Chinese Democracy

No, this is not about politics. Fools.

My first Guns 'n' Roses album was Appetite For Destruction. I didn't buy it - I swapped it for Michael Jackson's Thriller. It must have been sometime in the early nineties. Nevermind was all the rage, Kurt Cobain was still alive, and I was just becoming musically aware. Nirvana was the background music of my early teenage years, but GNR was souffle to my ears.

The deep affection I felt for this band hasn't waned over time, but it has morphed. When I was not yet a teenager I found the unbridled energy of the driving guitar solos thrilling. Each song was a wild ride of testosterone-fuelled excess. As my musical tastes developed, I began to notice the almost comically ridiculous nature of the band's antics. And lyrics. And hair. And everything else about them. But the shine has never worn off.

In 2007, I had the good fortune to go and see the band live in my hometown of Perth, Western Australia. Actually, it was not GNR, but Axl Rose was the swaggering frontman, and all the classics were played. Middle-aged, carrying a few extra kilos and some ridiculously plaited long dyed blonde hair, he wouldn't be out of place in certain seedy areas of Bangkok. But he belted out the music with the force of a sonic tsunami - even if he did pant a bit in between songs. Jumping and swaying in between bearded bogans* - and their equally bearded bogan mothers, I fell in love with Gunners all over again. This time as something that was almost as a parody of itself. Music, and an image that is sublime in its ridiculousness, and proud of it.

And so it is with considerable bogan relish I would like to announce that the final musical fruit of the band is about to be released to a record store near you.

Unless you are in China. I just can't see the album name getting past the censors.

Guns N' Roses' long-awaited, endlessly delayed new album, Chinese Democracy, finally has a release date. According to the music industry site Hits Daily, the CD will drop at all Best Buy stores, where it is an exclusive, on the Sunday prior to Thanksgiving, November 23. This will give the album a full seven days on sale before entering the chart on December 2. Best Buy's sales week runs from Sunday through Saturday night.

What were they thinking when they came up with this album name 12 years ago??


*A bogan is southern Australian slang for white trash. More or less.

AXL: On a crusade for democracy.

Skype censorship

According to this article:

China is monitoring the chat messages of Skype users and censoring them if they contain sensitive keywords such as Tibet or Communist
Party, according to a group of Canadian researchers.The massive surveillance operation of TOM-Skype, a joint venture between Chinese mobile firm TOM Online and Skype, owned by US online auction house eBay, was alleged by Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto research group.

This may or may not be true. I use Skype quite a bit though, and I can't say I have ever noticed interference (supposedly words like Tibet attract attention). Then again, I don't chat in Chinese all that much, so possibly it is only the Chinese that is being monitored.

It also sounds like a hell of a lot of effort to go to to stop a few conversations. I'm not calling bullshit yet, but I would like to know more.

Censorship

The following article was written by a chief executive in a Chinese publishing company and published in the New York Times:

I always used to hate it when foreigners focused on censorship of the media in China. I think foreigners have this image of a Fu Manchu-like Chinaman, sitting in a dark corner trying to censor everything. I often wanted to say: “It is not like that. We don’t really feel that much censorship.”

Take my job as a lifestyle magazine editor and publisher. We have not been censored for the last four years, and we have had pretty aggressive (i.e., very sexy) fashion shoots, etc. I mean, FHM is the
most popular men’s magazine here.

Clearly we have liberalized.

However, during the current milk powder crisis, I realized censorship is actually pretty strong. Yes, Fu Manchu as Big Brother is among us. There is a lot of open debate about the milk powder crisis on the Internet. People are questioning the news, and everyone suspects a massive government cover-up job. However, all this debate is banned on state-owned media, particularly television.

Another prime example of censorship during the Olympics happened when the Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang dropped out of the race. There was a lot of speculation as to how long his coach, the government, his sponsors and even Liu himself had known that he could not compete. The public felt that they were given a song and dance at the last minute. Again, state-owned traditional media were not allowed to talk about it.

I must say I find it very difficult in some ways to understand the comment “It is not like that. We don't really feel that much censorship.” Really? Is that a willfull myopia?

As part of my general reading after this article, I googled "China press freedom." To get to the first few documents listed I had to use a proxy server. (Incidentally, according to Freedom House in 2008 China ranks equal 181st out of 195 countries in terms of freedom of the press - North Korea is last.)

However, although it is easy to be sarcastic about and critical of comments like the ones made in the article above, it is neither constructive nor useful. The fact is, many Chinese people (though by no means all) feel the same way. It could be argued, for example, that this is a cultural difference, and how Chinese respect for authority and supposedly raging hunger for harmony are simply at odds with western liberal ideas of freedom of speech.

But there is another take on this article. The writer is a chief executive at a Chinese publishing company. She KNOWS how much censorship affects what can be published, and she KNOWS that is she is too harsh in her comments written in a neo-imperialistic capitalist mouthpiece like the New York Times it is going to seriously disrupt her guanxi with the powers that be. That's why, of all the corrupt and non-harmonious events that happen in China on a daily basis, she chooses Liu Xiang's freakin' achilles heel (gossip, not harmful) the melamine scandal (already out of the bag) and nudity and sex (as if any China watcher really considers that as important) as examples of censorship. One comment on the original article calls this "complicit ignorance" and I have to say I agree.

Is the end of anonymous internet nigh?

This article from Cnet:

A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.

The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.

The potential for eroding Internet users' right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law in the United States and recognized in international law by groups such as the Council of Europe, has alarmed some technologists and privacy advocates. Also affected may be services such as the Tor anonymizing network.

At Slashdot, where I first found the link to this story, there was also this insightful comment from a poster:

"When anonymous internet is a crime, only criminals will have anonymous internet. As usual, this would be a law that will almost exclusively affect the law abiding."

Although I am no tech whiz (just look at the layout of my blog) or activist, my initial impression of this kind of thing is that it will end up something like the war on drugs - costly, time-consuming, and ultimately unwinnable. At this point I could go on a rant about the meddling Chinese government, the hypocrisy of the American government,or general outrage against the powers that be, but I also think this kind of plan may have some positives. After all, the internet offers an effective medium through which criminals can interact with one another. I'm sure the best of these will be able to continue to do so no matter what, but this may help in cutting out the less sophisticated stuff.

A Freudian slip

Now this is possibly the most amazing article I have ever seen in an official Chinese news publication. Found by Zhongnanhai, it was published on China Radio International's website.

The Dalai Lama's Demons

Friday 08 August 2008

The Dalai Lama is respected worldwide for his peaceful philosophy. Today, some exiled Tibetans, shunned by their peers, no longer believe in his leadership. A controversial buddhist deity lies at the heart of the dispute. (Report: C. Henry, N. Haque)
Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is revered as a hero by his people and respected world-wide for his peaceful philosophy. Today, however, there are cracks at the heart of his community. A minority of Tibetans exiled in India, including monks, no longer believe in his leadership, and are shunned by their peers. France 24 correspondents Capucine Henry and Nicolas Haque take a closer look into the widening rift that threatens to tear apart the Tibetan people.
In a hitherto peaceful village of Tibetan refugees in southern India, certain monks can no longer enter their monastery, and are banned from stores and public places, including hospitals. Their crime? Revering a god considered a demon by the Dalai Lama.
The controversial Buddhist deity of Dorje Shugden lies at the heart of the conflict. Considered by some as an enlightened tutelary deity and by others as a malevolent force, it was labeled a demon by the Dalai Lama himelf. He made this clear last January, in a speech imbued with rare violence at a Tibetan university in Southern India.
A historic speech “I have meditated and considered (my decision to put aside the Shugden) at length in my soul and spirit before coming to the right decision”, he said. People have killed, lied, fought each other and set things alight in the name of this deity. These monks must be expelled from all monasteries. If they are not happy, you can tell them that the Dalai Lama himself asked that this be done, and it is very urgent.”
The speech was a historic moment in the history of Tibetan Buddhism, and the beginning of a schism which could exclude the four million Tibetans followers of Shugden. A few weeks after the Dalai Lama's speech, Shugden monks could no longer enter monasteries. They regroup themselves outside village walls and meditate on why the Dalai Lama has excluded him.
“Can the Dalai Lama really ban an entire religion?” asks one. “We are in the right, he’s the one who is being incoherent. On one hand, he’s always preaching freedom of religion and compassion, but on the other he’s forbidding us to worship the god we choose”, says another.
Apartheid in Buddhist land Photos of Shugden leaders are posted on city walls, branding them as traitors. Signs at the entrance of stores and hospitals forbid Shugden followers from entry. It’s apartheid, in Buddhist land.
Our reporters followed an ostracized Buddhist monk as he tried to affront the fellow villagers who have banned him. “We’re not violating Buddha’s teachings, and we’re excluded from everywhere just because of our religion” he complains.
“Aren’t you ashamed of betraying the Dalai Lama? You’re a monk! He is our only pillar, the only person we can count on,” he is asked.
In India, Shugden followers are forced to go into hiding. “I fled my house three days ago” says an old woman taken in by a family 300 kilometers away from her home. “I was the only Shugden in my village. Every day I grew more afraid of attacks.I had to block my door with stones for people not to break into my house”.
Pro-Chinese ‘traitors’ Behind this Shugden witch-hunt lies the fear of Chinese infiltration in the ranks of the Tibetan refugees. In the northern Indian city of Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan government, Shugden followers, with their open Chinese sympathies are considered a political threat.
“The Shugden and the Chinese are obviously allies,” says the Tibetan Prime Minister, professor Samdhong Rinpoche. “Their cults all over the world are financed by the Chinese”. He adds that “people are afraid of Shugden violence. They are like terrorists, they will stop at nothing, everyone knows this.” To prove his point, he shows our reporters the photo of the murder of a leading Buddhist monk and two of his disciples in 1997. Tibetans are certain the Shugden are behind the murder.
A leading Shugden figure, Mahalama Losbang Yechi, defends his links with the Chinese community: “I approve the Chinese presence in Tibet. What we are living with the Dalai Lama today shows how authoritarian his theocratic regime must have been in the past. It was much more violent than what Tibetans are living today under Chinese rule.”
Yechi has filed a lawsuit against the Dalai Lama in an Indian high court for religious persecution. He denies acting on the orders of Chinese authorities.
Shugden followers, willingly or not, have become the symbol of a schism that threatens the struggle for Tibetan autonomy. For that, thousands of refugees have begun to pay a price.

Wow. That was a trip. I would be interested in knowing would run through the head of Joe 爱国 when he reads sentences like "The Dalai Lama is respected worldwide for his peaceful philosophy." This is the most "anti-Chinese" article I have ever seen in a Chinese publication. Zhongnanhai speculates that this was put up by accident, and I have to say I tend to agree with that sentiment.

Me, victim, you, aggressor

The arm of patriotic education is long and sinewy. From Diana Fu, writing in the NY Times:

Training a massive army of volunteers is not just about showcasing China’s might; it is also a great medium for extending patriotic education. Through volunteering, students are learning a political lesson about China’s place in the world. Olympic student training manuals include sections titled “China’s Olympics journey is the classic text of patriotic education” and “Patriotism is the core spirit of Zhonghua sports.” Every volunteer can track China’s journey from humiliation to triumph. Here’s an extract from the training manual which every student volunteer is required to memorize:
Before 1949, Chinese athletes formally participated in three Olympic Games (10th, 11th and 14th), and came back with no medals each time. A foreign newspaper published a cartoon of a group of sickly-looking Chinese attired in long gowns and sporting the queue. They were carrying a gigantic “0″ on their shoulders. This cartoon was titled, “the sick man of East Asia”… The July 13, 2001, victory marks the
climax of the Chinese nation’s rise from “sick man of Asia” to strong nation status… Beijing, China, finally won the right to host the 29th Games in 2008. Beijing is ebullient! China is ebullient! The Chinese diaspora is ebullient!

So will the Olympic-sized dose of gold medals cure China of its western cartoon-inspired "sick man of East Asia" self-diagnosis? For the dream of not reading such ebullient jingoism, I sure hope not. Then what would I write about?

But seriously, if public discussion ever does get freed up in this country one thing that will (hopefully) be fascinating to watch is the battle to tell the dominant historical narrative. My cynical side tells me that what will emerge is something not very different from what is in this article, a teleological retrospective account of China being a hapless victim of foreign machinations, followed by the CCP saving the country, followed by a long and necessary period of authoritarian capitalism, etc etc. However, it will be interesting to see, in particular, how much more the events of the Cultural Revolution are brought into mass consciousness, and what light they are viewed in. Equally fascinating will be whether more nuanced views regarding Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan become publicly accepted.

iTuning out: The CCP has had enough of listening

This article from The Oz:

APPLE'S online music store, iTunes, has been blocked in China after more than 40 Olympic athletes downloaded a pro-Tibet album from the site.Consumers in China began inundating Apple help forums on Monday, saying that they could not access iTunes. Earlier on the same day the US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) announced that 46 athletes from America, Europe and even Beijing had used the site to download Songs for Tibet, which had been offered to them free.
The disappearance of iTunes behind the “Great Firewall” of China comes in the midst of the Beijing Olympics when the Government promised free and unfettered internet access for journalists. While it has lifted blocks on some sites, many are still inaccessible. IT analysts said there was no doubt that the store had been blocked and that it was not merely experiencing a technical fault. Apple acknowledged that there was a problem but refused to comment. Yuna Huang, the company’s Beijing publicist, said: “We’ve seen the situation but can’t offer any more information.” The censorship could backfire.
Mr Wohl said that since the iTunes site had gone down many people in Beijing, including athletes, had asked for the album. “Obviously there are a million different ways of getting an album to somebody,” he said.

What a great example of shooting oneself in the foot. Joe 爱国 is never going to be interested in a load of western imperialist claptrap such as an album with the title of "Songs for Tibet." You may as well give a southern redneck the best of Enya. The only people who will be listening to this kind of thing will be idealistic members of the international community. As such, the Net Nanny is therefore displaying an extraordinary amount of pettiness trying to control what information foreigners have access to. And like so many things that have happened during these Games, they have created two stories worthy of international attention out of one. Originally, there was just a story about an album. Now there is a story about an album and how it was blocked - much more interesting and newsworthy.

But probably the most disturbing thing is the fact that "boycotting Apple" over this ridiculously trivial matter has already rasied its murky one-eyed head. If this nitpicking pettiness is going to be a recurring theme every time a multinational stops calling black white because Chinese netizens and the Government say so, then I can't see too many companies taking a moral stand in the face of the market. But having said that, considering how quickly the Carrefour "boycott" died down earlier this year, it seems apart from making a loud noise about it the average Chinese person doesn't care enough to let these kinds of things stand in the way of their purchasing decisions. Which is a good thing. Chinese consumers, I have some faith in you.

Prez dishes out some Olympic love

This just in from Xinhua.

Chinese president warns against politicizing Olympics

BEIJING -- Chinese President Hu Jintao on Friday warned that politicizing the Olympics runs counter to the Olympic spirit and will not work.

"As proof that we would never politicize the Games, we locked up a number of political dissidents," he said. "We also shipped out large numbers of the working proletariat, who are known for their tendency to form left wing political parties and stage revolutions. That kind of anti-revolutionary revolutionary thinking is clearly not in the Chinese spirit of harmony."

He went on to shrug off suggestions that the international media may not adhere to the noble journalistic principal of reporting everything exactly the way the CCP wants it to be heard.

"No problem," he said. "The Chinese people have a magical wand that can wave all political criticism away," he said. "And we'll gosh-darn use it."

He hastily assured everyone, however, that China would ensure that guests would be warmly welcomed and the Games would be enjoyable for all.

"China has always opened its door to the outside world, apart from most of its history" Hu said . "But if you're black, a Russian female, from Xinjiang, Tibet or want a visa for the Olympics, you better be careful."

Olympic events to watch: Western media v CCP

Disclaimer: This is not giddy advocacy of "western media" which is an overly simplistic label that applies to an incredibly large amount of organisations with competing agendas, points of view, and various standards of professionalism.

Before I worked in advertising, I studied journalism. And all through that awkward year as a student posing as a real journalist in order to get stories for university publications, the one thing that sticks out in my mind is our lecturers consistently on our backs about three things. 1) Information is good. Anybody who blocks information is your enemy. 2) Always get a second opinion. 3) It is your job to keep governments, business and institutions honest. Never believe anything somebody from one of these groups tell you at face value.

On the flipside, the Chinese Gov's relationship to the media seems to be more along the lines of 1) Information is bad. If anyone, especially a maverick journalist, has information, then they are your enemy. 2) There are no second opinions. There is only one opinion that every single Chinese person can hold, and that is the one that the CCP tells them to hold. 3) It is our job to govern the country. As such, we do not need to prove our honesty to you. You take what we tell you at face value.

These two groups don't just speak different languages. They live on different planets.

So due to my background, I can sympathise with a foreign journalist's brain almost going "pop" with indignation upon hearing they can't access a lot of important foreign sites such as the BBC at the world's biggest sporting event. But when I see a quote like the one below, I can almost feel the collective heart rate of the western world's media jack up to 180 bpm and their fingers twitch in anticipation of inflicting pain on the bodies most likely responsible.

"The Chinese Government has put in place a system to spy on and gather information about every guest at hotels where Olympic visitors are staying," Kansas Senator Sam Brownback said.

The event that will be most interesting to watch at this Games is quite possibly going to be the international media boxing the Chinese Government.

Quirks of Communism

A great thing about living in Beijing is the numerous unusual working opportunities that are available to the wandering English-speaking writer.

One of my current projects is writing a guidebook on calligraphy and contemporary art - made all the more interesting by the fact that everything I write has to pass the beady evil eye of the censors before it gets published.

I'm still not that far into this book - but I can see that writing about contemporary art without mentioning its political content is going to be a challenge. However, even when discussing calligraphy this is a pretty tall order.

Take Chairman Mao as an example. The official line, as I understand it, is that although he made a few mistakes he was basically a great patriot and revered gentle giant among the Chinese people. His calligraphy is so admired it has even been made into a computer font. All of which is very interesting and nice.

But it doesn't change the fact that

Mao was a mass murdering prick!
He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people!
If he was still in charge China would be so far up shit creek it wouldn't even matter if the country had a paddle!

Which is, of course, what I really want to write. So how to get around this curly question of ethics? The way I've done it is not mention Mao's name until the very last sentence of the text. In everything I've written up to that point the discussion focuses on the non-controversial aspects of his life and his particular style of writing. But I think this is particularly lame.

However, the only other option i can think of is going in completely the other direction and speak in terms of “the people’s glorious struggle against the capitalist-imperialist invaders and their vanguard, the religious missionaries.”
(Thankyou Granite Studio) Possibly, I could also mention the fact that Tibet is, was and always has been a part of China. At least if I follow this line some savvy readers may pick up a whiff of sarcasm.

Does anyone have any other ideas?