The China Thread

[Razgovory]

Hey now.  Mono is just the victim of his state-run media.

Another casualty of the BBC.

[Eddie Teach]

I bet Putin's hit men don't serve jail terms, light or no. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Interesting question whether rule of law is stronger now in China than in Russia.

[Jacob]

Interesting question whether rule of law is stronger now in China than in Russia.

What would you say?

[The Minsky Moment]

Yes but very very anecdotally.
THe criminal justice system in both seems to be FUBAR.  Domestic Chinese courts are becoming more viable for civil disputes though.
In terms of trajectory, I think that Chinese is clearly making efforts to become more law-like, whereas Russia is at best stagnant.

[DGuller]

The one thing China has going for the rule of law is the fact that it is explicitly authoritarian.  That means that its court system doesn't need to be bent nearly as much to carry out its repressive functions.

[CountDeMoney]

Chinese media outlet uses racial slur at US envoy
By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, February 28, 3:10 PM

BEIJING — A major Chinese government news service used a racist slur to describe the departing American ambassador in a mean-spirited editorial on Friday that drew widespread public condemnation in China.

The article — which called Gary Locke a "rotten banana," a guide dog for the blind, and a plague — reflected Chinese nationalists' acute loathing toward the first Chinese-American to have been Washington's top envoy to Beijing.

Locke's ethnic background particularly interested the Chinese government and people. Locke won public applause when he was seen carrying his own bag and flying economy class but he drew criticism from Beijing as his demeanor was an unwelcome contrast to Chinese officials' privileges and entitlements.

In Washington, top diplomat John Kerry paid tribute to Locke as "a champion of human dignity and a relentless advocate for America's values." Asked about the China News Service commentary, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Friday: "We are not going to dignify the name-calling in that editorial with a response."

In his 2½ years in Beijing, Locke oversaw the defusing of two delicate diplomatic episodes when a powerful police chief fled to a U.S. consulate and later when a persecuted blind activist sought shelter in the embassy. The Chinese public also credit him with making them realize the harm of the tiny pollutant PM2.5 and severity of China's foul air by posting the embassy's hourly readings of air quality.

[READ: Locke urges China to improve human rights record]

Meanwhile, the editorials in Chinese state media turned from initial reservation to unfriendliness to the insolence of the final piece.

"I think it shows the unfriendliness and impoliteness by the Chinese government toward Gary Locke, and it is without the manners and dignity of a major power," legal scholar Hao Jinsong said. "It is unfitting of China's status as a diplomatic power. As a Chinese, I am very angry and feel ashamed of it."

The editorial "Farewell, Gary Locke" took direct aim at Locke's identity as a third-generation Chinese-American, calling him a "banana" — a racial term for Asians identifying with Western values despite their skin color.

"But when a banana sits out for long, its yellow peels will always rot, not only revealing its white core but also turning into the stomach-churning color of black," read the editorial.

The author Wang Ping — likely a pseudonym — slammed Locke's portrayal as an official judicious with public funds but criticized him for being hypocritical as he retreated into his multimillion-dollar official residence and special-made, bullet-proof luxury vehicle.

Wang belittled Locke's inability to speak his ancestral language and accused him of failing to understand China's law but fanning "evil winds" in the ethnically sensitive regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

"Not only did he run around by himself, he even served as a guide dog for the blind when he took in the so-called blind rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng and led him running," the editorial said. Chen later was allowed to leave China and now lives in the United States.

The editorial made a malicious Chinese curse at Locke, suggesting Locke's Chinese ancestors would expel him from the family clan should they know his behaviors.

Wang also made the innuendo that Locke should be blamed for the smog. "When he arrived, so did Beijing's smog," Wang wrote. "With his departure, Beijing's sky suddenly turned blue."

"Let's bid goodbye to the smog, and let's bid goodbye to the plague. Farewell, Gary Locke," ended the article, which was clearly inspired by Mao Zedong's 1949 piece, "Farewell, Leighton Stuart," that scoffed at the last American ambassador under the collapsing Nationalist government in Nanjing.

The piece shocked members of the Chinese public, who denounced the editorial as distasteful and offensive.

"This article by China News Service is the most shameless I have ever seen — not one of them but the most shameless," the popular online commentator Yao Bo said. "Without him, we probably still would not have known what PM2.5 is, and how did he bring the smog? You have played the snake in the Farmer and the Viper."

Another commentator Fastop Liu, known for his sharp tongue, said the piece is ungraceful. "When you call him a plague, you become a national shame as you lack diplomatic etiquette, damage the manner of a great power, and lose the face of all Chinese," Liu wrote.

Locke gave his final news conference as ambassador on Thursday. His replacement, former Montana Sen. Max Baucus, was sworn in last week and is expected to arrive within weeks.

[The Brain]

Not all blacks are stomach-churning, IMHO.

[Jacob]

Zhou Yongkang's son and daughter-in-law have been arrested.

[LaCroix]

"rotten banana,"

that's adorable

[MadImmortalMan]

Interesting question whether rule of law is stronger now in China than in Russia.

The rule of law is stronger where it protects me best. In this case, that probably means my rights are best protected by the authorities I can pay off for less.

[CountDeMoney]

BloombergBigbucksweek

Chinese Employers Discriminate Against Women Planning to Have Two Children
By Christina Larson February 28, 2014

Late last year, China's central government announced reforms to the controversial one-child policy—in particular, approving a resolution that would allow couples to have two children if at least one of the parents was an only child. But the change didn't go into effect instantly; implementation is controlled locally. On Tuesday, Shanghai's government approved measures to enact the so-called two-child policy, effective March 1. Shanghai is the seventh region in China to adopt guidelines for reforming, not abolishing, the country's sprawling population-control bureaucracy.

To some extent, the number of children couples can have—and when they can have them—will vary by city. Shanghai's policies are more liberal than Beijing's, where new guidelines took hold last Friday. Shanghai parents qualified to have two children can do so regardless of their own ages or the time between births. But Beijing parents with one child must wait until the mother turns 28, or the first child turns 4, before having a second child, as independent newsmagazine Caijing reported.

China's relaxed birth-control policies also bring unexpected consequences. According to state-run Global Times, some female job applicants are already facing increased hiring discrimination as potential employers appear reluctant to pay for two maternity leaves. "An interviewer asked me if I was going to have two children, and I did not know how to answer," one young woman in Zhejiang province told the newspaper. "Having children is also making a contribution to society, but they [potential employers] treat us like enemies, which is so unfair."

A hiring manager at a Hangzhou-based advertising company told Global Times that it had explicitly decided to hire fewer female copywriters. "It's a small company, and we hire many young graduates," said the HR manager. "If some of them choose to have more than one child, the risk will be too high to handle."

Job advertisements in China frequently specify desired gender, age, and height—for occupations ranging from factory workers to flight attendants to office workers—opening the door to wide-ranging forms of discrimination.

[Sheilbh]

A Map of China, By Stereotype
Auto-complete results by the country's largest search engine shed light on how Chinese view one another.

BY WARNER BROWN MARCH 4, 2014
   


Why is the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang "so chaotic?" Why are many from the southern metropolis of Shanghai "unfit to lead"? And do people from central Henan Province really steal manhole covers? These are just some of the questions -- ranging from the provocative, to the offensive, to the downright ridiculous -- that Chinese people ask about themselves and each other on Baidu, the country's top search engine, which says it processes about 5 billion queries each day.

In the West, amateur sociologists use Google's voluminous search history to finish half-written questions about different regions. They then plot the stereotypes onto maps such as this one of the United States, which The Atlantic called "The U.S. According to Autocomplete." China, with its long history of regional stereotyping, is ripe for similar treatment. After all, it is home to 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, as well as Taiwan, what some there would call a renegade province, pictured above because of its prevalence on Baidu. Held together by a common history and culture (and occasionally force), the regions are divided by real and perceived differences in wealth, environment, stability, ethnicity, and personality -- not to mention variations in that history and culture. Chinese society has deep schisms, one of which came into devastating relief on March 1, when a terror attack on a Kunming train station resulted in 33 deaths and 143 injuries. Chinese authorities have attributed the attacks to separatists from Xinjiang.

Studying China's collective online subconscious via auto-complete requires flexibility. Results change over time, so readers may not be able to replicate results with fealty. But even allowing for these caveats, online queries about China's regions are revealing, and they have a particularly sharp edge where they concern peripheral regions whose restive local populations sustain independence movements of varying intensity. Below is a list of common questions netizens pose about Xinjiang, a region of 22 million whose roughly 10 million ethnic Uighur Muslim minority lives alongside Han Chinese in a state of tension that frequently erupts into violence:


Others also wonder why Xinjiang's Turkic Uighur minorities look like foreigners, and why they hate the Han Chinese, who make up roughly 92 percent of China's total population but less than 50 percent in Xinjiang. Meanwhile, Tibet -- also home to simmering discontent with Chinese rule -- produces no auto-completed results at all. The same is true for its neighbor Qinghai, which sits on the Tibetan plateau and has a large ethnic Tibetan population. (Deleting the leading "why" from queries about Tibet produces many auto-completed results, mostly about travel tips and historical television dramas set in the region.)
Netizens associate several northern regions with varying degrees of violence. Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang -- collectively called the Northeast -- are famous for their Siberian winters as well as their beautiful women, but the apparently pugnacious locals are also known for starting fights. Inner Mongolia calls to mind the brutal December 2013 hazing of newly recruited firefighters, and the tiny region of Ningxia's sole result concerns the grisly murder of a family of seven following a marital spat in October 2013.   

One of the starkest patterns involves queries into the omnipresent divide between China's rich coastal provinces and poor inland ones. Netizens appear envious of wealthy Jiangsu and Zhejiang, asking why they are so developed and rich. China's wealthiest province, Guangdong, is curiously considered "chaotic" in addition to "developed," while the moderately wealthy Fujian is seen as a "poor" coastal underperformer.

One might expect Beijing and Shanghai to impress for their comparative wealth and modernity, but the general gloom of netizen queries hints at disappointed expectations. Those researching Shanghai seem particularly interested in the city's lack of public heating, a service provided throughout northern China but denied elsewhere. Meanwhile, searches for "smog" crowd the list of results for Beijing, not surprising given the city's frequent bouts with choking pollution.

Seven inland regions are associated with terms like "poor," "backward," and "undeveloped," with none coming off worse than Henan. Perhaps it's because of that province's roughly 100 million residents supposed penchant for stealing manhole covers, however inaccurate or distorted that picture may be:


A case can be made that the dismal repute of Henan and other poor inland regions derives from modern China's society of mass migration, which puts people of vastly unequal regions side-by-side in big cities and creates conditions for new stereotypes to form and old ones to spread. Many migrants are second-class citizens in all but name, scorned by local residents, consigned to working menial jobs, and often associated with rising crime and other social ills. The dislike can be mutual -- several queries about Shanghai ask why the "exclusive" natives look down on outsiders. One common question asks simply why Shanghai people hate Anhui people, many of whom come to seek their fortunes in the coastal metropolis.

Not all queries are so severe. Many revolve around physical appearance; netizens ask why Shandong people are so tall and why Sichuanese are short and have good skin. The top result for Hubei concerns "nine-headed birds" -- not a reference to local fauna, but an ancient mythical creature that has since become a sometimes-derogatory nickname for allegedly crafty locals. Users also ask why the people of Shanxi love vinegar, and why those in Sichuan and Hunan eat chili peppers. The adventurous, simian-craving dining habits of Guangdong attract particular attention. Most regions also feature searches related to local history: All of Shaanxi's results revolve around nicknames from its time as the cradle of Chinese civilization.

Baidu's name, which means "hundreds of times," was inspired by an 800-year-old Song Dynasty poem about the persistent search for an ideal beauty in the midst of chaos. Those Chinese using the search engine are surely looking for reliable information in a chaotic Chinese Internet. But for outsiders looking to understand how China views itself, Baidu's auto-completed questions are at least as illuminating as its answers.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/04/a_map_of_china_by_stereotype

[Valmy]

Wait so Mono is surrounded by Monkey Eaters?

[Josquius]

Trying that for the UK I get lots of "Sunderland is in which country" and the like. oh deer...