Michelle Obama

is an intelligent, accomplished woman, and yet, the media insists on only talking about her dresses. I think she should have worn jeans.

Speaking of Atheism...

It is mentioned in Obama's inaugural address:

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof mentions that this is the first time he can recall that "non-believers" have been acknowledged by a president. And the foreign policy section of the speech...

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

To those...

(APPLAUSE)

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

(APPLAUSE)

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.

And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

...brought tears to my eyes as I read it. He is my president.

If you read Chinese and want an interesting newspaper to read...

...I highly recommend Southern Weekend (南方周末). It is an independent, interesting paper, published weekly (comes out each Thursday evening) by the Southern Daily Group. Some inspiration from the paper's New Year's message:

　当我们扪心自问之时，我们心中对这个国家深挚的爱已经给了该如何行事的答案。

　　这就是为什么我们不只赞美国家的进步，也批评它的不尽完美；为什么像捧着烛火一样捧着“真相”，在群论汹汹之际也坚持独立的立场；为什么若我们只能发出荧荧之光，也有崇高之意。

　　这也就是为什么你会在今天买下这份报纸，而它没有提供可供获利的消息甚至也不提供什么消遣。

Equally beautiful in translation (by David Kelly):

When we look within, the warm love in our hearts for this country tells us to how to proceed. That is why we not only praise the country's progress, but also criticise its imperfections; why, holding up "the truth" as if holding a candle, we maintain our independence in the face of mass opinion; why if we can only issue a gleaming light, it bears a noble meaning. This is why you bought a copy of this newspaper today, though it offered little of profit and no entertainment whatsoever.

Atheism: Sleep in on Sunday mornings

This slogan comes from a campaign in Britain (actually from a failed spin-off in Australia) of advertising about atheism to counter religious groups' advertisements. According to the article, it hasn't set off much controversy, which I think is a definite contrast to how much dissent there would be to such a campaign in the US. There is so much social context in religion and perception of religion. For my final exam, I did interviews based on topics discussed in class. There was one unit on supersitition and belief, and for some reason, one girl ended up talking about religion. She said in Chinese society there is a lot of pressure not to believe. Obviously this social pressure functions in the complete opposite way that social pressure in the US works. It is something I had never really considered.

I've been thinking more about the topic of religion lately after my student's comments and watching Religulous - a Bill Mayer movie about the ridiculousness of religion. I will write more about the movie (which I actually didn't like too much despite some amusing moments and general agreement with many of his ideas) another time.

The lost art of writing

David Brooks' latest column in the New York Times begins like this:

Everything becomes a shorter version of itself. Essays become op-eds. Op-eds become blog posts. Blog posts become Twitter tweets. The Sidney Awards stand athwart technology, yelling stop. They are awarded every year to some of the best examples of long-form journalism and thought.

I do realize the irony of writing about this in a blog post (at least it is not on twitter...), but for someone who is not a journalist, there are obvious benefits to blogging - more than one person can read my thoughts (whether anyone would actually want to is a totally different story). These lines seemed particularly salient to me because of the book I have been reading recently - Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln's life, politics, and rivals. This book has been providing me with a much needed refresher history course and a glimpse of the political genius that was Lincoln. Yet, something that has stood out to me is how much history of this period derives from hand-written letters between leading figures (and their wives) of the time. It makes me somewhat sad to think that the history of today will be derived from e-mail. While e-mail serves many purposes, it lacks the beauty and weight that often is intrinsically present in written letters. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic and a traditionalist, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

言论自由 Freedom of speech in China

Ever since my first class while studying abroad at Peking University a few years ago, I have been amazed by how much freedom of speech there is in China. There are of course limits, most noticeably if you are publishing something in book, article, or blog form, and I've written recently about the limits of academic freedom. But otherwise, if you're not speaking in a public setting, you can say pretty much anything you want.

The original surprising incident for me was that our first class topic in an international relations class at PKU was the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Of course, it was a class taught in English of mostly foreigners, with a few Chinese students thrown in, and I'm pretty sure the professor, who received his phd in the US, chose the topic intentionally to destroy all previous notions we had about freedom of expression in China. He certainly succeeded. One of the Chinese IR majors in the class said that they did discuss this incident in her Chinese classes as well.

The recent incident was at my university's new years/end of the semester party. The opening act (Chinese parties are basically a combination of a variety show and banquet) was someone who did imitations of the top two leaders in China, as well as the previous top two leaders. At first I thought he was just going to poke fun at the school's leaders because I was under the belief that publicly making fun of the top leaders was unacceptable (of course, many people do so in private conversations and online). Granted, he didn't compare Hu Jintao to a monkey and his imitations were very very mild by Daily Show or Colbert Report standards, but there were parts I found funny and even more parts the Chinese teachers found funny. Still, this goes what most Westerners think of when they think of freedom of speech and China.

Update on the New York Times

Beginning today, I seem to be able to fully access the NYTimes again. There's been some theorizing about why it was blocked around the Internet, with a lot being written by James Fallows, who knows a lot about how Chinese online censorship works. However, I stand by my hypothesis. The other articles mentioned as possibilities by Fallows are really mild in comparison to the assertion in the below article that the attacks in Kashgar were not of a terrorist nature. Another possibility given by one of his friends, which I originally thought was possible is:

I suspect that while the reason behind this blocking is not yet clear, the process--and thereby the motivation--might be a bit less obscure. That is, given that consensus drives policy decisions here, it is very likely that different parts of the bureaucracy weighed in and officials each had a gripe with the NYT coverage of some or another issue. Collectively, they were able to push through a directive to block it.

The people here overseeing foreign journalists also know that there will soon be a new contingent manning the desks of the NYT bureau here. Those officials want to send a clear signal that they expect more positive ("objective") coverage of China.

However, given that the site is now working, I don't think this is a good explanation. I couldn't find a link on any Times pages to the article about the Kashgar attacks today - meaning it is too old - so I'm guessing that they just waited until said link went away. Though still just a theory.

The reason why the Chinese government suddenly started blocking the new york times

In both my trips to China, the New York Times has always been available. Occasionally, like after the Lhasa incident last year, individual articles would be blocked. But now, the Chinese government has deemed it sufficiently dangerous for me to read articles about cooking or op-eds about the Obama transition thanks to the following article (re-printed in defiance of the great firewall - I am more than a little pissed about this complete blocking; i read the Times daily):

2 Uighurs Sentenced to Death for West China Police Assault

By Edward Wong

BEIJING — A court in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang has sentenced two men to death for an attack in August that killed 17 paramilitary officers, according to a report on Wednesday by Xinhua, the state news agency. The assault was one of the deadliest against security forces since at least the 1990s.

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Photographs from a foreign tourist appeared to cast some doubt on the official account of the events in the Kashgar attack.

The court determined that the men, who were sentenced in the attack on Aug. 4 in the remote oasis town of Kashgar, were trying to “sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games that began Aug. 8,” Xinhua reported. The men, Abdurahman Azat, 33, and Kurbanjan Hemit, 28, are ethnic Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people. Some Uighurs advocate independence in Xinjiang and resent what they call discriminatory policies put in place by the ruling ethnic Han Chinese.

Most, if not all, of the paramilitary officers killed or wounded on Aug. 4 were Han Chinese.

The Intermediate People’s Court of Kashgar sentenced the men for “intentional homicide and illegally producing guns, ammunition and explosives,” Xinhua reported.

Chinese officials said the day after the attack that the men, a taxi driver and a vegetable vendor, had rammed a truck into a group of about 70 officers from the People’s Armed Police who were out for morning exercises and had then attacked the officers with machetes and homemade explosives. At the time, the authorities said 16 officers were killed and 16 others injured. The attackers were arrested, the authorities said.

The assault was the first and deadliest of four in Xinjiang in August for which officials blamed Uighur separatists. The violence killed at least 23 security officers and one civilian, according to official tallies.

In interviews in September, three foreign tourists who were in the Barony Hotel, across the street from the site of the assault, gave details of the attack to The New York Times that appeared at odds with aspects of the official version. The tourists confirmed that the truck plowed into the officers, leaving many dead and injured. But they said they did not hear multiple explosions afterward.

Furthermore, they said they saw paramilitary officers using machetes to attack what appeared to be other men with the same green security uniforms. The men with the machetes mingled freely with other officers afterward, the tourists said.

The Xinhua report on Wednesday provided more details of the assault to back up the earlier official version. The report said that the two men, armed with guns, explosives, knives and axes, drove a heavy truck that they had stolen to the site of the assault at 6 a.m. and waited for the officers to emerge from their compound. About 8 a.m., Mr. Azat drove the truck into the officers when they came out for their exercises, killing 15 and wounding 13, Xinhua reported.

When the truck turned over, he detonated explosives to kill another person, according to Xinhua.

At the same time, the Xinhua account said, Mr. Hemit tossed explosives toward the gate of the security compound and brandished a knife at the police officers who had been felled by the truck. Mr. Hemit killed one officer and wounded another, Xinhua said.

One of the foreign tourists, a man who provided photos of the assault to two Western news organizations, said in September that he had seen a severely injured man tumble out of the driver’s seat after the truck rammed the officers. The driver crawled around and did not appear to be in any condition to carry out further attacks, the tourist said.

The Xinhua report did not give any details on what kind of evidence was reviewed by the court in Kashgar during the trial of the two men. It also did not mention the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a shadowy organization that Chinese officials have long cited as the main separatist threat in Xinjiang. The day after the assault, the party secretary of Kashgar, Shi Dagang, told reporters that it appeared that the two men were members of that group.

Blowback

As they say, hindsight is 20/20. A New York Times article is saying that Pakistani intelligence has been supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that carried out the horrific attacks in Mumbai. What the article forgets to mention is where ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) picked up the habit of independently aiding/funding outside groups, often times without direct approval from the government. This began during the 1980s when the US used to use ISI as a method for funneling funds and other forms of support to Afghan guerrilla groups fighting the Soviet invasion. Other ramifications of these same actions and, more importantly, abandonment of Afghanistan following Soviet withdrawal, also led to the rise of the Taliban and its subsequent harboring of Al-Qaeda.

Unintended, negative future consequences of present political actions are often referred to as "blowback." One of the quintessential examples of blowback is the 1979 Iranian revolution, which has root causes of the 1950s CIA-led coup, which overthrew a democratically elected leader and returned the very undemocratic Shah to power. Blowback and unintended consequences seem to be hitting the US pretty hard recently, and while I am in no way saying that any of it is deserved, these incidents should at least be a clear sign that we need to consider long-term consequences of US foreign policy endeavers.

In today's world, there has to be some sort of method for analyzing possible future ramifications for present actions. And to some extent at least, this is possible. State Department research before the Iraq War rather correctly predicted some of the disastrous outcomes caused by that invasion (not that it did us much good). Hopefully Obama's government will make a more concerted effort to consider long-term effects, even though it has been an American tradition not to.

Proposition 8

Yesterday was a good day for Democrats/liberals, no matter what Karl Rove had to say about the state of the country's political leanings. Barack Obama was elected president, and the Democrats made huge gains in both the House and the Senate. The one major disappointment was Proposition 8, a ballot proposition in California that would change the state constitution to ban gay marriage. These propositions have popped up all over the country and passed, however California was supposed to be different.

Thanks to huge sums of money spent by those supporting the proposition as well as general prejudice, it passed. When thinking about this, I realized what the biggest problem is. Civil rights, an idea so ingrained in the fabric of our country's history, should not be put to a popular vote. Essential rights are guaranteed in our constitution - in the bill of rights and the 14h Amendment. In the Civil Rights movement, the Supreme Court played an essential role in upholding these rights for African Americans. In the states, courts have also played a role in upholding marriage rights for homosexuals, but they are also being overruled by the above-mentioned ballot measures, which have been writing intolerance into state constitutions.

There is a reason why it is so difficult to amend our federal constitution - because there are many elements essential to the fabric of our democracy - including equal rights - that should not be allowed to be changed easily. In this light, I call on the Supreme Court to take on the issue of marriage rights (or at least the right to civil unions), just as it took on the issue of equal rights for African-Americans 50+ years ago. This is the only way to guarantee that such rights are upheld and that the states stop infringing upon them.

Faith in my country again

At 11pm EST, exactly noon Beijing time, Barack Obama was declared the next president of the US. As Thomas Friedman wrote in a NYTimes editorial,

"Let every child and every citizen and every new immigrant know that from this day forward: Everything really is possible in America."

I have faith in my country again. Though the difficult part is just beginning for Obama. He has ridden to election on people's hopes, and he will most likely end up letting a lot of people down. He has so many constraints - chaos in Iraq, a financial crisis, huge budget deficits. Sure it is an opportunity for greatness, but that greatness will have to come through compromise and sacrifice. Still, I have hope for the future.

Interesting articles

Two very good, but kind of long (so I'm not posting the whole thing) articles below:

There is a Silver Lining
I had forgotten how great Fareed Zakaria was until I saw him on Colbert. This article is about how the financial crisis will hopefully teach Americans (both citizens and government) to adopt responsible spending habits.

Farmer in Chief
A very long but worth it article by Michael Pollan about agriculture and food policy in the US and how it is costly, unsustainable, and unhealthy.

On a totally different note, the Phillies won the first game of the World Series! Three more wins and the '08 Phils will be the heroes of a championship starved city that hasn't won a championship since before I was born. How I wish I were back home where I could watch the games. Even if the Phils don't win this year, they've had a great season.

McCain competitive in Pennsylvania?

At least his campaign thinks so.

I tend to highly doubt this claim. Pennsylvania has becoming more and more blue in recent elections, and I think the campaign he is running and his choice of a running mate will not play well in the crucial Philly suburbs mentioned in the article. The NYTimes argues that it is very possible that he is just running out of places to campaign, which could easily be true.

I'm going to predict that Pennsylvania votes solidly Democrat in this election. But either way, make sure you vote!

Their Own Worst Enemy

A well-written account of China's public relations problems. If you're going to read anything about China this month (or possibly this year), you should read this. Also here.

by James Fallows

After two years in China, there are still so many things I can’t figure out. Is it really true, as is always rumored but never proved, that the Chinese military runs most of the pirate-DVD business—which would in turn explain why that business is so difficult to control? At what point in Chinese culture did it become mandatory for business and political leaders to dye away every gray hair, so that gatherings of powerful men in their 50s and up are seas of perfect pitch-black heads? How can corporations and government agencies invest huge sums producing annual reports and brochures and advertisements in English, yet manifestly never bother to ask a native English speaker whether they’ve made some howler-style mistake? (Last year, a museum in Shanghai put on a highly publicized exhibit of photos from the Three Gorges Dam area. In front, elegant banners said in six-foot-high letters The Three Georges.) Why do Beijing taxi drivers almost never have maps—and almost always have their own crates or buckets filling the trunks of their cars when they pick up baggage-laden passengers at the airport? I could go on.

But here is by far the most important of these mysteries: How can official China possibly do such a clumsy and self-defeating job of presenting itself to the world? China, like any big, complex country, is a mixture of goods and bads. But I have rarely seen a governing and “communications” structure as consistent in hiding the good sides and highlighting the bad.

I come across examples every day, but let me start with a publicly reported event. Early this year, I learned of a tantalizing piece of news about an unpublicized government plan for the Beijing Olympics. In a conversation with someone involved in the preparations, I learned of a brilliant scheme to blunt potential foreign criticism during the Games. The Chinese government had drawn up a list of hotels, work spaces, Internet cafés, and other places where visiting journalists and dignitaries were most likely to use the Internet. At those places, and only there, normal “Great Firewall” restrictions would be removed during the Olympics. The idea, as I pointed out in an article about Chinese controls (“‘The Connection Has Been Reset,’” March Atlantic), was to make foreigners happier during their visit—and likelier to tell friends back home that, based on what they’d seen on their own computer screens, China was a much more open place than they had heard. This was subtle influence of the sort that would have made strategists from Sun Tzu onward proud.

The scheme displayed a sophisticated insight into outsiders’ mentality and interests. It recognized that foreigners, especially reporters, like being able to poke around unsupervised, try harder to see anything they’re told is out-of-bounds, and place extra weight on things they believe they have found without guidance. By saying nothing at all about this plan, the government could let influential visitors “discover” how freely information was flowing in China, with all that that implied. In exchange, the government would give up absolutely nothing. If visiting dignitaries, athletes, and commentators searched for a “Free Tibet” site or found porn that is usually banned in China, what’s the harm? They had seen worse back at home.

When the Olympics actually started, things did not go exactly according to plan. As soon as journalists began checking in at their Olympic hotels, they began complaining about all the Web sites they couldn’t reach. Chinese officials replied woodenly that this was China, and established Chinese procedures must be obeyed: Were the arrogant foreigners somehow suggesting that they were too good to comply with China’s sovereign laws? Unlike the brilliant advance scheme, all this was reported.

After huddling with officials from the International Olympic Committee, who had been touting China’s commitment to free information flow during the Games, the Chinese government quietly reversed its stance. For a few days, controls seemed to have been lifted for Internet users in many parts of Beijing—in my apartment, far from the main Olympic areas, I could get to usually blocked sites, like any BlogSpot blog, without using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Eventually the controls came back on for everyone except users in the special Olympic areas. By then the Chinese government had turned a potential PR masterstroke into a fiasco. Now what the foreign visitors could tell friends back home was that they knew firsthand that China’s Internet is indeed censored, that its government could casually break its promise of free information flow during the Games, and that foreign complaints could bully it back into line.

From the outside, this blunder might not seem note­worthy or surprising, given the dim image of the Chinese government generally conveyed in the Western press. It might not even be thought of as a blunder—rather, as a sign that the government had, for once, been caught trying to sneak out of its commitments and repress whatever it could. To me it was puzzling because of its sheer stupidity: Did they think none of the 10,000 foreign reporters would notice? Did they think there was anything to gain?

The government’s decision was more complicated but even more damaging in another celebrated Olympics case, this one the most blatantly Orwellian: the offer to open three areas for “authorized protests” during the Olympics—followed by the rejection of every single request to hold a demonstration, and the arrest of several people who asked. It’s true that even if China is wide-open in many ways, public demonstrations that might lead to organized political opposition are, in effect, taboo. But why guarantee international criticism by opening the zones in the first place? Who could have thought this was a good idea?

Such self-inflicted damage occurs routinely, without the pressure of the Olympics. Whenever a Chinese official or the state-run Xinhua News Agency puts out a release in English calling the Dalai Lama “a jackal clad in Buddhist monk’s robes” or a man “with a human face and the heart of a beast,” it only builds international sympathy for him and members of his “splittist clique.” A special exhibit about Tibet in Beijing’s Cultural Palace of Minorities this year illustrated the blessings of China’s supervision by showing photos of grinning Tibetans opening refrigerators full of beer, and of new factories including a cement plant in Lhasa. Such basic material improvements are huge parts of the success story modern China has to tell. But the exhibit revealed total naïveté in dealing with the complaints about religious freedom made by the “Dalai clique.” It was as if the government had hired The Onion as its image consultant.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that reporters are viewed with suspicion or loathing by the political or business leaders they cover. That doesn’t keep governments in many countries from understanding the crass value of cultivating the press. Anyone with experience in neighboring South Korea, Taiwan, or Japan knows how skillful their business-governmental establishments are at mounting “charm offensives” to make influential foreigners feel cosseted and part of the team. Official China sometimes launches a successful charm offensive on visiting dignitaries. When it comes to dealing with foreign reporters—who after all will do much to shape the outside world’s view of their country—Chinese spokesmen and spinners barely seem to try. Maybe I’m biased; my application for a journalist visa to China was turned down because of “uncertainty” about what I might be looking for in the country (I have been here on other kinds of visas). But China’s press policy seems similar to, say, Dick Cheney’s (if without the purposeful stiff-arming) and reflects the same view—that scrutiny from the Western press is not really necessary. I’m convinced that usually these are blunders rather than calculated manipulation.

This is inept on China’s part. Why do I consider it puzzling? Because of two additional facts I would not have guessed before coming to China: it’s a better country than its leaders and spokesmen make it seem, and those same leaders look more impressive in their home territory.

Almost everything the outside world thinks is wrong with China is indeed a genuine problem. Perhaps not the most extreme allegations, of large-scale forced organ-harvesting and similar barbarities. But brutal extremes of wealth and poverty? Arbitrary and prolonged detentions for those who rock the boat? Dangerous working conditions? Factories that take shortcuts on health and safety standards? Me-first materialism and an absence of ethics? I’ve met people affected by every problem on the list, and more.

But China’s reality includes more than its defects. Most people are far better off than they were 20 years ago, and they are generally optimistic about what life will hold 20 years from now. This summer’s Pew Global Attitudes Project finding that 86 percent of the Chinese public was satisfied with the country’s overall direction—the highest of all the countries surveyed—was not some enforced or robotic consensus. It rings true with most of what I’ve seen in cities and across most of the country’s provinces and autonomous regions, something I wouldn’t have guessed from afar.

Americans are used to the idea that a country’s problems don’t tell its entire story. When I lived in Japan, I had to reassure fearful travelers to America that not every street corner had a daily drive-by shooting and not every passing stranger would beat them up out of bigotry. When foreigners travel or study in America, they usually put the problems in perspective and come to see the offsetting virtues and strengths. For all the differences between modern China and America, most outsiders go through a similar process here: they see that China is a country with huge problems but also one with great strengths and openness.

It’s authoritarian, sure—and you put yourself at great risk if you cross the government in the several areas it considers sacrosanct, from media control to “national security” in the broadest sense. (The closest I have come to trouble with the law was when I stopped to tie my shoe on Chang’an Boule­vard, near Tiananmen Square in Beijing—and obliviously put my foot on what turned out to be a low pedestal around the main flagpole at Xinhua Gate, outside the headquarters of the country’s ruling State Council. Three guards rushed at me and pushed me away to end this sacrilege.) But China is full of conflicting trends and impulses, every generalization about it is both true and false, and it is genuinely diverse in a way the Stalin-esque official line rarely conveys.

One other Olympics example: the opening ceremonies paid homage to China’s harmonious embrace of its minority peoples with a giant national flag carried in by 56 children, each dressed in the native costume of one of China’s recognized minority groups, including Tibetans, Mongolians, and Uighurs. Contrary to initial assurances from Chinese offi­cials, it turned out that every one of the children was from the country’s ethnic majority, Han Chinese. This was reminiscent of Western practices of yesteryear, as when Al Jolson wore blackface or the Swedish actor Warner Oland was cast as Charlie Chan in 1930s films. And it was criticized by the Western sensibilities of today.

Another element of the mystery is the deftness gap. Inside the country, China’s national leadership rarely seems as tin-eared as it is when dealing with the outside world. National-level democracy might come to China or it might not—ever. No one can be sure. But from the national level down to villages, where local officials are now elected, the government is by all reports becoming accountable in ways it wasn’t before. As farmers have struggled financially, a long-standing agricultural tax has been removed. As migrant workers have become an exploited underclass in big cities, hukou (residence-permit) rules have been liberalized so that people can get medical care and send their children to school without having to return to their “official” residence back in the countryside. Whenever necessary, the government turns to repression, but that’s usually not the first response.

The system prides itself on learning about problems as they arise and relieving social pressure before it erupts. In this regard it learned a lesson earlier this year, when its reaction to the first big natural disaster of 2008 turned into its own version of Hurricane Katrina. Unusual blizzards in central and southern China paralyzed roads and rail lines, and stranded millions of people traveling home for the Chinese New Year holidays; the central government seemed taken by surprise and was slow to respond. That didn’t happen with the next disaster, three months later. When the Sichuan earthquake occurred, Premier Wen Jiabao was on an airplane to the stricken area the same afternoon.

So I return to the puzzle: Why does a society that, like America, impresses most people who spend time here project such a poor image and scare people as much as it attracts them? Why do China’s leaders, who survive partly by listening to their own people, develop such tin ears when dealing with the outside world? I don’t pretend to have a solution. But here are some possible explanations, and some reasons why the situation matters to people other than the misunderstood Chinese.

There is no politer way to put the main problem than to call it “ignorance.” Most Americans are parochial, but (surprise!) most Chinese and their leaders are more so. American politicians may not be good at understanding foreign sensitivities or phrasing their arguments in ways likely to be effective around the world, as foreigners have mentioned once or twice in recent years. But collectively they understand that America is part of an ongoing, centuries-long, worldwide experiment and discussion about political systems and human values, and that making their case well matters.

After the 9/11 attacks, America went through a round of “Why do they hate us?” inquiry. Whether or not that brought the United States closer to understanding its problems in parts of the Islamic world, it did represent a more serious effort to understand how the country was seen than anything I have heard of in China. When the Olympic torch relay this spring was plagued by boos and protests over Tibet in places ranging from France to the United States, the reaction at every level of the Chinese system seemed to be not just insult but genuine shock. Most Chinese people were familiar only with the idea that China has always been a generous elder brother to the (often ungrateful) Tibetans. By all evidence, no one in command anticipated or prepared for this ugly response. The same Pew survey that said most Chinese felt good about their country also found that they thought the rest of the world shared their view. That belief is touching, especially considering how much of China’s history is marked by episodes of its feeling unloved and victimized. Unfortunately, it is also wrong. In many of the countries surveyed, China’s popularity and reputation were low and falling. According to a report last year by Joshua Cooper Ramo of Kissinger Associates, most people in China considered their country very “trustworthy.” Most people outside China thought the country was not trustworthy at all.

“The underlying problem is that very few people in China really understand how foreign opinion works, what the outside world reacts to and why,” Sidney Rittenberg told me. Rittenberg is in a position to judge. He came to China with the U.S. Army in 1945 and spent 35 years here, including 16 in prison for suspected disloyalty to Chairman Mao. “Now very few people understand the importance of foreign opinion to China”—that is, the damage China does to itself by locking up those who apply for demonstration permits, or insisting on “jackal” talk.

During the Chinese Communist Party’s rise to power and the civil war against Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists through the 1940s, the coterie around Mao knew how to spin the outside world, because they had to. One important goal was what Mao called “roping the whale”: keeping the United States from intervening directly on Chiang’s side. The future prime minister and foreign minister Zhou Enlai was especially skilled at handling foreigners. “He laid out battle plans and political strategies, in advance, with remarkable clarity,” the muckraker Jack Anderson, who was a cub reporter in China, said of Zhou in his memoirs. “These truths made him so believable that a reporter would be inclined to accept his assurances, too, that the Chinese Communists weren’t really Communists but just agrarian reformers.”

Of course, most official voices of China now have the opposite effect. Their minor, provable lies—the sky is blue, no one wants to protest—inevitably build mistrust of larger claims that are closer to being true. And those are the claims the government most wants the world to listen to: that the country is moving forward and is less repressive and more open than official actions and explanations (or lack of them) make China seem. Many Chinese who have seen the world are very canny about it, and have just the skills government spokesmen lack—for instance, understanding the root of foreign concerns and addressing them not with special pleading (“This is China…”) but on their own terms. Worldly Chinese demonstrate this every day in the businesses, universities, and nongovernmental organizations where they generally work. But the closer Chinese officials are to centers of political power, the less they know what they don’t know about the world.

Even as the top leadership tries to expand its international exposure and experience, much of the country’s daily reality is determined by mayors and governors and police. “It’s like the local sheriff in the old days in South Carolina,” said Sidney Rittenberg, who grew up there. “He’d say, ‘They can talk and talk in Washington, but I’m the law down here.’” Thus one hypothesis for the embarrassment of the “authorized” protest sites during the Olympics: Hu Jintao’s vice president and heir apparent, Xi Jinping, was officially in charge of all preparations for the Games; hobnobbing with the IOC, he would see the payoff to China of allowing some people to protest. But the applications went to the local police, who had no interest in letting troublemakers congregate. A similar mix-up may well have led to the embarrassment over whether to open the Internet during the Olympics, and could also explain many of the other fumbles that get so much more attention than the news the government wants to give.

The Communist Party schools that train the country’s leadership are constantly expanding their curricula to meet the needs of the times; but for advancement in party ranks what matters is loyalty, predictability, and party-line conformity. The United States saw just how well a similar approach paid off in worldwide respect and effectiveness when it staffed its Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone mainly with people who followed the party line in Washington.

The damage China does to itself by its clumsy public presentation is obvious—though apparently not yet obvious enough to its leadership. For outsiders, the central problem is that a country that will inevitably have increasing and perhaps dominant influence on the world still has surprisingly little idea of how the world sees it. That, in turn, raises the possibility of blunders and unnecessary showdowns, and in general the predicament of a new world power stomping around, Gargantua-like, making onlookers tremble. The world has known this predicament before. It is what the previously established powers have feared about America, starting a hundred years ago and with periodic recurrences since then, most recently starting in March of 2003. Maybe that puts America in a good position to help China take this next step.

The death of the Republican Party?

I've had a few things that I've wanted to write about recently but didn't find the time as well as a few articles I've wanted to post, which I will do.

The first topic is a recent op-ed column by David Brooks in the Nytimes: The Class War Before Palin. At the end, Brooks seems to imply that the Republican Party is in mortal danger because it is losing its intellectual base (thanks to people like GW Bush and Palin who criticize any sort of intellectualism as elitist) and is now losing those from the working class that would have voted Republican thanks to a lack of good economic proposals to help this sector.

While I certainly detest the recent Republican Party's disdain for intellectualism, I think Brooks is being a bit over dramatic about the future fate of the party. Let's think back 4 years to the last presidential election. At that time, pundits were questioning whether Democrats could ever appeal to "values voters" and spelling out the coming end of that party in apocalyptic fashion. How things turned around in four years, as Democrats took back both houses of congress 2 years ago and appear poised for a big victory this year. If the Democrats could make such a huge comeback in 4 years, it could certainly happen the other way, and I certainly believe that the GOP is capable of re-grouping after this election. And I hope that they do so in a fashion that allows for more honest debate about the issues.

As implied above, while I don't agree with the GOP on the issues and I resent a lot of the party's tactics in recent years, I still have some faith in the two party system that America has built, so I would not want any of the prognostications about the death of the Republican party to come true.

Food safety cannot be removed from media oversight

A second translation I've done about government controlling of the media during this incident. Also here.

By Zhang Qianfan (a professor of constitutional law at Peking University), translated by Jennifer Haskell

Recently the Shijiazhuang municipal government publicly apologized for the Sanlu powdered milk incident. The city received a report from Sanlu at the beginning of August about the problem, but "did not entirely comprehend," "did not fully estimate the consequences," and "dealt with it inadequately." Once again, in order to protect local enterprise and control "negative influences," the city government allowed more than a month to go by without reporting it, causing the state of affairs to creep towards a stage where it could not be managed. The entire powdered milk crisis demonstrates that food safety is obviously the moral responsibility of the company and it is the government's duty to supervise. However, this incident also proves that when we cannot rely on local governments and enterprises, on whom can we rely? Why, when the cases of infant kidney stones appeared before August, did we not hear a single media report? Just think, if the Sanlu milk powder problem had been reported at the time it first appeared, would it still have caused so many infants to become sick and even die? Would the Shijiazhuang government still "not entirely comprehend" and "not fully estimate the consequences"? Would city leaders, because they "seriously affected the party's and the city's image," have lost their posts? Based on the reasons revealed by the city government spokesperson, there were no media reports about the problem because Sanlu "asked the city government to strengthen its control and coordination of the media," so the city government obviously complied. Because all over the country people did not realize the problem with powdered milk, finally today everyone has seen or experienced an episode of the problem themselves.

The Sanlu incident demonstrates that we cannot trust the companies and cannot necessarily trust local government. Under the premise of revenue being basically stable, enterprises will do anything possible to lower production costs. As long as it does not cause problems, like the powdered milk incident, which are serious and obviously harmful, or to say it more precisely, as long as such harm does not lead to extra costs, profit maximization by any method is the "rational choice" of enterprises. In the local government's point of view, a company like Sanlu – one of the top 500 Chinese companies – not only means local taxes but also represents the local "government achievement," bearing the image of the local government itself. Because of this, when its products had problems, the local government's first reaction was to help the company control the negative social effects, then hope they pass, managing themselves and reducing harmful effects, calming the situation and deceiving. Finally, the local government and companies get through the situation unscathed, to everyone's satisfaction. The problem is, because of a lack of media oversight, the general public knows nothing about this entire process, cannot do anything to guard against it, and therefore faces a huge health and security risk. One day, the local government fails to manage the crisis, delaying controlling it until the last moment, so that a local risk becomes a national disaster. In the end, for the local government and company's "image," they now have to pay the costs for consumers scattered across the entire country; in the powdered milk incident, this is first and foremost hundreds of thousands of kidney stones in infants.

Actually, the Shijiazhuang government does not need to excessively reproach itself, because from its perspective, after the Sanlu incident occurred, the measures taken within the government could not be called "inadequate." The government and Sanlu miscalculated, actually "not fully estimating the consequences." They did not realize that melamine would become such a big force all over the country, causing such a mortal disaster, even causing human casualties. If this had been known earlier, at the beginning, the information should not have been concealed and the media should not have been "managed and coordinated" by the government. However, in this case, the Shijiazhuang city government's comprehension is seemingly still lacking; the government should apologize to the entire country not for "dealing with it inadequately," and definitely not for "lacking political sensitivity," but for delaying reporting the incident. Furthermore, the government should not help companies by "controlling and coordinating" the media, leaving everyone in the dark and not realizing that they are bearing a huge security risk and harm.

As the general public, the thing we care about most is not that the powdered milk incident damaged some famous brands' business prospects or the careers of some of the people responsible. Instead, we care about the flaws that were exposed in the system that caused public harm and the lessons that can be drawn from the crisis. Since the government and companies certainly cannot always be trusted and since they even sometimes intentionally create falsehoods, have mistaken judgment, or supervision is not adequate, we cannot put our entire fate in their hands, and eventually pay the price for their various mistakes. A safe and secure society most have the ability to save itself, and the premise for saving oneself is information. May we ask if the public is entirely ignorant of safety risks, how can we protect ourselves against them? In fact, in terms of what the governments to do, this is easier – it just needs to guarantee the free flow of information. At the very least it cannot fail to bring to light public information that it has and cannot intentionally suppress important information relevant to public health and safety. In other words, the government, during this type of incident, can just let go and not manage, and the country will be better for it.

Of course, some people may ask, what if the information is not true? What if it damages the company's name? The answer is very simple: the constitution stipulates that China should be a country with the rule of law, so we can resolve this type of problem through legal means. If the media reports of melamine in Sanlu's powdered milk were proven in a courthouse to be simply untrue, and the rumors affected sales of Sanlu's powdered milk, then the media that reported the false stories would be responsible for paying for the company's economic losses. Just as Sanlu should pick up the tab for the kidney stones caused by its powdered milk. China's laws and courts specialize in resolving this type of problem; even if media reports are not entirely true, what do we have to fear?

Simple common sense says that media supervision will not unnecessarily disturb the government but will instead help the government and society together realize and resolve problems. Not only is the media the eyes and ears of society, helping the public to discover and avoid risk in a timely fashion, but it is also an informant for the government. Although high levels of government can go through internal channels to understand issues at lower levels, internal information will inevitably have limits. The higher the level, the farther away it is from the grassroots. Direct information from society is very limited, so higher levels must go through the media to hear from society. These past few years from the 2003 case of Sun Zhigang to this year's Weng'an mass incident, high levels of government learned of these public incidents through media reports in a timely manner and managed the national effects they produced. These reports produced "negative effects," reflecting local societies' inharmonious components, but at the same time, through the media exposing the inharmoniousness, our society has the possibility of moving towards harmony. On the contrary, if actions like the Shijiazhuang government's "managing and coordinating" of the media until hidden security problems become real crises occurs, how can we possibly realize harmony? After all, harmony is not just peace on the surface, it is internal peace and stability. If we want to observe the people's condition, resolve contradictions, and realize harmony, all of this cannot be removed from a responsible and pluralistic media.

The Sanlu powdered milk incident proves that food safety definitely requires administrative supervision and company guarantees, but even more, it requires oversight by the media.

Original Chinese article: http://www.chinaelections.org/NewsInfo.asp?NewsID=135452

“If the people are allowed to oversee the government, the government will not dare relax”

I'm posting two translations that I did for our website. Both are at least somewhat related to the milk crisis. This one can also be found here.

By Liao Yimin, translated by Jennifer Haskell

This article's title came from Mao Zedong's 1945 famous "talks in the cave" with Huang Yanpei at Yanan. Today, its use is that it could act as a panacea to solve the "crisis of the ruling."

Calling it a "crisis of the ruling" is not at all excessive. The current poisoned milk incident is the same as the 2003 SARS crisis, as it has caused the whole world to receive a disastrous shock, as thousands upon thousands of children have become sick and thousands upon thousands of households are suffering grief and indignation. Everywhere, without exception, people sigh as they discuss it, and global public opinion is once again focused on China. If it is said that the SARS incident had an element of "natural disaster" (in reality it was a man-made disaster), then the contaminated milk incident is entirely man-made. The reason it is man-made is as Hu Jintao said: some cadres' work style is superficial, management is lax, and they have turned a blind eye to the cries and suffering of the people. They have become apathetic and unresponsive to huge problems related to the safety of people's lives. In short, public authority is lacking; administration doesn't act.

As the people discuss the problem of corruption, they pay more attention to graft and bribery, not realizing that administrative inaction is becoming a more serious and more common image of corruption. Chinese cadres often say that they "represent the people," but in reality: those with "public power" do not administer the law in the people's interests, and they do not act for the people. The people say of the cadres: "In the morning, they have meetings in which they only speak empty words, at lunch they drink Remy Martin, in the afternoon they muddle-headedly do not accomplish anything, and at night they meet bosses and chase women." Because the law is not administered fully, forgery and counterfeiting is increasing, as advertisements for false products are prevalent across the country; it could be called a spectacle. How could officials have missed them? They have seen it but are uncaring and unresponsive. We are not strangers to melamine as last year it was found in dog food exported to the US. Did officials not think to defend against it? They lazily thought about it but did not take responsibility.

In facing cadre apathy, government sluggishness, the people's dissatisfaction, and a crisis of the ruling, what can be done? Education and raising awareness of course are necessary, but neither addresses the root of the problem. In order to resolve the fundamental issue, China only needs to look to the title of this essay and Mao Zedong's "highest directive": "If the people are allowed to oversee the government, the government will not dare relax." How can this "highest directive" be implemented? Li Junru wrote in explanation, we are constantly working hard, but working hard is not enough! Is the contaminated milk incident not enough to proof that our hard work still falls very short of addressing the people's needs? Zhang Chunxian said in Hunan, emancipating the mind means that power needs to be given back to the people. This is exactly the point! Only if you genuinely give power to the people, then the people can sufficiently and effectively oversee the government, and the government will not relax. As Party members take part in activities to study the ideas of scientific development, will we discuss this issue?

To read the article in Chinese, click here.

In a time of crisis, more oversight and “putting the people first” needed

Wall Street banks are finally paying the price for years of speculation, and yet who is really suffering? The people's whose money was invested and those who lost their homes. My analysis of how the financial crisis fits in to the current crisis in China, which has all of us scared of eating anything with milk and infants in the hospital with kidney stones. Also here.

By Jennifer Haskell

While both China and the world welcomed the opening of the Olympics with great anticipation and ceremony, the Paralympics are closing with much of the world in crisis mode. With Lehman Brothers declaring bankruptcy, the US government bailing out AIG, and the stock market taking its largest fall since 9/11, the US financial crisis appears to only be worsening, with the long term and global effects still not fully known. With its stock market also reeling, China is concurrently facing issues of worker and consumer safety. An accident at a mine operating illegally in Shanxi caused a mudslide that killed more than two hundred and led to the resignation of the provincial governor, for lack of oversight (coincidentally, the former governor, Meng Xuenong, had been fired from his position as mayor of Beijing in 2003 for his failure to report the SARS crisis).

Of course, the most devastating and wide-reaching crisis affecting China comes from the dairy industry. In mid-September, the Sanlu Group announced that it was recalling 700 tons of its infant formula after it was discovered to be contaminated with melamine, which was causing kidney stones in infants. At the time of the recall, one child had already died, and Sanlu originally blamed the problem on the mislabeling of other products under the company's name. However, the crisis quickly expanded as more and more cases of sick infants came to light. It turns out the root of the problem lay at private milk collection centers, where melamine was added so the milk could appear to have more protein and thus pass inspection. Furthermore, the crisis quickly escalated from a problem for Sanlu to a systemic national problem in the dairy industry, as formula produced by 22 out of 109 dairy companies failed to pass inspection. Big names were on the list of 22, including Yili and Mengniu. The Ministry of Agriculture initiated special inspections of fresh milk as well as cow feed, as public distrust of all dairy products increases. At the time of this writing, 3 infants have died and more than 6000 have been affected.

Heads have started to roll, as people from milk collection stations responsible for the problem have been detained, as has a company chairwoman. The most tragic part of this incident is the cover-up that took place, which likely allowed hundreds more infants to be affected. According to a Caijing report, the vice governor of Hebei claimed that Shijiazhuang city officials knew of the problem on August 2 but failed to report it to higher officials as the law requires, and city officials have thus been fired for their negligence. There is much speculation that officials' reason for not reporting the problem lies with pressure to not cause trouble during the Olympics. Now the government is trying to resolve the issue by providing medical care for those affected. Still the brunt of the responsibility falls with Sanlu, as the company allegedly knew of the problem five months earlier, preventing the story from breaking by "trying behind-the-scenes remedies such as private compensation for victims, customer refunds, and a local media advertising campaign promoting the quality of its products."

Anger is palpable as parents desperately worry about their babies' health and the general populace doesn't know if it can trust any products made in China. The country faced a similar problem last summer, as exports ranging from toothpaste to dog food and toys were found to be contaminated. While this time it is predominantly a national rather than international issue, it proves that the quality control system remains horribly broken.

Seemingly very different, the dairy crisis is actually related to the US financial crisis and the mining accident in Shanxi in two ways: first, they all reflect a lack of oversight. The US government has failed to institute any effective oversight of many of Wall Street's activities, while in Shanxi "no one dared to blow the whistle on the mine owner because he was so rich that he could settle everything with money." Oversight obviously would have prevented the disastrous affects of contaminated baby formula. Secondly, such lack of supervision allowed elites to act in selfish ways that eventually caused great harm to the common people. While the mortgage companies, banks, and insurance companies are beginning to pay the price for their actions, it is the common people who have lost their homes and suffered due to the economic downturn who are the real losers. Similarly, the hundreds of mudslide deaths could have been avoided if the owner's money did not make him immune to regulation. Finally, the cover-up of the discovery of tainted baby formula caused unforgivable misery for the families of babies who have died or fallen ill. While the government claims to "put the people first," ineffective oversight, especially at the local level, makes officials and regulators seem more like those on Wall Street who put their own interests first. In the end, it is the common people who suffer.

Yang Jia: Criminal or hero?

In China, if you weren't talking about the Olympics this summer, you were probably talking about this case. Article also here.

By Jennifer Haskell

On September 1, Yang Jia was sentenced to death by the No. 2 division of the Shanghai Municipal People's Court. His crime, killing six policemen and injuring a number of others in Shanghai's Zhabei District public security bureau, would not have attracted much sympathy by the judicial system nor the court of public opinion in any country. Yet in this year's summer of discontent in China, Yang Jia became somewhat of a people's hero. While it is unlikely that he will receive much sympathy from the China's supreme court when his case comes up for review, Chinese netizens have been surprisingly supportive of Mr. Yang. Immediately after the Weng'an incident, the overwhelming response to Yang's case demonstrated the large amount of dissatisfaction that people have with local lawmakers and law enforcement.

Supporters have questioned how a "nice guy" from Beijing who enjoys traveling and photography could end up as a cold-blooded killer. As more of the story came out, the public found out that Yang was held by the police last year on suspicion that he had stolen the bike he rented while on vacation in Shanghai. While a portion of the transcript reflecting acrimony on both sides was made public, police held him in custody for six hours even though he had proof that he had legally rented the bicycle. Allegations of abuse during his time in custody arose, as afterwards Yang Jia had unsuccessfully sued the police for 10,000 RMB for mental anguish suffered.

Furthermore, the conduct of the trial elicited questioning of its fairness. The trial was closed to the public; neither family members nor the media were allowed to witness the proceedings. Doubts about the appropriateness of Yang's lawyer, Xie Youming, arose, especially from the suspect's father who tried to have his own lawyer represent his son. Mr. Xie worked as a legal consultant for the Zhabei District government, so he would have had the same supervisor as the police officers who were killed, presenting what some argue is a conflict of interest. Additionally, Yang's lawyer dismissed the possibility of the insanity plea, as he himself found Yang in perfectly sound mental health and also asserted that he deserved the death penalty (note: all Chinese articles raising such doubts have been censored).

While some commentators sympathize with the slain policemen, arguing that Yang deserves his punishment, others have focused on the unfairness of the trial. Still, a large number seem to empathize with Yang Jia on a more emotional level, labeling him an "upholder of justice and righteousness"(义士). In a CCTV television report, investigative reporter Bai Yansong provided some possible explanations why the general public has been so sympathetic to Yang Jia. One such reason is that people see the police as a large, evil organization and thus see Mr. Yang's attacks as righteous and justified. Even if the individual police officers who died did not deserve such a fate, their lives can be ignored if Yang Jia's actions were in pursuit of a larger goal. Such an explanation begins to grasp the rampant distrust of local authority. As one commenter on our Chinese website wrote, "Yang Jia did what we all would like to but don't dare do, therefore, in a society where the rule of law is not evident, black and white are blurred, justice is not extended, there is no order, and violence is used indiscriminately, we have lost hope in the law. We hate the powers that be, naturally hope for a righteous hero, and sympathize with Yang Jia." Sympathetic reactions to Yang Jia's case not only seem to defy what many people in Western countries see as the obvious response to the killing of police officers but also suggest that more cases like Yang Jia's could appear in the future if law enforcement and the justice system do not reform for the better.

Other netizens have proffered that Yang Jia committed murder because he was born and raised in Beijing. More specifically, if the Shanghai police brought a migrant worker from the countryside into custody on suspicion of stealing a bike and treated him roughly, he would just be thankful to emerge alive. Accustomed to prejudice and bullying and convinced that there is no justice, someone from the countryside would not try to seek compensation through the justice system, seeing such actions as laughable because of their obvious inefficacy. Only someone brought up in Beijing, aware of his rights, would attempt to seek justice through the system and then turn violently against the system if it fails him.

Yet, we should hope that all citizens can reach the level of legal consciousness that Yang possessed and not maintain the expectation of injustice. It was not his understanding of his rights that led him to commit the crime but his sense that those rights had been violated and nothing had been done to correct for this wrong. While there are people who would act rashly under any system, a fairer and more just legal system could limit cases like Yang Jia's. As noted by his lawyer, his great understanding of the law is exactly the reason why the Shanghai justice system should have made the trial more transparent and open to the public. There is no doubt that Yang Jia committed the crime and most Chinese citizens would agree that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for someone who murdered so many police officers. Therefore, it is not the verdict that is in question, it is the process. By holding a fair and transparent trial, the justice system could have said to both Yang Jia and his sympathizers: while the system failed you once, it has not failed you again. Instead, the questionable choice of a defense attorney and closed door proceedings only confirmed the inequity and injustice inherent in the system, which Yang already understood.

As the CCTV reporter Bai Yansong pointed out, people's lives are important; he asks how the people can expect the government to put the people first and fully respect human life if the people hold up Yang Jia (a killer) as an upholder of justice and righteousness. Police officers died, and their lives should be respected, but that does not mean that people cannot understand Yang Jia's motivations. The huge number of mass incidents in China that come about because of local injustices demonstrates that many Chinese have similar grievances. In fact, a true respect for human life would call on Yang Jia's sympathizers to work to reform the system so that it does run by the motto of putting the people and human lives first, thereby reducing incidents of injustice that can lead to violent consequences.

Reforming the state sport system – a first step

One idea for beginning to reform China's sports system, which I instincitvely am very much against, but I also realized it is the only way for a developing country to win gold. (Though it could certainly be a bit more forgiving of its athletes). Article also here.

By Jennifer Haskell

No one doubts the great success that the Chinese team had at the Beijing Olympic games, winning 51 gold medals – significantly more than the second place American team – and 100 total medals. Such a performance has led to a debate about the state of sports in the country, which has generally seen itself as not competitive with developed countries in athletics, as well as the sports system. Ding Gang argues that the country's Olympic success as well as his observations of everyday athletic activities in China versus other countries demonstrates that China is a great country in sports.

However, one must ask by what standards a country's greatness in sports should be measured. One commentator on the Chinese China Elections and Governance website wrote in response to Ding's article, "the mark of a great country in sports is that its people decide on their own accord to make sports a part of their lives," calling into question the very state-run system that brought China its 51 gold medals. While there are obviously still many staunch defenders of the system, others have not used Olympic victory as an excuse for complacency and are calling for reform. The West has always leveled strong criticism at state-managed sports systems, and a Los Angeles Times article detailed some of the hardships endured by Chinese athletes en route to gold, but international Chinese sports stars such as Yao Ming have also critiqued its demanding nature. Yet, one of the most convincing reasons for reform may be the huge cost of gold medals, which could be as high as between 60 and 700 million RMB per medal. A Caijing editorial argues that the system's inefficiency and its inability to promote physical education for ordinary citizens indicate that it is time to change and move towards a market based system, even if it means sacrificing some gold medals along the way.

While the downsides for individuals caught in the system are difficult to argue with – children taken away from their parents at young ages for vigorous training and unsuccessful athletes doomed to difficult lives by their lack of other skills – there is likely no other way for a developing country to win gold medals in any significant quantities. Few Chinese families can afford the expensive training needed to perform well in sports such as gymnastics, diving, or equestrian. Additionally, most children focus almost exclusively on academics, leaving little time for athletic development as an extracurricular. The state system solves both of these problems by putting children with athletic potential into sports schools and paying their expenses. It is unlikely that this situation will change anytime soon and prompt drastic commercialization of athletics.

Still, there is a way forward that would both help to further foster widespread appreciation of the benefits of athletic activity and could eventually help to change the system towards a more market based one as Caijing suggests. China could use the American system as a model for reform for popular team sports such as basketball, soccer, and volleyball. There are many problems with the American sports system (one could argue that it takes commercialization too far), but it does provide a broad basis for developing athletes, especially in these spectator, team sports. In most areas of the US, there are sports leagues for soccer, basketball, baseball, or whatever sport happens to be popular in that region (this could include badminton and table tennis in China) for kids as young as five years old, in which anyone can participate. Children have practice once or twice per week and games against other teams on the weekend and are coached by parents or other volunteers. In middle school, teams representing their schools compete against each other and star players can go on to play on more specialized teams that have better coaches and require larger time commitments.

While certainly difficult to organize at a national level, China could begin in cities where it would be relatively easy to put together teams from different elementary schools or neighborhoods to compete against each other. Undoubtedly, Chinese students would relish a chance to practice and compete regularly in sports. Of course, schools would have to support this initiative and encourage students to spend time engaging in such extracurricular activities instead of focusing 100% of their energies on academic achievement. Furthermore, China could maintain high schools that focus on sports (but also teach academics) and use middle school leagues, once developed, as a feeder system.

Adopting this part of the American sports system would only begin to change athletics in China, and the state-run system would have to be maintained if the country wanted to continue to be a contender in the events it usually excels in (though it could make the system less physically and mentally demanding on its athletes). Still, this reform would certainly succeed in promoting broader engagement in athletic activities, and, you never know, it could develop China's first gold medal or World Cup winning soccer team from athletes that the rigid state system overlooked.