Sex and Shanghai / 欲望上海

Reason Number 50 - The Voice of China

2008-10-07T18:04:00.002Z

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 97
“We have asked thousands of questions over the past twenty years and carefully considered each reply. We have read stacks of articles, documents, papers and reports, seeking one answer that seems impossible to find.

Chinese people often wish to impress upon us the fact that 5,000 years of history holds great richness and meaning. But for as long as we have been in China, and as many times as we have put our ear to the ground to listen, what is it that we hear?

Absolutely nothing.

Who do Chinese people ‘think’ they are? Who do the Chinese people think they will become? Who do the Chinese people think the rest of the world wants them to become?

As we said in our introduction, this book has no balance. Some readers may feel that it also has no sympathy or comfort, and that it seems totally lacking in empathy.

It is difficult to have these emotional qualities in a society that does not itself reflect them. It is hard to write positively about a people who care so little about each other, and indeed care so little about the rest of the world. The citizens who made the fake milk power to financially enrich their lives while babies died were not hardened criminals. The ‘chemists’ who make fake drugs which are delivered to patients and will surely cause the death of those patients are not lifetime crime barons. The owners and operators of the mines that catastrophically eliminate thousands of lives each year are not competing to see who can cause more deaths. They are all, most certainly, gentle, loving family men when they go home at night. They are ‘just’ average people in today’s China.”

So there you have it.

Fifty reasons.

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 98
“It is not for the authors – or indeed anyone but the Chinese people themselves – to define greatness for China. But it is for the world to inform China that the automobile, CO2 emissions, and rubbish, all products of peaceful development, will not aid the achievement of greatness. Greatness for China must come from its uniqueness, its individuality of concept, its singular perspective. From the dream of what China could be.

But if this dream never becomes real, surely part of the world will die along with it. If this dream does not fill the world with cures for cancer, succor for the environment, and spiritual fulfillment for all the planet’s people, who should be found guilty?

If the Chinese people cannot grasp what their thousands of years of history really means, if they only listen to communist political theorists who merely offer ‘peaceful development,’ spoken in a single breath, then they will lose the chance to change humanity. And Armageddon will come. Apocalypse.

Greatness shouts from the rooftops. Greatness is heard throughout the canyons of business. Greatness should echo across the planet.

But the voice of China is mute.

And so is China’s greatness.”

Reason Number 49 - Daughters, Wives, & Mothers in Fear

2008-10-06T17:48:00.003Z

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 95
“One of the key problems holding back women is their under-representation in politics and business. Though China does have some prominent women, such as China’s Vice-Premier Wu Yi (cited as the third most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2006) Xie Qihua, chairwoman of China’s biggest steelmaker, Baosteel, and Ma Xuezheng, a senior vice president of computer manufacturer Lenovo, (named by Forbes as one of the world’s most powerful women in business in 2006) these cases are very much the exception.

Wu Yi is the only woman at the highest level of the Chinese government, and Xie Qihua was the only female boss in her industry until her retirement in 2007. Ma Xuezheng also retired in 2007 for ‘personal reasons’ though Forbes hinted this was to do with problems in Lenovo’s takeover of IBM’s global PC business.

China’s political and business culture is a world of men. Only 20% of members of China’s National People’s Congress are women, and only about 16% of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. China did not get its first female governor, Gu Xiulian, until 1983. Nationwide, there are 15 million female officials, accounting for 38% of the total number of officials. But most of these 15 million serve at a low level. Only 9.9% serve at provincial or ministerial level. And at the highest level of government, just 2% are female said media in 2005.”

And even Wu Yi has now retired – replaced by a man. The one thing, more than any other, that unifies all my experience of China is the unhappiness of its women. The consistency with which my female friends tell me tales of harassment, belittlement and sheer contempt is implacable.

I don’t recall ever hearing from any woman in China that she feels she is treated equal to a man.

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 96
“It is true that China has some laws that at least address domestic violence. Yet these laws are both weak and unclear. China’s revised Marriage Law of 2002 does outlaw marital violence. But it does not say how violence is to be defined, leaving victims in a legal grey area. China’s previous marriage law, drawn up in 1980, did not mention domestic violence at all. Between 2001 and 2005, just 10 sexual harassment cases were heard by China’s courts. Of these, just one plaintiff won. One!

Even Beijing, the center of law making, did not hear its first sexual harassment case until 2003. The woman in that case, Lei Man, lost because she was unable to provide proof of her claim, and because medical authorities for the defense diagnosed her as ‘suffering from paranoia.’

Sexual harassment is also a problem in China due to the cultural reticence to talk about sex. This reticence means children are very rarely taught about the dangers of sexual abuse. ‘People in China have read of cases of sexual abuse in other countries, but many do not seem to realize that it’s a problem here as well. Many children and parents simply ignore it and know little about it’ said Chinese media in 2004. The sexual abuse of children was not made a criminal offence in China until 1991. It was not until 2007 that China’s Ministry of Education released a guide, to be taught in schools, telling tell minors of the dangers of sexual abuse. The concept of ‘street proofing’ children appears to be unheard of in China.”

Weekender -- Hospital Visit

2008-10-03T16:35:00.005Z

My first experience of Chinese healthcare, then.

This was some time back, in April 2000, or so. I had been in Shanghai a few years by that time, and I had been loving it – expect for the couple of months leading up to that April. Most every day at that time was misery and stress.

Not, I should say, my sensitive soul lamenting at the plight of the Chinese people. No.

Hemorrhoids.

Piles.

By god they hurt. I’d had the odd bit of arse agony back in the UK, but nothing like this. I guess it was the change in diet.

I remember the day I was in the Watsons’ drug store, by the Portman, and I saw there on a shelf – glowing like a grail, a carton of H, Preparation H. What bliss! It was that moment in Handel’s Messiah, when the band sing “And god said, ‘Let there be light' and there was........." and then the pause, followed by "....Light!” A fine, wonderful bit of music and quite what I felt when I saw the H.

And – a slight aside – wonderful though ‘The Messiah’ is – glorious, expansive, moving music – it has fallen foul of the Commies. The Academy of Ancient Music, a fine UK based ensemble, was due to give a public performance of this at the Beijing Music Festival. But then the scumbag Chinese government decided to insist it had to be an ‘invitation only’ gig – which meant the general public could not attend. Likewise, a performance of Mozart’s Requiem, intended to raise money for the Sichuan quake victims, was cancelled. The reason for this being that the thugs and goons who run China did not want this ‘christian’ music played, for fear it might turn more Chinese people into believers. Now, sure, in the 21st century, like also the 20th C, to genuinely believe god exists is either a sign of moral cowardice or mental illness. But to ban some of the greatest music humanity has produced is simply risible, absurd. And to ban it even when it is intended to help people who are suffering in China! These guys are the leaders of 20% of the human race, and they are clods and cretins.

Anyhow.

So I grabbed the H, paid my 49.50 yuan, and scarpered to the lav. I’d never used Prep H before (but every schoolboy knows what it is) and when I slapped it on – oh, the bliss, the cessation of pain. I could feel ‘em shrinking, tingling, retracting. What joy!

And what a contrast to my prior attempt at medicating my poor arse. At that time I could speak no Chinese, and so I had to make do as best I could. I went into one small pharmacy and inspected what they had for sale. Most of it, being written in Chinese, meant nothing to me. But I did see one product that sounded familiar – Tiger Balm. Balm! Balm sounded good to me. My arse needed some balm. Balm was what I wanted.

I should, of course, have focused on ‘Tiger,’ not ‘Balm.’ I did not. I brought it, took it home, and applied it.

Only the once. Just the once.

Anyhow, fast forward to the blissful days of Preparation H. That was good. I remember its greasy, aromatic, fish-oil smell with pleasure.

But this was when I got an early lesson in how to live in China. And that is – if you see something on the shelves you really like or need, buy as much of it as there is, or as you can afford. Because sure as shit it’s like to be gone the next time you look for it. So it was when I went back to the Watsons, the shelf empty, a promised land no longer. Worse, far worse than being stood up on a hot date. More annoying even than arranging a hot date and finding (this has happened) I have actually invited a bloke, not a woman – and what a boring type he was. That’s a tale for another time.

Faced with the empty shelf – double, tripled checked and other areas of the store searched – I asked an assistant for help. I’m not really the type to be embarrassed by this sort of stuff (I think I already told the tale of taking Mona on a shopping expedition for extra-big condoms – to use with a new Western lover of hers, after our relationship had become just platonic), but the assistant was somewhat ill at ease, uncomfortable, red-faced as he told me “We will have more in soon.”

That was bullshit, of course. I went back several times over the next couple of weeks. Never any H. Always the empty shelf… always the embarrassed assistant.

A week or two more of the pain, and sitting on my chair wriggling my butt cheeks as tight together as possible, thus to squeeze the throbbing pile back inwards, was enough; I headed to a hospital, the one just near Huaihai Lu and Shaanxi Nan Lu. And since I spoke no Chinese at that time I had to rely on my then-girlfriend to come with me to assist me in finding the right doctor.

We did this easy enough and the doc took a look at my arse, sucked in his breath, shook his head, tutted, the medical equivalent of kicking my tires, and suggested I book an operation. ‘You’ll need a few days off afterwards’ he said, which, with the May holiday week upcoming, was easy enough to arrange. Then he wrote out a prescription for a several-day course of laxatives. Gotta clear out the arse, see.

Only, it did not work – first dose – no effect. Second, third – not a thing. I drank down the whole prescription. Zip. Went back to the pharmacy, got more. Perfectly useless.

Operation day comes round. I go back to the same area I’d met the arse doctor before. He greets me, and gives me a gown to put on. I do so, and look about me for the way to the operating room.

No operating room. The doc indicates a raised, tiled slab, right there in the public area, surrounded by a low wall. I lie on it while he injects my arse with anesthetic. Gives it a few moments to work, then dives right in. Gets his assistant – a young woman – to hold open my arse while he, with a scalpel, cuts out a bunch of the piles therein. It is a pretty uncomfortable operation, and gets more uncomfortable as it goes on – and it seems a lengthy process, 10 or 15 minutes. I feel a rising sense of sickness and weakness, and put it down to all the blood I feel I must be losing out of my arse, though I doubt it was really that much.

And all this while my girlfriend is standing there watching, and random patients walking by take a peek, me on my side, my arsehole wide open to the world. And I can feel that damn scalpel scratching around inside me. As this is going on I think of my brother.

See, piles runs in the ChinaBounder family. The ol’ man, the brother. Brother had his fixed a year or two prior, and for his operation they just stuck some sorta’ probe up his arse which put elastic bands round the piles – they then shrivel and fall off over a few weeks. Quick, easy, painless. So I gotta say I did rather curse ‘Bloody second rate Chinese hospitals with their old fashioned outdated equipment.’ But that was unfair, as the doc was doing his best.

The doc announces he is done. Gives my arse a clean up and prepares to swathe it in lint. But not so fast doc – for now, after a week of laxatives, now I need to take a shit. I get to my feet, find myself weak, and have to rely on my girlfriend (how remarkably patient she was with me!) to escort me to the toilet – which is, of course, the typical Chinese squat toilet. But I barely have time to think off a curse before I crouch and let fly a simply phenomenal amount of turd. It feels pretty good, I gotta say.

Of course this being a Chinese toilet, no matter in a hospital, there is no paper. So I have to stagger back to the poor ol’ doc, all besmeared in shit, and collapse back onto the table, where he tuts and gets going with the swab.

And then he writes out one more prescription, gives it to my girl, and, while she goes off to the pharmacy to get it, I sit wan and weak in a chair – sit carefully – and think myself moderately heroic. Thence to a taxi and home. Arse seems good. I sleep.

I wake. Arse on fire. Arse agony. Oh to bring back the piles, trade them for this pain. True, the body has no memory of pain, and I do not now remember the pain itself – rather just the awareness of it. Remember from time to time pounding my fist on the mattress for the pain – and one time thumping my girlfriend really hard, waking to pain out of a doze and not knowing she was lying beside me. She was cool about it. Shame I ended up really hurting her a year or so later.

That final prescription the doc gave her was for arse healing medicine – traditional Chinese arse healing medicine. It was a bunch of bits of bark and twig which I was meant to steep in hot water, let cool, and dip my arse in for half an hour a day. I did so. Zero effect, as far as I can tell. The pain subsided in three or four days, and I’m pretty certain it would have done so with or without the TCM. But that is the grand con of TCM – it is ‘slow acting’ – which is another way of saying ‘makes no difference to the normal healing process, but if you believe in it, it’ll make you feel better.’

The first post-op dump was sheer agony, of course, even coming several days after the scalpelling (soup diet only up til then) – but things healed up pretty good after that, and soon it was a bliss to be able to walk the streets normally, not waddle like a duck, butt cheeks clenched together.

So all in all I was pretty pleased with my first experience of Chinese healthcare. And the bill for it – around 2000 yuan – seemed a fair price too. They did try on a little con, wanting me to pay 6000 – cos I was a foreigner, you see – but my girl would have none of that and let them know it.

Easy enough.

But without that money, even if I had been really ill, had been dying, I’d have been on my own. There’d have been no healthcare for me. If you’ve got plenty money life in China is pretty good. If you only got a little – or indeed only have the average wage for which so many tens of millions toil – then life is brutish.

Reason Number 48 - Red Medicine

2008-10-02T17:35:00.002Z

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 93
“China announced the results of its first national survey of mental illness in 2007. This survey found the country had nearly eight million people suffering from schizophrenia, and that 30% of them do not take drugs for the problem, either because it is ‘too troublesome’ or they fear side-effects. Doctors said the number of patients with mental health problems was on the rise.

Additionally, China has at least 26 million sufferers from depression, with many more undiagnosed. Ten percent to 15% of those attempting suicide, and 50% to 70% of all people who commit or attempt suicide, suffer from depression. But 90% of sufferers get no treatment, and most clinically depressed people fear being stigmatized for their illness, because, say doctors, Chinese society simply does not understand depression and tends to blame the individual.

Poverty, not depression, drove a couple in central Hunan Province to suicide in 2007. The husband, 38-year-old Chen Zhengxian, suffered from hepatitis-B and kidney stones, among other ailments, but could not afford medical care. Chen and his wife tied themselves together with a rope and leapt into the River Yangtze, leaving behind a 12-year-old son and Chen’s mother. They had spent their life savings in 2005 on medical treatment for the son, and still owed more than 8,000 yuan from that time. They could not even afford to pay the 60 yuan fee for the family of four that would have given them basic medical insurance.”

I’ve always found Chinese hospitals pretty efficient. They’re not quite as spick and span as a Western hospital – or even a Thai hospital – and their equipment is a bit beat-up and out of date. But of course China is a developing nation and so I do not expect to see parity with Western hospitals.

I’ve also always found Chinese doctors to be efficient and polite and knowledgeable. And I’ve never had to wait more than a few minutes – half an hour at most – for treatment.

But then, I can pay for it. I have the money, and a few hundred yuan to me is nothing much. Also - I am white, and as I have said many times before, white skin is a badge of privilege in China. Add to that the fact that the doctors are nearly all highly educated and enjoy the chance to practice their English, and there are seldom any problems for me in getting treatment. Plus of course I know a bunch of doctors from my teaching work, so from tooth pain to heart trouble I can pretty much call up a specialist.

If I was Chinese, of course, and in particular one of the millions of poor in China, it would be a totally different story. I would be one of the hundreds of timid, lost and harassed folk I see wandering about the place every hospital I go to.

But any readers wandering by know that, and I know that, so no tub-thumping. Instead I shall tell you about my first trip to a Chinese hospital – tomorrow.

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 94
“Other dangers abound. In 2004, State media announced that 390,000 people had died prematurely from unsafe injections, without giving a time-frame. Three hundred and ninety thousand people.

Thirty percent of immune injections and 50% of therapeutic injections were unsafe, said the report, adding that in China’s poor western rural areas, more than 70% of ‘disposable’ syringes intended for single use were in fact reused without effective disinfection measures.

Though disposable syringes cost just 1 US cent more than a reusable needle, they are seldom used. While China has the manufacturing capacity to make 1.7 billion disposable needles a year, sales are stuck at only 100 million a year.

Another 200,000 people die a year just using drugs improperly.”

Reason Number 47 - Micro-Faults

2008-10-01T17:58:00.001Z

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 91
“More than any other country, China seems to be able to produce dozens of problems, unnecessarily created by inattention, greed and a lack of care, problems that perhaps would overwhelm other smaller countries. In this chapter we look at just ten such problems.

Official Fortune
In 2007, nearly 60 years after ‘New China’ was founded, theoretically ending feudalism and superstition, more than half of government officials still believed in ‘reading faces and stars, predicting dreams and ‘qiu qian’ – casting lots at a temple to tell their fortune.’

Superstition may be more understandable among less well-educated communities. Many rural farmers, for example, are often reluctant to pay into heath care plans because they believe that since they have to be sick to see any benefit from their investment, they are inviting bad luck.

When leaders are guided by superstition – such as the official who moved his ancestral family tombs thousands of miles to the foot of the famed and spiritually positive Tianshan Mountain in northwestern Xinjiang Province to boost his career prospects – then China’s prospects of becoming a well-run and developed country may be questioned.”

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 92
“The Lovers of Rumor
In a nation like China where the news is directly controlled by the government, people have learned not to place much trust in the media. They rely on word of mouth and gossip, and due to the prevalence of mobile phones with text messaging and the internet with email sometimes a groundswell of dubious or fallacious information is created.

One such rumor that did the rounds in 2007 was ‘SARS in bananas.’ In early 2007 a mobile-phone SMS message spread across China saying that bananas in the nation’s southern island of Hainan had been found to contain a virus similar to SARS. Zhang Xingwang, deputy director of China’s Ministry of Agriculture’s market department, said ‘It is utterly a rumor. There has not been a case in the world in which humans have contracted a plant virus, and there is not any scientific evidence.’

But this had no effect. Prices for the fruit immediately plunged as credulous customers shunned it. Chinese media described a Hainan farmer, a woman surnamed Zhang, as saying that in 2006 she got two yuan (25 US cents) per kilogram for her bananas. But after the SARS rumor, the price plunged to 0.2 yuan per kilo.

In a country where few people believe the official news, such rumors become part of life. But the ‘SARS in bananas’ rumor was particularly effective since the government had created a climate of fear surrounding the disease by covering it up in 2003.”

Reason Number 46 - Meet the New ‘Ugly American’

2008-09-30T14:58:00.003Z

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 89
“China implicitly links its history with that of Africa, suggesting the two countries share a common experience. According to Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, China ‘stood firmly with the African people and provided them with moral support and material assistance in their strenuous struggle to overthrow colonial rule and gain national liberation.’

In explaining China’s policies towards Africa, the state-controlled Xinhua news agency said that ‘Sharing similar historical experience, China and Africa have all along sympathized with and supported each other in the struggle for national liberation and forged a profound friendship.’

It is our view that the above comments are profound nonsense. The experience of China, for fewer than one hundred years subjugated to the economic whims of Western and Eastern colonial powers, simply cannot be compared to the centuries that Africa, as an entire continent, suffered of slavery, one of the gravest sins committed in world history, exploitation by white colonialists, and the continuation today of a lack of positive investment from developed countries. China’s suggestion that its own history mirrors that of Africa is every bit as offensive as its claim that the Nanjing Massacre was equivalent to the Holocaust.”

I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you

Till China and Africa meet

And the river jumps over the mountain

And the salmon sing in the street

But what would Wystie have said if he saw what really happened when China and Africa met?

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 90
“The truth of the matter is that China’s behavior in Africa is greedy, rapacious and cruel. Under a mantle of ‘mutual benefit’ China is exploiting Africa at a colossal rate, buying up vast amounts of mineral resources from the continent and offering little but window-dressing such as stadiums, bridges and other infrastructure in return.

Far from wanting to help Africa, the record shows that China has explicitly hurt the continent, by using its membership of the UN Security Council to veto action aimed at stopping genocide in Sudan. Though in 2007, under international pressure and the threat of an Olympic boycott, China began to make limited moves to allow international action in the country, it is clear that China is perfectly willing to tolerate any level of abuse in its quest for resources. And not only did China veto UN action in Sudan – it also sold the Sudanese government weapons with which it committed crimes against humanity.

China is very quick to downplay suffering in other countries, claiming the death toll in Sudan (around 200,000) was greatly exaggerated. Yet when anyone has the temerity to suggest that the China’s figure of 300,000 victims in the Nanjing massacre is exaggerated (for example pointing out that many estimates place the death toll between 150,000 and 300,000) Beijing reacts with apoplectic fury.

For China, Africa is just a continent to be exploited – a source of raw materials and a destination for goods produced so cheaply that they drive African firms out of business. While China is happy to build extensive infrastructure which will let it more efficiently plunder the continent, purely altruistic investment, such as in schools and hospitals, is almost unheard of.”

Reason Number 45 - The Generals Theory

2008-09-29T17:53:00.007Z

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 87
“The governments of developed nations have a clear divide between military and political power. Military control most usually remains beholden to leaders directly chosen by the people. This is not the case in China, where a number of senior military leaders are members of the government.

Generals are asked by non-military CPC leaders to demonstrate the PLA’s loyalty to the Party at every opportunity. Giving a speech to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the PLA, President Hu Jintao said ‘To follow the CPC’s command is the overriding political requirement that the Party and Chinese people have placed on the PLA and is the unshakable and fundamental principle for the PLA.’

The Party’s increased stress on the loyalty of the PLA rose to a noticeable crescendo in 2007. Why? Perhaps it is because the Party feels losing its grip on the PLA would lessen its ability to control the people.”

It’s certainly true that the PLA is a threat to China. If the CPC is seen to lose the confidence of the people, then the army will simply take over. China will turn into a military dictatorship overnight.

But the PLA is a tool of brute might, not of sophistication. Indeed, China’s armed forces are often rather clumsy and inept.

Now a few of my Chinese readers might recall a little before the Olympics that there was a big ‘terrorist’ incident in Kashgar. This was a most convenient event for Beijing, for they took it as legitimacy to justify their ongoing crackdown on the Uighurs. Naturally, its very convenience raised suspicions in those with some experience of China – or, indeed, thug governments throughout recent history; say for example Gliwice, Poland, in August 1939 – or, better still, the Mukden Incident.

The New York Times is reporting the testimony of tourists in Kashgar who were eyewitnesses to this event. Xinhua and the slavish Chinese press all reported that ‘terrorists’ had attacked an army base, detonated a bomb, killed many brave and true and blah blah blah Chinese heroes.

Not so, say these tourists; they say they saw a group of Chinese paramilitaries and a group of uniformed Chinese men attacking each other, and that there was no explosion. You can read it here, though you'll need to sign up for a login to do so.

Sure, the Western press does get it wrong from time to time – as, for example, in certain aspects of their coverage of the pre-Olympic rioting in Tibet. But when they were shown to be wrong, they apologized. I don’t recall Xinhua ever doing that. So before the few people still bothering to read this blog have a pop at the New York Times, I would ask them to consider how many times and to what level of seriousness the NYT has been caught lying – and then compare that with the record of the CPC.

I have no problem in believing the NYT. It makes perfect sense to me that the CPC would make good use of a lesson from the Japanese Imperial Armies of the Second World War – the CPC has, after all, always been a good student of the Japanese invaders, using their cruelty to harm China even more than the Japanese themselves.

But underneath the minatory thuggishness of China’s leaders, glad to seize a chance to play on race hate and make the Han fear the Uighur even more, lies a simple fact – China’s armed forces are often ill-behaved and amateurish.

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 88
“The Party’s traditional use of the army to maintain its lock on power has resulted in high-ranking generals now permeating every sector of Chinese political life. In previous outbreaks of social unrest in China – most notably the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 – the Party was able to rely on the loyalty of the PLA to comply in murdering the innocent citizens of China. A military takeover at that time was simply unthinkable. But today things are very different. Today’s political leaders have only managed to acquire the passive and acquiescent support of the people, not the active worship that Deng and Mao enjoyed – however dogmatic that worship was. China’s current leaders inspire no affection and no loyalty, either among the soldiers of the PLA or the ordinary people of China.

Should China experience profound social turmoil in the coming years – unavoidable in the opinion of the authors – then something very different will happen. There will be bland, anodyne press announcements that the current crop of political leaders is stepping down or has been removed from power. Those leaders without military connections will disappear, silently, quickly, to be replaced by a military junta.

The Party knows this and fears this, hence all the demanding rhetoric about PLA loyalty. This, in the end, will count for nothing against the personal charisma of one single man, regardless of the vaunted Chinese theory of rule by consensus. This man, this Chinese Napoleon, is today just one more PLA general. But a time is coming when not just China, but the whole world, will know his name.

There are 167 generals in the PLA today. Choose one.”

Reason Number 44 - The Gamblers & The Purpose of Unemployment

2008-09-25T13:16:00.004Z

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 85
“In China’s rush to become an economic superpower, the nation’s leaders have followed Deng Xiaoping’s famous phrase – ‘Let some become rich first’ – by creating an increasingly wealthy and pampered upper class. Deng’s phrase today is more appropriately stated as ‘Let some become richer and richer.’

When Deng Xiaoping opened the doors to China in 1979, he was effectively opening the doors to the world’s biggest casino, and formally declaring that its almost 1.3 billion citizens could step up to the tables and throw the dice.

Deng also said ‘To become rich is glorious.’ And China’s middle classes are enjoying scooping up as much of this type of glory as they can possibly find. That’s why China’s booming cities are becoming temples to conspicuous consumerism. It is why, despite the easy access to fake goods such as Louis Vuitton handbags, many young and well-heeled Chinese prefer to pay for the real thing, at a price which may represent many months’ salary for them and perhaps a whole year’s salary for those in the rural areas. It is why, in 2006, Chinese people bought over 12% of all luxury goods worldwide. Luxury car maker Bentley, for example, has sold more units of its US$1.2 million Mulliner 728 model in Beijing than in any other city in the world. Yachts. Cars. Houses. Jewelry. International travel. They’re all being sought and bought by China’s new rich.

Not bad for a country that continually claims it is ‘poor,’ often describing itself as a ‘developing nation.’”

Of course it’s this lust for profit that is the direct cause of scandals such as the tainted milk that has killed four children and put the health of fifty thousand more in direct danger. The sad fact is too many Chinese companies put profit above morality. It is a way of business that is deeply ingrained in the nation’s culture. Money, money, and more money.

Get this: China’s government knew of this problem during the Olympics, but they kept it hushed up.

That’s just so fucked up. What kind of monstrous, twisted outlook could allow that? How the fuck, how the fuck can the Chinese people be so passive about this? A bit of grumbling in cyberspace – fuck that. Why are they not marching in the streets? Why are they giving their leaders a free pass?

But hold the outrage. I know better. I know perfectly well that the death of a few more children and a lifetime of worries for thousands more children and parents meant nothing to the chance to strut and boast on the world stage. And the death of kids is an everyday thing in China anyhow. It’s no big deal. As long as your precious kid is okay, the rest can be forgotten. So the fortnight of the Olympics, just like the pursuit of profit, mattered far more than any amount of pain, suffering and death.

For the government it was as much about political pride as it was about money. But despite their belated promises to stop such things happening again, despite Wen Jiabao’s cynical photo-ops with kids in hospital, despite the resignation of Li Chanjiang, nothing will change. It’s just more window-dressing bullshit from the same bunch of criminals and scumbags. And the milk scandal is no more than the flavor of the moment – there will be another one next month, or the month after that.

Nothing will change until China has political and business leaders who must face public accountability. But, more fundamentally, nothing will change until China learns to value morality more than money.

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 86

“But this middle class – and China’s economic miracle itself -- exists by economically preying on the much larger group of China’s generally poor and less well educated rural citizens. China’s growing wealth, in other words, relies on a combination of low wages, high unemployment and foreign direct investment.

Trouble for China’s labor market can already be seen, as state media reported at the end of 2006. ‘Despite government figures to indicate China still has a contingent of 150 million migrant workers awaiting to be transferred from rural to urban areas, signs have emerged to show that the country’s labor resources [are] on a trend of shrinkage,’ said reports, noting that booming Guangdong Province was already experiencing an annual shortfall of two million laborers.

One of the reasons behind this impending labor shortage is not, in fact, a lack of people to do the work – it is instead a lack of decent wages on offer. The much trusted American concept of ‘A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ has no place in the casino that is China. China’s government in fact needs unemployment to remain high and wages to remain low, and the continuation of China’s economic success is based on the dangerous gamble that the millions of poor will continue to bear this rapacious exploitation in silence.”

Reason Number 43 - Can You Trust a Man to Hold up Half the Sky?

2008-09-24T17:00:00.002Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 83
"In any average human population, natural male births tend to outnumber female births by about 105 to 100, though numbers tend to differ slightly among various ethnic groups. In some areas of China, upwards of 138 boys are born for every 100 girls.

The results of these skewed birth ratios will leave an astounding number of men unable to ever find a woman, make her his wife, have children, establish a home and leave his name behind. Projections on the size of this aberration of nature vary, from 30 million to 43 million in 2010. Other reports put it in a different way, saying that one out of every ten male children born today in China will never find a woman to marry.

Studies have long shown that women have a pacifying effect on men. A man unable to marry will often become restless, violent, aggressive, and will have a destabilizing effect on society. This gender imbalance is what will create the 5th Army of Instability for China, an army manned by upwards of 40 million men unable to find a wife. The level of disharmony created by the lack of the ability to enhance their life through marriage and build a family will fester and cause disruption within society."

That’s a pretty shocking statistic – one in ten males born in China today will not be able to marry. There just aren’t enough women. Now I could make some glib statement as to how that is worrying news for the would-be philanderer, since women will be able to be more choosy about their mates. But of course that’s not true – success in the bedroom is more about social status than mere numbers. Yet that’s really nor here nor there; it’s the sheer appalling social engineering of it, the fact that so many millions of people have been denied a shot at happiness even before their birth, before their conception. They’ll be born into a society where the odds are irrevocably stacked against them. They’ll be born into a world where the most basic of human needs – love, connection – can never be satisfied.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 84
“This demographic time-bomb is locked in for these men’s lifetime. Even if the government reversed the birth ratio today, these men would still be unable to become husbands and fathers. The vast majority of these men unable to find partners will come from the countryside, where the gender imbalance is highest, and where limited educational opportunities will doom them to unskilled labor that will make it even harder to find a wife.

The creation of the 5th Army is based entirely on the concept of female infanticide. The ‘death’ of millions of female fetuses in the march of time is populating this army with men who quite likely will do incredible harm to the women who have ‘survived’ and been born. Demand for prostitution will increase, the selling of young female child brides, and violence against women, including rape, will create additional instability beyond natural order due entirely to government policies.

Mao stated in one of his most famous quotations that ‘women hold up half the sky.’ Nowhere in his writings does he mention whether men are equal to their half of the task, no matter how many more of them there are than women. The soldiers of the 5th Army of Instability will certainly not be up to the task, but will seek masculine forms of rebellion as retribution for government meddling in the laws of nature.”

Reason Number 42 - Sino-spite

2008-09-23T12:37:00.000Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 81
"Spite is a petty emotion, often driven by a sense of trivial revenge and a feeling of being both wronged and powerless.

Sino-spite, however, is an act of Chinese political bluster. It is an expression of self-righteousness and strident belief that, for any given problem, someone else must be the cause, the originator of the trouble. Sino-spite currently shapes China’s relations with the world.

For China, the solution to a problem rarely invokes an official apology, and if it does come, it is seldom conciliatory. China never says ‘We were wrong,’ but instead adopts a more aggressive hectoring and lecturing tone.

Sino-spite exists most frequently on a government level, though sometimes on a corporate level too. In the political and corporate world of Sino-spite, no criticism of China is justified. Ever.

Sino-spite is a way of ignoring China’s problems and negating the concerns of other nations. Sino-spite is a black and white world view. There are no shades of gray, no soothing words of understanding as China promises to investigate a problem. In the Sino-spite view of things, the equation is simple: The world is against China. And China’s going to let you know it knows it.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 82
"Sino-spite is even applied to matters outside China’s borders. At a Foreign Ministry press conference, spokeswoman Jiang Yu was asked a question about political reform in Myanmar (the former Burma). 'China has been insisting the issue should be resolved by the Myanmar government and its people through consultations,' she said. 'The international community should adopt an active and constructive attitude to help Myanmar promote the process of national reconciliation without damaging the nation’s sovereignty and national dignity.' Dignity and national pride come above human suffering. Sino-spite is also self-serving as political policy.

In the us-versus-them world view of Sino-spite, the basic level of care and concern for human suffering is missing. Toys containing poisons that might harm a child? ‘Alarmism.’ Food that does not meet basic hygiene regulations? ‘Scaremongering.’ Concern over human rights in China? ‘Politicization.’ Rejection of China-made technology that does not meet demanding standards? ‘Anti-China prejudice.’

Stiff, inflexible and unyielding, Sino-spite grows out of a government view that is used to demanding, not persuading."

Reason Number 41 - A Nation of Health Terrorists

2008-09-18T21:22:00.001Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 79
"Spitting in public is an extremely common phenomenon in China, along with related health dangers such as public urination and ejection of nasal mucus by forcible expelling of breath through the nose. For example, the Shanghai Patriotic Sanitation Committee monitored spitting at ten public spots in the city. In just one of these spots, it recorded 164 people spitting in half an hour. The city government’s response to this was to impose a new regulation. ‘Spit sacks’ were attached the city’ taxis for both passengers and driver to spit into should the need arise (it is very common for taxi drivers to spit out of the window of their vehicles).

After the pilot scheme was introduced, the Sanitation Committee monitored the same public spots again and found ‘just’ 46 people spitting in half an hour. Spit sacks, the government says, will now be attached to all taxis in the city’s fleet.

Spitting, nose picking and coughing without covering the mouth, even in crowded and congested areas such as public transport, are common among Chinese travelers, according to the Spiritual Civilization Steering Committee of the Communist Party."

Terrorism – what a buzzword! Used to justify American retrenchment on civil liberties and Britain’s vast network of surveillance cameras, spying, monitoring, judging the population. And used by China, of course – a good apprentice to Western corruption – to repress and shackle its captive possessions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

But what about China’s own terrorism? The way China spreads true terror, real terror? The thousands of terrified Chinese parents, fearful their children have been terribly harmed by the latest milk scandal – the terror of rotten, poisonous food, of factories dumping poisons into the land; what of that, what of China’s environmental terrorism?

What about the terrorism of SARS, Beijing’s very own dirty bomb? And SARS was just a warm-up for the big one – for H5N1, for bird flu. The Black Death wiped out maybe a third of Europe. What percentage of the world will die if H5N1 mutates to human-to-human form – a mutation which China, with its intensive farming practices combined with a routine culture of lying and cheating, is providing the perfect conditions for?

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 80
“Though China still has a relatively low number of AIDS sufferers (about one person per 2000), the disease is increasing fast – at 11% a year – due to widespread ignorance of the transmission of HIV. A survey in one of China’s northern provinces found that almost 60% of government officials lacked even a basic knowledge of AIDS. And along with ignorance, fear is widespread. Nationwide, about 50% of the population feel that AIDS patients have no right to work or study.

One survey among more than 400 homosexual men found that only 15% of them understood that they were at risk of contracting HIV. Another survey of more than 200 men found that only 20% used a condom, and yet another report found that 80% of gay men said they knew nothing about how HIV/AIDS was transmitted. Up until 2004 homosexuality was classified as a ‘psychiatric disorder of sexuality’ in China.

The picture for the future looks bleak. Professor Jing Jun, a member of the AIDS Policy Center at China’s prestigious Tsinghua University, said, in April 2007, that ‘I think China is entering a stage of AIDS fatigue. Now officials are questioning how much more should be invested in the field, and some scholars working on AIDS have now transferred to other fields. … There was roughly 3 billion yuan (US$388 million) invested last year, which is 20 kilometers (12 miles) of expressway in Beijing.’”

Reason Number 40 - Party Capital & Sino-Cash

2008-09-17T18:12:00.001Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 77
“Perhaps the biggest admission of the failure of Chinese Communism came in 2002, when then-president Jiang Zemin delivered the keynote speech for the 16th Party Congress.

Jiang said that ‘the CPC should admit into itself advanced elements of other social strata who accept the Party’s program and Constitution, work for the realization of the Party’s line and program consciously and meet the qualifications of Party membership following a long period of test, in order to increase the influence and rallying force of the Party in society at large,’ reported media.

Behind these rather bland, anodyne words lies something truly startling, for the ‘advanced elements of other social strata’ that Jiang was keen to allow into the Party were in fact private businessmen – in other words, capitalists, in this case Chinese citizens with cash. The most exclusive working club in the world opens its door and finds a long line of rich citizens salivating to get in. Men with money welcomed by men with power.”

Who believes in communism? Does anyone still believe China’s rulers seek equality and fairness? Does anyone believe China’s rules really believe a single word of the political philosophy they claim to follow? Cash is king. Greed and power, that’s all that matters.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 78
“But perhaps the real reason behind admitting businessmen into the Party was less altruistic and more to do with control and greed. In today’s China, the Party wishfully attempts to control everything. Rather than persecuting private businessmen as it once did, it now welcomes them with open arms – after all, it is new money that provides the fuel for the economic engine, and new money is the new god in China.

A clear example of the change in official attitudes to businessmen is illustrated by the case of Yin Mingshan. Yin, said state media around the time of these changes, is ‘listed in Fortune magazine as one of the top 50 millionaires in China, is chairman of the Chongqing-based Lifan Hongda Industrial Group and vice-chairman of the General Chamber of Commerce of Chongqing Municipality. He is also a member of the National Committee of the CPPCC.’

What media failed to mention was that for much of Yin’s life he was ruthlessly persecuted by that same Party. He was expelled from high school in 1960 for making ‘rightist’ remarks and, three years later, he was jailed. He remained a social outcast, spending many years laboring on a farm until 1979, when the Party informed him his punishment had been a ‘mistake.’ He did not receive any apology for the nearly two decades of his life that the Party had wasted. However, when he built his firm into one of the nation’s leading motorbike manufacturers, the Party was suddenly keen to hear what he had to say. Money and success mean far more to today’s communists than morality, and indeed more that individual freedom itself.

While maintaining lip-service to socialist goals, the government embraces any political strategy that will either enrich its members or cement its grip on power. The vast majority of Chinese citizens, those that are not Party members, those with limited finances, have just fallen farther behind.”

Reason Number 39 - Red China Crime

2008-09-16T10:55:00.002Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 75
“Red China Crime is the best game in town – but you have to be a Party member to get a seat at the table.

Forming the last element of the 4th Army of Instability, Red China Crime has been entrenched as the thing to do since even before the Party gained power. Favoritism and nepotism may not appear basically criminal in nature, but down the line the cash goes into someone’s pocket.

Today’s cadres (political functionaries) and Party officials mouth political perfection while devising new methods and policies, the best of which take tiny, innocuous slices of the pie from millions of unknowing citizens. Red China Crime creates headline stories in major Chinese newspapers and around the world. It includes theft of public funds, bribery, extortion, prostitution and cronyism, all of which are endemic among Party officials, including spouses, lovers, offspring and relatives. Corruption is simply a way of life for today’s government.”

The crimes of the Communist Party are unending. Corrupt and evil, the Communists have brought China nothing much but misery.

But the people of China are complacent. They tolerate their leaders. They focus only on the ‘good’ the Party has done, even though that good has only been done by default, by the cessation of madness.

It’s the same tired refrain – ‘China is getting better’ – that allows government officials to keep their hands in the till.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 76
“In 2006, 97,260 members of the Communist Party were disciplined for corruption, among whom 3,530 cadres were prosecuted, said Gan Yisheng of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. China’s first regulations to specify what punishment corrupt officials would receive went into effect on June 1st 2007.

Between 1978, when China began to open up to the West, and 2004, the country’s Ministry of Commerce said that about 4,000 Party officials suspected of crimes involving US$50 billion of public money had fled overseas.

These crimes would cause a freely-elected government in a democratic country to fall immediately. But in China, without the aid of independent oversight bodies, the bags of money will continue to walk out of the door.

On the face of it, the 4th Army of Instability’s Red China Crime element would seem to be the most evil. But with more than 70 million Party members, and with an enrolment system that sees that number grow by around 2.3 million a year, the ‘face of evil’ may become as familiar as the people next door.”

Reason Number 38 - The ‘Big’ Factor

2008-09-14T22:21:00.000Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 73
"Every national entity, no matter what the size of land area or number of people, feels its particular national interests are significant, perhaps even unique. Even the smallest countries in the world feel their own problems are big. Certainly no exception, China, since 1949, has discovered its own unique set of big considerations.

China’s perception of itself as an emerging and developing nation has inherited many difficulties and paradoxes from its past history. But modern day leaders have in many cases exacerbated some of these ‘traditional’ problems, leading the country into a maze where they are forever trying to find the way out, often with a limited handful of solutions.

Part of the problem is that China wants development now. It wants modernity now. And it wants a technologically developed society now. But the breakneck speed at which the leaders are driving the country causes them to miss the road signs warning of danger ahead. A few of these warning signs, such as false claims of ‘growth’ which resulted in great famine of the 1950s, Mao’s encouragement of large families, and again Mao’s encouragement of students to become Red Guards, heralding the start of the ten-year ‘Cultural Revolution,’ show a lack of insight into the simple notion of cause and effect in China, which is often followed by big problems."

And most of all, China wants money now. That’s why there will be no end to the nation’s problems and scandals. You can’t ‘cure’ greed. You can’t slay cupidity.

That’s why China learned nothing from the 2004 scandal where hundreds of babies were hospitalized and many died after being fed substandard milk powder. There was a lot of fuss and hurried promises of serious action at the time – and then everyone forgot about it.

So here we are in 2008 and much the same thing is happening again, a company selling shit quality milk, eye on the profit and fuck the danger. More babies in hospital. More death. But more money too, and that’s the point. The same thing will happen next year, and the year after.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 74
"Per dollar of GDP, China uses five times more energy than the US average and an astonishing 11.5 times the Japanese average in its industrial production, countries that China wishes to emulate in order to establish its world-leader status.

Let’s put that in dollars and cents. As the China Economic Review explains, a single kilogram of coal used as energy to create industrial products in China earns only 36 US cents worth of GDP in China. The same kilogram of coal if used in the Japanese industrial sector would generate US$5.58 worth of GDP.

Even the most glorious of all resources is being eroded faster than nature can possibly handle. The Qinghai-Tibet plateau was once home to one of the world’s largest alpine wetlands. Yet in recent years, this area – also one of the planet’s most important areas in terms of biodiversity – has shrunk by 40% due to human activities. A single lake in this region, the Xingcuo Lake, used to span 469 hectares. Now it covers 10. Desertification is increasing at 12% a year, with another 135,333 hectares under threat of desertification. Laobuza, a Tibetan who was born and grew up in this area said 'There are now very few swamps in the reserve. I could ride my horse for 50 kilometers and not find one.'”

Reason Number 37 - Brand China

2008-09-11T23:03:00.000Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 71
“Developing international brands is a matter of great importance to China’s government today. Speaking in summer 2007, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that domestic firms should improve the quality of their products and develop world-class brands.

But the 2007 Global Business Leadership Survey, created by Fortune China and a consulting firm, found that while 83% of respondents saw the importance of developing a global brand name, only 22% demonstrated the necessary skills for operating in the global marketplace. The survey was conducted among senior Chinese business leaders and also revealed that, while 75% of them had traveled overseas, most travel was for a short period of time, and only 45% of the total was business travel.

Surprisingly, only a third of leaders maintained personal networks outside China, indicating an isolationist attitude among Chinese business leaders. ‘The report indicates that there are capability gaps between business leaders who are effective and capable in the domestic market and those who can operate effectively at a global level,’ said media.”

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 72
“China’s attitude to building globally recognized brands seems to be based more on the assumption that China has a right to such kudos than the need to earn it. Unfortunately, China’s ‘victim mentality’ when it comes to its rights in the world is creating real victims.

In the wake of a series of scandals linked to Chinese-made products, China testily complained about ‘smear attacks’ on its goods. ‘Blowing up, complicating or politicizing a problem are irresponsible actions and do not help in its solution’ China’s Washington Embassy said in summer 2007, perfecting its ‘Sino-spite’ vocabulary. ‘It is even more unacceptable for some to launch groundless smear attacks on China at the excuse of drug and safety problems.’

One of these ‘safety problems’ occurred in 2006 when tainted cough medicine from China led more than 100 deaths in Panama. The medicine had been made with a chemical called diethylene glycol, instead of the correct chemical, gylcerine. The products also used the trademark ‘glicerine.’ The original source of the diethylene glycol was a factory in China’s Jiangsu Province, which has labeled the chemical as ‘TD Glycerine.’ This product had been sold to a Spanish firm. The Chinese firm said they told the Spanish firm the product should not be used in medicines. But Panamanian businessmen brought the chemical from the Spanish firm, changed its name to ‘Pure glycerine’ and extended its sell-by date.”

Reason Number 36 - Hot Borders

2008-09-10T10:56:00.002Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 69
"In the language of politics, the German word ‘lebensraum’ (living space) has deep meaning. If you were to translate its feeling and the sense of trepidation it creates in other countries, from the German word to a Chinese equivalent, one would need to also translate the sense of need to expand, a sense of righteousness, and a sense of superiority.

Today, China has chosen ‘peaceful rise’ or ‘peaceful development’ as catch-all phraseology to help pacify the fears of the independent nations orbiting the middle kingdom. But the reality of the behemoth that China is becoming both militarily and economically is casting a long shadow over the 14 nations who share a land border, and sometimes a troubled historical relationship. China presently has a common land border with more nations than any other country in the world.

China’s ‘neighborly conduct’ sometimes has resulted in aggressive expansion, as is quite obvious in its military control of Tibet and Xinjiang, its claim to Taiwan, and its recent regain of control of Hong Kong and Macau."

Not much needs to be said here. China’s ‘peaceful rise’ is such obvious bullshit as not to be worth commenting on.

Now the Olympics are over, Taiwan better watch out. And as the world runs short of fuel, China will look to its immediate neighbors – and then beyond. Mongolia’s the most obvious target after Taiwan.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 70
"Current claims of ‘peaceful rise’ aside, in its short history since 1949, China has fought wars with four of its land-based neighbors – Korea, India, Russia and Vietnam. These wars came at a time when China was surrounded by far fewer independent states than it is now, as well as at a time in which its need for resources was much lower. But today China is sucking in vast quantities of material and energy resources from all around the world and also has a much more pugnacious sense of international self-identity.

China is in effect like a youth who has just joined the circus. Hired as a juggler, the ringmaster requires the youthful apprentice to juggle a far greater number of balls - or in this case, countries - than has ever been achieved before.

His juggling should be ‘measured – peaceful – not aggressive,’ causing awe and respect in the audience. The task is formidable. Our juggler is allowed practice. A failure, a dropped ball, merely stops his exercise and he begins again, while the audience applauds his humility. In the reality that is China, there is no practice time, no appreciative clapping for a nice try. And China feels that its true historical calling is not to be the juggler, but the ringmaster."

China’s failure in juggling just one ball – one country, carefully -- could result in catastrophic results for itself, Asia, and possibly the world.

Reason Number 35 - Looking for Mr. Anuode Shiwaxinge

2008-09-08T23:41:00.002Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 67
“If you say the name ‘David Beckham’ many Chinese people won’t know who you’re talking about. You must say ‘Dai wei Bei ke han mu.’ And if you want to talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger, you have to call him ‘A nuo de Shi wa xin ge.’ The vast majority of Chinese people, even those with good English skills, find themselves restricted in conversation with non-Chinese speakers because they lack the understanding of other tongues due to Chinese government restrictions.

In many ways the Chinese language, spoken by more than 20% of humanity, has reached a dead end. No new characters can be made. New words have to be coined by combining the present set of characters, which is a problem when using hieroglyphic languages (one character for one word).

While English has been adapted by many other cultures, the Chinese language has never exerted the same influence. Historically, many characters in the Japanese language came from China, but the Japanese written language has gone off in its own direction. But Chinese does not easily incorporate new words into its lexicon.”

As far as Republicans go, A nuo de Shi wa xin ge seems largely free of the ideological lunacy of that party. Politicians are mostly image, yet they like to pretend they have substance. By that measure it’s at least a step towards pragmatic clarity to have a man who is explicitly defined as image becoming a politician. Indeed perhaps the fact that he is so overtly manufactured gives Arnie an added strength as a politician. He has no need to deny the obvious, and that endows a certain sort of freedom.

But Sarah Palin…. Now that’s some scary shit. A woman who believes in creationism possibly the next in line to the presidency of the USA? China’s leaders certainly believe in the power of violence, greed, and corruption and tell endless lies about the good things they have done for the country – but at least they stop short of the colossal stupidity of believing the world was made in seven days. They may be brutes and thugs, but they are not as cretinous as creationists.

I’ve focused a lot of the negative aspects of life in today's China, and though I have (apparently to little notice) mixed that in with positive comments throughout this blog, here I will be more overt. If I had to choose one achievement of modern China that deserves respect, I would cite its removal of the virus of religion from the mass of its people.

Now whether the ends justify the means is an argument for another entry. And certainly the bloody glee with which China went about expunging religion from its culture was a crime every bit as bad as the monstrosities christianity has visited on the world. For example, China’s suppression of Tibetan religion, a genocide in progress at this very moment, is a stain on humanity.

But even though the means are evil, the ends teach us a lesson. The majority of young people in China today have no belief in religion – and on the whole (spite of my many criticisms) they are pretty well-balanced, rational and moral. That’s one of the greatest lessons China has to teach the world – people get on just fine without religion. Sure, it’s not an undiluted lesson, for though China has dismissed the fairy tale of faith, it clings on to numerous other nonsenses, many of which have been discussed in the entries preceding this one.

Perhaps humanity needs to believe in nonsense, whether it’s the blustering arrogance of communism or the absurd self-contradictions and logical impossibilities of religion. I don’t know. But at least China has tossed one grand lie into the dustbin of history – the lie of religion.

Good for China.

Yet no message can be unmixed, and so I’ll end this entry with a thought for Thubten Jigme Norbu, who died on the 5th of this month. A great man and a fine writer, thoughtful and balanced. The world is the less for his death.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 68
“The very fact that Chinese is such an ancient language makes some commentators see it almost as an antique. According to Wang Shuda, writing for China Daily, “You cannot learn Chinese without understanding basic background knowledge.” That’s a fair enough statement in any language. But what does Wang mean by “basic background knowledge”?

‘Do you know “wu xing,” the five important elements: metal, water, wood, fire and earth, the relationships … among them?’ Wang asks, suggesting that a cultural understanding of these elements in a Chinese way equals an understanding of Chinese as a language.

‘Do you know Chinese classical poems, such as “tang shi,” the Tang [Dynasty, 618-907] Poems? How many can you recite?’ he writes, as if a modern language must first be respected for its roots. His implication is that a student of English could not learn the language without first understanding the sonnets of Shakespeare.”

Reason Number 34 - White China Crime

2008-09-04T23:25:00.004Z

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 65
"The second element of the 4th Army of Instability’s triumvirate of crime is made up of those wearing white shirts and dark ties with direct access to the finances of companies and banks nationwide.

White China Crime rarely involves just a single culprit, simply because it is almost socially acceptable to rip off the hand that feeds you. While they form an element of the 4th Army of Instability, White members rarely have contact with Blue China Crime members by virtue of their social standing.

White China Crime is a rampant force in China, especially in the country’s banking sector, because that’s where the real money is. "

Crime is another of those areas where China is so much a mirage. Crime in China is omnipresent yet hidden. It’s present everywhere and visible almost nowhere. Come to most any big city in China and your level of personal safety is – for the most part – rather higher than it would be in many Western societies. Certainly I’d feel safe anywhere in Shanghai at any hour. That’s not something I could say for London.

But while you might be safe in personal terms – at least in a big city – you are surrounded by frauds and scams. Yet the low visibility of crime in China has led many Chinese people to believe theirs is a safe and law-abiding culture. And this is about as far from the truth as you can get.

And in corporate terms the amount of theft and thievery is simply staggering. Most every overseas firm in China will know this – in China, a contract is worth jack shit. If you’re a Westerner doing business in China, watch out, for you are regarded as fair game. Swindles, theft, cooked books, bald-faced lies; it’s all fair play.

Trouble is, there is no public acceptance of this fact – no – let me rewrite that – there is no public anger about this fact. Corruption is accepted. And until the people of China begin to get angry about corruption – do something about it – then China will remain a crook’s paradise.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 66
"Judicial corruption, another form of White China Crime, is widespread in China. In 2006, five judges in Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court were arrested for soliciting and taking bribes. Also in 2006, three top judges in Fuyang Intermediate People’s Court in eastern Anhui Province were charged with taking bribes.

In 2004, 461 judges were charged with corruption. In 2005, the number was 378, and in 2006 it was 292. But even though the number of judges being prosecuted is dropping, China’s Chief Justice, Xiao Yang, says he still has ongoing fears about the “grave situation” of judicial corruption.

A judge’s skill may also be measured by his ability to keep himself one step ahead of the laws he has been entrusted with.

Over the next few decades, the ranks of White China Crime will swell because it is incredibly easy to join up and ‘share’ the wealth. All the new recruit will need is a job with position, the ability to play with the figures, and a willingness to recruit others in the grand scheme.

With an uncontrolled booming economy, unfortunately it is fitting that China should have an uncontrolled booming crime industry."

Reason Number 33 - Marching On

2008-09-03T23:33:00.002Z

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 63
“Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves;
With our very flesh and blood
Let us build our new Great Wall!
The peoples of China are at their most critical time,
Everybody must roar defiance.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
Millions of hearts with one mind,
Brave the enemy’s gunfire,
March on!
Brave the enemy’s gunfire,
March on! March on! March on, on!

The above words, China’s National Anthem, were written by the poet and playwright Tian Han, in 1934. Tian died like so many of China’s other citizens during the ‘Cultural Revolution’ (1966-1976). ‘In 1968, Tian Han disappeared after endless torture of being criticized and beaten. He never left a word to anybody. Even his bone ashes couldn’t be found. Ten years later, [he] was finally exonerated,’ following the normal in-and-out of favor process, says the state-run China Radio International.

When the national anthem was written, the target of ‘marching on’ was clear – the Japanese armies which had invaded China. It was ‘fighting’ against the Japanese on which the People’s Liberation Army hangs it reputation after being formed in 1927. But today its goal is less clear, less defined, obscured by military inactivity and often politicized by grand-sounding rhetoric.”

The fact that Tian Han was beaten to death would come as a surprise to most Chinese people today – at least, to those who had any idea who he was.

To those who know China, his murder is of course no surprise. One of the reasons China has such a dismal record in innovation and creativity is because standing out is dangerous.

Take Lao She (老舍), for example. He was a wonderful writer, creating novels of great sensitivity and insight. For me, his greatest work is ‘Camel Xiangzi’ (骆驼祥子), since I feel it gives more insight into Chinese society than his play ‘Tea House,’ (茶馆) which is especially venerated in China. Lao She committed suicide in 1966 after having been paraded through the streets and beaten by the Red Guards.

Again, few people know this. It is seldom mentioned in China today. He is simply accepted as a great writer, and the appalling way in which China treated him is simply airbrushed out of history. Today’s students are not to blame for the crimes of their forebears – but the fact that China does not admit to its history is a problem indeed.

Happy those who died of natural causes. The big names of modern Chinese history, from Sun Zhongshan to Lu Xun were lucky if they died young. Had they lived, China would have murdered them. But in death they became safe objects for veneration, and so venerated they were, even though both were totally ineffective men.

People tell me the ‘Cultural Revolution’ mentality is in the past. This is bullshit. It is still part of the fabric of contemporary Chinese society, and in a future entry I shall set out why this is so.

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 64
“How should one interpret China’s ‘unconditional’ pledge ‘not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states’ and its ‘policy of no first use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances’? Do the words ‘not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states’ imply that use of nuclear arms against nuclear states is open and available as part of national policy?

Let us here remind ourselves of the words of PLA general Zhu Chenghu who, in mid 2005, said that if America came to the aid of Taiwan in the event China invaded the country, ‘I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons.’ Zhu said that “We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”

And it is interesting that while Zhu said these remarks were his personal opinion, and while Beijing said they did not reflect official policy, internal criticism of General Zhu was remarkably limited. A senior general in an army in a developed nation that made such inflammatory remarks would face almost certain demotion, perhaps even forced retirement. Yet General Zhu apparently went unpunished, keeping his post as a head of the College of Defense Studies at China’s National Defense University, where he was still making policy pronouncements in 2006 and 2007.”

Reason Number 32 - China Fat

2008-09-02T22:55:00.003Z

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 61
“In 1982, just three years after China’s opening-up policy began, researchers commented that ‘Chinese food policy planners are doing much better from a dietary point of view than their Western counterparts, while avoiding problems associated with increased obesity and higher incidence of cardiovascular disease.’

In 1985, just 0.2% of urban boys between seven and 18 years old were overweight. By 2006 that figure had risen to an astonishing 25%. That’s an increase of more than 100 times.

Yet more than 9% of children five years old or less in China’s countryside were underweight in 2005, and in the poorest rural areas, 14.4% were underweight. Furthermore, 17% of rural children were growing more slowly than was normal.”

Another chance squandered by China. That lead in public health back in the 80s, sure, it was the upshot of many years of such poor management of the nation by the government that people were too poor to have access to fatty, sugary foods – or, indeed, even much meat. And, certain, there is no argument to be made for keeping people on a restricted diet.

But the fact remains China had a brief period of being a healthy nation and it pissed it up against the wall.

Today China apes the West as much as it can – all our dirty, squalid habits, our pollution, our selfishness and greed, our irresponsibility. All that is good in China is forgotten and all that is bad from the West is glorified.

It occurs to me that China’s attitude today is precisely the same at the attitude that many people ascribe to ChinaBounder – one of exploitation and indulgence. China wants, needs, takes; more money, more resources, more luxury goods, more conspicuous consumption. The mindset of China (swept with a broad brush, coasting over the minority of exceptions) is that of the child in the sweetshop, greedy for every colored bonbon.

ChinaBounder and China – not at all so different.

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 62
“Shanghai is China’s fattest city, with 15.1% of boys and 9.2% of girls obese (as opposed to merely overweight), compared to an average of 11.9% for boys and 5% for girls nationwide. One of the reasons that boys are fatter than girls is that boys are still viewed as superior to girls, and thus are spoiled much more by parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

In Beijing, more than 50% of middle school and 60% of high school students have abnormally high blood pressure. A survey of more than 13 million students found that lung capacity – a key measure of overall health – had fallen by more than 300ml since 2000. To put this into context, the average lung capacity of a six-year-old is about 2100ml and for a 14-year-old about 3600ml.

According to China’s Ministry of Health, urban Chinese boys at the age of six are 2.5 inches taller and 6.6 pounds heavier than six-year-old urban kids 30 years ago. They are three feet 10.5 inches tall and weigh, on average, 47 pounds. In America, urban six-year-olds average out at the same height and are just three pounds heavier. China is catching up fast.

In China, the saying that ‘A fat child is a healthy child’ is still widely believed.”

Reason Number 31. Taiwan - The Poison Pill of Democracy

2008-09-01T12:40:00.003Z

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 59
"Democracy is bitter medicine, and for some political regimes it is difficult to make them take it. As a medicine, democracy protects the individual and grants immunization against party politics. Like all medicines, democracy contains many negative side-effects, yet also provides the individual with a basis in which to survive and grow strong. A more unique method of injecting democracy into a totalitarian or communist state would be in the form of a ‘poison pill.’

Currently, Hong Kong is a limited democracy, and its freedoms are closely monitored and often controlled by Beijing. The Party resists the pressure of democracy within Hong Kong in a cat-and-mouse game designed to keep the people of Hong Kong waiting. The Party knows that they only have approximately 40 more years to wait until the 50 years timeframe of guaranteed political autonomy for Hong Kong has expired, whereupon a smile will return to the faces of Party bosses as they tell the world ‘things change’ and end any hint of democracy in the former colony.

If Hong Kong were to achieve full democracy, could a Hong Kong citizen travel to Beijing on June 4th to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, exercising his or her democratic freedoms? Could a Hong Kong democratic political activist use his or her freedoms to set up a democratic political party in another major city in China? Or could a Hong Kong journalist ask a party politician a question which may reveal ‘state secrets’? Clearly the answer is ‘No.’ Beijing could not tolerate any of these scenarios. This is why, in the opinion of the authors, Hong Kong will never be granted full democracy by Beijing."

These days the relationship between Taiwan and China seems to be warming up. Ma Ying-jeou is making the right noises to please Beijing, and, both parties with their eyes on the buck, direct flights between the two countries have been opened up. This is being hailed as a great achievement: why, Ma has achieved more in the few months of his administration than any other leader of Taiwan since 1949. “Cross-straits peace will be remembered as the most important accomplishment of my administration” he said recently.

It’s sheer bullshit, of course. Anyone who thinks China’s Communist leaders will show the slightest bit of flexibility towards Taiwan knows nothing about China. For Ma to talk of ‘warming relations’ is the grossest sort of hubris. China has only arrogance and contempt for Taiwan, for the wishes of Taiwan’s people. China has no interest in ‘dialog.’ China does not even see Taiwan as the free and independent nation it so obviously is. What kind of respect is that?

China is all smiles for now, now that Ma is not talking of secession. But should Ma ask for the smallest concession, he will be swatted aside like the tiresome bug Beijing views him as. He will never be allowed to deviate from the ludicrous ‘One Country, Two Systems’ fairytale formula, and he will never be accorded the smallest measure of real respect.

China will never change; for China’s leaders and 99% of its people, all indoctrinated, inflexible, and positive about what Taiwan ‘is,’ there remains only one attitude – Taiwan is part of China.

Forget this talk of warming relations – it is a mere passing mirage.

There can be no peace in the Taiwan Straits for the simplest and most obvious of reasons. The Taiwanese people are just that – Taiwanese.

They are not Chinese people, and they have zero interest in being part of China. None whatsoever, none. What free citizen of Taiwan would want to become a slave of China? It is absurd.

And so it is war we are talking about. War is still on the cards, and one day soon China will move to invade Taiwan. The plans are already drawn up and the political calculations made. China will seize Taiwan even if it means killing every person in that nation.

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 60
"Should Taiwan be taken back with its political system intact, the situation would be profoundly dangerous for China. Other ‘autonomous regions’ such as Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia would see democracy of Taiwan and demand the same for themselves. China’s system of provinces, fractured by democracy, would collapse in on itself, with the Communist Party unable to stop the democratic leaks in the dikes as democracy starts to ‘cure’ the Party’s previous indiscretions.

Taiwan, aside from being the largest democratic poison pill for China, may thus also be viewed as a democratic silver bullet.

But slaying the often-demonized communist Party of China with one ‘shot’ of democracy is simply not going to happen. The attempt by the Beijing government to force other countries to kowtow, accepting the ‘One China Policy,’ is mere bluster. China seeks validity for its policy of reunification in order to legitimize any untoward action such as war in the Taiwan straits.

The game of indignation that Beijing plays to perfection masks their awareness that to swallow Taiwan, with all its democratic energy, would poison the communist system beyond recovery."

Weekender -- The Reasons behind '50 Reasons'

2008-08-30T09:29:00.005Z

Perhaps a country’s ability to take a take a punch, shrug off perceived insults and face up to criticism squarely is one of the first signs that a nation had achieved maturity and its people their place at the table of great nations.

Not yet China.

Good fortune, and a marvellous relationship with the English books editor at Random House Kodansha in Tokyo was the reason ‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never be Great’ was first published in Japan, a country still felt by most Chinese as its greatest enemy.

To actually manufacture an insult to the motherland and the people of China by intentionally publishing our work first in Japan is far beyond our ability and actually bestows upon us a deviousness that is – well – insulting.

We have joined rather good company. Companies such as Starbucks, Deloitte Touche, Toyota and many others have all been tarred with the ‘insulters of China’ brush of shame, usually applied by the government, but sometimes also fostered by highly educated Chinese experts who should have better things to do.

Why?

The authors of ‘Fault Lines On The Face of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great,’ David Marriott and Karl Lacroix, feel the answer harkens back to the opening statement of this piece.

Maturity and subsequent greatness -- both of which China has yet to achieve.

Our book does not attack China. Our book is a warning cry to the Chinese people that failure to achieve greatness is the most likely possibility IF the motherland fails to open its eyes, ears, and heart to its problems....now.

The book details 50. We discovered dozens more. China plays a dangerous game turning one eye towards its obvious successes, while keeping the other eye blind to its failures.

At fault is certainly the government, but more so the very people, the citizens who readily perceive supposed insults but fail to recognize dangerous decay within their society. The Communist Government builds a paper tiger while what the people of China should demand and well-deserve is a real blood and guts dragon.

‘Things are getting better’ or ‘things are changing’ are the standard phrases that must be included within every ‘critical’ article published in the Western Press. Why? Balance. The authors of such articles and indeed the journals publishing them want to be seen as balanced, fair, and moderating.

In FAULT LINES there is no balance. No apologies. No self appointed moderation. In FAULT LINES there are just problems, difficulties, 50 failures that need attention desperately. The authors feel ‘balance’ is a wasted journalistic emotion.

But for this reason the authors have yet to capture an English publishing contract. Western editors who have zero China experience, but an abundance of balancing ability claim it is ‘too critical.’ Their attitude is that the authors’ combined 25 years of China life means nothing, without ‘balance’

For the authors, however, our experience means a unique ability to define, illustrate and detail at least 50 faults within China today, faults that run concurrently, destructively holding back the greatest society to ever have a chance to join man’s march into the future.

For the authors David Marriott and Karl Lacroix, our attitude means loving China enough to shout out a warning, to try to illustrate the plain facts and to tell the truth. The truth as we know it, without false ‘balance.’

While we did write the book with a Western audience in mind, we are very keen that Chinese people should be able to read it too. It would be totally wrong to say we wrote the book for Western people but not for Chinese people.

One of the reasons we have been using the ‘ChinaBounder’ blog as a vehicle to discuss our book is to help generate awareness of it among a wider audience. But we are also very keen that Chinese people should be able to get an idea of the topic of the book. There is no way ‘Fault Lines’ could ever be published in China, and this is our only route to raising the issues we discuss with the people of China.

We are happy to discuss our book with anyone who wishes to comment at 50faultlines@gmail.com

Writing the book took over one year, not including thousands of hours of research and hundreds of interviews, ‘Fault Lines’ was carefully and meticulously researched, written and footnoted.

We have made a great deal of use of Chinese media sources. Though the Chinese media is carefully controlled by the government, there is a still a huge amount of valuable information to be gained from it – not just in plentiful facts and figures, but also in attitudes, assumptions and beliefs about what China ‘is.’

We hoped to avoid the charge that we were relying on ‘biased’ Western data and opinion sources by proving each of the 50 Faults with information gleaned from Chinese citizens and media sources. However, for topics such as Tibet and Xinjiang, we did make wider use of international sources, since there is simply no objective reporting on these issues in China.

Currently we are working through ideas for several fact-based novels. All our China themed work must be thoroughly researched, whether fiction or non-fiction. Only the ChinaBounder character takes liberties with reality, but even behind his remarks lurks an element of truth often ignored by the character’s detractors.

Black comedy, satire and risqué humour is not allowed within China when directed towards government leaders and institutions. Sadly most Chinese readers miss the point when trying to digest the comments made on the infamous blog. In more open and perhaps democratic societies, political satire is seen as a safety valve, a way for citizens to jab politicians, and themselves in the ribs to say ‘Hey! Don’t forget, we are watching you.’

Within the book’s title, ‘Fault Lines On The Face of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great,’ there is a concession, at least within the Japanese edition. We anguished for weeks over the two words ‘may’ and ‘will.’ The word ‘will’ seemed much more negative, more certain and certainly too strongly opinionated against the future. The word ‘will’ seemed to doom China.

In the end we chose the word ‘may’ simply because our work ‘Fault Lines On The Face of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ is a warning, and when giving notice to a people and a country there must be hope.

The last chapter or ‘reason’, number 50, is the most important for China to pay heed to. Entitled ‘The Voice of China’ we ask for the reason that China will give for its existence to the rest of the world. How will China motivate the world? Another great consumer society, preyed upon by megacorporations is not needed. Nor is a ‘harmonious’ society dictated to on a daily basis by an archaic political system.

We ask China to show the world the way into the future, for surely we and the rest of the world have yet to find an answer. Then China will not only be great - it will be the greatest nation of all time

Karl Lacroix Biography:

Karl Lacroix’s arrival in China in the summer of 1992 was for him a dream come true.

Intoxicated as a young boy on the spirit of adventure, Karl found the warmth of the muggy night air of Shanghai filled his need for a ‘new’ land.

In the early nineties, indeed China was the new ‘promised land.’

Karl’s family, directed by the Canadian army, had pulled up stakes and moved across oceans many times, instilling within Karl at a young age a sense of wanderlust that only China has really satiated. An English-born mother and an American-born father gave impetus to a sense of internationalism that formed his character.

Writing came to Karl at an early age, acting as a cub reporter for a local city newspaper in Ontario, Canada. Words became important, not because they were rewarded, but because they generated human reaction.

Now in his late 50s, Karl’s power of observation and experience , combined with a liberal viewpoint, has directed him to voice his ‘protest’ over China’s failure to seek a higher calling than that of being the largest consumer market in the history of the world.

Karl Lacroix expects to live out his life in the most fascinating and compelling area of the world - Asia.

David Marriott Biography:

David Marriott is a collector of fine wines and a voracious reader of books that never leave once they are acquired. The occasional bottle of wine however, disappears without remorse, its preservation within the collection be damned.

His attendance at Oxbridge almost convinced him that a life of academia was his until an opportunity arose that could not be denied – China.

Working as an editor, developing 'free journalism' within a state owned newspaper, for two years David found that in China 'free' means exactly what the government wants it to mean.

Pursuing the family journalism heritage gave David a sense of purpose which was unfortunately limited by rules, regulations and interpretations that were less than logical.

A chance encounter and a quick discussion of a book project provided a different direction and a 'Brotherhood of China' relationship with Karl Lacroix.

David, now in his late thirties, is an avid linguist and has managed to learn to speak, read and write enough Chinese to avert the potentially disastrous situations both Karl and David seem to find themselves occasionally.

David Marriott's life will continue within Asia, so deep has the influence of his present life in China been. The Brotherhood of China has tales to reveal and truths to expose on a journey that will continue book after book.

-The comments and material above have been prepared by Karl Lacroix.

Please feel free to contact us with any more questions or expansions on the ideas that have presented.

Reason Number 30 - The Fallibility of Chinese Characters

2008-08-28T23:07:00.002Z

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 57
“The Chinese definition of literacy is the ability to read and write at least 1500 Chinese characters. In 1949, when ‘New China’ was founded, the illiteracy rate was more than 80%. By 1992, 22.3% of adults in China were illiterate. Ten years later, that proportion had dropped to 8.72%.

While 8.72% seems relatively small, that translates into a total of 85 million illiterate people in China at the beginning of this century. Twenty million of them were between the age of 15 and 50, with 70% of the total number of illiterate people being women.

Despite China’s huge recent economic expansion and the country’s trillion-dollar plus foreign reserves, the total amount of money allocated per year since 2000 to fight and eliminate illiteracy among 85 million people was just eight million yuan (US$1.03 million). Education was worth a paltry 0.07 yuan per person, an amount that would certainly not buy a book of lessons, nor even a pencil or one single sheet of paper to write on.

Small wonder then that by 2007 the number of illiterate people had not dropped -- it had risen. Since official figures were released after China’s last census in 2000, giving a base of 85 million illiterate people, China has experienced an increase in illiteracy equal to the entire population of Canada -- 30 million people – becoming unable to read or write. Today, 116 million people are unable to meet China’s definition of literacy.”

Think about that statistic carefully. Since 2000, there has been an increase in illiteracy in China of thirty million people. China, with its vast wealth and its billions to waste on Olympics and armies and men in space. Can’t even fix the most basic, fundamental problems.

What does that say about the ‘progress’ of China?

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 58
“Although not all would do so, each and every citizen of these 116 million people is denied the opportunity to unleash their potential, both for self and country, simply through the malaise of illiteracy. In order to put the size of these figures into perspective, in the year 2000, 11.3% of all illiterate people on the planet lived in China. Incredibly, by 2005, that total had risen to 15%.

A full 40% of Chinese people cannot speak Mandarin and, once again, it is the countryside population rather than the city elite who suffer. The isolating factor of speaking only your own dialect in a country of 1.3 billion people fractures the very nationhood of China. This mosaic of language prevents the government from giving a clear message of unity to all citizens. In addition, the inability to speak a common language, combined with the inability to read and write, dooms China’s poor citizens to a life of very few opportunities.”

Reason Number 29 - Blue China Crime

2008-08-27T21:54:00.001Z

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 55
"Shanghai is remarkably safe. The Shanghainese are still the ‘special ones’ of China. They still get the added respect from criminal elements from other parts of China that affords them an additional layer of protection, something the folks in booming cities like Shenzhen across from Hong Kong no longer have. In Shenzhen if they want your purse but you hang onto it too tightly, they might just cut your arm off.

But even as residents here in Shanghai for over 20 years, the authors have not been touched by it, or even really seen it. Sure, a pick pocketed wallet and a pinched mobile, both lost more from carelessness than to an exercise of someone’s criminal ability. But real crime? Best to watch the late night local TV news to see that.

But the bad guys are coming sure enough. And the young ones are in training.

Blue (collar) China Crime forms the most fearful element of the 4th Army of Instability. In the end, the White and Red elements of the 4th Army may cause more financial long term harm, but it is the physical nature of the Blue Army that paralyzes most people with fear."

Shanghai is indeed a point of relative calm in China. Rich city, there is less of the desperate crime of the provinces. Closest I ever came to crime was getting my pocket picked, and pretty ineptly at that. I was with Gloria, taking her to the Shanghai railway station to see her off on her journey back home at Lunar New Year. The crowds were intense, as always, but I was paying a modicum of attention and I felt a hand slide into my pocket. I grabbed that hand, and with it a youngish boy of 14 or 15 or so. And, having caught him, had little idea of what to do with him. But Gloria was in a hurry to get her train, and urged me to let him go. That’s what I’d have done anyhow, I guess, for I would not leave him to the care of the coppers and, besides, I am sure he had few options but to be a pickpocket, China being what it is.

But often I think if China had the crazy level of gun ownership of the United States, Shanghai crime would be a different story. You only have to look at the city’s drivers to see that – the anger, the mad, enraged, passionate anger that most all drivers show a dozen times a day is evidence enough; these are guys who, armed, would leap from their cars and shoot each other dead over the most trivial incident.

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 56
"China, a country that often professes its modesty, its calmness, has its own demons to slay. Rapidly following the path of developed countries, China’s list of serial and mass killers grows ominously.

In southwestern Guizhou Province in November 2006, a magistrate, Wen Jiangang, his wife, his son, his sister-in-law, his mother-in-law and even his nursery maid were all murdered. Police rapidly arrested 42-year-old Cao Hui, announcing he had murdered Wen and his family purely for money. Yet other swirling rumors suggested that since Wen had been in charge of closing down illegal mines in the area, it might have been resentful mine owners who arranged his killing. The same month that Wen was killed also saw the murder of a restaurant owner and three of his relatives in Dongguan city in Guangdong Province.

The month after, December 2006, saw the murder of a family of five in southern Guangdong Province’s Foshan city. Also in December 2006, another magistrate, Chen Yiming, was murdered along with his wife, seven-year-old grandson and housemaid in northwest Gansu Province. Another family of six was murdered in southern Guangdong Province in May 2007. After taking the contents of the safe the burglars killed everyone present, including four children, the youngest of whom was four years old.

According to Ministry of Public Security spokesman Yu Xinmin, mass killings in 2006 were 63% lower than in 2005. In the same report, a professor at the Chinese People’s Public Security University, Li Meijin, said that 'In a big country such as China, 10 mass murders a year is relatively low.'

With the acceptance of such figures, does this mean that mass-murder is a tradition in China?"

Reason Number 28 - A Traditional Feast of Cruelty

2008-08-27T00:20:00.003Z

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 53
“Cruelty to animals has a long history in China. ‘Rich people in ancient times used to put live ducks onto hot iron plates and the ducks end up dancing themselves to death. The diners then eat the meat on the ducks’ feet because it was said to be much more delicious than the meat of ducks cooked in the ordinary way’ said media.

China has many cruelly-prepared dishes. One is called ‘the three squeaks.’ This dish consists of live baby mice, and its name comes from the fact they squeak first when picked up by the diner’s chopsticks, second when dipped in sauce, and third when placed in the mouth and bitten.

Media also noted that while some people were kinder to animals, this could ‘stem from a fear of being punished if animals are treated badly’ because ‘Buddhism encourages people not to eat animals since … after death, people may become animals themselves.’ It is fear of religious retribution that may dictate positive treatment of animals rather than the natural expression of kindness itself."

Among the few people still bothering to comment on this blog there’s a bit of a debate going on about the merits of TCM – traditional Chinese medicine.

As a rationalist I no more believe in most of TCM than I believe in other equally preposterous fairy tales such as Jesus and Allah. Sure, TCM has its testable benefits, but only insofar as its shamanistic recipes coincide with the proven benefits of many types of plant. The bulk of it is sheer nonsense, from yin and yang to acupuncture.

This is not to deny it can be effective – for what TCM most does is soothe the mind of those who believe in it – and if the mind is convinced, the body often can be. That’s why there is such a vast army of idiots who believe in homeopathy and crystal healing and aromatherapy and so on.

But these ‘medicines’ are nothing more than placebos – in the case of acupuncture, for example, an experiment last year found that “There was no statistically significant difference between proper, genuine acupuncture and fake, ‘bung a needle in, anywhere you fancy, with a bit of theatrical ceremony’ acupuncture.”

The problem with TCM is that it sees nature as an allegory. It imposes a very human interpretation on the world, and suggests that the way ‘we’ see the world is how the world really is. In short – the essence, the very theory and core of TCM is ignorant and arrogant.

Take the case of tiger bone. Tiger bone – indeed all parts of the tiger – are highly prized by TCM since they are held to endow great strength on those who ingest them. This is because, from a human perspective, the tiger is a signifier of power and prowess; it is an animal of grace, speed and deadliness.

TCM sees the tiger as an answer; in fact it is just an equation. The tiger is made out of the same stuff as any other animal, and it is the inescapable Darwinian response to its environment. It is merely a staging post in the grand flow of evolution. But TCM views it as a finished, almost designed product; TCM sees it as an embodiment rather than a process.

But nature is not an allegory; eating the tiger does not make us strong any more than eating the mole makes us miners. To see animals as signifiers is to misunderstand nature and our place in it. And that is why TCM has done so much damage to the natural world, driving the tiger and the rhino close to extinction. It is also why China’s attitude to the animal world (all parts of it save small fluffy dogs) is so monstrously cruel, stuck back where the West was in the age of bear-baiting and cock fights.

‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 54
“China does have laws to protect its endangered species, though like so many laws in the country they carry little judiciary weight, the result of which leaves rare animals hunted for food in an age of grocery stores and supermarkets.

A nationwide campaign called Spring Thunder in 2003 saw Chinese police inspect nearly 16,000 animal fairs and 67,800 hotels and restaurants across the county. During the inspection, which lasted just nine days, 838,500 endangered animals were confiscated, saved from China’s kitchens. About 45,000 of them were wildlife with first-class state protection.

In 2007, demand for wild and exotic animals on the dinner table was still high. Thirteen people were sentenced to up to 14 years in prison after they were found guilty of illegally buying and selling thousands of state-protected wild animals in the largest wild animal trade case the country had seen, said media. One man, Ma Weihu, illegally bought about 900 owls, a Grade-II state protected animal, to sell to restaurants in southern Guangdong Province.

While China’s laws on endangered species are clearly ineffectual, the country also does not have a single law ruling against animal cruelty. None. ‘(Animal abuse) cannot be tackled with public opinion or moral pressure, it’s time for legislation,’ said Mang Ping, assistant professor with the Central Socialist Academy, and a long-time advocate for animal rights in China.”