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Volume 1, Issue 2 Volume 1, Issue 2 Volume 1, Issue 2 --- March 2012March 2012March 2012

Media Watch The Myth of Chinese Exceptionalism — Foreign Policy (5 March)

The CCP have lately woven into policy documents and official an-

nouncements a narrative of historic Chinese exceptionalism as a

uniquely peace-loving, non-expansionist, and enlightened civilisation.

This article sets out to bust the myths behind three commonly-cited

examples; that China did not expand when strong, Zheng He’s

“peaceful” Seven Voyages, and the Great Wall as a defensive symbol.

China in a Tug-Of-War Between the Two Sudans — Washington Post (7 March)

China has found itself at the centre of intense diplomatic tensions between Sudan and newly-

independent South Sudan, with South Sudan accusing Sudan of stealing massive amounts of

oil after it refused to pay ‘exorbitant’ fees for using Sudan’s pipeline infrastructure. China is

heavily involved in both nation’s oil industries and both are lobbying for China’s support, with

South Sudan threatening to switch to Western oil companies and Sudan pointing to their long

alliance. This article examines the challenges to China’s official policy of “non-interference”.

Drinks Giant Diageo Bets on Chinese Baijiu — WSJ (7 March)

Diageo, which owns brands like Smirnoff vodka and Johnny Walker

whiskey (36% of the Chinese whiskey market), has purchased a

controlling stake in the Shui Jing Fang baijiu brand, hoping to begin

marketing it on the international stage. International sales have

already increased but the brand is not in China’s top five and many

are uncertain foreigners will take to baijiu’s unique taste!

“What will the

world think of

白酒?”

Interview with an iPad Factory Worker: Insight into Factory Life — ChinaHush (10 March)

A fascinating interview with “Li Qi”, an assembly-line worker producing the current iPad 4S

model at a Shenzhen factory belonging to the controversial Foxconn corporation. He is keenly

interested in sales volumes of the new model and hopes that they will increase soon as if

there is too little demand then Foxconn may send him back to work in his old iPhone factory

in Sichuan, where he says the working environment is stricter and the living conditions much

tougher, though the higher pay there enabled him to buy a house in his hometown in Hebei.

Why China Can’t Keep Its Food Safe — Foreign Affairs (14 March)

Four years after the melamine-tainted milk scandal, China’s size,

distribution infrastructure, farming practices, and lacking govern-

ment accountability mechanisms mean that food safety continues

to be a major problem, the latest scandals being the sale of expired

food at a Beijing McDonalds and the discovery of bloody eggs

(blamed by the manufacturer on “menstruating hens”!)

Bo Xilai’s Ides of March — Patrick Chovanec (15 March)

Chovanec contends that Bo’s downfall was a result of CCP establishment resentment of his

political persona, as it offended them in its heavy-use of pop media outside of established

power channels, threatened them with competencies they did not possess, and alarmed

them with its appeal to “mass mobilisation” they feared could be used against rival factions.

Thus the resentment Bo built up towards himself over many years is what ultimately lead to

his downfall, as the shadow of the Wang Lijun incident had to have fallen on fertile ground.

The Power of Microblogs — The Economist (17 March)

Following the surge in popularity of micro-blogging over the past

two years, the CCP have dealt with the explosion of online political

discussion by both using Weibo as a strategic listening post or by

heavy-handed tactics like the recent directive demanding real

name registration for micro-blog users. However, given the shad-

ow industries Weibo has sprouted, it may not be very effective.

How Chinese Media Relate to Power — China Media Project (20 March)

A very interesting look at the relationships between different types of Chinese newspapers

and how these relationships are tied back to the CCP in a “family tree” structure that typical-

ly involves a party organ serving in a ‘sponsor’ role at the top, which supervises a major Party

newspaper, which then supervises a mass-circulation, market-orientated, city-based newspa-

per. Critically though, all publications must be tied back to some element of the Party that

can be held accountable for “errors”.

Tibet’s Suicidal Politics — East Asia Forum (21 March)

This article pushes for an alternate approach to the recent securi-

ty situation in Tibet, arguing recent self-immolations do not stem

from “Chinese oppression” but are localised and specific to

monks’ grievances. Further, it contends demands must be made

on the Tibetan leadership to drop unrealisable demands for sov-

ereignty to negotiate more favourable treatment of Tibet.

China’s Twitter Warfare — Council on Foreign Relations (22 March)

Also relating to the recent spate of self-immolations in Tibet and more particularly the subse-

quent outpouring of pro-Tibetan sentiment in the West, it was observed on Twitter that hun-

dreds of bots were posting meaningless tweets with #Tibet and #FreeTibet hashtags in what

seemed like an effort to block any meaningful attempts to search for Tibet-related infor-

mation—a so-called “weapon of mass-distraction”. This episode of information warfare

seems to point to China’s self-perceived lack of soft power responses to the current situation.

China Helps Iran Spy on its Citizens — Reuters (22 March)

Shenzhen-based ZTE Corp has sold a powerful US-built surveil-

lance system capable of monitoring landline, mobile and internet

communications to the Telecommunications Co of Iran, which has

a virtual monopoly over Iran’s communication networks. America

bans non-humanitarian technology sales to Iran but by buying

through Chinese companies, Iran has dodged this sanction.

Why China’s Carbon Capture Research is Ahead of the US — Bloomberg (28 March)

“Carbon capture” technology offers the promise of removing greenhouse gases from the

emissions of coal-fired power stations, and Chinese research has been able to produce effec-

tive techniques at a third of the cost of American equivalents, sparking great interest from

American energy companies. The reasons seem to be China’s greater coal dependency pro-

ducing greater need, innovating uses for captured carbon, and direct government aid.

“Zombie follow-

ers and fake re-

tweets out to get

the CCP”

“Iran uses China

to beat US tech

sanctions”

Culture Watch

Artist of the Month—刀郎(Dāo Láng)

Dao Lang is not your average Chinese musician, breaking into the

Chinese musical consciousness not through a record labels manu-

facturing plant but through years of gigging in bars throughout

Sichuan, Tibet, and Xinjiang, where he now lives. He is particular-

ly known for modern rock covers of ethnic folk songs from the

western regions of China. Recommended are is breakthrough

song “The First Snows of 2002” (2002年的第一場雪), “Awariguli”

阿瓦日古丽), and “Flowers and Youth” (花儿与少年).

Movie of the Month—黑炮事件(Hēi Pào Shìjiàn) - The Black

Cannon Incident

This 1985 movie is an black comedy aimed at overly-paranoid

Chinese bureaucracy and forms part of the so-called “Fifth Gen-

eration” of Chinese cinema. The plot revolves around Zhao Shux-

in, an engineer and German interpreter with a passion for Chi-

nese chess, who forgets a chess piece at a hotel room and sends

a telegram reading “Missing black cannon. 301. Searching. Zhao”,

which arouses the suspicion of the local authorities who begin

investigating the “black cannon incident”. Zhao is demoted but

his replacement’s tourist-guide German leads to much hilarity

and disastrous results as the matter comes to a head...

History of the Month — People Power (Sort Of) Works in HK

On 10 March 2005, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Tung

Chee Hwa, resigned his post after a series of highly unpopular

episodes such as the aborted introduction of the Article 23 exec-

utive powers legislation (see right, photo from resulting 500,000-

strong 2003 protests), mismanagement of the SARS epidemic ,

poorly-managed festival and land acquisition projects, and many

high-level corruption scandals. Whilst this can be seen as public

opinion inducing leadership change, and likely influenced the

generally Beijing-friendly HK Election Committee in this year’s

Chief Executive election, Tung was subsequently instated as a

Vice-President of the CPPCC.

Quote of the Month — Norman Bethune (白求恩)

Born: 4 March, 1890 Died: 12 November, 1939

“Let us take the profit, the private economic profit, out of

medicine, and purify our profession of rapacious individual-

ism...Let us say to the people...'How best can we serve you?’”

“We must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from

him” - Mao Zedong, In Memory of Norman Bethune, 1939.

“我们大家要学习他毫无自私自利之心的精神” - 毛泽东，

纪念白求恩，1939

Norman Bethune was a Canadian surgeon who served with the Chinese Communist Party

forces during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1938 until his death in 1939 from an

infection acquired on the front line. He was immortalised in CCP doctrine by Mao’s subse-

quent letter of commemoration and is still a part of the Chinese education curriculum to-

day, with countless honours and memorials bestowed upon him. He also served in the

Spanish Civil War and invented mobile medical units and blood transportation methods.

Language

Chéngyǔ (成语) of the Month — 买椟还珠 — mǎi dú huán zhū

“Getting the casket and returning the pearl”

Once there was a man from Chu state who wanted to sell an ex-

tremely precious pearl in the state of Zheng, so he made an elabo-

rate wood casket using the finest magnolia, fumigated the casket

with the most fragrant spices, studded the casket with the most

beautiful pearls and jade, and decorated it with the most colourful

kingfisher feathers. Sure enough a man of the state of Zheng

bought the casket, but after he bought it he gave back the pearl! Paying too much attention

too detail meant that the man of Zheng could not see what was really valuable and hence he

made an extremely bad decision to take the casket instead of the pearl. Hence this idiom

basically means ‘to show poor judgment’ and could be used, say, if your friend decides to go

to a Chinese university with an amazing website rather than your superior recommendation.

Liúxíngyǔ (流行语) of the Month — 恶搞 — è gǎo

“Spoof” - web-based humourous cult videos, songs, etc.

There are a huge variety of internet parodies providing endless

amusement for Chinese netizens, most fairly equivalent to the

jokes that tend to go around YouTube, but a recently popular

series features old videos of Red Army patriotic song perfor-

mances being skilfully manipulated and overdubbed with mod-

ern pop songs — see here for K-Pop, here for Michael Jackson’s

‘Beat It’, here for Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’, and here for the

somewhat more dour original version!

Xiéyīnzì (谐音字) of the Month — 气管炎 — qì guǎn yán

气管炎 literally means bacterial tracheitis, but it is a play on

words of 妻子管得严(qi1 zi guan3 de2 yan2)that is often used in

comic theatre and hence can be used to mean “the wife wears

the pants” in reference to a man who is “whipped”, “henpecked”,

or excessively controlled by his wife or female partner, especially

at the expense of spending time with his male friends. For a famil-

iar situation that suits this phrase, see the example dialogue be-

low:

老王：今天小明为啥不来喝酒呢？

小张：气管炎 。

老王：啊哈，小伙子太单薄，压不住它，我以前也有这病，

现在身子练壮了，啥气管炎，保管压得它服服帖帖的 。

Welcome to the second issue of ACYA’s ChinaBites! ChinaBites is designed to give an offbeat

and somewhat alternative coverage of Chinese current affairs, pop culture, and language.

Below you can browse through our Media Watch, Culture Watch, and Language sections,

and if you missed it click here for the first issue! If you have any questions, suggestions, or

would like to contribute to ChinaBites, please send an email to neil.thomas@acya.org.au

Questions or comments? Please email neil.thomas@acya.org.au

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