The China Thread

[alfred russel]

Well 1) I'd say that has proven a pretty fraught institution for women

How so?

Historically, women have had three paths:

-marriage
-single motherhood
-celibacy

[Sheilbh]

Query for the China watchers. What does the Chinese dream mean when Xi and the rest use it?

[Jacob]

Query for the China watchers. What does the Chinese dream mean when Xi and the rest use it?

It's the chosen slogan for this era of his rule, an attempt to encapsulate the values and aspirations of the Party and the people. I'm not super familiar with the nuance here or anything, but the dream is IIRC prosperity for the people, working hard together, socialist values and glory for the nation or something like that.

It's "the American Dream with Chinese characteristics", more or less. "Work hard for a better life, improve social institutions, and make China great."

[Monoriu]

Query for the China watchers. What does the Chinese dream mean when Xi and the rest use it?

To be rich. Highest GDP in the world. 

[Jacob]

Query for the China watchers. What does the Chinese dream mean when Xi and the rest use it?

To be rich. Highest GDP in the world.

That's the Chinese dream when you use it 

[Sheilbh]

Query for the China watchers. What does the Chinese dream mean when Xi and the rest use it?

It's the chosen slogan for this era of his rule, an attempt to encapsulate the values and aspirations of the Party and the people. I'm not super familiar with the nuance here or anything, but the dream is IIRC prosperity for the people, working hard together, socialist values and glory for the nation or something like that.

It's "the American Dream with Chinese characteristics", more or less. "Work hard for a better life, improve social institutions, and make China great."

Ok. So it's just his 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' or 'harmonious society'.

[Jacob]

Query for the China watchers. What does the Chinese dream mean when Xi and the rest use it?

It's the chosen slogan for this era of his rule, an attempt to encapsulate the values and aspirations of the Party and the people. I'm not super familiar with the nuance here or anything, but the dream is IIRC prosperity for the people, working hard together, socialist values and glory for the nation or something like that.

It's "the American Dream with Chinese characteristics", more or less. "Work hard for a better life, improve social institutions, and make China great."

Ok. So it's just his 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' or 'harmonious society'.

That's my take, yeah.

EDIT: in fact, looking at the wikipedia article (sorry grumbler), near the end it straight up says: According to official party sources, the Chinese Dream is the "essence of Socialism with Chinese characteristics".

[Admiral Yi]

I think it has to do with improving standards of living and shifting from investment to consumption.

[Jacob]

Zhou Yongkang's arrest is all over the international news. The interesting bit is the thing about the charges for "divulging secrets to foreign interests" - possibly Wen Jiabao's financial details showing up in the New York Times - which apparently exposes Zhou to a potential death penalty.

[Monoriu]

Zhou Yongkang's arrest is all over the international news. The interesting bit is the thing about the charges for "divulging secrets to foreign interests" - possibly Wen Jiabao's financial details showing up in the New York Times - which apparently exposes Zhou to a potential death penalty.

The rumour is that Zhou tried to assassinate Xi.  So it is personal. 

[Jacob]

The rumour is that Zhou tried to assassinate Xi.  So it is personal.

Yeah, that and the coup rumours that were swirling at the time of the transition makes this particularly interesting. Of all the unsympathetic high ranking Communists, Zhou Yongkang has to be one of the most unpleasant ones - being the guy responsible for the industrialization of the trade in organs, for the persecution of the Falun Gong, for the habitual arrest and detention of provincial petitioners travelling to Beijing, and for the huge growth in internal labour camps.

That and the murder of his wife - apparently the two guys who drove the car that killed her got sentenced to 20+ years in prison. Somehow they got released after a few years and achieved rapid promotions to senior positions in the oil industry (I believe it was the oil industry).

Zhou has had a pretty unpleasant reputation for a while, before the leadership transition, even for a Standing Member of the Politburo of the CCP.

[Ed Anger]

I guess his plot power wasn't high enough.

[Monoriu]

The rumour is that Zhou tried to assassinate Xi.  So it is personal.

Yeah, that and the coup rumours that were swirling at the time of the transition makes this particularly interesting. Of all the unsympathetic high ranking Communists, Zhou Yongkang has to be one of the most unpleasant ones - being the guy responsible for the industrialization of the trade in organs, for the persecution of the Falun Gong, for the habitual arrest and detention of provincial petitioners travelling to Beijing, and for the huge growth in internal labour camps.

That and the murder of his wife - apparently the two guys who drove the car that killed her got sentenced to 20+ years in prison. Somehow they got released after a few years and achieved rapid promotions to senior positions in the oil industry (I believe it was the oil industry).

Zhou has had a pretty unpleasant reputation for a while, before the leadership transition, even for a Standing Member of the Politburo of the CCP.

To be fair though, Zhou was the internal security czar.  It was his job. 

[citizen k]

'Commie-loving Mainlanders' targeted at Hong Kong's top university
By Clare Baldwin and Lizzie Ko

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A campus election at a top Hong Kong university degenerated into an acrimonious campaign against mainland Chinese candidates, highlighting simmering tensions two months after pro-democracy protests led by local students paralysed parts of the city.

Mainland students say they have always felt a distance from their local peers, but recent events in the Chinese-controlled city have fueled a burgeoning Hong Kong identity among many younger residents, alongside frustration and anger at Beijing.

"To brainwashed Commie-loving Mainlanders, we despise you!", read a flyer posted on the University of Hong Kong's (HKU) "Democracy Wall", underscoring the sharpening divide. The flyer has since been removed.

The so-called "Umbrella Movement" protests late last year, calling for full democracy in Hong Kong, posed the greatest challenge to China's authority since the crushing of a pro-democracy movement in Beijing in 1989.

The Communist Party's People's Daily said this week that life for mainland students in Hong Kong was "getting tougher", and the roughly 150,000 young people it estimates live in the territory were "being treated unfairly as collateral targets".

Divisions at HKU bubbled to the surface when a young woman running for the student union was accused of being a Beijing spy and subjected to online abuse after a campus television report highlighted her Communist Party Youth League membership.

A pro-Beijing newspaper leapt to her defense, warning against what it described as a dangerous "McCarthyite trend" in the former British colony.

Millions of Chinese schoolchildren are members of the Party's Youth League and Young Pioneers.

When another student in the same election confirmed that his grandfather had been a Communist Party member, bright red fliers merging an image of his face with that of Mao Zedong were plastered across his campaign posters.

Despite the accompanying warning to students to "Beware of the Communists, be careful when you vote!" his cabinet, as groups of students running on the same ticket are called, ultimately won.

POLARIZED

"At the time of an election, sometimes things get a little bit polarized," said HKU Dean of Student Affairs Albert Chau. "In the past even in campaigns between two local cabinets there were remarks made about political affiliation, political association which I don't think were very healthy."

Chau said isolated incidents should not seen as a sign of growing tension between mainland Chinese and locals.

Some students are not so sure.

"Hong Kong people are trying to control their hatred towards mainland China or people from mainland China, but you can still feel it," said Norah Zheng, a second-year HKU sociology student from Shandong province. "Mainland students somewhat hate local students as well because we feel this hatred from them."

The divide seems sharpest at HKU - students and professors at other Hong Kong universities said relations between local and mainland students had not worsened since the protests.

HKU had the most mainland students of the city's eight publicly-funded universities last year at nearly 3,000, or 16 percent of the student body, according to government data.

"The situation in Hong Kong has definitely become more political," said Nora Lam, the HKU CampusTV reporter whose story about student candidate Eugenia Yip sparked the spy controversy.

"Many student leaders of the Umbrella Movement were Student Union members, so I think it's justifiable that people are so concerned with the candidates' political views or influence."

In January, Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying expressed concern that universities could be incubating a separatist movement that would threaten Beijing's sovereignty.

"We must stay alert," he said, singling out HKU's student union magazine Undergrad for advocating self-determination.

"We also ask political figures with close ties to the leaders of the student movement to advise them against putting forward such fallacies."

[Monoriu]

It is really bad now.  For two weeks in a row, there were anti-mainland tourist riots in different parts of Hong Kong.  Hundreds of people gathered in malls and shouted slogans against the toursts, telling them to leave and calling them names (locusts being the favourite).