Mutant Palm

From the China Law and Politics Blog, run by Carl Minzner of the Council on Foreign Relations, a job ad:

Position: Program Officer for Asia, IRI

The International Republican Institute (IRI) seeks a Program Officer for their Asia regional programs, to be based in Washington, DC.

A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, the International Republican Institute (IRI) advances freedom and democracy worldwide by developing political parties, civic institutions, open elections, good governance and the rule of law.

I have always found it odd when the IRI is described as an NGO or nonpartisan organization. The IRI receives its funding from the National Endowment for Democracy. The NED, started in 1983 by the Reagan Administration to promote democracy abroad, receives virtually all its funding from the US government. The “NED’s unique multisectoral approach is characterized by its four core institutes: the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, and the Center for International Private Enterprise, which represent the two major American political parties, the labor movement, and the business community, respectively.” In other words, the Democrats, Republicans, AFL-CIO and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Reading the NED’s very own history page is enlightening. The House opposed directly funding two political party institutes, but in hammering out a compromise with the Senate, “the conferees agreed to maintain the House’s deletion of the earmarks for the party institutes, but pointed out that this was “without prejudice to their receipt of funds from the Endowment.”” In other words, the party institutes, the NDI and IRI, could receive money funneled through the NED, if the NED chose to do so. But the NED insists its an NGO, in it’s mindbending “Independence” section. Consider that

NED’s authorizing legislation spells out its non-governmental status, namely that “Nothing in this title shall be construed to make the Endowment an agency or establishment of the United States Government.”

Though it is a regular line item in the Federal budget, but

It is sometimes contended that without this official status, the Endowment lacks accountability. This charge overlooks the fact that NED is answerable to a wide array of overseers in both the Executive and Legislative Branches.

Don’t you see? It’s definitely not beholden to the government to which it is accountable! And you thought the Bush Administration used new ideas. And this must be some kinda of super-nongovernmental status: “NED is covered by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), unique for a non-governmental entity.” You ain’t really nongovernmental unless you are subject to governmental sunshine requests, overseen by two branches of government and receive all your money from Congress! Yeah! Independence! Take that, Greenpeace!

Ahem. Sorry. Remember the International Republican Institute? They had that job at their “nonpartisan” organization? Meet the board of directors, whose notables include such nonpartisan favorites as:

John McCain
L. Paul Bremer
Laurence Eagleburger
Frank J. Fahrenkopf (former chairman of the Republican Party)
Chuck Hagel
David Dreier (congressman, R-CA)
Alec L. Poitevint, II
Cheryl Halpern (Bush appointed CPB chair)
J. William Middendorf II (Goldwater treasurer, Ford’s Navy Secretary, Reagan’s OAS rep)
Gahl Hodges Burt (Nancy Reagan’s social secretary)
Peter T. Madigan (lawyer, regular Republican PAC contributor)
Alison B. Fortier (former Reagan special asst. to the Prez on NatSec Affairs)
Olin L. Wethington (AIG in China, former John Snow appointee in Bush treasury)

… I can’t google anymore. Soooooo…. right. “Nonpartisan”. Galling, especially, since the NED website flat out says that these are “party structures”.

For an idea of the nonpartisan, but apparently virulently ideological way the IRI goes about promoting democracy, you can read the New York Times piece January 29, 2006 “Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos”, in which U.S. ambassador to Haiti, Brian Dean Curran, “accused the democracy-building group, the International Republican Institute, of trying to undermine the reconciliation process after disputed 2000 Senate elections threw Haiti into a violent political crisis.” He also accused IRI’s Haiti guy, Stanley Lucas, of “telling the opposition that he, not the ambassador, represented the Bush administration’s true intentions.” In other words, while the ambassador said one thing was the official U.S. policy, the IRI was the Bush administrations proxy for saying “no, no, no, he’s just a silly ambassador. We truly represent the U.S. government.” How nongovernmental of them. This was also covered long before the Times got to it in Mother Jones, and you can also look at RightWeb to see what IRI may or may not have done in Venezuela. Or Counterpunch’s article on IRI’s ties to Reporters Without Borders and their lopsided coverage of Haiti, as well as the return of bagman Otto Reich.

The best, though, has to be current Republican candidate Ron Paul’s article at antiwar.com, lambasting the NED institutes support of ex-Soviet strongmen in Eastern Europe:

The National Endowment for Democracy, by meddling in the elections and internal politics of foreign countries, does more harm to the United States than good. It creates resentment and ill-will toward the United States among millions abroad.

Thank you Ron. You might be a racist, but you’re helping as best you can I guess.

But my favorite part has got to be this: IRI president Lorne Cramer’s April 10, 2006 speech on “The United States and Human Rights in China”. I’m impressed that Lorne was speaking at the time about the Freezing Point shutdown, and that IRI was even allowed in China in 2006, let alone 1996! But check this out:

There has been explosive growth of civil society organizations – 153,000 registered ones according to some statistics – and we can assume many thousands more that are unregistered. What are these organizations doing? Everything from environmental monitoring, to advocacy on women’s rights, to helping exploited workers seek back pay and compensation, to working with ethnic minority groups on development and cultural preservation issues, to working with people living with HIV/AIDS.

Hmmmm. 153,000, eh? Let’s try and find that number… ok, first in English, from the 10th NPC 4th Session:

NGOs in China can be divided into three categories

First, overseas NGOs including those from China’s Hong Kong and Macao… reckons there are about 10,000.

The second category is foundations. Since the 1980s, China has carried out many non-profit projects including the Hope Project … approximately 1,070 foundations in operation in China.

The third category can be subdivided into several smaller categories. One is social groups that are registered with civil affairs departments above county level in accordance with the Regulations on Management of Social Groups issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA). There are currently 153,000 registered social groups in China.

The second sub-category consists of privately run non-enterprise units.

In addition, there are about 100,000 to 200,000 NGOs registered with the Industry and Commerce network nationwide. The reason is that the threshold for qualification as a social group and privately run non-enterprise unit or foundation is higher. Many organizations simply can’t qualify.

The fourth type is the urban community organization… some are quite simply for pure entertainment, for example, folk dancing groups. (100,000 to 200,000).

OK, so the 153,000 are social groups above the county level. Above them are foreigners/overseas brethren, and Project Hope (we’ll get to them in a second). Below are smaller local groups and mahjong clubs. Now, to the MCA website for some examples of the largest social groups (社会团体), which are given permission to run business operations:

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, State Council Development Research Center, China Seismological Bureau, China Meteorological Administration, China Securities Regulatory Commission and China Insurance Regulatory Commission, the Central Party School, the Party Literature Research Center, Central Party History Research Center, Federation of Trade Unions, the Chinese Communist Youth League*…

Heh. Heheheheheh. The government funded ideologically partisan “nonpartisan NGO” IRI …*guffaw* … is pointing to the government funded ideologically partisan “NGO” Chinese Communist Youth League as a “civil society organization”.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

*Oh, the CCYL runs Project Hope.

I had a request not too long ago for more maps on the site. So here are some images of the Chinese Century of Humiliation Atlas, available at this 163 forum. You can read a good analysis of the atlas and the role of humiliation in the official interpretation of Chinese history in this PDF “National Insecurities: Humiliation, Salvation and Chinese Nationalism”. This book may only be 11 yuan online, and probably not widely read in urban and middle class circles, but it is on a list of 2,090 titles recommended for 1,550 rural farmers libraries by the Central Propaganda Ministry.

The “Century of Humiliation” refers to the 100+ years from the First Opium War in 1840 to the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. While the phrase isn’t exactly part of normal conversation these days, it certainly is still in use. An online martyrs memorial website, 血铸中华, or “Blood Casting Chinese”(?), uses the URL http://www.china1840-1949.net.cn/ has a redirect to its main domain name, which is http://xzzh.china5000.cn/, which uses the more well-known reference to China’s 5000 year history. The site is run by the China Youth League (Hu Jintao’s power base) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The introduction at the top of the window, which is not entirely visible, reads

China’s Online Revolutionary Memorial and Modern History Museum! Forever Remembering the Modern Century’s Countless Chinese Sons and Daughters for Resisting the Imperialist Great Powers Invasion, Fighting for National Independence, and Indomitable Struggle towards Liberation, to Achieve the Chinese People’s Great Rejuvenation! Forever Remember the Chinese Heroes Great Service!

It’s worth remembering that virulent nationalism is not pandemic across China, the idea of China’s humiliating fall (and subsequent picking itself off the ground – this corollary was the subtext of the documentary The Great Nations) is almost universally accepted, and did not begin with the Communist era. It stretches back to the end of the Qing Dynasty, as reformist Hanscholars quickly sought to interpret Chinese defeat in the Opium War as a sign of a decadent and failing Manchu court – a political battle for power between factions in the government. The Republican era embraced the idea as well, and even had a National Humiliation Day (I believe May 7th). It’s also worth remembering that China sees it’s own “modern era” as beginning with humiliation – the idea of being “modern” is deeply intertwined with being humiliated and weak. One would hope that one day this might change.

I certainly enjoyed Lung Yingtai’s intellectual brawler style when she wrote “The Taiwan That You May Not Know About” for the infamous China Youth Daily supplement Freezing Point, whose editor wrote another classic about the fallout of that and other articles entitled “It’s Lung Yingtai again, f**k!”. And who could forget her open letter to Hu Jintao, “Please Use Civilization to Convince Us”. She’s said quite openly that “As a matter of fact, I am just someone who refuses to believe that human rights must not be distinguished by political position. The Nationalist Party, the Communist Party, the Democratic Progressive Party, whatever f*cking party, if human dignity is not your core value and if you permit human rights to be determined by the powers-that-be, then you are just an object upon which I spit. You do not intimidate me”, and, in probably my favorite, compared the reductionist idea of “Asian values” to a pool of dead water.

But I totally think she’s been phoning it in lately. In a speech at Cambridge this past week (the bulk of which she’s been repeating since December 2006), entitled “If You Want Peace, You Must Not Keep Hurting Taiwan”, Lung used some pretty lazy rhetorical devices. Moreover, her argument essentially seems to be that to be denied a nation-state is a violation of one’s human rights, which strikes me as ludicrously problematic.

The first thing that really caught my eye was this:

The 23 million people in Taiwan went through a martial law period of 37 years. Martial law meant a form of siege. After the martial law period, there was another 35 years of international blockade up to now. After 37 years of martial law and 35 years of blockage, there has to be some “symptoms.” In 2006, the survey results from a certain Taiwan magazine are astonishing.

• 80% of the Taiwanese do not know where the United Nations headquarters is located
• 80% of the people do not know in which city the Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded
• 80% of the people do not know where the largest rainforest in the world is located
• 60% of the people do not know the name of the currency in Germany
• 60% of the people do not know which continent Athens is located in

You should not think that this survey was conducted in some remote village. No, the principal sample came from Taipei, and the people of Taipei are supposed to have the highest educational level in the Chinese world.

Alright then. So the results of this survey are intended to prove the dire consequences of “international blockade” of Taiwan, dating back to the handover of Taiwan’s UN seat to the PRC. Lung is claiming that Taiwan’s lack of membership to this and many other international bodies has created “cultural isolation”, resulting in a very geographically-challenged citizenry.

First off, there’s nothing in Lung’s argument showing how one (“isolation”) causes the other (poor geography skills). Second, my girlfriend and I are university educated, European and American respectively, and have traveled to well over a dozen countries each – and both of us blanked on what city hosts the Nobel. Third, I’m guessing Lung has never watched Jay Leno’s “Man on the Street” bits on American TV, nor has she seen the 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy, which demonstrated that embarassingly high numbers of young Americans, even amongst college graduates, could find neither Iraq nor Louisiana on a map. Or the Pew Research Center’s 2007 report on American political knowledge indicating that 64% of respondents couldn’t name the president of Russia, or my personal favorite, that over 70% of Americans didn’t know plastic was made of petroleum. The United States belongs to all of the international bodies that Taiwan’s absence from, according to Lung, leads to bone-headed ignorance, but membership hasn’t made us any better informed.

But apparently the Taiwanese peoples complete and total inability to survive even one round of quiz night in a British pub, or an opening round of the American TV show Jeopardy!, is proof positive of how damaging the 35 year old “blockade” of Taiwan by cold, indifferent foreign nations has been. I am not saying that this means Taiwan shouldn’t be recognized; I’m simply saying that if Lung is going to use this sort of argument in addressing Western audiences, she must take us for idiots (as the above mentioned statistics would prove, so I guess she’s on the right track).

Even worse, I don’t think Lung is mentioning everything the Taiwanese survey in question discovered. My guess is that Lung was looking at a 2004, not 2006, survey by Taiwan’s Commonwealth Magazine (天下), the findings of which are shown on this blog (in Chinese) and match all of Lung’s cited figures and questions. But the survey also says that 60% of Taiwanese respondents have been abroad, 45% have been to two or more countries, and 40% speak two or more foreign languages. This is an odd sort of “isolation” – not alot of countries can claim to be that well-traveled or multilingual. Even if it only means everybody speaks English and has been to Disneyland, that’s way more than most of the world. Taiwan is also one of the most wired countries in the world, with something like 63% of the population having Internet access, and over 70% or so having a PC in the home. No Great Firewall to boot, I’d add.

I find Lung Yingtai’s argument that national sovereignty is some sort of human right more problematic. She states:

“Perhaps you wonder, Is there a human rights problem with Taiwan?

Put it this way — suppose we have a small community here. For what reasons do we have to not permit the people from this community to attend any conference or participate in any decisions. We do not allow them to appear at any important festive, mourning or memorial functions. Furthermore, we forbid the leaders of this community to step out of their community and enter our area. Worse yet, if there is a huge fire, we will not notify them. We don’t even allow them to call themselves by their own name.

Please ask yourselves: Why is this not a violation of human rights?”

Well, my first thought is that what she’s talking about here is not that people from the community are forbidden to do these things – its representatives of the government of Taiwan that are forbidden. Now that might be unfair or wrong, but last I checked human rights are not extended to governments or nation-states, which is what she really saying. She then gives concrete examples, more or less, such as that Taiwan doesn’t belong to international bodies and Chen Shuibian has trouble getting visas. Fair enough, but again I don’t know if this qualifies as a human rights issue. An issue, certainly, but human rights? That’s tricky. I would be curious to hear Lung Yingtai (or anybody’s) thoughts on Article 15 of the Declaration of Human Rights stating everyone is entitled to a nationality – what on Earth does that mean? Which nationality, who chooses? If you can choose, does that mean we have to give all those micronations seats at the UN too? By Lung Yingtai’s argument, the community of Sealand has their human rights violated because they too are not represented in the UN. And what about Taiwanese Aborigines, while we’re at it?

But her other examples are worse. She then proclaims “The international community knows about the political isolation of Taiwan. But I think that the international community has no awareness whatsoever about the depth and breadth of this isolation and the degree of damage done to the people of Taiwan.” The survey mentioned above is given as “astonishing” proof of this. Another example is “Using art an example, Taiwan cannot be represented in the public national museum venue at the Venice Art Exposition. Instead, it must find another venue for which it has to worry about being able to retain for the next year.” I assume that Lung is referring to the Venice Biennale, where actually alot of countries don’t get to be in the national museum, the Giardini. The PRC isn’t in it either, or Hong Kong or Macao, which also have separate venues, or Portugal, Argentina, Turkey or quite a few others. All of Africa is shoved into one pavilion, while Central Asia is crammed in another. The PRC has only been there a few years, with a SARS interruption, while Taiwan appears to have been ensconced quite safely since 1995 in the Palazzo delle Prigione, where it is again situated this year, and for the foreseeable future. It’s also amusing to note that in 2003, the “isolated” Taiwanese artists shown all lived abroad save for one, though selected by curators and artists in Taiwan. The curator Lin Shu-min noted, “Where you are doesn’t really affect your cultural roots”. I wonder what Lung Yingtai would make of that remark.

Back to the quote I gave in the beginning and Lung’s thinking on human rights:

“As a matter of fact, I am just someone who refuses to believe that human rights must not be distinguished by political position. The Nationalist Party, the Communist Party, the Democratic Progressive Party, whatever f*cking party, if human dignity is not your core value and if you permit human rights to be determined by the powers-that-be, then you are just an object upon which I spit. You do not intimidate me”

Spitting, cursing and bravado aside, what does it mean for human rights to be independent of political position? How can one say that and simultaneously say that recognition as a nation-state, a purely political notion, is a human right? How would one apply this to any civil war or territorial dispute? If recognition of national sovereignty is a human right, then who gets Jerusalem? The answer appears to be whoever Lung Yingtai thinks really, truly holds “human dignity” as a “core value”, because I can’t see who else the arbiter is supposed to be.

I mentioned Jess Nevins before in the Thinking Blogs meme. A librarian of pulp fiction, he pointed me towards some great stuff on Late Qing Dynasty scifi/fantasy writing. Now he has a helluva thought experiment up: An Alternative History of Chinese Science Fiction. Quibbling aside, its fun. Oh, and these fictitious alternate Chinese versions of famous science fiction novels occur in a world where Chen Shuibian is president of China because the Communists lost.

And I wanna give a shout-out to Ben’s Blog, where Ben Ross, ethnographer, is blogging pretty much daily about working as a hair-wash guy in a Chinese barbershop for a month. Fan-f**king-tastic. Oh, and he’s in Fujian, so he gets extra cool points for that, though Northern Fujian ain’t as good as Southern. I’m just sayin’.

Read the background in this post here. Here’s the blog of the guy who did it. Photo courtesy of this blogger, thanks to Chinese blog equivalent of the Superfriends, Memedia.

Goddammit, why do I always run into this stuff just when I’m leaving town for a couple of days???

Word has it that Tencent, makers of the Chinese chat and currency juggernaut QQ, has a new search engine that might be a strong rival for Baidu and Google. The search engine, called SoSo 搜搜, may be well placed since the hundreds of millions of QQ users in China would be drawn to it, but on the other hand it uses licensed Google technology, so we’ll see. But more importantly, SoSo is, well, so-so on censorship. Maybe you need a noticeable market share before the net cops show up?