimpses of China from occasional, and highly controlled, visitors.
We would bend over photos from the People's Daily noting the positioning to check the very strict hierarchy, who was in with Mao and who was out. Towards the end of this era we did have access to intellectuals who had taught in China, but even they were either very guarded in their comments or unreasonably upbeat. Particularly those who believed they had a degree of access were loath ever to be publically critical so as not to threaten that access. Most discussion was strongly divided between the blindly pro-Chinese "Friends of China" (including myself) and the rabidly anti-Chinese, anti-communist zealots.
Particularly amusing at the Australian National University where I studied where two great Australian protagonists frequently clashed - Stephen FitzGerald, the former Ambassador turned academic & China Consultant, and Belgian sinologist Pierre Ryckmans (pen-name Simon Leys). FitzGerald had linked his star to the Chinese revolution and so was also in the position of having to deny many of the excesses whilst Ryckmans, who had been a diplomat in China in the 60's was the passionate opponent.
I never knew what informed Ryckmans, but his criticism appeared to come from a Continental leftist position rather like Antonioni - that China's authoritarian communism was giving the world socialist movement a bad name. Educated a catholic he might have been taking a doctrinaire catholic anti-communist line (one authoritarian system condemning another), or it might have come from a deep love of China's classical culture, with which he was undoubtedly familiar.
Whatever it was that motivated him he was a passionate opponent and employed a scathing satirical style, titling one book - The Invisible Clothes of Chairman Mao. I was present for one great confrontation held under the auspices of the ANU's Contemporary China Centre headed by Audrey Donnithorne. Dr FitzGerald was lined up to present a paper on the popular support for the Chinese government and the lack of an organized underground opposition (a paper which was never published). Present amongst Canberra's august China watching community was a leading Taiwanese academic and China watcher (whose name escapes me momentarily).
Before the seminar began and while we were waiting for Dr FitzGerld to arrive, this academic leaned across the table to Ryckans and whispered, sotto voce, "I've just heard from Taipei, the authors of the 'Li Yi Zhe Manifesto' have just been executed in Guangzhou". Back in '76 three Chinese had allegedly authored a document which I recall from memory denounced Beijing's government as fascist (an accusation I was later to hear from a Chinese exchange student well before the fall of the 'Gang of Four'). They had been detained by the government but the rumour of their execution was classic Taiwanese dis-information. Ryckmans took the bait however and while he allowed FitzGerald to speak without interruption, at the end he jumped to his feet, inarticulate with rage at the patent apologia, and stuttered that he was too furious to make a full rebuttutal but that it could come shortly in written form and he stormed out. The seminar broke up in confusion.
If it had been the Taiwanese academic's plan to prod Ryckmans into a stirring rebuttal and denunciation of the FitzGerald gloss, then it failed, in fact he had disarmed the famous cold war warrior. Just as FitzGerald failed to put his paper into academic form (how could he?) Ryckmans similarly failed to reply in an academic forum, chosing instead to publish it in the Sydney Morning Herald.
China Hand was fortunate to move to China soon after and was able to form his own views of China and indulge in the enthralling world of 'xiaodao xiaoxi' local rumours and gossip. This leader is sleeping with this singer, that one was sleeping with a top tennis player etc. This leader's son is a gangster. Another one is corrupt. All equally unreliable as our so-called academic treatise, but a natural reaction to politics played out behind closed doors.
Another amusing thing about Beijing in those early days of the 'Open Door' was to see the way that journalists and diplomats were courted by a shady group who proported to represent 'liberal' forces in the government, and who kept up a continual flow of stories about how the so-called, and probably mythical 'liberal faction' was just about to get the upper hand in politics. This group seemed to be limited either in number or inspiration because they all seemed to retail the same 'hard luck', or horror stories of persecution to the uncritical journalists. This fact was underlined when one of the journalists wrote a'tell all' story which appeared to reveal a lot about his informants. All the other journalists immedately protested that he had stolen their stories and compromised their contacts. In the days when everyone interacting with foreigners was closely monitored, it is hard to imagine that any 'amatuers' had not been caught and turned by the omnipresent securities forces. I thought the journalists naive to think they were getting the real inside picture from their informants.
Even the girls who mixed with foreigners were often arrested by the 'gong'anju' but then encouraged to continue their liaison and report regularly to them about the foreigner's activities, contacts with out locals, and thoughts about China.
Well they were the days. China has changed a lot and it hasn't changed at all as all old hands like to say. I'm sure Simon Leys could say it better in French. So it was recently that I watched with interest the comings and goings during the Sichuan Earthquake. Premier Wen's immediate appearance in Sichuan was a stroke of media genius. His concern and tears were no doubt genuine, his urgings to 'trust the party, trust your government' patent propaganda. Every night we sat down to a new story with Wen holding hands with old men or women, or young children and tearfully urging them not to lose hope and to trust the government to look after them. There was not a dry eye in the surrounding group, even the cynical local cadres couldn't help a tear or two.
After several days in of overwhelming coverage Wen was suddenly replaced by Hu who no doubt felt threatened by Wen's extraordinary elevation to Hero-Sage-God status ( remember Xia King Yu who passed his home three times during a flood mitigation exercise but was too busy to go in? These are the type of images that I guess the party were hoping people would recall). After Hu had spent an appropriate time there (albeit image more stoic - more the busy but efficient overseer than comforter) he was replaced by deputy prime minister Li Keqiang.
All the time my busy, old China hand mind was screaming 'where is the president-designate? Where is Xi Jinping?'. This was an occasion to give leaders in waiting favourable profile but Xi was been kept out of the lime-light. Was he kept back in Beijing to ensure discipline there?
Conventional wisdom has it that Li was Hu's favourite for the position of president while Xi was being pushed by those who listened to former president Jiang Zemin. Respected China watcher Frank Ching from Hong Kong did not support this particular bit of China Watching speculation, but the concensus was for the former opinion.
Well it seems that Xi must have been chafing at the bit. He has just been given a 'high profile' international trip as consolation. North Korea, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Yeman and Qatar, immediately followed by another 'hi-profile' tour of Hong kong and Macao. Not exactly in the international top ten of powerful nations. So my old China hand mind is racing. Is Hu holding Xi back to try and get Li Keqiang the higher profile? I will continue to watch this space.
