Mutant Palm

In seems that one of our own, blogger Tim Johnson of China Rises, (as a side hobby he’s the Beijing correspondent for the McClatchy Newspapers & Junk Bond Imperium/Emporium) has become the target of a vengeful source. Tim recently wrote a piece entitled “China Orders Resettlement of Thousands of Tibetans”, and a Case Western professor of Tibetan Studies, who appears in the article, feels he has been misquoted. Here’s the relevant bits of Tim’s piece. First, the nut graf:

ZENGSHOL, Tibet – In a massive campaign that recalls the socialist engineering of an earlier era, the Chinese government has relocated some 250,000 Tibetans – nearly one-tenth of the population – from scattered rural hamlets to new “socialist villages,” ordering them to build new housing largely at their own expense and without their consent.

Indeed. Very concerning. Here’s his quotes of one Professor Melvyn Goldstein of the Center for Research on Tibet at Case Western University:

“”It’s created a building boom,” said Melvyn C. Goldstein, a social anthropologist and expert on Tibet at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “I think it’s phenomenally successful, more than I would’ve believed.””

This is followed by a bit about how Human Rights Watch paints a bleaker picture. Then Goldstein is cited again at the end of the article:

“Goldstein noted that the settling of Han Chinese in Tibet’s major cities already has weakened the influence of traditional Tibetan elites. “The cities are a loss,” said Goldstein, referring to demography from a Tibetan point of view. “The last hope is to keep the villages intact. If there’s a battleground for Tibetan identity, it’s in the rural areas.””

When I first read this article, the first thing that leapt out at me was that it reminded me of alot of the ethnonationalism that permeates discussions of Tibet. The article says that the relocation recalls the massive social engineering of an earlier era – but wasn’t it just a few years ago that Peter Hessler wrote in Time Magazine, as did many others, about the forced relocation of Chinese along the Yangtze for the Three Gorges Dam? And didn’t that also mean rural villagers had to give up their way of life – their identity, as Johnson points out Tibetan identity is threatened by relocation? Yet Johnson’s article frames this as a unique crime being perpetrated against one ethnic group in China – Tibetans – using extraordinary measures that have not been used since “an earlier era”, even though less than a decade ago the complaint du jour about China, the catastrophe of the Three Gorges, involved the same problems and Han Chinese citizens? Here, I felt, was the same tired ethnically biased narrative we see about Tibet: the Tibetans suffer in extra-special ways compared to Han Chinese. I am willing to consider that more Tibetans are imprisoned, tortured, denied opportunities and face other forms of severe discrimination. I lived in Xinjiang, and the Uyghurs certainly do. But rarely does anything written about Tibet remark that Han Chinese often suffer the same problems – in fact, the tendency is to make Tibetans out as an isolated and special case.

But before I could write about that, a reader at BoingBoing and acquaintance of Dr. Goldstein submitted Dr. Goldstein’s response to Tim Johnson’s article. And I want to take a moment to tip my hat to Xeni Jardin for posting that readers comment and also linking to my critique of BoingBoing and another post they had. Xeni called me thoughtful. My heart flutters.

Key points of Dr. Goldstein’s complaint are:

1) he never said relocation was “phenomenally successful, more than I would’ve believed”, as the article implies. He said “a marked increase in the standard of living as rural Tibetan families are participating more and more successfully in non-farm income producing jobs for part of the year.”

2) “Initially the government’s idea was to have these new houses built along main roads, but this is not what is going on now in the areas we are conducting research in Shigatse prefecture,” says Goldstein, though Johnson states the government “claims that the new housing on main roads”.

3) Goldstein directly contests HRW’s claim, repeated by Johnson, that “None of those interviewed reported being given the right to challenge or refuse participation in the campaign”, when he wrote “Right now the villagers where we work have a 5 year window to decide whether to participate and rebuild”. Both claims could be correct – Tibet has more than one village. But this was not addressed in the article.

4) While HRW claims that villagers must take out thousands of dollars in loans to rebuild, Goldstein describes loans on a sliding scale based on relative wealth and what sort of housing they choose to construct.

5) Goldstein concludes “Consequently, as a result of this program. there is a building boom in rural areas that is affording rural Tibetans who are carpenters, stone masons, painters, and those who have tractors and trucks etc., increased access to non-farm income, and that is having a very positive impact on the overall standard of living. So in my view, this is a relatively benign program aimed at improving the quality of life and goes along with government interest in speeding up rural electrification, running water programs, etc. That is what I was trying to convey [in a previous interview].”

These quotes are all from an email Goldstein says he sent to Johnson before the article was published. Needless to say, it only furthers my belief that stories about Tibet are trimmed, folded, cut, bent and even broken in order to fit into the slot marked “Brutal Chinese Occupation of Tibet”, because apparently that’s the narrative it has to match. Any complications, grey areas, inconsistencies or problems are elided. When that narrative is repeated so often, do you know how alot of Americans will read such articles? They won’t. They skim it and say “Oh, dear, that Tibet is still suffering [like they did last week, last year, the year before that, ad infinitum]… what’s on the sports page?” And they won’t learn anything new.

As for Dr. Goldstein’s anger at being misquoted, I would suggest considering 1) reporters have editors who sometimes don’t know Tibet from a six-limbed starfish, 2) reporters have deadlines, and 3) remember Brad DeLong and Susan Rasky’s First Rule for Sources: Know Your Customers. The interviewee sets the rules, not the journalist. You can always decline to be quoted.

UPDATE: I contacted Tim Johnson about his article. He declined to comment and stands by the article. Fair enough.

Boing Boing linked to this popular “Map of the Internet” at XKCD. I noticed the Chinese Internet wasn’t represented, and XKCD’s map is on a Creative Commons license, so I decided to make an expansion. I think I got the relative membership of Sina, Sohu and QQ, but I guesstimated on the BBSes (Tianya, Netease), and made up the video sites like Tudou and 6rooms. I realize there is enormous overlap between users on Chinese websites, but then again, the same goes for MySpace and the other services on the other side. If anybody has some better numbers on users, let me know – or copy it and make your own. I’d love to make this more detailed, but after drawing the Great Firewall I was exhausted and I’m going out in five minutes. Anyway, the point being the Chinese Internet gets left out sometimes even though its fairly big.

Gmail.cn did not respond to pings today. Neither does its parent ISM Technologies. WHOIS still declares Gmail.cn’s status to be “OK”.

Huh.

So China Digital Times pointed out that Guy Sorman, professional China-doubter (or basher, depending where you stand), has a new article in City Journal titled Empire of Lies. Well, I’m glad Sorman decided to use a calm, measured tone for his article. I find it deeply ironic that the article was also printed in Frontpagemag.com, not exactly known for truth-telling.

I can’t argue with Sorman’s point that China has some enormous problems, and I’m sick and tired as well of the whole “China’s Century” meme. But some of the articles points just make me shake my head, for example:

• On the Hong Kong press, in an insert by Howard Husock: “Their press is free and delightfully rich, ranging from the New York Post-ish Apple Daily to the historic English-language South China Morning Post, one of the best sources of information about Chinese politics.” The SCMP is one of the best sources of information about Chinese politics? Not unless Hu Jintao is a horse. Considering 1) its online irrelevance, 2) that it reported Donald Tsang’s election appointment with the headline “Incumbent Reflects on a Wonderful Journey” while ignoring protesters of the sort Sorman considers important, not to mention 3) the humorless drama that was Mark L. Clifford’s tenure, or 4) the accusation that owner Robert Kuok is loyal to the CCP and that journalists Willy Lo Lam and Jasper Becker were fired for political reasons, this is a little hard to swallow. SCMP has been moving further and further into the sort of wealthy Asia expat press that caters in fat real estate listings and racetrack scores. Press freedom is certainly better in Hong Kong, and the SCMP does still have hardworking reporters, but I can’t help but think anyone who believes the SCMP is at the cutting edge is, well, reading the wrong paper. Oh, and I have been told that Apple Daily is to the New York Post as apples are to…
• “peasants, unfamiliar with the national language, speak only in regional dialects” – uh, ever heard of Cantonese, Shanghainese, Fujianese? These dialects are also spoken in cities. But hey, lets not argue with the government’s implication that dialects are only for the backwards, uneducated and poor.
• “The government puts the number of what it calls these “illegal” or “mass” incidents—and they’re occurring in the industrial suburbs, too—at 60,000 a year, doubtless underreporting them. Some experts think that the true figure is upward of 150,000 a year, and increasing. The uprisings are really mutinies, sporadic and unpremeditated. They express peasant families’ despair over the bleak future that awaits them and their children.” Well, if you’re gonna go with 60,000, that was the Chinese number in 2003 according to one of three different sets of mass incident statistics. And for none of those series is it clear whether a “mass incident” or “public disturbance” is a “mutiny”. It may also include “delaying delivering of the mail”. There’s nothing to suggest that all of these are “mutinies”, “sporadic” or “unmeditated”. We don’t know what they are.
• “Were Western consumers and investors to turn away, the Chinese economy would collapse, leading in all probability to the fall of the Party.” It’s generally accepted the rest of the world would be kinda screwed as well.
• “Yan Yfan underscores my fundamental error: “You don’t have any confidence in the Party’s ability to resolve the pertinent issues you have raised.” He’s right; I don’t.” Fair enough, but one could stand to give the Chinese people a little credit. In Sorman’s reading, Chinese people are either a) angry, voiceless peasants, b) Communist party parvenues or c) dissidents who are on “our” side. It reminds me of Jamie K’s comment on “civic subhumanity” – if they’re not with “us”, they must be for “them”.

Slashdot has been jumpin’ about a line in the MySpace China Terms and Conditions that says users can “click a button” to report inappropriate conduct. Inappropriate content includes, in China’s case, “undermining national unity”, “cult and feudal superstition”, or “undermines social stability” I mentioned previously. It’s not exactly a button that you click – what the terms refer to is the contact link at the bottom of every page, and to select the “report inappropriate content” choice for your subject heading. It’s practically identical to the “report inappropriate content” feature in MySpace.com. The difference here, of course, is the legalese in the Terms and Conditions that refers to “undermining social stability” and all that.

What’s interesting is that you can report international pages as well, so it’s not simply asking Chinese users to report dissidents or pornographers on MySpace.cn, but those anywhere on the global MySpace network. If I file a complaint about an American users MySpace.com page, it is sent to MySpace.cn (when I’m logged into MySpace.cn). It will be interesting to see if how Chinese users will respond to this. Assuming the Chinese government does not impose a list of their own of MySpace pages they don’t like, it will be up to Chinese consumers to report sites that have politically incorrect speech.

If the Chinese government does impose a list, then there’s still nothing to stop dissenting MySpace users abroad from creating new pages. One could imagine “MySpacebombing” becoming a form of protest speech.

Of course, the real question is, what will you see when you visit a banned international page on MySpace.cn? Will you see the “Profile Undergoing Maintainance” message, or will they be more forthright about why it’s not there?