Contrary to myths and assumptions, economic liberalization and development will not inevitably lead to corresponding political liberalization and development. Economic power has only reinforced an increasingly absurd state power in China.
On May 9, China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s (CNOOC) first deepwater drilling platform began operating in the South China Sea. The world-class vessel is stationed in the Liwan 6-1-1 field, about 320 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong, in waters about 1,500 meters deep.
At this very hour, one early May, just shy of a half century ago, I married a girl from Shanghai and we launched our joint adventure.
Ever since, Bette Bao and I have practiced the precept of Adam Smith—division of labor. She manages our finances and real estate. I changed the diapers and scooped up after our frisky lab. You, clever students, have surely discerned the underlying theme to my responsibilities. I, clever Yale man, foresaw that someday my foul duties would be done and Bette’s never ending.
When Bo Xilai, the now-sacked Chongqing party chief, blanketed the city with a Maoist-style campaign of nationalism and state control, the critics who worried about the dangers of reviving red culture in modern Chinese society included the Communist Party's top leaders. Premier Wen Jiabao and others have publicly countered Bo's rhetoric, warning that it could throw China back into the worst practices of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. But this battle is not limited to government-controlled discourse. As the country looks ahead to its leadership transition amid political and economic uncertainties, Chinese officials and citizens alike are looking back into their country's recent past. The Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine, taboo subjects for half a century, are re-entering the public discourse. As China resurfaces these two traumatic events, the competing narratives may shed some light on the dynamics and tensions of today's China and its future.
Over the weekend the International Herald Tribune ran a version of an opinion piece I'd had in the NYT Sunday Review section, itself a version on an argument in my book, about the next stage in China's development. Its main point was to ask whether the strategy behind the huge Chinese achievement of the past thirty years -- that of alleviating poverty on a wide scale through an emphasis on construction, infrastructure, and low-wage manufacturing, was likely to be a help or a hindrance as Chinese companies tried to become high-wage, high-value, international brand competitors. How would we know whether the Chinese system was becoming capable of competing with Apple, rather than outsourcing for Apple.
Since I arrived in the United States on May 19, people have asked me, “What do you want to do here?” I have come here to study temporarily, not to seek political asylum. And while I pursue my studies, I hope that the Chinese government and the Communist Party will conduct a thorough investigation of the lawless punishment inflicted on me and my family over the past seven years.
Netizens are getting younger and younger these days. In China over a quarter of children under 7 are already online, according to a 2011 report on Internet usage by minors. And parents are not happy about it.
At a monthly “friends of farming” dinner held by Green Heartland, an NGO based in Chengdu, west China, Chen Xia quietly reads an ode to the land against light background music. It’s a simple thanksgiving ceremony the hosts conduct before leaving the diners to tuck into a feast of organic produce and listen to farmers talk about their lives and land.
Lovell has taken pains to present a series of lively and precise portraits of the major protagonists of the First Opium War such as the Emperor Daoguang, imperial commissioner Lin Zexu and his Manchu successor Qishan, and on the British side, foreign secretary Lord Palmerston and Chief Superintendent of the China trade Charles Elliot. It is a judicious choice, considering that distance conferred on the actors on the ground much freedom of action: it should be borne in mind that for the British forces, the operation theatre was many months' voyage from the mother country.
From their website:
The French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) is a publicly funded research institute, part of the network of the 27 French research centres abroad supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the CNRS.
