Month: October 2008

Back in May, in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake, a few China correspondents started talking about the possibility of a “Chinese Glasnost”. First was Philip Taubman, veteran of the New York Times Moscow bureau, warning what happened “When The Kremlin Tried a Little Openness“. Four days later, Nicholas Kristof called Chinese media’s coverage of Sichuan “China’s Glasnost“. Kristof doesn’t seem to understand what Glasnost was, saying:

In the 1980s, China’s hard-liners ferociously denounced “heping yanbian” – “peaceful evolution” toward capitalism and democracy… My hunch is that the Communist Party is lurching in the direction, over 10 or 20 years, of becoming a Social Democratic Party that dominates the country but that grudgingly allows opposition victories and a free press.

Kristof was in China at the end of the USSR and his hunch about gradualism seems more on the money about China. Taubman saw glasnost first hand, however, and gives a better description of what it was. Ironically, it makes clear why both of them are wrong that anything like glasnost is likely to occur in China now:

Continue reading “China in Soviet Shorthand”

From the first chapter of Caligula for President:

I’ve previously written about my doubts about the “bare branches” theory, which argues that a growing surplus of bachelors in China are a threat to social stability. The study by Andrea Den Boer and Valerie Hudson argued:

1. China has a growing surplus of men who will not find marriage partners due to imbalanced sex ratios that will hit 30 million by 2020,
2. these men are testosterone powered violence machines,
3. an increase in their personal violence can increase the likelihood of war,
4. they must be destroyed or exiled, namely by authoritarianism and war.

Now there’s a nifty interactive map on singles in major American cities. There’s huge surplus of single young men in nearly every American city. Den Boer and Hudson argued that the difference between a single man and a bare branch is that a bare branch has no prospects of marriage, while a single man does. Actually, this would really hinge on perception, and that brings up another criticism of their theory of China. What if China’s bare branches are just ignorantly optimistic? As long as they think they can get married one day, would they be less prone to violence? On the flip side, America may be facing a wave of cynical, sarcastic 20-somethings in the U.S. who believe they will never get married, and decide to overthrow the government. We still don’t know if they have any decent education or money, after all.

Moreover, these single men in America are still subject to higher levels of testosterone according to Den Boer and Hudson’s argument, and must be fueling crime in these cities. I don’t disagree that young men are disproportionate responsible for violent crime – however, they also argue this increases the chance of an international conflict. Mexico is being threatened by waves of unmarried men in LA, apparently, and Cuba might be assaulted by an ambitious horde of Spring Break sea pirates. Clearly, the U.S. must invade Iran to purge the nation of these uncontrollable young hooligans. Or start a government initiative to wed them to legions of cougars.

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My previous and more serious criticisms of the “bare branches” theory were:

1. The study doesn’t address the fact that the current surplus of 14-18 million men shows no correlation to increased violence or instability, and they didn’t even examine the current surplus,
2. the authors ignore that the very literature they cite argues that high testosterone does not necessarily correlate to violence or lower social status,
3. they give no evidence why this supposed inclination towards internal violence would translate into a greater chance of international conflict,
4. their historical example in China, the Nien Rebellion, does not account for huge societal changes, such as the lack of abandoned 5th string sons,
5. they dismiss that government, familial or other societal obligations might mitigate this alleged propensity to violence,
6. they misread other literature they cited which in fact makes a case that the growing ratio of older to younger men in China would, in fact, decrease the chances of violence,
7. they do not address contributing factors such as prostitution or a surplus of 10 million gay males (after subtracting lesbians).

In a press conference today, the Ministry of Public Security released its second list of most wanted terrorists for plotting attacks on the Olympics and generally working towards separatism in “restive”* Xinjiang. The first list was released December 15, 2003, and included Hasan Mahsum, who had been shot dead by Pakistani forces two months earlier – the delay may have been because of DNA testing.

The first list included: Hasan Mahsum (ETIM, deceased), Mamtimin Hazrat (ETLO), Dolqun Isa (Uyghur Youth Congress), Abudujelil Karikax (ET Information Center, UYC), Abudukadir Uapqan (ETIM), Abudumijit Mamatkrim (ETIM), Abdulla Kariaji (ETIM), Ablimit Tursun (World Uyghur Congress), Hudabardiy Haxerbak (ETLO), Yasan Mammat and Atahan Abduheni. The addition of the WUC and UYC were received rather skeptically, especially since the list said these groups were working with ETIM. Most of the crimes they were accused of were general charges of recruitment, funding and bombmaking, and specific charges of gun violence and robberies.

So who’s new? This time the second list (English here) goes all out on details: aliases, nicknames, birthdays, education level (one university, 2 vocational, 1 high school, 2 junior high and 2 primary school level – not Mohammed Atta stuff), and ID and passport numbers, which seems awfully pointless but police paperwork is what it is. Moreover, while the previous list did include, in some versions, what appears to be Latin-based spellings of their names, the current list is only available with pinyin versions of their Chinese phoneticized names. Also, places are consistently referred to as “a Middle Eastern country”, “a South Asia country”, “Middle East and West Asian countries”, “a south Asian nation”, etc. etc. – never the name of Pakistan, Afghanistan, or where ever else it is they’re referring to.

• Memetiming Memeti: Alleged to be the new CEO of ETIM, replacing Mahsum in 2003. He is said to have released a video “on the world’s largest video sharing website” in June 2008, but I can’t find any record of a YouTube video with any of his names or aliases. In fact, reports of videos on YouTube began in July. Moreover, there is no mention of the videos released in August, or Abdullah Mansour who appeared in it. Searches for Chinese and English translations of his alleged quotes (“要把2008年变成中国的哀悼年”, “turn the year 2008 into China’s year of condolence”), mainly turn up this list and references to an August 7 Caijing Online article that says a video was released on YouTube June 26/27 and states they want to make it a year of condolence, but not as a direct quote. The video is not included in IntelCenter’s DVD of TIP’s greatest hits, the YouTube account for TIP was deleted, and there’s no English record of such a video. Also, it is always referred to as being posted on June 26-27; why the ambiguity?
  

• Emeti Yakuf: alias Seyfullah, Memetiming’s lieutenant, apparently. He is also said to have released a video in June, and his alias does match the name of the man in a video released in July by the “Turkestan Islamic Party”. In fact, the  The wanted list does not mention the TIP, but instead says that these men all belong to ETIM – a confusion of organizational names and movements the Chinese government has produced for quite a while. Interestingly enough, neither man is accused of conducting the bus bombings they claimed responsibility for in the video, which the Chinese government previously denied.

• Memeti Tursun Yiming: Logistics and fundraising. Organized “more than 10” (but less than 30? Are they bigger than a breadbox?) terrorists to infiltrate China and launch attacks in early 2008.

• Memeti Tursun Abuduhalike: ETIM’s Webmonkey. He apparently “made video footage of terrorist attacks against the Beijing Olympics for Memetiming Memeti and Emeti Yakuf, and broadcast them on a major video-sharing website.” Sorry, that’s Xinhua’s bad translation, they made videos of terrorist threats. Not attacks.
  

• Xiamisidingaihemaiti Abudumijiti: Sent to “a Middle East country, where he preached separatism and extremism among local Chinese (当地中国人)”. Either he’s a really convincing guy, or by “Chinese” they mean “Uyghurs”. He planned to blow up a Beijing supermarket before the Olympics.
  

• Aikemilai Wumaierjiang: Assisted in supermarket plot.

• Yakuf Memeti: Planned to sneak into China via a South Asian country to attack during the Olympics, but apparently got distracted by a plan to attack an oil refinery in said South Asian country, which also failed “due to strict security”.

• Tursun Toheti: Saw the video in a West Asian country and wanted to join. Asked for explosive formulas and plans, made and tested explosive to attack the Olympics. Obviously, something came up.

The PSB is clearly attempting to issue more information on their suspects than in the past. Now if they could just focus on issuing it more clearly and distinctly.

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*There is apparently a style guide out there on writing about Xinjiang in the Western press, and the word “restive” is the default adjective for the province. I’m starting to think its a spellcheck feature.

UPDATED BELOW*

Two quotes. Which one is from the Beijing Olympics, and which is from a Sarah Palin rally? Number 1:

When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, “Can I help you?” and turn the person around. When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn’t allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written.

#2:

One volunteer said that in addition to biological and chemical weapons attacks and bombings, volunteers were told to guard against journalists, so they say that their job is to “prevent drugs, prevent bombs, and prevent journalists.” … from the point of view of the organizers and decision makers, the media is an imaginary enemy with a full body of poison.

Andrew Sullivan keeps comparing Palin to Putin. But when was the last time there was public event of international significance in Russia for them to even try to dismiss journalists from? This lazy shorthanding of Russia and the Soviets for anything vaguely authoritarian has got to stop. It’s very important to distinguish between your different flavors of authoritarianism, otherwise you’re just flailing your arms. Know thy taxonomy.

* From Dana Milbank at the Washington Post:

I wasn’t at the Scranton event, but I have to say the Secret Service is in dangerous territory here. In cooperation with the Palin campaign, they’ve started preventing reporters from leaving the press section to interview people in the crowd. This is a serious violation of their duty — protecting the protectee — and gets into assisting with the political aspirations of the candidate. It also often makes it impossible for reporters to get into the crowd to question the people who say vulgar things. So they prevent reporters from getting near the people doing the shouting, then claim it’s unfounded because the reporters can’t get close enough to identify the person.

The Secret Service? Just making the case for my analogy all the better, are we?

YouTube tells me this video is not available in China. WTF? Proxy not required here.

This blog has been dormant for a good bit as I ran around the planet and started some new things. Hopefully some time soon I’ll get around here more regularly and this place will start reflecting some of those changes, or I’ll at least write some horribly belated Olympics post mortem. In the mean time, pay bloody attention to the video. And think about the fact that HIV went from being a lurking pest at the end of the 19th Century to a fairly efficient baby killer in the middle of the 20th Century and then, well, the flippin’ band played on, didn’t it?

But this one is even worse, because we’re building a multiple drug resistant monster ourselves through too poorly or too little administered antibiotics. The lack of proper healthcare or available drugs, along with the fact that we never hear about MDR-TB or XDR-TB, are all due to the same reason: it’s killing poor people. Oh, shame that – but hey, talking about OJ is apparently still more fun.

Coming Events: October 15th. Blog Action Day on Poverty 2008.