Tibet Redux

China's "restive" border regions are back in the news with reports of ethnic conflict in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang and the continued terrorist campaign of self-immolation by Tibetan monks.

This post will focus on Tibet. Both the Dalai Lama and high ranking Chinese officials are intimating that change is in the air regarding policy towards dissident Tibetans. But before discussing these new developments let's review the situation in Tibet as of 2010 when I last posted on the subject. My blog entry then was a review of the geo-political history of Tibet vis-a-vis China. At around the same time a Congressional Report on the visit of a U.S. Senate delegation led by then Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lugar (R-IN) was released. Now buried in the Congressional archives this report is startling for its revelations of the immense progress that has occurred in Tibet over the last decade. This report has the imprimatur of the ever critical US government so it is no whitewash. Let's read some of its observations.

The Chinese Economy: Of, By and For the People

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, two long-time Occupy Washington D.C. activists,  posted an essay today at Counterpunch entitled, “Time for an Economy Of, By and For the People.” Upon reading it I was immediately struck by a certain sense of familiarity. Then I realized, the economic policies they advocate are exactly what those awful Chinese Communists are pursuing. It never ceases to amaze (and amuse) me that the US Left refuses to take China seriously as a source of knowledge and information about how to build socialism in a poor underdeveloped, rural society, nonetheless learn any lessons about how socialism actually works in a developing, transitional economy. Instead the American Left seems to be enthralled by the Corporate media in depicting China as a rapacious, hyper-capitalist, human rights abuser and super global polluter. Let me disabuse the reader of this miss perception as it applies to China's current economic policy, particularly as it relates to disparities in income distribution, the wage structure and other such jobs related issues. Since this topic actually would require a book, I will focus on the article written by Zeese and Flowers as a template for discussion.

As Zeese and Flowers state, “the White House and Congress have not put in place policies to create a real recovery. Their focus on reducing the deficit, which has proven to not be based on sound research or an understanding of economic history, starved the country of what it needed most – job creation and rising wages.  Instead the people got policies that caused stagnant wages and budget cuts that the IMF this week called “senseless and ill-designed.”

How does this compare to China's response to the global economic crisis? They have done the exact opposite. China has been raising both average and minimum wages by between 10% and 20% over the last few years and they intend to continue to do so until the minimum wage is at least 40% of the average wage by 2015 (Reuters: China sets target of average 13 percent annual minimum wage rise). As Zeese and Flowers prescribe, “Indeed, a global minimum wage that is at least half the median income of a country and above its poverty level, would end poverty and provide a foundation for the global economy.” So it seems that China is well on its way to meeting that goal, one which will continue to spur economic growth by raising the living standards of millions of the lowest paid workers in China.

Zeese and Flowers state further that, “In addition to raising wages, as there is certainly no wage inflation, there is a desperate need for job creation programs by the government.” In China, however, wages are rising much faster than inflation. Inflation in China in May 2013 was reported to be 2.1% per annum whereas wages are increasing at a double digit annual rate. So in China there is obviously considerable wage inflation which increases consumer purchasing power and is a long-time spur to economic growth. Moreover China has been building infrastructure and investing in alternative energy at breakneck speed (e.g. a fledgling Cap and Trade system is being rolled out), creating jobs as a result, both prescriptions for economic growth advocated by Zeese and Flowers.

In addition to the above China's current 5 Year Plan endorsed by both the recent Communist Party and People's Congresses envisions increased spending on social programs including enhancements to the Chinese equivalents of Social Security, Medicare, subsidized low-income housing and increases in other social safety net expenditures. This is to be funded by requiring State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to contribute 5% more to the State (Reuters: China OKs sweeping tax reforms to tackle inequality). This is meant to free up consumer spending by reducing the high savings rate which Chinese rely on as insurance for unfunded health care  and retirement expenses.

This brief review is to attest to the fact that China is actually putting into effect everything that's being advocated by Zeese and Flowers as part and parcel of an economy that is of, by and for the people.

The Chen Guangcheng Imbroglio

Chen Guangcheng, the erstwhile Chinese dissident is back in the news. Now he's accusing NYU of reneging on the fellowship he received after he defected to the US. According to Chen, NYU caved to Chinese pressure and rescinded his all expenses paid sojourn at the University. Of course NYU denies the allegation stating that the appointment was for one year only and that there had never been any expectation of its renewal.

Chen is what we would consider a gadfly here in the US. Now, I have nothing against gadflies, some of my heroes are or have been gadflies. But gadflies, by their very nature are annoying. They are obsessive compulsives and will not give up no matter what the consequences of their actions. A local gadfly in Santa Cruz who I greatly admire, Robert Norse, is an advocate for the vagrant population of Santa Cruz, and has been harassed, persecuted and prosecuted by the local power structure for decades. Most recently he was falsely charged, along with 10 “co-conspirators,” with felony conspiracy to trespass and vandalize an abandoned bank building that was occupied by protesters during the height of the Occupy movement in Santa Cruz a year and a half ago. The charges against Norse and seven others were dropped for lack of evidence, a clear indication that he and the others were targeted for political retaliation as they were all visible leaders and members of Occupy Santa Cruz.

The point being that persistently visible and vociferous critics of government social policy and advocates for the down-trodden and abused meet with repression both here and abroad, in the US as in China. If I was Chinese I probably would be sympathetic towards Chen just as I am a supporter of Robert Norse. But many people, actually the overwhelming majority of Santa Cruzans, even some on the left, consider Norse to be a trouble-maker, seeking self-aggrandizement. I know that many Chinese think of Chen in the same way.

So why am I not on the band-wagon supporting Chen as a Human Rights champion and lambasting China for how they treated him? The reason is that the whole imbroglio is being used to stigmatize China as a serial human rights abuser and to stir up anti-China hysteria. While it would be nice to live in a perfect world where everybody acts in an angelic fashion, that is not the way things actually work. Gadflies such as Chen and Norse are unfortunately persecuted here, there and everywhere. And some of it of course is of their own doing, they choose to be gadflies and place themselves in harm's way by challenging the powers that be. But we do not make these instances of persecution of gadflies into major breaches of human rights domestically. The ACLU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and human rights crusaders such as Richard Gere and Desmond Tutu have not taken up the cause of Robert Norse or other persecuted gadflies here in the US. Why not? Why haven't they inflated these local instances of persecution into major human rights issues here in the US? The only conclusion to be reached is that the whole human rights issue is a cynical attempt to stigmatize China. To make China out to be a sinister menace that must to chastised and opposed for its barbaric political repression. In actual fact, compared to many of our once and future allies throughout the world, China does not have death squads to eliminate its opposition, does not engage in political assassination of its critics and does not send aerial drones across international borders to remotely bomb its adversaries. So, no matter how one may view Chen on a personal level, his plight has been hypocritically and cynically used to further an anti-China agenda.

State Department to Sanction China and Russia for Human Trafficking

Here we go again. The US State Dept. is ramping up the anti-China and anti-Russia propaganda mills. Now they're charging that both China and Russia are among the worst offending countries on human trafficking, a designation that will lead to sanctions against both countries. Give me a break. This is a purely political canard. Who defines what constitutes human trafficking and who determines what various countries, including the USA, are doing to combat it? If anything the US should rank at the top of the list what with our millions of undocumented immigrants, and the sex trafficking evidenced by all the massage parlors employing foreign sex slaves, and pimps with young, under-age run away girls, plying their trade in our inner cities and suburbs. Just watch cable TV to see nearly daily exposes of our illicit sex trade. What about the 2 million plus incarcerated in our jails, warehoused by the prison-industrial complex, getting paid pennies per hour for their labor? What about all the indentured nannies and migrant workers in the good ole USA, getting paid a pittance and often living in conditions not much better than slavery? Are we going to impose sanctions on ourselves?

The Daily Beast reports that “Secretary of State John Kerry, who made the final determination, wrote in the introduction to the report. "Human trafficking undermines the rule of law and creates instability. It tears apart families and communities. It damages the environment and corrupts the global supply chains and labor markets that keep the world’s economies thriving ... We also have a moral obligation to meet this challenge head-on." Yes we do Mr. Kerry and we should meet the challenge head-on right here at home before we start accusing others for transgressions we engage in. Kerry went on to state, “Ending modern slavery must remain a foreign-policy priority. Fighting this crime wherever it exists is in our national interest," Yes, Mr. Kerry ending modern slaving must be a priority, a domestic priority. What about our trafficking in “illegal immigrants?” We make a big stink about our opposition to illegal immigration, but everyone knows that our government and the business interests that back it has turned a blind eye to illegal immigration for decades. Our government has in fact been aiding and abetting illegal immigration, allowing the trafficking of millions of impoverished immigrants across our borders, as it serves the interests of American business for a low-wage subservient work force that is not subject to labor protections and can be used to depress wages across the board. This has frequently led to the death of immigrants on the scorching hot no man's land along our southern border with Mexico. So if we are talking about human trafficking let's get serious and start by giving immigrants legal status so they're not subject to labor exploitation and summary deportation. Let's raise the minimum wage so that millions of low-wage workers are not forced to live in subjugation to their corporate bosses. How about ending the war on drugs, which disenfranchises and sends millions of young men of color to jail for their attempts to self-treat their PTSD brought on by the institutional racism they encounter when growing up? How about giving amnesty and jobs to the millions who have been incarcerated as a result and now are denied employment opportunities or the right to vote? China and Russia certainly have problems of human trafficking within their borders and I'm sure they are making attempts to address the issue. To posit China's one-child birth policy and migrant labor issues as contributing to human trafficking within its borders is disingenuous at best. The report reeks of Cold War politics and the continued effort to demonize both China and Russia as their global roles become more decisive in the US contention for hegemony in the Pacific Basin and the Middle East.

Why India Trails China

A New York Times Op-Ed by Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen published on June 19, 2013 attempts to explain "Why India Trails China." Unfortunately the author totally misses the point as my annotated reading of the essay illustrates

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — MODERN India is, in many ways, a success. Its claim to be the world’s largest democracy is not hollow. Its media is vibrant and free; Indians buy more newspapers every day than any other nation. (Read this article, "Police State India", by Andre Vltchek for a deconstruction of Indian democracy and its “free media.” There is very little else to be said.)

Since independence in 1947, life expectancy at birth has more than doubled, to 66 years from 32 (China: 73.6 from 43.9), and per-capita income (adjusted for inflation) has grown fivefold (300 fold in China since 1962). In recent decades, reforms pushed up the country’s once sluggish growth rate to around 8 percent per year, before it fell back a couple of percentage points over the last two years. For years, India’s economic growth rate ranked second among the world’s large economies, after China, which it has consistently trailed by at least one percentage point. (If India's growth rate has for years been nearly equal to China's it is even more of an indictment of their socio-economic and political systems that the wealth so created has done so little to alleviate the plight of so vast a number of India's poor.)

The hope that India might overtake China one day in economic growth now seems a distant one. But that comparison is not what should worry Indians most. The far greater gap between India and China is in the provision of essential public services — a failing that depresses living standards and is a persistent drag on growth. (And why is that the case? Perhaps it has to do with the divergent developmental paths India and China have taken? China is concerned with improving its peoples livelihood and cultural level. Although the coastal cities and provinces have developed more quickly the whole country has been pulled up. India by contrast has seen little development accruing to the bottom 2/3 of society.)

Inequality is high in both countries, but China has done far more than India to raise life expectancy, expand general education and secure health care for its people. India has elite schools of varying degrees of excellence for the privileged, but among all Indians 7 or older, nearly one in every five males and one in every three females are illiterate. And most schools are of low quality; less than half the children can divide 20 by 5, even after four years of schooling. (Consult the UN Human Development Index which documents the immense gap between India and China in terms of human development indicators. The failure of “Indian Democracy” and the success of China's “market socialism with Chinese characteristics” is there for all to see.)

India may be the world’s largest producer of generic medicine, but its health care system is an unregulated mess. The poor have to rely on low-quality — and sometimes exploitative — private medical care, because there isn’t enough decent public care. While China devotes 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product to government spending on health care, India allots 1.2 percent. (Read this article comparing the vital labour and social statistics of India and China, to see how far behind India is in relation to China in all social indicators.)

India’s underperformance can be traced to a failure to learn from the examples of so-called Asian economic development, in which rapid expansion of human capability is both a goal in itself and an integral element in achieving rapid growth. Japan pioneered that approach, starting after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when it resolved to achieve a fully literate society within a few decades. As Kido Takayoshi, a leader of that reform, explained: “Our people are no different from the Americans or Europeans of today; it is all a matter of education or lack of education.” Through investments in education and health care, Japan simultaneously enhanced living standards and labor productivity — the government collaborating with the market. (Could the fact that Japan practised a form of state capitalism be part of the reason? China has openly proclaimed that it is using market mechanisms (i.e. state capitalism) to accelerate its economic rise. The question is who is utilizing these techniques and for what purpose? In Japan it was the militarists of the imperial court who wanted to expand Japan's "co-prosperity sphere" through aggression and conquest, in China "state capitalism" is employed by the Communist Party in order to allow China to peacefully rise and become a prosperous, modern country.)

Despite the catastrophe of Japan’s war years, the lessons of its development experience remained and were followed, in the postwar period, by South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and other economies in East Asia. China, which during the Mao era made advances in land reform and basic education and health care, embarked on market reforms in the early 1980s; its huge success changed the shape of the world economy. India has paid inadequate attention to these lessons. (And why is this the case? Could the differences in the sociopolitical systems of India and China have something to do with it? Perhaps the Chinese Revolution and Socialist Construction explains the difference. The land reform, investments in basic infrastructure and industrialization, advances in education and health care were primary objectives of Mao's developmental program. Apparently not so in India. The Chinese economic reforms of the last 3 decades implemented and guided by the central government have unleashed the entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese nation and spurred its growth. How come India with its British tutelage hasn't succeeded where China has? As regards the other "hothouse" economies of East Asia, even South Korea has a population considerably smaller than a small sized Chinese province such as Jiangsu or Anhui)

Is there a conundrum here that democratic India has done worse than China in educating its citizens and improving their health? Perhaps, but the puzzle need not be a brainteaser. Democratic participation, free expression and rule of law are largely realities in India, and still largely aspirations in China. (This is absurd. What is the use of democratic participation, free expression and rule of law if they do not improve people's livelihood? Does "democratic participation, free expression and rule of law" mean anything to the vast rural and urban masses living in abject poverty in India? And having lived and travelled in China the idea that Chinese citizens do not participate in their own governance, cannot express themselves and have no rule of law is ludicrous.) India has not had a famine since independence, while China had the largest famine in recorded history, from 1958 to 1961, when Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward killed some 30 million people.(Given the differences in life expectancy between India and China it could be said that India has had a perpetual famine since independence. The famine in China, over 50 years ago, is ancient history and the 30 million figure is based on the number of premature deaths above and beyond what would be expected as normal. How many excess deaths have there been in India relative to China over the last 60 years? The Indian premature death toll due to perpetual famine is probably in the hundreds of millions. Also should be mentioned is the wave of rural suicides amongst Indian farmers due to insurmountable indebtedness) Nevertheless, using democratic means to remedy endemic problems — chronic undernourishment, a disorganized medical system or dysfunctional school systems — demands sustained deliberation, political engagement, media coverage, popular pressure. In short, more democratic process, not less. (As the India economy has grown social indicators have stagnated and rest near the bottom of the scale in all recent surveys. Why should more of India's supposed "superior" democracy be expected to perform any better than it has?)+

In China, decision making takes place at the top. (This is a very simplistic statement. There are many level of governance in China and quite frequently innovations and experiments are carried out at local and provincial levels.) The country’s leaders are skeptical, if not hostile, with regard to the value of multiparty democracy, but they have been strongly committed to eliminating hunger, illiteracy and medical neglect, and that is enormously to their credit. (Multiparty democracy as a thing in and of itself has no value if it does not produce results that better the people's livelihood and cultural level. There are many other forms of democratic governance that China is utilizing, including consultative and deliberative democracy.)

There are inevitable fragilities in a nondemocratic system because mistakes are hard to correct. (China has been self-correcting its economic developmental strategy since the founding of the PRC. Many mistakes have been made, been acknowledged, analyzed and corrected. This process is still ongoing. The author even states it is India that persists in its mistakes not China.) Dissent is dangerous. (Dissent is more tolerated in China than in most other developing countries as long as the system of governance (Communist Party rule) and state authority is not challenged.) There is little recourse for victims of injustice. (The World Justice Project shows that India and China rank close to one another in most indicators except that India is characterized by more limited government and China by greater order and stability which are flip sides of the same coin. Corruption (the main source of injustice in developing countries)  as documented by the Global Corruption Barometer is significantly more severe in India than China) Edicts like the one-child policy can be very harsh. (The vast majority of Chinese recognize the necessity of that policy and there are myriad exceptions to the rule.) Still, China’s present leaders have used the basic approach of accelerating development by expanding human capability with great decisiveness and skill.

The case for combating debilitating inequality in India is not only a matter of social justice. Unlike India, China did not miss the huge lesson of Asian economic development, about the economic returns that come from bettering human lives, especially at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. (The question still is, why did India miss the boat?) India’s growth and its earnings from exports have tended to depend narrowly on a few sectors, like information technology, pharmaceuticals and specialized auto parts, many of which rely on the role of highly trained personnel from the well-educated classes. (again, why?) For India to match China in its range of manufacturing capacity — its ability to produce gadgets of almost every kind, with increasing use of technology and better quality control — it needs a better-educated and healthier labour force at all levels of society. What it needs most is more knowledge and public discussion about the nature and the huge extent of inequality and its damaging consequences, including for economic growth. (The main lesson to be learned is that the Communist Party has performed an economic and developmental miracle in transforming China in a few decades from the Sick Man of Asia into an economic powerhouse, while India building on the legacy of British bourgeois parliamentary democracy has fallen far behind.)

Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate, is a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard. He is the author, with Jean Drèze, of “An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions.”

What Germany's Iron Chancellor Can Show Red China

Click here to read this informative article by Pankaj Mishra at Bloomberg. The only problem with it is that it lacks historic depth. What Mishra doesn't mention is that the Chinese Revolution is deeply rooted in the progressivism of the Hundred Day's Reform Movement, a failed 104-day national cultural, political and educational reform movement from 11 June to 21 September 1898 in the late Qing Dynasty. It was undertaken by the young Guangxu Emperor and his reform-minded supporters. The movement proved to be short-lived, ending in a coup d'etat by powerful conservative opponents led by Empress Dowager Cixi. The reforms advocated during the movement read like they were written for presentation to the 15th Party Congress. They included:

• Reforming the examination system for civil service.
• Opposing corruption and nepotism through the elimination of sinecures (positions that provide little or no work but give a salary).
• Creation of a modern education system (studying math and science instead of focusing mainly on Confucian texts, etc.).
• Changing the government from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy (a republic with an appointed legislature).
• Applying the principles of the market to strengthen the economy.
• Modernizing and strengthening the military.
• Rapidly industrializing all of China through manufacturing, commerce, and state sponsored capitalism.

This was also the program of Sun Yatsen and the KMT (i.e. the Three Peoples Principles). As China descended into chaos during the 1920s and 30s the communists saw Marxism-Leninism as the inheritor of these previous attempts to revitalize and save China. Mao however was deeply imbued with the authoritarian model of Chinese peasant insurrectionists who gained State power and established new dynasties. They historically revitalized and reconstructed the country through labour conscription and large scale infrastructure projects. Deng Xiaoping, who was educated in France in the 1920s, opposed Mao's excesses and advocated for the reform tradition with his policies of Opening Up and Socialist Modernization. So China has a long history of applying progressive ideology to its developmental model.

The 15th Party Congress and 16th National People's Congress have both  put forth a program of social and economic reforms modelled on progressive legislation in the West. It could be called a Chinese New Deal, including an enhanced Social Security retirement program, the expansion and extension of a Medicare system into rural China, increases in the minimum wage, subsidized low-income housing, enhanced environmental protections and food and drug safety regulatory bodies modelled after the US EPA and FDA. This is all part of the push to increase urbanization and promote domestic consumption as the economic engine driving China's continued growth and development.

None of this is new to Chinese thinkers and policy makers.

Beyond Anti-Chinese Propaganda with Andre Vltchek

A number of high profile articles on the increasing influence of China in international affairs have been published of late. Most bemoan the fact that China does not play by the "rules" established by Western Imperialism, that China is becoming "more aggressive" and that its "rise" must be "managed" by the US. Alarms are sounded that China's role in Africa, South Asia and Latin America is akin to a "wolf in sheep's clothing" with China exemplifying a new form of neo-colonialism. Some of these analyses verge on the hysterical and are of apocalyptic proportions. Rather than address this onslaught myself I will defer to Andre Vltchek who I agree with 110%. Read this interview with Andre to get a critique of Western anti-China propaganda.

China and the Shift

Click here to read the Shift Network blog on the Shift and China. It's great to see the interest in China on alternative ways of envisioning the future. While I do not subscribe to the full set of beliefs of the Shift Network, a spinoff of the Thrive phenomenon, I do respect their vision and apparently so do influential parties in China. I have long experience with China dating back more than 40 years. I can attest to the fact that many Chinese are truly visionary in their outlook. For all its vicissitudes the Chinese Revolution has been all about new visions for China's development as a modern society. China has been an innovator in the use of green energy, ecocities, and deliberative and consultative democracy. I look forward to China's continued progressive development as it confronts the many contradictions of industrialization and urbanization. The task they have before them is enormous but they are in position to lead the way.

Trade Schools Offer Hope for Rural Migrants in China

Click here to read this NY Times story. It is a very interesting article and shows how a socialist system goes about addressing a societal problem with the interests of the people at heart. The story clearing shows that the aspirations and dreams of Chinese people are not dictated by some faceless "communist apparatchik." People attempt to better their condition as they do everywhere. In many parts of the world people can't change their circumstances and realize their dreams, so they flee and attempt to migrate, both legally or extralegally, to a country that has greater opportunity. Many rural Latin American immigrants to the US, like their counterparts in China, want their children to get a college education to better themselves economically. 

The article shows how this dynamic plays itself out in today's China. Rather than illegally  migrating to the US on rusting hulks like what occurred a decade or more ago, most Chinese immigration is now internal, from the countryside to the cities. This trend is about to be further promoted by the government in their push for countrywide urbanization. After the founding of the PRC migrant labour in China was mostly eliminated as it was very difficult to move from one place to another. Over the last three decades, due primarily to foreign investment in coastal factories, migrant workers have been exploited as a cheap form of labour that was poorly controlled by the government. The extralegal status of the migrants allowed government at all levels to ignore their basic needs. With the growing normalization of migrants in the cities the status quo is rapidly changing so as to quell the potential for social unrest. The right of the children of migrant labourers to education and health care in cities where their parents are not registered residents is of particular concern to this underclass of Chinese citizens, basically equivalent to our minimum wage workforce. Tensions between migrants and legal residents of cities have also arisen particularly when the migrants come from minority areas of China or provinces that are considered poor and backward. 

The article describes how the government is attempting to address these issues as they relate to education, in particular vocational education. Various efforts and reforms both in the public and private sectors are being made. You can read the article for details. The main point is that under a flexible, results oriented socialist system a variety of approaches can and are made to address a complex situation for the benefit of the people. 

The cynic or dogmatist may say that all the Chinese are doing is attempting to give industry new wage slaves so that a new bourgeoisie in and out of the Party can continue exploiting labour. But during the initial stages of socialism, particularly when it is built on the basis of pre-capitalist economic foundations as in China, there must be a prolonged period of state capitalism (the NEP - New Economic Policy - of Lenin) during which labour is still treated as a commodity. The socialist slogan from each according to their abilities, to each according to their work still requires a wage differential as in capitalist economies. 

Nonetheless, the article illustrates how socialist China actively seeks to solve problems relating to the people's livelihood in a pragmatic, realistic and results oriented way.

Introductory Post

I've had a number of sites and blogs relating to things both Chinese and political. This blog is meant to continue that endeavour with posts and comments on articles, blogs and polls relating to events, trends and developments now unfolding in China.

By way of introduction I am reposting an account of my experiences in China over a period of nearly 30 years. Although it was first posted in 2008 I feel my observations still hold true.