The big question on many people’s minds is: Is this movie going to be a massive propaganda piece about the evil Nationalists (KMT) and a whitewashed version of the Communist Party of China (CPC, aka CCP)?

Actually, that question may be more prominent amongst foreigners and expats than Chinese. “Oh brother, there he goes again”, the peanut gallery groans. Come now, it’s true, and it’s true because — believe it or not — many Chinese already expect the film to be propaganda. They’re keenly aware of the circumstances surrounding it and the bigger question for them is: How many stars can they spot and identify?

Apparently there are 172 celebrities involved. Oh look, here's a poster with some them!

Propaganda Propaganda

But, going back to the question of greater import to my target audience, I’m happy to report that while a few events were portrayed in a noticeably skewed manner, there’s thankfully few — if any — obvious to outrageous rewritings of history (excusing dramatic artistic license). In fact, the movie was far more gracious in their handling of Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT Nationalists than I expected. (Of course, this was because I feared the worst from this movie, and now I probably owe the CCP responsible for this movie a measure of respect for, well, not living up to my fears.) Unlike so many lesser PRC produced films and television shows set in the Chinese Civil War era, Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT were not grossly vilified here. They were portrayed, I think, rather respectfully as multi-faceted humans with their human greatness, human flaws, and human mistakes.

Chiang Kai-Shek and Li Zongren, decked out in pimp regalia.

As for the Mao Zedong and the Communists, well, they were portrayed decidedly without much weakness and fault, save maybe being far poorer than the KMT Nationalists. While Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists are repeatedly shown being driven around in fancy cars and pondering the precariousness of their rule within grand villas, Mao & Co. are huddled in mud huts, conserving candles, and laughing about getting stewed meat twice a month. This juxtaposition, of course, serves to make Mao and his band of merry Communist leaders seem the rugged, scrappy, and long-suffering David that eventually brings down the Goliath.

Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, with dramatic shadows.

Despite the outward trappings of that Goliath, it is also shown as festering and faltering from political in-fighting, widespread corruption in its ranks, and declining popularity amongst the populace, while being abandoned by its American allies. All of these contribute to the eventual collapse of the KMT Nationalist government and their retreat/escape to the island of Taiwan. Chiang Kai-Shek’s famous reflection that the KMT largely screwed itself is also faithfully depicted.

Interestingly to reassuringly, the irony inherent in scenes concerning KMT Nationalist government corruption, and one particular scene of the KMT being publicly denounced for squelching speech and dissent, were not lost upon many of the Chinese in the cinema’s audience. They snickered their acknowledgment of these same problems continuing to plague modern China, under CCP rule, as they plagued China under the KMT over 60 years ago.

Amusingly to annoyingly, the film does seem to portray the Mao and the CPC’s ascension to power as being something “democratically” willed by a bunch of “pro-democracy” political parties at the 1949 Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) that established the PRC. This is done by repeatedly emphasizing their involvement and “pro-democracy” namesakes despite the fact that they made up less than half of the delegates (the rest were all CPC). Their opposition wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. As we know today, any of these political parties that survived have survived only in name, controlled and subservient as they are to the CPC.

At one point in the movie, where Mao had largely defeated the KMT and was beginning to establish the People’s Republic of China, one Chinese person commented: “And now Mao becomes the emperor.”

English Subtitles

Those who cannot understand Chinese will be pleased to know that the movie is almost completely subtitled in English. A few captions identifying many of the characters were not translated, but all the dialog is. That said, while the English subtitles are decent, I noticed some meaningful nuance and subtlety lost in the translations. Be prepared to see the word “democratic” thrown around a lot, and for those who are a bit confused by it, just remember you’re thinking of “democratic” slightly differently.

Lots of Commercials

One somewhat random thing I noticed were the massive amount of commercials preceding the start of the film. I’m not talking about previews for upcoming films but a long series of back-to-back 30-second commercial spots for both local and foreign brands alike, much of them being car commercials. This was notable because, in my experience, most movies start on the listed showtime in China, unlike America where most people take for granted that they can be slightly late to the theatre because the first few minutes are usually previews. For The Founding of a Republic, however, there was something like 8-10 minutes of commercials before the film finally started. This is unusual for most movies shown in China and I suspect a lot of companies intentionally purchased commercial time for this particular movie, expecting a whole lot of Chinese people to be hitting the cinemas to watch it. Makes sense, right?

Definitely Worth Watching

The Founding of a Republic isn’t a great movie, but it’s definitely good, having plenty of good acting, good scenes, and an inherently intriguing historical storyline. If you’re familiar with the history of the Chinese Civil War, you should enjoy it, partly checking if they’ve changed anything and partly to appreciate how they portrayed what happen over 60 years ago. If you’re like me, and generally pretty cynical about the CCP’s propaganda, I think you’ll also walk out appreciating the movie for not being the shameless propaganda piece we could easily imagine. Instead, it was a genuinely well-made film that helps us remember one of the most contentious and pivotal moments of modern Chinese history.

More information about “The Founding of a Republic” from the English-language China blogosphere:

• Preview and translated netizen comments by chinaSMACK.
• Translated netizen controversy over the actors’ nationalities by Global Voices Online.
• Review by Elaine Chow of Shanghaiist.

Post from: CN Reviews

The Founding of a Republic Not Overwhelmed By Propaganda!

Somewhat in line with the National Day Parade rehearsal photos Min posted yesterday, the following video on Youku has been making the rounds on the Chinese internet over the past week, having amassed over a million viewings, 6000 comments, and about four votes “against” (踩) for every vote “for” (顶)…giving you a general idea of what most Chinese viewing the video think of this part of their education system. Brace yourselves:

If you couldn’t make it all the way through the video, you’re not alone. It’s pretty long and, personally, it become unbearable with each successive scene of the school principal inspecting the various regiments (classes?) of assembled students, hollering “同学们辛苦了！(Students, you’ve worked hard! )” It was like Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day, but a lot less funny…if at all. Skip forward in the video and you’ll eventually come to scenes of the students, both boys and girls, rehearsing martial art forms — oh my god, were those real knives they were holding?!? — and even choreographed sparring matches. It wasn’t just the incorrect or exaggerated stances that were laughable, but the entire premise behind it all.

But then that’s exactly what we would think, wouldn’t it?

No, actually, I think there’s sufficient support to declare, admittedly with an appeal to majority fallacy, that all of this is a gratuitous waste of the kids’ time, ridiculously silly, and probably persists to this day only to serve as porn for someone in the Chinese government’s propaganda department to masturbate to.

However, I guess when you boil it down, this really isn’t fundamentally different from something like the Pledge of Allegiance or singing the Star Spangled Banner before a baseball game (for Americans). Wait…do American schoolchildren still say the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of class these days? Or have the atheists legislated it out of accepted practice in public schools already? “One nation, under God, indivisible…” and all?

Yet, beyond basic patriotic indoctrination education socialization, I’m sure these mandatory military training exercises for China’s students served a semi-practical purpose at one point in the PRC’s history…probably when Mao still had it in his head that the New China was liable to be invaded at any time…and the notion of breeding more Chinese than could be killed, then training them in basic hand-to-hand combat, seemed like a damn fine idea.

These days, however, when pretty much no one would seriously dick with China militarily, we can only conclude that all of these exercises, that suppress individuality to express group-think and group-identity, serve no other purpose than that aforementioned patriotic socialization.

…and to scare the living shit out of many a dumbfounded foreigner watching from afar.

Okay, not quite, since more often than not, that foreigner isn’t actually scared but rather just thoroughly constipated with disgust for the nationalism being “brainwashed” into the innocent but ever-so-impressionable youth. Get them while they’re young, right?

But with a 4:1 踩-顶 ratio, I wouldn’t worry too much.

Post from: CN Reviews

Military Training For China’s University Students (Video)

You see, unlike us bloggers who are more commentators than journalists, Ms. Branigan has the benefit of running around to the scenes of where the news actually happened, observing and interviewing the people involved. She does this professionally, which is something few of us bloggers can boast. In the hierarchy of first-hand, second-hand, third-hand observations and information, she’s often at least one level ahead of us all. While we can read their work whenever we want, we don’t always get to meet them in person, and get to know them as a person.

Emerging from the Nanjing Xi Lu Line 2 Metro station, I found Tania waiting at the No. 1 exit, having just purchased three books from a nearby carpet vendor. We shook hands as she commented about Beijing being more difficult to find people selling books off the streets (outside “Sanlitun expat world”) and I expressed surprise. Tania was shorter than I imagined as we rounded the corner onto the redeveloped end of Wujiang Lu and headed straight for the nearest coffee shop, Costa Coffee, to fulfill our plans for “meeting for coffee.” We ended up ordering two Mango-Passionfruit slushies (er, blended drinks).

So much for coffee, eh? I probably could’ve used it too, since I was still feeling a bit out of sorts from a rough night before (old friend in town). This “out of sorts”  also served to make me self-conscious for the rest of our conversation that afternoon as, in retrospect, I largely stuttered like a confused Hugh Grant throughout the entire meeting, ending every other thought coming out of my mouth with “but…yeah.”

Tania, of course, was a class-act, but I’m willing to entertain the notion that it’s just the British accent. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed sharing and hearing her insights on a wide variety of subjects ranging from the recent Urumqi riots to pop music to journalism to interracial “relationships” in China, amongst other things.  I won’t regale you with how Tania got her start in journalism by reviewing pop music (oops, just did) or our discussion about interracial power dynamics, but I can share one interesting insight into the recent Urumqi riots I hadn’t previously thought of and to which I must credit Tania:

Early on in our conversations, Tania explained that she reads CNR and reached out to me just to hang out (because I’m a cool guy and all). As she said this, she also told me how she thought I went easy on the Huffington Post article I recently reviewed, not quite taking Alexander Davenport to task as I should have. We agreed on the points that Davenport brought up as being relevant, but she suggested another angle neither Davenport nor I had considered:

Lhasa got more sustained coverage than Urumqi because…

1. There was more access to Urumqi than Lhasa last year. Journalists this time around were able to go in and talk to the people involved themselves, to learn more about what the Uighurs and Han and the government thought of the situation.
2. Likewise, more information came out of Urumqi more quickly in the first few days than in Lhasa. Was there more coverage of Urumqi in the first few days than there was of Tibet in its first few days? This then is about distribution of media coverage over time.
3. Related to the above, there were subsequent civil disturbances and rioting outside and after Lhasa last year. Did did media coverage for Lhasa seem “more” just because journalists kept revisiting it each time these things happened that didn’t for Urumqi?

I think these are good, realistic contributing explanations to the apparent disparity in Western media coverage that Tania raised to help us better understand what happened and why, specifically because they also don’t boil down to simple Western bias. To be fair to Davenport, he does acknowledge these points when he wrote that “China has become much more sophisticated in its engagement of the press since Lhasa”. However, it is clear that Davenport’s piece set out to highlight Western biases as they related to the coverage and not more mundane explanations as Tania offered above.

Tania has been in China for over a year now, usually based in Beijing, and she plans on being here for at least a few more years, relishing in the journalism she is able to do here, the breadth of stories she’s able to report and share. Much of her work specific to China, along with that of her photographer cohort Dan Chung, can be found in The Guardian’s “China at the crossroads” series, featured in both English and Chinese.

Read and watch more of Tania Branigan’s work at The Guardian »

Post from: CN Reviews

Tania Branigan: China Correspondent For The Guardian

Falun Gong, China, and biases…

Charles Custer has another great post at ChinaGeeks that touches upon a theme that have been popular on CNR recently: extremism, truths in the middle, and the understanding we “desperately, desperately need.” It also helps that he uses the the well-known Falun Gong as something of a lightning rod to make his point.

I’ve gone ahead and reprinted the entire text of Custer’s post below, again for the benefit of readers in China blocked by the Great Firewall. It appears that the page or the page’s URL trips a keyword filter, thereby reseting the connection when you try visiting it. The rest of ChinaGeeks is accessible as usual though.

UPDATE: Our man Custer has changed the URL which should be accessible now now. The links in this post reflect the new address.

Here we go:

Falun Gong and the Hardest Thing About Studying China

There is nowhere on earth we can learn about or read about without bias, but even given the assumption that bias exists everywhere, China might be the worst country in the world to attempt to study if you’re trying to assess the veracity of anything remotely controversial.

Let’s take, for example, the most recent English language issue of the Epoch Times, sitting for free on a table near the entrance of Yale University’s Hall of Graduate Studies. This issue begins their series marking the tenth anniversary marking the outlawing of Falun Gong in China in 1999, and contains several articles documenting the events that led to the ban. Specifically, they say the regime “zeroed in” on Falun Gong after the publication of Zhuan Falun (Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi’s rambling treatise). They don’t mention why, what was contained in the book, or, for that matter, that their newspaper was founded by Falun Gong members. It is as though the CCPs banning of Falun Gong was a thunderbolt out of a clear blue sky.

Of course, it’s not really a secret that the Epoch Times has an agenda. At best, their reports are “difficult to corroborate” (Orville Schell), at worst, they are an embarrassment to journalism. Still, they have their supporters. UPenn professor Arthur Waldron said “foreigners (and Chinese) who want to get a sense of what is really going on in China should pay at least as much attention to The Epoch Times as they do to the People’s Daily.”

As far as we can tell, he wasn’t intentionally being ironic, but it’s actually a great point. People searching for information on Falun Gong are likely to find a long list of articles and websites run by supporters or a long list of condemnations, depending on what language they’re searching in.

And the truth is, it’s very difficult to tell what the truth is. On the one hand, Falun Gong sounds an awful lot like some of the crazy cults that exist in the US; In the Zhuan Falun, Li Hongzhi writes that:

He can personally heal disease and that his followers can stop speeding cars using the powers of his teachings. He writes that the Falun Gong emblem exists in the bellies of practitioners, who can see through the celestial eyes in their foreheads. Li believes “humankind is degenerating and demons are everywhere”; extraterrestrials are everywhere, too; and that Africa boasts a 2-billion-year-old nuclear reactor. He also says he can fly.

On the other hand, at least some of the reported rights violations — which include some pretty horrifying things — are probably true. After all, the CCP is willing to abuse other citizens with reckless abandon, so why would Falun Gong practitioners be any different? As is often the case, it seems the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, but when it comes to China, the extreme voices are often so loud they completely drown out any moderates. Here, it’s People’s Daily vs. Epoch Times. A few weeks ago, it was People’s Daily vs. World Uighur Conference. Whenever the next issue comes up it will happen again.

The problem, of course, is that most people don’t care as much as we do, and aren’t willing to spend hours sifting through drivel and propaganda for the little nuggets of truth that accidentally got left lying around. So they end up believing that either one side or the other murders babies, and everyone digs in further. Falun Gong is an “evil cult” or China is an “evil empire”; there is no middle ground.

This kind of extremism prevents understanding when understanding is what we desperately, desperately need.

For the record, I personally think that Falun Gong is about as crazy as Scientology, and that China has every right to ban the spread of anti-science superstition as it leads to people making idiotic medical decisions; but I also think China could easily enforce this ban in a way that is nonviolent and that allows Falun Gong believers to think whatever they want (and do whatever exercises they want) so long as they stop telling people qigong can cure all of their diseases.

Also for the record, I’ll be monitoring the comments here pretty carefully as this has the potential to lead to its own idiotic screaming match between extremists. What we’re talking about here is how extremism prevents learning, growth, understanding, and intelligent discourse (or how it doesn’t).

Read this excellent post at its original location here »

Chinese websites for product reviews…

We haven’t featured an Adam Schokora “Friday 5″ post in a while so we’re a bit overdue for recommending that CNR readers take a gander over yonder for a collection of notable websites and web resources in and for China, this time for product reviews for restaurants, travel, cosmetics, information technology (IT), and education:

travel ::
Visiting someplace new with an untested tour agency can be an unsettling prospect, so many Chinese netizens turn to specific websites that offer peer recommendations and ratings. General review sites for travel include the popular portal for booking plane tickets and hotels, Ctrip (http://www.ctrip.com/ ). CTrip features a destination guide (http://destguides.ctrip.com ) whose landing page lists top-rated destinations, which at the moment are Hunan’s Zhangjiajie (http://bit.ly/oPHbt ), with over 11,626 reviews, and Yunnan’s Lijiang (http://bit.ly/yoij8 ), with around 1,600 reviews. Each review page has a combination of photographs, routes to nearby tourist and scenic spots (such as the Tiger Leaping Gorge outside of Lijiang), and a temperature graph for the area. In addition to rating the sites, netizens can ask and answer specific questions. The review section of travel portal Let’s Travel Together (http://www.17u.com/comment/ ) is more comprehensive, with destinations in every major city including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong, and smaller ones such as Wuhan and Suzhou. The website has community features in addition to straightforward reviewing: 17u hosts a blog section (http://www.17u.com/blog/ ) whose posts can be promoted through a “digg”-type system. On a smaller scale is the Yododo travel website (http://www.yododo.com/ ), which lets netizens search for reviews and upload videos from their favorite destinations (http://bit.ly/LYxf1 ). Yododo’s reviews are short and quick (http://www.yododo.com/review/ ), more like a message board than the in-depth analysis encouraged on other sites, and feature only one or two lines for each city. The range of travel review websites is quite broad: many individual destinations have websites devoted to them alone, where netizens can appraise food, lodging, and attractions. Zhangjiajie, for example, has a travel site with a review section (http://www.zjjok.com/dianping/ ), and the city of Wuhan hosts a travel website (http://www.gotowuhan.com.cn ) with a review subsite (http://dp.gotowuhan.com.cn/ ), as well as blogs (http://blog.gotowuhan.com.cn/ ) and a BBS discussion forum (http://bbs.gotowuhan.com.cn/ ).

If there’s a problem with Schokora’s “Friday 5″ posts, its the fact that the vast majority of these websites are all in Chinese and thus difficult to use for anyone who doesn’t actually read Chinese. Nonetheless, it’s free market research and information, which would be useful for anyone business-inclined. Do with it as you would. Read the full monty here »

China has more internet users than America has people…

You may have already heard the recent news that China now has a whopping 338 million internet users, especially since it got plenty of play on all the major news portals presenting it as a “hm, that’s interesting” news item of the moment. For those of you who haven’t, ChinaGeeks ran an a post a few days back with more “hm, that’s interesting” comparisons to help you digest what 338 million is like, along with a brief question as to how these massive and growing numbers relate to China’s internet censorship. An excerpt:

To start with, let’s get a handle on just how large a number that is. If every single person in the United States used the internet, we wouldn’t hit that mark. In fact, according to the US census bureau, China has more internet users than every other country has people (except India). But perhaps a visual aid is in order:

100,000,000 pennies.

That’s what a hundred million pennies would look like, stacked as tightly as possible. 300 million pennies would weigh over 900 tons, or approximately the weight of six blue whales. For an alternative frame of reference, open this site 338 times and count the dots. That’s how many people are using the internet in China right now.

Of course, by the time you finish counting all of those dots, there will be more. A lot more. In the past six months alone, 40 million Chinese people have joined the ranks of China’s netizen community. Some Chinese are using their phones to access it (155 million). Some are playing games (30 million new online gamers in the past six months). Some are online shopping (14 million new users in the past six months). Plenty are downloading music and watching videos.

Yeah, there are a lot of people in China. This is just another way to wrap your head around it. Go read the entire post »

Bonus! If you’re a bit well-versed in the internet or curious to learn more, you can also venture over and read a piece by a certain Ian Bell who is very skeptical of China’s internet numbers, suggesting that the government is playing up the numbers to attract foreign investment. If you’re well-versed in the internet industry, you’ll probably spot the glaring assumptions and errors in rationale immediately (i.e. Using Compete, Comscore, and Alexa to measure Chinese internet traffic? Are you serious?). If not, be sure to read the comments by Kaiser Kuo and Sage Brennan underneath the post.

I personally want to insinuate (well, so much for that) that Ian Bell’s approach to the issue is tainted with a bit of ethnocentrism, most telling in his flabbergasting of why “giants” like Microsoft, Google, Cisco, eBay, and Yahoo! haven’t been as resoundingly successful in China as he imagines they should be. The implication that they were somehow deceived or denied success by the shady Chinese government damnably overlooks the first thing that matters in business: how well one’s service/product meets the needs of the target market. So why does Ian assume success for them? Just because they were successful in the West?

Ian does make a few other tangential points in his piece, many of which aren’t really points as they are clichéd snipes, but I won’t discuss them at this time. Either way, the responses by Kuo and Brennan have good information for anyone interested in China’s internet scene. Go ahead and take a gander »

That’s it for this week. Have a link to a blog post that shouldn’t be missed? Be sure to share it with everyone in the comments, and don’t forget to tell us why you recommend it!

Post from: CN Reviews

Persecuted Religious Movements, Product Reviews, & Internet Stats

From The Huffington Post comes a good piece by Alexander Davenport that we’ve reprinted in full below  (interrupted by my comments) for the benefit of our Chinese readers behind the GFW for which The Huffington Post website is blocked:

Fair and Balanced: Urumqi Vs. Lhasa

When violence rocked Lhasa in April 2008, the Western media had a field day. For weeks, American news outlets reported on the violence and the subsequent Chinese response. Despite the rather low death toll (19 people), political leaders across the Western political spectrum called for sanctions, an Olympic boycott, and more. Protests that followed the path of the Olympic torch were given added vigor and scrupulous press coverage.

After the recent deaths of hundreds of Hans and Uighurs in Urumqi however, many media outlets covered the case and then quickly moved on. Even articles from the predictably sino-phobic New York Times have dwindled just two weeks after the riots and have lacked the anti-China vitriol that pervaded the Tibet reporting last year. And just days after the violence, the rioting in Xinjiang was moved out of the spotlight on CNN.com, NYtimes.com, Washingtonpost.com and Reuters.

This is puzzling. From a purely superficial view, the two instances are intriguingly similar: both involve disgruntled ethnic minorities attacking Han migrants and instigating widespread rioting. Moreover, American press was predisposed to run away with the story as the Xinjiang riots fit perfectly into the predictable, tired narrative that of the PRC as a ruthless, bloody oppressor. To be sure, the circumstances and context of the protests were different and the PRC has been a less than benevolent ruler of its border regions. This, however, does not wholly explain the differing press coverage. Why does rioting in Lhasa generate more interest than rioting in Urumqi?

I think he answers at least part of his own question with his first introductory paragraph: The Olympics. One key difference between the 2008 Lhasa riots and the 2009 Urumqi riots was that 2008 was China’s big Olympic year, whereas 2009 is not. While China was doing everything it could to prove something (or show off) to the world, it is human nature for others to resist it. This includes going so far as tempering and humbling China’s “moment”, bringing it down a notch to remind the Chinese, others, and themselves of China’s flaws, weaknesses, and dirt. Lhasa got more press coverage and spawned more reactions than Urumqi partly because many parties had an interest in making statements about China while everyone cared to watch China. Not surprising, is it?

While it is certain that China has become much more sophisticated in its engagement of the press since Lhasa, this does not explain away the American media’s reaction to the Xinjiang riots. It is possible that the press is predisposed to report about the Tibetans and predisposed against reporting about the Uighurs given the underlying cultural attitudes towards both people in America.

For starters, Tibet is romanticized in American popular culture. Certainly, the Tibetan cause is worthy of attention and concern. But let’s be completely frank here: there are millions of oppressed minorities across the globe. Few of them have Green Day play benefit concerts, Richard Gere as a spokesman, and near universal notoriety and support across college campuses. Simply put, Americans are besotted with the vision of Tibet as an idyllic land of monks and nirvana.

The Uighurs on the other hand, do not have a charismatic Nobel laureate leader, a Hollywood following, nor a political support network. Moreover, the Uighurs are — dare I say it — Muslim. And as a restive Muslim minority with a streak of violent separatist attacks, Uighurs are unlikely to engender much political goodwill on Capitol Hill or from the Washington Post editorial page in a post-9/11 world. A random sampling of American reader comments on Xinjiang articles recently shows an antipathy towards the Uighur cause as a result of its conflation with anti-American terrorist organizations. Whether America’s less than balanced press coverage stems from this sentiment (or perhaps vice versa) is unclear. What is clear, however, is that American media has deemed rioting Tibetans a more worthy topic of sustained coverage than rioting Uighurs.

Right, the ascetic Tibetan Buddhists are more cuddly than terrorist Muslims dichotomy. To Davenport’s credit, this was much better presented than the Glen Greenwald of Salon’s frightening geopolitical lamentation that the Uighur’s “Muslimness” got in the way of “the opportunity they present to undermine the Chinese government.”

The secular pseudo-Christian Western world is indeed less sympathetic to the Muslims. It is also indeed far too starry-eyed about Tibet. For Americans, for both, perhaps more so.

To be sure, the discrepancy in the reporting on both incidents is not in and of itself a cause for concern. After all, American media attempts to provide what the American public demands — no matter how warped the beliefs that fuel these demands are. It does, however, bear examining precisely why we feel the way we do towards one minority group but not the other — perhaps equally as important but slightly less photogenic — group. We should be sure that given the finger wagging approach commonly used by Americans towards China in regards to minority human rights, we have founded these beliefs on accurate and balanced information, not ingrained cultural stereotypes nor media misrepresentations. Whether our fourth estate is up to the task remains to be seen.

Wait, did he just suggest that Uighurs are “slightly less photogenic” than Tibetans? LoL…what the…why? Are we talking about the people themselves or the settings (you know, mosques vs. temples)?

Subjective declarations of photographic attractiveness aside, Davenport’s big point is worth highlighting:

1. Are Americans and the West being hypocrites?
2. Are Americans and the West biased, selective in what they believe, support, and fight for?
3. Has the press, as the fourth estate, done its job in presenting “accurate and balanced information”?
4. Or has it merely fed and reinforced the “ingrained cultural stereotypes” and “media misrepresentations”?

Davenport’s piece isn’t unique, as similar articles with similar sentiments have been written by others both in the traditional media and on the web. However, the best way to appreciate it is to compare it to another piece also recently published on The Huffington Post, this time written by a certain Alison Kilkenny.  The subject is again about the Urumqi riots and, like Mr. Davenport’s post above, it argues that the Western media didn’t pay enough attention to the Urumqi riots. The reason it offers, however, is slightly different: The West cares but, you know, they just didn’t hear enough of the Uighurs’ side of things. If only they knew…

If Only the Uighurs had Twitter

More than 4,000 Uyghurs have been arrested by the Chinese government since July 5. Almost 200 have been killed. Thousands have been injured. This violence follows the pattern of arbitrary detention, imprisonment, torture and execution that has enraged Westerners when it has occurred in places like Iran. Yet there is little attention being paid to the suppression of the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority, in the Western media.

It strikes me as either suspicious or intellectually dishonest that Alison rattles off these numbers as fact with nary a single citation or link to where she got these numbers. It isn’t as if she’s an old media writer who doesn’t know what hyperlinks are, she just selectively picks and chooses which statements she feels obligated to substantiate while leaving the others as indisputable assertions of fact (see below). Apparently she felt fine implying in context that only Uighurs were arrested, killed, and injured in her opening paragraph, when reports clearly indicate otherwise (even better Urumqi riot coverage here, here, and here).

Despite the vomit gargling in my throat, I’ll go ahead and reprint the rest of Alison’s article in its entirety for consistency and, again, for the benefit (in this case, perhaps intelligence-deflating detriment) of our GFW-blocked readers in China. Emphases are all mine, and again interspersed with my comments:

The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) is now concerned that mass executions of Uyghurs will soon be carried out, as promised by Chinese officials.

You mean like how public prosecutors seek the death penalty against criminals who do really, really horrible things?

“We believe that the Chinese government’s spin has influenced the reaction of the world community … causing Uyghur repression to receive less attention than events such as the suppression of the Iranian people,” wrote Amy Reger, a researcher at UHRP, during our email correspondence. The Chinese government has also been successful in cutting access to cell phones and the Internet, including Twitter. The government did this “in order to prevent a spread of citizen journalism such as that which occurred in Iran. We believe that, had this not occurred, news of the mass killing of Uyghurs by Chinese security forces may have been able to reach the outside world more effectively,” Reger added.

Others like Davenport suggest the reaction of the world community had something to do with the Uighurs being Muslim, but Amy Reger of the “Uyghur Human Rights Project” believes the world community bought all that Chinese government “spin.” Last I checked, pretty much no one except mainland Chinese people bought the Chinese government’s statements. And even amongst the Chinese, they’re generally pretty skeptical (though like most, pretty willing to buy into whatever fits into their biases).

I do think there’s a point about cell phones, internet, and Twitter being cut. The thing is, if we use last year’s Lhasa riots as a guide, there’s a good chance the citizen journalism that would’ve come out would more corroborate Uighur violence on Hans (and apparently themselves too) than the other way around, just as citizen journalists and actual journalists in Tibet last year came out tempering the Western media and community’s imbalanced presentation of Tibetan violence in Lhasa.

UHRP is also concerned that there have been no reported arrests of Han Chinese who have reportedly beaten and killed Uyghurs in two days of violence in Urumchi. In early July, Han Chinese residents of Urumchi took to the streets with clubs, sticks and other weapons to seek revenge on Uyghurs who had injured and killed Chinese people on the previous day. “We condemn the killings and injuries of Han Chinese people. However, we also believe that large numbers of Uyghurs were killed and injured on July 6 and 7, and their deaths have not been reported,” says Reger.

No reported arrests of Han Chinese? Either we’re not reading the same reports or there’s a lot of selective reading going on. The reports I’ve read from the mainstream media (again, great collection of reports here, here, and here) seem to all include Uighur death tolls and arrests that implicitly include Han Chinese though largely Uighur. Is it really that surprising that those suspected of starting the violence get arrested?

Reger and UHRP accuse the Chinese government of engaging in spin by providing only images of violence instigated by Uyghurs against Han Chinese, in an effort to “fan the flames of nationalism and divert attention from the serious, underlying grievances that drove Uyghurs to protest, at first peacefully.” Reger cautions Western journalists to critically analyze any information given to them by the Chinese government and media as it is likely state propaganda.

State propaganda? From the Chinese government? No way! Okay, while I doubt any Western journalist needs to be reminded to “critically analyze” the information the Chinese government and media feeds it, I’ll accept this as good general advice…er, caution.

But here’s the thing: I’m not entirely sure Amy Reger of “Uighur Human Rights Project” is some neutral party with a monopoly on the truth either. We know the Chinese government in full tilt information management mode is shameless. We’ve come to expect it. It is so shameless, and blatantly so, that we want to be on the “other” side of it.

It’s just disappointing to see that other side be just as shameless.

The two trends of Uyghur coverage in the media are exclusion and suppression. In addition to the deaths of Uyghur activists being almost completely whitewashed from the news,…

Completely whitewashed? Are you serious? One of the big surprises of the entire Urumqi riot news event was just how quickly the Chinese government came out and reported Uighur deaths both domestically and abroad. It was so unexpected, skeptics the world over instantly wondered if it was just an excuse to also report how many Han deaths there were in comparison, you know, to “fan the flames of nationalism.”

…the Chinese government is publicly calling for the censorship and suppression of Uyghur activists. Most recently, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei has called for the U.S. government to “restrict the activities” of Uyghur activist Rebiya Kadeer. The Chinese government blames Kadeer for instigating the violence in one of its most volatile regions, Xinjiang. Kadeer is a human rights activist who spent five years in jail in China and now lives near Washington, and has accused the Chinese government of repressing Uyghurs, destroying their culture and curbing their religious freedom.

The political pressure from Beijing isn’t limited to heads of states. Richard Moore, head of the Melbourne International Film Festival, said two Chinese directors have boycotted Australia’s biggest film festival over the screening of a documentary about Kadeer. The directors pulled their films after Moore ignored political pressure from Beijing. “It makes me feel angry, annoyed and irritated all at the same time, that they would try to interfere with our programme for blatantly political ends,” Moore told the AFP news agency.

Reger stresses that subdued media coverage stifles the possibility of western solidarity movements. It’s not that Americans don’t care about Uyghurs. They just don’t hear about the systematic slaughter of the Uyghur people by the Chinese government.

Ugh, “solidarity movements.” I’m having horrifying flashbacks of Berkeley already…

And “systematic slaughter” of Uighurs? Must be like the picture above, right? Geez…do I really need to say something about this or can I trust that anyone with two brain cells to rub together will scoff with me?

“We ask the Chinese government to allow journalists access to East Turkestan and Uyghurs without any conditions to investigate the unrest in Urumchi and its aftermath.

Somehow I don’t think this request of the Chinese government is going to get approved when you refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan. But then again, Reger and the UHRP isn’t really “asking” the Chinese government as much as they’re just putting out their platform and — dare I say it — “spin“.

This access to East Turkestan will be critical in the coming days as looming executions of Uyghurs on political charges come ever nearer.” (Urumchi Party Secretary Li Zhi said at a press conference on July 8 that authorities would use the death penalty for crimes connected to events on July 5. “To those who have committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them.”)

Arguments over capital punishment aside, I can’t say I find a country willing to use the death penalty on “those who have committed crimes with cruel means” to be that unimaginable. The key phrase here would be “with cruel means.” I think malevolently running around throwing people to the ground and then bashing their heads open sounds pretty cruel, what about you?

Reger adds, “We fear that a number of Uyghurs are going to be executed unnoticed by the world. In order to prevent such state-sanctioned killing we require the eyes of the world’s media and the world’s governments to remain on East Turkestan and to speak out against a further abuse of the Uyghur people’s human rights.”

The United States government could aid human rights activists by flexing its diplomatic muscle and exerting pressure on the Chinese government to opens its borders to foreign journalists. Only with the presence of a free and open press can a proper western solidarity movement form for the repressed Uyghur people.

Fin.

Eh, I have nothing against human rights and repressed Uighur people. But I do have something against using the same shameless propaganda and spin one hypocritically accuses the Chinese government for. At the very least, don’t be so blatantly obvious about it.

What do you think? Was Western media coverage of Urumqi less than Lhasa? Was it because Uighurs are Muslim? Was it because the evil Chinese government successfully prevented the rest of the world from finding out about all its “systematic slaughter”? Was it because the West actually just doesn’t care as much?

Images: Courtesy of ESWN and wherever Soong got them from.

Post from: CN Reviews

Urumqi vs. Lhasa News, Uighurs vs. Iranians, Progaganda & Spin

Football or Hegemony: Choose One

From the monolithic blog that is known as The Huffington Post comes the following hilarious hilarious post in reaction to the FIFA Confederation Cup Finals which saw the unlikely soccer-playing Americans square off against football-playing Brazil and nearly win the series up 2-0 before those Brazillians rally back 3-2 to prevent hell from freezing over. For the convenience and edification of our readers in China for which The Huffington Post is blocked by the GFW, we’ve reprinted the complete text of the post below:

So the United States lost to Brazil in the final of the FIFA Confederations cup, in that thrilling but painful tale of two halves, with the U.S. up 2-0 only to see Brazil roar back (or rather dance and prance and glide with balletic ferocity) and win 3-2. All I can say is, thank god.

For the past sixty years, the powerhouses of international soccer (a.k.a. football) either have been empires past their prime and on the decline or countries that dream fruitlessly of empire – England, France, Italy, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, and Spain. To bestride the world as a soccer power is to not bestride it as an economic or military power. In its period of global hegemony, the United States was manifestly not a global powerhouse in soccer. It was mighty in everything but the sport that is played by more people in every corner of the world than any other. And so if the United States had magically defied the odds and the gods and beaten Brazil, it would have been the final sign that American is indeed in decline.

Of course, the United States may already be in irreversible relative decline, its near miss against Brazil notwithstanding. But for a moment at least, order was maintained. The other rising global power, namely China, shares with the United States an historical ineptitude for the game.

Argentina – with its rich tradition of World Cup prowess, its intellectual sophistication and its astonishing natural resources – was once thought of a hemispheric challenger to the United States, before Juan Peron and Evita cemented the country’s fate as a montage for an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Its victories in soccer are in almost inverse proportion to its political and economic stability.

Yet, there is the case of Brazil, which has been defying the odds and has started to demonstrate real leadership and success in today’s globalized economy. It has a confident and thriving middle class, energy independence and cutting edge use of biofuels, as well as decreasing corruption. That may explain why the national team has struggled of late, as Brazil attempts the rare feat of having both an ascendant national economy and a dominant football team.

For now, the world order is not yet dramatically upended, but as the game demonstrated and as the last year has proven, that order is in flux and the old hierarchies are unlikely to remain in place for long.

So is this good news or bad news for Americans? Perhaps it is just a strong warning for the MLS to sacrifice their aspirations for the good of the nation? Read the original at The Huffington Post »

Transformers 2 as American Propaganda and Arms Advertising

Another one to categorize under “shits and giggles” is this China Youth Daily article, as translated by the ever-heroic Roland Soong of EastSouthWestNorth, which outlines three arguments for how Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a big showcase advertisement for the sale of American arms, propaganda for all countries to cooperate with the United States, and an idealization of American soldiers. An excerpt:

Watching Transformers 2 was undoubtedly an audio-visual feast. Just like the first movie, this was not just an entertainment film for the eyes and ears, because it also reflects the ideology and attitudes of America. Through this film, the intention of the American military to promote its global strategy and armament was expressed to its fullest.

First, the advanced weaponry of the American military was fully presented in Transformers 2.

The American Defense Department provided the White Sands missile testing ground to the film crew for the final battle scene. In terms of weaponry, it provided two A-10 jet fighters, six F-16 jet fighters, ten armored Hummer vehicles, two M1A2 tanks and the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.

As everybody knows, these are the “traditional products” that America pushes in the international armaments market. The movie showed the mobility and excellent qualities of these products. They are going to be tempting for arms purchasers as well as nations in conflict zones. In reality, these are not the most advanced weaponry. For example, take the F-16 jet fighters that American likes to sell to conflict zones and third world countries. Although it has a mature technology, it is not the most advanced American jet fighter. The most advanced American jet fighter is the F-22, but it is not being exported. Technologically speaking, the F-22 is a complete generation ahead of the F-16.

In conclusion: You can watch my advanced weaponry in this movie! Come and buy some now! But I won’t sell you my best stuff! So even if you spend a lot of money, you won’t be able to beat me!

Is that whining I hear? Yes, definitely whining.

But then again, this is an article written for the home (Chinese) audience and insofar as it’ll negate or counter the possible propagandic influence such a movie might have, it’ll work. While many of us, when prompted, can easily see the commercial and patriotic tie-ins such a film certainly incorporates, there are many Chinese (and us) who might need a government mouthpiece to spell it out for them. This article does just that and, regardless of how juvenile some of the complaints or criticisms may be, one really needs to sit back and appreciate how fearsome American pop culture is influence is. After all, can we really argue that other nations can’t find American ideology and attitudes to run counter to their own national interests?

Read the Chinese version as posted at KDNet » or read the English translation at EastSouthWestNorth »

July 7th UPDATE: Imagethief’s Will Moss just published a great response to the same article, with a somewhat pornographic title – Hard robots, soft power »

Post from: CN Reviews

American Hegemony Tied To Football & Transformers!

中共学校在灌输共产主义向东南亚的扩张计划，泰王国学校在教授正规的文理科知识。

“Communist Chinese schools are indoctrinating the Communist plan to expand towards Southeast Asia.
The Kingdom of Thailand’s school  are teaching standard/appropriate arts and sciences knowledge.”

中国人民被剥夺了迁徙和远程交通的自由；泰王国人民则相反。

“Chinese people stripped of the freedom to migrate or travel long distances.
The Kingdom of Thailand is the opposite.”

共产党强行拆散老百姓的家人； 泰王国的人民安居乐业。$

“The Communist Party forcefully breaks apart the common people’s family members.
The Kingdom of Thailand’s people live and work in peace and happiness.”

共产党肥公损私，不允许中国人民有足够的私人财产，泰王国人民则生活富足。

“The Communist Party makes fattens the public and deprives the private, not allowing the Chinese people to have sufficient private property.
The people of the Kingdom of Thailand however live comfortably in abundance.”

中国人民被共产党强制义务劳动；泰王国人民可以自主安排劳作。

“The Chinese people are forced to perform voluntary labor.
The people of the Kingdom of Thailand can freely arrange their own labor.”

产党拆除佛像、逮捕佛教僧侣；泰王国则充分保护佛教信仰的自由。

“The Communist Party tears down images of Bhudda and arrest Buddhist monks; the Kingdom of Thailand however fully protects the freedoms of Buddhist believers.”

Is propaganda still propaganda if you agree with it?

Post from: CN Reviews

Thai Anti-Communist Propaganda Pictures From The 1960s

“Nanjing! Nanjing!“ (aka “City of Life and Death“) is a new movie by Chinese director Lu Chuan about the Nanjing Massacre that occurred when Japanese forces overran the then-capital of China in World War II. If you’re a China basher, you might say it is “yet another” movie about the Nanjing Massacre, evidencing how the Chinese simply refuse to let go of their persistent preoccupation with how the Japanese devils once humiliated their great nation and deeply scarred their people. Either way, it is a movie I strongly recommend you watch, even if it is the edited and cut version being shown in China.

Preceding the movie’s opening, many jaded expats and foreigners were quick to bemoan the possibility of “yet another” propaganda piece timed to whip up nationalist indignation and fervor, ever so coincidentally timed for the 60th anniversary of Communist China. Suggestions that China make a film about the atrocities it committed on itself rained from the peanut gallery. One recommendation: “Tiananmen! Tiananmen!” Zing, right?

What about the Chinese themselves? What did they think? chinaSMACK, as usual, translated some mainland Chinese netizen comments, and the WSJ’s China Journal also translated uh…five. Notable were the nationalistic comments of those who were rather indignant that the movie dared to have a sympathetic Japanese character in “Nanjing! Nanjing”, as if the existence of a single conflicted and remorseful human on the Japanese side amounts to making excuses for the Japanese:

Japan still has not come out to apologize, yet we Chinese have already explained come out expressing our guilt for making this film, what kind of bullshit logic is that! In order to achieve doing something different, they are joking around with historical facts. Listen to the reactions [to the film] of the only surviving comfort woman of the Nanjing Massacre, “At the time, the sights were much more terrifying than those shown in the movie, I have never met a Japanese person that has found their conscience like those in the movie.” Luchuan [the director], 300,000 Nanjing souls will not forgive you, you modern Chinese traitor, for covering up the Nanjing Massacre for the Japanese!

That bloody and tearful bitter history of the Chinese nation, as Chinese of a later generation, we must never forget nor should we forget. Speaking of forgiveness, some things cannot be forgiven. Compassion for the enemy is cruelty to ourselves.

I am extremely angry after watching the movie. It sees the war merely from the perspective of Japanese soldier–focusing on his personal experience and feelings about the massacre…It’s not a movie for patriotic education, but a Japanese movie shot by Chinese director… The Nanjing Massacre was not war, but a brutal crime against international law. So if the movie doesn’t disclose and denounce the crime in this light, I don’t think it’s appropriate from any other angle.

Heh, international law. That’s funny.

Also notable were the comments of those who seemed to be imploring their fellow Chinese to not be afraid of watching this movie and instead bravely face their painful history, you know, as if the Chinese as a society has been repressing this traumatic memory and not incessantly sprinkling reminders of it throughout the education system and popular media. Quite a few expats must’ve chocked on their disbelief, scoffing at the disingenuous notion that any Chinese actually fear facing the horrifying truth of how evil those evil Japanese devils really were when it seemed to them that they routinely relish slathering themselves in it.

Only by facing history can tragedy not be repeated. After so many years, how many people can clearly know the truth of what happened during the war against Japanese aggression?

Strongly ding this up. We Chinese have too strong imaginations, always taking everything and thinking about them in our own subjective ways, often overlooking the truth. We always want other people to face history, yet we ourselves instead are always and ceaselessly avoiding it. Those media should stop talking about Red Cliff all day and give this movie some hype. If this movie does not become China’s most popular/successful movie, then that would be our sorrow/tragedy.

I went to the premiere of the movie, and I think it’s indeed a great movie. If we avoid mentioning the topic simply because it’s painful, who will remember the disaster and learn from it?

Lu Chuan’s “Nanjing! Nanjing!” succeeds largely for the same reasons Feng Xiaogang’s 2007 “Assembly” succeeded: Focusing on the human stories. Both movies had riveting action sequences that were criticized as evidence of the films’ commercialization of historical subject matter to the detriment of, I dunno, teaching some obvious moral lesson about the evil Japanese to the masses.  However, the bulk of both movies were about the personal trials and tribulations of its characters as they sought to fight for their country, survive, save those they cared for, or come to terms with the horrors they witnessed or carried out in the excesse of war.  Of course, whereas “Assembly’ was mainly a narrative about a single soldier’s survivor guilt, “Nanjing! Nanjing!” is definitely as much about the gruesome barbarity as it was about the victims who suffered them. Accordingly, and in arguable contrast to “Assembly”, it includes scene after scene of the madness that enveloped these poor souls in Nanjing.

Despite the mainland version having cut out certain more graphic scenes, so as not to offend the fragile sensibilities of the innocent mainland audiences, what I saw was plenty to ensure that I will never forget just how many inhuman ways of abuse and death were employed by the Japanese imperial army during their rampage across China. It isn’t going to make me suddenly eschew all common sense and vociferously hate all modern Japanese for the ills of their ancestors, but I will forever emotionally remember — for lack of a better expression — just how fucked up people can be given the right circumstances.

However, these scenes of brutality, however shocking or illuminating they might be, are not going to connect “Nanjing! Nanjing!” to its audience. Rather, it will be the numerous scenes of complete and utter humanity that offers audiences a precious opportunity to better understand both others, themselves, and what we’re all capable of. These include the scenes of cowardice and bravery,  defiance and resignation, self-preservation and self-sacrifice. They include the supplication for survival of a portly Shanghai husband and father, the helplessness of a compassionate German forced to give up his charges, and yes, the small things a bewildered Japanese soldier does or doesn’t do. It is this movie’s ability to give those viewers with minds and hearts open enough the opportunity to identify with each of these characters and the scope of gritty emotions they represent that makes “Nanjing! Nanjing!” a Chinese movie worthy of being compared to a spiritual predecessor, “Schindler’s List.”

For the foreigners, do not dismiss “Nanjing! Nanjing!” as a Chinese propaganda film. For the Chinese hyper-nationalists, do not denounce it for not being one. Set aside your preconceived biases and watch the film for what it was meant to be: A tale of the humanity found amongst inhumanity. Go watch it.

In case you’re wondering, my MAN-card did indeed check itself out for most of the movie. I got pretty chocked up even from the early battle scenes, and was shamelessly wiping streams of tears off my face throughout 3/4ths of the film. “Assembly” one-upped “Nanjing! Nanjing!” in the tear-jerk department by having me outright bawling for the second half of the movie. Yeah…what can I say? I’ve got a big heart of gold.

So, what did YOU think of the movie, “Nanjing! Nanjing!”?

Post from: CN Reviews

Nanjing! Nanjing! Movie Excellent, Made Me Cry Like A Little Girl

Several days ago, ESWN posted a translation of a Tianya post titled “What is the reason China’s younger generation is losing confidence in the Western media?”

More than a decade ago, a Chinese diplomat gave a speech in which he narrated a story. At a certain UN meeting, the British representative condemned China for not being sufficiently democratic as usual. The Chinese representative retorted, “Your country has been promoting democracy in Africa for more than a century, but how is it doing now?” The British representative shut up …

This is one example of the western nations promoting their values. They have many methods, including hard and soft methods. The hard methods involve the United States and Great Britain pushing democracy in the Middle East, but all they got was a quagmire. The soft methods involve the western media using their international speech rights to