Thanks Simon, for alerting me to Curzon's travelogue.

I enjoyed reading his travelogue, and I loved his photos – just beautiful. I have lots of China travel photos on my site too, though my site isn't as beautifully presented.

Curzon's travelogue, as Jing commented, is a little light and “crispy”, but it is his overall assessments of China that arouses my interested the most, for they are both provocative and insightful. Curzon writes: “Regarding political freedoms, I think Robert D. Kaplan is right when he says that [today’s] Chinese Communist Party has done more to raise living standards than any other ruling elite in any society in the modern world. Had a dysfunctional democracy arisen out of Tiananmen Square in 1989, China would not be as rich as it is today. Human rights must be viewed in context, and the right to an education, to eat, to work, and to raise a family are far more important than the right to vote.”

I couldn’t agree more with this, though in the past I have often been dismissed as a “CCP apologist” for expressing this exact same opinion. It’s refreshing to find others who have similar assessments. The British journalist, Kieth Sinclair, shares in this view too, but he is among the few that I have come across.

I’m sceptical of Curzon's assertion though, that the Vietnamese poor are “poorer” than their Chinese counterparts. How has he measured and compared the two, I wonder? I have travelled throughout Vietnam too, and although extremes in wealth are certainly not as sharp in Vietnam as they are here in China, the poverty I saw there was no “better” than what I have come across here in China.

Thanx for the link. It was really informative. We got to know a loads about Japan's and china's culture.

Thanx for the tons of pics! Seems you enjoyed a lot. Visiting these unknown places would be much easier now, since everythings are so detailed and informative. No more crap about travelling, food and accomodation.

"60% plagiarism rate" is quite not surprising. I can tell you recruiting skilled inspectors to visit factories is not that easy. And the chinese job market is so flexible that it is hard to have the right pressure on employees to garantee trust and honesty from candidates.

Thanks for the linklets.

Thank you for your blogger about football,I’d like to exchange message with you:

Motto of different country FIFA2006 world cup team
1.We are football >Germany
2.orange on the road to gold Netherlands
3.Liberte，Egalite，Jules Rimet >France
4.Never-ending legend，united Korea
5.2006，It's Swiss o'clock
6.A passion to win and a thirst to succeed
7.angola lead the way,our team is our people
8.get up,argentina are on the move
9.australia's socceroos-bound for glory
10.vehicle monitored by 180 million brazilian heart
11.our army is the team,our weapon is the ball,let's get to germany and give it our all Costarica
12.ecuador my life,football my passion,the cup my goal
13.come on the elephants!win the cup in style
14.one nation,one trophy,eleven lions ENGLAND
15.go black stars,the stars of our world > Ghana
16.stars of Persia
17.blue pride,italy in our hearts
18.light up your samurai spirit Japan
19.to the finals with fire in our hearts "> Croatia
20.aztec passion across the world
21.from the heart of america...this is the guarani spirit
22.white and red,dangerous and brave >Poland
23.with a flag in the window and a nation on the pitch,forca Portugal
24.the green hawks cannot be stopped > Saudi Arabia
25.fight!show spirit!come on!you have the support of everyone >Sweden
26.for the love of the game
27.spain,one country,one goal
28 with our support,ukraine cannot fail to win
29.here come the soca warriors-the fighting spirit of the Caribbean
30.belief and a lion's strength,for victory and our fans > Czech
31.the carthage eagles...higher and stronger than ever
32.united we play,united we win>UNITED STATE

Dr Han (Super football fans) content fromwww.fifaworldcup-yahoo.co.uk
PAIN IN BRISTOL-- www.backachetherapy.co.uk

Thanks for doing the linklets again Gordon - there's some good links to follow.

The Yahoo link:

"Yahoo Chairman and Chief Executive Terry Semel, speaking at an event, said it had no choice but to comply with local laws and did not have the power to change Chinese policy."

This of course is complete bollux because it was Yahoo! Hong Kong that handed information across the border to a jurisdiction that had no legal claim on it.

The bear was never dead, he was just hibernating.

So much of happenings in China we wre unaware of till date. This blog has whole lot of info from political front to controversies. Thanks linkets.

Er, that would be "Silicon Valley," unless Bangalore is also becoming the world capital of breast enhancements?

Heh. You never know...

FH: Google's Blogger Ate Mohammad Cartoon Post

Simon, seems Linklets are almost daily again.

I'm impressed you can limit it to ONE weird-thing-of-the-day from Japan. There's so much fodder there! I'll jsut send over my grandmother!

Fake oranges, huh? What are they, clockwork operated?

ESWN translation ripped off by China Daily AGAIN.

see that Jones has posted another essay in China Daily attacking Peking Duck Richard Berger asnd China bloggers as immoral. Inerting read though, that Talk to CHina forum of CHina Daily. Seems it was sparked this time by comment of Richard's about blocking of anti's site which I love.

Simon, we also wish you very happy new year. And thanks for keeping us informed, great blog!

Beijing News journalists refuse to surrender.

ugh, that Abiola guy at Foreign dispatches is such a blow hard. Takes himself way too seriously and gets ape-shit when someone even offers an alternative hypothesis. Remind me not to visit his blog again.

China's GDP total will pass USA in 15-20 years (PPP), but GDP/cap may never pass US level.

using PPP would be correct in this case if one assumes RMB needs to appreciate to converge with its PPP

I guess this means that Simon is going to start printing a weekly business and foreign affairs magazine. Once he cleans up the profanity.

Thanks for the linkage. An Update: As sort of expected Wordpress China has nothing to do with Wordpress.

Hi~~It's a great space!!I will come here often.:)Merry X'mas.friend,annie

Wait a minute, Simon. I could be wrong, but from what I understand from Will and Myrick, Chinese journalists don't have any ethics. Am I wrong?

Err, I wouldn't say that at all - though Will and I do have opinions about the "transportation claim." There is a lot of shoddy and pay-for-good-press journalism here, but I've met some pretty solid Chinese reporters as well. On the pay for coverage stuff, judging from a weekend conversation, that may be the case at some expat- oriented and staffed magazines as well.

Let's not just single out Chinese journos, either. Recent American media history has given us plenty of examples of dubious journalistic ethics in the home of the free and land of the brave.

Sorry Myrick, didn't mean to shove those words in your mouth.

Simon, I'm not a big fan of the media in the US either.

the EAS article linked by Marmot's is a pretty old one. it makes a mistake about the NE Asia meeting - which has nothing to do with EAS, but just a side meeting taking advantage of the logistics.

the people's daily article it refers to is here
http://english.people.com(DOT)cn/200512/07/eng20051207_226350.html

p.s. why was the link censored?

ESWN won Danwei Model Worker award. Bingfeng, Simon and Peking Duck are honoured, too.

12.4 protest march website is under attack: http://www.rebuildhk.com/ .

very nice collection!

[By failing to pay the fee for advertising, this comment has gone to the great retail heaven in the sky]

I finally got to the swap calculation, and found that there is no meaning or implication for the swap contract. well, there is one, the banks and PBoC expect RMB to stay at exactly 8.08 after 12 months. (but most likely they are wrong)

http://sun-bin.blogspot.com/2005/11/why-rmb-usd-swap-is-set-at-785.html

i am just curious, simon, how do you find the china top blog?

I think it was through the BBC article the other day.

NYT: Chinese judges and politics

A French lady attempted to open plane door on the flight from Hong Kong to Queensland!
http://news .bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4456076.stm

China denies ordering Japan bullet trains:

http://www.chinadaily dot com dot cn/english/doc/2005-11/23/content_497101.htm

Spoil sports. Headlines like "Japanese bullets flying over China" almost write themselves.

Ah well, it was a cool idea for a post. As for blogger responsible for that erroneous story on East Asia Watch, well, 'Shinkansen' it back to Japan.

Ugggh...bad pun. But Simon thanks for appreciating my little diatribe about government monopolies...:) When are we going to get that beer? I am leaving Friday for Singapore but will be back Tuesday.

mmmmmm beer

I agree with Niki Yan, er, Cruise. In a world of imagination, there is no limit. Complete agreement.

Sad.

Although, Niki, if you are reading this, Simon would be glad to meet you. He looks a little like Tom Cruise. And he's rich.

Alas, Doug, I'm happily married. She'll have to settle for Cruise, if she can beat that hussy Katie Holmes.

Katie Holmes is entirely defeatable. Look how far Cruise got with her.

Round 2 of the Great Game - U.S. Completes Withdrawal From Uzbek Base:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1333322

The Dilbert Blog! (New to me, at least)
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/

Regarding the ESWN story.
I'd like to make a public apology to Roland for the errors edited into the story (not major, but irritating and done without my knowledge or input) and to anyone else quoted who may wonder why what they said or sent me got slightly mangled or awkwardly worded.
The irony is that I used to labor on The Standard's copy editing desk and made a few editing errors myself.
Sometimes it's a B-grade hell on both sides of the line is all I can say.

Further to ESWN summary of headlines of Hong Kong newspapers:

Hong Kong Economic Journal (Shun Po)-
Poll: 65% demand universal suffrage timetable
Possibly become demonstrators

***
Ming Pao is disappointing.

wow, thomas barnett, how did he managed to know that without setting his foot in china?

i was told in many occasions how powerful these companies are.
the mayors relies on tax revenue, and various economic figures (GDP growth, etc) for their careers.
each year they would even hold a meeting to assign tax responsibilities with the major companies (and the amount of 'tax refund' to compensate for over-reported revenue/profit)
then they are at the mercy of these corporate heads. changhong is responsible for perhaps 80% of mianyang's GDP.

they could be all legal (although there may also be corruption), for this to happen (but recently tax refund was forbidden)

Typepad blogs ARE blocked on the mainland. Alas, my "love China love hong kong" blog is not immune.

Actually Sun Bin, Barnett has been to China several times for his professional work and has had access to both academics and cadres. I believe he even adopted a girl from China about 2 years ago.

Rural Chinese may get city rights -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4399162.stm
- deserves attention.

Jing is correct. Tom's quite familiar with China firsthand.

Simon - "in Communist China, a company is running the local government."

Was that an intentional Yakov Smirnoffism?

I was exaggerating. I know he must have been in China a few times and know China pretty well.

But not many people got such insight, even those who spend years in China. I am still pretty surprised.

OK Matt, what's a Yakov Smirnoffism? The only Smifnoff I know is a bottle label.

Simon,

Yakov is a Russian expat comedian who was famous for jokes that involved the phrase "In Soviet Russia..." or somesuch. (e.g. "In America, you check books out of library. In Soviet Union, library checks you out.")

Peking Duck blocked in China?!
http://blog.bcchinese.net/bingfeng/archive/2005/11/01/40780.aspx

I am more surprised why it hasn't been blocked all these times, given those other "more friendly" sites were already blocked.

The only reason I could have thought of was because it was in english, and CCP censor was busy watching over chinese language sites.

Sun Bin's right. The miracle is it hasn't happened earlier.

Well, I'm very surprised that it has taken this long, especially considering all of the ongoing campaigning that Mrs Amanda Liu has been engaged in to get it blocked since last July. Blog-city was blocked not too long after my China Daily article drew her attention to The Horse's Mouth, the Angry Chinese Blogger and Keving in Pudong, though she had been campaigning before then to get Dave's ESL Cafe blocked - she was outraged by that site's open forum. She claims that Dave Sperling made changes to the accessability of his forum only after my China Daily article was published, though his decision has to be seen in the context that he was already under constant pressure from Mrs Liu and her lobby group. He stood to lose an enormous amount of revenue if his site were to be blocked on the mainland, as mainland educational institutions now make up his biggest market after South Korea.

When I wrote my China Daily article (which I stand by), it wasn't my intention to help get any of these sites blocked, mind you! I need to stress that I think. Having said that though, I can't help but to feel as though Richard has got his just desserts. I know I will be crucified for having said that, but... Look at it this way: Richard was receiving complaints about the length of my comments to his site, and because he is so concerned about maintaining site traffic, he seized on the first opportunity he got to drive me away - when KLS mentioned that I had been copying and pasting without always acknowledging my sources. I apologised for that, but Richard proceeded to instigate and to encourage a witch hunt (which KLS himself was critical of). This, mind you, came only days after I had offered to assist Richard financially on his arrival to Shenzhen, in response to his open request.

When I mentioned his full name once in my China Daily article, he claimed that I was being malicious, saying that he didn't want his full identity associated with his Peking Duck site. Well, that's odd, because I first discovered his site via the evworld site, and on this site Richard was openly promoting his Peking Duck under his full name! He simply wanted to paint me out to be Mr Evil incarnate, and what's more, he then spread a rumour that I had written a letter or an email to his past employer, revealing him to be a homosexual. This is an outright vicious lie.

So I can't help but to feel as though he has got his just desserts really - having his site blocked on the mainland will probably make it difficult for him to continue to attract new readers in the same numbers that he was previously able to do - and that is what he appears to want most, because he is out to make money from advertising revenue. As he himself recently wrote, "Show me a blog that is objective, and I'll show you a site with no traffic, no comments, etc." Well, that just about sums up what the Peking Duck is really all about then, doesn't it? It's not about being fair, balanced, objective. It's about giving people want they want - a daily dose of China-bashing dribble to get off on, so that he can make a little money through advertising.

Mark Anthony Jones

MAJ - it's not about money. I also accept advertising in order to defray the costs in running this site. Trust me when I say the revenues are not significant enough to make a difference either way.

As for the banning, I don't believe it's a major issue. The blog is in English, and those reading from the mainland are likely already adept at using proxy servers and the like.

As for the biases of blogs, Richard's right. No blog I know of pretends to be a neutral, objective news source. It's all about opinions.

Well, the money isn't much I know, and I'm not saying that there is anything fundamentally wrong with him trying to make money from his site - my point is, he wants to use his site to make money, even if it is just a little, and that means maintaining decent traffic. I suspect that he drove me away because he was worried that my lengthy comments were scaring away too many readers. He actually said that to me, in fact, that he had received many complaint emails about the length of my comments.

If he is going to operate a blog, which occupies a public space, then he has to be prepared to accept criticisms of both his ideas and opinions, as well as his blog. When I wrote a reasonable criticism (without making any personal attacks) which China Daily published, he responded by launching into a smear campaign against me, and he also tried bullying you and Bingfeng into not giving me a space to express my views. His behaviour at that time was outrageous.

I have published all sorts of personal details about myself online - even my address and phone number! If somebody finds it, and advertises it elsewhere online, then that is my problem! I have to take responsibility for that - if I make such details public by putting them online, on a public space, then I have to accept that this information is public, and was made public by me. The same applies to Richard. He promotes his site under his own full name on one site, so he has no right whatsoever to criticise me and to demonise me for citing that information elsewhere online. Period. No rational personal could possibly argue otherwise! Numerous other sites also mentioned him by his full name - including this one.

It is a perfectly reasonable criticism to make - that his blog is biased and ethnocentric, that it is lacking in objectivity. If he can't handle that, then he shouldn't run a blog, should he?

Not everybody will be able to access his blog from the mainland - not everybody will be bothered, and not everybody knows how to set up and to use proxy servers. And not all proxies work - I cannot access TPD using a proxy server from here in Shenzhen, yet I can access blog-city sites using proxies. Another person on some other site has mentioned that they too cannot access it from Beijing, even when using a proxy.

I'm sorry if I seem a little harsh, though you are right, it is no big deal that his juvenile hate site has been blocked here on the mianland of China - some will miss it, most will not.

The first comment I ever posted on TPD was deleted almost immediately - why? Richard mistook me for somebody else. That somebody else, who has kept in contact with me ever since, and who resides in Shanghai, will be meeting me for the first time this weekend at a pub in Wan Cai. We plan to celebrate over a few beers! Maybe Mrs Amanda Liu, who is from Guangzhou, would care to join us, if she has a Hong Kong pass.

Mark Anthony Jones

Last July I wrote an article which was published by The China Daily on what I see as the disappointing ethnocentrism of many English-language China blogs. The article excited a heated response from many readers, and soon afterwards, three of the four blog sites that I had criticised were blocked: The Horse’s Mouth, the Angry Chinese Blogger and Kevin In Pudong. All three of these were hosted by blog-city.

A few days ago the other site that I focused on, The Peking Duck, also fell victim to the mainland’s censors.

What is my position on this?

The question of China’s internet censorship is a problematic one, but I believe that China’s internet censorship practices need to be viewed in the wider international context.
All countries have internet censorship policies. Since at least 1995, most governments around the world have been addressing the problems of material on the internet that is illegal under their offline laws, and in most cases, have concerned the issues of political speech, the promotion of or incitement to racial hatred, and pornographic material.

Different countries have to date experimented with a variety of means when censoring the internet. In the United Kingdom and Canada for example, government policy has been largely to encourage self-regulation within the internet industry.

In Australian Commonwealth law, we see instead the government mandated blocking of access to content deemed unsuitable for adults. This has been the case in Australia since January 2000. The ABA (Australian Broadcasting Authority) has the power to monitor the internet, investigate complaints and to require that Internet Service Providers block or remove internet sites anywhere in the world deemed offensive. Web sites, newsgroups and databases are all subject to censorship, as are personal emails. This approach is also the one used here in China, as well as in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. Some of these countries require internet access providers to block material while others only allow restricted access to the internet through government controlled access points.

China currently operates the most extensive, technologically sophisticated, and broad-reaching system of internet filtering in the world. According to a study conducted by OpenNet Initiative, which is a partnership between the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, and the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme at Cambridge University, China’s legal regulation of the internet is extraordinarily complex: “The legal regime comprises requirements and prohibitions issued by multiple bodies and administrative agencies [and there are] at least a dozen entities [which] have authority over internet access and content in some form. These rules frequently overlap and restate prior provisions. Conforming to these requirements is made more difficult by the broad, sweeping definitions that many regulations employ. Overall, China’s legal controls over the internet have expanded greatly since 2000, indicating increased attention to this medium of communication.

Moreover, the number of regulatory bodies with a role in internet control has increased. This may indicate intra-governmental competition for a voice in shaping a medium viewed as vital to China’s economic growth and political stability.”

Content control in China then, occurs through informal as well as formal measures. Thus, the Internet Society of China pressures content and access providers to agree to a “Public Pledge of Self-Regulation and Professional Ethics.” Companies often accede; Yahoo! agreed to the pledge in 2002, and filters content available to users at its Chinese language portal. Internet regulation in China is based on the philosophy that “one is responsible for what one publishes.” Thus, Internet companies in China practice a high degree of self-censorship. Internet Service Providers perform self-censorship, including using employees who lead teams of volunteers to monitor and moderate chat rooms and bulletin boards. China can thus filter content through voluntary, informal measures, as well as via formal legal or technological means.

Users, in effect, act as an additional regulatory mechanism, and many citizens view internet regulation as necessary, and monitor Web sites, chat rooms, and bulletin boards for inappropriate content, reporting violations to the authorities.

One such citizen is Mrs Amanda Liu, who heads a lobby group based in Guangzhou, and who responded on the pages of The China Daily to my article. She wrote, on the 25th of July:

"You raise two very good questions to which I would like to answer with things I have read in the writings of the late Chief Justice of the United States, Oliver Wendell Holmes.

No one has the right to cry fire in a crowded theater anywhere. No one has the right to provoke a panic, nor to excessively disturb the established order. That is not Chinese thinking - that is American jurisprudence.

1. Are those who host websites responsible for the content displayed therein in the Modern Age?

Absolutely yes. A website is a tool. It can be a tool for good; it can be a tool for evil. If it fosters hate, warmongering, criminal elements, extreme political views whose sole purpose is to perturb the established order, then yes, it should be shut down. And the keeper of the website should either be sent to jail or should be fined.

If the website, on the other hand, provides a forum for reasonable, intelligent provocative discussion in a non-threatening and non-bellicose manner, then no, the website should not be challenged, provided, however, it does not violate any of the laws, rules, nor regulations of the country in which it resides or in which it is read.

3. A case in point from which I began my entire campaign for website responsibility from Westerns, particularly Americans, resident in China and living off the public purse.

As I have said now three times, on Dave's www.eslcafe.com, in the Off-Topic China Forum, there was a seven-page posting on how American should wage nuclear war on China and how it should destroy our cities.

That posting is completely beyond the pale of what is acceptable. And there were many other others.

So thus it became necessary to wage a campaign to restrict that website, and with the help of all of my friends in Guangzhou, we were successful.

David Sperling, the owner of the website who resides in California (sperling@eslcafe.com) was forced to make all of the obscene, violent, extremely China-bashing forums private. He perfectly understood that he risked having his entire site banned for hate mongering, etc.

So to answer your question in a few words: Intelligent discussion, even simple discussion is welcome on any BBS provided it does not violate nor flaunt the established norms of the country either in which it is viewed or in which is it hosted.

As demonstrated, in the case of Dave's Web Site, which actively discussed maiming and killing Chinese citizens and destroying our country, that is simply ultra hatred. And thus it had to be restricted.

And frankly, we are still working to have the entire site shut down. It has gone too far."

Mrs Liu corresponded with me several times by email, pledging to not only continue with her campaign to have Dave’s ESL Café blocked, but also the four English-language China blogs that I discussed in my article.

Whether or not Mrs Liu and her friends were justified in their efforts to get such sites blocked depends on the following two questions: (1). What kind of internet materials should China have a moral right to block? And (2), do the blogs in question fall into this category of being socially unacceptable?

China’s State Council Order No. 292, promulgated in September 2000, established formal content restrictions for Internet Content Providers, with its Article 15 specifying nine restricted, relatively vague categories of information that cannot be produced, copied, published, or disseminated, comprising data

1. Which are against the principles prescribed in the Constitution;
2. Which endanger the security of the State, divulge the secrets of the State, overthrow the government, or damage the unification of the state;
3. Which harm the dignity and interests of the State;
4. Which instigate hatred, discrimination among the ethnic groups, or destroy the unity of nationalities;
5. Which break the religious policy of the State, spread evil cults or feudal superstition;
6. Which spread rumors, disturb the social order, and damage the social stability;
7. Which spread pornography, sex, gambling, violence, murder, terrorism or abetment;
8. Which insult or slander others and thus infringe upon others' lawful rights and interests; or
9. Which involve other contents prohibited by the laws and administrative rules.

All societies need to strike their own balance when it comes to protecting the rights of individuals and the rights of the wider community. Freedom of speech for example, is indeed negotiable, even in Western societies, where various forms of censorship are also practiced in the interests of protecting the wider community. Apart from defamation laws, television and film ratings and internet censorship laws, racial vilification laws also exist in most Western countries. These racial vilification laws differ slightly from country to country, but let us take Australia's racial vilification laws as an example. The law there forbids the public airing (including the use of websites) of any messages that can be shown to cause "insult, humiliation or distress" to an individual or group of individuals based on their ethnicity, nationality or religious affiliation. This is how a "hate" site is defined. Hate sites do not necessarily need to incite hatred - they need only to cause "insult, humiliation or distress" to be classified as a "hate" site.

The racial vilification laws of New Zealand, Canada, and most Western Europeans countries are almost the same in this regard. And these laws are often put into practice. In 2002, an Australian man by the name of Frederick Toben for example, was ordered by the Australian Government to shut down his website which claimed that the Nazi holocaust did not occur because it caused some Jewish Australians considerable "distress".

China has every right to formulate its own laws, and it has every right, just like every other country, to ban websites and other publications that cause its own citizens "insult, humiliation or distress," or to censor information in the interests of maintaining social cohesion and stability. It's not difficult to charge many Western critics of China with a failure to see human rights problems in Chinese terms. This is not to say, of course, that Chinese society ought not to be open to criticism by foreigners and Chinese nationals alike, but rather, that such criticisms need to be based on empirically verifiable research, and that any conclusions drawn need to be fair and balanced, and that the people of China ought to be judged in their own terms, not according to the values of Westerners. The right balance struck in protecting the rights of the individual against the rights of the wider community in one country, may not necessarily represent an appropriate balance for another. You can often borrow ideas, but you can't borrow situations.

So in answer to the first question, I have to say that I believe China, like all other societies, does indeed have a right to censor internet sites as outlined in Article 15 of the State Council Order No.292. The criteria used in fact, is very similar to those used by most Western countries.

If you accept this, as I do, then the blocking of The Peking Duck and The Horse’s Mouth, etc., all hinges on whether or not these sites can be reasonably classified and regarded as “hate” sites – and here is where the real controversy I think, lies.

Readers familiar with the sites in question will of course be able to make judgments for themselves, but for those of you who are interested in knowing my view on this matter, you can scroll down to the first two articles posted on the “China Articles” page of my blog, where I have already discussed the question of whether or not they constitute as “hate’ sites in some considerable detail.

Mark Anthony Jones

MAJ, I've got numerous problems with what you've said, but time does not permit me to go into detail now (although I will tomorrow).

But there's one glaring fault in your logic: in all those other countries, the people get to elect those that make the decisions. What China does is legal under its own legal processes. So was the processes followed by Stalin and Hitler in their states at their times. Being legal does not mean being right. There is a vast difference between screaming fire in a crowded room and blogs, even if they are considered offensive or out of order. I've never seen someone's life threatened due to what they read in a blog. If China's process was an open one, subject to widespread debate in the media and public, your arguement might hold water. But when imposed from above to protect those in power, it falls over.

As I said, more tomrrow.

Not to mention one other key difference - with blogs you have a choice to not read them. There's no compulsion. With the "Fire" example, there is no choice in the matter to reacting to the comment.

Yet again, that word "choice". It's a massive difference.

Interesting response Simon, and I appreciate your views, but as I have argued in detail already in an article I wrote on my blog, the CCP does have a legitimate right to govern - it does, contrary to what you may like to hink, have a strong mandate. This is painfully obvious - the vast majority of mainland citizens continually express general satisfaction with the present status quo, and the overwhelming majority say they do not want multi-party elections at this stage in China's development. Now look, I'm not merely parroting CCP propaganda when I point this out - independent U.S., Taiwanese and European researchers have all reached the same conclusions from their own studies, some of which have been conducted on vast, national scales. The academic world accept these findings - the last such study that I am aware of was presented in Taipei at last year's 32nd Sino-American Conference on Contemporary China. It's conclusions were accepted. Anyone who lives on the mainland knows very well that the vast majority support the right of the CCP to govern - purely by the strength of anecdotal evidence. You only have to teach here, or talk to people you meet, to gain such insights.

So the first fault you talk about I reject. The empirically verifiable evidence shows that the CCP does have a popular mandate to govern, and to legislate and enforce its laws, as does the anecdotal evidence.

Your second objection is interesting: you say that people have a choice not to read them. Well, in Europe and Australia, this line of reasoning has been rejected several times already in law. It was raised in particular during the Frederick Toben case in Adelaide. The Australian courts rejected this very argument, and ordered his site to be closed down. Toben's lawyers argued that his site was an academic history site, and that people have a choice whether of not they read it. His main argument was that the Nazi holocaust didn't occur. The courts rejected his defence on the grounds that many people will indeed be directed to his site, not knowing what to expect, and once they open it and begin reading it, they may find the contents disturbing, offensive, humiliating, etc. The mere knowledge that such a site exists then continues to haunt.

And those who do "choose" to read hate sites can have their world views distorted (especially those who are young and impressionable) - and this, of course, can influence not only attitudes but also social behaviours. This is EXACTLY why hate sites are defined in law, and why most countries outlaw them. If this logic of yours was reasonable and flawless, then there would be no such need for vilification laws that outlaw published materials - be they books, magazines, online sites, films, etc.

So I also reject your second criticism.

Mark Anthony Jones

If the CCP are so comfortable with their popularity and mandate, why don't they allow elections? Clearly they'd win if your polling is correct. Of course they may need to release the press to be truly free, stop co-ercing those they rule with threats and promises and seperate the party from the state, but they'd still win hands down.

I find your second line of reasoning ironic. You are applying the logic and court ruling of a liberal democracy (Australia) and using it to justify the blocking of "hate" sites in authoritarian China. The key difference is in australia Mr Tobin had a chance to represent and defend himself in a court of law, against a law that was passed by a freely elected parliament, that was widely debated in the press and community.

So I reject your rejections.

Dear Simon,

I understand where you are coming from, but I think you are missing the whole point here. It is not relevant whether or not the CCP are comfortable with the idea of introducng multi-party elections - of course they do not want to compete for the right to govern. The point too, isn't whether people like you and me feel as though the two-party system is better than the one-party system. What matters is what most Chinese themselves think, and the reality is that at the moment the overwhelming majority are satisfied with the one-party system, and are either in no hurry or have little interest in adopting a system based on multi-party elections. What matters only is that at present, the majority are satisfied with the present system. The CCP, at present, therefore have a popular mandate to govern and to introduce laws. Period. Whether you personally like China's system or not isn't relevant, is it?

You might not like the idea of authoritarian systems of governance, be it the Chinese model, or the Singaporean model, or whatever. So what? I prefer the system we have in Australia too! But what you and I think is not relevant here. What matters is that most Chinese mainlanders are comfortable with authoritarian systems of governance, they believe in it, and they are satisfied with it - at present at least.

The crucial point that I am making is this: the CCP has a popular mandate, it therefore has a legitimate right to legislate laws and to enforce them. The rest of the world needs to respect that. We may not agree with all of those laws, but the majority of mainland Chinese do. Period.

Mark Anthony Jones

Simon,

I think you missed one.

Hey John, happy halloween. "Superhuman linking machine" - I just need a cape!

But even us superhuman machines need a bit of time - I just linked it in the post above - it deserves its own.

Indeed.

You sure responded fast, though!

Hong Kong democrats' website:
http://www.rebuildhk.com/
(Chinese only)

Translation of a Chinese blogger's view on "sensitive words":
http://www.danwei.org/archives/002273.html

"Let's suppose you write the following sentence on any blog host that has senstive word controls: "The viewership rating of CCTV's (中央电视台) recent TV series Passing Scenes of Beijing has reached 6.4%". You would not be able to publish this sentence on Blogcn and other such blog hosts because it contains senstive words [i.e. 'central' 中央 which is an abbbreviation for the Central Government]."

"Your blog, http://simonworld.mu.nu/, is worth $280,011.84"

http://www.technorati.com/weblog/2005/10/55.html

http://www.business-opportunities.biz/projects/how-much-is-your-blog-worth/

Write me the cheque and I'll be done!

Howard French has written a review on the Mao book.

http://www.howardwfrench.com/archives/2005/10/24/putting_a_knife_into_heart_of_the_chairmans_legend/

I hope you were being sarcastic when citing the People's Daily as giving the "true figure." Forgive my skepticism, but I'm more inclined to believe the DOD, RAND, etc.
I just posted on this whole thing with my take on it all. Thoughts?

Yes, it was meant to be sarcastic.

Just checking

Not sure if this has been covered in the past,
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=143

This is perhaps the more sensible discussion about the topic of 'not a lot'.

and this one

http://projectchina.blogspot.com/2005/10/mistrust-money-and-making-of.html

"Jonathan Joffe-Walt" ??

Can Mr Anti's translation blog:
http://mranti.blog.com/
become ESWN II?

(via SB's blog)

or "Benjamin Watts" :)

I tend to think that was intentional :). But "Ian Joffe-Walt" is better. Jonathan was really on vacation.

---
Seems Anti focuses on some ('less known')aspects of the academic circle, and his coverage would not be as extensive as ESWN.

Hemlock might check to see what party the current District Council Functional Constituency Rep in LegCo belongs to.

There's a reason that James Tien isn't going to smash up his 911 over this proposal.

By the way, if Hong Kong's education secretary were to come up with a standardized MP3 device for higher education, might we call it the 'Arthropod'?

Fresh bird flu outbreak in China:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4356392.stm

Thanks for alerting me to this Simon - I must be sure to visit Macau's "Fisherman's Wharf" theme park when it opens, as I have a keen interest in mass culture studies, and I have written already on similar theme parks here in Shenzhen - the Windows of the World, Folk Culture Villages, Splendid China, etc.

I think this kind of kitsch (the commodity aesthetic) is, for good or bad, China's new face. Hong Kong Disneyland is another example.

For those who are interested, incidentally, I have written at length about Shenzhen's theme parks in the "Shenzhen Life" section of my blog, at:

f r e e w e b s . c o m / f l o w i n g w a t e r s

I am also conducting an online readers' poll on these theme parks, if anybody would care to participate.

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Another "Peking Duck" in China blogsphere. He say he is authentic.
http://spaces.m s n.com/members/peking-duck/

Google Maps now says Taiwan is Taiwan.
http://voyage.typepad.com/china/2005/10/google_says_tai.html

ALL desperate bloggers are advised to download the thenonist's pamphlet. (Of course I have done that!)

Well, I have to say this must-read contains nothing but the same-old. Chinese may not be ready for a national level democracy. But democracy also need a constant exercise especially for Chinese who have no history, experience, and knowledge for democracy. If CCP will fall in 50 years, it is very important to start the small scale democracy exercise now, no matter from the bottom or upper level! The exercise may also start from elites, farmers, merchants, workers, residents or shanghaiese, hongkonger...may last for 20 years, 40 years, 60 years....may change according the responses....may stop while waiting for the independent judicial systems....may discontinue because of big mistakes....may take a slightly different style for different regions.....but whatever, we must start! when CCP still have power to control everything, and when we still have a little time to survive from the mistakes.

We can risk our nation by burying our heads in the sand praying that one day people will suddenly have the faith, have the experience in operating a whole new system, have the ability to accept the loss... have everything that is essential for a working democracy.
It will never happen without the work-out! And this work-out must be exercising democracy itself instead of just becoming city residents, becoming a high school graduate, becoming a regilious believer or something else... And this work out takes time!
I am not sure if HU is an ostrich or not, but I hope not...I hope he is not too stupid to be fooled by the fools. I hope he is not too timid to be scared by those bullies. As an engineer, he should immediately start experimenting ideas for the future massive democracy project of China.

about car pooling, i guess it is the pressure from taxi industry. (i could trace the source to oil price that pressed the taxi drivers, but i would rather not stretch it:) )

but note that in HK, it is illegal to share a taxi with a stranger as well. (Honger call it "Fishing" -- Diao-ni-mang/Due-nai-marn) the taxi driver will be fined if caught.

what these people do not realize is that allowing car and taxi pooling is exactly what would help to solve the problem created by further increase of oil price (get rid of price control).

It is illegal to share taxis in Hong Kong, just as it's illegal to negotiate fares...but it still happens.

They will struggle to ban car pooling - who's going to dob in the car poolers? It's if the car poolers start charging for the ride, effectively becoming taxis themselves, that will bring trouble.

And yet for anyone that's ridden a Chinese taxi, anything has to be an improvement.

An excellent site (with the exception of the advert for the execrable Capitalist Solutions)!

As an expat gweilo with interest in HK/Taiwan/China politics and culture, I really appreciate your comprehensive coverage, user-friendly links, and often astute commentary.

keep it up, mate!

Thank you, David.

oh, come on! The whole jet blue thing was rigged, because they were suffering their first quarterly loss since the beginning of the company.

They just wanted to restore confidence with high drama.

You mean it's not a new reality TV show?

Actually, you m ight be on to something. Or on something.

That "blogger's handbook" sounds like a publicity stunt. It was commented that it can't be downloaded in China, so who is it aimed at? A bit like the Germans passing the Enigma machine to Bletchley Park.

Thanks, as always for the links Simon. Yesterday's Linklets were the best ever in my opinion.

Congratulations also, on the UK Guardian newsblog link. It was funny, last night I was actually reading the Guardian newsblog, came across the Starbucks/Great Wall post and then realised that that the story had come from Simonworld. Could have knocked me down with a feather!

Hope it provides a few extra hits.

Thanks Martyn - yesterday's linklets did seem a particularly "heavy" edition.

As for the Guardian link, it was worth a few hits and it's always nice to get noticed by such places. Clearly no patch on your Instalanche...but I'll take it.

Unfortunatey, Insta-lanches happen but once in blue moon but I'm pleased that I was fortunate enough for it to happen to me once. When they do come around, it a makes for a hell of a time sitting watching 600-700 hits per hour come in.

I think we China people do well to have such a great blogasphere. I just wish all those Blogspot and Blog-City people would move to a non-blocked-in-China blog host.

After all, if I was a Chinese censor looking at the list of all the China-related blogs on Blogspot and Blog-City, I'd be feeling very pleased with myself.

You can't tell me that those blog hosting sites are way and above better than the hundreds of the blog hosting services.

Sorry, glad I got that off my chest. It's a bit of a pet peeve I have.

I really ''identify'' with what that blogger pointed out in his account of the NYT interview. I just want to summarize and go over the interview process. Basically, journalists don't just call you up to hound you into giving answers you don't want to give. It's usually a conversation, from what I can see.

Fair point, Doug. But that blogger felt he'd been boxed into a corner and was subtly moved into becoming the reporter's mouthpiece. It's like lawyers: they don't ask questions without knowing the answers.

Thanks for the kind comments. The reason why the RSS feed doesn't work is that I am now blocked in China, and have to go through a cumbersome proxy kind of procedure to post articles.. Updating the RSS feed is even more difficult.

Simon, thanks for linking to my post. I should have checked my english if I knew you would link to it.

Lin, your post was absolutely fine and easy to read.

Simon,
For the sedition case, the URL for part 1 should be:-
http://singaporeangle.blogspot.com/2005/09/two-charged-with-sedition-for-racist.html

and for part 2 it is:-
http://singaporeangle.blogspot.com/2005/09/two-charged-with-sedition-for-racist_12.html

Thanks, I've fixed them up.

Hi Simon,

Much obliged for the link !

Simon,
Breaking news: Google has introduced blog search.
URL: http://google.com/blogsearch
Related news: http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3548411

Not that this means anything but that post ESWN wrote a blog entry about, with its 223,000 views and 4,000 comments, is not the most popular forum post ever. Not even close.

There's a thread on post.baidu.com which started on 9 June, 2004. As of today, it has collected 2,845,438 views and 53,816 comments.

It's a novel based on a Japanese anime written by a user of baidu.

Thanks for correcting.

East meets west, that is also the theme of my blog. Enjoy!

http://uvgarden.blogspot.com

I found Dave's comments about the new Hong Kong Disneyland and its relationship with globalisation to be very interesting, as this is a topic that I myself have been looking at for quite some time now - only I have concentrated on the mainland's various Disney-type theme parks, particularly those to be found here in Shenzhen, where I live and work.

Those who are interesting in the topic of "hypereality" might also be interested in reading my own thoughts about China's new plethora of theme parks. Below is a piece I wrote about Shenzhen's Diwang Building, which is billed as the "first high-rise theme sightseeing and entertainment scenic spot in Asia." Your critical comments will be much appreciated!

KITSCH CITY III

In recognition of her hard work and loyalty, Gao Ying’s employer provided her with two free tickets to visit the Meridian View Centre, located on the 69th floor of the green-coloured Diwang Commercial Building, which towers up to 384 metres off Shenzhen’s main thoroughfare of Shennan Lu; the city’s most easily recognisable building, its main architectural symbol.

Our tickets were torn, and as we passed through the turnstile we were each handed a promotional brochure, bilingual, and which I wasted no time in reading. “Standing at the Meridian View Centre,” it said, “which is the first high-rise theme sightseeing and entertainment scenic spot in Asia, you can easily see just about any sight within Shenzhen city and parts of Hong Kong.”

“With the unique location and amazing view,” it continued, “it is the best place to witness the epoch-making policy one country-two systems and the great change of Shenzhen city from a small fishing village of late twenty years.”

I was quite keen to view the city from these heights, but before Gao Ying and I were able to make it to a window we were briskly ushered into a small cinema, where we were shown to a seat, and asked to wait patiently. Decked out like a ship’s cabin, the cinema resembled the sort a set one might expect to find at a Warner Bros. Movie World theme park. Within minutes the cinema was full, the lights turned down, and the show begun: the Pirate’s Legend, it was called.

Based on an old legend about a pirate named Zhang Baozai, who thrived in this area during the 19th century, this multi-media show was an attempt at simulacra, with its combination of video footage and holographic images all shown in synchronicity with the sounds of wind and rain and lashing waves that, when combined with the hidden high-powered fans that blew hurling gusts of wind onto the audience, were meant to simulate conditions out at sea. At one stage during the show, images of cute fury rats were shown scrambling about the ship’s lower decks, whilst my calf muscles were tickled by a moving “rat’s tail” hidden somewhere beneath my seat.

According to the Window of Shenzhen website, Zheng Baozai was not only a Robin Hood type character who robbed from the rich to give to the poor, but he also “successfully drove away the foreign invaders” from the Pearl River delta area, making him an ideal patriot; a folk hero to celebrate.

Of course, the reality of Zheng Baozai’s life wasn’t half as glamorous as it was made out to be by this kitschy presentation, with all of its treasure chests and shining swords and Disney-type imagery. For starters, Zheng didn’t succeed in “driving away” any foreign invaders at all – though the pirate Confederacy did inflict significant damage on the Qing navy. Piracy in fact was so out of control at the time, that the Chinese authorities actually sought the help of foreign fleets to help tackle the problem. Six Portuguese ships were hired for six months to work on pirate control, and it was with the help of a Portuguese official from Macau, Miguel de Arriaga, that Zheng was able to negotiate his surrender in 1810 to the Qing navy. Not only this, but pirate ships, including those of Zheng Baozai’s Red Fleet, seldom even attacked European ships except when known that they were very weak or poorly manned. He wasn’t quite the brave, fearless swashbuckling repeller of foreign invaders that he has so often been made out to be.

Zheng Baozai was certainly no Robin Hood either. Mr Glasspoole, an officer with the East India Company ship, Marquis of Ely, was actually captured with seven other men by Zheng’s fleet in 1809, and was held captive for eleven weeks until eventually being exchanged for a ransom of over $7,500, as well as for two chests of opium, two casks of gunpowder, and a telescope. After his release, Glasspoole wrote a report describing the activities of Zheng and his pirates, noting that they spent most of their energies plundering small coastal villages, and that in doing so, they behaved very barbarously. They regularly collected protection money, and villagers were often kidnapped and then ransomed for either food or for money. Many entire villages were burnt to the ground, and female captives were often forced into sexual slavery, usually sold for around $40 each, and those prisoners who attempted to escape were normally tortured or killed. A favourite method of torture, said Glasspoole, was to nail the feet to the deck for several hours.

Being a pirate in Zheng’s fleet was hardly glamorous. As Glasspoole noted, the ships were infested with rats, which were sometimes added to the human diet – a diet which normally consisted of little more than coarse red rice and fish. According to Glasspoole, at one time during his captivity they lived on only rice and caterpillars for three weeks. “Feast or famine,” he said, “was the normal lot on pirate ships.”

The Meridian View Centre’s entertainment certainly did distort the city’s past and present, in the way that it presented a nationalist cause centred on economic development and the country’s One-China Policy, and by its glorification of past anti-imperialist struggles, pitted against successive waves of foreign invaders by hero-pirates. It masked reality, with its claim that “the cultures, the style and features of both Shenzhen and Hong Kong have merged here beautifully,” and that both Shenzhen and Hong Kong share histories as “one continuous line, nurtured by the long Shenzhen River” whose “people have grown up on both sides” – whose common cause and whose shared destinies had been interrupted only briefly, by the colonial exploits of a foreign power. The fact that the Qing navy’s ability to resist foreign fleets had been seriously weakened by their own struggles with homegrown pirates, whose numbers are thought to have exceeded forty thousand, had simply been left out of the picture, omitted from the entertainment. The ambivalence that most of today’s Hong Kong residents feel towards Beijing’s political leadership was likewise, ignored.

What I also found interesting about the Pirate’s Legend show was the way that it distorted China’s sexual history, by presenting the past as though everybody had, in the 19th century, cherished the same sexual practices and morals that are now espoused by China’s mainstream today. The show made a big deal of the fact that Zheng Baozai married, that he was therefore not too far removed from society’s conventions. The fact that the woman he married was his boss, that it was a female pirate who led the entire Confederation, was simply left out of the presentation. The idea that a woman could be a leader, could wield so much power, just doesn’t sit very comfortably with the patriarchal attitudes of today’s business and financial leaders.

The inherent bisexuality of all human beings, if we accept Freud’s view, was also, perhaps not surprisingly, denied by the View Centre’s pirate legend. In ancient China, homosexuality was never regarded as a sin, and bisexuality was considered almost a norm. One thing which is rarely ever discussed by the Chinese today, is the fact that even the founder of the Chinese nation, China’s first Emperor, Qin Shihuang-di, had young male lovers. The scholar Pan Guangdan has even reached the conclusion that almost every emperor during the Han Dynasty had at least one male lover - a practice which was also common throughout the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties.

Early Western observers in China, such as the Jesuit Matthew Ricci for example, noted the acceptance of homosexuality in China, but could do little to change it. One British official, writing in 1806, reported that among the Chinese “the commission of this detestable and unnatural act is attended with so little sense of shame, or feelings of delicacy that many of the first officers of the state seemed to make no hesitation in publicly avowing it. Each of these officers is constantly attended by his pipe-bearer, who is generally a handsome boy, from fourteen to eighteen years of age, and is always well dressed.”

J.L. Turner, a British captive of Zheng Baozai’s Red Fleet in 1807, said that each pirate vessel carried eight to ten kidnapped women who were “intended to please all the society indiscriminately and to do the work of their sex,” yet it seemed to him that the “greater part of the crew were satisfied without them” because they instead were in the habit of committing “almost publicly crimes against nature.” Glasspoole, during his captivity, also noted that the most prized captives of the pirates were young boys.

The fact that Zheng Baozai himself was kidnapped by pirates at the age of fourteen was also omitted from the entertainment. Cheng I, the infamous leader of the pirate Confederacy, owed much of his success to the organisational and diplomatic skills of his wife, Cheng I Sao. It was they who kidnapped Zheng Baozai, whom they adopted as their son. Cheng I and Zheng Baozai soon became lovers, though Cheng I’s wife didn’t seem to resent this relationship. Indeed, Cheng I also maintained numerous other male lovers, including the commander of the Black Fleet, Kuo Po-o-Tai. When Cheng I died during a battle in Vietnam in 1807, aged 42, his wife, Cheng I Sao took over the command of the Confederacy, and appointed Zheng Baozai (her husband’s favourite) as her chief lieutenant – putting him in charge of the Red Fleet. Zheng himself was said to be a flamboyant young rogue, who often dressed in a purple silk robe and a black turban.

Zheng Baozai and Cheng I Sao did eventually marry one another, sometime after their surrender in 1810. The Governor-General of Canton had offered them both an amnesty in exchange for giving up their piracy, allowing Cheng I Sao to set up a very profitable gambling house and brothel in Canton, while Zheng Baozai went on to become a colonel in the Qing army.

Zheng is remembered and celebrated more than his superior though, simply because his leader was a woman, and women aren’t supposed to be leaders, let alone pirates - though his relationship with the “Queen of Pirates” has certainly been retained, packaged as a romantic Hollywood-type love story that had blossomed amidst all of the swashbuckling drama of the high seas. Disney films are now even making a sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, starring the popular Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-Fat as Zheng Baozai. It will be interesting to see whether or not Cheng I Sao will also be featured as a character in the film, and if so, how. One thing that we can all be sure of though is this: Zheng’s bisexuality will be completely omitted from the script.

As Jean Baudrillard has argued, the postmodern world is a world whose signs have made a fundamental break from referring to "reality." In The Precession of Simulacra, Baudrillard wrote that simulation “is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance,” but rather “the generation by models of a real without origin or reality.” It is, he asserted, “no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody” but instead the substituting of “the signs of the real for the real." Primary examples he said, include psychosomatic illness, Disneyland, and Watergate. Fredric Jameson provided a similar definition: the simulacrum's "peculiar function lies in what Sartre would have called the derealisation of the whole surrounding world of everyday reality."
Even human sexuality it would seem, our own nature as human beings, has been derealised – substituted instead by a discourse that “naturalises” monogamous heterosexual relationships bound legally by marriage as the only “normal” practice of sexual behaviour and instinct – a discourse which is purely ideological and historical, but which is instead presented as being fundamentally inherent to our collective natures, and therefore unbroken by time. The simulacrum functions not only to entertain, but also to create and to maintain societal amnesia.

The imagery used to describe the various scenes one can enjoy from the View Centre’s windows provide yet another example of how the real is replaced by the beyond real, for they were clearly designed to give the impression that all of Shenzhen’s economic development had somehow been preordained by nature, that both Shenzhen and Hong Kong had been “nurtured” by the one mother. I wandered over to the viewing area, to one of the windows facing north, where I noticed a placard telling me that all of the “modern high-storey residences” that I could see had “grown up with plenty of vigour like the Wutong Mountain.”

So here in Shenzhen, towers of concrete and glass rise up out of the landscape as naturally as mountains do, “revealing the new look of the Shenzhen Economic Special Zone” for locals and visitors alike.

I turned again to my brochure, which, rather interestingly I thought, advised me that it was here that I could enjoy “a panoramic view of the real metropolitan scenes of Shenzhen and Hong Kong.” The word “real” is what aroused my curiosity, is what provoked me into ploughing deeper into analysis, for it seemed to me to be an admission that everything else here was merely fake. On offer were “life-like simulated flights in the air, a splendid high altitude web site, a robot guide, some colourful shopping space, a quiet and romantic café and so on.”

The café itself, facing south, not only offered its patrons a view, but also the “charm of old Hong Kong”, decorated as it was with a few street lamps and sign posts, faked in a 60s style, all there to give the café a look reminiscent of the type of scenes depicted in Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love.

In his Travels in Hyperreality, the Italian writer and literary critic Umberto Eco, described a tour he once made of America, where he travelled to in order to gain a firsthand look at the imitations and replicas that were on display in that nation's many wax museums and theme parks. He found in them a metaphor for what he regarded as the “inauthenticity of American society.” The same, I believe, can be said about Shenzhen, as well as for many other parts of China, and indeed, the world.

The Meridian View Centre, like Shenzhen’s various theme parks as well as Hong Kong’s new Disneyland, offers little more than a simulated “paradise”, a distraction from the bleakness or blandness of everyday life, and of course, all for a price. Gao Ying and I may have had our tickets given to us for free, but printed on those tickets was an entry fee of 60 RMB.

Behind the façade, as always, there lurked a sales pitch. We had merely been sold something billed as being better than real – something which, in actuality, was little more than a fake reality, a conceptual and mythologised model of reality, but with no connection to reality, and with no origin in reality - marketable precisely because it was able to claim itself as being something more exciting and pleasant than reality. The panoramic view overlooking the “real” Shenzhen that one is able to enjoy from this building’s great height is simply not inspiring enough in itself, it would seem. The reality of Shenzhen’s cityscape is that it looks no different from all other Chinese cities of similar size. It is nothing special, nothing most people would be willing to pay 60 RMB to catch a glimpse of. The view from the Meridian View Centre is only marketable if the city’s history of economic development itself is mythologised, and if it is packaged together with other “attractions” – a “high-rise theme sightseeing and entertainment scenic spot,” as my brochure proclaimed.

Before leaving this hyperreality, Gao Ying and I paused to examine the wax replicas of Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher, both of whom were seated in discussion on red armchairs, in simulation of their historic 1982 meeting in Beijing to discuss the eventual handover of Hong Kong.

“Look at his watch,” observed Gao Ying. “It’s still ticking!”

Indeed it was ticking, and it even kept an accurate time. But of course, it was never Deng’s watch in the first place, not in actuality.

“What do you mean, it’s still ticking?” I smiled. “It was never actually worn by Deng, I’m sure.”

Gao Ying, suddenly realising her naivety, smiled with embarrassment. She had been momentarily fooled, seduced into this world of hyperreality, unable to recognise the difference between the real, and the beyond real. For her, this watch looked like the real watch that Deng had actually worn during his 1982 meeting with Thatcher, and so for her, it therefore was real, and its link to the real Deng Xiaoping it seemed, had remained unbroken by the years that had passed, with its hands still ticking, still keeping an accurate time. The authenticity claimed by this watch was not historical, but visual.

For me though, all of these “attractions,” including the wax models, were just far too kitsch to be convincing, to be capable of being construed in any way as reality.

Kitsch is more than just bad taste. It is bad taste precisely because it is false, because it is cheaply faked. It is, essentially, a commodity aesthetic, which is why kitsch is the new face of China - and nowhere perhaps is it more evident on the mainland than here in Shenzhen, where plastic coconut palm trees grow ubiquitously from street corners, and where many shops and schools and even some homes are designed to look like Disney castles, its massage parlours like Roman temples.

All of this hyperreality of course, imploded the moment we stepped back out onto the busy streets below, where we were confronted by the true reality of Shenzhen’s economic development, by all the inequalities it had produced, by the sight of the city’s nouve riche strolling along with shopping bags in hand, their clothes labelled with “brands” that signified their new power as consumers, elevating them to ever greater heights in social status. Wandering about from store to store, from “attraction” to “attraction”, these middle class slaves to fashion, with gods now reified as either money or things, inadvertently rubbed shoulders with the city’s beggars, with the city’s underclass – with people living out of rubbish bins, with people whose reality denied them access to such entertainment for distraction or denial, whose pockets were too empty to consume art for consolation, and whose life’s struggles they played out against the surreal backdrop that is Shenzhen kitsch.

Mark Anthony Jones
Shenzhen, 2005

Mr. Jones,

This, although very long, was well worth me reading. Your analysis is both insightful and thought-provoking, and I think that your structuralist argument works better here than in your other article on blogs sites, mainly because you have grounded your argument historically, and therefore empirically, this time.

I especially enjoyed learning about Chinese pirates, and the homosexual history of China.

As an American myself, I appreciate just how embarrassing the Disneyfication of the world really is. The entire world, as you say, is painting itself in kitsch.

"Stan" writes:

Mr. Jones,
Your analysis is both insightful and thought-provoking, and I think that your structuralist argument works better here than in your other article on blogs sites, mainly because you have grounded your argument historically, and therefore empirically, this time.

Then, in the Sept. 7 linklet comments, "Helen" writes:

Mr Jones,
A truly thorough and fascinating structuralist critique of China blogs. I'll never be able to read sites like TPD and this one again, without baring your analysis in mind.

Simon, how does it feel to be used like this? Are you proud of yourself, providing a platform for squatters who use your space to harass and stalk others? I really hope this happens to you one day. No, I can't actually say that because I like you and respect your intelligence. But I do hope that one day you know, at least for a moment, the kind of grief and harm someone like this can cause. And it cheapens your site and calls into question your integrity. Hiding behind your "Comments Policy" won't fly, because the issue transcends such artificial creations and boils down to what is right and what is wrong. And I know you know this.

By the way, Jones posted the exact same tedious comment on Flying Chair, always fishing for attention for himself at the expense of others.

Richard - what the hell is your problem? There is nothing wrong with this comment, and if you are accusing me of being Stan and/or Helen, then where the hell is your proof? Put up, or shut up! It is ironic that you are always accusing me of being a "stalker" (which is hyperbolic nonsense) when it is you and your Thought Police (like Martyn) who continually stalk me!

Mark Anthony Jones

And Richard - if I post my comments on other peoples' blogs so what? Please tell me what is fundamentally wrong with that? Nothing! Another blogger (a regular reader of Simon World) has even emailed me wanting my permission to "publish" both my previous and my latest China Daily articles on his own blog. So is thnere anything wrong with that - that my writings my appear on multiple blogs? Grow up will you!

Well, in keeping with Simon's open comments policy where anything goes no matter how destructive or deranged, let me put up my own post so people here can see exactly what's going on. Then decide who's believable. I would usually never do this, but Simon feels whoever wants to use his comments for whatver ends is free to do so. Thus, I need to defend myself from everyone's favorite stalker.

This is from my own blog, posted July 11, 2005:
THE FANTABULIST

I will let readers draw their own conclusions about this rather intriguing bit of research started by commenter KLS about fellow commenter MAJ in the last open thread:

MAJ why are you just copying and pasting other people's work?

for example, your really long comment above, starting "Dear Simon and Conrad, The value of the dollar vs the euro is directly related to..."

this is word-for-word copied from elsewhere.

I took a random line and googled it. the line was:
"the US effectively controls the world oil-market as the"

via google I discovered two websites where a long essay has been posted about euros and dollars and oil.
you copied and pasted over 700 words direct from that!

-see www.thirdworldtraveler.com/ Iraq/Iraq_dollar_vs_euro.html

the only thing you changed was to insert intros such as "Simon, Conrad - also remember that..." at the beginning of one or two of the paragraphs.

or take your next long comment, starting:
"Dear Conrad,
The other argument put forward by political analysists"

you directly copied and pasted 500 words that appear on this website:
see http://tinyurl.com/6ywnq

wouldn't it have been good manners to acknowledge that these words are not your own? and, rather than filling up a thread, to have provided links to these websites instead?

Posted by KLS at July 11, 2005 11:54 AM .

Oh dear, this is an intriguing development indeed. I was so impressed, I started doing my own investigation.

Here's what our feckless Marxist said yesterday (scroll to comment placed at 2:19):

More than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all the world exports are denominated in dollars and US currency accounts for about two-thirds of all official exchange reserves. The fact that billions of dollars worth of oil is priced in dollars ensures the world domination of the dollar. It allows the US to act as the world's central bank, printing currency acceptable everywhere. The dollar has become an oil-backed, not gold-backed, currency.

Well said. Even brilliant. Only, here's what Z Magazine had to say on the subject back in February 2004:

More than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all the world exports are denominated in dollars and U.S. currency accounts for about two-thirds of all official exchange reserves. The fact that billions of dollars worth of oil is priced in dollars ensures the world domination of the dollar. It allows the U.S. to act as the world’s central bank, printing currency acceptable everywhere. The dollar has become an oil-backed, not gold-backed, currency.

Well, well. What are the odds of that being a pure coincidence? And what would the good Dr. Anne Meyers have to say about someone so insecure and eager for attention and approval that he would resort to such nasty tricks, a la Jayson Blair?

A few days earlier, our friend was caught doing the same thing and, as usual, had a sorta-kinda excuse akin to a dog eating one's homework; that excuse, where he said he had made reference to his source and was rapidly cutting and pasting and blah blah blah - that excuse won't fly this time because there's no attribution. Zero. It is literally an act of deception, in which MAJ consciously and consistently led us all to believe he himself was the author. And that is a very serious offense.

Again, I like MAJ. But when you blog, what you write is there for everyone to see, and if you get caught BS'ing, your crediblity is gone for good. This is a matter of lying. Deception. Fraud. And he's a repeat offender. And not even the good "Dr." Anne Myers can get him out of this mess. Sorry if this causes you a tad of embarrassment, Mark, but you left yourself wide open. I invite readers to comb the archives and find other instances of MAJ's creative cut & paste capabilities. There's a lot more where these few examples came from.

Oh, and I can already visualize Mark's reaction: [Click here, and scroll down to the photo.]

And whatever you do, don't miss the comments to that post, where Jones admits to impersonating an elderly female doctor and requesting photos pf the penises of male readers of Peking Duck. And he says Martyn and I should be ashamed.

OK, time out.

Richard - I know the issues you have with MAJ. However it is wrong to characterise my comments as a place "where anything goes no matter how destructive or deranged". As I've stated previously, MAJ has done nothing on these pages to breach the rules of decency or respect that I expect people to abide by. You are within your rights to reply as you have, pointing out MAJ's past. But keep this civil.

MAJ - this applies to you as well.

Richard - all I can say is that I really do hope that readers take the time to carefully read through the Fantabulist thread, so that they can see for themselves (a) how entertaining that entire episode was, (b) how malicious you are being in claiming that I was after photos of other peoples' penises because as I said in my comment above, that is a serious distortion of the truth.

At any rate, nothing in the Fantabulist thread invalidates any of the arguments I have presented above, does it?

Your behaviour on this site says more about you than it does about me Richard.

Have a nice day!

Mark Anthony Jones

From Ting bu Dong on China Daily:

We need to keep the perspective. It is important to remember this starts with this on Peking Duck Blog, if you read all comments thenyou will know all the story of Mr Jones:
http://pekingduck.org/archives/002656.php

Let's go on a walk to take a look in these comments. Here is what Mr Jones wrote on Peking Duck:

"This is just one last confirmation for you that my creator (the writer formally known as Mark Anthony Jones, Dr Myers, Bryce, Steve.L, etc, and who is now temporarily writing as me, Mark Anthony James, has decided to put to rest all of the above mentioned cyber characters, including me, Mark Anthony James. None of the above mentioned cyber characters will be contributing to Peking Duck from this moment on. Their email addresses have all been closed, and my email address, this one that I am using now, will also be closed a little later in the day - as I too am about to be put to death.

My creator wishes to assure you that he/she bares little and in most cases no resemblance to any of the above cyber characters, though he/she does take full responsibility for his/her creations, and apologises to you and to all of your readers for any loss of face, humiliation or offense caused by their appearances on your site.

My creator's use of your Peking Duck site for his/her experiments into the way people interact with one another on blog sites has now formally reached its conclusion, and so he/she wishes to assure you that he/she has no intentions of ever introducing other cyber characters onto your site at any time in the foreseeable future.

My creator often makes up stories to test his creativty, so I apologize for the fabrications and what some may see as "lies" I wrote on Peking Duck. Rest assured these "lies" were written with the best of intentions and helped me to carry put important research on the blogging behaviour of my fellow netizens. And really, why shouldnt I lie? Isn't the Intenet full of lies? I like to role play. It is fun to do at the university where I often get paid only to sit around. Lying is easy and it fills the time.

My creator has indeed, through his/her careful observations, been able to detect various patterns and regularities in behaviour, thus enabling him/her to formulate some tentative hypotheses, which he/she will need to further explore at a later date, but this, my creator would like to assure you, will be carried out using new cyber characters, and on a different blog site. My lies and false identities were the tools that made this possible.

Finally, my creator would like to assure you his experiements are over and we plan to gop into hibernation for severalmonths. You will not be seeing us anymore, and that is one promise I can assure you I will stand behind.

Respectfully yours,
Mark Anthony James
(writing on behalf of the writer formally known as Mark Anthony Jones, Dr. Myers, Bryce, Steven L., etc.)"

Everyone now know your mental illnesses and you say you are not real, but invention of a "creator." And this is the man complains about other people, if you really are a man, you said you were a woman in earlier posts. No one knows. Remember you also ask men rteaders to sen you pictures of their private parts when you pretend to be an old woman doctor. And people here listen to you as serious thinker. Ha ha ha.

I meant to blockquote the comment from China Daily. I didn't write it. Sorry. I would never say "Ha ha ha." Not my style.

Dear Simon,

I wouldn't normally mind the type of comment above (I'm thick skinned) but the problem here, as with the comment on the September 7 linklet that Richard just posted, is that I did not write it. It paraphrases me in places, yes, but I did not produce this comment. Somebody posted it in the comments section of the China Daily under my name - rather vindictive!

Mark Anthony Jones

I'm closing this thread as it largely repeats the Sep 7th linklets. Let's move it all to there thanks.

Given the complete lack of evidence for security threats at the WTO meeting, I laugh heartily at you calling me a moonbat.

Tom, I'm not calling you a moonbat...this time. I'm referring to the collection of Korean farmers, Levis wearing uni students and motley crew of anarchists, commies and others who will no doubt be visiting the Big Lychee in early December.

And people defending their livelihoods against negotiations based upon which trading bloc can wield the most diplomatic/economic power are moonbats? *geesh*

If the WTO were half as much about "free trade" as the "pro-globalisation" faction waxes poetically about, it might not be so farcical.

The fate of the WTO negotiations in Cancun proved that they had nothing to do with free trade and all about the US and EU trying to pry economic concessions out of other countries while refusing to create a level playing field going the opposite direction.

So this time it's opening up banking and securities markets to huge multi-nationals while refusing to budge on agricultural subsidies rather than opium and tea, but the negotiations still aren't about "free trade".

What is the WTO about if it's not about free trade? The problem at Cancun was the developing economies, lead by Brazil and India, would not make any concessions on their trade barriers unless the EU, Japan and US dismantled all of theirs. Fair enough, except the previous WTO/GATT rounds have required little from developing countries but huge concessions from the big economies. This time the big ones said it was time for the developing countries to make some of their own concessions, which they weren't prepared to do.

Don't get me wrong: the EU, Japan and US all have some horrible trade policies. But the blame can be fairly shared over Cancun. They won't budge on agriculture unless developing countries move. I'd have though that's fair.

Let's leave this pettty idea that this all about the US and EU exploiting poor countries. It's nothing of the sort.

As some of you no doubt already know, I have an interest in deconstructing English-language China blogs, as well as those characters who contribute to them. In order to deconstruct bloggers, I have at times written under the guise of various personas, and I have also at times provoked bloggers and blog hosts in order to test their responses, to see how blog communities behave towards dissidents, to see whether the "tribal mind" also exists in cyberspace, and if so, how it manifests itself through acts of online loyalty and aggression towards the "Other".

Some time ago now, I also wrote an article on the ethnocentrism of English-language China blogs for the China Daily as part of my efforts to deconstruct, and I have now been asked to write a follow-up to this. What follows below is a draft only, and I would like to invite readers of Simon's World to comment critically on it, as I may wish to revise it before submitting it.

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

“Regimes of truth” – how Westerners imagine China

My earlier article on the pages of the China Daily, which focussed on the disappointing ethnocentrism of English-language China blogs, provoked quite a lengthy and heated response among readers, with many dismissing it as merely the revengeful product of a man “with an axe to grind” or as the discourse of a “CCP apologist” wilfully blind to the “obvious”.

It was the product of neither.

Rather, it was simply a critical comment made by me on the prevalent discourse pushed by many English-language China blogs. What I would like to do now is to place these blog sites into a wider context in order to further explore their validity or lack thereof, and in order to do this, I shall draw heavily from the theories of Michel Foucault and the late Edward Said.

Let us begin with Foucault, who argued that knowledge or “truth” is in effect a function of power, and that those who hold power can and do use it to further their own interests. Foucault described this “regime of truth” as being “linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it.” According to this theory then, images of China would tend to become a bulwark for a particular set of policies towards that country, or even for a more general policy. Information would be carefully selected and propagated to justify that policy or set of policies. The relationship between knowledge and reality would dwindle in importance beside that between knowledge and power.

The other theory I shall use is that of Edward Said, who argued that Western scholars misrepresent and produce distorted accounts of Eastern civilisations because of their ethnocentric attitudes. In particular, Said criticised Western commentators for their frequent failure and inability to examine Asian societies in their own terms.

Let me begin by examining whether or not Foucault’s theory of power and knowledge can be applied to Western images of China, and whether or not English-language China blogs like The Peking Duck reflect a wider discourse.

Colin Mackerras, in his book Western Images of China, believes that the dominant images the West has had of China, both past and present, “accord with, rather than oppose, the interests of the main Western authorities or governments of the day.” Mackerras’s study shows quite clearly that there has indeed been a “regime of truth” concerning China, which has effected and raised “the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true” about that country. Having carried out both thorough qualitative and quantitative research, Mackerras reaches the conclusion that the period following the Beijing [incident] to the present represents the most complicated period since Roman times in terms of Western images of China:

“What is striking about this period is that the preoccupation of Western images with matters concerned with human rights and dissidents gained an added emphasis at just the same time that the general standard of livelihood of the Chinese people rose to an extent unprecedented in China’s history. This is not to deny the existence of human rights issues, but the focus they received in the Western media was both ironic and unwarranted by comparison with the improvements.”

I couldn’t agree more, and this is the issue I have not only with the corporate media of the West, but also with the English-language China blogs that I criticised in my earlier article, whose lack of fairness and balance I would suggest simply mirrors the “regime of truth” propagated by Western governments, who of course formulate foreign policies designed to service the needs of a particular social class.

The “regime of truth” I speak about is quite different from that which existed in previous times throughout history, and as Mackerras has observed, that’s because today “its source is only partly within the governments of Western countries, and rests to some extent with vocal groups within society that are preoccupied with particular issues and have the ways and means to project their views and exert an influence on society out of proportion to their size.” Where I disagree with Mackerras is in how to account for this phenomenon. While he sees this as an indication of the “growing power of [grassroots] democratic institutions” in the West, I see it more as reflecting the diverging interests of capital – a split which we see exposed by the current disputes that are taking place in both Europe and the U.S. over quotas imposed in the textiles trade. Western manufacturers often have conflicting interests with retailers and consumers, and lobbying groups from both sides continually seek to influence government policy when it comes to trade relations with China. Usually it is the retailers and distributors who praise China’s development and place in the world, while the manufacturers are the ones who, not surprisingly, draw attention to human rights issues as a means to justify trade barriers and other policies of protectionism. Even the smallest of grassroots political movements can manage to exert a huge influence on society when their message is exploited by politicians representing the more powerful sectors of the economy.

Like much of the corporate media in the West, blog sites like The Peking Duck focus largely on China’s human rights issues, but offer only a one-sided view. Sure, individual bloggers are free to express diverging views in the comments section of each thread, but those brave enough to do so are often swamped by personal insults and are dismissed as “CCP apologists” before being effectively ostracised. Even at the level of the individual blog site, there exists a “regime of truth”.

One issue which often crops up in both the Western media and therefore on China blogs, is that of Tibet, and the images produced are almost always strongly negative. Hollywood films like Seven Years in Tibet have helped to popularise images among Westerners of China as an evil, murderous monolith, not too dissimilar to Nazi Germany. One only has to visit Tibet, as I have, to see that the claims made against China are exaggerated – sometimes wildly. While genuine human rights issues do exist in Tibet, and throughout China more widely (as they do in all countries), the notion that Tibetans are being “swamped” by Han Chinese in their own “country” is simply not true, for the Han population in Tibet outside of Lhasa remains relatively very small – though of course this image does not get very much of a hearing in the West.

The argument that Tibetan culture is being “destroyed” is as equally fictitious. Anybody who visits Tibet today (including the Kham region, where Han influence is at its strongest) will encounter a thriving Tibetan culture, though in the major cities and tourist destinations such culture exists to some extent in a commodified form, with retailers who are often Han. But in this sense, the fate of Tibetan culture is no different from that of all other minority and indigenous cultures throughout the world – all of which now rely to some extent at least on commercialism to help keep them maintained or revived. Tibetan Buddhism is no exception - widely practiced still throughout Tibet, and evidently quite freely, it is nevertheless becoming increasingly commercialised – a response largely to the growth in a Tibetan tourist industry which draws from both Chinese domestic and foreign markets. It is not only Han entrepreneurs who benefit from the commercialisation of Tibetan Buddhism, but so too do many Tibetan Buddhists themselves, and foreign publishers and filmmakers are also in the habit of cashing in on it, even turning the Dalai Lama himself into a commodity, whose plethora of forewords and postscripts are frequently used to market other peoples’ books on topics ranging from the strictly spiritual to the overtly political.

Another theme which frequently pops up in the Western media, and therefore also on the pages of English-language China blogs, is this idea that China’s rapid economic development somehow poses a threat to the Western world. It is a theme more commonly explored by Americans than anyone else, which no doubt reflects a deeply ingrained American fear for its “imagined community’s” future position as global hegemon. There are many in the United States who worry that China may one day eventually surpass them in terms of world influence, and while many, if not most, may wish for good general relations with China, in particular in economic terms, they may not always be too keen to assist in China’s rise. This deeply ingrained fear I think is tamed more often than not through comfort, in that the trend among professional journalists and bloggers alike is to belittle China by dismissing it as dysfunctional, as hopelessly backward, as a society whose political system is incapable of managing effectively the country’s many social and environmental challenges – all of which are constantly entertained as being the possible root causes of a possible future breakdown. Predictions of China’s impending collapse represent little more than wishing thinking, fantasies for those who feel threatened to seek comfort in.

Examples of such “comfort-thinking” can be found regularly on the pages of The Peking Duck blog, but perhaps no better example can be found there than the report detailing John Pomfret’s address on China, to be found in The Peking Duck’s November 14 archive. Pomfret, who was former bureau chief of the Washington Post's Beijing office, reportedly argued in a speech he gave in the U.S. “that there is no need for the West to fear China becoming a global superpower along the lines of the USA” because, says Pomfret, “not all of China’s dreams [can] be achieved because hard-wired into their DNA are serious constraints that will keep China from becoming what it aspires to. Most of China is a third-, fourth- and fifth-world country" under constant threat from unimaginable poverty, so many people to employ, AIDS, a devastated environment, etc.

Richard, the owner and host of The Peking Duck, was of course enthusiastic in his endorsement of Pomfret’s views, comfortable perhaps with the thought that China is unlikely to ever become a “global superpower” capable of surpassing the “imagined community” that he is so emotionally bonded to – that of the United States.

Pomfret’s use of the “DNA” metaphor to bolster his argument that China is simply not capable of ever rising to the status of a superpower is interesting in itself, for its implicit racism, and it is onto issues of racism and ethnocentrism that I shall now turn to.

Have corporate image-makers in the West distorted their audience’s image of China with ethnocentric biases, by a failure to judge China on its own terms? Once again, the observations of Colin Mackerras are worth considering:

“The controversy over human rights…[is] based at least in part on whether it is appropriate to give priority to the rights of the individual or the community, with critical images of China based largely on an emphasis on the universality of individual rights.”

Of course, all societies need to strike a balance when it comes to protecting the rights of individuals and the rights of the wider community. Freedom of speech for example, is indeed negotiable, even in Western societies, where various forms of censorship are practiced in the interests of protecting the wider community. Apart from defamation laws, racial vilification laws exist in most Western countries. These racial vilification laws differ slightly from country to country, but let us take Australia's racial vilification laws as an example. The law there forbids the public airing (including the use of websites) of any messages that can be shown to cause "insult, humiliation or distress" to an individual or group of individuals based on their ethnicity, nationality or religious affiliation. This is how a "hate" site is defined. Hate sites do not necessarily need to incite hatred - they need only to cause "insult, humiliation or distress" to be classified as a "hate" site.

The racial vilification laws of New Zealand, Canada, and most Western Europeans countries are almost the same in this regard. And these laws are often put into practice. In 2002, an Australian man by the name of Frederick Toben for example, was ordered by the Australian Government to shut down his website which claimed that the Nazi holocaust did not occur because it caused some Jewish Australians considerable "distress".

China has every right to formulate its own laws, and it has every right, just like every other country, to ban websites and other publications that cause its own citizens "insult, humiliation or distress," or to censor information in the interests of maintaining social cohesion and stability. It’s not difficult to charge many Western critics of China with a failure to see human rights problems in Chinese terms. This is not to say, of course, that Chinese society ought not to be open to criticism by foreigners and Chinese nationals alike, but rather, that such criticisms need to be based on empirically verifiable research, and that any conclusions drawn need to be fair and balanced, and that the people of China ought to be judged in their own terms, not according to the values of Westerners. The right balance struck in protecting the rights of the individual against the rights of the wider community in one country, may not necessarily represent an appropriate balance for another. You can often borrow ideas, but you can’t borrow situations.

The hosts of most blog sites simply copy and paste other peoples’ articles, often with the corporate media as the source, in order to generate discussion. Here, I once again draw upon Foucault’s theory of power and knowledge: the U.S. government only has to feed information into a giant international mass media machine to put its own views over to the Western world, and when it comes to managing foreign relations, information is always carefully selected and propagated in order to justify the government policies of the day. My argument here is that many blog hosts, like Richard the host of The Peking Duck for example, merely help to further reinforce such dominant images, negative images that reflect a political discourse, because it is he who normally does all of the selecting – it is he who decides which China-related articles are introduced to his readers for critical discussion. And when it comes to choosing, Richard to date has proven to be rather selective, in that over 80 percent of all of his China-related articles view China through negative eyes, with most of them having been selected from U.S. corporate media sources. He has every right to choose which articles he wants to introduce to his readers of course, after all, it is his site. But thanks to his biased selection, the relationship between the “knowledge” he presents and the realities of China dwindles in importance when compared to the “knowledge” he presents and the exercising of corporate power, since it is predominantly the “knowledge” produced by corporate power that he draws most heavily from when making his selections.

Finally, I acknowledge that the relationship between images and realities is an enormously complex and problematic one. But as Colin Mackerras has so rightly pointed out, the fact is, “China has been over the centuries, and remains, a country so diverse that misery and joy, poverty and prosperity have all been and are all completely real….[but] different observers attach distinct scales of importance to the same phenomena because each may differ sharply from the others in knowledge, experience, skills, and assumptions.”

Even China “specialists” find it difficult to fit together images and realities, and so one might imagine how much more difficult it is for the great majority who make no pretence to knowledge about China and who, if interested, seek guidance in the formulation of their own images. Those who seek such guidance from the plethora of existing English-language China blogs should thus read them with some considerable caution, and should avoid being swept up by the harsh storms of China-bashing vindictiveness that are more often than not brewed in what are essentially little more than teacups, sometimes filled to the brim with thick and poisonous bile, poured from the mouths of hate-filled bloggers whose insults to both China and to people like me are cathartic, though the release of such aggression signifies, arguably, failures on their part to attain sublimated forms of enjoyment in a foreign country that does not always, depending on where exactly they reside, provide them with the same levels of immediate gratification that they may have been accustomed to in their home countries. Release then, I would argue, for some at least, often takes the form of an unarticulated ethnocentrism.

Mark Anthony Jones

One of the other things that makes The Peking Duck site so interesting and worthy of study, is that almost as much space is dedicated to U.S. politics, and here we can see the same kind of trend - a clear bias in the types of American-related articles Richard chooses to select for reader discussion. The vast majority of his American-related articles focus on the political, with almost every single article expressing "truth" through Democtratic Party lenses. In this sense, The Peking Duck also mirrors the sharp divisions in U.S. society, especially when readers like Conrad write in to defend the Republican viewpoint. The Peking Duck can perhaps be seen as a microcosm of U.S. society, although by carefully selecting articles that reflect a clear bias, Richard the owner and host has effectively produced a political platform to promote Democratic Party views and agendas.

Through his biased selection of both China-related and American-related articles from the U.S. corporate media, Richard effectively represents the interests of certains corporate sectors in the U.S. and global economies.

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

What are you smokin' by making those claims about Cancun? *geesh* The developing nations weren't asking for dismantling all of anything. *geesh*

And the notion of trying to run an equivalency of trade barriers between developed and developing countries is lunacy at best. The history of the US and its financial sector to produce these mature multi-national financial institutions is fraught with political favours and quid pro quo.

And as you point out the WTO meetings are about states trying to procure trade advantages for "their" companies, ie friends and campaign contributors, while surrendering as few trade concessions as possible, especially for your friends and campaign contributors.

Sounds more like the British East India Company and the Crown's mercantilism opening trade markets wrapped in "Free Trade" vocabulary (what did you write about the marketing of the Dark Side of the Force?) rather than anything having to do with comparative advantage as defined by Adam Smith.

{Or are you going to tell me that all of those political contributions and lobbying from large US based multi-national financial services corporations are altruistic and not about trying to increase their profits by state meddling in the marketplace?}

for Mark Anthony Jones.

china daily apparently doesn't take journalism, it takes essays.

i'd cut it in half if i was you and spice it up a bit. kind of hard to read as it is.

thanks
xo

Tom,

Everything you've said applies equally to the developing countries involved.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

MAJ:

Please get your own blog. That is the most appropriate forum for posting articles like this.

Naturally I disagree with much of what you said. Said's criticisms are essentially circular - no Westerner can comment on Asian societies because they are Western. That's complete nonsense. In a free market of ideas, anyone can comment on any society they like. The validity of those views is re-enforced by their popularity. As for ethnocentrism, people are always going to view things through the prism of their own experiences and background. To expect otherwise is to expect us to not be human.

I understand the point on human rights vs economic development in viewing China. However these days you can hardly open a paper without seeing another "China miracle" article, so I'm not sure that point holds true any more. I also agree with you that China is more nuanced than often given credit for. However your point that each country has the right to forumate its own laws founders because China's people have not chosen their leaders and laws, but had them imposed upon them.

But coming back to the main point. Of course particular blog sites reflect the biases of their author. Peking Duck makes no attempts to hide his bias, his views and his feelings. He only posts "one-sided articles" because that's his perogative. Just as individual countries have the right to make laws as they see fit, individual site owners have the right to post whatever they like.

That's why I encourage you to get your own site. You obviously have your own views, and are free to express them (a right, I note, many in China do not have). The ethnocentrism or otherwise of other sites is their perogative. Until you have your own site where you state your own views and stand to defend them, your criticisms ring hollow.

Dear Simon,

I have been away travelling for work all day today, but I will address all of your criticisms tomorrow.

Until then, thanks for your comments. The China Daily free talk forum (where I have also posted this draft) has also stimulated a number of interesting responses (around 6 or 7 so far).

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Engaging the freak? Amazing. If I wanted to read the freak's nacissitic-inspired pretend-intellectual crap, I'd read the China Daily. I'm outta here.

Dear Simon,

I shall now address all of your criticisms.

(1). You say that Edward Said's theory is "circular" in that it implies that no Westerner can ever be qualified to make critical observations of Asian societies. This is a fair comment, but I think that you have perhaps misunderstood Said's theory here - because that's certainly not the conclusion that he himself drew. It is possible for Westerners, said Said, "not to be blind to human reality". Of course us Westerners are capable, if we are careful enough, if we have the right attitude, to view other cultures in their own terms. There was, for example, little of the ethnocentrist in Marco Polo, despite the threat the Mongols had appeared to present to Europe not long before his time. What is striking is how fair he was, the extent to which he was prepared to see and judge China in its own terms - especially as far as the Emperor and political system were concerned. One can hardly charge a man like Du Halde with ethnocentrism either, when his work on China was so defensive about it, and both Voltaire and Quesnay praised China in order to criticise their own country - the precise antithesis of ethnocentrism.

It wasn't really until the 19th century when Europe had begun its Industrial Revolution that such strong ethnocentric views towards Asia began to surface heavily and strongly. Confidence in its own superiority was at a peak for Europeans, and this occured just at the time when China's civilisation was in sharp decline. So it is not surprising that the overwhelming majority of images presented at that time reflected feelings of superiority in a sharply ethnocentrist way.

Simon, it is curious to me that you speak of a "free market" of ideas, and that you then go on to judge the validity of such ideas by how popular they are! Can we say then, to take your logic to its extreme, that Nazi ideas of race were valid and ethical? These ideas, after all, were held by the fair majority of Germans back in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The inherent superiority of the German people was a popular idea among Germans themselves for a while. Surely we cannot say that ideas are valid simply by how popular they are! You treat ideas as though they were merely free-floating commodities.

(2) Your argument that China is almost daily viewed by the Western corporate media as being an economic miracle is a valid one, but then look, I did, in my article above, point out the fact that the bourgeoisie of the West are split in their attitudes towards China - that Western images of China are thus now more complex and ambiguous than ever - than since Roman times. As I said, many manufacturers feel threatened by China's rise - they don't like the competition, and hence they exploit and exaggerate human rights issues as a tool to help lobby governments into imposing trade restrictions, etc. Other industries, like the education industry, as well as the retailers and distributors of consumer goods - they usually praise China's place in the world, as they stand to benefit from having easy access to China's markets, and from being able to import cheap goods from China.

My argument here, is that the overwhelming majority of images selected by Richard reflect the interests of those sectors in the U.S. economy who feel threatened by China's economic rise - hence the heavy focus on human rigthts issues.

(3) You argue that the CCP does not have a right to formulate laws on the basis that they were never elected into power, and that they therefore do not have the mandate to formulate laws. This seems to me like a rather silly argument really. Where, for starters, is your evidence to show that the majority of Chinese mainlanders don't support the CCP? You only have to talk to people here to discover that attitudes towards CCP rule vary greatly, and that such attidues are always very complex. On the one hand, we have the overwhelming majority of middle class mainlanders (which has now grown to over 11 million) who generally support the CCP, because they can see very clearly that life in China's urban coastal areas has improved greatly over the last 20 years. Deng Xiaoping is especially enormously popular here in Shenzhen - not surprisingly perhaps, since he chose Shenzhen as the country's first SEZ - and Shenzhen is now officially the mainland's third most developed city: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou comes in at fourth.

Such popular sentiments among the middle classes here are mirrored by the country's celebrities - everyone from Zhang Ziyi to Yao Ming praise the CCP as having, on balance, a positive legacy.

I have also met many who are ambivalent towards the CCP, and a few who have expressed strong criticisms of it - and openly so. Anecdotal evidence on my part, I know, but this is the strong impression that I have gained after having lived and worked here for almost four years - and I spent my first two years here in a small provincial town in the middle of Jiangsu - most people I spoke to there also praised the CCP, though critically.

Life in China's more remote villages is far more compex though, but even in villages that have engaged in open conflicts with authority over land thefts, corruption issues, etc., you will find that the majority continue to view the CCP in positive terms, and that they often appeal to the law and to the law courts as a way of fighting local authorities - often successfully too I might add. In other words, they don't usually blame the CCP for their problems, but rather, corrupt individuals at the local level. Clearly, even the most oppressed and economically disadvantaged here on the mainland place a high use-value and regard for the laws of the land - laws which you claim the CCP has no mandate to introduce and to enforce.

Most Chinese here will also tell you that capitalism here, and the growing liberalism this has given expression to, was only made possible by the fact that the CCP, under Mao, had brought about the necessary stability to enable economic growth and developemnt to have occured. This is also the dominant view among most Western scholars too by the way. That is not to say that Mao didn't have his many serious faults, but rather, that his overall legacy as leader of the CCP has been a historically important and progressive one.

Your views towards democracy issues and the CCP reflect (it would seem) an unwillingness on your part to view the CCP and the attitudes of the Chinese in their own terms. For you, China can only progress into something truly admirable if it adopts the political culture of the West. Many will disagree with you on this - including many Westerners. Democracy does not always lead to stability and peace for starters - it can in some societies create more problems than it solves, and I shall be more than happy to discuss this with you in more detail if you are interested.

(4) I agree that blog hosts (like Richard for example) have every right to select whatever articles they like to introduce to their readers. I have NEVER suggested otherwise, and I made this very clear in my draft article above. My purpose in writing this article is to deconstruct - to examine the nature of such English-language China blogs. My conclusion is that they reflect the corporate interests of a particular section of the ruling classes of the U.S. and the Western "democracies" in general - and that's becasue the overwhelming majority of the articles selected for use by such blog hosts have the corporate media as their source, though even here, articles are carefully selected, so that in effect they mirror the interests not of retailers and importers, but rather, of the "old" economy - the textiles industry, car manufacturers, etc.

(5) I don't see the logic in arguing that one has to have a blog of his/her own in order to me able to make valid criticisms of other peoples' blogs. Please explain, in philosophical terms, why you think so.

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Mr Jones,
A truly thorough and fascinating structuralist critique of China blogs. I'll never be able to read sites like TPD and this one again, without baring your analysis in mind.

I'm not sure about your take on Tibet though - but then I guess your analysis of what has taken place there doesn't really detract in any way from your overall argument.

Mark:

Let me address each in turn:

1. This whole point boils down to one thing: in your view the only valid way to view a culture or society is through their own eyes. Marco Polo was inevitably influenced by his own background, regardless of the empathy he showed for the cultures he met. There is nothing wrong with "going native", but it is not the only legitimate method of discussing societies and cultures.

2. I put to you a different view - that TPD's views represent his heartfelt concerns for the rights of a people he cares deeply about. That it may co-incide with corporate interests is irrelevant. I see correlation but not causation. You seem to suggest Richard is a tool of these corporate interests, but that is not the only nor correct explaination.

3. You've miscontrued my point. The CCP are the governing party of China, of course they can make laws. They can only continue to govern via fear/control and/or benevloent dictatorship. This has been the case for some time. If the CCP are as widely popular as your anecdotal evidence suggests, they should be comfortable subjecting themselves to a popular democratic mandate. However I also would note that freedom of expression is not a widely known part of modern Chinese discource - as you well know, criticising the CCP is still a fraught business for Mainlanders. I have given the CCP credit perviously for their achievements - bringing order to a chaotic state, and since Deng's reforms bringing literally millions out of poverty. But it has come at a very high price.

You also perpetuate the fallacy that democracy is a "Western" value. It is no such thing. I advocate the people need to have impartial courts, corruption free government, freedom to express themselves via the press and assembly, and the ability to vote for those who govern them. It is the model adopted by the West and it has proved successful in creating peaceful, prosperous societies. China is trying a different model to create a peaceful, prosperous society. I do not think it can last, whereas the USA has lasted 300 years and English democracy even longer. They've got runs on the board, so to speak.

4. I'm missing your point here. The point of a blog is that the owner can post whatever takes their fancy. As I said above, if that co-incides with corporate interests, that means nothing in itself. As for relying on corporate media, most bloggers are individuals without the resources of major media corporations. We have to rely on them. What bloggers do (often) is de-construct those stories, or use them to highlight their politics, or to emphasise a point. TPD acknowledges a love for China and the Chinese people. It's the Government he has a problem with.

5. I am imploring you to get your own site for several reasons:
a. Clearly you have a lot to say, and while I'm happy to debate in my comments section, you could open this up to a wider audience again via your own site.
b. Call it the stones/greenhouse effect - until you have your own, your comments might be valid but lack conviction.
c. Your own "ethnocentrism" point should apply to yourself, no? If you cannot view a blog from a blogger's perspective, you are guilty of exactly what you are accusing TPD.
d. An analogy: a book reviewer can come from any background, but the best reviews usually come from authors (see George Orwell for one example).

Dear Simon,

Thanks again for your spirited arguments. I shall not address all of your points, as I am busy right now, but firstly let me say that I agree with you that Richard's blog correlates with the interests of a particular section of the U.S. ruling class, but that like you, I see no causation in this. But then, I was not suggesting that there was any causation, other than Richard's own political bias, which can most clearly be seen reflected in his American-related posts. What Richard is guilty of though, is in presenting to his readers a lack of balance, and I think that that is a reasonable criticism for me to make.

I am not challenging his right to push a particular discourse - I am merely alerting readers to the fact that he does push a discourse, and this discourse reflects those of particular class interests.

I have no doubt that Richard's interest in the Chinese people is heartfelt and sincere - but then, I have never argued otherwise. His criticms of the CCP, while in many cases are valid and reasonable, nevertheless, on the whole, reflect a lack of balance and fairness. This has always been my main problem with his site, and with others like it.

Finally, I have never suggested that "democracy" is a Western value only - but you need to define what you mean by "democracy". I do not agree that the Westminster system is necessarily well suited to all other countries and cultures, nor do I think that the Westminster system is particularly "democratic".

China's model is still in its infancy, and is still evolving. I think it is way too soon to make judgements - the jury is still out on that one!

And I don't see how I can be judged to be lacking in conviction, simply because my comments are placed on somebody else's blog, instead of on a blog of my own!

Also, being able to view a blog from the blogger's perspective hardly equates to "ethnocentrism", does it? My imagination is indeed good enough to be able to empathise with a blogger, and to view a blog from the blogger's point of view. But my task here is to deconstruct the blog, not to empathise with it or its owner. It is possible to deconstruct another society, another culture, and to still avoid viewing it ethnocentrically. It's a matter of looking at a society, or at the key players and shapers of a society, and then determining what they are out to achieve, and why they choose the methods they do. That is, to view that society and its people and culture in its own terms, and to measure its successes or failures in it own terms. To do this fairly, doesn't mean that one has to avoid being critical.

Mark Anthony Jones

Before people start to take the freak seriously and give him the attention he craves, don't you think you should know who he really is?

Check out this for a full explaination---in his own words:

http://pekingduck.org/archives/002656.php

I might add that our narcissistic freak friend has now learned the use of proxy servers. He's recently appeared on TPD in various guises praising his own article here on simonworld and providing details of how other readers can find it. What a fool. Must have been quite a revelation to learn about proxy servers - something that all China expats have known for years.

Simon: a rabid dog is still a rabid dog, even if it allows you to pet it sometimes. I'm numbed that you are willingly engaging the freak even knowing what he is and what he has done.

I'd like to respectfully point out, perhaps you've also noticed Simon, how the freak never bothers to comment on your posts or ever engage you on anything that you have to say. Where are his comments? After all, you allow him to post freely here, unlike TPD which bans his posts immediately. No, he only comments on HIS OWN posts as above because narcissists only care about themselves and their own views.

Despite this, you engage him point-for-point. as if he is a normal person.

If anyone wants to read the the truth about Mark Anthony Jones impersonating women, asking other TPD commenters to send him photos of their penis, assuming many, many aliases in order to praise and support his own cut+pasted comments, explaining that he trolls China-related websites for "fun and selfish entertainment". Then please, please go and read that above link that I provided.

Trust me, once you've read that, you'll think twice before engaging, or even reading the words of MArk Anthony Jones.

What's your excuse Simon?

Martyn, is there really any need for you to be this rude and aggressive towards others? I read the link you mentioned above on the Fantabulist, and I encourage others to do so as well because the entire episode really is quite amusing. I really don't understand why you have such a chip on your shoulder.

Besides, Mr. Jones' article here on this site ought to be read and judged for what it says. What Mr. Jones has written elsewhere in the past is irrelevant.

And Mr.Jones, one request. Please bring back Dr.Anne Myers - her cheeky analyses were wonderfully entertaining and amusing.

Well, I'd never! I'd never have imagined that I would one day have a comment of mine deleted from a blog site, but that's exactly what happened to me earlier today over at the Peking Duck.

Did I use any expletives? No. Did I insult anybody? No. So what was my crime? I was accused by somebody called Other Lisa of having a writing style similar or identical to that of Mr.Jones, and within minutes the host of that site deleted my comment.

My comment, incidentally, voiced criticism over this very behaviour. The night before, I and at least two others were accused of being Mr. Jones. Today, another writer named Math was also accused of being Mr.Jones (though everybody else's comments have yet to be deleted - only mine). I find it very sad that everytime somebody expresses a dissenting view over there that they are immediately written off and dismissed as being Mr.Jones.

I have come to the awful conclusion that the Peking Duck not only "mirrors" Western "regimes of truth" (as Mr. Jones argues in his article above), but that the Peking Duck is itself a regime of truth. The site is managed like the Ministry of Truth depicted in Orwell's novel. They not only delete comments they don't like, but they justify doing so by accusing their victims of being somebody they're not. Dissenters are smeared and insulted and deleted.

I shall never read the Peking Duck again. I've deleted it from my reading list!

Simon, do you really want your site to become the receptacle for this kind of trash? Don't you see what you're setting yourself up for? It's a true disgrace.