Swinging activity spurs controversy over privacy in the Chinese home

As reported by a May 20th New York Times article, a Chinese computer science professor in Nanjing Institute of Technology has been accused of "crowd licentiousness" with a sentence of three and a half years in prison. Allegedly Ma Yaohai, 53, has participated in several activities classified under the term of "hooliganism," including partner swapping and group sex. Prosecutors have claimed that he held at least 18 orgies in his two bedroom apartment which he shares with his elderly mother. Ma along with 21 other swingers were arrested and prosecuted, but he was the only swinger who spoke out against the charges, which he will contest later in court, claiming that the accusations are his own private concern: "How can I disturb social order? What occurs in my house is a private matter." Apparently, deviant sexual activity now constitutes a violation of the Chinese political ideology. Ma had set up a sex chat room for other swingers to facilitate swinging activity in China. Several bloggers have spoken out against the government's prosecution of the case due to the infringement on the sexual freedoms of Chinese citizens.

This article demonstrates comparative government concepts because of the debate over the government's lack of respect for its citizens' privacy. The role of the national government in China clearly plays a large role in the individual roles of citizens. This case also demonstrates the continued role of Confucianism in Chinese society, as citizens are expected to compose themselves with propriety. This emphasizes the traditional aspect of Chinese society that has greatly impacted how the Chinese government operates.


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Photo credit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10136210.stm

China quake activist sentenced on subversion charges

A BBC article reports that Tan Zuoren, a Chinese activist, has been sentenced to five years in jail. One of Tan's lawyers, Pu Zhiqiang, said that "all of the proceedings were linked to 4 June (1989)." Tan was officially charged with igniting "subversion" related to the governmental suppression of the pro-democracy movement of the Tiananmen Square incident. However, Tan's supporters and human rights groups -- notably Amnesty International -- say that his investigation related to the construction-related causes of the 2008 Sichuan quake is the real reason for his conviction. Among the 80,000 that died in the 2008 earthquake, many were schoolchildren killed by the collapse of several thousand school buildings. Grieving parents and allegations of corruption in the school construction led to much public support for Tan's research, a fact that Roseann Rife, of Amnesty International, likely influenced the judicial decision to not include mention of the quake in the verdict, for fear of public backlash. Wang Quinghua, Tan's wife, said that "this isn't justice" and Pu said that Tan planned to appeal. Chinese artist and fellow activist for earthquake victims, Ai Weiwei, said that he thought this would be "a very important case for China...It shows the Chinese legal system has taken a big step backwards. Tan's crime was entirely one of speech, of conscience."

This case reveals a sad state for civil society in China. Like the situation of AIDS activist Wan Yanhai  who left China because of governmental pressure, this case involves undue suppression of interest groups and independent research. Yet Wan left the country as a preventive measure and was never arrested like Tan. In conducting research in the failed construction of schools, Tan was responding to public concerns, unlike the Chinese government who did not hold up promises of investigation. Chinese citizen-state relations are further compromised by the fact that Tan's original trial from last year was adjourned without a verdict, and this trial's verdict was decided upon and read out in about a mere ten minutes. A continual censorship of governmental criticism lends injury to the administration's legitimacy.

(Photo credit: Shanghaiist; BBC)

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AIDS Activist Leaves China After Government Pressure

“When I work in China, they can really find a target to attack. When I left, they no longer had a target.”

Wan Yanhai (CIES)

Edward Wong of the New York Times reports that, Wan Yanhai has left China for the U.S. with his family in order to better continue his work as an AIDS activist. Wan is the founder of a prominent AIDS activist group, the Aizhixing Institute (Bejjing), which had been the subject of increasing governmental pressure. Kate Krauss, Wan's friend and director of the AIDS Policy Project, said that it became "impossible for Wan Yanhai to remain in China" because of the government. The governmental pressures include scrutiny from the tax agencies. The tax officials were not local, but rather unusually, from a municipical authority. Wan's office was even investigated by the fire department, apparently to ensure the office was in line with fire safety codes. It is important to note that Wan is extremely notable in AIDS campaigning in China, and has, in fact, dealt with the government before. Aizhixing was founded in 1994, a time when AIDS was not spoken about much publicly. In 2002, Wan was detained for four weeks because of pointing his finger in the mid-'90s to the government’s negligence the cause of an HIV spread in Henan Province villages.

The inquiries on Wan are not isolated; they come at a time of increased inspection on all civil society groups -- particularly those that receive foreign investment. The vitality of grassroots organizations in an important indicator of the health of citizen-state relations. The fact that Wan had to relocate to Philadelphia in order to continue his activism is not a promising sign for the global legitimacy of the Chinese government. Also, in the last year, administrative pressure has been a method of pressure on civil society groups. For example, in July 2009, Gongmeng, a legal research organization in Beijing, was shut down and a leader detained after an investigation by tax officials.

Link to the English version of the Aizhixing site.

After Google's Move, a Shift in Search Terms

While "google" may be a common verb in the U.S., in China, it’s not a necessary part of the 21st Century lingo. Even though Google moved its East Asian headquarters to Hong Kong recently, effectively pulling the search engine out of Chinese control, many Chinese citizens don’t feel that they will miss it. As reported by Jonathan Stray and Lily Lee in the New York Times today, there are other options that are equally, if not more, popular. “I heard that Google is leaving China. But I don’t care. Why should I? I’m fine with Baidu,” said Xiong Huan, a 27- year-old engineer. Luo Peng, a Beijing salesman said that “Just like YouTube and Facebook, my life is fine without them. I can always use other similar services that are available.” However, the real political story is in the brief, but potent rise in search figures for politically sensitive terms the day that Google announced its shift. Tuesday, March 23rd was when Google began to offer uncensored Chinese-language search results. Interestingly, searches for “Tiannmen,” “Falun Gong,” and “corruption” increased by more than ten times on the same day. Yet the searches on the Hong Kong-based engine dropped soon, in part because even if search results do come up on controversial subjects, the sites themselves are still blocked.


The implications of this are important in citizen-state relations, foreign investments, and freedom of press. It is interesting that the citizens seem not to care as much; perhaps because they do have Baidu, which is always running unlike Google, albeit always censored. However, a clear thirst for censored information is evident through the searches. While Google is the dominant search engine in the Western world, China’s hacking and censorship is not attractive to foreign investors, particularly those that deal with sensitive information. Finally, freedom of press which is held paramount in Western-style democracy, is a definite hindering factor in China’s modernization.

China Intensifies Tug of War With India on Nepal

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (L, front) and Nepali Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal (R, front)

Jim Yardley wrote last week in the New York Times about the shifting foreign relations power structure in Nepal. The article discusses China's growing importance in the world and in South Asia, a region traditionally dominated by India. Nepal is situated between China and India, the two most populous countries in the world. The Himalayas have always been a solid physical barrier between China and Nepal, while the many cultural and economic ties to India have created a historical connection between India and Nepal. However, with the growing presence of China in the global sphere, it is very important for small nations like Nepal to keep good relations with the Chinese government. From the other side, Nepal appeared on China's radar during Tibetan protests erupted in March 2008, just months before the Beijing Olympic Games. While the Chinese government was able to block the international media from the protests in Tibet itself, the Nepali protests attracted much international attention. Ashok Gurung, director of the India China Institute at The New School, says that "the Chinese realized that Nepal is going to be an important site where they could potentially be embarrassed on Tibetan issues." Nepal is an important place in Tibetan issues because it has historically been a tacit transit for Tibetans to cross over to India for pilgrimages or higher education. For India's part, the country is not worried about economic competition so much as the threat of “political agitation on the Nepalese side of their shared border, as well as the possibility that terrorists trained in Pakistan could transit through Nepal."


This is an important illustration of China's growing strength in the world. Not only has China been strengthening ties with Nepal, with which it has the Tibet issue, it has been rapidly signing agreements with even the tiniest of South Asian countries like the Maldives. This signifies China's growing awareness of the importance of preemptively beneficial international treaties. Furthermore, the China-Nepal situation is evidence of China's continued antagonism of their Tibetan population. Tenzin Taklha, the secretary for the Dalai Lama, says that the China-Nepal agreements -- which include the stationing of Nepali armed police officers in isolated regions like Mustang and Manang on the border with Tibet and more security and vigilance on both sides of the border -- makes things "more difficult for Tibetans."


 

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Photo Source: Xinhua/Li Tao via

BBC Q&A: Who are the Uighurs?

Since July 2009, there have been ethnic riots and tension in China's Xianjiang region between the ethnic Uighurs and the overall Chinese majority group, the Han.

Who are the Uighurs? The BBC explains the long history of tension in a recent Q&A article (pasted below).

Who are the Uighurs?

 The Uighurs are Muslims. Their language is related to Turkish and they regard themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations.

China maintains a high military presence in the Xinjiang region.

The region's economy has for centuries revolved around agriculture and trade, with towns such as Kashgar thriving as hubs along the famous Silk Road.

In the early part of the 20th Century, the Uighurs briefly declared independence. The region was brought under the complete control of communist China in 1949. Officially Xinjiang is now described by China as an autonomous region, like Tibet to its south.



What are China's concerns about the Uighurs?


Beijing says Uighur militants have been waging a violent campaign for an independent state by plotting bombings, sabotage and civic unrest.
Since the 9/11 attacks in the US, China has increasingly portrayed its Uighur separatists as auxiliaries of al-Qaeda.
It has accused them of receiving training and indoctrination from Islamist militants in neighbouring Afghanistan, although little public evidence has been produced in support of these claims.
More than 20 Uighurs were captured by the US military after its invasion of Afghanistan. Although they were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for six years, they were not charged with any offence and many have now been accepted for resettlement elsewhere.


What complaints have been made against the Chinese in Xinjiang?



Activists say the Uighurs' religious, commercial and cultural activities have been gradually curtailed by the Chinese state.


China is accused of intensifying its crackdown on the Uighurs after street protests in the 1990s - and again in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.


Over the past decade, many prominent Uighurs have been imprisoned or have sought asylum abroad after being accused of terrorism.

China is said to have exaggerated the threat from Uighur separatists in order to justify repression in the region.

Beijing has also been accused of seeking to dilute Uighur influence by arranging the mass immigration of Han Chinese, the country's majority ethnic group, to Xinjiang.

The percentage of Han Chinese in the region has gradually been rising. Han currently account for roughly 40% of Xinjiang's population, while about 45% are Uighurs.


What is the current situation in Xinjiang?



Over the past decade, major development projects have brought prosperity to Xinjiang's big cities.

The activities of local and foreign journalists are closely monitored by the Chinese state and there are few independent sources of news from the region.

China has been keen to highlight improvements made to the region's economy while Uighurs interviewed by the press have avoided criticising Beijing.

However occasional attacks on Chinese targets suggest Uighur separatism remains a potent - and potentially violent - force.






Why did the July violence happen?




At least 150 people died in ethnic violence in July 2009 - and while officials say most of the dead were Han Chinese, Uighur groups deny this.

One of the sparks for the violence seems to have been the deaths of two Uighurs in clashes with Han Chinese at a factory in southern China in June.

On 5 July, Uighurs came out onto the streets of Urumqi to protest about these killings - but how and why these protests turned violent remains a contentious issue.

The authorities blame Xinjiang separatists based outside China for the unrest, and they have singled out exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.

"Rebiya had phone conversations with people in China on 5 July in order to incite," Xinjiang Governor Nur Bekri said in a televised address.

But Rebiya Kadeer told the BBC she was not responsible for any of the violence.

"Last time during the Tibet riots, [the Chinese government] blamed the Dalai Lama, and now with the Xinjiang riot, they are blaming me," she said.

Uighur exiles say police fired indiscriminately on peaceful protests - adding that this was what led to the violence and deaths.


Source:
"Q&A: China and the Uighurs." BBC NEWS | News Front Page | Asia-Pacific. British Broadcasting Corporation, 8 July 2009. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7540636.stm.

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Single-Party Democracy

In a recent New York Times article, Roger Cohen compares the economic effect of the differing family structures of China and the U.S. Cohen points out that the one-child policy makes children special in the family structure and thus the attention and investment in children is far greater than in the U.S. The article lauds China’s fast growth and says that it won’t stop anytime soon. While the negatives of China’s growth structure such as current housing bubbles are acknowledged, the article as a whole boosts China’s political decisions for their promptness. Intrestingly, this article comes at a time when there is rising resentment for the ineffectuality of the government in the face of the economic recession in America. Cohen says that the seemingly oxymoronic term “single-party democracy” has the potential to be the “most important political idea of the 21st century.” Although the Chinese government is extremely controlling, recent assortments in the form of nongovernmental organizations that work with the Chinese government.

The article touches on the comparative degress of perceived political effectuality and the economic progress in terms of family (social demographic effefct). Because China's government is centralized and does depend on the people's vote in daily matters, China, in the wake of a disaster, can act quickly instead of the slow political beaucracy of the American political scene; this leads to a trust that the government can acomplish change, although a faith that the government is neccesarily doing the right thing is not guranteed (this manifests itself in China's dismal human rights record). It is extremely important to note that this article is in fact an op-ed, meaning that Cohen's opinion permeates each paragraph as opposed to a simply, objective stating of the facts. It is clear throughout the article that Cohen is impressed with China; he glazes over any negative aspects of China's growth. He cites the stable family culture -- usually in the nuclear family form with Confucian values of filial duty -- as the grounding force which allows for rapid growth and acts as a "moral compass" in the face of modernity.

Click here to read the entire NYT article.

 

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Cohen, Roger. "Single-Party Democracy." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Jan. 2010.